Half - 2
Before I headed north. Before I finished the disaster I'd left unfinished. Before I untied the knot with my own hands—there was one last place I had to go.
Unfortunately, walking there on my own feet meant being stopped every three steps, so I asked the Demon Duke for a teleport. I felt bad using her when she was already so gloomy about me going to war, but it was a place I had to visit. There was no helping it.
"Awkward seeing each other again so soon."
And so I arrived in front of their gravestones. Somehow, whenever something broke open, the road always wound its way back here. Partly because I still had no one I could call a friend besides them—and partly because anything involving the north meant I couldn't leave without seeing these bastards first.
"I can't stay long. My future wives are waiting outside."
Whether she read the gravity on my face, or simply decided it wasn't yet time to greet Hecate, the Demon Duke chose to wait outside. I only felt guiltier for troubling her over something so purely personal.
Anyway, I sank down in front of the stones and let out a breath. No liquor, and people waiting—so I'd say what I came to say and leave. I didn't much want to linger anyway.
"That bastard Dorgon crawled back out after all. Honestly, I was hoping he'd die somewhere out in the sticks—pretty shameless of me to wish that, I guess."
A dry laugh escaped me. Two years of war, then three more years of pursuit after the armistice, and Dorgon was still alive. I had to admire the sheer stubbornness of his lifespan. At the same time, I was appalled at my own conscience for hoping a monster like that would just drop dead on his own.
Every one of the Eight Steeds had been a monster, but that bastard stood alone. Not because his raw power was overwhelming—it was his survival instinct and the way he worked his head that were pure art. No wonder the Imperial Army, which had cut down every other Steed, never managed to finish him off until the very end. On top of that, he commanded the Keshik, Kagan's personal guard, which made him even harder to catch. Like a Demon King who always traveled with his Four Heavenly Kings.
"Still, it's not the worst-case scenario. We crushed the anti-Imperial tribes thoroughly in the last war, so the force he's gathering now has some real cracks in it."
I didn't bother mentioning that the Empire had its own cracks these days. These guys deserved to hear only the good parts. I didn't want to dump anything dark on them.
"And I've decided to join the war myself. That means killing Dorgon shouldn't be too hard."
My bad blood with Dorgon ran deep. More precisely, I clashed with Dorgon and Tala with bizarre frequency, and with Dorgon especially I fought and fought and fought right up to the end of the war. We tore into each other that hard, and yet both of us were still breathing. I might not have been able to kill him—but he didn't have the skill to kill me either.
This time, though, I was sure it would be different. Dorgon no longer had Kagan or the Eight Steeds behind him. I had the Mukgwangdae I'd rebuilt with my own hands, an Imperial Army clawing its way back to strength, and the elite forces the Emperor would pour north once he declared the conquest of the north. My backing was simply better.
So I could kill him. I could finally end that long, grinding feud.
"Once I kill that bastard… then I'll have the right, won't I."
I shut my mouth after that.
Yes. The right. Once I resolved the reason I'd been dragged into this world, I would finally be able to call myself a resident of it without flinching.
That's what I came for, after all.
In the usual possession novel, the possessed person has a reason for being there. A final purpose they have to fulfill—whether it's stopping the world's destruction, keeping the cast from dying, securing a better ending, or simply winning peace. There is no possession without a reason, and no life without a purpose.
But I didn't know this world well. I'd abandoned the original mid-read and never looked back. So I never knew why I'd come here, or what I was supposed to do. I just focused on the lucky break of an orphan becoming a noble and told myself I'd enjoy the ride.
Then things twisted and twisted until I was thrown into a war, and meeting all of you made me think differently.
Kill Kagan. End the war. Protect the peace. Keep you alive. Maybe that was why I'd come to this world—
No matter how I turned it over, that was all there was.
Kagan, with that insane martial power, sitting in a Demon-King-shaped role for anyone with eyes. If a possessed outsider like me ended up facing a monster like that, wasn't it only right to call it the will of the world? And the people I met along the way—you, the first bonds I'd made after possession—keeping you alive to the end and standing with you, that had to be the goal, didn't it?
But I failed. I killed Kagan and ended the war, and you still died. The peace we'd clawed out stalled as a half-baked counterfeit the moment Dorgon fled.
From then on, that was how I thought of myself. A man who never fulfilled the purpose of his possession. An invasive species with no right to settle in this world. A worm who stole someone else's body and failed anyway.
Of course other people called me a hero. Said I'd achieved a feat without equal. What did that matter? When I myself—the one who failed to save you, the one who couldn't even die with you—looked at myself and saw a worm.
