The Citadel of Bingyeon (Ice Smoke)

Episode 10: The Deal

At dawn, the high ridgeline of the canyon was a perilous maze of narrow, crumbling rock and dizzying cliffs tangled together. The mountain wind, howling fiercely through the stone ravines, burned so sharply it seemed ready to snatch away the balance we had kept steady with every step. Because the terrain was so steep and rugged, Chan-yeon oppa, Hyunjin, and Jiseok moved with me thoroughly protected in the center of a body formation, and whenever I might slip on the loose gravel, they calmly reached out to support the center of my body and keep me steady.

By noon, the route had been completely blocked off and cut off to the point that manual override was no longer possible at all. Standing dumbly before a dead end of huge, solid stone walls and staring down below, a silhouette suddenly strode out from the dark shadowy gap of a small cave just ahead.

He was a vagrant from this area, with patched leather armor on and a vile, cruel smile hanging from the corner of his lips, instantly putting all of us on extreme alert. He offered to lead us through a secret underground passage hidden at the bottom of the canyon pass if we paid a certain price, but his sly, wavering gaze had lingered on my body for far too long.

We didn’t trust him for a second, but since the Supreme Council had thoroughly cut off and trapped the main road security network behind us, there was no choice but to follow him into the dark tunnel.

"Travelers of noble status crossing the lawless ridge route."

The vagrant’s voice echoed low along the damp stone walls of the tunnel. He raised the flickering torch in his hand high. Then he threw us a sharp, suspicious look.

"You’re definitely not the visual of some ordinary merchant team. What in the world brought you all the way to the outer border of the Smoking Court?"

"We’re just a group of ordinary clowns moving on to take part in a festival in the next territory."

Hyunjin quickly overrode a gentle, smooth lie to hide our traces. The usual hurried, lively, argumentative energy in his voice sprang back to life in an instant, serving as a thoroughly arranged shield. Around the cuffs of his leather sleeves, fine and precise dark smoke trails quietly spilled downward, a motion ready to hide all of us at once in a crisis.

"We got split off from the carriage convoy when we ran into a storm near the ridge. We’re just trying to reunite with our main group somehow."

"A clown troupe, huh. Fine."

The vagrant muttered under his breath, and his voice was thick with fierce distrust and skeptical nuance. His eyes stayed fixed ahead, but his posture was taut, clearly hunting for even the slightest opening in our story.

Jiseok moved a little closer to my side. The special, proud, enormous smile that had been all over his face vanished completely, replaced by a rough, unwavering focus on protecting me. In the cold cave, when he lowered his hand and gently took mine, the palm of his hand grounded me with an astonishing warmth and steadied my pulse. He had precisely adjusted his hearing assist device, fully focused on the frequency of the vagrant’s footsteps so he wouldn’t be caught off guard by a sudden ambush from the guard or the vagrant. With a soft but unyielding grip on the backs of my finger joints, he quietly sent me a wordless, certain, gentle reassurance deep into my chest.

How long had we crawled forward like that through the suffocating, taut silence—an hour, maybe—when at last a single natural beam of intense sunlight sharply split through the darkness ahead. Beyond our sight, now at the threshold of the tunnel’s final exit, the vast vision of the blazing land at the edge of the wasteland territory, our final destination, finally revealed itself.

But just as we set foot onto the rough stone platform, the vagrant suddenly whipped around and roughly drew a sleazy-glinting iron dagger from the gap in his waist belt.

"A beauty like you isn’t someone who should be drifting around over that merciless dirt floor with a fake clown troupe. You belong locked safely away in the splendid rooms of the royal palace."

The vagrant stared straight at me, his eyes full of a horrifyingly greedy light, and let out a vile laugh. He raised his weapon and strode forward.

"The king of this territory rewards someone like you, a precious artifact, with a weight of enormous gold coins straight from the heart. Throw all your weapons down, you little nobodies. From now on, this woman will be my one and only certain prize."
A wave of cold fear instantly crushed my chest without mercy. My heart began pounding wildly against my ribs, and I instinctively staggered back one step.

