Just by moving my steps silently, I felt like I was having a conversation without words exchanged.
It was me who broke the long silence.
“Who did you learn hunting from?”
After a moment of silence, my father spoke.
“I learned from my older brother.”
“Did you also have a grandfather?”
“He’s dead. He died in my hands when I was your age.”
There was a moment of silence. Instead of a comforting word, I spoke honestly.
“You did well.”
My father stopped in his tracks and looked at me with a stern gaze.
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been born.”
After coldly gazing at me for a moment, my father started walking again.
Wouldn’t there be any emotional scars left by the internal struggle caused by being a father? I had seen many cases in my past life. The stronger someone appeared on the outside, the deeper their emotional scars often were.
That’s why I blurted out my thoughts like an arrow.
In my past life, I learned a lesson.
Bury the body, not the emotional scars.
That’s why it was possible for me to hear such words from my father.
“At the time, I… couldn’t find a way.”
I could understand the meaning. It meant that he couldn’t find a way to win the fight for the successor without killing his older brother.
My answer was firm.
“Don’t expect anything from me.”
My father glanced at me briefly. His gaze was even colder than before, but I said what needed to be said.
“The things you couldn’t do, I can’t do either. You should focus on the brother who is worth considering. You know, right? How vile and cruel he is.”
“You dare to insult me from behind.”
“Even if you insult me, it’s justified.”
Actually, this was not enough. When I think about the things my brother will do in order to become the successor in the future.
“You’re complaining while I’m suffering in a remote place.”
“If someone becomes a master of the Cheonma Divine Church, it doesn’t matter if they’re locked up in the remotest corner of the underground prison.”
My brother was currently following our father’s orders and active. At this time, my brother had not yet revealed his true colors, and he was quite capable, so father trusted him more than me. Not only that, but many mages in the school tried to get close to my brother in order to seize his position.
“My brother will never give up the position of successor. Anyone who says they will save my brother and become the successor is a fool.”
I could see the expression in my father’s eyes saying, ‘Were you this kind of child?’ My gaze stubbornly replied, ‘Yes!’
My father started walking again.
In my past life, I never got married. That’s why I don’t know what kind of emotions children bring to a man.
That’s why I was curious.
What kind of existence am I to my father?
How far did we climb the mountain like this?
“Shh.”
I raised my head at my father’s signal. He was pointing far ahead with his finger.
“Do you see it?”
I opened my eyes wide, but all I could see was a dense forest.
“I don’t see anything.”
“I do.”
“What’s there?”
“Our dinner.”
“Then we should catch it.”
As I was about to take out the bow I had hung on my back, my father stopped my hasty action.
“How can you catch something you can’t see? Close your eyes and feel your surroundings.”
“Yes.”
When masters assess their opponents, they do it through the fluctuation of the surrounding air. It is commonly called the opponent’s prayer.
Among the prayers felt in the surroundings, there was only one, my father’s prayer. It was calm. That’s why it was frightening. I knew better than anyone what would happen if this prayer got angry. In that peaceful sea, a typhoon capable of overturning the world was sleeping.
“Now release a thin strand of energy. Just one strand.”
I released the energy as my father instructed.
“Don’t release it too quickly. Think of your body as a thread and release it slowly, as if pulling a thread.”
I had never released energy like this before I reincarnated. There was a clear reason for releasing energy. To suppress the opponent’s momentum with my prayer. But now, I was releasing energy in a completely different way than I had ever thought of before.
“Thinner.”
✧˚·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥·̩̩̥͙✧·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥˚·̩̩̥͙✧ 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓋𝒾𝓉𝓎𝓃𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁𝓈 ✧˚·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥·̩̩̥͙✧·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥˚·̩̩̥͙✧
