I sat where I could watch the street, ordered two bottles of Gangju, and drifted into thought for a while.

As I organized my thoughts on the Thunder Sword Style, Plum Blossom Sword Style, and Plum Blossom Fragrance, I waited for the Left Guardian.

The Sword Demon deliberately brought up the pants-pooper as he summoned him. That meant he didn’t want him to fight me. But even if I didn’t fight, I had to finish what I came to Baek Eung-ji to do.

The Left Guardian must have things he wants to ask me, too.

Because during the question-and-answer sparring with the Sword Demon, there was a hole in my words. The Sword Demon wouldn’t have noticed, of course. But the Left Guardian probably would.

By the time I emptied my fifth glass of Gangju alone—

The Left Guardian, who was headed toward Mongga, walked over to where I was.

He came closer, looked at me, held back whatever he was about to say about three times, and sat down across from me without a word. He poured himself a drink and took a sip.

I said in a flat tone,

“What if that cup has laxatives in it, too? You just drink it without a second thought? Lost your damn mind?”

As soon as he heard me, the Left Guardian started coughing and set his glass down.

‘Well, he’s still a greenhorn.’

Realizing I was just messing with him, the Left Guardian stared at me in silence. I sipped my Gangju and waited for him to speak.

He asked the obvious question.

“How did you know I use ice arts? I can’t make sense of it. My master probably wasn’t surprised just hearing we fought, but judging from your actions, it was like you already knew I used ice arts from the start.”

I nodded.

“I’m looking for ice arts.”

“That’s it?”

“I have a lot of subordinates. One of them—basically the heir to a merchant guild—told me about a story involving Okhwa Palace. Especially from the Baek family region where the energy is highly concentrated. We figured someone who inherited the true transmission of Okhwa Palace would be out there, so I’ve been looking.”

“Ah, so that bastard with the broken arm was tailing me. But even then, I never used ice arts. He wasn’t worth it.”

At this point, I grinned.

“What a funny guy.”

“What?”

“You broke my subordinate’s arm. In Baek Eung-ji, of all places. Turns out you’re some flashy bastard with strong martial skills. If one of my subordinates gets hurt, I have to step in. I only confirmed the ice arts by chance in the fight.”

The Left Guardian thought carefully about whether there were any flaws in my words.

“How did your subordinate end up tailing me?”

I looked him in the eye and told it straight.

“My subordinates believed the one who learned ice arts was probably a concubine-born child of a noble family.”

As soon as I said “concubine-born,” the Left Guardian’s face turned red. I watched the rising emotion on his face with amusement.

He forced a smile and said,

“That damn ‘concubine-born’ talk… You know all the people who brought that up in Baek Eung-ji ended up getting their asses beat by me, right?”

“Not my problem. A concubine-born is a concubine-born. No idea why you’d get mad at others for saying it.”

The Left Guardian responded with a look like he was about to flip the table.

“That’s insulting…”

“How is that an insult? It’s not something you could choose. Dumbass.”

“You really are impossible to talk to.”

The Left Guardian reached for his Gangju but realized it was empty and called for more from the jomsoi.

Anyway, the matter of the ice arts passed without much fuss.

What I had to check next was the probability that this guy might join the Demon Cult. I know he said he went in to kill the Cult Leader, but the situation is different now compared to my previous life. This time, I’m the one steadily preparing to kill the Cult Leader.

Maybe because of the Sword Demon’s teachings, this guy eventually became one of the strongest in the Demon Cult. It’d be better for me if he joined my side to deal with the Dark Path.

The Left Guardian said,

“Hey, bumpk—”

“Bump what?”

“Bumpkin bastard, why’s the Cult Leader your enemy anyway? Doesn’t seem like a greenhorn like you would’ve had any run-in with him. Don’t tell me your mother’s side is from Okhwa Palace?”

“If that were the case, I’d be using ice arts too.”

“Then why’s the Cult Leader your enemy?”

That’s the hard part of being someone who’s regressed. Sometimes, I have to make up reasons to explain things. But I’m me.

“That’s not something I can tell you.”

