Novel

“Master…”

“Argh!”

Even before Lee Sungmin’s words that were full of surprise had finished, Ye-Hwa screamed.

Reeling and approaching Sima Ryunju’s dead body, Ye-Hwa sank in front of Sima Ryunju’s body.

Tears welled up from both of her trembling eyes. Her head started to shake and bob as she sobbed. She reached out with her trembling hand and tried to shake Sima Ryunju’s body awake despite it being cold from death.

Lee Sungmin quietly approached Ye-Hwa from behind as he looked at Sima Ryunju’s body with heartbroken emotion. His heart started to beat like crazy as it felt like it would burst right out.

His head felt as if it would explode and he felt incredibly thirsty from dehydration.

Lee Sungmin put his hand on Sima Ryunju’s body. The cold touch at his fingertips and the pale complexion of his master gave Lee Sungmin a feeling of disgust and sadness.

Lee Sungmin raised his hand and clasped his chest.

He remembered the time when the Crazy Heavenly Demon died.

He saw Byuk Won-Pae’s face overlap with his master’s at that moment.

He looked at his master’s body that had a severed left arm. There were a few wounds on the body, but the clothes Sima Ryunju was wearing was messy and his hair was disheveled.

Sima Ryunju’s face was serene and looked truly content in death and there was not even a drop of blood from his severed arm

Lee Sungmin recalled the words Sima Ryunju had left before he died. Sima Ryunju had looked right at Lee Sungmin with a bittersweet smile and had given him these words before he left with that ever-so slightly arrogant tone of his.

– I denied the future.

– Don’t be too sad or angry about it.

-You can’t stop me. Not even after you added Wolhu to the fight. The Heavenly Spirit should have never intervened. The future of my death has been denied by this old man. Yes… this old man did not die.

– I’m just going to go to a far away place. Maybe you’ll get here one day, too. When that time comes, don’t hesitate and don’t leave any regrets.

When asked where he was going by Musin, Sima Ryunju just smiled mysteriously at him.

What did he mean by going away to a far place? Lee Sungmin sat down next to Ye-Hwa.

He looked down at Sima Ryunju with eyes of regret and deep emotion. He simply could not accept that the man who nobody could dare to rival in the entire world, his master, Sima Ryunju, was dead, lying in front of him.

He easily broke down the strongest hundred-man formation of the Heavenly Fist faction that could take down Transcendents, and overpowered Jehu, Lord of the Murim Alliance, the Black Dragon himself, like a child. Not even Musin, the Martial God, was his master’s opponent; even with the help of Wolhu.

[I don’t know.]

Heoju murmured.

[Well, when that boy named Wolhu and that man named Musin worked together…. Even at that moment, Sima Ryunju was overwhelming them both. But… he suddenly lost all of his energy in the middle of it. I still don’t quite understand why that happened.]

That was also a question for Lee Sungmin. Sima Ryunju’s overwhelming abilities had never taken such a nosedive like that, and if the fight had continued, Musin and Wolhu would have been defeated by Sima Ryunju; and would have probably resulted in Sima Ryunju still being alive.

“……why is his body here?”

Because Lee Sungmin knew there was no way to solve the question of the mysterious death of his master, he decided to ask Oslo how his master’s body had made it back to the Forest of the Fairies.

With her wings drooping down in a depressive state, the floating figure of Oslo slowly came down from her spot in the air.

“…Ryunju-ssi told me a long time ago…. Many years ago in fact…. That if he were to die, he wanted to be buried here in the Forest of the Fairies. I-I just wanted to make that wish come true.”

“……then why are we here?”

“It was a request of your master, Sima Ryunju, as well.”

It was Scarlett who answered him this time. She crumpled the torn scroll left in her hands with a gloomy look.

“It was just a request he made to me alone. If… if he somehow died or if we were in a dangerous situation, he told me to not hesitate and take both you and Ye-Hwa with me with the teleportation scroll.”

“That’s a scroll the Ryunju-ssi got from a dungeon a long time ago.”

Oslo sighed as she spoke more.

“Then I helped him enter the coordinates for this place. I didn’t expect him to use it like this.”

“……why….”

Ye-Hwa uttered in a trembling voice.

“Why….?! The Lord should not have died. Why…! If it was a teleport scroll, Lord Ryunju could have used it together with us……!”

“No, it was impossible.”

The cry of Ye-Hwa was immediately denied by Oslo.

“The Lord fought in the barrier that was created by the power of the Heavenly Spirit. It’s impossible to escape even if you use a teleport scroll inside of the barrier. And… ..and knowing that, it was still Ryunju’s decision that he made when he chose to fight. That’s what the Lord wanted anyways.”

“How come…?”

“Because he wanted to.”

Lee Sungmin answered in a subdued voice.

“That’s all he needed for justification in the first place.”

‘Just like he had done before.’

Lee Sungmin thought as he looked down at the dead body of Sima Ryunju with a bitter smile. Oslo crouched down and reduced her size as she flew towards Sima Ryunju’s pale face.

She reached out her small hands and caressed Sima Ryunju’s cold cheek.

“……Ryunju-ssi is not dead.”

“Yes……?”

Ye-Hwa asked in a surprised voice. She looked at Oslo with a look of anticipation. Oslo smiled bitterly at the sight of Ye-Hwa’s obvious anticipation and hopeful expression.

