I Will Remember You (1)
“Kuh-huhhhhhh!”
“You’re less than an animal.”
“Kyaaah!”
Lee Seolho came into view, clutching at his severed arm and screaming in agony.
The guild attendants were shrieking before they even knew it themselves.
The blood sprayed into the air looked almost unreal.
He must have been in so much pain, because the sight of Lee Seolho rolling on the ground and hugging his stump to his chest was almost comical.
In the middle of it all, Lee Sanghee was drawing ragged breaths.
Anyone could see how agitated she was.
It didn’t suit her at all, but somehow it felt only natural that she would look that way.
The murderer who had killed her beloved family, or perhaps her lover, was standing right in front of her. Even Buddha would have lost his temper.
And that probably wasn’t the only reason she was angry. To her, Lee Seolho had been someone she wanted to trust, and in truth, he had given her trust far beyond what was reasonable.
There was no way she hadn’t noticed the countless warning signs.
And yet the fact that she had endured it all this time made it clear exactly how she saw him.
“Haa… haa… haa….”
“Aaaah! I didn’t… I didn’t kill him! It wasn’t me! Sanghee… believe your uncle’s words. You know better than anyone that I’m not the kind of man who’d commit such a sin… haa… hoo….”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I believed you. Was that trust… was that the result?”
“This is a frame-up. It’s a frame-up….”
Lee Seolho had become nothing but a parrot screeching about how he’d been framed, and now he was reduced to a sniveling wreck before my eyes.
Obviously, I didn’t feel a shred of sympathy.
On the contrary, I felt oddly happy.
It was a little funny, feeling this way while looking at a miserable old man who had lost everything, but maybe it was because Jung Hayan’s face from earlier kept flashing through my mind.
“This is a frame-up. It’s a frame-up! I didn’t kill him! Jungyeon! Say something too! Why would I kill Seungjun….”
“Shut that mouth of yours. Lee Seolho, you truly are….”
“It’s not like that… it isn’t. Jungyeon, I absolutely did not kill the master.”
“You filthy excuse for a human being. How much did the guild master do for you… how could you?”
“I didn’t kill him! Hic….”
Even then, I could see the other old men around him trembling in fear.
Some of them were already preparing to switch sides, but it was a meaningless struggle.
“We really didn’t know.”
“W-we had nothing to do with it.”
Nothing to do with it? What a load of crap.
“Arrest them all. No exceptions. Lock every single one of them up in the dungeon.”
“L-let go! Lee Seolho ordered everything! Lady Sanghee! Bringing in the Celia guild was all Lee Seolho’s idea! We don’t know anything beyond that!”
“We really didn’t know anything about the guild master’s death. Please believe us. Please… it was all that senile old bastard’s scheme!”
“Can’t you hear me? Arrest all of them!”
The guild guards thrust in their spears and began restraining the old men who were resisting.
Cries of anguish rose from every direction, and the parrots shouting about frame-ups became an entire chorus.
“This is a frame-up! It’s a frame-up!”
“It’s a lie! Lady Sanghee, please believe me… agh!”
Even those who had been criticizing Lee Seolho began to rise up.
The most absurd thing of all was that those old men also thought Lee Seolho had killed Ju Seungjun.
Of course, it had happened because there was very solid evidence, but the fact that they believed it too made me absurdly happy.
“We don’t know anything about this! Lady Sanghee! We never imagined Lee Seolho would kill the master. Please….”
Sanghee’s expression was only natural; she looked utterly overwhelmed.
In an instant, it could feel as though the Blue Guild had been ripped apart at the seams. But new wine belongs in new skins.
No matter how much clean water you poured in, if rotten water had already settled into the vessel, purification would be difficult.
The best choice was to clear it all out at once.
It might be a little chaotic for a while, but no matter how I thought about it, this was the right way.
When I was just about to lose control of the grin tugging at my lips, another voice came from beside me.
The owner of that voice was obvious without even needing to look: Lee Seolho.
