‘Ahem... Well, we do have a kid now. I guess I also need some time to, you know... grow into this whole sense of responsibility toward my child. Still, it feels new doing this with a different race. But... it’s probably a normal feeling, right?’

I’d already gotten my wives’ permission.

While I was indulging in some detailed imaginings about Zihwa’s promise and the contents of said promise, I heard a tickling sound by my ear.

– Bzzm.

“Mm?”

When I turned my head, Golden-Furred Wasp Queen Ranghu was flying in front of my eyes.

She was trying to tap my shoulder with her antennae, but since she couldn’t touch me, she just hovered by my ear.

She looked like she had something to say.

When I made a face asking what she wanted to say, she shyly pointed with an antenna off to one side.

Following the motion of her antenna, I saw Heukjeom over there, still unsteady on her feet, staggering even with Yo-hwa’s support because she wasn’t used to walking.

– Bzzzzm.

Ranghu pointed at her own legs and then pointed at Heukjeom.

She was probably asking to be registered too.

Well, if she’d heard from the children what registration was, she’d have been insanely excited.

They would have told her that once you went inside, you got a human form.

But then she came in and didn’t become human, just stayed in her true body, so of course she’d be disappointed.

Especially after I’d turned Heukjeom into a person right before her eyes—how jealous must she be?

But her slightly shy request also made me a little worried.

When I’d been putting everyone into the mind-space from outside, I’d assumed they’d all be in human form, so I hadn’t thought much of it, but now that I was faced with a situation where I had to deliberately give her a human body, I suddenly felt afraid of how she might react once she had it.

It wasn’t even like Geumdo and Heukjeom, who needed lakes and such inside the mind-space.

Ranghu’s swarm did need big old trees, but between Geumdo’s boat and the other trees, we had plenty, and there was no need to worry about flowers for food thanks to Hwa-eun.

Because, in a not-bad way, Hwa-eun really was a woman whose head was one big flower garden.

Her mind-space was bound to be a place where enormous flowers bloomed, big enough for her to ride on.

So there was no real urgent reason to register Ranghu.

They already had more than enough home and food.

“Um... thing is. I already registered Heukjeom today. I think we’ll have to wait a few days—is that okay? It’s dangerous to do too many at once.”

At my words, Ranghu’s expression flickered in mild surprise, then she flew closer with a look that said she understood and that I shouldn’t worry.

– Bzzm? Bzzm. Bzzm.

“Y-yeah, thanks.”

I did feel a twinge of guilt at that expression, but at the same time, another thought slipped in.

That maybe Ranghu and Zihwa weren’t all that different.

They were both women with children, and both weren’t human.

Well, the difference was that in one case, she was my real daughter with our energy mixed half and half, and in the other, the child was a self-clone.

But then I jolted in shock.

‘Huuuh!’

The fact that the thought had slipped in so naturally, soaking in like a light drizzle, startled me.

***

Once we’d finished putting Geumdo into the lake and getting Heukjeom walking, I gathered my wives and everyone else in front of the shrine.

It was to share what I’d found out outside.

I needed to tell them I’d met Senior Tang Hwa-seong—that is, Master—and that I’d even pinpointed the Ascension Platform’s location.

And also the fact that my life here in the lower world didn’t have much time left.

“So-ryong, what is it you need to tell us?”

“Well, the thing is like this.”

I was about to open with a very grave expression when Hye-rin crooked her finger.

“Master, even if you pretend something serious is going on, I still cannot forgive you for running away earlier.”

“Ah! Right! I almost forgot about that.”

Gun Hye-rin suddenly brought up what had happened just before.

I’d thought she’d let it go, but apparently she had not.

“Ahem. T-that’s not it. I’ve learned something important and wanted to discuss it with you.”

“Something important?”

“What kind of important matter is it?”

“Well, I went into the cabin just now, and...”

Quickly glossing over that part, I said that when I went into the cabin and touched the Secret Compendium of Venomous Creatures of the World that lay there, it emitted light, dragged my mind into the mind-space, and I met Ancestral Patriarch Tang Hwa-seong—my Master.

“Is that really true?”

My wives opened their eyes wide.

