Chapter 72
“…….”
Even while she kept silent, his movements and momentum grew rougher and more violent, and she could feel it.
Jinmyo, who was facing Bangwoo, would know that better than anyone.
“Don’t get too excited… You know, right, Toad Bangwoo? Or maybe you don’t? You don’t tear a mask off a corpse.”
“…….”
“Especially a pretty little face like Namgung’s, the kind I like. I’ll keep it safe. When it’s pampered with the finest cooking and the finest hands and blooms into a flower whose beauty is beyond compare! Only then—”
“Namgung, in any direction is fine! Move your leg now… ugh.”
A sharp blade made the sound of something being cut.
“Only then will I cut it off… and make it an everlasting mask that never withers!”
Bangwoo pressed the side of his bleeding flank and retreated in the direction Yeil had been standing.
There was a pleading voice urging her to go, to crawl away if she couldn’t use her legs. Yeil didn’t even bend an ear to it.
If she left things as they were, Bangwoo would die.
“Ugh!”
See? Now Jinmyo hasn’t even yielded the space beside Yeil.
That realization made Yeil consider carefully.
Abandon Bangwoo and go to the Martial Alliance to take the Moon-Sword One-Slay? Or give up the Moon-Sword One-Slay and seize Jinmyo?
The former would be the most efficient choice, but…
At that moment—
“Bangwoo the Toad.”
“Huff, huff…”
“Seeing you so desperate that tears would come, I thought of a fun idea. How about this? I’ll wait for your one shijin.”
A hand, cold as a midwinter river, roughly grabbed Yeil’s collar. Jinmyo, up close, chuckled like a whisper.
“If you come back within one shijin having cut off Ilsal’s head… I’ll return this Namgung girl to Bangwoo the Toad. I swear it in the name of the Thousand-Faced Demon. Consider it a wager.”
Bangwoo, panting, showed the fiercest emotion of the day.
“Shut up.”
“Or should I kill you here and take the girl? Even if you beat me in my wager, would you give the girl away? Huh?”
Smug mockery dripped from his question, and Yeil swallowed a laugh inside.
‘Ha, really.’
Truly.
Bangwoo was.
So lucky.
Not only Bangwoo. Changa, Namgung Jeokmyeong, Yurim… recently, everyone who had come into contact with Yeil had been lucky.
Even without any intention to specially help, heaven handed them opportunities, didn’t it?
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
“Can you really keep your word?”
At Yeil’s question, which carried a strange intent, Bangwoo opened his mouth urgently.
“Namgung, you can’t. Don’t give up! Somehow I’ll protect you—”
“Master Bangwoo. Go.”
“……What?”
“Even though you can’t see, I can feel it. Just like when Heimyung oppa faced the moment of life and death. If this continues, Master Bangwoo will… be defeated by this woman. Am I not right?”
“That’s not true!”
A denial laced with despair sharper than ever. Bangwoo pleaded desperately.
“Have you forgotten who I am? A member of Changpaesaryong. The top late-stage practitioner of the Hwasan sect, Meihwa Fate Sword Bangwoo. That title isn’t something a useless swordsman who can’t save one girl would earn! Don’t be seduced by the devil’s whisper!”
“Puhuhu. Spilling blood and yet your bravery pierces the sky, Master Bangwoo.”
Yeil pushed aside Jinmyo’s grinning face near her cheek and answered coldly.
“Master, it’s not me who’s being manipulated by the devil’s trick — it’s you. Don’t waver. Judge this with a clear head.”
“It can’t be!”
Such stubbornness.
Yeil asked Jinmyo.
“Ask again. Can you really swear by the name of the Thousand-Faced Demon? If Master Bangwoo brings back the head of the Moon-Sword One-Slay… is that the wager: you’ll let me go?”
“You want me to stake my name? Of course! Heh… I’m very fond of interesting wagers, girl. The Three Calamities — the Thousand-Faced Demon is that kind of being…”
A wager.
The Thousand-Faced Demon could afford to play at wagers because the object of desire — the mask — was unrelated to his actual assassination target.
