I'll Be Watching
Heaven told me to pile up slaughter karma. Instead I would pile up good deeds, weaken the Heavenly Killing Star, and then, with the power of that exhausted star stolen through the Seongun Simbeop, raise it as something entirely my own.
That was the peerless divine art conceived by the mysterious being known as Ilwol, and passed down to me by Hwang Geolgae.
Its name, radiant enough to light the dark: the Seongun Simbeop.
"…You're out of your mind. To defy Heaven head-on like this—you've twisted the heavenly mechanism so thoroughly that even the Divine Eye can't read it!"
The red-haired woman who, no matter what happened, always kept a strong master's ease and laughed it off, was for once unable to hide her shock and dismay.
My existence—walking the righteous path like some chivalrous hero instead of slaughtering anyone—must have been that alien, that impossible for her to swallow.
"Don't tell me… you mean to keep stacking that power and truly overturn the fate of the Heavenly Killing Star?"
Only moments ago I had burned myself in an act of pure selflessness to save Seol Soyeong, and in doing so had racked up a mountain of good deeds. Jeok-il seemed to have caught a glimpse of the road I meant to walk; her eyes locked on me as if she could not believe it.
Crimson pupils, blazing like open flame, demanded the truth of me.
"What, just because I'm the Heavenly Killing Star I'm supposed to go around massacring people? Who made up a rule like that? I've got free will too, you know."
In my previous world some existentialist philosopher had put it this way: man is condemned to be free.
And Kant had said that the law of freedom is to expand your own freedom only so far as it does not hinder another's.
"So I've decided to live however the hell I want. The Seongun Simbeop is just the means to that end."
A troubleshooter dropped mid-course into the Murim of the Central Plains—I would walk a path of my own making.
At that declaration Jeok-il's mouth fell open for a moment; she seemed unable to find any words at all. The monkey beside her kept glancing between the two of us, suddenly very quiet.
"But how can a Heavenly Killing Star…"
True to a being from beyond the heavens who read the celestial mechanism and guessed at the future, she could not easily accept the direction I was taking.
So I casually revealed another existence whose destiny had been twisted in a way rather similar to mine.
"For reference, that one over there is the Purple Micro Star of this generation."
I pointed at Jo Harang, collapsed in a limp heap with her greatsword still strapped to her back, glossy black hair fanned out in a messy spill across the floor.
"Ha… what a mess. Everything's upside down. The two of you are truly friends?"
"Comrades who've crossed the line between life and death more times than I can count. Call it a meeting of minds, if you like."
Two beings who, by Heaven's will, should have treated each other as mortal enemies and tried to kill one another—speaking of a meeting of minds. When the absurdity finally overflowed its banks, Jeok-il burst out laughing again, clear and ringing.
"Kakaka! You're truly insane. Insane!"
The deed was already done; her reaction had tipped over into pure amusement. She pointed at Jo Harang and went on.
"Does that Purple Micro Star woman know your true identity?"
"…She doesn't."
One day, without anyone asking, Jo Harang had suddenly confessed that she was the Purple Micro Star. After my advice had helped her break through a wall of cultivation, she must have gotten sentimental and spilled it.
"And when she learns the truth later… how do you plan to handle the fallout?"
"…W-well, I've taken out a bit of insurance, at least."
If the whole world turned against me and even she decided she had to drive a blade through my gut—just once, she would look the other way. That was the deal.
"You little brat. Don't tell me the other woman lying beside her is also…"
Once bitten by a snake, twice shy of a rope. Jeok-il kept firing questions, this time pointing at Ilhong with her little ponytail.
"Ah, her? She's just an ordinary daughter of the Haomu Gate's master."
In the Central Plains Murim she was a high-value target with a massive bounty on her head—but in this uncanny cave, she counted as relatively normal.
"Heh. And you call that ordinary?"
Jeok-il gave a hollow laugh. Even a transcendent from beyond the heavens, it seemed, knew perfectly well what the Haomu Gate was. She shook her head at a conversation that had long since left ordinary human sense behind.
"So that was it. That's why you endured this lady's Yeolyanggi burning you from the inside even through the pain—and why, even though three kinds of energy that should never gather in one place had gathered in you, nothing serious went wrong."
