Something Is Off
It's gone wrong.
Sama Baek blinked slowly.
I don't need the Alliance Leader's seat.
The moment those words reached his ears, every grand proposal swirling in his head was washed away without a trace.
"Hahaha..."
If he had to summarize the young man's attitude in a single phrase, it would be this: stop pestering me.
And that attitude was coming across with blatant, unmistakable clarity.
The moment Sama Baek realized it, his heart caught fire. That was simply how people were — the more something slipped beyond their grasp, the more desperately they craved it.
He had never met anyone like this in his entire life. And no wonder. He was the Chief Military Strategist of the Murim Alliance. Not a single soul under heaven had ever failed to thank him for his offers.
"So... that's how it is. I'm embarrassed, truth be told — I rattled on and on without once asking what you actually wanted. My apologies."
Sama Baek laughed it off with a chuckle.
Jin Seongun answered as though it were nothing at all.
"No need. It's not as if it was a terrible pitch."
"I hear the food at Seongun Inn is exceptional, both in flavor and quality."
"Word's traveled all the way to Wuhan, has it?"
Sama Baek watched him closely. For the briefest instant, those listless, dead-fish eyes of Jin Seongun's had gleamed.
"Yes, of course it has. I've been curious ever since — just what kind of establishment this inn of yours is. I've wanted to see it with my own eyes more than once, I'll admit."
"Well... ahem. I see."
Sama Baek witnessed yet another rare sight. The corner of Jin Seongun's mouth had twitched upward — just for a heartbeat.
So that's it!
Only then did Sama Baek truly understand. The unshakable young man standing before him wasn't a martial artist at all. He was a waiter — and an innkeeper.
"You'll be leaving for Yichang straight away, I take it?"
"Yes. Thank you for the help from the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion. I came to pay my respects and pass on my thanks."
"Haha, thanks for what? If anything, Baekdo Murim owes you its gratitude. As it happens, I was just about to depart myself. Wuhan lies on the far side of Yichang, so why don't we travel together? It would give me a chance to see your inn while I'm at it."
With that, Sama Baek made his offer — he would provide a carriage or a boat, whichever they preferred, so they could make the journey in comfort and speed.
He had decided that this was the moment to get a proper measure of the man called Guest Dragon — and of the inn he ran.
But Jin Seongun only scratched his head and answered.
"That's a bit of a problem."
"Why is that?"
"Because I'm going to run there."
Sama Baek's face went blank with disbelief.
You're going to run that entire distance?
Granted, the lightfoot art of a master at Guest Dragon's level did outpace any horse or boat — over short distances, at least.
But that was when the distance was short.
Stretch the journey until it crossed city after city, and the best a man on foot could manage was roughly even with a horse — and more often than not, the horse won.
Why else would the Murim Alliance pour such painstaking care into breeding its mounts, if not because even masters couldn't be everywhere?
Sama Baek explained this, then added,
"Are you familiar with the term 'eight hundred li relay'? It refers to the method used by the imperial court and the government offices to deliver their most urgent dispatches — riding the finest horses, staffed by the best men, in unbroken succession from one relay station to the next."
"I see."
"It is, without exaggeration, the fastest means of travel in all the realm. And do you know the only answer under heaven that can rival it? The Murim Alliance."
Sama Baek put deliberate weight on those last words. Jin Seongun gave a slow nod, then looked back at him.
And? So what?
It was exactly that look. Sama Baek hurriedly pressed on.
"Three days. In three days, one could reach Yichang from here. Ahem — of course, if you became an Alliance Elder, you'd enjoy benefits like this as a matter of course. An immense and tightly woven network of contacts. Someone to assist you no matter where in the realm you went..."
"I'll be there in one day."
"..."
Sama Baek's mouth snapped shut again.
After a brief silence, he narrowed his eyes and spoke with a strange, half-amused lilt in his voice.
"Heh heh, so you have a bit of bluster in you after all. Not that I mind — it suits a man your age. Confidence is the very soul of a martial artist, no?"
"It isn't bluster. It's simply true."
Jin Seongun was firm. Firm to the point of being matter-of-fact, in fact — because he wasn't boasting. He was stating a plain fact, exactly as it was.
It might not even take a full day.
He had run himself ragged on this trip to Qinghai — genuinely, gloriously ragged. And, much to his own dismay, he had the distinct feeling that his qualifications as a thief had somehow improved even further.
