Her Memories (1)
Blood had run like a waterfall across the floor, pooling in a small dark puddle.
Cheongmyeong muttered in a voice full of disbelief, “You were hiding your strength….”
“……”
He remained silent.
There was no need to answer, anyway.
Fwoosh.
The moment I pulled the sword out of the dantian, the Taicheong True Qi that had protected his body scattered like sand.
“...In the end, this should have been my victory.”
“……”
He had already gone as white as paper from the blood loss.
“If I hadn’t lost just an arm in the earlier fight… no, if I hadn’t even been injured….”
A dry laugh slipped out of me.
Idiot.
In a fight where your life is on the line, even the smallest opening decided everything.
Much less an arm.
If he’d fought at peak condition, I couldn’t have guaranteed victory.
But in murim, you never prepared for the best-case scenario. You prepared for the worst.
He should have kept his composure and waited for an opening instead of drawing his sword and charging in like a fool.
Cheongmyeong had been too rigid, too reckless a martial artist.
The steel sword of the Taicheong Sword Art had been formidable, yes, but that was all.
Cheongmyeong, this is the last gift I’ll ever give you. Remember it well.
“Have you ever heard the saying, the soft can overcome the hard?”
“...What? Are you trying to lecture me right now—!”
Slash—
The blade arced through the air like a crescent moon.
My sword was faster than he was finished speaking.
Roll, roll, roll—
Most martial artists regret things the instant a blade sinks into their heart.
“……”
I didn’t even give him that last mercy.
At Jeongdo Academy, there were orthodox alliance standby forces with eyes open twenty-four hours a day, so there was no helping it. But out here, there was no such thing.
The dead tell no tales.
“Tsk… one of those filthy Blood Sect bastards killed such a gifted young disciple as Cheongmyeong.”
What a pity.
Still, this was a good opportunity for Wudang.
They could choose a more normal successor now.
I took a heavy silk pouch from inside my robes.
I never thought I’d end up using the elixir Paeng Gayeon gave me.
I pulled out two Jasodan pills and chewed them down.
When I looked around, there wasn’t a single living soul left in the ruined village.
I should leave soon, before the Blood Sect master at the Super Peak level caught up.
Once I finished a bit of cleanup, there would be nothing left for me here.
I shook the blood off my body and picked up my sword.
*
“Han Seola!! Seola! Where did you go? Who on earth do you take after….”
My mother’s angry voice rang from behind me.
I was always being compared to the children of the branch families and to my sisters, and then scolded for being too slow to learn.
“Lady Seola is timid, so there’s nothing to be done.”
“She definitely has talent, but what a waste.”
“Talent? What talent? She still can’t even finish the first section of Free and Easy Art.”
“At least she has some talent for martial arts! She can’t do anything else!! The way you talk is just….”
“Why are you all standing around instead of working? Do you have time to gossip like that?”
The servants’ whispers slid into my ears one after another.
No matter where I went, all I ever heard was that I wasn’t enough.
It was true, too….
But I was sick of hearing it, so I ran and ran.
Even if I stayed in the main house, I’d never hear a kind word.
“……Hic.”
I tried to hold it back, but tears gathered like dew on leaves at dawn.
Slowly,
very slowly.
“Hik… huuk….”
Before long, the dew had turned into a river, curling and flowing down.
At some point, I’d run all the way to the small spring behind the main family’s mountain.
It was such a tiny spring that nobody ever came looking for it.
My own secret base.
Flowers bloomed there in every season, little animals came by to rest, and above all, it was the only place where I could truly relax.
The moment Seola reached the spring, she burst into tears.
“Huk, huuuk….”
She kept trying to wipe them away with her hands, but she couldn’t stop them from falling.
Why am I crying?
Why am I so useless?
“Don’t cry, Seola.”
Just as she was crying helplessly, someone spoke from behind her.
A gentle voice, familiar and warm.
One of the few people who knew about this place.
When she turned around, a handsome boy with a refined face was walking toward her.
The instant Seola saw him, her heart began to pound.
He was just that lovely.
And her own miserable state made her ashamed.
She hurriedly wiped her face with her sleeve and rubbed at the corners of her eyes.
“Uh? I, I wasn’t crying.”
She lowered her head and tried hard to hide her face, but—
“That’s a relief, then.”
It was pointless.
He took a square of silk from his sleeve and gently wiped away the tears she hadn’t managed to erase.
“Ah.”
Her mouth fell open, and for a moment their eyes met—clear, transparent, and bright.
Cheon Sojin, her childhood friend: the one who made her feel safe, the one she could lean on most in the world.
“Are you okay?”
“Hmph… I don’t know!”
Without meaning to, she turned her head away and grumbled, but he just smiled awkwardly and nodded.
“I suppose not.”
“……”
Seola lowered her head, her cheeks flushed red.
“But….”
He took a breath, turned his body slightly away, and whispered softly, “It’s okay. Nobody’s good at everything from the start. Look at me—I get scolded every day, but I still work hard. Yah!”