"Get your hand off her."

Chan-yeon oppa ordered.

The Supreme Commander moved with absolute instinct, fast enough to be terrifying. Before the vagrant could even build up any magical momentum, Chan-yeon oppa’s large, warm hand firmly pressed against the back of my waist, supporting the weight of my body with effortless strength. He swept me aside and hid me completely behind his solid, broad shoulders in an instant. He stood like a dignified, stubborn iron wall between the vagrant and me, and as his voice dropped a full octave, it carried a sweet, deep gravity that was terrifyingly sharp enough to send a chill down the vagrant’s spine.

But the moment the vagrant charged forward violently to begin the fight, the raw, overwhelming panic that had been squeezing my chest mercilessly became the trigger that powerfully awakened something that had been sleeping deep inside me.

The air on the canyon platform fell into perfect silence in an instant.

From both of my hands, a huge, blinding shockwave of twilight-tinted violet cosmic dust burst out like a waterfall. Heavenly void magic exploded with a terrifyingly raw, unrefined surge of power, and brilliant cosmic radiance spiraled across the rough stone ground, instantly and completely nullifying the torchlight in the vagrant’s hand with nothing but the fierce warmth it gave off. The pure, immense physical scale of that heavenly energy swallowed and illuminated the entire steep canyon as dazzlingly and fully as if it were a miniature sun.

The vagrant froze dead in the middle of his full-speed rush. While sparks of cosmic dust crackled and swept sharply through the surrounding air, his eyes flew wide open in perfect terror and his jaw dropped. Having painfully realized that what he faced was not some ordinary wandering traveler at all, but a vast, supernatural mystery beyond imagining, he let the iron dagger in his hand fall pitilessly onto the dirt.

With a piercing scream of total panic and terror, the vagrant immediately turned on his heel and began running for his life down the mountain path. Without once looking back as he vanished beyond the canyon’s deep crevice until he was completely gone, he disappeared at full speed.

The blinding radiance slowly subsided, quietly melting back into and being absorbed beneath my skin. I trembled lightly all over, and the aftershock of the suddenly erupted immense power left me breathing hard as my shoulders dropped in relief.

At once, Chan-yeon oppa turned around, and the rough, sharp commander’s gaze that had been guarding all sides softened completely, melting like spring snow the very instant his eyes reached my face. His large arms still held around my waist with a firm, stubborn strength that kept me pressed close and supported against him. A huge, sunlike smile that seemed ready to swallow my face filled his entire expression once more.

"You were really amazing, Seoha."

Chan-yeon oppa leaned down close to my ear and whispered softly. His voice dropped a full octave, sweet and heavy with a gravity that seemed to squeeze my chest mercilessly, and his thumb slowly drew a reassuring line along the edge of my waist.

"Ah, seriously……!"

Hyunjin exhaled a completely exhausted, hurried, frail breath and grumbled, running his fingers roughly through his hair at the heavy shock left by the huge magical explosion. His cheeks were already drenched in a deep, embarrassed blush.

"You just completely drove that vagrant out of his mind! You’re seriously the coolest!"

Jiseok strode over to the side opposite mine, and that special, proud, enormous smile bloomed brilliantly across his face. He gently found my hand once more and enclosed it, adding a firm, unwavering warmth of support.

"I told you, didn’t I? The Star Glass already fully knows that you’re their queen."

Jiseok’s whisper was a calm, certain, wordless promise.

"If enemies keep getting so terrified and running away the instant you reach them, then we won’t even need to bother drawing our weapons and fighting at the front line of your battle."

With Chan-yeon oppa firmly supporting the weight of my body against his chest and keeping me steady, Jiseok breathing into the back of my hand a pulse of solid trust, and Hyunjin covering the entire open plain of the endless desert with a sharp gaze, we all lifted our heads at once and turned our eyes toward the next destination beyond the horizon. It was the moment when preparations for the firm hunt to reclaim the next fragment that would complete our whole universe were finally finished.