Chapter 245
Chapter 245: Alliance (1)
Those who knew Kim Rae-won are divided into two types.
Those who remain frozen in their memories of the old Kim Rae-won, and those who knew the previous Kim Rae-won and now stand face to face with this 'Kim Rae-won.'
Yeop Bi-hwa was clearly the latter.
And so the reason he had not killed her was simple.
The gains and losses of killing her.
The benefits and drawbacks of not killing her.
It was the result of an efficiency calculation weighing the space between those two.
In other words, as long as she remained bound to 'Kim Rae-won,' her sword could only be something closer to a resource than an enemy.
Had he killed her, even if the battle had taken the form of a sparring match, Hero Gate would have become an official enemy of the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect. Going further, becoming a Public Enemy of the entire Orthodox Faction was also possible.
That was never the picture Dong Bong-soo wanted.
Hadn't he already planned to use this war as a stepping stone to bring Hero Gate out into the Martial World? This was the shortcut to selling Hero Gate at the highest possible price, and for the sake of gaining the maximum 'Faith' of the greatest number toward Hero Gate, doing it this way was correct.
On top of that, wasn't Yeop Bi-hwa in a relationship with the former Kim Rae-won that was anything but ordinary?
He couldn't pin down exactly whether they had been friends or lovers in the commonly understood sense, but it was clearly a relationship rich in utility value.
A new resource that hadn't existed when he first decided to use Kim Rae-won's name—when he had decided to lay amnesia as his foundation.
Naturally, new resources should be kept alive and cultivated to their fullest.
More precisely, she would need to be bound and used again and again as a seed of 'Faith.'
This level of calculation was familiar to him.
Dong Bong-soo did not stop his stride as Yeop Bi-hwa followed behind him.
In the corner of his vision, the [Faith Judgment] entry quietly lit up once before returning to its original darkness. As he walked, he opened that entry one more time.
[Faith Judgment (Faith Judgment) Lv.1]
[Advanced Magic] [Area-of-Effect] [Holy Attribute]
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: Casting interrupted upon being struck
Revisiting what had occurred earlier, the skill that had worked on Yeop Bi-hwa had clearly not been a normal 'activation.'
As a result of Holy Attribute light flowing into her internal core, drained of all energy, the attack had converted from penetration to absorption. It had been purely the product of coincidence layered upon coincidence.
Stripping away that coincidence and looking only at the skill's pure power in itself—it was still extremely weak.
It was naturally insufficient to resolve various situations, but……
Still, the 'side effect' that had occurred unexpectedly had to be considered a tremendous gain.
Even now, traces of the skill's residue could be faintly seen lingering on the shoulder.
'A trail of light.'
Not the body of the Judgment itself, but the byproduct of what had flowed out after using the Judgment.
This had intricately interlocked in one place with a single strand of morning sunlight backlighting against the scattering of dust in the air, forming a circular halo.
It was not a picture easily reproduced, but it did not seem entirely impossible to reproduce either.
If he stood in the same place at the same hour, facing the same direction, and used [Faith Judgment] in exactly the same way, he should be able to generate a similar 'side effect.'
He would need to practice manifesting this across different terrain and different times.
What name those who had directly witnessed that light would call it was their business, but the reaction of every single person inside Hero Gate—apart from Yeop Bi-hwa—had been overwhelming.
It could be called a halo, called Immortal Energy, or dismissed as an illusion. Either way made no difference.
What mattered was.
'The atmosphere was as if they were receiving a Buddha.'
The fact that this 'side effect' was highly efficient.
The corner of Dong Bong-soo's mouth curved upward at an angle no one could see.
The Buddha attained enlightenment and founded Buddhism.
And.
It seemed he too had attained an enlightenment worthy of standing alongside that.
That wasn't all.
A Black Hole.
A single strand extending beyond the tip of Yeop Bi-hwa's sword. A single frame in which whatever it touched vanished without light, without sound, without dust.
He pulled out the scenes from the earlier battle with Yeop Bi-hwa and ran the cognitive replay again. Some frames had to be run several times. Only after what his eyes had seen and what his senses had received came together in one place did a single theory about martial arts take form.
Taking the Rigid Energy he had released and folding and crumpling it into a single point again and again until the space itself was erased as a phenomenon.
'Like a black hole.'
He lightly opened his left palm. As he walked, a single blade of grass lying scattered by the roadside came to rest on it. An ordinary leaf, one of countless many along the road.
Whirr-, whirrrr-, whrrrrrr-
As he folded the Super True Energy Field several times over, the blade of grass curved inward toward the center of his palm. Partway through, with its veins curling into a single point, just before it crumbled—it was released. It returned to a single flat sheet and rested again on his palm.
He brought his palm forward and looked down at it once.
A clump of matter that had once been a leaf, now crumpled and crushed, bleeding green.
Sssk.
Not bad for a first test.
Super Black Hole Rigidity.
Though it would still require a great deal of further research ahead, he had attained an enlightenment about martial arts surpassing even Ultra Rotation Sword Rigidity.
Crunch, crunch.
