Cho Yoon, having finished his rough search, grabbed Moyong Seo by the shoulders and locked eyes with him. A single line of worry etched a clear crack across his composed face. Cho Yoon’s voice, now sharp with tension, asked clearly:

“The divine artifact?”

“Pardon?”

“The crow-shaped divine artifact. The one your brother gave you!”

Startled by the unexpected question, Moyong Seo scowled. Behind him, the bamboo blind that had been suspended in the air fell back into place with a cha-ra-rak. The strung gemstones clattered against each other, shining brilliantly, but neither had any attention to spare for such noise.

Moyong Seo, stiffening as if he couldn’t understand what this was about, grasped Cho Yoon’s wrist and spoke rigidly.

“I do not know what you are talking about. Perhaps in the previous world, but in this present timeline, I have never received a divine artifact from my brother.”

“It wasn’t near you when you opened your eyes in this timeline?”

“I returned as if time had turned back; how could I possibly still have it!”

The moment the plea-like words ended, Cho Yoon released Moyong Seo as if pushing him away. Then, propping his elbow on the armrest and touching his lips, he fell into confused thought.

Moyong Seo, unaware of the reason, couldn’t hide his displeasure as he straightened his clothes and added:

“If the divine artifact you speak of is indeed the one discovered in the secret cave, it should still be in my brother’s hands. Even in the previous world, he was the one who hid it tightly until the Moyong Clan was annihilated. Although he carried it on his person at all times after that, since I have returned to the past, acquiring it is still a distant matter for me.”

“…”

“Calling it a divine artifact is a stretch when it has no effects whatsoever, and it has already been eight years since my brother personally found a successor. I haven’t particularly seen it during that time, nor do I wish to possess it. At this point, it is neither my brother’s keepsake nor anything else, is it?”

Strange. This is too strange.

The more he listened to Moyong Seo’s story, the whiter Cho Yoon’s clenched fist turned.

What was the ‘crow divine artifact’?

It was the symbol of the protagonist that pierced through The Returned Hero. Although it wasn’t explicitly mentioned to have a specific ability, whenever something strange happened to the protagonist, it was described as vibrating or heating up, and Moyong Seo often escaped crises with the help of an unknown power. Coupled with its tragic backstory, the weight the divine artifact held in the work was inevitably significant.

According to the original novel, after the protagonist regressed, the divine artifact should have stuck to Moyong Seo, and Moyong Dan was supposed to diligently hide the fact that his younger brother was the object’s rightful owner until the appropriate time.

The scene where the protagonist, whom everyone thought was a worthless wastrel, announced the ‘Birth of a Hero’ to the entire Murim while wrapped in auspicious energy during the great war following the outbreak of the Orthodox-Demonic War was one of the few majestic, iconic scenes in The Returned Hero.

And yet, eight years after the regression, such an item was still in Moyong Dan’s hands?

Then is the central figure of the regression Moyong Dan? No, that doesn’t seem right. Either way, Moyong Seo has the memories. If the person using the divine artifact changed, shouldn’t the person regressing change too?

He racked his brain, but no plausible hypothesis came to mind. Since Cho Yoon had possessed this body in the ‘world after regression’ from the start, this wasn’t a change caused by the influence of a transmigrator either.

Then, a remark Moyong Seo had passed over casually suddenly struck him.

“Does saying you haven’t particularly seen the divine artifact mean you haven’t confirmed its appearance with your own eyes since returning to this time?”

“Yes. I only know the fact that my brother is managing it with great care to avoid the eyes of the Namgung Clan. He also shuts himself away somewhere every night to study the divine artifact.”

In the original work, Moyong Seo, whom no one thought could ever become a hero, carried the divine artifact, and naturally, his whereabouts became mysterious. But now, Moyong Dan had stubbornly hidden an ownerless object for eight years.

Moyong Dan was set up as a genius proficient in mechanical formations, but because his traits overlapped with the heroine Zhuge Seol-rin, he wasn’t highlighted much. Such a person was studying the divine artifact every night, managing it so that even Moyong Seo hadn’t seen the actual item since his return.

The regression happened, yet the entity of the object that triggered the original story was missing.

If there was any other changed basic setting… it was only Jeong Hayoon, who had suddenly possessed a supporting character out of nowhere.

Don’t tell me this is somehow my fault without me knowing? I really don’t know anything, so what am I supposed to do? Is it okay for me, not even the protagonist, to go rummaging around looking for the whereabouts of a divine artifact? I was planning to find a way to leisurely return home after making Cheon-oh independent, but now that I’ve prevented Tang Woon-geum’s poisoning in advance and raised the kid who would become the Demonic Cult Leader well, is there really a need to do anything more?

