Chapter 28
The words Chicken Mask kept echoing in my ears. Maybe Song Wol had sensed the change in my mood, because he waited in silence for a moment before sending me a telepathic message.
-Do you know who that person is?
“……”
My thoughts began to race.
Had the ones behind this also been responsible for putting a sword into the hands of a top-class martial artist in my previous life?
Were they the ones who had locked Song Wol inside that contraption?
Were they the ones who had wiped out his clan?
The questions wouldn’t stop coming. And at the end of them, one thought finally surfaced.
“Song Wol. If I can help you take your revenge, can you help me?”
-You expect me to help you find the murderer whom even the Murim Alliance couldn’t track down? And that after ten years have passed? How would you possibly manage that?
“It seems the men I’m chasing and the ones who destroyed the Songwon Sect are probably the same people.”
-Is that... true?
“I can’t say for certain yet.”
Song Wol didn’t answer right away. I still wasn’t sure how I ought to use him, either. But if the same people had imprisoned him in this contraption, and if that gave me a way to cross paths with them, then trying to bring Song Wol over to my side was a gamble that cost me nothing.
What was certain was this: if Song Wol was part of the plan those bastards had prepared, then the choice before me was simple. Take him, or break him.
Right now, his answer would decide whether he lived or died.
-Who are they?
“It’s hard to say exactly who they are.”
-You don’t even know who they are! How am I supposed to trust you and cooperate with you?
Song Wol didn’t hold back his fury. It poured out of him like a dam burst open. Even so, there was only one thing I could say.
“I’ll say it again: I can’t tell you exactly who they are. But what I can say for certain is that there is an existence trying to overturn the Central Plains, and the Chicken Mask who locked you in there is one of them.”
-...
“Let me ask you something instead. Why did they spare you and lock you up in there, Song Wol?”
-...
Why had they annihilated his whole family? Why had they left him alive and imprisoned him in this device? What benefit did they gain from that?
Those things mattered to me. But Song Wol’s reply was not what I expected.
-I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m trapped in here. I just... endured one day after another, so I could get out and take revenge on the bastards who killed my family.
It didn’t look like I’d get any more useful information from this conversation. There was only one thing left to decide.
Opening this door was not optional. That much was already set. What I needed to settle was something else: how much I could trust Song Wol.
“So, what’ll it be? Will you help me?”
-At this point, how could I refuse your offer? Fine. I’ll cooperate with you. But you need to promise me something as well.
“A promise?”
-If the people you’re talking about aren’t my enemies, then you’ll help me take my revenge too.
“A promise, huh...”
Making promises to one another was basic courtesy. I knew exactly what Song Wol was hung up on right now, and I knew what mattered most in his life.
“Then let’s make a promise to each other. By the honor of the Baek Clan, Baek Mugeuk swears that he will help Song Wol exact his revenge.”
-Song Wol, seventeenth head of the Songwon Sect, swears by the honor of his clan that he will aid Baek Mugeuk.
Once the promise was sealed, I no longer hesitated. Ruining the bastards’ plan started with opening this contraption.
I swiftly placed my hand against the wall and began driving my internal energy into it.
Ten percent.
Twenty.
Thirty.
This time we gave each other no signal, but at the exact same moment, we both began forcing our internal energy forward.
Forty.
Fifty.
Sixty.
I could feel the mechanism accelerating sharply. The vibration in the wall grew unmistakable, and the sound of the device moving began to quicken as well.
Seventy.
And then, the instant my internal energy reached seventy percent, I felt the contraption start to draw it away from me, just as it had before when I’d pushed it alone. But I didn’t resist that pull. No, I drove my remaining energy in even harder.
Eighty.
When I forced out eighty percent of my internal energy, pressure built in my dantian and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians heated up. Still, I could feel it. The mechanism was about to fully engage.
-It’ll be soon now. Don’t stop!
As the device approached its critical threshold, Song Wol’s excited voice rang out. No, excited wasn’t quite right. It sounded almost ecstatic.
