Dong, Episode 308: Listen, Why Is That Coming Out of Here? (2)
A few years back from now.
Around the time when less than a year had passed since my regression.
When I attended the Tang Clan’s Tang Byeongjeonhoe with Wi Seol-a.
My goal had been to find the secret chamber of the Geumcheon Yeon Clan hidden in Sichuan.
At the time, thanks to Wi Seol-a’s help, I had succeeded in finding the secret chamber.
A hidden space concealed by a formation.
Wi Seol-a found it all too easily.
Thanks to that, something I couldn’t easily predict would have taken a long time
was resolved with ease.
If you ask why I’m suddenly bringing up this story,
it’s because the situation I’m seeing right now somehow resembles that time.
‘Could that be…?’
Wi Seol-a, crouching down and surveying the grass.
And at her fingertips, which were stirring the empty air,
I could feel a certain sense of discrepancy.
As if a ripple was spreading through empty space.
Unless one was a complete idiot, there was no way they wouldn’t know what that phenomenon was.
‘For real…?’
A formation.
Based on the information from my previous life.
If it was me, who knew that a secret chamber existed beneath Sinryong Hall, there was even less chance I wouldn’t know.
That was undoubtedly a trace of energy connecting the spaces inside and outside through a formation.
Through entering the hall and the bet with Instructor Cheol Hwan-o.
After gaining time that morning.
Even though I had wandered around searching here and there for several days, I hadn’t been able to find even a trace.
And she found that so easily?
If so.
‘Is that really a formation?’
I couldn’t be certain yet.
Since this place was near the building where the Hall Master resided.
There was no telling if that formation existed for his protection.
First, I approached Wi Seol-a.
I tapped her shoulder and made my presence known.
“Ah…!”
The moment I touched her, Wi Seol-a hurriedly turned her head.
“What are you doing right now?”
Wi Seol-a, as if she truly hadn’t known I had come right up behind her,
was making an extremely surprised expression.
The hand gestures that had been stirring the air had stopped at some point.
“It’s….”
“Is something there?”
“I just thought there was something, so I was touching it.”
At Wi Seol-a’s answer,
I had to let out a hollow laugh.
She had been touching it with such a light heart?
No, it shouldn’t be something you could touch just because you wanted to.
Just how was she doing it?
I had no idea.
Following Wi Seol-a’s words,
I too reached out and caressed the empty air, but.
‘There’s nothing here?’
Contrary to my expectation that I might feel something,
unlike Wi Seol-a, I was merely stirring the air, and no special phenomenon appeared.
As if realizing I was doing something futile, Wi Seol-a carefully grabbed my wrist and shifted the direction a little.
“Not there…. Around here.”
It wasn’t even a large movement.
Very slightly.
While doing so, she made me change the shape of my fingertips.
It was merely such a small difference.
Vrrrrm.
“…!”
I feel it.
I could feel that a formation was spread out right before me.
Faint, but clear.
Right in front of me, a formation of considerable level had been spread out.
‘It really is there.’
I didn’t know what kind of formation it was.
But it was certain that a formation existed. And judging by the circumstances.
Rather than for protective purposes,
I could feel it was meant to hide something.
If it had been for protection, the energy wouldn’t have felt like this.
‘If so, is this the formation guarding the secret chamber?’
The probability of that was quite high.
To know more certainly, the right thing would be to tear down the formation and enter inside, but.
‘Now isn’t the time.’
I had to remember that Cheonghae Il-geom was not far away.
Even if the formation hadn’t been deployed by Cheonghae Il-geom, if I broke through and entered, the energy would definitely tangle for a moment.
The possibility of Cheonghae Il-geom nearby feeling that was quite high.
‘Why does there have to be a formation near the Hall Master’s chamber?’
In a way, it could be the safest place.
As far as I know, this secret chamber wasn’t one made by Sinryong Hall.
Meaning, it hadn’t been intentionally positioned.
Then, to safely enter this formation,
it would be right to do it when Cheonghae Il-geom was far away.
‘Whether this is truly a formation for the secret chamber, I’ll see then.’