“But it doesn’t mean he’s necessarily alive either. ……I’m sorry it wasn’t your expectations.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“The spirit of the Ryunju-ssi is…No, I mean that his soul has moved on to another world. He left the world to escape the constraints of being a mortal. Simply put, he has ascended to a higher realm to grow even stronger than he is now.”

“What…….?”

“In fact… it’s probably better to just say he’s dead. It’s because he can’t come back to this world no matter what he tries to do in that higher plane of existence. In a way, it might be right to say that he’s headed to the afterlife.”

Perhaps that’s why Oslo seemed so depressed and down. Sima Ryunju had ascended from the Realm of Mortals and placed his existence in the upper ranks…… Lee Sungmin didn’t understand what any of this meant, but Heoju did.

He, too, had seen the dark and narrow road that Sima Ryunju had decided to walk.

“There… there was a will.”

Scarlett, who approached Lee Sungmin, murmured.

“When Sima Ryunju gave me the teleport scroll. He left his will with me as well. I’ve never read it…… I didn’t even think I would need to read it in the first place.”

Scarlett pulled a dried up envelope from her subspace pocket.

After receiving the letter, Lee Sungmin lowered the letter in his hands and untied the red string that wound the envelope.

After a moment of hesitation, when he untied the string around the envelope, there was a small booklet filled with writing.

The moment Lee Sungmin read the first sentence of the will, his expression turned completely stiff.

Neither did Lee Sungmin, who didn’t think his master would ever die. Yet, here they were.

Ye-Hwa, who was reading the will together with Lee Sungmin, shut up.

The burst of tears erupted from her eyes and then eventually became a mournful sob. Lee Sungmin chewed his trembling lower lip.

‘Of course.’

Lee Sungmin read the will and felt as if he could still hear his master’s cynical laughter throughout the writing of the will.

‘Even so, don’t you realize your actions trouble others?’

Lee Sungmin thought so.

Even if he died a satisfying death, the people left behind were not going to feel the same. Even if Sima Ryunju died a death with no regrets, the people left behind were bound to be sad.

Lee Sungmin was well aware of the self-destructive nature his master had been displaying just before his death; looking for opponents to pick fights with.

In his will, Sima Ryunju called out her name.

Ye-Hwa, who was reading the will together with Lee Sungmin, seemed to have been caught by Sima Ryunju’s words and swallowed her tears. It was as Sima Ryunju had said.

Ye-Hwa had already been planning to confront Musin and fight him to death.

It’s now your job to take care of your own life and live it out the way you want. However, you did pledge your everything to me, and my last and final order is to not throw away your life recklessly. You must live. It’s not just you though. All of the Red Flower brigade must live their own lives independently and for nobody but yourselves. You are no longer forced to take care of the internal affairs of the Order as well.>

“…My lord……”

Ye-Hwa’s head dropped lower as she cried out for Sima Ryunju in a pitiful voice.

“……it wasn’t rocket science.”

Scarlett murmured, letting out a fake cough of embarrassment.

It was true. If Lee Sungmin had been told by Sima Ryunju to run away when something happened, or if he had been handed over the will beforehand. He would have never followed the instructions or run away, as was already proven when he did not want to leave his master’s body.

At the very last moments of his death, Sima Ryunju reversed the Oath he had forced Jehu under. In fact, even Lee Sungmin was not sure why his master had done that. But what followed after that, made Lee Sungmin even more confused, as Jehu, despite not being forced under the Oath, had blocked Musin temporarily in order to help them escape.

– It’s unpleasant to force your will.

Just before his death,Sima Ryunju told the Black Dragon, Jehu, that. Lee Sungmin recalled the words, as it seemed that Sima Ryunju had also realized something shortly after writing that in the will.

“Ryunju-ssi is a fool.”

Oslo, crouching her knees in her fairy form, murmured.

“You idiot, you little prick.”

“I didn’t cry!”

Oslo let out a big shout.

At the end of the will, Lee Sungmin was mentioned.

Lee Sungmin clenched his fist. His eyes started to grow blurry as they started to water. He didn’t want to cry, but his body already felt like doing so.

“……no.”

Lee Sungmin murmured in a constricted voice. No matter what kind of fate that either of them had, Lee Sungmin felt that his master should have never died the way he did. It didn’t matter what was going on with the end, but he was certain that his own existence was not more important than his master’s.

Sima Ryunju knew it well, and so did Lee Sungmin. He was too weak to do anything. There was nothing he could do now either now that his master was gone.

Lee Sungmin was well aware of his own lack of leadership ability. Lee Sungmin shook his head and then read the sentence below.

Lee Sungmin swallowed his breath reflexively in shock as he then read the line beneath it.

Everyone who was reading the will was appalled.

Chapter 299 – Fin

T/N : Just feels like one of those chaps to leave translator notes at the bottom again, since honestly I feel like I should have seen this coming. Mogma has made it pretty clear that Lee Sungmin basically has no way to get stronger unless persay he went and did some crazy ten thousand year training with denir or something. Basically, predation and the black heart. It’s finally all making sense and I think ma_boi called it in the comments of last chapter.

Btw, as for why the mass release came out, you can go to the discord link on the home page and go to the announcements channel to find out what happened.

Anyways, have a great day!