“What do you mean by that, all of a sudden?”
When Geom Mugeuk spoke as if he had read her mind, saying she ought to help her mother, Hanseol was inwardly startled.
The reason Geom Mugeuk had said it was because he had the force behind this matter in mind. If the Blood King was targeting the Ice Palace, they would have to join hands to stop him.
Of course, he could not tell her that.
“The reason the Ice Palace Mistress accepted the condition I put forward was probably because she had made some sort of deal with the Northern Blood Sect. She must have saved the Northern Blood Sect Master’s second child and received compensation for it.”
Hanseol could not deny his words.
“And in the midst of that, we entered the Ice Palace. Your mother will be preoccupied with the Northern Blood Sect matter, so I meant that you would have to deal with us.”
Was that really why he had said it? It had felt a little more important than that.
“Young Cult Leader, there is no need for you to involve yourself in the affairs of this palace.”
“I said it for your sake.”
Aside from her mother, Hanseol never held long conversations with anyone.
For one thing, she kept her business brief, and who would dare draw out a conversation with the Young Palace Mistress?
Yet this Young Cult Leader kept making her speak. No—he made it impossible not to.
“Why do you say it’s for my sake?”
“Because I simply want to help.”
“There is no such thing as goodwill without reason in this world.”
After saying so firmly, she began to walk away.
She disliked receiving goodwill, but she disliked even more the situation in which she had to return it because she had received it. The emotions exchanged between people, that give-and-take, felt to her like passing around hidden weapons smeared with poison.
Geom Mugeuk followed after her.
“Why are you following me?”
“That’s hardly something someone who hid and eavesdropped on me should say.”
For a moment, Hanseol flared up.
“Eavesdropped? I merely…”
“Merely?”
“There was no opportunity for me to step forward.”
“Just as there is no goodwill without reason in this world, there is no grave without an excuse.”
Hanseol gave him a look of disbelief and began walking again. Come to think of it, she realized it had been a very long time since she had flared up like this. She truly disliked people like him, people who provoked others and stirred up their emotions however they pleased.
“Do not fall under the delusion that everyone in the world will be captivated by you. They simply… pretend to like you because you are the Young Cult Leader. If you were a low-ranking martial artist, do you think they would like you?”
“I would probably have been beaten half to death for being a mere low-ranking martial artist who talked too much.”
Hanseol started to burst out that she had not been joking, then stopped herself. If she did, he would only respond with some other absurd remark.
She said nothing more and continued on.
The martial artists passing by greeted her respectfully.
Hanseol accepted their greetings with the same expressionless face as always.
Then Geom Mugeuk interfered even with that.
“Are you always this stiff with your subordinates?”
“We are martial artists. Why expect kindness?”
In the end, she stopped walking again. This man’s values were far too different from hers.
“Did those people come here to play? Can I laugh and joke with them, then order them to go out on a dangerous mission where their lives are at stake? If I give that order, will they go willingly?”
Geom Mugeuk said nothing.
“Why are you silent?”
“You’re right. What am I supposed to say?”
Hanseol stared at Geom Mugeuk quietly, then left him with one final remark before turning away.
“Even if you are not a low-ranking martial artist but the Young Cult Leader, someday you are going to get beaten to a pulp.”
Hanseol strode off as if telling him not to follow. Geom Mugeuk’s voice came from behind her.
“Let’s have a drink together sometime! The Drunken Demon is abstaining from alcohol, so I haven’t been able to drink! Ian won’t drink with me either, saying she has to stay loyal to him.”
That was how he was until the very end. The Drunken Demon abstaining from alcohol? And what? His subordinate would not drink because she was staying loyal? Then was he saying she looked disloyal enough to drink with him? Just how much did he intend to mock people?
And so she left.
The playfulness vanished from Geom Mugeuk’s face as he watched her go.
There was no way to approach her by ordinary means when she had built an invisible wall around herself, so he was digging in like this.
The reason he was doing so was not because he wanted to brighten her personality or fill the hole in her heart. It was for her safety and that of the North Sea Ice Palace.
If the Blood King was involved with the Ice Palace, he would surely have stretched his hidden hand toward Hanseol as well. Or he would try to. That was how they had acted until now.
Geom Mugeuk looked around. In this barren land, the towering buildings and the enormous warrior statues made of ice gleamed as they reflected the sunlight.
“Blood King, where are you?”
Where have you hidden that cruel red blood of yours?
* * *
The North Sea Ice Palace had provided them with three rooms in total.
Geom Mugeuk said to Ian,
“You stay in the middle room.”
“So the two of you can protect me from either side?”
“We have to protect you if we want you to make us delicious noodles.”
