The Freedom of Judgment

Namgung Cheon strode into the council hall without asking anyone's leave.

His footsteps were not loud, yet somehow they drowned out every other sound in the chamber.

He stopped at the far end of the elders' seating, at the empty place that belonged to him, and offered a respectful bow toward Jegal Hwa, seated in the place of honor.

"I greet the Acting Head of the Clan."

The moment he raised his head, the Seventh Elder, Namgung Do, spoke as though he had been waiting for exactly this.

"Ahem. Third Young Master, why do you arrive only now? The meeting began a long while ago."

It was a naked attempt to seize the initiative.

But Namgung Cheon showed not a trace of fluster, and answered in an even voice.

"I was never summoned."

"……"

A flicker of bewilderment crossed Namgung Do's face.

Namgung Cheon slowly swept his gaze across the assembly and repeated the question.

"Is there ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠anyone here who summoned me to this meeting? Perhaps a message I failed to receive?"

A heavy silence settled over the hall.

Several elders went rigid, as though the cowardly scheme beneath their composure had been skewered to its core.

Having confirmed their silence, Namgung Cheon looked the Seventh Elder dead in the eye and pressed on.

"If no one summoned me, I wonder how you can stand there so brazenly and call me late."

"……"

Namgung Do's face flushed crimson with fury and humiliation.

Jegal Hwa, on the other hand, let a vivid smile bloom across her red lips.

She broke the silence herself.

"Enough. The Seventh Elder misspoke. You are right—we did not call you, so you are not late. Sit."

Once the Acting Head herself had settled the matter, Namgung Do could say nothing more, his lips merely trembling.

From the very first moment, he had lost face in spectacular fashion.

Namgung Cheon took his seat with deliberate ease.

Under his unshakable bearing, the air in the hall shifted, becoming something entirely different from before.

His gaze passed over the elders once more.

In his past life, he would have had every one of their heads.

And yet, laughably, even reborn in this Namgung body, they still looked at him as one regards an enemy.

'Trash that can do nothing but wag its tongues.'

He would not be swayed by the likes of them.

He went straight to the point.

"Grant me the Self-Recommendation Pavilion."

The Self-Recommendation Pavilion.

It stood at the very heart of the clan, the hall where successive patriarchs had presided over the family's affairs and exchanged courtesies with the heroes of the world.

It was where all of Namgung's history began and was recorded.

At the same time, as the largest and most magnificent structure within the clan, it was the very face of the Namgung Clan—the place where distinguished guests were received and the most important banquets were held.

Second in importance only to the Family Head Hall, it was a residence granted solely to the patriarch and the designated heir.

To possess the Self-Recommendation Pavilion, then, meant nothing less than taking the Namgung Clan into one's own hand.

"……Are you in your right mind?"

"He's mad! Receiving the Sword Selection has clearly driven him out of his wits!"

Gasps of shock and fury erupted from among the elders.

Namgung Do shot to his feet as if he had been waiting for the chance.

"Acting Head! What kind of absurd demand is this? This goes beyond greed into outright arrogance—a reckless utterance that shakes the very foundation of our clan!"

With those words as the signal, the elders raised their voices in a chorus.

"He's right! The Self-Recommendation Pavilion, of all things! Even the Eldest Young Master was content with the grant of the Soaring Dragon Pavilion! How could the youngest son—!"

The Soaring Dragon Pavilion was a fairly substantial hall, yet next to the Self-Recommendation Pavilion it might as well have been a stable.

"This is plainly the act of a man who knows not his own place and tramples the hierarchy of the clan!"

In an instant, the hall dissolved into pandemonium.

But Namgung Cheon paid it no mind, his eyes resting on Jegal Hwa alone.

When the uproar at last subsided, he spoke in a low voice.

His gaze remained fixed on Jegal Hwa, the sole person in this hall with the power to decide.

"I did not ask the elders."

His mother, and Acting Head of the Clan. Not an empty title, but an outsider who held the clan's true authority firmly in her grasp.

