—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator:Bobt
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
After leaving the campsite, Jang Geon and Ju Yeo-rang advanced along the dark mountain path, relying on a single torch.
If they had been ordinary commoners, they would have immediately stumbled and broken their ankles, but the two, who had trained in martial arts, were able to proceed without much difficulty until dawn, when they discovered a small village.
“Great. It’s over there.”
“Do we really need to go through that village? Couldn’t the branch leader have caught us there?”
Ju Yeo-rang answered while brushing her hair back.
“We still have to go. We need to send a message ahead.”
“To whom?”
“To those who will help us. If they’re going to confront the ancient noble families, they’ll need to prepare too.”
Jang Geon murmured as he looked at the size of the village.
“The village is small, I’m not sure if they’ll have a message delivery service.”
“They will. They’re always prepared.”
Ju Yeo-rang answered his murmur with a murmur of her own and strode towards the village. Jang Geon looked at her with a weary gaze before following along, leading Jojo by the reins.
“We have to be careful in the village. They said the Murim League branch leader might have been bribed, but judging from last night, they might just try to kill us. You know what I mean?”
Jang Geon merely nodded at her words, which she spoke without turning back as she walked.
The crisp, cool air descended calmly into the small village from over the mountain ridges. The morning sun had already begun to beat down its scorching rays, and people were bustling about, squinting in the sunlight.
A group of four or five children who had been running around from early morning noticed Jang Geon and Ju Yeo-rang entering the village and stood still. Ju Yeo-rang approached them with a bright smile and asked,
“Hello? Can I ask you something?”
The children stared warily, their curiosity tinged with a hint of caution. Ju Yeo-rang then knelt on one knee to face them at eye level.
“Do you know where the village post office is?”
The wary children all pointed in one direction. The oldest-looking one spoke up.
“Grandpa Chu runs the clinic and the post office together. Just look for the clinic sign and go in there.”
Ju Yeo-rang smiled, ruffled the child’s head, and took out a few coins from her pocket, placing them in the child’s hand.
“Thank you. Use this to buy something delicious and share it.”
The children cheered loudly and scampered off. Ju Yeo-rang couldn’t take her eyes off their retreating figures as she slowly stood up. Jang Geon also watched the children leave and commented,
“You seem to like children.”
“I had younger siblings. There was quite an age gap. Two boys and two girls, they were all such bright and adorable children… If they grew up well, they would have become good adults.”
She was now gazing vacantly at the retreating children. No matter how much Jang Geon looked at her, she didn’t seem to notice his gaze. Jang Geon quietly observed the sadness and longing on her face before asking,
“Is this your first time in this village?”
“Yes, first time…”
Ju Yeo-rang responded reflexively, then stopped. She met Jang Geon’s steady gaze. His eyes were unwavering and calm, not with the coldness of steel or an inanimate object, but with the tranquility of a still pond that would barely ripple even if a large rock were thrown into it.
“…Let’s go. If we send the message now, we can get help by tomorrow morning.”
After a momentary daze, staring into his eyes, Ju Yeo-rang managed to avert her gaze and say those words. The two then entered the shop with the clinic sign, exchanging wary glances with the villagers who eyed them suspiciously.
“Welcome. We have visitors this early in the morning. What can I do for you?”
An elderly man was scratching his head while smoking a short pipe in the morning. He seemed a little annoyed by the customers.
Ju Yeo-rang approached him and said,
“We’d like to use the message delivery service.”
“…Message delivery?”
“Yes. The message delivery service.”
“Well, this is a post office, but… message delivery?”
The old man looked at Ju Yeo-rang with a bewildered expression, then asked as if inviting an explanation,
“Where are you sending it to?”
“Akgasan Fortress.”
The old man nodded in understanding and told them to wait a moment. When he returned, he was carrying a large bird cage containing three messenger pigeons.
“What’s the message?”
“That we need help right now. Please write that someone should come to meet us.”
“Who should I write it’s from?”