After all those twists, she finally seemed to accept the present situation.
But three kinds of energy that should never gather in one body? That was not something I could just let slide. She was probably talking about the qi of the star, the moon, and the sun all coexisting in my dantian.
"What happens originally if those three gather in one place?"
"They exceed the limits of a human vessel. The flesh should gradually collapse—that would be proper."
But either because I possessed the Heavenly Killing Star's body, which regenerated no matter how badly it was torn and burst, or simply because my Seongryeong-gi was overflowing while the other energies were still weak—Jeok-il told me there was no sign of collapse.
"…Aha. Uh, could you maybe take the Yeolyanggi back?"
"No. This lady does not say one thing with two mouths."
Once given, never reclaimed. In short: no take-backs.
"Son of a bitch."
Great. I'd just picked up one more piece of information I didn't want. I cast an uneasy look over the Yeolyanggi and Wolryeonggi lodged in a corner of my dantian. Beyond a human vessel, was it? I hoped they would fuse cleanly—but they were energies that simply refused to mix.
"I have lived for hundreds of years, and never once have I met anything so ridiculous—or so fresh—as this."
After that long a life, the emotions should have dulled; yet an existence like mine, thrashing to escape the shackles of destiny, was something novel even for her.
"Ilsung… I thought I only needed to be careful of that moon-mad old man…"
She was referring to that other transcendent being who had tried to stain the Emei Sect's sect leader with madness. As if to put on a show, she began to raise her aura; a scorching hot wind roared through the Heavenly Heat Ice Cave and the ice walls melted without mercy.
"How unexpected, Ilwol. To think that mild-looking old man would turn out to be the most cunning of them all…!"
Declaring that he was clearly just as insane as anyone, she laughed again, bright and ringing. Her long red hair swayed in time with her shaking shoulders.
"Don't tell me he even accounted for me when he laid his arrangements—determined to have you take in Yeolyanggi as well after the Wolryeonggi?"
She was asking and answering herself, staring up at the ceiling as if interrogating Ilwol.
Come on. There's no way he planned this far ahead. I don't even know what's waiting one step in front of me.
"Hey. Heavenly Killing Star."
"I have a name. It's Dan Mujin."
A name I'd given myself with meaning, for a new birth after crossing into this Murim. There had been a brief stretch when people almost called me Dan Muji, but still.
"What is your wish?"
The path I had walked through so many twists and turns did not look the least bit ordinary to her; she was asking for my intention and where it ended.
"My wish is… wealth and glory, good food and soft living, and drawing a national pension until I'm so old I'm smearing shit on the walls."
Those were life goals with a long, storied pedigree, carried over from my previous world. Roughly fixed in place back in the Heavenly Love Orphanage days, you could say.
"National… what?"
Every time I did troubleshooter work they had skimmed off a "pension contribution" like a tax, and I had sworn I would claw every last bit of it back someday. Thinking about it now—I had crossed over to this Murim without receiving a single coin. The injustice was enough to make my guts boil.
"Haa. What is this. These thoroughly lower-world goals. And this is supposed to be a Heavenly Killing Star…?"
A transcendent being said to have abandoned the immortal realm at the moment of ascension and chosen the lower world instead looked at me with a face of pure emptiness—speechless before goals so thoroughly capitalist, realistic, and worldly.
Seriously… this is… a Heavenly Killing Star?
As things seemed to settle, Salsung slipped quietly into view and showed much the same reaction. Everyone was underestimating these grand ambitions I had set in childhood. They clearly had no idea how hard it was to live surrounded by good people until you were old enough to smear shit on the walls.
"Heavenly Killing Star."
"Not Heavenly Killing Star—Dan Mujin. That's the second time I've said it."
Don't go calling a person by a yoke they never asked to wear.
When I demanded the correction, the woman with the crimson eyes glared at me as if I were being insolent.
"…Though, right now, I am also the Heavenly Killing Star, yeah."
Principle and the rule of law are far away; the fist is close. Sometimes you need the wisdom of a reed that knows how to bow.
When I ducked my head, the transcendent woman snorted a laugh and looked thoroughly entertained.
"Very well, Dan Mujin. Your course is most intriguing. This lady, too, shall personally watch over the road ahead of you."
