Departing Again (5)
"Hmm..."
Even as she walked the path, Jegal Soyeon could not stop turning the matter over in her mind. It was simply too strange. Geomang. He had clearly intended to refuse her proposal. At first glance his eyes might have seemed like those of a man caught in conflict, yet what she saw was not someone wrestling with how to answer her offer. It was someone struggling to find the right way to reject it. Nevertheless, he had chosen to travel with her.
She could not even consider whether his reaction had shaken her. Right now he carried no worries at all.
"Are you feeling all right? Your body, I mean?"
The question she deliberately tossed out received an immediate, unhesitating answer.
"Yes. I am in perfect condition."
There. He was not paying it any mind whatsoever. Had he given even the slightest consideration to her proposal, such a nonchalant attitude would have been impossible. He was simply walking. Simply staying alert to his surroundings like a seasoned wanderer.
"Shall we stop here for the night? Or should we press on to the next village?"
Wishing to test his state of mind once more, she moved in front of him, studying his expression as she asked. After a brief pause, Geomang answered.
"It is about the time when people begin looking for taverns or inns. Judging by the size of this village, there does not appear to be any establishment on the scale of the Sanghwa Inn. Let us secure our places quickly and stay here."
It was a perfectly rational, logical answer that anyone would accept. Jegal Soyeon acknowledged it and followed behind him with her companions.
What stood in the village was not an inn but a small tavern. Geomang entered and held up three fingers.
"Do you have three rooms available?"
The woman who appeared to be the owner nodded and said she would prepare them. Geomang entered his room first, and the men in the group went to theirs. That left only one female companion to share a room with her.
Looking at the woman, Jegal Soyeon asked, "What do you think of Geomang?"
"... We do not know."
She knew he was thinking about something else. Yet what he dreamed of, she understood no better than Jegal Soyeon herself. That was the honest truth. She had held the faintest expectation, but Jegal Soyeon soon let it go.
Lying down where she was, Jegal Soyeon thought, In the end, even for martial artists it all comes down to wealth and power. No matter how proud a hero they may be, none can escape the sweet taste of authority. Her fifteen years of life proved those words.
The Jegal Clan stood at the border of both the Huashan and Zhongnan sects. Because of that, dealings between them had been frequent, and every time she had seen the same thing: the martial artists there were nothing more than wolf pack leaders. They had sold their conscience along with any sense of justice or righteousness long ago. Even after accumulating power and reaching higher realms, they pursued nothing but their own desires.
Geomang would be the same. Or perhaps, being younger than them, his ignorance would make him even easier to sway.
.... Or not? I cannot tell.
Yet when she carefully recalled his attitude and the way he treated her, he did not seem to harbor any greed for power or similar things.
"It is difficult. So very difficult..."
She felt as if she stood before an impregnable fortress. It was the first such wall she had encountered since her father. Faced with it, Jegal Soyeon could only sigh.
"It must be the Sados after all."
If Jegal Soyeon died during this journey, the odds were high that the Sados were responsible. Logically speaking, an ordinary martial artist had no reason to openly oppose the Jegal Clan, and killing her would earn them nothing but enmity. Yet if there were those for whom such things did not matter and even a little chaos was enough, then they could indeed kill her.
For instance, the Heavenly Demon Cult.
If so, how many within that cult could kill Jegal Soyeon?
Many. Countlessly many. The Heavenly Demon Cult possessed thirteen masters of the Transcendent Realm alone. Their Super Peak experts numbered over a hundred, and their Peak Realm warriors were far more numerous still. The only ones Jegal Soyeon had brought with her were three Peak Realm experts. If the cult truly wished to kill her, it would not even require them to accept any meaningful loss of strength.
Of course, mere First-class demonic practitioners could not hope to contend with the escorts and companions she had brought. Three or four Peak Realm demonic experts would be sufficient, yet demonic experts did not gather unless ordered from above. Therefore, if Jegal Soyeon were assassinated, it was highly likely to be the work of the Heavenly Demon Cult, and among them, those known as the Sados would be involved.
"The Sados..."
The seventy-two Sados were each skilled enough to be respected even among Super Peak experts. Six served under every elder, and each commanded their own subordinate forces of Peak Realm or lower. If the cult sent only part of those subordinate units, she was confident she could win even if she sustained some injuries. But if she met a Sado now, she would die instantly.
