Rather than a person, he was like the evening glow, the wind, or a flower.
As I watched the old man exist so naturally, I realized something.
What the sense beyond my five senses had been telling me—the source of that unease.
Karmic Energy. Karma.
It was neither magic nor sacred arts, but the most mysterious power of all: life itself.
Through the Sword Saint’s memories of wielding Karma, I knew what it was. But because I had never experienced it myself, I had failed to recognize it.
Everything I saw, heard, and felt was a harmony created by that mysterious power.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you the master of this place?”
Having realized that, I asked calmly, but carefully.
Karma was life itself, elevated into mystery.
There could be weak mages even among those who had mastered high-level magic, but a Martial Artist who wielded Karma could never be weak.
They were not strong because they wielded Karma.
They awakened to Karma because they were strong.
Naturally, the old man was someone I could not stand against as I was now.
Still, I was not afraid, because I could not sense the slightest ill intent from him.
The elderly Fairy actually answered with a warm smile.
“How could an island have an owner? Still, it is true that I changed this place into what it is.”
“You changed it?”
The old man did not answer. He merely looked at me with a gentle smile.
A wordless affirmation.
Even without him saying it, I understood that he had brought the distant Great Forest to this island, and a shiver ran through me.
Those who awakened to Karma were commonly called the Enlightened—Superiors.
However, even among Superiors, there were differences in level.
Throughout humanity’s long history, there had been few who could overlay the world within themselves upon the real world.
I had never even heard of someone changing an entire island.
Having encountered a wondrous realm that even the Sword Saint had failed to reach, I was stunned.
“I expected the first person to set foot here to be a Fairy. How did a human drift to the peninsula, then make it all the way to an island like this?”
Yet as though none of that mattered, the old man smiled like spring sunlight and stroked my head.
Even beneath that warm touch, I felt that something was strange again.
A Fairy’s lifespan was around five hundred years.
They grew like humans, retained their youthful appearance for most of their lives, and began to age after passing four hundred and fifty.
By common sense, this old man should have been around that age.
But if that were the case, there was no way he would not know that most of Raechia’s population was human.
After all, more than eight hundred years had passed since Raechia was founded.
Something still did not add up.
“Excuse me, sir. I did not drift here. I live on the peninsula.”
I was surprised and curious, but I first told the old man about the history I knew.
How the former Empire of the central continent had fallen, sending refugees flooding in.
How the Fairies living on the peninsula had accepted humans.
And how the peninsula had become a country where they lived alongside the Fairies.
The old man made interesting noises as he listened, and occasionally even clapped.
When my long story ended, he was smiling happily.
“That is wonderful. Truly wonderful.”
He did not seem displeased by the fact that humans now lived alongside Fairies on land that had once belonged to the Fairies.
On the contrary, he held out his hand to me without hesitation.
“Would you walk with me for a while?”
“Ah, yes.”
His steps were leisurely like an old man’s, yet so natural that they showed none of an old man’s discomfort.
Walking beside him, I found the sight wondrous.
A swarm of butterflies approached and settled on his shoulders, fluttering their wings.
A Frost Thrush perched on his head and groomed its feathers, while the flowers ahead of us quietly lowered themselves to make room for his feet.
Natural.
There was no other embellishment that could describe the scene.
Becoming one with everything around him, the old man shared his teaching with me.
“Nothing in this world is eternal and indestructible. When the times change, it is only natural for people to change as well.”
“That is... true, isn’t it?”
“You may already know this, but the origin of every Fairy in the world is the Great Forest.”
“Yes, I have heard that. I know a Fairy grandmother.”
“The Fairies of the Great Forest chose to remain unchanged there forever. In contrast, we came outside in hopes of accepting a new age.”
As he continued walking, the old man’s steps gradually turned into a dance.
Butterflies, birds, flowers, and the evening glow danced along with his swaying movements.
Yes.
The entire world was dancing with him.
“Would it not be even more ridiculous if we, who left our homeland to pursue change, feared change and rejected humans?”
“You are right, sir.”
“That is why I am happier that you came to me than a Fairy. Are you not the result of the love between a Fairy and a human? This truly is impermanence.”
