Chapter 219
Chapter 219. An Unexpected Grudge (4)
Before dawn broke.
Dong Bong-soo opened his eyes.
He hadn't woken from sleep. He hadn't slept in the first place. He had simply spent the entire night with the system window open, mulling over the changed values one by one.
Click.
▣ Hero Rank: ★★ First-Rate ◆ All Stats +5 ◆ Trait 『Faith Weight』
He had already confirmed it dozens of times.
The stat portion wasn't particularly large, but ultimately the meaning lay in accumulating it as a Dual Karma Root Clan member. And in many cases, it is that small difference that decides the outcome of a battle.
He lightly clenched and unclenched his hand. Sure enough, after spending the whole night at it, the subtle difference had now adapted to his body. At this level, when an actual fight broke out, he would be able to move perfectly according to his control.
≪Unlockable Skills≫ • Faith Judgment Lv.1 『Y/N』 • Hero's Blessing Lv.1 『Y/N』
His fingers hovered briefly in the air before coming back down.
Let's wait a little longer.
This is not an urgent time.
Click.
He closed the system window and opened the Inventory.
He took out the 'things' that had been shattered to pieces and laid them out in the middle of the room.
Arms, legs, torso. And a broken head.
It was Cheol So-a's corpse.
He proceeded to fit and piece them back as close to their original positions as possible. The face was half-crushed, but the outline remained. Enough for identification purposes.
A faint chill settled over the room.
There was no such thing as a freezer in this world, but inside the Inventory, time does not pass. The moment he took it out, a subtle cold air rose, and the flesh was cold but had not decayed.
It was no different from tidying up a display at a butcher's shop.
Who this lump of meat had been, what it had done—such things held no more meaning to Dong Bong-soo than the place of origin written on a cut of beef.
He wrapped the corpse carefully in cloth and placed it in an empty annex outside the grounds.
He returned to his room and extended the senses of the Super True Energy Field.
Whuuum—
Ice Night and nine Subordinates. Outside the grounds.
The chill had subsided, but the watch was being maintained. From the traces of shifts throughout the night, he confirmed once again that this was a well-drilled organization.
From the lodgings of Jeon Ra-hwa and the children, steady, even breathing could be felt.
'As for Eom Bi-ryeong—.'
Already awake.
It seemed she too had not slept through the night.
Myo Jin-heo's side was still. The same tranquility as the night before. With this person, distinguishing whether such unchanging calm was sleep or a façade was meaningless in itself. He would need to observe further, or adapt his response to the circumstances.
He withdrew the Super True Energy Field and organized his tasks for the day.
One, hand the corpse and the jade token over to Ice Night and send her off.
Two, inform Jeon Ra-hwa beforehand before retrieving the jade token.
Three, the interviews. Two hundred and fifteen people.
He closed his eyes, then opened them.
Whether the eyes closed and the eyes opened belonged to the same person—there was no being in this room who could know.
Soon.
Dong Bong-soo's—no, Kim Rae-won's—door opened.
***
It was before the children had begun their morning training in the Training Grounds.
Kim Rae-won went to find Jeon Ra-hwa first.
"You're early."
"So are you."
Jeon Ra-hwa was already organizing the registry. A thick booklet bearing the names, origins, and brief histories of two hundred and fifteen people. Next to it, a layout of the Training Grounds had even been drawn out.
Capable. A woman who finishes preparations one step ahead of what she's been asked.
"I have something to ask of you."
"What is it?"
"That jade token. I need to return it."
Dong Bong-soo briefly explained what had occurred in the early hours.
At first she was startled, but upon confirming that nothing serious had happened, she let out a breath of relief.
Even so, Jeon Ra-hwa's hand unconsciously moved to the area around her neck.
The jade token of the Heavenly Yin Sect Dharma Maiden. The object that had been drawing out the efficiency of the Snow Snow Yin Cold Art.
"I have to return it to those people. It was theirs to begin with."
"……Understood."
Without resistance, she unclasped the jade token from her neck and handed it over.
Just one word.
"It's going to get a bit colder without that."
Jeon Ra-hwa's smile was beautiful.
Kim Rae-won received the jade token and smiled back at her.
"Don't worry. I'm here, aren't I?"
"Tch—. What are you, a furnace?"
"Don't people all love it when I'm around? Warmth just overflows, doesn't it?"
"Ha. Ha. Was that supposed to be funny?"
"No. I meant it."
"……."
"Or, well. Want a hug? This body of mine does have something called body heat—"
Jeon Ra-hwa, who had been laughing in spite of herself, lowered her gaze to the registry and pursed her lips. But she couldn't hide the corners of her mouth curling upward. She had tried to hide it, but she herself must have known she'd failed.
"……Please stop talking nonsense. I'm begging you."
