Chapter 7: The One and Only Friend
The people staying at Haran Monastery on the mid-slope of Mount Hadong were those who had fled to escape the exploitation of corrupt officials, compounded by famine and drought.
The reason was that the corrupt officials had declared that if they failed to pay their grain tax, they would drag away their children and wives and turn them into slaves.
There was no way to hand over rice when there was none even to eat and die with, yet as heads of households they could not watch with their eyes wide open as their children or spouses were taken away as slaves. So they gathered their families, fled, and drifted into Xinjiang.
After all, Xinjiang was a region barely touched by the hands of the authorities. Up through Qinghai, the reach of officialdom extended reasonably well, but the barren land of Xinjiang was different.
By its nature, Xinjiang had far too much land to defend and too few local products, so compared to the effort invested, the income gained was small.
Because of that, Xinjiang was precisely the place where many people who had fled from the authorities gathered.
Not only commoners who had fled because they could not pay their grain tax like these people, but also those who had committed various crimes hid themselves in Xinjiang.
As such, Xinjiang was not a good place for powerless commoners to survive.
Presumably, Haran Monastery and its monks had embraced and protected such suffering people.
Because he could easily surmise that, Yul Han wished to lend even a small amount of help.
He had promised to send food to Haran Monastery where they were staying.
As Yul Han and his group set off again on the road back, leaving behind those cheering over his promise, the people of Haran Monastery waved their hands.
Cold Blade Blood thought that the sight looked exactly like gestures filled with prayers for them to truly return with rice.
From Cold Blade Blood’s position as the escort for this journey, the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult was troubling for casually scattering promises to give away rice that did not exist.
Thus he felt he should stop him, but knowing the Vice Cult Leader’s vicious temperament whenever someone blocked what he intended to do, his mouth simply would not open.
Flashing Light Blood, who was driving the carriage beside him, seemed much the same, wearing a rather complicated expression.
Even so, it was difficult for the two of them to speak to each other. They were carrying someone behind them who could hear transmitted voices.
In the end, Cold Blade Blood and Flashing Light Blood said nothing at all until they arrived at the Bright Cult in the Heavenly Mountains, doing nothing but letting out sighs.
When the Vice Cult Leader returned from the Ghost Lotus Sect, a leadership council naturally convened at the Bright Cult.
From the Bright Cult’s perspective as well, if they did not properly collect what was owed, they would immediately face a shortage of food, so it was a matter of utmost concern.
Therefore, everyone gathered in the council hall stared at the Vice Cult Leader’s mouth, wanting to hear the answer as to when the Ghost Lotus Sect would make up for the rice they had failed to send.
To them, Yul Han spoke calmly.
“Due to famine following drought, the harvests were reduced, and the Ghost Lotus Sect is suffering greatly as well. They did not intentionally withhold it; they simply could not send it because they had none.”
Yul Han’s words failed to draw any particular interest from the Bright Cult’s leaders. That sort of thing did not matter to them.
What mattered to them was, ‘So when will they send the rest?’
That sentiment was conveyed plainly through the mouth of the Cult Leader.
“So?”
In response to the Cult Leader’s expectant question from the seat of honor, Yul Han answered.
“They said that with three thousand seom, they could overcome their hardship. I decided to provide that support.”
When Yul Han finished speaking, everyone including the Cult Leader stiffened, unable to say a word.
Knowing that their reaction did not stem from goodwill, Yul Han steeled his heart.
He had no intention of overlooking something that was not righteousness. Moreover, helping those in hardship was rectitude even before chivalry.
It meant doing what was right.
In order not to live a crooked life, one had to live uprightly.
So……
Having firmed his resolve, Yul Han asked,
“Is there a problem?”
Already his voice was chillingly cold, and now that he deliberately asked in an even icier tone, to the listeners it sounded like a warning of ‘I won’t let it go if you oppose me.’
On top of that, overflowing from the Vice Cult Leader’s eyes—so expressionless it was impossible to tell what he was thinking—was a thick killing intent that seemed ready to draw a blade and erupt into chaos at any moment.
The first to react to that gaze was the strategist. Having met those eyes head-on, he could endure no longer.
“W-we have to send it. If the Vice Cult Leader has decided so, then of course that’s what we must do.”
