I’ll Protect It This Time, No Matter What! (1)
“Have you packed everything?”
“...No, well...”
“Why not?”
“You should come take a look, Sasuk.”
“Hm?”
At Yoon Jong’s reluctant answer, Baek Cheon tilted his head and walked toward the back of the fortress. When he finally reached the carts, he gaped.
A mountain.
There was, quite literally, a mountain made of gifts. There were so many of them that the huge cart they’d brought looked as if it had been crushed and swallowed beneath the pile.
“W-what is all this?”
“These are gifts from the North Sea.”
“What kind of gifts are this many...?”
“Sasuk, that little Palace Lord is no joke. He was almost ready to strip the North Sea bare.”
“...”
Baek Cheon finally closed the mouth he’d been leaving open.
This is a first.
Up until now, how many people had fallen victim to Chung Myung’s scams and been stripped down to their underclothes? The number was hardly small.
But among them, there had never been anyone who stepped forward like this, took care of Mount Hua so thoroughly, and piled up gift bundles when they themselves didn’t have much to spare.
Is this really all right?
From Baek Cheon’s point of view, Chung Myung was utterly dependable... no, admirable... no, forget that. He was just his sajil. Just his sajil.
In any case, no matter how much Chung Myung was his sajil, the fact that such a promising talent—at the age when he was still growing—was being influenced by that Chung Myung was terrifying beyond words.
“Um... Yoon Jong.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
“Does the Ice Palace Lord seem to follow Chung Myung a lot?”
“Your eyes when you look at our Sect Leader can’t even compare to that.”
“...”
“He looked almost like a puppy gazing at its owner.”
“You little bastard! A puppy? To the Palace Lord?”
“What am I supposed to do if that’s just the truth?”
“Grrr...”
Baek Cheon scratched his head in frustration.
Of course it made sense. Chung Myung had shown them so much in the North Sea; it would have been stranger if Seol So-baek hadn’t clung to him.
To Seol So-baek, who had no proper place to lean on, Chung Myung must have seemed like a divine general sent down from the heavens.
So it was only natural that he trusted and followed him so blindly.
But he’s a demon, Palace Lord!
How had things gone so horribly wrong...?
“What should we do, Sasuk?”
“Grr... What else is there to do? Pick out the reasonable ones and leave them behind for now. Return the rest.”
“But they were gifts...”
“If you don’t want to see Chung Myung make another cart, hurry up and give them back.”
“...I’ll return them right away.”
Baek Cheon shook his head and turned away.
What’s going to happen to the Ice Palace?
For some reason, he found himself deeply unsettled by a fresh wave of concern for the North Sea Ice Palace.
That evening.
“Everything else ready?”
“What is there to prepare? We just need to go.”
“Just our bodies, huh...”
Baek Cheon nodded as he looked at the gathered disciples of Mount Hua. Thanks to the effects of Liquid Sky Essence, everyone had recovered well enough to have shaken off most of their injuries.
That body is the problem, though...
Baek Cheon cleared his throat and turned to Dang Soso.
“Soso.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
“Do you think we can leave tomorrow?”
“Hmm.”
Dang Soso inspected the bodies of her sect brothers and sisters with hawk-like eyes. After a brief tension-filled pause, she opened her mouth.
“You don’t seem completely healed yet, but I think this should be fine. Yes. Leave tomorrow.”
The moment she finished speaking, a collective sigh of relief burst from everyone.
“Finally!”
“I was about to die from all this crawling around.”
Truthfully, they all wanted to leave the Ice Palace and run straight back to Mount Hua this very instant. It wasn’t that they disliked the Ice Palace. They had simply been away from Mount Hua for far too long.
For days now, their hearts had already reached Mount Hua, and they had been forced to stand down by Dang Soso’s fierce glare and the way she’d rolled her eyes as she held a needle between her fingers.
- What? You want to charge through this freezing hell in that condition? Are you people making light of injuries? Why don’t I just stick a needle through the top of your skull right now? That’d probably be safer. Wouldn’t it be better to die here than have your wounds rip open and die halfway there? At least this way, digging your graves will be easier, don’t you think?
Her ferocity had been so vicious that even Yu I-seol had broken out in a cold sweat and failed to object. At this point, it had become necessary to obtain Dang Soso’s permission before anyone could leave for Mount Hua.
