The Guard with Half the Height
Only when I stood before the gates of the Namgung Family did one particular problem finally occur to me.
My clothes.
"...What is this? You're not from the Beggar's Sect, are you?"
That was the first thing the Namgung Family gatekeeper said the moment he saw me.
"I've come a very long way."
I had nothing better to offer, so I just scratched the back of my head.
"Your identification..."
I handed over the identity plaque So Yeomgyo had given me along with the scroll.
The gatekeeper examined it with meticulous care. He even held it up toward the sky and scrutinized it against the sun with endless precision. He would not have looked half so carefully if he had been appraising a jewel.
"You may enter."
Under an endlessly dubious stare, I stepped into the Namgung Family estate.
So this is it.
One of the five absolute great families of the martial world—the Namgung Family itself.
"Name?"
"Biryu."
The Namgung Family clerk scribbled at high speed.
"Affiliation."
"Blood Death Sect."
"You're not from the Beggar's Sect?"
"..."
Pinching his nose, the clerk flipped through the documents that had arrived ahead of me, the ones that already mentioned my name.
"Ah—so you're the one the Family Head has already spoken about with the Blood Death Sect Leader. All personal details match, and entry permission has been confirmed, so you may—wait. What is this?"
The clerk looked at me.
"Is there a problem?"
"This seal from the Blood Death Sect Leader."
A massive stamp of a red snake coiled into a ring sat at the bottom of the document.
"People who carry a sect leader's renown almost never stamp their seal for a mere individual unless the circumstances are truly exceptional."
The clerk's indifferent expression shifted into something close to reverence. His posture straightened. He became polite.
"You're more skilled than you look. You've earned quite a lot of trust."
I thought of So Yeomgyo's face.
"...Does it really carry that much weight?"
"Of course. You know that honor is more precious than life to a martial artist, don't you? The moment one stamps a seal, they acknowledge that the martial artist's failings become directly tied to their own honor. You may enter."
"..."
A maidservant who had been waiting for me bowed with a towel in her hands.
I didn't realize it meant that much.
I recalled the woman in red who loved her drink and laughed boldly, yet sometimes stared into the distance with an unreadable expression.
"Before you meet any members of our family, you will need to tidy yourself first."
The maid looked me up and down as she spoke.
The bath she guided me to was clean and orderly. No—to be honest.
It's bigger than the room I lived in back in the countryside.
I walked in pretending it was nothing special. A massive tub large enough for ten grown men came into view. It was already filled with water.
I almost didn't believe it. I dipped my hand in. I swallowed hard.
It's all hot water. Good heavens. How much firewood would it take to heat this much...
I stripped in a hurry and sank into the water. My whole body felt as if it were melting. I washed myself thoroughly with the hot water, then used the toiletries to neatly trim my beard and long hair.
The maid's voice rang from outside the bathroom.
"Your current clothes are far too worn, so we wish to prepare new ones for you. Is there anything you particularly desire in the clothing we prepare? If it can be accommodated, we will take it into consideration."
I spoke toward the outside of the bathroom.
"The color."
"Pardon?"
"Black, if you please. That will be enough."
"...Black?"
Beyond the window, the maid sounded flustered.
I scooped water up with my hands. Splash—spray leapt up. Steam rose.
Why do you insist on black?
"..."
I only played with the water, never answering Mumyeong's question.
Pathetic.
—Splash.
I finished bathing and put on the prepared clothes. Where the size did not quite fit—around the wrists and ankles—I bound them tight with cords. I smoothed the boundary of the human-skin mask to make sure there was no gap.
As I walked out of the bathroom, the maid handed me a small roll of bandage.
"What's this?"
She left a brief remark and vanished.
"It may create an excessive sense of disharmony."
Only belatedly did I realize it was meant for my hands. My hands had been left in tatters after I finished the hellish training in Amyeondong.
"..."
I wrapped the bandage along my fingers and covered them.
"Please wait here."
Sitting on the edge of the veranda, I carefully felt the bandaged fingers. I picked up a round pebble from the ground and toyed with it, fidgeting with my hands. The Namgung Family was vast, and people hurried back and forth as if they were terribly busy.
A full shichen passed that way.
"You?"
