The Descender
“Good. I see very clearly that you’re serious about this, young master.”
Jo Gwak spoke in a slightly subdued voice, still clutching the gold coin in his hand.
“I’ve always been serious.”
“But if you’re saying you’re looking for a person, that person could be a man or a woman, a child or an old man... Do you really think that makes any sense?”
Jo Gwak lifted his head again, his eyes full of distrust.
Honestly, I couldn’t blame him.
No name, no age, no face, no distinguishing features?
It was only natural that he couldn’t tell whether I was asking him to find a person or just making a fool of him.
I was just as frustrated as he was.
But what was I supposed to do?
“Sorry, but I can’t say any more than that.”
In the end, all I could do was repeat myself.
No—there simply wasn’t anything more I was allowed to say.
The problem is that the Cheongyeoljeon protagonist doesn’t have a fixed gender or age.
That was the core of it.
The game I’d possessed, Cheongyeoljeon.
The protagonist of that game, the one chosen by heaven, the transcendent being who could master every martial art.
The Descender.
The problem is...
The Descender wasn’t a set character like Paeng Yeohun.
He—or she—was an avatar the user created directly, with wildly different appearances and settings depending on the playthrough.
Sometimes male, sometimes female, and even the age varied from one to the next.
To begin with, it wasn’t even certain whether that being truly existed in this world at all.
Now that Cheongyeoljeon had become reality, the story was bound to begin moving.
So had the Descender appeared in this world?
Or had only the bare setting been left behind?
I couldn’t know for sure.
And yet—
If the Descender does exist...
If he or she existed at all.
Then, at the end of the story that would one day come crashing down on us, that existence would absolutely be useful.
As for me, killing the final boss was a fairy tale.
The final bosses of Cheongyeoljeon boasted monstrous martial prowess—so monstrous that they might as well have been called divine.
Even Yu Seollin, the Heavenly Massacre Star, the one who was judged to be the weakest of them all, had already reached the Transcendence realm.
The others were all monsters playing around in the Realm of Transformation or the Profound Realm.
Reach that level and stand against beings like them?
Coldly speaking, even gathering every hidden piece in Cheongyeoljeon would hardly get me there.
So I need someone else to stand in front and take the hit for me.
The person best suited for that role was the Descender, who still hadn’t awakened to their own fate.
No one else would do.
Only...
“No, seriously, go grab any random person off the street and ask them. How are you supposed to find someone with conditions like that?”
Jo Gwak’s bloodshot eyes stabbed at me.
He was right.
I knew perfectly well that with the explanation I’d given so far, finding the Descender was absolutely impossible.
The problem was...
“Des...”
The moment I opened my mouth to explain the Descender—
Mentions the Descender (99)
The option that had disappeared for a while suddenly appeared before my eyes again.
And the number.
99.
It was a number that could never, under any circumstances, be rolled with the twenty-sided dice I currently had. In other words, it was impossible.
How the hell is 99 even supposed to be possible?
Even if I tried to ignore it and speak, time wouldn’t resume.
Only when I abandoned the thought and clamped my mouth shut did time start flowing again.
The conclusion was simple.
I could not reveal anything about the Descender.
Which meant the information I had could never be passed on to anyone else.
All I could say was worthless scraps of information, the kind anybody could have babbled about just now.
So it’s basically blocking me from even looking for them.
Trying to find the Descender with those broad, vague conditions that applied to everyone in the Central Plains was next to impossible.
I’ll have to find another way.
Since direct disclosure was blocked, the only thing I could do now was find a way to approach the Descender through circumstances and clues.
I couldn’t give up.
“To be blunt, one gold coin was the fee for calling you here, just so I wouldn’t take the request. So even if you pay me in gold, nobody could find someone from information like that.”
Finishing his sentence, Jo Gwak carefully set the gold coin back into my palm.
“So I can’t take the request, and I’m giving your coin back.”
He looked ready to get up and leave.
If I didn’t stop him, he’d walk off without hesitation.
“What if taking the request would help Haomen?”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
His words were rough, but his feet had clearly stopped.
What matters more than money is...
More money—or an offer he simply couldn’t refuse.
“If you accept the request, I’ll give you martial arts manuals that can be distributed to your members.”
“Martial arts manuals? What are you talking about...?”
At that moment, Jo Gwak’s expression changed completely.
What was Haomen’s chronic weakness?
If I had to name just one thing, it would be the woefully poor martial skill of its members compared to those of the orthodox sects and great clans.
They were a group that had grown by scraping together talent from the streets and selling information.
There was no way they had a solid martial foundation.
So the words “distribution manuals” would have sounded as sweet as honey to him.
“...Nonsense. There’s no way the young master would have something like that.”
Of course, he came to his senses the instant he looked at my face.
“Didn’t you go down in one shot against someone like that?”
“Ugh.”
“You lost in a single blow to someone whose dantian had been ruined. There are only two possibilities there. One: my dantian is actually fine. Two: I stumbled onto some miraculous chance. Which sounds more likely?”
“...The first.”
“Sorry, but the answer is the second.”
I spoke calmly.
“Among the chances I happened to get, there may be one that’s a little awkward for me to use, but would be suitable for Haomen’s distribution... that’s the sort of thing I’m saying.”
When you mix a pinch of truth into a lie, it becomes a trap anyone can fall into.
