Who Came, You Say? (1)
Gwak Hwan-so stared at the scene before him with a face gone cold and rigid.
Inside the Great Sea Hall, a place only the disciples of Hainan’s inner sect were allowed to enter, people dressed not in Hainan’s martial robes but in plain civilian clothes were sitting as if they belonged there.
Gwak Hwan-so slowly clenched and unclenched his fist.
His anger surged to the top of his head.
It wasn’t because outsiders had come to a place only inner-sect disciples could enter. It was because the people wearing those plain clothes were none other than Hainan’s own inner-sect disciples.
“You said you were leaving Hainan.”
When Gwak Hwan-so spoke, several disciples exchanged glances and then answered awkwardly.
“Y-yes... Senior Brother.”
Gwak Hwan-so bit his lip for a moment before speaking again.
“So you’re saying you’re going to be expelled?”
If he had asked in that furious tone on any ordinary day, they would have been in a blind panic by now. Gwak Hwan-so was one of the leading disciples of Hainan’s second generation, and his temper was famously explosive and quick.
Of course, everyone still found him difficult to deal with. But...
“...We can’t help it.”
Right now, they were saying things they would never have dared say out loud before.
“What are we supposed to do? The Evil Tyrant Alliance could attack at any time, and there’s no way we can win a fight.”
“You bastards...!”
“We know. We know we’re supposed to die together in times like this. But... I’m sorry, Senior Brother. We’re not as brave as someone like you.”
“Do you even hear yourselves?”
“Don’t be too hard on them, Senior Brother.”
Before Gwak Hwan-so could say anything else, another disciple cut in.
“This isn’t a matter of courage.”
Gwak Hwan-so looked at the interruption in silence.
“None of us are monks who cut ties with the world. Every disciple of Hainan has family. Even Junior Brother Go Hong here—you know he still has an elderly mother at home, don’t you?”
“...”
“It’s good to keep faith with the sect, but if we die, what happens to the families we leave behind? Throwing our lives away just to preserve our pride isn’t true bravery either, is it?”
All expression drained from Gwak Hwan-so’s face. They all knew that meant he was truly angry, but this time they still didn’t back down.
“Senior Brother, you don’t have family, so you can’t understand how we feel. You can yell at us if you want, insult us if you want. But don’t call us heartless. Filial duty matters just as much as loyalty to the sect.”
At that moment, Lee Ja-yang, who had been standing silently behind Gwak Hwan-so, let out a snort.
“I didn’t realize my Senior Brother Yu Gong had an elderly mother. Wasn’t your parents dying a while ago?”
“Ja-yang!”
“I’m just saying, if we’re being honest, are we supposed to believe everyone who’s leaving the sect has an elderly mother and a family to protect? And what, does that mean some of us are just bastards with no family and no parents who raised us?”
Mockery dripped from Lee Ja-yang’s face.
“You’re just scared and running away, so why do you have so much to say? You told us to curse you if we wanted and be angry if we wanted, so why don’t you like it when we do it to your face?”
“Don’t speak so carelessly!”
“Senior Brother. You must not realize this, but I’m choosing my words very carefully right now. If I were really speaking carelessly, one of us would’ve already drawn a sword.”
“...”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d hurry up and do this expulsion ceremony or whatever it is. Since I’m bound by the rules, I’d also appreciate it if you could understand how I feel having to keep calling a guy like you ‘Senior Brother.’”
Yu Gong bit down hard on his lip and glared at Lee Ja-yang. Lee Ja-yang looked ready to sneer again, but Gwak Hwan-so held him back.
“Enough.”
“...Senior Brother. That man...”
“Yu Gong was married not long ago, wasn’t he?”
“What’s so special about that?”
“His child is only a hundred days old. He’s still a baby who doesn’t even know his own father’s face.”
At that, Lee Ja-yang fell silent for a moment and worked his mouth wordlessly.
“Even so...”
“Enough.”
Gwak Hwan-so shook his head with a heavy expression.
“This was decided by the sect. An individual disciple has no right to argue over what the sect has permitted. Wasn’t this a decision made only after much deliberation by the Sect Leader?”
Lee Ja-yang looked thoroughly dissatisfied and turned his head away. But he didn’t go on accusing Yu Gong or Go Hong any further.
More than anything else, he knew what kind of feelings Gwak Hwan-so must have been swallowing to say those words when, normally, he would have been the first to curse and condemn them.
Gwak Hwan-so stared at the two of them for a moment before speaking with a sigh-like exhale.
