Chapter 316: Dragon's Secret Ground (6)
My vision was hazy.
The sight before me, filled with reddish-pink petals.
Though it seemed somewhat suffocating, for some reason, it felt warm.
‘Ah.’
It was distant.
The complicated thoughts from moments ago felt clear, if only for a brief moment.
‘Complicated thoughts?’
What had I been thinking about?
I had felt something incredibly frightening.
I couldn’t remember it well. Yet, with the thought that I must not forget,
I turned my aching head to recall.
‘…!’
Intoxicated by comfort, I had grown drowsy for a moment.
But I remembered right away.
—You are a calamity.
The words Yeon Ilcheon had spoken to me.
—Have you never thought it strange, your regression?
They dug deep into my chest and took root.
—That is fate.
My heart, which had felt even a little at ease,
felt as though it was being painted over in darkness once more.
‘Calamity.’
The Blood Demon was called a calamity.
If calamity continued riding on karma,
unlike when I had thought the next calamity Yeon Ilcheon spoke of was the Heavenly Demon,
he had called me the calamity.
‘Am I a calamity?’
It was something I had never even considered.
I regressed through death.
Having regressed, I had wanted to live a different life.
Had I wished for a smooth life myself?
Or had I wished for a safe life?
If neither,
‘… Had I wished for a life where you would be happy?’
Not me, but had I wished for a life where she would be happy?
Whatever the case,
there was some secret to my regression.
If that secret brought about a calamity,
what was I to do?
Such thoughts filled my head.
From a conversation that had lasted barely an instant.
I wondered if the thread of sanity I had been holding could unravel this much, and yet,
I also wondered if the thread of sanity I had been holding
had actually been nothing more than a fragile hope.
‘Are you afraid of guilt, now of all times?’
Had I wanted to live forgetting that I was a villain and a demon?
Had my hope that I could erase the things I had done and would do swelled that much?
While living like that,
to hear that I was the problem all along—
was that why I felt so aggrieved?
‘Damn idiot.’
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Since when was I a good man?
I hadn’t even intended to play the hero after regressing in the first place.
‘To hell with it.’
I am a man who always lives as he pleases.
The reason I endure doing things I don’t want to do
is because they are worth it.
.
!
….
….
But who marked me as a calamity,
and if my regression too is by someone else’s design?
‘I won’t do it, damn it.’
I don’t know who it is,
but I’ll refuse with all my might. Better yet, I’ll find them and beat the shit out of them.
Even if that’s fate.
Even if they say it cannot be defied because it’s unavoidable.
I will find a way.
If I were going to give up because it won’t work,
I would have run away immediately after regressing.
Locked myself in the mountains and lived farming.
I wouldn’t be going through this hell otherwise.
Even if I have to break it apart, I will escape.
As I always have.
‘In the first place, it’s not even certain that I’m a calamity.’
It’s only a hunch.
There is no evidence.
The one who brought the blood tribulation again in my previous life was definitely the Heavenly Demon.
Meaning it wasn't me.
As I was organizing my thoughts like that,
I felt something stroking my hair.
“…Hm?”
It was a coarse, rough hand.
The feeling of someone pretending to pat my head, like Elder Iljang grabbing and shaking it.
A kind of dizziness I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Wondering what it was, I shifted my gaze,
and the plum blossom petals filling my surroundings seemed to take the form of a person.
They were stroking my hair. What the hell is this. It’s scary.
This… could it be.
“…Noya?”
[You were putting on a pathetic act, so I considered smacking your head, but the ending pleased me, so I’ll let it go.]
“…Where did you go to only come out now? And what is this situation?”
It had been well over a year.
Back when I received the punishment my father had given me and entered closed-door training for nearly three months,
Noya had had to disappear for about a year.
The problem was that it had been much longer than a year.
“Did you hibernate all this time?”
[Heh, I worked hard to save you with this old body as soon as I woke, yet your mouth still lacks manners.]
“…That was my way of expressing joy.”
