348. Now is the time to stand alone (2)
It was a night with a full moon.
“……”
Muyoung holds out a bowl to me and gestures.
‘You can drink this.’
I was learning their sign language whenever I had time, so I was able to understand simple words.
Inside the bowl was a thick, purple liquid that seemed to literally contain the word ‘death’. It was a deadly poison made by mixing several poisonous plants that only grow in Yue Province.
It was one of the processes of learning to erase shadows, that is, to re-image. This is because one of the conditions that the head of the Wolyeonghoe had to meet was to perfectly handle the jeyeong that the martial artists had learned.
It is said that Baek Do-hwa learned Jeyeong naturally.
She was a wanderer and wanderer from an early age, and when she did not have much to eat due to the frequent wars of the conquering kings, she lived by grazing grass in the forest rather than stealing livestock from private households.
She, who had no knowledge of herbal medicine, naturally ended up ingesting poisonous plants. It would not have been strange for most people to die suddenly, but Baek Do-hwa, who had a strong body, rose to the level of invulnerability to all poisons and mastered the spirit in the process. I do it.
Baek Do-hwa’s Je-young was a completely different concept from the erasing of her shadow that she had created when she was young and playing hide-and-seek with her grandfather.
It’s not just about holding one’s breath and hiding one’s presence, but actually the pulse slows down and the body temperature goes down, reaching a state where it’s safe to call it a living corpse.
“……”
I looked down at the bowl where the scent of death was rising and drank it down.
“All at once…”
Surprised, Howell hurriedly stretched out her hand, but it was already too late.
There was a reason why she stopped me.
It is said that it is quite common for martial artists to die while trying to learn Jeyeong because their bodies cannot withstand the poison.
Unlike them, I, who had to master the art of meditation perfectly, had to inhale more than twice the amount of poison they had previously consumed.
To put it simply, it is not strange if one dies at any time. Nevertheless, my arm did not stop and went higher and higher.
Because I thought dying would be less painful.
As her Wolyeong Sword awakened and Baek Do-hwa’s memories became more intense, a side effect occurred to her.
Baek Do-hwa and Baek Cheon had a close relationship with each other to the extent that they were said to be a match made in heaven. However, this does not mean that Zeto and I can get married for a thousand years and look at each other and smile like they did hundreds of years ago.
My past life was just the distant past and not fate.
‘Let’s get married. And then you give birth to a child.’
Do you know the feeling of feeling like your lover has been taken away from you even though you are not even a lover?
An even bigger problem is that he may know about his past life.
If you reveal everything about your past life, it would be easy to be treated as a crazy person, and when he says he remembers his past life, he says, ‘We were destined.’ It wasn’t like she could get back together with him, throwing out lines like
I felt like it would be better to die.
Eisel Ludwig was saved by Zeto.
To him, Aizel is such a special being that he has to save her by giving up her life.
What about glass clementines?
She is Zeto’s first friend and the daughter of a duke. From her general perspective, it was probably a matter of common sense that Zeto, who was just a famous commoner knight, had no structure to lose by marrying her, who had a strong background as one of the four elemental families on the continent.
Lastly, Saint Bernice of Innocence.
The saint performed a miracle and brought Zeto back to life. Since I am her benefactor who rekindled the spark of her life in her burnt-out candle, I will live with kindness to her for the rest of my life. And it wouldn’t be strange if that favor changed into the name of love at any time.
Didn’t Lucia say that?
How romantic is the love story between a saint and a knight? No woman would disagree with that.
Then what am I?
From Zeto’s point of view, what kind of person is Kaen?
A friend or colleague who despised him and attacked him from the first time they met, but became obedient after being cruelly broken.
Although he had the background of being the successor of the Sword Saint, what difference would revealing this make to him who refused to become the Sword Saint’s disciple?
In his past life, he showed great interest in me to the point where he came to me first, but this is a story from the past when the women mentioned above did not exist.
You weren’t even blind back then.
It was Baek Cheon-gyeol who praised Baek Do-hwa and said that she was beautiful no matter what expression she made.
If he hadn’t lost his shine… If his tastes were as strong as mine now, no different from his previous life, he might have expressed interest in me.
However, I also know very well that this is just my delusion.
Even though he died and came back to life, his eyes, which were still the same, are not going to become normal overnight.
Of course, it wasn’t that I wasn’t completely interested.
Once, I kissed him out of anger in the hospital room.
If love was achieved with just one kiss, it wouldn’t have been painful. There has been no progress since then.
I felt that now was the time to take action.
First, we had to have the strength to fight them.
Coincidentally, that ‘power’ was ‘Wolyeonghoe’ that had been passed down from my past life.
Baek Do-hwa knew that Baek Cheon-gyeol would be reincarnated. However, she may not have guessed that she would also be reincarnated, but before leaving on the expedition, she gave one order.
‘If Baekcheon-gyeol’s reincarnation is in love with another woman, she will get rid of him without looking back.’
As the years passed, the jealous woman’s final command became the mission of the Wolyeonghoe. She Baek Do-hwa seems to have not wanted to see Baek Cheon-gyeol with another woman even after she died.
When the Muyoungs who were watching me were getting restless and waving their hands, Hawol and Nahwa were looking at each other with worried eyes.
Tak.
I put the empty bowl down on the rock.
“……”
My pulse was gradually slowing down and my vision was becoming blurry, but on the contrary, my mind was becoming clearer. For some reason, the poison flowing down my throat felt sweet.
“…Ugh.”
After a while, the aftermath comes.
