Chapter 213
Chapter 213
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 213
Chapter Title: Holding Hands
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Following Hong, we went to where the Wudang Daoist was lying down, and the situation was a total mess.
“…Master. Please calm down. This is the Heavenly Fragrance House, a pleasure house in Gyunhyeon. You’ve already come down from the mountain.”
“D-Damn you! You wicked demon…! How dare you try to seduce a disciple of Wudang!”
Pale-faced and drenched in cold sweat, the Daoist was swaying as if he might collapse at any moment, yet he wildly swung the sword he had drawn.
Standing before him, Cheong held out both her palms to try to soothe the Daoist, but there was no way her voice could reach his ears in his highly agitated state.
It seemed to be having the opposite effect instead.
I asked Hong what had happened.
“…What’s going on here?”
“Well, Master regained consciousness earlier, but he immediately let out a scream and started thrashing about.”
Even as I listened to Hong’s brief explanation, the Wudang Daoist was shouting incomprehensible nonsense and swinging his sword wildly.
“Senior Brother Hyeonun…? Where are my junior brothers! Where did you send my senior and junior brothers?!”
…This won’t do. He’s completely lost his reason.
I decided I had to subdue him by force and stepped forward.
“Step back.”
“…Yes.”
At my instruction, Cheong retreated without a word, leaving me facing off against the Wudang Daoist.
“W-Who are you? Bring my senior and junior brothers here! Senior Brother Hyeonun! Junior Brother Hyeonseong! Where are you?!”
As I took a step toward him ceaselessly calling for his brothers, he raised his sword warily.
“D-Don’t come closer!”
But the sword trembled in his grip, lacking any real strength.
He wouldn’t be able to swing it properly like that.
Confirming his weakness, I approached without hesitation, and he swung at me in a frenzy.
“Uwaaaah—!”
I easily dodged the sword, which lacked any real power, and closed in to strike his pressure point.
-Thud!
The Daoist flipped his eyes back and collapsed.
I quickly caught him so his head wouldn’t hit the floor and laid him on the bed.
“Wow…! How did you do that just now? It didn’t look like any spell or incantation.”
As I straightened up, Hong asked in a shrill voice, her eyes wide.
Cheong and Ye So-ha looked equally stunned, even if they didn’t say it outright.
“Well, you could call it my secret technique.”
I brushed it off vaguely and glanced at the now-sleeping Wudang Daoist before asking Ye So-ha.
“Looks like he suffered some severe mental shock. You can’t use any spells to recover something like that?”
“Uh…. Th-That’s….”
“Guess not.”
“…I told you, I’m no good at this stuff.”
Ye So-ha mumbled dejectedly.
Just in case, I looked at Cheong and Hong, but they both shook their heads.
Their lame excuse followed.
“We do have a specialist for that, but she’s away on another job far off right now.”
“So basically, no way to do it now.”
I shrugged and looked down at the soundly sleeping Daoist.
“He’ll sleep soundly until morning like this, so let’s think it over then.”
There was plenty I needed to ask this Daoist.
What had happened inside Mount Wudang.
And why he was looking for his senior and junior brothers again.
“…What if he wakes up in the morning and starts thrashing again?”
“Then I’ll give him a beating and interrogate him.”
My casual response to Hong’s question drew bewildered stares from all three pairs of eyes.
Looks asking if that was for real.
“Well, no other options, right?”
“…You’re more brutal than you look.”
Shrugging at Ye So-ha’s words, I left the room first.
*
Back at the annex, the sky had already fully darkened, with only moonlight illuminating the world.
And right on cue, Hwaryeon was out in the courtyard gazing up at the moon.
“Hwaryeon.”
“Ah…! Y-You’re back?”
She startled at my call, stammering her words.
Fortunately, she didn’t run off like before.
I stepped up beside her and looked up at the moon in the night sky when a cautious question came.
“…What happened?”
“Hm? Oh, the Wudang Daoist Hong rescued was causing a ruckus.”
I explained what had just happened, and she quickly grew serious, deep in thought.
“Looking for his senior brothers…. Could they have gotten separated while climbing Mount Wudang? If what that maid Hong said earlier is true, they might still be stranded in the middle of the mountain….”
I gently took the hand of Hwaryeon, who was furrowing her brow and mumbling gravely.
