We climb along the path.

Even as we ascend, a voice keeps buzzing at my ear without a break.

“So, about that new Silver grade this time. The blade is just...”

The chattering tone might be clear and lovely, but what she’s saying in that voice is anything but refreshing.

“Especially since they didn’t just use plain iron but tried a mix—its durability is supposed to be amazing, you know?”

“...Ah. Yes. I see.”

In one ear, out the other. I’m good at that, so it wasn’t all that hard.

“And this time they added a step related to metallurgy too, so when you sharpen the edge there’s a difference...”

“...”

Even that has its limits.

With her prattling on without a moment’s rest, my ears now felt like they might start bleeding.

[ ... The young lady’s tongue is lighter and quicker than I expected. ]

Even Yoo Cheongil seems a touch put off.

Should I be praising her for being impressive?

Normally I’d at least toss out a few noncommittal replies.

“It’s not just Silver grade—we probably need to start changing things when we make upper-grade arms too.”

“Uh, Lady.”

“So what I mean is, maybe we should also talk once about the temperature of the flame—”

“Lady Tang...!”

I cut in and raised my voice. The nonstop words pouring out of Tang Yeran halted for a beat.

“Ah... yes?”

“Could you calm down a little? At this rate my ears are going to bleed.”

When I spoke and covered my buzzing ear with a hand, Tang Yeran finally flushed a little.

“S-sorry. I got excited without realizing it...”

In moments like this she looks every bit the innocent girl.

But the things she gets excited enough to spill are peculiar to the extreme.

“Is that... really that fun?”

That Iron River has birthed some new sword.

What went into that sword and what properties it has.

As she ticked those off one by one, Tang Yeran’s eyes shone bright.

Which also meant she was dead serious.

“I... I can’t talk about this anywhere else, so... I went a bit overboard. Sorry.”

She sighed with a gloomy face.

“Say as much as you want. I only meant you should slow down a bit.”

It’s too much.

The feeling of “too much” was vividly clear right now.

Look, Cheon Eujin and Do Hyeong following behind us have that dumbstruck look, don’t they?

“So this was supposed to be a secret, yet she has no thought of hiding it?”

They’d said Tang Yeran’s interest in ironwork was more or less a secret.

But how is it supposed to stay a secret when she walks around talking like this? I had no idea.

And judging by how she clammed up with a very sheepish face, she knew it too.

Seeing that, I had to snort inwardly.

Why bring it up if you’re going to be like that?

Truly a singular woman.

“Besides that.”

I turned my head this way and that, checking the surroundings.

“Where did the Poison Sovereign’s ghost go?”

The ghost that had been needling me wasn’t in sight.

At first I thought it might be attached to Poison King Tang Gyeongak, but that didn’t seem to be it.

“A bound spirit?”

If it isn’t latched onto a person, maybe it’s bound to this household itself.

If so, it could roam inside the Tang compound—nothing strange about that.

“Hm.”

If that ghost really is, as Yoo Cheongil said, the Poison Sovereign...

“Should we really be leaving the old man to wander like that?”

If Yoo Cheongil strolls around freely, that could be a problem.

The bigger problem here is—

“He surely knows that, yet he isn’t moving.”

The way it’s strutting around, it feels like it has some plan again. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

“Well.”

What is that wicked ghost aiming for this time?

I was subconsciously keeping an eye on it.

Of course—

“The same goes for that old man.”

Just as I watch Yoo Cheongil,

I know Yoo Cheongil is watching me.

We each have our secrets from the other.

Click.

I absently toy with the sword’s hilt.

You know what’s funny?

“Normally this should annoy me or get on my nerves.”

Right now, rather than that, I was feeling something odd.

Call it expectation? No, that’d be a bit childish.

“Interest.”

Interest born of not knowing what Yoo Cheongil will ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) pull next.

Closer to that than to anxiety.

“Anyway, that can wait.”

I glanced into the air at Yoo Cheongil.

“What exactly do you want to do?”

It’s the question that’s been nagging me most lately.

“What do you want?”

What does Yoo Cheongil actually want? That’s what I’m curious about.

There was something he originally asked of me.

Namely—

“He asked me to look into his death.”

How he died.

Yoo Cheongil said he couldn’t remember it.

Only—

“He said it absolutely wasn’t natural causes.”

Not an illness, as the world believes—he said someone’s intent was definitely involved.

So Yoo Cheongil had asked me to find out how he died.

“But it’s like he doesn’t care in the least about what he said first.”

As he is now, he doesn’t seem interested in his death at all.

It’s just his own amusement first, as if he doesn’t care in the slightest what happens to himself.

“...Then what does he expect me to do?”

What does that old man actually want?

That he has some intent, I’m sure.

And that intent—

“I get that it involves mixing me into it somehow and using me.”

Yoo Cheongil has something he wants to do.

And to do it, he needs to use me.

Is that why he keeps shoving things into my hands?

That’s my working guess for the moment.

“Well.”

