Appearance of the Heavenly Demon - Chapter 65

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 65
It was Baek Yeol-han who’d ordered him to eat.
“Surely you knew that poison can enter a dish from anywhere, even after it’s been prepared?”
Yet knowing this, he’d still insisted on feeding the guest?
“There are two possibilities.”
Sama Hyeon raised two fingers.
Then, folding one down, he continued.
“First, he believed with complete certainty that the rice contained no poison, and therefore chose to offer it to the guest.”
“B-but you said it did contain poison? The poison….”
“Yes. It did.”
Yeon-woo nodded.
Baek Yeol-han swallowed hard, his expression taut with tension. “The second possibility?”
“The second?”
Sama Hyeon folded down his remaining finger.
“The two of them are in league.”
His gaze sank low.
“…!”
Baek Yeol-han’s eyes flickered with turbulence.
The image of Baek Yeol-han as he’d appeared moments before—his kind face, his gentle words—surfaced in his mind.
With that face, in that voice… working with the guest? Surely… that couldn’t be….
And yet.
‘Did Baek Yeol-han truly not know the poison was there? Or even if he was certain it wasn’t, how could he possibly feed untested food to a guest right then and there…?’
What’s more, it had been Baek Yeol-han who’d made a commotion when they first entered, and it was Baek Yeol-han who’d led them out of the Kitchen the moment that trouble ended.
Because of him, they’d had no chance to examine the Kitchen thoroughly from beginning to end.
“Has that answered your question?”
“.…”
Unwilling to believe, unable to believe—yet all the evidence pointed in one direction.
The poison had been added by the guest.
And Baek Yeol-han was his accomplice.
“And when the guest ate—did you notice something strange?” Sama Hyeon asked Yeon-woo.
“Yeah.”
Yeon-woo nodded.
“It wasn’t the look of someone afraid of death. Not resentment, either. It was like… like he’d just realized something? Oh, and—”
Yeon-woo brought his palm down against his fist with a sharp crack, his gaze lifting suddenly.
“It was there!”
Yeon-woo’s eyes gleamed, bright with recognition.
“That thing in the food!”
* * *
Not long after, the sun dipped below the horizon and darkness settled.
By then, the three of them had returned to the Kitchen.
They waited in silence, breath held, until the fires in the Kitchen went cold and every trace of human presence had vanished.
“Is it really all right? Can we just walk in like this?”
“We have no choice. Now that they know we’ve discovered the poison, they’ll certainly rush to destroy the evidence.”
The one saving grace was that the commotion had been loud enough for the other cooks to hear—so they wouldn’t be able to move too openly.
The chance the poison Yeon-woo had seen remained in place was slim, but if they were fortunate, other evidence they hadn’t yet disposed of might still be there.
They had to search the Kitchen as thoroughly and quickly as possible before all traces could be erased.
“But….”
“And as long as we don’t know how deeply the others are involved, we can’t ask for help carelessly.”
If they asked another Gyodu for assistance and he was also part of the conspiracy, they’d be finished.
The most certain course would be to inform the Manager of Maryong Hall directly.
“As you saw, Baek Yeol-han was guarding the entrance to the Gyodu Chamber.”
As they worked through the options, Yeon-woo spoke of someone trustworthy and led the other two back to the Gyodu Chamber.
But when they arrived—
Baek Yeol-han was pacing in front of the Gyodu Chamber entrance.
The reason was obvious.
He was preventing them from returning to find another Gyodu.
So Yeon-woo and his companions had no choice but to turn back without entering the chamber.
“For now, securing evidence comes first. Baek Yeol-han will remain on guard until he’s disposed of all the evidence. We’ll strike first, secure what we can find, and then seek out the Manager.”

“Yes.”
Yeon-woo nodded.
“All right then.”
Sama Hyeon gave Baek Yeol-han’s back a push, his expression tense as the other man stared toward the Kitchen.
“?!”
Baek Yeol-han startled violently, pressing his body flat against the wall and muffling his cry.
“What—what are you doing?!”
Sama Hyeon regarded him with a look of exasperation.
“What am I doing? Were you planning to stand here forever, waiting for the day to grow old? Won’t you go? Do you have a boulder tied to your backside?”
“Me? You’re telling me to go? What about you?!”
“Would you prefer I come along?”
Baek Yeol-han let out a grunt, his brow furrowing.
“…No. Never mind.”
If he brought along someone without a shred of martial skill, he’d only be dragged down.
Though he couldn’t quite shake the feeling of being wronged by it.
“Keep watch carefully. If anything seems off, signal me.”
“That goes without saying. Off with you now. Be careful out there, benefactor.”
