Pour.
The glass was filled with alcohol.
Chung Myung, who had been silently pouring, glanced at the person sitting across from him. The person was meticulously wiping a dagger with a pure white hemp cloth.
"…Put the dagger away. The alcohol is losing its flavor."
"Oh my, in this war, who even cares about alcohol? If it is edible, then it is fine enough."
Tang Bo wiped off all the oil from his dagger and furrowed his eyebrows. He looked as if he was taking perfect care of the weapon as if no one would call him a member of the Tang family.
"Does that mean the dagger is sharp?"
"If you don't know about it, don't talk. A human-like Taoist hyung can pick up a fallen sword or something to cut, but a person like me needs a weapon that perfectly fits the hand. This is a masterpiece, you know."
"What nonsense."
Regardless, Tang Bo meticulously maintained all twelve daggers. After cleaning them neatly, grinding off the scratched parts, and re-oiling them, he finally placed the dagger in front of Chung Myung.
Then he picked up the bottle and filled Chung Myung's empty cup.
"Why is the Taoist hyung in such a bad mood today?"
"…."
"No, no, it is always bad. Hmm, right, it is like the law of nature now."
"This bastard!"
"Come on, have a drink? A drink?"
When Tang Bo snickered and lifted his cup, Chung Myung snickered and lifted his glass in return. The two glasses clinked in the air.
Chung Myung slowly emptied his glass and looked at Tang Bo, who was sitting across from him and asked.
"How many people died yesterday?"
"Twenty."
"…Not killed but dead."
"Five. I told you to stop acting like those bastards…."
Tang Bo's face twisted as if he was annoyed. It seemed that there were quite a few casualties among the Tang family people he led.
That was how the war was. No matter how careful they were and how hard one tried, there were bound to be deaths.
"Those bastards have been going insane lately. If they had moved, their balls would have gone flying off."
Tang Bo mimed, slitting his throat with the dagger in his hand.
"Insane bastard."
Chung Myung chuckled.
It was just a joke, but no one here made jokes like that.
In a place where the same spot they sat and ate yesterday was empty today, a joke about death was too heavy to be taken lightly, yet too light as a feather to be discussed seriously.
"I almost got killed, you know? I ran into the high priest bastard."
"Hmm."
Chung Myung's eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of the high priest.
Several high priests had already been beheaded by his sword, but the title of high priest still posed a threat to Chung Myung.
"It wasn't done properly, so I managed to get out…"
Tang Bo pressed his chin hard.
"If it had been attached right, my neck would have been in danger. Damn it, why was I born into the Tang family?"
"You are weak; why are you using the Tang family as an excuse?"
"Oh my. Our Taoist Hyung seems to be stuck in the mountains and doesn't know a lot of things. It isn't that I am weak; it is just the nature of the dagger. I can handle it up to a moderate level, but if it goes beyond that, there is a limit to a dagger."
"You are weak then."
"No, what I am saying is…"
"You are weak."
"…."
Tang Bo smiled brightly with a red face.
"Be careful when you head home. You might get stabbed in the back by a blind dagger for all you know."
"Then it won't be a blind dagger, but a blind man throwing it."
"Ah, damn it."
Tang Bo grumbled and fiddled with the daggers in front of him. No matter how he looked at it, it seemed like he was considering whether he could just stick it in Chung Myung's head or not.
"Well, so… I am thinking about developing something useful like a technique."
"A technique?"
"Yes. A technique that can handle those damn high priests or those damn bastards under the Heavenly Demon. Those bastards who wear black clothes, those bastards who walk around in black robes. Ah, it would be better if they held a sword."
Chung Myung looked down at his own clothes in silence.
Hmm. They were black. Very black, too.
Chung Myung snickered.
"Stop fooling around and do what you were doing. When are you going to use the technique you made now in real life? You will try it out in the afterlife."
"Well, it isn't like I will use it right away."
"Uh?"
Tang Bo smiled.
"If I just have the rough idea, I can make it slowly after the war ends."
"Are you confident that you will be alive by then?"
"Ah, I am Tang Bo. If the Grim Reaper comes looking for me, I will just put a dagger through his head."
"Crazy man."
Tang Bo laughed.
Tang Bo stared at the empty glass in his hand with an odd look, then grabbed the bottle and filled it.
