Jaein stared intently at Geom Mugeuk’s face.
‘That face looks talkative?’
Jaein was surprised that the other man was far younger and more handsome than he had imagined, but the man beside him was seeing something he could not.
“Look at those eyes.”
Jaein did as the man said and looked into Geom Mugeuk’s eyes.
They were clear and deep, not at all like a demonic practitioner’s.
“Are those not the eyes of a meddler who looks as if he would stick his nose into every affair in the murim?”
“……Is that so?”
“For instance, the very wicked eyes of someone who would lead the perfectly fine heir of the Sado Alliance onto a dance floor.”
Why was the heir of the Sado Alliance suddenly coming up? Dance? What dance?
Jaein looked at the man with a puzzled expression. He had not known this person was so eccentric. In his heart, he wanted to say, “Stop spouting nonsense and hurry up and kill him,” but this was not someone he dared say such a thing to.
“Now that I hear it, he does look very talkative and wicked.”
When Jaein humored him, the man laughed loudly as if a weight had been lifted from his chest.
Then Geom Mugeuk, who had only been listening, asked Chohui beside him.
“What do you think? While traveling with me until now, have I talked a lot?”
“No. You have been taciturn.”
Even as she answered, Chohui was tense. Unlike before, the fact that the opponent had so openly blocked their path meant he must be confident in his abilities.
Yet the two men were exchanging only an inexplicable conversation.
“Did you hear that? I am originally a taciturn person. But everyone is so terribly bad at speaking. They should just say what they want to say, but they swallow it down. Put it off until later. It gets so frustrating that I cannot help but speak, can I? They say silence is the best way to avoid misunderstandings, but is everyone not being misunderstood precisely because they do not speak properly? Take the Young Alliance Leader, for example. When he is not speaking, does he not give off the impression that he is pondering whom to kill? Yet when you actually hear him speak, how adorable he is. And…….”
“Enough!”
At the man’s shout, Geom Mugeuk shut his mouth.
Jaein was inwardly flustered by this unexpected situation. He had never dreamed that he would come here with this man to kill that fellow, only to end up having this sort of conversation. And who was this Young Alliance Leader they kept mentioning?
In any case, at least one thing was certain.
‘He really is a talkative one!’
Jaein cautiously said to the man,
“Please kill that talkative man at once and shut his mouth.”
At that, the man let out a light sigh and said,
“That will not do.”
Jaein was shocked by the words that it would not do.
“What do you mean?”
The one who answered was Geom Mugeuk.
“We know each other, you see. We are even close.”
“Close, my foot!”
The man was none other than Goeak, one of the Seven Great Masters of the Unorthodox Path.
The last time they had met was at the tripartite talks, and now they had encountered each other again like this.
Rather, from Goeak’s attitude of denial, Jaein could sense it.
‘The two of them are close!’
Jaein was overcome with dismay. Just who in the world was that young man?
“What are you doing here?”
“What else? I came to kill you.”
Geom Mugeuk smiled and said,
“Then kill me.”
Goeak quietly stared at Geom Mugeuk.
“It has become even harder to kill you now.”
He had realized from Geom Mugeuk’s eyes and aura that his abilities had risen even further.
“I was asked to kill just one demonic practitioner. I was promised enough money to spend extravagantly for the rest of my life and still have some left. What a pity. It was my chance to become rich.”
Those words were not true.
The reason he had taken this job was because of Geom Mugeuk. If the target was a demonic practitioner formidable enough that he himself had to step forward, he thought it might be someone deeply connected to Geom Mugeuk. He had wanted to see whom these people were trying to kill. He had intended to stop it in advance.
But he truly had never dreamed that the demonic practitioner would be Geom Mugeuk.
“Escorting a courtesan alone? Truly like you.”
Goeak asked Jaein,
“Do you know who that man with the talkative-looking face is?”
“Who is he?”
“He is the Young Cult Leader of the Divine Cult.”
“!”
Jaein was startled out of his wits. The young expert escorting a courtesan was the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult? That talkative man? Impossible!
But there was not the slightest trace of falsehood in Goeak’s expression as he looked at him. Nor was there any reason for him to have followed them all this way just to lie.
“No matter how good money is, surely you were not asking me to kill the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult?”
Only then did Jaein understand. Why this affair had gone so badly. Why there had been so many loose holes in the net of Gyeolmangja, who could carry out even far more difficult tasks like works of art.
Jaein respectfully cupped his fist in greeting.
“I failed to recognize an honored person.”
His chest grew tight and his mind became complicated, but he struggled to remain calm. The one fortunate point was that the Young Cult Leader was truly young.
