This Inn Makes Good Noodles
The noodles here are good.
Seven men occupied the small inn.
Yet a heavy silence hung over the room, as though no one was there at all.
That was simply how fights between assassins went. Unlike ordinary martial artists, there were no blades clashing in the open, no violent bursts of qi hurled across the room.
"……"
The six assassins of the Red Tiger Seven Ghosts were considerably rattled.
They had come with no real misgivings, told only that they needed to kill some innkeeper who'd dabbled in a bit of martial training. In truth, if the Southern Black Lotus Lord's son hadn't been the one to hire them, they would never have taken the job at all.
But the lightness of heart they'd carried walking through the inn's door was long gone.
Il-gwi, leader of the Red Tiger Seven Ghosts, hid his body in the shadows of the ceiling and spread his keen senses wide. With his perception pushed to its limit, the rain hammering the inn's outer wall sounded like rolling thunder. He could feel the humidity inside the inn, the currents of air moving against his skin.
Where an ordinary man saw and heard one thing, a martial artist saw and heard five. And an assassin of the same caliber sensed ten.
And amid all those overwhelming sensations—
For an instant, he caught something off.
Shhk—!
At that very moment, Chil-gwi, the youngest of the Red Tiger Seven Ghosts, charged. He must have sensed the same thing Il-gwi had.
Slicing through the darkness like a beam of light, Chil-gwi raised his hidden blade in a reversed grip and drew up a stealthy current of qi.
Seeing this, Il-gwi murmured under his breath.
"No—wait."
Chil-gwi heard him too.
But it was already too late to turn back. He only fed more power into his hidden blade and slashed down at the innkeeper who had barely shown himself.
"Huh……"
There was nothing. No sensation of his blade meeting flesh at all.
Chil-gwi froze where he stood. He had sensed his target clearly—and yet the spot was empty, as if the man had been nothing but an illusion.
Great Passing Steps flowing into Shadowless Steps.
Before anyone knew it, Jin Seongun had claimed Chil-gwi's back and swept the Black Withered Sword in a light, casual arc. No grand movement, no surge of energy required.
Swish—!
Chil-gwi's right arm came off at the shoulder.
The reason he hadn't simply taken the head was to gauge the temperament of the assassins still remaining.
"……"
The silence held. Even Chil-gwi, his arm severed, let out no sound—no small groan, nothing, as if his mouth had been gagged.
That was what it meant to be trained. That was what an assassin was.
Jin Seongun pressed a hand firmly down on Chil-gwi's fallen neck as he scanned the interior of the inn. Faint traces of qi stirred here and there. But he could not afford to move rashly. Just as he himself had done, any of them might be deliberately giving away their presence as bait.
"Assassins are a cold-blooded lot."
Not one of them had wavered at their comrade's peril. After a brief survey of his surroundings, Jin Seongun simply applied pressure and snapped Chil-gwi's neck.
Five remained.
He had exposed one trap; from here on, the fight would grow quieter and more careful still.
Wiping the blood from the Black Withered Sword onto Chil-gwi's clothes, Jin Seongun set off walking again.
Step, step, step……
Before he had taken four full strides, his figure vanished.
The assassins saw it with their own eyes and still could not believe it. His concealment arts were anything but shallow. Had he received the same professional assassin training they had?
Could this be the same Madu who wiped out the Prosperity Society……?
A reasonable suspicion crossed Il-gwi's mind. Concealment of that caliber would be more than enough to slip through every corner of the Prosperity Society's compound and toy with a hundred-odd warriors.
To all appearances, the inn was empty once more. Just an ordinary establishment after closing time—except that six armed men still lingered within it.
How tedious.
Jin Seongun, waiting out the assassins, let out a faint sigh. They sensed the sigh too, but none of them moved carelessly; they had all seen exactly what became of Chil-gwi.
Assassins, by their nature, were men who could hold their position for a day, two days—months, even—in pursuit of a target.
And that was not to Jin Seongun's taste.
Sword Immortal had said an overnight guest would arrive tonight. He could not be seen killing assassins in front of the guest who came.
Mind made up, Jin Seongun resorted to the method he had tried so hard to restrain.
A reddish aura bloomed across his whole body and began to slowly seep through the inn.
Hissssss—
It might have been the tiniest droplet of blood, or something finer still—a mist of crimson. That bloody haze drifted languidly through the room. However perfect a hiding spot might be, no one could simply let the Blood Demon's qi slip past them like wind.
The energy wrapped around the assassins and flowed. And thanks to that, their positions were laid bare for all to see.
The assassins confirmed each other's condition, and without any need to coordinate, they all burst into motion at once. Once discovered, there was only one option. Kill before you die. That was what an assassin was.
