Chapter 37

‘Even if it is the Iron-Gold Wi Clan…’

The Iron-Gold Wi Clan was the one that had amassed the greatest wealth among the Seven Demonic Houses.

Perhaps because they stood on the boundary between merchant clan and martial clan, they had a tendency to convert the value of everything into money.

They said they had invested an enormous sum to make Wi So-rang a Little Demon, and the reason for that was probably the same.

They must have focused on the tangible and intangible gains they could get by exploiting the status of a Little Demon.

Expanding their businesses, or emphasizing that they had produced the youngest Little Demon to enhance the clan’s honor.

Ultimately, they might even have been aiming for the next cult leadership.

‘But there is a misunderstanding.’

The Heavenly Demon had not stopped instructing Wi So-rang because of her achievements.

It was because of me.

Even in my previous life, the Heavenly Demon had put special effort only into my training.

It felt like he had worked me several times more than all the other disciples put together. Because of that, I had grown sick to death of the man known as the Heavenly Demon.

“In particular, my achievement with the Broad Sun Fist is a mess. Even when I train twelve hours a day, I am completely stuck at the third stage.”

“And that is what makes the Iron-Gold Wi Clan’s Patriarch give you a hard time?”

“Yeah.”

“You know it too, sajeo. Your achievements in the Broad Sun Fist can only be slow.”

Wi So-rang had a major flaw.

Namely, that her body was not suited to using the Broad Sun Fist.

“Your arms and legs are way too short, Sajeo.”

Dun-dun, Wi So-rang’s face showed she was shocked.

“You are so mean, Sajae.”

“What do you mean, mean? I already said this at the True Demon Market.”

“It is still too much! It is not like you have long arms and legs either, Sajae. You are short too. Next to Master you look like a kid just like me.”

“I am similar to others my age. Master is the one who is abnormally big.”

“I do not care, I do not want to hear it. It is all your fault, Sajae!”

“And what is it suddenly this time?”

“The Patriarch keeps comparing me to you. He says Sajae stood out as soon as you joined, so what am I doing. He says, what if I lose to you, Sajae. So you have to take responsibility. Take responsibility!”

Still seated on her chair, Wi So-rang flailed her short arms and legs.

At this rate she looked ready to lie flat on her back, but this finally felt like the usual Wi So-rang.

“I am sick of greens. I want meat. Meeat.”

Wi So-rang flung her chopsticks down.

I asked the brat.

“You cannot eat meat?”

“Because my advancement is slow, they say my body must be getting dull, so I am not allowed to eat meat.”

So that was why, even though she said she would treat me to something tasty, it was only piled with greens.

My appetite faded for some reason too, and I set down the chopsticks I was holding.

“It is still expensive stuff, though. Our clan has a Gathering Medicine Hall that only digs up rare herbs. This one is Blue Cloud Herb that only grows on Seokrim Mountain, this one is a ginseng root that costs five taels of silver a piece, and this one is—”

Before she could finish speaking, I picked up my chopsticks again.

Wi So-rang stared at me strangely as I shoveled the food down.

I gulped it down without even chewing properly.

“Ahem. Since when have you been eating only greens, Sajeo?”

“About half a month, I think.”

“Half a month?”

Coincidentally, that was after I appeared.

Come to think of it, she looked thinner than when I first met her at the True Demon Market. Her complexion seemed paler too.

A lack of nutrition must have begun.

‘They are really grinding this kid down.’

I could not understand the Patriarch of the Iron-Gold Wi Clan.

He himself was a martial artist who had learned martial arts.

There was no way he did not know the fact that one needed a balanced diet.

“Sajae, save me. I feel like I will be fine if I learn from you.”

“It is a problem with physical growth, so it will sort itself out with time.”

“I want to solve it now. You are a genius, Sajae.”

Wi So-rang was desperate.

She probably wanted to cling to even a straw.

Well, it had to be tough.

Excessive expectations from her parents, more than twelve hours of training a day, forced vegetarianism.

Not a single one of those is something a ten-year-old child can bear easily.

But.

‘What am I supposed to do about this?’

I could spar with her once in a while. In the process, I might be able to point out one or two things that could be improved.

But what Wi So-rang wanted must be proper, full-fledged instruction.

When my own training was already overwhelming, did I really have the energy and time to spare?

‘Besides, it is not like I really have some brilliant solution either.’

It was then.

“The Patriarch arrives!”

Along with the voice of a servant from Little Dragon Pavilion¹ , a middle-aged man with a thick layer of flesh appeared.

It was none other than Wi Geum-myeong, Patriarch of the Iron-Gold Wi Clan.

‘Smiling-Face Golden Demon, Wi Geum-myeong.’

In many ways, Wi Geum-myeong was a man different from how he appeared on the surface.

