I Am the Youngest Disciple of the Martial Arts World’s Mastermind
Chapter 26
Chapter 26
The Youngest Disciple of the Murim’s Hidden Mastermind
Chapter 26
Samokseon. Another name he carried was the diviner who had reached the realm of the gods—the Divine Seer.
True to that title, the interior of the cave was filled with snakes coiled in every corner.
The man sitting in the center of them raised his head and smiled softly at me.
“Hello.”
No, in truth, I couldn’t even be sure if he was looking at me.
‘…Since he’s wearing a blindfold, I don’t know where to fix my gaze.’
For he was blind.
“Yes! Hello. My name is Soyoung.”
Following Danhwi’s look, I carefully sat on the cushion placed before me.
Slither.
The moment I sat down, the surrounding snakes swarmed toward me, flicking their tongues. The sheer number of vibrations in the air made it sound almost like the cave itself was breathing.
Samokseon, sitting across from me, was the first to speak.
“You are just as I heard.”
“You’ve heard about me?”
“Of course. There is nothing I do not know.”
If any other fortune-teller had said this, I would have thought they were a fraud, but this was Samokseon himself.
In the original setting, he truly possessed the power to read a person’s destiny and future.
“I take it you followed your Sahyeong here in a hurry because you were curious.”
“……!”
‘Yes! I’m curious why Master made me encounter the protagonist!’
I nodded vigorously, shouting the answer in my mind.
The event with Samokseon was a crucial scene in the game as well.
When the protagonist, finding their path blocked, visits Samokseon, he takes their wrist to read their qi. Then, he opens his unique scripture written in braille and….
“Your Master is diligently drawing a path to life for you, but in the end, it depends on what you do. If you do not actively strive to twist your fate, your life will not last long. Not even a handful of blood will remain of your flesh, and no one will be able to save your wandering soul.”
“…Excuse me?”
“You will meet the most gruesome death in this world.”
Wait, you haven’t even done anything yet.
After spitting out such blunt vitriol without any preamble, he curled the corners of his mouth into a deep smile and asked:
“However, if you receive my help, the story changes. Shall I help you?”
I was dazed for a moment by the sudden downpour of a horrific prophecy.
“…Yes!”
I forced my stiff lips open and nodded.
Samokseon was a man whose personality had become quite twisted after being hounded by people begging to know their futures.
There shouldn’t have been a case where he offered a reading first.
‘I need to keep my wits about me and extract as much information as possible.’
Swallowing hard, I sat up straight with my back tall.
At that, Samokseon tilted his head slightly. Though our eyes couldn’t have met, I heard the sound of Danhwi, who had been standing behind me, retreating outside.
…….
A silence followed. Samokseon asked me:
“Do you know the source of the inner energy you carry?”
“No.”
He hadn’t even grasped my wrist, yet he saw right through my circumstances.
“That internal force is originally a wicked thing, created by the Heavenly Demon Cult by wringing the lifeblood out of countless humans. I wonder if your Master knows.”
…This energy was made by the Demonic Cult? Wasn’t I just a beggar girl?
I could only blink, feeling the shock as if I’d been struck on the back of the head.
I barely managed to ask back.
“…Master said he didn’t know.”
“Oh dear, then it seems I have made a slip of the tongue. I do not know how it came to be inside you.”
He nonchalantly covered his mouth.
And I became certain.
For some reason, he was very well-disposed toward me.
The reason for that judgment was simple.
“Do not tell your Master.”
“…Yes!”
He was telling me more than what Master had told me.
Master clearly cherished me, was kind, and liked children, but at the same time, he was hiding something.
I placed both hands on my lower abdomen and quietly observed the inner energy swirling inside.
This is such a wicked energy?
It felt completely different from the demonic arts I had expelled through breath regulation before…….
As if reading my mind, Samokseon said:
“Do not worry. No one will realize it originated from the Demonic Cult. Even the Cult Leader wouldn’t know.”
Then how did you know?
No, that wasn’t the important part.
“Even if they don’t know that, you’re saying I’ll die a gruesome death if I’m caught by the Demonic Cult?”
