Chirrrp.
Chirrrp.
It was a night when the insects’ cries rang with unusual clarity.
It felt as though it had only just been daytime, yet the moon had already risen.
Amid all that, I was climbing a mountain path with my face turned toward the moonlight.
The faint scent of grass and the autumn breeze should have put me in a fairly good mood.
“Phew….”
Yet my expression as I walked was far from pleasant.
How could it be?
‘I’m tired enough to die.’
It felt as though I had spent the entire day with a typhoon.
I had done nothing particularly strenuous, yet perhaps because of the circumstances, I was so exhausted I felt like I was going mad.
I had had a mountain of things to do today, but all I had managed was attending the memorial ceremony and eating the White Demon Stone.
I had accomplished none of the other things I had planned.
Because I lacked the time? No.
There was only one reason.
After walking a little farther, the plain whose terrain I had surveyed in advance came into view.
It was somewhat far from Henan, and the mountains were so high and rugged that people rarely came here.
After taking a quick look around, I swung my arm and threw down what I was carrying.
“Eek!”
With a short scream, something dropped to the ground.
Vwoom—!
“Huh?”
I had to let out a hollow laugh at the sight that unfolded next.
The thing that had spun once and fallen toward the ground stopped before touching it, astonishingly floating in midair.
Its identity was the culprit who had been giving me a headache since the afternoon.
Ttolttori, in the form of my younger self.
After finishing my conversation with Madam Mi, I had immediately returned to Ttolttori and brought him up the mountain.
When I went back and took him away, several regretful exclamations spilled out for some reason, but this was no time to worry about such things.
There were more than one or two things I needed to find out.
“You can fly?”
Even if he had taken on a human form, he had originally been capable of flying. Did that mean he could still fly now?
As I stared at him in fascination, a response came from Ttolttori.
“Ka….”
‘Ka?’
“Ka, you startled me—!!”
“Hm?”
I widened my eyes at him screaming at the top of his lungs.
Well, look at this.
“Why’d you just throw me like that…!! What if I got hurt?”
“What the hell are you?”
This little bastard.
“You speak well?”
Until just a moment ago, he had seemed like an innocent child who knew nothing, speaking in a clumsy, halting manner.
But now that I looked at him, he was completely different.
His pronunciation was crisp, and there was strength in his eyes.
Which meant—
“Were you pretending?”
“Hmph.”
So this bastard had deliberately been pretending to be innocent.
When I asked him in disbelief, Ttolttori snorted.
“It wasn’t pretending. I was just staying quiet.”
Ttolttori frowned as though something displeased him.
Maybe it was because he had my childhood face, but I felt an urge to smack him.
I held myself back for now.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why were you staying quiet?”
The reason he had gone out of his way to sit there innocently and say nothing.
When I asked, Ttolttori answered with a sour expression.
“Everyone seemed to like it.”
“…What?”
“People usually like it when young humans act innocent. Young ones are less dangerous, so they’re harmless, aren’t they? Of course, since I take after my dad, I don’t seem to have that harmless human image, though.”
“Ha….”
There were few reactions I could give to that long-winded answer.
All I could manage was an incredulous stare and a look of disgust.
Those were not words that should have come out of the mouth of a body that looked barely six or seven years old.
He was sly.
This little bastard… he was far too sly.
Especially with my face saying such things, he looked even more devious.
The thing that had been floating in the air lightly landed on the ground.
At the same time, the red martial uniform he was wearing fluttered faintly.
I had been wondering why those clothes seemed so familiar.
“Those clothes… are they mine?”
“Yeah.”
“This is driving me crazy.”
Since they were red martial clothes, they naturally had to be from the Gu Clan.
He had supposedly been found naked, which meant someone must have brought him clothes.
I had thought they looked familiar, but astonishingly, they seemed to be the very clothes I had worn as a child.
However—
“…Where on earth did you get them?”
That was what I wanted to know. Where had he found the clothes I had worn at that age?
They should have been thrown away long ago, yet Ttolttori was suddenly wearing them, which was simply strange.
“Who gave you those clothes?”
“These? White Mom.”
“Ha… What?”
I frowned after hearing him.
“What did you say?”
“White Mom gave them to me.”
“What kind of insane term is that?”
“Hm? White Mom is a white mom.”
