Rumors that Blood Heaven Blade Demon's disciple had died by my hand began spreading through the cult at alarming speed.
Ian's worries grew in proportion to the shockwaves.
“It’s absolute chaos. Everyone I meet talks about nothing but you and Yangpo, Young Master.”
She let out a sigh and added one more thing.
“……And about me, too.”
Since she had been the cause of the fight, it was only natural that all sorts of things would be said.
“It’s good to become famous. Aren’t we martial artists the sort of people who do every insane thing imaginable just to make a name for ourselves?”
“I don’t like it.”
“You’re only going to become more famous from now on. What will you do?”
Ian sighed lightly, but her expression was not dark. Perhaps because at the center of this uproar lay something positive: change.
“I’m worried because Lord Blood Heaven Blade Demon values honor. I just hope he lets this pass.”
“Who says that? That Blood Heaven Blade Demon values honor?”
“Pardon? Does he not?”
“Would someone who values honor leave his disciples’ trashy behavior alone and condone it?”
“Perhaps he doesn’t know?”
“That’s underestimating our Lord Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s delicacy far too much.”
“You did this before, too. You keep speaking as if you know Lord Blood Heaven Blade Demon well.”
“I know enough not only about Blood Heaven Blade Demon, but about the other Demon Venerables as well. I am the Heavenly Demon’s son, after all. I should at least have looked into that much.”
Ian stared at me with her eyes wide. Since she probably thought she knew everything about me, she must have been wondering when on earth I had investigated such things without her knowing.
“Then why does Lord Blood Heaven Blade Demon leave his disciples’ misdeeds alone?”
“That is……”
There was a definite reason, but it was not something I could explain to Ian.
So I gave her another reason she could accept.
“Because it’s convenient.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s easier to handle greedy, selfish bastards than disciples with upright conduct. Blood Heaven Blade Demon has gone a long time without choosing a chief disciple and has been making his disciples compete. Why? Because that makes them easier to use as expendables. Just watch. Yangpo’s empty spot will be filled within a few days.”
“He was a frightening man, Lord Blade Demon.”
“I find the disciples more frightening. Those bastards charge in even while knowing full well what kind of person their master is.”
“I’m glad I’m able to serve you, Young Master.”
“Of course you are. Who are you comparing me to? Ian, want to have a drink for the first time in a while?”
She looked at me in surprise.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“Because it’s not for the first time in a while. It’s the first time.”
“It is?”
“Yes.”
I hadn’t even shared a drink with you until now? What on earth powered you to throw yourself in front of danger for me?
“Let’s go. Today, we drink ourselves to death!”
I went to Maga Village with Ian.
Maga Village was a village formed in all directions around the main cult. At first, it had begun as a small village where the families of demon practitioners lived, but now it had become a large city.
I took her to the most expensive and finest tavern in Maga Village.
“It’s a historic day, so let’s drink somewhere nice.”
“I’m fine with a small, shabby place, too.”
She felt burdened by crowded places. Wherever she went, gazes first gathered on her, so of course she would dislike it.
Out of consideration for her, we entered a private room prepared separately in the tavern.
“How much can you drink?”
“I can’t drink much.”
“Let’s find out how much you can drink today. Don’t worry. If you get drunk, I’ll carry you back.”
“I’m…… heavy.”
“It’s fine. Look at these arms.”
“They’re half the size of mine.”
“That’s only because I haven’t flexed yet!”
Since it was my first drinking session with her, I ordered plenty of good liquor and dishes.
“These are dishes I’ve never tried before. This one, and that one.”
“Try them all, and if anything tastes good, we’ll order more.”
“My stomach will be startled.”
“You’re so busy guarding me that you just eat whatever, don’t you? Be more mindful of what you eat from now on.”
“See? With a body like this, I’m fine even if I eat roughly.”
She lifted her thick arm and grinned.
“If you eat roughly, you gain more weight. What am I eating? What ingredients is this made from? The more attention you pay when you eat, the less weight you gain. If you want to lose weight, you have to become a gourmet.”
“Ah! I didn’t know! I’ll do that from now on.”
But I knew. No matter what food she ate, even if she starved every day, her weight would not come off. Because that flesh had not been gained through food.
