That’s Just How He’s Made. (5)

“Huff! Huff! Huff! Huff!”

Sweat poured like rain. His clothes were already soaking as if caught in a downpour, and with every slap of his feet on the ground, droplets from his sweat-soaked hair plopped down.

His lungs felt like they would burst out of his mouth.

‘How much farther do I have to go?’

His vision went white, and the road ahead stretched endlessly, but he could not stop. If he failed to do his part, the thing discarded wouldn’t be just him.

Ho Ga-Myung had never issued a proper threat.

It wasn’t like the Evil Sect bastards had thrust blades at people as they usually did, nor had they growled threats about flaying flesh and killing.

But that made it all the more terrifying.

Because he knew that for them, wiping out an ordinary village where common folk lived would be no different from crushing an ant underfoot.

It wasn’t the sheer strength that mattered. It was terrifying that someone could commit such acts and feel not the slightest twinge of guilt.

So he had to run. The lives of those left behind in Southern Island depended on Ho Ga-Myung’s hands.

“Huff! Huff! Huff! Gah!”

Yu Gong, straining with all his might, suddenly pitched forward and tumbled. While searching for the marker above, he had lost his footing on a jutting stone in the ground.

It was such a ridiculous mistake it would have been laughable if not committed by a martial man—yet Yu Gong was that exhausted.

“Cough.”

Even his cough had no strength. His limbs had long gone numb with fatigue. Still, he forced himself to brace on the ground. There was no way they would pity his plight.

“Ugh…”

Yu Gong trembled and tried to lift himself up somehow. But all he could see were weeds growing wildly across the ground; his gaze would scarcely rise.

And then, in that moment.

Step.

Someone’s foot came into view. He flinched and lifted his head to find the Mind-Probing Inquisitor Ho Ga-Myung looking down at him indifferently.

The look in his eyes was utterly devoid of warmth, and Yu Gong’s ragged breathing stopped for an instant. After a moment, Ho Ga-Myung spoke.

“Rest here.”

“Yes!”

His subordinates moved quickly at the order.

Step. Step.

With that command, Ho Ga-Myung turned away from Yu Gong without another word. Yu Gong, as if in a trance, watched his retreating figure and clenched his fist tight.

“Here.”

A voice suddenly called, and Yu Gong turned dully. Beside him, where he was slumped against a tree trunk like the dead, a dew-flecked water bottle was thrust forward.

“Drink.”

Yu Gong stared at the bottle in silence, then raised his eyes a little. It was Go Hong. His expression was somehow odd.

“What are you doing, don’t want it?”

Yu Gong reached out and took the bottle without answering.

It was cold. He must have fetched fresh water from a nearby source. Not necessarily only for him.

Yu Gong looked at the bottle with a complicated expression, then slowly drank. Watching him intently, Go Hong dropped down a little ways off and sat heavily.

The two were silent for a long while. The distance between them seemed to mirror the distance between their hearts.

“How much farther do you think we have to go?”

Yu Gong lowered the bottle from his lips and tilted his head back.

He saw the night sky studded with stars like jewels. For some reason, he felt a laugh about to escape.

The nights in Southern Island he’d tired of looking at were probably far more beautiful than this. Yet back then he felt no particular emotion when looking at the sky.

Only now did he realize how beautiful that living sky was—how wonderful a sky they’d lived under.

“I don’t know.”

When Yu Gong answered belatedly, Go Hong let out a low sigh.

“In any case, resting like this only puts more distance between us.”

“Perhaps.”

Truthfully, he didn’t know. They couldn’t run forever either. Being human, they would have to rest at some point.

In the end, it all came down to who covered more distance in the same time. That’s what pursuit always was.

But Yu Gong didn’t bother to say that out loud.

Go Hong already knew it too. He would be averting his eyes despite knowing.

“Sahyung.”

“…Don’t call me that.”

Go Hong snorted and laughed softly.

“Why? Do you feel guilty?”

“…It’s not that it’s not true, but there’s no need to talk about guilt. You and I aren’t part of the sahyung system anymore, are we?”

“That’s right… Not only are we not sahyung, we’re not disciples of Southern Island Sect either.”

Yu Gong rested his head on the tree trunk and closed his eyes wearily.

What he really wanted to do was not close his eyes but block his ears. Lacking the strength to lift his hands, he could only shut his eyes.

“But, sahyung… it seems it doesn’t end that easily.”

“…What are you talking about?”

“Did you see it? In that gorge.”

Yu Gong squeezed his eyes shut tighter. This was exactly why he wanted to cover his ears—he knew what Go Hong would say and didn’t want to hear it.

“There was sahyung Myung Ho. I saw Ja-Un sajae too. Elder Gang-Myung as well…”

“…”

And why would he not have seen them?

He had seen with his own eyes the grisly sight of those who had spent decades together strewn dead.

But he could do nothing. He had only desperately run past their rotting corpses.

