Sure, when he grows up, he becomes a cold-hearted person who refuses my requests, but he isn’t like that yet. And even though he is destined to become the Young Leader of the Demonic Heavenly Cult in the future, I thought it might be nice for him to be an Orthodox Murim person just once in this life. Even if that doesn’t work out, if we become close, he probably won’t kill me immediately just because things go sour later, and besides…
Ryeon opened her mouth wide like a large gourd before slowly snapping it shut.
There wasn’t a single person in the Murim who didn’t know that the Demonic Heavenly Cult was not a place that raised its younger generation with warmth.
‘I heard that place makes the candidates for leader compete against each other and only uses the survivors.’
They took children of this age and trained them harshly. I also heard they learned things like the Art of Absorbing Stars. The art of absorbing another person’s Internal Energy.
Whether one becomes the giver or the receiver of that Internal Energy is for the heavens to decide, but still.
‘No, for guys who claim to serve the Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady, they sure are cruel.’
But even excluding that, the headquarters of the Demonic Heavenly Cult was ten thousand away from here, in a place with a harsh climate beyond Qinghai Province. It was on the complete opposite end from Zhejiang Province, which is in the east of the Central Plains.
How did Hwaryun get from here in Hangzhou all the way there?
Did the Demonic Heavenly Cult recognize his martial talent and kidnap him? Even if that were the case, the ten-thousand- journey from here to the Tianshan Mountain Range couldn’t have been comfortable.
“That is…”
If Hwaryun stays within the Danmok Clan, he won’t get kidnapped.
And if he wasn’t kidnapped—if this child voluntarily entrusted himself to the Demonic Heavenly Cult…
If he walked that ten-thousand- road because he had nowhere else in the world to lean on or rely on…
Isn’t it natural to want to eliminate the cause of such a thing?
Wouldn’t it be better if there was no need for such a small, skinny child to leave for the northern lands, or to endure such hardship and heartbreak?
That… if one is human, isn’t it natural to think that way?
She didn’t want to save everyone in the world. She didn’t even think of this as salvation.
Nor did she have any special affection for the Demonic Heavenly Cult’s Young Leader from her past life.
However, right now, there was a child in front of her eyes. If there was a path that meant he didn’t have to leave for a place ten thousand away, wasn’t it human nature to want to let him know about it somehow?
‘Even though this kid is the one who won everything there before, right now he’s lost a lot of his venom, so who knows what will happen.’
Wasn’t Hwaryun essentially saying that if he wielded a sword, he’d only end up dying, so it was better to live distanced from such things?
“It’s just… it’s boring to learn alone… so…”
“……”
“Ryun, do you really hate learning to read? Hm?”
If he at least learned to read, it would be a little easier for him whatever he did later.
Ryeon lamented inwardly as she looked at him earnestly.
The boy, who had been staring blankly into her eyes, took a deep breath, rolled his eyes round and round, and then shrugged his shoulders.
“…Fine, I’ll learn.”
“Really?”
Hwaryun simply nodded without a word. Ryeon smiled brightly and pushed the rest of the rice ball toward him.
*
But she didn’t know it would turn out like this. Ryeon looked at Nanny Jang, her mother Wi Jicheong, and the two boys in front of her with a bewildered expression.
“M-Mother…”
Both were children Ryeon knew well. One was her younger brother Danmok Bi, who was barely five years old but already busy running around with a wooden sword, and the other was…
“You said your name was Hwaryun? That is a good name. Since you are of a similar age to Bi-ah, I thought it would be good for you to learn and practice everything together, so I invited you into the house.”
After washing up cleanly and exchanging his rags for neat white martial arts robes, Hwaryun’s hidden features were clearly revealed; now, he actually looked like the precious Young Master of a noble clan.
Ryeon looked at her mother, Wi Jicheong, with a face that didn’t know what to do.
She hadn’t thought the clan members wouldn’t know about her meeting and chatting with the worker boy in front of the chicken coop, but she never dreamed Wi Jicheong would bring such a boy into the family.
What she knew even less was that the boy would accept it immediately.
‘After giving me such a hard time, arguing about whether he’d learn just a few characters or not…’
As Ryeon flailed her hands in shock, Hwaryun gave a fresh grin and bowed deeply.
“That is how it turned out, Young Lady. Please take care of me.”
“Young Lady! Pwease take care of me!”
Her younger brother, Danmok Bi, stood next to him and mimicked what Hwaryun was doing.
Wi Jicheong didn’t scold her son for imitating a Servant’s behavior but simply laughed in adoration.
“Bi-ah. You should say ‘Sister’.”
“Sister! Sister!”
Danmok Bi laughed brightly as he called her, then ran over to cling tightly to Ryeon’s leg.
