Chapter 361: Chapter 361
There was no welcome party.
After the Great Journey—the Academy’s final event—there was supposed to be a grand banquet honoring the students. But this time, no such occasion was arranged.
The Academy atmosphere, which should have loosened and grown lively toward the end of the term, remained eerily still.
With graduation approaching, the students felt less anticipation over which pavilion’s invitation letter might arrive for them, and more a bitter ache over whose funeral would come first.
Rather than wanting to leave the Academy even a day sooner, everyone wished time would simply stop.
Several students were summoned to the Execution Pavilion for questioning.
All those who had served as Captains were called in, along with a number of ordinary unit members.
The thorough investigation that the Execution Pavilion’s personnel had mentioned must have begun.
Since all the instructors were under investigation at the Inspection Office, there were no classes, and I too spent my time at the dormitory.
SWISH—
The blade unfurled and filled the personal training ground.
Minor Heaven Sword Art followed by Great Heaven Sword Art.
Then the Twin Heaven Sword Formula, deployed in a chained sequence.
I poured it all out, again and again.
SWISH—
I kept unleashing Illusion Swords until my own eyes spun from the display.
[AAAAAH!]
[Is this where it ends……?]
[Those goddamn bastards……]
I swung the sword again and again, trying to erase the vivid memories surfacing in my mind.
I knew full well that mere physical exertion couldn’t erase memories like these.
That was precisely why I’d suffered alone in the deep mountains in my previous life.
Even in the place I’d fled to, I couldn’t find freedom.
SWISH—
I launched my sword at the charging demonic practitioners once more.
The same sword as back then.
I tried a different approach.
Instead of cutting down the charging demonic practitioners, I thrust and shoved them back.
“Damn it……!”
But people still died.
As my mastery of the Taeul True Scripture deepened, the episodes of reliving memories from my past life had decreased significantly—yet these newly carved memories still inflamed my emotions.
THUMP—
I tried swinging faster.
I deployed defensive forms, then Shattering Forms.
But people still died.
THUMP—
Someone bled out and died again.
No matter how much inner arts I poured in, how many times I swung my sword, how many times I threw myself forward—they kept dying.
THUMP—
I’d reached a realm incomparably higher than my previous life.
THUMP—
Yet within my memories, I remained powerless.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP—
I swung the sword once more.
SWISH—
The most optimal positioning at the most optimal speed.
A little faster each time.
A little more precise each time.
How much time had passed?
The sun, which hadn’t yet reached its zenith, was already sinking low on the horizon.
“Hah, hah, hah.”
The inner arts in my qi center were completely drained, and the hand gripping the Red Radiance Sword trembled violently.
As I steadied my breathing, a voice came from behind.
“Who the hell trains this recklessly?”
It was Hwa Jeong-san.
I’d known he’d arrived three hours ago.
There was no way I could have missed it—he’d blatantly announced his presence from far away.
But I pretended not to notice.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.
I’d have to exchange words with people until I was sick of it soon enough anyway.
But our dear Hwa Jeong-san was, as always, utterly graceless.
“Hey, you ignoring me?”
“Hah…… You really have no sense, do you?”
“What’d you say, punk?”
He walked up to the training ground, found a spot, and plopped down on the ground.
“If you wanted to blow off some steam, you should’ve called me. I was going to show you my new New Plum Blossom Sword.”
“So I can be your punching bag, Senior?”
Hwa Jeong-san wore a blank expression for a moment, then furrowed his brow.
“Is that what you’re worried about? Who could possibly blame you?”
“Sometimes a person needs an outlet to pour their grief into. Isn’t that why you came looking for me, Senior?”
“……”
I did nothing wrong.
Even when I retraced my memories and reviewed everything, that was my best.
If luck hadn’t been on our side, more people would have died.
I believe fortune played its part.
‘Yeah, that’s exactly right.’
But even knowing it in my head—isn’t it human nature to seek a way to release the frustration weighing on your chest?
Knowing something is inevitable, yet refusing to accept it.
Especially when I learned that none of my own comrades had died.
That irrational thought spirals to its extreme.
I’d felt the same way when Taeul Sect was destroyed and I received the death notices of my junior brothers stationed at the Murim Alliance.
A voice barely concealing its trembling reached me.
“Jo Gae-ryong was someone I shared a room with since we were very young.”
The guy who’d boasted he’d show them Mount Hua’s drinking capacity.
