10. Faction Formation
Paeng Sosan and his crew, for the time being, made for the dwelling Wiji Cheon had pointed them to.
Dwelling was a generous word for the place—a ramshackle hut on the outskirts of Mount Cheon—but with no one of any consequence ever setting foot near it, it would serve well enough for lying low until things settled down.
Once things quiet down, I'll have to start their training in earnest.
Just as each of the Seven Demons built a power base of their own, their disciples likewise formed factions to compete against one another. Most simply banded together with their fellow disciples, but the shrewd ones—those with knack or cunning—sometimes reached beyond the sect to turn outside forces into their own people.
In that sense, recruiting the Paeng Clan bloodline had been a sound choice. It wasn't as if they lacked talent; so long as their identities and traces were well hidden and they were remade into new people, there would be no problem at all.
Once the Great Battle of Heavenly Blood is over, the real strife between factions will begin.
After the Divine Cult's Great Battle of Heavenly Blood, factional warfare broke out as if by tradition. Yet the Seven Demons never intervened. The ones who survived beating each other bloody would only emerge the finer masters for it.
It was possible precisely because the Demons attached no private sentiment to most of their disciples. The domain of a Demon was, in the end, a vast and solitary thing.
This time, merely claiming the Sex Fiend's seat will not be enough.
There had been so many in my past life I couldn't touch—women my strength was too lacking to approach, or ones I had failed with. Even after ascending to the Sex Fiend's seat, I had wandered abroad only because I judged there were no women left on Mount Cheon worth fixing my gaze upon.
This life is going to be very different.
Gazing down at the small wooden case in my hand, I began sorting through my plans for the future, one by one.
The sun had yet to rise when the two of them returned to Mount Cheon.
"That was totally fun! All thanks to our scrub here!"
At their last stop, a confectionery, Yeon Hayeong had loaded up on jelly and now stood cradling an armful of it, wearing an expression of deep satisfaction.
"Was it really that good?"
"So good that you, our little scrub, couldn't even imagine it in your wildest dreams!"
Ever since we'd shared that first meal on the day of my regression, she had taken to hunting down snacks at every opportunity. She moved around enough that the weight wouldn't show, but she found brushing her teeth a chore, so that part I would have to look after separately.
"Still, brush them properly. No letting your teeth rot and making yourself miserable over it."
"Uuu... but brushing's such a pain..."
Displeasure radiated from every inch of her, but she held my gaze for a good while before finally nodding, grudgingly.
Even if they were folded into our faction, the fact remained that we had purged a band presumed to be unorthodox rogues. At this level, even the Sex Fiend herself would have no grounds to complain. If anything, having cleared out such vermin, praise would have been the more fitting response.
The two of them slipped over the wall into the great hall, exchanged a signal by glance alone, and headed for their respective rooms.
Now I need only take the elixir while I have the time.
Savoring the faint fragrance of medicinal herbs drifting up from the wooden case, I made for my room. But waiting before my door stood a figure I had not expected in the least.
"So you've finally returned."
"...?"
Yeon Seoryeon, standing before my door in her pajamas. I couldn't say how long she had been there, but with her nightclothes crisp and her hair dry, she looked for all the world as though she had finished her nightly routine and then waited in this spot ever since.
"Seeing as you're only now coming back... have you been out?"
"I have. But... what exactly is this?"
I nodded at her question, posed with perfect composure. Not that it made the situation any less baffling.
"Don't tell me you lost our spar and came here for revenge?"
"...Do I look like the sort of person who would?"
Yeon Seoryeon regarded Wiji Cheon with eyes that found the very idea absurd. Her gaze was asking, quite plainly, whether he truly looked like that kind of man to her.
But a reaction like that only deepened the mystery.
"If not that, then why come looking for me? We're hardly close, are we?"
"......"
Asked why she had come, Yeon Seoryeon parted her lips—then pressed them firmly shut again. She had clearly meant to say something, but she resembled nothing so much as a person whose words had jammed somewhere between throat and jaw.
Wiji Cheon studied her in silence, then slowly closed the distance.
"...!"
His sudden approach flustered her, if only a little; those invariably cold eyes widened by a fraction. With him standing right before her, the difference in their height left her no choice but to tilt her face upward. The gap was nothing like as extreme as with Yeon Hayeong, but look up she still had to.
"Lurking outside a man's door in the dead of night... and now that we're finally face to face, you can't even manage a proper word. Are you toying with me?"
"That's—"
"Playing games with me, are you?"
He cut her off, meaning only to give her a little scare, and put on a show of a low growl. Yeon Seoryeon averted her eyes and held her silence... then, closing them, she murmured.
"Since you... struck my... stomach..."
"What was that?"
But her voice was far too quiet to catch, and in the end I had no choice but to ask again. At that, Yeon Seoryeon's brow knotted tight, and she forced the words out a notch louder.
