A Vow Beneath the Stars
Seoa still watched me with that uneasy gaze. Her hands trembled faintly.
I let out a deep sigh inside. What a pain. A real pain. But I couldn’t just leave that racket alone. More than anything, I didn’t want to see her looking so unsettled.
"It’s nothing."
I rose from my seat. The floorboards creaked again beneath me.
"I’ll take care of it and be right back."
My voice probably sounded as flat and emotionless as usual. But Seoa met my eyes for a moment, then nodded as if a little of the tension had eased. Worry still lingered in her gaze, yet beneath it lay a deep trust in me.
I didn’t even bother with shoes. Barefoot, I crossed the yard. No need for footwear, no need for a weapon. I simply grabbed an old pickaxe handle that had been leaning haphazardly against the wall in the corner of the yard—a perfectly ordinary wooden stick, worn smooth by years of use. This would be enough. More than enough.
I slung the pickaxe handle over my shoulder and ambled out of the house as if I were just heading out for a stroll around the neighborhood. One step, and I rose into the sky.
The chaotic noise still filled my ears—blaring alarms, people’s screams, the screeching of goblins, all tangled into one ugly mess.
Too damn loud.
The western fields of the village were only a few minutes’ walk away, but I arrived in a single stride. The moment I appeared, the people at the center of the commotion turned toward me as one.
"T-Taejun!"
"Th-that’s right! Taejun was here…!"
Faces twisted with terror, faces frozen in panic, and… faces mixed with a faint thread of hope. Their stares meant nothing to me. All I saw were the disgusting green lumps wrecking the fields and making all that noise.
The goblins spotted me. Their intelligence was low, but they still possessed an instinctive sense for the strong. They hesitated for a beat, then, trusting in their numbers, charged at me with those unpleasant screeches of theirs. The sight of them rushing forward, brandishing rusted blades and clubs, was almost laughable.
I casually lowered the pickaxe handle from my shoulder. Then, as if swinging a baseball bat, I gave it a light sweep through the empty air.
Whoosh—!
No sound. No light. Only an invisible wave of force rippled outward from the tip of the handle like a current of water. That wave swept through the charging goblins—gently, yet with a power that could not be resisted.
Pssh.
Psssh.
Sounds like air escaping from balloons. The goblins never even managed a scream. The instant the force touched them, their forms wavered like mirages, melting away until they became nothing more than handfuls of dark-red dust scattered on the wind. Roughly twenty goblins were erased from existence in the blink of an eye.
Silence fell over the fields at once. The alarms, the screams, the goblin noise that had filled the air only moments before vanished as if they had never existed. All that remained were the ruined fields and the villagers standing with their mouths hanging open, staring back and forth between me and the empty space where the goblins had been.
I gave a light shrug of my shoulders and muttered under my breath, then spoke toward the people as if it were nothing at all—so the elders wouldn’t get too frightened.
"Too noisy… ruined my nap."
More than anything, I hated that these things had interrupted my rare moment of rest with Seoa. Without a second glance, I slung the pickaxe handle back over my shoulder and turned toward home. Dozens of gazes mixed with awe and shock pressed against my back. Their murmurs drifted faintly to my ears.
"What… was that just now?"
"With a pickaxe handle… all of them…?"
"The Sword Demon really is something else!"
"Aigoo, thank goodness Taejun was here! Our village’s lucky charm, that’s what he is!"
Lucky charm. Ridiculous. I just hated the noise. And I hated seeing Seoa look anxious. Nothing more, nothing less.
Thud, thud. The feel of bare feet on the dirt path wasn’t bad. As I stepped into the yard, my eyes met Seoa’s. She was still standing at the edge of the porch, waiting with that worried face. Only when she confirmed I had returned unharmed did she finally let out a breath of relief.
I casually propped the pickaxe handle back against the wall as if nothing had happened. When I climbed onto the porch, her gaze—relief, awe, and a touch of bewilderment all mixed together—landed squarely on me. My bare, dirt-streaked feet left a rough sensation on the wooden floorboards.
"Ah…! Your feet are filthy!"
Seoa looked down at them, then let out a small breath and turned to find a towel. In that brief flash of her expression, I could see the lingering confusion—she still hadn’t quite figured out how to process what she had just witnessed. Well, who could easily understand someone who resolved a village disturbance in an instant?
"…I’ll go wash up."
Without another word, I headed for the outdoor faucet by the yard. As the cold water rinsed the dirt from my feet, it felt as though some of the earlier irritation washed away with it. Those goblins. Ten years ago, the appearance of D-rank monsters would have been a disaster capable of plunging the entire village into terror. To me now, they were no different from a swarm of annoying flies.
The problem was the gut feeling that this kind of annoyance would keep coming. My wish for a quiet life, it seemed, had been a luxury after all. A resigned sigh slipped out on its own.
