Chapter 41

Night settled over the Blue Moon Sect. Inside one of the larger quarters, a room.

In the quiet, Cheon Hyein sat before a desk, raised the tea at hand, and took a sip.

Then she focused on the letter before her.

The room was dark. One might wonder what she could possibly see in such darkness.

Even so, her Moon Eyes lit the world with clarity; she needed no lamp to see.

Only after Cheon Hyein finished reading the letter, sheet by sheet—

“Is this all?”

Dissatisfaction filled her voice.

It was far thinner than she had expected.

The figure half-kneeling outside her quarters flinched and replied.

“That’s everything we were to receive.”

“Hm....”

Flip. She checked the letter again just in case, but nothing changed.

“There’s too little. Far too little.”

“But...”

“Don’t worry. I’m not blaming you, Senior. It’s just that there’s so little it’s almost nothing.”

At Cheon Hyein’s words, the man—Second Disciple Seom Seonggyeong—bit his lip.

He watched every nuance of her manner.

Whether she cared for his reactions or not, Cheon Hyein kept her eyes on the letter alone.

It contained information on none other than the Bang Family of Liaoning.

“They say that decades ago it was an outstanding renowned house....”

One of the names Liaoning itself acknowledged; in wealth alone, they were known to have amassed a staggering fortune.

Yet—

“They blew it all at gambling.”

Grandfather, father, and brother—every last one a born gambler.

They didn’t just yank the house’s pillars—they smashed them to dust. The one sister who showed any promise even ran away.

Now, in that ruined household, the father or the brother were said to live by bleeding women dry.

“So that’s why the sobriquet was...”

The word was one she preferred not even to recall; Cheon Hyein chose to ignore that part.

At any rate, the Bang family of Liaoning had fallen so far it lay on the floor.

No—calling it a “family” anymore felt dubious.

Once a mere “renowned house.” That was the right expression.

It should have been so.

“And from such a place, such a person emerged....”

Cheon Hyein pictured Bang Sungyeon’s face and curled a smile.

A handsome face. Perhaps he took after that father famed in the province for looks—his face alone was exceptional.

Only, for such a fine face, the eyes lacked vitality.

As if—

“Eyes that seem uninterested in the world.”

For someone said to be aiming at the Sect Master’s seat, she saw no greed in that gaze at all.

Speak with him long enough and an odd mood crept in, as though one would slowly be drawn in.

The Bang Sungyeon she saw was exceedingly strange.

And that was hardly the end of it.

“A disciple of the previous Sect Master.”

Successor to the Sword Saint, Yoo Cheongil.

Recalling that, Cheon Hyein furrowed her brow.

“Strange.”

Truly strange.

In a household that wrecked, how did one called Bang Sungyeon appear?

“No matter how I look at it, it’s strange.”

Not merely strange—so strange that even if someone called it a lie on the spot, it wouldn’t feel out of place.

That the fortuitous legacy left by the previous Sect Master happened to be in Liaoning, out of the blue.

That, having obtained it, Bang Sungyeon simply showed up at the Blue Moon Sect.

Everything was strange. Not one part sat straight.

However—

“The power was real.”

He defeated Little Azure Sword—whom she had meant to collar and handle—and even earned recognition from her father, the Moonlit Sword. That meant it wasn’t a lie.

“Hmmm....”

All the words and the steps felt like lies, yet what he actually possessed was real, and so, in the end, it became the truth.

“A strange person.”

He looked like someone who had nothing at all, and yet he stood so boldly before her?

If one had to point out something peculiar here—

“A broken engagement.”

He had been engaged as a child and the engagement was dissolved. And not with some middling clan either...

“The Murong Clan?”

One of the Five Great Clans at present, the representative renowned house of Liaoning.

There was a record that he was engaged to, then broke from, a direct-line blood of the Murong Clan.

“If it’s a Murong direct line... her?”

At the figure that rose in her mind, Cheon Hyein’s brow twitched for a heartbeat.

She particularly disliked thinking of that one.

“Likely the engagement dissolved when the family collapsed.”

The Murong Clan especially minded such things.

