Episode 274: Return to the Demonic Sect
“Damn it… damn it… damn it…”
Menga-sook sat by the pond, muttering curses under his breath in a detached voice.
Dobicheon approached and plopped down beside him without a word.
“What are you doing?”
“Damn it… can’t you see? Damn it…”
“Can’t say I do.”
“Damn it… I’m just embarrassed.”
“About what? Getting help from the new recruits?”
“Who knows. Maybe that’s embarrassing, or maybe something else is.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“Ah, shut up! Let me think for a moment!”
Menga-sook snapped, his voice rising.
Dobicheon chuckled softly and looked up at the sky.
The clear night was dotted with stars.
“Thinking? That’s not like you. Just live as you please.”
”…”
“You’re embarrassed because you didn’t trust the new recruits, right?”
”…!”
“Well, I didn’t expect them to step up like that either. So what? No one could have known. Honestly, I still don’t know if it was me, you, or Instructor Sabigang who moved them.”
Menga-sook glanced at Dobicheon and asked, “How did you know I was caught in a trap?”
“I got a tip from Beomdal, so I pressed him. He eventually confessed.”
“Well, isn’t that something. The ones I trusted betrayed me, and the ones I didn’t trust kept their word.”
“There’s no such thing as loyalty. We just live as we please, don’t we?”
Menga-sook fell silent.
Dobicheon’s offhand comment struck a chord with him.
“Live as you please, huh…”
“Yeah. As you please. Trust or don’t trust, it’s your choice. But I’m going to live how I want. If I regret it later, that’s on me. Life’s all on us anyway, right? I’m going to hang out with those crazy kids. So why don’t you join me?”
Dobicheon gave Menga-sook a friendly pat on the shoulder and stood up.
Menga-sook watched him for a moment, then turned to see the new recruits gathering, preparing to infiltrate Sabigang’s quarters.
He shook his head in disbelief.
“Fools. After all that, they’re going back in?”
But despite his words, he found himself getting to his feet.
He spotted Sabigang watching from a window above.
The recruits weren’t even trying to be stealthy, knowing full well Sabigang could see them.
Menga-sook chuckled to himself.
“I don’t trust you, but… I’ll pretend to be fooled.”
With a wry smile, he approached the recruits and shouted, “What are you all doing? Get in there and smash those weird contraptions!”
“The slowest old man has to be the shield, right?”
“What did you say?”
The recruits burst into laughter.
**
Sabigang watched the recruits infiltrate his quarters, lost in thought.
Churyang, who had just arrived, clicked his tongue in disbelief.
“Wow… those persistent guys. They’re coming again today.”
“That kind of tenacity will be a stepping stone for their growth.”
“But that tenacity sometimes turns into madness, like yesterday.”
He was referring to the fight with the Mukgwi unit.
Churyang couldn’t understand it.
Yesterday, when the Mukgwi unit showed up, they declared they wouldn’t touch Menga-sook and were about to leave.
But it was the new recruits who picked a fight.
Menga-sook had already caused significant casualties to the Mukgwi unit.
Disciplinary action was inevitable.
Yet the recruits stirred up trouble again!
“I really can’t understand why they insist on causing problems.”
Churyang grumbled, furrowing his brow.
The recruits’ antics had prompted an emergency meeting among the Blood Alliance’s leadership.
No decisions had been made yet, but they would soon deliberate on the severity of the punishment for the recruits and Sabigang.
The recruits had even killed some Mukgwi members, so expulsion from the Blood Alliance wouldn’t be surprising.
But Sabigang seemed unfazed.
“That’s just their way.”
“That way could be wrong, couldn’t it?”
“Who decides what’s right or wrong?”
“Well…”
“There’s no right answer. This is the Blood Alliance. If you force them to follow the righteous path, their loyalty won’t last. Relationships aren’t like arithmetic.”
Churyang didn’t argue.
He found himself considering the possibility.
Meanwhile, Sabigang continued to gaze out the window, lost in other thoughts.
“It’s been three years since I returned… two more to go?”
The full-scale invasion by the demons would begin ten years from his return, about seven years from now.
But signs would appear before then.
In fact, they already had.
Dimensional rifts had opened, and magical artifacts were being preserved there.
But these were the good signs, relatively speaking.
The signs to come in two years wouldn’t be so benign.
“After the inanimate objects, the living ones will come.”
Even among the living creatures, there would be differences in their arrival speed.
The less intelligent ones would appear first, gradually followed by others.
The demons and the Demon King would be the last.
Originally, the first discovery of otherworldly creatures was six months before the demons’ full invasion.
At that time, a creature from the demon realm was accidentally discovered and dealt with by the imperial forces.
Back then, the martial artists didn’t realize it was a sign of disaster.
