Baek Sogo was sorry?
Lee Sungmin was silent for a while as Baek Sogo continued to mutter that she was sorry in a remorseful and guilty tone of voice.
What Baek Sogo had felt while being at both the Mountain of Mush and in Denir’s Trial of time, was the guilt and remorse of not being able to see or thank Lee Sungmin.
She felt guilty and remorseful for her choice that she had made that day, since it went against her core beliefs of justice and holding true to her morals.
Baek Sogo was just that sort of person. She felt guilt and shame for not being able to be the kind person she always was.
Lee Sungmin slowly raised his hand and hugged Baek Sogo back.
“……didn’t I say it was okay?”
Lee Sungmin smiled bitterly. Baek Sogo was still in tears. Lee Sungmin patted Baek Sogo on the head as if comforting a child.
He couldn’t fully sympathize with her guilt, but he knew that the object of her guilt was none other than Lee Sungmin himself. Lee Sungmin decided to speak to her from the bottom of his heart.
“That day, at the dungeon, I made the choice to save you, as I had hoped to do. I’ve never regretted it, and even if I somehow went back to the time, I know I would still make the same choice. There’s no need to feel so guilty about it, since it’s not like I’m dead or anything.”
“…… I was helpless at the time. I had no choice but to turn around with you fighting off that monster. I’m… I’m sorry for being too weak.”
“That’s perfectly fine.”
Lee Sungmin grabbed Baek Sogo’s shoulders. The distance between the two separated just a tiny bit. Baek Sogo saw Lee Sungmin’s golden irises through her teary eyes.
“On the Mountain of Mush. I was pitifully weak. I didn’t know when I was going to die, and I was just counting the days as they went by. Those feelings of anguish and helplessness disappeared when I met you. You did that for me, Baek Sogo.”
“About it…… there is no need for you to feel grateful about it. I was just acting like myself. I was… just being nice.”
“So was I.”
Lee Sungmin smiled with a shy expression on his face.
“I made my own choice. I’m not as nice and kind as you, but that was only a moment where I felt like repaying that kindness.”
Baek Sogo couldn’t say anything to Lee Sungmin. Baek Sogo, who stared at Lee Sungmin’s face with a blank expression, smiled gently and brought her hands to her eyes, and rubbed them lightly to dry off the tears.
“…… I’m glad I could meet you like this.”
“I’m really glad to see you as well. But why would you come…here of all places?”
“Because you are here.”
After wiping away all the tears, Baek Sogo took a deep breath. She poured out her feelings to him through words and apologized for everything she had done.
However, Baek Sogo not only gave her apology, but also expressed her intention going forwards and why she was in Hadras, the City that was belonging to the Headquarters of the Sama Order.
Lee Sungmin nodded slowly.
“There’s a good drink I know of..”
[You…don’t tell me you’re going to…]“Of course sharing some liquor in my room is a little… Well, it doesn’t matter, since I’m sure we can find plenty of open spaces around the headquarters here to talk and drink.”
“I don’t care if it‘s your room.”
[YOU.. ! You said you weren’t going to let us drink again!]Heoju roared in frustration at Lee Sungmin, who was now about to enjoy liquor, in which Heoju certainly loved.
‘Just a little bit of liquor is fine when it’s for celebratory purposes.’
Heoju grumbled at Lee Sungmin, but Lee Sungmin ignored Heoju’s words. Baek Sogo murmured to Lee Sungmin with a faint smile.
“It’s my first time drinking with you.”
“I was too young when I was on the Mountain of Mush.”
Lee Sungmin returned the smile and received Baek Sogo’s warm words. Thanks to Baek Sogo being comfortable with drinking in his room, Lee Sungmin didn’t think too much of it and brought them over to his room.
Actually, it was too big to be called a room really. Since Lee Sungmin was the successor to the Demonic Emperor and the Young Leader of the Order, he had an entire set of detached houses, ponds and greenery all to himself.
Lee Sungmin had never used it much since after coming to the Sama Order, mainly because he was always traveling even after arriving.
“Huh?”
Lee Sungmin’s footsteps stopped when he was about to enter the detached house. He wrinkled his nose at the weird smell that was permeating in the air.
He surely wasn’t used to it, but it wasn’t a foreign smell to him either. Lee Sungmin realized what was going on and just let out a sigh.
“It seems I did something dumb unintentionally.”
Lee Sungmin grumbled and opened the door of the detached house and went inside. The detached house was filled with the smell of reagents, potions and elixirs. The mana was also moving in the air with a forced flow and direction.