He was always smiling, but behind that he possessed the side of a merchant who was thorough and cold-blooded when it came to profit and loss.

He had a body that looked sluggish, yet surprisingly, he was an exceptional master with profound mastery of movement arts.

He was not the head of one of the Seven Demonic Houses for nothing.

“P-Pa— Patriarch!”

Wi So-rang hurriedly stood up from her chair.

“Sixth Young Lady, is this not the time you should be at the training ground?”

The sight of her calling her own father ‘Patriarch’ was exceptionally awkward.

But even more awkward than that was the father respectfully addressing his daughter as the “Sixth Young Lady.”

“Well… I had something to talk about with Sajae…”

Only then did Wi Geum-myeong’s gaze turn to me.

His eyes were as if facing an unpleasant piece of merchandise. Wi Geum-myeong was not smiling now.

From that, I could tell.

Wi Geum-myeong had not appeared by coincidence.

He had come because of me.

This appointment had been made several days ago. Someone had obviously reported it to him.

“It is an honor to meet you. I am Baek Su-gyeong.”

“I am Wi Geum-myeong. To think I would meet the Seventh Young Lord, whose name has been spreading of late, in such an unexpected place.”

There was an edge to Wi Geum-myeong’s words.

“In truth, this is not our first meeting. I also attended the banquet hosted by the Elders’ Council Lord.”

“I was not able to greet you then.”

“I can understand. Steeped in reckless bravado, how could you have seen anything around you?”

Excuse me?

He is going to pick a fight like this?

To me, still baffled, Wi Geum-myeong asked:

“But, what brings the Seventh Young Lord here?”

“I was asking to give martial arts instruction.”

Instead of me, Wi So-rang spoke up in a timid voice.

Wi Geum-myeong’s expression turned cold.

“And why did you make such a request?”

“B-because I am so lacking.”

“There is no shortage of masters at your home clan who could help the Sixth Young Lady. Yet you choose the Seventh Young Lord in particular? Moreover, for a sajeo to learn martial arts from her sajae is something that must never happen.”

Wi So-rang’s shoulders flinched.

“T-that is true, but… Sajae is a genius…”

Wi So-rang’s words trailed off.

It was because Wi Geum-myeong murmured quietly, ‘A genius, you say.’

He continued speaking.

“In my life I have met countless eminent people, yet only two of them could be called geniuses. The Cult Lord and the First Young Lord. Are you saying, Sixth Young Lady, that you judge the Seventh Young Lord’s talent to be on that level?”

“I-I am sorry…”

“That is enough. Sixth Young Lady, please leave.”

“Pardon?”

“I am telling you to go train.”

Shrinking back, Wi So-rang glanced at me.

When I gave a slight nod, she left the room.

I asked Wi Geum-myeong:

“Did you have something you wanted to say to me alone?”

“I have a warning for you. Not only did you show discourtesy to the Elders’ Council Lord, I hear you also pierced the Fourth Young Lord’s shoulder with a sword?”

“I did.”

“Are you aware of the repercussions your reckless actions have brought?”

“Who knows.”

“In youthful conceit you may feel proud for the moment, but you are mistaken. More and more people will come to grind their teeth at you, and you will meet an end you do not desire.”

I let out a short laugh.

One unwanted ending was more than enough.

This time, that will not happen.

“So what is it you want to warn me about?”

“Do not grow close with the Sixth Young Lady. That child is meant to walk a road of silk.”

“I am not so sure. At the rate she is going now, she will not be able to walk even a dirt road, never mind a road of silk.”

“What was that?”

Wi Geum-myeong’s eyebrows twitched.

Suddenly, my past life came to mind.

Wi Geum-myeong was sensitive to power.

Even though his own daughter was a Little Demon, he had still formed ties with the First Young Lord, who had been closest to the next cult leadership.

But that had been for the sake of preparing for any contingency.

In his heart, Wi Geum-myeong had imagined Wi So-rang becoming the next Cult Leader.

It was something I had heard directly from the seventeen-year-old Wi So-rang who had come to find me shortly before I left the Demon Cult.

“What I am saying is that you cannot train sajeo the way you are now.”

Roughly a year after joining the cult, I had completely surpassed Wi So-rang.

Thinking back now, I think I know the reason.

My growth had been fast, but her growth had also stopped.

“You are saying the direction of my guidance is wrong?”

“Yes. I am saying it is wrong.”

“And what could the Seventh Young Lord possibly know?”

“At least enough to know that rather than meddling excessively in her training, it is better to let things flow more naturally.”

As I said before, among the seven Little Demons, it had been the First Sahyung, me, and Wi So-rang.

The three of us had outstanding talent.

Yet what had her martial achievements been like by the time she was seventeen? Lacking compared to her talent.

“Heh. Insight as a genius, is it?”

Wi Geum-myeong gave a derisive laugh and went on.

