We climb along the path.
Even as we ascend, a voice keeps buzzing at my ear without a break.
“So, about that new Silver grade this ti. The blade is just...”
The chattering tone might be clear and lovely, but what she’s saying in that voice is anything but refreshing.
“Especially since they didn’t just use plain iron but tried a mix—its durability is supposed to be amazing, you know?”
“...Ah. Yes. I see.”
In one ear, out the other. I’m good at that, so it wasn’t all that hard.
“And this ti they added a step related to tallurgy too, so when you sharpen the edge there’s a difference...”
“...”
Even that has its limits.
With her prattling on without a mont’s rest, my ears now felt like they might start bleeding.
[ ... The young lady’s tongue is lighter and quicker than I expected. ]
Even Yoo Cheongil seems a touch put off.
Should I be praising her for being impressive?
Normally I’d at least toss out a few noncommittal replies.
“It’s not just Silver grade—we probably need to start changing things when we make upper-grade arms too.”
“Uh, Lady.”
“So what I an is, maybe we should also talk once about the temperature of the fla—”
“Lady Tang...!”
I cut in and raised my voice. The nonstop words pouring out of Tang Yeran halted for a beat.
“Ah... yes?”
“Could you calm down a little? At this rate my ears are going to bleed.”
When I spoke and covered my buzzing ear with a hand, Tang Yeran finally flushed a little.
“S-sorry. I got excited without realizing it...”
In monts like this she looks every bit the innocent girl.
But the things she gets excited enough to spill are peculiar to the extre.
“Is that... really that fun?”
That Iron River has birthed so new sword.
What went into that sword and what properties it has.
As she ticked those off one by one, Tang Yeran’s eyes shone bright.
Which also ant she was dead serious.
“I... I can’t talk about this anywhere else, so... I went a bit overboard. Sorry.”
She sighed with a gloomy face.
“Say as much as you want. I only ant you should slow down a bit.”
It’s too much.
The feeling of “too much” was vividly clear right now.
Look, Cheon Eujin and Do Hyeong following behind us have that dumbstruck look, don’t they?
“So this was supposed to be a secret, yet she has no thought of hiding it?”
They’d said Tang Yeran’s interest in ironwork was more or less a secret.
But how is it supposed to stay a secret when she walks around talking like this? I had no idea.
And judging by how she clamd up with a very sheepish face, she knew it too.
Seeing that, I had to snort inwardly.
Why bring it up if you’re going to be like that?
Truly a singular woman.
“Besides that.”
I turned my head this way and that, checking the surroundings.
“Where did the Poison Sovereign’s ghost go?”
The ghost that had been needling wasn’t in sight.
At first I thought it might be attached to Poison King Tang Gyeongak, but that didn’t seem to be it.
“A bound spirit?”
If it isn’t latched onto a person, maybe it’s bound to this household itself.
If so, it could roam inside the Tang compound—nothing strange about that.
“Hm.”
If that ghost really is, as Yoo Cheongil said, the Poison Sovereign...
“Should we really be leaving the old man to wander like that?”
If Yoo Cheongil strolls around freely, that could be a problem.
The bigger problem here is—
“He surely knows that, yet he isn’t moving.”
The way it’s strutting around, it feels like it has so plan again.
“Well.”
What is that wicked ghost aiming for this ti?
I was subconsciously keeping an eye on it.
Of course—
“The sa goes for that old man.”
Just as I watch Yoo Cheongil,
I know Yoo Cheongil is watching .
We each have our secrets from the other.
Click.
I absently toy with the sword’s hilt.
You know what’s funny?
“Normally this should annoy or get on my nerves.”
Right now, rather than that, I was feeling sothing odd.
Call it expectation? No, that’d be a bit childish.
“Interest.”
Interest born of not knowing what Yoo Cheongil will ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) pull next.
Closer to that than to anxiety.
“Anyway, that can wait.”
I glanced into the air at Yoo Cheongil.
“What exactly do you want to do?”
It’s the question that’s been nagging most lately.
“What do you want?”
What does Yoo Cheongil actually want? That’s what I’m curious about.
There was sothing he originally asked of .
Naly—
“He asked to look into his death.”
How he died.
Yoo Cheongil said he couldn’t rember it.
Only—
“He said it absolutely wasn’t natural causes.”
Not an illness, as the world believes—he said soone’s intent was definitely involved.
So Yoo Cheongil had asked to find out how he died.
“But it’s like he doesn’t care in the least about what he said first.”
As he is now, he doesn’t seem interested in his death at all.
It’s just his own amusent first, as if he doesn’t care in the slightest what happens to himself.
“...Then what does he expect to do?”
What does that old man actually want?
That he has so intent, I’m sure.
And that intent—
“I get that it involves mixing into it sohow and using .”
Yoo Cheongil has sothing he wants to do.
And to do it, he needs to use .
Is that why he keeps shoving things into my hands?
That’s my working guess for the mont.
“Well.”
