You're Fucked Now, Senior
Senior, from now on—
Shwaaek!
A single rough blade of sword qi tore through the air and came crashing down. At the end of its trajectory stood Baek Seol.
Pressed flat by the overwhelming killing intent and momentum, she could only wear a startled expression—she hadn't even had the presence of mind to think of dodging. She had been through her share of the Jianghu by now, but the sword qi rushing at her face belonged to an entirely different order of things than any of that.
In that instant, Baek Seol understood.
I'm going to die.
There was no room in her head for any other thought.
Just as the sword qi reached the tip of her nose—
Swik!
A short dagger cleaved the blade of qi clean in two. Seo Yugyeom was somehow already standing in front of her.
The bisected sword qi split left and right, blasting apart the walls of the inn.
Seo Yugyeom shook out his aching wrist and said, "This damn inn never gets a single decent day, does it."
Everyone wore expressions of disbelief. A master of Sikmugaek's caliber unleashing a surprise barrage of sword qi—and a mere cook deflecting it without apparent effort—neither of these things existed anywhere in their understanding of the world.
Sikmugaek burst out laughing. The more he looked at this cook, the more he thought him a terrible waste. Cooking skill good enough to earn the approval of a man from the Imperial Royal Kitchen, and this level of martial arts besides? Excellent backbone, excellent eyes.
"If I had a disciple like you, my life would be complete."
At the sudden remark, every head turned toward Seo Yugyeom. He scratched his cheek with the Thousand-Killing Short Saber and replied, "And would you spare all our lives then?"
"Not that girl."
Sikmugaek pointed his chicken cleaver at Baek Seol.
Seo Yugyeom let out a long sigh. "That's a bit of a problem for me too."
"Why?"
"Because I'm the one who put her in the kitchen. If she dies for something I set in motion, that'd weigh on my conscience, wouldn't it?"
"Then die together with her."
Sikmugaek threw back his head and roared with laughter.
Everyone simply watched. Not one of them could summon the nerve to strike first at Sikmugaek.
Then his expression turned dead serious. His face was a complete transformation from the man who had been laughing all this while. Madness glinted in his eyes, and a vicious killing intent packed the inn dense as fog. Anew, the fact that this man was a Public Enemy of the Martial World struck home in every heart.
"Choose."
Seo Yugyeom considered for a moment. If he abandoned the inn and these young heroes and ran, there was a chance. He, a former Salsu, had particular confidence in his lightness skill.
But if he fought alongside them, he would die. The odds were all but certain.
Why the hell would I?
The thought came naturally. These weren't people he was particularly close to. If anything, he'd come to know them through Seomun Ak's obnoxious antics. And it wasn't even him Sikmugaek wanted to kill—the man had praised his cooking.
Everyone was watching Seo Yugyeom. They all knew it: if he walked away now, they would die without managing even a token resistance.
Seo Yugyeom let the hand holding the dagger fall slack at his side.
At the sight, everyone except Baek Seol went pale with despair. Baek Seol alone couldn't blame him—he had already saved her life once.
Presently, Seo Yugyeom moved to leave.
And yet, strangely, his feet wouldn't carry him.
Was it pity for these young heroes? Absolutely not. Seo Yugyeom had never been the affectionate sort to begin with, and he was no chivalrous hero, least of all.
There was only one thing.
He was afraid of how Jin Seongun—the first friend he had ever made in his life—would react when he came back. When he saw the shattered inn, the young heroes lying dead, and Seo Yugyeom, the one who had fled alone.
He had never known the faces of the parents who bore him. The old man who took him in had been a wretch of a fool who mistook him for a bearer of the Heavenly Martial Body and murdered his own mother and father. Salmak, too, had only dragged him away out of necessity, because he was born with the Heavenly Killing Star.
Jin Seongun was the first person in his life to form a bond with him asking nothing in return. That was why. That was why Seo Yugyeom could not, in the end, take a single step.
"Besides, this is my home."
The first home he had ever chosen for himself in his entire life.
This is my house. So why the hell should I run from it?
Seo Yugyeom let out a deep, long breath.
Then his aura changed—completely, utterly.
Saaaaaa!
The killing intent that bloomed from his entire body swelled in an instant and flooded the inn. It was thicker, blacker, and far more ominous than the intent Sikmugaek himself had poured out.
The young heroes felt their breath catch. That was the Heavenly Killing Star. Seo Yugyeom was a being born steeped in slaughter—the kind of killing nature that even Salmak, the deadliest assassin organization under heaven, had coveted.
"If you don't fight at full power, you all die."
Seo Yugyeom said it quietly. It was a word for the Jianghu greenhorns, frozen stiff before a true master for the first time in their lives.
His low, cold voice sank into their minds like a drenching of ice water, and their senses snapped awake.