Suddenly, the image of his white teeth grinning through a face drenched in blood surfaced in my mind.
“He wasn’t as good as me, but…… still, he had enough potential to bring glory to Mount Hua’s name.”
“……”
When I gazed at him in silence, Hwa Jeong-san lowered his head slightly and bit his lip.
“You were right. I came here to take my frustration out on you. No—today wasn’t the first time. I wanted to ask even back at the Ten-Thousand-Poison Sect.”
The light in Hwa Jeong-san’s eyes was somehow like extinguished charcoal—dull gray.
“Whether Jo Gae-ryong truly had to die, and if perhaps……”
He swallowed hard and hesitated several times before continuing.
“If that child died because of my past actions……”
“……”
Even Hwa Jeong-san seemed to find his own words absurd. He lowered his head and let out a bitter laugh.
“What a ridiculous thought. It’s not as if only one or two people died……”
Most of those rushing toward the Murim Alliance right now probably harbored the same question.
Did it have to be their disciple?
Did it have to be their child?
“……The children of Mount Hua defended you. That’s why I couldn’t bring myself to ask.”
His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept in days.
He shook his head at his own absurdity and lowered it again.
“But it kept haunting me. Whether it truly…… had nothing to do with what happened at Taeul Sect.”
Hwa Jeong-san’s eyes were filled with a certain yearning.
As though he were looking at something beyond my gaze.
I met his eyes squarely.
“Was that true?”
“Was what true?”
“Your actions at Taeul Sect. That you deliberately acted that way because the role was necessary.”
I asked about something I’d never heard in my previous life—yet had always known.
“That you didn’t mean it.”
Hwa Jeong-san stared at me for a long time.
After agonizing internal conflict, he slowly opened his mouth.
“No. I enjoyed it.”
An answer of utter honesty followed. No—it burst out.
As if a dam holding back water had collapsed.
Something inside him had ruptured, and it poured forth freely.
“Even if the role was necessary, it was clearly an affront. But I was Mount Hua’s New Plum Blossom Sword, and Hwa Jeong-san of the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly.”
His face contorted, mottled with shame and sincerity.
“It was acceptable. So I did it. Because Taeul Sect was a sect where that was acceptable.”
He probably couldn’t speak more honestly than this.
The yearning in his eyes earlier—had it been a yearning to hear honest words in return?
I asked again.
“The Black Forest. Do you need my answer?”
Can you handle it?
Can you bear the weight that I—that we—carried in our previous life?
“……”
Hwa Jeong-san pressed his lips tightly shut and said nothing.
After a moment’s hesitation, his gaze tangled into something complex.
“I’m not the kind of person who can read between the lines like Yong So-ah or Il-myeong. So just…… I’d appreciate it if you told me straight.”
“……”
Not anymore.
Hwa Jeong-san is no longer someone I fear.
Neither the Righteous Path Association nor Mount Hua behind him feel like absolute forces to me.
No—going forward, we’d be locked in a fierce struggle against each other.
That’s precisely why I can speak with utter honesty.
He owes me a debt, and I owe him nothing.
I could make him feel the exact same frustration and despair I experienced in my previous life.
“……”
But.
Somehow, Jo Gae-ryong’s smile—those gleaming white teeth—lingered vividly before my eyes.
This was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone today.
“I know. How many lives were lost so we could return alive from the Black Forest. How irrational it is to resent you. But, but……”
Water clung thickly to his voice as he pretended to be fine.
“Jo Gae-ryong wasn’t a child who deserved to die so easily in a place like that.”
Resentment with no destination wandered aimlessly.
It stabbed at himself, then at the other. No matter how much it wandered and wandered again, it never lost its strength and kept moving.
Resentment was, by nature, that kind of emotion.
And at the root of that resentment surely lay jealousy toward me—the one who’d brought all his own people back alive.
I had no need to convince Hwa Jeong-san of my choices.
I held command authority, and I’d simply made the best decision I could.
I could say to him, coldly, what he’d once said to me in my previous life: ‘That’s none of your concern.’
I was already struggling enough as it was.
I had no room to spare for his feelings.
But.
[You’d better worry about Unit Leader Jin’s wallet. Mount Hua measures its baseline drinking in jugs. Haha!]
That damn Jo Gae-ryong kept flashing before my eyes, grinning with those teeth on full display.
I raised my head and looked at Hwa Jeong-san.
And told him.
The words my past self had wanted to hear from him.
