Dawn [2]
Abandoned by her family over severed meridians. My eyes went wide at a story I had not seen coming. So that was why a daughter of the Lee Clan had ended up in a backwater like this. It felt like coming upon a conglomerate heir in some country village, bent over a janggi board with the local grandmothers and grandfathers. No wonder none of it had made sense. Now, I thought I understood.
Objectively speaking, a martial house was right to cast out a body that could not learn martial arts. By this world's common sense, at any rate. Not the main line, then. A collateral branch. Had she been direct blood, they would at least have kept her in the clan. Abandoned, as she put it, made collateral the more reasonable conclusion.
I let the thought finish. It was a circuit already carved down into instinct.
"That must have been hard."
I said it, and I meant it. I had no memory of being cast off by my parents, so I could not know how deep that hardship ran. I knew enough to know the betrayal would cut.
"...Thank you."
Lee Seol-ah smiled brightly. I could not quite bring myself to believe the brightness was simple.
I smiled bitterly and tried to turn the talk elsewhere.
"Then, shall we head to the banquet..."
"No."
She cut me off, flat and certain.
"Why not? You've recovered, and slipping out of a banquet without a word would be terribly rude."
"I don't think you'd still be fine if you went there."
No. I think I'd be perfectly fine. I decided I would watch the banquet hall from a distance. That would tell me how things stood. Not that I expected anything in particular.
I was wrong.
"Ulk—ghhk—!"
The dry heave tore out of me on its own. The view before my eyes was no longer a banquet hall. It had become a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
Severed heads, ripped from their bodies, lay scattered in every direction. Entrails sprawled across the floor and twitched. Blood had gathered into a sea, and the rotting eyes of the dead held nothing but a venomous grudge meant for me. This place was a painting of hell.
"Hrrk—mmph...!"
"...See? Not fine at all."
Lee Seol-ah sighed as if I were being difficult, and covered my eyes with her hand.
"Khak. Khek."
The nausea eased, if only a little.
"Honestly. You only killed people who had it coming. Why are you taking it so hard?"
When I opened my eyes, she was patting my back, wearing a small bitter smile. Come to think of it, from the very start no other face had laid itself over hers. I could not make sense of it.
"Anyway, our world doesn't have solemn laws like the one you lived in, you know? If the justification is good enough, you're allowed to kill."
My gaze wavered. Isn't she far too violent?
"Even so... there's such a thing as a conscience."
"Conscience? What conscience? There were times you'd have died if you'd shown mercy."
"That's because I was the one who charged in..."
"Do you have any idea how many people those bandits attacked? And you can't even charge in once? A martial artist, shrinking back like this..."
Once the color returned to my face, she drew back the hand that had been patting me and thumped her own chest in sheer frustration.
"Anyway, I'm telling you not to feel guilty, all right? The fact that my head's still attached is already proof you're not some slaughtering fiend."
Her face went solemn, and a blue light gathered in her eyes.
I watched her, and said nothing.
"Put bluntly, if you hadn't killed the bandits, innocent people would've kept dying, right? Gyo... su? Well, that one was trash from the start, so let it go."
I had nothing to say. It was true. Had the bandits lived, the women in their stronghold would have lived and died as their playthings, and anyone passing through the mountains would have been hurt and killed at their hands.
"And one more thing. You think the village threw a banquet to celebrate a monster? They're celebrating their benefactor. That's what this is."
As she spoke, she pointed with one finger, sharp and sure, at the heart of the banquet.
My faintly trembling gaze followed it there.
"...Ah."
Where my sword had passed, it was not only corpses and blood that remained. Those things surely followed in its wake, and yet every one of them was dancing and singing with a smiling face, speaking of joy. Nowhere was there a gaze steeped in venom.
When Lee Seol-ah said it, bright as anything, one of the weights pressing on my heart vanished like snow in the sun.
...So that was how it was.
A human being is one species of animal. Is there any reason humanity alone, unlike every other beast, should be held sacred? There is not. Then is the neck of a human any different from the neck of a demonic beast? People sometimes commit slaughter worse than any demonic beast, and those who do are no different from the beasts themselves. Must one spare a cancer simply because it lives, while it eats the body from within?
