The Terminally-Ill Side-Character Inside of a Martial Arts Novel

I couldn’t react to his words that flowed gently. No, I didn’t. Knowing what Namgoong Seolbyeok’s feelings for me meant, I couldn’t easily speak up. As I kept my mouth tightly shut, he took one step closer.

I slightly furrowed my brows. As if reading my gaze, his body stopped before even fully taking that one step.

Namgoong Seolbyeok stared intently at me. His gaze shook while fixed precisely on me. A wind blew once, filling the space between him and me.

Namgoong Seolbyeok spent time with his mouth tightly shut as if savoring that stillness, then spoke slowly.

“Your body has weakened.”

“…”

“I felt it at the inn too, but seeing you in the light makes it even more painfully clear.”

“That’s not for you to worry about.”

“No. It is a matter for me to worry about.”

“Why is that?”

At my retort, Namgoong Seolbyeok slightly lowered his eyes without saying anything, then spoke slowly.

“If I had paid a little more attention, I would have first figured out the Murim Alliance’s movements and warned you to be careful, and then we could have avoided this situation. I just thought too complacently and couldn’t offer any help.”

“…I never asked for your help. And I drew the line first, didn’t I? I said I hoped we wouldn’t see each other again. So, it’s not your responsibility and not something for you to worry about.”

And above all, whenever I see Namgoong Seolbyeok, Hyuk Dojin’s face overlaps. Not only the appearance of showing wavering in meetings with Namgoong Seolbyeok, but the thought that he was the very person who killed Hyuk Dojin in the original work doesn’t leave my mind.

No matter how time flowed, in the end, if Namgoong Seolbyeok stabbed a sword into Hyuk Dojin’s heart, I wanted to forcibly separate him from Hyuk Dojin. I stared blankly at Namgoong Seolbyeok with his mouth tightly shut in a straight line, then spoke slowly.

“Surely, you didn’t ask to see me just to say that?”

At my question, Namgoong Seolbyeok slowly shook his head. He put his hand into his bosom and took out a rolled-up scroll, then threw it towards me. I caught the flying scroll in mid-air, examined the outside, then rolled my eyes.

Namgoong Seolbyeok slightly raised his chin as if telling me to open it. I stared at Namgoong Seolbyeok with my brows slightly furrowed, then unrolled the scroll in my hand.

The scroll was densely filled with writing. What was written in detail inside was the Murim Alliance’s search routes and movement routes.

“Why…?”

As I lifted my head blankly, Namgoong Seolbyeok answered slowly.

“The Murim Alliance hasn’t discovered the Five Leaf Fire Grass yet either. The Namgoong clan won’t perfectly carry out the Murim Alliance’s orders due to the power struggle between Clan Leader Namgoong Danghwi and my master. So, there’s still plenty of time.”

“No, wait… What on earth are you saying? What is this, and what are you talking about?”

I hurriedly asked, unable to easily accept the content. Namgoong Seolbyeok tilted his head slightly at my reaction. He examined the scroll in my hand as if asking what was lacking.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“…No. That’s not what I mean.”

I shook my head while folding the scroll. Namgoong Seolbyeok stared at me intently with a gentle expression as if asking what the problem was then.

I stared quietly at his gaze, then glanced at the scroll before putting strength in my voice.

“First of all, I don’t understand why you’re suddenly giving me something like this. Besides that, I’m not unaware of why you’re doing this to me, and it’s full of puzzling things, but let’s set that aside.”

I waved the scroll in my hand.

“This. Is everything written in here true?”

“It’s true. The contents are true, and what I just said is all true…”

“How will you prove it?”

“…What?”

Namgoong Seolbyeok countered a beat late at the fundamental question. I waved the scroll again and spoke.

“How will you prove that everything you say is true? Who will guarantee it?”

“That…”

“I’m grateful that you went to the trouble of delivering something like this to me, but as someone who nearly died from an attack by the Murim Alliance’s assault team just a few days ago, I can’t easily believe it. Moreover, it’s even harder to believe since it’s coming from you, none other than the Murim Alliance Leader’s disciple.”

I briefly scanned the contents inside after unrolling the scroll. It was certainly an incredibly helpful item. Not only the searched routes, but also the methods and ways to search in the future were written.

Based on the contents written in the scroll, if search parties were dispatched so as not to overlap search areas, there would be no particular overlaps.

But there were many suspicious things about believing this at face value.

“I’m sorry to doubt you, but right now I’m walking directly into the mouth of a beast. And the people down there are risking their lives just to protect and heal me. I can’t endanger their lives with reckless trust. Moreover, since it was none other than the Murim Alliance who first broke trust, I can’t trust this scroll even more.”

Namgoong Seolbyeok was a man called a genius, more than just intelligent. He was a man so skilled at using his head that even the Jegal clan was in awe. Such a man wouldn’t have thrown away such high-level information without any purpose.

…No, there would be a purpose. The sensitive fact that it might be me.

“It’s natural for me to be suspicious first. You might expect me to believe this information and come down from this mountain on my own, exposing myself to a trap. If not that, you might be trying to lure me out on the Alliance Leader’s orders to attack this place. Many thoughts can’t help but come to mind.”

So. I jerked my chin while briefly cutting off my words.

“How can I believe that this information is not some kind of trap but information brought purely for my sake? It’s a very important matter of life and death for me.”