"I should tell them we need to turn back."
Sun Tzu taught that winning every battle is only second best. Not fighting at all is the true victory, the complete victory, the supreme choice. All the more so in a situation where even winning every battle was impossible; staking one's life on a fifty-fifty gamble would be utter foolishness.
Even if Jegal Soyeon felt some awkwardness or suspicion, she would have to make up an excuse and take a detour. The schedule would suffer a slight delay, but by hurrying their steps or staying up one night they could still make up the time.
"What excuse would be convincing enough?"
From Jegal Soyeon's perspective, she was still trying to recruit him. Therefore, even a somewhat lame excuse would likely be accepted if it was framed as him taking on a burden for her sake. On the other hand, if the excuse was too absurd it would only raise suspicion and make it difficult to change her mind.
He loosened his clothing while still lying down. Just as he was about to wash the sweat from his body, something slipped free from the discarded garments. A small sheet of white paper. It was the letter the young master of the Namgung Clan had written for him. His red seal was stamped upon it.
The paper carried the weight of a promise between allies. A crimson seal marked its surface, vivid as fresh blood.
— Namgung Jinhak, Young Master of the Namgung Clan —
"... Right."
What if he said he needed to send word to the Namgung Clan? Would that work? There was only one way to deliver a message quickly to a place like the Namgung Clan: have someone of equal standing dispatch a messenger. He knew that half a day west of here lay a branch of the Murim Alliance. He could say he needed to go there to send the message.
In truth there was nothing particular to report, nor any real reason to send it, but there was no pretext more difficult to question and at the same time impossible to refuse or dissuade.
"... Would it work if I said it was for Namgung Seha?"
Simply saying he was sending word to the Namgung Clan might lead Jegal Soyeon to misunderstand and think he intended to relay her proposal. She might try to stop him or cling to him. Claiming the message was for Namgung Seha, whom he knew as a friend, seemed the safest option.
"Then, for now, everything is settled."
It seemed so. If he led Jegal Soyeon and her group on a westward detour, the entire route would change. At the very least it would be completely different from the path she had originally planned.
Now that his dilemma was truly resolved, he immersed himself in the bath. The water had cooled slightly but remained warm, and his body melted into it. Then, suddenly, he found himself staring blankly at his reflection beneath the surface.
His tightly knit muscles could rival those of any accomplished martial artist. His height and build were nothing like those of an ordinary ten-year-old. When he clenched his fist, he felt power surge through his entire arm. He felt as if he could shatter a wall with a single strike.
"I've caught up considerably."
At the very least, he was eight years ahead of his previous life. The private promise known only to a few—that he would reach the Transcendent Realm before the mountains and rivers could change—seemed unlikely to remain empty words.
At the same time, something like an afterimage clung to his back, then slid stickily across his body before rippling across the water's surface. A demon clad in dark martial robes, swinging a sword. Behind him followed tens of thousands of evil spirits. The man once called the Pacheon Divine Lord and the twelve elders of a certain demonic cult.
Above that afterimage, only the demon at the very front—himself—stepped away from his position and vanished.
"I alone am no longer in that place."
Among the hundred thousand followers of the Heavenly Demon Cult were those who sought nothing but slaughter and bloody combat. He had no intention of leaving them alone. Yet in that place there were also others. Young lambs born and raised within the cult, unaware that everything around them had become twisted. Those who, wounded by the atrocities of the righteous murim and burning with resentment, had chosen to become demonic practitioners. He had belonged to the latter group, and he had not been the only one.
The reason he stood here now was that he had come to regret and reflect, and at the same time had been granted an opportunity for atonement.
"I was given a chance."
The ignorant young lambs now inside the cult, those who wept in their wounds—if they had stood in his place and received the same opportunity, perhaps they too would have chosen the path of righteousness.
Yet he, who had killed and trampled far more lives than any of them, had received that chance for no greater reason than that. Did he truly have the right to judge them?
He did not know.
If, just if, he encountered a demonic practitioner before he could find the answer to that question...
Would he cut him down? Or would he be unable to?
"... This is exactly when I need her."
A girl who was not only stronger than him but whose mind worked just as well rose in his thoughts. The absence of the only person who could listen to these concerns and help unravel them felt especially vast.