Jinha-gun let go of the doll he had been trying to stand up.
Ssk-ssk.
The sound of carving wood was heard again.
Normally, his Master wouldn’t have cared whether a doll was standing or lying down.
Who was this doll, that he did?
Jinha-gun looked down at the fallen doll again.
For some reason, his eyes kept being drawn to it. In the end, though he didn’t dare stand it up, Jinha-gun quietly flipped over the doll that had been lying face-down.
In that moment, Jinha-gun was startled.
The wooden doll was him. It was finger-sized, but he could instinctively feel that it was definitely himself. The clothes and the hair were the same.
“Is it me?”
At the low question, the sound of wood carving stopped.
“Yes, it’s you.”
Jinha-gun looked at his Master with a puzzled heart.
‘If it’s me, why did you tell me to leave it lying down?’
Jinha-gun could tell. That his Master knew about what had happened in Honam.
‘Even so.’
Rather than this, he wished his Master would just get angry. He felt worse than if he had been scolded. What exactly had his Master been thinking while carving this doll, and while laying it down in front of him like this? He felt a sense of disappointment and distance that he had never felt before.
‘I thought you would understand why I did it.’
Yes, his Master was doing this because he didn’t know the circumstances of that day.
“The son of the Cheonhwamun Lord murdered innocent people.”
His Master remained silent, focused on the carving. Since he was listening, it meant to continue.
Jinha-gun couldn’t speak the most important part of that explanation. He should have said that he realized abandoning Cheonhwamun was his grandfather’s test, but then wouldn’t that mean his Master hadn’t realized it was his grandfather’s test from the beginning?
“Because the Sword Immortal intervened, I had no choice.”
Whether he already knew this, or whether he thought it was an excuse, his Master said nothing.
If this were the past, he would have been frantic, begging his Master for forgiveness first.
But Jinha-gun simply looked at his Master quietly.
‘What would Geom Mugik have done?’
Perhaps because he had been thinking of Geom Mugik the entire way back? That thought really did cross his mind, like a lie.
His appearance came to mind. His face, looking at him with a bright smile.
—Let’s have a drink!
One thing was certain. Geom Mugik would have smiled and handled even this moment.
Yes, if you get excited, you lose.
Jinha-gun spoke calmly.
“I’m sorry for disappointing you.”
At that moment, the sound of carving stopped.
Baek Cheon-gyeong slowly raised his head and looked at Jinha-gun.
If this were the past, his heart would have been beating as if it would burst, but strangely, he wasn’t afraid.
A strange light flickered in Baek Cheon-gyeong’s eyes. He sensed that his disciple was different from usual.
Baek Cheon-gyeong put down the doll he was holding and rose from his seat.
And slowly walked toward Jinha-gun.
Jinha-gun looked at his Master quietly. If this were the past, his head would have moved before his eyes.
The Master’s mood must be like this now. What should I say to make his anger subside?
But the current Jinha-gun was thinking differently. About those words of Geom Mugik that had taken root in his heart.
—Have you been looking properly all this time?
Jinha-gun looked at his Master walking toward him.
His Master’s gaze, footsteps, hand movements, and even expression.
‘Strange.’
Baek Cheon-gyeong’s gaze, which had been fixed on his disciple, turned toward the doll that had been collapsed on the display stand.
“Were you disappointed that your doll had fallen?”
Jinha-gun answered in a calm tone.
“Because it’s the first doll you made for me, Master.”
Baek Cheon-gyeong stood the doll back in its place.
“Is this better?”
Jinha-gun looked at the doll for a moment, then laid it down again.
“No, this time I lost to Geom Mugik. It should be lying down.”
As if he had been waiting for that reaction, Baek Cheon-gyeong nodded his head.
“Right. You should have somehow taken Cheonhwamun into your hands and saved them.”
Jinha-gun looked at Baek Cheon-gyeong silently. Indeed, it was strange. Now that he thought about it, he had never looked at his face so closely from the side, and from so near. Even when looking at his Master, it was just a glance; even when looking at his grandfather, it was just a glance. That’s how he had lived, looking at people.
“If a war breaks out someday, hundreds of righteous faction martial artists might die because of Cheonhwamun. Can you bear that responsibility?”
If it were the past, he would have immediately prostrated himself and begged his Master for forgiveness. Because he would have felt the weight of what his Master was saying now. No, even if he hadn’t felt it, he would have thought his Master was right.
But now, he didn’t feel that way. Instead, he felt this:
‘Why bring up an extreme example that hasn’t even happened?’
Suddenly, Geom Mugik’s words came to mind.
—The person who connected you with that Cheonhwamun Lord does not wish for you to become the Alliance Leader.
At the time he had thought it was nonsense, but now it had grown into a small doubt in his heart.
“My thoughts were short-sighted.”
