What, You Think Anything in This World Is Free? (5)
Sunlight that slipped in through the window fell gently across a sword tinted with purple.
A slightly wrinkled hand slowly wiped the blade clean with a strip of pure white cloth. It was already so polished it gleamed, and yet the hand cleaning it showed no sign of stopping.
As though performing some solemn rite, it wiped over the same spot again and again, then rubbed even harder where the shine had already been brought out.
“...At that rate, you’re going to wear it down.”
“Khm.”
At the sharp, dry comment, Hyun Jong let out a low cough. But his hand still refused to stop.
Hyun Young clicked his tongue softly.
“Do you like it that much?”
“...Rather than liking it, I would say...”
Hyun Jong’s face, gazing down at the Purple Jade Divine Sword, took on a strange light.
“It feels more fitting to say that it is deeply moving.”
Though Hyun Young made a mildly displeased face, he did not bother to scold Hyun Jong any further. He could easily imagine what the Purple Jade Divine Sword, once Mount Hua’s sacred treasure, meant to Hyun Jong as the Sect Leader of Mount Hua.
Hyun Jong quietly set down the white cloth at last and looked at the sword.
“Still, at the same time...”
“Yes?”
His gaze upon the blade was unfathomably deep.
“I cannot help but wonder whether there is another meaning in the sacred treasure returning to Mount Hua.”
“...”
“Everything in this world tends to contain its own reason. A sword that disappeared in the age of war now returning once more...”
“Oh, come on. Why do you have to look at it so negatively? You could say that Mount Hua, which was practically ruined, has come back into its own.”
At Hyun Young’s words, Hyun Jong quietly nodded.
The sword’s purple glow seemed to hover before his eyes even when he closed them.
This sword had accompanied Mount Hua throughout its history. It had gone through countless trials alongside the sect, and whenever Mount Hua faced calamity, it had always stood at the forefront, bearing the full force of that karmic fire.
“They say a sacred treasure finds the place where it belongs.”
“...”
“I would be glad if all this concern amounts to nothing more than the worries of an old man.”
Hyun Jong finally put the sword down. Looking at his eyes, now closed in quiet thought, Hyun Young let out a small sigh.
He did not find Hyun Jong’s words easy to understand. Reading the Sect Leader’s mind was not something even someone who had spent a lifetime at his side could do lightly.
After a long moment spent with his eyes closed like a man in meditation, Hyun Jong slowly opened them again.
“Still no word from the children?”
“When have those brats ever sent word promptly? No matter how much I nag them, they just won’t fix that habit.”
“Hohoho. It’s hardly the children’s fault, is it? There’s someone breathing down their necks so hard they don’t even have a moment to send a letter.”
The image of Chung Myung driving the disciples mercilessly came vividly to mind.
“A sacred treasure finds the place where it belongs...”
Though he had said it himself, the words felt oddly significant.
If that was true for sacred treasures, then it must be true for people as well.
Wasn’t Chung Myung’s arrival at a Mount Hua that had been withering and losing all vitality exactly that sort of thing?
“The North Sea...”
Hyun Jong’s gaze drifted toward the window.
Sunlight was warm beyond measure, but the air that slipped through the opening had grown cold enough to make one shiver. The air of the North Sea would surely be colder still.
“The children will do well, won’t they?”
“You worry for no reason. When has Chung Myung ever let us down?”
“That is precisely why I worry.”
“...Pardon?”
Hyun Jong gave a faint shake of his head. His eyes had sunk into something a little sadder than usual.
“They are still only children.”
“...”
“They may be old enough now that calling them children is a little awkward, but even so, they are still young, and still at an age where they should be learning more. Yet those children are already carrying the enormous burden of Mount Hua on their backs.”
And not only that—they were trying to involve themselves in the affairs of the whole world.
As though some preordained fate had been waiting for them, moving naturally even without any conscious intent.
“The Demonic Sect...”
A tenacious and dreadful connection.
“The Demonic Sect will certainly be different from the enemies those children have faced until now.”
“It would be, yes. It is the Demonic Sect, after all.”
“The children...”
But before Hyun Jong could say more, Hyun Young spoke first.
“Sect Leader.”
“...”
“The people who trust children the least are, in fact, their parents.”
Hyun Jong lifted his head to look at Hyun Young.
Hyun Young spoke with conviction.
“They will overcome it.”
“...Yes. They must.”
Hyun Jong slowly rose from his seat. The Purple Jade Divine Sword, now fully tended, rested in his hand.
“Are you going to train again?”
“If I have the chance, should I not?”
Hyun Young looked at Hyun Jong with a faintly surprised expression. Lately, the Sect Leader’s training time had increased dramatically. With the Finance Hall handling its duties properly and the Eunha Merchant Guild taking care of external affairs, he had been devoting that freed time to training.
