Part 37 - Netherworld Mado (4)
Geumju slipped out through the secret passage and, half out of her mind, unfurled her lightness skill.
She sprinted through the slums without hesitation—an area where you couldn't even find so much as a single speck of lamplight.
Before long, she was able to enter the back alleys behind Luoyang's commercial district.
Because of the reckless, nonstop development that came with Luoyang's rapid expansion and growth, the back alleys were all impossibly tangled.
Tall buildings—at least four or five stories—were packed in so tightly there wasn't even a sliver of space between them, forming a gigantic maze.
Only after passing a few alleys and rounding a few corners did she finally stop.
She wanted to move even a little more, but her breathing was far too ragged.
With her internal energy reduced to its original level, maintaining her movement art was impossible.
A filthy alley wall—something she normally wouldn't touch, something that would make her spit curses just to look at—now supported her exhausted body.
"Haah… haah…"
She clutched at her chest.
At the very moment her heart had been torn out, the "contingency" had definitely activated.
The effect of the grand sorcery was beyond even what Geumju herself could have imagined.
'Under that monster of a master… how hard did I suffer to learn that…'
A headache pounded through her skull.
Her memories were in chaos.
'How did I even learn it? Sorcery? Me learning sorcery?'
In an instant, several scenes she'd forgotten swept through her mind.
An old man's hand, playful as it rummaged through her innards.
A withered hand covered in age spots.
That grotesque laughter.
Herself screaming until her throat felt like it would split.
Horrific pain.
She hurriedly shook her head.
She denied the memories.
'What matters is escaping.'
She forced her feet to move again.
In any case, the grand sorcery had worked successfully.
It had temporarily raised her realm.
It had triggered the barrier at the instant she lost her life.
And it had even returned her lost heart.
An effect worth hundreds of lives and decades of lifespan.
But she had no lifesaving measures left.
'If I'm caught this time, I'll really be murdered…!'
That white mask surfaced in her mind, and she shuddered.
After trading blows, she'd felt it down to the marrow.
That thing was a true monster.
It was the same kind as her master.
It stepped outside common sense, ignored principle, and defied the rules.
No matter that she'd only pretended to cross a wall—that monster played with her as if it were nothing.
Yes.
It played with her.
No matter how she attacked, she couldn't inflict even the slightest damage.
Of all the methods it had shown, there wasn't a single one she could understand.
She couldn't understand it.
It let every attack hit… and then took her fingers one by one, one by one, in order—taking every last one.
Her regrown fingers ached with cold.
Her reclaimed heart throbbed.
The pain that began in her heart only grew worse with time.
It still felt as if that monster's maw was chewing her up.
'I have to run. I have to run.'
As fear began to corrode her, she dashed through the back alleys.
The twisted paths tangled, then tangled again.
If she climbed onto the rooftops, she could secure a view—but she'd expose herself as well.
As long as she kept the direction right, these alleys had to end someday.
'I grew up in Luoyang's back alleys. There's no way I'd get lost in a place like this.'
For a moment, she wavered.
'No… I'm not from Luoyang. I'm sure I'm from some remote mountain village…?'
The headache surged again.
She remembered that hook-like hand that had rummaged through her mind.
Her heart hurt so badly.
It felt like its teeth were tearing her heart apart.
'I have to move…'
She ran without thinking.
At some point she'd lost her shoes, and after tumbling a few times, her clothes were a mess.
And then, at some point, she realized she'd lost her way.
Looking up through the gaps between alleys, all she could see was a sky choked with dark clouds.
There was no landmark—nothing at all—to help her guess direction.
To find her bearings, she decided to climb onto a roof, even if only briefly.
She searched for a wall that looked easy enough to scale, rounded another corner—and a small open space appeared where several alleys converged.
"...A venerable monk who has reached the True Dharma tears at a pine stump and eats it. An official devoted to good governance tears book pages and eats them. A poet who has attained sound—eats the moonlight..."
It was a clear, delicate boy's voice.
"And yet my table, having achieved nothing at all—why does it bend so greatly,
that it sucks the marrow from the people's backs?"
Standing at the center of the open space, the boy's back as he recited poetry entered her view.
Wearing neat, plain white clothes, he looked like nothing more than a Scholar.
"Hey."
The one who knew the roads best was a local, and she decided to confirm the direction with the boy.
"Hey—can't you hear me?!"
When the boy remained with his head lowered, lost in thought, she strode up and grabbed his shoulder.
"Mm?"
Her brows shot up.
The boy who turned to look at her wore a face she knew all too well.
"Who is this? Didn't we meet not long ago?"
"First Young Master…??"
The one speaking to her as if they were acquainted was the Swordless of the Sword Clan of Luoyang—Yeon Sang-hyeon.
Their previous meeting had been anything but friendly, but seeing a familiar face still eased her mind a little.
"At this hour, what are you doing here… No. That's none of my business."
There were no guards beside him—none of the ones she'd seen that day.
She brushed back her hair.
"Tell me the way out to the main road. Now."
Yeon Sang-hyeon shrugged.
"Since we've met like this, it must be fate. How about we talk a little—how you ended up in an alley like this?"
