I arrived at Hwangcheon Pavilion the next day.
The investigators and enforcement warriors welcomed me back with fervor after my long absence. In particular, morale at Hwangcheon Pavilion had soared once again after I brought in one of the Great Drunken Demon’s subordinates.
My office was as neatly arranged as it had been when I left. Seeing the flowers in the pot by the window growing well, I could tell Seo Daeryong had been taking good care of the office too.
“Bring me everything that’s piled up.”
“I thought you would say that, so I brought it already. These are the matters you must handle personally, Pavilion Master.”
I had expected the work to have piled up, but when I looked at the documents Seo Daeryong handed me, there weren’t as many as I’d thought.
On closer inspection, aside from the matters that absolutely required my attention, he had meticulously finished everything himself. It reaffirmed for me that when it came to Hwangcheon Pavilion’s work, he was better at it than I was. And since he was learning martial arts from the Blood Heaven Blade Demon, I had nothing to worry about there either.
‘He’s growing up well, our next Hwangcheon Pavilion Master.’
Of course, Seo Daeryong had no idea I was thinking that.
Just then, another investigator entered carrying a box.
“This is an item delivered for you, Pavilion Master.”
“Who sent it?”
“It was sent by the Drunken Demon Venerable.”
He sent something after I captured one of the Drunken Demon’s men? I had asked the Demon Venerables about the Drunken Demon, but he had made a move before I did.
The investigator set the box down and left.
Just as I was about to open it, Seo Daeryong suddenly shouted.
“Be careful!”
“You startled me! Why?”
“I was about to say, what if poisonous smoke bursts out? But that can’t be it. He wouldn’t kill you over some bastard who drank and drove a carriage into people.”
“Of course not. I nearly died because you startled me instead.”
When I opened the box, there was a single liquor bottle inside.
“He sent liquor.”
The moment I picked up the bottle, I flinched in surprise.
“No, he didn’t send liquor. He sent a liquor bottle.”
The bottle was empty.
“Could it be precious porcelain?”
“It’s just an ordinary liquor bottle you’d find in the marketplace.”
“Why would he send you a cheap liquor bottle, Pavilion Master? Isn’t he asking for a fight?”
He must have known we would react this way. So why send an empty bottle?
“This is the Drunken Demon’s warning. He wants his man released.”
“If that were the case, he would have sent a broken liquor bottle. Or a blade.”
“Then why did he send it?”
“Is there any need to agonize over it?”
I sprang to my feet.
“What are you going to do?”
“What else would I do with the Drunken Demon?”
I took the liquor bottle and left the office.
“I should go have a drink.”
* * *
Holding the liquor bottle in one hand, I entered Daechwi Forest, where the Drunken Demon resided. Since I had sent word ahead that I would visit, a warrior was waiting to guide me.
Following the warrior’s lead, I went deeper into Daechwi Forest.
Houses had been built all throughout the place, ranging from huts to grand estates. All kinds of homes stood there, giving off an impression that was both beautiful and free-spirited.
In particular, breweries large and small were scattered throughout Daechwi Forest. Drunkards sat on raised platforms drinking, and some were simply lying there, dead drunk. If you looked kindly on it, it seemed free. If not, it looked like utter chaos.
But I knew. Compared to the followers of the other Demon Venerables, their numbers weren’t great, but those gathered here were relatively skilled. That was why the gazes of those who appeared drunk were anything but ordinary.
There was a lake in the center of Daechwi Forest.
In the middle of that lake was a small island, and on it stood the pavilion where the Drunken Demon resided.
I headed there in a small rowboat.
The warrior who brought me dropped me off on the island and returned.
I slowly walked toward the pavilion. At the entrance, a woman welcomed me with the door open.
“Welcome, Young Master. I am Yeo Bin.”
With her graceful impression, she was, like Gu Mayeong of the Three Great Drunkards whom I had met before, an expert counted among the Three Great Drunkards.
“The Demon Venerable is waiting for you. Please come this way.”
I slowly went inside.
The place she led me to was a pavilion called Chimong Pavilion.
When I went up into the pavilion, the Drunken Demon was there.
He was asleep, reclining at an angle in a cushioned floor chair covered with soft fur.
The place reeked of liquor and was a complete mess. Dozens of liquor bottles lay scattered everywhere. Some had toppled over, while others stood upright.