Of course, even fighting at full power, you'll still die.
Seo Yugyeom didn't bother saying that part out loud.
Then it happened.
The frozen Seok Taeshin found his voice. "Y-you madman! Nearby here, there's the Whi—"
At the same moment, Seo Yugyeom's voice transmission cut him off mid-word. He had evidently been about to invoke Baekun Geom's name as a threat.
No need to spook the bastard into rushing us.
It would only backfire. Every enemy these youngsters had ever faced had flinched or fled the moment they brandished the prestige of their clans and sects—but Sikmugaek was different. Learn that a master like Baekun Geom might come looking for this place, and he would simply fight all the harder to kill them quickly and be gone.
Sensing this, Seok Taeshin shut his mouth. But he was not the only fool present.
"Elder Baekun Geom will be here any moment!"
It was Seomun Ak.
Seo Yugyeom crossed the distance and smacked the back of his head. Seomun Ak saw the hand coming—but by the time he registered it, the back of his skull was already stinging.
That was how vast the gap between them was.
Seomun Ak clutched the back of his head. Seo Yugyeom smacked it two more times, then sighed.
Should've just run.
Regret came too late. Seo Yugyeom was not a man to be seized by belated remorse—he simply kept hammering away at the back of Seomun Ak's head. He beat him until even the onlookers began to wonder, is it really necessary to hit him that hard?
Shwaaek!
Seo Yugyeom's figure stretched like taffy, and in the blink of an eye he stood before Sikmugaek.
Surprise is the foundation of the assassin. Except for Sikmugaek himself, no one read the movement.
A chi flow like the night sky itself poured from the Thousand-Killing Short Saber. Sikmugaek swung his chicken cleaver to meet it.
Kaang!
A ringing shockwave burst outward.
"Move!" Seo Yugyeom shouted again.
The first to react was Tang Soyeon. In an instant she closed on Sikmugaek and swept a poisoned stinger at him. Baek Sang followed, then Baek Seol, then Seok Taeshin—the scene laid their martial ranks bare for all to see.
Tang Soyeon's jade-green stinger, laden with venom, sought Sikmugaek's throat.
Sikmugaek tipped his head back and slipped it. In that same breath, the Thousand-Killing Short Saber drove for his solar plexus.
Tang!
Without so much as looking at it, Sikmugaek parried.
Baek Sang and Baek Seol, both without swords, unfolded fist-and-palm arts. Wudang had never been a sect of swordsmanship alone. The siblings' hands wove busily, tracing the Taiji.
This is bad.
Seo Yugyeom clicked his tongue softly. He fought with a dagger, Tang Soyeon with a stinger, the Wudang siblings with palm and fist—every last one of their techniques was built for close range.
Against a man wielding a short chicken cleaver, they needed at least to claim the advantage of reach, and even that was beyond them. Seok Taeshin was doing his best with swordplay of his own, but his level was far too low to be of any real help.
If we can't win the distance game anyway, better to gamble on one crushing blow.
Seo Yugyeom looked at Seomun Ak. The fool's fist had a certain weight and substance that outstripped his actual skill. The Seomun Clan's arts had always been like that.
True, Sikmugaek would swat it aside with ease—but if the others tied up his defense, and Seomun Ak's fist drove home into an eye, a throat, somewhere vital, the story might change.
Except Seomun Ak was still standing there clutching the back of his head.
That idiot...
Seo Yugyeom knew. Seomun Ak wasn't actually in pain—he was scared. He hadn't even been hit that hard to begin with.
—You planning to come to your senses only after all your friends are dead?
At Seo Yugyeom's voice transmission, Seomun Ak flinched.
In that same instant, Sikmugaek's blade grazed Baek Seol's shoulder in passing.
Blood sprayed into the air and fell at the feet of Seomun Ak, whose head was still bowed.
Seomun Ak raised it. But no matter how he turned it over, he could not find the courage to lunge at Sikmugaek.
At the sight, Seo Yugyeom sent another transmission.
—The guy who swung his fist at waiters and cooks like it was nothing is scared now that he's facing a real master? What an absolute clown.
Seo Yugyeom laid into him without any pretense of subtlety.
Then he took his eyes off Seomun Ak. Arguing with such a pathetic fool was worth less than focusing on the fight.
Naturally, the situation was dire. The only thing keeping it from becoming an outright catastrophe was Tang Soyeon's poison arts—poison being relatively indifferent to the gap in martial rank.
"What a nuisance you are!"
It seemed the poison arts weighed on Sikmugaek as well, for he suddenly stretched a palm-force strike at Tang Soyeon in a surprise attack. Startled, she hastily crossed her arms to block it—but she was driven back without end and abruptly vomited up blackish blood.