At those words, Baek Cheon-gyeong’s expression relaxed slightly.
“Yes, as long as you know. You must find a way to reclaim Cheonhwamun even now.”
“I will think about it.”
Baek Cheon-gyeong returned to his seat. Before resuming his carving, he muttered a word.
“The Alliance Leader would have wanted that too.”
Ssk-ssk.
Until the end, it was at odds with Jinha-gun’s thoughts.
‘Did he really?’
His grandfather had sincerely rejoiced that he had abandoned Cheonhwamun. Because he had tried to look at his grandfather properly, he could read that emotion accurately. If not, he would have hung his head and agreed to those words. Because he hadn’t looked at his grandfather properly.
Only today did Jinha-gun realize how important it was to look properly, as Geom Mugik had said.
‘Leaving everything else aside, shouldn’t we not forgive someone like Seocheong? Because we are the righteous faction. Because among the righteous faction, I am the one who will become the Alliance Leader, and you are that Leader’s Master.’
After meeting Geom Mugik and returning, his Master looked different.
No, perhaps he was only realizing today that his Master might be an entirely different person from what he had perceived.
* * *
That night, Jinha-gun had a nightmare.
He was chased all night by a shadow-like being whose face he couldn’t recognize. No matter how much he ran, his opponent knew where he was and pursued him.
Even now, that thing was following him from far behind.
He was too tired to run.
Moving his steps heavily in a state of despair, people on the side of the road were looking at him.
Among them were faces he knew. There were those who had trained in martial arts with him as a child, and there were quarrels. People he hadn’t been particularly close with. Why did these people have to appear? Nightmares always summon those one has forgotten.
Passing by them, he continued walking. Meanwhile, the shadow chasing him drew closer and closer.
He thought he would die now. Then someone called out to him.
—Young Lord Jin!
When he raised his head, Geom Mugik was looking down at him, leaning on the railing of the second floor of a tavern.
—Come up and have a drink.
He was smiling brightly, just like at their last parting.
As if entranced, he went up to the second floor of the tavern. He was glad to see him.
Standing on the second-floor railing with Geom Mugik. The dark shadow that had been chasing him only looked up at him from the tavern entrance, unable to enter. He felt that the terrifying shadow was afraid.
Then Geom Mugik, standing beside him, suddenly spoke. It was what he had said to him at the banquet hall.
—Is that not why we exist? If not us, who could stop such a one?
In that moment as he looked at Geom Mugik, Jinha-gun woke from his dream.
“Whew.”
Soaked in sweat, Jinha-gun let out a sigh.
It wasn’t strange that Geom Mugik had appeared in his dream. Because he had been thinking of him constantly since meeting him.
But the choices he had made in the dream today were too foolish. He had just been chased helplessly. Whether fighting directly, leading the Demon Extermination Corps to fight, or going to his grandfather to ask for help. He should have made active efforts and choices. He had just been chased.
What made him angrier was that in the end, he had given up on everything. He remembered vividly that moment when he had been walking heavily in despair.
Shaking off the nightmare, he sprang up from his bed.
* * *
Jinha-ryeong was startled by Jinha-gun’s visit.
“Even my brother does things he doesn’t usually do?”
Because Jinha-gun hadn’t visited her quarters recently.
“People change.”
“Don’t change too much, it’s scary.”
Looking around the room, Jinha-gun sat down. Because her older brother wouldn’t have come to see her for no reason, Jinha-ryeong inwardly tensed and asked.
“How did it go?”
“I failed.”
“For a failure, you look well.”
“It was half failure and half success.”
Jinha-ryeong looked at him with an expression asking what he meant, but Jinha-gun didn’t answer. Though he had said that, he himself didn’t know. What was right and what was wrong now.
“How was Geom Mugik?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t be like that, tell me.”
“I said I don’t know. I don’t know that person.”
Jinha-ryeong nodded her head.
“You saw him well. That person.”
She too, if asked what kind of person Geom Mugik was, could only give that answer.
Then Jinha-gun brought up something unexpected.
“Ha-ryeong, have you ever experienced something in life you couldn’t understand?”
Jinha-ryeong looked at Jinha-gun with a surprised heart.
“Right now.”
Jinha-gun smiled faintly.
“I’m asking seriously.”
Had there been such a thing? Ah, there had.
“When I met Geom Mugik, back then I couldn’t understand anything at all.”
“How did you get past it?”
“I didn’t get past it. I was swept away by that person and it passed.”
Now Jinha-gun too could understand exactly what that meant.
Jinha-ryeong could tell. That a wave of change had crashed into her brother’s life. She didn’t ask if it was because of Geom Mugik. Because he wouldn’t answer that it was, even if only out of pride.
Then Jinha-gun asked about an unexpected matter.
