So What If He Dies
"So what if he dies."
The road back to the Academy looked far too peaceful.
Perfect weather for a date.
The hills were green, the birds were singing, and flowers bloomed in bright clusters along the way. It was exactly the sort of day one meant by wishing every day could be like this—and it would not have fallen short of the wish.
The disciples' faces, however, were not merely clouded. They carried the dark, heavy look of a sky about to break into a storm.
The cause of it was the caravan master, unconscious, his collar bunched in Cheon Hwi's fist as he was dragged along the road.
If it weren't for that damned birdbrain, I'd be asking Master on a date!
If not for him, they might at least have tried coaxing their master out for one. As it stood, the situation was simply too wretched.
The escort target assigned by the Academy had colluded with the Demon King.
Leave a man like that alone, and ask Cheon Hwi on a date?
Absurd.
Cheon Hwi did not merely dislike the word demon. He loathed it, to the point of revulsion. When he had first been born into this world, he had gone into a fit the moment he heard the demon in magic.
Then suppose Cheon Hwi said it was fine. Would they ask him then?
Easy to say. How am I supposed to get those words out?
Even if, by some miracle, Cheon Hwi allowed it, the disciples would never accept it. He bore a deep hostility toward demons, and they were no different.
It was the Heavenly Demon who had left their master with the guilt of losing them. It was the Heavenly Demon who had erased the future they were meant to share with him. It was the Heavenly Demon who had thrown a peaceful age into chaos. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that every misfortune had begun with him.
And in the midst of that, forgive a man in league with demons and ask for a date? Whoever spoke such words would become a public enemy to Cheon Hwi and his disciples alike. No one would find it strange if they died for it.
While the disciples wrestled with all of this, Cheon Hwi walked with the unhurried ease of an old man strolling his own neighborhood. He held the caravan master in one hand and had even slowed his pace so the others could follow, and still he looked unbelievably at peace.
On the right, Hyeon kept close, Cecilia gathered carefully in her arms. On the left, Seol moved sometimes alongside and sometimes across, cutting through the wind.
"Are you all right?"
Hyeon asked it while holding her speed steady, mindful of the girl in her arms.
"Ah? Yes... I'm fine."
At Hyeon's voice Cecilia hesitated, then shook her head.
It was a lie.
Cecilia was uncomfortable.
Her posture? No. The posture was comfortable. It was warm, and it was soft. The trouble was that the strength in Hyeon's arms kept subtly tightening, then easing, then tightening again.
If the hold loosened for fear of dropping her and tightened for fear of hurting her, that would have made sense.
Anyone could see that wasn't what this was.
It felt far more like wariness toward a rival. When the arms tightened, a jealous look seemed to say, A date with Master... When they loosened, a conflicted one seemed to answer, Still, she's a friend. A good person.
Cecilia lamented how she had come to be treated this way, then quickly understood that nothing would change and decided to resign herself.
Cheon Hwi is only a close friend. It won't be long before they have any reason to be jealous of me.
Thinking any further would only make her head ache, so she chose to let it rest.
Just then Hyeon matched her steps at Cheong's immediate right, and Seol at the left, each of them falling into pace.
Cheon Hwi, too dull to read his disciples' hearts, tightened his grip on the caravan master's collar and turned the matter over.
No need to question him any further.
Thinking back, the man hadn't even seemed to know there was a Gu Poison in his own body. He had colluded with demons, yes, but if one split hairs, he was closer to someone who had been used. A merchant's trade was the pursuit of profit. For money, a merchant would break the law readily enough, so long as he wasn't caught. He had already confessed under questioning that he had done it for coin. Press him further, and nothing new would come of it.
We already have everything worth knowing. Hand him to the Academy, and they'll take it from there.
His mind was already full of arriving and turning the man over. He had no notion of the looks on his disciples' faces behind him, nor of the uneasy breath Cecilia was swallowing.
"Shall I carry him?"
Just as his thoughts crowded out everything else, Seol reached a hand toward him.
"No. I won't have a disciple's hands on something filthy."
"I'm the senior. You're the junior."
Wow. Has the acting always been this good?
Lying without so much as a change of expression. It was nearly admirable.
Wouldn't it all be over the moment Seol admitted she had her memories back?
Then it would feel like I lost!
The instant Seol said she remembered, she would have to concede that she had been wrong and Seol had been right. As if she would ever do something that humiliating.