"Nonsense, you say. How hurtful."
"Yes, yes. Understood. Guild Master."
'This woman is drawing close to the pinnacle of usefulness.'
It was an assessment, not an emotion. And that was the greatest thing Dong Bong-soo could give to anyone in human terms.
"Are the interviews ready?"
"All set. You just have to sit and see the people."
Kim Rae-won nodded and pointed toward the annex.
"Let's settle Ice Night's side first, then start."
"Yes."
***
He called Ice Night and guided her to the annex.
The nine Subordinates were told to wait outside. Only Ice Night went in.
When the door opened, the cloth-covered shape was revealed.
Kim Rae-won pulled back the cloth.
Thud.
Ice Night's steps stopped.
Cheol So-a.
It was a corpse with its pieces fitted back together. The arms and legs and torso had been placed in their original positions, but it was not whole. The face was broken, but the outline remained. Cold, unrotted flesh. It had clearly been frozen.
Ice Night did not reveal her emotions.
A Heavenly Yin Sect Adept. One who had mastered the art of freezing the waves of emotion.
Yet the chill trembled ever so slightly. The air in the room grew one layer colder in an instant. That was the entirety of the emotion this woman had permitted.
Ice Night knelt. Before the corpse, she extended one hand and lightly pressed it to the forehead. A ritual gesture. The rite the Heavenly Yin Sect performed uniquely for the dead.
The silence was long.
The image of Cheol So-a within the sect arose.
A brilliant and cold practitioner. A talent the Sect Leader had called by name herself.
And over that, what she had heard the night before layered itself on top. A man-eating pig. Slaves. The nine familial connections. The things that brilliant child had done.
What must be reported to the Sect Leader was not only the corpse.
"This too."
Kim Rae-won held out the jade token.
Ice Night received it plainly. The lingering traces of the one who had last worn this jade token were transmitted through her palm. Energy of the Heavenly Yin Sect's lineage—yet not wielded in the manner of a Dharma Maiden, but like energy poured by force into a cracked vessel.
She did not ask. Not now……
"I will recover the corpse."
Along with a composed voice, Ice Night rose to her feet.
"There is something I must report to the Sect Leader."
A beat later.
"I will come again."
Just two sentences. Yet Dong Bong-soo knew those were not mere words of farewell.
It meant she would come in person to deliver the Sect Leader's judgment. And the fact that she would come in person regardless of the outcome meant that this connection had not yet been severed.
He smiled.
"I'll be waiting."
Ice Night stepped out the door.
A short voice directing the Subordinates to recover the corpse was heard, and not long after, ten auras departed from Hero Gate.
Gradually, then completely.
Dong Bong-soo watched until they disappeared at the edge of the Super True Energy Field's senses.
'The connection has not been severed.'
The thread continues, and the fact that she returns means it is still taut.
This much is enough.
***
Morning.
Two hundred and fifteen people were lined up in the Training Grounds.
Those with swords at their waists, those holding staffs, those bare-handed. Ages and builds all varied.
Yet the gazes looking at the single person standing before them all pointed in the same direction without exception.
Kim Rae-won.
He was seated facing all of them from the front.
Jeon Ra-hwa stood beside him, holding the registry.
And.
In the corner of the Training Grounds, beneath the shade of the eaves, Eom Bi-ryeong leaned with her arms crossed. On the opposite side, Myo Jin-heo sat quietly with a fan open.
Kim Rae-won gazed steadily at all of them for a long moment, and then at some point.
He rose from his seat.
The gazes of two hundred and fifteen people, which had been concentrating on his every move, suddenly sent a wave of tension spreading simultaneously through their pupils at the abrupt motion.
"Hero Gate is a place that practices Chivalry."
The first sentence.
"This is not a sect one can enter simply because their fist is strong."
At those words, the air in the Training Grounds changed.
A weight that had not been felt before.
『Faith Weight』.
The moment Kim Rae-won's words spread through the air, the backs of a considerable number of the two hundred and fifteen straightened. Shoulders that had been hunched spread open, and gazes that had been hazy deepened by one layer. As though some unseen hand had stood their spines upright.
"……"
Dong Bong-soo's inner self recognized that minute change.
The trait is working well. Actually, right now.
"One by one, forward."
The interviews began, and
Kim Rae-won's questions were simple.
"Why do you wish to enter Hero Gate?"
"What is Chivalry, in your view?"
"Have you ever staked your life to protect someone?"
They were interviews asking lightly only about heroic values.
But beneath that, Dong Bong-soo's senses were reading something entirely different.
The trembling of heartbeats, the intervals of breathing, the pattern of muscles that unconsciously tensed when giving an answer.
The information the system showed amounted to little more than names, but that was sufficient.
