A House of One's Own
A person truly on the verge of death never says they feel like dying. They simply wonder whether their life is still attached at all.
How do I know?
Because Jin Cheong-un, eyes opening half-buried in rubble, was doing exactly that.
Did I survive?
He managed to raise his upper body and exhaled, slow and careful.
So I did live through it.
Turning his head, he took in his surroundings one slow degree at a time. From right before his eyes all the way to the distant mountain ridges, the whole world was stained a dull red.
The headquarters of the Esoteric Cult.
Until only days ago, the cultists' palace had been the most splendid and most dangerous place in all the Jianghu. Now it was a ruin filled with nothing but death.
How did it end?
His last memory was of blocking the Esoteric Cult Leader's strike in the Alliance Leader's stead. One way or another, it must have been settled.
Having steadied his breath, Jin Cheong-un reached for the sword lying beside him and tried to rise.
At that moment—
Clang!
The hilt slipped limply from his grip.
"..."
Only then did he take stock of his own body.
There wasn't a single unscathed spot on him. What was truly astonishing was that nothing even hurt.
"No wonder I felt off."
A hollow laugh escaped him of its own accord. In this state, even if he somehow managed to grip a sword, could he actually swing it?
Giving up on rising with any grace, Jin Cheong-un simply flopped back onto the ground.
How did a country bumpkin from a rural martial school end up in a place like this?
True to his name and its dream of blue clouds, he had thrown himself into the Martial Alliance a good fifteen-odd years ago. Looking back, it had all begun with a single offer.
"Martialist Jin. Would you consider becoming the Alliance Leader's secret bodyguard?"
Secret bodyguard?
Not just a bodyguard—a secret bodyguard.
Did it not sound, from the words alone, like unearthing the Jianghu's hidden histories and standing against vast conspiracies? If your heart didn't race at the thought, you were no true martial artist.
If your heart suddenly races, you go see a physician. Why would you sign on as a bodyguard?
Unearth hidden histories? Battle vast conspiracies?
Well, he had done something of the sort.
The problem was everything in between.
Working while the Alliance Leader rested. Starving while the Alliance Leader ate. And when the man went so much as to relieve himself—!
Jin Cheong-un squeezed his eyes shut.
I should have retired.
He had tried. The chances had been there.
I should have retired long ago.
If only he hadn't fallen, every single time, for the Alliance Leader's cunning tongue.
"You've had a hard time of it lately. I'll grant you a week's leave—go and clear your head."
"Oh dear, and I was just about to raise your stipend... Even in retirement, a full purse makes for an easier life, wouldn't you say?"
"I say this as though you were my own son—do you know how cruel the world is out there? If the Alliance is a battlefield, then the world beyond is hell itself!"
As expected of a man who had climbed to Alliance Leader in an organization crawling with schemers—his honeyed persuasion operated on an entirely different level. The man could probably spout something like when luck turns against you, you'll break your nose falling flat on your back and make it sound profound.
He had sworn that no matter what the man said, he would quit. And right at that moment—
The Esoteric Cult had risen.
Still, somehow, they had made it all the way here...
"Cheong-un! Buy me some time!"
To think that wicked old man would dump one last chore on him at the very end?
Absurd, however many times he replayed it.
Was that any way for the Martial Alliance Leader to speak? He'd merely dressed it up in pretty words—asking him to die as a sacrificial pawn was exactly what it—
Sacrificial pawn?
For an instant, Jin Cheong-un's body went rigid.
Oh, come now. No way.
...No way?
Then—
"You're alive after all."
Jin Cheong-un turned his head. An elderly man was making his way over—the Alliance Leader of the age, Yeo Woon-baek.
"You survived as well, Alliance Leader."
"We were lucky."
Yeo Woon-baek limped closer, a hollow smile on his lips.
"Is your body holding up?"
"...It's livable. More or less."
"Heh heh, remarkable. To take that strike and still—you...?"
Examining Jin Cheong-un at close range, Yeo Woon-baek's expression darkened.
Jin Cheong-un chuckled.
"It's fine. Getting off this cheap is a bargain."
