I’ll be back. (2)
For a moment, I wondered if I had seen wrong.
After all, this was a situation in which Wi Seol-ah absolutely should not have been sitting here out of the blue.
“Why are you here?”
It was the most flustered I had been in recent days.
Perhaps I was even more surprised than when I had looked toward Gu Hee-bi through the Heavenly Road’s bead yesterday.
Why was Wi Seol-ah, who should have been asleep in her quarters by now, here?
“You….”
“Where are you going?”
“What?”
Before I could even ask, Wi Seol-ah asked me in return.
“Young Master, where are you going?”
On this dark night, when even the moonlight barely reached us, Wi Seol-ah’s two swollen eyes met mine.
“…Well.”
For a moment, I wondered if I should simply run off without saying anything, but looking into those eyes, I found I could not.
“Just for a moment…. I’m going somewhere.”
“Where?”
“You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.”
“…Why are you going alone to a place I wouldn’t understand even if I heard about it?”
At Wi Seol-ah’s words, the mouth that had been speaking so readily clamped shut.
Somehow, her tone felt more serious than her usual childish manner of speaking.
Because of that, I felt strangely reluctant to open the mouth that normally spoke so freely.
“Eonni and I were very worried too.”
“…”
Somehow, it felt as though Wi Seol-ah were reproaching me.
The Wi Seol-ah I knew now was not someone who would do that.
As I stared at her, feeling a subtle emotion stir within me,
Wi Seol-ah continued speaking as she watched me.
“Young Master, why do you always try to do everything alone?”
“When did I ever try to do something alone?”
“You’re trying to do it alone right now.”
“That’s because this is a dangerous place for you to go.”
“A dangerous place?”
“Yes. This can’t be helped—”
“Then what about me, whom you’re sending alone to such a place…?”
Our conversation became tangled, one question leading to another without end.
In the end, I nearly snapped and asked whether this was even comparable to that, but—
Drip.
Looking at Wi Seol-ah’s face, I could not bring myself to say it.
The sight of tears falling heavily down her cheeks was far too pitiful.
“I also…. I worked hard. I trained hard…. And I learned the sword.”
At Wi Seol-ah’s tearful words, and the meaning contained within them, I had no choice but to frown.
“…What did you say you learned?”
She had trained and learned the sword?
Wi Seol-ah?
From whom?
‘Could it be the Sword Venerable?’
The only person who came to mind at once was the Sword Venerable.
In my previous life, Wi Seol-ah had naturally been the Sword Venerable’s successor,
and the martial arts she used had belonged to the Sword Venerable as well. In a sense, it was only natural.
The problem was that she had taken up the sword in this life too.
But she must not have.
I was the one who had most wanted Wi Seol-ah not to take up the sword in this life.
I had even believed that the life I had been given now was for that very purpose.
She must not take up the sword now.
“Why are you learning the sword?”
“So that…. So that I can protect you, Young Master.”
“What?”
At Wi Seol-ah’s words, I felt dizzy, as though I had been struck in the head with a blunt weapon.
‘Because of me?’
Where had this thread become tangled?
There were so many knots that following it slowly in order to unravel it seemed impossible.
“What kind of nonsense is that? Why would you protect me?”
Whatever might have been true in my previous life, the Wi Seol-ah of this life was, at most, a servant.
She possessed extraordinary beauty and more strength than those her age,
but even so, she was still a servant.
And even if she continued living such a life,
I wanted her to remain in peace.
I could not keep her as a servant forever,
but for now, at least, I wanted that.
Whether she knew how I felt or not, she continued speaking through her tears.
“I also…. I can do it…. They said I could.”
“Who? Your grandfather?”
“…”
Wi Seol-ah could not answer my question and remained silent,
but the only person who could have said such a thing to her was the Sword Venerable.
But—
‘Would he really have said something like that to Wi Seol-ah?’
Honestly, I could not understand it.
In the midst of this, after hearing that Wi Seol-ah had been training with the sword,
I felt I understood why she had been disappearing every evening in the past.
Had all of that been for training?