[ Danmok Bi ]
[ Traits: Tendon Collector / Devoted / Imprinted / Witty ]
[ Talent & Understanding: High-Medium ]
[ Worries: Today’s snack with Sister / The way Jeong Yeong walks ]
‘He’s my brother, but he seems like the real deal.’
Ryeon stroked Bi’s head in surprise. His talent was on par with Danmok Cheongi. On top of that, his worries were impressive.
‘If it’s the way Jeong Yeong walks, is he talking about footwork?’
Jeong Yeong was the warrior who stood guard by the wall of Ryeon’s residence. Ryeon had also been surprised to notice that he was training ceaselessly. He was practicing his footwork even when simply walking.
It seemed that had caught Danmok Bi’s eye.
‘If he had just grown up well, he might have really become something close to the Number One Under Heaven.’
She should have confirmed that and returned, but she hadn’t seen that future.
Because…
— No, no, no… Sister, no. Don’t go, no! Sister, if you aren’t here, if even you are gone, then I…
— Let’s revive the clan where no one is left! What’s the point of me surviving alone!
— I didn’t want to leave. I, too, wanted to remain with the clan people…
The old, murky, and blurred memories distorted wildly.
The tear-stained face of her brother clinging to her hand and crying like a child; his face, which had become gaunt and sharp after she died like that; expressions shadowed by grief and depression floated up one by one before tangling together and sinking away.
In the midst of that, Ryeon barely managed to pull herself together.
“N… No… Then Ryun should also say Sister…”
“Shall we do that? That sounds good.”
Since they intended to raise him like a sibling from a young age rather than just a Servant, no one would fault them for using comfortable titles.
As expected, Wi Jicheong smiled gently and pushed Hwaryun’s back slightly. Even Hwaryun seemed a bit surprised this time. However, he quickly recovered his expression and gave a fresh grin.
“…Sister Ryeon.”
Ryeon could only nod, unable to either cry or laugh.
“Try writing these characters.”
“Yes!”
The one answering the teacher sitting in front of them with gusto was Danmok Bi. Ryeon and Hwaryun nodded quietly and moved their brushes.
Danmok Bi was not yet at the age where his grip strength was properly developed, so his writing was somewhat crooked, but he wrote diligently. Ryeon glanced to the side. Hwaryun had an expression that made it hard to tell if he was focusing or not, but he was writing the characters properly.
“All three of you wrote well. . It means that among swords, the Ju Que sword is the most famous, and among pearls, the Ye Guang pearl is the best. Do you know what a Ye Guang pearl is?”
The teacher explained the characters quietly.
The writing teacher for the three of them, the Head of the Danmok Clan’s Medicine Hall, was a young man turning twenty-five this year.
Possessing a face that looked as if it were sculpted from jade, if he had gone out often, there wouldn’t have been a person in the Hangzhou marketplace who didn’t know his name. However, he had been busy repeating closed-door training since the year he turned seventeen, so almost no one outside the clan knew his face.
Only the faint shadow in his eyes allowed one to guess the Heart Demon residing in his mind.
Ryeon quietly adjusted her sleeves.
[ Danmok Hyeonu ]
[ Traits: Heart-rending / Doting Fool / Closed Door / Prankster ]
[ Falling Star Twelve Swords: 7-Star (8-Star) ]
[ Dancheon Flying Sword: 5-Star ]
[ Limitless Steps: 8-Star ]
[ Meteor True Formula: 5-Star ]
[ Talent & Understanding: High-Medium (Upper-Middle) ]
[ Worries: Responsibility and guilt regarding Danmok Ryeon’s health, doubts about himself ]
[ Tip: Sleeping soundly without worries and meeting various people is best! ]
To think he mastered the clan’s main sword technique to the 8th star before he even turned thirty; even if he could only exert power up to the 7th star due to being shaken by his Heart Demon, he was still remarkable.
‘Is it really right to use Uncle as a writing teacher? What if the Heart Demon takes hold of him because of me?’
Seven years ago, when Ryeon had just been born.
There was an incident where a branch of the Black Heaven Alliance attacked the clan. It was a major event, big enough that the Murim Alliance almost split in half.
The incident broke out in the middle of the night when the moon had barely risen. At that time, the seventeen-year-old boy Danmok Hyeonu, who already possessed genius skills enough to follow in his older brother’s footsteps, was tasked with protecting Ryeon, the clan’s direct descendant and his first niece, along with other clan swordsmen.
He was confident, thinking that since his eldest brother Danmok Hyeonseong had faced the Hyulla Valley at a similar age, he could do it too.
Swords clashed and shouts were exchanged, and she, a newborn baby, burst into tears as she was moved here and there in the chaos…
Still, Ryeon wasn’t seriously hurt, and it was revealed that it was the work of Hyulla Valley remnants rather than a Black Heaven Alliance attack, so everyone thought it had been roughly resolved.
However, not even a hundred days later, everyone realized that Ryeon’s condition was strange.