Behind me stood a little child who was not even half my height. A brat who looked just past ten. Her stature was unusually small. Her eyes were large, but her gaze was fiercely upturned. She had the face of someone with quite a temper.
Her well-kept, glossy black hair fell to her waist, and even at her young age, her clear features on fair skin made it easy to guess she would grow into a peerless beauty of the world.
Our eyes met. The little girl's eyes widened at the sight of my face. I thought her pupils were truly pretty.
And then, enough to cancel out all of that—
"I mean the bodyguard warrior who'll be attending me for a week."
"...How old are you to talk like th—"
I closed my eyes.
Hold it. Hold it, Moyong Bi. This time, live quietly. I cannot make trouble. This commission was something So Yeomgyo had granted me as a gift of sorts while she rested—something that would benefit me as well. There was no need to go looking for problems.
I opened my eyes.
"A pleasure. I've been assigned as your escort this time..."
"I don't care about your name."
"Is that so. I happen not to care about yours either. We match."
I clenched my teeth and stared at the child in front of me.
Host. Childish.
I ignored Mumyeong's muttering. The child's eyes reminded me of a pure white fox. She was a little kid who ate manners for breakfast and still had pretty eyes.
She looked me over carefully, then tilted her head.
"You look old enough. Should I just call you Uncle?"
"I'm not an uncle."
I answered in a rough voice.
"Seems right to me."
I blinked. I drew a breath.
"I'm not."
"Then what?"
I hesitated a moment.
"If we must go by age, it's older brother."
"Pfft."
"..."
I quietly closed my eyes and counted to ten.
With this, the training in Amyeondong has dealt not only a mental blow but also, in aesthetic terms, a certain and decisive hit to your face value...
"Shut up."
At my whisper, Mumyeong muttered.
Right. That isn't important. What matters is the shadow at the little girl's feet.
"..."
I narrowed my eyes. The girl was wearing blue silk robes. Not cheap silk—premium silk worth more than five silver nyang per span.
"Huh? What did you say?"
The child blinked, then looked down at her own feet as if listening to something.
"..."
Avoiding my gaze, something clearly flashed past at high speed through her small shadow. It was stealth skill that had reached the realm of the divine.
It will be the black crow that serves only as escort for the Namgung Family—the Jao.
I could almost hear my pupils contracting from extreme tension.
From the child's right heel toward the rear. To the right wall. Behind the well on the left. Trying to shake your gaze.
Stealth arts that had reached the realm of the gods. My body went rigid with tension. Just knowing an uncertain factor was right before me slowed my breathing and raised my heart rate.
"Uncle, cut it out, he says."
"Huh?"
A pure, innocent child's voice that shattered all my tension rang in my ears.
"'Jin' is freaking out about what kind of crazy Blood Cult bastard came in as a substitute bodyguard for him."
"...Jin?"
"Jin wants to know if you're from the Blood Cult."
"What?"
Looking down at the child who was only half my height, eyes sparkling brightly, I felt like an idiot. Strength drained from me. I unclenched my fists.
"I... hate the Blood Cult."
I gave up on formal speech and just spoke however it came out. Mention of the Blood Cult brought one madman to mind—Ryu Hwasa.
"What about the Demon Cult? Jin wants to know."
All I could think of were the black rat swarms and Jeokmaryeong.
"I hate the Demon Cult too. Why do you keep asking only things like that?"
"See, Jin? He says he's neither Blood Cult nor Demon Cult. Why are you so scared? He seems like a calm uncle to me. Huh? You say the calm ones go even crazier when they snap? Aigoo, even if that's true, you should understand. Mother said so too—the martial world is full of crazy people."
Those two have remarkable insight. It is not easy to pierce through the Host's true nature in a single go.
A butterfly appeared by the courtyard. It fluttered against the backdrop of the clear autumn sky. Looking up at it, I muttered.
"Mumyeong, do you know the saying, 'the sister-in-law who tries to stop you is the most hateful'?"
I didn't, but I think I understand now.
"What do you think of that?"
I shall strive to become a more helpful sister-in-law.
I sighed and emptied my mind.
The commission I had to carry out this time for my reward was simple. For one week during the Shadowless Tomb Festival—one of the largest events the Namgung Family held in a year—my duty was to guard the person left behind at the house. And that person was the little girl right in front of me.