I nodded and explained.

“Yes. Strictly speaking, he said he’d left behind a piece of his Primordial Infant for later generations, and that’s what I spoke with.”

“A piece of the Primordial Infant?”

“Yeah, basically it’s...”

“It is like a shard of thought. You can see it as a fragment of the memories left behind by that Tang Hwa-seong person from several hundred years ago. So, did you at least learn something useful?”

Thanks to Zihwa adding an explanation, it was a bit easier to continue, so I started with the good news.

“Yeah. He told me the location of the Ascension Platform.”

“What!? The location of the Ascension Platform!?”

“Yeah.”

At the words that I’d learned where the Ascension Platform was, Zihwa rushed toward me.

But when she tried to grab and shake me, she couldn’t grab me and just stomped her feet.

“You—wh-where is it! Where is it!?”

“Calm down. Just calm down for a second.”

“A-ah, s-sorry. It is a place we searched for so long and never found...”

Zihwa had once asked me that if I ever ascended, I had to take her to the Heavenly Realm, so now that she’d learned there was finally a way up, she couldn’t hold herself back.

After I calmed her down, I told them the location.

“It’s the abandoned Taoist temple I used to live in on Hainan Island.”

“Huh? There?”

“Yes, Hwa-eun. I didn’t know either, but he said that place is the Ascension Platform. He said I could ascend on the stone-paved open space in front of the main hall there.”

“Hainan Island means...?”

“It’s the place where you and I first met, you could say. Assuming divine birds aren’t exactly common.”

“The place you and I first...? Ah! There!”

When she learned where the Ascension Platform was, Zihwa was delighted at my story—then, wearing an expression I’d never seen before, spoke hesitantly.

“D-do you... by any chance, have any intention of ascending? It would mean leaving everything here in the lower world behind, but if I were to serve you, it would not be all that hard.

S-so? If I serve you with all my heart, how about it?”

I didn’t know what story lay behind it, but I could really feel how much she wanted to go back.

Seeing that proud, lofty Zihwa watching my reaction and coaxing me like this, I mean.

When I looked to my wives, they seemed to assume I naturally wouldn’t go, so they showed hardly any reaction, but to them I also had bad news to share.

“We might not have to go for that reason—but I think I do have to ascend.”

“You’re going to ascend?”

“You’re saying you’re going to ascend?”

So they wouldn’t think I’d made this decision because I was favoring a newly acquired wife, I quickly added an explanation.

“There’s a reason. Senior said that someone who’s reached the Life-and-Death Realm can’t stay ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ in the lower world for long.” 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

“Can’t stay long?”

“Yeah. He said I’ve already stepped out of the cycle of reincarnation, so the laws of the lower world are constantly trying to push me up.”

When I finished explaining, my wives looked at one another.

They seemed a bit flustered by the sudden news, but then the princess brought up what had happened earlier and said,

“Can’t you just ignore it? You’re the same So-ryong who refused the Emperor’s command, after all.”

“She’s right.”

Her meaning was that I could just ignore it like I did the Emperor’s words.

It seemed they’d had exactly the same thought I had.

‘Of course they’re my wives.’

I shook my head and answered.

“No. That’s exactly what I said to Master Tang Hwa-seong at first, but he said that wouldn’t work.

Since I’m a being who’s stepped out of reincarnation, if I keep resisting, the lower world will start cutting my ties.”

“Cutting your ties?”

“He said the people close to me would start getting seriously injured or dying, one by one.”

“What?”

“Is that really true? Huh. That the lower world had such a law...”

It seemed that as someone from the upper world, even Zihwa hadn’t known this, and while she mulled it over, Gun Hye-rin spoke.

“So Master is saying, you intend to go up because you’re afraid we’ll die?”

“That’s right, Hye-rin.”

Realizing my intention, Gun Hye-rin spoke again with a grateful expression.

“Then I will follow Master.”

“What about the Heavenly Demon Cult?”

Her decision was faster than I’d expected.

I asked what would happen to the Heavenly Demon Cult, and Gun Hye-rin grinned and answered.