Hidden daggers coated black for concealment in the darkness came hurtling at Jin Seongun. They carried qi within them, yet were so refined it was nearly imperceptible.
Clang—!
Jin Seongun swept the daggers aside with the Black Withered Sword. In the same instant, two assassins closed in from behind, aiming for his blind side.
He had been feeling their qi the entire time. Spinning on his heel, he brought the sword around in a single sweeping stroke.
Fwoooosh—!
The fierce crimson blaze carried in the Black Withered Sword lit up the whole inn in a flash. In that brief flicker of light, Jin Seongun's eyes met those of the two assassins.
Disaster was written plainly in their pupils.
Swish—!
Both their heads rose into the air at the same time.
Three remained.
Once again, Jin Seongun had no intention of waiting. Thinking of the price of the chairs the assassins had just shattered in their fall, he set his steps in motion and melted into the darkness.
The assassins' senses went taut as bowstrings. Il-gwi's heart pounded as though it would burst. He was rolling his eyes left and right, bracing for Jin Seongun's next strike, when—
"Kgh!"
Sam-gwi's scream rang out from a short distance away.
So the innkeeper had chosen Sam-gwi, it seemed. And perhaps it was that thought loosening his guard—
Il-gwi never felt the man appear behind him.
He turned to look at Sam-gwi. Now that he saw it clearly, the man hadn't been cut down by the sword at all. A single hidden dagger had skewered him through the heart.
Then that means he……
A cold shiver ran down his spine. Il-gwi spun around, swinging his hidden blade.
The blade shaved nothing but the hem of Jin Seongun's clothing. He could see it would not touch flesh, so there had been no reason to dodge. Put another way: the initiative over the distance between them belonged entirely to Jin Seongun.
A short blade falling just barely short of its mark. They were close enough to make out each other's faces even in the dark.
Jin Seongun raised his sword slightly. Il-gwi's gaze followed it, inevitably. In that instant, something reddish flashed.
That was the last thing Il-gwi ever saw.
WHAM—!
His jaw was driven violently upward. He had taken the Blood Demon Palm head-on, full force.
Two remained.
I-gwi and Sam-gwi exchanged a look. Instinct told them both at once: we die here.
An assassin does not fear death. But a man does. And right now, the two of them had the instincts of men—not assassins—surging far stronger within them.
Without a word passing between them, they bolted for the door.
I can't catch them both.
Jin Seongun clicked his tongue inwardly. He'd hoped they wouldn't make that particular choice.
And then it happened. Something no one could have predicted.
Sam-gwi unleashed a palm strike—at I-gwi.
CRACK—!
The treacherous blow caught I-gwi square in the chest. He vomited blood and crumpled to the floor. Sam-gwi had offered up his comrade as a sacrifice to buy his own escape.
"You son of a—!"
I-gwi never finished the sentence. The Black Withered Sword was faster, punching clean through his back.
As I-gwi died with his eyes wide open, Sam-gwi—thanks to his sacrificed comrade—had already reached the door.
Jin Seongun pulled a hidden dagger from the floorboards and threw it. Sam-gwi twisted mid-stride and dodged, precisely as he'd expected to.
Thud—!
The dagger missed him and buried itself in the door. And just as Sam-gwi moved to fling the inn's door wide open—
Clunk.
It would not open. The dagger had pierced through door and frame in a single stroke, jamming them together as solidly as a thrown bolt.
It was not a technique he had learned from the Martial Gods. It was closer to pure instinct. The Heavenly Martial Body was not merely a physique that mastered martial arts quickly. It was the living embodiment of the martial itself.
Sam-gwi drew up his internal energy and wrenched at the door with all his strength. It was made of wood; it could not withstand a martial artist's power.
CRACK. The door broke.
And in almost the same breath, Jin Seongun seized the hem of Sam-gwi's clothes.
Fear crept across Sam-gwi's face. Paying it no mind, Jin Seongun—still thinking of the repair costs for the broken door—swung the Black Withered Sword with everything he had.
Thwack—!
The blade sank through Sam-gwi's back and burst out through his chest.
And so every assassin who had set foot in the inn was dead. No one would ever have imagined that the infamous Red Tiger Seven Ghosts would die in a small inn at the hands of a mere innkeeper.
"One left."
There had been a final man keeping watch outside—the sixth, who had certainly been there before the fighting started, and was already gone by the time it ended.
Clicking his tongue in mild disappointment, Jin Seongun sealed the wounds of the six corpses with acupoint pressure to stop the bleeding, then laid them out in the backyard. Once morning came, he could trade them in for the bounty.
He was walking back into the inn, mulling this over, when a man stepped in through the broken door.
Head to toe wrapped in black. An assassin again—though one strange detail set him apart: dangling limply in his hand was another assassin, carried like a sack.
