Chapter 21

“This is….”

Whose memory is this? Is it mine? There’s no way it is. Where was its owner going, and why did Ishtar look as though she were about to cry?

Who am I?

My head swam.

“…Probably.”

“Yes.”

Ishtar smiled.

I got a grip on my reeling head.

Right. Just as she says, this is nothing but a momentary vision.

“Ishtar.”

“Even if I put questions to you now, you won’t answer them.”

“The reason?”

“Is that so.”

“Then go and perform the role you’ve been given.”

Ishtar smiled gently and spoke.

Ishtar came closer and gave the star-shaped earring set at my ear a light tap.

“I’ll engrave it on my heart.”

Ishtar folded her hands respectfully and stepped back a few paces. For a while we looked at one another without speaking.

“Speak.”

“Probably.”

“…”

“That too I’ll engrave on my heart.”

“Yes.”

“If fate isn’t too heartless.”

“Ishtar.”

“Why are you weeping?”

“When the tears rise, let them fall.”

Ishtar dropped her head. I watched her quietly for a while, then went over to her, reached out, and wiped away the tears running down her cheek. I couldn’t say why. I simply wanted to.

Ishtar smiled.

“Ishtar.”

“I’m sorry.”

I had never seen that expression on her before. What in the world is this person to me, that she shows me a feeling this deep?

Ishtar lowered herself, brought both hands together and gathered the star at my ear into them as though it were something precious. Eyes closed, she spoke, almost in a whisper.

I closed my eyes as well. And as the stopped time scattered away like something out of a dream, her voice rang out, far off and fading.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

My eyes snapped open. Ishtar was nowhere to be seen. Only Moyong Rin and Moyong Danho were there, gazing at me.

“You okay? You put the earring on and went blank all of a sudden.”
“Gwang-seon. Are you tired?”
“Is this the relic’s doing? This is exactly why you shouldn’t go messing about with relics. They’re dangerous!”

I felt as though I’d woken from a dream. Already what had happened a moment ago felt like one.

“Hey, your ear’s bleeding.”

At Moyong Rin’s words I felt at my ear. Through the faint ache spreading out from the pierced earlobe, I could feel the power held inside the earring.

Three of them in all: Blessing of Moonlight, Sleep of Non-Action, Tetrahedron Explosion.

No — four.

The nameless blessing Ishtar had granted at the last. I could roughly work out what the other three did; that one alone I couldn’t.

I’ll know when the time comes.

As with everything else.

“Gwang-seon.”
“Hm?”
“Are you really all right?”
“You look completely out of it. Did you have a dream or something?”
“A dream?”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“Probably.”

“What? What are you laughing at?”
“Are you sure you’re all right? You seem strange.”

Once I’d set the two of them at ease, we rested a while and then stood in front of the exit. Before going out I tapped the ring and checked the battery. It had been running on empty, and now it was topped right up to full. Another gift from Ishtar, that.

I laid my hand on the center of the exit.

— Vwoooom—

— Krrrik— clack-clack—

“Wow, at last!”
“We’re out!”

As the Three-Point Gate opened I stood quietly watching the two of them go whooping out through it… and then, on an impulse, I looked back.

There in the dim darkness, Ishtar was smiling quietly.

I nodded, and followed the two of them out through the Three-Point Gate.

“I honestly thought we were going to starve to death in there.”
“The moment we’re back I’m telling the others all about our adventure in the ruins.”
“Report first, idiot.”
“Ah, that’s right. We were on a mission, weren’t we? Heh heh, we go back like this and first place is as good as ou— ah.”

The moment we stepped out of the Three-Point Gate, a cruel reality came down on us without warning. The guest we’d forgotten about for a while had both arms spread wide to welcome us. No, make that one arm.

“I felt the tremor and came to have a look. Well now, isn’t this lucky.”

The Smiling Ghost came slowly toward us, eyes flashing above that grin. Blood dripped steadily from the stump where his arm had been cut away.

“I was going to make a run for it myself. But with one arm the numbers just don’t add up, you know? And I was curious about what was in there, besides.”

“Draw your swords!”

At Moyong Danho’s shout I hauled out my sword, and in the same instant the Smiling Ghost came flying at us. There was no time to do anything. The fight was on.

— Cla-clang! Clang!

He swung his saber, laughing like a ghost. Had he grown used to the missing arm that fast? His movements had turned twice as savage, and they were desperately hard to answer.

Going into the ruins and coming out again hadn’t produced any dramatic change. All Danho and Moyong Rin had managed was to conserve their stamina. And even I had no sharp answer. Two of the abilities the earring had given me weren’t for fighting, and as for the last one, using it now would only mean the lot of us dying together in perfect harmony.

