Episode 1230. I don’t know. (5)
‘enemy?’
What should they do if anyone sees Cheon Woo-maeng and his party?
If you are a citizen, you might be able to get them to join in a good way. But what if it’s a scam or a remnant of a demonic cult?
‘Extinct!’
We will definitely have to kill it and get rid of it. Suddenly, my whole body gained strength.
It was then.
“⋯⋯What do you want me to see?”
“Over there, over there.”
“⋯⋯What?”
“ah!”
Jo Geol walked to one side as if she was frustrated and pointed to a bulge on the floor.
“This, this! “Can’t you see?”
“Hey, this…”
Yoonjong’s face, which had been tense, suddenly distorted.
“I almost lost my liver!”
What Jo Geol found was not a person, but a sword buried in the ground with only the handle sticking out.
“Isn’t it fascinating? “It must have been a hundred years, but the sword still remains.”
Jogeol pulled the handle of the sword stuck in the ground. However, he frowned as if it wasn’t as good as he thought.
“What’s wrong with this…?” “Keuungcha!”
“Hey, then it breaks!”
“No, if I just do a little more, I think I’ll be selected…”
The moment Jo Geol gave strength to the hand holding the sword, the entire ground around him shook and something large suddenly rose from the ground.
“uh?”
“⋯⋯What is this?”
For a moment, everyone looked at the scene blankly.
There was silence.
It wasn’t anything particularly great. This means that the precious treasure was not found by chance.
What appeared was just chunks of iron that were almost rusty. A piece of metal that was once a sword, once a sword, or maybe even a spear.
They were tangled in the Gujeolpyeon (a weapon made of several pieces of metal connected together to resemble a whip) and were pulled out at once.
The weapons whose colors had faded seemed to no longer have any value as weapons as their blades had become dull and the rust was so severe that their original shapes were difficult to recognize. However, strangely enough, it caught the attention of everyone here and did not let go.
“⋯⋯What kind of weapon is this⋯⋯.”
Jo Geol scratched the back of her head with an awkward expression. At first glance, Jogeol thought that these might be weapons that had been stored here and then forgotten, so he glanced down.
The moment he saw the hole where the weapon had been pulled out, his face hardened.
“Uh…”
Yunjong asked in a slightly flushed voice.
“Why are you doing that again?”
“⋯⋯Death penalty, here⋯⋯.”
“what?”
Yoon Jong approached Jo Geol and looked down at the ugly hole that had formed in the ground. Yoonjong’s reaction was not much different from Jogeol’s.
“This…”
Yoonjong, whose voice seemed to be in pain, stretched out his hand. Then she began to carefully dig around the hole.
Not deep down, but wide around.
Those who watched him without knowing what he was doing also soon understood the meaning of his actions. A heavy silence fell.
The wider the hole became, the more clearly it became visible.
Weapons buried in a not-so-deep place with dust accumulated over time, and pieces of human bones scattered around them.
No matter how wide the waves were dug, new weapons and human bones kept appearing.
“⋯⋯accident.”
As Tang Xiaoxiao’s hand trembled slightly, Yu Yi Xue held her shoulder tightly without saying a word.
Yunjong’s hands, which had been digging around for a long time, finally stopped.
This is because I realized that there is no end to the waves in this way. I couldn’t even tell how much more I had to dig to find all the human bones here.
Yunjong looked around at the place he had dug with a blank face.
The pit was large enough to fit ten people, and was filled with weapons and human bones.
“This place…”
As soon as I fully recognized the scene in front of me, goosebumps ran down my spine.
Until a moment ago, all I could see were green fields and sharp peaks. Even if you didn’t know that it was the headquarters of the Demonic Cult, you probably would have thought it was an extremely peaceful and quiet place.
However, now that I know what scene was hidden beneath the dirt and the indifferently green grass, I can no longer look at this place with the same appreciation as before.
Everyone was speechless.
How dead is it? How many people killed each other here?
“Where on earth…”
“There must have been a battle.”
An indifferent voice flowed into their ears as they stared at the human bones in bewilderment.
“To be exact, it’s probably one of those places. Well, there’s nothing new about it. “Because this is Hundred Thousand Mountains Mountain.”
Those short words penetrated everyone’s hearts.
100,000 mountains. Where the last fierce battle took place. A place where everything was at stake between the political faction and the demonic cult. And this is where the final battle to cut off the Heavenly Demon’s head was destroyed.
okay. It is Hundred Thousand Mountains Mountain.
“No matter what…”
While everyone was solemn, Yoonjong broke the silence and spoke through gritted teeth.
“Shouldn’t there have been some sort of reconciliation?”
“⋯⋯.”
“It’s not just the devils who are buried here… “These people… these people fought to protect the world…”
“who?”
“⋯⋯What?”
“Who will take care of it?”
But Cheongmyeong’s tone was still sour.
“I might have my head blown off tomorrow, so how can I afford to just collect the body of a dead person? “I might lie down on it tomorrow.”
“But even after the war ends…”
“You’re going to retrieve thousands or tens of thousands of bodies one by one and take them all the way to Gangbuk?”
“⋯⋯.”