They had no idea what was happening inside the North Sea Ice Palace, so they had to be as cautious as possible. The Drunken Demon would take care of himself, and if Ian was in the next room, the Heavenly Demon Body-Protecting Art he had mastered to great completion would react.
“Before coming here, I sent word to Eunwol and the Tongcheon Pavilion. I asked them to concentrate every bit of information-gathering power they can on the North Sea Ice Palace and the Northern Blood Sect.”
If the two intelligence organizations joined forces, they would exert tremendous power.
“I think the force behind this is the same people who plotted within the Murim Alliance and the Sado Alliance.”
The Drunken Demon and Ian nodded in agreement. They were the same ones who had been operating in secret even in the Pungcheon Cult beyond the borders. If they were not in the Ice Palace, that would be the stranger situation.
“Since they’ve been struck once already, this is even more dangerous. Please be careful, Young Master!”
“It’s fine. Hyung will protect you. Right? Why aren’t you answering? ‘I’ll take care of it!’ Why won’t you say it again?”
At Geom Mugeuk’s urging, the Drunken Demon pretended not to hear.
“Ah! I want to drink.”
“You mustn’t go back to how you used to be!”
Watching the two converse, Ian smiled faintly.
She had truly never dreamed that the Drunken Demon was this kind of person. He had always been drunk, and she had feared whether she would even be able to communicate with him. She had thought that if he became angry, he would become intoxicated with emotion and his mad drunken habits would burst out.
More than anything, she had thought he would overcome his sorrow with drink.
But he knew. He knew that drinking and grieving was not true mourning.
Instead, he had quit drinking, was looking calmly at the world, and was governing his own heart. In that way, he was comforting himself. He knew that one had to know how to comfort oneself in order to truly mourn.
“Be especially wary of the Northern Blood Sect. We discovered what they tried to hide.”
At the Drunken Demon’s words, Ian asked worriedly,
“Then won’t the Northern Blood Sect try to erase all evidence and cut off the tail?”
“They will.”
The one who answered was Geom Mugeuk.
“Then is it all right for us to just stay like this?”
“It’s fine. The things they do in order to cut off the tail will become another tail.”
“I see.”
Though she answered as if she understood, Ian could not tell exactly how he intended to respond, and she let out a sigh.
She had never fought a battle like this before.
The force behind it, the Northern Blood Sect, the North Sea Ice Palace.
It truly felt as if she were standing in the middle of enemy territory, surrounded by terrifying foes.
“How does it feel?”
“I’m nervous.”
But after looking back and forth at the two people who would fight alongside her, she added one more word to that trembling.
“In a good way.”
* * *
The next morning, the investigation into the Head’s death began in earnest.
Hanseol personally came to fetch the three of them.
As if she had never flared up the day before, she treated Geom Mugeuk calmly.
“First, I will guide you to the late Head’s room. The Palace Mistress ordered that it not be cleared out yet, so it has been preserved as it was.”
That was fortunate for investigating this incident. But why had the Ice Palace Mistress ordered it not to be cleared? Because they had been close? Or because the Ice Palace Mistress herself had doubts about her death?
“What was her cause of death?”
At the Drunken Demon’s question, Hanseol answered,
“She drank poisoned wine.”
At the words poisoned wine, the corners of the Drunken Demon’s eyes twitched.
“Could she have been poisoned by someone?”
“That cannot be. She left a will.”
As if she had expected the Drunken Demon to ask, she took the will from inside her robes and handed it to him.
It contained a confession that life had been difficult, along with apologies to the people of Baekju Snowfield who made the wine. It concluded with a request for the Ice Palace Mistress to forgive her disloyalty.
As the Drunken Demon read the will, something unusual passed through his sorrowful gaze.
“Our investigation confirmed that it was definitely the Head’s handwriting.”
“That’s right. It is certainly her handwriting.”
The Drunken Demon also acknowledged it. He had seen more of her writing than anyone, so at the very least, it meant the will had not been written by someone else.
“Where did she obtain the poison?”
“We did not investigate that.”
Since it seemed certain that she had taken her own life, apparently no investigation had been conducted.
“What happened to the Head’s body?”
“She was buried in the graveyard where the martial artists of this palace are interred.”
If she had already been buried, they could not determine what poison had been used from the corpse.
Hanseol guided the three of them to the Head’s room.
“I heard she had no family, so there is no one to come for her belongings.”
In that sense, the Drunken Demon was also the Head’s only family.
Together, they entered the Head’s room.
Upon stepping inside, the Drunken Demon mourned her for a moment.
“I have known you for so long, yet this is my first time entering this room.”
The room was neatly arranged. By the window stood a small bed just large enough for one person to lie on, and beside it were a small desk and chair.
“You must have sat at that desk and sent me your letters.”
The image of her sitting there and writing letters rose in the Drunken Demon’s mind.
Most of the books lined up on the desk were related to liquor.
