5. A Woman Worth Raising
The other disciples couldn't believe their eyes, even now.
The Second Young Master, who had never been anything special, had just lightly smashed two of his fellow disciples to pieces.
One voice wondered aloud whether he'd stumbled into some fateful encounter; another insisted he must have been fed sorcery, or had some kind of procedure done to him.
As for the man all that chatter was about, Wiji Cheon showed no reaction whatsoever — he simply gathered up his Snake-Belly Sword and walked back to his spot.
"Hey, Scrub. You're actually pretty good?"
"What's the matter? Starting to feel threatened yet?" I asked Yeon Hayeong, teasing.
"Threatened? As if— as if I'd ever feel something like that!"
She stammered, rare for her, and forced out an awkward smile. The corners of her mouth kept twitching out of her control — her expression management was visibly falling apart.
No matter how anyone looked at it, I showed no sign of standing above her realm, and yet I had subdued those men like it was nothing…
"…No matter how I look at you, I really don't see it."
"You can't judge by appearances alone. A high realm doesn't automatically mean strength."
Then as now, plenty of people believed a higher realm meant unconditional superiority. If that were actually true, every duel between warriors of the same realm would end in a draw, barring something truly extraordinary.
"Even within the same realm, strength bends on what you know and what you've lived through."
"'Just' that?"
"Call it 'just that' now if you like. Once you leave Mount Cheon and taste the wider Jianghu for yourself, you'll understand someday."
When I laid it on like some old-timer seasoned by the world itself, Yeon Hayeong listened quietly, then tilted her head.
"…Scrub, you've never left Mount Cheon either, have you?"
"That's the point. Even without setting foot outside, there's plenty you can learn just from the internet."
"Hmmmmmmm…"
The excuse was hasty and half-baked, conjured up after the fact, and the suspicion in her eyes refused to fully clear. For a long while she just stared at me, humming odd little sounds.
"You. You've secretly gone out of Mount Cheon and come back before, haven't you?"
"…What?"
"That reaction says I'm right! I've listened to you talk, and you've got this air about you that you'd never get from just scrolling online."
The disciples of the Seven Demons were forbidden from stepping outside Mount Cheon without their master's leave. We were demonic cultists, after all — and Korea had a righteous murim that, if not the equal of the Murim Alliance, was still quite the headache.
Her accusation bordered on certainty. I wanted to fire back… but arguing would change nothing when she'd never believe me, so I said nothing at all. It wasn't as if the misunderstanding would cause any real trouble…
"Then next time you go, take me with you! I've never been outside in my whole life!"
"……"
"Hm? Scrubby, is that a no?"
Fists balled up tight, she made a little gesture like a cat begging for attention. With the size difference between us, her looking up at me like that made her feel for all the world like an actual cat.
'Begging for a favor while still calling me Scrub… it's genuinely funny.'
Now that I'd gotten used to it, it almost sounded like a pet name. I needed to grow closer to her at some point anyway… so taking her out once wouldn't hurt.
"Then come find me next time I head out. If it's just a light look around, bringing you along won't be a problem."
In my previous life I'd slipped out of Mount Cheon more times than I could count, so one tagalong wouldn't get me caught. Besides, I was planning to go out in a few days regardless.
"Woohoo! So you'd better call me next time, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah… Now go back to your seat. My matches aren't over yet."
"Oh, right. Seoryeon-unnie of all people… man, our Scrubby has garbage luck."
"……"
Yeon Hayeong heaved a deep sigh, as if I were pitiable, and shook her head.
If I hadn't regressed, I would never have named Yeon Seoryeon. She was a master a cut above Yeon Hayeong — their realms were roughly even, but her depth of experience made her the stronger fighter. So much so that I half-believed she might be one of the most dangerous of all the Sex Fiend's disciples.
'The Unshakeable Mind is a powerful thing.'
And I knew exactly why she had climbed to her current level. I'd heard the tale from a woman called Baekmunjo, the Bird of a Hundred Rumors — a lover of curiosities who collected every story the Jianghu had to offer.
Yeon Seoryeon, once the finest of the Sex Fiend's disciples, owed her rise to first-rate master to the Unshakeable Mind, transmitted to her by a master whose name no one knew.
'And in the end, the jealous disciples of the other Demons killed her for it.'
A Sex Fiend's disciple showing real promise — how much stronger might such a person return, after piling up experience beyond Mount Cheon? That one thought, they say, was enough for the other Demons' disciples, drowning in fear, to strike first and end her.
'Most of the disciples are beneath note, but a few always stand out.'
Though living as Sex Fiends do, that promise never quite showed itself.
"Anyway, if you don't think you can win, just give up. Our Scrubby still mustn't die yet."
"…I mustn't die?"
