Chapter 577

Choi Minwoo’s face had gone rigid. His eyes trembled faintly as he stared at Song Cheonwoo.

“What… do you mean?”

“You may find it hard to believe, but it’s true.”

Song continued with a sigh.

“It happened suddenly, one day. No one saw it coming.”

“…!”

Choi clenched his fists without realizing it.

He did not trust Song Cheonwoo, but he could sense no trace of a lie in the old man before him.

Then is it really true?

His heart sank. A bead of cold sweat rolled down the back of his neck.

He barely managed to force the words past his tightly pressed lips.

“But I’ve never heard anything like that from anyone. Not even Butler Kim, who was my maternal grandfather’s closest aide…”

Before Choi could finish, Song shook his head.

“It isn’t that he chose not to tell you. He couldn’t.”

“Then…”

“I’m sorry.”

Wouldn’t and couldn’t. A small difference in words, but an enormous difference in meaning. Choi understood what Song was saying and glared at him.

“You hid it from Butler Kim too? Something this important?”

The old man nodded quietly. When he spoke, his voice sounded older than ever.

“Hwajong was always loyal. And he gave that same loyalty to a child born after the war—a boy who lost his parents in an accident and was left alone.”

“…!”

“Even on the day everything changed, your grandfather’s most loyal aide was at your side.”

Choi turned his head without realizing it.

Far across the snow, Butler Kim stood watching them.

If the howling blizzard had not swallowed Song’s voice, that loyal servant would have come flying over to kill the traitor.

“Is that why you asked me to walk with you alone?”

“I had no choice. If he’d heard us, we couldn’t have continued this conversation.”

“If Butler Kim had heard about my maternal grandfather back then, you two would already have…”

His usual calm composure was gone.

Blue fire seemed to flicker in Choi’s eyes. Song could not bring himself to meet his gaze and looked away.

“At first, we were only bewildered. We thought he would regain consciousness soon, so we kept it strictly confidential.”

Crunch.

Song took a weary step and continued.

“But then a month passed. Half a year. A year. And a strange thought occurred to me. What if… he never woke up?”

Song Cheonwoo and Lee Jungryong.

What the two men had scarcely dared consider at first hardened into certainty as time passed. Then that certainty gave way to something else.

“Another year passed, and we recognized the greed in each other.”

The greed to fill the place left vacant by Cheon Taemin, a man no one had dared challenge. The desire to become master of the great fortress that was Ares Guild.

“The purge began quietly one day. Unlike Kim Hwajong, who had already drifted away from Ares Guild, several of his closest aides knew of his condition. They died in Gates.”

Choi bit down hard on his lip.

From ancient times to the present, death had been the surest way to bury the truth.

Lee Jungryong and Song Cheonwoo had chosen that path to usurp the throne of a king who was still alive.

Crack.

Choi’s smooth lips split, and red blood ran down his chin. As he walked, his angry steps crushed the drops falling onto the white snow.

“You managed to survive, Regional Director. You really do have a stubborn hold on life.”

Song answered his cutting words in a weak voice.

“Getting rid of me wouldn’t have been easy for Lee Jungryong. Besides, we’d both covered ourselves in filth fighting over Ares Guild. He must have judged that I was unlikely to talk. He was right.”

Knowing the truth was reason enough to be killed. Having wallowed in the mud together could be reason enough to be spared.

And to Choi, Song Cheonwoo had never seemed capable of fighting Lee Jungryong to the bitter end.

“Was the European regional director’s position the price of that deal?”

“Yes. It saved my life and my family’s.”

Choi drew a deep breath. At last, the pieces of the puzzle that had eluded him fell into place.

Why Lee Jungryong, cold and thorough as he was, had kept Song Cheonwoo alive.

And why Choi’s grandfather, his only blood relative and a symbol to the world, had not appeared in more than twenty years.

—Kraaaaaaar!

A yeti roared somewhere in the mountains, as if giving voice to Choi’s feelings.

Damn it.

Crack.

The bones in his tightly clenched fist shifted audibly.

He wanted to scream. To ask why they had done it, and what they had hoped to gain. He wanted to shout at the top of his lungs, seize the old man walking ahead by the collar, draw the sword at his waist, and stab him in the back.

But…

Swish. Thud.

His hand moved toward the hilt, then fell away before it reached it.

Not yet. Song Cheonwoo would answer for what he had done, but only after Choi had confirmed all the facts.