“You… filthy alchemist bastard! You’re trying to toy with the Blue Guild with nothing but that silver tongue of yours!”
“Aren’t you the one who toyed with the Blue Guild, you disgusting traitor?”
“I didn’t kill him! All of this is your frame-up, isn’t it?”
“It’s hilarious how you keep making excuses until the very end. Why not just admit your crime? Wouldn’t that be more respectful to the members who trusted you all this time?”
“I didn’t kill….”
“That’s what every criminal says. And yet in the end they always confess with their own mouth. With such solid evidence already in place, it’s really rather embarrassing to see you wriggle like this. If you’d at least shown some remorse, there might have been room for leniency.”
“S-Sanghee, just believe me once. Just one more time.”
“Lady Sanghee, haven’t you already given him more than enough trust?”
“It’s a frame-up. That filthy alchemist is a cancer eating away at the Blue Guild. He needs to be killed. No, locking him up would be the right thing! That trash will become a monster that devours the Blue Guild someday.”
“My, you certainly talk a lot. Listen, Mr. Lee Seolho. I don’t know what you think you’ve done for the Blue Guild that’s made you so attached to it, but you are not the owner of this guild. Secretly colluding with another guild without the leadership’s knowledge, hiring assassins to kill new guild members, and even murdering the guild master—someone who’s done all that has no right to speak about the Blue Guild.”
“You bastard!”
“People like you, people clinging to power long after you’ve gone stale, are the ones who create division. Ordinary people, when a crisis comes upon a group, try to solve it together. That’s how it should be. But people like you never do that. No, you probably can’t. Because what you already have means more to you than anything else in the world.”
There’s actual statistical data showing that even during the gold collection campaign in the past, the upper class didn’t give up what they had.
Lee Seolho was exactly that kind of man.
He kept looking at Sanghee and appealing to her emotions, but Sanghee, who had been hit with such a shock, was just sitting in a chair and staring blankly into space.
I was worried about her mental state, but if it was her, she’d be able to stand back up.
Hyunsung’ll take care of her well.
Seeing how they’d been sticking together constantly lately, Kim Hyunsung, who would arrive soon, would probably get Sanghee’s mind back on track.
Sanghee didn’t bother looking at Lee Seolho again.
Maybe she thought that if she kept looking at him, she wouldn’t be able to control her anger.
In any case, the old forces rotting away inside the Blue Guild were being hauled off underground one after another, bound together like sausages.
The endless cries that rang out were unbelievably funny.
With almost everything now settled, I slowly began walking forward.
Of course, I was heading down to check on the Blue Guild’s old guard.
Now that the rotten water that had been rendered completely immobile was being cleaned out, the guild felt much cleaner.
As I made my way underground, I could hear the shrieks of the parrots.
The sight of guards using force on the helpless old guard was a deeply satisfying one.
Of course, it was only possible because those old guard fossils were there, crying their eyes out.
As I kept looking around, a voice came from beside me.
“Mr. Lee Kiyoung. Regarding Mr. Lee Seolho, no, regarding them—how should we handle….”
She seemed to be the prison warden here underground. It was a little surprising that she was a woman, but judging by her stats and temperament, she looked more than capable of managing a dungeon.
“Until the vice guild master makes a decision, I think it would be best to keep them in that state for now. Make sure they’re given only enough food and water to keep them alive.”
“Yes. Understood.”
“And I’d like you to step outside for a moment. I have a few things I need to ask the criminals privately.”
“Is there still more interrogation to be done?”
“Yes. Of course. Ah, and I’d appreciate it if you stayed by the entrance just in case something comes up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This underground dungeon is quite spacious. I can see you’ve been keeping it well maintained.”
“Not at all. Thank you.”
“I’ll borrow one of these chairs for a moment.”
“Of course, Mr. Lee Kiyoung.”
She hurriedly bowed and stepped away, which told me she was pretty sharp on the uptake.
I dragged the chair forward and slowly entered the dungeon, where the old men, already shoved into their individual cells, were all staring at me.
