Chapter 151

Chapter 151

“What on earth is this…….”

Seohwa, frozen at a situation she’d never imagined, looked back and forth between Baek Risan and Wangpal. Wangpal breaking out in cold sweat, contrasting with Baek Risan who hadn’t shed a single drop of sweat.

‘What’s going on?’

Even so, they wouldn’t be fighting without reason.

Trying to understand while watching Baek Risan and Wangpal, Seohwa suddenly clenched her fists at a scene that came into view. She could see something dark red staining the area around Wangpal’s martial uniform abdomen.

“What are you doing right now?”

“What do you mean what? He wouldn’t listen, so I’m making him understand.”

“If someone won’t listen, does that make it acceptable to injure a fellow disciple?”

“What? What are you talking……?”

Baek Risan, who’d been responding casually, realized something was wrong at Seohwa’s cold tone and turned his head. But Seohwa immediately approached, radiating a chill.

“Step back. Junior disciple.”

“……Senior martial sister.”

“No matter how lacking I am, I’m your senior martial sister.”

A senior martial sister must protect her junior disciples. All the more in this situation.

Seohwa, blocking the front of the profusely sweating Wangpal, glared at Baek Risan and gripped the Uicheongeom she’d carefully brought. Even if she lacked strength, there were things she couldn’t concede.

“I cannot overlook this situation. Even if Baek Risan-nim is Sect Leader-nim’s younger brother, injuring a fellow disciple requires taking responsibility…….”

The moment Seohwa opened her mouth again.

“Cough. That’s not it. Senior martial sister. It’s a misunderstanding…….”

“……A misunderstanding?”

“Yes.”

Wangpal, coughing awkwardly, hurriedly stopped Seohwa.

“It’s true we exchanged sword strikes, but this isn’t a wound from Baek Risan-nim. It’s a wound from a yokai.”

“……From a yokai?”

“Yes. If you look closely, it’s not a sword wound, is it?”

“……Ah.”

Watching Wangpal spread his arms to show his condition, Seohwa finally examined his abdomen closely and sighed. Looking at the clothing, it was indeed a round puncture rather than a wound from a sword.

“It looks like a serious wound, but it’s not a serious injury. This much, if I stitch it up a bit and apply wound medicine, it’ll heal quickly…….”

“You bear-like fool. You think that’ll heal with a bit of stitching? Just because you’re built like a bear, you think you actually are one?”

“The more you move, the worse it’ll get. Jinwoong Buntaju-nim said you need to recuperate for at least two weeks, remember? If you move vigorously, it could tear more and all your intestines might spill out.”

Baek Risan, who snapped harshly, sighed and put his sword away.

“Now do you understand the situation? I just used a bit of force to send that bear back to bed. Understand?”

“……I understand. I’m sorry. For jumping to conclusions.”

“I’ll accept that apology. It’s an understandable situation. Anyway.”

Baek Risan, checking Seohwa’s clearly apologetic expression, shook his head as if it was nothing. Then came his next statement.

“Then, let’s send the bear back to his sickbed and finish what we need to do.”

“What we need to do?”

“Yeah. A lot happened while you were gone.”

“……What happened?”

Now that she thought about it, hadn’t she not heard why Wangpal tried to get up from his sickbed even while fighting with Seohwa?

Seohwa, confirming Wangpal’s hardened expression with a sidelong glance, looked at Baek Risan. Baek Risan speaking casually.

“It’s simple. An execution ceremony.”

“……Execution ceremony?”

“Yeah. I said a lot happened while you were gone, right?”

Baek Risan, who seemed to grit his teeth for a moment, continued speaking through grinding teeth without suppressing the murderous intent rising like wildfire. And.

“There are two to execute.”

At the following words, Seohwa’s face, which had relaxed knowing it was a misunderstanding, hardened again.

“The yokai Divine Maiden of this village. And.”

She heard something she absolutely couldn’t overlook.

“The village chief who killed people and threw them as food to that Divine Maiden, calling it a ritual.”

The girl harbored an impression.

The outside world was colder than she thought.

“Cold.”

“……Should I take off my clothes for you?”

“Idiot? Then Choil won’t have anything to wear.”

The oil smell soaking into clothes is also unpleasant.

The girl, yawning as she deflected Choil’s restless words, took in the two young men and one man looking at her with complicated eyes. Seonwoo Gang, Seomun Cheok, and Jinwoong, each with weapons drawn.

“Choil. That child…….”

“No.”

At Seonwoo Gang’s words, Choil, startled, hurriedly pulled the girl close and hid her behind his back. Simultaneously desperately defending the girl.

“She’s not. It’s what the village chief did.”

“You’re martial artists, so you know. She’s just young and uneducated, so she doesn’t know what it means for people to die. She didn’t want to do it.”

She didn’t want to. It wasn’t voluntary.

‘Why?’

Watching Choil desperately defending her, the girl tilted her head. Honestly, she didn’t know what the problem was.

—We will conduct today’s ritual. Divine Maiden-nim.

The ritual came a bit faster than usual, but in the same manner as always.

—S-save me…….

Fear flowing from people on the verge of death. The spreading blood scent. The groans spreading on the ground.

The girl quietly watched the scene the village chief created, then received these visitors. The men who looked at the village chief, herself, and the dying villagers with an expression of utter disbelief, then drew their swords. And the woman wrapped in white flames.

She was dragged out like that. Without understanding why, just covered in blood all over her body.

That’s how this situation was established. Tied together with the village chief in the center of the village, receiving judgment.

“Caught red-handed. There’s no room for excuses.”

“That wasn’t something she wanted…….”

“Can you prove that yokai didn’t want to do it?”

Seomun Cheok, glaring at Choil with cold eyes, continued speaking. His tone, already rigid, now felt so unyielding there seemed no room to penetrate.

