Volume 1 Chapter 6 – Encounter

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Translated by Rain

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Jeong-ah was hurrying her steps through the ‘back path’ toward Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment, the quarters of the Eldest Young Master.

The back path referred to the path for those of low status or position.

From a line of ox carts fully loaded with grain sacks, to maidservants moving and chattering in groups of three or five, and to strong-looking men moving in a hurry with crates on their backs.

Except for the fact that there were no merchants raising their voices to haggle or countless beggars, it was no different from the market street outside.

This procession of countless people moving busily with a purpose was worthy of being called the veins of the giant that was the Luoyang Sword Family.

Jeong-ah was walking through the shade under the wall, wearing a long robe over her head.

“Hey, look over there. She is extremely pretty.”

“Geez, man. Turn your eyes away. She looks like a high-born lady at a glance, so do not cause trouble for no reason!”

“Well, that is true. But for what reason is a high-born young lady walking on the back path?”

“What would ignorant ones like us do knowing that?”

“No, I just……”

From afar, two servants were talking about her beauty glimpsed under the long robe.

It was a conversation that an ordinary person could not hear on the back path, which was noisy to the extreme.

But their conversation ‘was visible’ to Jeong-ah.

The shape of their lips, the roll of their eyeballs, and small gestures were vividly transmitting their conversation.

And not only them, but everyone Jeong-ah had passed by so far had gone through Jeong-ah’s ‘eyes.’

‘Good. The judgment to change clothes was not bad. There is no tailing.’

Although it was hard to imagine that the Second Young Master or the Third Young Master would attach someone to monitor her, who was merely a maidservant, Jeong-ah did not relax her tension.

Until she entered under the roof of the Eldest Young Master.

Because her situation was such that she could only be swayed as the wind blew, like the seeds of an azalea on a spring day.

Ignoring the familiar glances that glanced at her beauty and figure as usual, she moved her steps quickly.

* * *

After walking for a long time and walking again, she was able to reach her destination.

‘Is this Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment……?’

Reaching below the wall of Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment, Jeong-ah felt shocked.

She had also heard well about the huge scale of Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment, the space solely for the Eldest Young Master located in the furthest corner of the Luoyang Sword Family.

But seeing it in person was different.

The walls stretched to both sides without an end in sight, and beyond them, trees that grew boundlessly high formed a dense forest.

‘I cannot even tell where the end is……’

Seeing that the scale could not dare to be estimated even with her ‘eyes,’ it was surely of a scale to be counted on one hand among the residential spaces even in that famous Luoyang Sword Family.

‘But why is there no one?’

The back path, which reminded one of the market street until a moment ago, became deserted as it neared Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment, and now that she had arrived, it was filled with silence to a surprising degree.

It was not an exaggeration.

It was not that they were few; there was literally no one.

Even the common servants carrying food ingredients could not be seen.

The teaching that the Master of the Reception Hall had given her in the past flashed through Jeong-ah’s head.

‘Jeong-ah. It is the same for any family. If you want to catch a glimpse of the financial power of that family, you can just look at the back path of that family.’

According to those words, this Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment was a place where financial power had dried up.

‘……It is not that I did not know.’

Swallowing dry saliva, Jeong-ah moved her steps.

After walking along the wall for a long time, she entered the main road leading to the main gate.

In contrast to the back path, the main road was a path where only important people in the Sword Family, including guests and warriors, traveled.

‘Jeong-ah. If you want to feel the power of that family, you can just look at the front of the main gate of that family.’

For the first time since that day in the past, the day she arrived at the Sword Family, Jeong-ah was able to see that there was no one traveling on the main road of the Luoyang Sword Family.

‘Even if the Eldest Young Master went into confinement, to think it would be to this extent……’

She was one who had secretly sneered at those who slandered the Eldest Young Master behind his back.

But now that she saw the situation in person, was it not to the extent that she could not even bring herself to mock them?

All that was visible was a handful of guards deployed in front of the main gate.

Moreover, they seemed to have been enjoying a nap while leaning against the wall.

Seeing her appear, the sight of them clumsily taking a stance did not even bring out a laugh.

“Uh, uh. On what business did you come?”

At the response of the guard who was clearly not fully awake no matter how one looked at it, Jeong-ah swallowed a sigh inwardly.

“I have come by the order of the Head of the Administration Department.”

Instead of adding this and that word, she held out the written order of the Head of the Administration Department.

“Head of the Administration Department?”

At the mention of the Head of the Administration Department, the squad leader, who had been secretly swallowing a yawn behind, quickly stepped forward and received the written order.

While the squad leader verified the written order meticulously, Jeong-ah swallowed a sigh inwardly once more.

The huge main gate, made to allow carriages to pass smoothly, was not being managed at all.

The paint had peeled off, and it was decayed here and there to the point that it was hard to believe it was a facility of the Sword Family she knew.

And how was the wall she had passed by?

Though it was boundlessly high, the traces of roughly repairing the collapsed parts here and there with dirt paste were obvious.

Looking at the sight of roof tiles, which were hard to guess when they were broken, being complacently neglected, a corner of her chest became stuffy.

‘……Was choosing the Eldest Young Master not a mistake?’

