#114. noisy night.
* * *
Dalgrak.
Limon poured ice into an empty glass.
Then, he poured an amber-colored whiskey out of several bottles on the display case and sat down on the sofa.
When you lightly place the glass on your lips, what strikes you first is the rich aroma.
Whiskey’s distinctive peat scent, as if it had been smoked for years, mixes with the amber-colored liquid that lingers on the tip of the tongue and permeates the body while being splattered.
The rich taste of the years that ordinary people would be intoxicated by just the smell, not alcohol.
but don’t get drunk
Because he is a superhuman sword master.
And because I’ve lived a long time.
The toxicity of alcohol and the weight of time melted so lightly in his mouth.
“What are you doing not sleeping, princess?”
So it was.
That’s why Limon couldn’t help but have a clear voice when he asked the black-haired girl who appeared behind the sofa.
“I can’t sleep.”
“why? Do you have insomnia?”
“No, I just couldn’t sleep because I was curious about why the swordsman didn’t sleep until this time.”
“When you get old, you lose sleep.”
“If it was just because of my age, I wouldn’t have stayed awake until this hour, only today.”
Li Qingyu smiled brightly.
It’s time to laugh at that sharp point.
Limon passed a sip of whiskey down his throat and opened his mouth quietly.
“The night is agitated.”
If it’s out of the blue, then it’s out of the blue.
But she wasn’t embarrassed.
I just looked at Limon with eyes like obsidian and asked calmly.
“Are you the sword master’s intuition?”
“Okay. To put it bluntly, it’s the intuition of an old man who has only wandered around battlefields all his life.”
Limon shrugged.
Then, turning his head and looking out the window covered in darkness, he continued talking quietly.
“There are days when the night feels like this when you roll around on the battlefield.”
There is no specific harbinger.
Is the sound of insects particularly quiet?
Whether the strong wind calms down.
The stars seem too bright.
Conversely, the stars are not visible.
When the usual things that happen every day feel strangely unfamiliar for some reason.
The soldiers who rolled on the battlefield just accepted that feeling that could not be defined or explained in words as a tumultuous night.
“The interesting thing is that on nights like this, there are always night raids or large-scale battles, and people die like ants.”
“Is it some kind of foreknowledge?”
“It’s not that grand. It’s just the expression of the instincts that everyone has.”
On the eve of the storm, the wind subsides.
Animals run amok before an earthquake.
Just as rats do not ride on a boat with a hole in it.
There is a harbinger for everything in the world, but it’s just that human senses don’t feel it.
However, it is the instinct of living things that even the dullest human has no choice but to be sensitive at the moment when life is at stake.
After explaining calmly, Limon scratched his cheek.
“These days, things look at that and it’s just PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or something, but.”
“Since the Iron Age opened, people have come to believe in things that can be clearly defined, such as levels and skills, rather than obscure things like persimmons.”
“Because it’s better than letting the anti-swindlers who talk about things like the old days influence state affairs.”
Limon laughed.
In the end, a sense is just a sense.
Just as an old man who greets a rainy day like a ghost with sore limbs can be wrong.
Determining everything based on individual feelings, which can vary depending on physical condition or mood, is the same as gambling all-in all the time.
Even if you get ninety-nine times in a row, if you get it wrong just once, you lose everything.
“Is that why you’re being vigilant without warning me or him?”
“If I can stop it anyway, I alone am enough, and if I can’t stop it, it’s useless to be vigilant.”
“But you don’t have to suffer alone.”
“Is there anything to be said for suffering? I’m wary of words, I’m just passing the time with a drink.”
“There is some truth in that statement.”
Li Qingyu nodded slightly.
Then he smiled and added one more word.
“Then would it be all right if I join in killing time?”
“Can anything happen?”
“Then it’s enough for me to spend time alone with my prospective husband.”
No matter what happens, it won’t hurt you.
Watching Li Qingyu talk casually, Limon smiled.
“You want to do whatever you want.”
“yes.”
What are you so happy about?
Limon murmured to himself as he watched Li Ching-yu, sitting next to him with a smile on his face, filling his glass with ice and whiskey.
‘Anyway, she’s an eccentric princess.’
From the Bronze Age to the present.
He had met many princesses of the Seven Dragons, but he was the first princess like Li Qingyu.
As she is of the most noble lineage in the world, the princess, who has lived her life serving others, is not the only one who naturally pours alcohol into someone else’s cup.
A mind that sees through one’s insides.
Favor for reasons I don’t know why.
A strangely firm trust.
Li Qingyu was the girl who was covered in strange things from one to ten.
‘Doesn’t it matter anyway?’
However, Limon did not bother to delve into Li Ching-wee’s strangeness.
Bondi, they are related to the winter solstice of May.
Unless Li Qingyu betrayed him, Limon also had no reason to forcefully dig out what she was hiding.
It was around the time Limon, who had put his thoughts together, raised his glass again.
[Princess, we have a problem.]
[I have something to report.]
Both of their pagers are ringing.
The hard voice of Yoin, the general manager of Leviathan, and the urgent voice of Wei Ling were heard at the same time.
