"Master, are you here?"

"Huk!"

At the sudden voice, Baek Yoonjun jumped and stuck to the ceiling.

Tang Yuhwa, who had come in after, slowly looked up at the ceiling.

"Master, what are you doing?"

"The ceiling looked cozy for a moment..."

At the nonsensical excuse, Tang Yuhwa shook her head.

The lack of change in her expression somehow made one feel even more embarrassed.

"Ahem."

Baek Yoonjun cleared his throat and came down to the floor.

Having come down to the floor, Baek Yoonjun couldn't say anything.

It had been a long time since they had met, and since they had met in a shabby state, it became even harder to speak first.

Fortunately, Tang Yuhwa was one of the few humans who knew Baek Yoonjun's homebody introvert nature.

That's why she spoke first.

"Have you been well?"

"Well... just so-so, I guess?"

At Tang Yuhwa's words, the events up until now flashed through Baek Yoonjun's mind.

'I haven't been very well.'

Although he thought so, since he had already spoken, it was hard to take it back.

"You don't look like it."

Tang Yuhwa immediately saw through Baek Yoonjun's inner thoughts.

'She still knows like a ghost.'

Baek Yoonjun was inwardly shocked.

And at the same time, a strong question came to mind.

"How on earth did you know I was here?"

Since he had cooped himself up deep inside without telling anyone, no one knew that Baek Yoonjun was here.

Nevertheless, at the sight of Tang Yuhwa who had found him, he felt a question beyond a question, even fear.

Whether she knew Baek Yoonjun's inner thoughts or not, Tang Yuhwa quietly pointed at Baek Yoonjun with her finger.

"There's a smell."

"What? A smell?"

Baek Yoonjun quietly brought his palm to his nose.

There was no particular smell.

"There's no particular smell."

"That's not it."

Tang Yuhwa slowly shook her head at Baek Yoonjun's words.

"The smell of the poison you took from me before remains."

"The smell of poison?"

At the somewhat sudden words, Baek Yoonjun quietly searched his memory.

'By the way, I remember taking a little of Yuhwa's body's poison to study it and keeping it in my body, right?'

He clearly remembered creating something similar to a dantian next to his lower dantian and storing it.

Baek Yoonjun quietly observed his inner self.

'Where did it go? Could it be that this also turned into a Heart Sword?'

But it was not there.

What he could guess was the internal energy and dantian that had been converted into a Heart Sword before.

It seemed that the thing similar to a dantian that had stored the poison had also been affected.

'But then shouldn't the smell be gone too?'

That's why he couldn't understand.

Just in case, he smelled everything from the back of his hand to his elbow, but there was no particular smell.

'But I can't smell the Heart Sword either.'

The Heart Sword was literally a sword of the heart.

Although it affected reality, since it was not a physically existing sword, there was no way he could smell it.

Seeing that, Tang Yuhwa once again slowly shook her head.

"There's a smell that seems like it could be tracked from a thousand li away."

Saying so, Tang Yuhwa buried her head in Baek Yoonjun's chest.

Baek Yoonjun froze at Tang Yuhwa's sudden action.

"It seems I can find Master wherever he is."

A strange atmosphere.

But Baek Yoonjun.

'I'm scared.'

He just felt fear.

Leaving aside friendship, it was the instinct of a homebody introvert to be reluctant to have one's whereabouts known.

The urge to pull his body away and run away welled up.

But a rice-grain-sized pride was preventing Baek Yoonjun from running away from this place right away.

"Master."

In the quietest, deepest part of the Repentance Cave, Tang Yuhwa's voice echoed quietly.

"What is life?"

Although it was her usual monotonous tone, at her appearance, which for some reason looked serious, Baek Yoonjun forgot about devising a means of escape and looked down at Tang Yuhwa.

The atmosphere was heavier than usual.

That's why Baek Yoonjun wanted to run away even more, but it became an ironic situation where he couldn't run away.

Baek Yoonjun's head spun like crazy, searching for the right words.

"What's with the sudden question?"

But the words that came out were a simple question.

Because, basically, due to the characteristic of a homebody introvert who was halfway digging into the ground, the language he could utter was limited.

