The Fallen Ones (2)

Jin-hyeon couldn’t deny it was the first time since returning that his heart had been shaken this badly.

Se-hwi, Do-cheon.

Of the two, Do-cheon was the First Young Master’s name, and Se-hwi was Jin-hyeon’s name, buried in the past.

He might say Gyeong Do-cheon, but Gyeong Se-hwi wasn’t a name the father laid low by illness would bring to his lips.

Even when he left that merchant house, Father had still been steady. He suffered from a severe illness, but his mind was clear, and his memory had no problems.

Could a person really fall apart this much in just a few months?

Then, Gyeong In-geol spoke again.

“Why is there no answer?”

In that instant, Jin-hyeon’s eyes gleamed.

‘…’

As he looked down at Gyeong In-geol, he slowly drew up the Soul-Refining Art.

Uuuung.

As if another heart had settled between his brows, his entire brain began to thrum.

As he trained the Heavenly Wolf True Art, his attainment in the Soul-Refining Art rose naturally as well, but that didn’t mean he could use the Mind’s Eye without limit. The more often he used it, the more it could strain the upper dantian.

The Mind’s Eye was a secret art that maximized cognition and activated a sixth sense beyond the five senses.

But if one accepted that information as-is, the brain would overload. To be free of that, one would have to reach at least the fourth stage of the Heavenly Wolf.

Jin-hyeon only opened half of the Mind’s Eye and classified the other’s emotions by color as a measure to keep his brain from breaking. Reading thoughts and the actions beyond them was difficult, but he could distinguish immediate emotions and the tremor of the heart.

The Eight Wastes Alliance Leader had called it Soul-Refining Color Eye.

After a moment.

‘As I thought.’

He had thought Gyeong In-geol’s condition was too extreme. With breathing so weak it seemed it could go out, and pupils so hazy, it wouldn’t be strange if he died at any moment.

Yet his life force was not as ruined as it looked.

There was only one answer.

“Open your eyes properly.”

“…”

“What are you so afraid of that you’re pretending to be mad?”

At that moment.

Gyeong In-geol’s hazy eyes gradually regained focus.

The rattling breath remained, but its depth changed slightly. With that subtle change alone, he shifted from a dying man to a sick middle-aged man.

Gyeong In-geol looked up with steady eyes at the white-haired young man standing before him.

Backlit by candlelight, he looked like a human-shaped monster breathing pale smoke.

“…You?”

“…”

“Is it truly Se-hwi?”

Surprise gathered in Gyeong In-geol’s eyes.

His voice, mixed with ragged breath, trembled faintly.

“I thought Do-cheon sent someone. That child wants me to die as soon as possible.”

“…”

“Did Do-cheon even stage your disappearance? Are you on that bastard’s side too?”

He meant that rather than killing him by staging a disappearance, he might have joined hands with him to plot.

Jin-hyeon silently shook his head.

Bloodshot veins rose in Gyeong In-geol’s eyes.

“If not, how are you here? I thought Do-cheon killed you.”

“He did.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. Surely I’m not dreaming right now? If you’re spouting nonsense about talking to ghosts…”

“Enough.”

It was an even, yet cold word. A voice that would make even a truly mad man feel reality in that moment. Clear authority sat in the calm tone.

With a languid face, Jin-hyeon continued.

“I did not come to hear your nonsense.”

Gyeong In-geol swallowed without realizing.

His adopted son’s speech had changed too much.

The Gyeong Se-hwi he remembered was always bright, and kind to an incomprehensible degree. Despite that thick build, he had a gentle nature that couldn’t even throw punches at street ruffians.

An adopted son who always enjoyed talking, and liked making people laugh with silly jokes.

Yet that adopted son appeared with a body whittled down, ghostlike white hair, and a mask that had sharpened like a blade.

In his low voice was an authority that could not be resisted, and in speech that drifted between honorifics and bluntness was a coldness that allowed no lies. If he hadn’t seen him grow from childhood, he could believe he was a completely different person.

“There is only one fact I want to hear.”

The candle flame did not move, yet his adopted son’s hair writhed on its own.

He recognized it as reality, yet the bearing didn’t feel real at all. The adopted son’s face stained with darkness looked like a bottomless pit with a hole punched through it.

If not for the pair of blue-jade lights shimmering where his eyes were, he might have believed he was a real monster.

“Did you also play a part in my death?”

Calling him Father at first had been nothing but a remnant of the past that slipped out.

Jin-hyeon drew a clean line. The favor of feeding and housing him was hard to forget, but if he had spent ten years polishing a tool to use and discard, then Jin-hyeon did not have to treat him as a person either.

In the fight with Jong-baek, and in his attitude, Jin-hyeon could make his own stance clear.

“Death…”

Jin-hyeon’s words made Gyeong In-geol infer everything.

Gyeong In-geol closed his eyes.

“Were you hurt by it?”

He was asking if he felt hurt toward him, who had raised him tenderly, only to strike him down more and more coldly.

“I was.”

Because it was no longer so, he could say it flatly.

Jin-hyeon wanted nothing from Gyeong In-geol but the truth. He was no longer hurt, nor angry.

He only needed to confirm it. Whether he would cut the tie after repaying the debt with death, or whether even an ember of grudge remained.

“Yes, I knew. But I had no choice either. As you know, the Patriarch’s seat of the Divine Iron Merchant House was not originally passed down by blood. By the time of your grandfather, the Gyeong clan…”

“Did you know Gyeong Do-cheon was trying to kill me and condone it? Or did you not know?”

“!!”

“If you don’t answer, I’ll take it as you played a part in my death, and I will send you off without pain.”

He wouldn’t listen to useless talk. If he didn’t answer, there would be no more conversation. That was what Jin-hyeon’s words meant.

