CHAPTER~30
Since that terrible day, every single one felt like walking through hell itself—painful, unbearable, endless.
With strength as feeble as a worm’s, he had no idea what he could possibly do.
He knew all too well that if he rushed in like a moth to a flame, he’d only end up dying a dog’s death.
That knowledge made the despair even deeper.
He hated himself for being so weak, so afraid—so utterly pathetic.
And yet… why did everything suddenly seem so simple when Woo-hee spoke?
On her tongue, everything became clear.
Simple. Obvious.
Yes.
He wanted to drive a blade into his uncle’s back.
That was the truth.
That was what he truly wanted—to commit that single act of filial betrayal.
“Baekho, I’m really tired,” Woo-hee murmured. “My head hurts just from seeing my father cry. So could you maybe… try not to cry? Just tell me what you want instead?”
Baekho, who had been sobbing uncontrollably, sniffled hard and raised his arm in a hurry.
The clean robes the physician had given him were rough against his skin.
As he rubbed at his tears, the tender skin around his eyes quickly turned red.
Still, the crying stopped. That was good enough.
“Yes, I want revenge on my uncle.”
“I got that part,” Woo-hee said, “but I’m asking—how long will it take to get there and back?”
“…I don’t really know.”
“If you don’t know, who would?”
“Well, uh… I’m not sure?”
It was the world’s most ridiculous conversation between two idiots.
“Damn it, Master,” groaned Yeongho, rubbing his temples as he cut in. “I’ve told you countless times—think before you talk! If the kid’s a direct descendant, then who else could his uncle have stabbed but his own father? Huh?”
Just hearing them talk was enough to make Yeongho feel his brain rot.
“Oh? That’s true,” Woo-hee muttered. “Baekho’s a direct descendant, his uncle stabbed his father, so that means his father is…”
She trailed off mid-thought, then froze.
“Baekho.”
“Yes, Master!”
“Don’t tell me… you’re the son of the head of the Moyong clan?”
Baekho went completely still, mouth hanging open.
No one had ever referred to him like that before—not as the head’s son, but as the son of the clan’s master.
It sounded strange. Foreign.
“Uh… yes. Yes, that’s… me.”
He stammered as he nodded, while Woo-hee’s expression darkened.
“So your uncle—what is he, then? The head’s younger brother? And he stabbed your father? Sounds like things got a bit weird in your family.”
Weird wasn’t the word—things had collapsed.
Baekho felt like his mind was breaking apart too. His voice came out in a faint whisper.
“The new head of the Moyong clan…”
Silence.
A heavy, suffocating silence.
Woo-hee stared at him as though she were looking at a lunatic.
It wasn’t the fact that he wanted revenge on the new clan head that bothered her—it was that this scrawny kid had asked to become her temporary subordinate to do it.
Woo-hee, being of the unorthodox sects, didn’t disapprove of blood revenge.
Even the so-called righteous sects accepted vengeance; they just didn’t say it out loud.
In the martial world, debts of blood were paid with blood.
After all, they were martial artists, not Confucian scholars.
Still, it was obvious this kid wasn’t capable of anything close to that.
He wasn’t exactly small, but his strength was pitiful.
He had some natural talent, sure—but enough to kill a clan master on his own? Not a chance.
“Baekho.”
Woo-hee eyed him, sitting there on his knees, fists clenched tightly atop them.
Then, in an oddly serious tone, she asked:
“Are you hiding some kind of amazing power or something? Maybe I just can’t see it?”
A martial artist could easily gauge the level of someone weaker than themselves.
But if the other was much stronger, then their strength became impossible to read.
True masters could conceal their power completely—it was second nature.
Maybe Baekho was one of those monsters?
“Well… actually…”
“Actually?”
“I think it’s just… that there’s nothing to hide in the first place?”
Woo-hee blinked.
Baekho’s face turned crimson as he stammered on, voice trembling.
“I mean, I don’t have great power, of course… but I also don’t even have a little power. So, if you can’t sense anything, it’s because… there’s nothing there to sense…”
Pfft.
Yeongho, perched on the window frame, burst out laughing.
He wasn’t laughing at Baekho’s weakness—it was Woo-hee’s genuine confusion over just how utterly powerless he was that killed him.
“You think this is funny?” Woo-hee snapped. “You’re laughing because my subordinate’s weak, huh?”
“Of course not,” Yeongho replied dryly. “Why would I waste my time mocking the weak?”
“Then what are you laughing at?”
“At your stupidity, Master.”
“…”
Woo-hee began to suspect that making Yeongho call her Master had been a grave mistake.
It was one thing for him to call her stupid when she was his junior sister—but when she was his Master?
That was infuriating.
Absolutely infuriating.
“Baekho, let’s be realistic.”
She ignored Yeongho entirely; arguing with him was a black hole that consumed all sanity.
“I believe people should be free to choose their own path,” she said. “If you really want to die, I won’t stop you. If dying at your uncle’s hands is your hobby, well, I can’t change that.”
Baekho’s eyes went wide. What kind of hobby was that supposed to be?
“But we’re not strangers, are we?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re my subordinate now. And if your freedom gets in the way of my rights as your Master, then that’s a problem.”
Her gentle face was filled with exasperation—but her eyes burned fiercely.
“Uh… Master, I don’t quite understand what you’re saying…”
Baekho was sweating bullets, curling in on himself.
Then Woo-hee suddenly asked, out of nowhere:
“By the way, how old are you?”
Baekho blinked. “F-fourteen?”
“What?! How does that even happen?”
“…I, uh… just kept living, and one day I was fourteen?”
No one had ever questioned why he was that age before. He didn’t even know how to respond.
His back was drenched in cold sweat.
“I mean, seriously, what do you eat to get that big? Did you empty your family’s entire grain store? Is that how you grew like this?”
Woo-hee eyed him like a fascinating new species.
He was as tall as Yeongho—maybe even broader.
How could someone one year younger than her look like that?
So this was how Central Plains kids grew up—well-fed, well-rested, and terrifyingly sturdy.
“…M-Master?”
Baekho squirmed under her shameless gaze, trying to hide his huge frame.
His size made the shy movement even funnier.
“Ahem. Alright,” Woo-hee said. “So you’re fourteen. Which means, Baekho, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you, right?”
That wasn’t wrong—but hearing it from a fifteen-year-old didn’t exactly sound convincing.
“So here’s my plan,” she went on. “You should go face your uncle in, say… sixty years. When you’re around seventy, that should be perfect.”
“…What?”
“I’m not saying you can’t go. I’m saying, after sixty years under my training, you’ll be able to go shuk shuk shak!—you know what I mean? Totally doable.”
“…”
Shuk shuk shak?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Baekho was starting to doubt everything he knew about the world.