Of course, she knew that well, too. She only said that because she thought I did not know about the side effect. She could have revealed the side effect and made at least one joking complaint tinged with resentment…… but she had become an adult from far too young an age.
“From now on, learn while eating delicious things with me.”
Ian stared at me and asked.
“Please teach me the secret.”
“What secret? Cooking?”
“No. How a person can change like this.”
I looked at her and smiled faintly.
“Why? Do you want to change, too?”
“It’s not that, but……”
She emptied her cup. How could she not wish to change? In her heart, the image of herself from childhood must have remained forever. Whenever things were hard, she would recall that day, and then it would become even harder.
“Once you regain your original self, you won’t need any secret like that. Everyone in the world will revere you.”
As she respectfully accepted the liquor I poured for her, Ian asked.
“Young Master, what do you intend to do about becoming successor?”
The fact that she asked a question she had never asked until now must mean she had seen that possibility in me.
I raised my cup and said quietly.
“Flattery is the only way to survive!”
Ian laughed and lightly clinked her cup against mine.
“Make sure you melt the Cult Leader’s heart!”
I emptied my drink with her.
She had said she could not drink well, but Ian drank quite well.
Of course, I had to pay the price for getting her drunk. I had to carry her back, dead drunk, on my back.
All the way back, she shouted from my back.
“Don’t worry! I’ll definitely protect you, Young Master. Just trust me!”
“I wasn’t worried at all, but the more I hear you say that, the more worried I get.”
“I told you not to worry! I’ll protect you!”
“Fine, I won’t worry.”
“You must. You must worry. But don’t worry! Because I’ll protect you!”
“Hahaha.”
Just then, a building window opened and someone shouted.
“What empty-headed bitch keeps saying the same damn thing?”
Looking at the man who had stuck his face out the window, I said,
“For my sake, let it slide.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I am the Second Young Master of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.”
He stared blankly at me for a moment, then an apology flew out at the speed of light.
“Goodness, I apologize, Young Master!”
At the same time, the window closed even faster than it had opened.
Ian was sound asleep on my back, breathing softly.
“I’m sorry I carried you so late.”
After returning to my residence, I laid her on the bed and came back outside.
I sat in the yard with my legs stretched out and looked up at the moon.
Thinking back on it now, after my sect was destroyed and I lived on the run, I had fallen into a deep sense of defeat. It was a depression so profound that I could not sustain my life unless I ran toward the goal of regression.
What if I had not met Seojin around that time? What if I had not learned of the Great Regression Art? In the end…… wouldn’t I have taken my own life? Or perhaps I would have gone to find Hwamugi, only to die miserably at the hands of his followers without ever meeting him. Yes, that was probably what would have happened.
Just as I was lost in such thoughts.
Something right beside me flashed, reflecting the moonlight.
When I slowly turned my head, a great blade was beside my face.
My tense face was reflected in the blade of an absurdly huge great saber.
The blade slowly lowered, and behind it, the owner of the saber revealed himself.
The wrinkles on the rough, gaunt hand gripping the saber were the furrows of years proving that the time he had lived through had not been kind. Beyond those furrows, a sharp gaze was glaring at me.
It was Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
Because I had not expected him to come find me so suddenly, I was inwardly startled.
The saber aimed as if to cut off my neck was his unique weapon, the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber. The Heaven-Destroying Great Saber, counted among the Ten Great Weapons of the martial world, shattered most ordinary weapons the moment they clashed against it, earning it the nickname Weapon Destroyer.
The cold demonic energy emitted by the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber coiled all around us. At the chilling cold that seemed to stop my breath, every hair on my body stood on end.
“If that saber flies in to take my neck, can I dodge it?”
I could not answer easily.
No matter how deep the enlightenment I had gained in my life before regression, right now my internal energy was overwhelmingly lacking.
At the very moment the tension heightened, the icy energy coiling around us vanished in an instant.
Blood Heaven Blade Demon grinned and poked my side with the end of the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber’s hilt.
“Why’d you do it?”
He meant, why had I killed his disciple?
Until just now, his presence had been like that of an assassin who had come to kill me, but now he was grinning like a friendly old man from next door and poking my side.
“Because he acted like an idiot.”
At my indifferent answer, Blood Heaven Blade Demon stared at me. His eyes were similar to my father’s, yet different.
