Ticket to the Dark Fighting Tournament
“A participation ticket for the Dark Fighting Tournament…?”
I stared at the red-eyed woman before me—the female leader of the Blood Death Sect—as if wondering what kind of nonsense she was spouting.
She spoke with bold confidence.
“I didn’t expect much either, but the Lower Gate somehow managed to get their hands on it.”
“Don’t tell me.”
As I stammered, So Yeomgyo declared energetically,
“With this, we can jump straight into the tournament starting tomorrow. Walk right into the enemy’s heart without a single obstacle in our way, nice and easy.”
“That’s true, but…”
I made a face that said I was far from thrilled. I flipped through the scrolls piled in front of me and read the writing inside.
The Dark Fighting Tournament.
It was said to be a prestigious event in the underworld, hosted in rotation every five years by the largest black-path organizations assigned to each region of the Central Plains. The biggest difference from ordinary martial arts competitions was that, true to its black-path origins, every match was a life-or-death duel with no rules whatsoever. Moreover, no one bore any responsibility for any accidents, injuries, or deaths that occurred during the tournament.
Given the nature of the event, the spectators craved blood and brutality, and the organizers leaned more toward encouraging that than restraining it. While the strongest individual martial artists would form the core of the participants, all sorts of slaves and underworld experts appeared as well—and in extreme cases, even masters from beyond the Central Plains.
I sighed and spoke to So Yeomgyo.
“Attending is fine, but is there any clear advantage to actually entering this tournament beyond just showing up?”
“The winner gets a private audience with the Oji Branch Leader and receives a reward.”
So Yeomgyo clenched her fist.
“If things go well, we won’t even need to comb through the Oji Branch ourselves to find where the Missing Husband’s Hundred-Eight-Seven-Night Rite is being performed. We could just subdue the Oji Branch Leader on the spot and force the information out of him. It’s perfect for us.”
I tilted my head with a troubled expression.
“Well, with your skill, So Yeomgyo, winning a black-path tournament like this would be a sure thing. But if you’re exposed, the fallout afterward—”
“Obviously Biryu is the one entering. Not a delicate young lady like me. You’re the specialist in this kind of dogfight.”
“…Delicate? These days, do ‘delicate young ladies’ punch vertical holes straight from the underground all the way to the surface? A strong one would probably smash the imperial palace itself.”
“Hoho. Want to die, Mr. Biryu?”
I closed my eyes with a deep sigh.
“Fine, let’s say that’s settled. Then how are you planning to get in? This clearly looks like an entry pass for only one person.”
As if she had been waiting for that exact question, So Yeomgyo forcibly pried open my closed eyelids and unfurled a sheet of paper right in front of my face.
Dark Fighting Tournament — Guest Seat Invitation
“…What the hell.”
“I’ll be cheering you on. I believe in you. Slave Number One.”
“Wow. Even the black-path folks would cry at this—”
“No, this is giving you a chance too, you know? Separate from this whole affair, the first-place prize money is enormous.”
“What does enormous prize money have to do with giving me a chance?”
So Yeomgyo rummaged in her robes and held something out in front of me.
The moment I saw it, I stiffened as if struck by lightning.
“Ah.”
I stared, frozen, at the contract lying on the table.
It was the carrier-pigeon letter I had written and sent to So Yeomgyo after obtaining Eun Seollyeong’s permission while I was with her.
So Yeomgyo said,
“You didn’t already forget what you wrote yourself, did you? As the saying goes, a man’s single word is heavier than a thousand gold pieces. Ha. Honestly.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead as if recalling old memories and muttered,
“Because of this one carrier-pigeon letter packed with crooked, terrible handwriting, this frail young lady ran a thousand li all the way here, restored a village in Inhyeon Gorge she’d never even seen before, huh? Paid out support funds, huh? Even fixed some old man’s house. Huh?!”
“….”
“But still, what can you do?”
So Yeomgyo tapped the contract on the table.
“Right here, a certain man famous for having pride as straight as a bamboo stalk wrote that even though he had no collateral and no separate credit to his name, if she would just trust him this once and help, he would definitely repay double every last coin spent on the above matters, no matter how long it took…. So this frail young lady had no choice but to give in to that man’s force of will and agree while shedding tears, right?”
“…I didn’t… expect it. You really did all of that?”