Yes—a bargain. The two of them had nearly gone sightseeing along the river of the dead together, and yet here they both were, still breathing.
"More importantly, what became of that one?"
The master of the devils who had plunged the whole world into war.
He meant the Esoteric Cult Leader—foremost of the priests of the Twelve Branches, the man the world called the Heaven-Slaying Demon God.
"You haven't seen him?"
"I was in a meeting with the reapers of the underworld until just this moment."
"And you had the good sense not to follow them back. Well done."
Yeo Woon-baek smiled faintly, and when he spoke again, his voice ran deep.
"It's over."
"..."
Yes. It truly was over.
The war. The Esoteric Cult Leader.
And the martial arts he had spent his whole life mastering.
"Thanks to you, I bought a single breath and took his head. How in the world did you manage it? Learned some new art behind my back?"
"Ah, no, that's not—"
As he moved to answer, Jin Cheong-un paused mid-word and tilted his head.
"Hold on. What do you mean by that?"
"Hmm?"
"Don't tell me you asked me to block it without knowing whether I could survive it?"
"..."
"..."
After a long moment of silence, Yeo Woon-baek let his gaze slide away and spoke.
"...I believed you could do it."
This man?
Yeo Woon-baek smoothly changed the subject.
"So. What exactly happened?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure myself."
The man's martial prowess had truly deserved the name Demon God.
Even fighting in concert, they had barely held even, and his reserves had run dry long before the end. He'd had no trump card up his sleeve capable of stopping the man's ultimate strike.
And so...
In sheer desperation, I seem to have unleashed the arts I learned back at the martial school, ages ago.
Arts he hadn't spared a single glance since learning the Alliance's advanced techniques.
Yet not only had they stopped the strike—they had saved his life.
The man shouted something, too, didn't he?
Well, well. What he'd taken for third-rate rural martial learning had perhaps been a hidden supreme art all along.
Not that it did him any good now.
"I suppose I got lucky."
"...Luck. Well, what does the past matter now? When the heart is sincere enough, even heaven can be moved."
The conversation lapsed, and silence settled over the ruin.
Gazing out across the desolate battlefield, Yeo Woon-baek murmured, half to himself.
"So only this old Alliance Leader gets to limp home alive. What am I to do with all these restless souls left buried in the wilderness?"
"..."
At a loss for a reply, Jin Cheong-un simply blinked.
Then, abruptly, Yeo Woon-baek turned to him, his eyes grown deep.
"You've suffered."
"...?"
"Without you, I would never have made it this far."
Yeo Woon-baek's voice hung heavy in the air.
Jin Cheong-un flinched.
Why is he like this all of a sudden?
Yeo Woon-baek went on, calm and measured.
"You've done so much for me all these years. There were times I regretted bringing you into the Black Dragon Unit—but looking back, it seems that was the best decision of my life."
"What's gotten into you? This doesn't suit you."
"I mean it. I will never forget what you sacrificed."
Yeo Woon-baek held his gaze, grave and earnest.
"Thank you."
"...?"
"And... I'm sorry."
A heartwarming moment by any measure—and yet Jin Cheong-un's spine went cold in an instant.
Every manner of thought flashed through his mind.
He rested a careful hand on his hilt.
"Is this it? Now?"
"Now? What on earth... And why are you looking at me like that?"
"So this day has finally come. Did you think I wouldn't see it coming?"
"See what? See what, exactly?"
"Given the flow of things, isn't this precisely the mood for it? A pat on the back—'off you go, well served'—right before the knife finds your spine? Ah, I always knew a day like this would come."
"What?"
Yeo Woon-baek blinked, doubting his own ears.
"Betrayal? Who? Me?"
Soon his face had flushed a furious red.
"What utter nonsense! Why would I!"
"Well..."
Jin Cheong-un made a leisurely stabbing motion into the empty air.
"You know too much, you've served your purpose, your sacrifice was necessary—and then, from behind... thunk!"
Yeo Woon-baek finally lost his temper.
"Wh-what! How on earth have you been seeing me all these years!"
"As the man who lured an innocent country boy with the sweet words 'secret bodyguard' and wrung him dry down to the marrow."
