Permission
"What? We have to leave first thing tomorrow?"
"Yes!"
"You can't spring that on me at this hour. How am I supposed to gather all those supplies in the middle of the night?"
"Is there really no way?"
"—That's what anyone would say. But yours truly? If it's Merchant Pickerhead you're dealing with, anything is possible."
Having successfully purchased a carriage for tomorrow's departure along with a week's worth of supplies for a man and a woman, I returned to the inn with a broad grin on my face—eager to report that I'd pulled off this difficult mission.
"Seolhyang, about the things you asked for…"
Stepping into the room, I froze. The door was unlocked. The chamber was empty. The window frame had been smashed to pieces.
"…Seolhyang?"
She was gone.
"P-please—just spare the children…"
Shunk—! The woman, already a corpse, crumpled lifelessly to the floor.
Seolhyang pulled her dagger free from the woman's throat without a flicker of emotion, then took a moment to reassess the massacre she had just wrought. She had slaughtered the servants and the entire household—people who had done nothing wrong. Anyone watching would have condemned her as a merciless killer.
…I don't feel a thing.
Seolhyang casually flicked the blood from her blade and began searching the manor for Cyrus, whom she had yet to find. After wandering for a long while with no success, she discovered him not inside the house at all, but outside—on the garden terrace where she had first come face to face with him.
"I figured you'd come looking."
"…Cyrus."
Seolhyang turned her head toward the voice drifting from the garden. Something was there. She could neither see it nor sense it, and yet she knew with absolute certainty—her nemesis, Cyrus, stood in that very spot.
"Right. Where was it you said you were from? What was the name again?"
"Does a name matter? The hour of vengeance has come, Cyrus."
"Every last fool who comes after me says the same thing. And the ending is always the same, too—they end up just like their families."
Seolhyang bit down hard on her lip. The memories of ten years past rose up as vivid as if they had happened yesterday. As the eldest daughter of the family head, she had been the darling of her house. Everyone had adored her.
Those heavenly days had ended the moment a man with a single sword strode up to the family head and demanded a challenge—a duel to break the clan's seal of mastery.
Everything Seolhyang had seen and heard that day remained etched into her mind even now, more than a decade later.
"I will end my family's vengeance right here."
"Ahh—that voice jogs the memory. The balding fellow with the empty space right in the middle of his head, wasn't it?"
Recalling Seolhyang's family, Cyrus let out a snort of laughter, then pointed out the part she had left unsaid.
"You were too young to understand at the time, but I was practically reeking of killing intent. Anyone could have seen the strike coming. If that old man failed to sense it, he had no business calling himself a swordsman. And if he sensed it but still couldn't dodge—well, he simply wasn't good enough. Either way, he deserved to die."
"…The family head did react. He lost his life only because of the sorcery you employed."
Seolhyang's father—the head of House Seol—had not been greatly flustered by the sudden ambush. He had responded and blocked Cyrus's strike. Or rather, that was how it should have gone.
Yet somehow Cyrus's blade passed straight through her father's sword. The family head, cut down, collapsed—and the slaughter began.
With their central pillar gone, the clan's warriors failed to stop the invader named Cyrus. Every soul within the household perished.
Everyone—save for Seolhyang, the sole survivor.
And even she had not escaped unscathed. Cyrus had taken her sight in place of her life.
"You murdered my parents, my brothers and sisters, the servants, everyone who worked for our house… every innocent person. —And now you will suffer the same. How does it feel?"
"…Khuh, kuh, kuh-kuh."
"…What could possibly be so funny?"
"Ahahahah! You actually believe that? You think those people were my family? That I'd be devastated now that they're dead?"
Cyrus grinned wide and revealed the truth about his so-called family.
"Not a chance."
"What do you mean…?"
"You think you're the first of your kind to show up? No. They've come again and again—more than ten times over. And every single time, they kill my servants. Then they walk away thinking they've gotten their revenge. —Except they haven't."
Seolhyang's hands began to tremble. An instinctive realization crashed over her: she must not hear what came next. Surrendering to that instinct, she lunged forward—but Cyrus casually deflected her dagger and kept talking.
"What you killed were bait. The brats were orphans I picked up from an orphanage. The woman was an unwed mother I dragged in off some back alley. You thought they were my family—but you just butchered a bunch of complete strangers."
"L-lies. You're lying!"
Something had felt off. For a house belonging to Cyrus, the security had been far too lax—as if inviting anyone, at any time, to walk in and attack him.