“Yeah.”
So Yeomgyo answered with eyes as expressionless as frost.
“I did everything. Not a single thing left out. Every last demand you made.”
“…You? Weren’t you busy? Honestly, I didn’t expect it at all….”
So Yeomgyo’s eyes blazed with twin flames of anger.
“If you doubt it, go check later yourself. Slave Number One Field Investigation Officer who was busy sightseeing the jianghu while flirting with the silver-haired woman. Fine, perfect timing. While we’re at it, how about dropping ‘Biryu’ and going by Number One instead, same as Baekho’s rotating names? Baekho already thinks of you like a sworn brother and frets over you terribly.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Then I’ll take that as full agreement with no complaints on this matter.”
So Yeomgyo gathered the scrolls and stood from her seat.
“Let’s go, Slave. There’s only one day left until the tournament starts. Help me out for today.”
“Where are we going now? Everywhere except the Oji Branch has already been dismantled.”
At that question, So Yeomgyo held up the guest seat invitation with a look that said I was hopeless.
“Pretty much every black-path dignitary is gathering. You still have to dress properly if you don’t want to draw suspicion.”
“…Don’t tell me.”
So Yeomgyo thrust out her chest and declared,
“We’re going clothes shopping.”
The wind blew.
It blew, but there was no longer any chill in it—only a full, warm feeling. Trees visible here and there had just begun to sprout green leaves, and in the blink of an eye they were already thick with lush blue foliage, swaying. I could feel that we had passed spring and were heading into summer.
—Murmur murmur.
Everyone was glancing our way at least once. Ahead of them, a woman with red eyes walked through the market with light steps, sightseeing. In one hand she held a chicken skewer she had bought from a street stall. So Yeomgyo’s mood looked extremely good. She even started humming a tune as she plucked the meat off the skewer one piece at a time and ate it.
Honestly, I held back three times.
No—to be precise, I held back more than three times.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore and spoke.
“I learned a saying not long ago. There’s something called ‘ji-pal-ji-kkon.’”
“What’s that mean?”
Her black hair swayed in the warm late-spring breeze. Watching it, I drew a breath in and let it out as I answered.
“You twist your own fate with your own hands.”
“Aha. So who told you to go and write a contract like that without fear, addressed to the female leader of the great Blood Death Sect?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Why on earth was the only person who came to mind for sending a carrier pigeon you?”
I muttered it, but the red-eyed woman who should have heard it was already humming and walking far ahead. She had claimed she was going out under the pretext of buying clothes to attend the Dark Fighting Tournament as a guest. But that was only the pretext.
“It’s been a really long time since I came out like this without a mask, for something personal instead of work.”
She looked around at everything in a frenzy. Even the smallest things made her marvel and cheer. I was dragged along mercilessly wherever she led.
“Wow, this is really pretty.”
At a street stall, So Yeomgyo kept exclaiming over a tiny trinket.
“Isn’t that a kids’ toy?”
I picked up the clumsily made ornament with a bored expression and turned it this way and that. It was a shell-shaped container for rouge, engraved with sparkling patterns.
“When I was little, my wish was to own just one of these. In the end I never got even one.”
“You’re an adult now.”
I answered bluntly.
“Sometimes that feels like a really sad reality, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
So Yeomgyo looked at me and said,
“I’m still the same. I’m still the same, but the situation around me keeps changing, responsibilities pile up on me, and the people around me just keep getting older.”
“…So Yeomgyo?”
“How much is this?”
It was a cheap price. So Yeomgyo took out a pouch from her robes and carefully counted the money.
“This is for the Blood Death Sect kids’ meal expenses, this is for weapons, this is the cost to hand over to the branch this time….”
She counted meticulously, then took out the money for the trinket and paid. She received the ornament carefully, stared at it for a moment, then tucked it into her robes. Right after, she skipped off toward another attraction in the distance.
“….”
I stood still until she had walked more than twenty paces ahead. Only when she called from far away did I finally follow again.
“Hey, was there a beauty of that type around here?”
“Good heavens. She’s insane, completely insane.”
As she passed, countless men stared at her without even noticing the drool forming. Every time the hem of her red martial robes fluttered and revealed her long, white, perfectly straight legs, the men tried and failed to tear their eyes away. I had already witnessed the seventh man get smacked in the back of the head by his lover or wife while chasing after So Yeomgyo.
