Chapter 486: Sorry, But There Won't Be a Next Time

TL: FoodieMonster007

Myeongjin silently stared at the coin Geom Mugeuk held out.

He had once said something like this to the Death King.

[Did you say the Young Cult Leader resembles me? If so, you've greatly overestimated me.]

Those words weren't meant for the Death King. The one who overestimated him was right here.

Myeongjin did not take the coin Geom Mugeuk offered. "I'm not the kind of assassin who takes on a job for a single coin."

He started walking again.

Geom Mugeuk followed behind him. "Ah, of course. I'm well aware that you're the second most expensive assassin in the Hell Mansion."

However, a different thought surfaced in Geom Mugeuk's mind.

No, you are that kind of assassin.

His acceptance of this one-coin job was something that would happen in the future.

He would leave the organization and wander the Central Plains, living as an assassin who accepted a single coin from a child as payment. When someone was wronged, he would avenge them. In return, he would sometimes receive a rice ball, or set out on a kill after hearing a single song. And in the end, he would be killed by the Death King. The reason he left the organization was because the Death King had forced him to carry out an assassination that violated his principles. The Death King was merciless. The person he had tricked Myeongjin into killing, claiming he was a villain, was a wonderful man. An exceptionally good person who was respected and praised by all. As always, Myeongjin had investigated the target on his own, but he couldn't escape the Death King's deliberate scheme to deceive him. After that incident, Myeongjin was deeply shocked and went into hiding. He likely lived as an assassin who helped people because the guilt of killing an innocent person was added to his innately good heart. And the Death King eventually found and killed him.

What did the Death King say when he killed him? Did he inflict a great emotional wound on Myeongjin before killing him? Or did he say something else? There was no way to know.

In any case, before the regression, the Death King lived and Myeongjin died. But in this world, the one who must live is Myeongjin, and the one who must die is the Death King.

The two walked in silence for a long time.

Myeongjin was contemplating. This was actually an opportunity. In this awkward situation, it seemed Geom Mugeuk would follow him anywhere.

Should I take him there just like this?

Even if he didn't follow, he could just wait for the next chance. Despite this unexpected opportunity, Myeongjin hesitated because of what Geom Mugeuk had said.

[I just thought it would be nice if, somewhere in this world, there was at least one cool assassin who would kill a villain for a single coin offered by a child.]

The moment he heard those words, his heart trembled. Was it because he truly wanted to live as that kind of assassin? Or was it because of his anger toward Geom Mugeuk for trying to beguile him with such words?

It was only for a brief moment, but his emotions had been swayed. If another assassin had been trying to kill him, they would have aimed for that very moment.

Whether he knew of this complicated inner turmoil or not, Geom Mugeuk was carefree. "Now, to break this awkwardness, we should have a drink, don't you think? Let's go."

Geom Mugeuk actually took the lead and walked ahead.

Myeongjin walked behind him.

If I take him there… the Young Cult Leader dies today.

If I fail to carry out this mission.

I die.

It would mean ruining the biggest assassination in history, one that even brought in top-tier assassins from the outside. With his relationship with the Death King being so poor lately, it would be even harder to evade responsibility.

"What are you thinking so hard about?"

Whether to kill you or not.

"Can't you just leave?"

"Why are you suddenly saying that?"

The Young Cult Leader suddenly left. He wanted to report this to the Death King. He didn't want to kill the only person who had made him look deep into his own heart.

Was that all? From the moment he killed the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult, he would have to live in hiding for the rest of his life. The Death King might have a clear reason for accepting this job, but he did not. Emotionally, it was a task he was reluctant to perform.

Myeongjin flinched inwardly at Geom Mugeuk's sudden question, but he showed no sign of it and just kept walking.

"Looks like it's true, then."

Myeongjin stopped in his tracks. "I haven't said a word."

"Did you, by any chance, receive an order to kill me?"

"Don't most people say 'no' when something isn't true, just to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings?"

"What does it matter if I'm misunderstood a little?"

Geom Mugeuk didn't let a single word slide. "People who say they're fine with a 'little misunderstanding' are usually the ones who hate being misunderstood the most. Just like how people who love to curse others absolutely hate being cursed themselves."

He saw right through him. Though he said that, Myeongjin hated being misunderstood. He hated people who spoke carelessly without knowing anything.

"The world isn't just your experience."

As if acknowledging it, Geom Mugeuk nodded vigorously.

The more Myeongjin talked with Geom Mugeuk, the angrier he became. He was making an assassin, whose job was to see through others, constantly look into himself.

