Spoils

Seven Days and Nights had passed since the Azure-White Flood Dragon was brought down.

Given how massive the beast had been when it rampaged, one entire section of the North Sea Ice Palace had been completely destroyed, but…

Considering the scale of the destruction, the death toll was surprisingly low.

Probably because the people of the North Sea Ice Palace had all trained in martial arts, making it easier for them to flee. Of course, the fact that I and Seomun Hwa-rin had moved relatively quickly to hold the line probably played a part too.

Over the past Seven Days and Nights, there had been funerals to hold, the Azure-White Flood Dragon's corpse to dismantle, and—for whatever reason—Bing Yerin had even received a full Oche Tuji prostration from Seol Ri-hyang, who had begged her to be allowed to become the Young Palace Mistress.

There had been all sorts of things going on. And Seol Ri-hyang, who could be said to have stood at the center of it all, said:

"Water."

"…Here it is."

"Feed it to me with your hands, not Void Grasp."

"I injured my arm too."

"Ah! Then there's nothing we can do."

She was lying on the sickbed, ordering me around mercilessly. I could swear she had the most luxurious caretaker in the world.

Well. At least when it came to this matter, Seol Ri-hyang deserved that much.

"Pfft. Thanks. My throat was a bit dry. …But why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's nothing."

Watching Seol Ri-hyang drink the water I'd lifted with Void Grasp, I felt my heart grow complicated in more ways than one.

Perhaps she didn't like my dismissive attitude. Seol Ri-hyang pouted her lips and began to grumble.

"Haah. I pushed myself past my limits for someone, and this is the treatment I get? Aish. Pointless, utterly pointless."

"What do you mean? I've done everything you asked. What more could you possibly want?"

"Just thinking about that awful dinner is making me angry already."

"Bear with it. If you hadn't eaten it, you wouldn't have recovered as much as you have."

The awful dinner Seol Ri-hyang spoke of was the soup made from the Azure-White Flood Dragon's meat.

Naturally, in order to suppress the Azure-White Flood Dragon's aura, Seol Ri-hyang had pushed herself far beyond her own capabilities.

As a result, she naturally collapsed. It wasn't just a simple collapse—her body had been ravaged by such immense cold that even her Pure Yin Constitution couldn't withstand it.

Given her constitution, her life wasn't in danger, but the internal injuries were severe enough that she should have been bedridden for years from the aftereffects.

If she'd been unlucky, she might have even lost her martial art entirely—it was that serious a situation… but.

As it happened, it was the season when the North Sea Ice Palace was overflowing with nourishing food(?).

The meat soup made from the Azure-White Flood Dragon's meat, boiled with several medicinal herbs added on Tang So-wol's advice, was practically half a Spiritual Medicine.

If she ate that at every meal, how effective would it be? The effect on enhancing internal energy was minimal, but for nourishment, I'd never seen anything better.

Seol Ri-hyang, though her body couldn't move properly, recovered her consciousness quickly, and I, whose left shoulder had been shattered, recovered to the point where I could get around well enough—all thanks to the Azure-White Flood Dragon's meat.

Well, of course, the injury itself was also because of the Azure-White Flood Dragon.

I let out a snort of laughter and sat down on the chair I had prepared beforehand, right beside Seol Ri-hyang's sickbed.

Seol Ri-hyang stared at me quietly. Just moments ago, she had been grumbling with her lips puffed out in a pout, but now, for whatever reason, she began squirming with a sly smile on her face.

"Cheon Hwi. I'm cold."

"I'll have them bring another brazier."

"No need. There's an easier and faster way, isn't there?"

With slow, laborious movements, Seol Ri-hyang lifted half of the blanket covering her.

"Come in here!"

"…"

Seol Ri-hyang looked up at me with a face full of mischief and anticipation. But when I just stood there staring at her without moving, she let out a long sigh as if all the steam had gone out of her.

"Haah. No fun."

"Let me say this first—your condition is still serious, Seol Ri-hyang. If we just let things run their course, you'll recover. Why go out of your way to create problems?"

"What?! Are you planning to do something problematic to me?!"

"…"

"Heheh. Just kidding. So loosen up that face of yours."

"What kind of expression am I making, exactly?"

"One that looks deeply troubled?"

"I can't deny that."

It was troublesome, after all. Seol Ri-hyang had apparently made quite an impression by pushing herself to save me this time, so much so that Tang So-wol had shoved me into this room herself.