It isn’t a certainty either.
Just an inference born of a hunch.
“Hm.”
With those questions turning over, I kept walking.
If my thinking so far is right...
“Either there’s sothing he wants more than the matter of his death,”
or—
“He already knows who killed him from the start.”
I was seeing it as one of the two. If that’s how it is—
“...Figures.”
It ans there’s not a soul in this world you can trust.
“Not easy.”
Of course ssing with a ghost ans even the doable turns undoable.
Realizing it again, I nodded.
“Yes? What did you say?”
Tang Yeran asked .
I hastily shook my head.
“Ah, it’s nothing. I just had a stray thought.”
“...Ahh. I see.”
She bead at my answer.
Seeing that, I spoke.
“How much farther?”
We’ve walked a bit—how far are we going?
Is the training ground really that far?
It felt a bit botherso, so I asked, and Tang Yeran imdiately pointed at a building.
“Oh. It’s that one, right there.”
Just as she said, a large building stood right ahead.
It was set a bit apart from the guest quarters for visitors.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Hm...”
It was far more unusual than I’d expected.
****
Near the entrance to the training ground we approached, almost everything was ringed with trees.
There were so many more here than in the parkland groves.
Not just trees—grass and rocks, and flowers thick around them.
“Why is there so much?”
So many kinds. It wasn’t like they’d just planted so trees at random.
And—
“It’s maintained.”
Not a wild tangle. You could tell it had been grood into sothing cleaner by deliberate care.
Which is to say—
“They’re here with a purpose.”
A scene constructed by calculation.
“Hm.”
Curious. Why go out of the way to do it like this?
I glanced around and kept walking.
“This way, please...!”
For so reason, Tang Yeran seed more excited than before as she led the way.
Watching her, I asked:
“But are we really allowed to use this?”
It’s funny to ask when we’re already here, but it needed asking.
“This is the bloodline training hall—are we actually allowed?”
What is a bloodline training hall?
Quite literally, a space for the clan’s direct bloodline.
The na alone marks it special; the look of it even more so.
“It’s very different from the one for guests.”
The place we use feels like they just lent us a room.
This one—just looking at it feels numinous.
“The quality of the energy is different.”
The way it’s arranged and the quality of the pillars set up—
The flow of energy coming off it is substantial.
“I only know geomancy by eyeballing it.”
But even at a glance, I could tell.
“Considerable.”
Enough that even a decent geomancer would back down.
The more I looked, the more it seed like a place no outsider would ever be allowed to use.
“Oh, it’s fine. I reserved this ti slot.”
Tang Yeran told confidently not to worry.
“Reserved...?”
“Yes. The bloodline splits up ti to use the training hall... and this ti is exactly my slot.”
“...”
So they do that here too.
A true great house does things differently.
“...Anyway, that ans we can go in, right?”
If she says it that firmly, it should really be fine.
Thinking that, I followed Tang Yeran.
And still, her mouth never rested.
“So this ti...”
What sword she’d seen.
What kind of iron she liked, and what she felt from it.
Tang Yeran busied herself chattering at with all her might.
Naturally, I let it in one ear and out the other.
“...Ah, yes, I see.”
My ears buzzed.
The funny part is that when I told her to quiet down, she didn’t reduce the words—she just lowered her volu.
“...Truly dizzying.”
Is this just how her personality is?
When I first saw her, I figured she might be on the quiet side.
“Looks like soone who could kill a man with words alone.”
Maybe it’s a Tang thing, but Tang Yeran is a sharply drawn woman.
Yet when she talks about smithing or weapons, the feel is utterly different.
Pure, even.
In the breathless words she spills, there’s an unadorned sincerity.
Because she really loves it.
Because she can’t hold that love in.
“...Mm.”
Knowing that, I didn’t stop her.
I figured I could endure it for a bit.
Just about that much.
****
Enduring like that, before we knew it we were standing in front of the training hall.
Now we can do so training or whatever in a bit of peace, right?
Just as I was about to let that hope bloom—
Tak—! Tadak—!
Sothing sounded from inside the training hall.
At that, I saw Tang Yeran halt in front of us.
The lips that had been running freely went still, and her body went rigid—it looked off.
“Lady Tang. What is it?”
“...One mont.”
Tang Yeran, who’d been smiling just now, set a hard expression and took the handle to open the door.
Creak—!
The door opened and the inside ca into view.
As expected, an extrely wide and refined training hall unfolded.
And at the center of that hall, soone stood.
A youth in white training clothes, loosening his wrists.
He stood in a slightly shaded spot.
When he sent his gaze this way, I saw his pupils glint.
“...Well.”
The instant I saw it, I marveled inside.
I felt it this morning too—his impression really is nasty.
Which is to say, it’s a face I know.
“Well now.”
The youth.
A Tang bloodline mber, Poison King Tang Gyeongak’s second son.
One of the geniuses currently called the Seven.
“What a curious combination.”
Poison Dragon curled his lip at Tang Yeran.
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