Book 19 Chapter 11

Screams in the middle of the night

-Where is the Bi Ryuyeon?

"Hey, Nohak, have you seen your big brother?"

"No, I didn't. What's wrong, Hyun-woon?"

"No, I haven't seen it since dinner."

"Then that's a good thing, right?"

"Oh, sure, you should, but… if you can't see it, you're not sure what it's going to do when you can't see it, right?"

"Yeah, that one too."

Nohak nodded in agreement with Hyun-woon.

* * *

"Ouch!"

A pitiful scream rang out from beneath the crescent moonlit night.

"Huh?"

Certainly, Bi Ryuyeon thought to himself, he was showing extraordinary zeal to guide the foolish subordinates who were challenging him more than usual. But the rumor that he was faster than Tian Lima was of little use to him this time, as he seemed to be suffering from some sort of illness. As a result, the challenges were still coming at him relentlessly, and he seemed to be taking it easy, as he had no visible aura of excellence and no weapons to carry.

Well, I mean, that's a waste…….

It's always been his theory that there's no good in advertising how strong you are. A sheathed sword is always scarier than an unsharpened one.

"Billion billion billion billion billion!"

That's when the screaming started again.

"Huh? Where?"

Bi Ryuyeon's head snapped up and she looked around, but there was nothing.

"Blah, blah, blah, blah!"

Again, a continuous but distinctive scream from somewhere.

Is it the mood? The screams were coming from very close.

"Kueh-eh-eh!"

It was only with the final, terminal sound of the pig's slaughter that she looked down at her feet. There, buried in the darkness, was Inyoung, struggling to get out. All of the screams, except for the first one, were coming from beneath his feet.

"What? You, how long have you been there?"

Bi Ryuyeon asked, as if they had just met for the first time today.

"From earlier."

The young man at his feet replied, tears streaming down his puffy face.

"Oh, you did, didn't you?"

Suddenly, I remembered.

"I forgot about that."

It was a hilarious moment for the side that was being beaten to a pulp.

'Uh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh! Please help me! I'll never do that again!'

"Really?"

"Seriously."

"So you know why you're right?"

"I… no……."

"Really? Then keep hitting me!"

'Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!'

"Don't worry, I won't have to kill you!"

* * *

"Hmph!"

The young man ran through the darkness of Namchang, his body throbbing.

To escape from something pressing down on his back.

The reserves you've built up to take the entrance exam are drained as quickly as water on sand, and the muscles in your body that you've spent months specializing in to keep them in tip-top shape are writhing in fatigue and screaming in pain.

In just over a week, it would be the day of the entrance exam that I had been preparing for my entire life…….

"Damn, why did this happen?

All his life, it is no exaggeration to say, has been preparing him to pass through this one gateway; long before he was of age, long before he had eyes to look into his own heart and see his own future, long before he knew who he was, he had been forced to swim through this narrow back door.

But what is he doing now? He is desperately running away, unable to face the sudden threat head-on. Having never been taught anything other than how to pass the Ascension Rite, you're not sure what to do if something else happens to you. I was confused.

"How the hell am I supposed to deal with this, damn it!

In fact, all his judgment had been made for him by others. Parents and teachers had monopolized all decision-making. But he had never questioned that fact. It had been the norm since before he was old enough to understand.

It was convenient, too. He had never had to make a decision about anything for himself, and as a result, a hardening of the brain and the growth of moss and mold between the folds of his brain had apparently been acceptable to him. So he had never really learned how to judge and decide for himself at the crossroads of life, and then take responsibility for the consequences. No one had ever taught him; all he had learned were the tricks of the trade to pass the entrance exams to the Academy of Heaven.

How to live life to the fullest, how to deal with risk with agility, and how to realize the possibilities within oneself have always been topics that have fallen outside of my main focus. He had always believed that all he needed to do was to enter the Academy of Heaven and everything would be guaranteed.

And now, for the first time in his life, he had to face the threat alone, without even standing in the doorway, let alone entering it. Suddenly, his vision went black.

