To the Moyong Clan
While we were up on the mountain catching our breath that had risen all the way to our throats, Ilhong came toward us from below, carrying the head of the Death-Ghost Demon she had recovered.
"…Whoa. What the hell is all this?"
A river of blood still flowing, corpses piled so high they formed actual hills—Ilhong took one look at that miniature mountain of corpses and sea of blood and went pale with shock.
"Ilhong, while you're here, mind collecting those heads for us too?"
"…No way. How am I supposed to gather this many?"
She waved both hands in disgust, insisting there were just way too many of them.
"There's even a straight sword-qi scar cut into the ground… Don't tell me the two of you took all of them down?"
I shook my head at her question and pointed to the woman lying face-down nearby.
I'd already applied golden wound salve, stopped the bleeding, and done every first-aid measure I could, but Moyong Cheonghye still looked rough.
"Huh? Boss, why is she here…?"
"How should I know? We'll ask when she wakes up."
I'd come running because someone was getting wrecked by the Blood Sect, only to find a familiar face and nearly have a heart attack. And no matter how I played it back, I was pretty sure she'd gotten at least a blurry look at my face right before she blacked out.
"Ilhong, hand me a human-skin mask."
I no longer needed the throat-swelling drug. While learning secret sound transmission from Hwang Geolgae, I'd also picked up how to control my vocal cords—exactly the kind of underhanded little skill an information outfit would teach.
"Boss, you know what? Every time that woman shows up, you go hunting for the disguise kit."
Ilhong rummaged through the bundle slung diagonally across her body and gave me a suspicious look.
"Mujin, what did you do to her? Are you scared of the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden?"
Both women took turns shooting me dubious stares.
Honestly. These two never trust a guy.
"What did I do? I was the one who got stabbed."
From my perspective, I'd opened my eyes and immediately gotten a sword through me. Only later, once Moyong Cheongjin's personality and memories started seeping in, did I figure out what the hell had happened.
"Come on, just confess already. Every single person who runs from the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden has done something wrong. A hundred out of a hundred."
"Mujin, I'll understand. We made a promise last time—pinky swear and everything…"
Jo Harang brought up the vow she'd made to always take my side, no matter what.
"Understand what? You two are unbelievable… Just give me the damn mask!"
I snatched the scrap of skin she fished out of the bundle with a sharp flick.
"Cough, cough."
Right then, Moyong Cheonghye spat a mouthful of blackened blood from where she lay. I'd treated the external wounds as best I could, but facing a Transcendent Realm master alone had clearly left her with serious internal injuries.
"Boss, this is the kind of internal damage that needs proper recovery under a skilled physician."
Ilhong latched onto her wrist the moment the blood came up, then announced that none of the medicine she was carrying would even make a dent.
"Let's see… a place nearby with a really good doctor would be…"
"…The Moyong Clan."
I answered Jo Harang before she even finished unfolding the map, as if the answer were obvious.
"Yeah, looks like it. We need to hurry before the lady's condition gets any worse."
Jo Harang of the Purple Micro Star had always seemed to admire the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, the one who never stopped cutting down villains. Seeing that same woman laid out by a Blood Sect master, she clearly couldn't just sit around and watch.
"The Moyong Clan… Ugh, do we really have to go there?"
I tried sending her a look that said, Can't we take the long way around even if it's farther? Jo Harang answered with a look that said recovery for the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden came first and there was no room for debate.
Both of them lit up like demons when it came to smashing evil. Twin Demon-Slaying Maidens, the pair of them.
"Boss, you're just awkward about facing Clan Lord Moyong Cheon, aren't you?"
"…"
Ilhong, the one who'd worked with me the longest, jabbed me right in the sore spot.
"That's why you should watch your mouth. Calling him a 'greedy old man'… You should count yourself lucky your head didn't fly off right then and there."
She pointed out that it was only because the heads of the Orthodox Faction had all been present that I'd survived. Anywhere else, scratching a martial artist's pride like that would have cost me my neck for sure.
