The Road to Wudang (6)
I have a question for both of you. Are the wounds on the young master's body truly the result of martial arts from each respective clan?
"...They are."
"Could you tell me exactly which techniques were used?"
At my words, the two clan leaders examined their son's wounds with faces twisted by a mixture of grief and rage. Truthfully, forcing parents to do something like this was cruel, but preventing a full-scale war left no room for niceties.
"...Yes. This is the Lightning Flash Sword of the Kang clan."
"...And this matches the Nine Dragon Sword."
The moment the clan leaders finished speaking, killing intent flooded the air. I lightly stamped my foot, drawing everyone's attention back to me.
"Take a closer look at the young masters' bodies. They've been cut to pieces, yet doesn't something feel off?"
"Benefactor, it seems your suspicions were correct after all."
Mok Kyung appeared to have caught my meaning. Of course a swordsman would feel uneasy watching someone calmly inspect wounds like this.
These people simply couldn't maintain that calm because the corpses belonged to their own family.
I cleared my throat and pointed at the body.
"Look at Young Master Gu's corpse. Aren't the sword wounds far too clean?"
"...They are."
Clan Leader Gu squeezed out his agreement in a voice thick with pain.
The sword wounds on Young Master Gu's body were simply impossible.
"Young Master Kang was cut on the shoulder by Young Master Gu's sword back at the inn. It was his right shoulder, no less. After suffering an injury to the very shoulder a swordsman needs to swing his blade, how could the sword path remain so pristine?
A battle-hardened master might manage it, but Young Master Kang showed almost no signs of real combat experience. None of the traits you'd expect from a seasoned expert were present."
A true veteran instantly begins assessing an opponent's strength the moment they face a martial artist. It's instinct, measuring the threat.
Know your enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
You need to understand your opponent to win.
"Definitely strange."
"Unless one has reached a realm where they can use internal energy to seal wounds and correct sword paths, but that's something only the clan leaders could do."
"Then, as he says, an unknown assailant killed the young masters and their guards?"
"What damned bastards..."
With evidence supporting my first claim—that the two young masters had not killed each other—now on the table, finding a few more clues should be enough to stop this war cold.
"Then who inflicted these Lightning Flash Sword wounds?"
"Even without understanding how to manipulate internal energy, it's entirely possible to mimic a sword path on a corpse or a subdued opponent. Of course... it would require considerable swordsmanship knowledge, so an insider's assistance would be necessary. Or the assailant himself might be..."
"Hah."
Sighs rippled through the crowd.
What I'd said essentially declared that someone had taught the sword forms of both the Lightning Flash Sword and Nine Dragon Sword to the killer, or that the culprit belonged to one of the two clans.
In short, there was either a spy among them, or this was the work of someone affiliated with the families.
"Whoever it is, they must at minimum know the sword paths of both techniques well."
Candidates for a spy weren't exactly numerous.
A blood relative.
And at least stronger than the two young masters.
To subdue and kill them this cleanly, it had to be someone from the upper ranks.
Or... they might have used sleeping poison or anesthetic to drag them there first.
"...This is why I asked you to bring your entire households."
"I feel like I'll suffer Qi Deviation before anyone else..."
Clan Leader Kang Baek-hoon let out a long sigh and lowered his head. This had to be torture for him. I buried my complicated feelings and pressed on, searching for the next piece of evidence.
"Does either clan employ a physician?"
"Unfortunately not. We had one before, but he retired to his hometown due to old age. Lately we've commissioned the most skilled doctor in the city, even if we didn't particularly like it."
"I wanted to check for poisoning..."
"You're saying someone drugged my son and the warriors before dumping them in that alley?"
His mind seemed to be catching up now. I nodded, meeting Clan Leader Gu's gaze—still haunted by eerie intensity, yet showing flickers of reason.
"That's right, Clan Leader Gu."
"But there were no symptoms of poisoning whatsoever?"
"If it's not poison, the story changes entirely, doesn't it?"
"Not poison?"
"What benefits the body is medicine. What harms it is poison. Even the finest elixir can become deadly if it doesn't match one's constitution, correct?"
"Like consuming an elixir beyond one's capacity, where the meridians cannot handle the energy and one dies from Qi Deviation."
"Exactly that kind of case."
Mok Kyung had provided the perfect example. It was a common trope in martial arts stories, though it rarely happened in reality.
After all, in those novels it was usually the protagonist or his allies consuming the elixirs.
And there was one more piece of information that supported this theory.
"When we arrived after the incident, the physician had already disappeared, hadn't he?"
"That's correct."
The warrior who had first come to escort me answered immediately.
"If the physician was involved, or if someone impersonated him and administered sleeping agents or anesthetics to the young master and warriors, it explains why Young Master Kang was abandoned in the alley.
As for Young Master Gu's case... who was the last person with him?"
"...That would be me, sir."
An elderly servant who appeared quite advanced in years stepped forward and bowed. It felt wrong having someone older than me lower his head, but...
