Return of the Mount Hua

It’s a good day. (1)

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“Step on him!”

“You damn bastard!”

The children swarmed around someone, kicking him while encircling him. The children looked even younger than their age, likely due to being malnourished.

“Huff! Huff!”

The children, who already seemed to be in a bad shape, were quickly exhausted after just a few kicks, gasping for breath.

“You… filthy bastard.”

“What kind of person is this…?”

They exchanged glances as they looked down at him, seemingly fed up.

“…Let’s go.”

“Just like this?”

“Do you want to kill him?”

A silence fell. Conflict was evident on all their faces. But soon, they all nodded irritably.

“Let’s go.”

“Ugh! What a lousy day.”

With expressions filled with annoyance and frustration, the children spat on the ground and turned away. Even in that moment, their eyes carried emotions hard to describe.

Someone muttered in a weary voice.

“…Are we going to starve again today?”

“If those damn bastards hadn’t been waging war, we could at least beg for food.”

“Beg? I heard more than ten people starved to death in the lower village. Not just beggars, but even those who were living decently. What do you think they’ll give us?”

“Damn it…”

As the children trudged away, similar expressions appeared on their faces. It was perhaps a look of despair, or maybe fear. Or it could have been a sense of helplessness in the face of hardships they could do nothing about.

It is the powerful who shake the world, but it is the powerless who bear the brunt of it. The despair of those whose lives were shaken and crumbled, regardless of their will, was indescribably deep and heavy.

“Why do you keep looking back?”

“…Do you think he’ll die like that?”

“Damn it, if he dies, he dies. I’m about to die myself, so what does it matter? Stop wasting energy with nonsense and keep going!”

Eventually, the child who had asked nodded in agreement and hurried his steps. But even then, he kept glancing back, as if something was still bothering him.

What he kept looking back at was perhaps the humanity they had to leave behind in order to survive in such a world, the guilt they had no choice but to abandon.

Long after everyone had left.

Rustle.

The one who had been lying as if dead after being trampled by the children staggered to his feet.

A tiny, withered body. Even if he hadn’t been trampled, he looked like he could collapse at any moment.

The child who had endured violence harsh enough to break an adult pressed his trembling hand to the ground.

With tattered clothes that even the term ‘rags’ couldn’t adequately describe and hair grown out into a wild mess, he looked more like an animal than a person.

“Ugh.”

The child spat out bloody saliva. However, the metallic taste in his mouth did not fade.

Looking around like a frightened animal, the child, seeing that no one was around, finally rummaged through his clothes.

What he pulled out with his grimy hands was a single, flattened, blackened dumpling he had fiercely protected despite the violent beating.

The child used his small hands to tear off a piece of the dirt-covered dumpling and slowly put it into his mouth.

It tasted so foul from the blood and dirt that it made him want to retch. But the child showed no reaction, merely chewing and swallowing it slowly. He even seemed to savor it as if it were a rare delicacy.

His thin fingers tore off another piece of the dumpling. Though he had been beaten all over to obtain it, the child didn’t resent this fact. Being beaten was better than starving to death.

The child was acutely aware of his reality.

Today, too, someone will die. Among those who had trampled him, some would die within days. People die if they don’t eat, and the same goes for the child. Thus, the beating he received was a small price to pay for this single dumpling.

Survival. Nothing else mattered more. At least not here.

As the child wiped the blood from his mouth with his dirty sleeve, someone spoke.

“Are you okay?”

The moment the voice reached him, the child shoved the remaining dumpling back into his clothes and bared his teeth. His hunched posture was as fierce and wary as that of a wild animal.

Seeing this, the beggar who had spoken from a distance wore an awkward expression.

“No, I was just worried… Wondering if you were okay.”

“…”

It was definitely a voice full of concern. In such a cold world, this kind of kindness was almost too much to hope for.

But the child only returned a cold and piercing gaze to that warmth.

Even though the beggar knew this, he didn’t easily withdraw his benevolent interest.

“Don’t be so wary.”

The beggar crept closer to the child, genuinely seeming worried.

“If you sleep out here with your body in that condition, you’ll freeze to death. I…” 

The beggar, who had taken a few steps forward, suddenly stopped. He saw the child pull out a sharp blade instead of a dumpling from his bosom.

A momentary look of confusion flickered across the beggar’s face.

The beggar’s face, which had alternated between looking at the child and the blade, twisted viciously as if he had been lying all along. It was hard to believe he was the same person who had spoken so kindly just moments ago.

“You little bastard…”

The beggar, glaring at the child as if calculating something in his head, ground his teeth and took a couple of steps back. It seemed he judged that risking a confrontation with a blade for a leftover dumpling was too much of a loss.

“Do you really think you can survive a few more days like this?”

“…”

“You’re a dying brat… If you die, I swear I’II eat you. I’ll watch. You damn brat.” 

Hurling curses and threats at the child, the beggar turned around and walked away quickly in a fit of anger.

Even after the beggar had disappeared, the child remained on guard for a while before finally standing up resolutely. His limping steps headed slowly and steadily toward a deserted place.

Night had fallen.

The child, who had climbed halfway up a deep mountain that was dangerous even in broad daylight, began to dig through a pile of fallen leaves with familiar moves.

After a few swipes, a small space appeared, just big enough for a curled-up person to fit in.

The child squeezed into the space and sprawled out, exhausted.

Though consciousness was slipping away, instead of succumbing to sleep, the child pulled out the dumpling from his bosom again, tearing it into small pieces and chewing slowly.

The child’s expression did not look like that of a child at all. As he chewed the dumpling, he looked down at the world below the mountain.

