Chapter 198
Chapter 198. Gangdo and the Courtesan (1)
A brilliantly bright moon was illuminating the night sky over Gangdo.
The silver radiance pouring from the full moon was naturally falling upon the Training Grounds near the entrance of Hero Gate as well.
A single slender silhouette sitting cross-legged with a sword resting atop her knees.
It was Jeon Ra-hwa, who today as always had dedicated herself to training for the entire day without exception.
However, her head was drooping forward little by little. Her eyelids hung heavily, and her mouth had fallen half open. Every time her head suddenly lurched all the way down, she would startle awake and straighten her back, only to droop again shortly after.
A struggle against the Sleep Demon.
The outcome was tilting toward a decisive victory for the Sleep Demon.
Tap.
A soundless landing resounded right before her.
Even half-asleep, Jeon Ra-hwa's senses did not miss it.
Her head slowly lifted.
With half-closed eyes she groped in the direction of the presence.
Dong Bong-soo was standing there.
His back to the moonlight.
Something slung over his shoulder.
Thump.
Jeon Ra-hwa peers up at it, face dangling with drowsiness.
"Eu-a-ham. You're finally back……? Huh? What's that?"
"A gift."
Jeon Ra-hwa narrows her already sleepy eyes further, as if suspicious.
"A gift? That thing?"
Jeon Ra-hwa pokes the 'gift' this way and that with a wooden stick, then looks back at Dong Bong-soo again.
"It's a person……isn't it? Anyone can see that."
This time she pokes its nose and pokes its rear.
Still a person, no matter how she looks at it.
"Yeah. A person."
"……"
"A person like a little star candy."
"What do you mean, little star candy?"
"Him."
"No, I mean……Ah, forget it, forget it. Anyway, you're saying this person is a gift?"
"Yeah."
"A gift for whom?"
"Our household."
Jeon Ra-hwa quietly examined Dong Mu-toe as he lay collapsed there.
A bit thin, and there was something resembling a footprint stamped on his face, but from any angle he had quite a handsome face and skin as pale and white as a pallid ghost. Anyone could see he appeared to be a person belonging to a distinguished family or an equally excellent organization.
A gift and a person.
It seemed like an exchange that could never be considered equal, but in this Great Viet Empire, it was a more common occurrence than one might think. Jeon Ra-hwa herself had once been given as someone's birthday gift.
"You haven't brought him as a slave, have you?"
"A slave."
Dong Mu-toe is a 'Subordinate.'
It may seem similar at a glance, but in the strict sense, it is a completely different nature from slavery. Above all else, something like slaves is an absolute disgrace that should never exist within the organization called Hero Gate.
"No."
"Then what do you mean by gift?"
"For now."
Dong Bong-soo crouched down, stared intently at Dong Mu-toe's face, and said.
"Let's just say he's a member of the family."
"Haaa-. That means he's still a freeloader member of the family for now."
"Well, for now."
Jeon Ra-hwa stared down at Dong Mu-toe once more and asked.
"But. What did this person used to do?"
"He draws well, it seems."
"Aah, so he was a Painter. The children will like him."
"Probably."
With that, toward Dong Bong-soo's back as he headed inside, Jeon Ra-hwa called out.
"Wait, where are you going?"
"Where would someone who came home after hard work be going at this hour of night?"
"There are two problems with that statement, for a start."
"What?"
"Hard work. Person."
"What about it?"
"If you went for a stroll you were just out having fun, and whether you're even a person is still something I'm fifty-fifty on."
"Have a little faith. You're lacking in faith in people."
"Anyway, setting that aside, where are you going?"
"To sleep."
"What about this person?"
"He should sleep too. Though it looks like he's already sleeping soundly."
"No, I mean, where do we put him to sleep?"
Dong Bong-soo looked around and saw a new building some twenty jang east of the entrance.
"Put him in there."
"That's the workshop you told us to build."
