I’ll Handle It
After parting ways with Song Hyeon, Dokgo Ryeon headed straight for the place where Jegal Clan’s head, Jegal Wi, was staying.
Since she had already been invited by the Jegal Clan, no one stepped in to block her path.
Or rather, even if they had tried, no one in the world could have stopped the Heavenly Demon from walking where she pleased.
Passing through the maze of winding corridors, she finally found the old man holding a brush in a room packed with books.
Even with a sudden visitor standing before him, Jegal Wi calmly moved his brush across the page.
In the tense silence, it was Dokgo Ryeon who broke it first.
“It’s been a while, Jegal Wi.”
Jegal Wi’s hand paused.
He slowly lifted his head and looked at the intruder.
Blood-red hair. An arrogant way of speaking.
He had been startled when he saw her at the dinner table, but he had barely managed to suppress it then.
In the martial world, there was only one woman with those unmistakable traits.
“…Heavenly Demon. So it was really you after all.”
His voice remained calm, but his eyes sharpened as they raked over Dokgo Ryeon.
Disbelief was written all over his face.
“What is that appearance? Don’t tell me you’ve somehow undergone Banrohwandong.”
His gaze demanded an explanation, but Dokgo Ryeon had no intention of wasting words.
“Hmph.”
With that short exhale, her pure, overwhelming aura burst forth and crushed the air in the room like a physical weight.
Even for Jegal Wi, who had met countless masters and negotiated countless affairs, it was an absolute force unlike anything he had ever experienced.
No, there had been one other time.
At the peace talks during the Orthodox-Demonic War.
For the first time, a man who had never once stepped onto the battlefield found himself seeing, once again, the full majesty of an absolute ruler as if it were unfolding before him.
Suspicion vanished from Jegal Wi’s face, replaced by shock.
“I can’t believe it. The Heavenly Demon really looks like this….”
“Spare me the pointless chatter. Something has happened to your clan, and thanks to that, my party is in a rather unpleasant situation.”
Dokgo Ryeon’s blunt words sent Jegal Wi into thought for a moment, and then his expression returned to its usual composure.
“So that’s the reason?”
“…You knew.”
When Jegal Wi gave a silent nod, Dokgo Ryeon clicked her tongue inwardly.
Damn those Jegal bastards. I never liked the way they always stood at the top of the world, acting like they were looking down on everything.
No further explanation was necessary.
Jegal Wi had already grasped the situation, and perhaps he had even finished planning how to use it to his advantage.
“What do you intend to do?”
“What do you think?”
“I didn’t come here for riddles. Do you want to see me break the promise from that day?”
Watching Dokgo Ryeon radiate a vicious, murderous air, Jegal Wi broke into a cold sweat no one could see.
After a brief silence, he spoke.
“As the head of the Jegal family, I would say I am seeing the bigger picture.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t like it.”
Dokgo Ryeon let out a long sigh.
“No matter how much you try to make this about yourself, there’s a force behind this incident that can’t be explained by the common sense of the martial world. I’ll help you.”
“You will?”
This time, Jegal Wi’s mouth twisted.
The supreme ruler of the demonic sect, the Heavenly Demon, offering to cooperate with the brains of the Orthodox Faction, the Jegal Clan?
Even if years had passed, the fear of the Orthodox-Demonic War had not completely faded from the martial world, and words like that wouldn’t even pass as a joke.
“Take it whether you like it or not. I’d rather not cause trouble for that one.”
“…Her.”
Jegal Wi understood who Dokgo Ryeon meant without needing an explanation.
The young girl whom his eldest son, Jegal Hyeon, had invited to dinner because she was apparently no ordinary person.
At a glance, she had seemed nothing more than beautiful, so he had intended to scold Jegal Hyeon for wasting his time, but he changed his mind.
Was she really important enough for even the Heavenly Demon to care this much?
I don’t know who she is, but she’s worth paying attention to.
A glint lit Jegal Wi’s eyes.
**
A cold silence swept across the stage.
Jegal Hyeon slowly opened his mouth toward his frozen younger brother.
“While you arrogantly tested the effects of the formation, I, with the help of Miss Dokgo, made a few adjustments.”
Jegal Yun’s expression was full of confusion.
But Jegal Hyeon seemed to have no intention of explaining the details.
“The formation you worked so hard on was altered so that the moment it activated, a reversal array would unfold and prevent it from functioning properly.”
Jegal Yun’s face drained of color in shock.
He looked back and forth between his brother and Dokgo Ryeon, who stood expressionlessly beside him, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Under that gaze, Dokgo Ryeon muttered with obvious disgust, “It’s pathetic, trying to use the Teacher’s bigeup for some pointless stunt. Even if you managed to pierce through that mysterious power with your reversal array, I isolated the stage from the banquet hall so the two would no longer connect.”
Dokgo Ryeon walked over slowly and stood beside me.
She looked at me and grinned, and for some reason she seemed like a dog waiting for praise, so before I realized it, I lifted my thumb at her.
Still, I wasn’t forgiving her for disappearing for days without saying a word. I’d deal with that later.
“Y-you bastards!”
Realizing everything had come to nothing, Jegal Yun finally let his pent-up rage explode.
But Jegal Hyeon didn’t even blink. He merely looked down at his younger brother as if he were pathetic.
“Who are you calling bastards, little brother? That is the extent of your ability. If one intends to accomplish anything great, should they not prepare a second and third plan?”
Jegal Hyeon spoke coldly, then relaxed his expression and smiled gently.
But that smile was colder and more chilling than Jegal Yun’s fury.
“Thanks to you, however, our Jegal Clan has gained a tremendous justification. We can now inform the world of the danger posed by this unknown power called a bigeup, join hands with Shaolin, and step forward to involve ourselves directly in the affairs of the martial world.”
