“Uuuugh!”
Seo Daeryong grimaced with every expression imaginable as he pushed himself up from the bed.
“Thirsty. Water! Water!”
“Beside you!”
At someone’s words, Seo Daeryong instinctively reached out and drank the water set on the small table beside the bed.
“Ugh, my head. If I ever drink again, I’m a dog. A dog.”
Seo Daeryong drank straight from the pitcher.
Only after quenching his thirst did he realize he had woken up somewhere unfamiliar. The bed was large and plush, and the bedding was soft and luxurious.
‘Come to think of it, who was it that just said “beside you”?’
Seo Daeryong looked around.
Far off, someone was sitting by the window reading a book. Because of the sunlight, he couldn’t make out who it was.
“Who?”
Gradually, as his eyes adjusted to the light, the man’s figure came into view.
“Aaagh!”
Seo Daeryong screamed. The man reading the book was none other than the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
“W-where is this? Why is the Demon Venerable here?”
Seo Daeryong was so startled that he even stammered.
“Because it’s my room.”
“Oh my! Why am I here?”
“You don’t remember?”
“...No.”
“When we were about to part ways at the tavern, you suddenly sprang up and shouted at the top of your lungs that I had to carry you back. You asked how I could abandon my disciple. You even clung to my trouser leg.”
“I did? Surely not?”
Good heavens. Thinking that in the end he really had clung to the man’s trouser leg, Seo Daeryong was so flustered he didn’t know what to do.
“I can’t remember how many decades it’s been since I allowed someone at my feet.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon glanced at Seo Daeryong.
“Do you want to die, but lack the courage to jump off a cliff?”
“...”
At that moment, a question came to Seo Daeryong’s mind.
“But why did you put me to sleep in your bed, sir?”
“Of course, you don’t remember that either.”
Seo Daeryong gasped and tensed.
“When I brought you here and tried to put you in the guest room, you called me a heartless master for making my disciple sleep in such a shabby place. Then you sat down on the floor, said you were a bastard who deserved to be treated that way, and made every kind of pathetic scene, even shedding tears.”
“...”
“Is life hard? It was hard for me too. Holding back the urge to kill you.”
Seo Daeryong scrambled down from the bed and knelt.
“I’m sorry. I’ll quit drinking from now on.”
“Why quit such fine liquor? You need to quit your drunken antics.”
“Yes, I’ll quit it all. Please forgive me. I drank far too much yesterday.”
No matter how much he had shouted and caused trouble, the man could have struck his sleeping acupoint and thrown him not in the guest room but in the stable. The fact that he had put him in his own room, and in his bed no less, was completely unexpected. Of course, it was probably because of Geom Mugeuk, but still, to think he would let him sleep in his bed. Seo Daeryong saw a new side of the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
“Go.”
“Yes.”
His outer robe was neatly folded on the table beside the bed. Of course, a maidservant must have folded it, but he felt as though he had been properly treated before leaving.
Even then, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon was reading a book, and the sight felt unfamiliar.
‘Is he trying to act learned in front of me?’
Strangely enough, though, the sight of him reading suited him. Looking around the room, Seo Daeryong saw several bookshelves filled with many books.
Then one book caught his eye.
“Huh? This book?”
Without thinking, Seo Daeryong pulled a book from the shelf. It was an adventure story about a boy who met an unrivaled master and grew into a hero, a book he had read many times since childhood.
“This is my favorite book. Have you read it, by any chance?”
Excited, he turned back to the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon, on the other hand, was glaring at him terrifyingly.
“I hate bastards who touch my things without permission most of all.”
“Gasp!”
Startled, Seo Daeryong dropped the book, then blocked it with his foot to keep it from hitting the floor. The book bounced off his foot and rolled across the floor.
Silence fell.
Seeing the book lying open and crumpled, Seo Daeryong’s vision went dark. Soon, his own fate would probably be like that book’s.
Seo Daeryong hurried over, picked up the book, and smoothed out the crumpled part with his hand.
“I’m sorry. Ah, luckily it was a boring part that got crumpl— I’m sorry!”
Fortunately, instead of cutting off Seo Daeryong’s arm, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon turned his gaze back to the book he had been reading. Today, he was the incarnation of forgiveness.
“I’ll be taking my leave now.”
He gave a timid farewell and was about to leave the room when the Blood Heaven Blade Demon abruptly asked.
“Why do you like that book?”