Before he knew it, he had turned onto a field path on the outskirts of Gangdo. Low hills lined both sides, and the light of a sun past noon hung slightly behind the crown of his head.
From behind came the sound of a single person's footsteps, trailing at a distance of two or three paces. There was no sign of that distance narrowing or widening.
One strand of the Super True Energy Field was now bent backward, and that strand was tracing Yeop Bi-hwa's movements.
Her breathing was composed. The sense of defeat as a sword master did not appear to weigh heavily on her.
Yet the single leaf on her shoulder was a rather useful indicator of her emotions. From the moment they had begun walking, she had not thought to remove the ordinary leaf resting there. The long tear across the chest of her martial uniform remained as it was. She had placed a hand there once—that was all.
She did not bother to close it.
It was still too early to be certain, but there was no doubt that Kim Rae-won was a considerable 'wound' or 'memory' to that woman.
The fact that a peerlessly composed sword master—one who had earned the epithet Iron-Faced Lady—showed such emotional turmoil was in itself a very important reference signal.
"You are……."
It was then that Yeop Bi-hwa finally opened her mouth.
"A person?"
Halt.
He stopped his foot a beat late to make it appear natural. Without turning around.
"What's the standard for being a person?"
Gripp-, he felt Yeop Bi-hwa tighten her grip on her sword and then release it.
Only then did Dong Bong-soo turn lightly to look back.
Yeop Bi-hwa was, true to her standing as a peerless master, a woman of peerless beauty even with age upon her.
"If you're asking what kind of animal I am, clearly a person—"
Of course, to Dong Bong-soo it was nothing more than a single reference element of no importance.
"If you're asking whether I'm a person of this place or not……."
He made a conscious effort to smile, then finished his answer.
"I think I'd have to say no."
After a brief silence.
Yeop Bi-hwa's lips parted slowly once more.
"Who are you?"
"Kim Rae-won."
"……."
"What? Doesn't seem like it? Want me to say it again?"
Yeop Bi-hwa's sword made one short movement inside her hand before going still again. She had touched her sword without thinking, but her hand went no further. Her body and mind already knew well that there was no answer to be gained from a sword.
Instead, the corner of her mouth curved in a way too faint to recognize. A smile. A good sign.
Soon Yeop Bi-hwa's steps resumed. For the first time, she moved ahead of him.
"It was five or six years ago."
Yeop Bi-hwa's voice came slowly from ahead, breaking apart word by word.
"He suddenly vanished without a trace. I tried to catch him but could not. He went north and……. That was the last I shared with him."
"It's not 'him,' I keep telling you."
"……From you there is indeed the scent of Rae-won, but you are not him."
"Well, believe what you want to believe. If it makes you comfortable, then that's what's right."
Dong Bong-soo broadened his stride once more to pass ahead of her. As he did, he let slip a single casual remark.
"It's a nice day for a walk, isn't it?"
An almost muttered tone, as if a passing thought had simply escaped him.
"……."
But the interval between Yeop Bi-hwa and him shifted once more. Her footsteps paused for a moment before resuming. The five fingers gripping the Falling Flower Leaf Needle trembled faintly atop the sword hilt, and that trembling was concealed by a single tightening of her grip—but it did not die out entirely.
'As I thought.'
The line retrieved from the memory through observation had proven effective.
That woman was fiercely wavering in the space between whether he was Kim Rae-won or not. That single remark just now had clearly added weight to one side of the scale.
Appearance didn't matter in a world like this anyway. It still pressed down on the opposite side of the scale, but the trembling in her fingers was clear evidence that the scale of her judgment was swinging back and forth between both sides.
Soon, Yeop Bi-hwa's voice continued. She was feigning composure, but it was lower than before, and the ends of her words were not cleanly composed. It was a tone drawn out after she had sorted through it several times alone.
"……Karma Root. Are you also one who bears the Karma Root?"
Karma Root.
Confirmed once more. That woman clearly knew about the Karma Root Clan.
She had probably heard it from Kim Rae-won.
"Well, seems like it. Can't say for certain though."
As she followed him, staring at the back of Dong Bong-soo letting his words trail off, her lips parted and closed several times before finally opening.
"……It does not matter to me whether you are Kim Rae-won or not. But could you not tell me where his remains are?"
"There are no remains."
He finished his answer immediately after.
"Because I am Kim Rae-won. The very Kim Rae-won you know."
He turned back around and faced Yeop Bi-hwa.
"……Is that so. Then it means there is no point."
Yeop Bi-hwa's voice fell in a long descending note.
Yet before long, Yeop Bi-hwa met Dong Bong-soo's gaze straight on and spoke.
"What is your purpose in coming here?"
The direction of this question differed from the ones before it.
Are you human, who are you, are you Kim Rae-won, where are the remains. She must have judged all the earlier questions to be futile. If there was no way to find out regardless, was she simply accepting it as given?
"Who knows."
An interesting judgment, and an interesting woman.
"Originally it was a homecoming. Now……."
In that sense, Dong Bong-soo paused briefly to weigh his answer further before baring his white teeth in a smile.
"Pope? No—"
"……."
"I suppose something like a Pope would be about right."