Could there be any question more provocative and rude than asking the Poison King why he made poison?
If our relationship had not been as good as it was now, those words might have come out at once.
What kind of damned question is that to ask the Poison King?
Or he might have asked in return:
Then why do you learn swordsmanship?
Fortunately, the Poison King knew my question had not been tossed out thoughtlessly.
Instead of answering, the Poison King quietly stared at me.
I slowly moved my steps and walked between the display cases.
“There is already so much poison.”
Even just the poisons in this passage I was looking down were staggering in number.
They were probably poisons passed down through the generations in the Thousand Poisons Forest, but there would also be many poisons the Poison King had collected himself. There would be many newly created poisons too, like the one from earlier.
“Why, then, do you make poison with such passion, as you did earlier?”
This question was both fundamental and deeply personal. He could answer as a Demon Venerable, or he could answer with a personal reason. It was a question whose answer would change depending on how he took it.
I looked back at the Poison King and added,
“You have devoted your entire life to poison, haven’t you? What does poison mean to you, Poison King?”
At that moment, I saw a small flash of emotion in the Poison King’s eyes, something I had never seen before.
He must have been told countless times that he was strong, and countless times that he was frightening.
But had he ever been told that he had devoted himself to poison?
Was that statement burdensome to him? The Poison King’s gaze turned toward the poisons on the opposite side from where I was looking.
A brief silence flowed between us.
Still, the Poison King did not answer the question of why he made poison.
I threw out a new question. This, too, was something I was asking for the first time since meeting him.
“Or is it that someday you wish to dye the world in blood with poison?”
That had been his life before my regression.
This answer came quickly. Without turning back, the Poison King replied,
“If I must.”
Rather, I felt relieved. Compared to an answer like, “That will never happen,” this answer felt farther from a sea of blood. After all, the person who takes his own life is not the one who was crying yesterday, but the one who was smiling.
Was I not worried that he might commit such an act again? Not at all. I knew better than anyone how even the same person could change depending on their circumstances, environment, and the people around them.
The Poison King before my regression and the Poison King now were completely different people. No, they were the same person, but living different lives.
Just like me now.
“It seems I asked an unnecessary question. Please forgive my rudeness.”
At that, the Poison King, who had been staring blankly at the poison bottles, slowly shook his head.
“No one has ever asked me such a question before.”
Then again, who would dare ask the Poison King why he made poison?
And the reason he could not answer was not because of my question.
“I have never thought seriously about it, either.”
If I had been my younger self, I would not have believed him. I would have thought he was merely trying to sound impressive.
But now I knew. The higher one’s realm became, the less one ended up thinking about such things.
“You must have. You simply can’t remember now.”
“Yes, I suppose I did at some point. But I cannot remember when that ‘some point’ was.”
“It seems even you, Poison King, cannot avoid being swept along by life.”
I said it playfully, but the Poison King’s expression remained serious.
He moved his steps to the display stand and picked up the bottle containing the Mansa Severing Poison he had made today. The look in his eyes as he stared at it seemed to ask:
—Why did I make this? Why did I not give up, even after repeated failures?
Before his thoughts deepened and he entered a world of his own, I answered in his stead.
“To protect our cult.”
To the Poison King, it was an obvious wrong answer.
“With the Cult Leader here, why would I protect it?”
Now the time had come to properly explain to him why I had sought him out.
“The orthodox and unorthodox factions will fear you, Poison King, more than my father.”
At the root of that fear lay this terror:
The fear of dying without even getting to fight properly.
If one died while fighting, no matter the opponent, it would not feel unjust. But in a fight against the Poison King, it was over if you simply took one wrong breath, drank one wrong mouthful of water.
Perhaps the reason the Poison King was the most powerful deterrent to war was not the fear of mass slaughter, but the fear of dying a dog’s death.
“There is a reason I asked such a question earlier.”
I told the Poison King exactly what had happened after I returned. I even told him that I was worried my father might be dreaming of unifying murim.
Even after hearing the whole story, the Poison King showed no change in expression. From the beginning, he must have known that there had been another reason I had come to the Thousand Poisons Forest today, and that was why he had brought me here.
