As I lay my torn clothes on the floor, I truly feel that today's training has come to an end.
A black martial arts uniform soaked with blood.
Whether those dark stains were from sweat or blood, no one could tell.
Yet, after training ended like this, seeing my martial arts uniform torn to shreds made me feel like I had truly given my all today.
A smile naturally formed on my lips, my heart uplifted.
"Come down slowly, and don't use that power recklessly."
"I know. But do you put Cheondo through the same training?"
I asked him directly, responding to the old man who had started down the mountain ahead of me.
"Why are you curious about that?"
His reply was cold and immediate.
I shrugged and laughed awkwardly.
"Just curious. After all, you know very well what kind of person she is to me."
My unmatched mentor. The one who picked me up when I was nothing.
Saying "picked up" might sound odd, but it felt strange not to phrase it that way.
Cheondo would risk her life for me, her student. Not many would risk their lives for a relationship of just a few weeks.
A person I was grateful for.
After looking down at me for a while, the old man spoke indifferently.
"What kind of person? What, are you her betrothed?"
"What? No, that's not it."
I was momentarily taken aback by his sudden joke.
That wasn't the intention behind my question. Did I inadvertently cause him to harbor such doubts? While the thought crossed my mind, the old man continued speaking in his usual unemotional tone.
"Cheondo knows how to push herself. You, who knows nothing, can't compare."
"You seem to know a lot about your daughter?"
"Are you trying to play word games with me?"
"Of course not."
There were many people with such personalities.
Fathers too strict to express even a single emotion properly are as common as outdated dramas.
Cheondo, in the present, missed her father.
The way he treated me showed he wasn't entirely devoid of affection.
If you look closely, he smiles a lot.
He simply diligently restrains those emotions as much as possible.
"…This is a bit off-topic, but I heard from Hongyeon that you've withdrawn your involvement with Dowon. May I ask why?"
I presented my questions one after another.
Beating around the bush doesn't work with him, so I asked as directly as I could.
"It's not something you need to concern yourself with. Weren't you here for training?"
"Just curious."
Perhaps returning like this wouldn't be so bad after all.
In terms of achieving growth, it has been quite a success.
But no one knows if growth was the only reason I came to the past.
Even the World Tree of Time could only vaguely state that sending me to the past was its purpose.
"As I mentioned before, I don't have a specific purpose. But if I leave without knowing this, I feel like it will trouble my dreams."
"A guy who doesn't even sleep talking nonsense."
The old man turned his back and paused.
I sat on the rock, leisurely awaiting his response.
"I created Dowon for rest, not to increase my workload."
I was already well aware of Dowon's origins.
"Is that your answer?"
"What more do you want to know?"
"Well, I don't know, maybe a dream you were so passionate about that you were willing to give up Dowon. Or a reason for wanting a successor."
"Your way of speaking is quite irritating. Ah… a dream? Heh, it's been a while since I've heard that word."
Then, the old man said,
"I have a dream."
Those words.
Just hearing that four-letter sentence filled me with a piercing sense of déjà vu.
-I have a dream.
Cheondo's words that I heard in Purgatory.
All sorts of emotions were condensed in them, making the meaning unclear and seemingly out of place.
She wouldn't clarify what he meant afterward, which was frustrating. Could it be that she simply recited her father's words verbatim?
I adjusted my posture respectfully.
"The reason I became Cheonma was to kill those I disliked, whether they were from the World Tree or humans, it didn't matter."
"People you disliked?"
"Hypocrites. I've seen too many good people die for no reason. I just hated that."
The old man said.
"Dreams are nothing special. The dreams we have as children seldom come true. It's that kind of dream."
"I wished for a world where there were no evil people, and the good could freely spread their will."
Considering the name Cheonma, it was definitely a pie-in-the-sky story.
Truly a dream that a young person might have.
"Does it sound strange?"
"Quite a lot for a Cheonma."
"I used to believe it was truly possible. Back then, I thought anything could be accomplished with power alone. It was a very youthful dream."
A world without evil. An utterly absurd notion.
But I understood what he meant.
"I don't mock it. When I was young, I also fancied making the world a better place, even thought about becoming a politician."
Thinking about it now sent shivers down my spine.
Why did I ever think that?
I chuckled and sighed at the same time.
"Did you tell Cheondo the same thing?"
"Ha, I talked about it a lot. I used to say it until it felt like thorns were in my mouth. But I never acted on it."
"That's fortunate. But why did you have such thoughts? It seems there was some trigger."
"…You are very curious."
"I hear that often."
"Are you asking about the trigger?"
Surprisingly, the old man opened up about his story.
Maybe it was because I came from the future. Or perhaps it was because I was his daughter's disciple, and he felt some indescribable emotion about that.
Or it could simply be because we got closer through exchanging fists.
"The trigger… Well, you've heard I was the one discarded by my family."
"Yes, so you left home."
"That's right."
The old man reminisced about the past, stroking his chin with his wrinkled hand.
"When I first left Dowon, there was a time I wandered. Knowing nothing, owning nothing, having no power."
"Having no power, you say?"
"Not many are born strong. Cheondo, that poor child, was too frail at first. My daughter, who would cry even when picking flowers."
