Chapter 166: The Winter Night

“It seems we’ve already wasted a lot of time. What would you like to do? You can let me know when you’re ready. I’ll be staying here anyway.”

Tsk, this guy is a sly fox too. Dokyeom let out a hollow laugh.

He remained silent about the truly important fact. That the ‘boss’ would be determined by the flow of the story. And that there were two beings carrying the ‘seed’ to become the boss.

“We’re ready. Right, Geon Ita-ssi?”

Ju Uiryeong, who had nervously clenched his fists, glanced at Geon Ita and answered with a trembling voice. At that, Ellen turned to Dokyeom.

“Then only the Sahyeon Guild members need to go. Ah, and unavoidably, Mr. Liao from our side will be accompanying you for this raid. He won’t interfere at all. I just want to borrow Liao’s eyes to observe your raid process.”

This must also be a test. It was probably his personal interest in wanting to ally with the better of the two.

Dokyeom slightly curled the corners of his mouth. The Sahyeon Guild hunters, including Dokyeom, had already finished all preparations before being summoned to the back mountain. Any further preparation was practically unnecessary.

“What? We’re all ready too.”

It seemed Yisaein, who was tightening her combat gloves, felt the same.

“And another thing, don’t you know it’s common courtesy to schedule a briefing and explain things beforehand? Why so much chit-chat before a raid?”

Though no one said it out loud, everyone subtly nodded in agreement. The chit-chat was long. And the information was too limited.

“Haha… well, it can’t be helped due to security concerns, so I ask for understanding from both guilds. Ah, look at that. We’ve delayed too long. How about you leave the rest to me and head off before it gets later?”

Ellen took a few steps back from where he stood with a smile. In an instant, an eerily sprouting blue light stabbed into their eyes.

It was Geon Ita who first stepped toward that shimmering light.

Step.

Behind him followed Kang Taesan and Lee Jihyun, hunters of the Uhwha Guild. Ju Uiryeong also took a deep breath and then moved, loosening his tightly clenched fists. As his steps brushed past Dokyeom, Ju Uiryeong suddenly stopped.

“Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’ve won, Han Dokyeom-ssi. This time, I won’t lose to you. So don’t waste your efforts and focus on preserving your own life. You’re already a frail E-rank as it is.”

“Tsk, whatever you say.”

“Who said anything? Why are you going on like that? Are you all twisted up inside because you’re not E-rank?”

Ju Uiryeong looked at Dokyeom’s slightly narrowed eyes with disgust. ‘If I get angry, I’ll only hurt myself. Don’t get swept up. I mustn’t react.’ Clenching his mouth shut, Ju Uiryeong whirled around and advanced. Geon Ita, already swallowed by the blue light, was nowhere to be seen, not even a strand of hair.

Ju Uiryeong also stretched his foot toward the light.

“What are you doing? We should go too.”

The next to step forward was Yisaein. By the time Yisaein’s back, as she rolled her arms to loosen her shoulders, was swallowed by the blue light, Dokyeom also moved from where he stood.

Generally, inside a gate, dozens of environments, monster appearances, and histories are reenacted. The stories that unfold as history are all the ‘pasts’ experienced by the saints. There, golden epic tales that spanned battlefields and tragic narratives stained with blood dwell under the name of history.

The place they were going now was exactly such a place where countless repeated tragedies blossomed.

That place was inside someone’s history. But it was a past stained with blood. It was just a small, shabby, unknown story that ended in tragedy.

Step.

“What is it? Why does it feel cold?”

“Dokyeom, stay close to hyung.”

As soon as Baek Jiun’s shoulder trembled, Beom Yeonhu quickly moved close to Dokyeom’s side. A chill was felt. It was a cold he had experienced before. But not as harsh as the cold in the snowy mountain.

His outstretched foot was fully swallowed by the blue light, and the cold swept across his cheeks.

Whish-

In an instant, as if sucked in, everyone was swallowed into the gate.

It was at that moment, amid the eerily swelling light, that Ellen saw something pitch-black.

