RATTLE, RATTLE!
The carriage wheels turned furiously.
Wi So-baek lay at an angle inside the luxurious carriage, looking out through the window.
He thought of Yeo-hwa, who had persisted in searching for something lacking until the very end despite how comfortable it already was.
“Always making a fuss.”
From Yeo-hwa's perspective, however, it was only natural.
Wi So-baek belonged to the direct line of the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, which boasted the longest history not only in the Black Path encompassing the demonic path and unorthodox path, but even across the entire White Path, the collective name for the righteous path and neutral path. Before the rise of the Demon Alliance, it had reigned as the strongest single faction. He had been noble from birth.
That fact had remained unchanged even through a childhood woven from tragedy. Anything his hand touched could not be allowed even a hairline scratch, and the ground he trod could not contain so much as one rough, unworked stone.
The treatment had diminished somewhat after he left the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, but the Demon Alliance itself had been formed by people who revered Wi So-baek in the same way the Divine Cult revered its Cult Leader, so there was no great difference.
How could preparing for an excursion by Wi So-baek, who could not tolerate even a slight drop in the quality of his food or sleeping arrangements, possibly be easy?
‘I told her that roughly done would be enough.’
Oblivious to Yeo-hwa's anguish, Wi So-baek snorted.
“Whatever else one might say, I am a man who has pulled up and eaten roots whose names I did not know and slept on bare earth beneath a blanket of leaves.”
He possessed the power to destroy a great faction alone and shake the world, yet he had never boasted of such things.
To Wi So-baek, they were neither difficult nor particularly worthy of pride.
They were merely the capability and presence he believed he ought to possess as the Demon Alliance Leader.
But the harsh survival skills he had acquired over hundreds of years of resignation and adaptation!
They represented feats no one thought Wi So-baek capable of and everyone believed he would never attempt, and yet.......
For no one to recognize them left him feeling strangely disappointed.
“Well, opportunities to show them will come in time.”
With that, Wi So-baek lightly tapped the window with one hand.
Though the sound was exceedingly faint, the captain of the guards surrounding the moving carriage turned his horse's head and approached the window.
“Did you call, Alliance Leader?”
“Let us rest for a while before continuing.”
“Yes!”
The Captain of the Personal Guard immediately had the carriage stopped, dismounted, and opened its door.
No sooner had Wi So-baek set foot upon the dirt than a place for him to rest had been established in the best location nearby, complete with freshly brewed tea and food Yeo-hwa had prepared in advance.
Wi So-baek went there, sat upon a soft yet durable animal hide, and received their attendance.
The entire process flowed so naturally, as though it was only proper, that no one appeared to consider it excessive.
When one also considered that Wi So-baek preferred a carriage to a horse on excursions because finding his own way was tiresome.......
It seemed that opportunities to demonstrate the harsh survival skills he had just recalled would not come easily in this world after all.
After crossing from Hunan Province, where the Demon Alliance was situated, into Jiangxi Province, the party traveled steadily until they reached Xinyu.
Xinyu was not a particularly large city, so Wi So-baek's carriage stood out all the more.
Yet the force of the warriors escorting the carriage was so weighty that no one took an open interest.
The carriage came to a halt before the Buil Academy amid the furtive gazes pouring toward it.
***
The Buil Academy began another quiet day as usual.
“Phew.”
The academy's head, Im Jung, looked over the nearly empty school and could not suppress a sigh as his shoulders slumped.
At least his family possessed land passed down through the generations, so he had no difficulty making a living. At this rate, however, not one student would remain, and the academy might have to close its doors.
If that happened in his generation, how could he face his ancestors in the hereafter?
Im Jung drew a deep breath to sigh again when he saw a servant racing toward him in great haste.
“Estate Master!”
Im Jung, who served as both head of the academy and Estate Master of the Im Estate, frowned.
“What is all this commotion?”
“A-a guest has arrived outside!”
“A guest? Who is coming? I heard no word of anyone.”
That was only natural, for no one had actually sent notice of a visit.
“You should go outside quickly......”
When the servant pressed him again, Im Jung looked puzzled.
Though he was not ordinarily harsh with his inferiors, the behavior was far too presumptuous for a mere servant speaking to him.
Im Jung clicked his tongue, decided that he had been more lenient than necessary, and resolved to give the man a thorough thrashing later. Nevertheless, he first headed for the main gate.
And the instant his eyes met those of the man alighting from a stationary carriage beyond the wide-open gates.
He became exceedingly grateful to the servant who had all but dragged him there.
When he noticed the extraordinary warriors arrayed on either side of the man, surrounding the carriage, after the man himself whose overwhelming presence chilled Im Jung's spine, he resolved not to stop at gratitude but to grant the servant a material reward as well.
He could vividly picture what would have happened had he been even a little late.
Thus, he hurried toward the main gate. But why did his feet grow heavier and his breathing more labored the narrower the distance became?
Standing directly before the startlingly beautiful man, Im Jung swallowed dryly several times before he barely managed to speak.
“Y-you have arrived?”
He did not realize in the slightest that he had greeted the man as though welcoming an honored guest for whom he had long been waiting.
Yet the other man went even further.
“Yes. I stopped by because I have business with you.”
He answered and entered with such confidence that it was difficult to tell which of them was the master and which the guest.
“Please... come this way?”
Though he belatedly sensed something strange, Im Jung hurriedly showed the guest inside.
Stealing glances at the man seated in the seat of honor, Im Jung silently repeated what he had rehearsed in his head again and again.
Was this not, honestly, a ridiculous situation?
“Academy Head.”
“Yes! Where have you come from?”