‘I am someone learning from Gyeolmangja how to design conspiracies. Stay calm.’
Youth was always bound to be accompanied by immaturity and mistakes. There would surely be an opening.
Because Goeak could guess what he was thinking, he inwardly pitied him.
‘He is a man who casts nets ten times, a hundred times larger than the ones you cast. If you knew who was caught in that net, you would never have done such a thing in the first place.’
Geom Mugeuk asked Jaein in a gentle tone,
“Was it you who planned this affair?”
Because his attitude did not look like that of a demonic practitioner no matter how Jaein looked at him, Jaein still could not believe that the other man was the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.
“I am still learning.”
“From whom?”
Just then, as Jaein hesitated for a moment before answering,
Goeak said to Geom Mugeuk,
“There is a person called Gyeolmangja.”
Jaein had not expected Goeak to reveal the mastermind so readily.
Jaein tried to provoke Goeak and find a way to survive.
“Considering the elder, would it not go against propriety for you to do this?”
He had said it in hopes of steering things so that Goeak would spare him, if only because he felt sorry about that point.
Goeak looked at him and laughed.
“My name contains the character for ‘strange,’ and it also contains the character for ‘evil.’ Are you trying to discuss propriety with someone like me? And with Gyeolmangja, ours is a relationship of money, not propriety.”
From those words, Jaein could be certain. Goeak would absolutely not attack the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.
“Whom did you send to Cheonhwaru?”
At Geom Mugeuk’s question, Jaein flinched for an instant.
“How did you know?”
“I asked whom you sent.”
His eyes and tone were calm, but Jaein felt fear. After all, they had tried to annihilate the main branch of Cheonhwaru, where the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult was trying to take the courtesan.
“I sent the Gwisaldae.”
At the words Gwisaldae, Chohui’s heart sank. It was a name she had heard many times through the guests. Every time she heard of the deeds committed under that name, she had frowned and felt afraid. And now that Gwisaldae had gone to the Tower Lord.
Compared to her pounding heart, Geom Mugeuk merely nodded once and asked nothing more.
“Why do you not ask about the result?”
The instant Jaein resolved to use Cheonhwaru as a hostage and survive this place,
“Is it not because they failed that you tried to mobilize even Senior Goe here?”
Only then could Jaein feel it. Though the other man was asking gently, he had seen through both him and the situation.
“Do you want to live?”
“I do. No, I wish to live.”
Jaein behaved as respectfully as he could.
“Who is the mastermind who commissioned this affair?”
“He did not tell me. That is the truth!”
“Where is Gyeolmangja now?”
He could not answer. If he betrayed Gyeolmangja, he would truly suffer extreme agony and die miserably. The Gyeolmangja he knew was that kind of person. He was a man who first wove a tight net to ensnare traitors.
“Gyeolmangja frightens you, but I do not?”
“That is not it.”
“Then again, at times like this, we need our Young Alliance Leader’s face. If you were before him, you would not look down on me like this.”
Bi Sa-in, who was not present, kept being brought up.
“But fortunately, someone even more frightening than the Young Alliance Leader has come to Cheonhwaru.”
Jaein’s eyes widened as if asking what that meant.
At that moment, Geom Mugeuk sent out a finger wind, sealing his internal energy, and pressed his sleeping acupoint.
Geom Mugeuk loaded the sleeping Jaein into the back of the carriage. It was a small carriage with almost no space for luggage, but there was enough room to lay Jaein down.
“Will you come with us?”
“Who is there?”
Geom Mugeuk swept his hand down from his forehead to his chin, then drew a smiling face.
Goeak could tell that the Extreme Evil Smiling Demon was there.
Goeak waved his hands and even shook his head, saying he wanted nothing to do with Demon Venerables.
“See you next time.”
He was about to leave when Geom Mugeuk said to him,
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I know that you accepted their request on purpose because of me.”
Without looking back, Goeak answered,
“I told you it was because of the money. It makes my stomach hurt to think about it, so stop talking about it.”
Goeak then launched himself away and vanished.
Looking after him, Geom Mugeuk smiled faintly.
‘Why do I talk so much, you ask? Was it not so that I could meet you in a place like this today?’
Because they had come to know each other’s true hearts, Goeak had stepped forward to help him today. If he had treated him taciturnly, how could they have known each other’s feelings?
In these days, when severing ties was becoming easier and easier, that was why Geom Mugeuk still talked a lot.
“Now then, let us go as well.”
“Yes!”
Chohui silently watched Geom Mugeuk drive the carriage.
