Side Story: The One Who Lost Her (2)
Ugh... Had I dozed off? Just moments ago the sky had been darkening yet still carried a trace of blue, but now the moon hung overhead. It was unmistakably night.
When I reached out, my fingers brushed against the stack of books. The one I had been copying lay open. It was the martial interpretation manual my sister had written herself. Even transcribing something so precious felt like a waste of the original, but should it ever be lost it would be an unforgivable sin. So I copied it with painstaking care, one stroke at a time.
The more I transcribed, the more I realized just how extraordinary my sister truly was. No matter how often others called her one of the Ten Venerables, in my eyes she had only ever been my sister.
I possessed no talent for martial arts. The fact that my hair remained black instead of white was proof enough. I had never felt particularly regretful about it before, yet every time I tried to read a sword manual I couldn’t understand a single character. That part had always stung.
This interpretation manual, however, was entirely different. I never imagined the Boundless Blue Sky Sword Art could be explained so simply.
Just as I was sinking into those thoughts, a soft click sounded. Startled, I whipped my head toward the window, but nothing was there. I assumed it had only been the wind. I tried to let it go, yet a strange sense of déjà vu washed over me. I rose from my seat and approached the window.
I lifted the latch and pushed it open, but again found nothing. Deciding it had been my imagination, I moved to close it—when an unfamiliar man’s voice spoke from behind me.
“Boundless Blue Sky... is it?”
He was examining the book I had been copying. His voice was neither low nor high. The tone wasn’t arrogant, yet it carried no trace of deference either. One thing was certain: this was no ordinary man.
“Who are you?”
I tightened my grip on the poisoned dagger hidden within the folds of my skirt and stepped closer, eyes traveling up and down to study him. Dark robes with a crimson collar. His black hair was unkempt, yet his presence was honed to a terrifying sharpness. The sword at his waist was clearly a masterpiece. Everything about him suggested a swordsman of the highest caliber.
Only then did I notice he was carrying something. It was mostly hidden by his arms and torso, but the dangling feet and awkward shadow were unmistakable. No matter how I looked at it, the shape was human.
He closed the book, stood, and turned to face me.
“...Huh?”
The person cradled in his arms was a woman with snow-white hair. Her face was painfully familiar. Her build, her features—above all, she looked strikingly like me. She was someone etched deep into my memories. The most beautiful person in the world, I had always thought. Yet now she lay limp in a stranger’s embrace.
No. Correction. The sister in that man’s arms was no longer a person at all. Dried blood stained her chest. Her soul had already fled that empty shell.
The shock was so great that no words left my lips. He simply held out the book in silence.
“It would be most accurate to say I played a significant role in delivering this book to you.”
With trembling hands I accepted it and set it back on the desk. He stepped closer. I flinched backward. The one who helped deliver this book? Who? Then a title flashed through my mind—the name written at the very end of the manual. A swordsman of overwhelming power, just like the man before me.
“Nice to meet you, Namgung Hye, strategist of the Murim Alliance.”
He approached without hesitation and lifted his arm to chest height. The poisoned dagger slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor. I thought it was over, yet he paid it no mind. He simply placed my sister gently into my arms.
“I am Pacheon Singun, former Vice Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult, Jin Sowoon.”
A scream nearly tore from my throat. He swiftly covered my mouth before it could escape. Once my racing heart settled, several facts became clear.
First, he had no killing intent. Had he come to attack, he would have launched sword strikes from the outset and brought an army with him.
Second, screaming for help would have ended in slaughter. Provoking Pacheon Singun so recklessly? It would have been like tugging the tail of a sleeping tiger and inviting death upon everyone nearby.
Finally, he seemed strangely different from the rumors. The way he sat quietly across from me gazing out the window, the fact that he had delivered my sister’s body without causing chaos—none of it matched what I had heard.
To the man who continued staring blankly outside, I spoke carefully.
“...You do realize this is not a place you should be, yes?”
