I will dance the 12th sword dance.
He practiced and practiced the Bicheon Sword Technique that achieved great success.
Although it was a martial art that I had practiced for such a long time, the Bicheon Sword technique performed with a younger body gave me a different feeling. This is probably why it is said that one cannot see the end of martial arts even if one devotes one’s life to it.
While practicing the Bicheon Sword Technique, I also practiced the Qi Expulsion technique that my father taught me. Also, this time, we tried to achieve a balance between the increased internal and external power through Majeongdan.
This is the result of repeated training.
Ninety-seven days after coming here, I was able to perfectly handle my increased power. It has also become possible to emit more energy more skillfully. Although it’s not like a spider’s web, it can already emit more than ten energy at the same time.
“done. So far.”
For the remaining three days, I quietly controlled my mind and organized the things I had to do in the future.
On the hundredth day after coming here, I pushed the tombstone aside.
Then the door outside opened.
“Wow, this fresh air! Byeokgokdan, goodbye for now!”
I stretched out loud and walked out of there.
At the exit of Socheon-dong, a warrior from Cheonmajeon was waiting.
“Oh my! Confucius!”
He looked at me in surprise.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“I was waiting for this Confucius as he told me to bring him to Cheonmajeon as soon as he came out. But I didn’t know you would come out this early. “They said I have to wait at least 100 days from today.”
“How long have you been waiting?”
“It came out today.”
My father expected me to come out within 100 to 200 days. This is my talent that my father looks at.
I’m guessing you think this is pretty high?
Plus, at least he didn’t think I was going to die.
Thinking that maybe putting me in Socheon-dong was a reward rather than a punishment, I walked along with the warrior.
* * *
When we arrived at Cheonmajeon, my father was alone.
I slowly walked along the red carpet towards the royal palace where my father was sitting.
People call this carpet ‘Road of Blood’. How much blood must we shed to get there? How much blood did my father have to see before he could sit there? How much more blood will have to be shed to protect that position?
“It took just 100 days.”
My mouth itched at my father’s words. The gate was broken in one day. That’s your son now. I guess I really need to visit the bamboo forest in the back mountain.
“I struggled, but I couldn’t break my father’s record.”
“Did you cut the sphere properly?”
“It cut well without causing heat. You left such a clue, so of course we have to cut it out carefully. “We didn’t rest at the final reception.”
Then I saw. A smile on my father’s face. It wasn’t the same ridicule I’d seen before. It was a smile of genuine joy. But unfortunately, that smile disappeared as soon as it appeared. To my father, a smile is like a mirage.
“You’re not that stupid.”
“Of course, whose son is this?”
The father I recognized before his return was a man who enjoyed competing for succession, risking his children’s lives.
But I think I know now. He is someone who endures the death of his children for the sake of the future of his religion, and at least he is not someone who enjoys fighting.
“But why did you call me?”
Before telling me what was going on, my father called someone there.
He was none other than Sima Ming (司馬明), a commander-in-chief with the power of one person and all people in this school.
“It’s been a while, Soldier Sima.”
“To pass through Socheon-dong in just one hundred days. “You are amazing, Confucius.”
He was also the head of Tongcheongak (通天閣), which was in charge of the head of the school as well as the commander-in-chief. As the person with real power who held all the information in the central government, he was a person fully trusted by his father.
“It was punishment for a hundred days.”
“Is it a punishment? Is it a prize?”
Sima Ming smiled meaningfully.
“Perhaps you were trying to punish but failed?”
“ha ha ha.”
Sima Ming laughed and I laughed along with him.
After the greeting was over, Sima Ming got to the point.
“The reason I asked to see Confucius today is to discuss one matter within the school.”
You called me instead of your brother to handle school matters? Like this as soon as you leave Socheon-dong? The situation is definitely different from the past. Normally, I would leave school matters to my older brother. Even if I was out, I would have sent a letter and left it there.
My gaze turned to my father, who was sitting in the Great Temple beyond Sima Ming. In the end, this decision was a matter of my father’s will.
“Please tell me.”