Goeak, and Gwisaldae as well. Those terrifying names were turning into ordinary names when they came to this Young Cult Leader.
And one more conclusion she reached.
The Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult was not a talkative man. This sight of him silently looking only ahead as he drove the carriage suited him far more than the talkative 모습 he had shown earlier.
* * *
At last, the two of them arrived at Cheonhwaru.
Ahead, they saw the figure of Cheonhwaru’s Tower Lord, Yeojeong.
At the sight of the Tower Lord, whom she had been worried about, safe and well, tears welled up in Chohui’s eyes.
“Tower Lord!”
Seeing Yeojeong, Chohui tried to offer a deep bow on the spot. But Yeojeong came to her first and took her hand.
Yeojeong led her over and seated her in her own place. Then she brought water and had her drink.
“Drink some water first. Slowly.”
“Yes, Tower Lord.”
After calming the excited girl, Yeojeong first examined her body.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I am fine.”
Despite her answer, Yeojeong calmly examined her body. It was obvious she would say she was not hurt even if she was, so Yeojeong was checking carefully herself.
One might have expected her to ask first what information she had brought, but she looked after Chohui’s body first.
Naturally, the look in Chohui’s eyes as she gazed at the Tower Lord deepened.
“You did this that day too.”
“That day?”
“The day you saved my life.”
Yeojeong had saved her when she was being sold beyond the borders because of her father’s gambling debts. It had truly been a chance meeting on the road.
Back then, Yeojeong had seated her, as she cried and resisted, shaking off the men’s arms and refusing to go, and had her drink water just like today. After calming her excitement, she asked what had happened.
Yeojeong paid off Chohui’s debt on the spot, then simply went on her way.
If she had made Chohui work at Cheonhwaru after saving her, Chohui would not have respected Yeojeong like this.
“As you left, you said this to me. Since my parents had abandoned me, I should no longer be bound by family. You told me to leave home and live with a dream of my own.”
That day, Chohui followed Yeojeong. Even when she was told that following her would make her a courtesan, she had entrusted her fate to Yeojeong.
“Did I say that?”
Though she said that, Yeojeong remembered that day vividly.
“It was not I who saved you. Fate saved you.”
That fate had continued on to this very place today.
“You went through much to come here.”
The moment she heard those words, the tears Chohui had been holding back streamed down her face. It truly would not be an exaggeration to call it a miracle that she had come all the way here alive.
“Are you all right, Tower Lord?”
“I am fine. Are there not people over there protecting us?”
Only then did Chohui look around. Faceless Guests stood on all sides, guarding the courtesan house.
When the two of them arrived, those who had been in the rooms came out and began guarding the place. Their mission had changed.
“Could they be……?”
Chohui knew as well. She knew who wore those masks.
Naturally, her gaze turned toward Geom Mugeuk and the Extreme Evil Smiling Demon, who were conversing a little ways away.
‘Then that man must be the terrifying Extreme Evil Smiling Demon.’
Chohui was seeing the Extreme Evil Smiling Demon for the first time. Was it because she thought of him as the Extreme Evil Smiling Demon? The smiling white mask felt especially frightening.
The sight of Geom Mugeuk smiling brightly in front of that Extreme Evil Smiling Demon felt unreal. Once again, she felt that every danger became ordinary once it passed through the Young Cult Leader.
“If not for the Young Cult Leader over there, I would have died.”
Yeojeong smiled faintly.
‘The same was true on this side.’
Chohui continued speaking.
“The Young Cult Leader said so. He said he was close enough to you, Tower Lord, that even if the entire murim blocked him, he would break through and come find you.”
At that, Yeojeong’s gaze turned toward the Extreme Evil Smiling Demon.
“It is not because of me, but because of that person.”
From the look in Yeojeong’s eyes as she gazed at him, Chohui could sense that the relationship between the two of them was deep. It was a woman’s intuition.
‘Ah!’
Only now did she understand. What it meant that he had come not for Yeojeong’s sake, but because of the Extreme Evil Smiling Demon. Since Yeojeong had a deep relationship with the Extreme Evil Smiling Demon, the Young Cult Leader had come running for the Tower Lord!
After looking at the two of them, Chohui turned back to the Tower Lord of Cheonhwaru. Now it was time to convey the reason she had risked her life to come here.
“There is something I must tell you, Tower Lord.”
She spoke in a low voice so that only the Tower Lord of Cheonhwaru could hear.
“A great incident that will turn the murim upside down is going to happen at Cheonhwaru!”
She lowered her voice even further and said,
“And the person who will cause that incident is…… you, Tower Lord.”