“Ah…?”
With a small gasp, her attention snapped back to reality—to me.
“No point speculating until we hear it from the Daoist himself, so how about we talk about something else?”
“Something else… Ah!”
As if recalling something, her face flushed bright red, and she turned away from me.
I subtly shifted to stand right in front of her, looking down at her profile.
After a while, she sneakily glanced at me before turning back.
Facing her warmly flushed cheeks, I asked carefully.
“You okay?”
“Yes? Okay…? With what?”
Her voice was thick with fluster.
Clearly not the question she’d expected.
“No, I mean about your father… the former lord. Figured it must’ve been a shock.”
“…Ah.”
Only after my explanation did understanding dawn on her, and she let out a soft sound before smiling lightly.
“I’m fine.”
“…Really?”
“Yes, really. Of course it’d be a lie to say I’m not angry, but I won’t lose my reason to rage.”
“O-Oh.”
She giggled at my gaping expression.
“What’s with that face? What kind of answer were you expecting?”
“W-Well, I figured you’d at least say something like you’d get revenge, even if not killing them all.”
At my hesitant words, Hwaryeon nodded.
“Of course I want revenge. But I’m not about to throw my life away for it. Not even for my father, who worried about me until the end.”
And besides, she added.
“Our journey was never really about revenge to begin with. It was to stop the rampaging Paecheonseong under Judo-han’s command.”
In other words, our fight wasn’t for personal vengeance, but to stand against injustice.
“So revenge is just a side issue.”
“Wow….”
I was inwardly impressed by Hwaryeon’s composed response.
It was fundamentally different from Hyeok Ri-gwang’s cold rationality I’d seen before.
Hyeok Ri-gwang’s was a decision based purely on calculated gains and losses, devoid of personal emotion.
Hwaryeon’s was one that fully acknowledged her own feelings, reflected on them, and then decided.
Which was greater went without saying.
Sensing my admiration, Hwaryeon smiled a bit shyly and said.
“I thought about it long and hard, over and over. Thanks to a certain someone’s words.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“…….”
Suddenly, the air grew chilly.
No, precisely, Hwaryeon’s gaze turned icy.
The warmth I’d felt just a breath ago vanished like a snuffed candle, making me flinch involuntarily.
W-What?
“W-Why?”
“Nothing? It’s nothing.”
…Doesn’t look like nothing?
With her clearly sulky expression, I found myself glancing nervously and opening and closing my mouth wordlessly when she abruptly turned away.
“I’m heading in. Good night.”
She said good night, but her frosty retreating figure warned me to puzzle over what was wrong all night.
Hwaryeon strode into her room.
“…Tch, forgetting that.”
Her small, grumpy mutter lingered in my ears before fading.
“…What?”
Meanwhile, my voice, left alone in the annex courtyard, scattered emptily into the void.
*
“Come in… What’s with your face? Didn’t sleep?”
The next morning.
When I went to the room with the Wudang Daoist, Ye So-ha was already there.
She paused upon seeing my face and bluntly asked that.
“…That obvious?”
“Yeah. You look like you’re carrying the world’s worries on your shoulders.”
“…….”
I shut my mouth at Ye So-ha’s reply.
Last night, I hadn’t slept a wink thinking about Hwaryeon, who had suddenly gotten upset and shut herself in her room.
From her small grumble, it seemed the one who’d said those words was me.
…When did I?
Where, how, what had I said?
I’d racked my brains all night, but nothing came to mind.
In the end, I’d fled here without an answer even as the morning sun brightly lit the room.
“I don’t know what happened, but right now, hearing what this master has to say comes first. You know that, right?”
“I do. I’m not so bad at prioritizing that I’d mix things up.”
I shook my head to clear the thoughts filling it.
As Ye So-ha said, hearing the Daoist’s story was the priority now.
“U-Ugh….”
Right then, the Wudang Daoist’s eyelids fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes.
He took in the room, spotted us, and his eyes widened.
“Y-You bastards—!”
He shot to his feet, scanning around, then made a dismayed face upon seeing his sword in Cheong’s hands.
Unlike last night, his posture wasn’t swaying, so a good night’s sleep had restored some vitality.
“You wicked demons—!”
But mentally, he still seemed out of it.
With a small sigh, I stepped forward.