“The original law of the Heavenly Demon Cult is that the strong reign supreme. It cannot be right that I monopolized all the elixirs and rose to the Heavenly Demon’s seat just because I carry the Heavenly Demon’s blood.

I’ll just tell them the strongest one should take the Heavenly Demon’s throne and leave. That’s what suits the Heavenly Demon Cult too.”

Indeed, in a Heavenly Demon Cult whose law was that the strong ruled, the best thing was to say the strongest should become leader and guide them.

They would be sad that Gun Hye-rin was gone, of course.

So, as far as ascending went, there was no problem with Gun Hye-rin, and when I turned to Hwa-eun and the princess, the princess spoke first.

“I’m fine too. I got a little carried away dreaming about So-ryong becoming king and rising in the world, but honestly, I hate being cooped up in the palace.

And yet I was thinking of going back to the palace...

Once I snapped out of it, I realized ascending sounds better than being a king.”

Right—Ji-ryeon was a princess who found palace life suffocating.

That was why her mind-space was the Great Sea.

She longed for the vast, endless ocean.

Such a Ji-ryeon had first tried to persuade me because she was happy I might become king, but after thinking it over a bit, it seemed the idea of ascension appealed to her more.

Because it was an adventure into the unknown.

As for the other spirit-children, well, I’d ask, but they would all say they’d follow me.

Which left only Hwa-eun.

Everyone’s gaze turned to Hwa-eun, and after hesitating several times under their collected stares, she spoke with a sad expression.

“My lord, I know it’s right that I follow you too, but it’s hard to make that decision so easily.”

The princess and Gun Hye-rin quickly asked for the reason in my place.

“Is there some reason you can’t decide?”

“If Hwa-eun, who loves Master more than anyone, says that, there must be a reason, must there not? What is it?”

At that, Hwa-eun clenched both hands tightly and spoke with a sorrowful face.

“If I leave with So-ryong, our family line will be cut off.”

“Ah...”

“Right, that’s true.”

I’d been wondering why Hwa-eun kept hesitating with such a sad expression.

If it were me saying this, she should have been the first to declare she’d come with me.

But there was something I’d forgotten.

I was the Tang Clan of Sichuan’s live-in son-in-law.

Hwa-eun was the only direct-line child.

If I took Hwa-eun and left, the family line would be cut.

Of course, they could adopt a collateral child with the same surname from a branch family, but that would just be bringing someone in to maintain the clan in name; it wouldn’t change the fact that the direct line had ended.

The legitimacy would be a little weaker too.

In the Tang Clan, the branches already had a strong voice, and if things came to this, the clan could turn into a total powder-keg family.

On top of that, my father-in-law, who’d been praised all this time for acquiring me as a son-in-law, might see his standing shaken.

So Hwa-eun couldn’t answer lightly.

I was thinking that this wasn’t such an easy problem to decide after all, when Zihwa spoke.

“Then all we need is to have a child.”

She was suggesting we give them a child to inherit the line, but it was a very troubling idea.

Because we’d be parting in life and death with a child born just to continue the family line.

We would have to ascend, leaving only the child behind.

“Leave the baby and go? That’s unforgivable. Absolutely not.”

“She’s right, Zihwa. That’s way too cruel. You have a child yourself—how can you even say that?”

My wives chastised Zihwa for being too much.

Which was fair enough, considering she had her own adorable daughter while telling Hwa-eun to part from her child.

At their words, Zihwa replied in a tone of bafflement.

“I never said Hwa-eun should have a baby and then abandon it. That’s not it.”

“If not Hwa-eun, then who?”

“Is there no one?”

“Ah, Hwa-eun is an only daughter with no brothers.”

Zihwa had probably assumed Hwa-eun had siblings, but when I said she had none at all, it suddenly hit me that there was one more person who could have a child.

“Ah! Come to think of it, there is one more person at home who could have a baby, isn’t there?”

“One more?”

“Hwa-eun doesn’t have siblings, right?”

At that, I smiled and said,

“No, there’s my mother-in-law.”

If we performed the age-reversing cleansing on her, then flooded her with energy and raised her to the Flower Realm, she’d be reborn and regain her youth.

And then what?

It seemed like a surprisingly practical and decent solution.