# Chapter 34
(From Ludin’s perspective.)
I had a dream.
The first taste was sweet, but the end was a bitterly painful nightmare.
Though I had never met him before, he felt as welcome as a friend I’d known for ages. Watching his silver hair flutter in the wind, seeing his elegant movements as his sword traced a long arc—everything was simply mesmerizing. That’s how I met Kadilen. After meeting him, all my choices were already predetermined.
My life had always been uncertain. Was it because it was broken before it could even take shape? If I had to find a reason, perhaps the vague and bewildering times began the day my leg broke.
When I was young, I was quite good at running. As I advanced through school, my teacher called me separately and I joined the track team. Amid the shower of praise from adults, I naturally dreamed of becoming a track athlete. Then my leg broke, and I thought I could run like before after rehabilitation. However, once broken, my records didn’t easily recover even after the injury had fully healed. When I could no longer use my formerly broken leg as an excuse, I gave up track.
People weren’t surprised. Their consolations tacitly agreed that my expiration date had passed. That experience of giving up something without surprising the world, within everyone’s expectations, shaped my future more than I thought. At the time, I don’t think I felt much difference beyond a slight bitterness. I simply stopped running, which I had been doing continuously, and after that, I just remained stopped.
‘Don’t be too discouraged. You haven’t even gone to college yet, so you can do anything.’
That was true. Having started early, I still had plenty of time left even after experiencing failure and turning back. The problem was that I had no idea what I should do. Suddenly, too many choices fell upon me. I had come to a standstill, yet before me lay a whirlwind of diverging paths. It felt like I needed to run somewhere immediately. Floundering frantically, what I chose was to choose nothing at all.
After that, everything became easy. The world flowed perfectly well even when I made no decisions. The society I belonged to was already woven like a dense spider web by the choices others had made, and I simply got on top of it, moving this way and that as someone pulled the strings. I felt neither anxiety nor resentment. I gladly left it to others’ vibrations to determine my course.
I studied well enough and lived well enough. When I was a child, adults wouldn’t bother me if I showed certain numbers and behaviors, and I thought it would be the same once I became an adult. But at the university I had chosen to match my grades, I faced a new problem.
I took the college entrance exam like everyone else, but unlike others, my academic counseling ended quickly. Having no aspirations to begin with, I entered a department according to my teacher’s plausible advice. When I arrived as a freshman, the atmosphere was completely different from what I had expected. On the first day, freshmen were collectively locked in an empty lecture hall and given a large bucket.
The seniors took turns putting in whatever they wanted. Most were various kinds of alcohol, but they didn’t just put in drinkable liquids. They set down the bucket and locked the door.
‘You all have to finish this to get out, okay?’
The students looked at each other. From the very next day, some students stopped coming to school.
At first, they at least pretended to look for excuses, but soon they began to bully without any reason whatsoever. They imposed ridiculous demands under the name of tradition. But we were all adults, and while we initially submitted to the situation due to the unfamiliarity of the university framework, it didn’t last long. As the semester passed, and as the year went by, each student found their own way to cope.
There were students who, despite their displeasure, endured to the end to somehow earn their diploma. Some followed the seniors and fell into pitiful paths. Others didn’t directly respond to violence. The police came a few times. Articles were published during that period, and as a result, the disturbing atmosphere gradually became cautious.
Whether it was endurance, rebellion, or even cowardly submission, they all had their own choices. And as everyone began to reap the results of their choices, I found myself pushed to the bottom of the food chain. It was the result of not making any choices, as always. The childish acts that I thought would naturally end became more ingeniously refined, focusing on the most vulnerable person—someone who had no thought of asking for help, nor any reason to do so.
When I suddenly came to my senses, I realized I was the only one still in the same situation as when I was a freshman. While everyone else had left in their own way, I remained at a standstill.
Handling all sorts of errands and cleanup, being summoned to endless drinking sessions, my grades naturally dropped. The continuous verbal abuse at some point stopped penetrating me properly. If you ask whether it wasn’t painful, that’s not the case. I just couldn’t think of a suitable alternative. I tried expressing refusal once or twice, but they responded with sneers and greater retaliation. I just felt trapped somewhere. In a room with dozens of doors, not knowing which one was the exit.
That’s when I saw “The Kingdom of Zendal.” It was a book I picked up mindlessly to kill time at a bookstore I’d wandered into.
I read the first paragraph absently, and I liked that it was a fantasy world completely detached from this one. I wasn’t particularly fond of reading, but I bought the book as if bewitched. It was probably an escapist impulse, but I didn’t think of it that way then. I sat down at home and read the book in one go. My gaze, relaxed and skimming lightly through the text, was suddenly caught by a firmly established sentence.
‘He never cut what he could not see.’
It was a scene where Kadilen appeared. The meaning of that sentence gradually became clear. He was someone who knew exactly what was at the end of his sword. From the moment he decided to learn martial arts, having previously been nothing, Kadilen’s path to the highest position showed no hesitation. While he grieved for those he lost, he made no meaningless choices. I believe that even until his death, he wouldn’t have regretted his choices. That’s the kind of person Kadilen was.
Someone who maintained his uprightness and always clearly marked his path.