“No, who is this white mo—”
I stopped speaking and thought it over carefully.
White Mom.
The color white.
White…?
Surely not.
“…Are you talking about Namgung Bia?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why did you choose such a ridiculous term?”
What did white mean, and what did mom mean?
Putting aside why she had my childhood clothes in the first place, I was rendered speechless by that utterly absurd term.
White seemed to refer to her white hair.
But the word attached to it made no sense.
“Why is she your mom?”
“Hm?”
“You’re saying something ridiculous.”
Why was he turning a perfectly normal maiden into the mother of a child?
And besides—
“I’m not your dad either, so why do you call me that?”
“Dad is dad.”
Ttolttori gave a little laugh as he said it.
Do you know what was so damned irritating?
‘That bastard looked hurt when I said I wasn’t his dad earlier.’
But now he had an expression that was almost mocking me.
This little shit…?
Fine. I understood that much, at least.
He had been born after feeding on my energy, so I supposed I could accept that I was his dad. It was ridiculously unfair, but fine. I understood.
But—
“Why is she your mom?”
The question was where this “White Mom” had come from.
When I asked him, Ttolttori tilted his head at me.
“She isn’t my mom, actually.”
“Right, she isn’t your mom, is she?”
“But she likes it when I call her that.”
“What did you just say?”
“If she likes it, then it’s good, isn’t it? Yellow Mom liked it too, and Green Mom liked it too. Black Mom seemed to like it especially much.”
“…”
This wasn’t some sort of color game.
Green, yellow, and black.
The ridiculous part was that I could vaguely tell whom he was referring to.
And if they liked being called that, then that meant—
“You knew and used it to your advantage?”
“It’s just that if something’s good, it’s good….”
Thud—!
“Gah!!”
I swung my fist at his little head.
When I smacked him on the crown like delivering a knuckle-knock, Ttolttori clutched his head.
“It hurts! Oww…!! Why’d you hit meee!”
“I hit you because you deserved it. Who gave you the right to turn those girls into mothers? Do you want to die?”
“What do you mean, I deserved it! This is just violence!”
“Oh?”
I had thought he merely pronounced his words well, but he had quite the mouth on him, too.
That only made him more annoying to look at.
“You said I’m your dad, right?”
“So?”
“Then this is education, not violence. Yes, this is education. Just think of it as family discipline.”
“T-That makes no sense.”
Ttolttori hurriedly backed away, then spoke to me as though he were indignant.
“Your dad never gave you that kind of education!”
“How would you know that?”
“I know! I know everything!”
Ttolttori shouted with absolute certainty.
“…”
I had nothing in particular to say to that.
He was right.
‘Certainly. I never received that kind of education.’
Even though my father had been terrifying enough to scare me half to death, I had no memory of ever being beaten badly.
If anything, I had been neglected.
So I had grown up without receiving that sort of education, but—
“That’s why I know it even better.”
I grinned and started walking.
I exerted my strength, and before I knew it, I was right in front of Ttolttori, who had put some distance between us.
“Eek!”
He jumped in surprise and tried to retreat farther, but my hand was already reaching out.
I knew this well because I had grown up without being beaten.
“Kids who don’t listen need to grow up taking a few hits.”
Wasn’t that why I had ended up like this?
As I thought that, just before my fingertips touched Ttolttori—
“I don’t want to!”
Whoosh—!
“Hm?”
Flames sprang up around Ttolttori as he screamed.
They were familiar azure flames, flames resembling my own energy.
Ttolttori was engulfed in flames as though wrapped in the Nine-Flame Wheel Technique. I watched with interest, wondering what he was about to do, but the flames gradually grew larger until—
Grrrrrrrrrrr—!!
Before long, accompanied by a rough roar, a massive body emerged.
“Oh.”
It was the form of Ttolttori I knew.
The form of a demonic beast with an enormous body.
He had returned to the shape he had possessed back then.
‘So he can return to his original form.’
That was a relief.
‘I was wondering what I would do if he couldn’t.’
If he couldn’t use that form in the future, figuring out how to make use of him would have been a headache.
Fortunately, his human form did not seem to be fixed.
The only difference was that he was about half the size of when he had grown to his maximum.
‘That doesn’t matter. He can shrink and enlarge himself anyway.’
What mattered was not his outward appearance, but his density.