At that, Sama Baek flashed a wide smile. A thoroughly provocative one.
"Then why not make a wager of it, you and I?"
"I've rather had my fill of wagers, lately..."
He had only just returned from pulling off the hardest gamble of his life, watched in secret and won by inches. These days, the mere word wager was enough to drain the strength right out of him.
Seeing the light die quickly in Jin Seongun's eyes, Sama Baek hastily corrected himself.
"N-not a wager — a race! A footrace! I'll ride a horse, and you'll run, and we'll see which of us arrives at Seongun Inn first!"
Jin Seongun was unmoved.
At the end of the day, wasn't it just a wager with a different name?
"And what, pray tell, do I stand to gain from this race?"
"Well, first things first. The service you rendered this time is an achievement Baekdo Murim intends to honor in the highest terms. Naturally, there will be rewards and recognition to match. That is not an offer — it is simply what's owed."
"Then I'll gratefully accept that."
Jin Seongun nodded.
As a merchant, there was no reason on earth to refuse payment for work already done.
Though if that payment turned out to be some tiresome post like an Elder's seat, the matter would be very different indeed.
"Ahem, good. In any case — setting that aside — if you win this race, then within the bounds of my ability, and so long as it stays within ethical limits, I will grant you one favor. Anything you ask."
"And if I lose?"
"You come to the Murim Alliance."
"Ah, now that's..."
"I don't mean it as some duty. I mean it quite literally — as a visit. Come and have a look around. It would be a fascinating experience, I assure you."
Jin Seongun considered it for a moment.
He remembered how useful the Tang Family's Green Jade Plaque had proven once before. Sama Baek's promise had a similar feel to it.
He'd intended to sprint straight through to Yichang regardless, so the race would cost him nothing.
But what if he won? Then he'd have to visit the Murim Alliance. A bother, certainly — but not entirely without appeal.
Somehow or other, he'd accumulated quite a few friends among Baekdo's ranks, and he had wondered now and then what the place where they all worked looked like.
"Then may I bring one friend along?"
"A friend? Who?"
"Our head cook."
Sama Baek laughed as though he could ask for nothing better.
"Hahaha, of course, of course. Come with an easy heart. Ah — and truth be told, you're welcome to visit anytime, win or lose."
What Sama Baek didn't know was this: that head cook was a former Special Grade assassin of Salmak, and that thanks to old occupational habits, he collected and recorded detailed intelligence on every place he ever set foot in.
Sama Baek gave the race absolutely everything he had.
Whatever else he was, he was still a man of the Murim.
His competitive spirit was not the sort an ordinary martial artist could hope to measure up to.
He rode the horse himself.
He didn't sleep.
He had trained in martial arts in his day, after all — push himself a little, and he could go three days without closing his eyes.
Without rest, Sama Baek pushed out of Shaanxi Province and finally halted at a place called Danjiangkou, at the very edge of Hubei.
The front courtyard of the Zhuge Clan's estate, it was also home to one of the Murim Alliance's relay stations.
The sudden appearance of the Chief Military Strategist threw the station's keepers into a panic.
"Ch-Chief Strategist! What brings you here—!"
"A horse! Bring me a horse!"
"Y-yes?"
"Bring the horse first, gawk later!"
"Yes, sir!"
In short order they led out the finest steed at the station. And just in case, they prepared dried jerky and a waterskin, offering them up with trembling care.
"Ch-Chief Strategist, at least take this—"
Fweeeeng—!
The Strategist was gone in an instant, quite literally whistling like the wind. The keeper's hand, still extended with jerky and waterskin, hung awkwardly in the empty air.
He stared, bewildered, at the Strategist's receding back, then muttered,
"Isn't he supposed to be famously kind? Was that all just a rumor?"
His colleague scratched his head.
"Maybe something enormous came up? Then it makes sense, I suppose. He is the busiest man in the world, after all."
"Ah, that could be it."
But still — what possible matter could make the Murim Alliance's Chief Military Strategist ride flat-out himself, eyes bulging from his skull?
Before long, the two men were looking at each other with faces gone rather pale.
"The D-Demonic Cult?"
That day, from the Zhuge Clan's estate in Danjiangkou, dozens of messenger hawks took wing toward the Murim Alliance, scattering across the sky.
