The Heavenly Demon Cult’s Strongest Maid - Chapter 73

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 73

“First, I need to inform Seolha.”

After being lost in thought for a long while, the first words Tak Joong-hak spoke concerned his granddaughter’s safety.

“Yeo Gong’s thoughts probably won’t differ much from mine. Like I did, she’ll likely mistake you and Seolha for Martial Arts Alliance spies.”

“Didn’t you say they don’t know the Benefactor’s face?”

Shin Geum had already heard from Tak Joong-hak about Wi-rin coming to ask Sim Ui-cheon about Seon-hwa previously.

“That’s right. They never associated with each other in life, so they wouldn’t remember.”

“But why would they see us as spies? Didn’t Tak Ga-ju misunderstand that I intentionally approached Cheonma after seeing Seolha, who resembles the Benefactor?”

“I’m Seon-hwa’s father, so my eyes were clouded with madness.”

At that time, he truly believed that Shin Geum before him was using his dead daughter.

“Yeo Gong is very clever. Her intuition is also quite sharp.”

Tak Joong-hak looked at Shin Geum with quite serious eyes.

“Your true identity will soon be revealed.”

“…My true identity? What do you mean by that?”

“Cheonsu Dokhwa Dang Yeong-ryeong.”

“…!”

“The precious daughter of the Dark King Dang Cheol-u, and the youngest leader of the Martial Arts Alliance Dark Affairs Unit. The greatest prodigy born from the Sichuan Tang School.”

Shin Geum’s eyes widened as much as they possibly could.

It was a name even she had forgotten while living. Her real name, heard through another’s mouth after more than ten years, felt utterly foreign.

“Seeing your surprise, you must have thought I still wouldn’t know.”

“…Have you been continuously investigating my background?”

“I’ll apologize if it upset you. But I also need to prepare, don’t I? For moments like this.”

Tak Joong-hak’s words were sincere. To protect someone, you must first know about that person.

“I understand. I’m just curious how you found me out in such a short time.”

Shin Geum now knew enough about Hyeon-wol-dang’s information network.

At her half-resigned tone, Tak Joong-hak explained.

“You helped greatly with that.”

“Me?”

“Didn’t you say with your own mouth that you were being chased by the Martial Arts Alliance? You also said you chose to become a demon to survive.”

“…You deduced me from just that?”

“Seventeen years. What I focused on was seventeen years ago.”

Once he knew the timeframe, deducing Shin Geum’s identity wasn’t that difficult.

That incident that caused such an uproar in the orthodox sects was notorious enough that even the Demonic Sect had records of it.

When he applied Shin Geum to that story, everything fit together perfectly – it was impossible not to know.

“You’ve hidden for seventeen long years, but paradoxically, those seventeen years made me think of you. Yeo Gong will likely do the same.”

Shin Geum couldn’t make any reply.

Why hadn’t she anticipated this?

Had she been too complacent thinking they lived in different worlds?

“If you hadn’t used poison and hidden weapons, even Yeo Gong wouldn’t have easily guessed. But this was a matter of timing. You can’t hide forever, can you?”

“If I could, I wanted to do so as much as possible.”

Her past life was nothing but painful memories for Shin Geum.

In her current state of mind, she never wanted to return to those times.

Even living like a country woman, making noodles instead of handling the hidden weapons and poison she’d used all her life, she was happy.

Because she was with Seolha.

“I don’t believe it.”

“…?”

“If you were someone who committed such acts, you wouldn’t have saved my granddaughter in the first place. You wouldn’t have raised her for seventeen years without any compensation.”

“…Are you comforting me?”

Shin Geum understood Tak Joong-hak’s words a beat late.

But what use was it now?

No matter how much she denied it, there wasn’t a single person who believed her.

When someone of high reputation, the majority, public opinion said so, that’s just how it was.

Shin Geum had unjustly become a criminal for something she didn’t even do, becoming a public enemy of the martial arts world, and had no choice but to flee to survive.

“Ryeong-ah, go!”

“Live. You must survive!”

Her father’s final cry still echoes in her ears.

It’s already been seventeen years since she last saw her father, who promised to meet again later.

“Someday, there will surely come a day when your false accusations are cleared.”

Shin Geum’s distorting expression was pitiful.

Tak Joong-hak truly wanted to help in some way if possible.

“Ultimately, what I want to say is that such background of yours will strengthen suspicions that you might be a Martial Arts Alliance spy.”

Though officially branded as an enemy of the Martial Arts Alliance, the Demonic Sect might consider that itself a strategy to infiltrate the main school.

“Of all people, you raised Cheonma’s disciple – where could there be better prey than this?”

“Seolha knows nothing. That child firmly believes I’m her real grandmother.”

“…I hope neither Seolha nor you get hurt.”

It was a time both Shin Geum and Tak Joong-hak hoped would come as late as possible.

Tak Joong-hak recalled his first meeting with his granddaughter.

