Chapter 891

It had only been a few days—not long enough to call this a reunion—but it was still good to see everyone again.

And “a few days” was only on paper. It had felt more like a few months.

So much had happened.

Still, how should I put it? Seeing familiar faces made this strange place feel, for a moment, like home. I liked that.

I smiled and waved at the group that had rushed over to me.

“Wow, it feels like ages since I’ve seen you all. How’ve you been?”

The reactions came at once.

Jeok Cheongang snorted, pretending it was nothing. Why was I making such a fuss when he’d seen me just a few shichen¹ ago? Sama Pyo and Song Ilseom silently nodded. Ju Hwaran, who’d frozen like a statue when I appeared, suddenly flew down the stairs like a streak of light. Her voice unsteady, she said,

“B-Benefactor. No, Pavilion Master. Is there anywhere you aren’t hurt?”

“Huh?”

“N-No, that came out wrong. What I mean is…”

“You’re asking if I’m hurt anywhere?”

“Ah. Yes!”

The Divine Physician had come closer without my noticing. He chuckled warmly.

“I’m glad you don’t seem to have suffered too much. Young Lady Ju here can finally breathe a little easier, too.”

Ju Hwaran flinched.

“Me?”

“Is that not so? You seemed more worried than I was, and I’m the physician.”

“Th-That’s… As a member of the Fire Dragon Pavilion, isn’t it only natural that I’d worry about the Pavilion Master’s safety?”

“Ah, of course it is. Quite right.”

The Divine Physician nodded like a grandfather agreeing with his granddaughter, then winked at me.

“So she says.”

“Uh…”

What on earth was I supposed to say to that?

I felt strangely awkward and was scrambling for an answer when a shadow fell over my head. Something damp touched my scalp.

Plop. Plop.

For an instant, I thought rain was leaking through the ceiling. Then I heard the rough breathing behind me and felt the sticky saliva.

Oh. You bastard.

I didn’t need to look to know who it was. I glanced up, and there he was, drooling exactly as I’d expected.

“Taishan is very very happy and glad to see the Pavilion Master again.”

Was this lunatic for real? Listen to how fast he was talking.

“Pavilion Master doing well Taishan doing well Taishan ate five-spice pork and ate five-spice pork and ate five-spice pork.”

So all he’d done was stuff his face.

Even now, he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at the mountain of plates piled in one corner.

“Taishan has finished preparing everything to help the Pavilion Master just give the order.”

“……”

He was clearly ready to eat five-spice pork, so I gave the order in a voice drained of all hope.

“Fine. Eat it before it gets cold.”

“Taishan will obey the Pavilion Master’s command!”

With an answer more enthusiastic than ever, Taishan hurled his massive body forward and began slaughtering the five-spice pork.

I watched the horrific scene with glazed eyes, then remembered someone I’d forgotten.

“Wait. Where’s Elder Namho?”

“I’m here.”

Namho came shuffling down the stairs, one hand on his lower back, his face gloomy.

“I was resting for a moment. Maybe it’s because I’m old, but my body’s not what it used to be.”

“What happened? Did you hurt yourself?”

“I went to the privy, and then…”

“Oh no. Did you slip?”

“It’s the imperial palace, so I suppose they keep even the privies well greased. I was hanging on to a ceiling beam when my strength gave out.”

“A ceiling beam? Not the floor?”

As I stared at him in confusion, the Divine Physician whispered to me.

“I believe he hid in the privy to ambush Taishan.”

“……”

“He’ll be fine soon. He may be old, but he’s in excellent shape.”

This was a complete shitshow. Seriously.

I let out a deep sigh and looked around at the people gathered in a circle around me.

Some were normal, some weren’t, but they’d all followed me into the imperial palace—a tiger’s den—for my sake.

They knew how dangerous this mission was, and they’d risked their one and only lives. I couldn’t hide anything from them or lie to them while we discussed what to do.

“I can’t stay away for as long as I’d like, so I’ll keep this quick.”

I took a quiet, deep breath and began to speak.

Or tried to.

Chomp. Chomp. Pah-ooh.²

“……”

Please, stop eating.

As soon as I finished pouring out everything that had happened over the past few days, a hushed silence settled over the pavilion.

It made sense.

They’d already learned about some of it through the East Depot, but there were things they were hearing for the first time here.

Jeok Cheongang was the first to break the silence.

“What a goddamn mess.”

He muttered under his breath, his gaze darkening.

“Six Supreme Peak masters, and Embroidered Uniform Guards of that caliber… Is this what they mean when they call it a Great Nation?”

I corrected him with a heavy heart.

“That’s only what I saw for myself. They could have other masters hidden away.”

“Hah.”

Murim and the government might look as though they were kept completely separate, but the truth was different.

A Great Nation meant a continent. The forces hunkered down in the imperial capital were so powerful that even Jeok Cheongang had to groan.

And there was an unexpected wild card among them.

“First, tell us more about that woman called So Gyo. Her appearance, her way of speaking. What weapon she uses and how she moves.”