“Uh…”

It was something like a shadow. It brushed past Ellen’s cheek and instantly flung itself into the deep blue gate. It was as fast as an arrow, indistinguishable in form, but one thing was clear: it was a pitch-black beast from head to toe.

Ellen, watching this with surprised eyes, let out a sigh and scratched the back of his head.

“Ah… something strange slipped in… Ah, well… this must also be a trial they have to overcome.”

“Stop with that ‘trial’ nonsense and come sit over here. I think I need to have a serious talk with you about how you expect us to wait here not knowing when those hunters will come out!”

Someone yelled from behind Ellen. It was one of the hunters who had been extracting gate data.

Ellen turned to the muscular man and laughed, heading over.

“I told you, they’ll be out soon, soon. We just need to watch the footage Mr. Liao shows us and wait comfortably.”

That had to be it. No, it would be. They would return with the most satisfying result yet, not failure.

“I never knew Korea had gathered so many Authorities.”

Recalling the youth and child, and the knight in silver armor, Ellen wore a strange expression. How truly curious.

How could Korea have monopolized so many Authorities? Tapping his chin, Ellen fixed his gaze on the gate.

How could that Han Dokyeom guy have two Authorities?

After being lost in thought with a complex expression for a while, Ellen shook off his thoughts only when a man beside him tapped his shoulder.

After all, once they return, he had something to say to him. The thought of his surprised face naturally came to mind, and Ellen couldn’t help but narrow his eyes.

For now, yes. Only waiting remained.

****

That place was a mountain forest on a winter night, with snow falling softly in a pitch-black darkness. White smoke billowing from a chimney wandered through the deep woods.

On that dim night when sparks crackled from the stove, a widow closed her eyes peacefully and sought sleep, leaving her child behind.

The snow piled up softly.

‘Mother, why are you sleeping so long?’

The simple boy did not know his biological mother had passed away. Even when alive, the mother was frail, and after losing her husband in a landslide, she developed a severe heart sickness. On top of that, she fell gravely ill with a cold, so it took only six days for her to cross the pitch-black river.

Leaving behind her son, who was being trampled by the snow, she must have found it very hard to set off alone on that long journey.

‘Mother? Mother?’

Shaking her, grabbing and shaking her, but seeing that she wouldn’t get up, the boy only blinked and asked again.

‘Now… it’s time to get up… Mother?’

The boy spent an entire day shaking his mother. Probably the next day, and the day after that, he must have done the same.

If the supreme being that watched over the world had not passed by that place.

At first, ‘It’ only stood and gazed at the child who tirelessly shook his mother. The child who did not know death must have seemed strange. Perhaps it was pure whim. Or maybe it was a foundation to clearly teach the child about death.

That must have been why. ‘It’ incarnated into the mother’s body, gently swaying by the child’s hand. The boy reflected in the mother’s eyes when she opened them the next day was a child just about ten years old.

From then on, ‘It’ lived as the child’s mother. The season of flowers passed, the season of falling leaves passed, and another season when snow piled up passed.

‘Mother, isn’t that a tiger cub?’

It must have been the day when the Great Cold (Daehan) began. On that day, returning from the village market to sell the hemp cloth woven during the long winter nights, the child pointed at a small beast collapsed in front of the house and tugged at his mother’s skirt hem.

In the dense mountain forest, in front of a lonesome thatched house, a small beast was indeed lying panting, collapsed.

‘Mother, it looks very hungry, all skin and bones. Should we give it some dried persimmons?’

Whether it had lost its mother, the young beast had hollow eyes and its belly skin, showing bones, was just panting. Taking pity on it, the mother began to raise the beast together with the child.

This was the footprint of a child named ‘Eomdongi’.

Originally, it was just a history that would end in tragedy. A story where the tiger they raised together accidentally bites someone, and the villagers search the mountain with torches, eventually making the mother and child pay for the sin, leaving an unjust tale as a grudge.

But as the ‘Authority of Greed’ infiltrated this history, the roots of the story twisted into deformity.

Wheeeing-

At first, the ‘Authority’ had been sleeping for a very long time. One day, after countless seasons changed and day and night continued in succession, for some reason it opened its eyes. It was a pitch-black night with no moon.

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