Side Story Chapter 10. The small hill behind the Baek ancestral home.
There, covered in pure white snow, stood a small burial mound and a tombstone.
“... The path is so clean. It must have been a long time since anyone visited here.”
“I asked the village chief to tidy it up once in a while.”
“Did you properly pay him for the favor?”
“Of course. When the village chief’s daughter was young, she was frail, so I taught her some martial arts and gave her a little of the spirit medicine.”
“Come to think of it, didn’t the village chief’s daughter get married a few years ago?”
“You remember well. The village chief, who is my age, even has a grandson by now. But my son has never had a partner and does who knows what...”
“Hey, why does the conversation go off-topic like that?”
“Suryong, listen to your father carefully.”
“... Yes.”
As if they were out for a night stroll, the three men slowly climbed the hill, chatting softly.
For masters of the martial world like them, the hill behind the house was a distance conquerable in one breath, but they all deliberately walked slowly as if dragging their feet.
They wanted to soak in every sight, every smell, every sensation around them, to cherish the memory fully.
Once they left Baek ancestral home this time, it might be a long while before they could see it again.