A Tax on Ignorance
The Pursuit Captain of the Namgung Clan.
Song Gwang-sik, the Bright Moon Sword, reflected on his life.
Looking back, he realized he had never been a particularly lucky man.
No matter what he did, crisis always seemed to find him.
To overcome those trials, he had to crawl through absolute hell, sweating blood every step of the way.
Yet, somehow, by weathering those storms and holding on...
His reputation grew, and he gained subordinates who trusted and followed him.
Now, he was treated with decent respect within his clan—the Namgung Clan.
Good comrades. A good background and environment.
Before he knew it, he held in both hands honors far too grand for a penniless street orphan to ever deserve.
But.
Kwahahaha!
None of those things mattered unless he survived.
The witch before his eyes.
The young girl of the Mansi Sect was a monster.
She was a monster capable of turning Song Gwang-sik's entire career—built on surviving countless brushes with death and laughing off ordinary crises—into mere dust.
And against such a monster, Song Gwang-sik was currently running for his life.
"You must survive, even if you are the only one, Captain."
The insolent junior who always eyed his position: Na Han-il, the Storm Sword.
The arrogant vice-captain of the Pursuit Squad.
That very bastard had stayed behind with the rest of the men.
"The things we used to joke about? The time has come to actually do them. That's all. So keep your wits about you, Captain."
The bastard was insolent to the very end.
What did he think a captain's grave decision was?
Why did he have to rebel until his final moments?
"No, fuck, Gwang-sik hyung! Get a grip, please! We're too damn slow to escape anyway! You know that better than anyone!"
Strange.
I don't recall ever giving him permission to call me 'hyung.'
Song Gwang-sik rarely swore under normal circumstances.
But now, curses bubbled up naturally from the depths of his dantian.
He grit his teeth and sprinted through the forest at a breakneck pace.
In truth, Song Gwang-sik had already assessed the situation with cold rationality.
The moment they encountered that nameless monster of the Mansi Sect...
...this was the only way for even a single person to make it out alive.
Yet, Song Gwang-sik had wanted to be the one to stay behind.
"Fuck, Gwang-sik hyung! You're the fastest one here. Who doesn't know that? Or do you want our boys to die for absolutely nothing? Someone has to report back to the clan. So grit your teeth and run. I'm begging you. Just listen to me this once, okay?"
Come to think of it, Na Han-il...
He had bickered with this kid for over ten years.
An orphan just like himself, but possessed of a sheer, unyielding spite.
From the day he first joined the Pursuit Squad until now, his work had always been impeccably sharp.
When did that punk become so reliable?
He should have stepped aside and handed the captaincy over to him.
Perhaps he had been too greedy.
If this bastard had been the captain, would they have even ended up in this crisis in the first place?
"Fuuuuuuuck!"
Pushed to the absolute limit, all sorts of miserable thoughts flooded his mind.
Song Gwang-sik, the Bright Moon Sword, ran until the muscles in his thighs and calves threatened to tear.
With bloodshot eyes from ruptured capillaries, he stared straight ahead.
Desperately ignoring the screams and explosions erupting behind him.
He had found it strange that the hallway was completely clear.
He should have realized something was amiss then.
Tinkle—
Along with the distant chime of a bell, Ilyang looked at the purple thorny flowers blooming in profusion, enveloping a certain area. Though their form was not entirely concrete, he couldn't help but let out a soft whistle.
A boundary had been drawn between the inside and the outside.
And over quite a wide area, at that.
A magic circle is, at its core, the act of drawing a boundary.
The method by which a mage forces their own laws upon this vast world.
That was what a magic circle was.
Within the magic circle, the rules of the world could be bent.
Within it, a mage's intent or mental imagery could be manifested into reality.
Whether a massive fireball or a giant block of ice, anything created within the circle could exert full physical force.
However, the moment it crossed the boundary of the magic circle, its power would rapidly diminish.
For the world naturally resisted the mage's will.
But there was a slight exception.
A 4th-Circle Mage.
From the 4th Circle onward, one was a true mage.
Beings capable of projecting their power and will beyond the boundary to some extent.
He had suspected they might exist in this world as well.
After all, there were traces of magic, primitive though they were.
But actually smelling the thick scent of magic in the air sent a thrill of genuine excitement through him.
Closer.
Ilyang slowly approached the magic circle.
Inside the circle, a tempest of purple thorny flowers was swirling, tearing apart the people trapped within.