...This wasn't the time to worry about etiquette.
"When did you last see the young master?"
"Around the hour of the Monkey yesterday. He stopped by the house briefly, then suddenly said he had somewhere to go. He seemed to be in an excellent mood."
"Hmm."
Was that somewhere the alley?
"When you searched the body, did anyone find a note or similar message?"
The warrior who had fetched me replied that they had found nothing of the sort.
...Nothing, huh.
It bothered me that we couldn't pinpoint how they had lured Young Master Gu to that alley. Who had called him...?
Ah.
"Could he have gone to meet that woman named Myeong-hee?"
"Myeong-hee?"
It seemed the clan leader had been unaware of the woman his son fancied. Had the boy hidden it well? Or was the father simply uninterested in his son's romantic affairs...?
"Does anyone know where Miss Myeong-hee lives?"
"I do. I'll go at once!"
"Wait! Mok Kyung, accompany him."
"Understood, Benefactor."
With a Peak expert like Mok Kyung along, the odds of getting ambushed were slim. I watched them vanish using light footwork, then turned back to the clan leaders.
"If Miss Myeong-hee refuses to come or has disappeared, you may consider her complicit with the assailant."
"Just what is going on here..."
"Judging from the evidence alone, this was a meticulously planned operation."
But could a mere local sect truly orchestrate something on this scale?
If they possessed such capability, why remain in this backwater city? Inciting conflict between powerful clans just to snatch the spoils wasn't a simple task.
"Beyond the current evidence, if the critically wounded warrior wakes up, we'll obtain proof they cannot deny."
"However... given time, they'll erase their tracks. And deny everything."
Of course they would.
People who prepared this thoroughly wouldn't have missed the signs of their plan's failure.
They had likely already destroyed the evidence, or were doing so now.
Even if the Black Shadow Gate wasn't directly responsible, the chance that one of their members was involved remained extremely high.
A major power wouldn't scheme like this merely to swallow a single city. The tavern owner had mentioned they were expanding their influence in the market.
Besides, such underhanded tactics were practically the trademark of the Sapa.
Shaking down the Black Shadow Gate should yield results.
"Does anyone know the location of the Black Shadow Gate?"
"You're planning to visit them?"
"I intend to have a little chat."
Speed was essential now. We needed to strike before they could cover their tracks.
"Even if you go, would they even receive you? In that case, I'll lead my men and—"
"If the clan leader moves personally, they'll notice immediately and flee."
The clan leader heading toward the Black Shadow Gate would be the clearest signal that their scheme had been exposed.
"Still, even if they are Sapa, suddenly attacking isn't wise. We don't know what they might do."
"Clan Leader Kang, it's fine. I've already prepared proper justification."
Time to play the knight-errant again. Or rather, the righteous hero.
"Lend me one warrior who knows the way and a few others with reliable skills. Meanwhile, both clan leaders should make a show of preparing for war."
"...It feels like we're placing too heavy a burden on you."
"Just compensate me properly afterward."
"Catch the culprit and I'll give you half my fortune."
"The same from me."
I nodded at the two clan leaders, whose eyes burned with determination as they made their vows.
"Uncle..."
"Don't worry. If I were the sort to die to small fry like them, I wouldn't be standing here."
I comforted Hye-ryeong, who gazed up at me with watery eyes, then turned away.
"I'll return with good news."
"Come out! A righteous hero of the orthodox path has arrived to exterminate the demonic curs who extort money from innocent civilians!"
---
"Hey, why's it so quiet? You said it'd get noisy once things kicked off."
"How should I know? If I knew, I'd be inside cracking jokes with the sect leader instead of standing here."
"Heh, it's killing me. Just a little longer and our time will come, right?"
The Black Shadow Gate's sentries let their imaginations run wild, staring blankly ahead. Unlike their current slow nibbling at the city's markets, successfully seizing control would mean feasting on meat and wine to their hearts' content.
"When's the damn shift change... ugh."
"Half a shichen left, yeah? Just hold on a bit... huh?"
Thud. Thud.
The sentries spotted a warrior wearing a deep bamboo hat walking straight toward the main gate without bothering to conceal his presence. They placed their hands on their weapons and glared at the unfamiliar intruder.
"Who's that guy?"
"Were we expecting a guest today?"
"You idiot. What kind of day is this for visitors!"
Whether they bickered or not, the warrior with his hat pulled low stopped casually before them.
'H-huge...!'
"Is this the Black Shadow Gate?"
"A Westerner?"
"Having someone like this as a sentry? Your discipline's pathetic. Back in my day..."
Bang!
"We used to smash heads like yours with our helmets when you stood like that."
His fists slammed mercilessly into both sentries' faces. With brief cries, their features caved in as they crumpled to the ground.
After confirming they were unconscious, he looked up, leaped in place, and ripped the sect's signboard from above the gate.
'Nothing provokes a sect better than this.'
The symbol of any sect was its signboard, after all.
With the board slung over his shoulder, he kicked the main gate wide open.