A palm-force Sikmugaek had released carelessly had shaken her core to its foundations. The difference between Sikmugaek and the young heroes was, quite literally, that between adults and children.
—Conserve your poison!
Seo Yugyeom sent the transmission to Tang Soyeon.
Poison, properly used, was meant to be released once—and released decisively. Lull the enemy into carelessness, then feed it to them a single time, covert and sudden as a viper striking.
Tang Soyeon glared at him. As young matriarch of the Tang Clan, sovereign house of all poison, being lectured by Seo Yugyeom evidently wounded her pride.
That, that...
Seo Yugyeom briefly considered simply running.
It was, by every measure, a total disaster. He tried snatching Sikmugaek's back with his movement arts at every opening, but each time, the man twisted his footing and shut it down.
Sikmugaek flashed him a grin. "An assassin, are you."
The words pressed down on Seo Yugyeom harder than anything else had. Assassins were not beings who fought face-to-face like this—they were shadows that struck from darkness at an enemy's vitals. Now that his nature was exposed, Sikmugaek would deal with him by far more efficient means.
There's no winning this.
Seo Yugyeom judged that he could not fight while dragging along these blockheads. Presently, he sent a transmission to Baek Seol.
—I'll buy you one opening. Run.
Baek Seol stared at him with startled eyes, and his transmission continued.
—Not for your sake. For ours. Get out of here and run until your legs give out. Go fetch that old man Baekun Geom.
Baekun Geom and Jin Seongun had gone to Jangho Lake in Hyeongju. Right about now, they would be deep in drinks in a warm, convivial haze. If Baek Seol truly ran herself half to death and brought them back...
It's thin, but a few of us might live.
It was the only way he could see. And his reason for choosing Baek Seol was simple.
Losing Tang Soyeon or Baek Sang cost too much fighting strength. Seok Taeshin was too slow on his feet. And Seomun Ak—send him, and he'd simply bolt and keep bolting. Absolutely not.
Seo Yugyeom released a massive chi flow head-on, meant to blind Sikmugaek's view. In the sliver of that opening, he explained the plan by transmission to Tang Soyeon and Baek Sang. As expected, both of them flinched hard—the thought of one person slipping out of a situation this precarious made everything feel hopeless.
Fortunately, thanks to the chi flow Seo Yugyeom had unleashed, Sikmugaek saw none of it.
—If any of you would rather die, go ahead and be stubborn about it.
With that, he offered no further explanation. All that remained was to pray Tang Soyeon and Baek Sang were slightly less blockheaded than the rest.
"Senior. Can't we take a break and pick this up after?"
So saying, Seo Yugyeom widened the distance.
Sikmugaek gave an empty laugh. The more he looked, the more he thought killing the man outright would be a waste.
"I'll take you as my disciple after all."
"Not happening."
"I mean it, truly."
Sikmugaek acted as though the words weren't worth another breath. His figure slid forward and shot toward Seo Yugyeom.
Seo Yugyeom pulled his figure back and kicked a dining table up between them. A thin vertical line opened across the tabletop, and it split cleanly in two.
"The innkeeper weeps!"
Seo Yugyeom deliberately worked his mouth harder. Anything to coax even a hair of carelessness out of Sikmugaek. Even as he spoke, he flicked a glance at Baek Sang, Baek Seol, and Tang Soyeon.
Seok Taeshin and Baek Sang joined the fray at Seo Yugyeom's flanks as he traded blows with Sikmugaek.
Seok Taeshin's sword was brushed aside hollowly by the chicken cleaver and rang away. Just as a wave of helplessness was settling over him, Baek Sang abruptly snatched the sword from his hand.
Seok Taeshin's eyes went wide. This, too, was Seo Yugyeom's doing—he had advised Baek Sang in advance.
—That Seok fool is dead weight, so take his sword away!
As a swordsman, Baek Sang hesitated for a moment over whether he truly ought to strip a friend of his blade—but with a chicken cleaver hurtling at his face, honor and propriety alike lost out to snatching Seok Taeshin's sword first.
In that brief instant, the blade in Baek Sang's hand darkened into the colors of the Taiji.
Hwaaa!
A murky sword qi, black and white bleeding together, came pouring down on Sikmugaek.
It was such a sudden and unorthodox attack that even Sikmugaek faltered for a moment.
For the first time, Sikmugaek gave ground.
In the same breath, Seo Yugyeom and Baek Sang hounded him hard—like men who had no intention whatsoever of letting this last chance slip away.
And Tang Soyeon, on the opposite side from Sikmugaek, launched her figure at him. At that, Seo Yugyeom spat out a curse.
"Are you insane!"
She had unleashed her Poison Palm. Tang Soyeon stood at Sikmugaek's back, which meant the palm's radius swallowed Seo Yugyeom and Baek Sang as well.