Damn it.

I knocked the Smiling Ghost’s long saber aside and thought.

What do I do?

Of course, there was a way to break this situation open. The battery was fully charged; all I had to do was blast the bastard with the laser. He had witnessed my power, so he had to be killed without fail.

But if I do that, the two of them will find out about my power.

Big Bro Un-cheon’s warning came back to me. They’d take that power even if it meant eating me alive. Wasn’t that how he’d put it? Trust nobody, he’d insisted. Hide it the way you’d hide your own life.

I thought about setting off a flash to blind everyone the way I had earlier, but a cheap trick like that doesn’t work twice on a master. If anything it would only blind my own side.

“Kh!”
“Danho!”

While I hesitated, a gash opened across Moyong Danho’s thigh and blood sprayed. The Smiling Ghost laughed like a ghost.

“Want to live? Try it with a little more feeling.”

He slipped Moyong Rin’s sword with an uncanny movement, spun about and drove in at Moyong Danho. One side of the combined-attack formation had crumbled, and he was going after that side relentlessly.

— Kraaang!

Moyong Danho barely managed to block the saber strike. The Smiling Ghost grinned all over his face.

“Smile.”
“What?”
“A smiling face looks better on you before you die.”
“You mad bastard.”

The slender saber, knocked aside, seemed to bend at a strange angle, and then it came down on Danho’s shoulder like a whip.

— Whump!

Maybe Moyong Danho’s body was just that tough. Or maybe the bastard’s saber, long and thin, simply hadn’t put much force behind the blow. Fortunately, the blade hadn’t bitten in very deep.

— Skrrrk—

But instead of knocking the bastard’s long saber away, Moyong Danho dragged it toward himself so it couldn’t pull free, and shouted.

“Go!”
“What?”
“I’ll buy you time somehow, so run!”

For a moment it was as though someone had hit me over the head with a hammer.

Moyong Danho jerked his chin toward Moyong Rin, who was flinging herself at the Smiling Ghost yelling at him not to talk nonsense, and said to me.

“Gwang-seon! Take Rin and go! Right now!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! You die and I’ll kill you!”
“Haha, very touching.”

Moyong Rin ignored him and attacked. The Smiling Ghost handled her at his leisure, smiling all the while, with his blade still held fast by Danho. That was the size of the gap between us and him.

Moyong Danho’s shoulder was stained red with blood. I stared blankly at the sight.

Red. Damnably so.

What in the world had I been thinking? Something so stupid.

“What are you doing standing there like a fool! Can’t you hear me?”
“Danho.”
“What!”
“Why?”

In that brief instant, Moyong Danho, covered in blood, grinned.

“Why d’you think. Because we’re comrades-in-arms, you goddamn idiot.”
“I see.”

Not enough.

Still.

— Whump!

“Argh!”

I kicked Moyong Rin away as she flew at the Smiling Ghost, and then I raised my hand and took aim at him.

The bastard sneered.

“Little brat. That’s not going to wor—”

— Vwip—

A brilliant light flooded my whole field of vision. When it faded, there was the Smiling Ghost, everything from his shoulder to his chest simply gone.

“Ugh, uh….”

— Thump.

Those were the Smiling Ghost’s last words. I looked down at the bastard’s face and murmured.

“Still funny?”

No answer came back.

“…”

“…”

Silence closed in around us. I was still taking in the astonishment on both their faces when I felt someone there. My stomach dropped. The bastard hadn’t come here alone.

The One-Eyed Dragon?

The instant I hurriedly trained a finger in that direction, an extremely familiar face popped into view.

“Kids! Are you all right?”
“Big Bro Un-cheon!”

I asked, half startled, half glad.

“How did you get here?”

“I was worried, so I came after you. This fiend here. I’d wondered where he’d run off to — crawled back inside, had he. No — these wounds…?”

Before I could explain, another presence made itself felt. Heavy footsteps. And this time the figure was one I’d never expected.

“…General?”

He looked at us without a word, and then flung away the thing he’d been carrying in one hand.

A head with only one eye rolled across the ground.

“…”

We stared blankly at the One-Eyed Dragon’s head. This easily?

General Hwa Mu-hong, who had tossed down an enemy commander’s head as offhandedly as a present picked up along the way, ran his eyes over us and spoke.

“What was that ominous light just now?”

In that instant my eyes met Moyong Danho’s and Moyong Rin’s. Without a word passing between us, the two of them hurriedly got their story straight.

“We don’t know anything about it either.”
“A beam of light suddenly came out of the ruins with a vwip, and when we shut our eyes and opened them again it was like this.”
“Is that the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm….”

