Chapter 1922 - Return of The Mount Hua Sect

Chapter 1922. What Is It That You Desire? (2)

“You brought back quite a lot.”

“….I got lucky.”

Harhan answered with an expressionless face.

[하르한. Haleuhan.]

And in truth, he really had been lucky. One wrong step and he would have become a bear’s next meal. As winter drew near, even the bears came south as though driven on by the cold itself. If one encountered a bear made savage before entering hibernation, one had to give up on the idea of dying cleanly.

“Still, it looks like risking your life paid off. This should be enough to survive the winter.”

“That’s right.”

Harhan glanced back at the hides he had carried on his back.

They were crudely treated hides, but there was quite a lot of them.

To survive the winter, fur hides were necessary. A great many of them.

Bears merely slept through the winter and that was the end of it, but humans could not stop moving even during winter. And these fur hides were the only weapons they possessed against the Great God of Winter.

Just as one cannot win a war without enough weapons, one cannot survive the winter without enough hides.

Fortunately, the harvest this time had been fairly decent. With this amount, they should be able to pass through this winter without much trouble.

The middle-aged man, who had been looking at Harhan’s hides with envy, suddenly lit up upon seeing the pure white hide resting at the very top.

“And this?”

“Yes.”

Harhan nodded.

“I’m giving it to Elder Jan.”

[잔 원로. Jan wonlo]

The middle-aged man nodded with a satisfied look.

“Hm. These days, the youngsters seem terribly lacking in respect for him. It’s good that you’re different.”

“I’ve received too much from him.”

“Right. If a man of the White Land forgets grace, then he’s no true man at all. Go on now.”

“Yes.”

Harhan bowed his head deeply and entered the village.

A small village lined with little wooden houses. The place where Harhan had spent his entire life. A land of brutal cold where, once winter came, the whole world was buried beneath white, and even the gray wolves that wandered seeking to bite people apart froze solid overnight.

After quietly surveying the village anew, Harhan stopped before the smallest and most shabby house among them and knocked on the door.

“You’re inside, Elder?”

Instead of an answer, the sound of an old cough came from within. Without waiting, Harhan entered and quickly shut the door behind him.

Because he knew the wind carrying the chill of the coming winter was utterly fatal to an old man like Elder Jan.

“So it’s you, Harhan.”

“Yes. I’ve come back.”

From among the hides slung across his back, he untied the pure white hide resting on top. Then he carefully placed it before the old man, who sat leaning against the wall beneath several layers of hide blankets.

“It’s a hide from a fresh hunt.”

The old man’s face was thick with wrinkles, and his eyes were somewhat clouded. At a single glance, it was obvious he did not have much time left to live. The old man stared fixedly at the hide Harhan had placed down before slowly shaking his head.

“Take it back.”

“Elder.”

“I won’t survive this winter anyway.”

“Don’t say such things!”

Harhan’s voice grew somewhat agitated.

To him, the Elder was the greatest person he knew. He was also the one who had raised Harhan into a proper warrior after he lost his parents during a bear hunt.

How could he endure seeing such a person show this kind of weakness?

“You’re strong, Elder. The mere winter can’t do anything to you.”

“…..”

“Isn’t that why all of us believed in and followed you? Even though your skin color and appearance were different from ours.”

At those words, a brief trace of regret flickered across the old man’s eyes.

The old man picked up the kettle resting atop the brazier.

As he poured warm water, the dried lump of tea already prepared within the cup slowly steeped, releasing a strange fragrance.

“Drink this. It will warm your body.”

Harhan silently accepted the tea the old man offered him.

To be honest, Harhan did not particularly enjoy this tea.

It was entirely different from the Baeksan tea and Ivan tea they usually drank. Its fragrance was extremely peculiar, and among the villagers there even seemed to be quite a few who had become captivated by the tea the Elder served them. But Harhan was not one of them.

[Baeksan tea. Baeksancha. 백산차(白山茶). Literally “White Mountain tea.”]

[Ivan tea. Ibancha. 이반차. Likely derived from Ivan tea, a traditional herbal tea associated with northern Eurasian regions.]

“It seems you still have some left from before.”