Ninety.
The moment Song Wol’s internal energy and mine flooded in together, I heard a sharp click. At once, the wall that had been pulling in our energy stopped drawing it away.
I hadn’t expected anything especially dramatic, but the result was almost laughably plain. The wall merely shifted back a little and began sliding aside.
-You’re far younger than I expected. To have reached this level at your age...
Out of the darkness beyond the wall, his form slowly emerged.
He was gaunt and skeletal, with a sword at his waist that looked completely out of place on him. It seemed likely that was the Alliance Leader’s sword.
There was one other unusual thing about him: his eyes were milky white, as though he could no longer see at all. Yet Song Wol looked straight at me with perfect precision, as if blindness were no obstacle whatsoever.
“Since the wall’s open, you can stop with the telepathy, can’t you?”
“That’s true enough. It’s been ten years since I last spoke to anyone, so this feels strange.”
His voice sounded like metal being scraped with a file. It was grotesque for a human voice, and as he’d said, he seemed so unused to speaking with another person that even talking aloud felt awkward.
“Come in, then.”
“That’s unexpected.”
“How so?”
“I thought you’d open the mechanism and rush straight out.”
“Of course I want to. Right now, preferably. But I ought to recover the internal energy I spent first, don’t you think?”
When Song Wol finished speaking, he turned and moved into the room inside the mechanism.
I followed him in.
The room behind the wall was plain and modest.
A single desk, a few books laid on top of it, a mountain of bigu-dan stacked against the wall, and one hole drilled into the ceiling.
“This is the first time I’ve ever had anyone visit my room. I don’t have tea to serve, so sit wherever you like and circulate your energy.”
Song Wol’s mouth twitched upward. Was that a smile? It looked more unnatural than anything else, almost grotesque.
“You’ve been locked in a room like this for ten years, and you haven’t gone mad. That’s impressive.”
“Not gone mad, you say... perhaps I’m still mad right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m full to the brim with the urge to butcher my enemies this very instant.”
“I suppose so. But even if you’ve solved your meals with bigu-dan, how did you handle water?”
Song Wol reached under the desk and pulled out a jar. The water inside couldn’t exactly be called clean, but Song Wol was a martial artist, so it wasn’t enough to cause him any real harm.
“Water drips down from that hole every so often. Whenever that happened, I’d collect it in the jar and ration it out.”
“I see.”
Song Wol had been trapped in this mechanism for ten years. If water had been coming through that hole on a regular basis, that meant there had to be some reason he was supposed to survive.
What exactly was it?
“Have your questions all been answered?”
At his words, I shook my head. Song Wol shrugged, meaning I should ask anything else I wanted.
I lifted a hand and pointed at the sword at his waist.
That was the reason I’d come into this dungeon in the first place.
“What is it?”
“That sword. May I look at it for a moment?”
“The sword?”
At my words, Song Wol clutched the weapon at his waist. Like a child guarding a piece of candy.
“Have you no idea that asking a martial artist for his sword is like asking for his beloved?”
His gaze seemed to sharpen. Still, I needed to inspect that sword.
Of course, part of the reason I was here was to find it in the first place.
“Song Wol. I can’t understand why you were trapped in this mechanism. The only clue I have is that sword. That’s why I want to take a quick look. Nothing more.”
“If that’s all, then there’s no need to worry about it. I swung this sword for ten years, and it’s just an ordinary sword with no peculiarities whatsoever.”
A clear refusal from Song Wol. There was no need to force the issue right this second. It wasn’t as if I’d be unable to check it once we got out of this dungeon.
“Fine. Then I’ll begin circulating my energy.”
The moment Song Wol finished speaking, he began his own cultivation.
A martial artist beginning to circulate energy in front of someone else? That meant either he had given up on life or he trusted that person completely.
I briefly wondered whether I should circulate my own energy too, but I didn’t really have a choice.
So I sat cross-legged and began circulating my internal energy as well.