Nor did they know that many such creatures already existed in this world.
But in reality, those creatures had started appearing five years before the full invasion.
They just hadn’t been discovered, like the magical artifacts bound by barriers.
“I need to prepare as much as possible before the demons finally arrive.”
But unlike the magical artifacts, Sabigang didn’t know where the creatures would appear.
The reason was simple.
The demons had recorded the locations of the artifacts, but there was no need to do so for the creatures, so no records existed.
They only began to rampage violently as they awoke from their slumber, influenced by the demonic energy when the Demon King arrived.
“Well, there must be a way to find them.”
Sabigang collected his thoughts and turned to Churyang.
“Liang, take this. I promised to give it to you after my trip.”
Sabigang pulled out a heavy, stone-like object from his robe and tossed it over.
Churyang caught it reflexively and frowned at the dark stone.
“What is this? It doesn’t look like a potion or a mystical weapon.”
“Who said I was giving you a potion? You already have a mystical weapon.”
“You said you’d give me something unheard of.”
“Have you seen it before?”
“No.”
“Heard of it?”
“No.”
“Then it’s something unheard of.”
Churyang sighed deeply and examined the stone in his hand.
No matter how he looked at it, it didn’t seem special.
In fact, Sabigang had found it in the underground vault of the White Tiger Hall.
Chuhiryong, who also didn’t know its value, had handed it over to Sabigang without hesitation.
Churyang scratched his head and asked, “What exactly is this?”
“It’s an egg.”
“An egg? Really?”
“Yes.”
“So this stone-like thing is an egg? Like a chicken egg?”
“Not laid by a chicken, but it’s definitely an egg.”
In fact, it was known as the “Egg of Platan,” a rare find even in the demon realm.
In the far north of the demon realm lies a swamp called North Swamp.
Surprisingly vast like an ocean, it is home to a large flower called Platan that blooms only on the swamp’s surface.
Every thousand years, this flower blooms and produces an egg-like stone.
“That’s the Egg of Platan.”
“That’s really rare. But how is this useful?”
Churyang asked, his posture slightly skeptical, prompting Sabigang to frown and extend his hand.
“Seems like you don’t like it. Give it back. I’ll give it to someone else.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m just curious. You know how I am, overly curious. Hehe.”
Churyang quickly backtracked, and Sabigang sighed lightly before explaining.
“It looks like a stone, but it will hatch.”
“Really? A living creature will come out of this?”
“Yes. Right now, it’s just a fossil-like stone, so it can’t be considered a living creature.”
That’s why it had crossed dimensions.
“But I don’t know why such a thing came over.”
Perhaps it had been mixed in when the demons were sending a large number of items across dimensions.
In any case, it wasn’t a bad thing.
Whether it would be beneficial was another matter.
“So what should I do with it? Just hatch it?”
“Yes. Continuously infuse it with mana. Infusing mana into the Egg of Platan is a challenging training exercise. The demons go to great lengths to obtain it for their magical training.”
“Hmm. Is it really that great? It’s just transferring mana, isn’t it?”
“It’s not as simple as it sounds. When you channel mana, there’s a point where the egg reacts. You need to adjust the mana flow according to that reaction. It’s a delicate process, not easy at all.”
“So, it’s like the concept of ‘simultaneous pecking from inside and outside,’ right?”
“Exactly. Just pouring mana into it won’t do any good.”
“Understood. But what exactly hatches from it?”
Sabigang shrugged.
“That, I don’t know.”
“What? You want me to hatch it without knowing what’s inside?”
“Hmm. Usually, a rather impressive magical beast emerges.”
“A magical beast? Are you saying we’re going to create one right now?”
“Don’t worry. The beasts born from a Platan egg are easy to tame. They’ll likely be a great asset.”
“Hmm.”
Churyang still looked at the egg with a hint of unease.
“Once it hatches, will we know what kind of creature it is?”
“Yes, then we’ll know. I have most types memorized.”
“I see. So just by hatching this, I’ll improve my mana training?”
“Your mana capacity and control will increase significantly. And that’s exactly what you need to use the Cartel’s protective gear.”
Churyang nodded with a determined expression.
“Alright. I’ll give it a try!”
“Good, make sure to attempt it whenever you have time.”
“I will.”
A moment later, Sabigang sensed another presence and spoke up suddenly.
“Are you here?”
“I greet you, my lord.”
A shadow emerged from the corner of the room, revealing itself fully.
It was Hongyeom.
“Do you have the results of the investigation?”
“Yes, we successfully tracked the movements of the slave traders dealing with Inwangchae. They were quite discreet, so it took some time.”
“And what did you find?”
“We discovered something interesting.”
A spark of curiosity lit up in Sabigang’s eyes.
“What is it?”