At his own words, the strategist asked the Cult Leader, who was looking at him as if thinking he had gone mad,
“Isn’t that right, Cult Leader?”
The Cult Leader, who had been about to shout “Don’t talk nonsense,” followed the strategist’s repeated eye signals and glanced at the Vice Cult Leader—then jumped in shock.
For the past five years, the Vice Cult Leader had lived in seclusion, rarely leaving his residence in the detached manor, and he had forgotten. Forgotten that damned personality of the Vice Cult Leader.
If he opposed him here, this was a man who would draw his sword immediately.
Even so, as an elder brother by rank, he probably would not rush to kill him. But there was no way he wanted his subordinates to see him beaten down and sprawled out by his junior.
So……
After hesitating briefly, the Cult Leader’s head nodded vigorously.
“O-of course. Th-that’s right. What bastard would dare go against what our Vice Cult Leader decided? Would the Chief Elder go against it?”
Iron Demon, who suddenly caught the stray sparks, sprang up in alarm.
“W-what a dangerous thing to say…… We, we should do it. Of course. If the Vice Cult Leader decided it, then that’s how it should be. Naturally.”
Starting with Iron Demon, everyone the Cult Leader’s gaze landed on nodded and said it was only natural.
Moved deeply by the wholehearted agreement of the Bright Cult’s leaders, so different from what he had feared, Yul Han felt a profound impression.
So much so that he even wondered whether the many worries he had felt regarding the Ghost Lotus Sect had been nothing more than his own rash concern.
“I was worried because it was a decision I made on my own, but I’m truly grateful that you all accepted it so readily.”
At the sight of the Vice Cult Leader raising his clasped fists high and even bowing his head, people’s expressions stiffened.
They were flustered by the series of behaviors he had never shown before.
Unaware of the unease and anxiety of those leaders, Yul Han, now that he had achieved what he wanted, wished to withdraw from the council hall.
He did not want to linger too long in an unfamiliar place and make a mistake that would invite suspicion.
“Then, Cult Leader. May I return and rest?”
Even though he was saying he would leave before the meeting had ended, the Cult Leader nodded readily.
“Y-yes. You should rest. You must have gone through a lot as an elder, so go and get some rest.”
“Yes. Thank you for your hard work.”
After Yul Han stood up, bowed deeply, and left, the Cult Leader barely composed his flustered expression and turned to look at the strategist seated beside him.
“What is wrong with him, really?”
“Well… I’m sorry, but I can’t get a grasp on anything at all.”
“Did you investigate thoroughly?”
“As soon as the Vice Cult Leader departed for the Ghost Lotus Sect, we conducted an in-depth investigation, focusing on the martial artists who had been stationed at the detached manor, but…”
“Did anything turn up?”
“Nothing in particular. Apparently, he asked about the date.”
“The date? Why the date?”
“Since he had stayed only in the detached manor for a long time aside from the Blood Wolf incident, we thought his sense of time might have dulled slightly. So we cautiously assumed that was why he suddenly attended the meeting and volunteered to go on an outing.”
“Hm… I suppose that’s possible. After all, even when we sent notices telling him to come out, he wouldn’t budge, so I was surprised when he suddenly appeared at the last meeting. So other than asking about the date, nothing came out?”
“Yes. Nothing at all.”
Despite the strategist’s firm answer, the Cult Leader’s eyes, still filled with suspicion, narrowed.
“You’re not missing something again, like fifteen years ago?”
At the Cult Leader’s question, thick with doubt, the strategist asked back sourly,
“Are you suspecting me?”
“It’s not suspicion. It’s just that fifteen years ago was the same, so I—”
Though he said it wasn’t, his entire tone was steeped with suspicion that the investigation hadn’t been done properly.
The strategist’s disgruntled voice cut in sharply.
“I told you back then that we shouldn’t do it, didn’t I? But you were the one who pushed it through to the end, Cult Leader!”
“Hey! That’s a dangerous thing to say. How is that my claim? Who was it, huh? Right! Elder Seomyeolgui was the first to insist—”
The Cult Leader stopped mid-defense and closed his mouth.
The Elder Seomyeolgui he had just mentioned had been beheaded with a single stroke ten years ago, right in front of the Vice Cult Leader, after opposing his request.