For now, the fact that a formation existed in such a location.
Knowing that alone was a sufficient achievement.
It wasn’t me who had toiled, but Wi Seol-a who had found it,
yet Wi Seol-a didn’t particularly show any interest even seeing such a formation.
Should I call this fortunate?
“Aren’t you surprised?”
“Yes?”
“This.”
Since Wi Seol-a’s reaction was quite unexpected,
I asked outright.
I said, isn’t it strange that there’s a formation right before your eyes.
At my words, Wi Seol-a rolled her eyes for a moment,
then opened her crimson lips and spoke.
“…Everyone has one or two secrets they want to hide.”
If they would hide it even with a formation, wouldn’t it rather be a strange secret?
But for some reason, Wi Seol-a seemed largely uninterested.
And I couldn’t exactly break through it right now either.
I should rather call it fortunate.
If another person had found it, it might have become a problem.
Since it was Wi Seol-a who found it, it was fortunate indeed.
“Anyway. What’s the reason you’ve been avoiding me lately?”
“…Yes…?”
A formation is a formation, and having come this far, it was time to ask what I needed to ask.
Because this was my original purpose.
Perhaps because I suddenly asked such a thing,
Wi Seol-a flinched.
“Ah, I wasn’t avoiding you.”
“Don’t lie. Do you think I don’t know?”
Do you think I’m an idiot?
You avoid me at every turn.
You avoid me when our eyes meet.
When I try to find you, you’re gone.
What is this if not avoiding?
I don’t know why you keep avoiding me.
“Did I do something wrong?”
I usually don’t bow my head to others,
but I didn’t have much memory of wronging Wi Seol-a.
At least in this life.
Wi Seol-a gave no answer.
Since she seemed about to avoid my eyes again,
“Urk…!?”
I fixed her chin with my hand so she couldn’t look away.
“What are you dissatisfied about, come on.”
I need to know.
Just why she’s doing this. I need to know to even talk about it.
Back then, she would cling to me even if I tried to avoid her.
Now she avoids me? That couldn’t be.
Because I had no intention of letting go now.
Wi Seol-a was looking at me with trembling eyes.
Unable to turn her head away,
she rolled her pupils this way and that.
Meanwhile, she didn’t seem to have any thought of pushing me away with force.
I waited a long while.
Until she spoke, I had no intention of letting go.
Her lips, which had been trembling, only after a little more time
slowly opened.
Even that was slow, as if greatly hesitating.
“…Because I’m embarrassed.”
“Huh?”
It was a voice that seemed to crawl inward. So small one could barely hear it,
but the words could clearly be heard.
Embarrassed?
“What are you embarrassed about?”
What is she embarrassed about all of a sudden?
She did this before too.
I remembered her saying she didn’t want to show her changed appearance,
but it couldn’t be her hair, since she had already taken off the blood-soaked clothes.
It seemed she was embarrassed about something else.
What could it be?
As I harbored questions about Wi Seol-a’s words,
she added.
“My lord… looking at you has become a bit embarrassing.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Am I walking around doing something shameful?
I don’t really dress up, though.
“…It’s hard to look at your eyes.”
“Because I look scary?”
“It’s not that…! You don’t look scary!”
“They’re my eyes, why are you getting angry.”
Should I thank you for getting angry instead?
“Anyway… it’s not that.”
“Then what should I do to help?”
“…Please give me… a moment.”
“What moment? Time to avoid me?”
“Yes…. Just a little.”
Asking for time to avoid me.
What kind of nonsense is that?
Back then, you’d say you wanted to see me.
That you wanted to meet me.
You even secretly came to watch me.
And now you ask for time to avoid me.
“How much do you need?”
“It won’t take long…. Quickly, I can do it quickly.”
I don’t know why she’s speaking with such a resolute expression.
What on earth can she do quickly?
“Is it because you want to go back to how it was before?”
To the days of the rascal young master and the servant.
It was just a few years ago, but does she mean she wants to go back like that?
I wondered if maybe that was it, but.
“No.”
Wi Seol-a answered firmly.