If my father’s eyes made it impossible to know what he was thinking, Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s eyes were clear.
Hostility.
I saw blazing flames in his pupils.
“What kind of idiot in this world comes looking for trouble with the beloved youngest son of the Cult Leader, the apple of his eye?”
Whirik!
The saber resting on Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s knee sprang up and once again aimed at my neck.
“Shall I cut off this head and take it to the Cult Leader, then tell him to put it in his eye and see whether it hurts or not?”
The blue, murderous edge flowing over the blade carried its owner’s intent: It may have sounded like a joke, but it was not.
“I don’t think my head would fit into my father’s terrifyingly slitted eyes.”
When I took one step back, the energy flowing over the blade vanished toward the hilt in an instant. Impressive. To think he could handle such tremendous energy so freely with that gaunt body.
This time, Blood Heaven Blade Demon used the Heaven-Destroying Great Saber to draw a long line on the ground in front of where we sat. Then he drew a vertical line at a spot about a handspan from the left end.
“From here to here is our Second Young Master, and from here to that end is me.”
The line was divided at a ratio of nine to one.
“What is this?”
“How much the Cult Leader cherishes us.”
Blood Heaven Blade Demon himself was the nine, and I was the one.
I used my finger to draw a new line at about two-thirds of the way.
“Still, I am his son in name at least. This side would be me, and that side would be you, Elder.”
This time, I was the seven, and Blood Heaven Blade Demon was the three.
Blood Heaven Blade Demon smiled slyly.
“We can test it, then. If I take the Second Young Master’s head to him, will the Cult Leader kill me or spare me?”
“Are you not underestimating the Heavenly Demon’s paternal love too much?”
“That’s why I’m saying we should test it.”
The Heaven-Destroying Great Saber slowly moved toward me again.
I pressed my palm against the side of the saber and stopped it from approaching my neck. The saber was cold. No matter how brightly Blood Heaven Blade Demon was smiling, this coldness was Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s true nature. If I forgot that, I would die.
“There’s no need to test it. He has two sons, but there is only one of you, Elder.”
Blood Heaven Blade Demon grinned.
“The Second Young Master is no idiot like my disciple.”
“If your disciple had resembled you, Elder, he would still be alive.”
Blood Heaven Blade Demon placed a hand on my shoulder and patted it.
“Second Young Master, this old man has lived his whole life alongside misfortune. So it is best that we not see each other often.”
After finishing his words, Blood Heaven Blade Demon vanished. His body shot up from beside me with a whoosh and fell into the darkness far away.
Once Blood Heaven Blade Demon had disappeared like that, I first checked my side. A deep blue bruise had formed where Blood Heaven Blade Demon had poked me earlier with the saber hilt. It had looked as though he had playfully poked me, but the shock that reached me had been more like a pounding blow. The same was true of the way he had patted my shoulder at the end.
“Damn it, rotten old man.”
The entire time I dealt with him, I had not let go of my tension. Separate from the fact that I had regressed, I always had to be careful of the dangers created by variables.
The fact that he repeated twice that he would take my head and go to my father meant that the thought he really might do so existed in his mind.
At a glance, he might seem willful, but he was not a willful person. He was someone who always calculated thoroughly, and then calculated again. If he seemed willful, then even that willfulness was calculated. That was why he was a difficult figure to deal with.
I knew various pieces of information about him, but knowing someone well did not mean I could handle him well. Information was only information; variables capable of overturning this advantage could appear at any time.
“In any case, why did he come to see me?”
Was it a warning for killing his disciple?
No. As I had told Ian, he was not someone who valued reputation.
He had come to see me. What I showed on the martial stage must have left an impression on him, and the fact that I had wished for a hunt must also have felt unusual. On top of that, I had even cut down his disciple, so he must have felt the need to test me. He had come to taste for himself whether I was sweet, or whether I tasted like shit. To see whether I could become the successor.
“What did I taste like?”
To me, he tasted spicy. I had only touched my tongue to him once, but it burned. Still, it was a deliciously spicy taste.
“Will my first opponent be Blood Heaven Blade Demon?”
Perhaps that might be the case. After all, I had been sent back to the very day I had a duel with Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s disciple.
“Perhaps that great saber of yours stood out particularly well to the eyes of heaven.”