Then I’ll Make You Remember Me (3)
“Huh?”
Seol So-baek looked back and forth between Han Yi-myung and Baek Cheon with bewildered eyes.
“I—”
After watching the boy’s reaction, Baek Cheon glanced sidelong at Han Yi-myung. There was calm rebuke in his eyes, as if to ask why he still hadn’t explained things properly now that it had all come to this.
Han Yi-myung let out a bitter smile.
Faced with that handsome young man’s reproachful gaze, he couldn’t help but feel as though he had done something terribly wrong.
Looking directly at Seol So-baek, who still seemed confused, he said quietly, “Young Master, you must have understood at least some of it.”
“...Yes. I’m not an idiot. But my father...”
At the word “father,” Han Yi-myung slowly shook his head.
“I am not the Young Master’s father.”
Seol So-baek flinched, his eyes trembling wildly.
Han Yi-myung forced down his pity and went on firmly, “You are the child of the former Palace Lord of the Ice Palace, and the one I must serve with all my loyalty. Until now, circumstances made it impossible, so I had no choice but to act as though I were your father. But now, that place must be returned to where it belongs.”
Seol So-baek still looked unable to accept the truth, his eyes wide and unfocused, unable to answer.
Watching silently, Yeo Sa-hon exhaled and stepped in to help Han Yi-myung.
“Young Master, you are the only rightful heir of the Seol family, the one who must lead this North Sea. It won’t be easy, but from now on, you must take charge of the North Sea.”
Seol So-baek stared at Yeo Sa-hon in a daze.
It was understandable. A stranger who had suddenly appeared as an elder of the Ice Palace was demanding that he shoulder something he had never even dared to imagine. For a child his age, it was hardly simple to accept all this at face value.
“I, I...”
“Young Master.”
Yeo Sa-hon spoke with unyielding finality.
“I am sure your late father would have wanted this as well.”
“Ah...”
“There are things in this world one may do, and things one must do. It is something you must do—set right the twisted state of the North Sea and save its people.”
As he spoke, Yeo Sa-hon slowly sank to one knee.
“So harden your heart. Only you can save the North Sea and free its people. The fate of the North Sea rests entirely in your hands.”
Seol So-baek bit his lip without realizing it.
He knew all too well how hard the people of the North Sea were living now. Hadn’t he seen and felt so much while roaming the North Sea with Han Yi-myung?
And yet...
Me?
Even the thought made his shoulders feel crushed beneath the weight of it.
The words “the son of the former Palace Lord” and “the fate of the North Sea” stayed in his ears, but never quite reached his heart.
“Young Master.”
Han Yi-myung opened his mouth again, but then Baek Cheon, finding the exchange painfully slow, sighed and turned his head aside. And at that very moment—
He flinched.
Before he knew it, he had taken a step back.
What the hell is wrong with him now?
Chung Myung’s face had entered his view, twisted with open irritation.
He didn’t seem dangerously angry, but he was clearly in a state of extreme displeasure.
Having grasped the situation, Baek Cheon quickly signaled to the Mount Hua disciples.
It meant: if Chung Myung tries anything, stop him fast.
Unfortunately, his warning came a little too late.
“No, come on...”
Chung Myung, who had been watching the whole thing, trudged over and looked at Han Yi-myung and Yeo Sa-hon as though they were hopeless fools.
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting at a kid who hasn’t even dried the milk on his lips yet?”
“...Pardon?”
“Talking about how he’s supposed to save the North Sea, that only he can do it, and all that other crap.”
A blue flame seemed to flicker in Chung Myung’s eyes.
“If the kid has to do everything, then what are the adults for? Huh? What about the adults?”
“...”
“Seriously!”
Shouting in exasperation, Chung Myung waved Seol So-baek over.
“Get over here. Come on!”
“...”
“I said come here, didn’t I?”
But Seol So-baek only fidgeted and watched his expression, unable to bring himself to step forward.
Chung Myung tilted his head in confusion at the reaction.
“What’s wrong with this kid?”
Baek Cheon looked at him with a warm smile.
Would you go if it were you, you bastard?
Think about what you did to him last time, you idiot!
To Seol So-baek, Chung Myung probably looked far more vicious than a bandit chief right now.
But unfortunately for Seol So-baek, Chung Myung was not the type to give up just because someone wouldn’t come.
He strode up to the boy, grabbed his shoulders, and placed him right in front of him.
“What? The fate of the North Sea?”
“...”
Han Yi-myung and Yeo Sa-hon’s expressions turned faintly sour.
