“The person I trust most is someone you know?”
If the force behind her included people who were already dead, there was no telling who it might be.
But he did not think she would have answered that the person she trusted most was dead.
Then, if it was someone alive?
One person naturally came to mind.
The Sword King, Ak Gunhak.
Of the people who could have been the answer to her reply, he was the only one still alive.
He recalled the final moment when he had parted with Ak Gunhak.
The sight of his back as he walked away, hair tied tightly, an iron sword and shoes hanging from his waist.
The sight of him walking barefoot, then turning back toward him from far away.
—My name is Ak Gunhak.
Even his shout, and the way he had smiled brightly with those lonely eyes. Seeing how that image always came to mind, it seemed he must miss him.
“The person you trust most is Ak Gunhak?”
With that answer, Geom Mugeuk understood.
She was telling him.
I know what you know about me.
Until now, whether she had thought so or not, she had not shown it.
The secret coffer’s reaction had not been a coincidence. She was throwing down the gauntlet.
If you can stop me, try.
Geom Mugeuk looked at Cha Iran. Like a martial artist standing face-to-face with an enemy, she was pounding the table and shouting.
“Come on, then! I’ll take any question you throw at me!”
Then Ian stepped forward.
“I’ll ask the next question.”
Since they had agreed to drink before asking a question, all four emptied their cups.
“I’ll ask Miss Cha.”
Ian had been displeased by her first question, when she had asked about Geom Mugeuk’s feelings toward her. If it had been only the two of them, that would have been one thing, but to ask whether he liked her when all the parties involved were present?
It felt as if she were treating Ian’s relationship with Geom Mugeuk, and the feelings within it, like a joke.
But Ian did not respond emotionally. Precisely because she considered that relationship so precious, she found herself becoming overly sensitive like this; and even that would likely be the result the other party wanted.
Ian smiled and asked calmly.
“I’d like to ask about the person you said you trusted most. Does that person know of Miss Cha’s trust?”
Cha Iran’s expression stiffened slightly.
“Why are you asking about that person?”
Because of Geom Mugeuk. If it was someone Geom Mugeuk knew as well, then he must surely be important. She wanted to be of even the slightest help to Geom Mugeuk.
Even if she herself could not discern it, Geom Mugeuk would sense her subtle emotions.
“I’m curious. The Miss Cha I sensed seemed like someone who doesn’t trust people easily, so I wondered what kind of person he must be for you to say you trust him most. Does he know?”
He knows. No, he does not. It was a simple answer, but without hesitating, she drank three penalty cups again. She showed her resolve not to speak at all about anything related to that person.
Ian said with an apologetic expression.
“I won’t ask any more about him.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of wine. Now, come at me again!”
Ian’s question had been useful. From Cha Iran’s reaction, Geom Mugeuk realized that her feelings toward Ak Gunhak ran quite deep.
“While digging underground like that, when did you manage to steal the heart of such a beautiful woman?”
Next was Bi Sain’s turn.
“I will ask Miss Cha.”
Cha Iran smiled and said,
“I’m the only one exploding with popularity. Miss Yi must feel left out.”
“I’m not the type to pass by someone who tells me to come at them.”
In truth, aside from asking why she was trying to kill his master, Bi Sain honestly had nothing he wanted to ask her.
Still, he thought that if he learned even one more thing about Cha Iran, it might help with this matter, so he chose her.
“Why are you trying to become the greatest beauty under heaven?”
It seemed like a merely formal question, but in truth it touched upon what he was curious about. She had planned to become the greatest beauty under heaven, approach his master, and launch a surprise attack. So if she were to answer honestly, she would have to say this.
To kill the Sado Alliance Leader.
As Cha Iran hesitated to answer, Ian smiled and joked.
“I jumped in because of the prize money.”
But in the end, Cha Iran did not answer.
“Ah, how nice it would be if my reason were that simple too.”
With that, she drank three more penalty cups.
She could have answered with something like, It’s a dream any woman might have at least once, and that would have been fine.
At the very least, from that penalty drink, they could tell that she was utterly sincere and serious about this wager.
After drinking in succession, the flush of wine rose on her face. It did not look as if she had a particularly high tolerance.
“Are you all right?”
At Geom Mugeuk’s concern, she spoke boldly.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about me. I haven’t even started yet!”
The questioning order went around once, and it became Cha Iran’s turn again. He thought she would ask Geom Mugeuk a question, but her target was Bi Sain.
“I’ll ask the Young Alliance Leader.”
And the question was truly unexpected.
“What does the Sado Alliance Leader like most?”
For a moment, Bi Sain was startled. He had not expected her to ask such a question.
Ian, who was beside him, also forced down her sudden tension.