"What?"
Her expression crumpled.
The image of her situation—having everything she'd achieved stolen from her by some nameless monster, fleeing for her life—surged back up.
Rage she'd kept pressed down until now flared up all at once.
"You worthless piece of—what are you going to do, learning about me?!"
At her words, the First Young Master tilted his head with an easygoing expression.
"No, it's just that…"
His behavior looked natural at a glance, but a feeling that something was wrong crawled up the back of Geumju's neck.
"It's a little strange, you see."
There was something missing from his movements.
Emotion.
It was like a puppet used in a street puppet show.
Unnatural.
A sense of wrongness.
Something non-human mimicking a human.
Acting.
"After running so desperately, is this as far as you managed to get?"
"...!"
The blood drained rapidly from her face.
She felt her fingers—felt the pain rising from her heart intensify.
"Y-you… who are you?!"
A deep shadow fell over the First Young Master's face—no, over its face.
"You know that well enough, Se-yu-hwa."
A voice like seething molten metal.
Bluish ghostfire rising from its eyes.
When it smiled, she saw teeth packed tight like a saw's.
"Is it twelve now?"
Her whole body trembled in that endless terror.
"Or do we have to start counting again from one?"
***
Jeong-a and Se-a were walking down a passage inside a natural cavern of enormous scale.
The cave was woven together like a spiderweb, complex beyond measure, yet Jeong-a moved without hesitation, as if it were nothing.
"It's huge, unni."
"It really is."
Another fork appeared, but Jeong-a chose a direction and proceeded without a moment's pause.
"Now that the Black Bone Sect is gone… what happens to all these buildings and lands?"
"Geumjil will take them. Since Geumju was his adopted daughter, he'll insist they belong to him."
A bitter smile formed on Se-a's face.
"That's how his 'adopted daughters' business works. If it's sweet, he swallows it. If it's bitter, he spits it out."
If some powerful faction had clashed with the Black Bone Sect, how would Geumjil have responded?
He would've claimed that he'd only gone around saying Geumju was his adopted daughter.
But if the opponent was a single, unidentified master?
He would claim everything.
"...That's absurd."
The torch in Se-a's hand flickered, making the shadows on the cave wall dance.
Come to think of it, her little sister was leading the way without even a torch.
Even Se-a—who had the torch—had nearly slipped several times.
But Jeong-a looked as if she were walking down a well-polished corridor.
It seemed clearly related to her eyes, shining gold.
But whenever Se-a asked, she only received the same answer: she didn't really know herself.
After a while, Se-a asked what she'd been wanting to ask all along.
"You know, don't you? What the master you serve truly is."
"Yes. Of course."
The answer came immediately.
Se-a, momentarily at a loss for words, asked again.
"...Aren't you scared?"
It was a question loaded with many meanings.
For a moment, only the echo of their footsteps filled the cavern.
"...That day we left the guesthouse, I packed my things."
It was the day before she met the First Young Master.
"I carefully gathered every single possession I had. When I finished, it was just one small bundle."
Jeong-a chuckled softly.
"And what was inside was nothing but little odds and ends filled with memories."
As she walked, Jeong-a turned lightly in place, as if naturally.
The fine silk clothes Yeon Sang-hyeon had saved her—those expensive garments—floated up in her mind, then sank away.
"After entering the Sword Clan, I lived every day as if it were a struggle."
The jeweled hairpin stuck in her hair sparkled in the torchlight.
"And yet, in the end, I was nothing."
Se-a couldn't say a word.
"I was just nameless roadside grass that had to flutter wherever the wind blew."
Jeong-a stopped walking.
Se-a stared at her slender back.
"You're asking if I'm scared?"
Jeong-a set the bundle she'd been carrying down to the side.
"Of course I'm scared."
Her tone was calm.
"That person is like a typhoon that blows in late summer, as if it will smash everything to pieces. A being we common women can't even dare to measure."
She stood still, gazing into the far end of the passage.
"When you think you've understood one thing, two are hidden. When you find those two, four reveal themselves."
A deep golden radiance flowed from her eyes.
"I don't serve that person to rely on them, or to be protected by them."
"...Then why?"
At that moment, Se-a heard an echo carried by footsteps—approaching.
It was coming from the direction Jeong-a had been staring at precisely the whole time.
"Hah… hah…"
Along with the rough breathing came irregular, hurried steps.
'Like someone's being chased…'
Before Se-a could even finish forming a judgment, the one who appeared was someone they knew well.
"You two are…?!"
Se-a sucked in a breath at the sight of the woman bracing herself against the cave wall, panting as she stared their way.
Her hair was a mess, and her whole body was smeared with blood. She recognized Jeong-a and Se-a.
Killing intent filled her gaze.
"You bitches…!"
She shouted like a wounded beast.
Jeong-a, unconcerned by whatever she was doing, simply turned back to look at her older sister.
"It's to become like that person."
Se-a asked back reflexively.
"What did you say?"
Jeong-a smiled at her as if to reassure her.
"I mean the reason I serve my master."
The gold in her eyes flashed, rich and bright.
"It's to become like that person, too."