At dawn, the carriages left the main headquarters of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
They were carriages laden with supplies being sent from headquarters to the various branches.
Among those carriages was one carrying Father and me. The one driving it, dressed like an ordinary coachman, was Hwi.
Once we had put some distance between ourselves and headquarters, I asked Father,
“Father, how does it feel, your first trip with your son?”
At my excited question, Father, who had been silently looking out the window, asked in return,
“This is not a trip, is it?”
For that to be true, Father, you packed far too much. In the rear luggage space sat Father’s large leather bag.
“Of course, we’re going to carry out an important mission. Still, since it’s been so long since you left the cult, wouldn’t it be good to unburden everything that’s built up in your heart before we return? Leave all your worries back at headquarters.”
At that, Father, still looking out the window, said to Hwi,
“Stop the carriage.”
The carriage halted at once.
“What’s the matter?”
“Get off.”
“Me? Why me?”
“You told me to leave my worries behind, did you not?”
I burst out laughing. The fact that he was joking with me like this meant Father was in a very good mood.
“Isn’t it true that one needs worries in order to improve? Now, let’s go. Depart!”
When Father said “Let us go” again, the carriage set off.
I stuck my head out the window and said to Hwi,
“I look forward to being in your care, Uncle Hwi!”
Hwi did not drive the carriage in haste. Perhaps Sama Myeong had asked him.
That he hoped this departure from the cult would become a journey, not a mission.
Leaning out the window, I let the wind blow against me.
“The weather is truly wonderful!”
Father gave no answer, but I could feel it. Father was excited too.
“Isn’t it nice just to get a little ways away from the cult, Father? So even if it’s not this trip, let’s come out often from now on. Ah, if you cross that hill over there, there’s a beautiful lake. Have you been there? In winter, the lake freezes solid, and the pleasure of breaking the ice to fish is unmatched.”
Father already looked as if his ears hurt, but this would continue from here on out. If I wanted to make the journey with Father enjoyable, I would have to be the one chattering most of the time.
“Oh, and if you go over the mountain on the other side, there’s a tent that makes incredible noodles. Would you like to try it sometime?”
At that, an unexpected answer came from Father.
“In the old days, their dumplings were good.”
I pulled my head back inside the carriage.
“You’ve been there?”
“Long ago.”
Right. Father, too, had a time when he wandered the murim like I did. Was it when he went around fighting alongside the Fist Demon? Or when he was close to the Blood Heaven Blade Demon and the Ilhwa Sword Venerable?
“Shall we stop by on the way back, then?”
Perhaps Father wanted to go there once more, for he nodded.
“People’s mouths are truly frightening, aren’t they? They know delicious things so well. Even when a place does business in such an out-of-the-way location, rumors spread like ghosts and people seek it out.”
“Let us go quietly.”
“Yes!”
Father, you don’t know this, do you? I lived as taciturnly as you. No, perhaps I spoke even less. All the words I couldn’t say then, I’m saying to my heart’s content in front of you.
After the carriage ran on for quite some time, it came to a stop.
While Hwi unhitched the horses to let them rest, I took a walk around the area with Father.
“Before we left, Elder Blade Demon came to see me.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me not to get cheeky with you, Father.”
A faint smile formed at the corners of Father’s mouth.
“The Blade Demon cares for you a great deal.”
Of course. How could Father not know? That when the Blade Demon took it upon himself to scold me during the meeting to persuade Father, it had ultimately been for my sake.
“He likes you a great deal, Father. Elder Blade Demon does.”
I wasn’t simply saying that to please him. The Blade Demon’s feelings toward Father were truly deep.
“Do not get cheeky with the Blade Demon.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon told me not to get cheeky with Father, and Father told me not to get cheeky with the Blood Heaven Blade Demon. How could there not be something special between the two of them?
I wanted to joke, Then who am I supposed to get cheeky with? But I couldn’t get cheeky after being told not to.
“I understand. I’ll always be careful.”
Just the fact that I was walking with Father and having this sort of conversation made me happy. Everything that happened from now on would be something neither Father nor I had experienced before.
As long as the words “leaving the cult together with Father” came first, anything we did would be a first.
Just then, Father suddenly asked,
“Do you feel it?”
“Wolves, right?”
When I answered immediately, Father looked at me in surprise.
First of all, he had not even said where the presence was coming from, yet I had answered. He was surprised that I had already sensed a presence more than twenty jang away.
“In unfamiliar places, I now naturally send out my qi and examine my surroundings.”
Around my body, countless strands of energy stretched out like a spiderweb.
“It’s thanks to what you taught me, Father.”
