Chapter 517 - Let Me Hold It Just Once.
Not long after the regression, I would often lie awake at night.
There were times when I couldn’t sleep a wink for days on end.
There were times when it was too dangerous to stay awake any longer, so I resorted to a bet to knock myself out.
Otherwise, I couldn’t sleep at all.
The memories of my previous life would surface as dreams, making it impossible to close my eyes.
Those I had killed.
Those I couldn’t save.
Those who had died for me.
Their faces haunted me all night long, rendering life unbearable.
I would wake drenched in cold sweat, entangled in nightmares.
When I rose like that, I couldn’t breathe properly for the longest time.
And when breath finally returned, I would bury my face in my blanket and wail repeatedly.
Pathetically blaming my still-powerless self despite having been granted this chance, I cried for a long while.
How could I possibly be happy just because I had regressed?
Nothing had changed.
With those memories so vivid, how could I draw breath so casually and live on?
I hadn’t changed in the slightest, nor could I do anything.
I spent a long time like that.
Trapped by my past life, staggering through the days without knowing what to do.
What had I lived for? It was difficult to say I had lived at all.
I had merely spent my days drawing breath.
Though I called myself a martial artist and attempted to reclaim my realm, I was an empty shell because I lacked intent.
Even if I utilized it to build my realm, it was futile because my insides were hollow.
What was it all for?
What meaning did this regression hold?
For the longest time, I searched for what meaning might be found there.
No, rather than searching for meaning.
I merely wished for it.
That there would be meaning.
Please, let there be meaning in my regression.
I wished for it so fervently, yet I couldn’t find what meaning this regression held.
The world simply wasn’t that easy.
So I just lived according to the flow of time.
I would dabble here and there, thinking I should try something, but I never invested much passion.
It was something I had once dreamed of.
The childhood desire to be called a prodigy of the era like everyone else, to stand shoulder to shoulder with them.
There were times when I had been blinded by that and lived accordingly, but I didn’t now.
If I had wanted to, I could have done so at any time.
The reason I didn’t bother was probably because I didn’t want to stand out.
Because I didn’t want to see their faces.
Because I loathed the idea that someone like me dared to stand beside them.
Surprisingly, I did possess something called a conscience.
At least until then.
Despite having regressed, I felt no particular resolve to stop the Bloody Calamity.
I simply thought I should live moderately. Or.
Avoid danger and hide away in some remote mountain village.
That was how I intended to live at first.
Moderately, without drawing attention.
Surely, that had been my state of mind.
So where did things begin to change?
I think about it from time to time.
About where it all began to turn.
Perhaps when I met Wi Seol-ah at Sanseohyeon shortly after the regression.
Or was it the point when I met Namgung Biya on the day I headed to Sacheon?
They were all events worthy of being called turning points.
But I knew.
The true turning point, when I began to hold proper convictions, was none other than when I first met Dang So-yeol.
There was no particularly special reason.
At first, it was simply a seed.
When I saw Dang So-yeol’s unharmed two eyes.
And when Namgung Biya stood beside her, while Wi Seol-ah stood beside me.
When I sensed a scene and atmosphere clearly different from my previous life.
Later, when I destroyed Namgung Cheon-jun, perhaps I wondered if I could change myself.
Such feelings began to smolder bit by bit.
From then on, the situation continued to shift.
Meeting Elder Shin on the road to Hwasan.
After that, seeing Shin Ui and Jegal Hyeok, I harbored the hope that perhaps I could change what I knew through my own efforts.
That hope became a spark.
As if to prove I was indeed a martial artist who wielded the art of fire, the flames in my heart gradually grew larger.
A certain ambition bared its teeth and began to yearn.
That was the reason I revealed my strength at the Martial Arts Tournament.
To seize everything Jang Seon-yeon would obtain. That had been the beginning of the plan, but.
Thinking back now, it probably wasn’t solely that.
Literal yearning.
Something I had secretly wished and wished for.
The delusion of wanting to appear as a great prodigy to others.
Was there truly no such yearning in me?
No.
I must have harbored such feelings as well.
Wanting to destroy Jang Seon-yeon and obtain everything he would gain.