Then, all at once, he snapped into a stance and demonstrated a martial move so clumsy it was downright ridiculous.
Before I knew it, a laugh slipped out of me.
“Pfft!”
“Ah? You laughed just now? Come on, I’m trying my best, and you laugh at me?”
Sojin spoke in a teasing tone.
“S-sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’m glad you feel better.” He smiled. “It’ll be hard right now, but if you keep training, you’ll shine someday.”
“...Do you think I can?”
“Of course. The future Seola is going to be an amazing person—I can already tell. I guarantee it.”
The future.
To me back then, it was a world impossibly far away.
But if it was with him….
“I don’t have much confidence… Can I really do it?”
“You can! You’ve got plenty of potential.”
“Hehe… really? Really?”
“Of course. I’ll stay by your side until then.”
“Really? You promise!”
“Yeah, I promise. Come on. Everyone’s worried about you.”
“I don’t want to go back….”
“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to them properly.”
He took a small step toward me.
Then, with a bright smile, he held out his large hand.
“……Mm.”
And so the two of them reached for each other’s hands in the secret base.
No—he was about to take her hand.
That is, if not for the unpleasant voice.
“You little bitch, are you not getting up?”
“Sis, this bitch is smiling.”
Kwaaaash—!
The sudden splash of icy water jolted me awake.
“Ah….”
It was a dream….
A memory from long ago, surfacing after all this time….
“Huh? Huhhh?? I told you to wake me before sunrise, didn’t I?”
Of course, I didn’t have the luxury of lingering in it.
When I lifted my head, two sisters with sharp, harsh faces were glaring at me.
“...Good morning.”
I greeted them awkwardly.
“Good morning? Good morniiing? Ha!”
“I guess even that’s hard for her. I should tell Master Jeong-gyeom… that this one’s too much.”
“She can’t pitch a tent, she can’t gather food, and her martial arts are useless… just what can she actually do?”
Linin clapped her hands and laughed brightly.
“Ah! There’s one thing she can do. Faking illness!”
“That’s right! She did a little sparring and then lay in bed for three days straight, didn’t she? And because she was scared of being punished, she didn’t even register as a patient, so we couldn’t even go out on assignment for three whole days?”
“Now that you mention it, that’s impressive. She really is good at these little tricks.”
“We should’ve been harsher on her back then!”
“Exactly. If it hadn’t been for that granddaughter of the Hebei Paeng family getting involved, we could’ve broken one of her legs….”
“……”
They looked as though they were speaking casually in front of me, but in truth they were threatening me.
Here we go again.
“Hey, what are you doing sitting there? If you’re up, go gather firewood.”
“...Me? But that’s not something I’m supposed to—”
“Do you have no shame? You were sleeping like a pig, and now you want to complain?”
“……”
“What? You still haven’t learned to keep your head down? Want to keep going from last time?”
“……”
At Linin’s words, Han Seola trembled like someone who’d run into a bear in the mountains.
She didn’t want to be hurt.
Slowly, reluctantly, she got up and walked out of the tent.
Linin shouted after her, sounding disgusted.
“Hey. Are you deaf? Answer me.”
For an instant, anger surged to the top of my head, but….
“...Yes.”
I didn’t want to fight.
“Finally, she’s being obedient.”
“Right? All that talk about being some Han clan or whatever gave me such a headache….”
“Exactly. Families like that are everywhere at Jeongdo Academy. They’re only considered prestigious in the provinces. Do they even know how big Zhongyuan is?”
The insults coming from behind were vicious, but I couldn’t refute them.
I was sick of hearing it, so I ran and ran.
“……Huk.”
I tried to endure it, but….
Tears gathered like dew on leaves at dawn.
Slowly,
very slowly.
“Hik… huuk….”
And the dew once again became a river, curling and flowing down.
Only this time,
there was no longer anyone by her side
who would wipe those tears away.
*
A worried look filled the face of the handsome middle-aged man.
“Haah…. Are you sure that’s what happened?”
Master Raeji asked again, fiddling with the ornament in his hand.
It was the same question, asked for who knew how many times.
That only meant one thing: the matter was serious.
“It is as I said… As expected, Wudang was Wudang. They fought for the common people and were completely annihilated.”
“The Blood Sect bastards have started stirring again….”
The Blood Sect’s movements.
If this became known, the various sects would begin preparing at once.
Wudang, especially, would be an interesting sight.
The direct disciple of the Wudang sect leader has died. If they stay quiet, that would be strange.
“Those blood sorcerers were scheming to sacrifice commoners for some sort of ritual. As you can see, this ornament is definitely the mark of the Blood Demon.”
I raised a finger and pointed to the ornament.
“...Hoo. To think even Cheongmyeong died.”
“...A tragic matter.”
Cheongmyeong had been murdered by filthy Blood Sect bastards.
That was the truth.
##
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