But Limon was not shaken.
I swallowed the remaining whiskey in one gulp.
After Li Qingyu filled the cup.
He slowly turned the cup in his hand and muttered in a low voice.
“Has it finally started?”
* * *
Meanwhile, when Limon poured his first glass.
He and Li Qingyu were not the only ones who stayed up all night awake.
Like Yo-in, who kept her seat just because the princess she respected didn’t fall asleep, or Wei-ling, who was working overtime due to work.
No, because there was someone who had been up all night for several days already for a more serious reason than them.
“Are you still there?”
“I would have said it didn’t matter how much money I spent.”
“There is no need for excuses, so make sure to find clues about the monster today. I must say it.”
click.
A middle-aged man with a nice mustache who nervously hung up the phone.
Wang Shi-sik buried himself in the chair.
And he muttered quietly.
“…maybe it’s already too late.”
From the day the armed forces were defeated by the black cloak monster and Ryu Kang-cheol was killed until now.
He didn’t sleep a sigh, and he was working hard on the aftermath.
However, the results were meager.
From the beginning, he was the one who supported the fallen family’s position by extensively proclaiming among the clan that he was capturing Ryu Gang-cheol and gathering information.
But before I could dig up any information, I lost Ryu Kang-cheol.
Things couldn’t have worked out.
‘I don’t know if I can catch another beast, but…’
As soon as the only regeneration plan came to mind, Wang Qiangong denied it himself.
There was no way they could now come and catch the beasts who couldn’t be found even after mobilizing not only the Shanghai royal family but also the information network of the Seven Dragons Association for over a month.
‘Where did it go wrong?’
Forcibly sending him to the torture center?
Did Limon hit Ryu Kang-chul?
Or did you try to catch the pleural fluid yourself?
There were countless options that came to mind, but in the end Wang Xiang could not find an answer.
It’s always the best option.
It was the result of choosing the one that would benefit the family the most by purely weighing gains and losses.
That’s why it was more ironic that each and every choice piled up and now we were in a position where we couldn’t stop the fall of the family.
thud!
“…?”
While I was sighing like that.
The kingpin suddenly frowned.
He sensed the strange commotion outside the door with the sensitivity of a master class master.
“I’m still tired. What’s the fuss about in the middle of the night?”
Wang Shi-sik, who had been muttering with some doubts, doubts, and fatigue, stood up from his seat with his hands on the desk.
And after trudging closer to the door.
Quaang!
He reached out like lightning and made a huge hole in the door and grabbed the neck of the opponent who was ambush outside the door.
It’s the perfect surprise.
As soon as the door opened, it was like a thunderbolt from the blue sky for the assailant who tried to ambush the royal function.
“Eck?!”
The attacker’s response was also agile.
He quickly flipped his upper body to avoid the hand of the king function and kicked the door with his foot.
The assailant, who narrowly escaped the hand thanks to Wang Shikyeong’s hesitation to avoid the fragments of the broken door, stroked his bloody neck and stuck out his tongue.
“Hey, that’s a real soup, do you want to wait? I was going to say hello, but I thought I was going to the goal.”
“her?”
That moment.
Wang Shikong doubted his own eyes.
It wasn’t just because his two escorts had become corpses and were lying in the hallway.
The sight of the all-too-familiar bird-eyed young man grinning while holding a bloody knife made him bewildered.
“Ryu Gang-cheol?”
“Why are you looking like that? Do you think it’s so strange that I’m alive?”
Like watching that expression.
Kang-Cheol Ryu smiled.
Then he twirled the knife in his hand and spoke triumphantly.
“Nothing to be so surprised about. Isn’t it the world where all sorts of things happen when you live a normal life?”
“….”
“What do you understand? You wouldn’t have known that I would come back intact like this until you tied me up and tortured me happily.”
“…”
“In that sense, comrade, this time it’s your turn to be hacked into my hands. Wouldn’t that be causal?”
“…”
“…Comrade? Would you like me to answer that?”
Even though I died and came back.
Maybe it’s because it’s no fun because I’m talking alone.
It’s been a long time since Ryu Gang-chul, who urged an answer with a disapproving expression, looked at him with an indescribable expression.
The kingpin slowly raised his hand.
and rub your eyes
Cheek pinching, etc.
After taking all kinds of actions to confirm that this situation is real and not a dream.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”
—He burst into laughter.
Perhaps it was because Wang Shi-sik’s sudden burst of laughter seemed so grotesque.
Ryu Kang-cheol, who had laughed at him with excitement until a while ago, asked with a face mixed with embarrassment, confusion, and even concern.
“…friend? Why are you laughing all of a sudden?”
“no no. I want to say that this is really good.”
“What do you mean you’re lucky?”
Like doubting your own mental state.
Even when he looked at Ryu Kang-chul, who was blatantly looking at a crazy X, Wang Shi-sik was not angry.
Rather, I just looked at him with the most joyful face, as if a lump of fortune had rolled in.
“How fortunate is it that the bastard I thought disappeared after swallowing the gold nugget walked in on my feet?”