"Even if I don't make it…"
Chung Myung raised his head at the low voice of Tang Bo.
Tang Bo, who had been slowly turning the glass in his hand, poured the alcohol into his mouth in one gulp.
"Someone will continue it. Someone who inherits the Tang family's blood and learns the twelve techniques."
"…."
"Then, even if someone ends up in a similar situation as me, they won't have to worry like I did, right?"
"Hmm…"
Chung Myung was about to say something like 'You think too much,' when Tang Bo's slightly irritated voice rang in his ear.
"Then at least my descendants won't be beaten by some black-hearted Taoists who come down from rocky mountains with nothing but grass to eat. Just slap a dagger into their backs…"
Srrng.
"Ah! T-that! Why are you pulling the sword now when we are drinking! You really don't get jokes! Where did you come from to train in Taoism!"
"You crazy bastard…"
Chung Myung snickered, pushed the sword back, and picked up the alcohol. The drink flowing down his throat was unusually bitter.
"What is the point of it all?"
"Uh?"
"Descendants and everything…"
Chung Myung's eyes, which had sunken gloomily, turned to the window. The dark clouds covering the sun seemed like they could burst into rain at any moment.
"What do the survivors have to care about? I might not even be alive tomorrow."
"Hmm. Well, that is true."
Chung Myung's gaze shifted to Tang Bo.
"You're a bastard who got thrown out of the Tang family, and yet you still think of the descendants."
"Who threw me out? They just couldn't handle me!"
"…you are unbearable."
"Was that an insult?"
"It is a compliment."
"That is an insult!"
Tang Bo gritted his teeth. Seeing him like that, Chung Myung finally laughed.
Rather than a loud laugh, because it was funny, he kept trying to laugh whenever there was something to laugh about.
That was probably why he kept looking at Tang Bo instead of his sahyung whenever he had a tough time on the battlefield.
'You don't know.'
It was amazing that people could yell, get angry, joke, and laugh like that on a battlefield where people were losing their reason to exist as humans.
"But it is just how it is."
"Uh?"
Tang Bo said, stroking the dagger blade in his hand with his fingertips.
"Someone…"
The eyes looking at his face, reflected in the dagger, were calm. The expression on his dark face was clearly washed out.
"The next person should not repeat the mistakes of the fools. At least they should be better than us, right?"
"…"
But as if that would never happen, Tang Bo quickly erased the doubt that had been hanging over his face and smiled brightly.
"There might not be a boring Taoist next to those who can wield the sword like a ghost."
"Who cares? It's bloodlines. I used to hate the fools around me, but as I got older, I began to worry."
Tang Bo laughed at that. Chung Myung, too, laughed without another thought and looked up at the ceiling.
'Someone to continue, huh…'
What nonsense.
Continue what? He could not even see their faces.
How could he know what happens after his death? He couldn't even save the lives of those he had been living with face to face. As time went by, he was only losing more of them.
"If you have time to think about all that, kill one more at least."
"Uh?"
"As long as you don't make a mistake, it is fine. If you cut off the cheek of that young Heavenly Demon brat, at least your descendants won't have to fight him."
"Well… that is also true."
"So don't worry."
"What are you even saying?"
Chung Myung's lips curled up.
"I will cut that bastard's neck."
"I told you he is mine; why do you keep saying that?"
Tang Bo clicked his tongue.
"Nice. If Taoist hyung cuts off the Heavenly Demon's head, then I will give you a gift."
"A gift?"
"Hmm! I will make you taste the new technique that Tang Bo makes! The day is the day that the dagger gets stuck in your back, and from that day on, I will be the best warrior in the world… ah, no! I told you not to draw the sword when I am joking!"
"Just die, you moron!"
"Eikk! A Taoist is going around killing people!"
Tang Bo, who had been making a fuss and joking at the same time, suddenly dispelled the sword qi, which Chung Myung used and laughed.
"When that day comes, there will be no more wishes."
"… just drink."
"Take it. I will fill your glass."
The alcohol which flowed from the tip of the bottle slowly filled the white glass.
The two of them poured alcohol as if competing with one another. As if they wanted to moisten something which had dried up long ago.
Until the rain that came that night had washed away the smell of blood, the two of them just drank.
