Chapter 40
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
“Meracle…….”
A name called out like a child.
Even through vision blurred by tears, Kim Juseon, the president of Meracle, stood out clearly.
Not only that, his words felt like a warm ray of light—.
‘I’ll find your miracle.’
Meracle’s greeting, an easy-to-miss line you would normally hear once you went inside.
But right now, it was a line he wanted to cling to desperately, as if grabbing hold of a trouser leg.
“Is that really…… true?”
He struggled to his feet, bracing himself on his knees.
When Namgung Yeon’s desperate gaze reached him, Kim Juseon smiled and savored the words he had spoken once more.
“Luminous Plaza. She’s waiting there.”
“How do you know that-.”
“Didn’t I say I’d find your miracle?”
“…….”
The corners of Namgung Yeon’s eyes trembled.
The source of the phone he had forgotten about.
It had been handed to him by Kim Yang, a Meracle employee who had come with his older sister.
“Did Meracle…… plan this from the very beginning?”
“Namgung Yeon.”
Kindness settled into the smile on Juseon’s lips.
“Do you remember what I told you when you first came for the rank-assessment interview?”
“…….”
“We only connect people; we can’t bind them together.”
Even if a channel had opened through the phone, if the two people hadn’t taken to each other in the end, they wouldn’t have been bound together.
His words were right.
The fact that he had come to cherish it this dearly was certainly his own choice.
“Let’s go, Namgung Yeon. To meet your miracle.”
The moment Namgung Yeon took a step forward, as if bewitched by Kim Juseon’s suggestion.
“Don’t move any further.”
A low voice, like a revelation, pierced his ears.
Namgung Pacheon, the head of the Namgung family.
The blue sword aura gathered on his blade still carried a razor-sharp killing intent.
“Young Master Namgung Yeon. You will return to the family with me right this instant.”
“Ah, Father. Please give me a little time—.”
Bwoooom!
The ominous whistle of sword wind rang in his ears. The blue sword aura that had just passed by his ear surged onward and cleanly split the rock behind him.
“Since when have you been talking back to me like that?”
“…….”
“Ignoring my letter and shirking responsibility for this matter. None of it is trivial. Young Master Namgung Yeon, do not test your father’s patience any further.”
Namgung Yeon’s heart sank.
Reverence toward his father could, in other words, also be called fear.
Because he admired him, there had never been an option not to follow his words before—.
- J: It’s because of the Christmas truce.
- J: Cyber City ultimately also carries the symbolism of a city where people live.
- J: So I.
- J: like that day.
- J: If you need one, would you like me to recommend a romantic place for Christmas?
Her words flickered in his mind.
Her feelings, cautiously yet honestly laid bare.
“Father…….”
He clenched his fist tightly.
He gripped it so hard that it went numb, but without that much resolve, he wouldn’t have been able to speak the words lodged in his chest.
“The Christmas that will soon arrive—she says it’s the day she likes most.”
“Young Master Namgung Yeon, refrain from useless talk.”
“On a day like that! If I made the woman I hold in my heart shed tears! How could I become the family head responsible for the Namgung clan!”
“…….”
“I’ll go where I should be.”
“Can you do that?”
Namgung Yeon swallowed hard.
If he answered here, the conversation would be over from this point on.
He could feel the gazes of the other martial artists.
Please don’t.
Just answer that you’ll go down to the Old Martial World even now.
But.
“I will go.”
The moment Namgung Yeon, bracing himself, opened his mouth, blue sword aura filled his vision.
He didn’t even have time to breathe.
Even though he had steeled himself, he could feel the gap in strength between himself and the family head in a single exchange.
Kaaaanng!
The blue sword aura stopped just before reaching Namgung Yeon.
Kim Juseon, the president of Meracle, pulled a short baton from inside his coat and blocked it.
“Whoa, shit…….”
But that was all.
After blocking Namgung Pacheon’s sword aura, the baton was immediately split in two.
“I heard this was expensive at Hellite.”
It was a folding baton, but he hadn’t even been able to unfold it before it was cut in half, a hopeless wreck.
Not only that, the numbness in his arm was so intense that it made him want to give up right away.
But Kim Juseon, with his back to Namgung Yeon, said,
“Do you see our employee over there on the bridge?”
When he looked up at the words, Kim Yang could be seen standing on the bridge across the way.
She was standing beside the taxi, bag in hand, waving.
“She’ll take you to Luminous Plaza.”
Even after hearing that, Namgung Yeon still couldn’t bring himself to move.
“What are you going to do? It’s a bit much to say this, but Father really has no mercy.”
“Risking your life over just one customer?”
Even if he had only lived in the Old Martial World and didn’t know much about the customs of other layers, he knew this was excessive.
But Kim Juseon was confident.
“Sorry, but this isn’t just a simple matchmaking job. This time, we’ve got a lot riding on it too.”
“Pardon?”
“And how do you expect to fight alone? Of course I called someone to help.”
Namgung Pacheon, who had been silently gripping his sword, finally turned his gaze away from Namgung Yeon.
“Hah.”
The short sigh meant the anguish he bore as a father.
“Hwaryeong.”
