Reaper of the Drifting Moon

“Ask that when you meet Won Ga-yeong later.”

“Won Ga-young, you mean the Fairy Phantom Swordsman?”

“That’s right.”

“That seems impossible.”

“Why?”

“She’s dead too.”

“……….”

Pyo-wol blinked at Woo Pyeong’s unexpected words.

Pyo-wol rarely gets emotionally agitated, but Won Ga-young’s death was unexpected for him as well.

“Won Ga-yeong, Neung Soun, all those who share the same goal with Jin Geum-woo had lost their lives.”

“What about the killer?”

“We don’t know.”

Woo Pyeong shook his head quietly.

Pyo-wol closed his eyes and murmured.

“Someone buried it.”

“……….”

Woo Pyeong kept his mouth shut.

He was thinking the same thing as Pyo-wol, but he didn’t say it out loud.
Words coming from one of the great disciples of the Wudang sect carry great weight. 

Especially when dealing with an outsider like Pyo-wol, he shouldn’t say everything he thinks.

Pyo-wol cast his gaze out the window.

A lot of people were passing by on the street.

People were talking, fighting and laughing.
Their expressions were as varied as their numbers. 

Pyo-wol thought these people were very much alive.
Not just because they were breathing and moving.
But because they have a purpose to breathe, and a reason to move.

Some lived for their own prosperity, others for their families.
Their reasons for living varied.

But he had none of that.

He lives because he was born, and because he doesn’t want to die.

He had no one to share his life with, much less someone to open up to.

There was a huge barrier in his heart.

No outsiders were allowed to enter his walls.

He has lived like that for fifteen years, and he will continue to live that way.

Jin Geum-woo was the only one who managed to squeeze in even a little bit through the gap in his mighty barrier. 

Even if he himself did not allow his heart.

But Jin Geum-woo died.

Perhaps there is no one who would anymore try to dig deeper into his heart more than Jin Geum-woo.

Pyo-wol felt deeply lonely.

He usually doesn’t feel anything, but today he felt especially lonely.

Perhaps this loneliness will never go away.

Eternal solitude.

And never-ending loneliness.

If it had been someone other than Pyo-wol, they would definitely have collapsed in despair.
However, Pyo-wol did not despair, collapse, or get frustrated.

Instead, he focused on what he had to do.

“Is there any information about the person who killed Jin Geum-woo?”

“None.”

“None at all?”

“Nothing—”

Woo Pyeong, who had been answering inadvertently, shuddered.

It was because he saw the line spreading around Pyo-wol’s mouth.

A creepy smile, showing his white teeth.

Woo Pyeong felt as if a demon had materialized in front of him.

A beautiful yet relatable demon.

Exceptionally long eyebrows.

With deep black eyes nestled beneath them.

And the red light that comes out from time to time.

Woo Pyeong held his sword tightly without realizing it.

‘I have to cut him now.’

He felt a sense of crisis he had never experienced in his life.
Alarm bells were ringing loudly inside of him.
The dangerous atmosphere he felt from the man in front of him had paralyzed his senses.

He thought that if he couldn’t eliminate the person in front of him now, then he wouldn’t be able to do so forever.
Those kinds of thoughts dominated his head.

However, Woo Pyeong couldn’t pull out his sword.

It was because a small hand was folded over his hand.

When he woke up from the warmth, he saw Tae Kwang holding his hand and shaking his head.

Tae Kwang was talking with his eyes.

Don’t.

Only then did Woo Pyeong come to his senses. 

And then he realized.

That he had been possessed by the strange atmosphere coming off of Pyo-wol.

He couldn’t believe that he, who had mastered the Wudang sect martial arts, lost his composure due to the atmosphere emanating from others.

The strange atmosphere that Pyo-wol gave off was dangerous.

Woo Pyeong realized that Pyol-wol was far more deadly than he expected.

“You… what are you planning to do now?”

“He called me a friend.”

“Friend?”

“Yes.
A friend.
But I never once gave him a definite answer.
I don’t trust anyone Even more so for the word friend…”

“Why?”

“Because the living cannot be trusted.”

“……….”

At Pyo-wol’s reply, Woo Pyeong was at lost for words.

He had met many people, but Pyo-wol was the first person who distrusts others so terribly.

‘What kind of environment did he grow up in for him to become like this?’

He couldn’t imagine what kind of environment a person had to be exposed in for them to develop such distrust. 

The Wudang sect, where he spent his entire life, was a place full of trust.
Of course, some masters betray and deceive, but it wasn’t enough to distrust humans themselves.

Pyo-wol continued,

“I regret my thoughts at the time.”

“A man like you has his own regrets too?”

“It was the first time for me, too.
Feeling something like regret… He kept sending me letters.
I didn’t even read his letters.
I just stored them in a drawer.
But he kept sending anyway, even after knowing that he wouldn’t get a reply.”

“……….”

“Why did he do that? Why did he keep sending me letters even though he knew I wouldn’t reply? Calling me a friend when we’ve only got to know each other for a short while.”

Woo Pyeong did not answer.

He also wondered why Jin Geum-woo kept on sending letters.
But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand Jin Geum-woo’s heart.

Pyo-wol answered, 

“It’s because he had no one to trust.
He couldn’t trust the friends he’d known all his life, or the people who surrounded him.
He trusted me more than someone he’d been close to all his life.”

“……….”

“He must have been so lonely.
He needed someone to listen to him.
Listen to him cry and whine…”

So that’s why he sent a letter.

Even if Pyo-wol didn’t answer, he still hoped that he would listen to his words.

Not because Pyo-wol is a true friend, but because he wanted them to be friends.

So Jin Geum-woo continued to send letters to Pyo-wol with a desperate heart.

“But I kept ignoring him.
For the first time in my life, someone wanted to rely on me like that, but I turned away mercilessly.”

He couldn’t imagine how lonely Jin Geum-woo must have felt in the last moments of his life.

Maybe Jin Geum-woo died resenting himself for not answering until the end.

“It might already be too late, but I’m going to answer that friend now.
That what he was doing wasn’t in vain.
That his life wasn’t wrong.”