But I could feel it. These bottles were not simply lying around. If a fight broke out here, I instinctively sensed that all of them would become his weapons. They might even activate as a formation. It was chaos, yet not chaos at all.
The Illhwa Sword Venerable had called him unpretentious, and the Extreme Evil Young Demon had called him unpleasant. Now he was showing me yet another side of himself: sleeping in a drunken stupor.
Drunken Demon, what kind of dream do you dream when drunk?
I stood for a moment, gazing past the Drunken Demon at the sunlight sparkling on the lake, then sat about ten paces away from him. I set the liquor bottle I had brought down in front of me.
At the sound of another presence, the Drunken Demon slowly opened his eyes.
The Great Drunken Demon, Song Sahyeok.
He was young and handsome. Even within our cult, he was considered one of the finest-looking men, and he had a youthful face that made him look far younger than his age. It seemed he had not shaved for several days, yet the reason he looked manly rather than shabby was because he was handsome.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he drank from the liquor before him and asked me,
“Will you have a cup?”
Over his face appeared the final image of him I had seen before my regression. His emaciated form, reduced to skin and bones.
When I returned to our cult to obtain the materials for the Great Regression Art, the Drunken Demon was still alive. But he was merely clinging to life; it was not a life truly lived.
He had been bedridden. They said he had suffered from illness for a very long time. At the time, the demon physician diagnosed that the illness had come from drinking too much liquor.
The Drunken Demon dying from a liquor bottle?
This shocked everyone and became a source of mockery for those who disliked him.
—Will you have a cup?
Those had been the first words he said to me as he lay sick in bed. Then and now, the first words he spoke to me were the same.
Those words echoed in my heart, and over the face of his sickly self overlapped the Drunken Demon before me now, full of vitality.
“It’s liquor you’ll like.”
“I’m all right.”
As if he would not force me, he drank the liquor he was holding by himself.
“Why have you only come now? Am I that unpopular among the Eight Demon Venerables?”
“The protagonist always appears at the end.”
“Am I the protagonist of your story?”
“The protagonist of my story is me. You, Lord Drunken Demon, will either become my helper or my adversary. What about in your story? What role do I play? Is my brother the helper? Or am I?”
The Drunken Demon stared intently at me, then asked instead of answering.
“Do you like liquor?”
“There was a time when I did.”
“And now?”
“I drink enough to match the mood at a drinking party.”
“You’re still green with youth, yet you speak as if you have a story.”
At his amused response, I asked back boldly,
“Are the stories of the young not stories?”
The Drunken Demon laughed. Seeing such a handsome man laugh, my first thought was that he must have made plenty of women cry.
“What kind of liquor do you like?”
“I haven’t drunk enough to develop a preference yet. I prefer something easy to drink over hard liquor.”
He was probing me through questions about liquor.
His gaze turned to the liquor bottle placed in front of me.
“What liquor did you fill it with?”
“Why are you so sure it’s liquor? It might be water. It might be poison.”
At my answer, he smiled and poured liquor into his cup. He did not ask me to pour for him, and I did not offer.
“Why do you think I sent an empty liquor bottle?”
“I don’t know. I wondered if you sent it so I’d come ask you that.”
“How did you feel when you received it? Be honest.”
“Honestly? You’ll be offended.”
“It’s fine.”
“Never mind. You’ll definitely get angry.”
“I promise I won’t. If I get angry, I can just drink. Don’t we have liquor? Now, say it.”
“I thought, what the hell is this bastard trying to pull?”
For an instant, the Drunken Demon flinched, then drank the liquor before him.
“Excellent!”
By the time he set the bottle down, his expression had improved.
“This is why liquor is good. Once you drink, you forget everything and feel better.”
He spoke as if he had drunk an entire bottle after only one cup.
“If it annoyed you that much, why did you come?”
“Because it is a chance to learn what kind of person you are. Whether you are someone I can accept or not. Whether you are someone I can accomplish a great undertaking with, or merely a drunkard.”
The Drunken Demon’s demonic energy, subtly flowing out, was unlike anything I had ever felt in my life. As though alcohol qi were mixed into it, the moment his demonic energy enveloped my body, my head spun as if I were drunk.
I activated the Heavenly Demon Body-Protecting Art. The dizzying energy vanished, and my mind regained its calm.
When my gaze did not waver, surprise flickered across the Drunken Demon’s face.
“Lord Drunken Demon, do you like liquor?”