If it were the main gate of the Second Young Master’s or the Third Young Master’s office at this hour?

Magnificent carriages and those wearing expensive silk clothes would surely be lined up, waiting for permission to enter.

And at that gate, the direct warriors following the Second Young Master and the Third Young Master would be working with disciplined movements while faintly releasing their momentum.

Qualitatively different from these pathetic guards who sleep during work hours……

At that moment, goosebumps broke out all over Jeong-ah’s neck.

It was a sensation as if several blades swept past her body.

The reason she could suppress a scream was nothing else.

Because it was a sensation she had felt several times in the past.

‘Qi perception!’

Its name was indeed so.

It was a kind of Qi wave extended by those whose internal energy had reached a certain realm.

And the source of that Qi wave was surely the guards she had thought of as pathetic.

‘These people……! They are not simple guards! They are masters!’

They had replaced her body search with the Qi wave.

Whether she had internal energy.

Whether she was hiding weapons.

Whether she was concealing killing intent.

Naturally, since an ordinary maidservant would not perceive that Qi wave, Jeong-ah focused on pretending to be calm.

‘Yes, it is a natural thing.’

Cold sweat ran down her neck.

‘No matter how ignored the Eldest Young Master is, he is the direct lineage of the Sword Family.’

For an ordinary guard who did not even know martial arts to guard the main gate of the place where such a person resided was nonsense.

At that time, the guard squad leader (a master disguised as one) who finished reviewing the written order approached her.

“The written order has been confirmed.”

He returned the written order politely, just as he had received it.

Jeong-ah barely controlled her fingertips, which were about to tremble, and received the written order, putting it in her robe.

“Hey, open the gate for her.”

Behind Jeong-ah as she entered the main gate, the voice of the guard squad leader was heard.

“Ah, come to think of it. I forgot to tell you this.”

As she looked back, he said in a peaceful tone as if it were nothing.

“Never leave the forest path.”

Although Jeong-ah could not know the reason, she nodded to him and moved her steps.

Once she seemed sufficiently far away, a guard burst into a chuckle and shook his head.

“A new maidservant for Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment. Does that Swordless Man really need something like a new maidservant?”

“I do not know well either, but aren’t maidservants needed for important figures who do ‘outside work’?”

Then another guard gestured to draw Jeong-ah’s body figure and let out a smirk.

“A Swordless Man who does not even have a ‘sword’ must have that sword throbbing, I guess.”

And a hearty laughter echoed.

‘As expected……’

Hearing their conversation from afar, Jeong-ah bit her lip.

The contempt toward the Eldest Young Master within the Sword Family, as she felt it, had a difference in degree.

Among them, it was especially severe among the warriors who revered martial arts.

If the two pillars supporting the Sword Family were financial power and martial power, the Eldest Young Master, with the derogatory term of the Swordless Man, had already lost one side completely.

Even the masters who achieved a realm to use Qi perception only guarded the main gate of the Eldest Young Master because it was an assignment.

It seemed no one had loyalty to him.

‘……The road ahead is long.’

Even if the words of the Head of the Administration Department that the Eldest Young Master had made up his mind were correct, what could the Eldest Young Master really do?

“……!”

And at that moment, she realized.

That she was now in the middle of a formation so huge and dense that she had never seen before.

‘It is a forest! These trees, no, the entire forest is building a formation!’

Her ‘eyes’ were showing the formation so clearly.

It was not that she had never ‘seen’ formations.

From simple formations that made one lose their way built in places where guests should not approach, to formations for anti-personnel killing glistening with killing intent prepared for emergencies at every defensive point.

However, among them, none had a terrible density like the formation she was looking at now.

It felt as if the formation itself would crush a person like a bug just by ‘looking’ at it.

Only one.

Except for the only path she was walking along, all areas, this entire forest looked pitch black.

Even as one possessing the ‘eyes,’ she did not dare to even attempt an interpretation.

“Never leave the forest path.”

She was finally able to realize the words of the guard squad leader.

And she also realized.

Like the masters dressed as guards guarding the main gate.

This terrible formation was also the same.

She was now approaching one of the core figures of this giant family that wielded fierce power over the entire continent.

No matter how ignored and despised he was.

He was the Eldest Young Master of this family.

And her vision flickered.

The forest was visible, then the formation was visible, and her vision repeated brightening and darkening.

And he—the Eldest Young Master, was standing in front of her before she knew it.

“An unusual child.”

Standing eerily in the middle of the forest path, he spoke to Jeong-ah.

That voice was like the voice of a boy, like the voice of a young man, like the howling of a beast, and like the strange cry of a demon.

“How are you looking at the barrier of Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment?”

He—it, tilted his head while thrusting a pale face toward her.

Its eye sockets were hollowly pierced as if someone had gouged them out, and the inside was connected to the Avici Hell.

From that abyss, it was shedding bloody tears mixed with yellow pus.

“And how are you ‘looking’ at me?”

It was ‘looking into’ her with hollow eye sockets, but she who possessed the ‘eyes’ could neither see nor understand anything properly.

It was a ‘thing’ that could never be seen.

It was a ‘thing’ that should never be looked at.

“Ah!”

With a single scream, her consciousness was cut off.