The three structures Dong Bong-soo had commissioned as he went out some time ago.
It must have been one of the Medical Room, Workshop, and Dormitory.
Not knowing exactly what [Alchemy] as described by What is Hero entailed, it was the place that would be used as the [Alchemy Workshop] going forward.
"Perfect."
"What? There's also a Dormitory behind it? Though of course it's equally unfinished."
"No, it's fine. Put him in the workshop."
"……He's definitely not a slave, right?"
"Yeah. He's not, isn't he."
"……If he is, then he is, if he isn't, then he isn't—what do you mean, he's not, isn't he?"
"I'd prefer the not-slave side myself—"
Dong Bong-soo's white teeth showed. His canines reflected dazzlingly white in the moonlight.
"He'll choose for himself. Soon."
"……"
And so, yet another member was added to Hero Gate.
***
His eyes opened.
'Where is this……?'
Where is this?
Dong Mu-toe stared up at the ceiling for a moment with a blank expression.
A wooden ceiling.
None of the places he had ever stayed in had wooden construction.
It was an unfamiliar place.
Rattle.
A clump of dust falling from the ceiling.
Unfinished timber was scattered here and there.
On one wall there was only a window frame with no window, and on the opposite side the wall itself had only been raised halfway.
There was a roof, but there were gaps in places so that the predawn light seeped in like threads of gold.
Wood shavings and sawdust were scattered across the floor, and in a corner there was a straw mat that appeared to have been laid down as a temporary measure.
A half-built structure.
Anyone could see it was a space still very much under construction.
"What the—, this place……. Ow ow ow."
A murmur that had come out on its own went right back in on its own.
It was due to the throbbing of his right cheek and the bloody taste and pain in his mouth.
He immediately searched his memory.
Eight Direction Uninterrupted Hell.
Target.
Breakthrough.
And……
'What was it?'
His memories after that were hazy.
There had definitely been something.
The sensation of his knees buckling.
A cold touch on his face.
He had thought it might be a dream, but it was certainly not a dream.
It didn't matter.
What was more important was something else.
'I'm alive.'
Unexpected.
Someone who had broken through the Eight Direction Uninterrupted Hell could have killed him without a second thought.
'Why did he keep me alive?'
The target……no, it's the other way around now.
Either way, a curiosity about that person sprouted within him.
Who they were, what sort of individual they had been, how they could be so powerful.
Of course, one far greater curiosity that was incomparably beyond all those trivial things stood at the fore of every question.
'How on earth did they break through it?'
The seventh formation, Space-Time Turbulence Formation.
A formation that folds space.
A structure from which escape is logically impossible.
And yet that person had broken through it.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was more than merely breaking through it.
'They said they were never trapped to begin with, so perhaps?'
Faith.
Belief.
Does not fold.
He hadn't the faintest clue what any of it meant.
'I want to know.'
Dong Mu-toe rotated his shoulders alternately.
There were no binding restraints, no iron chains, no cangue of the kind ordinarily placed around a prisoner's neck.
His physical condition was fine, and his internal energy was intact.
Meaning, it was all simply left unbound so that he could escape if he wished.
He need only stand, step out that door, and deploy his Lightness Arts, and escape would be achieved.
Twitch.
The bridge of Dong Mu-toe's nose crinkled slightly.
'Why would I go?'
If he ran, he would never know.
What that fellow was.
How he had broken through.
What that 'faith' was.
He wanted to know so badly it would kill him.
No, no. He wanted to know so badly he would gladly die a hundred deaths.
Tuk-tuk, he shook himself lightly and rose from his spot.
Creeak.
At that very moment, the door opened.
A young boy poking his head in. He appeared to be around ten years old.
"Oh? You're up! Gate Leader! The painter uncle woke up!"
'Painter……uncle?'
Dong Mu-toe's eyes narrowed.
A Trigram Leader of Formation Tower.
One of the Eight Trigram Leaders.