Quite a cute story.
The old man's face softened a bit as he shifted to talking about his daughter.
"Anyway, after leaving home, I had to live like an animal in the mountains. Of course, a green kid trying to settle down in the mountains was never going to work out well. I nearly died after being badly injured by a wolf… Then I received help. From a real fool."
I listened intently to the old man's story, watching his back as the morning sun began to rise, illuminating him from the front.
"He rescued a nobody like me and nursed me day and night. It was a miracle that I survived after bleeding and suffering for two nights."
"He must have been a remarkable person."
"Remarkable? Hah, that fool didn't even know his own future. He got scammed and lost all his savings, living to pay off debt."
"Oh."
"He eventually died. I don't particularly want to say why. It was for a stupid reason."
Being kind was one thing. But too naive.
Such tragic stories were all too common these days.
Cases where people trusted their friends implicitly only to be scammed.
Nowadays, if such stories appeared in the news, you'd often see comments online mocking them for being foolish.
Saying they were scammed because they were stupid.
"That fool was an idiot. I met several others like him. So stupid it was disgusting."
"Yes."
"The bastards who deceived those fools lived well, which really irked me."
Life went on anyway.
"I killed everyone I didn't like, anyone who stood in my way."
The old man said this as he took a pipe from his pocket and put it to his mouth. Golden smoke rose in the light of the sunset.
"There's more. Living for over a hundred years, I've often thought about doing something about those idiots."
-Tap, tap.
He tapped his pipe on a large rock, and ashes flew out.
"Killing those madmen, they all started calling me Cheonma."
"So, you didn't achieve your dream?"
"How could such a dream ever be realized? It was just venting without any clear goal."
He was right.
"When I came to my senses, I had made too many enemies. Killing indiscriminately, it turned out that all the well-known figures with any standing were corrupt."
Not everyone, of course, but there likely weren't many who lived their entire lives purely and honestly.
Both me and this person. We're already somewhat ethically compromised.
The old man stood there, self-deprecating.
"I thought I was surrounded by naive fools, but it turned out I was the biggest fool of all."
Cheonma, quite the contrary term.
"Just living as things came, now shamelessly, I wanted to rest. I wanted to experience the joy of raising children that others talk about. So, I returned to Dowon and settled down."
"So, you created Dowon?"
"It just grew on its own. A child I picked up out of amusement became the leader and expanded this place."
Hongyeon's face came to mind.
Picked up by Cheonma. I know there were a few more adoptees like that.
The old man turned around to look at me.
"I tried to make this place into Dowonhyang, but now it's all done."
"Dowonhyang?"
"Something like a legend passed down in the Peach Tree family. An ideal world… Do you understand what I mean?"
Abstract, but I got the gist.
A utopia or heaven, as passed down in Asian cultures.
As I nodded, the old man sighed deeply.
"If you want to create it, why not just do it?"
"Before that, Dowon would be ruined."
Dowon being ruined.
I already knew about the future where it would be ruined, but it was surprising to hear Cheonma say it.
"…Excuse me?"
"I've made too many enemies over time. Whether I die or not, Dowon will become a target."
"That makes sense."
Cheonma's achievements, or should I say, disasters.
There were too many to count.
Almost like having defeated a whole country, it was natural that there would be many holding grudges against him.
"Even if I try to stop it, it would just be a matter of who dies less or more."
"Is that why you detached yourself from Dowon?"
"No."
Perhaps I was reading too much into it.
The old man muttered expressionlessly.
"Just had a lot to do."
A lot, indeed.
I recalled a sentence I had read in a book once.
-To subdue Cheonma, many hunters, including the World Tree Foundation, participated in that war.
The two most recent disasters in the future that I came from, the Spirit King and Cheonma.
At this point in time, the second disaster had yet to occur.
What the old man referred to as having a lot to do must have been the preparations for that.
'…Are you trying to save my master?'
I didn't know how many people survived.
What's certain was that the clan was terminated. I only know three people who survived.
'Tch.'
I clicked my tongue at the bitterness filling my mouth.
The war he single-handedly caused might have been a kind of struggle, after all.
Knowing the outcome, I couldn't help but think that way.
"You've learned all you were curious about."
"If you hadn't been so devoted to Dowon, I wouldn't have said this. Tch. Stop the nonsense."
"Yes… Well, I'll try to make amends."
Though he called it nonsense, I already knew he somewhat approved of my work in Dowon.
The old man, with his deeply furrowed face, started down the mountain again. I stayed put, silently reflecting on his words.
Even as I put on new clothes and descended the mountain, the thought persisted.
A world where evil did not exist, and the good could freely pursue their ideals.
It was hard to believe such thoughts could belong to Cheonma.
'Well. As long as I do my part.'
Yet, I wasn't displeased to have uncovered a secret Cheondo had harbored.
I couldn't prevent Cheonma's death or Dowon's ruin.
But I intended to do what I could while I could.
I was starting to get a feel for this place called the past.
'If my present life was a reflection of this past…'
It wasn't certain, but that's what I believed.
And if my prediction was correct, there was still work left for me to do.