This Is My Role (4)
A rage so fierce it was almost unbearable surged up in him. Beop Gye’s eyes burned with it.
Up until now, he had tolerated the other man’s arrogance. There had been a solid justification for punishing his improper behavior, after all.
But this—this was clearly crossing the line.
“Benefactor.”
Beop Gye’s voice rumbled out like a growl.
Lower and more savage than anyone would ever expect from a Buddhist monk.
“This is a Shaolin matter.”
“……”
“Meaning this is no business for outsiders. Do you understand?”
Chung Myung stared at Beop Gye in silence.
“Since you may not fully understand the situation, I won’t count the fact that you attacked a Shaolin disciple as a crime. But if you interfere one more time, I will consider it an attack on Shaolin itself.”
“……”
“So step back. This is not something you can afford to take on!”
The reason Beop Gye went out of his way to say that much was simple: he had not forgotten that they were on Mount Hua. This was the bare minimum courtesy he could offer, considering that he was the one who had to enforce Shaolin’s discipline inside another sect’s territory.
So surely that Mount Hua Sword Hero would understand the situation and step aside. Anyone with even a shred of sense would know what it meant to stand in the way of Shaolin’s affairs.
But what came next utterly shattered his expectations.
“The one who doesn’t understand is you.”
“……”
For a moment, Beop Gye’s eyes widened a fraction.
“This is Mount Hua.”
Chung Myung said, baring his teeth.
“And if you want to hurt someone on Mount Hua’s land, you need permission from Mount Hua’s sect leader. That’s the law here.”
“……”
“So take your hands off our bald bastard and back off. Unless you want me to take something more important than your hands.”
Beop Gye’s face twisted hideously.
“How dare you!”
The fury had reached such a peak that he was on the verge of losing his reason.
What had happened in that room was, after all, part of the process of reaching an agreement. But this was different. This was a threat. A clash of force.
How could Shaolin possibly need permission from another sect in order to punish its own disciple? Such a thing had never existed in Shaolin’s thousand-year history.
Of course, enforcing discipline within Mount Hua’s grounds might be considered overstepping. But that was still within the bounds of what could be understood!
Yet this bastard had drawn his sword over something that should have been understandable, and refused to yield no matter what.
If this wasn’t a challenge to Shaolin, then what was it?
“Do you even understand what your behavior means, Benefactor? I told you this is something far beyond what you can handle.”
Anger rippled through Beop Gye’s voice. But Chung Myung only curled one corner of his mouth in disdain.
“Can’t handle it?”
It was naked mockery. Open, blatant mockery—so blatant it was almost impossible to ignore.
Beop Gye, who had never once been mocked so openly in his life, felt his face flush scarlet.
“You’ve got a mouth on you.”
Chung Myung tilted his neck from side to side.
“Maybe you don’t know this, but there’s never been anything I couldn’t handle.”
“……”
“So let’s find out. Whether I can handle this or not.”
Beop Gye ground his teeth.
This outrageously arrogant man clearly had a license for it. It was undeniable that this young Taoist had stood alone to preserve the pride of the righteous sects during the Yangtze River tragedy.
But this was no longer something that could be swept aside with that excuse.
“You have gone too far, Benefactor. No matter that this is Mount Hua, do you truly believe Mount Hua can protect you?”
“Don’t get it twisted, Baldy.”
“What…”
“What Mount Hua’s protecting right now isn’t me. It’s you.”
Chung Myung bared his teeth.
“If this weren’t Mount Hua, if I weren’t a disciple of Mount Hua, your neck would’ve been off ages ago. Same with that abbot standing next to you.”
Beop Gye’s jaw dropped.
“So get lost. Before I run out of patience. Even I’ve got limits.”
Beop Gye had lost the ability to speak. He could only stare at Chung Myung in stunned disbelief.
Still… one thing was painfully clear.
This man is insane.
Who in the world would dare speak like this before the Shaolin abbot? Not even that Four Hegemons Alliance tyrant could say such a thing.
What was Shaolin?
Even if the world’s circumstances had shifted so violently that Shaolin could no longer display the same influence it had in the past, that did not mean its power had diminished.
It simply meant the present Shaolin was still the same Shaolin that had led the martial world for centuries.
And yet this man was brazenly denying and trampling all over Shaolin’s authority.
Beop Gye was so dumbfounded that he could no longer even feel anger. He did not know what to say. All he could do was tremble like a man stricken with ague and glare at Chung Myung.
“Benefactor!”
At that moment, an unexpected voice burst out. It was Hye Yeon.
He called out urgently.