It was a level of skill on an entirely different dimension from the time I had gone hunting with Father and learned how to emit thin, long strands of qi.
“So you have not only been playing around.”
“They say martial training and love are both things one does where others cannot see.”
As much as his expression seemed to say he was dumbfounded, Father’s smile deepened.
After walking around like that, we returned to where the carriage was.
Just then, from afar beside the carriage, Hwi waved and called out,
“The meal is ready.”
Hwi had already lit a campfire and finished preparing the meal.
“Doesn’t Uncle Hwi seem somewhat excited too?”
Father did not say no. In Father’s eyes as well, there must have been an unmistakable liveliness different from usual.
I want Father to see many new sights.
Because Hwi waving at us like that must be a sight he has never seen before.
The meal Hwi prepared was something we had packed and brought when we departed.
“From here on, the meals will be poor.”
“That is fine.”
I cut in with a word.
“Don’t worry, Uncle. Father is here, isn’t he? I can’t forget the taste of the food Father cooked for me.”
The second time I went hunting with Father, he cooked for me himself.
That dish, stir-fried meat with vegetables and mushrooms, had been unexpectedly delicious. He even cooked soup with it, proving that he usually cooked.
Come to think of it, there are many sides of Father I do not know. His flower-patterned sleeping clothes, the way he packed his own things for this trip yesterday, and the fact that he cooks.
I hope I can see another side of Father on this journey.
“I prepared something too.”
From the leather bag loaded in the carriage, I took out some hides.
First, a tiger hide for Father.
“Now, please sit here.”
Father sat on it.
There were more things I had prepared. I handed one of them to Hwi.
“This one is yours, Uncle Hwi.”
Hwi looked slightly surprised that I had prepared something for him as well.
“I am all right.”
“I have one too, so please sit. Ours are wolf hides.”
Hwi’s and mine were identical hides.
As Hwi continued to decline, Father looked at him and nodded.
Only then did Hwi stop refusing and sit on the hide I had prepared.
“Thank you, Young Cult Leader.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Through my past life, there was something I had come to deeply realize.
That a person’s seat is truly important.
Father’s grand chair.
The second-floor seat at the Pungryu Tavern.
And now, the hide seat Hwi sat on.
Because everyone lives in order to sit in their own place. Because we are the sort of beings who even start wars to claim a seat.
If one were to say, What does a seat matter? Isn’t the heart what matters? then that person must never have properly felt the awkwardness and distress of going somewhere and finding there was no place for them.
That is why those who have not experienced it would not know how much relief and gratitude a single small chair offered by someone can bring.
I had never once seen Hwi’s seat. He was always hidden in stealth. That was why that wolf hide was all the more important.
The three of us were just about to sit side by side and eat when a sudden shower began to fall.
Swaaaaaaa.
“Father, first go to the carriage and avoid the rain…”
I was about to tell him to take shelter, but stopped.
“Isn’t this too inhuman a sight?”
“What do you mean?”
“When a person is rained on, they ought to get wet.”
Around Father’s body, invisible qi had spread like a membrane, causing the raindrops to bounce away.
“No, and if you have a skill like that, you should keep us from getting wet too.”
Of course, Father was not the sort of person who would expand that qi just because I said such a thing.
Just then, Father extended his hand.
At once, the opening of Father’s leather bag inside the carriage came undone, and something emerged from it.
The thing that flew out of the carriage spread open above our heads with a snap. It was a wind-and-rain canopy cloth used to block wind and rain.
The cords attached to the cloth tied themselves to the carriage and a tree, fixing it in place. It was not being moved by simple object manipulation through empty space; its movements were as swift and precise as if a skilled person were tying them by hand.
To think Father had prepared even this!
“By nature, the flower of camping is watching the rain! It’s the height of elegance.”
When I said that cheerfully, Father even revived the campfire, which had been dying in the rain, with Scorching Yang energy.
Fwoooosh.
“Wonderful! Father!”
Father wore an expression that said, Well, this much is nothing.
If it rained during the journey, we could unfold it anytime, but in truth, this moment was truly nice. It had made the first meal on the first day of our journey unforgettable.
After we finished eating, Hwi brought over the tea he had prepared.
We watched the rain while drinking tea. Father sat in the center, and Hwi and I sat to his left and right.
“Uncle, isn’t it difficult serving Father?”
If such a question were asked in front of Father, one would expect him to be flustered.
“It is difficult.”
At the honest answer, Father and I looked at Hwi at the same time.
Hwi answered with a smile.
“I thought I should answer Young Cult Leader that way.”
He had been listening to every conversation I had with Father until now. He must also have heard all of Sama Myeong’s reports about me. He was a person who knew me as well as Father did.