She clutched her chest as the pain felt near her heart.
But she was able to endure it.
She and Baek Do-hwa were not much different from me.
I thought I could understand why she had given such a terrible command.
She said, “What kind of person would easily give a sweet apple to someone else right after tasting it?”
The apple was originally mine.
It’s okay if it’s not just mine.
It may be greedy to keep the fruit that everyone else covets.
But the ‘first’ had to be me.
…Just like back then.
***
“Huh…?”
Zeto’s reaction was slow.
If it were normal, he would have turned around and asked my name and what was going on.
“Ah… I’m sorry, Cadet Zeto. I was just curious what kind of special training it was.”
Seeing him in a state of confusion, the corners of his mouth naturally rose with a sense of accomplishment that he had succeeded in mastering Jeyeong.
I lost consciousness in one night after drinking far more than the lethal dose that would have taken me a week to drink, but I did not die.
That was the preparation stage.
In order to master Jeyeong, various conditions were necessary.
From then on, I learned walking techniques from Muyoung every single day during my vacation.
Normally, even that would have taken several months, but secretly following Jeto from time to time was beneficial, and in just a few days, I was able to freely use the footwork.
Moreover, being able to sense his mood played a huge role.
This is because I was able to naturally figure out what to do to avoid being captured by the ‘lighthouse’ called energy.
Kuung. Cooung.
A very subtle sound that repeats at regular intervals passes through my body.
Zeto looked back while spitting out his words and was still actively scattering his energy here and there.
“……”
Jetto scratched his cheek without saying a word even when I spoke to him.
“…Cadet Zeto?”
I spoke to Zeto again, covering his mouth for no reason. It was very difficult to resist the desire to attack him at any moment.
***
That night.
The window opens in Kaen’s room located in the women’s dormitory.
“……”
The one who opened the window without a sound and came in was a stranger wearing a deep robe.
Judging by the fact that he took out a dagger from his chest and approached the bed without a single sound of footsteps, it seems that the gunman had one goal.
The gunman was about to click his tongue when he could not feel any movement in the room, even though it was his own saliva.
ㅡSereung.
A pure white sword appears on the monster’s neck.
Soon, Kaen, dressed in pajamas and holding her sword, opens her mouth.
“Are you here? Grandpa.”
“……”
At her hospitality, the stranger scratched his head and lowered the hood attached to his robe.
From Noble mtl dot com
“You’ve improved a lot. It looks like you went to the East and learned some secret techniques?”
The identity of the stranger is none other than ‘Sword Saint’ Chris.
He was also her adoptive father who took in her newborn baby, Kaen.
“I got something more than that.”
Kaen immediately takes back the sword that was pointed at Chris’ neck and leads him away.
“Where did you get that sword?”
Chris notices that Kaen’s sword has changed and begins to examine the fancy scabbard of the Wolyeong sword.
“I picked it up in the east.”
“It looks like there’s a lock… Did you put it there?”
The lock that Chris mentioned was referring to the magic spell used on the Wolyeong Sword.
“Shall I say so?”
“Hmm…”
Chris sighs at Kaen’s ambiguous answer.
‘I can’t get used to it because it has changed so much in just a short period of time. ‘Maybe I should have come by more often…’
Even the world’s greatest swordsman could not avoid the sorrowful feelings of a parent who sent her child outside the fence.
“I thought it was time to find you a blacksmith…”
“Unless you want to pass on her grandfather’s sword, I’m not particularly interested.”
Kaen shrugged her shoulders.
Understandably, Geomseong’s sword was a very special sword, just like her ‘Wolyeonggeom’.
The first sword of the legendary blacksmith Headgrad.
They say craftsmen do not blame their tools, but to a swordsman, the sword is their soul. Naturally, the more skilled a swordsman he is, the better the sword he wants.
The sword, known as the Great Sword of the Sword Saint, had been passed down from generation to generation. In the first place, ‘being the owner of Headgrad’s first sword’ was one of the prerequisites for becoming a sword master.
Actually, Chris didn’t always carry the great sword, saying that his back seemed to be aching these days.
“It belongs to your grandson.”
Chris waved his hand at Kaen’s answer and immediately got into the main topic.
“You probably read the newspaper, right?”
“Of course I saw it. The Academy was in an uproar because of it.”
“hahahaha, it’s quite fun to watch other people’s heroic stories. But while reading the article, I suddenly became curious.”
“Is there any progress?”
“…”
In response to Kaen’s question, Chris nodded her head and held out her palm as if to ask her to speak.
“Unfortunately, there is no particular progress.”
“Kaen, the situation is different than before. Have you heard any news from ‘Black Hand’ recently? They say the number of people taking interest in him has increased.”
“I guess so.”
Kaen turned her head and looked out her window and answered in an indifferent voice.
“Are you not really interested? I’ve never been married before, but as far as I know, there are a lot of things to prepare before the ceremony…”
“…Grandpa.”
To her frustration, Kaen abruptly cuts off Chris’s voice that was nagging her instead of nagging her.
“…Hmm?”
“Don’t worry too much. You’ll be able to hold your grandchild sooner or later. Getting married doesn’t mean you’ll have a child, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes in life, you end up skipping steps even if you don’t want to. Don’t you think so?”
“Well, that should be so…”
Is it because I sensed an unexpectedly strong venom in Kaen’s narrowed eyes?
Chris, who tried to encourage her and felt her embarrassment in return, tried to make her smile, but cold sweat was already dripping down his forehead.
“Well, if you like it too much, it ‘could happen’.”