Jinmyo had surely already completed his assigned duty.
If he had been the Jinmyo of old, he would have left the moment his role was done, like most assassins of Salmak, including those in the Hit Squad.
‘But the Thousand-Faced Demon is different.’
The Thousand-Faced Demon covets the mask.
He searches for the mask regardless of place and time. He lays bait and waits for fish to bite. He waits and waits until a tempting prey takes the hook. Endlessly, continually…
‘Jinmyo is imitating the Thousand-Faced Demon’s speech and behavior entirely.’
Something that had been blindly inexpressive in the past had become unrecognizable.
Thanks to that, things got a bit easier.
“Then give Master Bangwoo a token for the wager.”
“A token?”
“My nursemaid told me since I was little: the Thousand-Faced Demon likes putting good people in trouble, and every time he makes such a one-sided wager, he gives a ‘devil’s wager token.’”
“…….”
“A token that can prove to the world that the Thousand-Faced Demon is a liar when the wager is broken.”
Jinmyo fell silent.
Then he burst into uproarious laughter and roughly yanked Yeil’s hair. His beady eyes lingered on her face. There was rage in them.
“Ah! You’re in such a grand delusion! Girl… do you think this Thousand-Faced Demon would hand over a token just because he’s afraid of being called a liar?”
“Of course not. The Thousand-Faced Demon isn’t a being to fear his own face, is he?”
Perhaps because she strangely preserved an aristocratic composure unbecoming of a noble’s daughter, the grip on Yeil’s hair tightened unconsciously.
Yeil’s audacity annoyed him, but Jinmyo seemed to be forcing himself to endure in order to maintain the identity of the Thousand-Faced Demon.
‘Jinmyo, no matter how you mimic the Thousand-Faced Demon, you can’t imitate his very nature.’
The Thousand-Faced Demon’s composure comes from madness no ordinary person could ever possess.
“Then? Why would the Thousand-Faced Demon give a token? If he spouts nonsense again this time, I’ll make your face unusable right here… Master Bangwoo! The same goes for you when your thoughts wander!”
“Alright, let go of my hair.”
“No! Hurry. Tell me! Why does the Thousand-Faced Demon give a token?”
His coaxing voice carried the impatient excitement of a child. It was a strange thrill combining the envy of someone who can’t truly know the Thousand-Faced Demon and the expectation of confronting someone who knows the demon’s true face.
“The Thousand-Faced Demon…”
That pervert.
“Truly.”
Whenever, wherever.
“Loves despair.”
Yeil whispered.
“He takes pleasure watching the faces of those in despair.”
Jinmyo stopped breathing and listened to her words.
“Every time he sees a token, he delights in the humiliation… the regret of Master Bangwoo who failed to protect me, and the feeling of defeat he will feel.”
“……The humiliation and regret of one who failed to protect… the feeling of defeat….”
He murmured it, steeped in thick savoring.
Perhaps the Thousand-Faced Demon was recollecting the moment Yeil lost her breath in her hands.
Jinmyo grabbed her hair again. This time it really tugged.
“Truly a flowing speech… haha, fine… I like it… I truly like it… I favor bold children like you. That’s the Thousand-Faced Demon’s style…”
Something heavy rolled across the floor.
“Is that enough as a token? Now go, Master Bangwoo. Go and bring me Ilsal’s head. If you can’t—”
“…….”
“I’ll tear out your girl’s throat right here. This is not negotiation but a threat, Master.”
How heavy the silence that followed.
Yeil drove a stake for the confused Bangwoo.
“Master Bangwoo.”
“…….”
“I know what you’re worried about. So for my sake, you must act wisely.”
A long stretch of time passed.
Then, as if having made up his mind, Bangwoo answered in a voice firmer than his previous confusion.
“……I’ll be back soon.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll save you somehow, so just wait a little, Namgung.”
He left without looking back. It was as if he could not allow himself any further hesitation.
Bangwoo.
Gone?
“So now then.”
At last he was gone.
“Shall we have a wager, Jinmyo?”
Yeil turned her head and punched Jinmyo square on the nose.