Jeok Cheongang seemed more wary of So Gyo than anyone else. I told them everything I’d seen and felt, describing even her movements during our brief clash in detail.

Yet even Jeok Cheongang, who was among the three oldest in the martial world, and Namho, whose knowledge was second to none, couldn’t offer a clear answer.

“Her manner of speaking doesn’t give us much to go on. But I’ve never heard of a master with that appearance who uses a flexible sword.”

“I agree with Senior Jeok. If she’s serving Dark Heaven, she must be one of the demonic or heterodox martial artists. But even among the fiends the Hidden Shadow Pavilion identified during the Great Faction War, women of that caliber were very rare.”

Namho turned to me, worry in his voice.

“Did you notice anything strange? We can’t rule out the possibility that she was using a finely crafted human-skin mask or a disguise technique.”

I thought back for a moment, then shook my head.

The deeper one’s martial arts realm, the sharper one’s eye became.

No matter how well made a human-skin mask was, it had its limits. And maintaining a disguise technique took a constant supply of internal energy. From what I’d seen, I hadn’t felt the slightest trace of anything like that.

“No. At least, from what I felt, it didn’t seem like she was using either of those methods.”

“But there’s still a chance—”

“Enough. If that boy says so, then that’s how it is.”

Jeok Cheongang had walked the same path I had, and gone farther down it. His understanding was beyond anything Namho, who hadn’t learned martial arts, could match.

After cutting Namho off firmly, Jeok Cheongang slowly stroked his chin.

“She has a supreme footwork technique and has reached Returning to Simplicity. How old did you say she was?”

“Maybe thirty? She looked no older than her mid-thirties at most.”

“To possess that kind of martial prowess at thirty³ is impossi—”

Jeok Cheongang met my eyes and trailed off.

“—not impossible, but about as close to it as you can get.”

“Why are you looking at me like that while we’re talking?”

“When did this old man do that?”

“Just now.”

“Do you want to get your ass kicked?”

“No.”

“Then shut up.”

“Yes, sir.”

So this was how Hyuk Mujin felt.

Sorry. I’ll treat you better when we get back.

I kept quiet, chastened. Jeok Cheongang downed a cup of cold water in one go and clicked his tongue.

“Damn it. It’s one of two things. Either the Lord of Heaven took a prodigy for the ages as his Disciple and raised her all this time, or she’s an old monster who’s gone beyond Returning to Simplicity and Returned to Youth.”

“Personally, I think it’s the latter. The Southern Heaven Demon Empress was the same.”

“That’s probably more likely. Even when the world was shaken by the Great Faction War, there were people living in seclusion in remote mountains and valleys. This old man was one of them. There’s no guarantee that the woman called So Gyo wasn’t, too.”

It was a perfectly plausible explanation.

Nearly half a century had passed since the old sky of the Demonic Cult closed and a new one, Dark Heaven, opened.

Many of the people who’d emerged under Dark Heaven’s command in the present day were old masters from a previous generation, the kind known as fiends. But key figures like the Blood Lord, the Western Heaven Demon Lord, and the Southern Heaven Demon Empress were people the world hadn’t known about at all.

So Gyo probably belongs in the same category.

But something mattered more than discovering So Gyo’s identity.

Why had she let me go when she could have subdued me?

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t find an easy answer.

“I don’t get it. Why did So Gyo go out of her way to make that choice?”

Ju Hwaran, who’d been listening without a word, suddenly spoke up.

“I haven’t been able to understand it either. This may be rude to you, Pavilion Master, but… why let a fish that’s already been caught in the net go free?”

“Perhaps they intend to catch us all at once at the grand banquet that’s coming up.”

Song Ilseom, seated beside her, answered. Ju Hwaran shook her head.

“If word gets out, that only makes things harder for them. Now that they’ve done this, won’t we fight the decisive battle with everything we have?”

She was right.

It would’ve made sense if the people gathered here were the entirety of our side’s forces. But the restoration army that had spent more than a decade preparing under Ma Sanbao’s leadership was no joke either.

If they didn’t have a chance of winning with their forces, they never would’ve dreamed of staging a coup in the first place.

So did the enemy know nothing about this?

Of course not.

The current Emperor had gradually reduced the East Depot’s authority as soon as the rebellion succeeded. That was practically proof that he’d kept it in check because he’d been worried about a situation like this.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard is no weaker than the East Depot in either force or intelligence. They must have been keeping a close watch, too.

At least, that was the impression I’d gotten of the Emperor.

Thorough, calculating, and someone who would always uproot a future source of trouble.

A cold, ruthless ruler. The master of a continent, with the power to match.

It was hard to explain why someone like that had stood by and let all this happen.

Unless there was only one possibility.

He’s certain. No matter what we try, no matter how desperately we fight, the outcome won’t change.

You could trample weeds again and again, and they still wouldn’t wither.

But pull out every root in one go, and the weeds would finally be gone.

Damn it.

The air around us grew heavy.