“That’s not it. Back then, it was a good memory but… now, rather.”
“Rather?”
“I want to be different from back then, so I need time. Time for me to make up my mind.”
So after eating everything else, now you’re eating your resolve too, huh?
Such a funny thought crossed my mind.
If I said this now, she would probably be completely upset and wouldn’t look at me for a while.
“Do you know this, my lord?”
“What.”
I still wasn’t used to that title, “my lord.”
Especially from Wi Seol-a.
Normally, I would have been called that by Wi Seol-a too.
“They say that wanting to have what you shouldn’t have is greed.”
“Is that what they call greed.”
They don’t always express it with the word greed.
Though I did think it was included in that.
Anyway, that was quite out of the blue.
Why greed all of a sudden?
I looked at her wondering what she was talking about, but
Wi Seol-a still wore an unreadable expression.
It felt like she was trying hard to smile.
“You know.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I too want to indulge in a little greed.”
“Hm?”
It was a strange thing to say.
Wi Seol-a wanting to indulge in greed.
If you asked if she had no greed at all,
I felt like she did have some.
Could there be another meaning in those words?
Though her face and body had matured greatly,
Wi Seol-a somehow still retained a childlike side.
Even if we had grown, we hadn’t even come of age, so we were still children.
“So please wait. It won’t take long.”
Wi Seol-a said so and forced a smile.
I wanted to dig deeper,
but she was smiling as if asking me not to ask further.
Since she said it wouldn’t take long,
I decided to let it go for now.
“…Yeah, never mind that.”
“Yes.”
“Why were you dragged to the Hall Master?”
*Twitch.*
For an instant, on Wi Seol-a’s face,
the thought ‘Oh no.’
surfaced.
It seemed she had forgotten.
“You caused an accident. What accident?”
“I-I didn’t cause an accident.”
“Earlier on your face, I saw it confessing, ‘I caused an accident.’?”
“…Ah, that’s not it.”
She tightly shut her eyes and turned her head.
How can I believe her when she’s doing that?
I don’t think Wi Seol-a is the type to run around causing accidents like me.
Rather, she would endure and let things pass.
She wasn’t the type to blow up like me.
“Are you not going to talk? Should I go ask the Hall Master again?”
*Twitch.*
Of course, even if I went and asked, there was no way the Hall Master would tell me the crime of another disciple.
Perhaps my words got through.
Wi Seol-a explained the situation to me while still tightly closing her eyes.
At the words she spilled out like a confession.
“…You hit someone? You? And that too.”
I reflexively asked back as if I had misheard.
That was how absurd the story was.
“Your close guard unit or something?”
Wi Seol-a bit her lips and avoided answering, averting her gaze.
No matter how you looked at it, that was a silence of affirmation.
It seemed Wi Seol-a had really beaten someone up.
And quite a lot.
The second young master of the Sichuan Pae Clan.
That name, Pae U-cheol.
The name of a youth who had just come of age.
He was fairly renowned among the junior disciples,
and as he himself possessed extraordinary talent, he was counted among those with a bright future.
He was lacking compared to the monsters called the Six Dragons and Three Phoenixes,
but he was at the level of standing out among the swarm of snakes below them.
He himself knew he was a considerably outstanding person.
Because the riffraff around him were so low-level.
‘I shall stand at their zenith.’
When he first ascended to Sinryong Hall,
Pae U-cheol thought so.
The monsters called the Six Dragons and Three Phoenixes were certainly strong,
but he thought he was no less than them.
He had surpassed the first-rate level,
and having grown strong under his father,
he thought he could do anything.
In reality, too.
The Sinryong Hall entrance exam wasn’t particularly difficult for Pae U-cheol.
Rather, it was easy.
‘At this level, isn’t it too easy?’
It was incomparably light.
He thought so. Moreover, at this level, he thought the first or second seat was a given.
Ridiculously.
Pae U-cheol couldn’t even get near the top ranks.
What was more surprising.
In this exam where more than half of the Six Dragons and Three Phoenixes participated, he thought they would naturally take the top ranks,
but even that wasn’t the case.