“A lovely woman like that must have a man she’s seeing, right?”
“Of course.”
The crowd whispered.
“There’s a man following right behind her.”
My shoulders lifted a little on their own.
“Seeing how she even brings a servant along, she must be a young lady of high status.”
“….”
I only looked over because I wondered if that “servant” referred to me. The man next to him, who seemed to be a companion, smacked the back of the first man’s head and shouted,
“Not a servant. Are your eyes even properly set in your head?”
“Th-then?”
The man who had done the smacking nodded and said,
“A bodyguard. Look at that trained physique. He’s a martial artist serving the young lady.”
“….”
There was no real need to deny it, but it left a bitter taste. Lately I had keenly felt that every person carried their own unique presence. It was probably a complex combination of the life they had lived and the face they were born with. They say clothes make the man, but that only applies to ordinary people. With Eun Seollyeong, her beauty was so striking that I had once made her wear a bamboo hat and a dog-skin cloak. Even then, the lofty air and presence she gave off were not diminished in the slightest. I would bet that even if So Yeomgyo wore nothing but the black dog-skin cloak I had on, instead of her usual Blood Death Sect martial robes, people would still sense that something about her was extraordinary.
Compared to that, my own impression was extremely ordinary. Looking at it that way, there was probably a reason they thought what they did.
“What are you standing there like an idiot for?”
I raised my head. So Yeomgyo was standing right in front of me.
“The most important thing is still left. Is it okay for the man who’s supposed to help pick it out to space out and do other things?”
“The most important thing—what else are we buying—mph.”
A chicken skewer was shoved into my mouth, shutting it.
“Shut up and hurry up, Slave Number One.”
Before I could say anything, she got behind me and shoved me forward without hesitation, dragging me along.
“…That’s a bit too familiar for how you’d treat a servant or bodyguard, isn’t it?”
“Y-yeah.”
From behind came the awkward voices of the two men talking.
“Come on, come on! If you drive this nail in with one hit, you get this bracelet! Hey, you there, mister! Give it a try!”
“Biryu, that one!”
Where So Yeomgyo pointed, a street vendor stood with nails lined up in an oak block, holding a hammer. The game was to drive a nail all the way in with one hammer blow to win a prize. The owner raised his voice to urge people on.
“Give it some strength! See this jewel bracelet? It’s really pretty! Just drive the nail in and it’s yours—free, basically free! You get three tries, and if you drive all five nails, you get it right away!”
Jewel bracelet my ass. It’s cheap junk a kid would wear.
Mumyeong saw through the low quality at a glance and muttered. It definitely looked crude for an adult to wear, but at a glance the sparkle made it look pretty enough. A couple right in front of me tried their luck. The man swung the hammer with the woman’s cheers.
“What the—why is this wood so hard?!”
The first swing hit the side of the nail. The second and third struck the nail but didn’t drive it even halfway in.
They even oiled the wood to make it even harder.
The man who went first cursed, paid the fee, and left.
“Want to give it a try too?”
The owner grinned and held the hammer out to me.
“….”
I stared blankly at the hammer. Then I looked at So Yeomgyo.
“Win it! Slave Number One!”
“I won’t say anything more.”
I took the hammer the owner offered in my left hand. Then I raised my right fist.
“Huh?”
The owner stared dumbly at my fist.
—Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
“I’ll gratefully accept this.”
After driving all five nails all the way in with my bare fist, I took the bracelet from the dazed owner’s hand.
“I don’t get it. Is it that good? As the leader of the Blood Death Sect, can’t you just have whatever you want?”
“That’s money as the leader of the Blood Death Sect, not money for me, So Yeomgyo.”
Looking down at the jewel bracelet, So Yeomgyo smiled quietly and whispered,
“This much is enough for me.”
After a breath, she continued,
“Even just this much makes me happy.”
The next place we entered was a clothing shop.
“Oh my! Young lady! You’re so beautiful! Oh dear, oh dear, what do I do! Looking again, you’re a complete fairy!”
Faced with a customer of such grand presence after a long time, the plump female owner of the clothing shop raised both thumbs and puffed out snorts of breath.
“Our shop is the finest in all of Shaanxi, famous for having the greatest variety of clothes and tailoring! The first one suits you, and that one suits you too!”