Whether he knew this or not, Geom Mugeuk relentlessly shook his emotions. "According to your principles, am I someone you should kill, or not?"

Myeongjin remembered that the Death King had also asked this question.

[You said you wouldn't kill anyone who isn't a villain, right? Is the Young Cult Leader a villain? Or a good person?]

Based solely on the collected information, he was not a villain. The only justification for killing him was his status as the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.

Myeongjin couldn't answer the Death King, nor could he answer Geom Mugeuk, the person in question.

What if the Young Cult Leader wasn't a villain? Then it would mean breaking his principle. Was he perhaps trying to gloss over it now, using the excuse that he was from the Demonic Cult? Hoping that all of this would just pass.

"You tell me. Are you a villain, or not?"

Geom Mugeuk answered without hesitation. "I'm someone you shouldn't kill, of course."

"Why is that?"

"If your principle is not to kill anyone who isn't a villain, my principle is to kill every villain without fail. I'm a person who has gone one step further than your principle. In the end, you could say we're the same kind of person."

Geom Mugeuk's principle was hard to believe even hearing it directly, but it was true. It was listed as the most important piece of information about him.

The Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult who doesn't forgive evil? He had naturally considered it a deception, a disguise.

But what if it was true? It was a truly incredible disguise and deception. The thought that the information might be true kept creeping in. The preliminary investigation was actually becoming a poison. If not for it, he would never have believed the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult in the first place.

While this was happening, the two arrived at the marketplace.

"Now, as I said, let's go to a place of your choosing today."

Myeongjin's heart pounded.

Should I take him there? Or should I hold back today?

Knowing today was the chance, Myeongjin still hesitated.

"If you know another good place besides this town, let's go there."

A storm was raging in Myeongjin's heart, but his expression was as calm as a clear, still lake. "There's a tavern I know a little ways from here. Would that be alright?"

If he suggested just eating here, he had no intention of forcing him.

However, Geom Mugeuk came closer and tugged on his sleeve. "You should have said so sooner. Come on, let's go. Even if it's just one drink, we should have it somewhere delicious."

Just as he had strode over from the smithy, grabbed his hand, and pulled the handle together, today too, Geom Mugeuk was deciding his own fate.

He should have felt at ease, thinking, 'Yes, this is all the fate you've chosen for yourself.'

As they left the marketplace and walked on, Myeongjin's heart was not at ease. The coin that had rested on Geom Mugeuk's palm kept coming to mind. I can't get caught up in this. That coin is nothing but a demon's hidden weapon aimed at my heart. As he walked, lost in such thoughts, words that would stop Myeongjin in his tracks flowed from Geom Mugeuk.

"Soon, your leader will deceive you, claiming someone who must absolutely not be killed is a villain, and make you kill him. What will you do then? Will you kill him? Or will you leave the Hell Mansion?"

"Why would he do such a thing to me, the second-in-command of the Hell Mansion?"

However, contrary to his conviction that it would never happen, Myeongjin was recalling what the Death King had said.

[What if you make a mistake later after setting up such a useless principle? Are you going to wash your hands of it out of guilt? Or are you going to kill yourself?]

Come to think of it, that mistake would be one made by the Death King. A mistake of mistaking a good person for a villain and giving the order. The Death King he knew wasn't someone who would make such a mistake. Why did he say that?

However, Myeongjin soon dismissed this as another of his opponent's ploys.

He's found out about the conflict between me and him, and he's relentlessly digging into it.

Having stopped walking, Myeongjin glared at Geom Mugeuk. "Are you trying to drive a wedge between me and him?"

He expected him to say of course not.

"That's right."

Geom Mugeuk readily admitted it. "If I want to bring you over to my side, I'll have to drive a wedge if that's what it takes."

And Geom Mugeuk's blatant attempt to sow discord was powerful.

Myeongjin's face hardened.

"Was the person who saved you really him?"

"As a child, you were the sole survivor of a fallen family. He saved you as you were dying, crushed under a fallen wardrobe."

Myeongjin was shocked. The Young Cult Leader knew that the Death King had saved him. And in great detail, at that.

But no one knows about this.

To his unspoken surprise of 'how did you know', Geom Mugeuk answered calmly. "I'm the Young Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. If I want to know something, I can find out everything, even who the Murim Alliance Chairman had a crush on and at what age."

What surprised Myeongjin wasn't that he had found out that fact. "What do you mean, he wasn't the one who saved me?"

