The Legend of Red Cloud - Chapter 38

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

Episode 38. The Ephemeral Divide
Yong Hyeon, returning from the Maeng-ui Dan’s main garrison, froze as he noticed Gwi Geom standing directly in his path to the quarters.
The timing was far too precise to be mere coincidence.
Without thinking, he pressed down the hand that had begun to drift toward his sword hilt, moving forward with deliberate slowness.
“What brings you here, sir?”
“Just came out for some air.”
“Air… I see.”
Among the sprawling grounds where the Uigi-dae was stationed, the quarters were the most cramped and airless.
Small dormitories were packed tightly together, shoulder to shoulder.
If he’d wanted air, the training grounds would have been far better.
There wasn’t much—barely a few scattered trees—but it was something.
Yet it was hard to believe Gwi Geom had come from that direction.
The training grounds lay to the east, exactly opposite from the western quarter where the dormitories stood.
Which meant…….
Gwi Geom spoke to Yong Hyeon, whose unease deepened further.
“You’ve just come from taking in some air yourself, haven’t you?”
The direction he indicated with his eyes was the way of the Maeng-ui Dan’s main garrison.
One thing became certain.
Gwi Geom knew that Yong Hyeon had come from the main garrison.
Yong Hyeon fought down the fierce conflict rising within him, forcing a smile to his face.
“That’s… correct.”
“Go easy. Haste invites stumbling, and stumbles bring blades close enough to taste.”
With those chilling words, Gwi Geom slowly withdrew into the darkness.
Yong Hyeon wrestled with the urge to pursue him and settle it then and there, but his hand never reached the hilt.
No matter how many years he’d stepped back from the Ganghak, Gwi Geom remained a true master of the Yeong-ha Baek.
Even if Yong Hyeon had reached the same height of Cho Jeol Jung, Gwi Geom was a master proven through countless real combat.
That truth gripped one corner of Yong Hyeon’s heart and would not let go.
“Damn it…. Fear, of all things. Curse this!”
Displeased, Yong Hyeon spat out a low curse and turned his feet from the path to his own quarters, heading instead toward Yeo Jeong’s.
There was no time to waste—or so it seemed.
As Gwi Geom turned back from his meeting with Yong Hyeon, he encountered a figure stepping into his path just as he had done to Yong Hyeon.
But Gwi Geom’s reaction differed sharply from Yong Hyeon’s.
“Great Hero.”
Gwi Geom’s voice rose with warmth as he raised his fists in salute.
Ryu, who had stepped forward into the moonlight, spoke to him.
“You’ve done something rash. If you’d meant to turn a blind eye, you should have left it alone.”
The words came close to reproach, yet the tone was gentle and low.
It was concern for Gwi Geom speaking.
Gwi Geom, understanding this, smiled faintly.
“I would have, if it hadn’t been for him stepping toward the main garrison. I feared unnecessary trouble would arise, so I thought it best to…….”
Ryu understood Gwi Geom’s thinking perfectly.
If the main garrison caught wind of Yong Hyeon’s movements, the sparks would inevitably fly toward the Uigi-dae.
Even if the main garrison had hired him and investigated him, Yong Hyeon still belonged to the Uigi-dae.
In that case, Gwi Geom’s origins could become a problem again.
Someone would certainly try to pin it on the fact that a Maddo practitioner was leading the Uigi-dae.
If that argument gained traction, Gwi Geom might have to leave the Uigi-dae.
That was reality—even if he bore no fault, even if it was unjust.
Knowing this, Ryu said nothing more.
It had only been a word spoken out of worry, nothing more.
“The southern ones are getting impatient.”
Among the Maeng-ui Dan members, there were only two groups referred to as north and south.
The Gun-ma-rim of the north and the Baek-ui Ryeon of the south.
Strictly speaking, Gun-ma-rim was not north but west.
Yet they were called north because of the Mo Yong Se Ga and Buk Hae Bing Gung affiliated with Gun-ma-rim.
They were truly positioned to the north of the Cheol Hyeol Maeng.
All the sects belonging to Baek-ui Ryeon, by contrast, were genuinely positioned to the south.
Gwi Geom nodded at Ryu’s words.