“Not long ago, a letter of appeal came in. “It said there was corruption within the demon army.”
The Demon Army was one of the school’s military organizations, and its members were famous for their rough temperament.
‘ah!’
The reason I sighed inwardly was because the leader of the demon army was the younger brother of Hyeolcheondoma. It was the moment when the blood and chopping block became entangled again.
“Last year, we received a complaint and investigated it at Hwangcheongak.”
Hwangcheongak was an organization that investigated treason and corruption. Due to the nature of the organization, everyone hates it, but it is a powerful organization that takes precedence over everyone else.
“But the investigation at that time failed. No one gave relevant testimony and the special investigator who had been dispatched was killed. “The devil who murdered him committed suicide.”
It was such a big event that I remembered it too. It seemed to anyone that the investigation into the case was being interfered with within Magun, but no evidence was found. In the end, the incident was completely covered up.
And as time passed, the letter came again.
“I hope this Confucius will become a special investigator and handle this matter.”
Why me? There was no need to say that.
This job, which had a dangerous smell in the air even before it started, was my father’s test.
If you are involved in a corruption case in an elite organization such as the Demon Army, you will be sentenced to death. In the end, someone who commits corruption will try to hide their crime somehow, and investigators will not regard them as a child of the Heavenly Demon.
Moreover, in a situation where Hyeolcheondoma even warned me, would I mess with an organization where his younger brother is the head?
“You’re putting me in danger.”
Sima Ming nodded and acknowledged.
“you’re right. “This mission will require your life to be risked.”
I looked at my father. My father, who was looking at me with a dull expression, suddenly said something unexpected.
“You said you were going to grab them and put a leash on them?”
This was what I said to my father at the hunting ground.
“That’s what happened when I became the Heavenly Demon.”
“So you can’t do it now because you’re scared?”
“No, if you say that again, I can’t help it…” My
father saved Hyeolcheon Doma’s face by putting me in Socheon-dong, and he is trying to keep Hyeolcheon Doma in check through this test. What on earth is the father’s innermost thoughts?
Suddenly, I remembered my father’s words the night I was hunting.
―Father, could you kill me for you?
―If this is a concern, you shouldn’t say the word ‘mind reading’ carelessly.
My gaze met my father’s in the air.
The blunt look in his eyes was the same as when he went hunting and the same as when he put me in Socheon-dong.
If you think about it another way, this is not my father’s decision.
Because I treated my father differently, and it was his choice that came out as a result. Ultimately, this is the path I chose.
“These are words I uttered while looking at those wonderful stars, but I have to take responsibility for them. “I will take care of it.”
My father smiled unexpectedly at his cheerful acceptance.
‘I don’t know what your plan is, but I’ll do a cool sword dance for you.’
On the other hand, Sima Ming seems to have found my acceptance unexpected.
“Are you sure you don’t mind? As I said, it is very dangerous.”
“But we can’t just leave these guys who are robbing our school’s treasury, can we? Instead, there is one condition.”
“What is it?”
“Give us not only the right to investigate, but also the right to summary disposition.”
Right to summary disposition.
It meant the privilege of not being held responsible even if the subject was inevitably killed during the investigation.
Because this was unprecedented, Sima Ming looked at his father. My father nodded slightly and gave permission.
“great. Instead, please exercise your right to summary disposition only when there is clear evidence.”
“of course.”
“Thank you for allowing me to do this difficult task.”
“If I die, please engrave on my tombstone that I was brave.”
Sima Ming chuckled.
“Tomorrow, I will send an inspector to Hwangcheongak to assist this Confucius.”
“If possible, please send me a beautiful woman.”
“ha ha ha. “I heard that this Confucius is showing a new side these days, and he has really changed a lot.”
“I will take this as a compliment. Then I’ll just leave. “It might be my last time, so I should at least have a drink.”
After giving him a polite hug, he was about to leave when he glanced back at his father and said.
“Father, having a drink with my son, which might be our last…”
My father didn’t even listen to the end of my story and got up and left.
I looked at Sima Ming and said with a grin.