“At your age, your bones ought to be resting.”
“...They are still sturdy.”
Hyun Jong chuckled lightly.
“You may think I am being foolish in my old age, but I still wish to become even a little stronger.”
“I’ve never thought of it as foolish.”
Hyun Young knew why he had suddenly thrown himself into training.
The Maninbang incident must have carried a particularly heavy meaning for Hyun Jong.
The Sect Leader, who was supposed to protect and guard his disciples, had in the end been protected by those very disciples. One might have looked upon it with pride, pleased that the disciples had surpassed him—but Hyun Jong had not.
He just wants to protect his disciples while he still can.
Hyun Young understood that feeling perfectly.
What if one day came when he could do nothing while Mount Hua’s disciples, dying before his eyes, slipped away? What if there were a moment when, because of his own weakness, he could only stand and watch them die?
At that point, it would be better to bite through his own tongue and die. He would not be able to endure that agony alive, with his eyes still open.
“But, Sect Leader.”
“Hmm?”
“If you’re going to train anyway, why not do it with Un Geom? He’s been working hard lately too, trying to redefine his martial arts...”
“...No, that won’t do.”
“Why not? If you train together, it would be easier—”
“I said no.”
As if he had bitten into a sour persimmon, a rare look of distaste came over Hyun Jong’s face.
“My bones and joints are not nearly sturdy enough to withstand that man’s training.”
“You just said a moment ago that you were sturdy.”
“Ugh.”
Hyun Jong shook his head and stepped outside.
When he opened the door, he was greeted by snowflakes beginning to fall softly from the sky.
“...The North Sea must be cold.”
Hyun Jong closed his eyes for a moment.
The hardships must not be too cruel to you.
The children would return stronger.
And Mount Hua, waiting to receive them, had to become a place even stronger and more generous than the one they had left.
Warm enough to embrace tired children in its arms.
* * *
“...So?”
“So what?”
“The atmosphere.”
Baek Cheon let out a sigh, his eyes twitching ever so slightly.
What Chung Myung had shown him yesterday still left him unreasonably uneasy.
He looked incredibly serious.
He knew full well that when Chung Myung properly held a sword, he was nothing like his usual dazed self. But yesterday’s Chung Myung had been like a completely different person.
So it was only natural to be anxious...
“He’s fishing again?!”
Trying to suppress his nerves, Baek Cheon checked on Chung Myung and shouted in alarm.
“N-no! That... what on earth does that bastard take Monk Hye Yeon for?”
For a moment, Baek Cheon berated himself for having worried about Chung Myung at all and started to rush over. But then someone grabbed him from behind.
“Layman Baek Cheon. I am here.”
“Huh?”
He spun around, and sure enough, Hye Yeon was standing there perfectly dry and composed.
“Huh? Monk?”
“Amitabha. Th-thankfully... it is not me.”
“Then...”
Baek Cheon turned back to Chung Myung, his eyes still shaking.
Even after confirming that Hye Yeon was not in the water, he felt no relief—only greater unease.
The monk is right here, so why does that fishing rod look so much like the one from last time...?
“...Then what is he trying to catch with it?”
“Who knows?”
“It can’t possibly be an empty rod...”
As the Mount Hua disciples tilted their heads in confusion, their pupils suddenly widened and shook all at once.
“B-Baek Ah!”
“Oh no! Baek Ah!”
“That madman actually did it! Aaaagh!”
By now the Mount Hua disciples had grown deeply attached to Baek Ah, and they charged at Chung Myung with the look of people about to burst into tears.
There were things even a lunatic should and shouldn’t do—how could he do that to something so cute, so tiny, so utterly adorable?
“Chung Myung, you crazy bastard! What did you do to our Baek Ah!”
“Huh?”
Startled by the furious rush of the Mount Hua disciples, Chung Myung turned around.
“What now?”
“Baek Ah! What happened to Baek Ah?”
Everyone was staring at him with desperate eyes, carrying the faintest shred of belief that surely no mere human, not even a daoist, could sink that low.
But.
“Oh, Baek Ah? It’s in there.”
Chung Myung pointed lazily toward the hole punched into the ice.
“HIIIIIIIK!”
Baek Cheon’s face turned ghostly white, and he hurriedly lunged forward to snatch the fishing rod from Chung Myung’s hand.
“Ah, what the hell are you doing!”
“Hey, you insane bastard! There are things a person should do and things they shouldn’t! How can you put something that tiny into the water—”
Just then—
Gurglegurglegurgle!
The once-still surface suddenly erupted with bubbles, and something massive shot upward from beneath them at high speed.
“Huh?”
And then—
Fwaaaaaaah!
The water surged as if a wave had risen again, and out of it leapt a carp so huge it was enough to make anyone’s jaw drop.
“Gah!”