“Yoon Jong, go inform the Ice Palace that we’ll be departing tomorrow.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
“And...”
Just as Baek Cheon was about to say more, he suddenly noticed something strange and frowned.
“Where the hell did Chung Myung go again?”
Jo Gul let out a long sigh and looked up at the ceiling. Seeing that, Baek Cheon said, “I’ll praise your acting ability for perfectly expressing, with your whole body, ‘I know, but I’d rather die than tell you.’ So just say it.”
“...Well, that bastard said Lord Seol Cheon-sang definitely had more valuables stashed away, and that he was going to go find them...”
“...At this hour?”
“Yes.”
“Dressed in night clothes?”
“...Yes.”
“Again?”
“...”
It was as if the life had drained from Baek Cheon’s face in an instant.
Please, just act normal for once, Chung Myung. Please. Please!
“No, now that guy can openly go around looking for Seol Cheon-sang’s wealth and nobody in the Ice Palace can even complain! So why the hell is he still going out wearing night clothes?”
“...He says he feels more comfortable wearing them.”
“Who’s going to take responsibility for my heart burning up? Who!”
“Why are you asking us...”
Baek Cheon snapped his head away.
No matter how angry he was, he couldn’t let the disciples see the tears gathering in his eyes.
“...I’d almost rather he got caught. Then the people of the North Sea would finally understand his true nature.”
“Putting aside whether he gets caught, I think even if he did, they’d just shrug and let it go.”
“Why?”
“Right now in the North Sea, Chung Myung is practically on Buddha’s level.”
“Amitabha! What kind of nonsense is that?”
“No, but it’s not even a lie. It really is like that. I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t really follow Buddha much in the North Sea or what...”
“Amitabha! Amitabha! That fiend! Amitabha!”
Hye Yeon, ashen-faced as if he had just heard of something that should never have existed, kept chanting Buddhist prayers over and over.
“Soso.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
“Can you get me some stomach medicine...”
“Yes. I already made some in advance the moment I realized Chung Myung Saju wasn’t around. I’ll bring it to you.”
“...Thank you.”
Baek Cheon let out a long, heavy breath and lifted his head to look at everyone. His expression had turned serious.
“Since Chung Myung isn’t here, and we’ll be departing for Mount Hua soon, there are a few things we need to go over.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
“I think that bastard Chung Myung is hiding something from us about this whole affair.”
At Baek Cheon’s words, the disciples of Mount Hua showed no particular reaction. Taken aback by that, Baek Cheon asked, slightly flustered, “...You already know?”
“...Sasuk.”
“Hm?”
“Sasuk has a tendency to think his instincts are unusually sharp.”
“...”
“But to be honest, Sasuk isn’t actually all that perceptive. If Sasuk noticed it, then chances are everyone else already did, too.”
“...”
What?
Even Yu I-seol nodded, and Baek Cheon’s face flushed red.
“C-cough. Anyway.”
He coughed loudly and pressed on.
“You all know Chung Myung by now, but that bastard is the type who says what needs to be said. So if he’s hiding something from us, that probably means we’re still not trustworthy enough in his eyes.”
By now, everyone understood exactly what kind of person Chung Myung was.
Even if no one asked, he would force-feed them the things they needed to know. But if it was something they didn’t need to know, he wouldn’t tell them no matter how much they asked.
That was why the disciples of Mount Hua hadn’t pried into what had happened inside that cave.
“The Demonic Sect was horrifying.”
“...”
“And there’s no guarantee we won’t face them again in the future. Someday, we may have to confront the real Demonic Sect.”
Baek Cheon’s serious gaze blazed with uncommon intensity.
“So we need to get stronger.”
His eyes were a little harder now than they had been when they first fought the Demonic Sect.
“This time too, most of the work was done by Chung Myung. We were only chasing after his tail. We can’t be satisfied just because we managed to take a few more steps forward. I have no intention of being content with only barely keeping up behind him!”
“That’s exactly how I feel.”
“Embarrassing.”
Everyone echoed his words, nodding in agreement. Baek Cheon looked at his sect brothers and sisters and spoke in a firm voice.