While a Dragon took the first seat,
the second and third seats were not Dragons or Phoenixes.
A promising junior who didn’t have a sobriquet yet,
and a swordsman called the Divine Saint.
Pae U-cheol couldn’t help but nod at those two.
Their foundations were different; the strong ones were certainly different.
But.
Couldn’t he catch up? If he tried, someday.
Such a thought crossed his mind.
It was a feeling that stimulated his competitive spirit.
But, in the midst of that.
‘What is that guy.’
Pae U-cheol examined the Dragon who had taken the first seat.
He was young.
He was clearly younger than himself, and even on the younger side among the surrounding junior disciples.
That guy, he was a Dragon that he himself couldn’t attain, and even took the first seat?
He was even carefree.
Even while Cheonghae Il-geom was giving a speech,
he would shake his legs in the back
and look around with an expression that the world was annoying.
Who would have thought he’d see such a crazy guy?
That was his first impression of the famous True Dragon.
That evening.
Pae U-cheol was struck by the True Dragon and lost consciousness.
He couldn’t even properly use his strength.
The next day.
Pae U-cheol got up and, boiling with anger, rushed at the True Dragon,
and was beaten by the True Dragon’s fist again.
He had launched a surprise attack while the True Dragon was sleeping, but
the True Dragon sprang up as if he had known everything.
Pae U-cheol was beaten with all sorts of violence.
Only then
did Pae U-cheol truly feel the gap between himself and the True Dragon.
Nothing connected.
He couldn’t see.
Movements that didn’t differ by an inch.
How could they be so fast and heavy?
A gap like a wall.
Pae U-cheol truly felt this.
Of course, just because he felt it
didn’t mean the True Dragon’s violence stopped.
“Ah, ah, I understand… S-Stop.”
“Stop what, you bastard? Why are you picking a fight while someone is sleeping?”
“Aack! T-There, you can’t!”
“There’s nowhere you can’t. Stay still. If you move, you might not be able to have kids.”
“W-Wait! Hyung-nim! H-Hyung-nim, please…! Kwaaaah!”
He didn’t want to remember what happened that morning.
Just recalling it sent a chilling feeling through his lower half.
Ah, this guy is a mad dog.
Pae U-cheol realizes.
He thought he himself was quite a crazy guy,
but the True Dragon was truly a mad dog.
Pae U-cheol couldn’t forget the look in the True Dragon’s eyes as he beat him everywhere.
The guy was clearly enjoying it.
The True Dragon, whom he was forced to call Hyung-nim after being forged in violence.
Until then, if only the chance came, he had been looking for a chance to get revenge on the True Dragon.
What made that change
was after finishing the first training with Instructor Cheol Hwan-o.
Hunting demonic beasts.
Against Instructor Cheol Hwan-o, who was called the Uicheoncheong Fist,
in the training where the entire group’s junior disciples rushed him,
Pae U-cheol had to feel an endlessly immense sense of helplessness.
No matter how they rushed him, they couldn’t reach him.
Even though so many junior disciples rushed him at once,
they couldn’t even brush Instructor Cheol Hwan-o’s clothes.
‘…Is this an instructor?’
It was the moment Pae U-cheol’s pride, which had surpassed first-rate and been steeped in arrogance,
smashed to pieces.
While rolling powerlessly on the floor,
Instructor Cheol Hwan-o spoke.
“Why are you standing still?”
Behind him.
It was directed at the True Dragon, who stood alone nobly.
In reality, the True Dragon had only stood still watching them throughout the training.
“If I join in, the training becomes too easy.”
Even seeing Instructor Cheol Hwan-o’s martial might.
How could he be so arrogant?
He himself had already collapsed.
A smirking face.
Yet still an appearance of confidence.
Pae U-cheol simply found it amazing.
Is this why he’s a Dragon?
He truly thought so. Wasn’t it cool?
The appearance of being able to remain dignified even in this situation.
Of course, Instructor Cheol Hwan-o didn’t seem to think so.
He proposed a bet to the True Dragon.
It was called a bet, but in reality, it was no different from saying he would destroy the True Dragon.
