Crisis at Daseogak - 3
Incomplete Dokin.
Dang Hwarin had been deceived by Dang Geoho and was fated to spend her entire life at the Seong Family Manor, swallowing poisons amid pain and contempt until she finally became a Dokin.
I rewrote that fate.
One tale about my soul partner, Young Master Hamurin, had been enough to send the Seong Family head and his entire faction skyward in tears. My perfect design—like the flap of a butterfly’s wing—had driven Hwarin out into the world, and that path had finally brought her to me.
I thought the power of the Yeokcheonja was healing her toxin…
The pain that vanished the moment we met, the skin that kept improving—I had assumed the poison accumulated inside her was simply disappearing. Apparently not.
“The forbidden tragic wish of the Dang Clan. A complete Dokin. This child’s body is being forged into a vessel that can become one.”
So my totem-type ability wasn’t a healing totem at all. It was a level-up totem.
“Every research document related to Dokin was supposed to have been burned twenty years ago during the great purge. How on earth… Child, can you tell me exactly how Dang Geoho tried to turn you into a Dokin?”
When Uigakju showed her kindness, Hwarin recounted everything she had endured.
“Heh. He used a method that was theoretically perfect yet proven impossible in practice. Then again, with only the scorched scraps of research left, that was probably the best he could do. Extraordinary. Simply surviving should have been a miracle, yet after she escaped and entered a period of rest, her body is transforming into a perfect vessel. The power of bloodline, I suppose… Child. Have you recently found it difficult to control your impulses?”
“What?”
Hwarin looked puzzled by the question.
“The previous Dokin, the Color Demon, was physically perfect. His mind, however, was not. He lost all control over his impulses. Unable to rein in his rage, he would scatter killing powder at the slightest displeasure.”
Uigakju tapped his temple with two fingers and regarded Hwarin with open suspicion.
“I don’t do that when I’m mad.”
Her tone turned blunt, clearly annoyed at the suggestion that her head was broken.
True. Even when I joked about her gaining weight, the worst she did was pout all day.
“Then what about lust? From the looks of it you two share a room. Has she ever forced herself on you simply because she fancied you?”
Apparently deciding such questions were better put to the victim, Uigakju turned the inquiry on me.
“We use separate beds.”
I shook my head without hesitation.
This old man is terrifying. How did he leap straight to scenarios like “I said no but Hwarin did it again! Again!” or “Shut up, Yunho, just get it up already!” and reverse cowgirl pregnancy play? As if any of that would ever happen.
“Hmm. Perhaps an outsider simply lacks the charm to stir her.”
“Like hell! Do you know how decent a g—guy he is?”
Hwarin. If you’re going to deny something loudly, at least affirm the good part at the same volume. Now all I can hear is my old friends trailing off with “Yunho’s a really decent guy, but…” while staring at my face with pity.
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“Ugh!”
The moment I thanked her, Hwarin whipped her head away.
“If she felt no lust at all, that still would not answer the question.”
“A l-little… no, I—shit! Seriously! Uuuugh. Why do I have to say this kind of thing?!”
After shouting at Uigakju out of sheer embarrassment, Hwarin shot me a sidelong glance. I gently averted my eyes and kept a carefully neutral expression so her shame wouldn’t deepen.
It’s fine, Hwarin. Two people sharing a room and feeling nothing? Impossible.
No need to be embarrassed.
For a second I considered mentioning that my own chest sometimes sways whenever I watch her bounce, but if a guy like me said that it wouldn’t be a joke—it would be sexual harassment. So I stayed quiet.
“Then it truly must be the power of bloodline…”
Uigakju stroked his beard and gazed into the empty air, lost in thought.
“Hey. Yunho.”
Hwarin whispered my name and jerked her chin toward Uigakju. She wanted me to bring up the Dokin friend story.
No. If I did that, he’d start verifying whether the friend actually existed and testing the fake medicine’s ingredients. I hardened my expression and shot her a look of refusal only she would catch.
She looked puzzled for a moment, then seemed to decide I had some scheme and accepted it.
“Child.”
Uigakju called her with a gentle gaze. He had already reached his own conclusion without further explanation. That meant he had made up his mind.
“Yes?”
“Come with me to the Sichuan Dang Clan.”
So the proposal finally arrives.
The moment I claimed I wrote Dangga Pungun because of Dang Geoho, this invitation became unavoidable.
“If you come, we can punish Dang Geoho and his faction. And once you are under the clan’s care, I will make your skin flawless again and free you from the torment of the poison forever.”
An attractive offer. Dang Geoho would never abandon a Hwarin who was becoming a complete Dokin. The moment he learned where she was, he would come for her.
I could treat her poison, but I could not stop Dang Geoho. The Sichuan Dang Clan could.
Under their protection she would be safe, and Dang Geoho could finally be punished.
In a situation where I had no real plan, this was a rope dropped from heaven. But the offer had a fatal flaw.
“Do you intend to turn Hwarin into a complete Dokin?”
The proposal was tempting. Yet if the Sichuan Dang Clan tried to finish her as a Dokin, only the process would change—the result would be the same.
I did not want to see that.
“Heh. I have no such intention. A complete Dokin? That is the delusion of madmen chasing empty dreams of becoming the greatest under heaven.”
Uigakju shook his head firmly.
“And I’m just supposed to believe that?”
Hwarin’s voice turned sharp with lingering distrust.
“How dare you speak so rudely to Lord Uigakju!”