As I deployed the defensive stance of question-and-answer sparring, the Left Guardian shut his mouth. At this point, I needed to ask something I’d been curious about.

Why did this guy become a lecher?

If I could figure that out, maybe I could change the future so that the Lecher doesn’t even come to be—just like how I eliminated the chance for Moyong Baek to become the Poison Demon by killing the Great Rakshasa.

I failed to get the ice arts right now.

But something just as important is still in progress.

Just then, a slim beauty with silky hair walked by in the street, and the Left Guardian turned his head toward her mid-drink.

Changing fate is this difficult.

Without much expectation, I jabbed in a straight punch with my question.

“Why’d you turn into such a horny mutt? Got some kind of story?”

The Left Guardian looked at me.

“Oh, I’ve got a story.”

“What is it?”

“That’s not something I can tell you, bumpkin bastard.”

I chuckled.

From where I stood, the Left Guardian was just another ruined soul, like my subordinates. Born into a good family, but living in constant obsession with being a concubine-born—that’s a ruined life.

While laughing, I slowly extended a palm strike—not that fast.

Startled mid-sip, the Left Guardian blocked it with his right hand.

Puhk!

I immediately shifted from the force of the Wooden Rooster to the Flame Line.

The Left Guardian’s expression changed in an instant, and he turned his right hand icy to block the Flame Line. That moment, the Okhwa Ice Arts were revealed in full.

As I poured in more flame-based internal energy, I studied his face. His expression kept growing more serious by the second. Up to now, he’d probably beaten most of Baek family’s top-tier juniors without needing to fully use his Okhwa Ice Arts.

But my Flame Line from Golden Dog Wandering Arts is naturally strong against ice arts. Plus, the energy I’ve been storing from the Heavenly Pearl isn’t any less than his.

As I ramped up my energy a bit more, the Left Guardian suddenly gripped the table with his left hand. It froze over instantly. I grabbed the table with my left hand too, and the spreading cold air scattered again.

I opened my mouth to gauge how much strength he still had left.

“Looks like the Sword Demon didn’t want us to fight, but hey, we should still settle who’s better, right? Pants-pooper.”

I figured «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» if I bruised his pride a little, he might skip woman-chasing and focus on training. If he grew stronger than in his previous life, I could take that as motivation and surpass him too.

The Left Guardian, prideful as ever, replied.

“Damn right we should settle it, bumpkin.”

Suddenly, a crowd gathered around the table on the street where the two of us were locked in a clash of force. The fact that one of us was Monglang from Baek Eung-ji only drew more attention.

As I kept maintaining the Flame Line without going further, the crowd grew. I even heard voices of women cheering for Monglang.

Even while exerting pressure, I couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief.

“Pants-pooper, you’re quite the celebrity.”

“You’ll be famous soon too—for your humiliation.”

Once I confirmed he was still trying to act composed, I switched to pushing with internal energy.

Almost as if we had a mutual understanding, neither of us used our left hand.

As soon as I switched to internal force, his face turned pale. He was already fair-skinned, but with all the color gone, he looked like a literal white sheet. And yet, he still managed to say,

“Shall we call it a draw?”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

I almost laughed enough to break my concentration, but I calmed my mind. Then he said it again.

“Let’s say it’s a draw.”

I replied in a flat tone,

“I can’t agree to that.”

I figured I could kill the Lecher, but not the Sword Demon’s disciple who hadn’t yet become one. So I exploded the force from my palm with a sharp burst from my center.

BOOM— A loud blast erupted from my palm, and as the Left Guardian was flung from his chair, he rolled across the ground.

The onlookers fell completely silent.

It was the first time anyone had seen Monglang of Mongga lose.

He tumbled in an ugly heap, and when he raised his head, he didn’t look at me—he looked at the crowd. Some of the women he’d been targeting were among them.

I sipped my drink, watching his shame with satisfaction.

‘Serves you right.’

Suddenly, he stood up, brushing the dust off his clothes, and burst out laughing.

“Wahahahahahaha…”

With his hands behind his back, he approached me and said, awkward like an opera performer,

“Looks like I lost today. One win, one loss, huh?”

Then he calmly sat back down and drank like nothing had happened.