“It would be better for the Seventh Young Lord to worry about himself rather than others. If it were to spread that you entered a forbidden area, how embarrassed would you be?”

The patrol guarding the front of Demon Valley had been warriors of the Iron-Gold Wi Clan.

As the Patriarch of this clan, Wi Geum-myeong naturally could not help but know that information.

“It would not be particularly embarrassing. I had reasons enough for it.”

“That is merely the Seventh Young Lord’s wish. There is no lack of places that would demand severe punishment for your deeds. The Disciplinary Court, the Seven Demonic Houses, the Military Bureau, and so on.”

“Well, do as you please with that. In any case, you have no intention of changing your guiding policy, right?”

“None whatsoever. Nor do I have any reason to accept the advice of the Seventh Young Lord, who is far beneath me. As for the Sixth Young Lady, my daughter, I know her best.”

‘There is no getting through to him.’

Talking with Wi Geum-myeong made it clear.

This was not simply an issue of limb length or diet.

It was the delusion that he knew everything about his own daughter.

That was the problem.

And Wi So-rang was completely pressed down by such a father.

There was no way her training could go well like this.

‘Well, it cannot be helped.’

I shook my head.

My role ends here.

I had said a few things because I received Wi So-rang’s request, but in truth I had no qualification at all.

Who was I to meddle in how he educated his daughter?

‘…Is this really right?’

What would happen if I just left things as they were?

She would continue to suffer a kind of abuse that was not called abuse. It would hinder both her physical growth and martial growth.

Knowing that kind of future, is it really alright to pretend I did not see it and leave her be?

‘I am your sajeo, remember. A sajeo has to protect her sajae.’

A voice suddenly flashed through my mind.

Even though Wi So-rang herself was afraid of Heuk Un-hwi, she had stepped forward for my sake.

When I had collapsed right after the Heavenly Demon’s training, she had brought me medicine, and when we first met, she had given me an elixir as a gift.

The money was one thing, but it was her heart that I was grateful for.

And in my previous life, she had come to see me before I left the Demon Cult.

-Sajae, can you not go?

Her voice had been heavy with tears, ready to burst at any moment.

-I have to go.

-I will help you. I will stop the sahyungs when they bully you.

-Thank you, but it is enough now.

By that time, I had come to hate everything about the Demon Cult.

The sahyungs were only one part of the reason.

-But you are my sajae. If your sajeo begs you not to go, you are not supposed to go… heuheuk.

Why had it been?

From that seventeen-year-old Wi So-rang who finally broke into tears. From that girl who had been called the First Flower of the Demonic Path.

I could see the image of her as a child.

-Waaah! I lost to Sajae!

The way she had approached me back then out of pure curiosity.

The way she had tried to look after me, saying she was my sajeo.

Those things had come back to me one by one.

-I am sorry.

But I had not been able to grant Wi So-rang’s request.

I pushed away the hand that was gripping my sleeve and left.

I could hear sobbing behind my back, but I never stopped walking.

“…”

Was it because of that memory?

If at all possible, I wanted to grant Wi So-rang’s request.

In this life, she would instinctively feel that something was wrong.

So she must have chosen the best answer.

Me, as the answer.

So would it not be alright to free up a few days?

After all, I was going to be much busier than now afterward.

“Patriarch, if there were a way, what would you do?”

“What sort of nonsense is this?”

“Sajeo told me so herself. That her Broad Sun Fist is stuck at the third stage.”

“The Sixth Young Lady has been talking nonsense.”

“Give me just three days. Four hours each day.”

Wi Geum-myeong’s eyes narrowed.

“Do you mean to instruct the Sixth Young Lady during that time?”

“Yes. I will bring her Broad Sun Fist to the fourth stage.”

A fundamental solution was impossible.

However, there seemed to be a way to see great effect for a time.

“Ha. And here I was wondering what you were going to say. Do you think I would agree to such an absurd game?”

“In the end it is only twelve hours total. Is it not good if she reaches the fourth stage by spending that short time?”

“Hmm.”

Wi Geum-myeong stroked his chin.

It seemed he was at least a little tempted.

“And if you fail?”

“Then you are back where you started. Her achievements were not progressing anyway.”

“Then let us do this. If the Seventh Young Lord succeeds, I will grant you one favor. Within what I am capable of, of course. But if you fail, you are never to show yourself near the Sixth Young Lady again.”

“Well, fine. Sounds fun. In that case, since I am already here, I will go to Sajeo. You have no objection, right?”

“None.”

I rose from my seat and started walking toward the door.

At that moment, Wi Geum-myeong stopped my steps.

“Stop for a moment.”

“Why?”

“What is the reason you insist on helping the Sixth Young Lady?”

“Who knows. You could call it the bond between sahyung and sajae.”

With a faint smile, I left the room.