As expected, that young Taoist had the uncanny ability to turn people inside out with only a few words.
“You’re going to dump the fate of the North Sea on a kid no bigger than a squirrel? Then what are you lot doing?”
“Listen, Taoist sir. In the North Sea, the Seol family—”
Han Yi-myung tried to defend himself in his own way, but Chung Myung had no intention of letting him finish.
“If the Seol family matters that much, then why don’t you old men turn the whole thing upside down yourselves and hand the North Sea over? What do you keep saying to the kid for—‘you carry the fate,’ ‘you have to do it’... Ugh, seriously!”
Chung Myung glared.
“Stop saying useless crap. If you need to bet the fate of the North Sea on a kid this small, then the North Sea is already done for.”
The last line came out colder than the rest. At that icy tone, Han Yi-myung’s expression darkened slightly.
“That’s a bit harsh...”
Just as he was about to say something, Yeo Sa-hon raised a hand to stop him.
“...The Taoist isn’t wrong.”
Chung Myung stared at him.
“We only said it to steel our own hearts. We have no intention of hiding behind Young Master Seol.”
Only then did Chung Myung nod. Then, spinning Seol So-baek around, he stretched the boy’s plump cheeks with both hands.
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“I, I...”
“You just need to show your face. We’ll handle the rest.”
His voice was utterly firm.
The Mount Hua disciples watched him with strange expressions and whispered among themselves.
“That guy’s being weirdly nice, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. Not like him at all.”
“He’s been acting kind of strange lately, Sasuk.”
“Right. Strange.”
But Han Yi-myung and Yeo Sa-hon found their reactions ridiculous.
Nice?
That?
No matter how you looked at it, wasn’t this just bullying?
They couldn’t begin to understand how the minds of these Mount Hua disciples worked.
“If you’ve got something to do, do it yourselves instead of dumping it on a child.”
At Chung Myung’s words, Yeo Sa-hon nodded.
“Of course. We would not hesitate to lay down our lives in this battle.”
“Don’t get it twisted.”
“...?”
What came back, unexpectedly, was Chung Myung’s cold voice. Yeo Sa-hon looked at him, startled.
With a dark expression, Chung Myung looked at him for a moment before speaking as if exhaling a sigh.
“Throwing your life away isn’t taking responsibility. Remember that. What matters is winning, and somehow surviving. Starting a mess and then dying is nothing but dumping the responsibility on the people who come after you.”
He slowly lifted his head and looked up at the sky over the North Sea. There was nothing there, and yet Chung Myung seemed unable to take his eyes away from it.
After a long silence, he still didn’t lower his head. Instead, he reached out and patted Seol So-baek’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry.”
The corner of Chung Myung’s mouth curled faintly.
“One idiot move is enough for this lifetime.”
A person could never fully understand another’s actions.
Seol Cheon-sang was not foolish enough not to know such an obvious truth. In the end, human beings only ever pretended to understand each other to a certain degree; it was impossible to look straight into another person’s heart.
But...
This isn’t that kind of problem.
Even so, there was still a minimum standard of “reason” one could expect from another human being.
And the scene before his eyes had broken away completely from everything he knew.
Whoooooosh!
In a cavern chilled colder than ice, a white-haired old man was pressing his forehead to the ground and bowing in the most reverent posture imaginable.
By itself, that wasn’t so strange.
People offering respect and devotion to something greater than themselves was a common sight. Even if what that old man was revering happened to be the colossal Asura-like figure standing before him, there was nothing particularly shocking about that.
What was truly strange was something else entirely.
What Seol Cheon-sang could not understand was how someone of that caliber could show such absolute submission to another being—moreover, to someone who did not even exist in reality.
What on earth is this Heavenly Demon?
Heavenly Demon.
He had heard that name countless times. Anyone who had set foot in the martial world knew it.
But no matter how great and mighty the Heavenly Demon might have been, wasn’t it ultimately just a name that had vanished more than a hundred years ago?
How could a man offer such perfect reverence to someone who had died a century ago, especially when he himself had also reached such an exalted realm?
That was why the sight was so bizarre it was almost indescribable.
It was enough to make one’s skin crawl.
At that moment, the Bishop, who had been pressing his head to the floor, slowly began to crawl backward without lifting his face.
“...”
The sight was almost laughable.
And yet no one watching it dared to smile, not even faintly. Not because the Bishop was frightening, but because the sincerity in every movement of his was enough to make anyone recoil.
Swish. Shhhk.
