By Zephyria Exterminate the Clan (4)
“What are you doing! Why don’t you kill him already!”
Most of the people surrounding them were young disciples of the Wudang Sect. Each of them was crying and wailing with bloodshot eyes.
Seong Mu-yeon regained his senses at the sight of the red blood dripping onto the floor.
“If Je Cheon-deuk Dojo is dead, does that mean someone attacked him?”
When he asked, someone shouted in an agitated voice.
“Why are you asking me that? You should know best! Because you killed him!”
Seong Mu-yeon was slightly angered, and his hand clenched the dirt floor.
“I didn’t kill him.”
He muttered through his teeth and stood up. Then, he turned to face the Wudang Sect disciple who had attacked him.
“Put your sword away. Even if you die, shouldn’t you know what happened before you die?”
It sounded calm, but his heart was sinking coldly with anger.
“How shameless! Are you going to keep denying it?”
The Wudang Sect disciple scoffed as if he found it ridiculous. Open mockery erupted from the surroundings.
‘……What did I do wrong?’
He didn’t kill Je Cheon-deuk. He hadn’t done anything else wrong either. He had nothing to hide.
When Seong Mu-yeon didn’t react much and stared intently at him, the Wudang Sect disciple, intimidated by the unexpected reaction, hesitated slightly.
Seong Mu-yeon nonchalantly pushed his sword away. Then, the blood-stained blade slid back.
“Someone, please explain. What happened?”
At that moment, a middle-aged man appeared, pushing through the disciples, and shouted.
“What are you all doing! You haven’t even recovered your Senior Brother’s body yet!”
Elder Hyeon-jin scanned his disciples who were threateningly surrounding Seong Mu-yeon. It seemed they had rushed to find Seong Mu-yeon as soon as Je Cheon-deuk was found dead, without thinking.
The disciples burst into tears all at once.
“Elder, that man……. That man must have killed my Senior Brother. Senior Brother, who just woke up yesterday, met him last!”
“…….”
Elder Hyeon-jin turned his head towards Seong Mu-yeon at the appeal of the disciple who was clinging to him while crying. His face was also distorted with sorrow. He hesitated for a moment, his Adam’s apple bobbing greatly, before opening his mouth cautiously.
“While we’re at it, let me ask. Did you harm my disciple?”
“No.”
Seong Mu-yeon answered immediately.
Elder Hyeon-jin let out a faint sigh and turned his body.
“Your Senior Brother is lying on a cold bed right now. It’s not too late to recover the body first and deal with other matters later…….”
“Don’t be fooled, everyone! That guy is a demon!”
Someone shouted from within the crowd. Yang Ha-gakju, who was mixed in with the crowd, seemed surprised himself as if he had shouted it out half impulsively, and he covered his mouth and looked around.
Seong Mu-yeon frowned. He had been searching for him all day, but now he had suddenly appeared. Yang Ha-gakju, who met his eyes, flinched and tried to hide back into the crowd. However, he couldn’t hide any longer when Elder Hyeon-jin, who had turned back with large strides, asked him as if he was pressing him.
“Yang Ha-gakju, what do you mean by what you just said?”
“That is…….”
Yang Ha-gakju openly glanced at Seong Mu-yeon. His eyes were full of blatant fear.
“Do you know something? Tell me. Did that man really kill Cheon-deuk?”
“Th, that’s something I don’t know…….”
Yang Ha-gakju answered in an unsure voice.
‘What the…….’
Seong Mu-yeon felt a wriggling ominous energy. He instinctively felt the urge to shut his mouth, but it was already too late when he took a step.
Yang Ha-gakju added to Elder Hyeon-jin’s back, who was turning around with an expression that said, ‘I knew it.’
“Young master Seong Mu-yeon has massacred hundreds of people before he even reached adulthood! So, what’s the big deal about killing one person?”
He was startled even after he blurted it out and hid behind Elder Hyeon-jin. People gasped all at once.
“Is that true?”
Elder Hyeon-jin asked Seong Mu-yeon with a suspicious expression. But Elder Hyeon-jin’s face hardened as he looked back at him.
“……There’s no need to hear an answer.”
Because Seong Mu-yeon’s face was as white as a sheet.
‘How did he know?’