“What the—?”
“W-what is that?”
Calling it as big as a house was an exaggeration, but it was at least the size of a cow. It was the sort of thing that would not have seemed out of place as a spiritual beast.
The carp soared into the air as though ascending like a dragon, twisted its body violently, and then crashed down onto the ice.
Thud!
The carp that landed on the ice flopped furiously.
But it was not the carp that held Baek Cheon and the others’ attention.
Of course, a fish that looked bigger than a human was astonishing. But even if it had been twice that size, it still would not have been more astonishing than the tiny marten proudly pinning the carp’s giant head beneath one foot.
Chung Myung said, completely unfazed, “Hey. Don’t kill it.”
Kiik?
“I said catch it alive.”
Kiiik!
Baek Ah, who had been holding the carp down with one paw, blinked its black eyes and nodded quickly several times. Then it shook the water from its fur with great vigor.
Leaving the carp where it was, it scampered rapidly toward Chung Myung’s feet and clung to him with shameless affection.
“Tch.”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue and placed a hand on Baek Ah’s head, sending a little bit of energy into it. In an instant, the wet fur dried, becoming even fluffier than usual.
“...”
At that grotesque sight, everyone fell silent.
Ah...
Right. That was a spiritual beast.
They had forgotten, since it had long since been used as Chung Myung’s personal heater and scarf.
Come to think of it, it was the thing that used to slap around house-sized tigers.
It was Chung Myung of the beast world. No, was it Chung Myung of the spiritual beast world?
All their worry and anxiety felt utterly pointless now.
“One more?”
Kiiiiiik!
When Chung Myung asked, Baek Ah stamped its back feet against the ground with obvious dissatisfaction.
“I’ll give you two chunks.”
The moment those words fell, Baek Ah’s eyes brightened. Without hesitation, it turned and leapt back into the water.
“...”
Wow. Look at that thing go. Brave little monster.
Jo Gul, who had been staring blankly, muttered, “Do martens normally eat fish?”
“If daoists normally don’t crack heads open, I don’t think it matters much, does it? No, I mean, setting all that aside, what does it matter anyway...”
“...That’s the most uselessly wise answer I’ve ever heard.”
Baek Cheon, having lost all words, stared at the ice hole where Baek Ah had disappeared and asked Chung Myung, “Chung Myung.”
“Yeah?”
“...Does Baek Ah usually catch fish that well?”
“It’s a spiritual beast, isn’t it? What can’t it catch?”
“...”
That made sense.
Come to think of it, this was the same beast that had tormented and beaten up the famed spiritual beasts of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace so relentlessly that Palace Lord Maeng So himself had pleaded to have it taken away.
What could a thing like that not catch?
But that only raised a new question.
“...Then why did you put Monk Hye Yeon in the water?”
At Baek Cheon’s question, Chung Myung frowned.
“No, that bald monk started yammering that I was being inhumane and straying too far from the path of humanity just because I wanted to use that thing to catch a really big fish. So he said he’d go in the water instead.”
“...”
“So I told him to go ahead. They say you should grant the wishes of the dead, so why wouldn’t I grant the wish of a living monk?”
Baek Cheon turned silently and looked back.
Hye Yeon was staring up at the sky with a hollow expression, as if he had already lived out every last drop of life in the world. Somehow his eyes looked wet.
“...Amitabha.”
Baek Cheon offered a consoling Buddhist prayer toward Hye Yeon and shook his head.
Where had it gone wrong?
Was it the marten that went into the water and brought back fish at almost spiritual-beast level that was the problem? Or was it the monk who willingly threw himself into icy water to protect that marten?
Let’s just say Chung Myung is the one at fault.
That was the easiest on the nerves.
At that moment the water’s surface shuddered again, and Baek Ah burst out with an even bigger carp in its mouth than the one before.
After tossing the enormous fish aside to land next to the one it had caught earlier, Baek Ah hurried back to Chung Myung and flipped onto its back, wriggling and acting cute.
“Fine. You’re better than the monk.”
“...”
Watching that scene, Baek Cheon smiled with satisfaction.
I’m not even surprised anymore.
Let it all go to hell. Damn it.
“...But why are you suddenly fishing?”
“You said there are other villages too.”
“Huh?”
“No doubt they’ll be so weak they can barely hold a spoon, so we should catch some for them while we’re here.”
Chung Myung jerked his chin toward the carp.
“If they’re this big, they won’t freeze easily. Bundle them up properly and they’ll still be fresh by the time we reach the other village. If we do this much, there won’t be anything else for us to do.”
Baek Cheon blinked for a moment, then swallowed dryly.
“You mean...”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
Chung Myung curled the corner of his mouth into a grin.
“Let’s go already. To whatever this North Sea Ice Palace is. I need to see with my own eyes what the hell is going on there.”