Chapter 140 :

Chapter 140. The Black Flame Dragon Meets the Monster of the Grand Library (4)

"Ah... ah..."

Seong Moran was left speechless by Namgung Seonhwa's confession.

Even Namgung Seonhwa, who had made the startling confession, fell silent, and a heavy stillness settled over the room.

Amid the uncomfortable silence, Seong Moran's gaze fell on Namgung Seonhwa's hands.

Small, delicate hands trembling uncontrollably.

Seeing her look so frightened, as though she had committed some terrible sin, made Seong Moran let out a faint laugh.

"...I wondered what it was. I already knew."

"...Huh?"

"I said I already knew."

"I-I mean, that..."

Now Namgung Seonhwa's face turned so red it looked ready to burst.

Seong Moran found the sight of her adorable.

"Do you really think I'm so dense that I wouldn't notice something like that?"

She had known for a long time.

At Maling Plateau, during the Martial Academy official examination, and in the occasional glances Namgung Seonhwa sent toward Jin Sowoon—

the way she looked at him had always been different from the way she looked at other men.

"And! Did you think I'd distance myself from you just because you said you liked Young Master Jin?"

"..."

Seong Moran reached out and tightly held Namgung Seonhwa's hand.

"You were my one and only little sister long before either of us met Young Master Jin."

"...Unnie."

"That doesn't mean I'm saying I'll give him up, though. I like Young Master Jin too."

Seong Moran wiped away the tears gathering at the corners of Namgung Seonhwa's eyes.

"So whatever happens, let's make sure the two of us stay close."

"Besides, that man is so ridiculously busy that he doesn't even have time to look our way, does he?"

"Thank you. And I'm sorry."

"For now, let's hurry up and become proper warriors so that man doesn't have to stay quite so busy."

"You're right. I'll get stronger quickly and climb even higher."

Seong Moran sighed while looking at Namgung Seonhwa's reddened eyes.

"Neither you nor I are normally in a position like this wherever we go. How did we end up like this?"

"Hehe."

"If you're done asking, shall we go buy clothes? Just like at the last banquet, we should surprise him when we go out this time too."

"Yes."

Seong Moran stood first.

Namgung Seonhwa gathered her things and was about to follow when she suddenly stopped, apparently remembering something.

"Unnie, what if we get even more rivals?"

"...Then it'll be that man's fault for leaving a trail everywhere, so we'll have to punish him."

Seong Moran clenched her fist as though such behavior were completely unforgivable.

#

"Hm?"

I suddenly felt a chill and looked around before extending my energy sense.

The Sword Demon seemed to notice and gave me a strange look.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing. I felt something strange, so I checked for a moment, but I guess it was nothing."

"Tsk, tsk. Just how much karma have you accumulated in your life to be that paranoid...?"

I stared at the Sword Demon in disbelief as he shook his head and clicked his tongue.

"Surely not as much as you."

"What did you say?!"

The stories about him were beyond imagination.

There had been a time when he claimed to have completed his sword art, secretly infiltrated Shaolin Temple, and challenged the abbot to a spar.

And despite becoming a public enemy of the Martial Alliance and falling into the heretical faction, he had once stormed into the Cheuksa Gang and fought a life-or-death battle against the entire organization.

"I had my own justifications for everything I did!"

What sort of justification could possibly make secretly attacking the Shaolin abbot's residence reasonable?

"Have you ever considered that the part where you say 'my own justifications' might be the actual problem?"

"You bastard! I've been going easy on you, and now you're getting carried away!"

The Sword Demon threw the thesis he had been reading at me, and I snatched it out of the air.

It had already been ten days since I started challenging him to spars without warning.

Still, perhaps we had grown somewhat closer.

Even when I passed out during our fights now, he no longer abandoned me where I fell.

My current routine was to wake up in his hut, exchange a few words with him, and then head home.

Of course, there were days when I challenged him twice.

But whenever I did that, for some reason I would remain unconscious for the entire rest of the day.

Apparently, one spar per day was the boundary he had established.

And I was carefully walking along that boundary.

"Why do you keep reading these useless theses anyway?"

"That is none of your concern."

"Are you looking for a treasure map or a secret manual? There aren't any here."

I could say that with confidence because I had even read every book that would be added to the Grand Library in the future.

None of the Grand Library's materials had anything to do with treasure maps or secret manuals.

"What I'm looking for is nothing like that."

"Oh? So you are looking for something?"

"..."

The Sword Demon ignored me and continued reading the thesis.

He was so completely focused that he looked as though he were studying an ancient secret manual.