"Does it sound like a lie? Why don't you ask that little kid you came with this morning? He's got eyes, so he probably figured it out roughly."
And Seolhyang, who had no eyes, had failed to notice the truth.
"Whether those kids looked anything like real children of mine."
The children's faces had borne no resemblance to Cyrus whatsoever. From the color of their hair to the placement of their eyes, noses, and mouths—nothing about them could have belonged to his offspring.
Hearing those words, Seolhyang was forced to confront the fact that she had murdered unrelated people—that she had become no different from the man standing before her.
Gritting her teeth, she glared at the space where Cyrus must have been with her pure white pupils. A blue, ghostly energy flickered and writhed within both of her eyes.
"Even… even so—it doesn't matter."
She would spend the rest of her life in penance.
But that came second to vengeance.
Seolhyang discarded her dagger, drew the longsword from her hip in one fluid motion, and swung.
The Snowflake Sword, inherited through generations of House Seol, swept past in a long trail of scattering snowflakes. Watching the display, Cyrus let out a murmur of admiration.
"Fine blade. I think I'll take it."
"Hup—!"
"Ah, one more thing. Want to know why I keep raising these orphan brats?"
"Shut up!"
"So that when scum like you show up, I can kill them legally."
The instant those words left his mouth, Seolhyang felt a searing pain as though her wrist had been severed. It should have been impossible. Their blades were locked tight in a binding clash.
Unless he had become a ghost, there was no way he could ignore her sword and cut her wrist—and stranger still, even as the agony tore through her, her wrist remained perfectly attached.
"Ghhrrgh…!?"
"Oh, impressive. I just sliced the tendons in your wrist and you didn't even scream?"
"W-what is this…?"
"Don't tell me you came after me without knowing who I am?"
A flicker of pure disappointment crossed Cyrus's eyes. Seolhyang could not see his face, but she could hear the thick disappointment saturating his voice.
And Seolhyang, who had hunted Cyrus for over a decade, knew full well what he was—and what the world called him.
"The Sword Demon…"
She had dismissed it as mere rumor. She had believed her family's head and warriors had fallen only because he ambushed them cowardly, because he used some unknown sorcery.
She had calculated that she—the sole surviving talent of House Seol, gifted beyond measure—could defeat him.
Reality proved otherwise.
"You knew—and you still came at me with that pathetic skill?"
"Ghk—!"
Cyrus's blade carved through her arms and legs once more. Again, there was no bleeding, no visible wound. But Seolhyang understood: the tendons in her limbs had been severed, and her arms and legs would no longer move.
"It's been so long since I had a guest. Entertain me a little more."
So saying, Cyrus swung his sword down at her as she lay on the ground. Unable to move her limbs, Seolhyang rolled across the dirt to evade the blade.
Her pale skin and jewel-like hair grew stained and dull with soil and dust. Watching her thrash across the ground like a worm fighting for its life, Cyrus burst into peals of delighted laughter.
But the limit came soon enough. Failing to dodge, Seolhyang took a cut through the heart. Her severed heart began, slowly, to stop.
N-no. Not like this… not here…
She still had to kill that man.
She still had to complete her vengeance…
I should have… brought him along…
Evan's face rose in Seolhyang's mind. That little boy of unknowable skill. She had left him behind, certain he would be of no use to someone intent on murder—but should she have brought him no matter what?
It was already too late. She was dying, and she had sent Evan on an errand so difficult he would never find her even if he searched all night.
Gazing down at Seolhyang as she died in agony, Cyrus let out a sigh of disappointment.
"You should have gotten a little stronger before you came."
With that, Cyrus approached her slowly—like a farmer harvesting his crops in season—to reap her life. In proportion to the sound of his footsteps, the sound of death grew louder and louder.
Her heart no longer beating, her body began to shut down from the lack of oxygen. Her hands and feet went numb. Her breath stopped. Her mind went blank as a still, cold death drew near.
"Goodbye."
Cyrus's sword came down—and in the same instant, a fierce metallic clash slammed into Seolhyang's ears.
"—Seolhyang. Are you all right?"
The voice of a slightly young boy.
Evan's voice—the voice she had believed would never reach her—brushed against Seolhyang's ear.
At the sound of it, she opened her mouth on pure reflex.
"E-Evan… how did you… get here…?"
"Seolhyang, just one question."
Determined not to repeat the same mistake as last time, Evan asked just to be sure.
"—That guy. I'm allowed to cut him down, right?"
The moment Seolhyang's head nodded, Evan drew his sword and swung.