You're Cut Out for the Job, Young Hero
Four men sat around a table, sharing a plate of dumplings.
Han Seongchun, former owner of the Hwawollu, poured out every hardship he had endured on his journey here — from the grief of losing his son, to the trembling dread he'd felt walking into Salmak to place his contract, to the story of how he'd nearly been robbed of everything he owned by bandits on the road to Yichang.
"You've been through a great deal, sir."
Jin Seongun could understand Han Seongchun's suffering, at least in part. He couldn't claim to know the pain of a father who had lost his son, but no one alive knew better than he did the trials that awaited those with no martial training setting out on a long road.
Han Seongchun nodded along to Jin Seongun's words of comfort, and then, without warning, lifted a heavy money pouch and set it on the table.
Jin Seongun asked, "What is this?"
"Everything I saved over my lifetime. I want to repay the benefactors who avenged my son."
Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom exchanged a look. Both of them had worked in an inn themselves; both could imagine how hard Han Seongchun must have labored, how much he must have denied himself, to scrape together that sum.
"I can't accept this."
"Please, take it. Only then will my heart rest a little easier. Only then can I face my son with my head held high when I die."
Sikmugaek had killed the boy. As a father, Han Seongchun wanted to believe he had contributed, however small a part, to the man's destruction.
Even so, Jin Seongun could not take the money.
"I'll accept the sentiment alone. That is already more than enough. It wasn't as though we did it out of any sense of duty or righteousness in the first place—"
"Then how about this instead?"
Seo Yugyeom cut in without ceremony, then turned to Han Seongchun with a proposal.
"Forget the money. What if you worked here at Seongun Inn as a cook?"
Jin Seongun looked at Seo Yugyeom. Seo Yugyeom gave a shrug and sent a whispered transmission.
—Give the man something to do and his heart will settle. You can see that, can't you?
—Weren't you the one saying you wanted to rest, Seo the Young Hero?
No answer came back.
Jin Seongun studied Seo Yugyeom with a doubtful eye — but what he said wasn't wrong. Han Seongchun's expression did seem a touch brighter already.
"Would that truly be acceptable? Cooking is the only trade I've ever known, so I'm confident in my hands, but…"
Han Seongchun swept his gaze once around the inn. It wasn't a large establishment. He wondered whether a place like this truly needed two cooks. He was a father, yes — but he had also been a merchant, and he knew exactly how badly the books suffered for every extra mouth you hired on.
What he had no way of knowing was how much money Seongun Inn actually pulled in.
"To be honest," Jin Seongun said, "our Cook Seo doesn't have all that many years behind him. If an elder like yourself were to work alongside him and teach him, it would be a kindness on our part, if anything — but are you certain? Would that truly sit well with you?"
Cooks were a proud breed. By his own account, the Hwawollu had been an enormous establishment, and he had been a veteran of the kitchens for decades. To work in a modest inn like this one would demand a great deal of swallowed pride.
But contrary to Jin Seongun's concern, Han Seongchun simply said:
"What does a cook care about the venue? What matters is that there are people to eat my food."
The words struck deep in the hearts of everyone listening. In any trade, those who took their work seriously earned the respect of all. Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom raised their thumbs in a silent, simultaneous salute — and so Han Seongchun became Seongun Inn's second cook.
Night had fallen and the day's business was done.
Seo Yugyeom had come to realize there was a great deal he could learn from Han Seongchun — not only in cooking itself, but in things like how to organize the kitchenware, or the order in which to handle a sudden rush of orders.
Seongun Inn had been packed again today. The kitchen, which on any ordinary day would have been a furious battleground, had flowed along with room to spare — and all of it thanks to Han Seongchun. Seo Yugyeom gave him a fist-cocked salute as the older man headed out for the evening.
"I learned a lot today."
"Same here, son."
Han Seongchun nodded with a smile. Cooking alongside a young cook like Seo Yugyeom reminded him of his own son — it ached somewhere deep in his chest, and yet it felt good.
And so Han Seongchun and Seo Yugyeom left the inn together.
The ones remaining were Jin Seongun and Seomun Ak.
Jin Seongun gave the inn one last inspection, then started toward the back door, glancing sideways at Seomun Ak. Seomun Ak had planted himself at a table as though it were the most natural thing in the world and was glaring alone at a wine bottle.
Lately, when the day's work ended, Seomun Ak drank by himself until he simply keeled over onto the table and slept there.
Drinking alone every night, a man's thoughts were bound to wander. He might relive his fight against Sikmugaek, or the moment his own father struck him down in front of everyone.
Jin Seongun watched him for a while. No comfort came to mind. No — he wasn't even sure comfort was something he was allowed to offer.
"Just a little, then."
He said it evenly. Seomun Ak gave a single nod, and nothing more.
Early morning.
When Jin Seongun came out to the inn, he found Seomun Ak already sweeping, as he always did.
It had become a natural part of the scenery. No matter how early Jin Seongun rose, Seomun Ak was already at his cleaning — the previous night's wine bottles, of course, cleared away without a trace.
"You're up."
Seomun Ak offered the briefest of greetings when he spotted him, then went straight back to his work.
Jin Seongun stood for a moment, watching him. The truth was that he had visited the Martial Gods again last night for the first time in a while. They had talked about Sikmugaek, traded words about martial arts — and at some point the conversation had turned to Seomun Ak, at which the Merchant King had offered this advice:
—That wastrel of the Seomun Clan is now a waiter at your inn, is he not? Managing your people is one of the fundamental virtues of any merchant.