Amid the sound of the bitter wind, the Bishop’s clothes and body scraping against the floor produced an eerily chilling noise.
At last, after completely emerging from the cavern, the Bishop slowly rose to his feet. Without even bothering to wipe the blood dripping from his forehead, he turned and looked at Seol Cheon-sang.
Seol Cheon-sang quickly lowered his head.
“I-it is an honor to greet you, Bishop.”
The instant he felt the icy gaze pinned to him, cold sweat broke out all over his body.
The Bishop, staring at him with eyes like winter frost, slowly spoke.
“Palace Lord.”
“Yes! Bishop!”
“I told you to bring me the Ice Crystals.”
Keeping his head bowed, Seol Cheon-sang bit his lip in secret.
Those damned bastards...
Who could have imagined those Mount Hua lunatics would defeat the Ice Palace warriors and flee with every last Ice Crystal from the mine?
“B-Bishop. An unforeseen incident occurred. They broke the prisoners’ restraints. I never imagined those restraints would be broken...”
“Palace Lord.”
At that cold voice, Seol Cheon-sang jerked and shrank back again.
“...”
“I told you to bring me the Ice Crystals.”
Seol Cheon-sang’s body began to tremble.
“The only reason I helped you—an unbeliever no better than filth—by mobilizing my followers was for that one thing. And if you cannot even accomplish that, then what reason do I have to keep a filthy unbeliever like you alive?”
Thud!
Before the words had even finished, Seol Cheon-sang dropped to his knees.
This was not his own will. The force the Bishop radiated had crushed him down.
It was a suffocating, dreadful pressure that made resistance impossible.
“B-Bishop! Please, just one more chance! I swear! I will recover the Ice Crystals with my life on the line!”
“You still don’t understand, you maggot.”
The Bishop’s face twisted more and more like that of a demon.
“We waited a full hundred years for this moment.”
“I-I...”
“If the grand undertaking of resurrection is ruined because you failed to secure the Ice Crystals, your life alone will never pay the price. Even if every flake of snow in the North Sea turns red with blood, our rage will not subside.”
Seol Cheon-sang began shaking violently.
This was no empty threat. Hadn’t he already seen enough to know these people were exactly the kind who would do it?
“Two days.”
The Bishop snapped out the words with chilling finality.
“If you have not recovered the Ice Crystals within two days, I will move personally. And if that prevents me from completing the Blood Offering Rite, then even if you recover them afterward, you will pay the price.”
“I-it will never come to that.”
Swallowing hard, Seol Cheon-sang bowed his head again and again.
The Bishop swept him with an icy glance, then turned without another word and headed back into the cavern. Once there, he sank to his knees again.
“Heavenly Demon’s return, may the ten thousand bow in praise.”
As though Seol Cheon-sang did not exist, he gazed at the Asura figure and chanted his mantra.
Watching his back from a distance, Seol Cheon-sang hunched his shoulders and carefully put more space between himself and the Bishop.
“Heavenly Demon’s return, may the ten thousand bow in praise.”
The mantra, repeated countless times before, poured endlessly from the Bishop’s mouth.
The frigid gale shook the enormous cloth bearing the Asura figure.
As the billowing fabric lifted, someone’s shape was revealed within. The Bishop stared at it with eyes burning from sheer longing.
“Heavenly Demon’s return, may the ten thousand bow in praise.”
The seed of the demonic faith was sprouting right here.
Only after completely leaving the cavern did Seol Cheon-sang hurriedly wipe at his face with trembling hands.
Sweat soaked his palms and dripped to the ground in heavy drops.
The Demonic Sect...
He had known long ago that these were people he should never have brought in. And he had also known this was a choice he had made himself.
But every time he faced that Bishop, Seol Cheon-sang couldn’t help doubting whether he had made a terrible mistake.
Had he perhaps not joined hands with demons, but stepped onto their altar instead?
And yet...
It’s too late to turn back now.
Blood vessels stood out red in Seol Cheon-sang’s eyes.
What remained was either cooperation—or a miserable death at their hands.
And he had absolutely no intention of choosing the latter.
After escaping the demonic pit, he ground his teeth as he looked at the elders waiting outside.
“...Mobilize every soldier in the Ice Palace and find the bastards who took the Ice Crystals.”
“Yes!”
“Find them! Use whatever means necessary and bring them back to me! I will tear them apart and kill them myself!”
Seol Cheon-sang’s roar rang like a blade across the North Sea.
The blizzard that had obscured the sky had already come to a complete stop.