Then…. Had she come out to train even now, only to find me here?
‘At this hour of the night?’
It did not seem likely.
While I was lost in one thought after another, Wi Seol-ah spoke to me.
“Can’t… you not go?”
Her voice, filled with sobs, left me shaken, but my answer would not change.
This was something I had to do.
“If you go…. You said it’s dangerous. Then can’t you not go…? Ugh.”
I tried to tell Wi Seol-ah that I could not do that,
but the mouth that had been speaking suddenly clamped shut.
She held back the tears that were about to fall and swallowed the words she had been trying to say.
What was wrong?
As I looked at her questioningly, Wi Seol-ah opened her mouth again.
“…All right….”
“All right about what?”
Had she realized that I was about to refuse and decided to accept it?
Wi Seol-ah wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.
“If this won’t do, then I’ll come with—”
As she spoke, Wi Seol-ah suddenly flinched and trembled.
Then, as though she had thought of another way, she began to speak again,
but she cut herself off and closed her mouth once more.
She did this several times. The tears welling in her eyes grew so full that they looked ready to spill at the slightest touch.
Wi Seol-ah seemed strangely unstable.
“Then…. What can I do? What can I do! This means I can’t do anything!”
Just as I began to sense something strange in her state and wondered whether I should approach her first—
…!
I gradually sensed presences coming from the Gu Clan.
Apparently, they had noticed that I was gone.
If I stayed like this, things would inevitably become troublesome,
so I first took an object from inside my robe and forcibly pressed it into Wi Seol-ah’s hand.
It was a red ornament that I had once received as a gift for Elder Yi through the Plum Blossom Immortal.
“Hold on to this, at least.”
“Young Mas—”
“I’m sorry. We’ll talk again when I return. I’ll be back soon.”
I roughly stroked Wi Seol-ah’s hair, then kicked off the ground and leaped away.
The farther I went, the more Wi Seol-ah behind me weighed on my mind,
but I could not turn back.
It felt as though there were now many things I needed to discuss with Wi Seol-ah.
‘We can talk about them when I return.’
For now, putting out the immediate fire had to come first.
That was all I could think.
******************
Gu Yangcheon disappeared into the distance.
Left alone, Wi Seol-ah wiped away the tears that continued to flow without end.
She held the ornament Gu Yangcheon had given her tightly in her hand.
As she stared blankly in the direction he had gone,
someone spoke to Wi Seol-ah.
[Child….]
Upon hearing the voice, Wi Seol-ah wore an angry expression—a rare sight for her.
“Why can’t I?”
Her question, as though demanding an explanation, was unusually sharp.
[…]
“I can’t tell him not to go, and I can’t follow him either…. Why can’t I do anything?”
The voice’s owner had no choice but to remain silent at her sorrowful words.
That was all the more true because she knew Wi Seol-ah’s heart better than anyone.
“Eonni said so…. You said that if I worked hard, I could do it. That I could protect Young Master. But why can’t I do anything…?”
[For now…. There is nothing you can do.]
“I don’t understand.”
[You wanted it so desperately that even now, you came here to see him.]
When she learned that Gu Yangcheon was leaving for somewhere,
she had sought the other woman’s help to find this place, determined to see him somehow.
“Was it really something only I wanted?”
[…]
Wi Seol-ah could not understand.
“…Wasn’t it something you wanted too, Eonni?”
At Wi Seol-ah’s question, the other woman could say nothing.
Because Wi Seol-ah was not wrong.
[…I.]
She tried to say something, but her heavy lips would not easily part.
Thinking of her, Wi Seol-ah spoke.
“You’re mean, Eonni.”
Wi Seol-ah thought she was mean.
“You like Young Master too.”
She liked him.
Wi Seol-ah knew that better than anyone.
Perhaps it was an emotion deeper and heavier than the feelings she herself held for Gu Yangcheon.
“But why do you keep hiding…?”
That was why Wi Seol-ah could not understand why she continued to hold herself back.
If she liked him that much,
should she not express it according to her feelings?
To young Wi Seol-ah, the other woman simply seemed foolish.