Of course, she'd added a warning to keep my promise.

Even today, she'd shoved me into Seol Ri-hyang's room and then gone off to help Seomun Hwa-rin with various matters, and just thinking about it made me scratch my head for a moment.

I lowered the blanket I'd lifted back down and turned over to face Seol Ri-hyang, who lay limp.

"By the way, Cheon Hwi. Anything interesting happen? Or any recent news? I've just been lying here, so I don't really know what's going on outside."

"Hmm. It's only been Seven Days and Nights, but there's been a thing or two going on. Most of it's about the North Sea Ice Palace, though… Ah. There is one story you might find interesting, Seol Ri-hyang."

"What is it, what is it?"

I suppressed the playful remark that was about to slip out at Seol Ri-hyang's sparkling gaze and continued.

"After we brought down the Azure-White Flood Dragon, didn't we dismantle its corpse?"

"Yeah. A Spirit Beast of that caliber is a treasure with nothing to waste."

"Right. Since it was practically our kill, they said they'd clean it all up and give everything to us."

When I first heard that from the Palace Lord, I and Seomun Hwa-rin nodded as if it were only natural, but Tang So-wol, as if it were a reward for our trouble, offered to help treat those injured in this incident.

After that, as the conversation naturally moved to the distribution and future exchanges with the Tang Clan, I realized once again.

I'd spent a considerable amount of time with the Tang Clan and thought I'd grown accustomed to the way the prestigious Orthodox Sects think… but in the end, my roots weren't much different from when I was an unorthodox wanderer.

"You're only realizing that now?! No, that's not to say you're bad, Cheon Hwi, it's just… how do I put it. There's that thing where you speak in a straight line without pretense. Last time, you even said you'd deal with the Azure-White Flood Dragon somehow, so we should hand over everything we had."

"Is it really that much of a problem?"

"How is that different from the Green Forest charging a toll for managing the mountain roads?"

"…At least I only take what I'm owed. I don't take lives. Usually."

"That last part is a bit concerning, but whatever. It was fun, so that's what matters."

"We haven't even gotten to the main point yet."

Seol Ri-hyang giggled, clearly pleased about something. I shook my head and continued where I'd left off.

"Anyway, that's how it went. I was going to cut open the Azure-White Flood Dragon's corpse and pull out its inner core, but… the scales were too hard, so I ended up slicing open its belly myself. A countless number of Azure-White Cold Serpents' corpses came out from inside its stomach."

"Didn't you say those were the Flood Dragon's offspring? Surely it didn't eat its own young because it felt weak? In the end, beasts and humans alike…"

Seol Ri-hyang's skewed perspective came from having been sold to a pleasure house by her gambling-addicted father. I understood, but this time, it wasn't that kind of situation.

"It's a bit different. According to Tang So-wol, who came to watch and help me with my injured arm, the Flood Dragon had already swallowed the Cold Serpents after they were dead."

"Already dead?"

"Yes. The Killing Net Poison was originally created to poison the Azure-White Cold Serpents, but it went through several rounds of concentration to be potent enough to deal with the Azure-White Flood Dragon."

"Ah! So since it was a poison that worked even on the Flood Dragon, it was too strong for the Cold Serpents?"

"Correct. Tang So-wol guessed that the reason the Flood Dragon, which had fled once, went berserk with its eyes rolled back was because all its offspring had died."

"Hmm. Thinking about it that way makes my heart feel a bit complicated."

"There's no need to overthink it. They were enemies who had to fight each other anyway. It's just that they ended up fighting sooner than expected due to unforeseen circumstances."

"…Yeah. We were never meant to be good neighbors, so that's only right."

Seol Ri-hyang nodded reluctantly. Come to think of it, last time she had said she wanted to be a better parent than her own father.

Perhaps that was why her feelings were so complicated. They were enemies who had to fight anyway, but… regardless, we were the ones who slaughtered the Azure-White Cold Serpents first.

Still, with her already bedridden, adding more worries would only make things harder.

To lighten the mood, I shrugged with a deliberately casual tone.

"From here on, it's a good story… Do you remember how the Azure-White Flood Dragon went berserk as if it had suffered Qi Deviation?"

"I doubt I'll forget until the day I die. How could anyone forget a Spirit Beast that size whipping up a blizzard?"

"Turns out it wasn't just like Qi Deviation—it was actually in a similar state. That's probably why the inner cores of the Azure-White Cold Serpents it had swallowed merged with its own core into one."