If changes in me caused changes in Ttolttori as well, then his taking on a human form must have happened for the same reason.
In that case, what about his demonic-beast form?
‘There’s definitely been a change.’
There was no major difference in his outward appearance, but his presence was different.
It was incomparable to that of a mere Red-grade demonic beast.
‘He isn’t White-grade yet… but is he perhaps the grade below it?’
In terms of demonic beasts, he was just below White-grade.
To be precise, he was slightly weaker than the demonic beast had been immediately before I weakened it by driving in the Holy Spear.
That alone made him tremendously powerful.
Grrrrrrrrr—…!
Ttolttori bared his teeth and let out a low growl.
I simply stared at him.
He wasn’t trying to fly away.
Perhaps he knew he would be caught before long.
I watched him for a moment, then let out a small sigh.
“Hey.”
Grrr.
“Can you turn back into a human from that state?”
Grrr….
That meant yes.
“Then turn back.”
…
He seemed hesitant.
Seeing that, I clicked my tongue.
“Do you think getting bigger means you won’t be hit? Just turn back. I won’t hit you.”
Grr…?
“Yeah, really. I said I won’t hit you.”
I hadn’t intended to catch him and beat him in the first place.
Hitting him on the crown had been an impulsive mistake.
If I had been honest, I wanted to throw away the excuse of education and just hit him outright, but—
‘There’s also the fact that he looks like me as a child.’
I hesitated when it came time to actually hit him, and besides—
The bigger problem was that my current body couldn’t control its strength.
‘Just now, for example.’
The force I had meant to use should have been much weaker, but it had burst out far more strongly than expected.
I called it a knuckle-knock, but an ordinary martial artist between the Second-rate and First-rate realms would have had his head blown apart.
It was fortunate Ttolttori had greater durability than expected. Otherwise, this could have turned into a real disaster.
“…So just turn back for now. If you don’t, I’ll catch you and really hit you, okay?”
Grrrrrrrrr….
After hesitating, Ttolttori finally began to move when he heard my threat.
Whoosh—!!
The same flames as before wrapped around his body. As they died down, his small body settled onto the ground.
“…You really aren’t going to hit me?”
“I won’t.”
I looked at him with a small sigh.
The more I looked at him, the more alike we seemed.
“Hey.”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“No… I’m not your dad… No, never mind. Forget it.”
What did the title matter, anyway? I would let that pass for now.
“How did you end up like that?”
Why had he taken on that form? I asked him, puzzled.
Then—
“Dad, you don’t know?”
“I’m asking because I don’t know. If I knew, why would I ask?”
“Then how would I know? If I knew, I would’ve told you first.”
“…”
A remarkably insolent answer came back.
…Should I just hit him regardless of whether I could control my strength?
‘Damn it.’
It wasn’t only his face. Even his way of speaking resembled mine.
Did everyone who spoke with me feel this way?
‘No wonder they get angry.’
It seemed like everyone ended up getting angry whenever they talked with me.
I finally understood why. I’d have to hold back a little from now on.
Anyway—
“So you don’t know the reason either.”
“I was just eating, and when I came to, I was like this.”
“And you were in my quarters?”
“When I got smaller, there was nowhere to hide… But then White Mom happened to be there.”
“…”
So he had happened to run into Namgung Bia at that moment.
Why had she been in my quarters in the first place?
I would have to ask her when I saw her later.
Then, what mattered now was—
‘This bastard doesn’t know the reason either.’
It was true that when something changed in me, something changed in him as well.
A change had occurred this time too, but why had a demonic beast turned into a human?
And besides—
‘He was discovered.’
Of all things, that bastard had been found out. That was the biggest problem right now.
If he could only transform into a demonic beast, I could have simply told him to hide somewhere and gotten by.
‘This is after I’ve already finished talking things over with Madam Mi.’
Ttolttori’s lodging had already been decided.
It was awkward to turn around and say no now.
“Hmmm.”
“Dad?”
No matter how much I racked my brains, no answer came to me right away.
Then what should I do?
‘What do you mean, what should you do?’
There was only one answer, anyway.
“You go for now.”
“Huh…? Wh-where?”
“Do you remember the lady who came earlier?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Go live at her house.”
“Huh?”
At my words, Ttolttori stared at me blankly.
“I’m going to live there?”