Originally, numbers only tell you the state. The grain must be read directly.
The criteria for judgment were clear.
Someone with strong martial arts can be brought in later. What is needed now is someone who believes.
One who fundamentally believes in Chivalry. One in whose bones the Way has been carved. One whose sense of justice rises not from the tip of the tongue but from the gut—specifically the heart, and beyond that, from true sincerity, if such a thing exists.
Such a person places the thickest trust in Kim Rae-won. And thick trust becomes Dong Bong-soo's strength.
He filtered people by that standard.
The first.
Their martial arts were unremarkable. The build was slight, and the calluses on the hand gripping the sword were thin. Yet the answer to 'why did you come?' was unadorned and direct.
"I witnessed how different Gangdo became. I saw with my own eyes how different things could be with and without the Iron God Society and the Seven Star Immortal Assembly. I wish to learn under the person who accomplished that single-handedly."
Stable heartbeat. Even breathing. No deception.
'The type who believes most readily and is swept away most easily.'
The type most desired by a cult.
Kim Rae-won smiled gently.
"Good. Pass. Next."
The second.
The build was substantial, and confidence overflowed. The weapon at the waist was also of fine quality.
"I came because I want to grow stronger."
It was an honest answer, and there was not a shred of deception.
Yet it was lacking.
The feeling that 『Faith Weight』 did not activate for this man.
During the address earlier, when the backs of two hundred and fifteen people straightened, only this man's back had already been straight. It had not responded to Kim Rae-won's words; it had simply been straight from the start.
'Is he the type who only believes in himself?'
Such a person accumulates no trust. They leave when they grow strong and betray when they grow weak. It would be the same regardless of whose side he was under—Kim Rae-won or anyone else.
"Perhaps our paths will cross again."
He dismissed him gently.
Outwardly warm. But internally, it was an immediate verdict.
The man made a thoroughly disappointed expression and vented various complaints as though he couldn't accept it, but he did not act out.
Because in Gangdo already, the reputation of Kim Rae-won and Hero Gate was absolute.
The law known as Kim Rae-won had already issued its ruling. To resist it would only be a loss for himself.
The interviews continued.
For over two full hours.
Most were of the same type as the first or of the same type as the second.
Occasionally, ambiguous ones who belonged to neither side were mixed in, but.
Those could simply be set aside.
'The basic sorting is complete.'
The types of people are ultimately finite.
The problem was……
That exceptions always exist.
Two hundred and fifteenth.
The final applicant was a taciturn young man in his early twenties. His height was average, but his shoulders were broad, his hands thick, and his eyes were quite deep.
Yet his gaze was transparent.
"What is Chivalry?"
The silence was long.
In an interview, silence is generally a demerit.
Yet Dong Bong-soo read that the silence did not come from ignorance.
His heart was beating fast. Various patterns exist within the racing of a heart.
Naturally, Dong Bong-soo knew well that it was not anger causing it, but something else.
He waited, and.
"I don't know."
The young man then slowly, yet resolutely, opened his mouth.
"But when my younger sibling was dragged away by the Iron God Society, I know that being unable to do anything was not Chivalry."
Kim Rae-won's gaze lingered for a moment.
"That sibling?"
"Died."
What the Super True Energy Field read. Rising heartbeat. But it is not anger. It is shame. Self-loathing over past helplessness. This was a living emotion.
There is emotion, and the direction of that emotion is toward himself. Such a person runs madly to prove themselves. And in that process, they tend to look for a signpost.
"Your name."
"It is Seok-gyeong."
"No, your sibling's name."
"Seok……-ran."
Kim Rae-won nodded.
"I'll keep it in mind."
That was all.
***
Final selection: twenty people.
The moment Dong Bong-soo was about to hand the registry over to Jeon Ra-hwa.
'As expected.'
Just as anticipated.
Ding—
[The Guild Member limit has been exceeded. Current: 12/30. Additional joinable members: 18.]
30 is the cap. The cap that had risen during the facility expansion was hitting here.
He had selected twenty people, so two were over the limit.
That the Guild Member cap was 30 was a number he had confirmed long ago. At the point of deciding to select twenty people, he had simply wanted to see what reaction the system would show.
It had been an experiment.
And the experiment returned its result.
Ding—
【Guild】 Threshold of Growth : Your sect is growing. To embrace more people, an appropriate vessel is required. Please achieve one of the following.
․ Solidifying the Guild's Foundation: Raise the average combat level of Guild Members to a certain standard.
├─ Progress: 0%
└─ Reward: Guild Member Cap +10, Guild EXP +100
․ First Resonance of a Martial Name: Resolve a crisis outside Gangdo in the name of Hero Gate.
├─ Progress: 0%
└─ Reward: Guild Member Cap +15, Fame +10, Guild EXP +200
