That’s not how I am. (1)
Baek Cheon’s hand was trembling. Because he had drawn the last of his inner energy in that single strike a moment ago, it felt as if he might collapse right this instant.
But he could not fall now. Even if his life were to end here, there was still something he had yet to finish.
“Haa, haa….…”
Gasping for breath, Baek Cheon forced his wavering vision to focus and took a heavy step forward.
The masked man who had been lying on the ground flinched.
“Don’t move, you punk.”
As a warning, Baek Sang pointed his sword at the masked man. As though ready to pierce his heart in an instant should he try to harm Baek Cheon in the slightest, a crimson sword energy shimmered at the blade’s tip.
The masked man opened his mouth.
“What in the hell are you doing…? Since the Sect Leader has decided to withdraw, there’s no reason for us to cross swords like this, is there? Wasn’t it you, in fact, who wanted us to pull back?”
His voice was filled to the brim with resentment. Even Baek Sang, who had helped chase the masked man, was momentarily struck by doubt, glancing at Baek Cheon as if wondering whether something had gone wrong.
“Enough with those obvious tricks.”
Yet Baek Cheon was not shaken in the least.
“If you had nothing to hide, you would have had no reason to flee. Am I wrong?”
“…”
“If you truly feel wronged, I’ll give you a chance. Unleash even a single technique of Diancang. Then I’ll step back without another word.”
A chill flashed through the masked man’s eyes. In an instant, his aura changed completely – no, to be precise, it returned to what it had been before.
Baek Sang gripped his sword tighter and aimed even closer. The masked man spoke coldly.
“…I had thought you weren’t the sort to be this quick-witted. Seems I was mistaken. Or is it that getting reduced to that state has sharpened your senses?”
“You son of a…!”
Baek Sang flared up, but Baek Cheon calmly held him back. This was no time to fall for such an obvious provocation.
“Where are they?”
“I’ve no idea what nonsense you’re babbling.”
“The hostages.”
The masked man showed no particular reaction. Yet Baek Cheon did not miss it – the faint tremor that flickered in his eyes.
“It must be you, the one watching over Diancang.”
“…”
“Speak. Where are the hostages?”
The masked man remained silent. Baek Sang pressed his sword against the man’s throat. The instant the blade, filled with sword energy, touched the skin, it split open.
Though a sharp pain must have shot through him, the masked man did not so much as flinch. He merely sneered, glaring at Baek Cheon with eyes filled with unmistakable hatred.
“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Quit your rambling and kill me.”
“Quit bluffing, you…”
“Even if I did know, do you really think I’d tell the likes of you?”
Cut off mid-sentence, Baek Sang bit down hard on his lip. Threats would not work on this bastard. If they did, he wouldn’t be this calm with a blade at his throat.
Perhaps they could break him over time – but if there was one thing they lacked most right now, it was time.
“Curse you, you dog of the Evil Sects! What is Jang Ilso that you’d stake your very life for him!”
Baek Sang shouted, his voice simmering with fury.
It wasn’t because things weren’t going as planned. According to Baek Cheon, most of the hostages held by Sapaeryeon were such young children that it was hard to even say they had set foot in this world.
The lives of such children were at stake. Now that they knew, this was no longer only Diancang’s affair.
The masked man opened his mouth, as though to mock Baek Sang.
“If you’re that angry, why don’t you try killing me?”
“…What?”
“You can’t, can you – if you have even a scrap of sense left.”
Baek Sang bit his lip again. The masked man went on.
“If I die, you will never save them. You don’t know whether the hostages will be killed the moment I’m gone or dragged to somewhere you can never find – but the ending will be the same, won’t it?”
“Stop spouting nonsense.”
“If you truly think it’s nonsense, there’s no reason to hesitate, is there? Kill me.”
The masked man’s voice was ice-cold.
Faced with such brazen confidence, Baek Sang had to admit. This was neither bluff nor gamble.
Yes – honestly, assuming Jang Ilso hadn’t prepared for the possibility of his watchdog being discovered would be the greater folly.
“…Damn it.”
The curse slipped from Baek Sang’s lips. Unintended though it was, that low mutter amounted to a recognition that the initiative now lay with the masked man.
Unable to comprehend it, Baek Sang pressed him further.
“What the hell is this? Who even is Jang Ilso! Why are you risking your life to stay loyal to him?”
“Staying loyal, you say….”
The mask covering the man’s face twitched – a clear, mocking laugh.
“Enough with the idle chatter. All you have to do is choose: will you let me go, or kill me and accept that every hostage will die?”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Why would we…!”
“Even if just half a gak [1/2 각 = 15 minutes] passes like this, word will get out that something has happened to me.”
Baek Sang fell silent. He did not bother asking how such a thing was possible. He himself could think of a few methods.
“What will you do?”
The masked man fixed his eyes on Baek Cheon as he asked.
Ironically, he understood that the one with the real say was not the man raging right in front of him, but the one watching quietly behind – the man clinging to life as nothing but a shell of his former self.
A strange light flickered in the masked man’s gaze as he looked at him. Whether it was pity, scorn, or some other emotion was impossible to tell.
Receiving that gaze, Baek Cheon quietly spoke.
“It isn’t loyalty, right?”
“…What did you say?”
When the masked man narrowed his eyes and asked again, Baek Cheon met his glare without hesitation. It felt as though he were seeing straight through him.
“Isn’t it that you have no other way out now?”
Baek Cheon took a step towards the masked man. Startled, Baek Sang tried to restrain him.
