Chapter 236
Chapter 236: Three Eyes (2)
The morning of Hero Gate had changed.
Thud. Thud. Thud—
The sound of hammers rang out before the sun had even crested the walls.
Especially to the west of the main hall.
It had been nothing but an empty lot overgrown with weeds after the Iron God Society disappeared. Now twelve pillars stood there. Four men with ropes strung over them to raise the main beam were coordinating their breathing, while beside them someone else drove wedges in without pause.
"One, two!"
"Lift!"
The ropes drew taut and the main beam began slowly rising.
And it wasn't just this area.
Sixteen barracks were lining up in rows behind the training grounds, and the sound of people's footsteps going back and forth between them never stopped. Beyond that, a stone wall was also taking shape.
A stone wall not yet finished, half-built. From inside the wall, the faint sound of whetstones grinding leaked out.
Scratch— Scratch—
There had never been occasion for these sounds to overlap this much before.
From the training grounds, the sounds had been going on for quite a while already.
"Your waist! Keep your waist straight! If you hunch over, you'll die! Do you understand? The strong will live and the weak will die!"
Ho-ae's shout rang out over the walls. A rough, tireless voice.
Before her were three rows gripping wooden swords.
The front row was impeccably uniform. Sword tips stopped at the same height, feet planted at the same position, breathing well-matched. They were Hero Gate's disciples.
The second and third rows were different. Sword movements were uneven and footing kept crossing. Among those who had barely managed their stance, others kept dropping their swords one after another.
"Again!"
Ho-ae's wooden sword cut through the air. One of the men in the third row flinched and straightened his posture.
They were survivors from the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect's collateral branches and branch sects. Those who had been slashed, cut, and slaughtered by the Rakshasa Warrior Monks, pushed back again and again until they barely reached Rainbow Lake and clung to life. Naturally they had nowhere to go, but Hero Gate's training grounds were wide open.
At one far end, away from the rows, Seok-gyeong stood alone drawing his sword upward.
It wasn't in time with Ho-ae's commands. At his own breathing, his own pace. He was repeating a single arc dozens of times. Nobody spoke to him, Seok-gyeong looked at no one, and Ho-ae paid him no mind. Because they all knew well that he could hone his own path, his martial arts—alone, or rather only alone.
Grk, grrrk—
Cart wheels scraped along the stone floor and passed in front of the main hall. What was being hauled was not timber but rice. As the number of people had grown, so too had the amount that needed feeding.
And then.
There was one gaze looking down over all of it.
The roof of the main hall—the highest point in all of Hero Gate.
Dong Bong-soo stood at its center.
"……"
He stood silently for a long while sweeping his gaze over the entirety of Hero Gate and further over all of Gangdo, then stepped down from the roof.
Thud. Thud.
He slowly passed through the construction zone. The smell of sawdust drifted between the pillars, and amidst the workers carrying materials someone's voice calling out measurements blended in.
Jin Ha-gyeong was visible in front of the barracks area. He was crouched beside an injured man personally wrapping a bandage, but at the sound of footsteps his head turned toward Dong Bong-soo.
His waist bent down in an excessively deep bow. The meaning of that was unquestionable.
Dong Bong-soo gave a light single tilt of his chin and passed by. The sense of him straightening up behind wasn't felt until quite a while later.
The main hall.
As he stepped inside, Jeon Ra-hwa was already seated. On the table, a mountain of letters and documents was piled high, and beside them lay a brush whose ink had not yet dried.
She looked up at the sound of footsteps, then immediately slid a teacup toward him.
"You're late?"
"The roof was too good."
"That blasted roof. Why not just set up a household with the roof while you're at it?"
"What, now you're even jealous of a roof?"
"……Are you insane? And besides, there'd have to be something there before I could even be jealous, you know?"
Pfft—
Dong Bong-soo smiled lightly and instead of answering picked up the cup and took a sip.
At that, Jeon Ra-hwa swallowed a sigh and unfolded a letter.
"Construction will be done through to the west in ten days. The timber is fine but we're short on stone, so I've opened a route through the Bae Dal-pae Branch Leader's side. From the next shipment it should be fine."
"Hm? Did I tell you to do that?"
"No, you didn't."
"Then why'd you do it?"
"You were going to tell me to anyway?"
Grin.
Dong Bong-soo—Kim Rae-won—smiled.
"You know me well."
"That's a compliment, right?"
"Yeah, a compliment."
"I'm telling you in advance……don't pat my head."
Kim Rae-won's hand shot straight up. As the natural consequence, Jeon Ra-hwa's hair was thoroughly ruffled without mercy.
"……Ugh, seriously!"
Even as she grumbled, the hand turning through the letters moved without pause. The hand movement of someone who already has everything sorted in their head.
"Ho-ae has been running training from dawn, so the framework is coming together, but—"
"But?"
She set down the letter.
"They're not our people yet."