Ilyang slowly reached out his hand, his eyes fixed on the white-haired girl at the center.
Here is the boundary.
The boundary of the magic circle.
Where the inside and outside blurred.
He slowly placed his hand on that gelatinous threshold.
And then...
Sliiiip—
As if dipping his hand into soft pudding, his arm sank deep, all the way to the forearm.
Though Ilyang's legs remained firmly outside the magic circle, his arms could vividly feel the enemy mage's spellwork.
Quite a spicy kick.
A pungent scent brushed the tip of his nose.
With slightly unfocused eyes, Ilyang unconsciously licked his lips.
As if touching a highly toxic substance, his entire forearm submerged in the circle stung intensely.
At the same time, the flow of the mage's emotions... that raging torrent... was vibrating with violent clarity.
This was an emotion Ilyang knew all too well.
Wrath.
And vengeance.
Ilyang could feel that his opponent was far too emotionally unstable.
Thanks to that, despite the gap in their circles, a window of opportunity had opened for him to interfere from the outside.
And if one could interfere from the outside?
I can teach her a lesson.
Strictly speaking, this was entirely her fault.
She was the one who had flaunted such an alluring display right before his eyes.
So, it was entirely the brat's fault for piquing his curiosity.
What he was about to show her was merely a lesson from an elder.
To become a great mage, this was a tax that simply had to be paid.
A sort of growing pain, if you will.
Of course, one had to survive to grow.
But will you survive?
Ilyang quietly read the violent currents within the magic circle the girl had cast, and subtly introduced a trace of poison into the flow.
So exquisitely that she wouldn't even notice.
Had her realm been higher, or had she possessed a bit more experience, such a clumsy trick wouldn't have stood a chance.
Fortunately for him...
...you are still far too green and ignorant.
Pitiful thing.
In the world of mages, inexperience was a death sentence.
In the world of mages, ignorance was a capital offense.
Distracted by other matters, his opponent was completely oblivious to Ilyang's stealthy approach.
Naturally, she failed to read the trap he had laid.
Rumble—
"Die! All of you, die! How dare you touch my brother! How dare mere, insignificant mortals...!"
The girl's disheveled white hair stood on end, strand by strand, pointing toward the sky, as tears of blood streamed from her eyes.
The formation the girl had deployed... a wide-area magic circle spanning a full thirty zhang (approximately 100 meters), was called:
And near the center of the swirling formation, the Pursuit Squad members of the Namgung Clan were being shredded like rags by the thorny flowers.
The Captain must have escaped by now, right?
Though they wanted nothing more than to let go of life right then, even as they were ground into half-minced meat, they had to hold on.
Only then could they buy more time for their Captain to escape from this monster.
As the Pursuit Squad members stood back-to-back, feeling the cold embrace of death drawing near...
Clack—
The swirling formation suddenly ground to a halt.
Was she catching her breath?
A truly horrific attack must be coming next.
While everyone braced themselves, a piercing shriek erupted from the white-haired girl before them.
"Aaaaargh!"
Whoosh!
Suddenly, the girl's body began to burn.
As if drenched in molten lava, a fire erupted from deep within her, consuming her from the inside out.
The poison Ilyang had planted was burning her dantian, and soon, it set her entire body ablaze.
She thrashed and writhed in a desperate bid to escape the flames, but the fire showed no signs of dying down.
"What in the world...?"
The Vice-Captain of the Pursuit Squad, Na Han-il, stared ahead with eyes swollen shut and oozing fluid.
There, right before him, the girl who had looked like a demon just moments ago was screaming, rolling on the ground in a frantic struggle to extinguish the flames.
While everyone else stood frozen in bewilderment, Na Han-il did not hesitate.
He swung his broken sword in a crescent arc.
Slash—
The swordsmanship he had cultivated over long years did not betray him at this crucial moment.
Finally, the shrieks tearing from the throat of the Mansi Sect monster fell silent.
"Ha... haha! Hahaha!"
Her head had been severed.
Even jiangshis could not move once decapitated.
Whether that monster had been truly alive or not, she was definitely dead now.
Just as the light of hope flared in Na Han-il's eyes, something that hadn't been there a moment ago caught his attention.
"My, she ended up dead after all."
"...!"
A boy.
The boy named Ilyang, whom the Pursuit Squad had originally been sent to monitor.
The child was looking down at the girl's corpse with a deeply disappointed expression.