...Even if I try to empty my head and just carry out the commission, this makes no sense.
Her name was Namgung Sogyo. The problem was that the person in question was the fourth daughter of the Namgung Family Head.
They're leaving the fourth daughter of the bloodline in an almost empty house for a major event that nearly every member attends.
I had accepted it readily at first because it was a commission So Yeomgyo had introduced, but there were many things that did not sit right. I could not help but pay attention even if I tried not to. Like my older brother Moyong Ryu, who had been thoroughly sick of such things, I did not particularly trust people to begin with. But even setting that aside, if I tried to carry out the commission without thinking, the whole thing simply did not add up.
On top of that, the Namgung Family, which already has a professional escort unit, is deliberately attaching an outsider as a private bodyguard.
Given the nature of escort work, lodging near her residence was only natural. I followed behind her as she led the way to her quarters. Here I felt another oddity.
There's no maid guiding us either.
We were even heading toward a corner. She was a daughter of the Namgung Family, yet instead of going deeper into the main mansion of the Namgung estate, we were heading to the outskirts. The place we finally arrived at was, to be fair, a detached house with its own small garden.
Something is wrong.
The faded colors and the subtle traces of worn materials could not be called a residence fit for the fourth daughter—a golden child of one of the Five Great Families counted on one hand in the martial world.
Before the residence, a black figure rose from the shadow at Namgung Sogyo's feet. It was a tall man draped from head to toe in a single sheet of black cloth. I could not understand how someone of that height had been hiding there.
"Thank you for everything until now."
Namgung Sogyo said it calmly.
"It was nothing, Young Lady."
With those words, the Jao left Namgung Sogyo's shadow without delay and approached me. I could not understand it. As far as I knew, a Jao of the Namgung Family never left their master's shadow for their entire life.
"Where are you going? Your master—"
"As of today, all official family-level escort for Young Lady Sogyo is terminated."
The eyes of Jin, the Namgung Family's dedicated escort draped in black cloth, looked sorrowful.
"It grieves me to entrust the Young Lady to an outsider. Yet at the same time, I am grateful that the Family Head has at least kept his promise to look after her from behind the scenes.... You must be a master, yes?"
"..."
So Yeomgyo had said she would dispatch me through an agreement with the Family Head. I still did not know what they had discussed, or what price they had agreed to exchange. My head began to throb faintly.
"I beg you, please protect the Young Lady..."
—Thunk!
With a heavy sound, a pebble smashed into the back of Jin's head.
"Even among the crow flock, if you're bottom-rung you should move snappy. You're not even a Baekjao—what are you dawdling for?"
Four ordinary warriors belonging to the family walked over, chewing on jerky with wet smacking sounds. Jin kept his head bowed and remained still.
Namgung Sogyo shouted.
"You bastards! What is this insolence?!"
Not a single warrior flinched at her scolding. Instead they waved their hands dismissively, looking annoyed.
"Young Lady. We'll still treat you as a family daughter for old times' sake, so step aside. If you don't listen, we'll spank that little rear of yours. Keheheh."
Namgung Sogyo's pupils dilated.
"Watch your mouth."
With killing intent that seemed ready to explode, Jin muttered.
"If you are ordinary warriors of the family, that is."
White light streamed in threads from the eyes between the black face covering. The warriors flinched for a moment. Then they whistled and provoked him.
"Now look at this—the crow of the Namgung Family is about to unleash killing moves on family warriors for a half-blood young lady? You can't even lift a finger, so don't bother putting on airs. Hahaha!"
"..."
That was true. Apart from the killing intent that seemed ready to explode, Jin ultimately could not take a single step. The warriors grew bolder at the sight.
"That's right—why did the Young Lady refuse the political marriage? That was the one reason she was adopted, and if she refuses that, of course she gets discarded."
"I—I!"
The child's face flushed red as she stammered. Her tiny hands, not even half my height, trembled violently.
Only now did I begin to understand the situation, however faintly.
Poke—a warrior jabbed my shoulder with the tip of his sword.
"Hey, you there, Uncle. Who the hell are you? Why have you been standing there gawking this whole time?"