I jumped. The Vice Pavilion Master, who had been standing like a silent shadow beside Uigakju the entire time, suddenly barked. I had taken him for one of those NPCs who only answer with ellipses no matter what you say. Apparently not.
“Enough. Be still. Child. What exactly do you doubt?”
Uigakju raised a hand to silence his subordinate and asked Hwarin in a warm voice.
“You said I’m becoming a vessel that can become a complete Dokin. How do I know you won’t change your mind the second we reach the Sichuan Dang Clan?”
Her suspicion was reasonable. The clan’s forbidden tragic wish. Someone this close to becoming a Dokin—why would they ever let her go? I joined her in staring at Uigakju with open distrust.
“A gentleman walks the great road. Why would an orthodox sect commit something so shameful? Twenty years ago the Color Demon was nearly a complete Dokin. Solve the mental problem and the clan’s tragic wish would have been within reach. Yet both the previous Clan Leader and the current one ruthlessly hunted down everyone who created Dokins, punished them, and burned every last document.”
Impressive. I knew the Sichuan Dang Clan had banned Dokin experiments, but I never imagined they were this absolute.
I once knew a friend studying for the civil service exams who slammed his head into the wall for three more years just because he was a few points short of passing. These people burned the research even after they had nearly achieved a complete Dokin?
“So you’re really going to punish that bastard Dang Geoho and heal me?”
Hwarin asked again, half believing, half not.
“Child. I understand the hatred you hold toward the Sichuan Dang Clan. But as one who carries Dang blood, I believe you know our clan’s motto.”
“The Sichuan Dang Clan never forgets.”
The words left Hwarin’s lips unbidden.
“Exactly. The Sichuan Dang Clan never forgets. We did not simply try to bury our sins. We sought out the victims and tried to embrace the children born from those atrocities, even if they were the most distant branch blood—bastards of bastards.”
“For people who claimed that, you sure never paid any attention.”
“The Sichuan Dang Clan trusted its direct descendant, Dang Geoho. He repaid that trust with the greatest betrayal. And because of him you suffered so terribly that no comfort I offer will ever feel enough. Yet I swear this much: I will punish Dang Geoho, and I will give you a normal life. So please… give the clan a chance to right its wrongs.”
“Lord Uigakju!”
Ignoring the Vice Pavilion Master’s startled cry, Uigakju bowed his head deeply and formally to Dang Hwarin.
This is what an orthodox sect looks like? Then what the hell have I been looking at all this time?
The Sichuan Dang Clan does accept outsiders, but its key positions are held by blood relatives. Uigakju calling her “child” meant he was close to the direct line. For a clan elder to bow his head and apologize to Hwarin—someone so distant she could barely be called a branch member, a bastard of a bastard—was astonishing.
After watching nothing but fakes shouting “orthodox” at the top of their lungs, seeing the real thing felt strangely new.
“Yunho…”
Hwarin looked up at me, torn. What was the right choice? In truth the answer was already clear.
If Uigakju had simply coveted her body, he would have dragged her away by force. Warriors capable of doing exactly that were waiting on the first and second floors. He had started aggressively, yet he had listened to our entire story. He possessed both justification and power, yet he still bowed his head and asked her for a chance.
“Let’s go together. We’ll punish that bastard Dang Geoho, get you treated, and come back.”
If pulling one rotten tooth can solve the problem, you do it immediately.
“Y-you’re coming with me?”
She looked up at me anxiously.
“What, were you planning to go alone? Abandoning your friend to go sightseeing in Sichuan? I’m disappointed. Seriously.”
I copied her speech style and put on an exaggerated look of shock.
“What are you talking about? Of course not! …Heh. Fine. Let’s go together.”
My quick answer seemed to lift her spirits; she nodded.
If we dealt with Dang Geoho alone, running Daseogak would no longer face any major obstacles.
This time let’s solve every problem and change the genre of my life. It’ll probably be so boring the series gets cancelled within three chapters, but there are plenty of genres where every character ends up happy.
“However, there is one problem.”
With a single sentence Uigakju dumped a bucket of cold water over the title I had been imagining: Black-Haired Scribbler of Another World ~ Archery Skills of a Divine Marksman, Sword Skills of a Sword God, Yet I Raise a Hawk at an Otherworld Bookstore and Enjoy a Slow Life ~.
“What problem do you mean?”
“Once word of Dangga Pungun reaches the Sichuan Dang Clan, they will not easily overlook the author—this child, Dang Hwarin.”
Uigakju briefly lifted the manuscript of volume three of Dangga Pungun from the desk and spoke to me.
“Even if we say it was written to survive?”
“Even if it was a measure of self-preservation, the sin of writing the clan’s secret history cannot be completely washed away. There will certainly be old monsters inside the clan, or those who still drool over the idea of a Dokin, who will use it as an excuse to never leave this child alone.”
“Couldn’t you simply keep silent about the author, Lord Uigakju?”
“If the Sichuan Dang Clan truly decides to investigate, discovering Daseogak, Hopil, and this child will only be a matter of time.”
“Then wouldn’t it be better if Hwarin simply never goes to the clan?”
“If discovery is inevitable, it is better that I take her myself and protect her thoroughly. And if you help me, I can ensure that no one ever turns this child into a Dokin.”
“What kind of help do you need?”
If it would restore Hwarin to normal, I would give any help he asked.
“What this child just did—you will do it instead.”
“What do you mean by—ugh!”
Uigakju closed the distance in an instant, seized my wrist in a crushing grip, and lifted it. Looking straight into my eyes with the gaze of a man who already knew everything, he spoke.
“Hopil. This time, you will take every last sin upon yourself.”