The Loyalty of a Wanderer
There is a certain code of loyalty that only wanderers understand. Meanwhile, the Hyun-gaek-dang was steeped in a silence so heavy it felt like a house of mourning. Everyone was so grimly tight-lipped that the place was deathly quiet—quiet enough to hear an ant crawling across the floor. The very sound of breathing felt embarrassing, so the men were even carefully regulating their inhales and exhales.
Then, Wang No-pil, a master of the Tu-seok-kwon, suddenly spoke with a face full of grim determination.
“We can’t just sit here waiting like this.”
“Brother Wang. But what can we even do? If we rush in while the Gu-dok is running wild, we’ll only become dead weight—nothing more than burdens rolling around on the floor.”
“So you’re saying we should just keep waiting? When we don’t even know what kind of suffering Lady Seomun is going through right now? Just sit here breathing comfortably?”
“Then what? Should we all charge in together so we can suffer alongside her? Would that make you feel better?”
Wang No-pil shook his head.
“No. But we could at least ask the experts of the Murim Alliance for help. We have no choice but to bow our heads and beg them to rescue Lady Seomun.”
At that, the master of the Dan-yang-do-beop, Do Rae-man, cut in.
“That won’t do. Lady Seomun is a woman. If a scandal breaks out, she’ll never be able to hold her head high again for the rest of her life. Didn’t she specifically tell us to wait because she already had a plan in mind? Right now, we must trust Lady Seomun and wait.”
“Hah. Is reputation really the issue here? Once you’re dead, what does reputation even matter? Since Lady Seomun is also from the wanderer path, I’m sure she values her life far more than some trivial face—”
“If Lady Seomun, who thinks that way, still chose to get herself captured, doesn’t that mean she has an even more certain plan?”
The two men’s opinions clashed. Wang No-pil insisted they should immediately report to the Murim Alliance and launch a rescue operation, while Do Rae-man argued they should trust Cheong and wait longer.
At that moment, Ma Young-jeon of the Ji-dang-kwon stepped in.
“Enough. What good does it do for us to fight among ourselves? From what I hear, Lady Seomun has an elder from the Goddess Sect who is attending the banquet with her. At the very least, shouldn’t we inform her sect’s senior?”
The wanderers all nodded in agreement. And so, they sent someone to the Mucheon Pavilion to invite the elder of the Goddess Sect.
As a result, Seomun Su-rin, who had received their summons, was so utterly dumbfounded that she couldn’t even force out a hollow laugh.
What the hell is this? Who is calling whom?
No matter how urgent and secret the matter was, there were still proper boundaries. In terms of age, seniority, and martial realm, Seomun Su-rin was an absolute senior of the Murim whose very comparison to mere wanderers would be a grave offense. Of course, the wanderers had their reasons for being clueless. Since Seomun Su-rin had not officially participated in the Grand Murim Tournament, she had not taken a seat in the VIP section of the Murim Alliance—much less the special seats reserved for the old powerhouses. Therefore, the occasional wanderers who saw the noblewoman beside Cheong had no way of knowing who she was. Even the children of prestigious clans had been warned not to speak of it or approach her, so they kept their mouths shut.
Still, ignorance was ignorance, and rudeness was rudeness. On the other hand, being this flabbergasted actually sparked a bit of curiosity. Fine. Let’s see what nonsense these brats have to say.
And that was how Seomun Su-rin ended up visiting the lowest-grade lodging in the Hyun-gaek-dang for the first time in her life.
“You people called for me?”
“Yes. Aren’t you an elder of the Goddess Sect, Madam? There is something you absolutely must know—”
“You called me without even knowing who I am? How amusing. This lady is called Seomun Su-rin. Do you not intend to show proper respect before your senior?”
It was the mischievous prank of an old woman. She planned to scare the life out of these rude, green youngsters until they turned pale and trembled, then give them a few lessons in etiquette with her fists.