Within the plans for the future, there must certainly have existed such yearnings besides.
That was surely why I had unleashed my strength without hesitation.
The more honest I became with my emotions, the more the situation continued to change.
Meeting the Blood Demon, I felt there was something more to this world.
Going further, meeting Yeon Il-cheon, I learned that even greater secrets existed.
As I learned secrets I had been ignorant of, my heart changed, and as my relationships with those around me deepened.
Not ‘let’s avoid the Bloody Calamity and live roughly.’
The resolve to directly stop the Heavenly Demon or the Blood Demon and put an end to the Bloody Calamity was, in the end.
Thanks to me remembering my past life and recognizing my current life as a different one.
Thus, regarding that cause, I thought that meeting Dang So-yeol in Sacheon was the reason.
Precisely because, unlike with Namgung Biya or Wi Seol-ah.
Because she was Dang So-yeol, whose range of emotions had been narrower than theirs.
I wondered if that was why I had been able to think rationally.
As time passed, I gradually became able to sleep.
Perhaps because I had set a goal, I became able to devote myself to training.
Thus, I could even endure rough training methods.
Though I still dream dreams of my previous life.
Very occasionally, I have become able to dream truly proper dreams.
Those dreams are akin to delusions of the distant future.
After the world has peacefully changed.
I have become capable of entertaining delusions I had never imagined before.
The emptiness I feel upon waking remains the same. Even so, it was fine.
At least I had established a foundation to endure.
‘Hah. Now I need to take proper care of those around me too.’
I can’t become strong alone.
If possible, I would want to shoulder the burden entirely by myself, but I know I cannot, even if I wish to.
I don’t want to reach out.
One agony to bear was enough, but.
I know I am not that capable.
So I had to look after those around me, but...
In that regard, Dang So-yeol was a difficult matter for me in many ways.
‘Ambiguous.’
Regarding martial talent as well, but most importantly.
‘How do I see Dang So-yeol?’
The crux was how and in what sense I was looking at Dang So-yeol.
As I said before.
That I could think rationally when I saw her, unlike Wi Seol-ah or Namgung Biya, meant.
It was the same as saying the emotions I harbored for Dang So-yeol were not that deep.
At least at first.
Simply a person I had killed with my own hands.
A relationship defined by the sickening guilt that arose from it.
‘Then what about now?’
What about now?
I think about it, but it is still something I do not know.
I am not unaware that the feelings she harbors for me are affection.
I cannot guess how it came to be.
But surely it must be so.
On the contrary, as for me.
Can I dare call this affection?
I could not be certain.
Because the feeling that surged when I saw Namgung Biya or Wi Seol-ah and the emotion I felt when I saw Dang So-yeol were quite different.
‘Even so.’
It didn’t mean Dang So-yeol occupied a small place within me.
When Dang Deok threatened me, using Dang So-yeol as leverage.
Even when I judged that Dang So-yeol might become entangled in an incident within the Tang Clan.
Hearing those words, I had unconsciously bared killing intent to such an extent—I valued Dang So-yeol considerably in my own way.
I simply couldn’t be certain of my own heart.
To put it coldly, unlike for Namgung Biya or Wi Seol-ah, it was simply that I couldn’t die for Dang So-yeol.
Roughly that kind of feeling.
However.
‘I can’t help but be concerned.’
Because the weight Dang So-yeol held was by no means small.
I couldn’t help but be concerned about her.
It was a rather ambiguous position.
Her martial talent wasn’t particularly outstanding. Her other talents weren’t that great either.
Even so, recalling that she had risen to the seat of the Poison Consort in my previous life, I judged that there must be something to her, but.
‘If it was connected to this incident.’
The Cheonmujiche Birth Plan.
From the moment I heard that Dang So-yeol was entangled in a matter connected to that incident.
I had to struggle to recall Dang So-yeol’s whereabouts in my previous life.
How had she risen to become the Poison Consort? I wanted to know about that matter.
‘...’
But no matter how I tried to recall, I couldn’t.
It was proof that I hadn’t been that interested in her.
For some reason, that frustrated me.
"What do you mean by that?"
The words, "Don’t you want to become strong?"