At Baek Yoonjun's question, Tang Yuhwa's shoulders flinched very slightly.

It didn't seem she was crying or anything.

But for some reason, it felt as if various complicated things were pressing down on her small shoulders.

Baek Yoonjun couldn't say anything.

Tang Yuhwa also kept her mouth shut quietly for a while, then let out a small sigh and opened her mouth.

"Too many people died this time."

"...They did."

Since it was a fact that Baek Yoonjun had also seen, he nodded his head.

Although he had only intervened for a very short time, he had seen a lot of corpses.

"Before, when I was with the Heavenly Demon, I also saw a technique that handled even the dead as it pleased."

"A technique that handles the dead?"

"Strange bugs were moving the corpses."

Baek Yoonjun quietly shut his mouth and turned his head.

What came to his mind were the corpses that had run wild in Sichuan before.

'Did she see those? But bugs?'

As Baek Yoonjun turned his head, he debated dozens of times whether to bring this up or not, but before he could do anything, Tang Yuhwa's words continued.

"When I was learning medicine from my father, I was taught not to have too deep feelings for the dead."

At the subsequent words of Tang Yuhwa, Baek Yoonjun forgot his previous question and nodded his head inwardly.

'Although this kid is obsessed with treating people, she was nonchalant about the dead. Was it because of the teachings she received from her father?'

Baek Yoonjun could now understand the reason why Tang Yuhwa had been quite nonchalant in front of the corpses before.

"But now it's hard."

But at the subsequent words, he fell into confusion again.

"I've seen too many people die in front of my eyes."

"Didn't you see a lot of corpses before?"

"I did. I kept seeing them. I kept seeing more and more. No, I was made to see them."

A slight emotion began to be imbued in Tang Yuhwa's usually indifferent and toneless voice.

Although it was a very small emotion, in Baek Yoonjun's eyes, it looked as huge as the waves of the Yangtze River.

'I thought this kid didn't have much emotional change...'

The wave of emotion that had once burst out flowed endlessly, as if a dam had burst.

"Life is too fleeting and easily broken."

The shoulders of the girl whose emotions had burst out seemed as if they would easily and fleetingly break, just like her words.

'I thought of Yuhwa too easily. The reason I thought this kid had no emotional ups and downs was just because she was not showing it in order to follow her father's teachings...'

Tang Yuhwa was holding back her emotions in order to follow her father's teachings.

And this time, the things she had said before became a trigger and burst out.

Baek Yoonjun organized his thoughts so.

'She was really sincere about saving people.'

Baek Yoonjun blamed himself for having felt strange at Tang Yuhwa's indiscriminate treatment before.

'A born doctor.'

Baek Yoonjun couldn't say anything and just patted Tang Yuhwa's slightly trembling shoulders.

Very lightly, as befits a child with very faint expressions.

"Master."

And so, Tang Yuhwa, who had been silent for a while, quietly opened her mouth.

"There is a race called chivalrous heroes."

"Chivalrous heroes?"

It wasn't that Baek Yoonjun didn't know the words 'chivalrous heroes'.

However, since it was so far from the flow of the previous conversation, he had just asked back because it was out of place.

'Chivalrous heroes, what's with the sudden question.'

At the sudden words, Baek Yoonjun was at a loss for words.

A situation that seemed as if it would become very awkward.

Fortunately, the person who had brought it up was continuing to speak.

"It is said that chivalrous heroes also save people with martial arts that catch people."

"Well... so they say."

Listening to Tang Yuhwa's words, Baek Yoonjun quietly recalled the words of his friend from before.

Although he recalled that what corresponded to Tang Yuhwa's words was closer to chivalry than chivalrous heroes, he did not bother to open his mouth and correct her.

'Well, I don't really know for sure, and looking at the big picture, it's not wrong.'

And so, as Baek Yoonjun was roughly organizing his thoughts about chivalrous heroes, Tang Yuhwa raised her head towards him.

Although it was her usual sullen face, the corners of her eyes were faintly wet.

"Is Master a chivalrous hero?"

"What?"

Before the impression of Tang Yuhwa's different face could come to mind, Baek Yoonjun was flustered by the sudden words that came out.

