Because It's Salmak
The inn was thick with the smell of liquor.
Seo Yugyeom, who had already been a little tipsy, grew quite flushed after a few rounds.
"The man who took me in as an orphan and raised me—turns out he was the one who killed my birth parents. Astonishing, isn't it?"
"How did you come to learn that?"
It was a rather dark tale. Even so, Jin Seongun offered no words of comfort—he simply listened in silence, occasionally asking a question or two.
As Jin Seongun saw it, Seo Yugyeom didn't need consolation right now. He only wanted to share his story.
"He'd mistaken me for a Heavenly Martial Body, you see. But as he raised me, something seemed off. Naturally so. I was never a Heavenly Martial Body—I was born under the Heavenly Killing Star (天殺星)."
It was said that the Heavenly Killing Star revealed itself to the world only once a century. Those born under it possessed extraordinary martial talent, but were doomed to be ruled by their murderous impulses for the rest of their lives. And so, among the great demon lords throughout murim history, many had been children of the Heavenly Killing Star.
"I was no different. One day I got into a quarrel with a bandit, and I simply couldn't hold it in. I killed him. But that didn't quell the rage, so I tracked down his mountain fortress and slaughtered every last soul in it."
Having said this, Seo Yugyeom stared for a while at his own reflection in his cup.
He was a handsome one, no doubt about it. Who would ever believe that a face like that had taken nearly a hundred lives?
"After that, a man came looking for me in the dead of night. The Vice Master of Salmak, he called himself. When I refused to go with him, he told me the truth about my parents' deaths. Salmak's intelligence network is second to none."
The great man who had taken Seo Yugyeom in and raised him. He had mistaken the boy for a Heavenly Martial Body—and murdered his parents for it.
"So then—what did you do?"
"I avenged my parents first. They died when I was a newborn, so I never even knew their faces. But they were my parents all the same."
Jin Seongun nodded calmly. Those who piled up evil deeds had to be prepared to pay the price for them, whenever it came due.
"And then you joined Salmak?"
"I had nowhere else to go."
"Then why didn't you simply live well as an assassin? With a Heavenly Killing Star, killing would be your natural calling."
"I can't tell if that's an insult or a compliment."
Seo Yugyeom made a strange face, then went on.
"No, you're right—it was my calling. It let me live while venting the murderous urges that were always boiling up. But then one day, the Vice Master handed me a contract."
"What kind of contract?"
"The daughter of the man who raised me. The woman I'd once thought of as my sister. He ordered me to kill her. I suppose she believed Salmak had murdered her father and was coming for revenge."
A brief silence followed. It had happened before she learned the truth, but killing someone you'd thought of as family was no easy thing. Especially when, unlike the father, the daughter was entirely innocent.
"She was just a woman who'd lost her parents at someone else's hands, same as me. And the one who killed that father was me. How could I possibly kill her?"
Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom stopped refilling each other's cups. They both knew they'd already had quite a lot to drink.
After a moment of quiet, Jin Seongun asked, "What a tangled story. But if you carry the Heavenly Killing Star, isn't it hard to live without killing?"
The murderous urge that surged from birth. It wasn't something that could be held down by willpower alone. If it were, those born under the Heavenly Killing Star would never have reason to unleash bloodbaths at all.
"The urge never stops rising. It's rising even now, this very moment."
"How terrifying."
He looked not the least bit frightening, which made Seo Yugyeom burst out laughing.
"Only the thrill of splitting skin and carving out bone can ease my bloodlust. But having lived past twenty years like this, I've learned to control it—a little, anyway. Of course, I do have to let it off the leash sometimes. If it builds up and explodes, that's when things get truly dangerous."
"So what you're saying is—you'll live here as a cook, and occasionally step out to kill people?"
Have you ever seen a cook this insane?
For a moment, Jin Seongun considered whether he really ought to throw this fellow out.
"I already vented plenty today."
"...Are you a lunatic?"
Jin Seongun glanced around, searching for the Black Gorge Saber. At the sight, Seo Yugyeom roared with laughter and went on.
"It's imagination. What I'm slicing isn't meat—it's people. I fool myself. I stumbled onto the method back when I was hiding as a cook."
Today, thanks to Noh Sang-won, they had made Dongpo pork and Zhajiang noodles until everyone was sick of the sight of them.