The Bangs had been a renowned house in the past, but once they lost everything to gambling, the Murong Clan had no reason to accept them. Uselessness merits disposal; seeing it as an immediate casting off was right.

“Hm.”

Cheon Hyein dusted the letter between her fingers and set it aside.

“Reading further is truly pointless.”

That was the end of the information.

At best there were notes on Bang Sungyeon’s hobbies and favorite foods, padded with lines about a ruined clan.

Truly nothing. And yet, as she looked—

“...Something.”

Something was too absent.

Could there really be this little?

It grated on her quite a bit—

“Or does the lack itself mean there’s nothing to find?”

Cheon Hyein chose not to think too deeply on that part.

What mattered now was something else, not this.

“So—was it truly as you said? That Young Master Bang not only read your presence, Senior...”

Cheon Hyein turned her Moon Eyes past Seom Seonggyeong’s shoulder.

“He even read Martial Elder-uncle’s presence.”

At her words, a pair of eyes trembled in the dark.

“Yes.”

A heavy voice spread through the room.

“Any chance it was a mistake?”

“None. He pointed it out exactly.”

As if recalling the moment, the man added:

“It was a warning. Without doubt.”

“A warning?”

“Yes. A warning.”

Blue eyes, chillingly opened—an adamant gaze that said it wouldn’t matter what you tried.

How could he do that?

“Not even come of age, yet truly brazen.”

The man had had to feel any number of impressions while watching Bang Sungyeon.

Turn those over and over and, at the end, one figure overlapped.

“Too alike.”

At the mutter, the corners of Cheon Hyein’s eyes quivered faintly.

“I hear that a lot these days.”

Her father the Moonlit Sword, her pathetic younger brother, and now even the one before her—

They saw Bang Sungyeon and thought of someone.

The Sword Saint—the very one Bang Sungyeon claimed as his master.

However—

“I don’t quite understand.”

Cheon Hyein couldn’t much accept those remarks.

“Is it truly to that degree?”

He was interesting. She felt something out of step with others, and glimpsed a faint extraordinariness.

“But to compare him to the previous Sect Master—that feels far too presumptuous.”

To say Bang Sungyeon resembled the Sword Saint felt excessive.

Especially—

“No matter how I look, the power he has is disappointing.”

As Cheon Hyein saw it, Bang Sungyeon was far too weak.

For a moment she wondered if he had merely hidden his strength...

“But watching him in the dining hall, that wasn’t it.”

Having seated him close to check, she was certain.

At best, he was second-rate.

One might ask how someone barely at second-rate had opened the Moon Eyes.

“There must have been something in the secret left by the previous Sect Master.”

A being like Yoo Cheongil made even that possible.

Even she could only acknowledge that.

“But...”

“If you have the standing to witness it, that is.”

The audacity of a nothing declaring that to her.

Recalling it, Cheon Hyein smiled again.

Seom Seonggyeong gave a slight shudder.

Whenever she smiled like that, she was about to do something.

“Ah... truly amusing.”

With no backing to speak of and no strength, how could he stand so boldly?

Was he truly stepping forth trusting only in the existence called the Sword Saint?

If so, that was a bit disappointing.

“Unless he’s right at your side, it won’t matter.”

He didn’t look like someone who wouldn’t know that.

Then—

“Does he truly have some hidden card?”

Thinking of Bang Sungyeon, Cheon Hyein kept smiling.

“Good.”

Then, as though something had occurred to her, she nodded. The answer was simple.

If she didn’t know, she could find out.

So she looked to Seom Seonggyeong before her and spoke.

“Senior.”

“Uh...?”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“......”

At the word favor, Seom Seonggyeong’s throat bobbed. He swallowed dry and squeezed his eyes shut.

Because he knew far too well that, called a “favor,” it left no room for refusal.

****

The next day came.

I had to lie in bed the entire day after swallowing that so-called Blue Moon Pill.

“Ugh, stiff...”

Whether from the rough force of it or not, my insides hurt too much, and the muscle aches were bad, so I spent the whole day flat on my back.

Honestly, I was happy.

I hadn’t rested properly in a while—that made it sweeter.