[If you express joy a second time, I feel like I’d fold you in half, brat.]
Heh heh.
The old man’s voice, dry yet piercing.
Though it was still a rough way of speaking unbefitting a Daoist,
it was nevertheless good to hear.
That aside…
“…May I ask what the situation is?”
[What do you mean?]
“The current situation, and the situation where I met the vestige claiming to be Yeon Ilcheon just before.”
I asked Shin Noya,
and Noya answered me.
[How would I know that?]
“What?”
[Asking such useless things of someone who just woke up. If I knew that, would I be a shaman, not a Daoist?]
“ ”
Aren’t shamans a type of Daoist, in a way…?
A useless thought crossed my mind.
“Since when have you been awake?”
[From the moment you stepped into the Secret Ground.]
If that’s true, it hasn’t been long.
Then, a memory surfaced like a flash.
What I had felt in the Secret Ground.
The trace of another inside my body, not the beast.
It seemed that had indeed been Shin Noya’s presence.
“…But why didn’t you react?”
[…]
At my question, Noya paused for a moment.
As if choosing his words,
he gave me an answer.
[Because that fellow was watching you, brat.]
By that fellow,
he meant the man with the deep golden hair.
He must mean Yeon Ilcheon.
“That bas… no, is that person really your comrade?”
[If you’re going to curse, be clear about it.]
“No matter what, cursing to his face is a bit…”
I felt like shit, but I couldn’t curse Yeon Ilcheon in front of Noya.
They are friends, after all.
“So, is he really the Gwoncheolgeumwang?”
[I do not know.]
“…Huh?”
I had to flinch at Noya’s answer.
He doesn’t know? What does that mean?
“Didn’t you clearly act like you recognized him then?”
I had heard Shin Noya say to the vestige at the end that it was good to see him.
[I said it was good to see his face, what of it?]
“What is that supposed to mean?”
[What more is there to it?]
Speechless.
[What is certain is that it is indeed a vestige left by that fellow Il-cheon.]
“But you’re saying you don’t know if it’s him or not?”
[That place and the vestige are indeed that fellow Il-cheon’s power. But a vestige is merely a vestige.]
“…That’s hard to understand. Then is this your power?”
The plum blossom petals surrounding me now.
And the absurd dao qi felt from the surroundings.
Is this Noya’s power?
To my question, Noya said.
[That fellow said it. That place was an arrangement prepared for me.]
“…Yes.”
Not just that Secret Ground.
Perhaps the inexplicable encounters I had experienced
might all have been prepared for Noya.
[This is that arrangement.]
“This is it?”
The dao qi surrounding me, and even the energy taking the form of a person as if expressing Shin Noya.
I could tell at a glance.
How immense the pure power contained here was.
“…Then this is your original power…”
[You speak madness.]
“It’s not?”
At my words, Noya laughed heartily as if bewildered.
[Did you truly think this measly power was my everything?]
“ ”
[I am not such a weakling.]
This measly power? I was momentarily dumbfounded.
The energy I was sensing right now was truly enormous.
It was only because it was supporting and enveloping me.
If this dao qi were to become a blade and wrap around my neck right now,
I wouldn’t last a few seconds at my level and would be torn to pieces.
Power of such magnitude,
and he calls it merely ‘measly’?
‘…Just how strong was he?’
I couldn’t imagine Noya’s appearance when he was alive.
Even if he was a master of the past, there were so many records in history.
At most, I had thought he was equal to the current Three Lords.
‘Could it be he was even stronger than them?’
To the point of expressing the current energy like that,
it was a possibility.
Perhaps he might have been on the level of Wi Seol-a, called the Divine Sword….
‘No, that can’t be.’
I erased the thought from my head.
There were as many as five such humans.
‘Then what was the Blood Demon who fought against all humans of that level?’
There was even Yeon Ilcheon, a regressor who had surpassed Noya and become the greatest under heaven.
Fighting against such humans, and in the end, it was not death.
At best, it could only end in a seal.