While Hyeon hung there, unable to go one way or the other—
"...Even so. I still can't let you carry him."
Cheon Hwi said it gently.
On any other day it would have sounded like simple kindness. Just now, that kindness was unwelcome.
I wanted to deal with that filthy thing myself...
The line rose in Seol's chest and never made it past her lips. They went on toward the Academy.
When the Academy was nearly in reach, Cheon Hwi set his fingers to the caravan master's pulse. Confirming that the man still had not come around, he nodded, satisfied.
"It'll be weeks yet before he wakes. Turn him over to the Academy now, and they'll see to the rest."
Hyeon and Seol shared a peculiar look.
Should we steal him?
No. Steal him, and we stop being obedient disciples. I'm out.
Since when have you been the faithful little disciple...
Seol's eyes answered that this was nonsense.
"A head is for using! Not for cracking open!"
"Aaaah! You can't! There are royals in there!"
"He went to the pleasure house again?"
Ahem.
The past was only the past. Their great master had said so himself: the past is the residue of things already gone, and what matters is to grow from it.
In other words, the past was past. If they became obedient, ideal disciples starting now, wouldn't everything resolve itself?
"What. Why. And what do you know about Master? For crying out loud."
They had drawn close enough that the Academy's high white walls showed in the distance. Armed guards on patrol, and over it all the protective veil of the magical boundary the faculty maintained—a familiar sight.
Still gripping the caravan master by the collar, Cheon Hwi stopped before the gates.
"Hyeon. Set her down now. Cecilia looks uncomfortable, doesn't she?"
Hyeon nodded, very gently.
"Yes, Master."
Was it only her imagination that Hyeon's fingers tightened for no reason as they loosened from Cecilia's waist? Cecilia gave a small shiver, as if the nape of her neck had been tickled.
This is definitely just my imagination... isn't it?
She soothed herself with the certainty that the disciples would never do such a thing.
"What are you going to do with him?"
Seol asked it with a perfectly ordinary face. It was difficult to believe she had just crossed several kilometers on Lightness Skill. She asked only in case the answer might have changed. He had insisted, after all, on handling the man himself.
"We've already taken every scrap of information he had. Even so, we can hardly turn loose a man who colluded with demons. He ought to be handed over to the Academy, shouldn't he?"
The answer had not changed. Cheon Hwi set the limp, unconscious caravan master down on the ground, lightly, almost tossing him. At the dull thud, Cecilia's brow tightened.
"Cheon Hwi... aren't you handling him rather roughly? What if he dies?"
He answered as if it were nothing, took hold of the caravan master again, and went in through the gates.
"Swordsmanship Faculty, I see. There's still time before the practical exam, isn't there?"
"We caught someone who colluded with demons— no. Someone connected to the Demon King."
"The Demon King? Did you just say the Demon King?"
He had held out a measure of hope. This was, after all, the highest academy there was. Surely they would not fail to judge an escort target properly. But that reaction said they truly hadn't known.
And this is supposed to be the finest academy in the world...
"Wait here. I'll fetch a professor— no. The Headmaster."
It was not long before the Headmaster arrived.
"Well. I hear you've caught someone tied to the Demon King. Not a lie, I trust?"
"Wouldn't you know, if you questioned him?"
"Fair enough. Thank you, for now. If it checks out, there'll be a reward."
With that the Headmaster took the caravan master and left, without even waiting for an answer.
Young. No matter how many times I look.
He looked as though he had yet to see twenty, let alone thirty. And still those eyes held a profound, discerning light.
Strong, too.
Measured against his previous life, the man stood roughly equal to the abbot of Shaolin. Among everyone Cheon Hwi had seen, he might well be the strongest in this Academy—no, in this world.
I'll have to grow stronger.
He could not even be certain of defeating the Headmaster. How, then, was he to take the Heavenly Demon?
While Cheon Hwi watched the man go, the hunger to grow stronger burning in him, Hyeon came up beside him.
"Master."
"What is it?"
"May I use my wish token now?"
A wish token, out of nowhere. The words caught him faintly off guard. Had something she wanted appeared after she regained her memories?
The disciples of my past life rarely ever made a normal wish...
It was not for nothing that worry always came first when he granted one. Yes. He had worried over the others as well, and hadn't they wished for nothing but ordinary things? It would be the same this time.
"It's your wish token. Of course you may use it. What do you want?"
Cheon Hwi found himself thinking that his disciples recovering their memories was not necessarily a good thing.