“He may be abrasive on the outside, but he’s secretly kind to me.”
“It doesn’t look like that at all.”
After leaving a smile and a word, Sima Ming also left.
I said loudly to him.
“You are starting to look more and more like your father.”
Sima Ming also did not look back.
In front of the two of them, I tried to joke and joke around. Because to them, I was a green young man. It always comes back to me. Let’s not bring the darkness of the past into this life. I am born again.
I stretched out loud in front of Cheonmajeon.
By successfully passing this test, you will be one step closer to becoming the successor.
* * *
The next morning, Ian informed me that the Hwangcheongak investigator had come to visit.
“Master, I will follow and help.”
She knew very well how dangerous it was to investigate Demon Lord.
Instead of permission, I asked.
“Pretty?”
“yes?”
“Do you think the inspector waiting outside is pretty?”
“yes?”
“Don’t disturb our private time for no reason! “No jealousy!”
At that time, Ian said to me with an expression that asked me what on earth he was talking about.
“The investigator is male?”
“what?”
A while later, the person who came in, guided by Ian, was noticeably short and had gloomy eyes. And it really was a man.
“nice to see you. “This is Seo Dae-ryong, a special investigator at Hwangcheongak.”
His name was Daeryong, but his body size was the complete opposite. Even his voice was small.
“Why are you here? “I asked the general to send me the most beautiful woman in Hwangcheon Pavilion.”
Seo Dae-ryong, who looked embarrassed for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and answered.
“I guess I was the most beautiful woman in his eyes.”
Ian, who was standing next to Seo Dae-ryong’s joke, burst out laughing.
“Smile? In this tragic situation?”
Ian quickly managed his expression.
“no.”
“Ah, it’s been a while since I wanted to spend some quality time with a beautiful woman.”
I sighed quietly.
“Okay, let’s get to work. Tell me what you know about Demon Army. Just stutter. “I will show you what a tragic fate takes place on behalf of a beautiful woman.”
Seo Dae-ryong explained as if he had been waiting for my joking words.
“The demon army consists of a total of six troops under the demon lord. It is an organization that only carries out orders directly from the leader, and each unit consists of a total of 181 people, including 30 demon lords. “There is no vice-lord, and the first ruler takes his place, and he is the demon lord’s henchman.”
“I memorized it well.”
“Here is information about the Demon Lords.”
He handed me a thick document. It was a document containing all the impressions and histories of the Demon Lords.
I took out one of them that I could get my hands on.
“Tell me about the bell.”
You can’t memorize this, right? That was my intention, but he answered as if he had been waiting.
“This is my seventh year as a member of the Magun area. Dokmun martial arts is a method called courtship and is very cruel in nature. “I liked drinking and gambling, so I got into several accidents, but the devil’s side covered it up.”
I asked in surprise.
“what? How do you know? friend? “Are you my enemy?”
“no.”
I took out another document and asked. This time too, I knew exactly about that person.
“Surely you memorized all the hundred and eighty people here?”
“yes. “One hundred and eighty-one people, to be exact.”
“You’re a genius, right?”
“It’s something we’ve been looking into for a long time.”
“No, no. “If you memorized all of this, you’re a genius.”
“I hope you recognize my efforts.”
“Oh so humble. “It looks a little different now.”
He was short and had a somewhat gloomy appearance, but that gloomy atmosphere felt like the prickliness of a genius.
“Isn’t there a reason you sent me other than a beautiful woman?”
“Oh, it’s not fun to just be humble, so try to show off. “You entered Hwangcheon Pavilion as a senior, right?”
“How did you know?”
“This is it! Did you hear Ian? When asked if you were the chief, how did you know? There needs to be an answer like this. Cool, cool. But unfortunately, I won’t be dating a girl.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Isn’t there a mirror at home?”
“I’m upset, but there is nothing.”
“what? A mirror? “A woman?”
“No, the courage to resist a rude superior.”
“ha ha ha.”
I smiled happily. For some reason, I like this guy.
Now, let’s see how good you are at your job.
“Then what kind of cock is the Demon Lord?”