“Sahyeong!”
Even with Baek Sang’s sword pointed at the enemy, it was a dangerous move for Baek Cheon in his present state. Yet Baek Cheon advanced as though he hadn’t heard.
What was strange was the masked man’s reaction. Though he hadn’t flinched even once with a blade at his throat, he suddenly jerked and tried to retreat when Baek Cheon approached him.
Was he frightened now? Impossible. There was no reason to fear Baek Cheon, who no longer had even a handful of inner energy left.
Step.
At last, Baek Cheon stood right before him. If the masked man were willing to sacrifice his own life, the distance was more than close enough to strike Baek Cheon.
And yet the masked man only glared at him with eyes burning with anger, making no other move.
“Because you have nowhere left to return to.”
At Baek Cheon’s words, the masked man’s pupils shook violently.
❀ ❀ ❀
A a thick bead of sweat traced Gwak Hwanso’s face.
“Damn it!”
Booom!
His sword collided with the incoming blade. In that instant his insides shook and his wrist bent as though it might snap.
“Out of my way, you runt!”
“U…aaaargh…..!”
Yet Gwak Hwanso clenched his teeth and held on. Fighting these accursed creatures – the Red Dogs whose very presence dragged him back to the memories of that day – was like a punishment to both his body and mind. Even so, he endured with everything he had.
“Sahyeong!”
At once, Haenam’s disciples rushed in to his left and right. Their swords pierced the Red Dog’s flesh again and again.
“Guh… ah.”
Veins burst in the Red Dog’s eyes.
“Haaah!”
Booom!
Gwak Hwanso used the opening to slice through the enemy’s neck.
“Gkh!”
“Sahyeong! Are you all right?”
With the last of his strength he nodded. Had that Red Dog not already been wounded, the head rolling on the ground would have been Gwak Hwanso’s.
But such details did not matter. What mattered was that Gwak Hwanso had survived and the foe lay dead. On the battlefield, survival is everything. Had he not learned that lesson – painfully and bitterly – in Gangnam?
“Damn it. What are we supposed to do about this wound…”
“…Quit making a fuss.”
Gwak Hwanso instinctively looked around.
His mouth felt gritty, as though full of sand. The disciples guarding the perimeter all wore exhausted expressions.
No wonder. Among all the members of Cheonumaeng fighting to defend this ground, not one remained fresh – but the weariness felt by Haenam’s disciples was beyond comparison with anyone else’s.
They were fighting beneath the great name of Haenam, yet they had lost the senior members who had upheld that name.
Brats carrying nothing but the title of Haenam – Gwak Hwanso knew all too well that everyone looked at them this way.
Thus only two choices remained.
One was to admit that they were unfit to bear the name of Haenam and to simply blend in and get by without standing out.
The other was to charge in twice as fiercely as anyone else and prove that the name of Haenam had not yet fallen.
Had they chosen the first, no one would have blamed them. In fact, the others would have tried to help.
Such were the people who had formed Cheonumaeng.
But Gwak Hwanso could not take that path. He knew that the moment he acknowledged his inadequacy and accepted help would be the moment the name of Haenam truly vanished.
‘Sect Leader.’
Gwak Hwanso recalled the late Geum Yangbaek. Would things be different if he were here? Yes, they surely would.
For Gwak Hwanso, leading the disciples of Haenam still felt overwhelming.
‘At the very least…’
Even if Geum Yangbaek did not return alive, it would not be so hard if there were just a few more people to help guide the disciples.
At that moment, a certain face surfaced in his mind. Gwak Hwanso ruthlessly erased it at once.
That man no longer existed – no, he must not exist. Even if he did, there could be no longing for him. He must never even be mentioned.
Yet at least…
“Sahyeong! More are coming!”
Gwak Hwanso gripped his sword tightly.
Like rabid dogs who gone mad without their master, the remnants of the Red Dogs, unable to find Jang Ilso, were rampaging in every visible direction. Facing them was a burden for Haenam as it now stood.
“Form the ranks!”
But hardship was no excuse to turn away. This conviction was engraved deep in Gwak Hwanso’s heart.
Moreover, he had not forgotten: among those foes were the sworn enemies of Haenam.
“Turn this place into those bastards’ graves!”
“Yes, Sahyeong!”
The disciples of Haenam raised their swords, squeezing out their remaining strength.
❀ ❀ ❀
“What the……”
“I had thought about it. If I were Jang Ilso, whom would I assign as a watchdog?”
“…”
“Attaching those Sapa bastards is pointless. No matter how well you hide their faces so they can’t recognize one another, the aura of the Evil Sect would still betray them.”
They may be Diancang, but not everyone here was from Diancang.
Mixed among them are a handful of Just Sects’ survivors who had no choice but to become Jang Ilso’s dogs – whether to stay alive or to protect someone.
“But placing the watchdog far away would be meaningless too. That makes it simple.”
Baek Cheon reached out and seized the masked man’s mask.
“Someone of the Just Sect, yet able to obey Jang Ilso’s orders more thoroughly than anyone. And, unlike the others, someone who can never return to where he once belonged, no matter how things change.”
“…”
“No – someone who would be cast out if he did return.”
With one swift motion he tore off the mask. The face revealed in broad daylight was exactly as Baek Cheon had expected.
“Isn’t that right?”
The man, stripped of his mask, ground his teeth instead of answering.
“Yu Gong [유공(庾供)].”
The traitor of Haenam glared at Baek Cheon with eyes filled with venomous resentment.
________
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