“What happened at Taeul Sect had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
“……”
The words he so desperately wanted to hear.
“I don’t let personal grudges into important matters.”
At my firm declaration, he wore a dazed expression for a moment.
Then he gave a bitter yet slightly relieved smile and nodded.
“I see. I knew you’d be different……”
As if he’d always expected that answer.
But the worry etched on his face didn’t fade.
Knowing the truth doesn’t mean the emotions dissolve.
He still wouldn’t be able to fully shake a comrade’s death from his heart.
“……Thank you. For telling me.”
Barely managing a composed smile before turning away—Hwa Jeong-san.
To his retreating back, I added one more thing.
“Jo Gae-ryong was…… a true warrior.”
Hwa Jeong-san stopped dead in his tracks.
“A man who threw away his own life for his comrades—if he isn’t a true warrior, then what is?”
The word “warrior” lingered on Hwa Jeong-san’s hesitant lips several times.
After a brief moment.
A clear, unburdened smile broke across his face.
“I’m glad I asked after all. Thank you.”
Even as he left the training ground, he kept murmuring the word “warrior” over and over again.
***
The next day, I was summoned to the Inspection Office.
This was different from the other students who’d been investigated at the Execution Pavilion.
The treatment was different from what I’d heard, too.
While the Execution Pavilion personnel had been polite, everyone said they’d felt a considerably heavy atmosphere during their interrogation.
I, on the other hand, was being interviewed in the Hall Master’s office.
The hot tea poured out with a gentle trickle, its fragrance rising with the steam.
I gazed at it for a moment, then asked.
“Don’t you have anything better?”
“……”
The fearsome investigator’s face twisted even more menacingly.
Good grief—just say you don’t have any. That personality of his, same as ever.
“If not, it’s fine.”
“……Have you forgotten you came here for an investigation?”
“The atmosphere felt like it was fine to ask.”
Friendly escort, courteous treatment, and even leisure to sip tea during an interrogation.
It didn’t feel like an interrogation at all.
Oh, except for the fact that the investigator was Ak Byeong-bi.
“The investigation is essentially finished. All that remains is dispatching investigators to the Black Forest for on-site confirmation.”
I couldn’t help but tilt my head at his words.
The instructors’ rush to reach the Murim Alliance first must have had a purpose.
They surely would have sent dispatches in every direction to their connections and tried to obstruct the investigation. So how on earth……
“Yong So-ah’s report argued the exact opposite of the instructors’ claims.”
Huh, Yong So-ah again.
It was good that Yong So-ah’s testimony resolved things easily, but at the same time, it made the gulf feel insurmountable.
If he ever voiced an opinion different from mine, would my opinion even be considered?
“Of course, the fact that the students’ testimonies aligned also had an impact.”
I tilted my head.
“They were consistent?”
People hungry for promotion typically don’t enjoy conflict with their superiors……
“Yes. No matter how many we interviewed, they all told the same story.”
I’d expected at least a few to cave under pressure from their seniors or sect elders and tell a different story.
I was almost moved……
“Hm?”
Suddenly, Ak Byeong-bi’s expression turned fierce.
“Every single one of them, Jin So-un, you……”
“!”
What? What is it?
Wasn’t the mood just a second ago leaning toward praise?
“……What did I do wrong?”
Ak Byeong-bi opened his eyes wide, as if that was a completely unexpected response.
“They said they survived because of you. They all praised you.”
“No…… why would you say that with such a terrifying face? Honestly.”
Watching me in disbelief, Ak Byeong-bi’s shoulders slumped.
“That was me smiling……”
Shit, smile like that twice and my heart’s going to drop.
After sulking briefly, Ak Byeong-bi recovered his composure.
“You worked hard.”
“……”
“Leading your comrades in that kind of situation couldn’t have been easy.”
“I just…… did what needed to be done.”
“Why are you so down? You accomplished something no one else could have.”
That was probably true.
It was possible only because I knew who they were and how they’d move.
But on the other hand, knowing everything and still getting hit—
……still losing people—that’s what made the fury surge up.
Their malice was palpable, and that’s why the emotions wouldn’t settle easily.
I tried to steady my breathing.
But the suffocating weight pressing down on my chest wouldn’t go away.
“When will…… the funerals be held?”
“The investigation needs to be concluded first.”
“……So around the end of the term, then.”
“These weren’t ordinary deaths.”
