Call Of The Spear [EN]: Chapter 64

Romance of Nangseon – Chapter 63

Steam billowed from the bathhouse.

A woman of exquisite beauty sat within, her eyes closed.

Glimpses of her form through the water were strikingly beautiful. However, the woman’s brow was furrowed, and the reason for this was none other than Sanguine.

“Ryun.”

“Yes.”

Ryun, the Sixth of the April Wolves, appeared from behind her.

She was a woman dressed in a drab martial arts uniform.

“What did you think of him?”

Ryun offered a calm assessment of Sanguine. However, Geummyeong Jisu shook her head as if that wasn’t what she meant.

“That’s not it. What do you think of my beauty?”

“…You are beautiful.”

“Right? You think I’m somewhat attractive, don’t you? Yet, why does Eunja look at me as if he’s looking after a child!”

It started again.

She wasn’t usually like this, and I don’t know why she’s acting this way. Perhaps it’s because the marriage proposal fell through before it even started, but she has become incredibly sensitive.

“I heard he is devoted to his training in the capital. Since he aims for the Great Dao [the ultimate path to enlightenment or mastery in martial arts], it’s only natural that he distances himself from worldly pleasures.”

That wasn’t wrong.

She had demanded the Cheonsu Ilgigeop [a rare and powerful martial arts manual] from the leader of the April Wolves and set out to find the Blood Collapse Elixir, so there was no need to say it twice.

“I know. To reach the Yeonggyeol realm [a high level of martial arts cultivation] at just over 100 years old, of course, he would be like that.”

The age at which people reach Yeonggyeol is usually around 500 years old, but he was only 100 years old. Even Geummyeong Jisu, who possessed outstanding talent, was surprised.

“But I’m not comfortable concluding that way. Who will compensate my rejected heart?”

Ryun couldn’t understand why she needed to be compensated for that, but she silently indulged Jisu’s grumbling.

“Isn’t it absurd! I am this beautiful! And a woman praised for her outstanding divine powers! To be rejected by a man dwelling in Yeonggyeol, huh? Don’t you think so?!”

“Yes, that’s right. It seems Eunja has made a big mistake.”

“No, it doesn’t seem like a mistake, he just knows his place.”

Ryun raised her eyebrows at Jisu’s sudden defense of Eunja.

She wondered what this was all about.

“But my heart isn’t that simple… huh?”

As Geummyeong Jisu rambled on, wolf ears appeared on her head, twitching.

“Ryun, hide.”

“Why?”

“It seems Eunja is thinking of peeking into the bathhouse. Yes, that’s right! He pretended to be a gentleman on the outside, but in the end, Eunja is also a man!”

“I don’t think so…”

“Hush! Just hide. I’ll give Eunja a proper scolding this time.”

Ryun frowned and disappeared into the darkness. Geummyeong Jisu smoothed her hair and even moved to a position that was easily visible from the outside.

As if possessed by a fairy, she wore an elegant expression with a faint smile for what felt like a long time.

Geummyeong Jisu’s face suddenly contorted.

“Didn’t you say it wasn’t him?”

“…Quiet.”

She gnashed her teeth as if overcome with annoyance.

As she rose from her seat, droplets of water flowed down her silhouette and fell.

“I need to see what you were doing in the human villages. You reek of blood as soon as you arrive.”

After lightly draping clothes over herself, she saw Sanguine intently watching a fallen human.

“You’ve arrived?”

“Yes. How could I stay still when it’s so noisy?”

She grumbled with a sulky expression.

“But what is that? It doesn’t seem human.”

Beside Sanguine, a man lay unconscious.

However, his appearance was not that of an ordinary human. With scales and fur, he seemed like a hybrid of human and spirit beast.

“A Mixed Abomination. The Demonic Path bastards either stitch together humans and spirit beasts… or inject them with spirit beast blood to create them.”

“A Mixed Abomination? How fascinating. I’ve never heard of it before.”

But that was it.

She didn’t feel anything special.

From the start, humans were the kind of beings who could create anything.

“Then what is that? Why are you carrying around a ghost?”

There was a pretty ghost beside him, which Geummyeong Jisu was seeing for the first time, so she was puzzled.

The ghost bowed her head as she looked at her, and Sanguine’s face hardened.

“She is my old friend.”

“An old friend? A ghost, you say?”

Out of all the things he could have, how could he make a ghost his friend? She asked in disbelief, and he closed his mouth.

The atmosphere turned cold in an instant, and the chilly winter wind added to it.

However, Geummyeong Jisu was unabashed.

“Why are you silent? Was the reason you rejected my marriage proposal because you enjoy frolicking with things like ghosts…?”

Geummyeong Jisu’s eyes curved like crescents.

Before she knew it, she was feeling a murderous aura pressing down on her.

And dozens of beads were floating around him.

Even for her, a Yeongmyeong [a higher realm of martial arts cultivation than Yeonggyeol], she couldn’t easily underestimate the dozens of beads. It was only natural since each one possessed the energy of a divine artifact.

At most, he was only at Yeonggyeol.

She had been underestimating him, so she couldn’t help but be even more surprised.

“Can you handle it?”

She asked.

Did he know what it meant to draw a sword against the daughter of the April Wolves?

He said.

“Of course.”

At his calm voice, her Adam’s apple bobbed.