Sikmugaek's mouth curved into an unmistakably mocking smile. "So even the Tang Clan's scorpion girl has nothing better!"
The young matriarch of the Tang Clan had let fear get the better of her and blundered. So he judged—and in an instant, Sikmugaek unfurled his movement art and claimed the space behind Tang Soyeon.
Ordinarily, Seo Yugyeom and Baek Sang should have scrambled to close in at once, but the Poison Palm she had spread made that impossible. And so, for a brief moment, Sikmugaek had Tang Soyeon one on one. The poison palm she had poured out to save her own life had instead come to take it—how was a situation like that not laughable?
"Foolish girl."
Grinning wide, Sikmugaek swung his cleaver at her—meaning to take her head in a single stroke, the way one chops a chicken's neck.
But something was wrong.
The Tang Clan's daughter did not wear the face of a terrified woman.
In that instant, a chilling instinct seized Sikmugaek, and he reflexively retracted the arm he had thrust out.
At the same moment, a single figure dropped down between Sikmugaek and Tang Soyeon.
Swik!
A line of blood opened near Sikmugaek's wrist.
Had he retracted his arm even a heartbeat later, it would have come off at the elbow.
Seo Yugyeom grimaced.
She had to sell the act all the way to the end.
Tang Soyeon's final expression had triggered Sikmugaek's survival instinct. It was the mistake of someone who simply didn't have enough Jianghu experience yet.
Nearly the last chance to turn the whole situation around had just been frittered away. Seo Yugyeom clicked his tongue in regret.
It had not been a complete failure, though. Baek Seol was already at the door. Before slipping out, she looked back one last time—at Seo Yugyeom, and at her brother.
Seo Yugyeom gave a small nod.
Baek Sang's eyes told her the same: go, quickly.
How many of us will make it out alive?
Seo Yugyeom exhaled quietly and made his estimate. Fight like men with nothing left to lose, and perhaps one or two would live—on the condition that he himself died, or was wounded nearly unto death.
Presently, Seo Yugyeom lowered his stance and gripped the Thousand-Killing Short Saber tight. A dark, frigid energy settled low across the ground at his feet.
Heavenly Killing Shadowless.
The sole-technique secret he had received as instruction from the Salmak Vice Master.
Seo Yugyeom had always thought it a deeply unglamorous art. What technique anywhere in the world staked its practitioner's very own life as collateral, packing everything into a single, solitary strike?
And yet nothing suited an assassin better. That much he could not deny.
The ankle.
Taking an arm wasn't enough. He needed to carve off at least one ankle for the remaining blockheads to thrash and flail their way to survival.
Seo Yugyeom, resolve made, had just risen onto the balls of his feet—
—when every head in the room turned toward the door.
Baek Seol, who had fled only moments ago, was back already.
"What—"
She stepped aside.
And beyond the open door, out of the darkness, a single figure was walking toward them.
Sikmugaek, too, studied the approaching silhouette with a taut face—he had heard Baekun Geom's name spoken not long before.
As the figure drew near the inn, the lamplight fell across his face.
It was Jin Seongun.
The young heroes' spirits crumbled. Of all the moments for Elder Baekun Geom or Master Shinmok to arrive, a waiter had come instead.
Oblivious to all of it, Seo Yugyeom's voice was bright. "Back already?"
"I got partway there and couldn't stop worrying, so I turned around."
No matter how he turned it over, leaving the inn to Seo Yugyeom, Seomun Ak, and the Baek siblings had never sat easy with him. Not that he looked down on the four of them—they simply hadn't been at the work all that long.
So he had apologized to the elders, turned back halfway—and walked in on this scene.
Jin Seongun surveyed the inside of the inn, which had been beaten thoroughly half to pieces, and said, "...So. What exactly is going on here?"
Seo Yugyeom pointed at Sikmugaek. "That's the real-deal bastard, right there."
Jin Seongun sighed quietly.
At that, Sikmugaek burst into incredulous laughter. Relief had loosened his every string at once—a young nobody had appeared instead of Baekun Geom.
Sikmugaek asked Seo Yugyeom, "Is that one a cook as well?"
"No. He's a waiter."
"Hahahaha!"
Sikmugaek's laughter shook the room. He had been waiting for Baekun Geom to return—and what came instead was a waiter. Even to Sikmugaek, it was an utterly comic situation.
Then Seo Yugyeom's voice continued.
"And he's also the owner of this inn you just smashed to pieces, senior. The place hasn't even been open that long, and it's already been wrecked three or four times. Do you know what that means?"
Sikmugaek stared hard at Seo Yugyeom.
And Seo Yugyeom smiled slowly and finished.
"It means you're fucked now, senior."