Jegal Hyeon pointed at Jegal Yun with one finger.
“All because you sacrificed yourself. You’ve turned out to be excellent material.”
At his indifferent shrug, Jegal Yun swallowed a groan.
“You can be proud of yourself for contributing to the clan by sacrificing that useless brain of yours.”
“You… You bastard….”
“Why so upset? You’ve always said the Jegal Clan should be at the center of everything. Didn’t you insist you’d make that happen? Well, thanks to you, it will.”
Jegal Hyeon took a step closer and whispered into his dazed brother’s ear.
“To put blind faith in your own schemes. Were you not taught to doubt even yourself, and then doubt again? My foolish little brother.”
As Jegal Yun stared at his brother with shaking eyes, his gaze drifted toward the banquet hall.
Among the six great clans’ heads gathered in the center of the hall, one person who should have been there was missing.
The head of the Jegal Clan. Their father.
“No way….”
Fear shook Jegal Yun’s pupils wide.
Just as if he had been waiting for it, Jegal Wi appeared behind Jegal Hyeon.
Seeing the face of his second son, fallen into despair, he showed not the slightest trace of pity and spoke in a heavy voice.
“No matter how grand one’s ambitions, how can one contain the world with a foundation so narrow?”
Good grief, what brutal words from the old man.
The savage beating he laid into his son with his words made Jegal Yun’s face go gray.
Jegal Hyeon, meanwhile, nodded in satisfaction as he listened to his father rebuke his brother.
That one didn’t look like a particularly decent person either.
Cheongha’s assessment echoed in my ears.
They don’t have even a speck of justice. They only care about losses and profits. Anything that doesn’t turn a gain is treated as a sin.
She was absolutely right.
They were already assuming their brother’s plan would fail, and all they cared about was how to exploit it.
“Ignorance is a greater flaw than stupidity. Your problem is that you don’t even know how small you are. Do you understand now why you were never chosen as heir?”
Jegal Wi was now openly tearing into Jegal Yun and grinding him down mentally.
It was becoming increasingly frustrating to watch the pointless delay, the kind where I couldn’t even tell what meaning there was supposed to be in it.
Then I realized the shouting had stopped, and I looked at Jegal Yun closely.
He was no longer exploding with rage.
Surprisingly, he lowered his head, took a moment to steady his breathing, and then lifted it again with a cold expression—as if he were an entirely different person.
His eyes swept rapidly over the surroundings.
There was a strange certainty in that motion, a desperate search for something, yet none of the panic of a cornered man.
He’s got something up his sleeve.
That wasn’t the look of someone who’d given up.
Even a third-rate villain wouldn’t be stupid enough to fold right here, so he was clearly calculating his next move.
“I’ll restrain him first.”
Ignoring the two men continuing to pressure him with their words, I stepped in first to subdue him.
That was when a sly smile crept across his mouth.
“You said I should have prepared a second plan, didn’t you?”
Whoosh—
Jegal Yun hurled himself away at a speed that was startlingly quick.
I had sensed it when we met underground too, but his light-footed technique for escape was truly exceptional, to the point that it was difficult to track with the eye.
Clapping his hands, Jegal Yun placed them on the stage floor, and light far brighter than before exploded outward, wrapping the entire stage in a restless current of energy.
Then, laughing aloud, he declared his second plan.
“Hahaha, no one will escape this one easily! I built it from the beginning on the assumption that the sect leaders would come charging in without being properly controlled!”
The stage itself became a massive prison.
Confident his plan had succeeded, he vanished into the darkness like an arrow shot from a bow.
That did surprise me a bit.
I’d only thought he was some fanatic doomed to collapse under the weight of his own scheme because he was laughing like a madman.
But he’d carefully prepared a second plan as well.
It was all because those two Jegal idiots had been too busy berating their younger brother to take proper precautions.
When I looked at the two of them, both of their gazes turned to Dokgo Ryeon at once.
But Dokgo Ryeon showed no sign of stepping forward and only looked at me instead.
We formed a strange triangle, staring silently at one another.
What, what is this? You two don’t have any other plans?
Only a moment later, I decided I couldn’t just leave Jegal Yun alone, and I reached toward the edge of the stage.
“Huh?”
My arm passed through the barrier without resistance.
Dokgo Ryeon followed and reached out too, but her hand was blocked by an invisible stream of force and couldn’t go any farther.
I’m the only one who can pass through.
Then this means this is my problem to solve, doesn’t it?
The mess was made by the Jegals, and I have to clean it up.
Honestly, this was still better than getting dragged into trouble with orthodox sect people and having my black history stolen from me, but….
I gave them an awkward smile.
“…Since it might turn into a whole thing, I’ll go handle it quietly.”
Leaving behind the stunned faces of the three of them, I slipped completely out of the stage.
At the same moment, I heard a crack from inside my robes.
The bead the deer had given me had lost its light and split cleanly in two.
“Ah….”
What a shame.
It had been such a pretty, luminous bead that I’d kept it tucked close to me the whole time.
Still, after silently thanking the deer in my heart for protecting me from Jegal Yun’s formation more than once, I stepped down from the stage and started walking in the direction he had fled.
But I felt eyes on me, so I looked back toward the banquet hall.
I could feel the gazes of everyone gathered there turning toward me all at once.
The banquet time had passed.
The host was nowhere to be seen, and some unknown beauty had just burst out from the stage.
If they caught me, explaining would take forever.
I bowed to them and, before the explanation could turn into a disaster, hurriedly chased after Jegal Yun.
Let’s just run.
Once they realized something was off, they’d sort out the stage on their own.
They were masters, after all.
All I had to do was handle what I’d been assigned.
Jegal Yun wasn’t very strong, so this should be over soon enough.
I need to put an end to this farce already.