After taking down the White Peak Mountain King, following the Slaughter King, the first thing we did was search the bodies of the two.
It was a bit unsightly, but it was necessary to learn the purpose of the Slayer King, who had suddenly joined hands with the Green Forest.
The first one we searched was, of course, the White Peak Mountain King. After all, shouldn't we deal with what was right in front of us first?
Even without its head, its massive frame remained. It was surprising anew to think that Seomun Hwa-rin had engaged in a strength contest with such a giant without giving an inch.
It was only natural for a martial artist who had reached a certain level to overcome the limits of the body, and there was no need to even mention a Harmony Realm martial artist, but…
It wasn't easy to completely ignore the impression one got from what the eyes could see.
I shrugged my shoulders and thoroughly searched the White Peak Mountain King's chest. And then.
"Heh."
"Why do you ask, friend? Have you found something?"
"I've found plenty. What about you, Senior Seomun Hwa-rin?"
"Hmm. This one managed to salvage nothing more than the brat's emergency stash."
Seomun Hwa-rin showed me a rosary made entirely of thick, coarse gems, her voice tinged with regret.
No, calling it a rosary was a stretch. It was closer to a bundle of large gems tied together just so they wouldn't get lost.
If I converted gems of that size into Gold Coins, wouldn't I get several chests' worth?
Ever since I joined the Tang Clan, I hadn't felt a lack of money, but at that level, it was impossible not to let my gaze linger.
Unfortunately, what we were after wasn't money, but information that could let us infer the circumstances.
I let out another sigh and shrugged my shoulders.
"Mine's similar. Would you care to take a look?"
"Similar? Surely not…?"
I showed Seomun Hwa-rin, who was blinking her eyes, what I had found.
Land documents from some unknown place, accessories that threw all notions of beauty and propriety to the dogs and simply crammed in whatever was expensive, and a money pouch stuffed to bursting with Gold Coins.
"There's nothing here but things that fetch a price."
"…What reason could anyone have for carrying around this much money?"
"Well. It seems the man had his reasons. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say he planned to kill us and then flee somewhere alone."
The Tang Clan's Family Precept: repay favor twofold, repay grudge tenfold. This was a rule that had been upheld without fail, save for a few special circumstances.
Tang So-wol would likely devote her entire life to avenging Seomun Hwa-rin and me.
In fact, before the regression, she had been stubborn enough to set out against the Heavenly Demon despite my earnest pleas, all to avenge the Clan Extermination.
And the rest of the Tang Clan would willingly join Tang So-wol's vengeance as well.
No matter how confident the White Peak Mountain King was in his own skill, he was no match for the entire Tang Clan.
Just as he had done during the Demonic Cult's invasion before the regression, he had likely planned to finish the job and then take the spoils and run.
What he carried on his person was only part of it.
"…It's a shame it isn't what I expected, but there's no harm in having more money. I'll hold onto it for now."
"Half!"
"Huh?"
Seomun Hwa-rin suddenly raised her arm and shouted. Curious, I turned around, and she slowly lowered her raised hand, pointing her index finger at me… no. At the White Peak Mountain King's wealth that I was holding.
"While you were facing the Slaughter King, this lady was the one who took down that fellow. So it's only fair we split it evenly."
"I was planning on that from the start, so it's no trouble. …By any chance, are you short on money these days?"
"That's not it. It's just…"
Trailing off, Seomun Hwa-rin chewed her lip. After weighing her words and swallowing them back, what she chose in the end was an awkward smile.
"Ah, there may be many occasions to go out ahead in the future. It's only proper to prepare for what's to come. …If one is no longer alone, expenses tend to pile up."
"…?"
The last part hadn't come through clearly, but I'd caught enough of what came before to understand where she was going with this.
She was probably trying to set aside funds in advance for the reconstruction of the Seomun Clan.
Even if it wouldn't reach the level of the Five Great Families, if you were going to introduce yourself as some clan or other wherever you went, an ordinary house simply wouldn't do.
"I see. You're already preparing for the Seomun Clan's future."
"The future… W-Well, of course that's what it is!"
