Chapter 169
Chapter 169
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 49
>Chapter Title: Variable (4)
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“You don’t mean...?”
“Yes. We had relations.”
‘!!!!!!!!!’
Cheongryeong’s expression stiffened at Mok Kyung-un’s blunt words.
She had thought him a block of wood utterly indifferent to matters between men and women, so she never imagined such words would come from his mouth.
Even as a lingering spirit, she couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.
But in that instant, as the thought crossed her mind, Cheongryeong’s face flushed red and her features twisted.
‘...Wait. That mortal girl looks just like me.’
At this, Cheongryeong couldn’t hide her bewilderment.
Though their auras differed, in terms of appearance alone, she and Wi So-yeon resembled sisters—or even twins—so closely it was uncanny.
And yet, he had relations with her knowing that?
In that moment, Cheongryeong pictured herself in Wi So-yeon’s place.
And so,
“You! You! You’re utterly shameless!”
“Hm?”
“That mortal girl resembles...”
Cheongryeong couldn’t bring herself to continue.
She had meant to berate him for having relations despite knowing the resemblance, but embarrassment stopped her cold.
‘This, this bastard really...’
Was he asking because he truly didn’t know why?
It might have been fine if there had been no resemblance.
But seeing that mortal girl would have reminded him of her, and the fact that he’d still gone through with it left her feeling not just embarrassed, but queasy and strangely unsettled.
No way had this bastard been thinking of her while doing it with that girl, right?
Just then, Mok Kyung-un spoke up.
“Hmm. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but it doesn’t seem like an issue. If there is one, it’d be best to handle it beforehand.”
“...”
Cheongryeong furrowed her brow at Mok Kyung-un’s words.
Had she overreacted on her own?
His demeanor seemed as cool and detached as ever regarding everything.
Which meant he truly harbored no emotions or ulterior motives toward that Wi So-yeon girl who resembled her?
‘...Was it foolish to even expect such feelings from him in the first place?’
Come to think of it, Mok Kyung-un rarely showed any emotions beyond his murderous obsession with finding his grandfather’s killer.
Even the smiles he wore were mere facades to put others at ease or off guard.
The only time his smile carried genuine feeling was when blood was spilled.
Considering that, his relations with her were likely nothing more or less than a means to an end.
Though one had to wonder if he even had any desire for the opposite sex to begin with.
‘Well, if that’s the case, I can just ignore it...’
She couldn’t.
It kept nagging at her.
She had thought all emotions had vanished after becoming a lingering spirit, save for the drive to resolve her grudge—but apparently not.
Ignorance might have been bliss, but now that she knew, the nagging unease was unavoidable.
Still, with him acting unfazed, she hesitated to bring it up further lest she seem oddly worked up.
Just then, Mok Kyung-un approached her and pointed at something.
“But what’s that?”
“That?”
“Yes. No matter how I look at it, that portrait scroll depicts you, Cheongryeong.”
“...”
Cheongryeong fell silent at Mok Kyung-un’s words.
She had half-expected him to ask about the portrait of herself in that scroll.
‘Maybe I should’ve torn it up.’
She had considered it, worried he might grow suspicious.
But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
It was the last trace of herself left in the world, and that man...
At that moment, Mok Kyung-un chuckled softly.
“With that vivid red bridal gown and golden crown, she looks just like a single peony blossom. Were you married or something?”
‘!?’
Cheongryeong’s eyes trembled at Mok Kyung-un’s words.
[You look just like a single red peony.]
A voice rippled through her mind like a stone skipped across water.
The voice, now faintly remembered after a century, resurfaced.
She slowly turned to gaze at Mok Kyung-un.
What a coincidence.
To hear those long-ago words again through this mortal.
It stirred not just longing, but a profound wistfulness.
‘Hm?’
A glint entered Mok Kyung-un’s eyes.
He couldn’t help but feel puzzled by Cheongryeong’s wistful expression, one he had never seen before.
Was there some story tied to that portrait?
With her face like that, he couldn’t bring himself to ask more about the bridal portrait.
But then, something entered Mok Kyung-un’s field of vision.
‘!?’
It was the incense burner before the dilapidated altar.
Dust blanketed everything, spiderwebs draped the corners—it looked like a shrine no one had visited in ages.
Yet the portrait scroll and that incense burner were the only things pristine inside.
Traces of broken incense in the burner.
And the floor before it was free of dust.
‘Someone comes here regularly?’
There was no other explanation for it being so clean.
A dilapidated shrine hanging a portrait presumed to be of Cheongryeong, visited periodically...
Perhaps blood kin or acquaintances related to her?
It was then.
“!?”
Mok Kyung-un glanced in a certain direction.
He quickly pulled the wooden doll from his bosom and urgently sent a transmission to Cheongryeong.
-Cheongryeong!
-I sensed it too.
She had felt it almost simultaneously with him.
It was the faintest wisp of energy, but its curse power fluctuations were nearly identical.
Meaning the curse power’s owner was approaching very close.
Mok Kyung-un formed hand seals and softly chanted a spell.
Cheongryeong’s body turned to smoke and seeped into the wooden doll he held.
-Ssssh!
With Cheongryeong sealed inside the wooden doll, Mok Kyung-un tucked it into his bosom.
He started toward the exit but halted.
He had sensed that faint curse power emanating from just outside the shrine door.
‘Fast.’