Namgung Hwaryeong, walking across the snow, wore a mischievous smile at her father’s call.
“Haven’t you always said so since long ago? Challenge whenever you like. Don’t take the position of the family head’s daughter for granted—challenge it.”
“Draw your sword when the time is right, Hwaryeong. If you bare your teeth now, you’d better be prepared to have them broken.”
Even with Namgung Pacheon’s warning, Hwaryeong smiled and rested a hand on her sword.
“One of my lifelong wishes has been to fight the family head with my life on the line—.”
“If it’s to protect my useless little brother’s marriage prospects, isn’t that a decent excuse?”
As the sword was drawn, Namgung Pacheon slowly closed his eyes.
A crease formed between his brows as if he had a headache.
Hwaryeong used that opening to jerk her chin toward her younger brother.
“Hurry and go. We won’t be able to hold out for long.”
“Sister……!”
Moved to tears, Namgung Yeon gave Juseon and Hwaryeong a fist-and-palm salute, then immediately ran toward Kim Yang.
His speed while sprinting with martial arts was considerable enough to be called the young master.
“I’ll warn you in advance.”
By contrast, that alone was still far too insufficient to compare with the being in front of him, which was why he was still called the young master.
“Open your eyes, keep strength in your body, but don’t stiffen. Don’t let fear make you drop your sword—.”
At last, for the first time.
The moment Namgung Pacheon, who had only been sending out sword aura from where he stood, took a step.
“Use killing intent as your guide and struggle.”
Before long, Namgung Pacheon had reached Juseon and Hwaryeong and taken a stance to swing his sword in a great arc.
“Left horizontal.”
In tandem with the short warning, a horizontal slash swung from the left, meant to split the two in half.
Kaaang!
Snow and cold were swept away in an instant, and the heat of steel and blade settled in.
Though Namgung Hwaryeong hurriedly blocked it with her sword, veins bulged and she bit her lip hard.
“Kkh!?”
It was heavier than expected.
Even as Hwaryeong swayed from one blow, Namgung Pacheon’s sword did not stop.
“Right diagonal.”
A sword slash plunging down from the upper right diagonal.
This time, passing Hwaryeong, Juseon surged forward at maximum acceleration.
If I just smash into him, there’s no way I can win!
That was why Juseon chose offense rather than defense.
The moment he slipped past the sword swung toward Hwaryeong and drove his fist into Pacheon’s abdomen.
Kwang!
A stabbing pain shot through his knuckles.
Namgung Pacheon’s sword, which had clearly been swinging, was blocking Juseon’s fist.
As Pacheon swung his sword as if to shove him away, Juseon’s body, overpowered in strength, lifted into the air and was flung backward.
“Ugh, isn’t he a monster?”
“More than that, you tried to use me as bait to attack Father?”
The Hwaryeong beside him frowned as she asked, but Juseon gathered himself and replied.
“Because you’re his daughter, he won’t truly try to kill you.”
“You seem to be underestimating Father.”
“Not at all.”
Rather, Juseon was the one seeing the situation more coldly than anyone else.
“If he had been serious, he’d already have cut us to pieces and grabbed his son by the back of the neck.”
“…….”
“He’s holding back because he doesn’t want to kill us.”
Even mentioning the sword path was meant as a warning to prepare a countermeasure in advance.
“Is that so? Father?”
Hwaryeong had watched her father for so many years that she couldn’t possibly imagine that image.
“For now, let’s just buy some time. I can—.”
“What are you hiding?”
This time, a question flew at them instead of a murderous sword aura.
When the two of them looked at Namgung Pacheon at the same time, he asked again.
“What are you hiding?”
“Huh? Ah, reinforcements are coming, but—.”
Thinking he’d been caught while trying to hide it, he spoke cautiously—.
“No.”
Namgung Pacheon cut him off firmly.
“It doesn’t seem like that little speed trick of yours is all there is to you, though.”
“…….”
“Bear in mind that if you won’t answer, I’ll simply pry it open with my sword.”
“That crazy old man.”
Seeing him figure it out after only one exchange, he definitely wasn’t an ordinary person.
“S-sir.”
“Answer me.”
“It’s related to the Tower Administration Bureau, so it’s not something I can say because I want to.”
“…….”
After a moment of silence, Namgung Pacheon nodded calmly.
“Very well. I won’t go against Heaven’s will, so I’ll turn a blind eye.”
“Thank you.”
“Take your stance again. We’ll begin with left horizontal.”
Just as Namgung Pacheon was about to reset his stance and begin again, suddenly.
“A cheap trick.”
He raised his head.
Seeing that, Kim Juseon urgently shouted toward the sky.
“Caught you, Seoram!”
“Ah, shit!”
High above.
Ryu Seoram, falling from the bridge, shouted with his fist clenched.
“I told you to properly divert their attention, and you can’t even do that!”
“You’re the one who got caught!”
“Shut up! I called you out of nowhere on Christmas and thought it was something important—!”
Namgung Pacheon took up a defensive stance. Since he’d already been exposed, Ryu Seoram condensed all his strength and plunged down like a meteor.
“You’re calling me over just to ask me to help with something weird!”
KWA-A-A-A-A-A-AANG!