Seomun Hwa-rin nodded vigorously. To her, who for some reason seemed eager to change the subject, I spread my palm open toward the sky.
What Seomun Hwa-rin had found on the White Peak Mountain King was a single jeweled rosary. It was likely the most expensive item, but it was also the smallest and lightest.
Since splitting everything in half would only happen after we disposed of the various goods, for now it was just simple luggage.
So rather than adding my burden to Seomun Hwa-rin's, it was more efficient to add her burden to mine.
That was why I had extended my hand.
"Mmm?"
With a strange sound, Seomun Hwa-rin tilted her head and placed her hand on top of mine.
It was small and soft.
"…What are you doing?"
"Didn't I say to hold out your hand?"
"What I meant was that I'd hold onto it for now and sell it or do whatever later, then split the proceeds in half—so I was asking you to entrust that rosary to me for a while…"
"…"
"…"
Seomun Hwa-rin's face slowly flushed. Squeezing her eyes shut, she placed the rosary in my hand and then—whoosh!—turned her head away.
"I-I shall trust that you won't deceive this lady, so I'll leave it in your care! But more importantly, the Slaughter King is still out there, so let's hurry on our way! Unlike the White Peak Mountain King, that one is sure to have something on him!"
"Ah, yes."
It was a desperate flailing to pretend the whole thing had never happened and change the subject—plain as day to anyone watching.
Seomun Hwa-rin hurried away with quick steps, but since she didn't know the exact location of the Slaughter King's corpse, it wasn't long before she came back to me.
I let out a small chuckle and took the lead, walking for a while. Seomun Hwa-rin let out a gasp of admiration in front of the Slaughter King's body, split cleanly in two.
"You cut him down without giving him even a moment to react."
"If I'd given him even the slightest opening, there'd be a wind hole in my neck, so of course I had to."
I shrugged and crouched down in front of the corpse, starting to search through its bosom.
Unlike the White Peak Mountain King, whose head had been cleanly blown off, the Slaughter King's corpse wasn't a pretty sight in many ways, so I'd intended to search it myself.
But before I knew it, Seomun Hwa-rin was already examining the other half of the body with an unhesitating hand.
"Hmph. Did you think this lady would hesitate at something like this now, or say something to you about it?"
"Oh. You caught me. But it's also true that I'd like to take on a bit more of the hardship, even Seomun Senior Hwa-rin's share."
"…Why would you do that? Surely you don't mean you'd rather not get a single drop of water on this lady's hands?"
"It's not water but blood, so there's a difference, but you're close enough.
Whether we rejoin Seol Ri-hyang's group or head back to the Tang Clan on our own, either way we'll need to rent a room at an inn in a nearby village for the night, and it wouldn't look great if we both showed up covered in blood."
"But since it's already too late, it wouldn't hurt to wash up briefly before heading down."
"W-we're washing together?! A man and a woman should keep their distance, yet you're already—"
"I only meant washing our faces and hands. What exactly were you thinking?"
"N-nothing at all. Just get back to what you were doing."
Though Seomun Hwa-rin's mind was clearly full of lewd thoughts, her words were reasonable, so I examined the Slaughter King's corpse closely.
What I found were hidden weapons that had been well-maintained and even oiled. There were also poisons I'd never seen before, sorted by type.
Beyond that, only a pile of miscellaneous items that had helped the Slaughter King pull off his unorthodox movements kept surfacing.
"…Sir. I believe I have found something."
"What is it?"
"It is a letter the Heavenly Demon sent to the Slaughter King."
Seomun Hwa-rin handed me a letter whose edges were stained with blood.
I unfolded the letter Seomun Hwa-rin handed me with a grave expression.
The contents were simple enough. It instructed me to approach the Green Forest's chief, pay him a suitable sum, and persuade him to gladly join forces in killing me.
And once the deed was done, I was to assassinate the Green Forest chief—a man who had grown fat sucking the lifeblood of the innocent—take as much of his wealth as I pleased, and return. That was all it said.
There was no mention of how the Assassin Valley had come under the Demonic Cult's heel, nor any hint that the man who had displayed such overwhelming martial might harbored some other agenda.