"...Miss Seol-ah."
I called to her, low.
"Just speak casually. You're older than my father."
She said it through a soft laugh.
That stung a little. Well. The gap was a full twofold, so she wasn't wrong.
"Seol-ah... hey?"
The plain speech felt stiff in my mouth. Even in my previous life, formal address was nearly all I had ever used.
"Yeah? What is it?"
She asked it with a smile, and I went on with a faint one of my own.
"Do you know where the bandits are around here? They don't have to be bandits. Anyone who needs killing?"
I thought I was beginning to see where my sword ought to point. My previous life? By what Lee Seol-ah had told me, most mortals of high station kept company with cultivators. Then I would reach my purpose by doing the thing I did best.
"Pfft."
Whatever had struck her as funny, she burst out laughing behind her hand.
"When it turns out like this, it kind of feels like I'm the one who corrupted you."
"Like you said. I just have to not kill anyone who's innocent."
I said it with a thin smile. Lee Seol-ah stared at my face as if spellbound, then soon covered her mouth and chuckled, plainly amused.
"And what are you going to do if a First-Rate martial artist shows up?"
"I'll kill them. Their level was lower than I thought."
I answered with a shrug. She blinked, blank and uncomprehending, and asked again.
"...Wasn't he Second-Rate?"
"Second-Rate or not, his skill was such that I think I could have beaten him somehow even if he'd never learned martial arts."
I meant it. He did outstrip the demonic beasts in strength and speed, but if I had used a technique that cut along the grain of qi, I saw no reason I could not have been sure of the win.
Lee Seol-ah let out a hollow little laugh and tossed the words out like a joke.
"At that level, you might actually be a monster."
A moment ago I wasn't one.
"You just hide your strength, hold out while you take their measure, then throw everything into speed and land the decisive blow... Well, it worked. His swordsmanship wasn't anything special."
"...You're probably the only person alive who'd say a First-Rate martial artist's swordsmanship isn't impressive."
She looked at me as if she could not believe her ears.
"And I learned sword qi from him, too."
"...What?"
Internal energy poured down the steel. A translucent crimson haze rose along the blade.
Lee Seol-ah looked from the sword wreathed in sword qi to my face, and back again.
"...When you become the greatest under heaven someday, just share a few gold coins with me."
"This isn't anything special. Enough with the jokes."
"I'm serious."
Was it really that impressive?
"There are plenty of people who open their acupoints and still can't produce sword qi, so they're never treated as First-Rate. The other way around? This is genuinely the first time I've seen it."
She laughed, hollow and disbelieving. I asked again.
"So where do I need to go?"
"There aren't any more bandits around here... Hmm. There's an unorthodox band in the nearest county. Let's head there at first light."
Doubtful, I asked again.
"'Let's'? Don't tell me you mean together."
"Of course. You don't know the way."
That was fair. Even so, I was thinking it might be too dangerous when she went on.
"And I want to see how you fight! Every time you swing your sword, a head comes off, and blood sprays everywhere like a fountain... I just know it'd be amazing."
She said it flushed with excitement, laughing a bright little hehe as she cupped her reddened cheeks in both hands.
...Is she actually insane?
I narrowed my eyes at her. Lee Seol-ah only beamed wider.
"You'll take me, won't you?"
"...Well, fine. It does seem dangerous, but if I fight while keeping you safe, that'll be enough."
Transcendent First-Rate might be beyond me. Up through First-Rate, though, I felt I could handle whoever came. There was no reason I could not protect a single person.
"Waaah, amazing! Amazing!"
And yet, if it was someone clapping her hands and laughing this innocently, things might turn out a little different.
I breathed out an aigoo and said it plain.
"...Don't get excited and jump into the fight out of nowhere."
It was not a joke. I meant it. I had a feeling Lee Seol-ah was more than capable of doing exactly that.
"Aww, I'm not that bad. I might come close, but I won't leap into the middle of the battlefield."
It sounded exactly that bad. And more than anything else, I sighed.
"When I'm fighting, don't even come near me."
"Hmph."
Lee Seol-ah pushed her lips out in a pout, and her shoulders slumped.