General Hwa Mu-hong looked back and forth with doubtful eyes between the Smiling Ghost’s corpse and the ruins’ exit we’d come out of, and.

“Understood, for now. You there — see to your wounds. You’re bleeding badly.”
“Ah, yes.”

While Danho hurriedly sealed the acupoints around the wound and tore up cloth to stanch the bleeding, Moyong Rin came over beside me and whispered.

“Hey. We need to talk later.”
“Could we not?”
“Fine, don’t then. General!”
“I love a good talk.”

On the way back.

“Shall I carry you as well?”
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt badly enough for that.”

I looked at the huge back of General Hwa Mu-hong, striding along with Danho on it, asleep as though he’d fainted, probably from losing so much blood. Moyong Rin trotted along at his side, watching Danho’s color with a worried face.

In her hand was a bundle with the two fiends’ heads inside, bright red blood dripping off it. Carrying severed heads around like a packed lunch without batting an eye. A murim warrior to the bone, that’s you, Moyong Rin.

Is this what they call gap moe…?¹

“Just how strong are the Imperial Army’s Ten Generals?”
“Monsters on a level with the sect leaders of the Nine Great Sects and the family heads of the Five Great Families.”
“No. That strong?”

“Gwang-seon.”
“Yes.”
“Let me give you one piece of wisdom for life.”
“What is it?”
“So far as you possibly can, don’t make an enemy of the imperial house.”
“I’ve got that much wisdom myself.”
“The Imperial Army is as good as the mightiest faction under heaven. Stronger than the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Families put together.”
“Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?”

Supposing, as Big Bro Un-cheon said, that a Ten General’s capability was on a par with a sect leader of the Nine Great Sects or a family head of the Five Great Families, then counting only the heads themselves it was fourteen to ten. And on top of that, how many masters must there be lying low out there?

“It’s no exaggeration. In terms of sheer capability the orthodox coalition might well be stronger. But the Imperial Army still has the upper hand, and that is because they are an army to begin with and follow orders. Fundamentally different from a coalition with a tangle of competing interests.”
“Hm.”
“The Imperial Army does not ask questions. It only obeys. The orthodox sects organized the Murim Alliance to stand against them, but it’s no match at all. Unless there’s a cause every one of them can agree on, it’ll split four ways and five. Well, right now they’ve got the northern barbarians to deal with, so they won’t have the leisure for it anyway.”

The difference between one tightly packed mass and a bundle tied up with slack string, then.

“And above all. There’s the Grand General.”
“The Grand General?”
“That’s right. The peak of the Imperial Army. The one who commands the Ten Generals. As things stand, one of the few men rated closest to being the greatest under heaven.”

I tilted my head. Big Bro Un-cheon didn’t look happy as he spoke of the Grand General.

A bad history, maybe.

“And it’s the imperial house that gives the orders to that Imperial Army. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
“So basically don’t get cocky, is what you’re saying.”
“Well. More or less, I suppose.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”

That General Hwa Mu-hong definitely suspects me of something. No. He’s certain. Judging by the way he followed us all the way here, he just can’t prove it. At the very least, he plainly didn’t take my word at face value.

Relentless man.

Was Big Bro Un-cheon’s confession attack not enough? On top of that, he witnessed the laser. He didn’t directly see me fire it, but he isn’t fool enough to miss that it has something to do with me.

The waiter’s greatest crisis, in other words. I’d barely gotten past a warrior of the Demonic Cult and now it’s one of the Imperial Army’s Ten Generals. One mountain after another.

And unlike the warriors of the Demonic Cult, killing him feels wrong. He doesn’t look like a villain. Even now he’s quietly carrying Danho on his back. No. Would killing him even be possible? Even the Smiling Ghost dodged my laser.

“Don’t worry. I’ll go and settle it with him.”

“…”

“Oi? What’s that look? Most impertinent.”
“How? Are you going to hit him with another confession attack?”
“I’ll have a sincere grown-up conversation with him.”
“And say what?”
“Kids don’t need to know.”
“Is that really going to be enough?”
“If it really won’t do, I’ll kill him.”

I stared at Big Bro Un-cheon. You said he’s on the level of a sect leader of the Nine Great Sects. You lunatic.

Big Bro Un-cheon grinned.

“I’d win.”

“…”

Around the time the sun was sinking low, we were getting camp ready. Gathering twigs, lighting a fire, sorting out somewhere to sleep. And then.

“General. Let’s talk a moment.”

Big Bro Un-cheon called the General out. Perhaps a quarter of an hour went by like that, and then the two of them came back to the camp together.

