The Man Who Asked for Nothing
Ja Gangcheon’s face remained as blank as stone.
Even as the Green Forest bandit screamed, not a flicker of feeling crossed his features.
“P-please, spare me.”
Watching Ja Gangcheon snap his hand like a dry twig, the bandit finally understood he was facing someone far beyond his reach. He had ruled a major territory as an outpost lord and earned the name of a vicious fighter—yet the moment he met Ja Gangcheon’s eyes, a strange, animal terror seized him.
A master.
It was like stumbling upon a predator in the wild. Just being looked at was enough to shrink a man down to nothing.
The predator spoke.
“You do realize you just tried to kill the lord of the Chosan Assembly, don’t you?”
“What are you talking about…?”
Only then did the Green Forest bandit grasp what he had attempted.
Not a rival. From this morning on, he was already the Assembly Lord.
The instant the man had declared that grievances could be aired until midnight, he had been the lord—at least for now.
“I—I’m sorry…”
“Stay still.”
Tap.
Ja Gangcheon sealed the pressure points of the bandit who was still trying to apologize.
“Everyone, inside.”
He pointed toward the hall where the meeting had been held.
“Anyone who wants to die can stay where they are.”
“Move, all of you!”
Chae Geon-a issued orders at once and shepherded the people of the Chosan Assembly into the building.
So far, everything according to plan.
But before the doors closed, Chae Geon-a looked back at Ja Gangcheon.
“Will you be all right?”
Instead of answering, Ja Gangcheon gave a slight nod.
“Be careful.”
The moment Chae Geon-a shut the doors, a group of men vaulted the fence.
Green Forest bandits.
“Lord!”
They were coming to rescue the outpost lord responsible for today’s mess.
The first to react was the man still sprawled on the ground—the outpost lord himself.
Don’t come! Stop!
He knew the situation must not escalate any further, but with his pressure points sealed, his mouth would not open.
In that brief span Ja Gangcheon picked up a wooden staff lying nearby.
Crack!
The man leading the charge had his shoulder shattered by Ja Gangcheon’s staff and was driven straight into the dirt. The blow was monstrous, yet the Green Forest bandits already in full sprint did not stop.
Thud! Thud!
It was as if a barrier had been raised. The air around Ja Gangcheon filled with afterimages of the staff. What was astonishing was that wood was striking steel—and it was the steel that broke.
“Gah!”
“Urgh!”
Anyone who closed in left with something broken and rolled across the ground. The screams never stopped; the groans of the wounded piled up until they sounded like the wails of a ghost valley.
“S-stop!”
With a comrade’s help, the outpost lord finally freed his pressure points and roared at the top of his lungs.
“I said stop, you idiots!”
Do Jang-myeong, Lord of the Biam Outpost.
He scanned the scene in a hurry.
He’s deliberately not killing a single one of them.
The intent was crystal clear.
He’s going to pin every crime on us.
More precisely, Do Jang-myeong’s own guilt was swelling by the second.
“Stop!”
In the end he stepped forward himself and halted the Green Forest bandits.
“Th-thank you for showing mercy.”
Looking over the confused, hesitant bandits, Do Jang-myeong bowed his head to Ja Gangcheon. Agonizing pain flared from his ruined hand, but he had no time to spare for it.
“Unlike you, I’m not particularly fond of killing.”
Ja Gangcheon tossed the staff to the ground and dusted off his hands. Seeing that, Do Jang-myeong shouted at the bandits once more.
“Take everyone and go back! Now!”
The Green Forest men still looked baffled, but none of them defied their commander’s order.
Once the groaning wounded had all withdrawn and only Do Jang-myeong remained, the hall doors finally opened. Chae Geon-a emerged at the head of the Chosan Assembly.
Whatever had been decided inside while the fighting raged was plain enough on their faces.
“We have agreed to follow Lord Chae’s command.”
Hearing that, Ja Gangcheon stepped back. From this point on, it was Chae Geon-a’s stage.
“Let everyone know that the Chosan Assembly has been reborn. We will never force anyone to join. If you form your own groups privately, we will acknowledge them, and we will not interfere in independent ventures. But any act that blocks or hinders membership will be punished without mercy.”
Though he held power, Chae Geon-a had chosen forbearance.
“The first goal of our Chosan Assembly is to ensure that our members are no longer ignored and receive fair treatment. For every product we produce, the Assembly will negotiate directly with merchant guilds across the land.”
“We will obey the Lord’s will.”
“We will see that word reaches every last person.”
The eastern and western contingents bowed at once. The southern contingent sighed, but did not go against the tide.
The last man remaining was the northern overseer—the one they called Tiger Eyebrows.
“Tell the Green Forest this: I have no desire to make enemies of them over this affair. I will forget the grudge completely—so the Green Forest is to stay out of our business from now on.”
Even after choosing forgiveness over punishment, Tiger Eyebrows’s expression did not ease.
In the end, that burden falls on you.
Delivering that message to the Green Forest would not be a smooth road.
That’s your role. The Green Forest needs someone to take their anger out on, after all.
Both the Chosan Assembly and Ja Gangcheon had people they needed to protect. For men who traveled the whole country, making enemies of the Green Forest was never a wise choice.
That was why they had planned it this way.
What an extraordinary man. He actually pulled it off.
Chae Geon-a had drawn up the plan, but Ja Gangcheon was the one who had carried it out.
“I will never forget this kindness.”
“We each needed something from the other. I’d rather be good partners than keep things stiff and formal.”
“You said it was Deungmyeong Manor, didn’t you? From now on, every product the Chosan Assembly produces will go to you first.”
“That’s more than enough.”