Hearing them, Dang So-yeol looked at me with a puzzled expression.
Looking at such a Dang So-yeol, I suddenly thought.
‘Was she always this small?’
Due to the nature of the Tang Clan, which had survived for centuries as dark assassins, most direct bloodline members possessed small physiques.
Even the Poison King was only slightly larger than me before my transformation.
As a woman, Dang So-yeol would have a physique smaller than average.
For some reason, I felt that vividly now.
‘... The reason is.’
Probably because of Dang So-yeol’s eyes.
Since when had it been?
Whenever I looked into Dang So-yeol’s eyes, I came to realize it automatically.
That she was gradually being dyed by an inferiority complex.
How could I not know?
It was an emotion I had been drowning in terribly during my previous life.
There was no way I couldn’t know.
The cause was probably.
‘Because of the kids around her.’
Somehow, the younger generation that had gathered were all geniuses and monsters.
It was only natural for a mediocrity to feel an unbearable wall among them.
Geniuses are touching the heavens.
A mediocrity, even if they fly or crawl, remains on the ground.
When I learned that I lacked wings that they possessed, collapsing on the spot was only natural.
At least I had done so.
Because I had experienced realizing that difference and sitting on the ground screaming.
I understand Dang So-yeol’s feelings better than anyone.
Therefore, all the more.
‘I.’
I didn’t want Dang So-yeol to break.
There is nothing as miserable and ugly as crumbling from an inferiority complex.
Because I had experienced it, I knew.
I didn’t want Dang So-yeol to become such a figure.
So.
‘... It’s quite a cowardly method, but.’
I felt a sensation within my clenched fist.
A bothersome sensation.
At the same time I clenched my fist, I bit my lip slightly.
‘... It feels like shit.’
I know. This isn’t because the sensation itself is unpleasant, but because my teeth are grinding on the inside.
‘Is this really the right way?’
Why ask.
I knew it wasn’t.
Even so, I was trying to do it.
‘Fuck.’
What I was holding in my hand now was a gem I had taken from the First Elder of the Tang Clan.
Though called a gem, in truth it was no different from a miraculous elixir containing condensed energies of all sorts.
Even I, who had seen most elixirs starting from the White Horse Stone, was amazed.
‘This is on a level I’ve never seen before.’
A masterpiece of the Tang Clan, created over nearly a hundred years starting from the Poison Army.
Just by absorbing it, the physical body transforms and the poison energy one possesses is maximized.
There was no more tremendous elixir than what I had heard of by word alone, but the conditions for consuming it were the problem.
‘First, I believe it had to be a woman.’
The first condition for consumption was being a woman.
If male, it wouldn’t suit the body, and the energy would run wild causing death by explosion, or so I heard.
The second was...
‘I believe one had to be under the age of twenty.’
To most martial artists, the age of twenty was when one began to enter their prime.
In other words, it was the same condition as being of the younger generation.
Also.
‘One must possess a vessel capable of enduring this amount of poison energy.’
At a glance, it was a preposterous amount of poison energy.
No matter how much of a poison-resistant constitution one possessed, enduring this much poison energy was nonsensical.
With an ordinary physical body it was impossible. When I combined these conditions.
In the end, it meant it was proper for those of the Tang Clan who had cultivated poison resistance from childhood to consume it.
If she was a female member of the Tang Clan’s younger generation under twenty.
‘... There’s only Dang So-yeol.’
It was the part where I could understand how the First Elder had planned to feed this to Dang So-yeol.
If there was one slightly uncomfortable point.
‘It’s not that she is the only one meeting the conditions. Rather, I have a feeling this might have been crafted specifically for Dang So-yeol.’
Weren’t the conditions too perfectly fitting?
That weighed on my mind, but.
‘Even so.’
I.
Was thinking of feeding this to Dang So-yeol.
[... Hmm....]
At this thought, Elder Shin exhaled as if uncomfortable.
That breathing sound grated terribly on my ears.
It couldn’t be helped.
If it was the hero Elder Shin, it was natural for him to dislike such a method.
However.
‘... Yet you don’t stop me.’
Elder Shin did not stop me.
