The World's Greatest is Dead

Freewheeling Sword.

Even his epithet was complete garbage. I wondered what kind of ridiculous epithet that was, but when I thought of Father’s epithet, it was not that strange.

To begin with, among the men of the Bang Family, there was no one who wanted to fool around carelessly with his lower half and still have a respectable epithet.

There were plenty of bastards who did not care what kind of epithet they ended up with. As for me, unlike those lunatics, I had lived comparatively decently, so I was fine.

“......My grandfather.”

“Yes. Your grandfather. Freewheeling Sword.”

“Do you absolutely have to attach his epithet when you say it?”

“Are you embarrassed?” freēwēbnovel.com

“Quite.”

At my answer, Heavenly Fist gave a faint laugh.

“How fascinating. To think a man who knows shame was born among the Bang Family.”

“That is quite the insult to my family, isn’t it? I won’t deny it, though.”

No matter what anyone said about this broken mess of a family, there was nothing I could say in its defense.

That was that, but—

“I didn’t know my grandfather was mixed up in this matter. I also didn’t know you had a connection with him, Heavenly Fist.”

“Do not call it a connection. It is not a relationship worth dressing up with such a noble word.”

“Oh......”

It seemed the former Mo Yong Family Head and everyone else all had unpleasant feelings toward my grandfather.

“An ill-fated relationship?”

“Calling it that would almost make it sound too good.”

“Aha. Then I suppose you do not particularly enjoy looking at my face either?”

“You understand well.”

Whoooo.

The smoke from her pipe grew thicker. It almost seemed to hold Heavenly Fist’s emotions.

“Because of that bastard’s damned promise, I have not touched the Bang Family itself. But if you keep uselessly stirring things up, I may have no choice either.”

At those words, I shrugged.

“Then I won’t interfere.”

“Mm?”

Hearing that, Heavenly Fist reacted as though she found it unexpected.

“That is a much cleaner response than I expected.”

“After hearing this much, interfering would be strange too...... and looking at the state of things, it is obvious I will only make it more troublesome if I get involved.”

More than anything—

“Our Academy still needs Heavenly Fist.”

If I stirred things up, Heavenly Fist might disappear.

That could not happen.

This place needed Heavenly Fist.

“I will see you next time. I hope the matter is resolved well.”

“Hah......?”

“Ah, I will be returning to Henan soon. I’ll see you when the time comes.”

After giving my farewell, I turned around and left.

That was the end of my conversation with Heavenly Fist.

Chief Baek’s talisman method still bothers me.

But I could not dig into it right now.

Even if it was connected to Chief Baek—

I refuse to get tangled up with that man again.

It would be one thing if it were those heretic bastards, but getting involved with Chief Baek was troublesome.

That man was genuinely insane.

And to begin with, I did not think Chief Baek had come to this world like I had.

If that man had come here—

I would have heard news of him long before any heretic bastards appeared.

A lunatic.

There was no way he would go unnoticed. He was the kind of man who would already have spread every possible rumor through the Central Plains.

So—

If you came, show me something.

If he had really reincarnated like me, then let me see even a rumor.

I quietly swallowed that pathetic thought.

*****

After Bang Seongyeon left, Heavenly Fist let out a laugh of disbelief in the smoke-filled room.

“What an absurd boy.”

She had thought he was strange from the first time she saw him, but somehow, as time passed, that strangeness seemed to grow worse.

In other words, he became stranger every year.

And this time, it had been several years since she last saw him.

This time is especially severe.

When she saw him every year, she had thought he was still more or less the same strange boy.

But now, he had evolved into someone considerably strange.

He had been a boy who showed no interest in martial arts and had not seemed to have any intention of learning them.

That boy—

Will soon touch the Transformation Realm.

He had gone beyond the level of transcendent peak and was trying to set foot into another domain.

Seeing that, Heavenly Fist could not help but admire him.

To think such a thing emerged from that cursed family.

Considering the state of the Bang Family, it was strange that someone like him had been born at all.

Yet in the end, it seemed a light had been born from the Bang Family.

And a light vast enough to reach the sun, at that.

I never imagined he had even undergone rebirth.

When she first saw him, she had thought it could not be true.

Rebirth was not something one could achieve easily. One could not widen the shell of the flesh and the vessel simply because inner qi had filled it.

One had to possess the realization that would fill and shape what lay within.

Had Bang Seongyeon truly possessed such a thing?

Heavenly Fist had judged that he did not.

He could not possess it.

It was connected to the passage of time as well. Even Heavenly Fist herself had only reached rebirth after training in martial arts for decades.

That brat.

What did he know, to have reached rebirth?

Heavenly Fist could not understand it.

“......Does that mean he has talent enough to surpass even that?”

Yoo Cheongil.

She remembered the man called the Sword Saint.

The greatest man of all time, was it?

Though Heavenly Fist had not had much contact with him, she acknowledged that much.

A monster.

A monster bestowed by god.

She knew he had been something impossible to dismiss as the same kind of human. The Heavenly Demon, the Demonic Cult fiend, may have been similar.

Even so, in the end, the Heavenly Demon had lost. So the true monster must surely have been Yoo Cheongil.

Sometimes, beings like that were born.

Strange bastards who could change the flow of an era and history itself.

But—

For that to continue is strange.