"Right! Dead or not, you've still got to finish our bet and go wander around outside Mount Cheon first, don't you?"
"……"
So that was the reason. Fine — I hadn't been expecting much anyway. We weren't exactly close yet.
"You know anything about Yeon Seoryeon?"
"Huh? Not in detail… She's just, like, insanely strong? And insanely good with a sword?"
She blinked her wide eyes, the very picture of someone who truly knew nothing more. Everyone already knew she was strong and brilliant with a blade, so none of that was useful intelligence.
"Oh, and she's super cold! She's training frost arts, so I guess that's only natural…"
"Cold, huh…"
I muttered it, tuning out her recitation of the obvious. If even the arrogant, headstrong Yeon Hayeong called her strong, she had certainly reached the Transcendent Peak Realm. And radiating that chill without ever having mastered frost arts… it had to be proof she was searching out a color all her own.
'I only managed to establish my color once I reached the Transformation Realm.'
Before I touched that realm, no such change had ever come. Manifestation unfolds differently for everyone, of course… but even accounting for that, a case like hers was rare.
"Anything else besides that?"
"That's seriously all of it! You could flay me alive and nothing more would come out!"
Flay me alive… naive as she looked, a demonic cultist was a demonic cultist to the bone.
She slipped naturally into the empty seat beside me. Its previous occupant… had lost a hand mid-match and been carted off to a hospital somewhere inside Mount Cheon. At least the cut had been clean — pay enough, and the hand might yet be reattached.
…Assuming it was worth the price, that is.
The matches carried on even as we talked. Using the screams that rang out from the ring all too often as our background music, we traded a few empty words… until at last the final match stood right before us.
"Second Young Master. And Yeon Seoryeon."
At the Hall Master's summons, I stepped up onto the ring. Yeon Seoryeon climbed up after me, and even there her finger kept toying with her scabbard, click, click, click. Her face remained as expressionless as ever — she looked almost like a person with nothing left to yearn for in this world.
'…She interests me.' The more I looked, the more I felt the pull. She was a master who possessed both beauty and martial skill.
'I mean to live differently than I did before… so building a faction of my own wouldn't be a bad idea.' In my past life I'd thrown away every woman I'd ever held, and it had cost me dearly. So this time, I resolved: no more taking and discarding — I would hold them for a lifetime.
'So this is what they call responsibility…'
Responsibility, for a Sex Fiend. A word that fit me so disgustingly poorly.
We faced each other a moment longer, then took the cupped-fist salute.
"Second Young Master. Wiji Cheon."
"…The Purple Void. Yeon Seoryeon."
A restraint of emotion and desire that suited the Sex Fiend not at all. Today, I intended to make that restraint waver.
"Begin."
"……"
"……"
At the Hall Master's signal, the match began. Yet neither of them moved first — the two simply stood there, watching each other.
[…What are they doing?]
[Why won't either of them attack?]
[Did something happen between those two…?]
With neither charging in and both only staring one another down, the murmurs started up almost on cue. That standoff dragged on for a long, long while…
"And here I thought you might be something special…"
"…?"
Green-tinted hair, bearing no trace of Yeon Hayun in it at all, swayed softly in the air. Even her eyes were steeped in crimson, giving off a coldness wholly unlike the Sex Fiend's other daughters.
"You are no different. You are the same as all the others."
"The same?"
What could she mean by the same?
"Enslaved to petty desires, acting on every whim that takes you… you are the same as the rest of them."
"……"
Click. Click…
Over and over, her thumb lifted the sword loose in its scabbard and let it settle back home. She was so quiet, so utterly still, I half-wondered whether the words "a mind devoid of thought and attachment" had been coined for her alone.
"The same, huh…"
The Sex Fiend's daughter saying such a thing — I could only laugh. The Sex Fiend, above all others, is honest to emotion and exercises lust exactly as instinct commands.
"Everyone who craves the flesh is like that, you know. The degrees may differ, but no one is entirely without it. Doesn't it strike you as funny, saying such things as the Sex Fiend's daughter?"
"The color I walk toward will be a different one. That is why I strive, desperately."
Sssaaah…
The cold current flowing from her body deepened. Where a moment ago it had merely felt that way, now true frost poured off her in waves.
"A love supreme and sacred. A devotion unshaken and strong. That is the path of the Sex Fiend I intend to walk."
"……"
In other words — pure love. A disciple of the Sex Fiend, proclaiming pure love…
I never imagined I would meet someone with a madder heart than the current Sex Fiend, the woman who keeps her chastity pristine while draining the essence out of men. And that was exactly why my interest caught fire.
Where else in the world would I find a woman this appetizing? Looks, intrigue, martial skill — there wasn't a single thing about her that fell short. More than enough for my interest to take root.