"...And that actually works for you?"
"Not entirely. But it's not without effect. I told you, didn't I? I've got talent as a cook."
Slicing ingredients with the blade arts he'd honed his entire life. And at the same time, venting the Heavenly Killing Star's bloodlust. What could be more perfect than that?
Seo Yugyeom laughed, looking distinctly proud of himself.
"You're the one who made me a cook, so I suppose that makes you a kind of benefactor."
"...Now that's embarrassing to hear."
"Don't worry about a thing."
Jin Seongun tilted his head. "Worry about what?"
"I won't put my benefactor in danger. If Salmak ever tracks me down again, I'll leave on my own when the time comes. So don't fret."
"I've never worried about that once."
Seo Yugyeom's eyes narrowed.
This waiter really was strange. No—extraordinary.
"Come to think of it, you've got real nerve for a waiter. You didn't even blink when you found out I was an assassin. Have you perhaps trained in martial arts?"
It was a fair guess. If the man before him had trained, Seo Yugyeom would have been able to tell at a glance.
But Jin Seongun answered as if it were nothing at all.
"I have. A little."
"Trained so little it doesn't show at all?"
"A few days' worth. That's all."
Seo Yugyeom let out a short snort of laughter. Could that even be called training? Apparently this waiter friend of his was simply born without fear—calm to the bone.
"Shall I take a look at you when I find the time?"
"I'm fine."
"I won't even charge you, so why not learn? If you've got strength, daily life gets a little easier in a hundred small ways. A chance to be taught personally by a former special-grade assassin of Salmak—doesn't come around often, you know."
Jin Seongun shrugged.
"I've got a special-grade cook. What would I need strength for?"
At that, Seo Yugyeom smiled again. He couldn't tell whether he'd always been this full of laughter, or whether it was the liquor talking.
A life spent as a special-grade assassin. Who knew the day would come when he'd be called a special-grade cook instead?
But Jin Seongun meant every word. Hadn't the man handled an enormous flood of orders today? And the food had been outstanding on top of it. At this pace, word of mouth was only a matter of time.
"We've got business again tomorrow, so let's have one last cup and call it a night."
So saying, Jin Seongun filled both cups. They touched with a clear, ringing chime, and the two men drained them in the same breath. For some reason, they looked utterly different, and yet remarkably alike.
Business boomed for days after opening. Just as Jin Seongun had predicted, Seo Yugyeom's skill spread by word of mouth almost overnight. What was more, Jin Seongun—a professional waiter with over a decade of experience—guided the customers through their meals with ease.
Trade was so brisk that they sometimes had to close early, the ingredients running out entirely. Taking Seo Yugyeom on as head cook had proven one of the best decisions he'd ever made.
Today, too, he worried the supplies might run dry, but they just barely lasted until closing time. He'd have to speak with the merchant guild and bring in more liquor and provisions starting tomorrow.
Jin Seongun was sorting through tomorrow's tasks in his head as he headed for the backyard, when Seo Yugyeom suddenly spoke up.
"Finding a room isn't easy. I might end up eating and sleeping at the inn a while longer."
"Suits me."
Jin Seongun nodded indifferently.
"You're sleeping in the backyard again tonight?"
"I am."
"...You have peculiar tastes, I'll give you that."
Jin Seongun slept in the backyard—more precisely, in a spot he'd cleared beside the storage shed. The weather was pleasantly cool, so it wasn't uncomfortable, and besides, he worried Seo Yugyeom might go poking around the door of the Divine Martial Warehouse.
Once he finds a room and moves out, that should improve.
He was thinking this as he drifted off, feeling the soft breeze on his face, when something strange snagged at his senses.
The same feeling he'd had a few days ago.
An assassin.
The level of concealment was superb. Superior even to the Seven Ghosts of Hongho who had come before—and even to Seo Yugyeom, a former special-grade assassin of Salmak. This killer was a cut above.
What to do?
He was still deliberating when he felt Seo Yugyeom quietly slip out of the inn. Apparently he had sensed the assassin too.
A secluded hillside in the dead of night. The overgrown trees swallowed the moonlight, lending the place a gloomy, funereal air.
Seo Yugyeom stood facing a single man. From head to toe, the man was shrouded in pitch-black mask and robes—a stark contrast to Seo Yugyeom, who no longer bothered with either.