“Ah, because I thought the protagonist was similar to me. He was born poor, had a gloomy personality, and couldn’t fit in well with the people around him. And it’s the story of a fellow like that becoming a hero... I must have read it at least twenty times. It’s a book I keep close by and take out whenever I can’t sleep.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon stared at Seo Daeryong for a moment, then said nothing and returned his gaze to the book he was reading.
“Then I’ll be going. Thank you very much for letting me sleep here.”
At that moment, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon asked again.
“Do you think the Second Young Master will become the successor?”
There was no need to hesitate over this question.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He is an outstanding man. More than anyone else I’ve ever seen. I believe the main cult will change because of him. In a good way, of course.”
“Can you give your life for him?”
Seo Daeryong thought for a moment, then answered honestly.
“No.”
“You said the Second Young Master is an outstanding person.”
“I’m not. I’m not great enough to sacrifice myself for someone else.”
Though his eyes were still on the book, the corners of the Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s mouth lifted slightly.
“Wait in the yard.”
“Yes!”
Seo Daeryong stood in the yard and waited for the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
‘Is he going to use my answer that I’m not prepared to die for the Pavilion Master as an excuse to beat me up? Should I have said I could die for him?’
As he was worrying like that, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon came out belatedly and threw a large saber.
Thud!
The saber flew lightly and embedded itself in the ground before Seo Daeryong’s feet. It wasn’t as large as the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber, but it was still a great saber, with a blade broader and longer than an ordinary saber.
“Pick it up.”
“Yes.”
Seo Daeryong pulled out the saber and held it. Since the martial arts he had learned until now were sword arts, he had never once trained in saber arts. In fact, he had barely ever even held one like this.
“How is it?”
He didn’t know the intent behind the question, but Seo Daeryong first said what came to mind.
“It’s heavy.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon nodded and said,
“That is everything.”
“Pardon?”
“Understanding that heaviness is the beginning and the end of the saber art I intend to pass on to you.”
“!”
In that instant, something touched Seo Daeryong’s heart.
“My heart just tingled.”
Seo Daeryong, who had been looking down at the saber, lifted his head with an excited face.
“That’s because you drank too much yesterday. Or you have a heart disease.”
“Ah! Yes.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon turned around.
“Don’t be late for training later.”
“Yes! I won’t be late!”
Seo Daeryong set the saber down in a corner of the yard and left, then came back again, picked up the saber, and walked out.
Even as he walked out of that place, he wondered whether he had really just spoken with the Blood Heaven Blade Demon, whether he had truly slept there.
‘Maybe I’m still dreaming...’
And so, feeling a hangover weighing down his whole body as heavily as the saber in his hand, he walked out of that place.
* * *
Seo Daeryong entered my office.
He still looked disheveled, not quite sober, and at his waist hung a great saber I had never seen before. Just by looking at that great saber, I could tell things with the Blood Heaven Blade Demon had gone well.
“My right-hand man has arrived?”
“You mean the right-hand man you sent to his death.”
“Fortunately, you came back without getting cut down.”
“No, how could you send me along with the Blood Heaven Blade Demon? You should have looked after me, Pavilion Master!”
“It seems you don’t remember a single thing from yesterday.”
At those words, Seo Daeryong flinched.
“You insisted you would go with the Blood Heaven Blade Demon even if it killed you. Do you know what you even said to me?”
“What did I say?”
“You asked why I was trying to separate master and disciple! I really thought the two of you had been master and disciple for fifty years.”
“...Please don’t lie.”
“I wish it were a lie too. Until you fell asleep, you said you’d rather die than learn martial arts from him, and then you suddenly woke up as his chief disciple. If you doubt me, ask Lord Jang. Lord Jang looked at you and shook his head.”
“Uuuugh. Are you saying such a crazy drunkard really lives inside me?”
Seo Daeryong clutched his head.
“What a shame.”
“What is?”
“You had character when you were gloomy and sinister, but lately you’ve been getting too bright. You’re even funny, like yesterday.”
“Don’t worry. By tomorrow, I’ll be gloomy again.”
“What do you mean?”
“My first training session starts after work today. He’ll probably half-kill me. Ah! I wish work would never end.”
“What a pity. I won’t get to see it.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m leaving the cult today. It should take about two months, so guard the Hwangcheon Pavilion well while I’m gone.”
The playfulness vanished from Seo Daeryong’s face.
“Are you perhaps leaving because of that matter?”
“That matter?”
Then Seo Daeryong pointed at his own eyes with his finger. Only then did I understand what he meant.
