Chapter 481
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 481
Chapter Title: I'm Ashamed
“Is that all you think it is? Some trivial little thing?”
“Trivial?”
So Hwi-woong's eyebrow twitched once more.
A senior figure of the righteous orthodox sects, who should walk the path of justice, had devoured the inner core of a jiangshi and fallen to the evil path.
And that was trivial?
“The evil path of an incompetent fool is nothing but trivial. They abandoned the path of refining their qi through meditation and asceticism, ignoring the righteous way for an easy shortcut. Pathetic scum like that.”
Ha Mu-baek was resolute.
“Hm...”
So Hwi-woong couldn't refute it.
A disciple of the orthodox sects abandoning the righteous path for the evil one.
It was a grave matter, to be sure.
But the one who committed it was indeed a worthless fool.
“Then what is it?”
So Hwi-woong asked.
“The madness they unleashed here.”
“Madness?”
Ha Mu-baek recounted the facts he'd heard from Yang Bi-chang two nights prior.
After hearing everything from him, Ha Mu-baek had done nothing.
He'd exercised superhuman patience.
The moment he lifted a hand, he knew he'd slaughter that bastard's whelp in an instant.
The damn cur who couldn't even endure the first stage of bone marrow extraction and spilled everything without resistance.
“Do you know why the Fierce Dragon Corps' return rate is in such a state?”
“Because their martial arts are weak?”
“After Jegal Myeong began teaching shield techniques to the Fierce Dragon Corps cadets, the survival rate rose significantly. Yet the return rate barely changed.”
So Hwi-woong tilted his head.
Survival rate. Return rate.
He understood the difference between the two terms.
“Survival rate means the proportion of Fierce Dragon Corps members who lived, and return rate means those who made it back alive. If more survived each year, more should have returned, right?”
It was a perfectly logical question.
A rise in survival rate with no change in return rate was a contradiction.
“Because someone tampered with it.”
At Ha Mu-baek's response...
“Do Sim-gyeok. Are you saying that bastard pulled the strings?”
Ha Mu-baek shook his head.
“The Kongtong Sect.”
Thud.
The shock hit So Hwi-woong like his heart had dropped, his eyes widening in astonishment.
It was a paradoxical blow.
Pity and sorrow for the victims of the scheme.
Elation at seizing a chance to eliminate a longtime foe.
Two emotions surging at once.
“The Kongtong Sect?”
So Hwi-woong asked again for confirmation.
“Yes.”
“How did they tamper with survival and return rates?”
“Are you truly asking because you don't know?”
Ha Mu-baek countered So Hwi-woong's question with one of his own.
“Hmph.”
So Hwi-woong swallowed a groan.
The method wasn't hard to figure out, so he grasped it easily.
But still.
Even so.
A vague disbelief that they would stoop to such means.
No matter how depraved they were, surely not to that extent.
His expression must have betrayed those thoughts, for Ha Mu-baek glanced at So Hwi-woong's face and let out a scoff.
“Don't hold any vain hopes for those tear-out-their-throats bastards.”
From those words,
So Hwi-woong
realized the Kongtong Sect had indeed employed the method he'd imagined.
“Even so. Surely the Kongtong Sect wouldn't go that far. Couldn't it have been some field officer acting on their own?”
“The Demon-Sealing Corps' leader position. Who has it always been assigned to?”
The Kongtong Sect.
Even if vice leaders varied, the leader had always been from the Kongtong Sect, generation after generation.
“What if the same thing happened before Do Sim-gyeok became leader? Would you call it the independent action of just the former and current leaders?”
“...”
It was possible, but
the odds were exceedingly slim.
Ha Mu-baek's fury was deepening by the moment.
“Cheon Gi-buk. It was his orders. He commanded them to keep the jiangshi population in the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest stable at maximum to maintain inner core production.”
So Hwi-woong furrowed his brow.