Although it was a sudden and absurd statement.

"No."

He could assert.

'Chivalrous hero, what.'

Baek Yoonjun prided himself on knowing himself well.

He was certain that the word 'chivalrous hero' was a word that was insanely far from him.

'I'm just a homebody introvert who's scared of people, so what chivalrous hero...'

That's why he could assert 'no'.

'In the first place, does the word 'chivalrous hero' even make sense? Isn't martial arts just a good way to cut people?'

He was even extremely negative about the word 'chivalrous hero'.

Whether Tang Yuhwa agreed with Baek Yoonjun's words or not, she did not particularly refute them.

'Well, she probably knows. Since she knows me better than I know myself.'

Since Baek Yoonjun knew that Tang Yuhwa knew his feelings like a ghost, he thought he had sufficiently understood.

And at the same time, a complicated thought came to him.

'Martial arts are for cutting people, right? But I'm the one who taught that person-cutting martial art to Tang Yuhwa.'

A bother.

A strange bother.

It was a bother as if the bolt of the heart he had engaged when he had engaged it was misaligned and not properly engaged.

'Although I taught her martial arts that she didn't want to learn because I wanted Yuhwa to be able to protect her own body at least...'

That was the fact that he had taught Tang Yuhwa martial arts.

At that time, he had thought that he had taught her well by coaxing her appropriately.

'But is it right that a kid who knows my inner self better than I do was swayed by my clumsy words and learned martial arts?'

Thinking about it now, he thought it might not be.

'Could it be that she learned it reluctantly because I kept pushing her?'

Baek Yoonjun's head became complicated.

'Damn it, is this right? Could it be that I made a huge mistake?'

In Baek Yoonjun's eyes, Tang Yuhwa was a doctor.

Looking at her now, she was not just a doctor, but her born nature itself was that of a doctor.

And Baek Yoonjun.

'I taught that born doctor a martial art that I myself think is for cutting people. Yuhwa's thoughts about martial arts also don't seem to be different from mine.'

As that thought came to him, a crazy alarm bell rang inside Baek Yoonjun.

'This kid suddenly brought up the words 'chivalrous hero'. The subject of that was saving people with martial arts.'

Baek Yoonjun could now understand why Tang Yuhwa had suddenly brought up the words 'chivalrous hero'.

Martial arts for cutting people, chivalrous heroes for saving people with martial arts.

But as Baek Yoonjun had asserted, he was not a chivalrous hero, and he was negative about the concept of chivalrous heroes itself.

Putting those thoughts together, what Tang Yuhwa was thinking began to be predicted in Baek Yoonjun's head.

'Does this kid think that since she has learned martial arts, she is no different from an ordinary martial artist? Just because she has learned it?'

Thinking so, even the previous events came to his mind.

Tang Yuhwa had even avenged her enemy with that martial art.

Although there was a sense that Baek Yoonjun had instigated it from the side, the finishing touch was done by Tang Yuhwa's hand.

'Although my share is about 90%, Yuhwa's share is also about 10%, right?'

Of course, by Baek Yoonjun's standards, there was no option to let the enemy live.

But.

'No. For Yuhwa, martial arts should not end with just cutting people.'

The thought that for Tang Yuhwa, martial arts should not be just about harming people, dominated Baek Yoonjun's head.

Although there was no particular omen now, he had a premonition that if it continued like this, Tang Yuhwa would break somewhere or go astray.

That's why Baek Yoonjun.

'If it doesn't exist by my standards, I'll just have to make it.'

He made a decision.

If it doesn't exist, he'll make it.

At least in front of Tang Yuhwa, he had to make something plausible.

"I will try to create a martial art that saves people."

Baek Yoonjun decided to try to create a martial art that saves people for Tang Yuhwa.

"...If not a martial art, then another direction..."

Adding a timid word at the end was typical of Baek Yoonjun, the extreme homebody introvert.

Looking at Baek Yoonjun, Tang Yuhwa quietly muttered.

"I'll look forward to it."

Although her tone and expression were no different from usual.

'Now her expression has finally loosened up a bit.'

Baek Yoonjun somehow felt that Tang Yuhwa was smiling brightly.

(End of Chapter)