Chapter 85
Part 10: Original Sin
It was the end.
Everything was ruined.
Without realizing it, the newly appointed female Supreme Councilor clutched her head in her hands.
It had not been long since she had become a Supreme Councilor, but she was someone who had spent her entire life passing through every kind of carnage and bloodbath imaginable.
She had repelled countless enemies, broken powerful political rivals, and received both fear and respect from everyone around her.
And now, by becoming a Supreme Councilor, she had sought to pursue nameless honor and devote herself endlessly to duty.
To her, that was what it meant to be a Supreme Councilor.
That was what the Supreme Executive Council was.
They were people who could neither reveal their faces nor names, who could not enjoy power or glory, yet devoted everything not for themselves, but for the Luoyang Sword Clan.
They were those who, after the Clan Head’s absence, had successfully governed and grown the Luoyang Sword Clan in its time of crisis.
They were those who stood above clan law, yet did not recklessly wield that authority, instead upholding fairness and balance with such thoroughness that they were acknowledged by all.
And until this very dawn, her belief in that had never once wavered.
At her age, already looking toward twilight, she had thought there could be nothing new left to experience.
But at this very moment, in this very place,
she felt that belief shaking from its very foundation.
***
The two newly appointed Supreme Councilors were people who had reached the pinnacle within the vast clan known as the Luoyang Sword Clan.
They realized it the moment the word original sin came from Yeon Sang-hyeon’s mouth.
The fact that, until now, the only ones who had been swept up by Yeon Sang-hyeon and angrily spoken at length were themselves.
The fact that, when Yeon Sang-hyeon had demanded that the Supreme Councilors lift his confinement, the only ones who had objected were themselves.
And the fact that they were now standing before a dreadful truth.
With a trembling voice, she asked,
“…Original sin? Could someone please explain what that means?”
Before anyone else, Yeon Sang-hyeon opened his mouth.
“Do you still not understand when the meetings I attended stopped being recorded—when they became impossible to leave behind in the records?”
“…At the very least, I understand that it has something to do with this ‘original sin.’”
Just as Yeon Sang-hyeon was about to speak again, the Chairman’s voice rang out.
“…This council—no, we—could not leave records of our meetings with the First Young Master from the very beginning.”
“From the very beginning…?”
“The Supreme Executive Council has existed until now on the basis of a single lie.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon snorted.
“Chairman, do you not think calling it merely a lie is far too insufficient?”
“…Indeed, you are correct.”
The Chairman readily admitted it.
Then he spoke to the two newly appointed Supreme Councilors.
“It is the story of those who, through an unforgivable fraud, committed an intolerable rebellion.”
It was an original sin they could never dare turn away from, no matter when the day came.
“Fraud…?”
“Rebellion…?”
Even through their altered voices, the two newly appointed Supreme Councilors could not hide their agitation.
“We were arrogant and foolish. It was an absurd act of greed, and truly shameless beyond measure.”
Unable to endure any longer, the newly appointed female Supreme Councilor pressed the Chairman.
“…What on earth happened?”
Instead of answering, the Chairman asked a question.
“Do you know when this Supreme Executive Council was first formed?”
The newly appointed Supreme Councilors answered.
“…Was it not established according to the Sword Clan Law Code when the Clan Head lost consciousness? It was a rule prepared for emergencies in which there was no supreme decision-maker.”
“I heard its original name was not the Supreme Executive Council, but the ‘Emergency Response Council.’”
“That is correct. That was how it began.”
The Chairman looked up at the ceiling, as though recalling that time.
“Everyone was flustered, and everyone was confused. The Clan Head was like an unshakable mountain range, and his absence came upon even those of us gathered in the Emergency Response Council as a horrifying void…”
The two newly appointed Supreme Councilors also recalled that time.
“That is correct. I remember it as well. Several elders who had been designated in advance were gathered there, and every armed force remaining in the main clan guarded that place like an iron wall.”
“…Most of those who could not grasp the situation at the time suffered extreme confusion and fear.”
The Chairman nodded, then asked,
“In that situation, what should we have done first?”
“…Before announcing the Clan Head’s condition to the entire clan, should we not have established countermeasures?”
“To do that, would we not first have needed to decide on the highest decision-maker?”
“Then, according to the order of precedence, making the First Young Master the acting Clan Head would have been…”
“But I heard that, at the time, the First Young Master refused the position of acting Clan Head on the grounds that the Clan Head had ordered him into confinement. And so, the Emergency Response Council at the time…”
“Surely…?”
Fraud.
Rebellion.
Original sin.
A shameful history.
The reason their meetings with Yeon Sang-hyeon could not be recorded from the very beginning.
Yeon Sang-hyeon, who had mocked them and called them thieves despite their claim that they had obtained their positions lawfully through proper procedure.
The words they had heard here today seemed to strike the two of them in the head all at once.
“…That cannot be, can it? Chairman, please tell me that the hypothesis that just appeared in my mind is wrong.”
“Chairman…”
As no answer came from the Chairman, Yeon Sang-hyeon twisted his lips into a bitter smile.
“You thought that, if you did so, I—confined amid that chaotic situation—would not be able to move recklessly! I still remember the first time I was summoned to this council!”
He shouted as though coughing up blood.
“That day, you told me this! That in a time when the main clan was in chaos, I must not dare act rashly! That if I went around running my mouth, civil war would break out, so I should quietly wait!”
The two Supreme Councilors sucked in their breaths.