Other junior disciples too,
no matter if it was the True Dragon, were certain he couldn’t do anything to Instructor Cheol Hwan-o.
Pae U-cheol himself was the same.
The vice-leader of the Blue Dragon Group.
A peak expert well-known in the Central Plains.
At the moment he wondered how a junior disciple could beat such a person,
the spar with the bet began,
and Pae U-cheol had to hold his breath.
At the massive energy unfolding from the True Dragon’s hand, his breath naturally choked.
He had been hiding such energy?
It was an energy Pae U-cheol had never seen from the True Dragon.
A level where the overwhelming heat gave the illusion that the surrounding space was distorting.
At this, Cheol Hwan-o noticed and immediately rushed at the True Dragon.
Those words meant it was an energy threatening even to Cheol Hwan-o,
but Cheol Hwan-o couldn’t block the True Dragon’s martial art.
Movements of Cheol Hwan-o that Pae U-cheol couldn’t even dare to grasp,
the True Dragon avoided too easily.
As if he had targeted that impatience and movement,
the True Dragon instantly retracted his energy,
placed his hand on Cheol Hwan-o’s body,
and took victory.
That enormous energy was a feint,
and it meant he had psychologically toyed with Cheol Hwan-o, a great martial artist.
*Twitch.*
Pae U-cheol’s eyes widened.
As if enjoying Cheol Hwan-o’s astonished expression,
looking at the True Dragon with a full smile, he thought.
It wasn’t jealousy or competitive spirit.
This was awe.
The level was so different.
Feelings of looking down on him didn’t even arise.
That person and I are different in our very existence.
With that thought,
it naturally came to mind.
‘I want to be by his side.’
Rising gradually.
A winged monster that looked like it would pierce through to the end of the sky.
Now.
From now on, I must be by his side.
This is a chance.
His pride had been broken long ago.
You had to be able to look up to feel jealousy.
Now that the monster had folded its wings and was briefly staying on the ground.
If not now, there would be no opportunity.
For Pae U-cheol, who had already half lost his mind, hesitation did not exist.
“Hyung-nim!”
Toward the True Dragon, who was controlling his body while talking to Cheol Hwan-o,
Pae U-cheol shouted and rushed in.
He took another blow to the chin from the True Dragon, who said he was annoying, and had to faint.
A few days passed after that.
Pae U-cheol attached himself, claiming to be Guyangcheon’s subordinate.
Guyangcheon grew tired of Pae U-cheol, who wouldn’t fall off even when cursed and beaten,
and had given up, telling him to do as he pleased.
*Bam.*
Pae U-cheol, who had been intensely beating a wooden dummy during personal training time,
soon retracted his qi and exhaled.
“Hoo….”
Since he had trained in a way he hadn’t been able to recently, his body felt refreshed,
but he wasn’t particularly satisfied.
‘To follow Hyung-nim, this is not enough.’
Guyangcheon, whom he had watched for several days,
was an even greater person than Pae U-cheol thought.
A hero of romantic colors embracing Dokbong, Seolbong, and even Geom Mu-hui in both arms.
Because he has strength and talent, beauties follow him.
Three already—he just looked great.
Moreover, how about when he went to another group and gave them a beating?
He even possessed a refreshing boldness that didn’t care about others’ moods.
When called by the instructor, Pae U-cheol had been inwardly anxious.
Because even to him, the accident Guyangcheon had caused didn’t look small.
But Guyangcheon’s face showed no worry.
Was he saying that someone like Cheol Hwan-o, who had already lost to him, wasn’t scary?
Yes, that must be it.
…
Because his Hyung-nim was that kind of man!
Just as Pae U-cheol was taking a proud smile at such thoughts,
“Hm?”
Finishing at the training ground and trying to return to the dormitory, a familiar back figure caught his eye from afar.
“…Ji-seon Hyung-nim?”
It was Cheol Ji-seon, Guyangcheon’s friend.
His martial arts level looked much lower than his own, but since Hyung-nim called him a close friend,
he had to serve him as a Hyung-nim too.
