752.It was where human calculation showed itself most nakedly.
When the report reached the palace, Empress Gi was holding her brush.
The ink had not yet dried.
The characters on the paper were only half finished.
The messenger knelt and did not lift his head.
Only after he steadied his breath did he speak.
"They say the king of Goryeo is entering the capital. The number of attendants is not large."
Empress Gi's hand stopped.
A single drop of ink fell from the brush tip and blurred one stroke of the character.
She did not wipe it.
That much distortion did not matter.
"Entering the capital."
It was a short phrase.
Yet within that single line, layers of thought overlapped.
The name "Goryeo" still remained, but to her it was already a place she had passed through.
Memory rose—being dragged in as a palace woman, beginning at the bottom.
Faces, words, emotions she had thrown away one by one in order to climb from that bottom brushed past her.
At the end of it all was the seat of empress.
And along that road, there had been names that blocked her.
Gi Cheol.
That clan.
Blood kin who had wielded power in Goryeo—then been cut down.
She knew exactly where the blade's edge had begun.
The one who issued the order was the king.
But the one who made that order real was even clearer.
"Did you say a small number?"
"Yes. The escort appears minimal."
Empress Gi nodded slowly.
Fear and confidence were mixed in that reaction.
She knew the king of Goryeo well.
He was not a man of hesitation.
He was not a man of recklessness, either.
If he entered like this, it meant he trusted someone.
And she had no need to put that someone's name in her mouth.
"He chose the time when the Kurultai convenes."
The words slid out low, almost to herself.
In that room, no one heard them lightly.
The Kurultai was no longer a place to ask the will of Heaven.
It was where human calculation showed itself most nakedly.
Into the center of that place, a king who had left behind resentment was arriving.
Empress Gi set her brush down and walked to the window.
The palace courtyard lay below.
Ordered paths and a still pond sat as if nothing had ever happened.
"A good time."
For someone, it would be welcome.
For someone else, it would be the last.
The king of Goryeo's entry was not diplomacy.
Not ritual.
It was a long-awaited chance—
too personal to deny.
Empress Gi did not smile.
In that instant, Pyeonunja's words surfaced.
Firelight wavered low.
Hoofbeats and the camp's murmur were pushed far away.
Her mind was sharp—
and because it was sharp, it was roughly disordered.
"No excuses.
But isn't the world of men too horrific?
If only this Goryeo did not exist—wouldn't that be better?"
It was the kind of voice that stayed long once heard.
Back then, she had scrambled for an answer.
Words found in haste were usually words meant to soothe the heart.
"Do you truly think so?
I want to believe reform and improvement can change things."
Pyeonunja had not smiled.
"I am the one who leaves. You are the one who remains.
Neither is wrong.
Only—remember."
He paused, then spoke again.
"One who still has meaning left in him will someday be wounded most deeply by that meaning.
I hope you do not regret it."
That sentence returned now, and it hurt more sharply.
She was a warrior.
A soldier.
She did not fear being injured or dying.
If she vanished, someone else would take her place.
The battlefield had always been like that.
When a seat emptied, another filled it.
And the one who filled it would someday empty it again.
Her name would be remembered and honored after she was gone.
She also believed the state would look after her family.
The only regret was that she had only one life to offer the realm.
She had lived without regret.
Now what remained was a road toward the end of mu—martial attainment.
A road no one had walked.
Perhaps someone had once been there.
Yet her hands carried too much blood.
As a general on the battlefield, it had been unavoidable—she told herself so—
but that was not her only burden.
For one weighed down by the karma of killing, no new world would open.
Then what would become of her?
Her thoughts did not continue past that point.
Should she worry about this fate?
Should she grieve it?
No.
She had accepted it.
She had acknowledged it as her duty.
Even if regret would exist, refusing would have left a different regret behind.
The campfire burned low.
The flame was not large, but the red core endured.
Whenever wind brushed past, ash lifted and settled again.
Park Seongjin stared into that fire for a long time—
with a face that looked through the flame into what overlapped beyond it.
Then the officer Jonghui approached.
His steps were not light.
They were the steps of someone who had moved together for a long time—
a gait he did not bother to hide.
A gait you could recognize once and never confuse.
Jonghui always walked like that.
He had been an officer when they first met, and he was an officer still.
In between, battlefields had changed many times.
Masters had changed.
People had risen—or vanished.
And yet Jonghui remained in the same place.
That fact itself felt heavy.
"An astonishing martial feat."
Without taking his gaze off the fire, Park answered,
"Only killing people."
Jonghui swallowed the end of his sentence.
He praised, but did not press—
the manner of a man who knew how far to go.
"You have become an immense master."
Park turned his head to look at him.
A brief meeting of eyes.
"I was glad to be with all of you."
Jonghui did not miss what was embedded at the end of that line.
"Why? Where are you going?"
Instead of answering, Park lifted his gaze to the sky.
It was a night with few stars.
Light exposed between clouds wavered uneasily.
"I have a feeling I won't be left alone for long."
"By whom?"
This time there was no smile.
As a comrade of long years, Jonghui sensed it clearly.
Park pointed upward with his fingertip.
"I doubt the Lord of Heaven will leave a madman like this alone."
Jonghui held back a laugh.
It was not a line one could wave away as a joke.
He looked from the fire to Park's face.
"Surely not.
You protected Goryeo with that strength.
Who would dare speak against you?"
Park let out a short breath.
"Hiyu."
In that single sound lay battlefields crossed, reasons for survival, and an unnamed unease.
Jonghui loosened his leather pouch and drew out airag.
Now it was a drink common even among the ranks.
The motion of offering it to a longtime comrade had become habit in the body.
Park held out his bowl without a word.
Jonghui poured carefully.
The pale liquor trembled thinly in the firelight.
In one swallow, Park drained it.
"Thank you."
"No—rather I should thank you.
Thanks to you, we are at ease."
Park did not smile.
He looked back into the fire.
The embers had sunk lower.
It was certainly burning—
yet what remained was always ash.
This was not their first conversation like this.
After battle.
On the march.
On nights when nothing happened.
The words were never long.
The questions were few.
Yet the fragments piled up into a single story—
how long they had endured,
what they had seen,
how far they had come—
including what had never been said.
The fire still burned.
The two sat side by side before it.
No one hurried the next sentence.
There was much to ask, much to say—
but on that night, no words came out.