Various parts and devices used in brewing were placed in a corner, and the clothes she wore while working were neatly folded.
Everyone felt the same thing.
She truly was someone who knew nothing but liquor.
On a display shelf against one wall stood several dozen bottles of liquor. They were bottles of all shapes.
“Since she kept them separately, they must be precious liquors, right?”
The Drunken Demon did not answer. No, he could not. Among the collected bottles were liquors he had sent her. Many of them were ordinary drinks that could easily be bought in the marketplace, yet she had kept them together with the rare liquors she had collected.
And that was not all she had kept.
The Drunken Demon found a box beneath her desk. Inside, she had carefully gathered the letters she had received from him.
“You kept all of these!”
The Drunken Demon did not know where the letters she had sent him were. Some were likely missing, and others were probably stuffed away somewhere.
Yet the Head had sorted and preserved the letters by date.
The Drunken Demon took one out and read it. It was worn with the marks of being read again and again.
“Ah, this happened too.”
A memory from a very long time ago returned to him. The letter contained things that made him wonder if he had really told her even such stories. His history itself was contained in those letters.
“May I take the letters she and I exchanged?”
At the Drunken Demon’s words, Hanseol readily answered,
“Please do.”
Even as he filled his bosom with the letters, the Drunken Demon showed no emotion.
“Now let us go to Baekju Snowfield.”
* * *
Baekju Snowfield was bustling with activity.
Behind the people loading ingredients onto carts and transporting them, they could see the place where the liquor was fermented, as well as the place where it was aged. There were also people bottling the finished liquor.
After they watched the workers for a moment, the man serving as the interim Head of Baekju Snowfield was called over. He was said to have been the person most trusted by the deceased Head.
“I have something to ask about the former Head.”
“Please ask.”
“Was there anything strange about her before she died? Did she behave differently, perhaps?”
“There was nothing of the sort.”
“Was there anyone she fought with?”
“The Head was not the sort of person to fight with anyone.”
They spoke with several people besides this man, but there did not seem to have been any internal conflict.
Before leaving Baekju Snowfield, the Drunken Demon investigated the liquor made there. The types of liquor produced, the production schedule, and where that liquor was sent.
After completing their investigation, the four of them left Baekju Snowfield.
“When it is this clear that she took her own life, is there any need to investigate further?”
If it was certain that she had taken her own life, the three of them would no longer have any justification to remain in the Ice Palace.
But in the face of Hanseol’s certainty, the Drunken Demon showed a certainty of his own.
“It wasn’t suicide, so we must investigate in earnest. Have the Ice Palace aid us more actively.”
When Han Seol looked puzzled, Chwima spoke with confidence.
“In today’s investigation, I found three indications and pieces of evidence that it was not suicide.”
“In what respect?”
Not only Han Seol, but Geom Mugeuk and Ian also looked curious.
Three of them?
“First, even if she had taken her own life, she would not have died after drinking poisoned liquor.”
“She loved liquor all her life, so couldn’t she have chosen to go on her final journey with it as well?”
Chwima firmly shook his head.
“A drunkard like me might have done that. But she was not a drunkard—she was someone who made liquor.”
Seeing that Han Seol still did not understand, Chwima added an explanation.
“I’m saying she was the sort of person who would sooner leap off a cliff than ever allow poison to be mixed into liquor she had made herself. Because she loved liquor in its purest form.”
Geom Mugeuk understood that sentiment like this.
A martial artist might be able to take his own life by driving his sword into his heart, but a swordsmith would not wish to stain a sword he had forged with blood.
“What are the other reasons?”
“I looked over the schedule for the Baekju Snowfield earlier. Five days after she died, the ice wine to be sent into the Palace Lord’s Hall was completed. That highest-grade ice wine can only be made during this period. It is also the most important day of the year at the Baekju Snowfield. And yet she took her own life without completing that final batch? Absolutely impossible.”
Geom Mugeuk and Ian nodded together. Han Seol did not react outwardly, but she too thought Chwima’s words made sense. It was a doubt that had been obscured by the fact that a suicide note had been found.
“What is the third and final reason?”
“That is the decisive one.”
Chwima spoke calmly, his gaze sunken.
“She left no suicide note for me.”
At the very least, he was certain she would never have left without saying anything to him.
“By leaving no note for me, she sent me her final message. She was asking me to reveal the truth of her unjust death.”
If she had written the note under threat? If she had foreseen her death, she might have left her final words for Chwima.
But by leaving nothing at all, she had told Chwima that this death was not suicide. It was something only possible with deep trust.
“Do you know what their mistake was? They killed the person who would have protected them.”
Chwima slowly stroked Blood Tears hanging at his waist as he spoke.
“The person who would have stopped me from getting drunk and going mad.”