“May I ask why you want to know?”
At Bi Sain’s question, Cha Iran replied,
“Aren’t you curious? What sort of thing the supreme one of the unorthodox factions likes?”
She looked at Ian and provoked her.
“If I become the greatest beauty under heaven this time, I’ll meet him in person at the celebration banquet. It would help to know what he likes, wouldn’t it?”
Instead of answering, Bi Sain drank his penalty cup.
“How could I dare speak of the Alliance Leader at a drinking table? Please understand that I must drink the penalty cup.”
He was angry at her shamelessness in asking about his master, but Bi Sain strove not to reveal those feelings.
“I’m sorry. It seems I asked a rude question.”
“It is fine.”
Geom Mugeuk could tell. She had thrown out that question to confirm whether they knew she was targeting the Sado Alliance Leader. Her question had been useful as well.
It became Geom Mugeuk’s turn to ask again.
This time, too, he chose Cha Iran.
“I apologize if this feels like a wheel battle, but there is something else I’m curious about, Miss Cha.”
“Questions from Guard Geom are always welcome.”
But it was by no means a welcome question.
“Who is the person you fear most?”
For an instant, he felt Cha Iran flinch.
“Earlier you asked who I trust most, and now you ask who I fear most.”
Geom Mugeuk, who had asked the question, gave his own answer.
“For me, it is my father.”
Aside from the two questions he had asked her earlier, there were likely many questions to which his father would be the answer.
The person he liked most, the person he respected most…
In the end, Cha Iran picked up the penalty cup again.
“Come at me! Come at me!”
Ian followed up on that question.
“Then I’ll ask something a little easier. What does Miss Cha cherish most?”
But Cha Iran was troubled by this question as well.
“Really, you people!”
As if she had never imagined such questions would come flying when she first suggested the wager, she shook her head.
“What I cherish right now is…”
Her gaze turned toward the wine cup.
“This wine!”
She answered, but as if that was not the answer she truly wished to give, she drank another penalty cup.
The sound of her setting down the cup grew louder. Her drunken eyes began to lose focus.
Geom Mugeuk suggested they slow down a little while drinking, then said to her,
“It seems you have lived a very difficult life, Miss Cha. Those were questions others could have answered without much trouble.”
Geom Mugeuk’s and Cha Iran’s gazes tangled in midair.
Soon, a trace of sorrow passed through her eyes, and she sighed.
“It was not a smooth life.”
She did not hide her emotions. He could not tell whether it was sincere, or whether she was acting drunk.
“Now, let’s go again!”
“You should rest a little as we continue.”
“Come at me!”
From then on, they did not ask questions only to Cha Iran.
Ian asked Bi Sain what he regretted most, and Geom Mugeuk asked Ian what book she had read recently. At times the order of questioning changed, and sometimes someone asked twice in a row. They gradually became drunk.
They were still wary of one another, but they fully enjoyed the pleasure of the drinking table. If not on a day like this, when else would they ever ask such things? They threw questions at one another and answered.
As the questions went round and round, the last question of Cha Iran’s that could be understood was this. In a voice thick with drunkenness, she asked Geom Mugeuk,
“What is your greatest secret?”
Her utterly drunken eyes seemed to be asking this.
Who are you, that our organization is being destroyed? What are you, that he spared your life? What are you, that I must go this far? What are you…
Geom Mugeuk raised his cup and spoke in a drunken voice.
“Under the influence of wine, I nearly told you my secret.”
When Geom Mugeuk drank the penalty cup, Cha Iran rejoiced.
“You’re starting to crumble too! Now, let’s keep going!”
The words she said most often at that drinking table that day were these.
All of you, come at me!
* * *
When Cha Iran woke, she was lying on a bed in a guest room prepared separately in Hwamyeong Hall.
When she turned her head, Geom Mugeuk was sitting on a chair beside the bed.
“What did you do to me? You look innocent, but you’re sinister.”
Geom Mugeuk asked with an incredulous expression,
“Are you pretending not to remember, or do you really not remember?”
“Of course!”
Cha Iran smiled bashfully and said,
“I’m pretending not to remember.”
“You vomited, threw a drunken fit, shouted at the top of your lungs, and cursed. Do you remember that?”
“Here and there.”
Let’s drink without expelling the alcohol with our internal energy!
What on earth had she been relying on when she said such a thing?
He did not know how much of it had been intentional, but at the very least, her drunken antics had not been an act.
He had truly experienced many things in the fight against the force behind her, no, in all his life before the regression as well, but this was the first time he had ever seen an enemy’s drunken behavior so nakedly. No, there would likely never be another time in the future either, so it was the first such experience of his life.
“Did you know you had a drunken habit?”
Cha Iran shook her head.