"Your mouth may be crooked, but at least speak straight! You—argh! Secret bodyguard in name only—do you have any idea how much havoc you wreaked everywhere you went? How much I suffered cleaning up after you!"
"I'm a grown man now—why must you go on about this and that like the old days? And how much trouble could I possibly have caused?"
"Forgotten knocking the teeth out of the envoys from the Assembly, have you?"
"They picked the fight first! A bodyguard has his pride too, you know."
"Pick two more fights and you'd have flattened a fortress next. No—didn't you very nearly manage exactly that once?"
"You said I did well at the time! You've been nursing that grudge all these years? You're a surprisingly petty man, Alliance Leader."
"And now this rascal sits there going 'come to think of it'!"
Yeo Woon-baek's eyes flashed.
"Fine! You want me to stab you as I please? Come right up and see! Where shall I stab you first!"
"There's your true colors at last."
"Hah! Haaah! Haaaah!"
Yeo Woon-baek pounded his chest, thump thump, as though his heart might burst.
"Whew. You rascal."
"Stay right there. Speak from where you are."
"Why, you—"
Through sheer superhuman willpower, Yeo Woon-baek preserved his dignity as Alliance Leader.
"Did you buy more of those strange storybooks at the night market again? How many times must I tell you to stop reading that trash!"
"Strange? Trash? How dare you hurl such insults at—!"
"The only insult here is the one I'm suffering! I am, need I remind you, the Martial Alliance Leader—head of all the orthodox sects!"
"So you won't do it, then?"
"I won't, you rascal!"
"Fine, don't. Why fly into a rage over it? You really do have a peculiar temper."
Creeeak.
Yeo Woon-baek ground his teeth.
More than any Esoteric sorcery ever had, Jin Cheong-un's sly, needling tone shredded his composure.
"Find the survivors! Quickly!"
"Over here!"
Around then, a commotion rose in the distance.
The members of the strike team who had come to the headquarters with them. More had survived than he'd expected, it seemed.
After watching them for a while, Yeo Woon-baek spoke again.
"Cheong-un."
It was less the tone of a superior calling a subordinate than of a father calling his son.
"...Yes, Alliance Leader."
"How long has it been since you joined the Black Dragon Unit?"
"A little over ten years, give or take."
"Already... The little troublemaker has grown almost human before I knew it."
Yeo Woon-baek laughed heartily.
"You truly mean to retire?"
"Yes."
"What about the ones who follow you?"
At that, even Jin Cheong-un faltered for a moment.
"They never listen to a word anyone says. They'll manage on their own."
"You're serious."
"Yes."
"One more question."
The humor drained from Yeo Woon-baek's face, and he asked, solemn now.
"Are you retiring because you simply want to leave? Or is there something you've come to want to do?"
"..."
"You've sung your retirement song a hundred times over, but never once said what you actually wanted. Ever since you achieved the purpose that brought you into the Alliance, you've seemed like a man with nothing left but the shell."
"I never got the promotion I came for—just work, work, and more work. Of course I seemed that way."
"That's not it, though. Is it?"
"..."
That was why Yeo Woon-baek had deliberately held on to Jin Cheong-un all this time.
Such is the life of any wanderer of the Jianghu, but the work Jin Cheong-un had done his whole life was work that drew blood.
And Jin Cheong-un had a knack for that work, a talent for it—nay, even a purpose in it. Unfortunately.
Then—
"I'm going to open a martial school."
Yeo Woon-baek's eyes lit up with surprise.
"A martial school?"
"Yes. I'll take it easy, draw a modest official stipend, and try my hand at teaching the village children."
Life was a truly unpredictable thing.
It felt like only yesterday that he had defied his master's wishes, cast the martial school aside, and set out into the Jianghu—and now, of all things, he meant to open one himself.
"A martial school. Heh heh heh."
Yeo Woon-baek let out a hearty laugh and nodded.
"I suppose the time has finally come to let you go."
He glanced up at the sky once and sighed, low.
"The moment this war ends, you're going to give a great many people terrible headaches."
"What headaches could one bodyguard's retirement possibly cause?"
"One bodyguard?"
Yeo Woon-baek snorted.
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