INV 75

“…What on earth are you doing?”

Meanwhile, Geom Biyeon, who had been punched in the face by an intern from another department, reflexively clutched his cheek before doing his best to suppress the urge to draw his sword and attempting to formulate a sensible response.

Unlike Kwon Yihyeon, Geom Biyeon had started the secret conversation because Gwak Deukcheon had cast a spell, and since he knew it had been deactivated now that Kwon Yihyeon was by their side, he was able to exercise superhuman patience. But Kwon Yihyeon knew nothing.

As they say, the ignorant are truly brave.

Thwack!

Kwon Yihyeon’s second punch cut through the crowd, and Geom Biyeon’s trademark sunglasses went flying through the air.

People who had been frozen in shock began to scream here and there. It was unclear whether he was devising a countermeasure or if it was an unconscious reaction, but Geom Biyeon took a boxing stance with both hands. However, Kwon Yihyeon closed the distance to Geom Biyeon with a single, leisurely step as if he were taking a walk, then instantaneously hooked his toe behind the inside of the ankle and pushed the shoulder back. Naturally, Geom Biyeon didn’t even have time to use the boxing stance he had barely managed to take before he fell and landed on his backside.

From the perspective of an ordinary person, it might have been seen as a ridiculous comedy, but Geom Biyeon could not see it that way.

Geom Biyeon was actually startled by the fact that he had fallen. He could accept being hit by the first punch. He had been off guard. But the second punch was strange, and the third act of tripping him was downright bizarre.

‘Even if I hadn’t reinforced my body with spiritual power, to be defeated this helplessly?’

Geom Biyeon was clearly aware that he was dealing with an enemy harboring hostility. Even so, defense was impossible. He could no longer look down on his opponent with words like “off guard.” Perhaps Kwon Yihyeon possessed a talent slightly more excellent than what everyone had evaluated. Not just a mediocre card to be used as a meat shield and discarded…

But regrets were already too late. Geom Biyeon gnashed his teeth. And he gripped his scabbard.

However, the scabbard was already light. That meant…

Slide.

The blade was elsewhere. The hilt was already held by the Jae Angshin’s contractor.

Geom Biyeon was dumbfounded by this.

‘How is this possible?’

If one cannot grasp the opponent’s superiority even after being beaten three times—not just twice—then they are simply an idiot.

As someone who was once Gwak Deukcheon’s subordinate, Geom Biyeon pondered the teachings that bore his heavy influence.

And he tried to dissect the phenomenon.

Was Kwon Yihyeon’s movement so fast that he couldn’t read it? No, that wasn’t it. Kwon Yihyeon didn’t possess nonsensical speed. Just as the words “moving as if taking a walk” implied, it was merely an everyday speed. Then what on earth made him so unpredictable?

Geom Biyeon was an expert at scrutinizing things he couldn’t understand. In other words, he possessed sufficient ability to take on the role of an analyst and observer. However, because he tended to accept things he couldn’t understand by likening them to areas he could understand rather than accepting them as they were, it was perhaps natural that the word “arrogant” often appeared in evaluations of him.

Geom Biyeon could not analyze what he did not understand.

“…I have lost. I admit it.”

He didn’t have the confidence to fight and win against something he didn’t understand, either.

“Let’s set up a proper place. If there’s anything to ask, I’ll answer whatever it is.”

At that very point, Geom Biyeon’s defeat was decided.

“Well, are you satisfied?”

However, Kwon Yihyeon was slowly approaching while holding the sword.

Without a word, without acceptance or agreement.

The image of the smiling disaster clad in a white robe shimmered behind the contractor’s back. Some eyes do not let a person see only what they want to see. Amidst things that are not human—things that can return life to the void at any moment—the most terribly frightening thing was suddenly right before his eyes.

Thus, from that moment on, Geom Biyeon felt death.

Fundamentally, Kwon Yihyeon’s martial arts were not impressive at all.

‘Since self-defense learned from the internet is all it is.’

Even if one searched with eyes closed, there were no pedantic subtleties like peerless martial arts; he was simply faithful to the basics.

Yet, every movement and posture was strangely natural.

Therefore, the next derivative movement was strangely impossible to guess.

The most he had learned were basic self-defense techniques, yet he was like someone who had polished those basics for hundreds or thousands of years.

It was an nonsensical thing to that degree.

This was the result of basic skills being polished to an incredible extent.

Just like words, actions take a long time to chew before they become ingrained in the body. Even if one performs a vertical slash a thousand times, each and every single line drawn by those thousand slashes cannot possibly map to the exact same coordinates. Humans were beings whose strikes would shift slightly to the left because they felt like eating kimchi stew, or whose trajectories would drift because they felt like eating pickled sowthistle. Humans were not born to find repetitive actions easy. It was because they performed that difficult task that the phrase “cultivating the Way” existed.