He turned his head slowly, tilting it in apparent confusion.
“Why not?”
He pointed a thumb at his own chest and continued in a measured voice.
“I am the former Vice Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult. I no longer belong to the Demonic Cult. In other words, I am a free man. There are places I choose not to go, but none that can stop me from going.”
“You know how absurd that sounds, correct?”
The list of crimes that had made him a public enemy of the Murim was endless. Leading the Ami bloodbath. Leading the annihilation of the Kunlun Sect. Participating in the occupation of Guangdong, the surprise attack on the Moyong clan, and the kidnapping of their bloodline. Leading the occupation of Sichuan. Beyond that, he had turned tens of thousands of righteous warriors into corpses and rivers of blood, stacking mountains of carnage across the land.
A public enemy of the Murim had walked straight into the heart of the Murim Alliance. Even if he was among the strongest of the Ten Venerables, could he truly leave with all his limbs intact?
“...Well, it was meant to be a joke. But her sister is even stiffer than I was told.”
Or perhaps the Sword Queen herself would not have laughed at it either. He shrugged and muttered the words under his breath.
Sword Queen. In the current Murim there was only one person who held that title—my sister, the Blue Sky Sword Empress Namgung Seha. Though of course she no longer held it.
His words grated on me. No matter how I interpreted them, they only suggested he and my sister had been close enough to exchange casual jokes.
“...Why have you come?”
The note at the end of the manual, the fact that he had delivered my sister in person, even that seemingly insignificant remark—everything kept pointing to a relationship far deeper than I had imagined. I deliberately kept my voice sharp as I asked.
After a moment of thought, Pacheon Singun pushed back his chair and stood. He walked slowly to the window, opened it, and stretched his hand outside.
A firefly landed on the back of his hand, glowing brightly. He brought it into the room. After circling once, it flew back out through the window.
“Did the firefly give off light?”
Of course it had. That was why it was called a firefly.
“How did it look? The light illuminating a dark room.”
He was not merely asking about the firefly. He was asking for my impression. Yet he didn’t seem to expect an actual answer.
“Wasn’t it beautiful?”
Only then did he look at me again. I recalled the firefly from earlier. Yes, glowing softly beneath the faint moonlight, it had indeed been beautiful. When I nodded, he gave a small smile and turned back to the window.
“To me, she was the same. She was light, and she was beautiful.”
Another firefly drifted in from outside. I couldn’t tell if it was the same one, but it lingered inside the room longer before departing.
“But a firefly radiates its true beauty within nature. That is why I have come—late though it may be—to guide her to the place where she belongs.”
He turned to face me. His voice had grown strangely gentle, like that of an old friend.
“This must be uncomfortable, so this uninvited guest will take his leave.”
He was about to climb out the window when he suddenly paused, pointing at my sister in my arms.
“She said she wanted to see the sunset.”
“Please bury her somewhere with a good view.”
The words were unmistakably about my sister. After delivering what sounded like her final wish, he truly prepared to vanish.
Hearing even that, I began to wonder if he had truly severed ties with the Heavenly Demon Cult. I asked cautiously.
“...Where do you plan to go?”
He paused, then gazed up at the night sky.
“I have lived in too narrow a world. So I intend to wander wherever my feet take me and broaden my horizons.”
His expression looked strangely wistful. At the same time, his broad back somehow appeared small and lonely.
“...And while I’m at it, I thought I might follow the path lit by the lantern.”
With those final words he disappeared from the room in an instant. The space where he had stood was perfectly empty, as though no one had ever been there. Only the open window remained.
Perhaps because I had dozed off earlier, sleep refused to return. I simply held my sister’s fragile body tight and wept in silence.
After that day, I buried her on the eastern slope of Hapbi’s highest cliff and tried to return to daily life.
Then one day, a strange rumor began to spread both inside and outside the Murim Alliance. It spoke of a dark-clad swordsman who was secretly protecting people without anyone realizing it.