That after Yoo Cheongil died, someone of the Bang Family bloodline became his inheritor.

That the one who became it possessed a light no less than Yoo Cheongil’s.

Heavenly Fist knew this was not something that could simply be dismissed as a miracle.

“Tsk.”

She clicked her tongue shortly. Then she placed the pipe back in her mouth.

“What a shame.”

She spoke her honest impression.

Originally, perhaps if things had been as they should, she would have asked him by now.

Whether he would become her disciple.

Whether he would try accepting what she possessed, since she would give it to him.

Ridiculously enough, Heavenly Fist had her eye on Bang Seongyeon.

His talent did not please her.

At least in her eyes, Bang Seongyeon’s talent was not high.

But—

That boy is strange.

Whether he had talent or not, whatever he possessed, he was the kind of boy who would somehow manage it.

Whether by persuading people with words or doing something else, if there was something he meant to do, he would accomplish it by whatever means necessary.

That was the Bang Seongyeon Heavenly Fist saw.

She had judged that she could skip over talent and give him what was hers.

But—

Someone beat me to him.

To think she would lose the first move to a dead ghost.

How absurd.

“What a shame.”

Would things have been different if she had acted a little sooner?

She was curious how Bang Seongyeon would have reacted if she had asked whether he wished to become her disciple.

Would he have been appalled?

Or would he have found it offensive?

Strangely, she did not think he would have shown a positive reaction.

“Whoo.”

She exhaled a handful of smoke. Then she waved her hand, changing the air. The smoke escaped through the window behind her.

“Enough.”

She had no lingering attachment.

What disciple, at this point?

It was meaningless.

In any case.

There was no telling whether he truly would have accepted. Perhaps this was merely lingering attachment because he was someone who had left.

“He is that bastard’s seed to begin with.”

The former Bang Family Head, and the man currently in the North Sea doing something unknown.

If the boy was that bastard’s seed, then it was right not to look at him.

Being in this position now, as though she had gone mad, was already foolish.

A whim.

It was not something that could be seen as only that.

Of all things, to be entangled with that bastard.

Excuse me.

A young brat of about fifteen or so.

I need to save some children. If you have nowhere to go, will you help me?

He had said that while looking at Heavenly Fist, who had been sobbing with a blade lodged in her abdomen.

He had not asked about her circumstances.

Why she was here, bleeding and collapsed.

The child had seen a dying person and felt no fear at all.

“......Hmm.”

Heavenly Fist closed her eyes as she recalled the past.

It was a useless memory.

“I should eat.”

She opened her eyes again.

Then she went outside.

“Oh! It’s the headmaster!”

“Headmaster!”

The children who had been running and playing outside reacted when they saw Heavenly Fist.

Looking at those round faces, Heavenly Fist smiled faintly.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes!”

“Let’s eat!”

Bang Seongyeon probably did not know.

Heavenly Fist had said she paid the children no attention, but—

unexpectedly, she took good care of them.

She did leave now and then when there were matters to handle, but other than that, she looked in on them like this.

Those who knew her nature would have said she had gone mad in her final years, but—

Heavenly Fist found this situation unexpectedly enjoyable.

“Good. We shall eat outside today.”

“Wow! We’re eating out!”

“Dumplings! Let’s eat dumplings!”

“If you make a racket, know that only that child will be excluded.”

At Heavenly Fist’s warning, the children immediately shut their mouths.

They listened well.

That was enough.

Using her time this way.

And thinking it was not entirely bad.

She, in her own way, found it acceptable.

So.

Do not interfere.

Heavenly Fist cast a cold gaze toward the wall.

“Oh my.”

The person on the wall flinched under that gaze.

I was noticed?

The Hao Clan branch chief.

She had been caught watching Heavenly Fist.

“Mm. Well, I already knew I was caught anyway.”

She had not come with any particular purpose, so it was probably fine.

“Shall I go back?”

She had seen everything she needed to see.

She had seen that their prince had come out with all his limbs intact, so that was enough.

The branch chief moved down the street with quiet steps.

“I wonder if our prince knows.”

That there were many people here and there looking after him.

She wondered whether he knew that.

He probably did not.

Their prince was truly dense in that direction.

*****

Leaving my conversation with Heavenly Fist behind, I returned home.

Originally, I had planned to eat as soon as I got back, then prepare to return to Henan.

That was definitely what should have happened.

“......What did you just say?”

At the words I heard, my expression had to turn bizarre.

The one who had spoken was none other than Silver Moon Sword.

He looked at me while fluttering a sheet of paper.

It was a letter from Henan, and I could see Thousand-Mile Divine Eye’s direct crest stamped on it.

“Didn’t you hear?”

“No. I think I heard clearly, but I asked again because I hoped I heard wrong.”

Please let me have heard wrong.

I asked again while hoping that, but—

Silver Moon Sword laughed and continued.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think you did.”

“.......”

“Return to Henan as soon as possible. And—”

The final phrase written in the letter.

Silver Moon Sword read it aloud again.

“Bang Seongyeon, Young Sect Leader of the Azure Moon Sect and Moon Hero, is hereby ordered by the will of the Alliance to depart for the Demonic Cult as an envoy. That is what it says.”

“.......”

Hearing that, I had to pinch the space between my brows hard.

Ah, damn it.

I had heard correctly.

Unfortunately.