"Let's say you push someone into a river and then pull them out. Did you save that person?"

At the thought of 'no way', Myeongjin's eyes widened.

"The place that accepted the contract to annihilate your family was the Hell Mansion."

This attempt at sowing discord was powerful because its ingredients were the truth.

Myeongjin had trained countless times to maintain his composure throughout his life as an assassin. However, at least in this moment, he couldn't stop the eruption of passion and confusion. That moment from his childhood came to mind. As the heavy wardrobe that had been pressing down on him was lifted, the darkness receded and light appeared. A boy, looking down at him from within that light. With icy eyes devoid of any emotion, the boy silently looked down at him.

"Didn't you know, too?"

No, he didn't know.

He was only seven years old back then. He had lived with the vague intention of repaying the grace of being saved. He didn't even dream of avenging his family. No, he didn't even have the luxury to dream. He had started his assassin training right from then. And he had lived as an assassin ever since. However, what dominated him now was not a sense of betrayal, but doubt directed at himself. The suspicion that, perhaps, as Geom Mugeuk said, he might have known.

Was that why he hadn't been able to ask until now? Why did you save me back then? No, why were you passing by that specific place? He had never once asked the Death King.

Perhaps he had a premonition? That the Death King would nonchalantly say, 'We annihilated your family. As you know, it was just a job.' Was he afraid of hearing those words? Had he been deliberately turning a blind eye to the whole truth?

What am I thinking! Don't fall for such a cheap trick!

It was literally just a cunning attempt to sow discord. A ploy by those bastards from the Demonic Cult, based on the information that a rift had formed between him and the Death King.

How vicious!

He turned the blade from himself toward Geom Mugeuk, but the hand holding the hilt was asking a question.

Aren't you just avoiding what's right in front of you again?

Geom Mugeuk asked, "Did the discord-sowing work a little?"

Myeongjin wanted to reply with a relaxed smile, but his snapped words were now laced with emotion. "Sowing discord is thrilling, isn't it? But you know what? With that one moment of thrill, you've lost my trust forever."

Myeongjin started striding forward again.

Geom Mugeuk walked alongside him. "There should be a record of your family in the old contract logs. If your leader hasn't destroyed it, he might have been hoping you'd see it someday."

Myeongjin gritted his teeth. While he considered it his opponent's ploy, he couldn't completely deny it, because the Death King he knew was that kind of person.

Why did that empty person save him? Why did he let only him cling to the ice cliff of his inner self? He still hadn't found the answer.

There was one good thing that came from the emotional battle with Geom Mugeuk. He was able to easily lead him to the resting place.

The small street was bustling with various travelers.

"I didn't know a place like this existed," Geom Mugeuk remarked as if nothing had happened.

Myeongjin replied in a softened tone, "It's a place I come to sometimes."

However, two minds were clashing within Myeongjin's heart. The desire to finish the mission quickly, and the hope that Geom Mugeuk would suddenly say, 'I've lost my taste for alcohol,' and leave.

This man was so unsettling and infuriating, yet he didn't know why he kept wishing for him to show killing intent.

Just leave already!

However, Geom Mugeuk strode into the street first. His steps toward the death trap were far too light.

As a clerk at a Po wooden carving. As the owner of a teahouse, nodding off. As a woman beckoning to a running child. As a merchant carrying a stall and hawking his wares. And in other forms.

The assassins had become one with the street perfectly. They were top-tier assassins, the most skilled among their kind.

Can you truly withstand this perfect banquet of true masters who have reached the pinnacle of killing?

Myeongjin looked at Geom Mugeuk. He, on the contrary, looked excited.

"I even received a dagger as a gift, so I'll pay today. You can pay next time. Let's make up and have a great time drinking today."

Sorry, but there won't be a next time.

"Is that the tavern over there?"

"That's the one."

"The atmosphere already feels just right. You should have suggested we come here sooner."

And so, the two entered the tavern. A friendly-looking owner who had been chatting with customers greeted them. "You're here?"

The owner acted as if he knew Myeongjin. "Please, sit wherever you're comfortable."

Geom Mugeuk said to the owner, "I can tell just by looking at a tavern owner's face. Whether the alcohol is good or not."

He stared intently at the owner's face, then decided on the taste of the alcohol. "My, my. This seems like it'll be a taste I'll never forget for the rest of my life, doesn't it?"

At that, the owner beamed and clapped his hands together with a loud CLAP CLAP. "I'll give you the best service today!"