When I endured his pressure and even posed a question, the Drunken Demon withdrew his demonic energy.
“Do I like liquor? Is that something you ask the Drunken Demon?”
“Isn’t it precisely because you are the Drunken Demon that I should ask?”
“What do you mean?”
“You should ask a martial artist whether he likes martial arts, ask a musician whether he likes music, and ask a painter whether he likes painting. You should ask the owner of Pungryu Tavern what he thinks of selling liquor. But isn’t that a question you ought to ask such people at least once? Now, I’ll ask again. Do you like liquor?”
“!”
The Drunken Demon openly showed an expression that said, Look at this brat.
“You really are different from the rumors. I admit it. Among all the people I’ve met, you are the furthest from the rumors about you.”
“I hear that far too often. I don’t know who is spreading rumors about me, but I think I should drag them in and scold them. If they’re going to spread rumors, they should at least do it properly.”
“To deal with you, I’ll have to drink. It would be difficult sober.”
“Isn’t that something you should say in your heart?”
“What is so special about drinking?”
He drank several cups in succession.
“What kind of liquor is that? It must be difficult to find outside.”
“That is one of the preconceptions people have about me. I drink any liquor well.”
As if to prove it, he sent his wine cup flying toward me.
The cup slowly flew through the air and hovered in front of my face.
I smelled the liquor.
“Ah, this liquor is?”
“That’s right. It’s liquor I brought from the Pungryu Tavern you frequent.”
It meant he had been watching me.
“I’ll cast aside my preconceptions.”
He was the one who retrieved the cup as well. The cup flew back, tilted in midair, and he opened his mouth beneath it to drink.
The emptied cup dropped onto the table. It moved so smoothly that not a sound could be heard.
Just by watching him use Void Object Manipulation, I could gauge his skill. It was such a clean technique that it made me wonder how a drunken man could manage it.
“You’re impressive too. To know it was Pungryu Tavern’s liquor just from the smell.”
“It’s because I’ve only been drinking that tavern’s liquor lately. Aren’t you the one who can identify the taste of every liquor in the world by smell, Lord Drunken Demon?”
“How could I possibly know all the countless liquors in the world?”
Contrary to his modest words, the Drunken Demon was famous for identifying liquor by scent.
The Drunken Demon drank again. The more liquor went in, the redder his face became. I had thought that someone like the Drunken Demon could drink great quantities without his complexion changing, but his face reddened enough to show.
“When I drink, I feel better. Is it not the same for you?”
“It depends on who I drink with.”
“Liquor tastes best when you drink alone.”
“I don’t know that world well yet.”
“Oh dear! You do not know such paradise-like pleasure!”
That was a lie. When I lived as a wandering swordsman, I drank a lot alone. Back then, liquor was my friend, my refuge, and my resting place. And it was a demon tempting me toward ruin.
“You should have learned liquor from me! From this Drunken Demon.”
“That’s true. My father taught me liquor wrong. I’ll tell him when I see him tomorrow.”
Knowing it was a joke, the Drunken Demon laughed and drank.
The more drunk he became, the more his body tilted. He behaved like an ordinary person drunk on liquor. While drinking, he even spilled some. It was hard to tell how much was real and how much was an act.
He was defenselessness itself, but I did not think he was truly defenseless. Rather, this was probably the most dangerous moment to fight him. If one wished to fight him, one would first have to sober him up.
“Come to think of it, that’s true. It was also a preconception that because you are the Drunken Demon, you would drink endlessly.”
“Precisely because I am the Drunken Demon, I drink in moderation. Only those who know nothing of liquor drink until they lose themselves.”
“You’re right.”
“Second Young Master, have you ever fought after drinking?”
“No.”
“Try it. It is truly magnificent. It loosens your tension and makes you less afraid. Even when you’re hit, it hurts less. It will raise your full strength by three-tenths. In my opinion, all the masters who left their names in the history of the murim fought after drinking.”
He looked at the liquor in front of me.
“So drink. Liquor will give you strength. Liquor will soothe you.”
Only then did I pick up the liquor bottle I had brought. Then I slowly opened its stopper.
“That will not be the case.”
The moment the fragrance of the liquor spread out—
The Drunken Demon, who had been sitting at an angle as though lying down, sprang upright. It was a liquor he knew.
Without drinking, I set it back down before me and spoke calmly.
“Because I, too, know very well… the heart of a person drowning in liquor.”