“You could say that.”
“But I’m already avoiding the Demonic Cult. I have absolutely no intention of standing out. Is it still dangerous?”
Samokseon listened quietly to my words, slowly stroking a snake that had crawled up his wrist.
“On your first journey into the martial world, you met a young slave of the Heavenly Demon Cult, didn’t you?”
“…Yes.”
“That child is the seed that will become the Heavenly Demon.”
“……!”
The fact that he even knew about Ryang made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“You possess something the Heavenly Demon Cult has been searching for.”
“…The inner energy?”
“It is not just that. At any rate, even if your Master protects you with all his might now, a flow of destiny will eventually arrive that cannot be resisted. That destiny can only be blocked by an even greater destiny. For instance.”
I spoke with a sense of ‘surely not.’
“The seed that will become the Heavenly Demon you mentioned earlier… for example?”
“Mm.”
When he stopped speaking, hundreds of snakes simultaneously snapped their heads toward me, flicking their tongues.
While I tried to hide the shivers running down my spine, he spoke in a satisfied voice.
“You are quick to understand. Yes. You must make it so that he protects you.”
“Ehehe….”
I forced a smile, hiding my sweaty palms.
Even if I was in front of a blind man, I couldn’t afford a single slip in my composure.
I didn’t know how much of me was being read!
At the very least, I had to maintain the level of favor he showed me.
“Ask me anything. While I shall demand a price the second time we meet, it is my principle not to take payment upon the first meeting.”
I know that well!
But because the price became so exorbitant after the first time, even the protagonist didn’t go for a reading more than thrice.
To use this opportunity wisely, I rolled my eyes for a moment before asking cautiously:
“You said I’d die if I got involved with the Demonic Cult.”
“Yes.”
“But how… can I make that boy protect me?”
He might have saved me this time, but the next time we met, he definitely wouldn’t be the same. The demonic sorcery would have devoured his reason by then.
As I tilted my head in confusion, Samokseon gave a mysterious smile.
“Ohoho, try to think about what my advice to ‘actively twist your fate’ means.”
“Um, could you explain just a little more specifically?”
“Just because a tiger has been pierced by a crow’s feather doesn’t mean you must push it off a cliff.”
That means.
“……!”
The protagonist doesn’t have to become the Heavenly Demon?
A possibility I had never considered flashed through my mind.
The Divine Seer stayed within a vast rocky mountain near Hwangun County, frequently moving between thousands of snake dens.
Even Danhwi, who was skilled at tracking people, couldn’t find his residence unless the Master informed him in advance.
“…….”
Danhwi, who had stepped out of the cave to let Soso and Samokseon face each other alone, sighed as he looked up at the pitch-black night sky.
He, too, had once faced Samokseon like that.
It was shortly after he had been taken in by Cheong-ui Sanin.
He didn’t know what he should do, or for what purpose his Master had taken him in. When he suffered from knowing nothing, his Master had personally arranged for him to meet Samokseon.
He had said that Samokseon was his most trusted friend and the world’s greatest diviner, and would resolve all his worries.
And indeed, Samokseon had given a clear answer to the problem he had been agonizing over.
‘Hide everything you do not wish to show behind a human skin mask. If the years you live as a fake become longer, how is that any different from the truth? That is the way you can rewrite your destiny.’
His words weren’t wrong.
But he was a man who was, perhaps, even more radical than the Master.
A thought suddenly occurred to him.
‘It might be a bit early for Soso.’
He had been at the age of majority back then. But Soso was a child who hadn’t even reached ten years of age.
Yet it was also true that Soso didn’t act like a child of her age.
Throughout their first journey into the martial world, he wondered just how many thoughts were spinning in that small head of hers. While carrying out the mission, a look of sudden realization or understanding would often flash across Soso’s tiny face.
Danhwi admitted it. Soso was a slightly—no, quite an extraordinary and unusual child.
If so, this meeting was timely.
At that moment, a shadow descended before Danhwi without a sound.
“……!”
Danhwi’s eyes widened as he encountered the figure.
“Why are you here….”
