The Third Prince’s Weight
Hoooo.
With a long exhale, a thick ribbon of smoke burst into the air.
A man reclined against a golden chair as though he were half-sprawled across it and took a deep drag from his mangwoochwo.
“Bored. I’m bored to death.”
He stared blankly at the smoke as it drifted apart. The sight of it vanishing without a trace felt especially hollow today.
“Why does time crawl like this? Would someone just knock me out cold or something?”
Life that moved on without the slightest error, without a single variable, was brutally tedious.
Wasn’t life suffering, or else boredom?
He had spent his entire existence as a warrior possessed by one thing or another. When he had been a member of the Combat Squad, he had clung to martial arts to overcome the inferiority of his background; after carving out a place for himself, he had lived as if addicted to stimulation.
The thrill of staking his life to challenge the position of chief, of throwing himself into impossible danger and advancing his martial arts, of becoming the youngest Demon Emperor ever recorded—all of it had long since begun to fade.
The result of hurling himself against the waves and enduring the pain was this: a heavy, suffocating boredom tightening around his throat.
“Tsk tsk. If you’re going to suffer, you might as well die.”
Just as he was bringing the mangwoochwo back to his lips, a woman’s voice reached him.
“Shall I do it for you?”
The air rippled briefly, and a woman clad in black appeared from nowhere.
“Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself.”
The woman in black, Hong I-gyeom, smiled brightly.
“You didn’t notice my stealth this time, did you?”
“I left it alone because it was barely worth noticing. A stray cat could’ve yawned louder. Go throw it away.”
“That’s just how it looks to you, Doje-nim. The other do-gwi never saw me coming.”
“They were probably pretending to be fooled. Or maybe they were betting on how long it would take you to give up. The latter seems more likely.”
Hong I-gyeom’s face twisted in annoyance.
“Be careful. Next time, I’ll definitely surprise you.”
“Fine. You here to report something?”
Hong I-gyeom nodded.
“About what you asked me to look into before. Just as you said, it seems the Fourth Young Master and the Third Young Master did clash.”
“I heard there was oversight from the Guard Office.”
When he asked how the information had been obtained, Hong I-gyeom answered at once.
“I found out through Chahongru. Apparently someone from the Iron Blood Devil side came by yesterday. He was already drunk enough to spill everything, and from what he said, the Fourth Young Master has gone into seclusion.”
“He went into seclusion? That hot-tempered brat?”
“Looks like he was humiliated hard enough. The opponent was the opponent, after all.”
Doje gave a dry laugh.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Is seclusion the latest trend in the Cheon family? The Heavenly Demon, the youngest, and now the fourth? So you don’t know how he lost?”
“No. There were no witnesses. They said he went up to the second floor, they clashed, and the Fourth Young Master ended up rolling around on the tavern floor. Simple, right?”
“That’s far too suspicious. Was there another variable?”
Having taken another drag from his mangwoochwo, Doje exhaled a long plume of smoke.
“Well, setting that aside. How many have gathered now?”
“Forty-three. At this pace, we’ll probably be ready to begin when seven more arrive.”
“Soon, then. Still, it won’t be lonely for a while…….”
That was when it happened.
Bang, bang!
Someone knocked hard from outside. When he told them to come in, a subordinate hastily yanked the door open.
“What’s all the noise?”
“Well, a burly man at the entrance is asking to see the valley master.”
“A burly man?”
“Yes. He said if we told you he came from Unambong, you’d know who he was. Do you perhaps know him, valley master? He seemed like a formidable expert.”
Doje touched his chin with a doubtful expression.
“Unambong, huh. Just hearing the name makes my stomach tighten…… No doubt he’s come asking for a handout. If we get tangled up with him, bad luck is guaranteed, so toss him out and sprinkle some salt behind him.”
Then—
“Your joke is excessive.”
Behind the subordinate, Imaje appeared.
Doje looked at him in silence for a moment, then smiled for the first time in what felt like ages.
“Ah. Senior?”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Waaaaah!
Cheers that seemed to shake the eardrums erupted one after another.
At the very top floor of the five-story gambling house, Doje stood by a window that looked down over everything below and muttered in a low voice, “What’s so fun about this?”
“…….”
