Chapter 24: A Shared Beginning

Calling it a dispute or a settlement made it sound mild.

In reality, it had been a small-scale war and battle that the government had ignored.

Since the Red Devil had “settled” it, the result was likely the complete annihilation of the enemy forces.

Geol explained it with a smile, but it was not something that should have been spoken of so lightly.

Knowing the circumstances, I could only find his smile bitter.

Geol was not of the direct bloodline of the Jegal Clan.

He was a distant relative.

The only connection he had to the Jegal Clan was that he had been born and spent his childhood in a village within the region governed by the main family.

Even that did not last long, as war had swept through the area.

What value could a child who had lost his parents, gone hungry, and wandered battlefields begging possibly have?

Yet he had become the adopted son of the head of the Jegal Clan.

He had once said it was because they shared a faint blood connection, because the current clan head strongly wished for it, and because of the help of a benefactor.

I had not known that benefactor was the Red Devil.

The revelation left me strangely unsettled.

Both Geol and I were surprised, but Geol treated it as natural and spoke calmly.

“I wanted to greet you before leaving the imperial capital.”

“Since I have met you here, that is enough.”

“Stop bothering me and leave.”

The Devil’s consistently indifferent attitude was almost impressive.

Or perhaps it was simply typical of him.

Feeling sorry for Geol, I stepped in.

“Geol, finish your work and return quickly.”

“The palace is dangerous at night.”

I patted his shoulder, worried that he might become caught up in the strange events that could happen in the palace tonight, or at least in the near future.

“Yes, Brother.”

“You should be careful too.”

“Do not walk alone.”

Geol did not stay long.

He said he had completed all preparations to leave the imperial capital and needed to hurry if he wanted to depart on time.

After Geol left, the Devil, who had treated him as a nuisance, began staring at me and bothering me instead.

His lips twitched as though he wanted to say something foolish but could not bring himself to say it.

“What?”

“Why do you not call me Brother?”

“I am older than you.”

“I would call you Brother if you acted like one.”

“Stop talking nonsense and move.”

Even fools like him got to eat warm meals.

I struck the Devil on the back and forced him to stand.

He had too much energy if he could keep saying such nonsense.

After pulling away the blankets he had been lying on, I lifted the wooden board beneath them.

A hidden compartment released the cold presence of weapons.

I gathered a bow, its string, and a quiver.

Then I took out a heavy sword and handed it to him.

The Devil fastened the bowstring and stood, drawing the blade to inspect its edge.

“Let us go.”

“It will soon be past midnight.”

The empty sound of wind outside the window echoed through the air.

The lantern flame trembled dangerously.

A bleak wind blew through the empty imperial palace.

Some things felt ordinary in daylight but became eerie at night.

The Haetae statues built to protect the palace from evil spirits and ghosts.

The Vermilion Bird Avenue, the road connecting the palace gate to the ancestral hall at the heart of the palace.

The avenue was more than five paces wide.

It was broad, massive, and long.

The perfect symmetry at the beginning and end of that long road was magnificent.

Eaves painted with blue dancheong patterns and the pillars supporting the roofs decorated both sides of the avenue.

Now, we moved forward while hiding beneath the shadows of those blue-painted structures.

The night road was dark, and the eaves blocked the moonlight.

But once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out the shapes around us.

I moved carefully, keeping myself hidden where the shadows were deep enough.

The Devil’s stride was long, so I walked quickly to avoid falling behind.

At the same time, my tongue kept wetting my dry lips.

I wanted what I was about to ask to sound casual.

Like nothing more than idle conversation.

“Where are you from?”

Though the moment I asked, I felt the sharp certainty that I had failed.

At dawn two days earlier, the men from the slums who had met with me in secret had failed to bring any information about the Devil.

They knew only the details of his movements after the Yeongpo War, where he had first appeared.

Before that, his whereabouts were not merely unclear.

It was as though he had never existed.

Those men from the slums were not incompetent in this kind of work.