He says he fought it, but in reality, it was a stroke of genius that struck him suddenly, and all he could do was run away with all his might.

"What should I do? What should I do?"

When faced with another formidable foe, all he could do was avert his gaze, letting out a string of insults that stuck to the tip of his tongue.

But the darkness of Namchang was like an endless maze, offering no rays of hope.

"Should I give up?

It was when I heard the voice that my breath caught in my throat.

"What, are you giving up already, sissy?"

The enemy that had been threatening him behind his back was now threatening him in front of his eyes.

"Uh, how about……."

His voice barely escaped from his ragged breath.

"The night may hide your form, but it can't hide your sound, because you can't even get away, tsk, tsk, tsk!"

The tone was genuine and concerned, but the content was not.

"So, what are you saying I should do, that running away is an option?"

It wasn't that I suddenly felt the urge to seek life counseling when I was near death. He was just trying to stall for time.

"That's a good question."

This shallow ploy didn't go unnoticed by the other party.

"I'll give you my best answer."

I still had time before my next appointment.

"Not all escape is the same, because you're not born the strongest, and there's no such thing as an operational retreat for nothing. You have to be constantly thinking about where you're going to run, how you're going to run, how you're going to outwit and outrun your pursuers, how you're going to make your escape more effective and efficient, I'm telling you. When you're running away, keep that in the back of your mind."

He adds.

"Only those who are always prepared for the worst can get away with it."

I had never heard of such a detailed escape.

"Ha, but I was never taught that kind of thing."

The young man could only think of two options: fight or flight.

"Tsk, tsk, you can't do something because someone didn't teach you how? You're such a softie, aren't you. And what's that thing on your shoulder for, anyway? It's a dang thing."

The monster looked at the young man with a very pathetic expression.

"So, what's your name?"

But he soon threw up his hands.

"No, never mind, never mind, there's no point in asking a guy who doesn't know who he is anyway."

"I've got my name in order!"

"Is there?"

The monster's voice rose slightly in an oblique pitch.

"There is."

The young man quickly curled his tail. The monster was satisfied.

"It's all been decided for you anyway: your name, your past, your present, your future. What's the point of bothering? It's a waste of air and water."

His tone was sour.

"That's such a nasty thing to say……."

The young man, who had never been spanked in his life, was in tears of frustration.

"Foot!"

The sissy remark made the geek burst out laughing.

"Poohahahahahaha! Fuhahahahahaha! Uhahahahahaha!"

He laughed loudly and boisterously, as if he didn't care if anyone else heard.

"So you've decided what you're going to do after you get into the Celestial Academy? If you have, I'd like to hear about it. Tell me! Tell me!"

"That… that's……."

No matter how much I rummaged through my memory drawers, the rest of my life was a blank slate.

"Look, you don't even know what you're going to do once you're in there, and you don't even know what you want to do once you're in there, so why would you go into a place where you don't know what you want to do, and you're under the mistaken impression that enlightenment is going to suddenly beam down from the universe and you're going to be able to do some good?"

His tone was still sour.

"Ha, but… once you're inside……."

The monster shook his head, cutting the young man off.

"So there's no point, not with that kind of ambition, so just die, why bother?"

His tone was casual, like he was asking me to dinner.

"You're still breathing in a flesh-and-blood body, but you're dead, so dying won't change anything."

Maybe what he said was true, maybe it was just the puppet's threads breaking.

"The world is fine without you, because there are so many of you out there, it's not even noticeable if one of you is missing."

As the man's words continued, the young man's mind descended into a bottomless pit.

"But don't worry, I'll let you sleep painlessly as a reward for making me laugh."

Bam!

A monster steps out of the darkness. Moonlight bathed his body. His long-sleeved black robes melted into the night, and his long bangs covered his eyes. Beneath the long bangs, a gentle smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Sarlacc!

The wind blew.

With the touch of an unseen reaper in it.