“…”

I stared blankly at Namgoong Seolbyeok. He quietly looked at the scroll in my hand, then rolled his eyes. I waited for some words to come out of his mouth, which was keeping silent without saying anything.

As the wind blew several more times and the sound of clothes fluttering hit my ears multiple times, his mouth slowly opened.

“You must not die.”

“Why? Am I a hostage?”

“That’s not wrong.”

Not wrong? I slightly narrowed my brows, and Namgoong Seolbyeok smiled slowly.

“Moyong Sowol. It doesn’t mean you’re a hostage, but that I’m the hostage.”

“What do you…”

“Don’t you remember? The words you said to me at the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. The promise you made to me.”

The promise I made to Namgoong Seolbyeok at the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. It was a promise that I would end his life someday. He forcibly dredged up what I had forgotten, faded in my memory due to so many events.

“It’s a boring life. I have nothing I want, nothing I desire. I just lived because I was born and learned because I had to learn. Even geomantic formations, which somewhat piqued my interest, I couldn’t learn anymore because my family shunned it.”

As I watched Namgoong Seolbyeok exhale deeply as if sighing, there was a memory that came to mind. 

Though very faint, whenever Namgoong Seolbyeok was mentioned, the explanation that he was a man lacking in the ‘five desires’ always followed like a tag.

Desire for wealth, sexual desire, appetite, desire for fame, desire for sleep.

The five most fundamental desires stemming from human’s five senses were said to be as fleeting as they were futile to him. He didn’t want anything. Because of that, even sleeping wasn’t because he wanted to, but he fell asleep as if fainting when his body was exhausted, and eating was also obligatory.

But unfortunately, the man lacking in the five desires didn’t even have the desire to end his own life. Therefore, he couldn’t ask anyone to kill him, nor could he kill himself. That’s why I had promised to kill him.

“I’m half-baked. I’m breathing, but I’m a defective product that can’t even have the basic desires a human should have. So, I couldn’t even die. But those words that day saying you would kill me. Those words opened a path for me. And my worthless breath became attributed to you.”

Namgoong Seolbyeok drew the sword at his waist and threw it upwards. The sword flew diagonally and fell right in front of me. 

I glanced at the sword, then raised my head. Namgoong Seolbyeok looked into my eyes and spoke softly.

“You must not die. So take that sword here and cut off my legs and arms, then tie me up. If that information is false, use my body that can’t escape to negotiate. The Namgoong clan and Murim Alliance will at least spare you, Moyong Sowol, and Hyuk Dojin, two people, to save my life that’s just barely hanging on.”

When his soft voice brushed my ears telling me to cut off his limbs as if talking about someone else’s, I thought I had misheard.

When he threw the sword, I was about to sneer, thinking he would say he would bet his life if I couldn’t believe him. But Namgoong Seolbyeok was more than I thought.

I quietly looked at the sword fallen on the ground, then bent down and slowly picked it up. As I approached Namgoong Seolbyeok, he calmly stretched out his arm as if telling me to cut.

Forcibly suppressing the empty laugh that was about to come out, I spoke quietly.

“I’ve felt this before, but it seems it would be very tiring to turn you into an enemy. You say many unexpected things in various ways.”

“Is that so?”

I nodded and held out the sword to him. Namgoong Seolbyeok stared blankly at the sword I held out, then smacked his lips and took the sword handle.

…Why is he making a regretful expression?

“Surely you didn’t really expect me to cut off your arm?”

“How could that be?”

Then what was that expression just now? I withdrew my gaze that had been staring blankly at Namgoong Seolbyeok and stepped back to examine the scroll again.

Certainly, the contents written in here were high-level information that would make the search easier.

After scanning the contents written in detail as if revealing Namgoong Seolbyeok’s personality from start to finish, I raised my head.

Namgoong Seolbyeok spoke in a calm voice while sheathing his sword.

“It’s not written there, but currently half of the Yeonwi Left Army and Geum Hyul have left the Huai River.”

“Why is that?”

“I heard the Golden Blood Sand Sect caused trouble in the north and they left to suppress it… I don’t know the details. From what I briefly heard, it seems Jeok Biwol, who was always calm, caused a commotion.”

“…Jeok Biwol?”

That woman? Even if the first button with Jeok Biwol had been fastened wrong, looking at it coolly, Jeok Biwol was a smart woman.

She was a woman who would calmly overlook any provocation from others, knowing that actions that would antagonize the Murim Alliance at this time would adversely affect the Golden Blood Sand Sect.

But that Jeok Biwol caused trouble?

“I heard she killed a Murim Alliance master with poison over a trivial matter… The details haven’t been confirmed as information hasn’t come in. I’ll let you know when it’s confirmed later.”

“No…”

I was about to say it was fine, but when the thread of thought extended long and reached Jeok Biwol, my mouth closed tightly. I rolled my eyes and nodded. As I closed the scroll, Namgoong Seolbyeok looked at me and spoke softly.

“Don’t die. I’ve said it repeatedly, but you must not die.”

“I know. I don’t intend to die either.”

I haven’t even seen hydrangeas yet. I shrugged my shoulders while swallowing the latter words. Namgoong Seolbyeok stared intently at me, then added final words to his statement.

“You are the first and last person to draw out desire from me who had no desires. So, don’t think of dying and leaving me behind. If you die, I’ll bring you back from the ends of hell and make you kill me.”

“…That’s a bit scary.”

That’s quite a strong obsession. I spoke with a sour face, and Namgoong Seolbyeok drew a rare long smile and turned his body.