"Who?"
"Most of the people participating in training."
"Ah, the Vast Heaven side?"
"Yes."
"……"
"Will it even work out?"
"What will?"
"Becoming people of our Hero Gate."
"You're running it every day, aren't you?"
"What? Just…… that's the basis for it?"
"If the Guild Master says so, that's basis enough."
"Ha. Ha. Ha. What stellar reasoning."
As Kim Rae-won took another sip of tea, he looked out the window at the survivors and continued.
"Those people have nowhere to go, and they eat with us, sleep with us, train with us too…… so won't they end up sticking with us?"
"I wonder. Will it really go that well? These are people from the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect, no less."
"Well, whether they do or not. That's for them to figure out themselves."
"Yes, I suppose so."
Then for a while Jeon Ra-hwa's beautiful lips opened and closed several times. Not a face with nothing to say, but one with so much to say that not a single thing could be chosen. In the end she turned a letter over and changed the subject.
"Did you hear that Eom Trigram Leader and Myo Trigram Leader have been watching from a distance this whole time while Seok warrior trains?"
"Huh? Those two haven't left yet?"
Jeon Ra-hwa smiled.
"No, they're both still here eating our food."
"Well, I guess that's their version of earning their keep. Leave them be."
"Yes. Oh, and this morning a message came from Branch Leader Bae. He said it's about current Martial World trends and conditions—I haven't opened it yet."
"Leave that too. I'll look at it later."
Jeon Ra-hwa pushed one letter to the edge of the table. With that, the report was finished.
There was a brief silence.
Jeon Ra-hwa was moving her hands as if sorting letters, but Dong Bong-soo knew well that she was picking up the same letter a second time.
And then at last Jeon Ra-hwa let out a long sigh and opened her mouth, looking straight at him.
"……You."
"Yeah."
"I'm just curious."
"Yeah. Say it. Stop going back and forth."
"……How do you become as strong as you?"
The hand on the letters had stopped. That day when mountains split and the sky was stained with color. Jeon Ra-hwa too had stood beneath that light.
Dong Bong-soo set down his cup.
"You've got to eat a lot."
"Ah, stop joking…… Seriously."
"I'm serious."
Jeon Ra-hwa looked up at him. What floated on Kim Rae-won's face was, as always, a sly smile. But that there was something behind it—Jeon Ra-hwa knew it, yet couldn't grasp it.
"Eat a lot, sleep well, and work hard. You know all that by now, don't you?"
"……That's something you'd say to a child."
"What you'd say to a child is the most correct thing?"
Jeon Ra-hwa pouted. But she didn't deny it.
Dong Bong-soo pretended to scratch his temple and said,
"If you get stronger, what are you going to do?"
Jeon Ra-hwa smiled. The corners of her mouth rose but her eyes didn't crinkle.
"I'm your signpost, aren't I?"
"……"
"If I'm a hero's signpost, I should become worthy of a hero."
"Well, I'm not a hero, but. Let's say that for now…… what does being hero-like mean?"
"Heroic……"
The words broke off once. The hand holding the letter stopped just for a moment.
"Heroically…… I'll take revenge."
"……"
"I already have more than enough justification."
Dong Bong-soo—Kim Rae-won—didn't answer. He understood all too well what she meant. He simply picked up his cup again and took one more sip of the now fully cooled tea.
Dong Bong-soo sat silently in his seat for a long while without rising.
Jeon Ra-hwa did not particularly leave her seat either.
Then the sound of one set of footsteps approached and soon stopped outside.
"Next time…… tell me properly."
"Got it. My justification is you."
"……"
Jeon Ra-hwa turned slightly pink in the cheeks and went out the back door.
Dong Bong-soo watched the direction of the door without setting down his teacup.
He had been waiting for a long while, but the presence outside the door repeatedly came one step closer then stepped one step back. After that repeated several times, Dong Bong-soo opened his mouth.
"Come in."
The presence stopped, then the door opened shortly after.
It was Jin Ha-gyeong. The one-armed swordsman hesitated once more before the threshold, then barely stepped inside.
"Sit down."
Dong Bong-soo indicated the seat across from him with his chin.
Jin Ha-gyeong sat with one shoulder raised. It must be that his body still remembers the weight of the arm that is no longer there.
"……There is one thing I wish to ask you, Guild Master."
"Go ahead."
"I wish to send a message to the main mountain."
"……"
"I think I must let them know whether Yi-baek is alive or dead."
"Why are you asking my permission for that?"
Jin Ha-gyeong's eyes came up once.
"In truth, I…… don't really know. Perhaps because the weight of your beneficence is too great…… or perhaps because our hearts are treacherous."
Dong Bong-soo smiled. Outwardly and inwardly both.
"Send it however you wish."
"……I am grateful, Guild Master."
"No need to be grateful. And—"
"……"
"People are by nature creatures who live according to where their hearts lead."