And Kwon Yihyeon achieved that with basic self-defense. It was as implausible as reaching a supreme state through the Basic Three-Talent Sword Style, but since it had happened in reality, debate was meaningless. What can you do about something that has already happened?

‘That’s exactly the problem.’

At that point, Geom Biyeon, who had thought Kwon Yihyeon was acting without knowing any better, changed his mind.

The first time might be one thing, but from the second time on, it was a deliberate crime.

It wasn’t that he had just struck out of sudden anger, either. Hadn’t he struck with weight and intention?

To state it clearly, Kwon Yihyeon had tuned out whether others were watching or not. So, even if someone told him that his remarks were spreading far and wide through the radio, he might be embarrassed, but he wouldn’t correct his behavior.

Literally, the term “premeditated crime” was appropriate.

‘…That is the problem.’

His Adam’s apple slowly swallowed dry saliva. His wide-open eyes captured every single one of Kwon Yihyeon’s movements in detail. Yet even at the moment he admitted defeat, Kwon Yihyeon moved naturally, like flowing water. While walking toward him just like that, without letting go of the sword held in his hand.

Every time his fingertips trembled, the blade diffusely reflected the light.

In Geom Biyeon’s eyes, which had sensed death, all of this began to move slowly, as if in slow motion.

Sound was no different.

“Hey, stop…!”

Gwak Deukcheon shouting to stop Kwon Yihyeon was something that happened very urgently in the real world, but to Geom Biyeon, it felt extremely slow.

Only the single existence of Kwon Yihyeon was speaking and walking properly in a world of silence.

A person sees a revolving lantern of their life right before death. However, an unlucky person, instead of a revolving lantern, tastes the illusion that the extremely short moment before their head flies off is being stretched out immensely. Geom Biyeon had been unlucky twice in his life. And now, the third unlucky moment had arrived. He had survived twice after tasting this bizarre sensation, but this time might be different.

‘Perhaps I might end up dying right here…’

The warning lights in his head screamed noisily. However, Geom Biyeon, who had accepted death on an instinctive level, understood all the history that his death would trigger, and so he was not afraid of death itself.

Rather, he was more curious about the words gripped between Kwon Yihyeon’s teeth.

So, Geom Biyeon might actually have wanted to understand misunderstanding more than anyone.

‘The Jae Angshin cannot be understood. But I thought the contractor wasn’t like that. Because he’s human. But…’

Kwon Yihyeon had once again approached closely before he knew it, with those incomprehensible movements.

Geom Biyeon looked up at the man clad in black backlighting amidst terrible fear and vague expectation.

‘Even after this, you’re a human?’

⋆˙⟡

Meanwhile, Kwon Yihyeon was thinking something like this.

‘Geom Biyeon’s bare face without the sunglasses is surprisingly fox-like.’

Perhaps because he was the Jae Angshin’s contractor, he was suffering all sorts of misunderstandings.

In truth, there was no special reason why he had approached.

“Here, I’ll return the sword.”

“…”

It was to put the hilt—which he had pulled out to stop Geom Biyeon from drawing his sword—back into Geom Biyeon’s scabbard.

In a word, it was an act close to returning a rented item…

But Geom Biyeon could not bring himself to take it.

“What is your scheme?”

The attitude, which had changed one hundred and eighty degrees from a moment ago, is impressive. Though the sharp edge of his words seemed quite easy to tease.

Still, Kwon Yihyeon endured it like an adult.

Kwon Yihyeon also knew. Why Geom Biyeon was acting like this. What the feelings would be like for someone who faced the “Kwon Yihyeon” who lived and moved in reality, having escaped the image made of the fears of all creation as the Jae Angshin’s contractor.

Conversely, one might think it’s time to worry about how Kwon Yihyeon felt inside, having been treated as something other than himself yet laughing it off.

But if one looks back at every single thing and gets angry at each one, they’ll end up making themselves sick.

So, Kwon Yihyeon just made a joke.

“Why? Why won’t you take it? Don’t tell me it’s a gift? For me? Sincerely?”

“It’s not that.”

“Aiyoo. If it’s not, then fine. Hurry up and take it.”

Even with the person who had tried to throw him to a pack of yokai right in front of him, he maintained his usual pace.

At that sight, Geom Biyeon thought he could understand Kwon Yihyeon, even if only a very little bit.

He wasn’t forgiving, and he wasn’t pitying. It was simply an act of returning to daily life.

It was a struggle to survive one more day.

“Don’t forget to open your mouth later, okay? Because I’m going to pry into everything—classified info, internal affairs, and whatever else.”

Kwon Yihyeon, who finally forced the sword into Geom Biyeon’s hand, smiled brightly.

Youth shone greenly.

Geom Biyeon vaguely looked up at the young man’s profile, drenched in sunlight as the backlighting scattered, and asked.

“What do you plan to do if I stab the intern with this sword?”

“Then I’ll be pissed…”

Perhaps because he was the Jae Angshin’s contractor, he was suffering all sorts of misunderstandings.

This was all he was thinking.