“This is Shaolin’s matter! I understand your feelings, but if you think of me, please do not interfere—”
“What the hell are you talking about? Shut up, Baldy!”
“……”
Hye Yeon flinched, staring at Chung Myung in utter confusion.
“I’ll handle it myself, so keep your mouth shut!”
“A-Amitabha…”
And then, at last—
Beop Jeong, who had remained silent until now, opened his mouth.
“Mount Hua Sword Hero.”
Their gazes collided fiercely in midair.
“Do not force the issue.”
“……”
“In this world, whenever one gains something, one must also lose something. If you have chosen to become hostile to Shaolin, then you no longer have the right to interfere in Shaolin’s internal affairs.”
His voice was cold enough to freeze the blood.
“That is nothing more than the consequence of your own choice. If you choose, you must also learn to bear the price.”
At first glance, it sounded like a quiet admonition, but beneath those words lay all the power and authority of the Shaolin abbot. Most people would have been unable to withstand the pressure in that voice and backed away of their own accord.
But the person standing before him was Chung Myung.
“You know that well.”
“……What did you say?”
Chung Myung looked at Beop Jeong with a thoroughly indifferent expression.
“I said you know that well. As you said, everything in this world comes at a price. So let me ask you then…”
He paused briefly, then smiled crookedly and sneered.
“How do you intend to pay for harming someone in Mount Hua’s territory?”
Beop Jeong’s expression went blank as he glared at Chung Myung.
“Until now, I have…”
His voice, steeped in killing intent, began to tighten around Chung Myung’s throat.
“Shown you much mercy.”
“……”
“But this is not merely a matter between you and me. If you insist on interfering any further, it will not be I who becomes angry, but Shaolin—and it will be Mount Hua, not you, that must bear that anger.”
Chung Myung’s eyes sank lower and lower, growing darker by the second.
As if driving the final nail in place, Beop Jeong’s last words rang through Mount Hua.
“So I ask you this.”
The aura flowing from his body was truly overwhelming.
“You of Mount Hua…”
“……”
“Are you truly confident you can withstand Shaolin’s wrath?”
Those were not the eyes of a man looking at someone who walked the same road.
They were the eyes of someone looking only at an enemy.
It was as if he were saying that whether Mount Hua and Shaolin became enemies depended entirely on how Chung Myung answered.
It was a weighty question, and the answer should have been even heavier.
But Chung Myung remained perfectly calm.
“Confident enough to make Shaolin my enemy, huh…”
He muttered for a moment, then gave a thin smile.
“I think someone else is the one who’ll answer that.”
“Hm?”
At that very moment.
Step. Step. Step.
Someone walked forward slowly and came to stand beside Chung Myung.
It was Baek Cheon.
He fixed Beop Jeong with a stare as sharp as a honed blade.
And then another person stepped in, Yu I-seol filling the empty space beside Chung Myung with her usual impassive face. Her expression was unchanged, as if nothing in the world could stir it, but her hand had already settled on the sword at her waist.
If there were a better way to show their resolve, it did not exist.
And they were not alone.
Yoon Jong walked up calmly and stood beside Baek Cheon, while Jo Gul, practically vibrating as if he might leap forward at any second, filled the space beside Yu I-seol.
Before long, Dang Soso, Baek Sang, and even the Mount Hua disciples who had been watching from farther away closed in as well, surrounding Beop Jeong and Beop Gye.
The meaning in their eyes was unmistakable.
“Is this… Mount Hua’s will?”
Beop Jeong asked. There was only one person here who could answer him.
“I don’t know the details, Abbot. And Great Monk.”
Baek Cheon glanced briefly at the two of them, then looked at Hye Yeon.
“But one thing I do know is this: whether what happened here is right or wrong, Mount Hua has never been the kind of place that abandons comrades who fought and bled together.”
Beop Jeong clenched his fist.
There was not the slightest wavering in Baek Cheon’s voice, and his gaze was just as steady.
“Even if that means making Shaolin our enemy, it doesn’t matter. Mount Hua would rather die together with a comrade than survive by abandoning one. That is…”
He declared it calmly.
“What Mount Hua learned from its forebears a hundred years ago.”
The instant Baek Cheon finished speaking, Chung Myung suddenly looked up at the sky.
Sahyung.
A hundred years ago. It had truly been a foolish thing, beyond all reason.
A thing full of regret and nothing else.
And yet now, their descendants were speaking of it. Saying they had learned from that past, which had seemed to consist of nothing but regret.
Maybe we…
A small smile appeared at the corner of Chung Myung’s mouth.
Weren’t quite that stupid after all.
Beop Jeong bit down hard, fury impossible to conceal.