“The village chief killed, and the yokai was just caught up in it…… Such words can’t prove innocence. That thing is a yokai. It might have bewitched the village chief to induce his actions.”

Ordinary yokai energy makes people terrified, but some yokai can bewitch and control people. There are plenty of yokai who actually lured people this way to grow their power.

Though it doesn’t work on martial artists, the yokai energy would have worked on the village chief. The village chief was a civilian who hadn’t learned martial arts.

Therefore, simply not having directly killed people couldn’t clear the charges. Because the girl was a yokai.

“There’s insufficient evidence to prove innocence. Even if all evidence were in place, we’d have to agonize over whether to spare her.”

We can’t spare her in this situation.

Seomun Cheok, who declared this, gripped his spear shaft as if to draw it. Watching this, Choil, his face pale, desperately spoke as if remembering something.

“Her, her story!”

“Last time she asked me! What to do when people suffer before her eyes. How to make it hurt less. Ordinary yokai don’t ask such things!”

“……Hmm.”

At Seonwoo Gang letting out a contemplative sound, Choil clung desperately and spoke rapidly.

“She just hasn’t learned about morality well. She has compassion too. So if we talk it out properly……!”

If they talk it out properly, maybe they can understand each other.

“What guarantee is there you haven’t been bewitched?”

“……What?”

“Exactly what I said. How can you guarantee you haven’t been bewitched by that yokai?”

Kung!

Seomun Cheok, glancing at the dumbfounded Choil, struck his spear shaft on the ground. The heavy vibration shook the earth.

“Humans also raise livestock to slaughter and eat. In that process, they sometimes feel compassion for the livestock. Haven’t you seen children bawling after killing the chickens or pigs they raised?”

“……That’s.”

“Yokai see humans no differently. To them, humans are just prey.”

Yokai live by consuming fear. Yokai who can’t consume fear are weeded out and die.

Therefore, yokai inevitably pursue fear. Though they won’t die without consuming fear, consuming fear to increase strength is ingrained deep in their instinct as a task. It’s the same as humans trying to sleep when drowsy.

“Perhaps you too have been bewitched.”

“What do you mean…….”

“I mean this entire situation might be that yokai’s doing. The darkness covering outside the village and the yokai, the village chief who killed people one by one calling it a ritual, and even your actions protecting a child you’ve never met, calling her your sister.”

Step aside.

Seomun Cheok, pushing aside the dazed Choil with his spear shaft, aimed the spear point at the girl. The girl looking at the spear point peacefully, not knowing what threat was approaching her.

“……Perhaps you truly might be innocent.”

As Choil said, it might be so. All of this might be the village chief’s arbitrary action, and the yokai girl before his eyes might just have been caught up in it. Perhaps she could have been the first yokai friendly to humans.

“I don’t want to take that slim chance.”

This isn’t a courtroom judging right and wrong. It’s a battlefield where people live or die by a moment’s judgment.

“If by chance you are innocent, I’ll receive all that sin in hell.”

“N-no……!”

Tung!

Seomun Cheok, pushing Choil away with heavy internal energy to prevent him from approaching, raised his spear point high to kill the girl. And.

“Farewell.”

The moment the spear point struck down.

“The young friend is quite hasty.”

Kagagak!

An ornamental sword that penetrated soundlessly deflected the spear shaft.

“……Assassin.”

“It’s Jang Il. Isn’t it a bit quick to forget such a common name?”

“Why are you here? Didn’t you go out to scout?”

“If I went out to scout, why would I be here? I came back because scouting is finished.”

Jang Il, grumbling, turned his gaze to look right. The figures of Baek Risan and Seohwa hurriedly running from far away.

“Heok…… Haaak.”

“My role is finished.”

Jang Il, sheathing his sword after confirming Seohwa’s arrival, quietly stepped back. And Seomun Cheok, glancing at that sight, opened his mouth.

“Seohwa. You’re here.”

“……Yes. I’m here. What’s this situation?”

“Didn’t you hear from Baek Risan?”

“I heard. Roughly.”

“Then you know why we’re doing this.”

Yokai are dangerous. So we’re just dealing with them.

At Seomun Cheok bringing up common sense, Seohwa bit her lip and shook her head. It was a story she couldn’t accept.

“It’s not certain. Whether that child bewitched the village chief to commit such acts.”

“Even if she looks like a child, she’s a yokai. She’s not trustworthy.”

“Still……!”

“While you were gone, yokai attacked.”

Cold eyes.

Seomun Cheok, now gripping his spear shaft firmly again, extended his arm to point the spear tip to the side. The broken wooden fence.

“Two Gaecheon Gyoryongpa martial artists nearly died. If Wangpal hadn’t intervened appropriately, they might not be here. In exchange, Wangpal got his abdomen pierced. Can you definitively say this isn’t that yokai’s doing?”

“Perhaps even the yokai outside are being summoned by this yokai. This entire situation might be this yokai’s doing.”

Even if uncertain, it doesn’t matter. If there’s a risk factor, eliminate it.

“Simply saying it doesn’t feel right, that it’s not just, isn’t enough to leave it alone—it’s too dangerous.”

Yokai are originally like that. The most dangerous existence to humans. Beings who cannot understand each other.

“Does that answer your question?”

At Seomun Cheok’s words, Seohwa, who’d been silent for a moment, looked at the trembling Choil and the girl blankly staring at her from behind, then sighed. And.

“Yes. That answers it.”

“I’ll give you my answer too.”

The next moment.

Kwaaak!

Seohwa, who’d driven the Uicheongeom she’d drawn like lightning into the ground, immediately declared.

“I won’t kill Choil’s younger sister.”

“Because that’s the way for all of us to survive.”