‘No wonder he considered himself a disgrace.’
Seo-gyeom hugged his knees tightly as he recalled the events of earlier today. The chilly draft he had been feeling seemed to subside just a little.
“Achoo.”
Or maybe not. Perhaps he had stayed outside for too long and grown numb to the cold. Seo-gyeom sniffled lightly and looked toward his residence. As if the servant had turned off the lantern upon returning to his quarters, the dim light that softly illuminated the surroundings was extinguishing one by one.
In the darkness, where he felt left entirely alone, Seo-gyeom killed a bit more time. It was out of the thought that the servant might be a master hiding his true strength, or that there might be people guarding him without his knowledge, but those were nothing more than unnecessary worries.
When no one came looking for him even after a long while, Seo-gyeom let out a sigh of relief. Kneading his stiff limbs a few times, he bent his waist to inspect the base of the wall. Although complete darkness had settled, the moonlight was bright enough that inspecting the surroundings posed no great difficulty.
“Where did they say it was around here…?”
How long had he been crawling along the ground, fumbling in the dark? In an instant, his hand slipped, and his upper body tilted forward.
“Ugh.”
Barely avoiding rolling onto the ground, Seo-gyeom rubbed his sprained wrist and surveyed the area. At a glance, it looked like a well-tended garden, but behind the rock he had just braced himself against, traces of a dog hole remained.
“Found it.”
A Great Five Noble Family—and a reclusive one like the Dang Clan at that. He had wondered how a dog hole could possibly exist, but it seemed it had been made possible thanks to a deception like this. Praying that it would remain undiscovered for a long, long time to come, Seo-gyeom lowered his posture.
His worry over whether he could fit through was brief. His head, which he had recklessly shoved in first, easily passed through the hole. Seo-gyeom tried not to rush, passing his arms and shoulders through one after another. With escape right before his eyes, his quiet heart seemed to pitter-patter.
Just as he passed through up to his waist, placing escape right within his grasp—
[!Warning!] [NPCs cannot leave their assigned area by any method.] [Current assigned area for Dang Seo-gyeom: Dang Seo-gyeom’s residence within the Outer Castle]
The invisible wall blocked Seo-gyeom, and a warning window popped up simultaneously. Seo-gyeom stared blankly at the warning window, unaware that he was stuck right between the wall and the hole. The bright red exclamation mark was the same as usual, but the text that followed was slightly different.
‘Assigned area? Not a spawn area?’
What on earth was the difference? As he pondered, a deeper shadow fell over Seo-gyeom’s head.
“For what reason are you lying in such a state in the middle of the night?”
Freezing at the sudden question, Seo-gyeom slowly lifted his head. The first thing that entered his vision was the slightly worn toe of a silk shoe. Above it draped a black robe, which clearly showed signs of age as if it had been worn for quite a long time.
The sword strapped to his waist was the same. Though it appeared well-maintained, marks of scratches and wear were engraved all over the scabbard.
In a word, a situation where he didn’t look like an important character at all.
Nevertheless, Seo-gyeom recognized at once that the figure before his eyes was extraordinary. It wasn’t merely because of a fine voice or an oddly handsome face.
“It seems I have meddled unnecessarily.”
As if taking his silence while trying to deduce his identity as a refusal, the man tilted his head obliquely. At the voice laced with embarrassment, Seo-gyeom hurriedly waved his hand.
“A-Ah, no!”
In doing so, his fingertips brushed the top of the man’s foot. Surprised even by his own action, Seo-gyeom tried to draw back in a hurry, but because his body was tightly stuck, squirming was all he could manage. Perhaps finding the sight amusing, a small sound of laughter leaked from above his head.
“Ahem. If so, may I lay my hands upon Young Master’s body?”
Though he must have seen everything already, the man tried his best to hide his laughter and bent his waist. The way he extended his hand as if asking for permission was truly chivalrous like a true hero of the martial realm.
The protagonist of this world, whom he had seen dozens, even hundreds of times.
Just like Namgung Yoon.
If there was a slight difference, it was that he was far more vibrant and strangely gentle than what he had seen through the VR goggles. Seo-gyeom, who had been staring blankly as if spellbound, nodded his head without realizing it. At that, his body, which had been caught in the dog hole, slipped out cleanly.
As expected, even if he was hiding his identity, a protagonist was still a protagonist. Despite lifting an adult man effortlessly, his breath didn’t falter even once.
Seo-gyeom marveled inwardly while stealing a side glance at the protagonist’s appearance. Well, since he was a genius born with both Heavenly Bone Constitution and Supreme Unbound Meridians, he might have felt that someone of Dang Seo-gyeom’s stature was no different from a tree branch.
In fact, even now, Seo-gyeom’s feet were dangling in midair. The age difference between the two was merely three years, but an immense gap existed between a genius of the martial realm and a terminally ill young master.
“……”
Namgung Yoon also remained silent for a moment, perhaps surprised by his frail build.
“You may put me down now.”
Seo-gyeom spoke as if it were nothing, keeping his gaze fixed downward. It wasn’t even his original body, so there was no reason to be embarrassed, yet heat gathered in his face for no reason.
“Young Master!”