“If I had the spirit to do that, I wouldn’t have made that mess. You seem to have forgotten, but the Demonic Cult has not been eradicated. He lost his Heavenly Demon and retreated. If we had tried to exterminate all the remaining bastards, Gangho would have been ruined. “As soon as Cheonma died, it was Gangho who put his foot down and retreated.”
“⋯⋯Then at least belatedly⋯⋯.”
“well.”
Cheongmyeong sneered.
“If I could afford it, I might have done it.”
I roughly guessed.
It would not have been possible to enter Hundred Thousand Mountains immediately after Cheonma died. Because the poisonous demonic cultists must have gone crazy. Didn’t they even use their momentum to advance all the way to Shaanxi?
Moreover, even if it was not completely ruined and collapsed like a volcano, other sects also suffered damage that was close to annihilation. We were busy reorganizing, so it couldn’t have been easy to send someone back to Gangnam to collect the body.
If we put off the urgent work for a day or two, the body would have rotted away, and if we tried to clean it up later, it would have become impossible to clean up.
“No matter what…”
“Sound like a horse.”
Cheongmyeong cut him off in a cold voice, as if he was tired of it.
“Hundred Thousand Mountains, Hundred Thousand Mountains But, Hundred Thousand Mountains is not just a mountain. “It is a huge mountain range stretching 500 li from the east of Guangdong to the west of Guangxi, including Guizhou above it.”
“⋯⋯.”
“And during that long war, battles were fought all over these mountains. No, battles took place not only in the mountains, but everywhere in the world. But are you going to search this entire mountain range just to retrieve a few bodies? A mountain range where remnants of the Demonic Cult might still be holding out?”
Yoonjong bit his lips. Cheongmyeong asked.
“Is it possible?”
In the end, Yoonjong also had difficulty answering with a sigh.
“⋯⋯It must be difficult.”
Cheongmyeong added innocently.
“It’s easy for people who haven’t experienced it to say that it should be like this or that it should have been like this. However, those who have actually experienced it do not mean they want to let go. “There was nothing we could do.”
Yoonjong didn’t say anything. His head could understand it, but his heart couldn’t accept it.
Only then did he realize it again. Of the ancestors of the volcanoes he was so proud of, only one of their bodies was belatedly returned to the volcano.
The bodies of others were buried so carelessly in this faraway land. Without being able to return to where I left.
Who can you dare to blame for this?
I couldn’t even bring myself to collect the remains of my ancestors, even from the volcano. No, I even forgot that I had to do that in the first place.
Now who can we blame and who can we blame?
“Then at least these people…”
He was about to say that he would at least do his best, but Cheongmyeong cut him off and threw him away.
“Bury it again.”
Yunjong was momentarily embarrassed and opened his eyes to look at Cheongmyeong. There was a lot of anger in his eyes.
It is impossible to search the entire mountain to retrieve the remaining bodies. But isn’t it the duty of a human being to collect even bodies that have already been dug up?
But Cheongmyeong had no reaction in front of his gaze.
“A corpse is just a corpse. “A dead body, nothing more, nothing less.”
“⋯⋯.”
“Isn’t it absurd if a living person dies while trying to collect a dead person’s bone fragments? I don’t have time for that, so I just bury it again. “I have to go to Haenam quickly.”
“Cheongmyeong!”
“execution.”
At that time, Cheongmyeong spoke in a calm voice.
“Don’t look down on people.”
“⋯⋯.”
“Did the people who died here not know that this was what would happen to them?”
Yoonjong bit his lips.
“They are the ones who knew this would happen anyway. Still, we fought. Do you think the people who died here fought knowing they would be treated as something special?”
A bitter smile crossed Cheongmyeong’s face. A faint taste of blood lingered in my mouth.
It was like that back then. Even when a colleague died right next to me, I couldn’t even cover him with dirt. Even though I knew that it would be torn apart by wild animals and rotted by wind and rain, I had no choice but to leave it alone.
But I have never once felt sorry.
Soon I will fall where my colleague fell, and I will rot in the same way.
So there is no reason to be sorry, is there?
‘Useless.’
Cheongmyeong completely turned his head away.
When you think about the past, you become sentimental. Now was not the time to get sentimental. What was important to him was the present, not the past.
We must not pity those who have died. Because everyone completed their mission until the last moment and fell asleep. Rather, the one who deserved the pitiful gaze was Cheongmyeong, who was being dragged into this hell again even though she had completed her part.
So…
“I don’t have time to waste on something like this.”
Cheongmyeong shook his head.
“Leave your emotions in moderation. “Unless you really want to see something like this vividly in front of your eyes again.”
It was at that time that Cheongmyeong was trying to indifferently cover the dirt again.
“Cheongmyeong-ah…”
Jo Geol’s trembling voice was heard.
And at that moment, Cheongmyeong had an intuition. The fact that it would be better not to listen to what follows next.
But Jogeol’s voice pierced his ears without a doubt.
“Here…”
Cheongmyeong looked away. He checked where Jogeol pointed and saw it.
A rusted sword stuck at an angle.
Engraved on the end of the handle of an old sword so old that it can no longer be called a sword…
“It’s a plum sword…”
A small plum blossom pattern.