Following the trail of this incident would reveal enemies the Murim Alliance hadn’t known about.
And the unidentified nature of those enemies would plunge the Murim Alliance into chaos for a while.
“How will the funerals be conducted? Will they be held together?”
“Mantongbu is planning to proceed with an Alliance funeral.”
“I see. That’s good.”
Inconsequential matters were exchanged briefly.
Then Ak Byeong-bi tossed out a question.
“Were they the ones from that place?”
He didn’t specify where “that place” was, but I nodded.
“……How certain are you?”
“Does certainty even matter?”
At my answer, Ak Byeong-bi couldn’t suppress a low hum of thought.
He wouldn’t need a lengthy explanation of how terrifying the people we’d encountered at the Black Thought Alliance were.
“So they really are out there.”
Ak Byeong-bi sank into deep thought for a long while, as if he couldn’t believe it.
Then, after a moment, he murmured in a heavy voice.
“The martial world is going to descend into chaos.”
“It probably won’t be good news for you, Hall Master.”
“No, it won’t. There’s nothing more politically exploitable than an invisible enemy.”
“I just hope no one else ends up as unjustly accused as I was.”
“A-hem. Ahem.”
Ak Byeong-bi cleared his throat awkwardly several times.
Good grief, how sheepish.
When I smirked, he gazed at me for a moment.
“So, about that…… after you graduate, where are you thinking of applying?”
Then Ak Byeong-bi clenched both fists with a grave and solemn expression.
“If you want to come to the Inspection Office, I’ll hold a position open for you.”
What is this man talking about?
The Inspection Office was a place where only the elite among the Murim Alliance’s elite could enter.
If the entrance to Mantongbu required only passing a test administered by Jegal So-myeong, the Inspection Office demanded top grades along with the right family background and connections.
A disciple from a third-rate sect like me couldn’t simply waltz in on good grades alone.
Even if I got in, there’d be zero chance of being assigned meaningful work.
I’d end up running errands until they kicked me out.
“I’ll pass. Doing menial work doesn’t suit my temperament……”
SLAM!
“Who said anything about menial work?!”
Holy shit! Why is he suddenly slamming the table?
Apparently embarrassed himself, Ak Byeong-bi straightened his clothes and added.
“……Ahem. You know I’ve been promoted to Great Hall Master, right?”
“Yes. The end times are truly upon us.”
“You little…… Hm, anyway, because of that, the personnel in the Third Hall all moved up a rank, and a Captain position opened up.”
“……”
I was struck speechless by the absurdity.
The Inspection Office and the Execution Pavilion had ranks one tier higher than other departments.
In other words, a Captain position at the Inspection Office was equivalent to a Senior Captain in regular departments.
‘So is he actually saying this is possible?’
Even for the Academy’s top student, it was an excessive position.
No—it was an absurd proposition to begin with.
“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
“Why do you think it’s a joke?”
Ak Byeong-bi made another fearsome expression.
“Why is it scary aga—…… oh.”
Right, he said that was his smile.
A smile I truly couldn’t get used to no matter how many times I saw it.
***
On the way back to the Academy.
The Murim Alliance was thick with an uneasy atmosphere.
On one side, there were people shedding tears; on the other, people consoling them.
From family members and relatives to groups that appeared to be from the same sect.
People of all kinds grieved and fumed, stomping their feet in anguish.
Some fainted while listening to explanations from Alliance members. Others grabbed Alliance members by the collar in rage.
Grief erupted everywhere, each expression different.
As I walked in silence, I met the eyes of several people.
“……”
Some glared at me as if they wanted me dead. Others stared in dazed confusion.
Among them, there were even people who bowed their heads in tears.
If I told them that more blood would need to be spilled in the days ahead—would that be any comfort?
‘Of course not.’
It wouldn’t be comforting at all.
Because there’s no such thing as a death that’s meant to be.
At the same time, a question arose.
Were the Demonic Cult bastards grieving right now? Or were they cheering?
They were probably rejoicing more in their own achievements than mourning their sacrifices.
The imagined scene—one I hadn’t even witnessed—rose before my eyes, and something surged up from beneath my chest.
I looked slowly around at the people grieving for their lost loved ones once more.
Then, one by one, I recalled each Demonic Cult bastard from my vivid memories and made a vow.
That the grief wouldn’t remain ours alone forever.
That someday, they too would know the weight of sudden, devastating loss.
I would make it so with my own hands—I vowed it again and again.