I need a plan from here on out. How should I use Song Wol, and how should I track the trail of those bastards? More than that, how do I get Song Wol out of this dungeon?
As I cultivated, I kept thinking ahead. The first one to rise was Song Wol.
He gave my shoulder a light pat, then leaned in close to my ear.
“I’ve finished circulating my energy first, so I’ll go loosen up my body a bit. I’ll be back soon.”
“You’re already done? No way.”
“So that wasn’t my imagination just now! How can you talk while circulating your energy? You look to me like a peak expert, too!”
Hearing the grating rasp of his voice rise a little made it clear Song Wol was truly shocked. Well, speaking or moving while cultivating wasn’t impossible.
But as Song Wol said, if a peak expert did it, that was practically a skill in its own right. As for me, wasn’t I the strongest in the world? Talking while circulating energy was nothing difficult.
“To think someone your age could already reach that level... are you a prodigy of the ages?”
“I’ll finish circulating my energy soon enough. Wait a moment.”
“I’ll take a look around for an escape route.”
“An escape route?”
“We need some way to get out of this dungeon, don’t we?”
Song Wol looked at me as if I were asking the most obvious thing in the world. And when I thought about it, he was right. Song Wol was already a man forgotten by the martial world. There was no need to worry about how to smuggle him out. I just had to get him free.
“I’ll be back after I look around.”
Song Wol turned and left just like that. His presence vanished almost instantly.
“An escape route aside, there’s no way he could already be finished circulating his energy...”
There was no chance cultivation had finished that quickly. Either Song Wol’s internal energy was far greater than I’d thought and he’d left room to spare, or...
“He left something behind for himself.”
Song Wol’s independent move nagged at me, but I didn’t stop cultivating. His level was higher than I’d expected, and since he had agreed to work with me, I doubted he’d do anything rash.
* * *
Guard Captain’s Office - Dungeon Command Hall
For Seo Myeonghwi, the dungeon’s chief guard, a quiet day was life’s greatest reward. That was why his personal creed had always been simple: the end of a trouble-free day.
And yet he heard a knock at the door, interrupting that peace. With a sour look, he raised his voice.
“What is it!”
“Guard. Han Mujin here. May I come in?”
“Come in.”
Guard Han Mujin was the frustrating new recruit who had been irritating Seo Myeonghwi lately.
He had no sense of flexibility. Whenever something went wrong, he reported it first instead of handling it himself. A man utterly incapable of taking care of business on his own.
The moment Seo Myeonghwi saw him, he let out a sigh.
“Well? What is it now?”
“Baek Mugeuk used force against a guard.”
“Ha... Didn’t I tell you to leave that bastard alone?”
“Who the hell is he that we’re supposed to keep enduring this? He’s a prisoner. I’m a guard, and I’m supposed to swallow this kind of treatment?”
“Are you... planning to defy my orders?”
Seo Myeonghwi’s sharp response made Han Mujin flinch, but he didn’t back down.
“Because of that bastard’s behavior, the prisoners are beginning to look down on the guards. He needs at least a small punishment.”
“Ha...”
Hearing Han Mujin’s words, another sigh slipped out of Seo Myeonghwi on its own.
The fact that Baek Mugeuk had been placed in the dungeon by order of the Alliance Leader and granted personal freedom was something he had kept secret.
Even so, why was this inflexible idiot so incapable of understanding the phrase don’t touch him?
“I’ll handle it myself, so understand that and stand down.”
“Please make sure you do!”
Han Mujin assumed Seo Myeonghwi’s answer meant he would be punished. So he clasped his hands in salute and left the room.
“How am I supposed to deal with that numbskull?”
Baek Mugeuk was a headache to Seo Myeonghwi as well. One peaceful day after another was being chipped away because of that one bastard.
“I’ll have to do something about him.”
Without meaning to, Seo Myeonghwi began pressing his temple.
Knock, knock.
At that moment, there was another knock at the door to the guard captain’s office. Seo Myeonghwi turned in exasperation.
