Good Work Today
“I figured as much, but you took longer than I expected.”
So Yeomgyo lounged in her chair, legs propped on the table, a book open in her hands.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
“You said you were craving something sweet, so they brought these over for you to eat.”
A candied apple—sugar spun into a glossy shell around the fruit—was already between her lips. Her deep crimson eyes blinked as her cheeks worked around the bite.
“Stuff like this is sneakily expensive. Hard to justify buying it with my own money.”
“…Anyone listening would never guess you’re the sect leader of the strongest assassin order in the jianghu.”
I pulled out the chair across from her and sat, the words coming out more curt than I meant.
“You should’ve put money on it.”
“Money?”
She turned a page and picked up another candied apple.
“I heard the odds were stacked high on Baek Wanjang’s side. You of all people know my skill better than anyone. Honestly, you could’ve thrown every last coin you had on me. Pure money for nothing.”
“I thought about it a few times.”
Flip.
So Yeomgyo turned another page, voice casual.
“But my person was out there bleeding and fighting. I couldn’t put money on that. Win or lose.”
…
That wasn’t the answer I’d expected at all.
“Our family has a house rule we absolutely have to keep. More precisely, it’s something my grandfather said.”
“What did he say?”
So Yeomgyo finished the half-eaten candy.
“Even though we make our living doing work that makes people point fingers, precisely because of that, we have to hold the final line we set for ourselves more stubbornly than any saint or gentleman. If we can’t even keep that line, we become tools lower than beasts—and even if the path isn’t easy…”
Flip.
She turned another page of her book.
“That is the fate a successor of the bloodline that inherited the Blood Death must bear, and we must willingly endure it.”
…
She was the same.
Just as I had inherited the Moyong blood and was fighting a fierce battle on the front lines of my own life, she too had been living her own fierce existence. I felt it anew.
While I had been rolling through the mud and suffering through hard times, she had likewise been thrashing and screaming to survive in some corner of the Central Plains. Training, becoming the protagonist of her own life, always struggling to choose the best move—until she reached this place.
She was strong.
Overwhelmingly strong.
And because of that, I understood.
She must have given up so many things.
Overwhelmingly so.
When others focused on her strength, admired it, praised it, I could sense the countless things she had surrendered without ever showing it.
I stared at her in silence. She seemed to notice something off and lifted her eyes from the book to look up at me.
“…What’s with the sudden quiet and the heavy atmosphere? It’s getting sappy. I was just saying it lightly, okay? Hey! Hands off the dessert. You’ll get it.”
She smacked the back of my hand as it reached for a candied apple.
I pulled back, oddly embarrassed, and grumbled.
“You’re making a big deal over one piece of candy. I worked pretty hard today, and you’re fussing over me eating just one—”
So Yeomgyo pointed to the corner.
“Eat first. I figured you’d be late, so I told the waiter separately to bring it up to the room.”
On one side of the room sat a tray covered with a cloth.
“…You did this last time too. They’re bringing food here as well?”
“After thrashing around hard outside, standing alone in a space with nothing to eat and not even a sign of life—how miserable is that? I’ve been there. I know. Eat that, then go wash up. You look like a wreck. I got it ready.”
Still turning pages, she pointed behind her with a listless voice.
“Wow.”
There sat a wooden tub filled with steaming water.
The memory of soaking in freshly heated water at the Namgung estate had been so intense I would never forget it. At the same time, doubt crept in.
“Even with a lid to keep it from cooling, that looks like water heated just now. A bath this late at night is one thing, but the temperature doesn’t make any sense…”
…
So Yeomgyo said nothing and simply turned another page.
She seemed hungry; she was eating an unusual number of the sugar-coated candied apples.
At first I thought it was impossible.
But then I wondered.
“You didn’t… use your internal energy to keep the bathwater warm for me every so often, did you? And that’s why you’re so hungry you’re devouring all the sweet stuff?”
“Dream on. Am I crazy? I’m not that free a woman. I’m busy enough circulating my energy—why would I waste it heating bathwater like some teacup? Ha. Sure, my internal energy is endless, but that’s a bit much.”
She stayed leaned back in her chair, eyes only on the book.
…
I stared at her quietly.
Creak, creak.
The chair she leaned on rocked a little faster.
The pages hadn’t turned at all for a while.
Her eyes darted left and right uneasily.
Those weren’t the eyes of someone reading.
“…So Yeomgyo?”
Snap!
She shut the book with a sharp sound.
Glared at me, face flushed, and shouted.
“I prepared a meal because you worked hard, and you’re not going to eat it? You wanna die?! You don’t know how precious food is! A fourth-rank who can’t even—!”
…
“The waiter said no, but I forced him to bring it to the room, so hurry up and eat! I have to return the dishes!”
Crushed by that momentum, I quietly picked up the tray and sat across from her at the table.
I lifted the cloth.
“This food feels familiar somehow.”
I murmured low enough that she wouldn’t hear.
Even though it couldn’t be the same inn, the dishes tasted exactly like the ones I’d eaten last time. Still, having helped Eun Seollyeong cook out of the corner of my eye before, I knew the odds of that were almost zero.
Clink, clink.
I ate in silence for a long while.
Noodles, meat, fried rice—
Every single dish was something I liked.
The liquor that would normally have been included was missing, as if she knew my tastes. In its place was tea with a single floating leaf.
I left nothing.
While I ate, So Yeomgyo opened her book again and read quietly.
“What’s the title of the book?”