“A second ago they all looked like corpses, and now they’re grinning as if nothing ever happened. They act all dignified like they’re above it all, but they were terrified, weren’t they?”
Trickle.
“And the other side froze up completely. They look so angry they might just draw a blade any second.”
The sound of liquor being poured rang out with crisp clarity. Smelling the sharp aroma, Doje slowly swirled his cup.
“If you think about it, that’s not so different from life. You take risks to move forward, scramble out by any means necessary, get drunk on joy, then throw yourself back in and keep walking the edge of disaster.”
“…….”
“For all the finger-pointing they get as scum and gambling trash, gamblers are more faithful to life than most. Haven’t we had times like that too? I can’t remember when, exactly, but still.”
Imaje answered in an indifferent tone.
“Hmm. I don’t enjoy gambling.”
“Does a wager only count when you put money down at a gambling den? For someone who ought to know better, why are you acting like this?”
Doje emptied his cup and looked at him.
“From the looks of it, you didn’t come down because you were lonely up in the mountains. Did something change your mind? What brings you all the way here?”
Imaje replied briefly.
“The Third Young Master came to see me not long ago.”
At this unexpected news, Doje’s face turned serious in an instant.
“He went up there? The Cheon family’s young master?”
“He said he opposed the grand plan. I agreed to lend him my strength, but he looked short-handed, so I decided to help watch over things on behalf of the elders’ hall.”
After a pause, Doje asked, “And why did he insist on finding you in particular?”
“The Commander-in-Chief had given him a recommendation.”
Silence settled heavily between them.
Doje narrowed his eyes and studied Imaje’s expression.
“So you came to find me because you were backing the Third Young Master’s decision?”
“That’s right.”
“Ha…… ha ha ha.”
Doje burst into a laugh that sounded more exhausted than amused.
He had already heard that Cheon Sohyeon opposed the grand plan. Baekmyeongok was a street packed with taverns, gambling dens, and fighting pits, a sleepless city where every kind of information flowed day and night.
“I was wondering what fool would throw his life away without a care, and it turned out to be you, Senior. Your judgment has hit rock bottom.”
Doje’s voice grew sharper.
“Are you really that blind to common sense? Do you honestly not understand why the Commander-in-Chief singled you out?”
Even under an accusation bordering on scorn, Imaje remained calm.
“I had some idea.”
“No, you clearly don’t. If you understood, you’d have run to the Military Council, not Baekmyeongok.”
Fsssh.
Dense demonic energy seeped out between Doje’s breaths. It wasn’t anger or contempt, but frustration that had drawn the movement of his dantian forth.
“You’re so hopelessly clueless about the world. Senior, want me to tell you something interesting? A rumor’s been running wild lately. They say the best of the Council is retiring or something.”
“…….”
“The Silver Scale Overbearing Saber. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”
Imaje nodded.
“I know him. One of the three great saber masters.”
“Exactly. A man with serious pride in the Military Council, and yet he suddenly announced his retirement. I looked into why, and it turns out the Great Young Master asked him to instruct him in saber arts.”
“…….”
“Well, he was someone who had practically cut himself off from the family, but he was still from the Moon-Devil House, so it seemed like a plausible excuse.”
Doje refilled his cup and drained it again. He wiped his mouth roughly.
“But that wasn’t it. He suddenly took it back. He’s still holding on to his post as inspector, pretending that council business is all that matters like always.”
Blue-green light flickered in Doje’s eyes.
“Why would a warrior in his prime try to leave the Military Council? If not to return to the family, then where was he going? Why take back the retirement, too? It was all a mystery…… but now I’m getting the picture, more or less.”
Their gazes locked in midair.
“I’m starting to think the Commander-in-Chief sees the Third Young Master as little more than a fishing rod. What do you think?”
“A fishing rod?”
“Exactly. Once you’ve filled the net with fish that muddy the waters, you fillet them all and burn the rod to ash too. While you’re at it, you fatten your own belly, toss a few scraps to your neighbor across the way, and fill the empty seats with your own people.”
“That would be the case if the Third Young Master were a disposable piece.”
Doje gave a crooked laugh.
“Ha. Senior, let’s be honest. Is there even another piece in the cult that’s this tempting and this easy to throw away?”
At a time when a day wasn’t enough to complete one’s training, he had been trapped in qi deviation for no less than half a year.