“Didn’t I say I’d handle the punishment mysel—!”
Where he turned, Song Wol was standing there. And he was gripping Han Mujin’s severed head.
“You bastard! What the hell are you doing? What kind of lunatic attacks the Murim Alliance’s dungeon!”
“Me?”
Song Wol curled his lips into a grin. No, it couldn’t even be called a smile. There wasn’t a trace of feeling in it.
“The stain on the righteous path.”
As Song Wol flung Han Mujin’s head aside, he charged at Seo Myeonghwi.
“Aaaaargh!”
All that could be heard from the guard captain’s office was Seo Myeonghwi’s scream.
* * *
The room inside the dungeon mechanism.
I could feel my dantian packed full of internal energy. I got to my feet, then started surveying the room.
“For now, the sword seems to be the one Song Wol was carrying.”
I considered taking it from him for a moment, but if Song Wol became a true ally, it didn’t seem like there would be any problem with him using it.
What caught my eye first was the desk where the books were laid out.
“Books without titles.”
None of the volumes had titles written on them. On reflex, I opened the one lying on top.
“This is... astonishing.”
The moment I opened it, admiration escaped me. It wasn’t even about the content. What amazed me was the handwriting of the person who had left this book behind.
The strength of a martial artist who had reached the highest realm was not limited to the sword. I could feel a force lingering in the ink strokes themselves, in the calligraphy he had left behind.
“This man must have been a monster.”
“Written by Namgung Myeongwol...”
The author of this book was Namgung Myeongwol. There was only one Namgung Myeongwol I knew of.
“The first head of the Namgung Clan, and the first Alliance Leader of the Murim Alliance...”
There weren’t many records left about him. But he was a legendary martial artist. Even if his achievements had amounted to the founding of only one of those two great powers, he would still have been considered magnificent.
But he was the man who had created both and laid their foundations. Just think about it. What sort of evaluation would a man like that deserve?
“There’s no record of his martial prowess. I thought he might not have been all that extraordinary, but he was a monster.”
I turned the page. The first record described the story of founding the Namgung Clan and the Murim Alliance and building their early foundations.
Honestly, I wasn’t interested in that part, so I flipped past it quickly. What caught my attention came next.
[Mobilize the Beggars’ Sect. I erased the history that had existed before. In my heart I believe this is right, but I do not know whether it was the right thing to do.]
“Namgung Myeongwol erased history...”
I was dumbfounded. A man of that caliber had erased history? Why would someone so extraordinary have needed to do that? I turned the page to read further. No, I was about to turn it, until I heard those screams.
“Aaaaargh!”
“Save me!!!”
Under normal circumstances, I would have assumed it was just the screaming of some mad prisoner in the dungeon. But this was different. Different from the screams I’d heard until now.
They weren’t coming intermittently. They were bursting out at regular intervals, and the voices were different each time.
“What is that?”
I hurriedly tucked the book into my robe and left the mechanism. The instant I stepped back into the dungeon, a thick smell of blood spread heavily through the entire place.
The destination was obvious. I launched myself toward the source of the screams.
And at the end of that sight, there stood Song Wol, covered head to toe in blood.
“What are you doing, Song Wol!”
“What am I doing? Making an escape route.”
“An escape route?”
“If there is no one who can stop me, then what else would you call it but an escape route? And while I’m at it...”
Song Wol let the corners of his mouth rise as he turned to face me.
“I’m carrying out my revenge. What are you doing over there? Hurry up and help me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Didn’t we make a promise? That you’d help me get my revenge.”
“What the hell does this have to do with your revenge?”
Song Wol blinked as if he truly didn’t understand what the problem was.
“I told you. The righteous-path bastards invited me to the Alliance Leader’s birthday banquet, and I couldn’t protect my family. So those bastards are my enemies too.”
“You’re insane.”
“How else could anyone live without being insane?”
A flash of madness blazed in Song Wol’s white eyes, along with that cold smile of his.