Chapter 15
"Instructor, let's run away together. No matter how great the Lord of Cheonrim is, how will he find us here? And even if he does find us, shouldn't we at least try? If we start the assassination mission, we're destined to die, so we can't just die without trying anything, can we? You told us not to call you master, but you are our master. We can't just stand by and watch our master die in vain."
When I said that, Pae Maseong also nodded.
"I think so too."
At that, Yeon Cheongha smiled.
His face was full of pride.
"It seems I haven't lived my life in vain. I wondered who would remember me when I died, but now I have you."
Even so, he did not bend his will to send us back.
"Hurry up and go back. I will follow you for a while. I will come back after seeing that you have safely escaped. We must hurry. I don't know how much time we have."
Seeing him like that, it seemed that the Lord of Cheonrim had sent someone to watch him.
Even though I hadn't seen anyone from Cheonrim, I thought he was worried because there was a possibility.
"Hurry up and go. If you thought of me as your master even for a moment, you shouldn't ignore my words like this."
But I had no intention of listening to him.
"Since you've said that, I will call you master from now on. We have no parents. Our only shield is you, master. If such a master dies, we will have to live in this harsh world by ourselves. Please don't leave us like that. If you think of us even a little, please cherish your own life a little more, master."
Yeon Cheongha seemed to be wavering.
That in itself would be a great change.
In the novel, he was a person who never hesitated or wavered.
He was a person who solved all situations coldly and rationally without being shaken in any situation.
But he was being shaken by my words.
If I had spoken about his safety, he might not have thought of betraying Cheonrim.
But it seemed that a conflict arose because he needed us.
"Please, master."
When even Pae Maseong said that, he let out a low sigh.
"Instead of giving up completely, wouldn't it be a way to increase the possibility by gathering information together, master?"
When I said that, he finally chuckled.
"I shouldn't fall for these words, but I don't know why I'm doing this."
Knowing that he had decided to listen to us, I felt a little relieved.
But it was too early to be completely relieved.
"Let's move for now."
Yeon Cheongha said and then took the lead and started walking.
We followed by his side and told him the story we had heard.
"About the people who passed by on horseback in the market. It seems they are related. It seems there are people who saw them appear."
Yeon Cheongha nodded.
Since it seemed he had a lot to think about, I didn't talk to him anymore.
Then, a thought occurred to me, and I looked at him.
"Master, what if you go to the Lord and tell him how big this matter is, and if you succeed in this assassination, you ask to be released from Cheonrim?"
At that, Yeon Cheongha stared at me blankly and then burst out laughing.
"What do you think Cheonrim is?"
"I think the Lord is someone who can grasp the situation to some extent. If so, he would also know how dangerous and difficult this matter is. If so, he would also know how competent an assassin the person who solves this matter is, and if so, he would not want to lose that assassin. I think he would hate to have him as an enemy even more."
Yeon Cheongha looked at me without laughing anymore.
I thought he would now understand the meaning of what I was saying.
He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, and from then on, he just walked without saying anything.
That evening, he left us at the inn and went out alone.
Pae Maseong seemed worried, but I believed he would come back soon and waited.
Given the scale of Cheonrim, and the Cho family, it seemed likely that they would have set up contact points in every major city.
He probably went there to deliver the news.
Even if he wasn't trying to negotiate with the content I had mentioned, the current situation was very different from when he first received the assassination request, so some communication would have been necessary.
And once he had delivered the news from this side, he could buy time until a reply came.
It was still just my thought, so I couldn't tell Pae Maseong that much, and we waited for him.
After some time, he returned.
Since he had gone and come back alone using his lightness technique, it seemed that he had finished his work much faster than when he was with us.
He told us where he had been, and it was not much different from what I had thought.
"I don't know how this will proceed, nor how long it will take. For now, I've told them that it will take a long time. And I've also said that I need support. I've never said this before, so I don't know if they'll accept it or not. But if they later question why I didn't carry it out right away, I'll have something to say then."
Then he laughed with a voice that lacked confidence and said.
"If Cheonrim was planning to abandon me, they wouldn't accept those words."
"That's right, master. You had no choice anyway. This is the option that increases the possibility even a little."
Now that things had come to this, there was no reason to waste time.