That was a somewhat distant story to me.
From my surname to my black hair, I clearly bore the traits of Fairy blood.
Still, even if I had Fairy lineage, the intermingling of bloodlines had happened hundreds of years ago.
It was the story of ancestors from far too long ago for me to consciously think about.
Naturally, the love between a Fairy and a human did not feel real to me.
The old man saw my bewildered expression and laughed brightly.
His white hair scattered in the cool wind, and I found his boyish smile both enviable and incredible.
As I watched him, overcome by unfamiliar emotions, his face darkened slightly.
“Though I speak this way, I missed the homeland I left behind. This island is the result of my attachment.”
“Attachment?”
“Do you not feel anything when you look at this island?”
“It is like the Great Forest I had only heard about... Ah!”
“I overlaid an ordinary island with the homeland I had always longed for in my heart. It is a most unnatural thing.”
The old man who had looked like a boy now seemed like someone who had endured countless years.
Unable to understand him, I carefully asked a question.
“But is it not natural for a person to long for their hometown?”
The Sword Saint had spent his entire life longing for his hometown.
The home he longed for had been frozen in the past, then vanished.
Raechia, without his parents, had meant nothing to him.
Because he could not return to the days when he was a fifteen-year-old boy with his parents still alive, he did not return to Raechia.
He could not return.
I had not experienced what he had experienced, and even if I did, it could never be the same experience.
So I did not understand his feelings.
But I understood this much.
It could not be wrong for a person to long for beloved times and a beloved hometown.
If anything, that was more natural.
At my question, the old man’s eyes widened.
“You think so? Even though my selfishness changed this island so thoroughly that no one can ever discover what it was originally like?”
“Did you kill anyone or cause anyone suffering while doing it?”
“No.”
“Then I think it is all right. You said nothing was eternal, didn’t you? The island you changed to is like that too.”
I took a moment to gather my thoughts and recalled what I had experienced on the island.
The time I had spent laughing and talking happily with my friends, and the wondrous sights I had seen while following the butterfly.
The beautiful flower field I found here, and the old man himself.
“At least, thanks to you, sir, I truly enjoyed today.”
“Hahahaha! Yes, so it is. This too is part of the natural order!”
With a hearty laugh, the old man began dancing again.
At that moment, the sun that had hung in the distant heavens vanished, and the moon quietly revealed its face.
When gentle moonlight shone upon the ground, every flower bud covering the earth bloomed all at once.
Among the dazzling silver petals, butterflies drifted in waves as they danced with the old man.
Scattering pollen that glittered like starlight.
I watched in rapture as moonlight and starlight flowed like waves, like wind, within the dance.
Then the old man suddenly stopped dancing and faced me.
“Thank you, child. Thanks to you, I have been freed from the attachment I could not cast aside for over a thousand years.”
Before long, his body began scattering into light.
“The Starwind Flower, which I had wished to see so dearly yet had never bloomed, has finally blossomed because of you.”
From his fingers to his arms, then his entire body.
The old man was scattering like particles of light drifting between flower petals.
I reached out to try and catch him, but my hand merely cut through empty air.
“One final question. How did what you saw on this island appear to you?”
“It was... beautiful.”
“Hahahaha! That is enough!”
After laughing for a long while, the old man suddenly looked at me in silence.
His eyes held the heavens, the wind, starlight, moonlight, blooming flowers, and dancing butterflies.
When I shrank beneath that gaze, which made me feel infinitely small, the old man smiled gently and offered me advice.
“Child, there is anger in your eyes. There is sorrow as well, and shame.”
“What? Ah... Yes.”
The twist within me that I could not let go of, even while looking upon such a beautiful sight.
At words that seemed to see through every knot I had built up since I was born a cripple, I hesitated before answering.
The old man smiled at me like an innocent child and advised me.
“It is not bad. To cry, laugh, grow angry, and feel sorrow are all natural for a person.”
“Thank... you?”
“However, do not become bound by them. Emotions naturally come like waves, and naturally leave like waves.”
The words struck a nerve for no reason, leaving me unable to say anything.
Then the old man gave me a teaching as precious as gold and jade.