Even if the rumors about Cheon Mutan were true, the Third Young Master’s situation would not change.
A kite with its string cut loose.
A lone, stranded dragon-serpent.
A dragon-serpent that would never ascend in the end.
What force of the Four Great Demons was there to support him on his own?
Doje let out a long sigh.
“Since I’ve brought it up, I’ll speak plainly. It looks like you’re having trouble judging the situation because your neck’s on the line, so why didn’t you just ask me for help once?”
His tone turned edged.
“Tell me I’m in this state because of you, that my whole body still aches because of you. No, or were you always planning to come here for that?”
Imaje replied in a clipped voice.
“I think you’ve misunderstood something.”
“Misunderstood?”
“The Third Young Master said something to me. He decided he would have to show me what kind of person he was in order to persuade me. He was certainly a man of firm will. Even after meeting the conditions I laid out, he trained at my side for nearly a month.”
“……?”
“He knew, you see, that this was not a goal that could be achieved through simple demands. And am I any different?”
At the resolute voice, Doje’s brow furrowed. Then a sudden suspicion passed through him, and his voice trembled.
“Then you didn’t come looking for me instead of the other Demon Emperors…….”
“Haven’t you mentioned the Third Young Master often? That he might be the kind of talent worth staking the gamble of a lifetime on.”
“……That was before he became a half-dead wreck from qi deviation. You’re not telling me to believe all those rumors about his talent are true, are you?”
“Hmm. I think he possesses something that can’t be measured by words like talent or martial brilliance. I’ve often felt as though I were facing a seasoned wanderer of the martial world.”
“…….”
“He seemed to know everything—what movement was most efficient, how best to approach things, all of it.”
Doje, who had been about to speak, closed his mouth again.
Even before he became a Demon Emperor in the elders’ hall, he and Imaje had already known one another for years.
They had opposite temperaments in nearly every respect, and precisely because of that, there were things they understood about each other.
Imaje respected Doje as a warrior, admiring his fervor and his way of approaching martial arts.
Doje, in turn, never looked down on the gambler he usually considered human scum; instead, he found the way he treated people and the mindset that was so hard to see through deeply fascinating.
They had exchanged words for decades, and yet this was the first time Imaje had shown real interest in someone else.
“So that’s why the Cult Leader gave him the Mahwandan, too.”
At that quiet remark, Doje asked without thinking, “......The one who received the Mahwandan was the Third Young Master?”
The sacred elixir of the cult was the Mahwandan.
So unless it was tied to alchemy or the highest levels of the inner leadership, the distribution of Mahwandan never became public knowledge. But Doje had known for some time that someone had taken it.
A vast sum of money had flowed out, and the medicinal herbs and materials needed for alchemy had all been consumed.
He had assumed the news had gone silent afterward because the Cult Leader himself had taken it and gone into seclusion…….
Imaje nodded.
“I didn’t hear it from him directly, but I saw spiritual energy lodged in his entire body’s acupoints instead of dissolving. Only the Mahwandan could contain power like that. The fact that he had Godokcho as well was surely for that reason.”
No answer came to that final blow.
Doje’s atmosphere had changed completely from before.
As though he were holding the pieces and weighing gains against losses, a deep light began to flicker in his eyes.
And when he finally reached for the liquor bottle—
“Hm?”
Imaje extended his cup for the first time.
Doje looked at him, puzzled.
“Why? Going to have a drink? You said you hated it because it makes your muscles disappear.”
“There are truths that can only be conveyed that way.”
“…….”
Doje’s eyes wavered. It was the same line he himself had always said, habitually, whenever he tried to get Imaje to drink with him back when he was the chief.
“Ha…… In the time we’ve been apart, you’ve become quite the smooth talker.”
He filled Imaje’s cup and swallowed a dry laugh.
“Still, I can’t believe it until I see it for myself. In a gambling den, the first fools to go bankrupt are always the ones with loose ears. I’m saying I can’t stake money on your word alone, Senior.”
“That’s fair. Hand it over.”
Drip.
Imaje took the bottle from him and filled Doje’s cup.
Then he clinked their cups together and downed it in one go. The searing burn of liquor, not felt in ages, lingered in his throat.
“He’ll be here soon enough. See for yourself.”