While he was agonizing over a problem with no visible answer regarding an event he couldn’t get a grasp on, Moyong Seo, noticing something strange, examined Cho Yoon’s complexion. On the surface, he only seemed deep in thought with no agitation, but the sudden change in attitude meant something unexpected had occurred.

“Is that divine artifact an important item?”

“…”

There was no way he could say it was the cheat key that was supposed to help him sweep the battlefield. However, Moyong Seo, interpreting Cho Yoon’s silence differently, barely opened his mouth after intense deliberation and confessed what he had done.

This drove the wedge in properly for Cho Yoon, who was already dizzy with shock.

“…Actually, my brother also knows my secret. When I fainted upon meeting Seomun Cheon-oh in Shaanxi Province, I lacked the confidence to gloss over the reason, so I confessed. I dare vouch that he is someone more trustworthy than anyone else.”

“…Does that mean Moyong Dan heard about the previous world through your mouth?”

“Yes. Not knowing how this conversation would flow, I insisted on meeting you alone, Great Hero, but.”

Just the divine artifact alone is a headache, but now the Seven Star Sword Moyong Dan knows about the regression too?

Cho Yoon’s thought process stopped working under the excessive load.

Moyong Seo, unaware of this, stood straight and stared at Cho Yoon with determined eyes.

Although his body was that of a boy not yet fifteen, his height, grown through sufficient training, allowed him to look down on the seated figure. Cho Yoon’s light-brown eyes, which had been fixed somewhere on the floor, slid smoothly upward.

Moyong Seo did not possess exceptionally brilliant comprehension like his half-brother. The contempt he faced over a long period had twisted his personality fiercely, and the wounds he received long ago had gaped open, unable to even form scars. His cynical temperament, placing no value on great causes or justice, combined with a chronic rebellious streak, had molded Moyong Seo into a person close to a scoundrel.

But Moyong Seo possessed the seasoned experience of an old wolf.

The long life of fleeing while holding his breath and harboring vengeance had become a skillful survival instinct. That was why Moyong Seo could pick out like a ghost what would work in his favor, and he could be certain of at least one fact: the immortal filling his vision white right now was not an ‘enemy.’

Moyong Seo decided to trust the intention derived from Cho Yoon’s actions and bet his most precious person.

“If it is a matter of grave importance, my brother would be more useful than I. If you wish to meet him, I will call him.”

Not knowing who his brother, whom he had kept tightly bound to avoid exposing to danger, had gone to meet at this very moment.

***

The Moyong Clan was one of the leading sects among the forces forming the White Chivalry Alliance, but despite their outstanding martial power and superior intellect, they tended to be looked down upon by those established in the Central Plains.

This was partly because their base was in the far-off Liaoning Province, but their origin as an ethnic minority was also a major reason.

The Moyong surname descended from the royal family of a nation in the distant past.

With thick Turkic blood, their appearance was exotic, and sometimes children were born with light hair colors like Westerners. Given the nature of the Central Plains, which was vast in land but hardly open-minded, it was natural for the Moyong Clan, different even in appearance, to be treated poorly, and it hadn’t been long since this perception began to break.

And Moyong Dan, the main reason for changing the prejudice of the Central Plains people, possessed sand-colored hair that was clearly visible even under the faint moonlight of the dark night.

As if to publicly announce that he was born from a different womb than his black-haired brother, Moyong Dan, with his high-brightness hair tied up in a topknot, was a tall man an inch taller than Cheon-oh. He had a large build with straight shoulders and back, his features were neat, and his posture was noble.

Black eyes fixed upon Moyong Dan, who bowed politely without crossing the threshold of the open gate.

Leaving aside Sa-hyeon, who had seen him over several years, or Sa-yeong, who had heard news of him for a long time, Cheon-oh was seeing Moyong Dan for the first time.

It wasn’t in his nature to give interest to others, and having lived nearly his entire life with a figure ten times more peculiar than this man, there was no reason for him to feel fascinated now, yet strangely, his gaze kept being drawn.

Just as Cheon-oh, scanning Moyong Dan’s physique and frame without weight, tilted his head in puzzlement, Sa-yeong, who had quietly put away the firework she had drawn, spoke.

“I didn’t know you would pay a visit like this, Great Hero Seven Star Sword. If you had sent word in advance, we would have prepared to welcome you. I am simply ashamed to show such unsightly behavior in succession.”

“…I apologize again. I felt I wouldn’t be able to speak with you if not now, so I came blindly without observing proper etiquette.”

Sa-yeong, who had been politely sarcastic with irony toward the person who appeared abruptly in the dead of night at a hidden location, shut her mouth for a moment at the humble attitude returned to her.

The thunderbolt of a story she heard just a moment ago, the unreliable brothers on either side of her, and now this burdensome uninvited guest—nothing was to her liking, but she couldn’t cover her ears and avoid it either.