Because he had to live. Because he had to survive.

“The dead are just the dead.”

“Maybe… but they were alive.”

“What?”

Go Hong stared blankly into the air.

“When I passed through there… at least Ja-Un sajae was still alive. Even then his eyes moved, as if he recognized us. Even while his waist was half severed and he was dying…”

Yu Gong’s shoulders trembled.

Ja-Un was a sajae Go Hong was especially fond of. Just as Go Hong had trailed after Yu Gong, Ja-Un had clung to Go Hong.

“He looked like he was trying to say something. It couldn’t be heard or understood, but he was definitely trying to say something.”

“…”

“Sahyung. What was Priest Ja-Un trying to say…”

“If you’re going to spout nonsense, get lost. I want to rest.”

The sharp voice cut Go Hong off, but Go Hong didn’t flinch—instead he sneered.

“If I move away, will you be able to rest?”

Yu Gong glared at Go Hong fiercely for a moment.

“Isn’t the one who actually can’t rest the sahyung?”

“You…”

Yu Gong’s eyes twisted into something demonic.

“So what?”

He gritted his teeth and thrust his chin out stubbornly.

“So does that mean I should’ve become one of the corpses there? Should I have died a miserable death there and fed the beasts with my flesh to make it a ‘proper’ death? Should the gorge be left with maggots and swarms of flies because one man was gone for the ‘right’ thing to happen?”

“Sahyung!”

“Stop that bullshit! Didn’t you see it yourself? Those who stepped forward with all their righteous pretexts—what did they actually protect? While they died miserable deaths there, what did they protect? What did they save?!”

His voice grew increasingly heated.

“What could they have been trying to say? What meaning was there! I know one thing: however much the dead babble, nothing hears them and nothing understands them! That one died and we survived!”

“…”

“Guilt? That’s fucking nonsense. I will survive. I will never die such a miserable death. Somehow I will survive, somehow! And I’ll return to my homeland with my body intact!”

A venomous glint flickered in Yu Gong’s eyes. He looked as if he might tear into Go Hong at any moment.

“So… what’s so wrong about that? Is it such a great sin?”

Go Hong could not find words. He just bowed his head and shivered slightly.

Yu Gong anxiously gulped the water. It was plain water, not even liquor, yet it burned within him.

He knew it too. Everything was wrong. He was wrong and they were right. If one followed what he’d been taught and believed, that would be the correct view.

But what was the result?

Those who sought righteousness became feed for beasts over there. And he, who chose the wrong path, nonetheless still preserved his life.

If Southern Island Sect failed to escape the Southern lands and was wiped out, the most despicable—Yu Gong—would be the only one to survive and return home.

‘Go the right way?’

He kept letting out bitter laughter.

For what? For what reason must one adhere to righteousness? For what? To fill that petty sense of unity and satisfy oneself?

It’s all pointless, a load of dogshit.

“Stop the useless thoughts and rest.”

In the end, Go Hong brushed himself off and stood. Whether it was to humor Yu Gong or because he no longer wanted to stay by his side, he rose.

But where could he even go?

There was nowhere here where they could rest peacefully. From the moment they left Southern Island, they had become people who could not lay their backs on the ground.

Go Hong looked down at Yu Gong with unfocused eyes.

Blaming someone is easy. To resent and curse Yu Gong as the cause of it all isn’t hard. Compared to the suffocating guilt of recognizing one’s own responsibility, it would be much simpler.

But Go Hong could not bring himself to do that.

Because he still had a conscience?

No. He knew that directing blame at Yu Gong wouldn’t ease his heart.

He was simply curious now.

“What was different?”

At that small question, Yu Gong lifted his head.

“We left from the same place, learned the same things, lived the same life. So why are we here and they there? What on earth was the difference between them and us?”

Yu Gong’s lips moved.

It was obvious, yet a very hard question to answer. Many answers rose in his mind and fell again. None could be a complete truth.

In the end, Yu Gong gave an answer even he found absurd. A self-mocking smile faintly crossed his face.

“They were just… made that way.”

“…”

“That’s all there is to it, really.”

Go Hong watched Yu Gong in silence.

For some reason Yu Gong found that gaze unbearable. He couldn’t glare back with venom as before.

The indifferent look—not blaming, not condemning—hurt unbearably.

So he finally looked away. Even though he knew it wouldn’t change anything.

Step. Step.

He heard Go Hong’s footsteps recede and still couldn’t turn his head back for a long time. That look seemed as if it would remain there, frozen.

Only after a long while did Yu Gong lift his head listlessly. There were stars in abundance, as if spilling down. He resented the sky that simply looked down on their hellish world.

‘What was different?’

A hollow laugh escaped.

“How would I know…”

He covered his eyes with both hands.

The sky simply watched him and did not waver. It is not the sky that trembles, but the people who look up at it.

“How… could I…”

The self-mocking voice could not carry far; it dissolved at his lips.