A painter? And uncle at that?
— Come outside.
A peculiar transmission that he couldn't tell was Sound Transmission or Mind Speech rang directly in his mind.
This kind of Sound Transmission, no matter how exquisitely one mastered it, ordinarily carries a sense of directionality……yet this voice had no discernible location whatsoever.
What was certain, however, was that it was undeniably that person's voice. A voice with no rise or fall at all—or should he call it a thought? Either way, just from the transmission of meaning that carried no intonation whatsoever, it was possible to surmise that this was that person he had seen then.
Dong Mu-toe leapt to his feet.
His heart beat.
It was not fear.
It was anticipation.
'I have to ask again.'
He flung the door open and stepped out as if flying.
***
The wide Training Grounds.
The first thing that entered his eyes was the children.
Ten of them.
Their ages varied, but generally they were young enough to be around ten years old. They were huddled together on one side of the Training Grounds.
The second thing that entered his eyes was the two people in the center of the Training Grounds.
One of them was that 'target.'
Standing with arms folded.
Somehow different from how they had appeared inside the Eight Direction Uninterrupted Hell.
At that time they had clearly seemed like a being beyond human—someone from whom emotion itself had been deleted……but now they looked like a single blade standing upright. A sword honed and honed until anything that came near would be cut.
Judging from the child's earlier manner of address, they were likely the Gate Leader of some great sect.
The aura was not at all out of place for the Sect Leader of one of the Seven Evil Grand Cults or the Ten Great Sects.
Standing opposite was an extraordinarily beautiful woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties. Her black hair fell to her waist, and in her hand she held a single thin sword.
Upright posture.
Earnest eyes.
What was peculiar was that in the eyes gazing at the man called Gate Leader, there was not even a hair's breadth of reverence. Only the will to fight.
And……
Killing Intent!
As though facing a sworn enemy against whom one holds a blood grudge.
'Not a subordinate or disciple, then.'
And yet, the only thing permeating the surrounding area was peace and composure.
A sparring match where Killing Intent and peace coexist.
Something he had never heard of, never experienced.
'This in itself is interesting, in its own way.'
He walked naturally toward the Training Grounds. As he did, he casually glanced around—it had the feel of an ordinary sect.
If there was anything unusual.
'There isn't a single defensive formation.'
For a sect where someone of that level of skill resided, at minimum a perimeter formation ought to be in place as a matter of course.
There was none of that here.
No, not absent.
'Is it not needed?'
Certainly, from top to bottom, it was full of interesting things.
That person was such, and this sect of unknown standing was such as well.
He wanted to approach that person right now and resolve his burning questions, but for some reason a tension was flowing between the two of them that made it feel as though he would be torn to shreds on the spot if he stepped forward now.
He didn't mind being cut a thousand times and slaughtered ten thousand times or torn apart into pieces, but he had to die only after resolving his curiosity.
Let him wait for now.
Having arrived at a corner of the Training Grounds before he knew it, Dong Mu-toe crouched down, propped one elbow on his knee, and rested his chin on his hand. And then he observed the woman.
'……What is that?'
An energy faintly rising from her body.
Cool and cold.
Like the chill of a deep winter dawn.
Yin Cold Energy.
That kind of energy was clearly blending with the Killing Intent she emanated, lowering the temperature of the surrounding air.
Somehow familiar. Yet on the other hand, also very unfamiliar.
It felt like something he had seen somewhere before.
Yet also like something he had never seen before.
'What is it? Where have I seen it?'
He searched his memory but it was not clear.
Just then.
"Kill."
The Gate Leader's flat voice fell.
"If you can't kill me, there's no dinner."
In that instant.
Swoosh!
Cold energy erupted explosively from the woman's body.
Everything in all directions turned white in an instant.
The moisture in the air froze, became snowflakes, and scattered through the air.
Simultaneously.
Whooosh!
The woman's figure vanished.