“They want to seize opportunity without bearing consequence.”
“Consequence…… Even with the southern ones added, it will be hard to push the Hyeol-gwi Dae out of Sa-ja Pyeong.”
Gun-ma-rim would not have allowed such a thing to happen anyway.
Gwi Geom, who had once stationed enemies at Gun-ma-rim and knew it better than anyone, nodded in agreement.
“That may be true enough, but… the minds of those in the higher ranks of the Maeng-ui Dan seem to think differently.”
After all, those who had defined themselves alone as righteous and Gun-ma-rim as heretical could hardly be expected to have broad thinking.
That distinction, now settled as if it were absolute truth, had in fact been created merely three hundred years ago.
The process of its creation was so absurd that it could only provoke laughter.
In truth, Ganghak had not always been divided and at war with itself as it was now.
Even three hundred years ago, though there were minor competitions between sects, there was nothing like the organized attempts to annihilate one another that existed today.
This was because the Murim League, which unified all of Ganghak and mediated the interests of each side, still existed.
The Murim League shattered and fragmented after what was called the Dong Ho Upheaval.
Three hundred years ago, in Dong Ho in Hubei, a conference was convened where every sect master, lord, and clan head affiliated with the Murim League gathered.
It was the only such conference in all recorded history, before or since.
The matter discussed at that conference was singular: the question of territorial rights for each sect.
Sects occupying the wealthy lands of Jung Won took the lead in demanding that each sect secure their home region as an exclusive territory and prohibit interference from other sects within that domain.
Sects stationed in outlying regions—geographically underdeveloped and poor in resources—opposed vehemently.
Having long suffered dismissal as outsiders, the peripheral sects feared their isolation would deepen further.
The debate stretched beyond seven days, yet no conclusion was reached.
Instead, both sides, their feelings wounded beyond repair, displayed bitter conflict that verged on open warfare.
In the midst of it all, a vote was called, and the decision went as the more numerous Jung Won sects wished.
In the end, the two sides parted, leaving only curses and maledictions in their wake, and the peripheral sects formed a new organization called Gun-ma-rim and withdrew from the Murim League.
They could never accept the demands of the Jung Won sects.
Immediately after, the Jung Won sects remaining in the Murim League changed their name to Cheol Hyeol Maeng.
They swore an oath to defend their territorial rights with blood as unyielding as steel.
Thereafter, the confrontation between the two sides escalated, and six years after the Dong Ho Upheaval, war finally erupted.
Ganghak history records this as the First War between Cheol Hyeol Maeng and Gun-ma-rim, or the First White Horse Great War.
The result was victory for Cheol Hyeol Maeng.
Thousands of masters died, and in the chaos, countless civilians were caught up and lost their lives.
Because this war was fought not over lofty ideals but over money, public resentment ran deep among the people.
Cheol Hyeol Maeng, seeking to escape that blame and resentment, defined itself as the righteous—Jeongdo—and branded Gun-ma-rim as the heretical—Maddo.
Thanks to Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s sweeping and swift propaganda campaign, the common people quickly came to believe Gun-ma-rim was the architect of the war’s crimes.
Gun-ma-rim, belatedly recognizing the danger, tried to respond, but by then the distinction between Jeongdo and Maddo had already spread far and wide throughout Jung Won and beyond.
From that point on, a prejudice took root: the heretical were villains, the righteous were saints.
No one remembered that those who created the distinction were the very ones who caused all the calamity.
Gwi Geom, brushing the thoughts from his mind, continued.
“And it seems the leadership of Baek-ui Ryeon thinks the same way.”
In truth, Cheol Hyeol Maeng viewed Baek-ui Ryeon as opportunists.
They were a group that had grown powerful in the south while Cheol Hyeol Maeng was preoccupied with fighting Gun-ma-rim.
Yet they could not be ignored.
Baek-ui Ryeon’s strength, grown seemingly overnight, had reached forty percent of Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s power.
Though Baek-ui Ryeon possessed less than half Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s strength, Cheol Hyeol Maeng, already fully committed to containing Gun-ma-rim—something it could barely manage—could not spare the resources to move against them.
For this reason, Cheol Hyeol Maeng, which had branded everyone else as heretical, curiously had not formally decided its position on Baek-ui Ryeon.
