At the same time, in a dense forest near the inn.
"Hnnnnngh."
A deep, heavy groan broke the silence and dragged on and on.
Big, fierce eyes and deep, grave furrows between the brows.
Fingers laced together, frozen like a stone statue, with the look of a man lost in the gravest of thoughts.
This was none other than Chief Steward Dan Mu-rip, second-in-command of the Baek Clan and one of the renowned masters of Jiangnan.
He had weathered the storms of the Murim with his whole body, and yet the reason he wore such a desperate expression now was not at all that he had met a formidable foe.
"Hnnnnrgh!"
Pbbbt! It was because his stomach was churning especially badly today.
He had thought stepping away for just a moment would do it, but it was taking longer than expected.
"The Young Master isn't causing some kind of trouble in the meantime, surely?"
Nah, surely not. Troublemaker or not, nothing could go wrong in such a short time, not even two hours. It wouldn't. It shouldn't......
"Are these chills running down my back because of my bowels, or because of the Young Master?! Hngh!"
As his unease swelled, Chief Steward Dan's furrows and groans only grew deeper.
***
Meanwhile, as if to live up to Chief Steward Dan's expectations, the inside of the inn had been quite literally reduced to rubble.
Understandably. Neither the furniture nor the people had been left in one piece.
"Ha, insane......"
All the strength drained from his body, Kang Woo-jin barely managed to drag his shaking legs over and dropped into a chair.
Beads of sweat dripped to the floor through his tattered clothes.
His wild, disheveled hair was proof of how fierce a melee he had just been through.
More than a dozen men lay sprawled across the floor.
The inn's furniture had been smashed beyond recognition, leaving the place an eyesore on the verge of demolition.
It was a miracle he had managed to stay on his feet to the very end in that hellish chaos.
If Heaven's Table Ginseng's effects hadn't been flowing through his veins, he would probably have met a violent end long before.
He had barely held on, taking hits and getting back up over and over like a reanimated corpse.
Still, he had won.
No, he had fought his way through to victory.
He had laid out the sons of bitches who'd smashed him to pieces just days ago, right there in front of him.
"Is this for real......"
For Kang Woo-jin, it was a moment that drew a hollow laugh.
Of course, there was a guy even more unreal than that right beside him.
"You okay?"
"Do I look okay!"
Kang Woo-jin yelled. In his eyes, Baek Do-gyeom was bizarre itself.
He had weaved all through the melee, yet his clothes weren't even rumpled, and far from being hurt, he didn't have a speck of dust on him.
How was that possible?
Because he had dodged the charging warriors' attacks like a ghost.
This was a whole different realm from mere luck or natural agility.
Movements that seemed to foresee every one of the enemy's moves in advance and mock them.
'This punk looks like he'd keel right over if you hit him once......'
Anyone could see he was sickly, and even in the middle of the fight, he kept sitting down in a chair, complaining he was out of breath, and wetting his throat with tea.
Once, when Kang Woo-jin glared at him in a flash of anger, he had even raised his cup with a look that said exactly, 'Have a cup, too.'
And yet at every critical moment, he had hurled whatever was at hand and saved him.
'That just makes it more infuriating!'
It felt like being a monkey on a trainer's leash!
"What the hell are you?! Don't tell me you used me to get rid of those bastards? Killing with a borrowed fork. Something like that?!"
"You mean killing with a borrowed knife. And wait, you didn't actually kill them, did you?"
"Do I look crazy to you!"
Right, he wasn't an assassin yet. Baek Do-gyeom let out a sigh of relief.
"No, forget that, why was I the only one fighting up front!"
"Well, that's......"
Honestly, if he had put his mind to helping, it would have been easier.
'Because I could just see it.'
The situation in the melee had been laid out plainly in his head, as if he were peeping at it through dozens of cameras.
So it had been all too easy to calculate.
The bodyguards' lines of sight. The twist of their waists. The angles of their strikes. Even the force packed into their toes.
He could clearly see where everything was headed and where it would go next.
"......But a modern man like me can't fight like a savage. I'm not an animal."
"So you're saying I'm an animal!"
Anyway, he needed some time to adjust to these strange new senses that had appeared out of nowhere.
"And I really was out of breath."
"Honestly, what a punk. Not an ounce of anything to like about you."
"Still, not bad, Kang Woo-jin. I didn't think you'd take down this many guys."
"Hmph! I was just born with nothing. When it comes to raw aptitude, I don't lose to anybody, got it?"
"I know."
"What?"
Especially at spotting an opponent's weak points. Nobody's as good at that as you.
"But you're sloppy. How do I put it, it shows you only just picked up martial arts?"
"I don't want to hear that from you, okay?!"
"Still, you definitely got noticeably better while you were fighting."
"Aw, damn it! Either praise me or insult me, pick one!"
"It's praise. You've got talent. For sure."
If the Slaughter Evil had no talent, every other prodigy might as well drown themselves in a saucer of water.
At the heartfelt words, Kang Woo-jin stood there dazed for a moment. Then, his face turning a little red, he coughed and looked away.
"Tch. Who shoved me into a death trap in the first place?"
That part really was just like the original. When Baek Do-gyeom let out a chuckle, Kang Woo-jin snorted too and leaned back.