Half.
No word fit me better. I'd won a half-peace, so I was half myself. The half who stole family from his parents and younger siblings. The half who called you friends and couldn't protect you. The half who couldn't even give comfort to the first woman he ever loved.
A foreigner who rolled in from another world, who had the nerve to show up and still failed his purpose—how could someone like that ever claim to be whole?
A half that could never stand next to you.
The environment of nobility. The sturdy body of a prestigious martial house. The recovery rate so absurd it might as well have been a possession perk. Even with all of that, I fell short. Unlike me—who just wanted to coast as a possessed noble, without purpose or dream—you shone.
Common-born. Uneducated. Ordinary humans who felt pain when you were hurt—and still you carried your missions forward. For family. For faith. For conviction. For peace. Unlike a man like me, who only dreamed of a soft landing and got dragged into war, you were magnificent.
Truthfully, at first I was jealous. I was the possessed one. I should have been the protagonist. So why did I fail to shine while you did? When I was made chief team leader, I was genuinely happy. It felt like proof I was better than you. Looking back, it was such a childish feeling.
You're the Six Swords.
I looked at the six gravestones standing side by side and laughed again. The Six Swords—the six blades that defended the Empire. A name that fit you perfectly. I had neither the face nor the right to stand in that glory. Too noble a name for a half-measure who stumbled around without a single conviction and accomplished nothing in the end.
That was why I refused the name of Seventh Sword. I wasn't the kind of man who deserved it.
Because I monopolized every honor that should have been yours, just for the crime of failing to die with you.
Or maybe because I believed that you—who might have lived in the original story—died because of the impurity, the variable, that was me.
"A criminal, more like."
Bitter, but that was the truth. I was nothing more than a sinner with no right to stand beside you. If I'd wanted to stand with you, I should have died back then.
With that in my chest, I gently brushed the stones. Gerard. Oliver. Drake. Walter. Idrid. Hecate. The friends I should have saved. My lover.
"…Still. Even as a criminal, I wanted to live."
I muttered it with just the corner of my mouth lifting. I had accomplished nothing. In this world I was still an impurity, an invasive species—and even so, I wanted to keep living. I failed to die with you, and I lived on anyway.
Maybe that was why I ended up with six lovers. People who proved I had a right to exist in this world—bonds I built again after losing you, not the ones this body had accumulated before.
So maybe I made those lovers because I wanted the comfort of belonging here. Because I wanted to feel that even someone who had lost everything could still be loved.
"Though I stopped right there."
I'd taken their hands because I wanted to be recognized as one of this world's people—and then I was terrified of going any further. The moment I tried, something deep inside whispered: Do you really have the right to form deep bonds with the people of this world?
I was afraid. Trauma, maybe. Even I didn't know why I was like this.
I shouldn't be.
Someone like me, who couldn't even offer proper affection to the people who had confessed to him. How rude was that?
I took my lovers' hands because I wanted to become a resident of this world, then refused to go further because I wasn't one. There wasn't a bigger fool than that.
"Time to change."
I exhaled a small breath and turned away. It was time to untie this wretched knot.
I would kill Dorgon and bring true peace. I would fulfill the reason I came to this world—and even though I failed to protect you, I would achieve with my own hands the peace you wanted. Then maybe I could throw off the chains I'd bound around myself. Live as a proper resident of this world, not an impurity, not an invasive species.
Not half—but whole.
Before returning to the Academy, I stopped by the mansion one last time.
Been a while.
More precisely, I went to the warehouse on the grounds. Inside slept a beloved weapon I'd left sealed away for three years. Calling it a "beloved weapon" made it sound grander than it was—but it was the one I'd used the longest, the one that fit my hand best. Put that way, yes. A beloved weapon.
I reached for the sword laid beside their gear. An expeditionary force didn't form in a day, so until the Imperial Palace issued more concrete orders, I would still be stationed at the Academy as usual.
And though it was unlikely, if that posting stretched on, the resolve I'd just forged might start to blur.
Better take it with me now.
So I took the sword in hand for the first time in a long while. Not some plain wooden practice blade or spare—the sword that had been with me in the north.
Almost without thinking, I drew it from the scabbard. The red blade almost seemed to symbolize the blood spilled in the north…
?
What the hell.
Why is this red.
Rust? No—that couldn't be.
Huh? What?
And in that moment, a familiar voice rang through my head.
Huh? Wait—what is this? There was something like this?
A woman's voice, thoroughly bewildered.
Eternal Blue Sky?
Why are you popping out again.