Choi forced his pounding heart to settle and spoke in a trembling voice.

“Why did my grandfather collapse?”

Crunch.

Song’s footsteps stopped. Ahead of him, the ground gave way to empty air.

A crevasse—the kind of fissure found in snowy mountains and glaciers—cut through the mountain. It was enormous, and its depths were too dark to fathom.

“Why. Why, you ask…”

Song Cheonwoo stared down at the darkness spread before his feet and muttered in a low voice.

“I don’t know.”

“Be clear. Do you not know, or do you want to pretend you don’t?”

“Do you think Lee Jungryong or I pulled some kind of trick? On him, of all people?”

“That…”

Choi fell silent. He remembered who his grandfather was.

Cheon Taemin. Humanity’s immortal hero. The first and last Hunter to defeat the countless monsters that had descended upon Earth, along with their lord, the Demon King Asmodeus.

The people he saved had given him the name Slayer. It was also a mark of the reverence Hunters held for a man whose strength none of them could approach.

“I respected him, and I feared him. Lee Jungryong felt the same. If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have waited years for him to wake up.”

It was true. Even after Cheon Taemin, the object of their respect and fear, collapsed, Song Cheonwoo and Lee Jungryong had been unable to act easily.

Before they revealed their greed, they needed two years, countless experiments to verify his condition, and a certainty still tinged with unease.

“Then what could have…?”

At Choi’s bewildered question, Song shook his head.

“No one can guess the reason. But one thing is certain. He is still alive.”

Song had answered the question Choi meant to ask next. Choi gathered his thoughts.

“What makes you so sure?”

“If he’d died, Lee Jungryong would have had no reason to keep me alive this long.”

“…!”

“But I do not know exactly where he is being kept. For now, I merely suspect Area A.”

“Area A…”

Choi murmured the name and raised his head. Song stood at the edge of the crevasse, gazing down into it.

“I have a few more questions.”

“Ask me anything.”

Choi studied his back in silence, then said, “I want to know why.”

“…Why?”

“Why are you telling me all this now? We’re working together, but before long, I’ll be your rival again. Why give me information this important?”

The enemy of my enemy is my ally. That was all Choi Minwoo and Song Cheonwoo were to each other.

They had joined forces temporarily to bring down Go Jun and claim Ares Guild. Nothing more, nothing less.

Which made Song’s behavior all the harder to understand.

He’s changed.

Their last secret meeting had been barely a week ago. Song had been cautious then, faintly wary in both word and deed. As a man who had once been Lee Jungryong’s political rival, he knew their alliance would end the moment it achieved its goal.

So why?

Information about Cheon Taemin’s whereabouts was a secret within a secret. Considering the confrontation that would come later, it was also a powerful weapon that could force Choi Minwoo to withdraw.

It was not something he could simply disclose on a passing impulse.

Choi’s fingertips touched his sword hilt. Song, who had been staring silently into the depths, slowly turned around.

“The reason.”

The old man’s voice was calm now. The hesitation and faint tremor it had held when they met outside the Gate were gone.

Choi felt Song’s gaze move to his hand.

“Call it atonement.”

Choi tightened his grip on the sword. “Atonement for what?”

“I wanted to tell you someday, even if it was late. About the wrongs I committed against him—and against you.”

“More than twenty years late.”

“Yes. But I had no choice.”

“That’s an excuse.”

Choi’s answer was firm.

Then—

Rrrrrumble!

The snow-covered mountain trembled beneath its blanket of white. An avalanche was taking place beyond the crevasse, which stretched dozens of meters¹ across.

Fur-covered giants rode atop the surging waves of snow.

—Kraaaaaaaaaar!

—Kauu!

Their savage roars shook the mountain. There were hundreds of yetis charging toward them.

“That’s strange,” Choi murmured.

“What is?”

“Yetis usually live in groups of around a dozen.”

“Yes. They used to.”

Crunch. Shing.

With the crevasse at his back, Song stepped forward. Choi drew the sword at his waist—a sword left behind by a hero who had fulfilled his duty even in death.

“That’s a fine sword,” Song Cheonwoo muttered, taking another step.

Behind Choi, someone was already hurtling toward them.

“Young Master!”

At the old servant’s shout, Song muttered, “Understand. I had no choice.”

And then—

BOOM!

A thunderous explosion erupted, and a blizzard came whirling.