Though he constantly showed discomfort, far from telling me not to, he didn’t utter a word at all.
Funnily enough, that bothered me instead.
Hmph.
Elder Shin snorted.
[Did you ever listen when I stopped you?]
‘If you knew that, haven’t you consistently tried to stop me nonetheless?’
[That much is true as well. Tsk tsk.]
Elder Shin let out a dry laugh for a moment and continued.
[Not only would you not listen were I to stop you, but this time there is no particular need to do so.]
‘... Does that mean it is fine for me to feed this to Dang So-yeol?’
It was the condensation of countless lives.
Had only demonic beasts been used, it wouldn’t be such an irritating object, but the lives that perished to refine this were at a level difficult for me to imagine.
Dozens of discovered corpses alone.
Considering the time span, dozens of times more lives must have been used.
That such a miraculous elixir... for him to simply let me use it.
From the perspective of someone who wasn’t Elder Shin, it was hard to understand.
Because of this, the Tang Clan would shake considerably going forward.
Judging by the Poison King’s movements, he didn’t seem intent on hiding this matter indefinitely.
I felt a bit sorry for the Poison King, who would die from the mess left by his ancestors and current elders.
But right now, that didn’t matter.
‘If it’s the current me, I can do it.’
This gem suffused with immense energy.
If successful, she would gain an outstanding physique and considerable poison energy.
But if I carelessly fed this to the current Dang So-yeol, there was a danger of her body breaking because she couldn’t control the energy.
That, I could easily regulate.
My true body, invulnerable to all poisons.
Even if poison energy threatened to explode, I could absorb and regulate it.
Therefore, the meaning was that I was the only one who could feed this to Dang So-yeol and help her use it more safely.
While I was thinking that.
[That is precisely why you remain a child.]
Elder Shin suddenly struck with a remark, as if pitying me.
‘... Then what exactly is the problem?’
[Tsk tsk.... Enough. Finish your conversation with the Tang girl.]
Though I felt slightly annoyed at Elder Shin’s words, as he said, I decided to finish speaking with Dang So-yeol first.
Dang So-yeol seemed to be waiting for me to continue as well.
"I mean exactly what I said.... Don’t you want to become strong?"
"Huh?"
"I think I might be able to make you strong."
"The young master...?"
"Yes."
Hearing my words, Dang So-yeol tilted her head.
Coming to her suddenly and asking if she wanted to become strong, it was understandable that she’d find it strange.
‘Just one word.’
Just one word would do.
I want to become strong. That word would be enough.
With that one word, I would bear the karma of this ugly gem in Dang So-yeol’s stead.
I could do at least that much.
With that in mind, I waited for Dang So-yeol’s answer.
After a moment, Dang So-yeol slowly opened her mouth.
"Umm.... If that’s the case, would I become strong...?"
"Probably. You’ll become very strong."
I don’t know how effective it will be.
If the Poison Consort of my previous life came to be because of this medicine, she would probably become considerably strong.
Or, she would gain the possibility of becoming strong.
"And the young master will help me with that?"
"Yes."
Hearing my words, Dang So-yeol seemed to ponder for a moment.
"Then...."
She smiled brightly and said to me.
"I don’t want to."
"Okay, then I’ll just... Huh?"
Naturally taking out the gem, I froze at Dang So-yeol’s answer.
... She said she doesn’t want to? Did she just say she doesn’t want to?
"You don’t want to?"
"Yes. I don’t want to."
"... Why? If you’re worried, I’ll make sure it’s not dangerous..."
"Young master."
Thinking perhaps she didn’t trust me, I tried to persuade her.
Squeeze.
Dang So-yeol grabbed my arm with her small hand.
That strength felt strangely powerful.
"I don’t think the young master would help me with something dangerous. Because you’re not that kind of person."
"Then why...?"
"May I ask one thing?"
"... Y-yes."
"If I accept this, the young master will be in pain, won’t he?"
"...!"
At Dang So-yeol’s words, I swallowed a hollow breath.
Momentarily freezing, I tried to deny it immediately, but.
"Whether it’s your body or your heart. Surely there is something you must sacrifice because of me, isn’t there?"