“Even if everyone opposes the Cult Leader’s dream, shouldn’t you, at least, support it?”
“It seems he didn’t only give me my good looks. He passed down his stubbornness as well.”
“You intend to block the Cult Leader’s path?”
Though I felt terribly sorry toward my father, I quietly nodded and began persuading the Poison King.
“I wish for these poisons to remain here forever.”
“You want to make me into a useless person?”
“It is the opposite.”
“The opposite?”
I slowly touched the poison bottle in front of me. On the paper attached to the bottle were the characters Yeombaek Life-Severing Poison. It was a terrifying poison that, with only a few drops, spread through the surroundings like flames and took every life nearby.
“When these poisons remain here, your fear and dignity, Poison King, will continue to be maintained. The moment you release poison upon murim, fear will become anger. Dignity will be buried beneath resentment.”
The Poison King said nothing.
“The essence of poison arts is not poisoning, but detoxification.”
They were words I had once said to him. He, too, had taught his successor this way, so he must certainly have held such thoughts.
“When you neutralized the Poison Tyrant’s poison last time and saved everyone, Poison King, you were truly magnificent.”
I could not know what he was thinking at that moment, but I conveyed my sincerity as it was.
“Please live not as the Poison King who poisons in my father’s demonic path, but as the Poison King who detoxifies in mine.”
Because I sensed that I had lost to my father, who had come today and silently helped with the making of poison before leaving, I said everything I wanted to say.
“I apologize for such a rude request.”
I bowed my head politely. After all, I was forcing this upon him without truly knowing his heart.
The Poison King, who had remained silent until then, suddenly spoke.
“You are mistaken about one thing.”
That one thing was truly something I had never expected.
“Do you think the Cult Leader intends to put me at the front and unify murim?”
“Does he not?”
“Four years and seven months ago, when I went to gather poisonous herbs with the Cult Leader, he said this to me.”
And then, an astonishing truth was revealed.
The Poison King relayed exactly what my father had said to him that day.
“I will not unify murim with poison. My murim has no need for poison arts.”
I was startled. I had never imagined my father had said such a thing. I knew that my father disliked poison arts, but to think he had said it directly to the Poison King.
“Were you not disappointed?”
“I was. But I did not feel offended. It was far better than him disliking poison arts while pretending outwardly that he did not.”
This was precisely how my father treated the Demon Venerables.
And those two men had made poison together today without exchanging a single word.
Perhaps, though I could not know for certain, there was a kind of understanding that existed only between the two of them.
The Poison King then relayed the last thing my father had said that day.
“To me, you are not someone who attacks murim, but someone who protects our cult. Even if my unification of murim fails, because of you, our cult will not collapse.”
That was the place my father had set for the Poison King: the final bastion.
“I promised that day to follow the Cult Leader’s will.”
Only now could I understand the Poison King’s end in my life before regression.
When the Cult Leader’s Hall was swept away and my father died, the Eight Demon Venerables gave up on revenge.
Until now, I had thought it was because they had been suppressed by Hwa Mugi’s overwhelming martial prowess. I had believed they chose life over death. That was why I considered it betrayal, and I also understood it as a fight they were destined to lose anyway.
But today, for the first time, this thought occurred to me. Perhaps that day, another situation I did not know about had unfolded. A situation in which everyone had no choice but to give up on revenge.
Because it did not seem like the Poison King, at least, would have simply stayed still. Yet he did not take revenge, and afterward, he caused a tragedy and met a wretched end.
Perhaps we were both thinking of the same person, but the Poison King broke that reverie.
“Because I like poison.”
It was the answer to the question I had asked earlier. He had been unable to give this simple answer for so long. It was likely not because the answer had not occurred to him.
Do I still truly like poison? Have I perhaps forgotten that feeling and simply been making poison out of habit?
He must have been unable to answer because he had been searching for the answers to the many questions that followed.
“Of course it is because you like poison.”
When I spoke as if I had already known the answer, the Poison King looked at me.