When the man called to him, Im Jung unwittingly blurted out what he had been practicing, and his face flushed red.
Finding it novel to see someone display his thoughts so plainly upon his face, Wi So-baek stared at him before answering.
“I am Wi So-baek, the Demon Alliance Leader.”
“Is that so? I wondered, but you truly were not someone I knew... Th-the Demon Alliance Leader?”
Even Im Jung, a mere academy head who knew almost nothing of the murim, had heard of the Demon Alliance.
It was a terrifying place best avoided at all costs!
Im Jung regretted allowing this man into his academy, but not for long.
When he imagined trying to treat the man coldly and drive him away at the main gate, a scene a full hundred or thousand times more horrifying than the present appeared before his eyes.
He praised himself for politely receiving the man while still entirely ignorant and increased the size of the reward he would grant his clever servant. Then Im Jung asked cautiously.
“For... someone of your stature, Alliance Leader, what business could you possibly have with me.......?”
Wi So-baek was not inclined to speak in circles, so he came directly to the point.
“I heard that when it comes to the study of formations, you are the foremost under heaven. What say you? Can you take pride in calling yourself the greatest under heaven?”
Im Jung showed surprise at the wholly unexpected question.
“Ahem! Ahem! Ahem! How could one lightly discuss the greatest under heaven? Still, my family has studied the field for generations, so I have worked hard not to abandon it. I would say my knowledge is sufficient that I would not be found especially lacking in a discussion of formations.”
His tone was somewhat uncertain, but Wi So-baek saw none of the deceit for which he was searching.
If there was a problem, it was that the man also plainly did not understand the situation at all.
Wi So-baek had come all this way both to learn about the formation that had imprisoned his younger brother and him!
And to answer the question of whether a formation master reputed to be the greatest under heaven might have been involved in creating something with such tremendous power.
Yet despite monitoring all of Xinyu, arriving at the academy without warning, and watching the man's reaction, nothing appeared amiss. In that case.......
Wi So-baek regarded Academy Head Im Jung.
Was he past fifty now?
“If the study of formations has been passed down through your family, your forebears must have done the same, correct?”
“That is... correct?”
When Im Jung hesitated, Wi So-baek drove the point home.
“Is your father well? Is he still alive?”
Was the Demon Alliance Leader asking after his parents' health?
“Well......”
“Has he passed away?”
“No, that is......”
As Im Jung faltered, finding the situation inexplicably ominous, Wi So-baek frowned.
The more he did, the fiercer the force emanating from the warriors around him became, leaving Im Jung drenched in cold sweat.
At that moment, the tap, tap of a cane striking the ground sounded outside, followed by an old man's voice.
“I heard an honored guest had arrived?”
“F-father!”
Im Jung sprang to his feet.
Wi So-baek gave him a strange look.
“Why were you trying to turn your perfectly living father into a dead man?”
At the look that seemed to regard him as an unfilial son, Im Jung felt as though fire would burst from within him.
This is all because of you!
But Im Jung did not dare protest. Now that matters had come to this, he went outside and escorted his father in.
Supported by his son, Im Jung, and gripping a cane in his other hand, the old man overflowed with a mystic air at a glance.
And there was something peculiar about him.
“Old sir, can you not see?”
“I cannot.”
“Since when?”
The questions might have been discourteous, yet the old man answered readily.
“For more than twenty years.”
“Twenty-five years, to be precise, Father.”
When Im Jung interjected, the old man nodded in agreement.
“Yes. It has already been so long, hahaha.”
Wi So-baek joined the conversation between father and son.
“Twenty-five years ago. Your world must have collapsed around you, old sir. How curious. I too suffered a great calamity at exactly that time.”
“Is that so?”
While the old man answered, Im Jung drew out a chair, seated his father, and took a place beside him.
Wi So-baek spoke.
“You and I now have one thing in common, old sir. What do you think? Do you believe we have more in common? I believe we do.”
“......”
“What? Are you offended because, regardless of its modest size, I am treating the head of an academy and his father with excessive discourtesy?”
The son glanced about and appeared ready to answer, A little, but the old man stopped him and shook his head.
“When people in high positions move, there is always sufficient reason. At my age, there are things one learns to see even without sight. One of them is that by your own standards, Alliance Leader, you have treated us with kindness.”
“I am watching Xinyu, occupying the seat of honor before you, and suppressing both father and son?”
“But no one has been harmed, have they? Though you desire something from the academy, you came here yourself rather than having us dragged away, and you chose words rather than a blade to test our reactions.”
“Hmm. And so? Will you offer me your thanks?”
Wi So-baek disliked the servile, so the favorable impression he had first formed of the old man vanished.
But the old man had not finished speaking.
“I do not mean that the course of events has been reasonable. I mean only that though I cannot thank you, I can understand what the Alliance Leader has done.”
“Hahaha, hahahaha!”
Wi So-baek burst into loud laughter.
The old man was interesting. Wi So-baek was glad he had continued listening.
When Wi So-baek waved a hand at the people around them, the escort warriors disappeared.
Im Jung also forced his reluctant feet to carry him from the room, leaving Wi So-baek and the old man alone inside.
“You are wise, old sir, so I imagine you know what I mean to ask. Do you know of a formation capable of making people disappear without a trace and imprisoning them in another world?”
“...The Myriad-Heaven Illusion Formation.”
“The Myriad-Heaven Illusion Formation?”
“I never succeeded in recreating it completely, but it is an unparalleled formation of the ages that I spent a long time trying to reproduce.”
“Since when?”
“...For twenty-five years.”
“Ha.”
Wi So-baek narrowed his eyes.