“Ju Yeo-rang.”
The old man wrote the same message on three slips of paper and attached them to the legs of all three pigeons. Then he held out his hand to Ju Yeo-rang.
“…Huh?”
“You have to pay.”
“Ah.”
Ju Yeo-rang rummaged through her belongings and pulled out her pipa, fiddling with it. As Jang Geon had seen before, she took out a small pouch from a hidden compartment in the pipa and handed the old man a silver coin.
After confirming that the old man had released the messenger pigeons behind the shop, Jang Geon and Ju Yeo-rang went to find a stable. There, Ju Yeo-rang bought a horse for herself, and as they slowly left the village, the villagers merely watched them with suspicious eyes, without causing any trouble. The Murim League branch leader did not try to stop them either.
As they were almost out of the village, Ju Yeo-rang looked around uneasily.
“Why? Why isn’t anything happening?”
“It’s good if nothing happens.”
“But… if they were planning to stop us, using this village would have been the best opportunity…”
Jang Geon adjusted his crooked bamboo hat and said,
“That friend seems to have more common sense than I thought.”
“That friend?”
“Jae Eun-sung.”
Ju Yeo-rang chuckled and shook her head.
“A sensible person trying to kidnap someone against their will? That’s hard to understand.”
The two were soon able to leave the village on horseback. As they exited the valley, the dense trees thinned out, and the rugged terrain became gentler, forming smooth hills. With the more even terrain, the horses could pick up speed. The two adjusted their pace to prevent tiring the horses too much.
After riding for a while, Ju Yeo-rang raised her hand and pointed at a distant low mountain.
“It’s over there! I know of a hiding place over there!”
She was suggesting entering the woods again after just leaving them. However, Jang Geon followed her without a word, spurring Jojo on. The two continued riding alongside a shallow stream well into the afternoon.
Eventually, Ju Yeo-rang pulled on her reins.
“This way!”
Not far from there, they discovered a small cave between the towering evergreen trees. Ju Yeo-rang dismounted and rubbed her eyes as she said,
“Let’s rest here today. We didn’t get any sleep last night.”
“How did you find a cave like this?”
The cave had a narrow entrance leading to a deep, pitch-black interior that seemed unusually dark.
“It’s my own secret place, you could say. I found it while taking shelter from the rain around here last time. It gets too narrow to enter further, but at the entrance, we can stretch out to about waist level.”
They unsaddled the horses, built a campfire, and brewed tea to drink. By the time they had set up camp inside the cave, the sun had set, and their surroundings had grown dark. Ju Yeo-rang cupped her hands around the iron cup and gazed outside as she spoke,
“They seem to have given up.”
Jang Geon, who was roasting meat skewers, looked at her questioningly.
“Jae Eun-sung. Since your skills are better than expected, he seems to have given up for now. He’s probably waiting for an opportunity to separate us.”
She smiled at Jang Geon.
“But by tomorrow morning, my friends will come to meet us, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“I see.”
Ju Yeo-rang tilted her head as she watched Jang Geon calmly tearing off pieces of meat.
“Aren’t you looking forward to seeing the Imperial martial arts tomorrow?”
“Of course I am. It’s a chance to experience the Emperor’s martial arts, even indirectly.”
“But you don’t seem too excited about it?”
Instead of answering, Jang Geon turned his gaze to the campfire and chewed on the meat. Ju Yeo-rang stared at his face for a long while, not seeming bothered by the lack of response.
“Why didn’t you join the Murim League?”
Jang Geon let out a light sigh and looked back at her.
“What do you mean?”
“With your martial arts skills, you could have settled down in the Murim League or one of its affiliated schools instead of wandering around and getting caught up in trouble like this.”
“…I just don’t like being tied down anywhere.”
Ju Yeo-rang smiled slightly.
“Ah. A strong wanderlust, I see?”
After saying that, she reached for her pipa lying nearby but seemed to change her mind and put it down. She then moved closer to Jang Geon’s side.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“What is it?”