"I addressed the Acting Head. And so, the answer—"

Namgung Cheon's gaze and Jegal Hwa's met in midair.

"The answer rests with the Acting Head."

As his words ended, a hush fell over the hall.

And every eye turned to one person alone—to Jegal Hwa, seated in the place of honor.

Jegal Hwa had watched everything unfold with an impassive expression, her chin resting on her hand.

For a woman of the Jegal Clan to serve as Acting Head of the Namgung Clan, the world's foremost sword family, was itself something without precedent.

Yet no one had dared raise the slightest objection to her qualification.

She was a grandmaster who had reached the very summit of the Transcendent Realm, wielding martial prowess within the Namgung Clan that could contend for the seat of honor itself.

And that was not all.

Long ago, in the days of the Great War of Justice and Demons, when the world ran red with blood, she had moved like a shadow at the side of the patriarch, Namgung Mugang, overturning the course of countless battlefields.

People said her stratagems cut deeper than the Namgung sword itself.

That was why, when the patriarch departed the clan and entrusted her with every measure of his authority, the elders had swallowed it without a word of protest.

And now that same Jegal Hwa quietly regarded her youngest son, who dared demand the Self-Recommendation Pavilion to his face.

'Even if the Sword Selection changes a person's nature, is this not a change far too extreme?'

Only yesterday he had been a frail, forgettable boy.

Yet in the span of a single night, he was shaking the stage before weathered, cunning elders without yielding a single inch.

A hypothesis brushed through her mind.

'What if this child has merely been hiding his claws all along?'

What if he had endured years of humiliation and contempt, biding his time until an opportunity like this arrived?

'Then this child's patience and cunning deserve to be called truly fearsome.'

Either way, it did not matter.

The fact that her son was extraordinary would not change.

While Jegal Hwa mulled over these thoughts, Namgung Cheon's gaze found her with unerring precision.

"The answer rests with the Acting Head."

A clever move—handing every decision back to her.

For the first time in a very long while, Jegal Hwa felt something like interest stir as she looked at her youngest son.

A faint smile blossomed on her red lips.

"Hm."

At that small laugh, the entire hall held its breath.

"I had thought Lin the cleverest of my children—the one who most took after me. It seems I was wrong."

She withdrew the hand from her chin and straightened.

That alone was enough to change the very air of the hall.

"Yes. You achieved the Sword Selection—two blades at that—so I suppose you may demand whatever you wish."

Color rose in the face of the Tenth Elder, Namgung Baek, at her words.

But her next sentence overturned every expectation.

"However. The Self-Recommendation Pavilion I cannot give you."

She declared the conclusion first, without softness.

"Setting aside the pavilion's symbolic weight, it is also where the family's great affairs are conducted and where honored guests are received. It is no idle residence that can be handed over for one person's private use."

She met Namgung Cheon's eyes directly as she continued.

"Instead, name something else. Something befitting your merit—something that I can accept."

The color drained from Namgung Baek's face until it was bone white.

Smiles spread across the faces of the opposition, Namgung Do at their head.

Every gaze turned toward Namgung Cheon's mouth.

All of them expecting him to flare up in anger, or falter in confusion.

But his expression did not change in the slightest.

As though he had foreseen every inch of this, he offered his alternative without a moment's hesitation.

"Then I shall amend my request."

At his calm voice, the restless hall fell quiet once more.

Namgung Cheon addressed Jegal Hwa again.

"I will not take the Self-Recommendation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Pavilion. Instead—"

He paused briefly, letting his gaze drift slowly across the assembly.

He took in the different emotions surfacing on each elder's face, then opened his mouth again.

"I ask for two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠things."

The first request left his lips.

"First: ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grant me the right that no one—not anyone—may interfere with my movements from this day forward."

"What—!"

The moment the words fell, gasps of astonishment burst from the elders.

But Namgung Cheon paid their reactions no heed and pressed on to his second demand.