He had been feeling his adopted son’s changes moment by moment, but at this moment, even Gyeong In-geol could only be miserable. Because he realized the adopted son he had shown affection to out of necessity no longer saw him as a person.

‘Do-cheon. Were you truly planning to kill Se-hwi and kill this father too, and take the House for yourself?’

Gyeong In-geol let out a silent lament.

Looking down at him, Jin-hyeon slowly drew his sword.

Amazingly, there was no sound at all. Even though the massive greatsword had been drawn, there was almost no movement of air, and even the candle flame didn’t tremble.

Seureuk.

The edge of the heavy greatsword touched Gyeong In-geol’s throat. If he simply let his hand go, the Adam’s apple would be crushed and he would suffocate.

With death so near, Gyeong In-geol’s face grew even paler. But only for a moment. He pressed his lips together, then opened his eyes with force.

Jin-hyeon’s eyes gleamed.

‘He isn’t afraid.’

His complexion had changed not because he feared death, but because he couldn’t die yet.

Of course, Jin-hyeon had no interest in Gyeong In-geol’s circumstances.

“I’ll ask one last time.”

“…”

“Did you play a part in my death?”

Gyeong In-geol swallowed dryly and gave a small shake of his head.

“I truly didn’t know Do-cheon would kill you.”

“I see.”

“But it is also true that I wished you would disappear somewhere. Even if that was… death.”

Jin-hyeon neatly withdrew the sword.

After sheathing it smoothly, he quietly looked at Gyeong In-geol.

After a moment.

“One month.”

“…What?”

“In a month, the Hundred Poisons parasitizing your body will sever your heart meridians. That day will be the day you die.”

“?!”

“You were someone I once regarded as a father, so I’m telling you at least to let you prepare yourself.”

Jin-hyeon turned.

“I held no grudge, and I will count the favor repaid in full by the blade of your blood-born child. Let us not meet again.”

Gyeong In-geol, staring with his mouth agape, asked urgently.

“H-how do you know I’m poisoned? Even the Chief Physician only barely… after watching the course of the illness for dozens of days…”

Jin-hyeon didn’t answer. The tie ended here.

Gyeong In-geol’s face flushed red.

He realized his adopted son had truly buried everything. At the same time, he realized he had returned as a formidable master, though he didn’t know how.

And that he possessed an eye keen enough to recognize poisoning symptoms at a glance.

There was no time. And there was no way. Gyeong In-geol spoke again.

“Help me!”

Jin-hyeon carefully opened the door.

Gyeong In-geol cried out as if vomiting blood.

“Save the clan!”

Jin-hyeon’s hand paused for an instant. Gyeong In-geol swallowed and spoke quickly.

“Our house is a clan founded by blacksmiths. And the clan’s blacksmiths have done no wrong. They still only hammer iron with burning passion.”

“…”

“From the start, Divine Iron was a group that should never have become a clan. So at least save them. So that the clan, no, so that at least the line of the Divine Iron Great Guild can continue… I beg you.”

Jin-hyeon, who had stood still with the door open, closed it again.

Gyeong In-geol let out a sigh of relief. His adopted son had finally listened.

But he couldn’t let his guard down.

“What can you give me?”

“What?”

Jin-hyeon slowly turned.

In that instant, Gyeong In-geol felt a terror that made his breath stop.

It wasn’t fear of death. His adopted son’s face, his white smile and gleaming eyes, was stained with a vicious desire that stirred primal human instincts.

Completely different from the earlier indifference, it was the face of a demon one could hardly face even after dying and becoming a ghost.

“You are not in a position to ask me. But…”

“…”

“A deal can be made.”

It felt as if pale smoke poured from Jin-hyeon’s mouth.

The moment he turned from a ‘human’ who came to close out debts into a ‘monster’ that destroyed everything it touched.

Gyeong In-geol regretted his choice in an instant. The adopted son who returned alive was that terrifying and bizarre.

But no matter how he thought, he had no other way.

If he died like this, he would wander the nine heavens unable to imagine anything but the clan collapsing. He couldn’t allow that. While his breath still held, he had to do everything he could.

Gyeong In-geol shut his eyes tight.

“What do you want?”

“What can you do for me?”

“There is nothing I can do for you.”

“Then there is no deal.”

“Except for one thing.”

“…”

“Our house’s Patriarch’s seat. I will give it to you.”

Jin-hyeon cocked his head.

“Do you think I would covet the owner’s seat of an old house that isn’t even worth remembering?”

“You won’t need it. I know. You won’t even want to be entangled. It is the clan that saved you, but also the clan that killed you.”

Gyeong In-geol spoke calmly.

“I will give you my neck as well.”

“…”

“When the deal is fulfilled, if I can live until then… then I will give you my neck.”

“If I wanted to cut your neck, I would have cut it without asking for reasons. You cannot make a deal using collateral with no stake value.”

Gyeong In-geol clenched his teeth.

It was misery beyond measure. It had been the same a moment ago, but truly, he had never imagined he would hear such words from his adopted son.

“But.”

Jin-hyeon rubbed his chin.

“Now that I think of it, there is one thing you can give.”

“…What?”

Whoosh.

The candle flame trembled slightly.

Before he knew it, Jin-hyeon was before the bed, kneeling, and holding Gyeong In-geol’s hand.

In that instant, Gyeong In-geol felt gooseflesh rise over his entire body. From within his adopted son’s icy palm, it felt as if thousands of snakes and scorpions were crawling up in a swarm.

“If you give me that, I will accept this deal with a glad heart.”

“…Say it.”

Jin-hyeon leaned to his ear and whispered something.

With a feeling as if the sky were collapsing, Gyeong In-geol accepted the monster’s proposal.