Ju Yeo-rang gave a strange smile.
“You’re helping me because I’m beautiful, right?”
“That’s part of it.”
Her expression turned to one of deflation at his straightforward answer.
“…If that’s part of it, then what’s the other part? The Imperial martial arts?”
Jang Geon chewed on the meat skewer, his gaze fixed on the campfire, as he spoke,
“I’m just protecting myself.”
“…Pardon?”
In response to Ju Yeo-rang’s questioning, he continued,
“Normally, I can’t even tell if it’s there or show it to anyone else, but in my heart, there’s another eye that sees the world. That eye can’t do anything. It can only watch blankly. Compared to the other forces overflowing in this world, it’s such a powerless and insignificant gaze.”
Ju Yeo-rang looked at him with a slightly dazed expression. He kept his eyes on the fire as he went on.
“But when there’s someone who has fallen in front of me, that eye glares at me with all its might. As if telling me to hurry and help, as if asking if that’s not the way I was taught. But that’s just the gaze within my heart, powerless. It’s not a problem to ignore it. So sometimes I really do ignore that gaze. If I keep doing that a few more times, the gaze will lose its strength and grow dim, becoming an even more futile gaze. Maybe if more time passes, it’ll disappear like adolescence.”
Jang Geon tore his gaze from the campfire and looked at Ju Yeo-rang.
“But I can’t just watch as that gaze completely vanishes. After all, it’s my own gaze. If it disappears, I can never regain the part of me from before.”
His eyes were fixed directly on Ju Yeo-rang’s eyes, still unwavering and calm.
“That’s why I’m helping you. That gaze is watching you right now. Does that answer your question?”
Ju Yeo-rang continued to gaze at Jang Geon with a dazed expression. After staring at him for a while, as if moving without her own awareness, she slowly leaned closer and kissed him.
As the campfire flickered and an owl hooted outside the cave, after that brief silence, Ju Yeo-rang broke the kiss and looked at Jang Geon.
“…You’re truly strange. A strangeness like no other in this world, perhaps.”
“A pleasant strangeness, isn’t it?”
Ju Yeo-rang chuckled at his response and kissed him again. The campfire calmly illuminated their intertwining bodies with its flickering light.
Outside the cave, Jojo diligently peeked at the swaying shadows while chewing the grass in his mouth.
* * *
Jang Geon opened his eyes, feeling like he had slept deeply for the first time in a long while.
It made sense, considering how much energy he had expended throughout the night. Rubbing his eyes as he sat up, Jang Geon realized the campfire had gone out, and Ju Yeo-rang and her belongings were gone.
However, Jang Geon showed no particular reaction as he rose, drank the now-cold tea, and put on his clothes. He then picked up a torn piece of cloth lying where Ju Yeo-rang had slept. Written on it in charcoal were the words:
[I’m sorry. Thank you for the past few days. Please don’t try to follow me. It’s too dangerous.]
Folding the cloth neatly and tucking it into his pocket, Jang Geon grabbed his sword and stepped outside. Without realizing it, he muttered,
“Damn it. Jojo, you bastard.”
Jojo was gone as well. Ju Yeo-rang had probably taken him along when she left, riding on his horse. But the Jojo that Jang Geon knew wouldn’t have just let himself be taken like that. She must have coaxed him with a sweet smile, and he obediently followed her.
Jang Geon let out a deep sigh, leaning on his cane. He then turned the sword on his waist to his back, tying it securely, and squatted down on the spot. Before long, he found Ju Yeo-rang’s and Jojo’s hoofprints.
“It’s been a while since I’ve used lightness skill.”
Murmuring to himself, Jang Geon retied the sword on his back and lightly bounced on the spot a few times. In the next moment, he swiftly leaped in the direction of Ju Yeo-rang’s hoofprints, moving at the speed of a galloping horse.
Despite his rapid pace, which should have crushed the soil and grass underfoot, the only
trace left in his wake was the faintest hint of having been trodden upon.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