The regrettable part was that Dang Seo-gyeom’s body was even weaker than expected. The moment his feet touched the ground, his damned body tottered. Thanks to Namgung Yoon quickly catching him, he managed to avoid the disaster of tumbling over, but Seo-gyeom had no leeway to care about such minor matters.
“Are you alright?”
The moment a warm body temperature—unlike his own—brushed against him, a system window popped up above that handsome face.
[Contact made with protagonist Namgung Yoon.] [Checking eligibility for inclusion in the Main Scenario.] […] [Calculating regression count…] […]
[Search result: Dang Seo-gyeom (???)] [Condition fulfillment confirmed.] [Incorporated into the Main Scenario.]
As if everything up until now had been a joke, a light more brilliant than ever illuminated the surroundings. Seo-gyeom stood frozen, taking in the sentences floating up before his eyes.
‘Chapter 4…’
[Chapter 4: Flower Scarlet Shadows (丹花影)] [In his early days, Namgung Yoon lost everything overnight. Only two direct descendants survived that horrific massacre.]
[His uncle claimed he would rebuild the clan, but for some reason, Namgung Yoon refuses to return to the main family.]
[The assassins that raided immediately after the Family Head collapsed. At one point, Namgung Yoon believed it to be merely the insidious schemes of the Demonic Cult.] [However, after repeating life several times, he came to realize that another enemy existed.]
[What was the reason his father and senior brothers collapsed on the exact same day?] [Was Namgung Hyeok, one of the Martial Ten Venerables, truly a man who would be taken down so vainly?]
[There was only one answer.]
[The only thing capable of rendering even a master of the Transcendent Realm helpless is poison.]
[Though he has no proper evidence or witness, Namgung Yoon is certain. For he himself is the sole survivor of the Namgung Clan Massacre.]
[Thus, Namgung Yoon decided to dedicate this entire life.] [To uncover the secret of the poison and find the enemy hiding in the shadows.]
[To do that, he must obtain the help of the Dang Clan…]
[Why is it? The gates of the Dang Clan he barely reached were firmly shut.]
[The Dang Clan repays grace twofold, and grudges tenfold.] [If you wish to draw closer to the truth, you must open the doors of the Dang Clan. Help them and claim what you desire.]
[Success Reward: The Dang Clan’s assistance, A piece of the secret behind the Namgung Clan Massacre] [Upon Failure: Complete sealing of the Dang Clan]
[Tip: Players can restart the game at any time. Upon failure, regression is recommended.]
Namgung Yoon’s story, which he knew all too well, rolled up like credits, followed by rewards and penalties. The tip, which seemed helpful yet useless, was the same.
Had it been the Seo-gyeom who played , he would have skipped it without even reading it through.
Because the charm of learning a vast world of the martial realm and a variety of martial arts was what kept him from leaving . Seo-gyeom, too, though unable to become the greatest under the heavens himself, felt a sense of pride while supporting Namgung Yoon.
If one didn’t stand at the peak of martial arts, one could enjoy the martial realm in other ways. Like building a merchant guild to expand it into the Myriad Gold Treasury, or running the finest tea house in Sichuan. Without even knowing what the ‘chivalry’ in wuxia truly meant, Seo-gyeom had enjoyed just fine.
However, even a Seo-gyeom like that had no choice but to swear when he found out that the Save & Load feature was locked.
The Save & Load feature is no different from a gamer’s spare life. Standing at a crossroads, how many people would have the stomach to proceed without saving?
At the very least, Seo-gyeom was not a bold person. If the developers hadn’t manually blocked saving, he would have used it not just a few times, but hundreds of times over.
If so, what should one do to restart in a game where Save & Load isn’t an option?
The moment most players realized that reaching the true ending was difficult, they killed Namgung Yoon. After someone’s play count surpassed three digits, the perception spread that playing standardly was the stupidest way.
It was because as Namgung Yoon’s regression count broke three digits, evil-aligned endings were newly unlocked. Endings like the Heavenly Demon or Blood Demon were attractive outcomes just by their names alone.
The community, which had seemed to wither under the extreme difficulty, also flared up brightly back then. Strategy posts like ‘How to retry within 1 minute’ and ‘Rerolling as told by a veteran’ were occupying the top rankings even now.
Seo-gyeom had never made the same choice as them. Even if it was a game character, he didn’t have the cruel temperament to abandon them harshly just because they were useless. Even so, he could pride himself on having repeated the experience from the starting point more than anyone else.
Rather, since he had steadily advanced toward the ending step by step, he was confident in making Namgung Yoon the greatest under the heavens.
However, the current Seo-gyeom was an NPC, not a player. Even just because of this vivid sense of reality, he couldn’t calmly accept those credits.
‘If… he dies, what happens to me?’
Recalling his memories, the moment Namgung Yoon drew his last breath, the game always reset back to the very beginning. That was the case when he invaded the Demonic Cult and an elder there died together with Namgung Yoon, and his vision had also blurred when Seo-gyeom was inquiring about spirit herbs to clear the Dang Clan quest.
How hollow he had felt when he saw the main screen the moment he obtained the information! After experiencing such a painful lesson, he had stayed as close to Namgung Yoon’s side as possible or kept a constant eye on him.
Even when being that cautious, Namgung Yoon was someone who died as easily as a sunfish; would now really be any different?