Before long, Seo Yugyeom spoke in a low voice.
"Vice Master. Surely it's time to let this go."
"Traitors are purged. Have you forgotten?"
The voice of the man called Vice Master was cold as ice. Not a trace of emotion could be felt in it.
"I have no wish to be enemies with Salmak. Every assassin you've sent, I've let walk away alive. Haven't I?"
"They're all dead. The principle is simple—an assassin who fails his mission is discarded."
"...Why go so far?"
It wasn't pity for the dead assassins, nor guilt. They had each chosen Salmak of their own accord. Seo Yugyeom had left because he couldn't stomach Salmak's ways—nothing more.
For a man born under the Heavenly Killing Star who had chosen the assassin's trade, Seo Yugyeom's temperament was remarkably un-cold-blooded.
"Why do I go so far? Because it's Salmak."
Seo Yugyeom let out a long breath. Yes. That was the kind of organization Salmak was. The Vice Master who had raised him and taught him had always been that kind of man.
"So it only ends when I die, then."
"I suppose so. Or else you kill every last one of us."
"Do you truly want to kill me, Vice Master? It looks like tonight one of us dies anyway, so at least be honest with me for once."
After a moment's silence, the Vice Master answered.
"...An assassin does not move on emotion."
Even so, Seo Yugyeom's keen senses caught it—the instant of wavering in the Vice Master's heart.
"So you do hate the thought of killing me. It was only a few years, but I regarded you as my master, and you regarded me as your disciple."
The Vice Master's answer was to draw his straight saber. A master does not kill his disciple. But an assassin kills an assassin.
The Vice Master's blade, dyed pitch-black, melted wholly into the darkness. Cut sharper than ever for the opponent it faced, it gave off not even a whisper of killing intent—which somehow made it all the more chilling.
"Well. It is Salmak, after all."
Seo Yugyeom gave a wry smile and drew his short blade. The Vice Master's brow twitched.
"Revolting smell."
"It was slicing pork until an hour ago."
He had washed it thoroughly, of course. But not well enough to fool an assassin's senses.
The Vice Master looked at Seo Yugyeom with something like contempt. An assassin, properly speaking, was a being that gave off no presence, no sound, no scent. He had taught his disciple exactly that—so to come bearing a blade like that could only mean the boy had no intention of fighting at all.
"Don't look at me like that. I've carved up plenty of people and plenty of meat. There's not much difference between the two."
Seo Yugyeom was certain of one thing: tonight, he would die.
The special-grade assassins of Salmak stood at the very peak of all the killers in the Central Plains. But the man who had trained those special-grade assassins stood right in front of him—the assassin of assassins.
His odds of beating the Vice Master were slim. One in ten at best.
And that was why he felt a pang of regret. Not regret for his own life, though.
After a lifetime alone, I finally meet someone worth calling a friend—and part ways after mere days.
For a moment, Seo Yugyeom conjured the memory of Jin Seongun's calm, untroubled face. Then he began to erase his presence entirely, and the Vice Master's own presence vanished in answer.
The battles of assassins were nothing like the duels of ordinary martial artists. They charged at each other almost at once.
An assassin's fight is never long. A single exchange. Nothing more than whose blade is faster and quieter, whose steel finds its mark first.
The wind-dark saber and the short blade tore through the night, inches from each other's flesh—
Seo Yugyeom pulled his blade back at the last instant. He simply could not bring himself to kill his master.
At that moment, the Vice Master's brow twitched. A shameful thing, truly—and yet Salmak's assassin does not stay his hand.
The cold steel was a breath from boring through Seo Yugyeom's throat—
Thud.
The blade stopped dead where it stood.
Naturally, the Vice Master's heart had not softened at the final moment. A blood-soaked hand had appeared from nowhere and seized the saber by its very edge.
The Vice Master and Seo Yugyeom turned wide eyes toward the side. Neither of them had sensed a single thing approaching. And the world held precious few masters who could catch a blade of the Vice Master's caliber barehanded.
"Jin Seongun?"
Seo Yugyeom wore the expression of a man half-dreaming.
Oblivious or not, Jin Seongun gazed at the Vice Master for a long moment with his characteristic deadpan stare, then spoke.
"Where on earth did you find this cook?"