He thought that was courtesy toward Guyangcheon.
He thought Guyangcheon cherished such a Cheol Ji-seon too.
He had to do it thoroughly.
‘Where is he going in such a hurry?’
At the sight of Cheol Ji-seon hurrying into the forest,
Pae U-cheol remembered the other day when Cheol Ji-seon had been bullied.
With a concerned heart, he suppressed his presence and followed.
Fortunately, Cheol Ji-seon didn’t seem to notice Pae U-cheol, who had suppressed his presence.
The place he followed Cheol Ji-seon to
was a remote space near Sinryong Hall, seldom frequented by people.
Someone was waiting for Cheol Ji-seon there.
Pae U-cheol had to be inwardly surprised the moment he saw that person.
‘That guy!’
A person Pae U-cheol knew.
None other than the Divine Saint, Jang Seon-yeon.
He was one of the leaders of the faction causing a commotion in Sinryong Hall these days.
‘Why are that guy and Ji-seon Hyung-nim…?’
When he had seen them before, Guyangcheon and the Divine Saint hadn’t seemed to be on very good terms.
The rumor going around was that the True Dragon was unilaterally jealous and envious of the Divine Saint,
but to Pae U-cheol’s eyes, it wasn’t so.
Rather….
‘It looked like the Divine Saint was envious of Hyung-nim.’
It was an absurd rumor to Pae U-cheol,
but Guyangcheon just told Pae U-cheol not to worry about it.
Along with saying that such things didn’t matter.
That’s why he was holding it back.
In this situation, a meeting between Cheol Ji-seon, Guyangcheon’s close friend,
and Jang Seon-yeon.
Pae U-cheol raised his senses.
If he did it wrong, his concealment might be discovered,
so he had to control it as much as possible.
Raising his hearing like that,
Cheol Ji-seon’s voice was heard very faintly.
“Sorry for calling you out so late at night, Lord Cheol.”
“…Why did you call me out?”
“I have some business with you, my lord.”
Jang Seon-yeon’s face smiling brightly had quite a kind appearance, but
somehow it wasn’t trustworthy.
Why was that?
It was something Pae U-cheol himself didn’t know.
To Cheol Ji-seon, whose expression was somehow uneasy,
Jang Seon-yeon spoke with a smile.
“First, Lord Cheol. Ah, no, I should call you differently.”
In the brief pause,
Jang Seon-yeon’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.
It seemed he had deployed a qi barrier.
‘Damn.’
He hadn’t noticed, but it seemed to be a conversation others shouldn’t hear.
There was a risk of being discovered if he stayed longer, so Pae U-cheol turned his heavy body and left first.
Cheol Ji-seon and Jang Seon-yeon
were having a conversation others shouldn’t hear?
Pae U-cheol didn’t know what it was,
but first, he had to deliver this to Hyung-nim quickly.
Pae U-cheol urgently ran to find Guyangcheon
and told him about what he had just seen.
Because it seemed like a tremendously shocking fact.
But.
“Ah, really?”
Guyangcheon remained calm even hearing such a story.
So rather, Pae U-cheol had to be bewildered.
“H-Hyung-nim?”
“Since he wasn’t moving, I was slightly worried he might not know. Fortunately, it looks like he’s about to move.”
“…Yes? What do you mean…?”
“Forget what you saw today for a moment.”
“Yes?”
Having said so, Guyangcheon quickly spread his bedding and lay down.
“Don’t just stand there, lie down. Let me sleep now.”
“Ah, understood.”
“Ah right, U-cheol.”
“Yes, Hyung-nim.”
“What’s for breakfast tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
“…Next time, instead of such secret stories, memorize what breakfast is.”
“Yes.”
It had definitely seemed like an enormous fact,
but to Guyangcheon, it was a reaction as if he had expected it.
Rather, breakfast side dishes seemed more important than that.
‘…Strange?’
Was he always like this?
Pae U-cheol had questions, but
he soon forgot and fell asleep.
By the way. Though he answered.
Until the day Pae U-cheol left Sinryong Hall,
he never memorized what breakfast was.