“Yesterday was the first time I ever drank that much.”
To commit the worst overdrinking of her life in front of her enemy, and that, before the young cult leader of the Demon Cult and the young alliance leader of the Sado Alliance. When she became dead drunk, how could she know what she might say? Truly, if nothing else, her nerve had to be acknowledged.
And now it was time to speak of the truths they had not shared yesterday.
“Why did you reveal your identity?”
As expected, she did not deny it and ask what he meant.
“You knew about me, didn’t you?”
How had she realized that? He had known about her because he had known her in his life before the regression.
“How did you know?”
“A woman’s intuition.”
This time, she asked. He should have regarded her merely as one beautiful woman among those participating in the competition.
“How did you know about me?”
“A man’s intuition.”
Cha Iran smiled alluringly.
“I feel relieved, rather. Until now, it was truly stifling not being able to speak freely. Why else would I have suggested a wager like that?”
“But the person who drank the most penalty cups was you.”
“I didn’t expect demonic practitioners to ask those kinds of questions. Someone even asked what my childhood dream was, didn’t they? Who on earth asked that?”
“You remember everything.”
Cha Iran slowly raised herself from the bed. Her clothes were completely wrinkled, and from unidentified things to mud, all sorts of filth clung to them. It seemed she had gone outside and rolled all the way across the ground.
“I’d believe it if you said those were martial robes just returned from a battlefield.”
“You underestimate the cleanliness of martial artists far too much.”
She laughed, picked up the water pitcher on the table beside the bed, and gulped it down.
“What if I had put poison in it? How can you drink like that?”
“If you were going to kill me anyway, you would have killed me while I was asleep.”
Geom Mugeuk knew. She was not someone who would fall asleep this defenselessly merely because she was drunk. Then why had she shown such an opening?
“Why didn’t you kill me?”
“You are not someone who would die easily. If an opportunity to kill you easily appeared, wouldn’t that be a trap?”
At Geom Mugeuk’s words, Cha Iran set down the pitcher and smiled.
“You really are as clever as I heard.”
She stretched, then walked to the window and looked outside. It was still early dawn.
“At least, even if you don’t kill me……”
The figure she presented as she looked back at Geom Mugeuk was unbearably sensual. No matter how filthy her clothes were, they could not mar her beauty.
“I thought you’d give in because of the drink. You even had the excuse of changing my clothes for me.”
At her frank words, Geom Mugeuk laughed and said,
“Had you not tried to vomit on me, perhaps I might have.”
With a faint smile on her lips, Cha Iran formally greeted Geom Mugeuk.
“Young Cult Leader, a pleasure.”
Even with her identity exposed, she was still full of confidence.
“I am not the type to spare an enemy and invite future trouble. What were you thinking?”
It sounded as though he meant he had been waiting in order to kill her, but she did not become afraid.
“Then I die.”
Her eyes did not fear death. It was not so much because of courage as because she was certain Geom Mugeuk would not kill her.
“That was what the man who fought you and returned said.”
It was clear that by “that man,” she meant Ak Gunhak.
“That you let him live and sent him away.”
At that, Geom Mugeuk shook his head.
“He was the one who spared me and left.”
A smile formed on her lips, as if to say, I knew it.
It was a different sort of smile from the ones she had shown until now. Compared to the alluring smile that always appeared reflexively, this one was slightly stiff and awkward.
But Geom Mugeuk could tell. That smile was her real smile.
And one more thing.
She not only trusted Ak Gunhak the most, she also liked him.
“Has he left?”
Cha Iran was inwardly surprised.
Geom Mugeuk had known he would leave. Ak Gunhak was not the kind of person who would tell others that he was leaving.
‘Just what did he see in you, to even tell you something like that?’
The wind blowing in from outside the window stirred her hair.
“He hasn’t been able to leave yet.”
Geom Mugeuk asked no more and only nodded.
“Why don’t you ask? Why he hasn’t been able to leave.”
If it were an organization one could leave so easily, he would not have met him in its underground chamber. Nor would he have said he was going to leave. How could leaving such a disgusting organization possibly be easy?
Geom Mugeuk bade her farewell.
“Do cure your hangover properly.”
As Geom Mugeuk was about to leave, she asked,
“Why are you leaving without killing me?”
Geom Mugeuk looked back at her. Because I still haven’t found out why you’re trying to kill the leader of the Sado Alliance. And because there is now one more thing I must find out.
“Is this mercy, letting me fight the finals before you kill me?”
At her needless show of weakness, Geom Mugeuk firmly shook his head.
“After seeing that awful sight, I won the bet.”
As he left the room, Geom Mugeuk added,
“I can hardly kill the person who’s going to pay for the drinks, can I?”