But what was this? The moment they heard the name Seomun Su-rin, everyone’s faces regained color. Their eyes filled with relief, as if they had just been saved from death.
“Grandmother! Please help us! The truth is…!”
The wanderers all prostrated themselves at once and relayed the recent events. They held nothing back, even revealing their own shameful parts. From the moment they had obtained the Gu-dok from the Jamlamdan, the pursuit, and all the way to Cheong’s heroic sacrifice—it was an extremely detailed account.
“Y-you… you bastards…!”
The fury of the greatest woman in the Murim exploded violently. Seomun Su-rin’s hair stood on end as a crushing, mountain-heavy pressure bore down on the wanderers.
“Why! Why didn’t you report this immediately last night! Good heavens, the Blood Sect?! Those madmen! No! Where is it?! Where, I said!”
“I will guide you right away—”
“What are you waiting for?! Why aren’t you running already?!”
Seomun Su-rin’s vision went black. Without a doubt, her kind-hearted, foolish disciple had stepped forward to save these worthless wretches without knowing what Gu-dok was or what kind of monsters the Blood Sect were. She had probably spouted some carefree nonsense like if it goes wrong, I can just run away.
This could not happen. The Blood Sect could not be allowed. Just imagining what kind of horrific torment her disciple might be suffering at the hands of those inhuman, filthy scum made her heart sink and her mind go blank, as if her soul was about to leave her body.
That damn Divine Thief bastard! What the hell is he doing?!
She had entrusted her disciple to him because he was supposedly a lecturer at the Hanlimwon with good character and learning. Had that been a mistake?
The disciple who had smiled brightly and said she would be right back was still flickering before her eyes.
“Ah. I heard you just left and got startled. Looks like we missed each other. Oh. The wanderers are here too.”
Flickering…?
“Master! That’s right. Do you know about the Blood Sect bastards? Your disciple found their main base. They were some seriously kill-worthy sons of bitches. So—”
“Seomun Cheong! You wench!”
CRACK!!!
Cheong couldn’t even scream. She collapsed to the floor, clutching her head. The pain was so intense that she couldn’t even roll around pretending to be dramatic. She simply froze exactly as she had fallen, a realization her body had just learned the hard way.
“Lady Seomun!”
“Lady Seomun!”
“Lady Seomun! Are you alright?!”
The wanderers all rushed over to the fallen Cheong and dropped to their knees. Some of the more emotional ones even shed streams of tears. The relief, joy, and all the worry they had bottled up for days had burst out at once upon seeing her.
Though the sight of a bunch of men prostrating themselves before a collapsed woman was rather bizarre.
“Sob… To go this far for us…”
“Come on, we’re all wanderers, aren’t we? What did I tell you? What is a wanderer?”
“…Loyalty.”
“There. All good now? Since everything’s fine, you can all head up to the third floor of the Mucheon Pavilion. You know Nan-a, right? Or rather, the Poison Flower? The Seaweed Poison Flower will give you emergency treatment first. Just think of it as sleeping for three or four days straight.”
After shooing away the wanderers—who couldn’t lift their heads from a mix of gratitude, guilt, embarrassment, and shame—Cheong turned around to find Seomun Su-rin standing there with a stern expression.
“This time, I really cannot let it slide. Just what were you thinking, doing something so reckless? If this wench wants to die, she should have just told this old woman. I would have split you cleanly in half.”
“Ehehe, were you worried?”
“Was I worried?! When I heard you swallowed Gu-dok and got captured by the Blood Sect, I nearly fainted on the spot!”
“Ah. I’m sorry. Um… Actually, Master, there’s something I didn’t tell you. Your disciple has a rather special constitution. Like… completely immune to poison.”
“Completely immune to poison? You mean Man-dok-bul-chim? You were just born that way? That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard.”
“Hehe. Yeah, apparently there’s something like that. Um… Yeah. That. I heard it’s not exactly a good thing, though.”