I asked out of sudden curiosity while eating.
Without looking up, she told me.
“In Search of Happiness.”
She turned a page and muttered.
“Looking for happiness… a story completely distant from me, but it’s pretty interesting.”
Clink, clink.
The sound of chopsticks against the bowl continued.
“Is it good?”
So Yeomgyo asked as if it were nothing.
“Yeah. Really good.”
At that, she let out a short laugh.
Then she spoke quietly.
“You worked hard today too.”
…
I lifted my head.
“Ever since my assassin days, hearing those words once at the end of a day was a wish of mine. It just came to mind, so I said it. So how is it?”
She popped the last candied apple into her mouth.
“How does it feel to hear those words at the end of a day?”
…
I looked at her for a long time.
Then I opened my mouth.
“It feels good.”
I thought, then said it again.
“Really.”
Cheers rang out.
The Dark Tournament grew fiercer and more feverish with every passing hour.
The number of participants shrank exponentially.
In proportion, the pace of the matches accelerated sharply.
“Did you even sleep? Your face looks rough.”
In the waiting room I checked my blood-caked gear and spoke to Eung-chil standing in front of me.
“Does my condition look like I just stayed up all night?”
Eung-chil stood before me with a deep purple bruise around his eye.
I studied him for a moment, then said,
“It’s a bit worse than that, actually.”
“Hyung-nim, of course I know you have no real interest in me. The reason you approached me—well, I’m no fool—is because you need the help of someone like me who’s well-connected with info on the participants here, among other things. So we’re in a mutually cooperative relationship, uh… we’re, you know.”
“Secret friends and secret brothers.”
At my words Eung-chil nodded.
“Yes, that’s right. Secret brothers.”
Damn secret brothers, he muttered under his breath.
“Even so. How can you look at these glorious wounds I earned passing the first and second preliminaries and just say I stayed up all night?”
…
Truth was, I wasn’t from the Black Path, and as a complete newcomer to the jianghu I sometimes felt a disconnect when talking with martial artists.
This was one of those times.
“Is there some special meaning to passing the preliminaries?”
At my reaction Eung-chil’s mouth fell open.
“Hyung-nim. That’s really too much. This is the Dark Tournament, you know. Just getting through the initial filter and the first preliminaries is enough to become a legend they milk forever in any back alley. And even though I got eliminated in the third, I still made it through the first and second—I can hardly believe it myself. Of course…”
His gaze shifted to the blood clots on the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap on my left hand, then to my completely unscathed face.
“…Hyung-nim, you’re a real monster. Not a single scratch on your face after making it through the fifth.”
The Dark Tournament ran five rounds of preliminaries before narrowing to sixteen for the main tournament.
The waiting room that had once been packed now held only sixteen after the fifth preliminaries.
And most of those sixteen were faces I already knew.
I spoke to Eung-chil, who kept marveling.
“Honestly, there weren’t many real powerhouses. I just got lucky.”
In truth, most of the martial artists I faced fell before they could even show a tenth of their real skill—not because of a gap in martial arts, but because of my fighting style.
Even now, my stance in a duel hadn’t changed one bit from the first time I faced Gwak Ido at the Emei Sect, back when I was still growing.
My skill had improved by leaps and bounds since then, but my mindset had only grown more thorough; I hadn’t become arrogant or lax in the slightest.
The moment an opponent showed a tenth of their power under the pretext of probing, I unleashed more than sixty percent and subdued them in an instant.
On top of that, ordinary martial artists didn’t know the property of the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap—that nothing short of sword qi could cut or pierce it—and charged in only to take a sudden counterattack.
That was how I had stormed all the way to the round of sixteen.
Starting today I’ll begin my own proper search. Even if I can’t watch over you, hang in there.
So Yeomgyo had made me promise when she left for today’s matches.
She wouldn’t be in the stands today.
She would be racing desperately through some corner of the Extreme Sea Five Branches, gathering information.
I can’t just sit still either.
I decided to give it my all.
The leader of the Extreme Sea Five Branches—my ultimate goal—had yet to show his face even once.
It seemed he had no intention of appearing until the final champion of the tournament faced him one-on-one.
“Bilyu-nim. It’s your turn.”
My turn had come.
I stepped onto the arena platform I had already grown used to after standing on it several times today alone.
A servant hurriedly wiped away bloodstains in one corner and vanished.
“And at last it’s our turn. Honestly, in this entire tournament, I only had eyes for you.”
I turned toward the voice and looked straight ahead.
“Even that fallen monk, the Ninefold Night Yaksha, had the gall to set his sights on you, but luckily I met him in the preliminaries and put him down. The best food always tastes best when you hog it all to yourself.”
A man stood before me.
“You’re mine.”
Sunken cheeks.
A soft sword cradled carefully in his arms like a baby gleamed under the white light.
“Soul-Snatching Immortal Demon Lee Eeo-jin specializes in high-speed techniques with a soft sword… Be careful, hyung-nim! Even the fallen monk’s staff and his whole shoulder went flying together!”
From outside the arena, Eung-chil’s shout reached me.
Shing.
The scabbard Lee Eeo-jin held split open, and the soft sword leapt like a salmon into his grip.
Pale eyes like those of a corpse rose above his hollow cheeks.
“Assassins are also known for their fast, sharp swords, aren’t they? I hear body techniques are your specialty, but whatever…”
Lee Eeo-jin muttered.
“Let’s settle it once—speed against speed, you disposable fourth-rank assassin of the Blood Death Sect.”