[It truly is strange….]
“What is?”
[That because the circumstances were different, I might have become like you too….]
The minute differences that had changed from the very beginning
had created the Wi Seol-ah of the present.
To the other woman, the Wi Seol-ah of now
was an entirely different person from herself.
If she had something to say, she did not hesitate.
She was honest with her feelings and did not hesitate to express them.
It was as though she were certain that Gu Yangcheon would not hate her for it,
and that he would not push her away.
It was Gu Yangcheon of the present who had created this younger version of herself,
but even so, the other woman both envied Wi Seol-ah as she was now
and felt sorry for her.
She had been the one who had asked Wi Seol-ah to hold back her words in his name.
She had been the one who had asked her not to reveal her feelings first.
She had even been the one who had wished for them to part.
The other woman had nothing she could say to the young Wi Seol-ah.
“…”
Wi Seol-ah, who had been blaming her and speaking reproachfully, soon fell silent as well.
Because they shared each other’s emotions,
Wi Seol-ah knew what feelings the other woman held as she looked at her.
All she could do was swallow her tears and clutch the ornament Gu Yangcheon had left behind.
Wi Seol-ah thought of the boy’s back, the one she had been unable to grasp.
“…Young Master.”
Remembering Gu Yangcheon’s hand stroking her hair in the final moment,
Wi Seol-ah rubbed her head with her own hand.
The other woman’s words were difficult and hard to understand,
and Gu Yangcheon, who was always rushing about and getting hurt, was painful to watch,
but—
“I miss you….”
For now, she simply wanted to see him, the one who had gone away.
That was all the young Wi Seol-ah could think.
******************
North of the front lines stood the Azure Mountains.
The range, dominated by enormous ancient trees and rocks,
had once been filled with the vividness of pure green light.
But now—
Most of the green that had formed its broad terrain had vanished,
leaving behind only ancient trees scorched black and collapsed, along with the charred traces of life.
At the heart of the mountain range.
At the center of the enormous range, where not even a trace remained,
a heat so intense it seemed capable of setting anything alight whirled violently.
Flames surged into the air, carried on the heat.
They resembled a gigantic vortex.
The flames devoured their surroundings bit by bit as they expanded their reach.
They were brutal and utterly without hesitation.
After rising for some time and reducing the surrounding area to a wasteland, the flames gradually died out and vanished without a trace.
As the flames disappeared, the thick fire burning through the surrounding mountains also vanished as though it had never existed.
Once every flame had disappeared, at the center where the vortex had been,
a large crater had been gouged into the earth.
A fierce-looking man stood within it, his hands clasped behind his back.
The area around the crater was filled with corpses burned so black that their forms could no longer be recognized.
There appeared to be dozens of them.
Not one had managed to resist the man’s touch before meeting their end.
They were all martial artists belonging to the Black Night Palace.
This place had originally housed one of the Black Night Palace’s branches,
but now not even a trace remained.
It had all been reduced to ash beneath the man’s hand.
“…”
The man inspecting the charred corpses around him slowly turned his head and looked behind him.
Someone who had not been there before was kneeling on one knee before him.
The messenger, observing the proper formalities, carefully offered a letter to the man and spoke.
“Patriarch, a letter has arrived from Elder Yi.”
The man, Gu Cheol-un, immediately took the letter and unfolded it.
Inside was a brief message written in Elder Yi’s rough handwriting.
As Gu Cheol-un read it, his brows twitched briefly.
The letter contained the information Gu Cheol-un had so desperately wanted.
Upon reading it, Gu Cheol-un immediately gave an order.
“Commander of the First Sword Unit.”
“Yes, Patriarch.”
“Ready the troops.”
The eyes of Gu Cheol-un, which had remained expressionless until then, gradually turned red.
A heavy presence descended over the surroundings, pressing down on everything.
The enormous mountain range itself seemed laughable as it held its breath before the man’s presence.
Gu Cheol-un stepped forward and spoke.
“We’re going to the Mudong Mountains.”
With those final words,
flames burst forth, and Gu Cheol-un disappeared.