“I saved it…… When one faces their final winter, tea starts to become something one craves.”

The old man quietly stared at the tea before him before speaking.

“Harhan.”

“Yes, Elder.”

“I am not as strong as you think I am.”

“….What do you mean by that? You are the strongest and bravest person I know.”

“I am not brave.”

The Elder slowly shook his head.

“I am a fugitive.”

“The villagers all know that you’re someone who fled here after committing a crime in the Central Plains. But something like that doesn’t matter….”

“No. That’s not it.”

“….Eh?”

The old man looked directly at Harhan and spoke calmly.

“I have never committed a crime.”

“Th-then……?”

Harhan stared blankly at the old man.

Everyone in the village knew the Elder as a fugitive. A man who had escaped from the distant southern land called the Central Plains and drifted all the way here.

“I merely…. ran away. Unable to overcome my fear, I kept fleeing and fleeing until I ended up in this distant land…. I’m nothing more than a pathetic coward.”

Harhan simply could not believe it.

‘A coward?’

If he had to choose the one word least fitting for this old man, Harhan would have thought of that word without hesitation. The Elder was someone who knew no fear.

Not only had he beaten to death bears the size of houses with his bare hands, when neighboring tribes invaded he had never hesitated to leap among dozens of warriors carrying nothing but a single spear.

That was why everyone accepted him as one of their own despite his different skin color, and even respected him beyond measure.

Yet as though proving these words were no lie, a deep emotion filled the old man’s eyes.

“…..I ran away.”

“Elder….”

“I saw the master I served like a father torn to pieces, and the fellow disciples I regarded as brothers trampled to death like insects, yet I lacked the courage to fight alongside them and fled instead. I fled because I was afraid, and then fled again. I collapsed from exhaustion while running, and whenever I awoke, I started running once more.”

The hand holding the teacup trembled faintly. As though even now he had not escaped the shadows of that time.

“And so I couldn’t bring myself to return. Even the thought of setting foot on that land again felt unbearably sinful. Even after I learned too late that they no longer remained there anymore.....”

The old man turned his gaze toward the small window facing south.

Though it was plainly the same window, it felt as though what the old man saw and what Harhan saw were entirely different things. Such was the weight carried within his gaze.

“If I seemed brave to you…. it wasn’t because I possessed courage. I merely imitated it.”

“Imitated what?”

The old man did not answer.

He looked as though he no longer wished to speak another word. But Harhan could not possibly let the conversation end here.

“What was it that frightened you so much?”

“…...”

“What could possibly make someone like you, Elder, so afraid….”

But as Harhan continued speaking, his voice inevitably trailed away. Not because he thought his question would wound the old man.

But because within the old man’s eyes—as though they were staring not at Harhan, but somewhere beyond him—there was a silent scream.

Harhan unknowingly shuddered. It was the fiercest terror he had seen in his entire life, and it felt colder than even the winter of this land.

Only after some time did that convulsive fear barely subside. The old man spoke in a sunken voice.

“Harhan.”

“Yes?”

“You do not need to know. No, you must not know.”

“……”

“It is better not to know. It is something you must never learn for all eternity.”

Then he closed his eyes. It was clear that he had no intention of speaking any further.

Harhan let out a deep sigh.

The Elder truly seemed to have sensed his own approaching death. Otherwise, there was no reason he would suddenly reveal a secret he had hidden throughout nearly a century of life.

“Anyway, I’ll leave this hide here, so….”

“Elder! Elder Jan!”

At that moment, someone pounded urgently on the door.

“Uncle?”

Bang!

The door was violently thrown open, and a man with a face flushed red thrust himself inside.

“Y-you need to come out for a moment!”

“What is it?”

“There’s something we’ve never seen before……!”

“Something you’ve never seen?”

“A-anyway, please come quickly!”

Harhan frowned. Seeing the man’s deeply unusual state, even the Elder silently pushed aside the hide blankets and rose to his feet.

“Let’s have a look.”

“Quickly, this way!”

As the old man moved to step outside, Harhan swiftly took the pure white hide he had brought and draped it over the Elder’s shoulders.

The old man gave a faint nod and stepped out of the house.