Looking closer, the man seemed to be dead. The garb matched that of the Red Tiger Seven Ghosts, so he must have been the last one—the man who had been scouting the inn from outside. The killer who had slain O-gwi and brought him here stared at Jin Seongun for a long moment, then asked:
"The thing is, I'm out of money right now. So let's call it even with this guy's head—can I just get one bowl of noodles?"
His voice was trembling faintly. His black robes and mask were filthy. Everything about him spoke of a life without rest—a man who looked as though he'd been running from someone for a very long time.
But Jin Seongun could not turn him away.
Setting aside the matter of the dead assassin, this man was his first customer—apart from Noh Sang-won.
"Welcome. This is Seongun Inn."
Jin Seongun went straight into the kitchen and boiled the noodles.
He was a little worried, though. What if the man drew a blade and declared the noodles inedible? Should he fight a customer who'd drawn first? Or apologize, since the man was a guest?
He was still weighing this as he carried the noodles out—and found the man already sprawled on the floor.
He'd been in such poor condition that it was a miracle he'd walked in at all.
Jin Seongun gazed down at the half-corpse for a moment, then channeled the Yeowol Mind Art. An energy as gentle and warm as Daji's own personality flowed carefully into the man's body.
Naturally, this alone could not fully heal him. But a modest boost to his flagging vitality was well within reach.
After a short wait, the man opened his eyes. He stared at Jin Seongun with a briefly bewildered look, then pulled himself up and took a seat at the table.
"Did I fall asleep?"
"You must have been exhausted."
"I haven't slept properly in days."
With that, the man fixed his gaze on the noodles. He hadn't expected much from a tiny inn like this—and yet they looked surprisingly appetizing.
"They've gone a bit cold. Shall I boil a fresh bowl?"
That would have been the proper thing to do. But Jin Seongun asked only because the man looked so starved that Jin Seongun doubted he could bear even the short wait it would take.
"Cold noodles have their own charm. It's fine."
The man picked up his chopsticks. Jin Seongun, uncharacteristically, felt himself tense.
The man stirred the noodles around a few times, then said abruptly:
"You wouldn't happen to need an inn worker, would you? I saw there's a room attached out front. I've got nowhere to go."
"No."
The most uncompromising refusal in the world.
The man's voice turned a touch sullen.
"I've got more of a talent for cooking than I look like I do. You'd know if you tasted my food."
"I have no intention of hiring an assassin as inn staff."
Since this was no ordinary guest, Jin Seongun dropped the polite register in reply. At that, the man shot him a wary look.
"How did you know I'm an assassin?"
"The mask."
Only then, as if just remembering it, the man pulled the mask off. He'd worn it so long he'd momentarily forgotten it was there.
"Nearly mixed my noodles into the mask there."
He grinned as he said it. Jin Seongun had guessed his age from his voice, but seeing his face, the man was even younger than expected—about Jin Seongun's own age, or a touch older.
Young as he was, he had killed one of the Red Tiger Seven Ghosts with a body worn down to the bone. No ordinary talent, that.
"An inn worker only needs to cook well. You're a picky one, aren't you?"
"……Eat nicely and be on your way."
The innkeeper himself was already no ordinary man. If he started taking in martial artists of this caliber as staff, the place would stop being Seongun Inn and become Seongun Hall—or worse, the Seongun Sect.
The man clicked his tongue in exaggerated disappointment, and finally lifted the noodles to his mouth.
Jin Seongun glanced sidelong at the Black Withered Sword's position, just in case the man went for a blade.
All at once, the man tilted his head, then took another bite.
"Mmm."
The meal went on. Jin Seongun's guard slowly eased, the noodles steadily vanished, and at last even the broth was gone to the last drop.
He was a fairly handsome man, truth be told—with the mask off, he looked for all the world like an ordinary young gentleman of good family.
Before long, the man patted his belly and said:
"This place makes good noodles."
"……!!"
Jin Seongun's eyes went wide. It was more than simple surprise—there was something almost like being moved in it.
"It— it's good?"
For once in his life, he stammered. The man, entirely unbothered, gave Jin Seongun a nod.
"Damn decent, actually. Anyway, thanks for the meal."
With that, the man rose from his seat. As he moved to leave, Jin Seongun—watching him with a strangely complicated expression—caught his sleeve and stopped him.
"Hold on."
"What? We settled the bill with that guy's head, didn't we? He was a fairly skilled assassin."
"Are you truly confident?"
"About what?"
Jin Seongun's lips worked for a moment before he made up his mind.
"About the cooking."
The man broke into a grin. No wonder—after a night's sleep his energy had returned, and a full belly had put him in high spirits.
Rolling up his sleeves with total confidence, the man headed for the kitchen.
"Talk is cheap. I'll answer with flavor."