If they were branded heretical and then allied with Gun-ma-rim, Cheol Hyeol Maeng could not bear the consequence.
Yet neither had they accepted them as righteous.
To do so would grant another organization besides Cheol Hyeol Maeng the authority to claim righteousness in matters of Ganghak.
So no official judgment from Cheol Hyeol Maeng on Baek-ui Ryeon had been rendered.
The only unofficial assessment that emerged carried the qualifier “provisional”—a neutral stance.
Neither heretical nor righteous.
That was Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s unofficial position on Baek-ui Ryeon.
Those who looked only at appearances nodded at that assessment.
But those who could see beneath the surface thought differently.
They focused on the territorial rights Baek-ui Ryeon possessed.
The southern territories, which had grown fearfully, continued to expand rapidly and exerted enormous influence on Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s own holdings in central Jung Won.
Indeed, rumors emerged that thirty percent of Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s income came from territorial rights connected to the south.
Perhaps this was why Cheol Hyeol Maeng hesitated to definitively brand Baek-ui Ryeon as heretical.
If true, it meant that money still wielded tremendous influence over Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s decisions.
There had been cases where those who grew weary of Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s behavior had defected and departed.
But all those who left Cheol Hyeol Maeng subsequently vanished without a trace.
Cheol Hyeol Maeng said they had grown weary of Ganghak and withdrawn to seclusion.
Yet some in Ganghak quietly suspected they had been killed.
The reason was that many of those who had left Cheol Hyeol Maeng held high positions.
The higher one’s station, the more dangerous secrets one comes to know.
Those who harbored such suspicions reasoned that the Cheol Hyeol Maeng would never have permitted anyone to leave bearing such secrets.
Yet there had never been a single confirmed instance of that suspicion proven true.
Shaking off the tangled web of thoughts about the murky underbelly of power and competing interests, Gwi Geom turned to Ryu with a question.
“Meaningless deaths are multiplying. Now that the Baek-ui Ryeon will be drawn in, the situation will only grow worse. Will you truly remain idle despite all this?”
At Gwi Geom’s question, Ryu glanced at him briefly before answering without inflection.
“Nothing will change.”
“Great Master!”
“As I’ve said before—don’t place such faith in me. I’m merely a swordsman who handles a blade somewhat better than most.”
With those words, Ryu retreated once more into the darkness, his figure fading away.
Gwi Geom, watching him go, exhaled a shallow sigh.
“The dragon still wishes only to dwell within the clouds…….”
In the place where Gwi Geom’s cryptic lament hung in the air, only the bright moonlight remained.
***
At the moment Ryu parted ways with Gwi Geom, Yeo Jeong received a visit from Yong Hyeon—and her expression betrayed her alarm.
“What is this about? Could it be…….”
“I’m not yet certain, but there is something troubling me.”
“What on earth could it be?”
So tense was she that Yeo Jeong forgot she had been mimicking a man’s voice and let her true voice slip through as she spoke.
To her, Yong Hyeon recounted everything that had just transpired between himself and Gwi Geom.
As Yeo Jeong listened to the full account, her expression hardened visibly.
“That strongly suggests he knows who we are.”
“I believe so as well. Which is why I thought we should act quickly…….”
“But don’t you find it stranger still—that he knows and yet takes no action?”
“That is…….”
“Gwi Geom is a Maddo practitioner. A man with connections to the Gun-ma-rim.”
“That may be true, but I understand he was betrayed and cast out long ago.”
“What if that’s false?”
“Pardon?”
“It was always strange to me. That the Gun-ma-rim would abandon a master of Gwi Geom’s caliber.”
“And yet…….”
“No. This time my instincts are right. We need to investigate him thoroughly.”
“What are you saying? Our mission is——”
“I am in command here, Yong. Guard me.”
Yeo Jeong’s eyes, speaking with such coldness, had already shed their panic—now they gleamed a sharp, crystalline blue.
In all of Yong Hyeon’s experience, Yeo Jeong’s eyes held such a light only when her resolve could never be shaken.
“Ah…….”
A long, weary sigh escaped Yong Hyeon’s lips, and resignation clouded his features.

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