Chapter 349

Mount Hua’s largest plum tree had fallen.

The ancient tree that alone had stood firm, never once collapsing.

It had fallen without so much as a sound.

“Aaaahhh...!!!”

Wails rang out through Mount Hua, which had been forced into silence by outside hands.

How mournful.

Each voice cried out with its own grief.

“How could you leave us like this...?”

“Sect Master...!!”

Amid the countless cries of mourning,

I quietly looked at the one who had fallen.

There was someone who had left with an easy smile on his face, as if nothing at all weighed on him.

He really looked like he was sleeping.

For a moment, I even found myself wondering if he really was asleep.

There was no way.

‘No chance.’

There was no way. I knew that better than anyone. I had no choice but to.

[Heh heh heh. A fine death, wasn’t it.]

“...”

A sigh slipped out at the cackling laughter.

‘This is driving me insane.’

What the hell was I supposed to call this? Laughing while looking at your own dead body?

Seongheon’s corpse had already lost all life. He was truly dead.

I had seen souls leave bodies plenty of times when they were still living spirits, but this was different.

His heart no longer beat, and he no longer breathed.

Back when he had been a living spirit, the body itself had still been alive.

Now even that was no longer true.

A complete death.

His soul had lost the place ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) it was meant to return to.

And so, Seongheon’s life in this world had ended.

“Aaaahhh...!!!”

In the middle of everyone’s lamentation,

we, too, drew breath in that same atmosphere.

Even Cheon Hyein, whose face was always cold or smiling, had her eyes shut.

Cheon Eujin and Do Hyeong were the same. The Poison Dragon was no different.

In front of them, Small Moon Unit Leader and I were also letting out steady breaths as we saw Seongheon off on his final journey, when—

[Now that I look at him, he was a handsome bastard. Wasn’t he?]

[There’s a limit to your bullshit. What handsome bastard? He was old as hell. Peel off the liver spots on that skin before you start talking.]

[Tsk, tsk. Kids these days call those charm points. You really can’t keep up with the times. I’d better not age like you.]

[For fuck’s sake. No wonder they call you the Flower Daoist. Even your nonsense smells flowery.]

[Flower Daoist... this little bastard.]

“...”

I really wished they’d shut the hell up.

I meant that sincerely. Were these people actually in their right minds?

I couldn’t focus. If I slipped up even a little, I felt like I might laugh.

If I laughed here, I’d really be finished. Socially buried on the spot.

“Uuuhhh...!”

Everyone was sobbing.

What would happen if I started laughing in the middle of that?

I had no confidence whatsoever that I could endure all those stares.

And besides—

‘Even if that wasn’t the issue.’

I couldn’t laugh while looking at that small back in front of me.

At Yuyeon.

“...”

“Aaaahhh...”

Amid the flood of wailing, she alone was quiet.

Yuyeon made no sound at all.

With her master, whose breath had already stopped, right in front of her,

she sat there for a long time, doing nothing.

On a day when the season was turning cold,

Seongheon, the man called a hero, left behind his still, silent disciple and went on his way.

That was the day.

*****

Seongheon’s funeral ended before the night turned cold.

Among the flower petals.

And while the sun was still up.

Because they had found the lines Seongheon had left behind, saying that was how he wanted it to end.

The night when perhaps I should have left,

I had missed the timing somehow and remained at Mount Hua instead.

[The night is cold.]

Seongheon came up beside me and spoke. I gave a faint snort of laughter as I looked at him, already a ghost.

I had just come back from his funeral, and yet there he was beside me. It was almost absurd.

Once upon a time, this kind of thing would have been normal for me.

Now it wasn’t, not entirely.

“You can’t even feel the cold.”

[Ah, damn. Caught me.]

Ha ha ha.

Seongheon laughed.

[Thank you.]

The words came immediately after.

I turned to look at him when I heard them.

“For what?”

[For seeing me through to the end.]

“I didn’t do anything like that. The timing just worked out that way.”

I meant it.

I hadn’t had any real intention of doing anything for his final moments.

If anything, I’d wanted to stay out of it.

I looked at him with that thought in mind, but Seongheon was still smiling.

[The weather’s nice.]

He said it while looking up at the rising moon.

Watching his reaction, I asked,

“Are you all right?”

[With what?]

“I mean, do you have any regrets left?”

[Heh heh. Why? You planning to grant them if I do?]

“No.”

Was he insane? As if I’d do that.

“I can’t grant you any more.”

That was the limit.

Even the matter of the Plum Blossom Governance Sword had already been dangerous. I couldn’t move any further for the sake of his lingering attachments.

[Heh heh... I suppose not.]

“Right. Requests from the dead cause me problems. Even that last one took a hell of a lot out of me.”

[What a strange thing. Just what kind of life have you lived?]

All of a sudden, Seongheon looked at me with something like pity in his eyes.

[Your dry eyes. The way you’re so calm in front of death. I’m curious about your life.]

“You don’t need to be. It wasn’t anything special.”

More precisely, it was the kind of life I couldn’t exactly go around talking about.

People, see—

‘The moment they find someone different from themselves, they decide that person is wrong.’

That didn’t change whether they were human or ghost.

I was someone who had lived in between those things.

Someone who couldn’t belong anywhere and had curled in on himself to survive.

That was me.

It wasn’t something I wanted to remember.

“...”

Seongheon looked at me, then stopped himself from asking anything more.

He seemed to realize he shouldn’t.

[You’ve worked hard.]

I laughed at the abrupt remark.