I dried my feet with a towel and stepped inside. Mother had already set the dinner table. The rich scent of soybean-paste stew and freshly cooked rice tickled my nose. An utterly ordinary, everyday scene. Yet when I thought about the time I had spent inside the Gate to protect this ordinariness—and the things I would still have to face—my chest tightened a little.
"Oh my, my boy. Come sit down quickly."
The moment Mother saw me, she beamed and heaped rice high into my bowl. Steam rose in soft curls from the mound of white rice that looked ready to spill over.
"My son needs to eat this and get his strength back. You looked completely drained earlier today."
I sat without a word. Across from me was Father; beside me, Seoa quietly took her seat and picked up her spoon. The small table held only soybean-paste stew, kimchi, and a few side dishes of namul—a simple meal. But this dinner, shared with my family after ten years, and with Seoa beside me, felt more precious than any lavish feast.
"I hear you put your strength to use for the village."
I had been about to start eating in silence when Father spoke first. The hand that had been scooping stew with a spoon paused. His voice carried more worry than relief. Between the deep-set wrinkles, unease about his son’s extraordinary power lingered.
"It’s a dangerous power… You must always be careful, Taejun. You mustn’t swing it around carelessly."
I met Father’s eyes. In that gaze was a worry not so different from the day I first registered as a hunter and left for a Gate. Ten years had passed, and grand titles like war hero had been attached to me, yet to my parents I was still just a child left by the water’s edge.
"Yes, Father. I’ll keep that in mind."
My answer was short and dry, but sincere. I had no intention of swinging my power around recklessly. But when there was something to protect, I would not hesitate. I swallowed the thought that only I could draw that line.
"Still, how fortunate we are that our Seoa is here looking after you so carefully!"
It was Mother who lightened the atmosphere that had begun to grow heavy. She added more namul to my rice bowl and cast a warm look toward Seoa.
"Aigoo, that girl is so thoughtful and capable. She’s your blessing, Taejun. Your blessing."
Blessing. The word stabbed sharply into a corner of my chest. The Seoa I had abandoned, the one I had pushed away under the name of a broken engagement, was my blessing. Mother’s words held not a single falsehood. She was far more than I deserved.
"Of course she is."
Father nodded firmly in agreement. His gaze, too, rested on Seoa—filled with deep gratitude, regret, and profound affection.
"In the ten years you were gone, Seoa took care of us old folks all by herself—nursing us when we were sick, running the household, even working the fields. That young girl… how hard it must have been for her."
Father’s voice grew slightly hoarse. Ten years. For me it had been a hell of life and death, but for those left behind, the years had been no less harsh. Especially for Seoa, who had no blood ties binding her to any of it.
"Without Seoa, this house, our lives… who knows what would have become of them. Truly."
I stopped moving my chopsticks. The grains of rice felt like sand rolling around in my mouth. As my parents continued speaking, the moment I had announced the broken engagement rose unbidden in my mind. That decision—born of a desire to keep her safe from danger, perhaps nothing more than a deeply selfish form of self-satisfaction—had ultimately forced a different kind of heavy burden onto her shoulders. She had endured alone a weight of reality more cruel than any monster inside the Abyss Rift.
"So don’t go thinking anything else. You treat Seoa well for the rest of your life. Understood?"
Mother’s voice turned firm. The eyes that fixed on me were more serious than ever.
"Meeting a girl that pure-hearted and thoughtful is your blessing. Never… never make Seoa cry again. You treat her well, no matter what. That’s your duty."
Duty. The word drove itself into my heart. Before the power of Cheok Jun-gyeong, before the title of Sword Demon, I was a man, a former fiancé, a son of this house—and I had duties I was meant to fulfill. Ten years ago, I had thrown them all away.
"…Yes, Mother. Father."
I nodded slowly. I wasn’t sure if my voice came out properly. I forced down the heat rising in my throat.
"I… understand."
At my answer, my parents finally seemed a little more at ease and returned their attention to the meal. But I couldn’t easily lift my spoon again. Seoa’s small shoulders beside me looked especially slender. She ate in silence, yet the faintly reddened tips of her ears showed that she, too, was aware of the conversation.
Apology, gratitude, and an unnameable guilt tangled together until even breathing felt heavy. Did I even have the right to bear all of this?
After the meal, Mother and Father retired to their room early. Both of them must have been exhausted from the village disturbance and the conversation at dinner. Seoa insisted on doing the dishes first, so I sat for a while on the edge of the porch and looked up at the night sky.
Unlike the city, the countryside sky was so full of stars it seemed they might spill down. Beneath all those stars, what kind of life was I supposed to live? Not as Cheok Jun-gyeong, not as the Sword Demon, but as ordinary Kang Taejun. And that life, of course, would have to include Yoon Seoa by my side.