Seong Mu-yeon couldn’t move as if he had turned into a stone.
‘How did he know?’
He couldn’t think of anything other than that question.
“Tell me in detail.”
“On the first day I came here, Young master Seong Mu-yeon came to the prison and I overheard the conversation he had with my brother.”
Yang Ha-gakju said falteringly.
“They said that Seong Mu-yeon is the most ruthless of the seven Young masters of the Demonic Cult……. Not only did he kill people for no reason, but he even harmed his own mother!”
His voice became louder and clearer as he went on.
“If that’s true, I thought we shouldn’t keep such a vicious guy in the manor. Otherwise, we’ll definitely face terrible consequences! Scared, I started investigating to see if what I heard was true. And…….”
The surroundings became as silent as death. More people gathered and listened.
“In the end, I confirmed that it was all true. After all, it was bound to happen someday as long as that guy was hiding his evil past and sticking around here with an innocent face!”
People swallowed their breaths. Everyone in the wavering gazes glared at him with contempt and vigilance.
It didn’t matter how anyone looked at him. But when he found Gang Woong looking at him with wide eyes as if he was shocked, his body trembled. Peng Yuan-jin was also among the newly gathered people. He was blankly staring at Seong Mu-yeon, unable to hide his confusion.
“Why don’t you make an excuse!”
Yang Ha-gakju shouted shrilly. Then, the wound on his injured abdomen pulled, and he covered his stomach. The person who saved him after he suffered that wound was none other than himself…….
Seong Mu-yeon listlessly raised the corner of his mouth. Then, his stiff body relaxed, and the emotion that came was a deep sense of futility.
‘I see. How dare I even think of setting foot here? How could I be so brazen with so much blood on my hands?’
Now he realized why Yang Ha-gakju had fainted when he approached him. At that time, he had already overheard the conversation he had with Seong Mu-jae and was afraid that Seong Mu-yeon would mercilessly kill him.
He not only found out Seong Mu-yeon’s secret but also exposed it in front of everyone when the opportunity came.
“Y, yes. Make an excuse.”
Elder Hyeon-jin, who was clearly flustered, said. He closed his mouth as if he had been stung when Seong Mu-yeon raised his eyes and looked at him.
An excuse. He could make as many as he wanted.
They were all bastards who deserved to die anyway. They were just catching vermin that were of no help in this world. If the world became a little cleaner because of it, I wouldn’t regret it.
So, I didn’t do anything wrong.
He could have said that.
But…… Seong Mu-yeon, who couldn’t find a reason to bother making excuses, simply said this.
“It’s all true.”
An uncomfortable silence flowed through the area. Quite a few people hesitated and moved away from Seong Mu-yeon. They moved away little by little as if he would swing his sword and take lives indiscriminately at any moment.
“Sh, shouldn’t we kick him out?”
Someone opened their mouth. Then, it became noisy like a dam had burst.
“Let’s lock him up in prison! We can’t leave someone like that wandering around!”
“That’s right. Who knows what he’ll do!”
“We shouldn’t have trusted a Demonic Cult Young master in the first place!”
A cold laugh flowed out, and people closed their mouths. Seong Mu-yeon was raising the corner of his mouth.
“When did you ever trust me?”
Most people quietly averted their gaze at the cold question, but someone who had been stabbed in the heart jumped up.
“Wh, whether we trusted you or not, the fact that you’re a murderer doesn’t change, yet you’re just nitpicking. You really can’t be trusted.”
“That’s right! That’s right!”
Seong Mu-yeon knew that now was the time to retreat. He certainly would have done so normally. He would have quietly held his breath and waited for the heated atmosphere to calm down. And at the right time, he would have revealed the truth to the right minority, as much as necessary, and hoped they would listen to him.
“What can we expect from a parricide who even killed his own mother?”
But at that moment, Seong Mu-yeon felt something snap in his head. And he couldn’t control himself anymore.
“That’s strange.”
His mouth was running. He tilted his head and looked at the person who said that.
“Wh, what do you mean!”
“When that happened, I was in the Demonic Cult. Of course, there were only demonic cultists around me. That means the people I killed were all demonic cultists. Whether I killed hundreds or thousands of them alone……. How is that any different from what you’re trying to do now?”