"Second: I want the clan's hidden treasure, the Heavenly King Heart-Nourishing Pill."

"The Heavenly King Heart-Nourishing Pill!"

At the mere sound of that name, several elders sprang from their seats.

The Heavenly King Heart-Nourishing Pill.

The supreme elixir of the Namgung Clan, said to be refined only once in several decades, when the clean energy of the Dabie Mountains was at its purest.

A sacred medicine that even successive patriarchs had granted only rarely, and only to direct descendants who had rendered monumental service.

Namgung Do shouted as though the audacity had stolen his breath.

"What utter nonsense—! Third Young Master, are you in your right mind?"

But Namgung Cheon did not spare Namgung Do so much as a glance.

From beginning to end, his eyes had rested on one person alone—on Jegal Hwa, seated in the place of honor.

It was an arrogant bearing, as though no one else even possessed the right to intrude upon this decision.

"The Heavenly King Heart-Nourishing Pill."

Jegal Hwa murmured the name softly.

The light in her eyes sharpened as she looked at Namgung Cheon.

It was the look of one gauging just how deep the vessel standing before her ran—measuring its worth.

"Can you bear it?"

Not a question. A warning.

The pill's energy was ferocious in its power; handled carelessly, it could tear a body apart before it ever fulfilled its promise.

But Namgung Cheon answered without a flicker of hesitation.

"No one knows my own measure better than I do."

At that audacious reply, a satisfied smile finally curved Jegal Hwa's lips.

"An amusing proposal."

Just as she spoke quietly and moved to render her judgment, Namgung Do interposed in desperation.

"Acting Head, what in the world—!"

But Jegal Hwa did not deign to glance at him.

She looked only at the son standing before her, and spoke.

"Granted."

Two words.

At them, the entire hall surged with noise.

Yet no one dared offer a rebuttal.

They could only wait for what would follow.

Jegal Hwa continued.

"Moreover, from this day on, you owe a report of your actions to no one. Go where you wish, and do as you please."

She paused, sweeping a frigid gaze across the assembly once.

"In return, there is a condition."

Her eyes sharpened.

"Your freedom, you must defend with your own strength. Every consequence born of your actions falls to you alone. The clan will offer you no assistance, no protection. Are you still content?"

She was removing the fences—and in exchange, commanding him to meet the full storm of the world with nothing but his bare body.

She meant, moreover, that even the scrutiny and hidden knives of those who shared his own blood he must shoulder by himself.

But at her words, a smile spread across Namgung Cheon's lips.

"Of course. That is precisely what I desire."

Jegal Hwa nodded at his answer.

"The Heavenly King Heart-Nourishing Pill—I will send someone to your quarters tomorrow morning. See that you know it."

Namgung Cheon rose from his seat and bowed deeply toward Jegal Hwa.

"I thank you for your gracious consent."

Then, without a trace of lingering attachment, he turned to leave the hall.

Just as his hand reached for the door latch, a secret voice threaded into his ear.

A transmission sent by Jegal Hwa.

Namgung Cheon did not turn around.

His hand remained on the door latch, steady as stone.

But a smile hung on his lips that no one could see.

'Watching, is it……'

He had never imagined, from the start, that she would fail to see through his intentions.

Yet neither had her decision sprung from simple maternal affection.

'It's a test, then.'

To grant the highest freedom, and in the same breath cast him into the deepest solitude.

A love as harsh and twisted as it was utterly like her.

'The parents of this house are all a nasty breed.'

With that brief thought, Namgung Cheon flung the door open.

Dazzling light poured in.

Walking toward that light, he answered within his heart.

'Wait for it.'

But that answer was not meant for his mother.

It was for the old wolves seated in the hall, unable to smother their fury and wariness—for the Seventh Elder and his pack.

He knew well what the freedom granted to him meant.

It was, above all, the freedom to judge.

'Before long, I will bring every last one of you crumbling down.'