It was a horrific threat they had never dared imagine.
“That day, you promised me! You said that if I waited just a little, the chaos would settle, and when that time came, you would hand the position over to me!”
Yeon Sang-hyeon stepped out of the sunlight that had been shining into the center of the cave.
“That was the very first promise you made to me!”
He strode into the darkness, drawing closer to the Supreme Councilors.
“But before long, you transformed the main clan into a Supreme Executive Council system and began governing it in earnest!”
In the darkness, his eyes seemed to flash a chilling blue.
“And I have waited ten years from that first promise until now!”
He shouted as though roaring.
“Do you understand now? Do you understand what kind of story was exchanged from the very beginning, when I was first summoned to this council, such that no records could even be left behind?”
The two newly appointed Supreme Councilors, their faces deathly pale, could not take their eyes off Yeon Sang-hyeon.
“You deprived me of my rightful authority. You usurped the position that should rightfully have been mine.”
The smile that had surfaced at the corner of his mouth twisted even more broadly.
“…The Supreme Executive Council system? Lawful procedure? Legitimate status? The excellent results you have achieved all this time?”
At last, the contempt and hatred he had harbored for so long revealed themselves on his face.
“How dare a mere band of thieves and a handful of frauds…!”
Yeon Sang-hyeon insulted them and defamed the council, but this time, none of the newly appointed Supreme Councilors could open their mouths.
“You did not even tell me that my father had collapsed! Instead, you first announced the falsehood that I had given up my place in the line of succession!”
He spat out his fury.
“Can you keep that promise even now?!”
Every Supreme Councilor fell silent.
They lowered their heads and groaned.
It was a promise that could no longer be kept.
A reality in which that promise could no longer be fulfilled.
At this point, when the other successors had grown sufficiently and expanded their factions, it was an impossible demand.
***
Yeon Sang-hyeon stood in the darkness, looking up at the ceiling.
He knew very well that they could not keep the promise.
He lost interest in them.
Amid the silence of everyone present, he brushed the dust from his white plain-cloth robe.
Dust rose in a pale cloud, leaving ugly yellowish marks on his plain garment.
The Chairman’s voice rang out once more.
“…On that day, when the Emergency Response Council first convened, someone said this: that we could do far better than a child who had not even reached ten years of age.”
The silence settled even more heavily.
“That this enormous clan must no longer be swayed by a single person.”
The Chairman struggled to continue.
“…I still do not know who first voiced that opinion. But it did not take long for that opinion to become everyone’s opinion.”
Only the voice of an old man echoed gloomily through the stone chamber.
“If several of us gathered our opinions, we believed we could develop this clan further. Somehow, we convinced ourselves of that.”
The old man’s shadow clenched a withered fist.
“…And so, at the time, we announced that the First Young Master of the main clan had refused the position of acting Clan Head.”
It had been a horrific lie.
A vast, irreversible lie.
In doing so, they had effectively imprisoned Yeon Sang-hyeon, who had been living in confinement, within Wongakjeong.
The newly appointed male Supreme Councilor shook his head.
“I… I cannot accept this. Are you saying that people whose names were so highly regarded within the main clan that they could belong to the Emergency Response Council committed rebellion for such a trivial reason…?”
The Chairman gave a bitter smile.
“…What ruled us at the time was not greed for power. It was ugly jealousy, the final end of a sense of defeat.”
“Surely, you mean… from the Blood Purge…?!”
The moment the term Blood Purge came out, Yeon Sang-hyeon, who had been standing in the darkness, turned around.
He returned to the front of the sunlight and looked up at that light.
“…That is correct. At the time, we were survivors who had lived through the Blood Purge. We had not escaped its aftermath at all.”
The Chairman covered his face.
“Were the elders who were purged at that time not clear enemies of the clan?!”
“Moreover, the truth of that incident was known only to a portion of the highest echelon. No one else knew anything about it!”
The Chairman lowered his head.
“…Even so, we could not escape the fear that so many so-called power holders of the main clan had been defeated by a single child—no, that we had been toyed with by him.”
He muttered as though speaking to himself.
“…That was why we wanted to prove ourselves. And so we ended up committing an outrageous act that could never be undone.”
It was theft.
It was a fraud.
They had not even told a son that his father had collapsed, and they had stolen the clan from that son.
The newly appointed male Supreme Councilor cried out almost like a scream.
“E-even so, aside from not asking the First Young Master’s intentions at the time, was everything afterward not carried out properly and legitimately?!”
At those words, Yeon Sang-hyeon burst into laughter.
“Have you still not noticed?”
“W-what are you talking about…?”
Yeon Sang-hyeon took something out from his sleeve and held it up.
The object flashed golden beneath the sunlight.
It was the Luoyang Sword Clan’s Clan Head Seal, the Sword Clan Golden Seal.
“Why do you think I possessed this while I was in confinement, and why do you think I still lawfully possess it now?”
“…!”
The Chairman’s voice followed.
“…The Clan Head had made arrangements so that, in an emergency, the Clan Head Seal would be delivered to the First Young Master.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon bared his teeth.
“Moreover, there was something Father always used to say.”
The Chairman powerlessly nodded.
“…The Clan Head always said it to us, the ones closest to him, as though it were a habit.”
As though sighing, he spoke the Clan Head’s words.
“…If anything should happen to me unexpectedly, all of you must remember this.”
He covered his face.
“…That this Sword Clan has Yeon Sang-hyeon.”