Unless the Blood Demon was truly a god, it was near impossible.
[Your thoughts are growing numerous again.]
“…Because I heard something absurd.”
Heh heh.
I was dying of overthinking, yet Noya just laughed.
“Can you laugh?”
[How could I not, your expression is quite a sight.]
I was dying of overthinking, and he treats it like someone else’s business….
No, it’s not someone else’s business either. Looking at it now, Noya seems quite entangled too.
[Do not waver.]
The hand that had been shaking my head grew rougher.
[There is nothing more dangerous than you losing yourself.]
“…I know.”
[You must know. That is precisely why humans cannot help it despite knowing.]
“Noya, did you know?”
[Know what?]
“About the calamity and fate that he spoke of.”
That this world was fated to be destroyed by the Blood Demon’s hands.
Even if we blocked it by sealing the Blood Demon.
That as time passes, another calamity would appear.
Just as his comrades knew.
Had Noya known as well?
[No, I did not know.]
“…Huh?”
[The reason I slept in your body all this time was to recover my memories.]
“Memories, you say?”
From the first time I saw Shin Noya,
Noya had said
that his memories were hazy and full of shattered pieces.
Because of that, he had teased me, asking if I was fake.
[It took longer than expected to recover them.]
“All… then did you find them all?”
I asked, hoping for information,
but Noya’s form shook its head in negation.
[I have recovered almost all. But the final moment does not come to memory.]
“The final moment?”
[The last of my memories was the battle with the Blood Demon.]
A grand battle waged by five martial artists against one Blood Demon.
The last thing Shin Noya remembered was then.
“…That.”
[Correct. I know as well that my end was not then.]
Shin Noya did not die in the battle with the Blood Demon.
According to records, the Mount Hua Sword Immortal stopped the blood tribulation and returned as the head of Mount Hua.
It is said he spent the rest of his life there.
[I had to be reincarnated and find the Secret Ground. That is what they said.]
Hwang-a Bulyeong, and of course the Gwoncheolgeumwang, among others.
Even the voice of Nocheonilgeom, Namgung Myeong. He even told Shin Noya to find the Noea.
All of them
were speaking based on the point of Shin Noya’s reincarnation.
[I do not know secrets of the world like that.]
The Central Plains that should have perished but still cling to life, and
the Blood Demon called a calamity and the Heavenly Demon to come after.
[That is why those damned fellows may have tried to reincarnate me.]
[That fellow Il-cheon always had many secrets. That monk bastard seemed weak but was sickeningly kind. That fellow Myeong was an unlucky bastard. And that Jemuni fellow wasn’t in his right mind either.]
What can I say.
Hearing that the humans called heroes were all together not normal people
was quite a strange feeling.
Within such words,
a faint wistfulness was hidden, so I couldn’t bring myself to press further.
[I may have a nasty temper and a rough manner of speech for a Daoist.]
So he knew…?
He knew that.
[…Since I wouldn’t have let go once I asked. Those bastards may have thrown me into this knowing that, telling me to suffer.]
“In the end, you were handed the work.”
[Thinking like that, they truly are sons of bitches.]
That’s not really what I meant, but.
[However, in the end, that attempt did not succeed.]
“…What is the reason you are so certain?”
A soul that couldn’t even hold its memories straight.
Doesn’t even know the information properly.
You never know.
Right now, Shin Noya is close to a mere vestige, just as Yeon Ilcheon was.
In truth, Noya’s reincarnation may have succeeded, but he might have been killed while growing up.
[Ha]
At my doubt, Shin Noya burst into laughter.
[If I had truly succeeded in reincarnating, the Central Plains would be in a great uproar by now.]
“Why is that?”
[Looking at the martial artists of today, they are all fools. How could it be quiet when a genius like me was born?]
“ ”
What is that crazy confidence.
[If I were reborn, I would already be called by a name like the Plum Blossom First Sword.]
“You’d still be a Daoist of the Mount Hua Sect even after reincarnation, I see.”