Dang So-yeol spoke to me as if already certain.
"... That’s not it. I’m just helping a little, that’s all?"
"But then why do your eyes look so sad?"
"..."
At her words, I unknowingly touched my eyes with my hand.
What kind of eyes was I making for Dang So-yeol to say such a thing?
Perhaps my action was the problem.
With careful fingers, Dang So-yeol touched the corners of my eyes.
I couldn’t bring myself to stop those fingers.
After touching the corners of my eyes for a moment, Dang So-yeol spoke to me with a slight smile.
"I’m sorry."
"... What...?"
"I must have shown you an embarrassing side lately, so you’ve been worried. Right...?"
"..."
It was a blow that pierced straight through my chest. I swallowed a groan at Dang So-yeol’s words.
Thanks to that, I missed another chance to deny it.
"... It’s embarrassing. Even if others found out, I didn’t want you to know."
She seemed to be aware that she was feeling an inferiority complex.
Yet how could she smile like that?
I hadn’t been able to smile.
Looking at such a Dang So-yeol with trembling eyes, she continued.
"It’s true.... Compared to others, I felt like I wasn’t helpful to the young master. That upset me a little."
"You don’t need to be like that...."
"Even if you say you don’t mind. I feel this way. I didn’t want to become a useless person standing beside you. Because then I couldn’t stay beside the young master."
"..."
"So I wanted to become strong. I wanted to become very strong and stay by your side."
"Then all the more reason to..."
Just as I was about to say she could borrow my strength.
"But you know, young master. No matter how much I want to become strong."
Moving the hand that had been touching my eye corner to my cheek, she spoke softly.
"Strength obtained while hurting the young master is something I don’t need."
"...!"
"I don’t think I’d want to be by your side with a strength obtained like that. I can overcome this. Rather, I think only by overcoming it myself can I stand beside you without shame."
"..."
"I’m sorry. Even though you came to me worried.... Hehe... I’m fine."
Looking at Dang So-yeol smiling as if shy, I couldn’t say a word.
It felt like being struck hard on the head with a hammer.
Where had things gone wrong?
‘Is this the first time?’
Surely it must be.
Why.
Why had I thought Dang So-yeol was the same as me?
Why had I thought she too would collapse, entangled in an inferiority complex like me?
The premise was wrong.
She was not a weak person like me.
Dang So-yeol was someone who thought not of losing, but of eventually overcoming even if it was hard now.
‘Ah.’
Something shook.
I looked at Dang So-yeol again.
Dang So-yeol, who had felt so small just moments ago, now somehow seemed like a much larger person.
[Did I not tell you? That you remain a child.]
At Elder Shin’s tone of voice, smiling as he said it, my breathing grew slightly shallower.
Because I looked down on her.
Dang So-yeol had appeared so small and weak.
Because I had been asserting from the start that she couldn’t overcome it.
But now, she looked far stronger and brighter.
‘I see.’
I suddenly recalled.
On the day Sacheon fell.
There had been a woman who evacuated the Tang Clan members to Hanam while blocking the demons alone.
Even when her own death was imminent.
Even while knowing she absolutely couldn’t endure.
Even as her eyes bulged and her appearance turned hideous.
A woman who steadfastly held her ground.
"Haha...."
Recalling her appearance, a laugh escaped me.
Until now, I had thought she had been capable of such a thing because she possessed that much strength.
Because she bore the name of the Poison Consort.
But I was wrong even about that.
‘It wasn’t because she was the Poison Consort.’
Simply because she was Dang So-yeol.
Because she had been that kind of person from the beginning.
I felt something dark clearing away.
When I looked at Dang So-yeol again after dispelling the thick fog.
I could feel certainty.
"Ah...! Th-that’s not. It’s definitely not because I don’t need the young master...!"
The clarity from before had vanished, and Dang So-yeol faced me again with her face flushed completely red.
Looking at her, I said.
"Hey."
"Y-yes...?"
"I think now I could die for you."
"... Uuh... Eh...?"
Having carelessly blurted out the words that had welled up inside me.
"Kweh...??"
Dang So-yeol fainted on the spot upon hearing them.