He decided to leap to the ceiling with his lightness skill to hide.
It was right then.
-Swooooosh!
In that instant, darkness shrouded the surroundings, freezing Mok Kyung-un mid-leap from the floor.
‘!?’
What was this?
It was an utterly bizarre phenomenon.
His body was locked in place, unable to move from the jumping posture.
It felt as if his entire body was paralyzed—none of his physical sensations registered. He had never experienced anything like it.
He needed to hide immediately—what was happening?
As he puzzled over it,
-Creeeak!
The door opened, and someone entered.
Though the shrine was cloaked in darkness, Mok Kyung-un could see clearly.
It was a man in his early to mid-forties, dressed in gray sorcerer robes emblazoned with yin-yang symbols.
His face seemed rather ordinary, but the sorcerer garb told Mok Kyung-un he was from the Primordial Death Hall.
‘Sorcery?’
Then, the reason his body was frozen—was it sorcery?
If so, it was astonishing.
What kind of sorcery was this?
All his senses had vanished entirely, leaving only his consciousness intact.
-Mortal? Mortal? What’s wrong?
Cheongryeong urgently asked about the bizarre phenomenon afflicting Mok Kyung-un.
But though his mind was clear, his body was immobile, so he couldn’t respond.
Why couldn’t he move?
-Thud, thud!
Footsteps approached as the sorcerer drew near.
At the sight of him, Mok Kyung-un deemed this technique more dangerous than any he knew, regardless of what it was.
A spell that halted everything except consciousness—what kind of cheat was this?
With mere intent, one could kill anyone.
-Mortal! Mortal!
Cheongryeong’s voice rang loudly.
Deeming his situation dire, she debated smashing the wooden doll and emerging.
-Damn it!
As the sorcerer closed to within ten paces, she resolved to break the doll and exit.
They’d be caught red-handed at this rate.
-Crack!
As Cheongryeong gathered ghostly power to shatter the wooden doll, a crack formed in it.
Right then.
-Stop!
-Eh? You?
Cheongryeong halted just as she was about to break the wooden doll and emerge.
-Mortal, are you alright?
-Yes. Suddenly all my senses returned.
For some reason, the instant she cracked the doll to emerge, sensation flooded back through his body.
But then something even stranger happened.
The very moment his senses returned, the approaching sorcerer vanished from view.
It wasn’t as if he had moved quickly.
He disappeared from before his eyes as if he had never been there.
It was as if he had become imperceptible.
-What?
-...What the hell is this?
He had definitely sensed curse power from beyond the shrine door.
And hadn’t the sorcerer walked right up to him?
Yet suddenly, he was gone.
With his senses frozen, it had been hard to even detect the energy’s presence or absence.
-We need to get out of here first.
-Agreed. Hurry.
Unclear if it was a technique or what, but without grasping it fully, there was no way to counter it.
Fleeing the area was the only option.
-Swoosh!
Mok Kyung-un shot out into the open.
* * *
At the same time.
-Drip, drip!
Jo Tae-cheong, seated on the high tower’s roof forming sword art seals, had blood trickling from his forehead.
At once, he scowled in disbelief.
What had happened?
Though it had constraints, the Superimposition Sealing Art: Spacetime Total Deception had abruptly broken—something the caster alone could dispel.
Fortunately, he hadn’t touched any living thing mid-cast, so the backlash was minor.
But this was an unforeseen variable.
‘That guy... what is he?’
This wasn’t the first time the sealing art had shattered mid-cast... but the circumstances differed completely from before.
That monster had transcended human limits.
But the boy he had glimpsed in the darkness just now.
It had been too dim to see clearly even from ten paces, but he appeared a mere youth, not yet twenty—seventeen or eighteen at most.
Such a novice couldn’t have done anything.
From the moment the Spacetime Total Deception took hold, nothing should have been possible.
Then Jo Tae-cheong’s face twisted, his expression shifting.
In a raspy voice, he said,
“Do not over-rely on sorcery. No spell in this world is perfect.”
As the words ended, Jo Tae-cheong’s face returned to normal.
Then,
“I know that much. But this spell excludes living beings from its perception targets. You know that too, don’t you? Wait... no way?”
-Crack! Crack!
Twisting his face again, Jo Tae-cheong rasped,
“Kehehe. You’ve found the answer.”
No sooner had he spoken than his face normalized, the corners of his mouth curling slyly.
“I see.”
The high-grade lingering spirit that had rampaged through the Heavenly Net Society’s inner quarters.
He had predicted its path of spiritual energy, evading his two familiars, and pinpointed its location at that old shrine.
He had been wondering what it was hiding.
And now he had his answer.
* * *
Meanwhile, Mok Kyung-un raced toward somewhere.
Cheongryeong asked him,
-Where are you headed? We should return to the covert for now and...
-No. We need to hurry with something first.
-What? That sorcerer with the unknown bizarre spell will be desperate to find you mortals and me, so until we devise countermeasures, it’s wiser to lay low...
-That’s exactly why we need to hurry even more.
-What?
-I saw his face, but he glimpsed mine too. It won’t take him long to track us down.
-You don’t mean...?
-If we can kill him, we should.
Murderous intent flickered in Mok Kyung-un’s eyes as he spoke.
The place Mok Kyung-un headed was none other than the vicinity of the high tower housing the Primordial Death Hall’s headquarters.
[End of Chapter 49: Variable (4)]