“You struck at my blind spot properly. If you had answered that it wasn’t difficult, I could have turned the arrow toward Father.”
At that, Father looked over at me this time.
“If you answered that it wasn’t difficult at all because Father is so taciturn, I was going to say this to Father. That there must be parts that are difficult because he is taciturn. That it would actually be more comfortable if he simply said everything like I do, but because he does not speak, you have to discern his meaning. That for those below him, that is not an easy thing either.”
I had said it to Father on Hwi’s behalf. I did not know what sort of conversations the two of them usually had, but given their personalities, how much could they possibly share each other’s hardships?
“In the end, you say everything you wish to say.”
“I must. If I don’t say it, you won’t know, will you?”
At my words, Father looked straight ahead again.
Then he suddenly asked Hwi,
“So, was it difficult?”
This time, Hwi was truly flustered and surprised. Father was not someone who would ask such a question. If anything, he was the type who would have spoken even less in such a situation.
“No, it was not.”
The conversation did not continue any further. But I thought the mere fact that Father had asked whether it had been difficult held great meaning for Hwi.
In the meantime, the rain stopped.
* * *
That night, we camped outdoors.
If we had wanted to find an inn, we could have, but Father accepted my suggestion that we spend the first day quietly.
Lying side by side with Father while looking up at the shower of stars, I felt truly happy.
I told Hwi to lie down and sleep with us as well, but he firmly refused, saying he could not dare lie down together with the Heavenly Demon. Since there are things each person can accept and things they cannot, I did not force him further.
“Father, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“If I thought of you, Father, I should have asked Brother to come with us too. I’m this selfish. It seems I still want to have you all to myself.”
Father was silent for a moment.
“It is all right.”
At those words, the heaviness in my heart eased a little. Still, when I am alone with Father, I cannot help thinking of my brother.
“Father.”
“What is it?”
“I called you to see if you were asleep.”
“Then should you not have refrained from calling?”
I smiled and looked over at Father lying beside me. Father was gazing up at the night sky with an impassive expression.
I engraved the scene in my heart.
Father looking up at the night sky, me watching him, and even the stars in that sky.
And so the night of our first journey passed.
* * *
The next day, we stopped by a village.
While Hwi rented a stable to feed the horses and let them rest, Father and I stepped out for a short look around the marketplace.
We were walking together through a place bustling with people, but no one paid us any particular attention.
Both Father and I had reached the perfect realm of returning to simplicity, and Father, like my Black Demon Sword wrapped in the finest Heavenly Silkworm Thread, had wound an old cloth around the Heavenly Demon Sword to keep it from standing out.
“This is your first time visiting a marketplace outside of Maga Village, isn’t it?”
“I went often when I was young.”
“You went around to fight the Fist Demon, not to sightsee in marketplaces.”
Father nodded, acknowledging it.
“I wish I could have been Master Fist Demon back then.”
I answered the question in Father’s eyes.
“I want to see Father in his youth. I want to talk with that Father.”
“!”
I meant it sincerely. What would he have looked like? What kind of personality would he have had? Would he have resembled me?
“Perhaps you were as talkative as I am?”
After letting out a faint snort, Father said,
“I might be able to drink like the Drunken Demon. But talking as much as you do? I’m not confident.”
“A chatterbox who outdoes a drunkard? That’s too much!”
Chatting about this and that, I looked around the marketplace with Father.
When crowds came surging toward us, we stopped in place. Even this experience must have been unfamiliar to Father. He had likely never once stopped walking because someone was coming his way.
How does the scenery look when you stop like this?
People coming and going, people laughing and talking, people calling out to customers, people who were angry. All sorts of people were there.
Father watched them in silence. What thoughts was he having as he looked at them?
“Even with this many people, nothing happens, does it? The Chief Strategist was worried that if Father left the cult, all kinds of incidents would break out. That the fate of the murim wouldn’t leave Father alone. It would begin as some small incident, grow larger and larger, and spill over into another incident.”
I looked at Father and said as if declaring it.
“But nothing like that will ever happen.”
It was right then.
A man sidled up to us.
“Martial lords, how about a manly little contest?”
Where he pointed, a few people had gathered. On a makeshift table were three overturned bowls.
Ah! The Heavenly Demon and a swindler! How could I miss such a delightful opportunity?
“My father happens to be an unrivaled gambler. What do you say? At least enough for dinner……”
There was no need to provoke Father any further.
Before I could even finish speaking, Father walked toward the gamblers.
I smiled and asked the man who had called us over.
“Is that fellow’s hand fast? He’ll have to be truly fast if he wants to be quicker than my father’s eyes.”
Absolute Regression, Chapter 448