The sight of them sending pleading looks my way through the iron bars was priceless.
Voices spilled out from every side.
Some were cursing me, others were trying to flatter me. Needless to say, I had no business with any of them.
The one I had business with was Lee Seolho.
After setting the chair down, I sat and immediately saw Lee Seolho staring at me in hollow disbelief, his arm gone.
The moment he looked at me, agitation flashed across his face, and then a fresh barrage of profanity slammed into my ears.
“Y-you son of a bitch! You son of a bitch! Don’t think this is over. You filthy piece of trash!”
“Thanks for saying what I wanted to say for me, you crazy old bastard.”
I slowly began to cut off the surrounding area with mana. It was only a faint amount, but more than enough to create a private stage for the two of us.
“What are you talking about….”
“I’m the one who should be saying don’t think this is over. I’m a lot nastier than you think. And I never show mercy to my enemies… pfft. You really managed to piss me off. Really….”
“W-what….”
“You won’t leave behind a single thing.”
“What the hell are you talking about….”
“The Celia guild you were colluding with will be the one to pull you out of the Blue Guild’s underground dungeon.”
“What?”
“Officially, Lee Seolho—the murderer who killed the guild master and the criminal of the Blue Guild who betrayed the expectations of Vice Guild Master Sanghee—will have escaped from the underground prison. Unofficially, you’ll be headed straight to the Red Mercenaries’ underground torture chamber. I happen to know a priest very well, and he’ll personally take you in. You can look forward to it, old man. It’ll be time for you to experience firsthand just how strange the human body can be. You’ll learn exactly how ruthless a priest serving God can be.”
“Y-you bastard! Bastard!”
“You and the rest of the old fossils here will all be murdered in some hideous fashion and dumped somewhere. Of course, this will be spun as the Celia guild eliminating you to destroy the evidence, right? Puhahahat. The media will plaster Lee Seolho, Blue’s traitor, all over the front page and go blabbing about it everywhere, and everyone in Lindel will be raising their voices over drinks about what a piece of trash you were. The wounded Blue Guild will try to forget your name, and before even half a year passes, your name will slowly be forgotten. By everyone.”
“……”
“Your death, everything you’ve contributed to the Blue Guild, everything you’ve achieved until now—it’ll all disappear one by one… as if the human named Lee Seolho had never existed here in the first place. You’ll become a man who was nothing. You’ll die having left behind nothing.”
“Y-you… you!”
“Don’t worry too much, old man. I’ll remember you.”
“……”
“When that priest I know is kindly taking care of you, I’ll be standing quietly beside him and watching you. Your screams, your face twisted in pain, even your voice begging to be saved—I’ll keep every last bit of it in my memory. Until that whole process is over… I’ll be watching you in silence.”
“You bastard! You think you can do that! You! You!”
“I’ll dedicate your face, twisted with pain, to the precious person who threw herself against death for me. Your voice will become a lesson, one that reminds me of the fate of an old man who made one wrong decision for a single moment, and it’ll keep echoing in my head forever. You’ll become nourishment for my growth, and I’ll keep watching you to the very end so I can digest that nourishment. Without saying a word. Quietly….”
“……”
Lee Seolho, now utterly silent, was in front of me.
Sitting quietly in the chair, I bent forward and looked at him, and perhaps imagining what would happen next, his face began to turn pale.
“Listen… Kiyoung….”
“……”
“How about we make a deal.”
“……”
“This isn’t right…. Even if we were never on good terms… this just doesn’t seem right. Isn’t this too dishonorable a death? This is a bit much.”
“……”
“I can’t die like this. Not like this… h-hic… hwaaaah….”
For people like him, leaving behind nothing was a deeply painful thing.
As if the very fact of his existence had been denied, the old man before me began to sob.
Maybe he was just scared of the painful time waiting ahead.
I didn’t bother speaking to him again.
Instead, as if rehearsing what would happen afterward, I simply closed my mouth and watched him.
……
Very quietly.