I was strangely drawn to him. The lingering feeling remained even after closing the book. But it didn’t last very long. I had a life to live and immediate real-world problems to face. So naturally, Kadilen began to fade from my mind. The printed words that held him gradually dimmed, and “The Kingdom of Zendal” became dusty, tucked away in a corner of my bookshelf.
Kadilen came back to me one day when I was running an errand for the seniors. I still vividly remember that moment. It was around the time when I had almost forgotten such a book existed. As usual, a boorish drinking session broke out in the department room, and the seniors, having spent all the communal funds, ordered me to buy soju.
Though I had drunk quite a bit, my mind was still clear. As I trudged toward the convenience store, I saw a large advertisement hanging at the bus stop. It was a game advertisement with a character holding a great sword and making a fearsome expression. My gaze caught it by chance, and suddenly I remembered him. Or more precisely, his line.
‘Knowing where your sword is pointing—that is the foundation of all movement.’
As if struck on the head, I stood stock-still at that flashbulb memory.
Where the sword points?
I still don’t know why it was so shocking. I just stood there for a long while thinking about Kadilen. The hot summer night, people hurriedly walking home after overtime, the bus driver with a tired face picking up the last passenger. The shrill cicada cries and the old slippers painfully pressing against my soles. Even the sweat drops running down my spine.
‘What am I doing right now?’
I remember everything. I thought about where my sword would be pointing if I had one. I also wondered why I couldn’t figure that out. In the end, a desire I thought would never exist began filling my entire heart. The desire to escape and the desire to move forward.
So I turned around and ran at full speed. The seniors looked dumbfounded when I returned empty-handed. With some unknown courage, I told them I was going home and packed my things. I was too overwhelmed thinking about what I needed to do next to notice the increasingly fierce faces in front of me.
“Hey. Is this kid crazy?”
“Seems like it. Hey, hey. What are you doing?”
The hand of a senior who grabbed me as I ignored them and turned away was raised high. Starting with his fist, various insults interspersed with occasional violence followed, but I just found myself snickering. I had found the door. The door had always been there, and now it was finally visible to my eyes. Even if the seniors’ anger continued all night, they couldn’t completely catch me as I ran away, and this situation would definitely end. That fact completely occupied my mind, making nothing else able to trouble me.
I didn’t return to school. I took the college entrance exam again and went to a new university. What surprised me most was realizing that the place I had been was hell only after I left. Also, that suffocating place was somewhere I could have escaped anytime if I had just made up my mind. It hit me that I had choices left, then and in the future. Like everyone else, I had the right to choose the life I wanted to live, not one I was dragged into.
I often thought about how my life would have flowed if I hadn’t known Kadilen. It wasn’t difficult to guess the ending.
Whenever someone asked about a book that left an impression on me, or when conversations about reading continued, I always recommended “The Kingdom of Zendal.” So seriously that everyone thought I was joking. It was a book far short of being worthy to present at gatherings where all sorts of Eastern and Western classics and famous world literature were topics of discussion. Some people who received the recommendation read the book with puzzled expressions, but they all offered no feedback beyond “It’s an interesting fantasy novel.” That was natural.
Perhaps if the book I had chosen that day wasn’t “The Kingdom of Zendal,” or if I had seen clarity in a completely different character than Kadilen, I might have found the same answer. Maybe it was possible because my unconscious self was already aware of my problem at that time. But that didn’t change the meaning Kadilen held for me.
With peace of mind, “The Kingdom of Zendal” read differently. It felt like a past memory or just a light fantasy novel. Nevertheless, whenever Kadilen appeared, I still carefully traced every word. What I continuously regretted was that he could no longer appear in the novel after the rebellion. I wondered what kind of world such a clear-minded person wanted to create. Zendal had excellent conquest abilities, but once he seized power, that very quality became poison. Whenever Zendal’s evil acts of mistreating the weak were described, Kadilen’s death felt so unjust.
There was something I always imagined. After Kadilen met his death, the emotions his disciples must have felt. I believed that wouldn’t be much different from my feelings. He was the first person to pave the way for those at the bottom. Such a person shouldn’t have ended like that. A death with neither honor nor peace, one that would be remembered as betrayal even after death. It wasn’t hard to guess how his disciples must have felt.
I too was Kadilen’s disciple, after all.
If I were given a chance, I would have saved him by all means.
I would never have let his light disappear so unjustly.
So I dreamed, and there was no hesitation. Kadilen was alive. And breathtakingly beautiful at that. In the dream, every moment felt like an opportunity.
I wanted to express my gratitude to him. Not just a few words for my peace of mind, but by saving his life. Just as Kadilen had given me life, I wanted to gift him with life too.
That was all. Really, that was all…
Whether my feelings for Kadilen were gratitude for salvation, reverence for beauty, or sacrificial affection, they formed the greatest foundation of who I am. Saying my life changed because of him meant he became the starting point of my life. So the tragedy began the moment I abandoned my feelings for him. I lost my starting point once again.
I believed it would be worthwhile if I could save Kadilen, even if I suffered. But had I known I would suffer to the point of losing even what I received from him, I might have made a different choice. Kadilen, who once held my trembling sword-wielding hand, has now disappeared from me forever.
It would have been better if I had never met him.
Now I see, that dream wasn’t an opportunity. It was a cruel nightmare.