Did the bastard who wrote that thesis have any idea?

Did he know the Sword Demon was desperately studying the garbage he had written?

"If you tell me what you're looking for, I'll help you find it."

"In exchange, become my martial arts instructor."

The fact that he had understood the true nature of the myriad swords after a single clash meant his ability was far greater than I had originally imagined.

The higher the Taeul True Scripture advanced, the less standardized its development became.

Eventually, it became so difficult that practitioners had to create their own martial arts.

That meant I needed instruction from someone who had experience creating a unique martial art.

Right now, I could not possibly find a better martial arts instructor than this foul-tempered heretical practitioner standing before me.

"...Tsk. Didn't I already tell you? You don't need sword aura."

"I know, but according to what you said, wouldn't the myriad swords become even more powerful if I used sword aura with them?"

"..."

"And I'd also like to share in all the experience you've accumulated over the years."

"Are you saying you want to become my disciple?"

"I'm already a disciple of the Taeul Sect, so that's impossible. I'm asking you to become my martial arts instructor."

The Sword Demon stared at me as though I were absurd.

"Just how strong do you intend to become?"

That was a surprisingly difficult question.

In both my previous life and this one, I had always carried a desire to become stronger.

But I had never really considered exactly how strong I wanted to become.

I could not express it in terms of a precise martial realm.

Still, one answer immediately came to mind.

"Hmm... strong enough to protect my people no matter what enemy stands before me?"

"Do you think becoming the greatest under heaven is that easy?"

"I don't want to become the greatest under heaven."

"That's the same thing."

"If you truly want to protect the people precious to you, instead of losing yourself in martial arts, it would be better to spend your time with them."

The Sword Demon looked lost in deep reflection, as though remembering someone dearly missed.

"What if a truly terrifying enemy appears?"

"Then run away together. Run somewhere they can never reach."

His voice carried regret.

"More important than anything else is spending time together."

Just as I regretted my own past, the Sword Demon seemed to harbor deep regret about his.

"...Are you searching the Grand Library because you're trying to find that precious person?"

In an instant, the Sword Demon's expression hardened.

"...How did you know?"

"I just threw out a guess. Hahaha."

The Sword Demon's face crumpled like a sheet of paper.

"...That three-inch tongue of yours could rob the treasuries of most heretical bastards."

"You're still not going to tell me?"

The Sword Demon turned away and resumed reading the useless thesis.

'So he was searching for someone.'

I began searching through the rooms of the library inside my head.

There was one room in the Grand Library where useless books were gathered together.

It held all sorts of strange works that made one wonder why they were even in the Grand Library, including erotic picture books and vulgar novels.

Among them was one particular book.

A book written by a woman almost like a diary.

She never revealed who she was or what organization she belonged to.

She merely wrote honestly about meeting someone in a city she visited during an academy break, what happened between them, and the emotions she experienced during that time.

In my previous life, I had dismissed it as nothing more than a romance novel...

But thinking back on it now, the person described in that book shared quite a few similarities with the man sitting before me.

I mentally reread the book and suddenly opened my eyes wide.

"You have a daughter?"

"...!"

The Sword Demon's eyes widened dramatically.

"...How do you know that...?"

"..."

The Sword Demon was known to have no family and not even anyone particularly close to him.

Although he had maintained some acquaintance with a few experts, in truth, he was like a solitary island in the middle of the sea.

His nature was too upright to become close to heretical practitioners.

Yet his reputation was too terrible for righteous faction members to associate with him comfortably.

I could roughly guess why he had never created a family even as he grew older.

He had accumulated too much karma.

He had probably feared that while he was away, he would be unable to protect his family.

"I asked you how you knew!"

"...Ah. The truth is, I remember every book in the Grand Library."

"Once I see something, I never forget it. That's my curse."

"..."

"Hmm... did you meet her in Hangzhou?"

The Sword Demon's mouth dropped open.

"You met there, took a liking to each other, and became lovers."

"Ha... Now that really is surprising. To think even you, Sword Demon, had a child."

"Where is that book?"

"It will probably be difficult for you to find. It was hidden away so thoroughly that no one would normally discover it."

"Bring it to me. I need to see it immediately."

The Sword Demon looked ready to run off at once, standing barefoot on the bare ground.

"Ah... I can't do that."

"Bring me that book and I'll teach you sword aura exactly as you want."

"No, I'll go further. I'll teach you how to develop your myriad swords!"

That was everything I had wanted from the Sword Demon.

But I shook my head.

"No. I can't do that."

"...What? Is there something else you want from me?"

The Sword Demon was so agitated that he had nearly lost all reason.