“Yeah.”

Worked hard, huh.

I had. And it looked like I’d keep working hard from here on out too.

‘What a shitty burden.’

Would things have been different if I’d accepted it when someone told me to become a god?

The thought crossed my mind for a moment.

But then—

‘Come to think of it...’

Who was it?

Who had been the one to tell me to become a god?

“...”

I frowned.

I couldn’t remember.

Who had said it?

Some higher being?

I couldn’t remember a thing.

‘What the hell?’

Was it because it was too old a memory?

No way.

There was no way I’d fail to remember something like that.

Just as I was thinking that—

[Kid. Why are you—]

Yoo Cheongil, looking at me oddly, was just about to ask, when someone appeared in front of us.

“Excuse me, Moon Hero.”

It was Yeo Hyeok.

As he stepped in, my train of thought snapped.

“Ah. Disciple Yeo Hyeok.”

“I’m sorry for coming so late at night. I came because there is something I need to give you.”

“To me?”

Yeo Hyeok’s expression didn’t look good either.

Well, of course it didn’t.

But in a situation like this, something to give me?

I looked at him, puzzled, and he held out a letter.

“It seems the Sect Master left this for you, Moon Hero.”

“...What?”

My eyes widened.

Seongheon had left something for me?

I glanced sideways at Seongheon’s ghost, and the old man was grinning.

[Didn’t you say so yourself?]

What did I say?

[That it’s hard for you to grant a dead man’s request. So I thought maybe it would be different if it were a request made while I was still alive.]

“...”

I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t even speak.

So that was why he’d written a will before dying?

Was he insane?

Of all the things he could’ve written, I never thought he’d leave a will addressed to me.

[Don’t worry. I left letters for plenty of children.]

Making an awkward face, I unfolded the letter.

The writing there was both long and short at once.

First, it began by saying that Yoo Cheongil’s legacy would be handed over to me.

And after that, it said the black robe should be returned.

But then—

“Returned to his direct disciple, Yuyeon, in person...?”

There was a line telling me to deliver the black robe to Yuyeon.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Then—

‘Does that mean I have to drag her all the way to Henan or something?’

I wondered if that was really what he meant.

Then I looked at Seongheon’s face, and it sure seemed like it was.

“Ha.”

“Moon Hero...?”

“It’s nothing.”

The moment I read his thoughts plain as day, irritation rose in me.

What a petty old bastard.

‘And how the hell did he even figure out the rules in the middle of all this?’

Amazingly enough, most of what Seongheon had said was correct.

A dead man’s request was one thing, but a request left behind while still alive did not affect burden at all.

“...”

Crafty old man.

No wonder he was friends with that bastard.

[What was that?]

[This little shit...!]

How was he reading it again when I wasn’t even speaking—just thinking?

Seriously, they were way too quick on the uptake.

I let out a long sigh and went on reading.

But then—

“Hm?”

When I read the final line, I had no choice but to tilt my head.

Because it contained something Seongheon would never have written.

*****

Mount Hua Sect had finally gone quiet after Seongheon’s funeral.

Inside it, the old Plum Blossom Commander, locked away, stirred.

CLANK.

The chains binding him rattled.

And when the wailing he had been hearing came to a stop, a short laugh slipped from him.

“...Senior Brother. So in the end, you really went.”

Heh heh.

“If you were going to leave like that... you should’ve given it to me instead.”

The seat of sect master he had never managed to inherit.

At that fact, the Plum Blossom Commander let out a low groan.

If he had known it would end up like this, would he have made a different choice?

No.

Probably not.

Even now, look at him.

He longed for a better choice, and yet even that longing was crooked.

“...Senior Brother was right.”

There had once been something Seongheon had said to him.

That he was not suited to the seat of sect master.

That was where it had begun to change.

He had grown stubborn.

He had forced the matter.

He had wanted to prove that Seongheon’s eyes had been wrong, but—

“In the end, Senior Brother was right.”

It seemed he had never been the kind of man who belonged in that place.

“Heh heh... heh heh heh.”

So this must be the ending he deserved.

Thinking that, the Plum Blossom Commander lowered his head.

“...Still.”

Even so—

“This isn’t how it should end.”

If he was only going to end as a mere traitor, then he might as well become something else before it was over.

Thinking that, the Plum Blossom Commander lifted his head.

Maybe it was because Seongheon had died.

Or maybe it was because of that conversation with Moon Hero.

The Plum Blossom Single Sword’s disciple had changed his mind.

The reason all the other traitorous disciples had died by suicide under restriction, while he alone remained alive.

And another truth that even Strange Demon and Taema did not know.

He would tell Mount Hua that truth, and then die.

Having made up his mind, the Plum Blossom Commander looked into the dark corridor and spoke.

“Hey.”

Hey. Hey. Hey...

His voice echoed hollowly.

“Is there nobody there?!”

Only the echo continued.

Was there really no one?

No matter that the sect master had died, it was still strange for there to be no guards at all.

“Hey, I have something to say—”

At that moment—

STEP.

Footsteps came from far away.

STEP. STEP.

A sound of someone walking from the distance, very slowly, very slowly.

What was that sound?

The moment the Plum Blossom Commander felt the question rise—

JERK—!

A dagger buried itself in his forehead.

“Ghk.”

With a faint final groan, the Plum Blossom Commander collapsed.

“...”

At some point, a single figure was standing in front of him.

The man with blue eyes watched the Plum Blossom Commander’s death.

Then—

SLIDE

He vanished just like that.