[And what did you do to be tired?]

“...If I said I did nothing, wouldn’t that be a bit shameless of you?”

I did all sorts of things, and he still had to jab in the middle of it.

Ridiculous.

Anyway.

The moment I stepped outside, someone was waiting.

Naturally, he was from the Blue Moon Sect, but his clothes were oddly different.

“The Small Moon Unit.”

The sect’s elite. This was the uniform worn by the Small Moon Unit.

“The small moon greets the successor of the great one.”

“...A pleasure.”

He dropped to his knees the moment he saw me. It was more pressure than I liked.

“I am Second Disciple Do Hyeong. I’ve been assigned to guide you, Young Master. I look forward to your favor.”

A handsome youth. He looked five or six years older than me.

But a Second Disciple? For a Second Disciple he was quite young.

Did he have circumstances similar to the Cheon siblings? I wondered for a moment, then erased it. It wasn’t important.

“I’m Bang Sungyeon. I don’t think I saw you in the dining hall yesterday... is that right?”

“That’s right. I had an assignment that took me outside briefly.”

At my question, Do Hyeong answered with an expressionless face.

“An assignment,” huh.

Unlike ordinary sect members, the Small Moon Unit often operated outside.

That was true of any sect’s elites.

“Allow me to escort you.”

“Yes.”

With no further need for talk, I followed Do Hyeong.

The destination was a place I had visited before—the largest building, called the Blue Moon Hall.

****

“I greet the Sect Master.”

The Sect Master was already waiting inside the building.

I gave courtesy the moment I saw the Moonlit Sword.

“Did you pass the night in comfort?”

“Yes. It was good.”

That was sincere.

“I’m glad. However...”

Those characteristic blue eyes turned to me.

“I hear there was a small matter yesterday.”

“......”

At that, I swallowed. He must be referring to what happened in the dining hall.

“Yes, well. There was a minor incident.”

I answered with an awkward smile, and the Moonlit Sword added at once:

“First, my apologies. There was business within the main sect; that this Sect Master failed to treat Young Master Bang properly is my incompetence.”

“It’s nothing. I’m sure you had your reasons.”

Smiling, I focused. There had been business within the main sect—that went into my head.

“Thank you for accepting that. Only...”

His eyes narrowed at me.

“I do have a small question about what you said then.”

“What is it?”

“I’m told you presented yourself to a Second Disciple as his martial grand-uncle. Is that so?”

Ah, that part.

“Yes. I did.”

“I’m curious why you did so.”

“If you ask why I did...”

I answered as evenly as possible.

“Because it was correct.”

“......”

At that [N O V E L I G H T] answer, a faint movement crossed the Moonlit Sword’s brow.

“I don’t think it was wrong. Do you see it differently, Sect Master?”

“Well. That may be something listeners could take in different ways.”

“It could be. Then how do you see it, Sect Master?”

Never mind others—what about you?

Can you see me as your senior? When I threw that out, his gaze grew more focused.

“Well now.”

His eyes were sharp. Just being looked at felt like being sliced somewhere.

Still, I wasn’t the sort to quail at that.

[Boy, your legs are shaking.]

“......”

I tightened my legs hard.

“How, you ask...”

A brief silence passed as if he weighed it.

“I don’t think it is something I can answer now.”

The Moonlit Sword offered a somewhat ambiguous reply.

“However, if Young Master Bang wishes it, treating you as a First Disciple is possible.”

The pretext was more than sufficient. As the Sword Saint’s disciple, it was well within bounds—and that very standing had let me raise hell in the dining hall.

But—

“I don’t particularly intend to go that far. That isn’t important to me.”

“Not important?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, it sounds as though something else is important...”

“That’s right.”

What mattered to me wasn’t being titled First or Second Disciple.

I could put it to use if I wanted, but that wasn’t what I needed now.

“May I ask what that is?”

The Moonlit Sword asked. I answered at once.

What I needed now was—

“The Small Moon Unit.”

“...!”

“What must I do to enter the Small Moon Unit?”

The Blue Moon Sect’s elite corps.

I intended to enlist in the Small Moon Unit.