After Ilwol, who had guided me toward a way to live, it seemed another transcendent being had developed a fierce interest in me.
Don't tell me Ilsung—the one said to be spreading the moon's energy—was also watching me from somewhere.
"A person of this lady's caliber taking an interest in you—you should feel honored, no?"
"…I am deeply honored, O being from beyond the heavens. But, uh, about this Yeolyanggi—could you maybe take it back?"
"No. That is a gift this lady bestows in person. Keep it deep in your dantian."
It might prove useful someday, she said. Of course, if I failed to handle it properly it could just as easily wreck my own body. A double-edged sword if ever there was one.
"Shouldn't you be saying thank you?"
"Thank you…"
The transcendent gaze that settled on me was almost smiling, as if she had found a new spark of life, a fresh amusement, in her long, lonely ice-cave existence. From the side, the monkey spirit beast that used to snarl every time it saw me shot me a look that said it understood my feelings just a little.
"Ukkik."
And so, only after being tormented a while longer, was I finally able to leave that damned ice cave.
After peeling the clingy red-haired woman off me, I headed for the North Sea Ice Palace, where everyone would be waiting.
The moment I stepped through the entrance I found a banquet in full swing, celebrating the complete cure of the Nine Yin Blocked Meridians. The northern palace hall was packed with northerners whose Western features stood out clearly.
And the instant I appeared, Seol Jindo shot up from his seat of honor to greet me with open delight. In his hands he held a blue wooden case that looked valuable at a single glance.
"This is the North Sea Ice Palace's treasure—the Ten-thousand-year Ice Essence. A spiritual medicine that has held the vital energy of the North for ten thousand years, and possesses extreme Yin energy."
When he clicked it open, a bone-cutting chill poured from the case.
A thousand-year ice crystal would slowly melt once it left the North, he explained, but the Ten-thousand-year Ice Essence generated cold on its own and would never melt. This was the very Ten-thousand-year Ice Essence we had agreed I would take if we found it in the ice cave; Seol Jindo had managed to locate it after all, and now offered it to me with care.
"Thanks to you, everyone returned alive from this expedition—including my youngest daughter. So you have every right to receive this."
Before the eyes of the entire hall, the Palace Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace pressed into my arms the treasure the North Sea held most precious and most dear.
"…I understand. Could you let go of it, please?"
For all his talk of how I had the right to take it and how gladly he would hand it over, the hand gripping the blue Ten-thousand-year Ice Essence that radiated cold showed no sign of releasing it.
Only after I said outright that he should let go did Seol Jindo gradually ease the strength in his fingers.
"Ahem."
He stroked his silver-white beard and looked thoroughly sheepish—the Palace Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace, looking sheepish.
"Ahh…"
"So the treasure of the North is going to the Central Plains…"
"But he has earned the right…"
Wistful sighs rose from the palace people at the same time. Their heads understood—he was the one who had saved their young lady—but their hearts still ached.
"I'll put this to good use."
Afraid he might change his mind, I quickly tucked the spiritual medicine—hard to obtain even with money—into my robes. An enormous cold immediately rolled out from the Ten-thousand-year Ice Essence against my chest… and then, strangely, quieted under the influence of the Yeolyanggi.
"Young Hero Dan Mujin. I have one request."
"Yes? What is it?"
Having kept our original agreement, Palace Lord Seol Jindo now asked something of me with a grave face.
"As you well know, the only place that can truly make proper use of that Ten-thousand-year Ice Essence is our North Sea Ice Palace…"
"Well, that's true enough."
Where was he going with a lead-in like that? The way he scratched his cheek suggested he was about to say something a little awkward.
"At present the North Sea Ice Palace lacks the funds to buy that spiritual medicine back. But one day we will restore our finances and stand tall once more as the heart of the North. Until then—could you refrain from selling it to anyone else, and wait for us?"
In other words: if I wasn't going to consume it myself but sell it for money, then please sell it to the North Sea Ice Palace, the ones best able to use it. Come to think of it, he had said they had already burned through costly elixirs trying to save their youngest daughter.
Doing anything for family. I couldn't help envying that.
"Sure. Let's do that."
Faced with the earnest eyes of Seol Jindo and his family, I gave a small laugh and answered that way.