“Do you think you have the right to say such things, Mount Hua Righteous Sword?”
“Of course, Abbot.”
The answer came from someone other than Baek Cheon.
“Every disciple of Mount Hua can represent Mount Hua. That is how Mount Hua teaches us.”
“……Sect Leader.”
Hyun Jong, who had approached without anyone noticing, looked at Hye Yeon still kneeling on the ground and his face hardened.
“Though Monk Hye Yeon is not a disciple of Mount Hua, Mount Hua does not distinguish between disciple and comrade. If you intend to harm him, then Abbot Beop Jeong, you must face all of Mount Hua.”
The moment that gentle yet resolute voice rang out, Hye Yeon’s shoulders finally began to tremble.
He could no longer hold himself back, and tears began dropping from his bowed face, one after another.
Beop Jeong glared at him and said,
“Sect Leader… it seems Shaolin is a laughingstock to you.”
“That is not so.”
“If not, then how dare you interfere when Shaolin punishes one of Shaolin’s own disciples? Sect Leader, you will surely regret this.”
“Ha!”
Suddenly, laughter burst from Chung Myung’s mouth. Beop Jeong, glaring angrily, demanded,
“What is so amusing?”
Unable to hold it in, Chung Myung’s shoulders shook as he laughed and shook his head.
“Seems like the Abbot still doesn’t understand Mount Hua.”
“You say I don’t understand?”
Confusion entered his face. What was left to understand here?
Chung Myung chuckled a little longer, then kindly explained.
“If you don’t know, I’ll tell you, so listen closely. Mount Hua fought the Maninbang when it had nothing at all, and it fought the Four Hegemons Alliance until the very end even while everyone else was busy begging for their lives.”
“……”
At those words, the Mount Hua disciples snickered.
“That’s not even all of it. A hundred years ago, didn’t they go toe-to-toe with the Demonic Sect?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah.”
“……At this point, isn’t being fearless just tradition?”
Watching the Mount Hua disciples laugh among themselves, Beop Jeong could not hide his stupefied expression.
“A sect like that…”
At that moment, Chung Myung’s voice yanked his attention back.
“You think Shaolin is going to scare us?”
“……”
“Sorry, but this is a sect full of lunatics who, if they don’t agree with something, will fight each other to the death over it, even if the other side is the Demonic Sect.”
“Ahem.”
“Hey, that’s a little much.”
“……That’s going too far.”
Chung Myung ignored the other disciples’ protests as if they were nothing.
“So if you’re going to threaten someone, choose your target better.”
The sound of Beop Jeong grinding his teeth spread coldly through the air.
“And just in case you still don’t get it, I’ll tell you one more thing. Remember it well.”
Chung Myung’s frigid gaze pierced through Beop Jeong.
“There have been sects in history that stood against Shaolin and survived. But there has never once been a sect that made Mount Hua an enemy and came out alive.”
“……”
“So cut the worthless threats and get out of Mount Hua. Before I lose my patience completely.”
Blue veins bulged on Beop Jeong’s face. At this point, he looked less like a monk who served the Buddha than a demon from the lowest pits of hell.
“Shaolin…”
He said quietly, his eyes bloodshot.
“Will not forget today’s humiliation.”
“Suit yourself.”
He fixed Chung Myung, Hyun Jong, and the other Mount Hua disciples in his memory, as though carving them all into his very soul. Then, after glaring one last time at the kneeling Hye Yeon, he suddenly spun around without another word.
“A-Abbot!”
“Let’s go!”
He turned away with a chill in his back and led Beop Gye off with long strides, leaving Mount Hua behind.
“Uh…”
Hye Yeon stared after Beop Jeong’s back as he abandoned him, looking utterly lost. Then someone suddenly grabbed his shoulder.
“……Jo, Jo Gul Daoist.”
“Why are you still on your knees and getting dirt all over yourself? Get up.”
“I…”
Yoon Jong smiled and grabbed Hye Yeon’s other shoulder, helping him to his feet as well.
“Our monk is in real trouble now. I don’t think you can even go back to Shaolin.”
“……”
Hye Yeon bit down hard on his lip.
How was he supposed to express the feeling in his chest?
“Thank you…”
After everything he could think of, that was the only thing he could say.
Without a word, Baek Cheon patted his shoulder and smiled gently.
Of course, there was still concern for what came next. But…
There’s no reason to hesitate when it’s something we should do.
Chung Myung’s words, Hyun Jong’s words—they carved a road into their hearts.
“If it isn’t right, then it isn’t Mount Hua.”
That was the will Mount Hua had to carry forward.