Ja Gangcheon was truly satisfied. To Chae Geon-a, however, the answer felt both refreshing and strangely alien.
Is he really not going to ask for anything else?
He remained suspicious all the way through drafting a provisional contract and turning to leave—yet to the end, Ja Gangcheon demanded nothing.
“Take care.”
They were exchanging their final goodbyes when—
“Ah, right.”
Had he finally thought of something to request?
“What do you like?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“So I can have something ready the next time you visit Deungmyeong Manor. Fruit or oil-and-honey pastries are fine. Tea, too.”
Somehow the fight went clean out of Chae Geon-a.
“I’ve lived my whole life in the mountains, so seafood from the coast tastes especially good.”
“Perfect! Gyounam has plenty of ocean fish.”
Ja Gangcheon even waved as he walked away.
“Seeing him makes me feel rather small.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Right to the end I was fretting over what he might demand. Truthfully, I worried about it the entire time we were together. And all the while he was the one speaking with complete honesty.”
Every anxiety up to that moment had been of his own making.
“I can hardly believe someone like him exists in this world.”
“The Mountain God must have sent him.”
“But he said he lives by the sea.”
“Ahem.”
They almost laughed—yet at Chae Geon-a’s self-deprecating remark, every face grew heavy.
“It seems the Mountain God asked a favor of the Dragon King. Among us mountain folk there simply wasn’t anyone useful enough.”
As the gloom settled, Chae Geon-a spoke.
“From this day we change. We have many families to look after.”
All of them gazed with lingering eyes at the place the seventeen-year-old youth had left behind.
The youngest person still standing there was fifty years old.
Ja Gangcheon hurried along the road.
He wanted to deliver the good news as quickly as possible.
I should ease the merchant lord’s worries, too.
Remembering skin that had turned as dry and crumbly as old wax in so short a time made his chest ache.
So he pressed on.
He raced across treetops overlooking the official highway with his lightness skill and even crossed a broad river outright. The only reason he never left the highway was the fear of losing his way.
He swept through Henan and had just entered Shandong Province when something changed.
Gyounam sat on the coast; setting foot in Shandong did not mean he was close. Still, from a certain point onward Ja Gangcheon found himself tracking a presence—not one person’s aura, but many.
It felt like a loose human net cast across the land. An uncountable web of sentries stretched along the highway, so he abandoned lightness skill and began to walk.
“Aah!”
If he had not heard that cry from afar, he would never have stopped.
“P-please, help me!”
If the terror-stricken voice had not belonged to a child, he might not have intervened.
Whoosh!
Ja Gangcheon’s body vanished from the highway and shot into the deep forest.
“Help me!”
A brutish hand held a curved blade to the throat of a girl no older than ten.
The instant she squeezed her eyes shut—
Clang!
A single pebble struck the flat of the blade.
Seeing the solid steel edge shatter, the burly man in his thirties scanned the surroundings in a rush.
“Who’s there?”
“Why are you trying to kill a child deep in the mountains?”
The voice ricocheted, dizzying the ear with its echoes.
Recognizing the afterimage of internal energy, the man swallowed hard.
“I don’t know what master you may be, but this is a private grudge. Stay out of it.”
He managed a firm warning—yet that was no reason for a bearded grown man to cut the throat of a helpless ten-year-old girl.
“Give me the reason. I’ll decide whether to walk away after I hear it.”
“The child stole our goods.”
“That’s not true! I didn’t steal anything! Those men were trying to kill my father!”
“She’s lying.”
“I’m not! I’m not!”
The man tensed.
Strangely, he still could not hear the stranger’s true location.
So he raised the broken curved blade again.
“P-please spare me! Don’t kill me!”
He meant only to silence the noisy girl first. But before his hand could fall, a cool voice cut through the air.
“Wearing two layers, I see.”
Slash!
The man’s outer robe tore open. Beneath it showed a familiar light armor.
A red tiger.
“So it’s the Hwangbo Family.”
The words had barely left him when a sharp wave of force streaked toward Ja Gangcheon’s back.
Paht!
Dirt exploded from the spot where he had been standing.
Without so much as a warning, a keenly honed dagger had flown at him. Its target, however, was already gone.
“Th-the girl is gone! After them!”
It was not only the uninvited guest who had vanished. The girl who had been trembling moments earlier was nowhere to be seen either.
“Did you see his face?”
“Forgive me. He was behind me—I never got a look.”
Watching ten subordinates fan out in every direction, the man frowned.
“Find them. We must find them and cut off every loose end.”
“Yes, Branch Leader.”
The man still gripping the broken curved blade vanished into the dark woods at once.
Alone now, the remaining man plucked the fallen dagger from the ground and slid it into the leather sash at his waist.
“He dodged a hidden weapon thrown from behind as if he’d seen it coming. That means he’s no ordinary master…”
No matter how hard he thought, no name came to mind.
Did that man have a friend?
An ugly possibility rose in his mind.
“They must be dealt with.”
Having secured the weapon, he climbed the tallest tree and surveyed the forest.
Whoosh!
The wind whipping past her ears made the girl’s head throb. She curled into herself as tightly as she could.
“Please save my father. I’m begging you. Please, just save my father.”
Once he judged they had put enough distance between them, Ja Gangcheon asked,
“Who’s your father?”
“Just… my father.”
“Why is he in danger?”
“We lived in the mountains. Just me and my dad. Then those men showed up.”
The girl repeated the story of what she had been through.
Living in the mountains, and warriors of the Hwangbo Family came looking? And they even tried to kill a little girl to silence every witness?
Inexperienced as he was, Ja Gangcheon still understood that a clash with the Hwangbo Family was growing more and more likely.
I need to find out what’s going on.
He changed direction.