For a moment no one opened their mouth.
Kim Rae-won toyed with the empty cup.
"Either way, if you send the message the Vast Heaven side will probably come to collect you."
"……"
"When are you planning to leave?"
Quiet. Jin Ha-gyeong's gaze swept over the table. The stack of letters Jeon Ra-hwa had tidied and left. A brush with dried ink. The things this place's daily life had built up.
"……I don't quite know yet."
It was an honest answer.
Kim Rae-won didn't smile. Not the sly smile, not the Guild Master's dignity—an expression that was neither.
"Well, as I just said—if you don't have to go, you don't have to go. If that's the direction your heart leads."
Jin Ha-gyeong's gaze slid straight up and met his eyes firmly.
"What do you mean by that……"
"Exactly what I said. There's enough food here."
Jin Ha-gyeong breathed in and breathed out. That was all.
His head bowed deeply. It carried a different weight from the one in front of the barracks earlier.
Kim Rae-won didn't answer. He merely toyed with the empty cup.
Jin Ha-gyeong rose. The sound of footsteps going out the door had none of the hesitation of when he entered.
Dong Bong-soo's gaze came down to rest on the empty cup.
Whether he stayed or left.
'For now, that will be Vast Heaven's will.'
The carrier pigeon letter Jin Ha-gyeong sent was nothing more than placing one dot in the picture Vast Heaven was already drawing.
Bringing them all into the [Guild Window] at once is a very positive signal, but for now one must not judge and act rashly.
Click.
He opened the system window.
Starting with the organization he'd kept putting off all this time.
▣ Hero Metrics ◆ Hero History: 56 ◆ Rank: ★★ First-Rate (50~99) ◆ Fame: 47 ◆ Infamy: 0
'56.'
He hadn't touched it since returning from Rainbow Lake. It was a number that had gone up all at once from dealing with the Rakshasa Warrior Monk unit and handling the Cultivation Seekers.
Click.
He switched to the quest window.
▣ Completed Quests [Guild] Threshold of Growth
└─ ✅ Complete (Guild Member Cap +25, Guild EXP +300)
[Sudden] Rakshasas of Slaughter
└─ ✅ Complete (2/2)
Click.
The skill window.
▣ Skill List ≪Possessed Skills≫
• 『Faith Arrow (Faith Arrow) Lv.1』
• 『Hero's Aura (Hero's Aura) Lv.1』
• 『Shield of Faith (Faith Shield) Lv.2』
≪Traits≫
• 『Faith Sight (Faith Sight)』
• 『Faith Weight (Faith Weight)』
≪Unlockable Skills≫
• 『Faith Judgment (Faith Judgment) Lv.1』 『Y/N』
• 『Hero's Blessing (Hero's Blessing) Lv.1』 『Y/N』
Two lines were lined up side by side.
Click.
『Faith Judgment (Faith Judgment) Lv.1』
[Advanced Magic] [Area-of-Effect] [Holy Attribute]
―When the hearts of those who believe in a hero gather one by one, that belief descends as heaven's judgment.
The more believers there are, the heavier the judgment becomes.
Pours sacred light condensed from the faith of those who believe in the hero down from the heavens, dealing Holy Attribute damage to all enemies within range.
Damage increases in proportion to the number of those who believe in the caster. One person's faith is nothing more than a single ray of light, but the faith of a hundred people becomes the sun.
Mana Consumption: 150 MP
Cast Time: 3 seconds
Cooldown: 300 seconds
Effect Range: 50m radius centered on caster
Base Damage: 100 (+ Faith Modifier) : Damage weight by trust level +10~50% (cumulative application) : Additional damage × 200% to Evil Sect·Demon type enemies : Interrupted upon being struck
And also.
Click.
『Hero's Blessing (Hero's Blessing) Lv.1』
[Advanced Magic] [Area-of-Effect] [Recovery] [Holy Attribute]
―A hero's touch must reach those who are wounded. Please send warm light down upon all those you wish to protect. Converts the hero's faith into light to restore the health of all allies within range.
Recovery amount increases in proportion to the number of those who believe in the caster, and simultaneously purifies status ailments (poison, bleeding, energy depletion, etc.).
A miracle only a hero can grant—the strength to not fall even in the midst of battle.
Mana Consumption: 120 MP
Cast Time: 2 seconds
Cooldown: 180 seconds
Effect Range: 30m radius centered on caster
Base Recovery: 150 HP (+ Faith Modifier) : Recovery amount weight by trust level × 1.3× (cumulative application) : Purifies 1 status ailment (poison, bleeding, energy depletion, internal injuries, etc.) : Cannot move during casting, interrupted upon being struck
Was it the area-of-effect technique that sweeps away large numbers of enemies?
Or the wide-range recovery technique that can grant healing to many allies?
Dong Bong-soo didn't take long to decide.
Click.
The 'Y' of one of the two was pressed.