“Yeah. You have to live there. There’s a reason for it, so even if it’s a little uncomfortable, just bear with it….”
“Okay.”
“Huh?”
This time, I was the one taken aback by his nonchalant reply.
“…You’re okay with that?”
“Yeah.”
Ttolttori showed no sign of caring much, as though he genuinely meant it.
“Why are you okay with it?”
“Huh? Am I supposed to not be okay with it?”
“No….”
Was he this carefree because he had been born a monster?
From the perspective of someone who had once been human—or something that had been human—it was a little strange.
“It’s fine. From what I saw, I think I’ll be able to stay there comfortably.”
“…Did you see something wrong?”
“Huh?”
He thought he could stay comfortably in Madam Mi’s residence?
I couldn’t understand Ttolttori’s calm words at all.
Even walking alongside her was so overwhelming it drove me mad, and he thought he could live with her comfortably?
‘Ah, but Madam Mi is busy anyway, so she probably won’t be at her residence very often.’
Since the reason she had agreed to let him stay with her in the first place was to keep an eye on him, she probably wouldn’t be there herself.
Right. Surveillance.
There would be no other reason for her to insist that he be sent to her residence.
Although I had ended up offering Ttolttori up as a sacrifice without warning….
‘If things go wrong, it won’t be difficult to bring him back, so it should be fine.’
Give what must be given, and take what can be gained.
That was all I could do right now.
“Anyway… that’s how things turned out. Starting tomorrow, stay there quietly.”
Exactly as he had appeared earlier.
Live as though you knew nothing. With that intention behind my words, Ttolttori nodded.
“Got it.”
“I’m saying this just in case. If you get caught causing trouble in secret, be prepared to receive some training.”
“…Tch.”
“Tch?”
“Nothing.”
His voice was filled with disappointment. It sounded as though he had actually been planning to cause trouble.
What the hell was wrong with that brat? Who did he take after to be so incorrigible?
I briefly considered giving him a good smack, but stubbornly held myself back.
‘Not yet…. Not yet.’
I endured it with all my might. At least for now, I had to hold back.
If I was going to do it, it would be better to wait until after this.
‘…I’ll confirm it first.’
I had Ttolttori wait for the time being and recalled why I had climbed all the way up this mountain.
I wanted to see just how great the sudden change I felt after consuming that energy was.
Woooooong…!!
The moment I released my spiritual sense, all kinds of information flooded in from every direction.
The range of my spiritual sense seemed to have increased at least fivefold.
The sensation was enough to cover the surrounding mountains and more, making my stomach churn.
“Whew….”
I sharpened my mind and circulated the energy to clear my head.
If this was what it was like even on this deserted mountain, then under normal circumstances I would really have to keep it shut unless absolutely necessary.
‘For now, I’ll refine my spiritual sense little by little.’
I moved my hand bit by bit.
The spiritual sense was one thing, but there was something else far more important.
Whoosh.
Flames appeared above my hand.
My expanded spiritual sense wasn’t the only thing I had noticed. There was one more change.
‘Its destructive power has increased.’
Even though the energy in my body had not increased, the density with which I could unleash its destructive power had.
I could tell instinctively. I could also tell that I wouldn’t be able to control it right now.
If I unleashed it just to test it, I felt as though I would lose control and wipe out the entire area.
That was why I had climbed all the way up to a mountain like this to test it.
‘If I do it, just how….’
How much had it increased?
It was time to satisfy the curiosity I had been holding back all day.
‘If I’m lucky, it might be about thirty percent stronger.’
Expectations began to rise.
Even thirty percent would be an incredible increase. It probably wasn’t that much, though.
With that judgment, I put more power into the flames.
The Azure Flame began to shine.
“…I’ll start by letting out just a little.”
I made it as weak as possible and fired it at the rock ahead.
I expected a thin stream of fire.
Something that would reach the rock and fade away at an appropriate level.
I activated the energy with an emphasis on maintaining it rather than causing an explosion.
Vwoom—!
A vibration erupted.
Kuaaaargh—!!!
“…Huh?”
Fwoooooosh—!!!
What burst from my hand was far from small—it was a flame as large as a house.
The Azure Flame erupted and devoured everything directly ahead in an instant.
The rock I had targeted was engulfed by the flames and melted away.
“…?”
My expression melted away along with it.