There was only one person Lee Sungmin knew of who could be capable of all this within the Sama Order.
“Are you back?”
Scarlett stuck her head out at the end of the hallway. Her red hair was a mess and frizzy as there were dark circles under her eyes.
“Why is Scarlett here?”
“I said I needed a place for an experiment, and he told me to stay here. I mean, your sweet teacher of course.”
“…… Sweet teacher?”
“He’s been very nice to me. Every time I tell him the magic ingredients that I need, he always gets them right away for me with a smile.”
(T/N : Sima Ryunju straight pimpin lolol)
Scarlett spoke and glanced at Baek Sogo.
“Oh, you finally met back up with Baek Sogo. There’s a lot to talk about, right? I’ll be quiet, so don’t think about me and go chat on your own.”
“…… This is my house.”
“Your teacher told me to use this place. I can’t get out of here either due to the situation outside with the Murim Alliance, so please understand.”
Scarlett said so and disappeared from the hallway again. It was likely she was going back to her magical experiment. Lee Sungmin sighed and turned to Baek Sogo.
“…… Let’s go to the pavilion behind us.”
There were fewer stars in the night sky. It wasn’t a bright starry and dreamy night sky, but Lee Sungmin truly did like the feeling of the lightly chilling night air.
Lee Sungmin called a servant and asked for something to eat as a snack to bring over to them as he walked up to the pavilion and sat opposite to Baek Sogo.
“Have you already met Ms. Scarlett?”
“I didn’t think she’d be here. But yes, it‘s only been three days since I’ve come here, but we met on the first day I arrived haha.”
Baek Sogo said so as she bowed her head to Lee Sungmin.
“For this, I wanted to thank you for what you did. I… couldn’t go to save her in time. I wanted to and even made a promise to help her in such times, yet I ewasn’t even able to follow through and save her with you in the subjugation of Kim Jonghyun.”
“There must have been your own circumstances. There’s nothing wrong with Scarlett’s safety now, so you don’t have to thank me for doing what I wanted to do.”
“I guess everybody has their own business…”
Baek Sogo murmured in a quiet voice. Lee Sungmin, who was taking Heoju’s bottle out of his subspace pocket, stopped when he heard Baek Sogo muttering.
Meanwhile, the servant came up with some simple side dishes and two glasses. Baek Sogo continued as she looked down at the glass in front of her.
“I believe in you.”
There was no hint of doubt in her words.
“No matter what the circumstances may be, I will always believe in you. Even if everyone in the world calls you a liar, I will believe in you. It’s not just because you risked your life to save mine. You are just that kind of special person to me in more ways you can imagine.”
Lee Sungmin listened to Baek Sogo as he slowly poured the alcohol into the two glasses.
“Even if you lie. Even if it is the most obvious lie in the world to everyone else. I will believe in you.”
“I don’t have any intentions to lie.”
Lee Sungmin spoke as he filled his glass with alcohol. It’s been a long time since he had last drunk the alcohol from Heoju’s gourd of endless liquor in the Village of the Dwarves. He ignored Heoju, who was making a drooling sound in his head, excited to get drunk through their shared consciousness.
“Do you think I’m a murderer?”
“I don’t want to believe the rumors.”
“What if I’m the murderer.”
“If you acted like that in cold blood and acted against my beliefs, then…. Maybe…… I’ll act out.”
Baek Sogo did not simply muddle around in the thousand years she spent in Denir’s Trial of Time and her return to the Mountain of Mush. She had changed.
She would not blindly trust others if they went against her morals. She would act accordingly and only believe what she witnessed first.
Even if it was just foolishness and being called stubborn in the eyes of others, she would not bow down to them.
Baek Sogo had resolved herself to only believe in her moral understandings of others.
“…… There’s been a lot of misunderstanding surrounding those incidents..”
Lee Sungmin sighed and started talking. The first thing he needed to explain to Baek Sogo was the relationship he had with the Minor Heavenly Demon, Wijihoyeon.
Only by telling her about it, could he answer the question of practically having his hand forced in the killing of the Ironclad when saving Wijihoyeon.
“Is Wijihoyeon a murderer in your eyes?”
Lee Sungmin asked Baek Sogo in a straightforward manner. Baek Sogo did not immediately reply. She understood the relationship between Lee Sungmin and Wijihoyeon.
He blocked the Ironclad to save his friend in crisis, and all he did was be forced in hand to save her, as her life was in danger.
“She didn’t commit any apparent evil or malicious deeds.”
Baek Sogo muttered.