“He didn't specify the exact method, but he led them to it. And Do Sim-gyeok happily obliged. Do you know that just one or two months ago, the fifth-year survivors of the Fierce Dragon Corps numbered two-thirds of the initial deployment?”
At Ha Mu-baek's rage-filled follow-up question,
So Hwi-woong was stunned.
Two-thirds had survived until just recently?
As far as he knew, only one had returned safely after completing service this time.
A result that didn't even reach half the average.
Yet two-thirds alive a mere one or two months ago.
Those who'd survived four, nearly five years, dead in just that short span?
Impossible.
Unless someone had intervened deliberately.
So Hwi-woong closed his eyes.
“Cheon Gi-buk...”
He murmured the three syllables lowly.
“They probably didn't even know inner cores could be consumed by people.”
So Hwi-woong nodded at Ha Mu-baek's words.
The jiangshi inner cores had been collected to verify the Demon-Sealing Corps' achievements.
Yet humans had eaten them.
“Those things weren't human to begin with. They devoured jiangshi cores and, to secure a steady supply, drove healthy people to their deaths.”
“...”
So Hwi-woong said nothing.
But
anger began to flicker slowly in his eyes as well.
“Demon-Sealing Corps members fled to safety, abandoning the Fierce Dragon Corps and saving their own skins. Some died in the process. Those who'd bonded closely with the Corps perished alongside them.”
Ha Mu-baek's voice grew increasingly agitated.
“Alliance Leader. Is this the greater good, justice, and righteous path you spoke of?”
His final words were practically a roar aimed at So Hwi-woong.
“It was the Kongtong Sect's doing. The Nine Great Sects. Those damn entrenched interests.”
Ha Mu-baek stared at So Hwi-woong with impassive eyes.
“They're orthodox sects in the end.”
So Hwi-woong tried to pin it on the Nine Great Sects,
but Ha Mu-baek dismissed it as a feeble excuse.
“Hoo. Mu-baek. How did you uncover all this?”
So Hwi-woong's thoughts turned to the source of the information.
Even Heavenly Eye Pavilion hadn't known.
For Ha Mu-baek to have this...
“Yang Bi-chang. The one you captured, Alliance Leader. He spilled it all.”
So Hwi-woong was startled.
“Just from his testimony alone. Well, once we return to headquarters, Strategist Gong Son would have uncovered it anyway.”
“Hm.”
This too was an excuse, but a valid one.
One chaotic event after another.
He'd had no choice but to rely solely on Yang Bi-chang's confession.
No time to comb through documents in Do Sim-gyeok's tent.
Ha Mu-baek had been able to do so.
Because he'd entrusted his duties to Han Seol-bing.
He had relative leeway.
No one could fault Ha Mu-baek for it.
Everyone knew the monumental feats he'd accomplished and the grave wounds he'd sustained.
However.
So Hwi-woong.
Even without pressing duties of his own,
he hadn't moved to investigate.
That admitted no excuses.
“I've grown too comfortable in this position.”
So Hwi-woong muttered softly.
Alliance Leader.
The one who charged at the forefront, while those around him handled countless tasks.
Grown too accustomed to it,
he hadn't thought or acted on his own initiative.
“What will you do?”
So Hwi-woong asked.
Hadn't Ha Mu-baek said he was agonizing over the path forward?
Strike them down?
Or abandon it and walk away?
“Hoo.”
Ha Mu-baek let out a deep sigh.
“Still deciding. If I choose to act...”
Ha Mu-baek trailed off.
'The demon inside me... the one I barely put to sleep... might awaken.'
An answer he thought but didn't voice.
“For now, let's head to headquarters together. The entire Fierce Dragon Corps too. We'll discuss it there. We must hear Strategist Gong Son's opinion on this matter.”
Ha Mu-baek rose from his seat.
“I'll give it more thought.”
Ha Mu-baek left So Hwi-woong's tent and headed to his own.
Entering, he found Wi Ji-gun seated at the table.
“The conversation dragged on, I see.”