It felt, in short, like dumping responsibility onto a dead man.
Yet as the name Seomyeolgui became linked to the Vice Cult Leader in his mind, a point he had never considered before suddenly flashed through the Cult Leader’s thoughts.
“Back then, what exactly was it that Seomyeolgui opposed when his head was taken?”
At the Cult Leader’s question, the strategist replied,
“He opposed the Vice Cult Leader’s request for unrestricted access to the warehouses that stored plunder.”
It had indeed been a request that violated the cult’s rules.
The several warehouses within the Bright Cult that stored plunder were regulated so that only the Cult Leader could enter them, regardless of the importance of the items inside.
Of course, there had been rare precedents where individuals entered with the Cult Leader’s special permission, but those were limited to a single location and were merely temporary measures.
Still, considering that the Vice Cult Leader and the current Cult Leader were disciples of the previous Cult Leader, and that the Cult Leader cherished his late-born junior like a disciple or a son, it had not been entirely impossible.
In fact, the Cult Leader had been inclined to grant permission.
That Elder Seomyeolgui had actively stepped forward to oppose it was because, at the time, he had been rapidly rising as the Bright Cult’s second-in-command, standing in for the Vice Cult Leader, who had drastically reduced his external activities.
In short, it could be said he was trying to suppress his rival and solidify his own position.
The problem was that the Vice Cult Leader whose will had been rejected then was no longer the same Vice Cult Leader as before.
After the incident fifteen years ago, the Vice Cult Leader who used to reason things out to the point one might wonder if he were a demon no longer existed.
That day, Seomyeolgui’s head was severed on the spot.
Even though Seomyeolgui himself had been one of the Seven Great Masters of the martial world, a master at the Transformation Realm, he could not even draw his sword.
Even the Cult Leader, who had moved to block it the moment the Vice Cult Leader grasped his sword, had been too late.
That day, everyone present finally understood. The Vice Cult Leader’s ability had already surpassed even the Cult Leader, who was counted as one of the Four Heavenly Forces who divided the world into four.
The Vice Cult Leader who produced that astonishing result had been overflowing with killing intent that day as well, just like today.
Recalling that day, the Cult Leader smacked his lips bitterly and said,
“Back then, I only thought Seomyeolgui got what he deserved for overestimating the authority of the council of elders. But maybe that wasn’t all.”
At the Cult Leader’s words, the strategist nodded.
“There were some rumors like that. That it was revenge from fifteen years ago…”
“Then why am I only hearing that now?”
“There was no evidence, and since most people thought that way, I assumed you thought the same, Cult Leader.”
At the strategist’s indifferent reply, the Cult Leader’s eyes twisted.
“You never thought to report it?”
“I didn’t know you hadn’t suspected it.”
Staring straight at the strategist who refused to yield a single word, the Cult Leader growled,
“You want to become unemployed?”
“Will you fire me? If you do that, I’d be grateful—”
“I was thinking of firing you before I turned seventy, but looking at how you behave, that won’t do. You’ll have to stay by my side until the day I die.”
“Hey!”
“Hey?”
“Yes, I said ‘hey.’ Why!”
For some reason, seeing the strategist glaring back with his eyes wide open, unlike his formerly compliant self, the Cult Leader backed off slightly.
“Why? It’s just that hearing it after so long feels familiar.”
“What a load of crap. For life? What did you promise me when you brought me in? You said I only had to help for ten years. Didn’t you?”
“Did I?”
As the Cult Leader looked off into the distance and played dumb, the strategist’s veins bulged.
“Did you? It’s been thirty years as of last year. Thirty years! And now what? Fire me at seventy? Stay by your side until death? Do you want to die!”
As the strategist raised his scrawny arm and swung his fist, the Cult Leader leaned his head back as if dodging and muttered,
“Ah, you bastard. There are youngsters around, and my one and only friend is embarrassing me like this…”
At the Cult Leader’s grumbling, the strategist glanced around and quietly stepped back.
“Embarrassing… Ahem. I apologize, Cult Leader. This subordinate lost his reason for a moment…”
The Cult Leader merely shot a sideways glance at the strategist, who apologized with a face that showed no regret at all.
Honestly, before being a friend, he was a benefactor.
After all, the one who had barely held together the collapsing internal administration of the cult had been the strategist.