“When Wijihoeyon was in the midst of fame as the Minor Heavenly Demon. She didn’t commit anything wrong, at least willingly. She was challenged repeatedly and sometimes was forced to kill her opponents out of their stubbornness… just like myself and the Ironclad.”
“You can’t call that a cold-blooded murder then.”
“Right.”
Baek Sogo closed her eyes, and then spoke in a quiet murmur.
“…… It was the Murim Alliance who continuously sent orders to capture her in the beginning… before she had even killed a single person.”
“The Murim Alliance? How funny.”
Lee Sungmin smiled with a silly grin. Lee Sungmin also had a lot to say about the Murim Alliance.
Lee Sungmin tried to tell the public about what happened in the Forest of Temptation, but that only contributed to the fact that the nickname Ghost Spear was tied to being a murderer at that point.
In order to tell Baek Sogo of everything that had happened, he also had to talk about the hidden group known as Beyond the Heavens.
Baek Sogo held a long silence. She didn’t know about the group known as Beyond the Heavens.
The Murim Alliance, which she considered a righteous group, was only a pawn to this secretive group, and was carrying out their deeds in the name of so-called justice. The fact that the Lord of the Murim Alliance, Jehu, was a part of this organization, only served to spin her mind further.
However, it all started to make a lot of sense to Baek Sogo, as she started to tie the death of Zhuge Taeryong and Murong Seojin into account.
“They forced you under pressure because of the Ironclad, and not only that, but they framed you for Zhuge Taeryong and Murong Seojin’s deaths….”
“Do you still believe in me after hearing all that?”
“You’re being quite mischievous.”
Baek Sogo laughed bitterly at Lee Sungmin, who teased her.
“I said I would believe you unconditionally. And… everything you just said. I don’t suspect that it’s a lie. Beyond the Heavens… Hm…….”
Baek Sogo lifted her glass. The liquor from the gourd, which Heoju was going crazy about, remained still as she lifted it.
Baek Sogo continued, shaking the glass lightly.
“Getting rid of all the monsters in this world, and creating a world for only humans.”
“What do you think of their motive?”
“I don’t share their ideals at all.”
Baek Sogo spoke firmly.
“Not all non-humans or monsters are evil. It’s absolutely true that most of them happen to eat humans, but there are certainly those who don’t.”
[She’s such a narrow-minded girl.]Heoju grumbled.
[How childish to have such black and white thinking, only making it as if killing humans is what defines monsters. What a double standard to place monsters on a pedestal like that, but not humans.]‘It’s because she doesn’t follow the same road as us, and doesn’t fully understand monsters either.’
Lee Sungmin took the glass to his mouth to soothe a Heoju with more liquor.
“I can understand your position. It was an act to save the Minor Heavenly Demon..… and in the process, it was taken as an offense to the Murim Alliance and Beyond the Heavens…. I’ve also noticed similar things with the Murim Alliance .”
Baek Sogo raised the glass to her mouth. She looked a little surprised at the strong aroma of the alcohol, and was surprised even further by the taste of the alcohol that passed down her throat.
She shook her head after looking at the empty glass for a moment.
“……I thought a lot on my way here. About the world, I seem to think I know. More about what I’ve seen until now and believed in until now. Yes, the standards that I believe in and the standards that divide right from wrong may be narrow and unjustified in others’ eyes.”
[It’s a good thing she knows it herself.]“However.”
Heoju, and Baek Sogo immediately added.
“Even if it’s biased and unjustified, I intend to act as I wish. Even if it is merely selfish self-righteousness. Live righteously and don’t just fall in line with others beliefs. Those were the last words of my teacher who lived like that.”
Lee Sungmin had never heard about the story regarding Baek Sogo’s teacher. He had asked about it in the past, but whenever he did, she would just avoid the topic and smile.
“I don’t think of you as evil.”
Baek Sogo slowly lifted herself up.
“But I think of the Sama Order as evil. Yes, there must be people in this group who are not truly evil. Just as not all of the factions of the Murim Alliance are truly a part of Beyond the Heavens.”
“…… What is it that you truly want to see then?”
“The elimination of true evil in this world.”
Baek Sogo answered without hesitation. It was such a ridiculous and childish sounding answer, that Lee Sungmin almost choked on his liquor and was forced to ask again.
“……Yes, sorry?”
“To eradicate all the wicked people and things in this world. That’s what I want.”
[Hahaha!]Heoju burst into laughter.
[What a nut job!]Amidst Heoju’s maniacal laughter, Lee Sungmin had no choice but to sympathize with Heoju’s laughter to some extent.