By now, the sun had nearly set. The frozen land was soaked crimson beneath the vivid light of sunset.

“What is it I’m supposed to see?”

“Th-there. Over there.”

The old man, with eyes that had already lost half their light, silently gazed toward the north where the middle-aged man pointed.

All that could be seen was a dense coniferous forest, thick green that had not yet turned white……

Just then, the old man’s eyes slowly widened, and his pupils shook.

“Ah…….”

The deep forest was moving.

No, it wasn’t the forest moving. Something was endlessly rippling between those dense woods.

And the instant he finally discerned what that wavering thing truly was, the old man failed to conceal his shock.

Watching alongside him, Harhan spoke in a low voice.

“They are people. There can’t be many people living that far north…. so how are there suddenly this many figures in worn black robes.…”

“A, ahh….”

“Elder?”

“No. No…… no. This is a dream. It has to be a dream.”

“…..”

“Ah…. Uuaa. Uaaaghhhh……”

A groan escaped the old man’s mouth that could scarcely be mistaken for a human sound. It sounded like the howl of one cast into hell and drowning in despair. Or the wailing of a ghost from the netherworld.

No one could even muster the courage to ask what was wrong.

Harhan stared blankly toward the forest. Something was slowly emerging from within.

“That is..…”

A sudden doubt crossed his mind. Could those things truly be called people?

The humans wrapped head to toe in black cloth possessed neither color in their faces nor emotion in their expressions. Only because they were slowly walking toward this place could one still call them human.

Harhan felt his throat tightening shut.

They were clearly nothing more than gaunt figures so emaciated they looked incapable of properly catching even a single rabbit. And yet, Harhan suddenly wanted to run. Far away without looking back. Anywhere at all, so long as it was someplace those things could never reach.

“In the end… in the end.......”

“E-Elder, calm yourself first—”

Harhan reached out, trying to steady the old man. But at that moment, the old man abruptly seized Harhan’s shoulder instead. The grip strength was astonishing.

“Go, Harhan.”

“….What?”

Contrary to the force transmitted through it, the hand gripping Harhan’s shoulder was trembling miserably.

“…..Go to the Central Plains. To the Central Plains. Go there and……”

The old man bit down on his lip. As though he were forcing himself to drag forth memories that would not easily surface.

“The Beggar Union…… No! No. Not that! Find a place called Mount Hua. You must tell them.”

“Mount Hua? What in the world is that……”

“There’s no time to explain!”

“…..”

“Run until your heart gives out. Even if you collapse from exhaustion along the way, do not stop. So long as breath remains in your body, run and run again. And deliver the message. Tell the Central Plains—tell Mount Hua!”

The old man’s voice and eyes were so desperately raw that Harhan could not even think of questioning him. He merely nodded.

“In the end…… in the end, tell them the Cult has returned once again.”

“The Cult……”

The old man shoved Harhan hard.

“Go! Take as many people as you can and run! Right now!”

“Elder! You should come with us instead!”

“I have already run away once.”

“…..”

“So I cannot run away a second time.”

The old man stretched out a hand and seized the old spear leaning against his house.

“Go and tell them. Tell them the world is about to become hell again.”

“Elder……”

“HURRY!”

A thunderous roar burst from the old man’s mouth. Without understanding anything, Harhan turned and began running with all his strength.

The old man silently watched Harhan’s retreating back. Upon those shoulders overlapped the image of his own younger self—running away in terror long ago.

‘Harhan.’

Now he thought he understood. His master’s heart, shouting at him to run. The feelings of his sahyung, who, even while dying, never once called out for him.

“So then…… now it’s my turn.”

The old man gripped the old spear until blood welled from his hand.

Then he looked toward the figures approaching in faded black robes. Those horrific beings whom, in the past, he had been too terrified even to face.

With a faintly trembling hand, he raised the spear and pointed it at the evil demons.

But, at that very moment, the old man froze solid.

The instant he witnessed the eyes of the black-robed figures staining themselves crimson, the resolve he had painstakingly forged shattered apart like cracked ice.

“KIIIAAAAAAAAH!”

The evil demons shrieked like beasts and descended upon the village, pouring forth endless hatred toward every living thing.

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