“A person who does not like poison could not crouch for hours watching poisonous insects crawl, could they? Such a person would not give names to venomous snakes. You truly like poison, Poison King. Please be sure to show me what lies at the end of that love and devotion to poison. Please be sure to let me know.”
Because he was the Poison King, these were likely words he had never heard from anyone. The Poison King, my father, and I, who had regressed. No, even the old man who had sent me back in time—surely there were words he wanted to hear, words he needed to hear. Words that anyone, in any life, must hear at least once. I now said those words to the Poison King.
The Poison King looked at me and smiled. Joy and gratitude dwelled in his eyes as he looked at me.
“We can’t let such a good atmosphere go to waste. Now then, Poison King, are you on my father’s side? Or mine?”
The answer to this question came quickly. As the Poison King walked out of the storage room, he said calmly,
“I am on no one’s side.”
* * *
The one who gave me a clear answer was the Ilhwa Sword Venerable.
“I will follow the Cult Leader’s will.”
She made her decision without even pretending to deliberate.
She had listened to my explanation of the situation while practicing swordsmanship in the training ground, then said those words as she unleashed her final technique.
After finishing a round of training, she gulped down the water that had been set at the edge of the training ground.
There had been a change in her since I had last seen her. She had stopped wearing makeup at some point, and now her hair was white.
“This is my hair as it is, without adornment.”
The red camellia engraved on the scabbard of the Ilhwa Sword contrasted with her hair, creating an elegant impression.
“You grow more impressive by the day, Sword Venerable!”
“As expected! I knew you would say that.”
But how could appearance be the only thing that had changed? I could feel that her martial realm, which had already risen by one stage, was now advancing toward yet another realm.
“I am grateful for your praise, but still, I will follow the Cult Leader’s will.”
I had expected as much. When it came to reverence for my father, there was no one who could claim to surpass her without making her resent it.
What if I could not persuade her?
The remaining Demon Venerables were the Soul-Capturing Demon Venerable and the Demon Buddha. Even if Seophon's, the young Demon Venerable, took my side, if the Demon Buddha followed my father, then half would already be following him. Since the Poison King had said he was on neither side, even if the Blood-Heaven Blade Demon sided with me, it would be four to three.
“This is too much! Have you forgotten? I am your sparring friend, Sword Venerable.”
The Ilhwa Sword Venerable smiled apologetically.
“You and I have become quite close, haven’t we?”
“Yes.”
“And you know how grateful I am to you, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“No, you likely do not. How grateful I truly am. Even so, I must say this.”
The Ilhwa Sword Venerable revealed her honest feelings about this matter. Truly unexpected words came from her.
“I am worried that the Cult Leader may not start a war.”
Becoming close to me was one thing; her convictions were another.
“I believe that if it is the Cult Leader, he can accomplish the great undertaking of unifying murim. As you know, the Cult Leader is truly an exceptional man. The chance has come to fulfill our cult’s long-cherished desire. If this chance is missed, the descendants of our cult will regret this moment for generations.”
Perhaps the greatest reason she trained so desperately was so that, someday, she could realize the dream of unifying murim together with my father.
“In a way, the birth of a son like you could be considered a trial for the Cult Leader. Great endeavors are always accompanied by trials. That destiny has applied itself here.”
The words could have wounded me, but she looked at me and continued calmly. By not deceiving me and speaking honestly, she was making up for her apology.
“I hope the Cult Leader will overcome the trial that is you. And I sincerely hope he accomplishes the great undertaking.”
The Ilhwa Sword Venerable asked with gentle eyes,
“I am sorry if I have offended you.”
I answered with a smile.
“Not at all. Rather, I am grateful that you spoke honestly.”
“Thank you for thinking so.”
“The next time I come to see you, I will come as your sparring friend.”
I bowed to her politely and turned around.
At that moment, the Ilhwa Sword Venerable said something unexpected from behind me.
“Do not be too disappointed. From what I can see, you are winning this contest right now.”
At her incomprehensible words, I turned back to her.
But she drew her sword and resumed her training.
“That is why I am unconditionally on the Cult Leader’s side.”
Absolute Regression Chapter 441