We decided to use what we could to find out about the mounted bandit-like people.
I was thinking that it would have been nice if I had known about such things in advance, but it was a pity.
I was dumbfounded at how I had not known about that until then.
People who ride on horseback, people who suddenly disappear from the mountains, weak people who disappear.
'This is that, Mohwa Mountain Manor!'
I didn't know because they weren't supposed to appear at this time, but there were people who had been doing this for a long time, so why hadn't I thought of that?
The Central Plains martial arts world would fall into great chaos due to a group of people who cultivated strange medicinal herbs and controlled people.
They were people who had gathered at a place called Mohwa Mountain Manor for various reasons, centered around the manor lord, and everything started with a medicinal herb that the manor lord had accidentally discovered one day.
That medicinal herb, named Blood Flesh Herb, grew on the flesh and blood of living people as fertilizer.
Just like feeding an animal, it had to be continuously given flesh and blood to grow. It was said that if a living person was buried up to their waist in the ground where the Blood Flesh Herb was planted, their ki would slowly be drained, and the Blood Flesh Herb would grow.
'That's why they took the children.'
The Blood Flesh Herb required strong yang energy, so it had to be a boy, and because of that, it was later revealed that the lord of Mohwa Mountain Manor had mobilized people to kidnap boys over a long period of time.
It could absorb ki from people of other age groups, but it was said that the most effective was a child.
If you fed the Blood Flesh Herb grown that way, the people who ate it would become unbelievably strong for two to three months.
So, during that time, they could exert a power almost comparable to a first-rate master, but they would lose their reason and only listen to the words of the owner of the Blood Flesh Herb.
They would recognize the person who fed them the Blood Flesh Herb as their master and only follow that master's orders, so they were used as a powerful weapon, and the Blood Flesh Herb and the slaves were traded at a high price in the black market.
That was kept a secret for a long time and was involved in the destruction of numerous sects, but later, the heir of Mohwa Mountain Manor, who coveted the Blood Flesh Herb, was caught stealing it, and eventually, the Central Plains martial arts world also found out about it.
A great commotion erupted until Mohwa Mountain Manor was destroyed after being branded as a public enemy of the martial arts world, and that became a major plotline of the novel, but I had thought of it as a completely separate matter until then.
Even when the matter was revealed later, it was said that it had been going on for a long time, but I hadn't connected it.
Once it started to come to me, the thoughts continued like a flood, and I stood there blankly, shocked, and grabbed my head.
Since I was doing that, it was natural for Yeon Cheongha and Pae Maseong to look at me strangely.
"What's wrong, Socheong?"
Yeon Cheongha asked.
Hearing his words, I ran into another problem.
I knew about it, but I was at a loss as to how to explain how I knew.
Weren't these people who had lived so closely with me?
If they asked when and from whom I had heard that story, what should I say? I could make something up, but it was also doubtful whether they would believe it.
But whether they believed it or not, it seemed that I had to at least try to say it.
It was too overwhelming for me to know such a thing alone.
"Master, there's a story I heard once, and I don't know if it's related to that."
"Once? Where? From whom?"
As expected, that question came out immediately.
Regardless, I first said that there was a story I had heard and told that story first.
Yeon Cheongha also paid more attention to what I was saying than to questioning the truth of my words.
As my story continued, the expressions of the two changed rapidly.
As the story progressed, their expressions of disbelief became more and more apparent.
It was the same when they heard about the medicinal herb called Blood Flesh Herb, but they probably didn't believe that the Blood Flesh Herb would grow by absorbing the energy from a buried person.
However, Yeon Cheongha nodded and seemed to agree.
Since there were so many strange spiritual herbs and spiritual creatures in the martial arts world, he seemed to think that the Blood Flesh Herb was something similar.
"That could be right. Everything seems to fit. Did you say Mohwa Mountain Manor? Do you not know where it is?"
"I don't know that, but I have a feeling that the place where the people who passed by on horseback in the market went is that place."
"Then let's start by going there first. And if you're right, Socheong, this is definitely not something we can do. I'll have to contact Cheonrim and ask for more support."
I found it a bit strange that Yeon Cheongha believed my words without question.
Everything I said was hard to believe, so how could he believe it?
(End of Chapter)