"Ahem, well, anyway, saving me and taking my side kind of makes me feel a little grateful. Or maybe it doesn't......"
"What are you, a kid? You can't even say thanks."
"Aw, damn it. Are you really Baek Do-gyeom?"
"I am. Not that I really want to believe it either."
"Wow, it's the end of the world. Who knew the day would come when I'd sit around chatting like this with the most notorious scoundrel under heaven."
"Same goes for me."
"Anyway, Baek Do-gyeom, thanks, I owe you!"
Kang Woo-jin said his thanks roughly. Baek Do-gyeom answered with a smile.
"What, for handing you the sickness and then the cure?"
"That too! And, uh, for what you did for Brother Hong-seok."
When Kang Woo-jin jerked his head, a man came over. Hong-seok, who had nearly become an innocent victim.
"Th-thank you. Young Master. Sniff......"
"Come on, why are you crying again?"
Kang Woo-jin comforting him with a smile, and Hong-seok, on the verge of tears.
I watched the two of them blankly.
He was someone who hadn't even been given a name in the original.
'Victim 1, 2 of some village.' That was all he'd have been written off as, a presence lesser than stage scenery.
But the tears of the Hong-seok in front of me right now were hot, and Kang Woo-jin's smile was sincere.
'This...... isn't a novel.'
That was the first time the thought struck me.
That even if it was the worst story ever written by a crazy author, for these people, at least, it might be a precious life that had to be protected no matter what.
"......If those punks ever come after you or bother you again, come running to the Baek Clan."
I broke the silence.
"I'll take care of it myself."
When I gave them an easy smile, the two of them just gaped and blinked.
'What's with this bastard? Did he always look like this?'
Was it his imagination that the face that had only ever looked vile now looked oddly handsome?
Hong-seok belatedly came to his senses and bowed deeply.
"Th-thank you!"
"You can walk around with peace of mind now."
"Yes, Great Hero Baek!"
Hong-seok beamed and offered a clasped hands greeting. At that, Kang Woo-jin shot him an indignant glare.
"Wait, Brother Hong-seok. Why does he get to be a Great Hero? Then what am I?"
"Huh? Woo-jin, you're...... just Woo-jin?"
"How is that fair! I'm the one who did all the work!"
"What? Hahaha!"
It was the first time since I'd arrived here that I burst out laughing like a real human being.
And.
"Wh-what on earth happened here......"
A man with big, fierce eyes let out a cry of shock as he walked into the inn, late.
Chief Steward Dan Mu-rip.
It was him.
"Geez, you could've moved a little faster. What took you so long?"
"Please take care of the cleanup."
And Kang Woo-jin and Baek Do-gyeom walked past him on either side.
"Hey, aren't you hungry?"
"Let's go grab a bite together, then."
"Sounds good!"
W-wait...... Left standing there all alone, Chief Steward Dan stared blankly around the room and became certain.
Sooner would a scoundrel give up eating dung.
I'm the lunatic for believing in him!
"Hngh!"
Gurgle. It was a day of upheaval in more ways than one.
***
After I got back to my quarters with Kang Woo-jin, we talked nonstop until night fell.
Mostly Kang Woo-jin talked and I listened, but it was fun enough.
I especially couldn't help laughing when he told me Tang Seo-rin had blown poison smoke at him while ordering him to come bow to me in thanks.
And when I heard about his family, I understood why Kang Woo-jin had fought like his life depended on it.
"......There was no mother, and one day the guy who called himself my father just dumped a kid in front of me. Then he went off and died of lung sickness on his own. So all the family I've got is that one kid. Kang Woo-sik. You saw Brother Hong-seok earlier, right? The kid lives with him now. His sister's friends with the kid. Why does it cost so much to raise one little brat? I never have time to go home."
Kang Woo-jin talked as if it were nothing, but I could see it in his face.
The corners of his mouth curling up faintly every time he mentioned the kid.
"The kid's really smart, unlike me. So if I'm going to back that up, at least this body of mine has to be in one piece. If you hadn't saved me, we'd both have been done for. You saved two people. Seriously, thank you. From the bottom of my heart."
After talking like that for a long while, Kang Woo-jin fell asleep sprawled out spread-eagle.
And I quietly stepped outside and sank into thought.
In the original, the reason Kang Woo-jin became an assassin was never described in detail.
But now I understood.
He hadn't become that simply because his body was ruined.
It was the despair of no longer being able to do anything for the kid, trapped in a crippled body.
And his hatred for the world that had done that to him.
That was the story of the 'real Kang Woo-jin,' something I could only have learned by breathing this world's air and colliding with it firsthand.
"......Phew."
It was a night for thinking.
At first, I'd thought all I had to do was break the chain of our ill-fated bond.
But Kang Woo-jin had come right back to me and nearly repeated his crippled fate.
"So dodging isn't everything, after all."
Who was it that said it?
That there's no paradise waiting for those who run away.
They were right.
Running away wouldn't change a thing.
The world would collapse, and the Night of the Seven Evils would come.
So if I wanted to survive, I couldn't dodge. I had to walk straight into the heart of their fates myself.
And change them.
This damned original.
No matter what.