“I won’t talk long. Our enemies are unbelievably strong, and the road ahead is long. Let’s make sure we don’t fall behind by pushing ourselves harder.”
“Yes, Sasuk!”
“Understood, Sasuk.”
At those firm replies, Baek Cheon found himself smiling before he knew it.
But...
Why is the monk nodding along too?
I thought he was one of our sect brothers...
“Amitabha.”
At Hye Yeon’s soft prayer, snow began drifting past the window.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Ah, it’s cold. Why the hell is it suddenly snowing?”
Perched on the rooftop and grumbling, Chung Myung pressed down on Baek Ah, who had wormed its way beneath his clothes.
“Hey, now you think this is your seat, huh?”
So you’re getting cocky, huh? You think that means you can just run off on me?
“Tsk.”
Clicking his tongue, he pulled the cork from the wine bottle he’d brought with him. Then, watching the snow scatter through the air, he took a swig.
The harsh liquor warmed his insides as it slid down his throat. The aroma filled his nose and mouth.
“What a sight.”
The North Sea viewed from the highest point of the fortress was truly magnificent. Add the snow to it, and the entire landscape looked as though it belonged to some other world.
“The North Sea...”
Chung Myung looked at the scenery in silence for a moment before letting out a snort.
“Sahyung, that’s why people should live long enough to see things.”
In his previous life, he had never had a reason to come here. So there had been no chance to hold this world in his own two eyes like this.
If there had been no Demonic Sect, no war... perhaps he and his sect brothers might have wandered the world seeking beautiful places like this, and one day ended their lives after seeing everything they wanted to see.
“Now that I’ve been reborn, I get to see things like this too...”
Chung Myung lifted his eyes to the sky, his expression dimming a little.
Sometimes, being reborn alone and enjoying such a world made him feel guilty. Of course, his second life was not an easy one. But wasn’t agonizing over things, wasn’t bullying the young disciples of Mount Hua, something only the living could do?
He had been given another chance, but the other sect brothers of Mount Hua had never been given that chance at all.
Only...
He raised the bottle and took another mouthful of liquor. Then he forced his scattered thoughts back into place.
This isn’t the time to get sentimental.
He had always wondered.
Why had this happened? Why was he the only one, unlike his other sect brothers, to have been granted a second life?
He still didn’t know the exact answer, but at least one thing seemed clear.
“Heavenly Demon...”
Strength entered Chung Myung’s hand as it clenched around the bottle.
- He is already...
“I knew it.”
It was something he had consciously tried to avoid, but now he could no longer turn away. The Bishop’s scheme collapsing had only made the anxiety Chung Myung had been carrying into a definite crisis.
The Heavenly Demon was alive somewhere in this world.
Without question.
Just thinking that sent force through his whole body and made his teeth grind together.
But he forced the surging rage back down. He had no choice.
What I have to do is...
This time, he would protect Mount Hua from that bastard’s hands.
“Nothing’s certain yet.”
No matter how much he was the Heavenly Demon, it would be impossible for him to regain his old power the moment he was revived.
Perhaps, even now, he was in the process of recovering his strength. Or maybe he had fallen asleep somewhere, living through the consciousness of another person the way Chung Myung had once lived for years through the consciousness of Cho Sam while waiting for his own awakening.
It wasn’t even certain whether he would go through the same process as Chung Myung or return to the world in some entirely different way.
Only one thing was certain.
That bastard will try to devour the world all over again.
Anyone who had seen that terrifyingly pure malice with their own eyes, anyone who had endured it in their own flesh, would think the same thing.
The world would once again be wrapped in inferno, and once again blood and death would run rampant.
“Not this time, you bastard.”
He would never lose Mount Hua again.
He would protect it so that the future would not be severed.
Grinding his teeth, Chung Myung slowly lowered his head and looked toward the room where the disciples of Mount Hua were staying.
Not too slowly, but never in a panic either.
What he had to do was not fight with everything Mount Hua had, as he had before. It was to protect Mount Hua with everything he had.
For that, he would do anything.
“Don’t worry, Sahyung.”
Chung Myung lifted the bottle in his hand high toward the sky.
“I’ll protect it this time, no matter what!”
The snow drifted through the North Sea sky.
It almost seemed as if Chung Mun were smiling down at him.