“You seem to have misunderstood what I meant. I have no objection to your leaving the sect.”
“...Then...”
“But between people, as with disciples and their sect, there’s a minimum of courtesy that must be observed.”
Gwak Hwan-so’s eyes turned ice-cold as he looked at the men in civilian clothes.
“Were you officially expelled?”
“...”
“From what I hear, you requested an expulsion ceremony from the Sect Leader, and it was to be held once the storm passed. Is that not right?”
“...Yes.”
On that point at least, they seemed to feel guilty, and all of them lowered their eyes.
“Then that means you are still disciples of Hainan until the expulsion ceremony is carried out. And yet...”
Gwak Hwan-so’s gaze was colder than ever.
“Why is the Three Waves missing from your chests?”
The Three Waves. The threefold wave pattern embroidered on the chests of Hainan disciples’ robes. It was both Hainan’s symbol and the pride of its disciples.
But the ones who had changed into civilian clothes naturally had no Three Waves pattern on their chests.
“This is a place only Hainan’s inner-sect disciples may enter. You couldn’t possibly not know that, so I assume you still think of yourselves as Hainan disciples. Then what on earth were you thinking, coming here dressed like that?”
“We...”
Gwak Hwan-so spat the words out like he was chewing on them.
“I understand your position. I’m not trying to condemn your decision to leave the sect. But even for those prepared to have their heads cut off, you should at least show the minimum respect. Isn’t that the proper courtesy to those who lived under one roof and shared the same purpose, and to the sect that sheltered you all this time?”
The disciples in civilian clothes bowed their heads deeply.
It wasn’t as though they had no excuse. Originally, they had planned to receive their expulsion today and leave the sect. But the storm that had suddenly blown in had kept them from departing Hainan.
Putting back on the robes they had already taken off felt awkward.
But as Gwak Hwan-so said, if that was how they felt, then they should at least not have set foot in the Great Sea Hall. This was a place only those who still considered themselves disciples of Hainan were allowed to enter.
“If you can’t wear Hainan’s robes again, if you have no intention of stitching the Three Waves back onto your chest, then at least get out of here now. This place is for Hainan’s disciples.”
Even the ones who had opened their mouths as if to protest lowered their heads after seeing Gwak Hwan-so’s expression. Then, one by one, they left the great hall in silence.
Gwak Hwan-so let out a long breath. With the men in civilian clothes gone, the hall looked painfully empty.
This isn’t everyone, is it?
Even those who had only been waiting and watching until now would, once the expulsion ceremony was over, quietly join the procession and leave. Or one morning, they’d simply be gone.
How many would remain? How many would still be here tomorrow, and how many the day after that? If a week passed, would half of them still be left?
Lost in thought, he soon gave a dry laugh.
What’s the point of thinking about it?
There had been a time when they all dreamed the same dream. A dream of making Hainan the greatest sect under heaven. A grand dream of showing the sects of the Central Plains, who looked down on them as southern bumpkins, just how powerful and extraordinary Hainan truly was.
But now that dream had been washed away like a sand-built palace on the shore. What remained were only fools who couldn’t bear to abandon a dream already fallen to pieces.
“Ja-yang. What about the third-generation disciples?”
“...They’re ready to be sent out after crying that they’re not leaving. I’ve already slapped their asses hard enough to get them moving. They’re just kids who don’t know any better, so we have to send them away.”
“Good. Well done.”
Open contempt flickered across Lee Ja-yang’s face.
“Those kids are saying they’ll die with Hainan, but the guys who soaked up every bit of Hainan’s benefits and strutted around with their noses in the air are the ones running away to save their own skins.”
“...”
“Seems growing older doesn’t make a person any better, Senior Brother.”
“Enough.”
When Gwak Hwan-so shook his head again, Lee Ja-yang said flatly, “Are you trying to act like some good man? Normally you’d be the angriest one here, Senior Brother.”
“Getting angry won’t change anything. Why should I?”
“You’re not angry because you’re too furious, are you?”
Gwak Hwan-so didn’t answer. Maybe that was true. But soon he shook his head.
“If they want to leave, let them go.”
“...”
“I am Hainan’s leading disciple. The people I should care about are Hainan’s disciples. Why should I care about those who refuse to be Hainan disciples?”
Lee Ja-yang snorted.
“Then the only people you need to care about are the biggest idiots on Hainan Island. The ones who’d rather give up their own lives and die.”
“That’s exactly why I should care. Because they’re idiots.”
Gwak Hwan-so laughed quietly.