It isn’t a certainty either.

Just an inference born of a hunch.

“Hm.”

With those questions turning over, I kept walking.

If my thinking so far is right...

“Either there’s something he wants more than the matter of his death,”

or—

“He already knows who killed him from the start.”

I was seeing it as one of the two. If that’s how it is—

“...Figures.”

It means there’s not a soul in this world you can trust.

“Not easy.”

Of course messing with a ghost means even the doable turns undoable.

Realizing it again, I nodded.

“Yes? What did you say?”

Tang Yeran asked me.

I hastily shook my head.

“Ah, it’s nothing. I just had a stray thought.”

“...Ahh. I see.”

She beamed at my answer.

Seeing that, I spoke.

“How much farther?”

We’ve walked a bit—how far are we going?

Is the training ground really that far?

It felt a bit bothersome, so I asked, and Tang Yeran immediately pointed at a building.

“Oh. It’s that one, right there.”

Just as she said, a large building stood right ahead.

It was set a bit apart from the guest quarters for visitors.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Hm...”

It was far more unusual than I’d expected.

****

Near the entrance to the training ground we approached, almost everything was ringed with trees.

There were so many more here than in the parkland groves.

Not just trees—grass and rocks, and flowers thick around them.

“Why is there so much?”

So many kinds. It wasn’t like they’d just planted some trees at random.

And—

“It’s maintained.”

Not a wild tangle. You could tell it had been groomed into something cleaner by deliberate care.

Which is to say—

“They’re here with a purpose.”

A scene constructed by calculation.

“Hm.”

Curious. Why go out of the way to do it like this?

I glanced around and kept walking.

“This way, please...!”

For some reason, Tang Yeran seemed more excited than before as she led the way.

Watching her, I asked:

“But are we really allowed to use this?”

It’s funny to ask when we’re already here, but it needed asking.

“This is the bloodline training hall—are we actually allowed?”

What is a bloodline training hall?

Quite literally, a space for the clan’s direct bloodline.

The name alone marks it special; the look of it even more so.

“It’s very different from the one for guests.”

The place we use feels like they just lent us a room.

This one—just looking at it feels numinous.

“The quality of the energy is different.”

The way it’s arranged and the quality of the pillars set up—

The flow of energy coming off it is substantial.

“I only know geomancy by eyeballing it.”

But even at a glance, I could tell.

“Considerable.”

Enough that even a decent geomancer would back down.

The more I looked, the more it seemed like a place no outsider would ever be allowed to use.

“Oh, it’s fine. I reserved this time slot.”

Tang Yeran told me confidently not to worry.

“Reserved...?”

“Yes. The bloodline splits up time to use the training hall... and this time is exactly my slot.”

“...”

So they do that here too.

A true great house does things differently.

“...Anyway, that means we can go in, right?”

If she says it that firmly, it should really be fine.

Thinking that, I followed Tang Yeran.

And still, her mouth never rested.

“So this time...”

What sword she’d seen.

What kind of iron she liked, and what she felt from it.

Tang Yeran busied herself chattering at me with all her might.

Naturally, I let it in one ear and out the other.

“...Ah, yes, I see.”

My ears buzzed.

The funny part is that when I told her to quiet down, she didn’t reduce the words—she just lowered her volume.

“...Truly dizzying.”

Is this just how her personality is?

When I first saw her, I figured she might be on the quiet side.

“Looks like someone who could kill a man with words alone.”

Maybe it’s a Tang thing, but Tang Yeran is a sharply drawn woman.

Yet when she talks about smithing or weapons, the feel is utterly different.

Pure, even.

In the breathless words she spills, there’s an unadorned sincerity.

Because she really loves it.

Because she can’t hold that love in.

“...Mm.”

Knowing that, I didn’t stop her.

I figured I could endure it for a bit.

Just about that much.

****

Enduring like that, before we knew it we were standing in front of the training hall.

Now we can do some training or whatever in a bit of peace, right?

Just as I was about to let that hope bloom—

Tak—! Tadak—!

Something sounded from inside the training hall.

At that, I saw Tang Yeran halt in front of us.

The lips that had been running freely went still, and her body went rigid—it looked off.

“Lady Tang. What is it?”

“...One moment.”

Tang Yeran, who’d been smiling just now, set a hard expression and took the handle to open the door.

Creak—!

The door opened and the inside came into view.

As expected, an extremely wide and refined training hall unfolded.

And at the center of that hall, someone stood.

A youth in white training clothes, loosening his wrists.

He stood in a slightly shaded spot.

When he sent his gaze this way, I saw his pupils glint.

“...Well.”

The instant I saw it, I marveled inside.

I felt it this morning too—his impression really is nasty.

Which is to say, it’s a face I know.

“Well now.”

The youth.

A Tang bloodline member, Poison King Tang Gyeongak’s second son.

One of the geniuses currently called the Seven.

“What a curious combination.”

Poison Dragon curled his lip at Tang Yeran.