"They say even kings get cursed behind their backs. That guy needed a good cussing-out…"
Wasn't he the cold-blooded father who would cut off even his own son if it meant the family's survival? If Moyong Cheonghye was nothing more than a tool for killing people, the hand that gripped her and swung her from behind had always been Moyong Cheon's.
"That's why we settled it last time—when I saved him during the Dragon-Phoenix Blood Calamity, we called it even. So I've got nothing to feel guilty about."
"Yeah, right. Your whole face freezes up every time the Moyong Clan gets mentioned."
"…"
Throughout this entire job heading into Liaoning, every time the Moyong Clan came up I'd made some weird face, so denying it felt a little hollow.
"But I won't dig into your reasons. You've done the same for me."
"Yeah. Me too. I'll wait until you're ready to talk, Mujin."
Both women decided to let it slide, figuring I must have my reasons. See? I hadn't lived my life completely wrong after all.
"Still, she needs treatment fast. If anything happens to the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden because we delayed… that would be a tragedy for the entire Central Plains."
She looked so completely sincere that I forgot whatever smart remark I'd been about to make.
"Hah… Fine. Let's go."
Maybe I should have been carrying at least one weird medicine that was practically a miracle elixir.
Ilhong was out of strength and Jo Harang looked wiped, so relatively speaking I still had gas left in the tank. I hoisted Moyong Cheonghye onto my back.
"Lighter than I expected."
In Moyong Cheongjin's memories she had always projected this enormous presence. Up close she was almost gaunt, and the marks of hard living were written all over her. Part of it was that I'd gotten taller, but her condition was clearly not good either. Watching her suffer on a cliffside the way my past self once had left a strange taste in my mouth.
"Mujin, which way is the Moyong Clan?"
"…That way."
I answered without even looking at the map. Jo Harang shrugged and nodded.
We started walking toward the Moyong Clan.
"The blood trail cuts off here."
As the sun sank and twilight settled over the land, a figure in black, perfectly blended into the darkness, muttered in frustration when the last thread of his pursuit vanished.
"Left Blood Dharma… He seemed like someone fairly important within the Blood Sect."
Just when he'd thought he'd finally cornered a key figure, the trail had snapped clean. Then again, that was exactly what you'd expect from bastards who had spent decades lurking in the shadows, spinning their schemes.
"Tch."
They called it the folly of beating the grass and startling the snake. He should have taken them for certain this time. Now that he'd let them slip, the whole lot of them might panic and dive even deeper into the dark.
"But for that Descent Ritual of theirs, they'll have to stick their heads up eventually."
If there was a moment those people would reveal themselves, it would be the instant they lunged for the flesh of the Heavenly Killing Star. Using that as a lead while he tracked the Blood Sect, Namgung Jin had already gathered intelligence from the mountain range.
"What that stargazer was muttering… He probably meant the Heavenly Killing Star was up on that cliff."
The way the man had mentioned the Heavenly Killing Star and then recoiled, saying baleful stars were gathering there, was still vivid in his mind. Setting himself aside, that left three suspects who had been present: Dan Mujin, Jo Harang, and Moyong Cheonghye.
"Moyong Cheonghye… Could she be the Heavenly Killing Star…?"
He still found it hard to believe, but that was the conclusion forming in Namgung Jin's head. Dan Mujin talked a little too much trash sometimes, but at his core he shied away from unnecessary killing and leaned toward doing good. Jo Harang didn't have any particular red flags. By process of elimination, that left only the vice leader of the Demon Exterminating Squad—someone who had cut down so many villains that even the Orthodox Faction argued over her methods.
"…How does she even stay sane? Even I lose my reason sometimes from the baleful star rising inside me."
To carry the most vicious star of all and still keep her mind with nothing more than the act of cutting down the wicked… It almost made him want to applaud. Superhuman self-control and endurance, maybe.
"She's one hell of a woman, that's for sure."
In any case, if he kept watching Moyong Cheonghye, the Blood Sect would show themselves again someday. She seemed essential to them, so it was only a matter of time.