That was the truth. The ones who would remain until the end were the biggest fools and the most thoughtless idiots on all of Hainan Island. The ones who planned to smash their heads against a boulder no matter what it cost them.
“Still, doesn’t it mean we’re taking at least one thing with us?”
Lee Ja-yang said with a shrug.
“It’s a shame we couldn’t make Hainan the greatest sect in the world, but at least someday we might be remembered as the sect filled with the biggest idiots in the realm.”
“That’s not something you say...”
“Better to leave behind something than nothing at all, isn’t it?”
Lee Ja-yang smirked. Seeing the bronze in his face, Gwak Hwan-so felt a smile spreading at the corners of his own mouth.
“Yeah. Well, that’s not entirely wrong. If you searched the whole world, you wouldn’t find a bunch more hopeless fools than us.”
“Exactly. If we can’t be the best at anything else, we might as well be the best at that.”
And so the two men looked at each other and smiled. A faint self-mockery was mixed with an awkward kind of pride.
Then it happened.
Bang!
“Senior Brother! Senior Brother!”
The door to the hall burst open as if it might break apart, and a Hainan disciple soaked to the bone from the rain came scrambling inside. Gwak Hwan-so cried out in surprise.
“What is it! What happened?”
“Th-they’re here!”
“Who? Don’t tell me the Evil Tyr—”
“Mount Hua is here right now!”
“...Who came, you say?”
“Mount Hua! Mount Hua!”
“...Who?”
“Agh, seriously! I said Mount Hua is here! They’ve arrived at the mountain gate!”
For a moment, Gwak Hwan-so’s gaze shot to the open doorway. The wind and rain were raging outside.
“...They came all the way here?”
Lee Ja-yang muttered in a flustered voice as well.
“...Are they completely insane?”
Those words snapped Gwak Hwan-so fully awake.
“Let’s go!”
Without hesitation, he dashed outside into the storm.
“S-Senior Brother! We’re coming with you!”
Lee Ja-yang and the other disciples hurried after him.
Fwaaaaaaa!
The torrential rain came down like needles, striking their faces painfully. But there was no room to care about something so trivial.
They came all the way here?
Through this typhoon, to Hainan, where war with the Evil Tyrant Alliance could break out at any moment?
There was a limit to how foolish a person could be. At that point, it wasn’t foolishness anymore; it was madness. It was truly unbelievable.
And yet, in that instant, the Mount Hua he had encountered in the past flashed through his mind. The faces he had seen at the martial competition—pale and gaunt, yes, but still stubbornly upright.
And all the stories he had heard about that Mount Hua.
Fwaaat!
Running at full speed, Gwak Hwan-so finally caught sight of the scene before the mountain gate. Hainan disciples who seemed at a loss stood there, and before them were more than ten people.
Th-this is really...
It was a true deluge.
So much rain was pouring down that the world had blurred, making it hard to see straight ahead.
When Gwak Hwan-so reached the gate, he slowly stopped his feet and looked at the dozen or so people standing there with unblushing composure...
“...It’s cold, damn it!”
“This is the South Sea!”
“And what am I supposed to do about being cold? Damn it, so you did make it here alive!”
“How much longer are we supposed to wait?”
“I’m never coming south again, not even to piss!”
“...Food. Can someone get me some food...”
...No, rather, he stared at those bizarre figures, who looked like either drowned rats or beggars who hadn’t eaten in months, grumbling endlessly as though they had every grievance under heaven.
Then one of the people loudly complaining turned his head and saw Gwak Hwan-so.
“Oh?”
“Oh?”
“That pipsqueak pretty boy from befo—”
“That stupid country bumpkin from before!”
“Who’re you calling a bumpkin, you son of a bitch!”
Gwak Hwan-so shouted back before he could stop himself.
The pale, pretty boy who looked like a gigolo pushed his wet bangs off to the side and stepped forward. Then he cupped his hands in a formal salute with complete composure.
“I am Baek Cheon, Acting Sect Leader of Mount Hua. I have come here as an envoy of the Heavenly Friends Alliance. Please permit me an audience with the sect leader of your honorable sect!”
Kwoooorrrrrr—!
The moment he finished speaking, lightning tore across the sky and thunder rolled like a wrathful beast. Baek Cheon glanced up at the heavens, then spoke again with his face gone pale.
“If possible, before we get struck by lightning, could you please hurry—”
“...”
“Please.”
Gwak Hwan-so thought. This was a little... no, a lot different from what he had expected.