…On the surface, that is.
"This is…"
As I read, a pattern began to overlap atop the words.
It was a cipher created before the regression, during the days when the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance had struggled to hold its ground against the Demonic Cult.
The Jegal Clan and Sama Yuryeon had racked their brains over it, insisting that when sending secret letters to allies, it was basic protocol to prepare against the possibility of the enemy intercepting them.
That said, it wasn't a cipher known to everyone. Only those who had held a position within the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance that involved exchanging secret correspondence would know it.
Even I, who had been fairly prominent back then, only learned of this cipher much later—so the security must have been maintained rigorously until the very end.
And yet, the Heavenly Demon knew of it…
"Was it all just meaningless flailing from the start?"
"Hmm, hmm. If the Slaughter King had decided to kill, then no matter how hard the White Peak Mountain King tried to flee, he would have lost his life in the end."
Seomun Hwa-rin interpreted my words slightly differently and nodded. I, on the other hand, felt a chill creep up my spine the more I thought about it.
Until now, I had believed the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance was managing to hold its own against the Heavenly Demon, even if only by a thread.
But perhaps… the Heavenly Demon had simply left the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance a small breathing hole. I couldn't guess the reason.
At any rate, there was only one reason he would send such a letter to the Slaughter King, who wouldn't have understood the hidden code used back then.
That was because this letter wasn't meant for the Slaughter King at all—it was meant for me.
I sifted through my hazy memories and deciphered the hidden message the Heavenly Demon had sent.
"Does my gift please you? I have no doubt we will meet again before long, but just in case, I've sent along something that might prove useful."
At the time, I had hidden myself with Seomun Hwa-rin while waiting for the code to be deciphered. That was the moment the faint sense of unease I'd been feeling turned out to be true.
"It seems you're putting in effort to oppose me. That pleases me, so how could I simply sit and watch? I'll send you something from time to time. At your most desperate moments, at that."
Just as before my regression, he was telling me he knew the Alliance was in his sights, and whether he sent assassins or used other means, he would interfere at critical moments like this again and again.
For a martial artist of the Heavenly Demon's caliber, it was a remarkably petty declaration. But then again, this was a man who had sown spies throughout the Central Plains long before his full-scale invasion began. Above all else.
"May this be of use to you, Sword Demon. Do not disappoint me."
If his true goal was not to obstruct the Orthodox-Unorthodox Alliance and kill me, but rather to make me grow stronger, then everything made sense.
Though I couldn't fathom why he would want to help me grow in the first place.
"You there? Your complexion looks poor. Was there something else written in it?"
"…No. It's nothing."
With the seal preventing me from speaking of anything related, this was the best I could do. I thought as much as I read the final sentence.
If you, Sword Demon, accept all of my gifts… I swear an oath. I will show you a way to loosen, even temporarily, the heavenly rope that hangs around our necks.
"…!"
The Heavenly Demon had told me of a way to bypass the seal.
***
After descending the mountain with the White Peak Mountain King's axe as proof of the Green Forest Chief's subjugation.
Seomun Hwa-rin and I rented a modest inn and holed up in our respective rooms from midday onward.
After all, we had pushed ourselves hard today, so we needed proper rest.
But I couldn't fall asleep no matter what.
The warning that dangers rivaling the Slaughter King would continue to come my way. And the Heavenly Demon's incomprehensible favor.
How long did I lie on the bed, sighing endlessly, my mind tangled by those two matters?
By the time the scenery outside the window had darkened and the bustling people had returned home one by one, leaving silence in their wake—
Creak.
The door to my room opened, and Seomun Hwa-rin poked her head in.
"Um, you. Are you asleep?"
"Not yet."
"Do you happen to remember?"
"Remember what?"
"I promised that if I allowed you to take the Heavenly Thunder Divine Art as you pleased, I would grant you one wish."
"Ah."
Right, I had said something like that.
As I nodded blankly, Seomun Hwa-rin stepped past the threshold and fully entered my room before continuing.
"…I intend to use that wish right now."
Seomun Hwa-rin, who spoke hesitantly, was not wearing her usual martial robes but something somewhat thinner.