Chapter 79 - I Feel the Same

Just as he was about to overturn the table, a stream of internal energy flowed over and held it down.

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader looked up. It was the Blood Heaven Saber Demon, who sent him a sound transmission.

“Restrain yourself. If you overturn that table, it won't be the table's underside you expose, but your own.”

Sensing that the intervention came from goodwill, the Wind Heaven Cult Leader took his hands off the table. The Blood Heaven Saber Demon's eyes told him that he, too, understood him to some extent.

Geom Mugeuk spoke to the shackled man again.

“You've been bound here for so long that I thought you might like something made from these shackles.”

Rather than decline, the shackled man requested a single item.

“Then please make me a fan.”

“Will that be enough?”

“More than enough.”

I entrusted the shackles to Jang Ho.

“Take these to Master Gwak at the Cult's smithy. Ask him to make a fan with ribs of ten-thousand-year cold iron, then use the remainder to make eight daggers, one for each person gathered here today. Let's each have one as a memento of this gathering.”

Eight daggers meant that the Wind Heaven Cult Leader and the shackled man would receive one as well.

Seo Daeryong spoke up.

“I can't speak for the others, but I'm not sure I deserve such a precious dagger.”

“Neither am I.”

“I feel the same way.”

Yi An and Jang Ho joined him.

“Instead of wasting time being modest, work yourselves to death to repay me!”

At my joke, all three bowed their heads, overwhelmed by the gift.

“Thank you so much.”

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader's response, on the other hand, was cold.

“Why are you providing one for me, too?”

“Because I want to commemorate today.”

“But I have no desire to commemorate it.”

The shackled man sent him a sound transmission.

“Accept it graciously. You're worked up over me, but you still have your grand ambition of expanding into the Central Plains to fulfill, don't you?”

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader was deeply grateful to him. The man was trying until the very end. It was only he himself who failed to live up to those efforts.

“I was joking. Give me one as well. Those shackles mean something to me, too.”

“Of course.”

“You truly are remarkable, though. Daggers made of ten-thousand-year cold iron must be difficult to obtain even in the Central Plains, yet you're giving one to everyone.”

“That's how much these people mean to me.”

“But there's no guarantee they'll still mean that much to you in the future, is there?”

“This isn't a gift I'm giving with the future in mind.”

“Then?”

“It's a gift of thanks for everything they've done for me so far.”

Geom Mugeuk's words left the Wind Heaven Cult Leader speechless. As though understanding how he felt, the Blood Heaven Saber Demon poured him a drink.

“Didn't we say earlier that we cannot control dragons ascending to heaven? Your best course is to put your mind at ease and let them go.”

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader emptied his cup without a word.

The drinking continued, precariously poised on the verge of an explosion.

As they traded rounds, a cup or two at a time, everyone grew drunk.

“Investigator Seo, stop drinking. At this rate, you'll be clinging to your master's trouser leg again tonight.”

Seo Daeryong loudly protested Yi An's attempt to stop him.

“I'm perfectly fine!”

“You're already slurring your words.”

“I told you not to worry! I'm not drunk.”

Perhaps a great deal had been building up in him lately, because Seo Daeryong began drinking in earnest. Yi An, who had been trying to stop him, was also sipping the wine she had denied herself throughout her training.

Geom Mugeuk looked at Jang Ho, who reassured him with a look that he would take care of them both.

“Shouldn't it be the other way around? You getting drunk, and those two trying to stop you?”

“You'd think so.”

“If they show any sign of getting rowdy, give them each a punch with those big fists of yours.”

“Even that won't be easy. Neither of them is a pushover these days.”

Of course, Seo Daeryong still had a long way to go, but Yi An was no longer certain to lose to Jang Ho. The Heaven-Soaring Sword Art could kill even him if he let his guard down.

Watching them, the Wind Heaven Cult Leader spoke to the Demon Supremes.

“The world has turned upside down. Now we have to cater to our inferiors.”

His lament concerned the shackled man, not Yi An and Seo Daeryong. He then asked Geom Mugeuk,

“What do you think, Second Young Master? Even after you become cult leader, do you intend to run the Cult while worrying about what your subordinates think?”

Rather than answer, Geom Mugeuk asked him a question.

“Do you know what people who are bad at their jobs have in common?”

“Aren't they simply incompetent and lazy?”

“They can be. But there's something even more common.”

“What's that?”