Ha Mu-baek wasn't particularly surprised.
He'd already sensed it.
“Do you have something to ask?”
Wi Ji-gun had quietly trailed the Fierce Dragon Corps until yesterday.
Danger had passed, but to guard against unforeseen threats and protect Ha Seol-ran.
One reason Ha Mu-baek could entrust everything to Han Seol-bing was his master's such vigilance.
Yet today, he awaited in the tent.
“What troubles you?”
A wry smile on his lips, Ha Mu-baek brewed tea and recounted his exchange with So Hwi-woong.
“Beasts lower than dogs.”
Wi Ji-gun's assessment.
“Troubled?”
Ha Mu-baek nodded at his master's question.
“I'm starting to fear awakening the demon within me... the one I finally subdued.”
A frank admission.
“Demon?”
Wi Ji-gun asked again,
and Ha Mu-baek replied.
“This time... I faced it.”
A voice tinged with bitterness.
“I didn't realize it when I massacred the Blood Cult bastards hiding underground. But after everything ended... I confronted the demon.”
“That's why you rested.”
Ha Mu-baek nodded at Wi Ji-gun's words.
“I'm ashamed.”
Wi Ji-gun gazed steadily at Ha Mu-baek.
“You're overthinking it. It's the ordeal of washing away the blood scent. At your current realm, such things shouldn't sway you. Trust in yourself.”
At his master's words brimming with faith,
“It was slaughter.”
Ha Mu-baek responded with complex emotions.
“It was mere vengeance.”
Wi Ji-gun defended his actions.
“They weren't the ones who killed my parents.”
Ha Mu-baek spoke as if confessing.
“The Blood Cult. That organization did it. Had you not acted, they might have created more victims like you elsewhere.”
“The future is unknowable.”
Wi Ji-gun regarded Ha Mu-baek with a calm expression.
“You're worn out.”
A succinct evaluation.
“Rest. Sometimes, resting without thought is the answer.”
Wi Ji-gun rose from his chair, patted Ha Mu-baek's shoulder, and exited the tent.
He then stared quietly at Ha Mu-baek's tent.
“Having broken free, he now knows fear?”
Ha Mu-baek had left home at around thirty.
He'd immediately devoted himself to the Righteous Heaven Alliance, throwing himself into wars against the Blood Cult and Demonic Cult.
His blade soaked in the blood of countless from both.
Kill, kill, and kill again.
Ha Mu-baek had been a blood-mad demon driven solely by revenge.
Nothing more.
After those blood-soaked wars ended,
Ha Mu-baek no longer stained his sword with blood.
Then came
life at the Dragon Training Pavilion.
Reunion with Ha Seol-ran.
Efforts and success in shedding that bloodlust thereafter.
After all that,
just recently, he'd drenched his sword in the blood of countless humans once more.
And faced it.
The slaughter-mad demon that was his former self.
Ha Mu-baek spoke of facing and fearing to awaken the demon,
but it was no demon.
It was his past self.
Only now did Ha Mu-baek properly confront what he had once been.
After returning from the cave chamber, he'd unconsciously recognized the weight of killing.
That's why
he hadn't brought the Fierce Dragon Corps or Ha Seol-ran to exterminate the Blood Cult.
Only he and Han Seol-bing had gone.
“Hm. Should I call it a heart demon, then?”
Wi Ji-gun murmured after watching for a long while.
His past self.
The deeds of that past self.
Ha Mu-baek confronting the essence of his changed present.
Denying that past self
would birth a true heart demon.
“He plunged into the sea of blood too soon. My fault. Mu-baek.”
Turning away, Wi Ji-gun muttered bitterly.
A disciple consumed by revenge, devoting himself to training.
Wi Ji-gun had guided that disciple to the righteous path.
Yet still,
he shouldn't have sent out a disciple whose vengeful fury had peaked like that.
At minimum, with a precept against killing.
Now,
he regretted it.