“So if you take my request, I’ll give you the manual.”
“Mm...”
Jo Gwak didn’t answer right away.
It wasn’t the kind of thing he could answer lightly, anyway.
So I decided to toss him a more appropriate bait.
“Cheongsong Hermitage.”
“Cheongsong Hermitage?”
Cheongsong Hermitage.
An isolated hermitage surrounded by blue pines.
There were rumors that the Celestial Worthy had built it, but in truth it was just an ordinary hermitage.
“Look at the pillar there. If you examine the crack in it carefully... something good will happen.”
“A crack? What on earth are you trying to say?”
Jo Gwak’s eyes wavered ever so slightly.
“Believe it or don’t, but go check it out, just in case.”
I shrugged.
“...”
Jo Gwak fell silent, lips pressed tight as he thought it over.
If what I said was true, Jo Gwak could advance in an instant—past an ordinary member, perhaps even beyond that.
But if it’s a lie?
It would be nothing but a waste of time.
He’d just lose precious days chasing nonsense and fall behind because he’d been fooled by a pile of garbage.
“And let’s narrow down the search a little while we’re at it. Right... how about a martial artist who’s recently joined a sect?”
The conversation flowed smoothly.
So this part is fine.
Was it only specific words and specific information that the system cared about?
For now, it seemed to allow this much.
“Hmm...”
Jo Gwak pressed his lips together, deep in thought.
“Is that possible?”
“It is, but... if that was the plan, shouldn’t you have just asked for that kind of request in the first place?”
He frowned, speaking in a slightly disgruntled voice.
“I told you, I’ve got my reasons too.”
If I’d been able to speak freely about the Descender, I wouldn’t have needed such a roundabout detour.
But with the system blocking me, there was only one way.
Well, can’t be helped.
As the saying went, you couldn’t expect to be full after one bite.
And if you tried to run before you’d even learned to walk, you’d just fall over—so for now, I had no choice but to take the long way around.
“Phew.”
After a long silence, Jo Gwak rubbed his forehead with one hand and let out a long sigh.
“Fine. I’ll... let myself get fooled by Young Master Paeng once.”
Jo Gwak made his choice.
He chose to be a fool.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
I grinned and nodded.
* * *
And just like that, the conversation ended more smoothly than I’d expected.
He even gave the coin back.
Jo Gwak had returned the gold coin to me as well.
Thanks to that, I’d ended the whole thing cleanly without losing a single thing.
Not bad.
It would be better to keep my connection with Jo Gwak—and by extension Haomen—loose but intact.
If I got too deeply entangled with them, they’d become a headache.
What’s that?
As I passed through the inn corridor and reached the door to my room, something was standing in the darkness.
At first I couldn’t see clearly because the light was dim, but as I drew closer, it became obvious that it was a person.
Who is it?
There wasn’t anyone in this world waiting for me.
If there was, odds were high they held a grudge.
This is unsettling.
An uneasy feeling brushed past one corner of my chest.
“Ahem.”
Stuffing that unease into the corner of my heart, I deliberately cleared my throat at the strange figure crouched in front of the door.
Whatever it was, if I wanted to get into the room, the weirdo had to move.
“...?”
“You’ll have to step aside for me to go in.”
“Ah..., ah!”
The moment I finished speaking, the strange person hurried into motion.
But perhaps they’d been crouching for too long, because the movement was awkward, and in the end, just as they tried to rise, they toppled over with a loud thud.
“...!”
After finally getting back up, the stranger wordlessly shot me a resentful look.
Did I do something wrong?
I didn’t think I had.
All I’d done was tell them to move.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t see any reason for them to resent me.
I was perfectly in the right.
“Who are you, standing in front of someone else’s room like this?”
I asked, doing my best to keep my emotions under control.
“You... don’t recognize me?”
“Yes, this is the first time I’ve seen someone like you.”
With the face hidden behind a mask, there was no way I could recognize them.
“A mask in the middle of the night... what, did you come here to assassinate someone?”
The situation was bizarre: a masked stranger crouching outside a room in the dead of night.
It was only normal to stay on guard, but strangely, I didn’t feel even a shred of tension.
What kind of assassin is this sloppy?
What assassin dozes off in front of their target’s door and gets caught?
This wasn’t an assassin. This was an idiot. A complete idiot.
“Really?”
Just as I was lost in useless thoughts, the stranger suddenly leaned in close.
They moved so abruptly, and got so near that our noses nearly touched, so I instinctively leaned back.
“What the hell are you doing!”
“You really don’t recognize me?”
Even the voice tilted with confusion, and the way they behaved was oddly clumsy.
“How am I supposed to recognize you when you’re wearing a mask?”
“Ah.”
At my words, the stranger finally seemed to understand and tossed the mask away.
Under the dim lamplight appeared a pale face.
White hair, shining faintly.
Eyes cold as frost blossoms.
I recognized her at a glance.
Damn it.
“Yu Seollin, young lady?”
“...You recognized me.”
Yu Seollin replied in that same temperatureless voice.
Why was someone who should have been in the Murim Alliance Library here?
Yu Seollin.
The Cheongyeoljeon newbie shredder. The Heavenly Massacre Star.
And that Yu Seollin had come to see me in the middle of the night, all the way to the door of my room.
Which meant—
I’m screwed.
After careful consideration, I reached only one conclusion.
I was screwed.