“They can't read people.”

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader's expression hardened. Geom Mugeuk clearly intended to contradict him.

“Are you telling me to worry about what my subordinates think? Can a cult function properly that way? What if the orthodox factions devour us?”

“Only by paying attention to your subordinates can you learn what sort of people they are. Only by paying attention can you learn what's in their hearts. I have no use for forced loyalty.”

“Enough!”

In the end, the Wind Heaven Cult Leader overturned the table.

CRASH!

Everyone stared at him in shock. Wine and food splattered their clothes, but no one paid any attention to that.

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader shouted,

“It's an act. An act to impress you! He talks like that, but if a subordinate disobeys him, he'll secretly drag them away and kill them. He's not saying he'll pay attention to his subordinates. He's paying attention to you! He's putting on an act because he wants to take you away!”

His voice rang through the room. To everyone else, it was a sudden outburst, but for him, it was the eruption of everything that had been building up.

He had resisted the urge to overturn the table time and again. But the moment he heard Geom Mugeuk's final words about forced loyalty, the dam of his restraint broke.

Lately, he had been blaming himself and even feeling persecuted by the thought that the shackled man—and perhaps all his other subordinates, too—were only forcing themselves to be loyal to him.

Silence filled the room.

Staring at the underside of the overturned table, the Wind Heaven Cult Leader clenched his teeth.

'Damn it! What am I supposed to do? This is who I am! What am I supposed to do when I can't stand hearing that shit? Damn it!'

The overturned table signaled the end of today's long, drawn-out showdown.

“I believe I was discourteous. Please forgive me. It's late, so I'll return tomorrow to offer my apologies.”

As Geom Mugeuk apologized, the Blood Heaven Saber Demon and the Single Flower Sword Supreme said their farewells.

The Cult Leader should never have behaved that way in front of Demon Supremes. Both had every right to be angry, but for Geom Mugeuk's sake, they showed no sign of it.

Jang Ho followed them out, taking charge of the shackles, Seo Daeryong, and Yi An.

Geom Mugeuk thanked everyone with a smile. Without them, this gathering would never have been possible in the first place.

They parted at the entrance. No one mentioned the Wind Heaven Cult Leader.

Jang Ho, Seo Daeryong, and Yi An went to Merry Life Tavern for another drink together. The Blood Heaven Saber Demon and the Single Flower Sword Supreme returned to their quarters, saying they were tired, and Geom Mugeuk headed for his own quarters as well.

* * *

The shackled man rose.

To the Wind Heaven Cult Leader, the sight of him walking toward him felt utterly unfamiliar.

The man picked up one of the wine bottles lying on the floor and drank straight from it. Then he held it out to the Wind Heaven Cult Leader, who accepted it and took a drink.

Perhaps they could have sat together like this, facing each other over drinks, long ago. What had he been so afraid of?

“I kept you shackled because I was afraid you would kill me. No, to be more honest, I was afraid I would kill you.”

“I don't think so.”

“You don't?”

“You simply weren't thinking at all.”

“What?”

“Those reasons you just gave are things you've only begun thinking about recently. Before that, you lived without giving it any thought, didn't you? You kept me bound simply because you'd bound me in the first place. Out of sheer habit.”

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader could not argue. As the man said, he had lived without giving it any thought. Only after his recent involvement with the Second Young Master had he realized what a serious problem these shackles were.

Even so, the shackled man comforted him.

“It's all right. Everyone lives this way.”

“What's all right about it? You're leaving because of this.”

“That's not why I'm leaving. It's not because you kept me shackled.”

“Then why? Do you think you can change the world with the Second Young Master?”

“I have no dream of changing the world.”

“Then why? Why, damn it!”

The reason was something the Wind Heaven Cult Leader had never anticipated.

“I'm leaving because I couldn't predict anything.”

“What?”

“Beyond the frontiers, I handled everything concerning the state of the martial world alongside you.”

“You did.”

“And throughout that, I never got anything about the Second Young Master right.”

“But you did! You said he'd come, and he came. You even predicted he'd ask for sacred relics.”

The shackled man shook his head.