If they could not find anything, then whether by his own will or someone else’s, there were simply no traces of the Devil ever interacting with the world.

But was that even possible?

To be born into this world, one needed parents.

Even if he had lost them in unfortunate circumstances as a child, a child still needed help from others to grow up.

No matter how extraordinary the Devil was, he could not have been born and raised alone.

No matter how much I thought it through, there was only one method left.

I had to ask the Devil directly.

“I do not know.”

Perhaps because he never cared about what others thought, the Devil did not seem to find my question strange.

I thought that would be the end of it.

But unexpectedly, he asked me in return.

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Where are you from?”

“Ah.”

The Devil was curious about other people too.

It was unexpected, but I answered honestly.

“I was born and raised in the imperial capital.”

“In the house where you live now?”

“The one with the persimmon tree?”

“Yes.”

“The persimmon tree was planted before I was born.”

“Then you have never left the Hyeop Empire since you were born?”

“Except for war?”

“That is right.”

“You have never seen the sea?”

“Never climbed a mountain peak?”

“Why not?”

He looked like a beast, yet he spoke so fluently.

Why did a man have so much to say?

I had started this conversation to probe him.

Yet it felt as though the Devil was only asking endless questions about my own life.

When he seemed finished investigating my background, he pointed to the quiver and bowstring on my shoulder.

“Why do you shoot a bow?”

“It was simply what I had talent for.”

It would have been nice if I were good with a sword.

But my body was not suited for martial arts.

I had never won a sparring match, so there was no need to explain at length how poor my swordsmanship was.

When Father realized that my skill with a bow was unusual, he decided this was the path for me and trained me strictly.

My strength was weak, so my bowstring was thinner and lighter than usual.

The strap of the quiver pressed painfully against my shoulder.

But I did not bother mentioning unnecessary details.

After that, the Devil stayed close and questioned me so persistently that it became irritating.

How had he held back all this curiosity in the past?

Everything he asked was useless.

At first, I answered sincerely in hopes of gaining information from him.

But as time passed, I grew tired and began responding carelessly.

By then, the Devil had slowed his pace while talking and was walking beside me.

Then he asked,

“Did you kill your mother when you were born too?”

My breath caught as though I had been struck in the stomach.

I stopped walking and looked up at him.

The Devil met my gaze, appearing confused about why I had stopped.

Then I understood.

He had not asked because he knew.

He had asked because that was what happened to him.

He was comparing me to his own experience.

It was ignorance born from innocence, not malice.

Realizing that, my shock faded.

I was not offended.

Though calling the Devil innocent was absurd.

“Yes.”

“I killed my mother when I was born.”

I had never told anyone directly, but everyone who knew anything in the imperial capital knew the story.

My mother had suffered through labor for two full days.

After giving birth to me safely, she had given up her own life.

Under the moonlight, the Devil grinned.

“The same.”

I wondered whether this was not a wound for him.

For me, it had been a wound I had turned over in my mind throughout my childhood.

When I was young, I believed Father was strict because I had caused Mother’s death.

So I listened for rumors and learned the details of what had happened when I was born.

Before sleeping, I would bury myself in my bedding and ache over it.

But I was older now.

I could speak of it calmly.

“They said I was born with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around my neck.”

“Perhaps that was why Mother suffered through labor for two days.”

“Anyway, when I was born, my face was blue and I did not even cry.”

“They said I would have died if the midwife had not immediately cut the cord around my neck with the scissors she had prepared.”

It was something I had hidden even from His Majesty.

I wanted the person I admired to see only good things in me.

So I had been desperate to hide something as unfortunate as being born at the cost of my mother’s life.

But the Devil and I had already seen each other at our lowest.

How disgusting had our intimacy been?

There was nothing left to make look better.

Nor did I want to.

I also liked that neither of us pitied the other.

There was no tragic sentiment, sympathy, or self-pity.

That made it easier to ask.

“How did you kill your mother when you were born?”

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