The same blunt face as ever. General Hwa Mu-hong’s expression never changed, so there was no reading it.

Naturally my eyes drifted to Big Bro Un-cheon. When I asked with my eyes, he drew a V with his fingers.

“Cold Moon Wanderer’s nego-table skills, for real?”

…Where does he pick this weird stuff up.

“You have all worked hard this past week!”

Moyong Jin-seong, the family head, climbed onto the platform and looked around at the proud young of the Moyong Family, who had carried out their missions in earnest for seven days and nights. Some were wrapped in bandages where they’d taken injuries; some had eyes a shade brighter for having gained something; and some stood with their shoulders slumped, their results not having gone well.

“Some teams will have succeeded in their missions, and some will have failed.”

At the family head’s words, some threw out their chests and lifted their chins, and others hung their heads or pulled bitter faces.

“Teams that failed, think hard on what you lacked! Reflect, take this as a lesson, and press on all the more bravely. Teams that did well, do not grow complacent. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then I will announce third place first.”

Expectant eyes gathered on him. Into the tense hush, Moyong Jin-seong called out.

“Moyong Hyeon, Moyong Hyeok, Moyong Hu! Come forward.”

— Uwaaah—!

Cheers burst out and the three of them threw their arms around one another. The others clapped and slapped their shoulders in congratulation, and fond smiles came to the lips of the elders and the rest of the Moyong Family’s grown-ups as they watched.

“Ho ho, siblings teamed up together, did they.”
“Good to see brother and sister on such good terms.”
“They say the three of them are so well attuned, like the three strings of an instrument, that people are already calling them the Moyong Three Strings?”

The Moyong Three Strings came forward through a storm of applause and received their prize from Moyong Jin-seong.

“One Grade B mission and two Grade A missions solved, was it? Well done. Your futures look bright.”
“Thank you!”
“We’ll live up to your expectations!”

Next, second place was announced.

“Moyong Daegi, Moyong Chul-dong, Moyong Gun-ja!”

— Waaaah—!

“A good combination, that.”
“Hasty Daegi meeting steady Chul-dong — looks as though they’ve covered each other’s gaps.²”
“I hear Gun-ja has a somewhat rough side. But how could that be a flaw in a warrior?”³

These three, too, came forward amid the cheering and received their prize from Moyong Jin-seong.

“I hear you handled three Grade A missions. Great things are expected of you.”
“We won’t disappoint you!”

With only first place left, a murmur rippled through the crowd like water.

“Where’s our Gwang-seon? I don’t see him.”
“Where on earth have Danho and Rin got to?”
“Surely they haven’t still not made it back….”
“Seems those three aren’t back yet.”
“Has something happened?”
“Well, surveying a ruin site is dangerous work….”

Standing on the platform, Moyong Jin-seong turned his head and sought out Moyong Bi, who answered by voice transmission.

— Please do not worry. The Cold Moon Wanderer accompanied them.

They were only a little late, surely. Surely that was all it was. Don’t be shaken. Isn’t everyone watching?

Having settled his anxious heart that way, Moyong Jin-seong called out first place.

“First place, having dispatched no fewer than five Grade A missions — Moyong Pae-cheon, Moyong Gun-ak, Moyong Cheon-bung! Come forward!”

“Five. Impressive.”
“The direct line, of course.”
“That’s nearly one a day, isn’t it?”
“This cohort really does have a lot of talent in it.”

And just as they were walking out to everyone’s congratulations, a murmur rose and a commotion spread.

“Huh?”
“Wh-whoa!”
“They’re here! They’re here!”

Heads turned and everyone’s attention gathered. Even the family head Moyong Jin-seong stopped his reading and gazed toward where the commotion had sprung up.

— Thock.

The crowd parted and three people appeared.

They must have come straight here the moment they arrived; their state was beyond bedraggled. Danho in particular was swathed in bandages and limping on one leg.

“Hmph. Beaten stragglers, no less.”
“Looks as though it was a fearsomely hard mission.”
“Is first place going to change hands?”
“Even so, all they handled was one Grade A mission, wasn’t it? However dangerous it was.”
“If they’d accomplished some great feat, that’d be a different story.”
“What could there have been in a ruin site everyone’s already been through?”

Each of them was gripping a heavy bundle, and a few of the onlookers’ eyes fixed on the bundle Moyong Rin was carrying.

“Hm? What’s that Rin’s holding?”
“…Blood?”
“Don’t tell me she cut off a fiend’s head and brought it back?”
“No — never mind that. What’s that Gwang-seon’s holding?”

The bundle in Gwang-seon’s hand was writhing about wildly, as though it were alive.