"…Wait. Didn't we agree that all the spoils from the Azure-White Flood Dragon go to us?"

"Congratulations. Now you'll be able to train in the Central Plains without any shortage of cold energy."

"B-But if I eat that thing, my body's going to go pop and burst?!"

Seol Ri-hyang yelped and pulled the blanket over her head. I tapped the round lump of blanket and spoke up.

"I didn't say to eat it. In the first place, the Ice Crystal's energy is so strong that even the past Palace Lords only absorbed a portion of it—no one has ever swallowed the whole thing."

"Oh."

With a short gasp, Seol Ri-hyang's head peeked out.

"Unless a long time passes and the power contained within weakens, for now it's not about swallowing it. We'll set it up in the training hall and use it to cultivate in an environment filled with cold energy."

"Yeah, that would definitely be good. Training in the North Sea builds up noticeably more internal energy than in the Central Plains."

"If we design the training hall properly so the cold energy can't escape, it might be even more effective."

Seol Ri-hyang's martial art only used sound as a medium—its operation was no different from the Force Qi Skill. What mattered most was, of course, the amount of internal energy she possessed and how much she could move at once.

She had pushed herself hard this time, but precisely because of that, once she fully recovered, her meridians would be far wider and sturdier than before.

Add to that the experience of having handled such an enormous amount of cold energy…

Her realm wouldn't rise immediately, but one could say the foundation for rising had been completed.

If nothing went wrong, she would likely reach Transcendent Peak before long.

A level that clearly surpassed the Seol Ri-hyang from before the regression. At this point, I was starting to get a little curious.

How far would Seol Ri-hyang grow if she fully unleashed her talent without letting it go to waste?

If she could reach the Harmony Realm like Tang So-wol had…

My hopeful thoughts lasted only a moment. Seol Ri-hyang opened her mouth with an unusually hesitant demeanor.

"Um… hey, Cheon Hwi. Do you remember what I said last time?"

"Last time? What are you talking about?"

"The thing about doing it properly if there's the right atmosphere or justification."

Only then did I realize what Seol Ri-hyang was trying to say. It must have been about what she said when she barged into my room in the middle of the night.

I let out a hollow laugh and rose from my seat. And then, just as I was about to sit on the edge of the bed where Seol Ri-hyang was seated.

"W-Wait a moment!"

"Surely not another one of those…"

"Eek! No! That's not it. Before we do anything, open that cloth over there."

"Cloth?"

Following Seol Ri-hyang's chin gesture, I turned my head. There, wrapped neatly in a cloth, was something.

Doing as she said, I untied the knot on the cloth. Inside was something I never expected to see.

"…Ri-hyang."

"Huh? You knew about it? It was pretty hard to find around here."

"Yes. I know."

A slightly expensive pear with snow-white flesh. But to me, it was a fruit with an entirely different meaning.

A torrent of emotions surged up in an instant. Longing, guilt, gratitude, nostalgia—so many feelings tangled together that they became a simple lump I no longer knew how to name.

I forced it down and looked at Seol Ri-hyang. She seemed a bit flustered, as if she hadn't expected me to know.

She carefully placed the snow pear in her arms and strode toward the bed.

"Huh? Wh-what…?"

Was it the emotions raging inside me showing on my face? Or was she just startled by me walking toward her in a straight line without a word?

Either way, it didn't matter. After all, there was only one thing left for me to do now.

"Don't worry. I'll keep my promise."

"Ugh! This wasn't what I had in mind at all!"

Seol Ri-hyang said that in a voice that sounded half-resigned, yet half-expectant at the same time.

When I gently brushed her cheek, she flinched, then closed her eyes.

And then came the kiss.

A slightly cool body temperature. A soft texture. And a body trembling finely, as if utterly tense.

Half a beat late, I drew in Seol Ri-hyang's scent, which lingered at the tip of my nose, deep into my lungs, and slowly parted my lips from hers.

A long, drawn-out silver thread stretched and then fell. Seol Ri-hyang, who had been watching it with a dazed expression…

Clatter.

"Eeek!"

The sound of a breaking bowl and a familiar scream brought me back to my senses in an instant. The same went for her.

Everyone, without exception, turned to look beside us with stiff, creaking movements.

"I—I saw nothing! So don't mind me and continue!"

There stood Seomun Hwa-rin, covering her face with both hands.

Though her fingers were spread wide apart, making the covering rather meaningless.