Seomun Su-rin glared at Cheong. For some reason, the girl wouldn’t meet her eyes and kept subtly looking down. It was obvious she was reluctant to speak and was hiding something. If she had lied smoothly, Su-rin might have been fooled, but the way she was openly acting like she didn’t want to be asked made it both infuriating and difficult to press further.
“So. Since you’re immune to poison, you just swallowed the Gu-dok. Is there any poison among the ten thousand that doesn’t affect you?”
“Yes. It seems no poison works on me at all.”
“And since you were confident you could escape no matter what, you obediently let yourself get captured.”
“You already know how I am. If I’m tied up, I can just untie myself. If something’s blocked, I can just break through it…”
Seomun Su-rin let out a deep sigh. Since Cheong hadn’t acted without any plan or backup, there was no real reason to scold her further. In fact, it was something worthy of praise for her sense of chivalry—but she simply couldn’t bring herself to do so.
“Fine, then. So, where is the Blood Sect’s base?”
“Um… Surprisingly, there’s a massive underground space beneath Kaifeng.”
---
In Cheong’s hometown, there was once a self-deprecating phrase that became popular: Grand dreams, but reality is a gutter.
Gyeong Dam-gan, the Sighing Mad Demon, was exactly like that. Even he had once held grand ambitions. In the twilight of his life, he wanted to take this rare, once-in-a-lifetime material, refine it beautifully, and burn it as his final brilliant flame before discarding the remains.
That was why he had felt more inspired than ever, his heart pounding with excitement.
First, he would cut off the heads of one or two of those arrogant wanderers who had acted so rudely that morning and bring them back. Since there were twenty of them, killing about ten should be fine. Still, to make it fun, he should leave at least ten alive. Exactly half.
After that, he would incite the wanderers’ rage through misunderstanding. He would make them scream that everything was your fault for the comrades they had tried to protect, then subject the girl to cruel, devastating violence and humiliation.
Discarding her after that would be perfect.
Yes, using the captured Sword Flower first would be good too. Put them in the same room, give them a luxurious feast and a bowl of rotten rice mixed with urine, and tell them only one can eat. Let the two of them decide.
Would the Goddess Sect disciple yield? Or would she fail to endure and reveal her ugly true nature?
A nice bed and a chamber pot would also be excellent props. The Sword Flower had already half-broken down. If he gently whispered and turned her resentment toward the Goddess Sect disciple, what a spectacle that would be. And if he could make the Sword Flower personally torture the Goddess Sect disciple… that would truly be the highlight…
These were his grand dreams.
But those damn wanderers had holed themselves up in the Murim Alliance and refused to come out. As if they had planned it, they stayed buried inside. Even though the Murim Alliance was drowning in peace and complacency, reaching out now would be far too risky.
In that case, he would have to wait until the next martial duel when two of the wanderers would come out, then capture them and drag them back.
Still, he couldn’t return empty-handed, so he plucked four innocent heads to give to the Goddess Sect disciple. Since you harmed two of mine, I will return four to you—he had planned to present them as a gift.
Would you blame yourself? Would you rage? He wanted to see her tears, but he also hoped she wouldn’t break too easily.
After packaging the four heads and humming a tune on his way back underground, he received news that the Sword Flower had escaped.
It was the exact moment his beautifully crafted plan shattered into pieces.
“What?! You lost the bitch I planted Gu-dok in?! Does that even make sense?! You worthless idiots! Then what about the Goddess Sect disciple?!”
“Uh… Well. She is still in the prison cell.”
“Huu… Right. That one can never run away. She has a hostage whose life is on the line. Heh heh… So, how will she react if I tell her the Sword Flower escaped? Weren’t they on bad terms? I’ll make her misunderstand that she was abandoned—”
Then one of his subordinates scratched the back of his head.
“Actually… it was the Goddess Sect disciple who helped the Sword Flower escape.”
“What?! Weren’t you just saying she was still in the cell?”
The subordinate hesitated for a moment before confessing.
“Well… She went out, then came back on her own feet. She said she was hungry and came back for dinner…”