And so Sama Baek arrived at Yichang.
Dawn had barely broken.
He had budgeted three days, but thanks to a truly insane journey, he made it in two and a half.
He quickly asked directions from the early-rising merchants and made his way to Seongun Inn. What struck him as amusing was that every single merchant in Yichang knew the place.
Then, standing before Seongun Inn at last, Sama Baek blinked at the signboard — and at the inn. No, not an inn. A vast, sprawling estate.
"Is... is this truly an inn?"
Everyone had said the same things about Seongun Inn.
The praise for its waiter Jin Seongun went without saying, so he set that aside — the inn wasn't large, but immaculately clean and refined, and the food was genuinely superb.
Yet here it stood before his eyes, larger and grander and more magnificent than any inn he had laid eyes on in his entire life.
If this counted as "not large," then the Murim Alliance's headquarters deserved to be written off as a mere guard post.
"It clearly says Seongun Inn on the sign..."
Just then—
A voice drifted out from inside the inn.
"Ugh, that lunatic of a cook..."
Seomun Ak, grumbling as he stepped outside broom in hand, froze on the spot.
"Ch... Chief Strategist?"
"Haha, it's been a while."
Sama Baek offered the greeting with as much dignity as he could muster.
He'd heard the Seomun Clan's degenerate had reformed himself of late, and it was truly remarkable — even the look in the young man's eyes had changed.
This inn really is no ordinary place.
An establishment that had done what the Clan Head Seomun Jeok's stern discipline never could. Awkward as it was to admit, his own grandson Sama Hui had also been forcibly cured of his degeneracy here in Yichang, had he not?
"So, might I ask where the master of this inn is—"
"Ah, Jin Seongun?"
Sama Baek's heart thumped.
Seomun Ak turned to look deeper into the inn.
Jin Seongun came strolling out mid-yawn.
"Ah, you've arrived. That was faster than I expected — it hasn't even been three days yet."
Sama Baek's bulging eyes grew just slightly moist.
When he swayed on his feet a moment later, Seomun Ak flung the broom aside, rushed over, and caught him by the arm.
"A-are you quite all right, sir?"
"Haha, I'm fine. Just a little hungry, is all..."
"Goodness. Then let's get a meal into you first."
And it was then, quite suddenly, that Seomun Ak realized something.
The old him would have averted his eyes at the sight of Sama Baek, or slunk quietly away. The man's upright, rigid rectitude had always made the degenerate Seomun Ak feel uncomfortable and afraid.
But now, he was only mildly startled by the abrupt appearance — not the least bit frightened, not the slightest urge to run.
I might... have become a genuine adult.
While Seomun Ak was still savoring his own growth, Jin Seongun's voice continued.
"I won the race. As agreed, if something comes up that calls for it, I'll pay the Murim Alliance a visit. And separately..."
Jin Seongun paused for a moment.
Sama Baek's expression tensed — and then Jin Seongun smacked his lips and went on.
"If it's no trouble, might I stop by the Murim Alliance as you mentioned before?"
Because Seo Yugyeom, upon hearing the terms of the race, had all but sparkled and pushed him to do exactly that.
Sama Baek's face lit up like a lantern.
"Of course! What a thing to ask!"
"Ah — that friend I mentioned. That's our head cook, the one I spoke of."
Just then a sly voice drifted out from within the inn. Thump, thump — a man shuffled out, dragging his feet.
"Oho, so I finally get to set foot in the Murim Alliance. Their security was always so damned tight."
It was Seo Yugyeom.
Back in his assassin days, he had attempted to infiltrate the Alliance a number of times. Not to kill anyone, mind — purely to gather information.
How many halls there were, how they were arranged, what the roofs were made of, how wide the corridors ran... All of it was information an assassin was duty-bound to acquire.
But getting inside the Murim Alliance headquarters was a feat that daunted even Special Grade assassins. He'd figured only the Salmak Master or Vice Master could manage it.
And now he had the chance to walk through its front gate, wide open and in broad daylight.
And if anyone asked why a cook needed intelligence like that?
Because you never know with people.
Seo Yugyeom flashed a slow grin as he looked at Sama Baek.
The moment Sama Baek met that peculiar aura of his — dark, chill, and faintly dangerous — his instincts screamed.
Something had gone very wrong indeed.