“Those things mean nothing. We received many reports about the Divine Cult of the Heavenly Demon beyond the frontiers. A considerable number concerned the Second Young Master. Every time, he defied my predictions. I didn't know he would kill the Demon Army commander, or the Soul-Seizing Demon. I certainly never imagined he would bring the Blood Heaven Saber Demon into his fold. I didn't know he'd bring everyone under him here today. I didn't even know he'd ask for the shackles. How is that possible? Yes, you're right. Perhaps the Second Young Master is cleverer than I am, and he'll treat me poorly once I join him. He might be disappointed, thinking, 'What is this? I brought him in as a strategist, but he's not nearly as good as he seemed.' Even so, I have to go and see. I have to find out why I couldn't predict him, what sort of man could act the way he does. I've become genuinely curious.”

It was the first time the shackled man had spoken at such length.

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader knew then that he could no longer hold on to him. He asked one last question.

“Can you truly not stay with me?”

“I can. Come with me.”

“You lunatic! Where do you keep telling me to go with you? What would my subordinates think of me? Would they even follow me if I served under that green Second Young Master?”

“Then leave it all behind and come.”

“What?”

“Pass your position on to your successor and come with me. Live a new life.”

Every curse imaginable sprang to the Wind Heaven Cult Leader's mind. But a sense of defeat came before his anger.

“Without the title of Wind Heaven Cult Leader, what use would anyone have for me?”

“Without that title, you'd become quite an admirable man. You've spent your whole life bound to it, living a mediocre life. I'm not the only one who's lived in shackles.”

“What are you talking about?”

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader threw the bottle in his hand, shattering it.

“You want me to step down of my own accord? Give up a position where I can have anyone I want killed with a single word, eat anything I desire, and summon every kind of beautiful woman?”

“And does that make you happy?”

“Of course I'm happy! No, let's say I'm not all that happy. So what? Will stepping down make me happy? Will the happiness I couldn't find even as cult leader come walking up to me on its own?”

“I don't know either. You'll have to find it yourself.”

“You're trying to destroy me. You're going fucking wild trying to make me miserable.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Damn it! I'll just kill you and be done with it.”

“It's too late for that.”

“What?”

“If you were going to kill me, you should have done it before the Second Young Master came. He freed me from my shackles. How would he feel about you if you killed me now? He'd blame himself for my death, and that would turn into hatred for you. Then you'd never be able to leave the frontiers. For your own sake, you mustn't kill me.”

“Damn it!”

“Accept it as fate.”

“Don't talk to me about fate! What kind of fate treats people so unequally?”

“You are the Wind Heaven Cult Leader. You lorded over everyone beyond the frontiers, treating them unequally. How can you speak of unfair treatment?”

After a long silence, the Wind Heaven Cult Leader blurted out,

“I've lost. Yes, I've lost to you clever, eloquent bastards. Go.”

He meant it.

This was the moment he relinquished the shackled man.

“Go and suffer yourself to death. Regret the day you left me until you die. Go on, go. I'm letting you go because I'm sick of this.”

At last, the Wind Heaven Cult Leader had truly undone the shackles.

Then the shackled man set something down before him. Astonishingly, it was a key identical to the one that unlocked the shackles.

“What's this? Don't tell me... Is that a key to the shackles?”

The man nodded. The Wind Heaven Cult Leader was aghast. Geom Mugeuk's subordinate had taken the key from his necklace along with the shackles, yet here was another just like it.

“I made a duplicate a few years ago.”

“How in the world? No, then why didn't you run away?”

The shackled man did not answer that question.

“If you could unlock the shackles, you must have had chances to kill me, too. Why didn't you?”

“Probably for much the same reason you didn't kill me despite all the abuse I hurled at you. You said I was the person who knew and understood you best, didn't you? I feel the same.”

At those words, emotion welled up in the Wind Heaven Cult Leader's chest, and his eyes grew hot.

This was why. This was why parting was so difficult, why it hurt so much to let go.

Looking down at the key, he said,

“To bring this out at this very moment... I'm a loser to the bitter end.”

The shackled man bowed deeply to the floor before him. Then, with an expression and words more respectful than any he had ever shown, he said his farewell.

“No, you are not. You spared my life, and now you are letting me go so readily. To me, at least, you were an admirable man, Cult Leader. Though I could have escaped, though I wished to die so many times, perhaps I kept living this way because I had grown attached to you. I will never forget your kindness in freeing me today. I look forward to the day we can be together again, Cult Leader.”

With that, the shackled man left the room.

Alone, the Wind Heaven Cult Leader pounded the floor with his fist, again and again.

He felt relieved, yet full of regret; hollow, yet happy.

And sad.