“Are you still holding the junior talents’ gatherings?”
“I am.”
“Many must come.”
“Do they come to see me? They come to get in Grandfather’s good graces.”
Jinha-ryeong invited the righteous faction’s junior talents in rotation. It was closer to the Alliance managing the junior talents on an organizational level rather than a personal gathering. She was in charge of that.
“There’s someone I want to invite.”
“Who?”
Then from Jinha-gun’s mouth came an unexpected name.
“Someone we must look at without prejudice.”
Jinha-ryeong was startled. He was talking about Geom Mugik right now.
“Why him?”
Jinha-gun answered.
“I need his help. Invite him as your guest, and arrange for him to meet me under the pretense of coincidence.”
He couldn’t call him directly. The person who would become the Alliance Leader couldn’t ask the Demonic Cult’s Young Cult Leader for help.
“Are you serious?”
Jinha-gun nodded his head. It was enough to surprise his sister like that. Even he himself thought this was a crazy move.
But he felt it instinctively. The alienation he had felt from his Master was continuously stimulating his crisis instinct. If he lived not knowing as he had until now, perhaps it would be fine, but the doubt that had sprouted in his heart was growing day by day.
It was not a time to delay, nor a time to nurse his pride. He needed someone’s help, and he needed an outsider who could look at this situation objectively, not an insider entangled in interests. He felt that he mustn’t be powerless as in the dream.
“Why on earth?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“I’ll ask again. Is this a situation where the Demon Extermination Corps Lord needs the Demonic Cult Young Cult Leader’s help?”
Jinha-gun answered.
“Let’s say it’s a situation where your older brother needs your friend’s help.”
Even thinking about it himself, it was absurd. But his instinct, even mobilizing dreams, was speaking urgently. That he needed him.
Jinha-ryeong hesitated. Though this was the first request her brother had made of her since she had come of age, she hesitated.
Geom Mugik was a good memory for her too. She wanted to see him again under this pretext.
But him getting entangled with her older brother was a different matter. It was a relationship between the successor to the Martial Arts Alliance and the successor to the Demonic Cult.
So she was uneasy. Whether it was alright to draw someone from the Demonic Cult into her brother’s affairs.
“Can you handle it?”
After a brief pause, Jinha-gun shook his head.
“Geom Mugik? I can’t. Because he’s someone I can’t handle, that’s why I need his help.”
Because he had accurately assessed the opponent, Jinha-ryeong felt relieved instead.
“Then that’s fine.”
* * *
I was training in the Sicheonbisul within the Sigong Ihwan Technique.
Since returning to the past, I had met all sorts of people and handled all sorts of matters, but I had never forgotten that martial arts training was the most important thing. Whenever I had time alone, I always devoted myself to training.
The Sicheonbisul was developing little by little. It was truly slow, like a tortoise. But I didn’t give up. I trained and trained again, hoping that one day my realm would suddenly rise dramatically. Of course, such a thing never happened.
When I had to be in places where people came and went, I would briefly close my eyes and train in the Cheonma Hoshinsul. Because I had left it one step before grand accomplishment, I trained with all my might.
For the Guhwa Demon Art, whenever I had spare moments, I only repeated the First Form. With the Flying Heaven Sword Art that had achieved the Grand Perfection of the Twelve Stars, there would be almost no opponent I couldn’t kill, but if one appeared, I planned to kill them with the First Form. So I trained in repetition, again and again. I had seen the Four Evil Ghosts so much that I now felt a sense of intimacy with them. The time they stayed was also subtly increasing.
Having finished training like that and resting for a moment, I saw Gwonma taking a walk outside the window.
Gwonma stood tall at the end of the courtyard, looking beyond the wall at the distant mountain.
“Master.”
I stood side by side next to Gwonma.
“Shall I guess what you were just thinking?”
At that, Gwonma showed interest.
“What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking of the cliff, right?”
“If someone heard that, they’d misunderstand me as being crazy about breaking cliffs. Why did you think that?”
“Because your back told me as much, Master.”
Gwonma looked at me with an expression asking what I meant.
There are people who tell you who they are with their backs. My father is like that, and Gwonma is like that.
The reason loneliness is felt when looking at his back is probably because one knows how stubborn that back is. Because it is a back that would walk alone toward thousands or tens of thousands of enemies without a moment’s hesitation if it were Father’s command.
“Master, I don’t think you should break the cliff.”
“Why?”
“When will you clean all that up? And it’s only cool because that cliff is there, isn’t it?”
Gwonma looked at me and smiled. This man’s smile, this smile that is not seen often, I like it.
Then a martial artist from the Honam branch came and delivered a message. Surprisingly, it was a message from Jinha-ryeong.
—Didn’t I say that if something strange and incomprehensible happens in life, you must absolutely tell me? That time is right now.