“Hmm.”
In front of the full-length mirror, So Yeomgyo spun around. She planted one foot on the shelf in front of her and spoke toward me.
“So how is it?”
“Hmm. Well.”
I propped my chin on my hand, pondered, then said,
“Can’t we do something about that open-shoulder part?”
“The shoulder? Why?”
Looking in the mirror, So Yeomgyo adjusted her exposed shoulder line and tilted her head.
“I don’t know much about clothes, but… well, like this?”
I hesitated, then reached out, took the edge of the fabric, and gently pulled it up to cover the tip of her bare shoulder.
“Is this better?”
“…Maybe?”
“No, this young master from earlier!”
Answering in my place was the clothing shop owner, now boiling with rage.
“That slight cut that reveals the shoulder is what fully brings out elegance, classical beauty, and feminine charm! That cut line is the absolute core of the core, and you’re just covering it up yourself—what do you think you’re doing?!”
“I-is that so?”
My retort seemed to have touched some reverse scale of pride the owner held about clothing. She dashed off somewhere. When she returned, her arms were full of dozens of outfits.
“Today I will completely reforge this young master’s eye for fashion!”
“Ah, Auntie, don’t tell me!”
So Yeomgyo clasped her hands and her eyes sparkled.
The owner declared,
“Normally every try-on here costs one silver coin separate from purchase, but leaving things as they are won’t allow my pride as Shaanxi’s finest clothing artisan!”
“Oh my! Then that’s great for me!”
So Yeomgyo jumped for joy, bouncing up and down.
The owner laid out the clothes and said,
“The young lady’s figure is rare even in Shaanxi, so the clothes will truly rejoice at being tried on! Please try them!”
“Biryu! Stand right there and watch!”
Together with the owner, So Yeomgyo carried the clothes into the fitting room. A black curtain was drawn.
“What on earth is happening right now.”
Watching the silhouette of the woman changing clothes beyond the black curtain, the only thought in my head was that I wanted to hurry back to the inn and rest.
—Swish.
“There! Look!”
By this point it felt like an exhibition with the owner’s pride on the line. Beneath the drawn curtain, So Yeomgyo appeared in a new outfit. Breathing roughly through her nose, the owner proclaimed,
“This black line that opens from the hip and continues all the way makes the young lady’s greatest asset—her legs—look even longer, while connecting from the waistline above—!”
I rummaged in my pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and covered my nose as I spoke to the owner.
“Isn’t this a bit too bold? As a matter of jianghu propriety, I would request something more modest….”
“As a matter of jianghu propriety! This is precisely the form and identity of Shaanxi! You still haven’t come to your senses—next!”
“Kyaa, is this the next one? Wow, my wish was to try on all sorts of clothes like this, and to achieve that wish in a place I never expected!”
So Yeomgyo let out a scream of joy and bounced around.
—Swish.
The curtain opened and the clothes kept changing.
“Wow, this one covers everything that should be covered, but it’s the clinging type?!”
—Swish.
“Hmm, this has a black scholar-like feel, but the lines are strangely alive. Huh, why is the side open?”
—Swish.
“Oh, this is a skirt style with one side slit….”
“That’s the one! Oh my! How can it be so classical! You look like a cold, proud empress who rules the underworld—the greatest of all time, the greatest under heaven!”
“How much does it cost?”
“It’s a bit expensive, but it’s fine! It’s so pretty you absolutely have to buy it!”
Listening to the two women’s fussing, the handkerchief covering my nose gradually turned redder.
What the owner is saying isn’t wrong. Whether that flattery is intentional or unintentional, I don’t know.
Mumyeong muttered. I folded the handkerchief I had been using to cover my nose. I roughly finished and folded it. So Yeomgyo was squealing and stamping her feet with the owner. Suddenly she looked at me.
“I’m happy.”
I thought I had misheard. She turned her head. Once more she smiled quietly, looking at the many pretty clothes she had worn, and muttered again,
“This moment is truly happy.”
“….”
Toward her—the assassin of the Blood Death Sect—I once again found myself unable to say a single word.
And on that day, when she had gone out under the pretext of buying clothes, she did not actually buy a single outfit for herself.
What she bought was one cheap trinket, a bracelet, and the cheapest chicken skewer.