"Ever since you struck my lower abdomen... something strange has... kept happening to me..."
"......"
"At first it simply hurt, but now there is this tingling, this strange sensation that—nnh... that I cannot stop feeling."
Even as she spoke, the feeling seemed to steal over her again; the moment her eyes opened, her brow creased faintly and she stood there half-crouched, unsteady on her feet.
"Just what... what sort of sorcery have you cast on me?"
"...Let me clear up one misunderstanding first. I haven't used any sorcery."
"Please don't... lie to me."
Told the plain truth, she denied it and glared up at Wiji Cheon.
"So I'm to believe I took a single blow to the abdomen for no reason at all, and this is the result?"
"...I suppose that is what I'm saying?"
"That's absurd..."
He had told her the truth, and of course she didn't believe a word of it. I hadn't known Yeon Seoryeon harbored a weakness like this, either.
A woman whose taste runs to a fist in the gut... and reacting this hard to a single blow? She's even more of a scrub than I gave her credit for.
That one strike had awakened her to a weakness even she herself had never known. There were times the current swept things along without my intending it... but this was too abrupt even so. Still, rather than trying to scoop the spilled water back into its cup, I decided to put the water to use.
"Whether you believe me or not, the truth doesn't change. I'll say it once more: I used no sorcery of any kind."
"Ha—say it as many times as you like, I will never believe you... I can feel the desire leering in your eyes—"
Thud.
Before her hollow accusation could even run its course, I seized Yeon Seoryeon by the wrist and pressed her gently back against the door.
"Ugh—what is the meaning of this...?"
"I already explained myself with every courtesy a gentleman could muster... but it seems nice words don't get through to you."
Her suspicion was fair, of course. One blow to the stomach had changed her this much—how could she not suspect foul play?
But this is this, and that is that.
Letting her keep straddling the line, however, was not something he was prepared to tolerate. A reasonable suspicion did not make her behavior here tonight justified. Fortunately, having handled his share of women, he knew exactly how a temperament like this was meant to be handled.
He had once prized the slow accumulation of a proper story between them... but he had since lifted his own restrictions on means and methods, and so, even short of the bedroom, he intended to show a certain forcefulness when the moment demanded it.
"You threw yourself at me even with my body in perfect condition and ended up flat on your back—where do you find the nerve to come back for more?"
"Nnh... quiet—"
Press...
"Hii—?!"
When his free hand cupped her lower abdomen and pressed, she jolted in shock and let out a strangled, unseemly sound—the kind of sound the noble, dignified woman of her everyday self would never in her life have made.
"See? The merest touch and this is how you react."
"Hoo... hah, uu...!"
"Keep pressing down on this belly of yours like this, and you won't be able to do a single thing. Isn't that right?"
It strained credulity to think she had come here knowing nothing. There was no way the possibility had never once crossed her mind. Perhaps she had dismissed it as unlikely... or acted on the naive, complacent assumption that it would never come to this.
But the water had already been spilled—and spilled water does not find its way back into the cup.
"St... stop. Stop here, and I will let the matter go."
"...I can't tell whether you genuinely can't read the situation, or whether you honestly believe you still hold the upper hand."
Press. Pressss...
"Hngh...! St... stop...! Please, stop...!"
"There's still strength in that voice of yours. Insolent."
Her pleading changed nothing; he kept working her abdomen without pause. Just how far could she hold out...
"Hnn... ngh, n-no way... I'm, I'm coming...!"
And at last, head hanging low, body quivering like an aspen leaf, at the very moment something seemed about to burst free of her—
"...Huh?"
"This much should have gotten the message across."
Wiji Cheon withdrew his hand from her abdomen and looked down at her in silence.
"Pull something like this again, and it won't end here."
"Hoo... hah..."
"If you understand, nod."
At his low growl, Yeon Seoryeon nodded, slowly.
She was still avoiding his eyes, nothing left in her but ragged breaths... but for today, this much would suffice.
This is the perk of holding the physical advantage.
At roughly two meters tall, he almost never found himself cowed by anyone's frame. He stood out even among men for his height—by a woman's measure, there was simply no contest.
Squeeze...
"Hnn..."
Pressing her softly against the wall and subduing her by half like this was, for all intents and purposes, already making inroads with her. But now was not the time to press further. Rice, after all, only tastes right once it has been left to steam.
At last, he released Yeon Seoryeon's wrist.
"......"
The instant her wrist was free, Yeon Seoryeon examined it. He had applied only measured force, so all that remained on her skin was the faint imprint of his hand.
"...Then, if you will excuse me."
She stared at the mark for a moment, then slipped carefully past him and walked away.
Wiji Cheon watched her go in silence.
Until the very moment she vanished completely from his sight.