“If you can do that, you will be able to become the true master of your own life.”
I did not understand what he meant, but instinctively, I knew his words were important.
So I gave him a respectful bow and thanked him.
“Thank you for teaching me. I will do my best.”
“Yes, you will do well. I leave now, so you must live.”
Having finished speaking, the old man scattered into particles of light and vanished, as though he had completed what he needed to do.
Leaving me a kind legacy and his final words.
“Use these flowers I created and you made bloom however you see fit. They will help with the Karma you bear.”
When his voice, fading like an echo, finally disappeared, I was left alone.
Wondering whether all of this had been a dream, I looked down.
The flower field beneath me, releasing starlight like pollen under the moonlight, seemed to say that it was not a dream.
Starlight Silk was a treasure only Forest Fairies could create, one that even royalty and nobility could not easily possess.
And the Starwind Flower, its raw material, had come into my hands.
It was an absurdly great windfall, yet it did not feel that way.
This place, and everything I had experienced here, simply felt more precious.
“Johan! Where are you, you bastard?!”
“Jeong Jooohan!”
As I stood there, quietly savoring the lingering feeling, my friends’ voices reached me. I raised my head.
Looking at the evening sky dyed red after the softly shining moonlight had vanished, I answered.
“I’m here! Come over here quickly!”
Our shouts went back and forth several times, and when they finally appeared beyond the forest—
I smiled at the two, who stood with their mouths hanging open as though enchanted by the field of Starwind Flowers.
“Pretty, right?”
Holding that moment, more precious than any treasure, in my heart—
I proudly showed them the old man’s final work.
“You! We called for you so many times, and you didn’t answer once!”
Perhaps Andrea was overcome with anger at how calm I looked after ignoring all those calls.
He shouted furiously, but before long, he and Anna fell silent as though they had honey in their mouths.
The scenery before us was too beautiful to keep being angry.
“Yeah, it’s beautiful...”
Anna nodded with a blush on her cheeks.
She did not stop there, but brought her face close to the mysteriously glowing flowers.
As though it had been waiting, the wind blew, and pollen clung to her face.
It gave me a feeling that was somehow refreshing, yet wistful.
“Pwahahaha! Hey, your face! It was funny already, but now you’re funnier than a clown!”
“What, you punk? Do you seriously want to die? You’ve always looked funnier than a clown!”
That mood lasted only a moment before Andrea, who had been looking at Anna, ruined it.
Anna glared at the laughing Andrea with narrowed eyes and raised her hand, while I hurriedly stopped them.
“All right, enough. This moment is too precious to waste fighting, isn’t it?”
Let us enjoy this moment instead.
At that irresistible suggestion, the two readily agreed.
Was this how it would feel if the Milky Way descended to the earth?
The sight of the fully bloomed Starwind Flowers swaying together with the butterflies was too precious to waste on an argument.
And so, at some point, the three of us simply admired the breathtaking view without a word.
With stirring hearts and stinging eyes, we preserved that moment within us.
“Kids! Where are you?!”
Until the gondoliere came to pick us up.
We filled a page of our youth with memories.
***
The way back was hell.
We decided to hide the field of Starwind Flowers and made the excuse that we had gotten lost.
As a result, we were thoroughly scolded for wandering around unfamiliar places and getting stranded.
Of course, the island we had visited was so small that getting stranded would have been difficult, but we had no other excuse.
After that, we returned later than planned and were scolded by our parents again.
No, rather than being scolded, I was the one who first prostrated myself in apology before my mother, who silently reheated my cold dinner.
Perhaps I would have felt more at ease if she had just scolded me.
Fortunately, my mother and father understood, saying that things like that could happen when you went out to have fun at my age.
After lecturing me for two hours, until it felt as though my ears were bleeding.
After everything was over, I finally went to the guild the next day.
I negotiated with the guild members, who grumbled that I had skipped my lessons without permission, and received a firm promise that Sundays would be days off.
“Grandma, do you know about Starwind Flowers?”
And so, I was now alone with Grandma Sujin on the second floor of the guild.
To tell her about a page of youth, and the final page of an old man who had longed for his hometown.