It had been a long time since she had felt this kind of tension.

And what about those eyes that looked down on her?

His crimson eyes, certain of his victory, seemed to already see her blood.

A touch-and-go situation.

Just as her hand was about to twitch.

“Stop it, Sanguine.”

It was none other than the ghost beside him who broke the tension.

‘Sanguine?’

She shook her head, grasping Sanguine’s hand.

“To insult you is the same as insulting me.”

“It’s my fault.”

“What did you do wrong?!”

“My very existence isn’t pleasing to the eye, so it can’t be helped.”

A ghost isn’t pleasing to the eye to either humans or spirit beasts.

Especially if it’s a Changui [a type of ghost bound to serve a master].

‘A Changui… so Eunja was a tiger.’

“That’s not true.”

“Even if Sanguine says so…”

“You’re making a scene right in front of my temple. Are you saying that with just the realm of Yeonggyeol, you can face me?”

It was an attitude as if his boasting was quite impressive.

But Sanguine calmly retorted.

“A village or so might be destroyed, but that would be enough for the burial ground of a Yeongmyeong Sixth.”

“Sanguine!”

At the ghost’s shout, he let out a sigh. Soon, the beads that had been floating around disappeared, and he turned his back.

“You will regret it.”

The man muttered as he strode into the mountains.

The ghost, looking relieved, bowed her head to Geummyeong Jisu and disappeared.

Geummyeong Jisu stood silently in her place for a while, and Ryun murmured softly.

“That’s quite the confidence.”

Her words contained the feeling of looking down on him. But Geummyeong Jisu didn’t seem to think so.

“That’s what you don’t know.”

“He is a Yeonggyeol Middle Stage.”

Yeonggyeol and Yeongmyeong might be said to be only one step apart, but there were countless people who spent their entire lives on that one step.

It would take dozens of Yeonggyeol Sixths to barely hold onto a Yeongmyeong. There was that much of a difference, so how could he be so confident? Ryun couldn’t understand.

“Didn’t you see his divine artifacts?”

“I saw them, but even the Princess has divine artifacts.”

It was surprising that a Yeonggyeol Sixth possessed divine artifacts, but that was it.

Yeongmyeongs possessed one or two divine artifacts, so it wasn’t that surprising.

As she was thinking that, Geummyeong Jisu said something unexpected.

“I don’t possess that many divine artifacts.”

“Yes? What do you mean by many divine artifacts?”

“The divine artifacts that floated around him just now were not a single set. Each one was a set of divine artifacts.”

At her words, Ryun was startled.

“No way! Is it possible to have so many identical divine artifacts?”

“You don’t know because it’s impossible. If we had fought, a village or so might have been destroyed as he said.”

Ryun couldn’t understand at all.

It was a number of divine artifacts that a single Yeonggyeol Sixth could not possess. If they weren’t a single set, then he was individually controlling all of them.

But she couldn’t even imagine how one would control that many like limbs. An ordinary Sixth wouldn’t even be able to float them.

Only then did Ryun get goosebumps and stroke her arm.

“Hmph, he’s worthy of rejecting the marriage proposal.”

Geummyeong Jisu turned her back as if she was quite satisfied and returned to her residence.

* * *

Meanwhile.

Sanguine climbed the mountain aimlessly.

“Sanguine. How far are you going?”

Hwaran, who followed him, was uneasy. She had rarely shown herself, considering that something like this might happen.

The day she decided to become his Changui.

She had known all along that something like this would happen.

The existence of a Changui is inherently like that.

It is the Changui who lures people and puts them into the tiger’s mouth. So who would like a Changui? It can’t be helped since a ghost is an existence that denies death and lives on resentment.

If it’s alive, it can only be seen negatively.

She had long accepted that it couldn’t be helped. It had been over a hundred years since she had lived as a Changui, so it was only natural.

But her master, the tiger, didn’t seem to be like that. Honestly, she didn’t think he would go that far.

She knew he had a fiery temper, but she thought he also had the composure to distinguish the time and place.

She wasn’t disappointed.

In fact, she was secretly pleased with his actions.

So she had to stop him first.

“I’m alright.”

Suddenly.

Sanguine’s feet, which had been climbing the mountain path, stopped.

Looking around, she saw that he had already reached the summit of the mountain, and the surrounding area was clearly visible. The night sky, which had been illuminated by the faint moonlight, was dark as if covered with dark clouds.

The darkness, where nothing could be seen an inch ahead, added to the silence with its quietness.

But after a while.

His mouth opened.

“I’m… not alright.”

His voice was trembling slightly.

The skin on his tightly clenched fist screamed. Hwaran quickly grabbed his hand with both of hers. Bloodstains stained with anger flowed from his fist.

“I didn’t know… I would be this angry.”

“…I didn’t know either.”

The Yeongmyeong Sixth.

Even Hwaran was startled when he tried to kill the princess of the April Wolves.

Sanguine knew better than anyone what that meant.

There was no way she wouldn’t know the meaning of him going that far.

“If I had saved you 100 years ago…”

“Even if I had lived, it wouldn’t have been living.”

Sanguine stroked her hand wrapped around his waist. No warmth could be felt from her beautiful, slender fingers.

He didn’t show it.

But he was always sad about it.

“Do you regret it?”