Chapter 48. The Third Bet (2/2)
Gongson Chun Gi stroked his chin, and opened his mouth.
“Let’s make a bet, child.”
“What are we striking here?”
Gongson Chun Gi pointed at the ground when Un Hui asked this.
“The Heavenly Demon Church. If you win, I’ll give you this.”
“Your holiness!”
When Guardian Ju screamed loudly, Gongson Chun Gi pushed the man away again and spoke.
“I am a very generous man, you see. If you’re going to bet something, it needs to be something as big as this, don’t you think?”
Un Hui didn’t say anything, and looked at Gongson Chun Gi’s eyes. The Pope’s eyes were filled with mischievousness, but it was also filled with confidence.
And with that confidence came an immense amount of energy that wouldn’t bow down to anyone.
‘He’s not a person to lie.’
Un Hui nodded.
“I’ll do it.”
“Good. You have spirit. That’s how a man should be! Kuhahaha!”
Gongson Chun Gi revealed his white teeth, and smiled joyously.
“Then, now that I’ve shown you what I’m going to stake in this bet, it’s high time you showed me yours, right? What will you stake in this bet?”
Un Hui thought a bit. What should he stake? Did he have something that actually was worth the entire church?
Un Hui, who had been looking at the grinning Pope, was stuck with a single thought that opened his eyes.
‘I do have something like that.’
Un Hui looked directly at Gongson Chun Gi, and opened his mouth.
“I will bet myself.”
“Yourself?”
“Yes. I will bet the remainder of my life here.”
Un Hui struck his chest confidently, and spoke. Gongson Chun Gi simply looked at the boy without saying anything. And then he smiled.
“It seems that you really hold yourself in high regard. The church is not as cheap as you might think, you know.”
“…….”
“But that’s not bad. I suppose your life is the only thing you have that you can bet. Since you found something close to the actual answer, I’ll take it.”
Gongson Chun Gi finished speaking, and wordlessly stretched his fist out to Un Hui. When Un Hui made a confused expression, Gongosn Chun Gi grinned and spoke.
“A man’s words! (男兒一言)”
Un Hui’s eyes shone, as he struck his own fist on the Pope’s.
“Is worth a thousand gold! (重干金)”
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Whilst Guardian Ju was just standing on the sidelines with a sour face, Gongson Chun Gi spoke.
“Ah. Come to think of it, we didn’t talk about what the contents of our bet was, did we?”
Un Hui made a “Oops” face and nodded.
“Let’s settle it on something we both find acceptable, shall we?”
“Alright.”
“The time will be……. mm, ten years should do it. Yes, this should be worth about ten years.”
That was how the ten year bet between Un Hui and the Pope. And the end of the bet resulted in Un Hui’s defeat. It was the administrator’s defeat.
* * *
‘I was almost done.’
If he had a bit more time, the church would’ve been his. Because of that thought, the administrator’s face as he looked at Cho Ryu Hyang was a little twisted.
‘That should’ve been my spot.’
The administrator bit his lips. The position as the heir. That position could’ve been his.
Over the past decade, he and the Pope made a total of three bets. The first two bets, the administrator won.
But……
—You’re pretty good. If I don’t manage to find a disciple by the end of the ten-year period, I will make you, Un Hui, the heir of the church.
When Un Hui won the second bet by becoming an expert of the harmonious level, that was what the Pope had said to him.
Administrator Un Hui. He was excited. After all, the Pope had said his name for the first time. So he began thinking that he won the last bet already.
But that wasn’t what happened. A bitter taste spread throughout his tongue. There wasn’t even a year left until the ten-year bet between him and the Pope ended. It truly was unexpected.
Just how should he take on the kid that the Pope brought in from the outside?
[I won the bet without desiring to do so. You must feel quite depressed. I’m sorry.]
When the Pope said this to Un Hui as soon as he returned, Un Hui felt a surge of emotion wash over him. It wasn’t because he lost the bet. It was because of what the Pope said; that ‘I’m sorry’ from the Pope was what made him sad.
‘So this kid is actually better than me in some way?’
He couldn’t admit it. No matter how much he looked, the boy wasn’t well-developed, nor did the boy look physically fit.
So why? Why was this boy chosen to be the heir of the church?
The Pope surely didn’t choose this boy just to win the bet. The Pope Un Hui knew wasn’t someone to do something like that.
‘So there’s something about this kid that only the Pope can see?’
This was his conclusion. Un Hui ground his teeth. He had to find the truth. He had to find it, so that he could go tell the Pope that the Pope made a wrong decision.
‘I will find it.’
Regardless of the past, the position as the Pope of the church didn’t really interest Un Hui.
It was just that he was afraid that he would be distanced from the man he already regarded as his teacher, the Pope.
Un Hui took a look at the boy who called him out, sighed in his mind, jumped down to the ground and bowed. The boy surprisingly managed to find him while he was in hiding.
“I am the administrator, young lord. I am sorry for introducing myself so late.”
“You can lift your head now.”
The administrator lifted his head to take a look at Cho Ryu Hyang. His eyes, which had been so full of complex emotions just a moment ago, looked extremely calm, like a slate of ice.
After all, he wasn’t an inexperienced person who would show his inner thoughts to others.
“I have something to ask.”
“Please do, young lord.”
The boy probably did have something special. After all, the fact alone that the boy managed to find him proved that he was abnormal.
‘But I still won’t acknowledge him.’
He could’ve made a mistake that revealed himself to the boy without realising it. While he had been thinking that, Cho Ryu Hyang looked around and spoke.
“What’s this formation you people set up here? It’s has an interesting shape.”
The administrator’s eyes narrowed. Formation? Could it be that this boy managed to find the Bloody River Heaven Destroying Sword Formation (血河滅天劍陣)? The formation that no one managed to notice in the history of the church?
‘He has enough talent to find such a thing? This child?’
That shouldn’t be possible. Cho Ryu Hyang, not caring about the administrator’s current feelings whatsoever, looked at the people in hiding and thought.
‘Normally, there’s five. At the time of transformation, about seven? No, there should be more.’
Cho Ryu Hyang’s eyes sparkled a bit. There were about a hundred people hiding here, and when an enemy attacked, they would surely come out like a fierce storm to attack the enemy by following a specific rule.
And the variables that controlled the transformation of this rule. These variables were more numerous than he had preciously thought.
‘This is amazing.’
Cho Ryu Hyang grabbed a stick from the ground, and began to draw something on the ground. A tactical formation and a normal formation weren’t all that different in essence.
That’s why he began to draw the entire formation out on the ground, in order to predict all the moves that made up the formation.
‘What is he……’
At first, he didn’t know what the boy was doing. After a while, the administrator’s eyes widened.
The thing the boy was drawing right now was definitely a destruction method of the Bloody River Heaven Destroying Sword Formation.
Swish—!
The administrator quickly swiped away the thing Cho Ryu Hyang had been drawing with his feet. Then, he began to glare at Cho Ryu Hyang with enraged eyes, and thought something.
‘You, just what are you?’