"By the way, that Dog-Beating Dragon… I've been running into him a lot lately."
The young hero who had read their conspiracy before he had, raced all the way here, and protected Moyong Cheonghye. And the sight of him refusing to back down even against a Transcendent Realm master, fighting with nothing but that unique mouth of his…
"That friend is definitely not the Heavenly Killing Star."
His sense of justice and sheer grit seemed to outstrip even Namgung Jin's own. He was the kind of timber that would one day grow into a great hero of the Orthodox Faction. Namgung Jin gave a small, approving nod.
"Wait. Doesn't that mean I'm falling behind him?"
Dog-Beating Dragon: threat level three. Spiked-Staff Freak: threat level four. But looking at the corpses piled up back there, once again it had been him who found the Blood Sect first and tore through them.
"Looks like I need to step it up again…"
He pulled off his hood. Moonlight caught the jade-like eyes of a strikingly handsome young man. Namgung Jin smiled, competitive fire already burning.
We returned to the Moyong Clan with Moyong Cheonghye on my back—external wounds everywhere and internal injuries on top of that. Naturally, the whole place flipped upside down.
Of all Moyong Cheon's children, she was the one with the brightest martial talent, and as vice leader of the Demon Exterminating Squad she had been making a name for herself left and right. Now she was carried home covered in wounds, slung over some outsider man's back. Moyong Cheon, Moyong Hwi, every blood relative in the place came pouring out in a frenzy.
"Just who—what bastard—in our Liaoning, to a blood member of the Moyong Clan—!"
Dared to touch her, he meant. So I explained everything in meticulous detail. The Blood Sect ambush, the Transcendent Realm master called Left Blood Dharma, even the Spiked-Staff Freak—at which point the people of the Moyong Clan nearly fainted from shock.
"Those vile scum…"
"They came all the way to the doorstep of our Moyong Clan and caused this outrage?!"
Moyong Cheonghye was immediately sent to the best physician in the clan for the finest care available, while the important people here all started murmuring and vanished into an emergency council.
"What are we, borrowed brooms? They only care about Lady Moyong Cheonghye."
"Just wait, Boss. Once the meeting's over and they reach a conclusion, they'll compensate us somehow."
I was the troubleshooter who'd gone and picked up their precious daughter. This was cold hospitality. They were giving us the basic guest treatment, sure, but this was exactly why I never felt any affection for the Moyong Clan.
"Anyway, with that much chaos, it's a relief nobody died."
"Actually, one person did."
Ilhong flinched and turned to look at me.
"Huh? Who?"
"My Hell Vengeance Staff."
I held up the Dog-Beating Staff that had been snapped clean in half and answered with a tragic face.
"…Oh, come on. Over that?"
Come on? Over that? My beloved weapon, which had spent long years at my side, had fallen in battle, and she said that?
"Worry about me more than that staff, Mujin."
The aftershock of fighting a life-or-death duel with a Transcendent Realm martial artist seemed to have caught up with her; Jo Harang started fishing for my attention, claiming her whole body ached.
"You're fine. You're tough. Something like that won't kill you."
"No, I'm telling you I'm dying."
"You're not dying."
I'd been sure of it ever since I watched her chew through poisonous mushrooms and walk away fine. She was overpowered in roughly the same way I was. Fatigue and wounds like that would patch themselves up soon enough. Or not. Whatever.
Kill!
And then there was Salsung, whispering that now—while I was exhausted—was the perfect chance to strike. Truly a model of consistency, that one.
I let out a long, tired sigh and sat down. That was when a Moyong Clan servant came running toward us with an urgent look on her face.
"Young Hero Dan Mujin! Is that you?"
I nodded at her call.
"The young lady… the young lady has regained consciousness, and…"
"And?"
"The moment she woke, she started asking for Young Hero Dan Mujin."
"…"
I'd hoped my sister would write it off as something she'd only seen in a dream. Looks like the moment I couldn't avoid had finally arrived.