Chung Myung opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling with a blank face.
His head slowly turned to the side. Sunlight was streaming in through the window.
'Is it morning already?'
When the day came, he would wake up and go to practice… When he returned to Mount Hua after so long, the tension that had been controlling my body for years seemed to have been released.
Was that why he dreamed of it?
"… and so it happened."
Right. He had forgotten.
Because he didn't think the conversations he had without much thought were important enough to remember. No, he didn't even know they were important.
"First, technique…"
Chung Myung snickered. It was the face of the past Plum Blossom Sword Saint.
"Moron."
Right. He kept his promise to cut off the Heavenly Demon's head. He cut off that head in the most pathetic means possible.
And Tang Bo also kept his promise. In fact, in the most foolish way possible.
So…
Chung Myung raised his gaze again. It was a different ceiling than the one he had seen at the drinking party.
"… I told you I won't let you see it."
That was why he tried so hard, but if that was going to happen again… what on earth did the death of all those people mean?
Just what…
Kwang!
At that moment, the door opened violently, with familiar faces rushing in. No, they fell in.
"Euk! What the fuck!"
Even Chung Myung, the best in the world, couldn't help but be terrified at that.
"Ack! I told you not to push!"
"No! It is because you didn't get out of the way!"
"I told you to let him rest! The spar wasn't easy to do!"
"Why are you waking up a sleeping person?"
Chung Myung's face was blank as he watched the Five Swords struggling while lying face down. He soon covered his face with both hands.
'For this…'
Tang Bo. Didn't this seem more like a dog's death now? Uh?
"… what?"
Chung Myung asked weakly. Baek Cheon, who was on the bottom, covered his mouth with his fist and coughed. Even so, he looked like he had been beaten by savages, so he didn't have any dignity even if he did that.
"Well, that… I had something to ask about the spar yesterday."
"…."
"No matter how much I think about it, I don't understand the technique."
"Explain it."
"…."
Chung Myung, who was speechless for a moment, looked at them blankly and asked.
"You had to ask it right away in the morning?"
"We have to do it right away! We need to know as fast as we can."
"You never know when something like that will come for us! Such things need to be known right away."
Chung Myung chuckled as if he was losing it.
Since he was letting them off… no, as he watched those guys babbling, he felt like an idiot to even feel depressed for a second there.
"How does it work?"
"Yes."
"If I tell you, can you understand?"
"…."
"You can see as much as you know. How can I explain something you cannot even see when you are so weak? It is like teaching the alphabet to a monkey."
"Bastard…"
"Look at this. I told you we wouldn't hear anything good!"
"Kuak! Spit!"
Chung Myung shook his head and got out of bed at the loud reaction.
"If you have time to speak nonsense, do some training now. Don't get lost in emotions just because you are back in Mount Hua."
"Everyone else did it except you, though?"
"Uh?"
"You are the one lost in emotions the most! You moron!"
Baek Cheon blocked Chung Myung's path as he shook his head and tried to leave. Chung Myung looked up with a sullen look.
"What?"
"I am sure that my head will not understand it."
"Uh?"
"But…"
Baek Cheon twisted his lips into a smile.
"I think I will understand it with my body."
"…"
"How is it? Let us loosen up a bit?"
Chung Myung opened his mouth as if he had something to say, then shook his head again.
"Is the place you got hit last time okay?"
"It is already healed, you moron."
Baek Cheon let out a proud laugh. Chung Myung laughed as if he wanted to pull the air out.
"Fine, let us meet in the training ground. I will break it down where it broke again."
"Okay!"
The Five Swords headed out without another word. Jo Gul, who was at the back, grabbed Baek Cheon's shoulder and ran ahead.
"Me first!"
"No, you idiot! Yah, bastard! Do you not know the hierarchy?"
"When does Mount Hua even have it!"
"Move."
"Samae! Yah! Yu Yiseol!"
Chung Myung stood there and watched it happen. As he watched the Five Swords running, chattering among themselves, it seemed like he heard voices in a dream.
-Whoever takes over should not repeat the mistakes of the fools before. At least, shouldn't they be better than us?
Chung Myung looked at the window through which the sunlight came in. Unlike that day, the weather was clear.
"Right. Better than us, for sure."
Better than fools like the two of them.