“……”

The Left Guardian waved his hand toward the onlookers.

“Show’s over. Go on, all of you.”

“One win, one loss? You pants-pooping bastard.”

The Left Guardian leaned in and whispered like he was about to say something important.

“Maybe it’s one match, one loss... Either way, don’t bash someone you’re going to keep competing with in the future. I guess you don’t know because you’re a bumpkin, but internal energy battles aren’t everything. Let’s say I lost in internal energy. Just leave it there.”

He looked around, then took another sip of his drink. There was something strangely pitiful about how aware he was of people watching him. Like someone whose very body had absorbed the unconscious need to be acknowledged by others.

When I stayed silent, the Left Guardian began to speak.

“There used to be a male servant named Byeong-gu. He was my personal servant.”

“……”

“He was five years older than me. I heard he was taken in by Mongga when he was young. No family, no home. He’d call me ‘Young Master,’ make sure I ate, change my shoes, bring me towels and clothes when I bathed. A loyal servant. Honestly, when I was a kid, Byeong-gu was the only one I had to play with. And then one day, that loyal Byeong-gu was found hanging in a small room—dead without my permission. Suicide. The only servant I had… gone. I looked into it and found out the idiot had fallen in love with a woman named Danyeong.”

He took another drink. He looked half out of his mind.

“When I tracked down that Danyeong bitch and interrogated her, you know what she told me? When she rejected his confession, she said, ‘Why are you confessing to me? You’re not even Mongrang’s older brother.’ That was her answer. Can you believe that some idiot who used to serve me was dumped with a line like that? And then killed himself? Either way, I lost Byeong-gu.”

“So?”

“So? I got curious about women. What kind of thoughts do they have to make someone like Byeong-gu kill himself?”

“And?”

“And surprisingly, most of them were just like that Danyeong bitch. Wanting a man who’s a little better-looking, a little richer, from a more prestigious family… They didn’t even see Byeong-gu as a person. No—more accurately, they didn’t see him as a man.”

I stared at this guy who’d grown twisted and warped from such a young age.

The Left Guardian continued.

“The more I met them, the more disgustingly similar they were. Some women with higher standards even rejected me because I was a concubine-born son. To them, I was no different than Byeong-gu.”

“So now you just keep cycling through women?”

“No.”

The lecher of my past life looked at me and said something absurd.

“It’s revenge. For Byeong-gu. Because I’m trash, too.”

I nodded.

“You really are a pathetic, pants-pooping bastard.”

Suddenly, I realized exactly what kind of comment would piss this guy off the most. Without much thought, I jabbed a verbal straight punch.

“You’re no different from your father.”

His face twisted instantly.

“What?”

“Your father probably got with your mother just to obtain ice arts. Didn’t even love her, huh? Since the ice arts are the soul of the family and fiercely guarded, your mother must’ve passed it down only to you. And you? You were treated like a concubine-born from the moment you were born in Mongga. And now, you’re doing all this because of one pitiful servant? How are you any different from your father? You pathetic piece of shit.”

As soon as I saw his fist coming, my hand moved first—slapping his cheek with a loud thwack. His head snapped to the side, and I grabbed his hair with my left hand and pulled him toward me.

“Oh dear, what a clueless little brat. The Sword Demon must’ve taken you in out of pity. Try me again and I’ll make you a eunuch.”

The Left Guardian, drunk as he was, hesitated—considering whether to brawl with me again or not.

I shoved his head away and took a sip of my drink. A long, deep sigh escaped from inside me.

In a serious tone, I told him,

“I haven’t met even one person like that, so don’t go spouting that pathetic bullshit to me.”

The Left Guardian scowled and asked,

“Really?”

I ran my hand through my hair once and answered the lecher of my past life.

“I’m saying the way I live is completely different, you dumbass.”

The drunk lecher leaned back and burst out laughing.

“Ha ha ha ha ha!”

I drank and muttered,

“So where is true love, anyway…”

The lecher laughed again, holding his stomach.

“Ha ha ha ha ha.”

Even I thought I sounded like a moron, so I laughed a little with him—and silently made a vow to myself.

This life will be different.

.

.

.

For real.