[You speak the obvious.]
Rustle.
A single plum blossom petal fell and landed on my nose.
[I was born in Mount Hua and left my spirit and will there. Even if reborn, I would have been a child of Mount Hua.]
It was a feeble reason, yet it was filled with conviction.
[I am Shin Cheol of Mount Hua. Even if my memory is empty. Even if my life ended and I became this form, it is no different.]
[So do not waver either. What will you do if you cannot believe in yourself?]
“…!”
Hearing those final words to me,
I felt as if a small corner of my chest rang.
He must have spoken those words now for me, who couldn’t calm down and was wavering.
[Even though we met after so long, looking at you, you haven’t grown much. And at your age, acting like a child. Tsk tsk.]
“…If only you hadn’t said that at the end, it would’ve been so cool.”
*Bam*
“Urk!”
Having uttered one more word, I felt an impact on my head.
The hand that had been patting turned into a fist and smacked me.
[I wanted to hit you at least once. I feel so refreshed.]
“…Kkh…”
[Rather than worrying about calamities and whatnot, focus on what you wanted to do.]
“ ”
[Rather than stopping your steps because you don’t know where to go, you must walk whether it works or not. A brat like you should already know this.]
“…Yes.”
Rustle.
As I spat out the answer,
the plum blossom petals filling my vision gradually moved.
The rough hand touching my hair also stopped.
[Get up now. You have to work my share too. I’ll be very busy thanks to that. Heh heh.]
His words were a bit strange.
“…Why do I have to work your share too?”
[If I cannot do what I wished because I became like this, shouldn’t you do it in my stead?]
“No, what kind of—”
[Look here, the old man went through the trouble of saving you with his power. Do it as an extra favor. You’re doing similar things anyway, so don’t talk so much, you bastard. Tsk tsk.]
He’s saying to take care of the Blood Demon while stopping the Heavenly Demon.
It was an incredibly shameless thing to say.
A fellow who doesn’t even pay rent is now trying to leave his work to me.
‘I was going to do it anyway, but it feels weird.’
But thanks to that, my head felt clearer.
Whether I am a calamity or not,
I am me.
If I don’t want to become a calamity,
I had to believe I could do so however much I wanted.
Noya, through his nonsensical manner of speaking and the situation,
must have been trying to tell me this.
As Noya said, how old am I?
I wonder if I’m still living receiving lessons.
It seems I still have far to go before I grow up.
*Whoooosh…*
[Cheer up.]
Along with Noya’s voice heard suddenly,
the plum blossom petals gradually disappeared, revealing the sky.
The sky was still night. Moonlight floated in the center, shining down on me.
“…Ah.”
I immediately shot up to a sitting position.
Since the last place I had been was inside the Secret Ground, I needed to check the situation, but
for some reason, the place I was now was right in the middle of a grassy field.
Precisely, the entrance I had entered to go to the Secret Ground.
Meaning I was lying there.
“Oh, you’re up.”
As I tried to check the situation, a voice came from somewhere.
It was Jamryong’s voice.
Fortunately, it seemed I had escaped the Secret Ground well….
How did I end up sleeping here?
“If you’re up, can you save me now?”
“…Huh? What—”
At Jamryong’s troubled voice,
I turned my head toward the direction the voice came from.
“Ah.”
There, Jamryong was grinning broadly.
Before him were….
The Sword Empress and the Blue Sea Lone Sword, looking at me with strange faces.
99
…
This seems totally screwed, doesn’t it?
“Whew…”
I quickly turned my head.
I had to find it. A way to get through this situation.
“…!”
…It came to me.
I quickly pointed at Jamryong and shouted toward the Blue Sea Lone Sword.
Without hesitation.
“He told me to do it! I was just following him!”
The ultimate secret technique: selling out a friend.
It was a technique I had honed over my life, but
“…And you call that a statement?”
Because I didn’t have many friends, I couldn’t use it often, so the effect was weak.
As expected, it doesn’t work.
Damn it.