Her face that smiled as brightly as his daughter, so spirited on the sparring arena above anyone else.

He thought he wanted to protect that smile.

And before his eyes was the benefactor who must have protected that smile for seventeen years.

Tak Joong-hak was determined to protect these two people no matter what.

“Anyway, from Yeo Gong’s perspective, she’ll try to connect you and me. Since I’ve been backing you, who was once a Dark Affairs Unit leader, she’ll obviously make the absurd claim that the Martial Arts Alliance and I joined hands.”

Yeo Gong wasn’t one to waste this opportunity carelessly.

Seeing that she sent the Blood Wolf Unit to kidnap Shin Geum meant she had already completed preparations to some degree.

“So bringing Seolha here first is urgent. Until we settle this matter, wouldn’t this place be safer than headquarters?”

“I agree.”

If something happened to Seolha while she was alone, Shin Geum couldn’t live with her sanity intact.

Since turning her back on her entire family and devoting herself to the Demonic Sect, Seolha had been Shin Geum’s reason for living and everything to her.

“Cheon-yeong.”

“Yes, Ga-ju.”

“Escort the First Miss here.”

“Yes, sir!”

Receiving Tak Joong-hak’s order, Cheon-yeong hurriedly left.

Taking a sip of tea that had already grown cold, he asked Shin Geum the question he’d been putting off.

“By chance, was it the Gwihongak master who helped your entry into the sect?”

“…How did you know that?”

“I guessed.”

Though he said that, Tak Joong-hak had his suspicions.

The night Shin Geum confessed her relationship with Seon-hwa, he received a report through his subordinates that she secretly met with Gong Pae-cheon.

“Then the sect leader also knows about you.”

“The first person I met when I entered the sect was Cheonma.”

“That’s truly fortunate.”

To Tak Joong-hak, Cheonma was someone who had given him a wound he could never erase in his lifetime.

Ironically, that very existence seemed like it would be a great help this time.

Knock knock. Knock knock.

“Ga-ju, it’s Marib!”

Yeo Gong’s fingers, which had been tapping the armrest, stopped abruptly.

“Come in.”

This was the news she had been waiting for. Whether it would be the content she expected or not, Yeo Gong was swept up in excitement for the first time in a while.

“How did it go?”

The Wi Family Head who was with her felt the same way. As soon as he saw Marib, he leaned forward and asked.

“…I regret to report that all were annihilated.”

Marib bowed his head deeply as he reported.

On the other hand, even though twelve of her subordinates had died, Yeo Gong wasn’t surprised at all. Only Wi-rin frowned and clicked his tongue.

“Was Hwa-gol Mountain used again this time?”

“No… It was a poison zone.”

“A poison zone?”

“Tell us in detail.”

Twelve Blood Wolves had been deployed for this morning’s operation. And the one she had sent to observe was Marib, who was skilled in stealth techniques.

“But where are you hurt?”

Marib’s complexion didn’t look good.

“N-no, my lord. It’s just that I’ve never seen such a horrific scene before…”

After Shin Geum and Hyeon-wol-dang had left, the forest had transformed into a land of death that seemed straight out of a nightmare.

Marib, who discovered twelve corpses in the center that were barely recognizable, froze and couldn’t move for quite some time.

“…It was definitely that old woman Shin Geum, wasn’t it?”

Yeo Gong’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction as she looked at Marib, who had barely managed to finish his stammering explanation.

“So you’re saying a master of poison arts was the First Miss’s grandmother?”

Wi-rin gaped as if he couldn’t even have imagined it.

“To think she wasn’t an ordinary old woman…”

“Hah, ordinary? Aren’t your words too harsh regarding the Dark King’s daughter?”

“Family Head Yeo, did you just say Dark King?”

“That’s right. I had my doubts, but to think she really was Cheon-su Dok-hwa Dang Yeong-ryeong!”

Looking at the bewildered Wi-rin, Yeo Gong burst into laughter as if she had been waiting for this moment.

“It was an unfamiliar and subtle energy, but when I came home and thought about it, I realized I had felt it somewhere before. In my younger days, I had traveled to Sichuan and met Dang Cheol-u.”

The moment she recalled that time, the number seventeen naturally brought Dang Yeong-ryeong to mind.

Yeo Gong had shown quite a bit of interest in the murder case that had shaken the Martial Arts Alliance at the time.

Who would have known that Dang Cheol-u’s daughter, that very Dang Yeong-ryeong, would become a murderer!

“But didn’t they say Cheon-su Dok-hwa died long ago?”

“We’ll confirm that soon enough. Marib.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“We need to capture the First Miss right away.”

“…You mean the First Miss?”

“We must handle this very carefully.”

She would first get the First Miss in her grasp, then negotiate with that old fool from the Tak Family.

‘This should be interesting.’

Yeo Gong was greatly anticipating how the renowned Hyeon-ma Tak Family would navigate through this crisis.

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