It was a hellish world.

The value of life is never the same. In a peaceful world, a person’s life has infinite value, but in this world, a person’s life is worth less than half a stale dumpling.

The value of a child’s life was even less than that.

In the most wretched place, the most wretched being is inevitably pushed to a place where no one else lives.

From his high vantage point, the child’s eyes took in the myriad lights below.

It was a village. Still too far and frightening for him.

The boundary between the village where people lived and the mountain where he was was marked by those lights. Flickering as if they might go out at any moment, but too beautiful to look away from.

The child, with a detached motion, tore the dumpling and stuffed it into his mouth while staring, entranced, at the river of lights spread out below.

The taste of dirt filled his mouth, and the smell of rotting leaves wafted into his nose.

The child’s gaze shifted to a place even farther away.

The lights in the distance were several times brighter and more splendid than the ones nearby.

It was a place the child could not even set foot in now. Those who enjoyed those splendid lights were incomparably stronger than those who relied on these flickering lights.

The child slowly extended his thin hand.

The lights felt close enough to grasp. They seemed like they would be truly warm if he could catch them.

But naturally, his hand did not reach the lights. Not even a bit of the warmth they were filled with touched his hand.

All he could feel was the bone-chilling cold that pierced him to the core.

However, the child did not feel disheartened or regretful.

He had come to understand.

Those lights were not there from the beginning. The ones who occupied that place had taken and stolen the lights of others, acquiring even more.

If they could take it, then he could also take and seize it for himself. Just like the stale dumpling he had stolen and stuffed into his bosom today. Those lights too, someday…

The lights in the child’s eyes grew larger.

The warmly spreading lights soon enveloped the world, blazing brightly. The boundaries collapsed, and every part of the world was filled with radiant light.

It was dazzling. Knowing he couldn’t catch that warmth, the child reached out his hand once more.

But at that moment.

Crack!

The world the child had been gazing at cracked. The world, which had seemed warmly tinged with red, began to crack, and through those cracks, dark red blood began to gush out.

The child’s eyes trembled violently.

The dark red blood quickly covered the world. There was no warmth. The cold and disgusting void swallowed everything.

“Ah…”

For the first time, a voice escaped from the child’s lips.

But that was all. The sound, which failed to form proper words, poured out only as the groans of a wounded animal.

“Ah… Ah…”

The entire world turned black, leaving nothing behind. Harsh despair filled the child’s eyes.

“Aaaaaaah!”

❀ ❀ ❀

“Ryeonju.”

“…”

“Ryeonju?”

The long eyelashes, tightly draped over the closed eyes, quivered slightly. The eyelids slowly lifted, revealing pale eyes.

The eyes, which had been blankly scanning the desolate-looking room, eventually focused on the person standing in front of them.

“Everything is ready.”

Instead of responding, he looked down.

A crimson robe that seemed to be ablaze, an elaborate dragon pattern embroidered in gold thread, long fingers extending from wide sleeves, and the colorful, ornate rings adorning them.

This is reality. He was not dressed in torn, filthy rags.

He flipped over the hand resting on the armrest. His palm was drenched in cold sweat. He stared at it for a while before finally speaking, his face inscrutable and expressionless.

“…The mirror.”

“Yes.”

At his command, the attendant quickly brought a bronze mirror and held it up before him.

He looked at his own face reflected in the mirror, finding it unfamiliar.

A face adorned with luxurious makeup. Through the strands of the beads hanging over his face, the visage of a full-grown adult appeared. He was different from that beast-like child. A pale face, red lips, and eyes sunk in gloom.

Has he changed?

Is the man in this bronze mirror different from who he was in the past? Just because his face has changed and what he wears is different?

He set the mirror aside and slowly stood up.

The attendants bustled around him, making final adjustments to his attire, but he paid no attention to their hands and walked towards the door in front of him.

Step. Step.

He grabbed the doorknob and paused for a moment.

– Do you understand?

He still hadn’t answered that question. No, perhaps he never would.

But…

He opened his eyes, which he had closed, and finally flung the door open roughly.

Bang.

The scene beyond the wide-open door came into view at once.

Countless people were lined up.

Suppressing the boiling excitement, the desires that seemed ready to explode at any moment.

Armed with eyes like blades, they were all waiting for him, and only him.

Jang Ilso’s red lips twisted into a deep smile.

His gaze shifted to the side.

He locked eyes with Ho Gamyeong, who was standing to one side of the line. They stood, staring at each other for a moment, before Ho Gamyeong finally bowed his head heavily.

“Everything is… ready, Ryeonju.”

“…”

“Your command.”

Jang Ilso’s eyes slowly looked up to the sky. It was a clear, blue expanse without a single cloud. The sun rising in the east shone brilliantly as if welcoming him.

“It’s a good day.”

His gaze began to resemble that of the child who once stared at unreachable lights from the past.

He still had not reached what he desired. So…

“Let’s go.”

It was time to go and seize what he had only ever gazed upon. The things he had longed for forever.

Step.

He took a step forward. A deep smile spread across Jang Ilso’s lips.

The most splendid place in the world. A place where the most powerful beings reside. The path to it was already wide open.

“For now… shall we start with Henan?”

His gleaming eyes curved like a crescent moon.

“Let’s go. To seize the world.”

“Yes!”

The assembled followers moved with him.

The blade that had been held in suspense now began to swing toward the world. It showed no signs of stopping until everything was finished.

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Small mass upload since I have nearly caught up to the ongoing on my Patreon (and Buymeacoffee). But still 80+ more chapters translated there.