Why didn’t he tell me to be careful?
Baek Yeol-han and Yeon-woo moved through the darkness, both feeling slightly slighted.
Tap-tap, tap-tap-
Their movements were swift and economical, without a wasted motion.
It was the fruit of having spent more than an hour earlier surveying the surroundings and planning their entry route.
Hush-
At Yeon-woo’s signal to wait, Baek Yeol-han, who had been following, concealed himself in the darkness.
“Leaving the Access Token behind like that… I nearly couldn’t get back in tomorrow.”
The Cook, who had last left the Kitchen a moment ago, had briefly returned and was now departing again.
Only after he had gone and his presence had faded to a distance where they could no longer sense him did the two resume their movement.
Slip-
They opened the Kitchen door.
The interior on this moonless night was so dark that one could not see even a hand’s breadth ahead.
“Should we look for a candle or something?”
“We don’t need light.”
Of course, darkness posed no problem for Yeon-woo.
After all, he was the one who had climbed and descended mountains daily with his eyes and ears bound, training his other senses.
Un-hyeon’s training had been grueling, but Yeon-woo had fully met its demands, and he had grown accordingly.
“If you can’t see, you keep watch from there.”
Yeon-woo moved through the darkness.
As if he had nothing better to do than stand guard.
Baek Yeol-han felt his pride prick, so he hastened to let his eyes adjust to the dark.
Even so, he followed Yeon-woo’s instructions and kept a diligent watch outside.
Crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch, rustle-rustle-
Only the sound of Yeon-woo’s footsteps moving busily through the darkness reached his ears.
Before long, Baek Yeol-han was gazing intently outward while concentrating on those sounds.
At first he had been anxious—worried that Yeon-woo might bump into the dishes and make a clatter—but as the other’s footsteps continued unhindered, he had gradually grown at ease.
“How is it? Do you have it? You said you saw it before?”
An answer came back from the darkness.
“It’s not here. Looks like someone took it.”
“As I thought…”
So it had been cleared away in the interim.
“Then what do we do? If there’s nothing here, let’s get out!”
But the moment those words left his mouth—
“….”
A profound silence enveloped Baek Yeol-han.
Neither Yeon-woo’s reply nor the footsteps that had been audible moments before reached his ears any longer.
“…?”
Baek Yeol-han turned to look behind him.
Caught up in keeping watch outside as he had been—
his eyes had not adjusted to the darkness at all, and the interior, thick with gloom, exuded an uncanny atmosphere.
“Yeon-woo…?”
Baek Yeol-han shifted his steps carefully forward.
But he stopped short.
If he so much as touched a dish, an enormous noise would ring out—irreversible, catastrophic.
“Where is it…? Come on….”
If only he’d studied the layout carefully while there was still light.
He was nursing that brief regret when it happened.
Whoosh—
“…!”
Someone seized his wrist and yanked him hard.
A hand clamped over his mouth at the same instant, strangling the scream in his throat before it could escape.
“Come.”
If not for Yeon-woo’s whispered voice, Baek Yeol-han was certain he would have fainted. He let himself be pulled along, trusting her lead.
Both of them moved quickly, sliding their bodies beneath a table draped with cloth beside a pile of firewood.
Time crawled by—how much, he couldn’t say.
Thud-thud-thud-
Murmured conversation drew closer, footsteps approaching in the dark.
“You said it was colorless and odorless. How did they even notice?”
“I don’t know. I only mixed what I was given with the salt. I had to sprinkle it separately in the rice to keep the others from seeing, and got scolded for it! So I said not to mix it in the rice at all…!”
“Damn it. At this rate the whole plan will be exposed before we can execute it.”
Screech—
The Kitchen door swung open roughly.
Two people had come to the Kitchen on this night.
Byeok Gyodu and Jang Hwa-ju.
“…!”
Baek Yeol-han’s hand flew to his mouth at the sound of a familiar voice, and he held his breath.
‘This is bad. Very bad.’
Jang Hwa-ju was one thing, but Byeok Gyodu himself showing up…!
‘If we’re discovered….’
If we’re discovered, I’m dead. There’s no way I could stand against Gyodu….
Without thinking, Baek Yeol-han glanced back at Yeon-woo and froze in shock.
He’d been certain she would be trembling just as he was, but instead she gazed calmly through the cloth at the two men, her expression utterly unmoved.
Even in the darkness, her eyes gleamed so vividly they resembled a predator’s gaze fixed upon its prey in the gloom.
‘How can she… stay so calm in a situation like this? I’m….’
Shaking so badly I think I might die…?
Then it came.
Thud-
“…!”
The two men’s footsteps had drawn impossibly close.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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