It was a small glimpse of just how desperately he must have searched for his daughter all these years.

But even if our interests aligned perfectly, I could not accept the offer so easily when I did not know the intentions of the woman who had written the book.

"No. That's not it."

"This concerns people's lives."

"And if your beloved hid the book that carefully, she may not have wanted you to find her."

"No matter how desperate I am, I can't casually hand over information tied to another person's life."

Near the end of the book, the woman had even written where she intended to live after leaving the place she belonged to.

I did not know exactly when the book had been written.

But if someone was trying to find her, it could become an extremely important clue.

I could not simply hand over information like that without confirming anything.

"...What if I offered you a fortuitous opportunity that might never appear again in a thousand years?"

Because of people who believed there were things more important than human lives, I had lived such a miserable and wretched previous life.

I had absolutely no desire to become the same kind of person.

"Even if you gave me the entire world, I wouldn't hand it over."

The Sword Demon lowered his head and remained silent for a long time.

Eventually, he noticed his dirty socks and sat back down on the wooden platform.

Then he stared directly at me with complicated eyes.

"You... truly are a bastard who goes far beyond anything I expect."

I had no idea what he meant.

But there was one thing I could tell.

At least at this moment, he was not controlling his emotions.

"Was the author's name written anywhere?"

"No. It wasn't. That's why it would have been even harder for you to find."

"The person who wrote that book was probably Seop Sojeong."

"Seop Sojeong?"

The surname Seop was not particularly rare.

But if one spoke of a Seop associated with the murim world, the Hundred Flowers Palace immediately came to mind.

"Yes. The Seop Sojeong of the Hundred Flowers Palace you're thinking of."

"Ha..."

The Hundred Flowers Palace was a martial family centered around women, much like Emei.

Moreover, it was prestigious enough to be counted among the renowned factions of the Hundred and Eight Peaks.

"What? Is it so unbelievable that an illegitimate son like me had a relationship with the daughter of such a prestigious family?"

"...I never said anything about you being an illegitimate son. I was only thinking that the Sword Demon and the Hundred Flowers Palace seem completely incompatible."

"We knew that too. That's why we separated back then."

Seop Sojeong had been far too important within the Hundred Flowers Palace.

And the Sword Demon had harbored far too much resentment toward both his own family and the righteous faction as a whole.

The gap between their positions could not be bridged, and even the heat of their passionate love eventually cooled.

"But ten years later, I suddenly received a message."

It said that there was a daughter between them.

At first, he had apparently been bewildered.

Why had she not told him immediately back then?

And why was she only telling him about their daughter now?

The Sword Demon suddenly laughed like someone who had lost his mind.

"Then she told me that if I wanted to find them, I should search for traces of them in the Grand Library."

"..."

"I thought it was some ridiculous joke."

"Even the idea that I had a daughter wasn't something I could easily believe."

"But... in the end, here I am."

I could not express it openly, but inwardly I was astonished.

So this was why the Sword Demon's endless journey of sparring had suddenly stopped.

The Sword Demon took a carefully folded letter from inside his clothing.

It had clearly been preserved with great care, but it was so old that it looked little better than a rag.

"This is the letter."

"How old is this?"

"About five years."

"..."

Thinking about the five years the Sword Demon must have spent enduring endless humiliation from academy students, I unfolded the letter.

The writing had faded considerably, but it was still clear enough to distinguish the handwriting.

Just as the Sword Demon had said, the letter told him to go to the Grand Library if he wanted to find her.

I carefully folded it again and returned it to him.

"S-so? What do you think...? Is it really her?"

"What do you want to do after you find the book?"

"...Hm?"

The Sword Demon looked as though someone had struck him in the back of the head.

"The book clearly said where she intended to stay. What do you want to do after you meet them?"

"I don't know."

The Sword Demon spoke with a face filled with regret.

"I just... want to see them."

"Who?"

"...Seop Sojeong and my daughter..."

In the murim world, someone who had glimpsed the ultimate essence of martial arts was called a transcendent.

By that standard, the Sword Demon was undoubtedly a transcendent.

And yet now, he trembled weakly like the slender twig he had held in his hand only days earlier.

As though his entire life depended on the next words I spoke.

"S-so... is it really her?"

This was not the Sword Demon as a transcendent.

This was the Sword Demon as a father.

I smiled.

"You've suffered for a long time."

"Yes. It's her."

"Ah..."

Large tears suddenly began falling from his eyes.

I could not even begin to understand the weight behind those tears.

So I simply stepped away for a while, giving him the space he needed for those long and heavy years to finally pass.