Yesterday, before we went drinking, Seo Daeryong had said it in front of the Soul-Subduing Demon Venerable’s residence. While looking into my eyes, he said they were the eyes I had shown before accomplishing the impossible.
“That’s right. It’s that matter.”
“It must be dangerous.”
“Fortunately, this matter shouldn’t be all that dangerous. I plan to use a danger I saved up in the past.”
“Pardon?”
Seo Daeryong looked as though he had no idea what I meant, but I did not explain any further.
With the playfulness gone from his face, Seo Daeryong bowed politely.
“Please have a safe trip! I’m sorry that I always only worry with words like this.”
“If you want to lend me even one hand later, learn diligently from the Blade Demon.”
I was about to leave when Seo Daeryong called me.
“Pavilion Master.”
“What?”
“If it weren’t for you, I would never in my life have had the chance to learn martial arts from the Demon Venerable.”
“You never know what will happen in life. If it weren’t for me, you might have had the chance to learn martial arts from my father. Then, keep up the good work.”
“Yes! Don’t worry about this place and go.”
I went straight to find Ian, told her about the training she had to do over the next two months, then quietly left the cult.
* * *
I kept running northwest.
As my realm in the Wind God’s Four Steps rose higher and higher, my Swift Step also became faster.
Unless someone was a master specialized in lightness arts, most experts could no longer match the tips of my feet in speed.
I ran like mad, and when my inner qi ran low, I rested in a deserted place in the forest while circulating my qi. When my inner qi was replenished, I ran again, and when it ran low, I circulated my qi again.
When I got hungry while running, I hunted using the ingenious Qi Release Father had taught me.
By now, I could quickly sense a wild boar deep in the forest far away.
When I caught a boar and roasted it over a campfire like that, passing hunters or herb gatherers would join me, and we would drink together. Before my regression, I had met them so often and grown so close to them that I found them comfortable and pleasant.
Once half the distance to my destination remained, I began controlling my pace.
Since arriving too early would be pointless anyway, I enjoyed the journey itself.
If there was a mountain worth climbing, I climbed it. Of course, I did not simply walk up it; I climbed the cliffs. I climbed using only my physical ability, without inner qi, and examined the state of my body. Whether anything hurt, where my muscles were lacking.
When one mainly uses inner qi, one tends to neglect the body itself, and that is where the difference between a true master and a middling expert appears. The real ones do not miss even the smallest details. Because they know the difference in small things eventually becomes everything, they never overlook even a single corner of their bodies.
If the sun set in the distance while I was climbing a cliff, I would sit on a protruding rock or tree halfway up the cliff and look at the scenery.
When I gazed upon the beauty of great nature like that, it felt as though something blocked inside my chest was being blown wide open.
I had promised Ian that we would travel the Central Plains together, but when I sat like this at the edge of a cliff and watched the sunset, I thought of Father before Ian.
I wanted to travel with Father. I wanted to look at scenery like this together and talk with him. I wanted to know what kind of person Father was, what thoughts he lived with.
Would I ever have that chance? Would such a moment ever come to us?
Before my regression, I truly never dreamed I would come to feel such closeness toward Father. Perhaps I had missed the father with whom I had never even properly had a conversation.
Even while enjoying the journey like this, when it was time to run, I ran until my breath felt like it would burst.
By the time I arrived at my destination, my realm in Swift Step had risen by one level. My running speed had grown faster, and the inner qi it consumed had decreased.
“Hahahahahaha!”
I ran down the road laughing like a madman.
What I felt as my realm in the Wind God’s Four Steps rose was that Swift Step was a martial art that touched upon human nature. Since it raised the exhilaration of running to the extreme, it even had an addictive quality that made me want to keep running.
Now, even if people on the road saw me, I passed at a speed where they could not recognize my form. I truly just whooshed past them.
In fact, I heard conversations like this several times.
“Didn’t a person just pass by?”
“What? I didn’t see anything.”
I had reached a realm where, if they were walking while lost in thought, they would not even know I had brushed past them.
If I rose one more level, they would not know even if they stared with their eyes wide open. They would not know whether a person had passed or a bird.
What would Swift Step be like once it reached great completion?
Perhaps they might not even sense that something had passed.
And the place I arrived at was somewhere no one in the main cult would ever imagine as my destination.
This was Hong Mountain, where the main altar of the Pungcheon Cult beyond the borders was located.
The place where I had obtained the Yin Thunder Bell, the first material for the Great Regression Art.
I had returned here once more.