Either soothe the boy's heart or cast him out, the Merchant King had said. When the one doing the work is miserable, that misery bleeds through to the customers.
He had not, however, offered any advice on how.
Jin Seongun regarded Seomun Ak in silence for a moment. Feeling the weight of that gaze, Seomun Ak flinched.
After some deliberation, Jin Seongun went into the kitchen. A brief clatter and bang later, he emerged with a bowl in his hands and held it out to Seomun Ak.
"Eat. It'll settle your stomach."
"……"
Seomun Ak stared at the bowl in disbelief. It seemed to hold some kind of thin noodle broth. It smelled good enough, and just the right amount of oil glistened on the surface — it even looked reasonably appetizing.
"A martial artist doesn't need a hangover cure."
"…I suppose not."
Martial artists hardly had constitutions weak enough to need such things. Jin Seongun trudged back toward the kitchen, bowl in hand, wearing a sulky expression — and at that, Seomun Ak, feeling something twist uncomfortably in his chest, spoke up.
"I'll eat it."
"Oh."
Jin Seongun brought the bowl back. Seomun Ak raised it carefully and took a sip of the broth. Hangover or not, warming the stomach with hot broth in the morning was never a bad thing.
The liquid touched his tongue, slid down his throat—
And Seomun Ak spat it across the floor with a sound like a dying animal.
"KUAGH!"
He turned to Jin Seongun with the face of a man staring into the abyss. Jin Seongun's expression had dimmed a shade.
"…Is this poison?"
"Pure, honest skill."
"Insane."
In that instant, Seomun Ak understood at once why a mere kitchen hand like Seo Yugyeom held so much sway in this place. This inn would collapse into ruin the day they stopped hiring a proper cook.
"Is it really that bad? Bad enough to spit out?"
Jin Seongun looked down at the broth pooled on the floor. Seomun Ak fetched a rag without a word, wiped it up, and — gripping the rag gingerly between thumb and forefinger so that not a drop might touch his skin — carried it away.
It was the most eloquent answer possible.
"Cook Seo finished every bite when he had it, though."
That, in fact, had been the single greatest reason Jin Seongun had accepted Seo Yugyeom into the inn. He had shown up in the dead of night and polished off Jin Seongun's noodles completely.
Granted, he had said they were terrible — but the man had eaten every last strand, and that alone had moved Jin Seongun considerably.
Then a voice came from behind him.
"I was trained to endure torture."
"……"
Having coolly driven a dagger into Jin Seongun's heart before breakfast, Seo Yugyeom went into the kitchen and began preparing for the day. Han Seongchun arrived shortly after to help him.
Whatever else could be said, with more people around, a little more life had returned to the inn.
Jin Seongun and Seomun Ak stood side by side against the inn's outer wall, gazing off at something.
The day's business had not yet begun. As always, the orphaned children of the neighborhood were being treated to a morning meal.
But several of the usual faces were missing — and the expressions of the children still eating seemed somehow gloomy.
Jin Seongun and Seomun Ak met each other's eyes. Judging by the atmosphere, the children had not gone off for any good reason.
Seomun Ak approached the children at their meal and asked, "Where's Gaesam's pack gone?"
The children had packs of their own, after a fashion. The ones missing today were the six led by Gaesam.
The children flinched.
"We don't know either. They just vanished, so we looked for them forever, but we couldn't find them and came back."
"Went where, to look?"
The children's explanations tumbled out one after another. They were young, and six of them were talking all at once, making it nearly impossible to follow — but Seomun Ak summoned the greatest patience and concentration of his entire life.
Pieced together from the chaos, the story went like this.
There was a lake called Dangyang Lake, out in Dangyang. A festival had been running there of late, and word had spread that preparations were short-handed — anyone who showed up would be given work. They were even said to be providing carts for the journey.
The children with no families had headed for the lake. And there, at Dangyang Lake, Gaesam's pack had abruptly disappeared.
"There was this suspicious mister. He even asked us whether we wanted to keep working there too."
At that, Jin Seongun, who had been listening quietly all along, stepped forward.
"He must have been a strange man, then."
Jin Seongun knew better than anyone how precious the offer of work was to children with no family and nowhere to go. For them to have refused it anyway could only mean that this "mister" had struck even the children as deeply, deeply wrong.
"Yeah. He was strange."
The children's testimony came piece by piece. His face, for one thing, had been vicious — carved through with several knife scars. And he kept running his hands over the boys and girls alike, stroking them. At that detail, a curse escaped Seomun Ak's lips.
And decisively — one child had seen the man drag a festival worker into some alley and beat him senseless.
Jin Seongun and Seomun Ak spoke at the same moment.
"A Black Dao fighter, then."
"Black Dao bastards."
The vanished children were almost certainly tangled up with that man — or men like him.
"We looked everywhere for Gaesam and the others. We even reported it to the magistrate's office, but they wouldn't take the report."
Jin Seongun nodded. The officials may have brushed them off for being too young — or the office itself may have had ties to the local Black Dao crowd.
This was no light matter.
Jin Seongun knew it from experience; he had wandered the streets himself as a very young child. Among the Black Dao, there were those who scooped up children with no connections and put them to use.
The milder ones exploited the children's age in simpler ways — setting them to begging, working them half to death in the fields, or hauling them aboard riverboats. Naturally, proper wages never followed. It was abduction, plain and simple, with the children worked like slaves.
But the fouler, uglier ones went further: before sending a child out to beg, they would cut off an arm or a leg.
It roused the pity of those who saw, and made the begging coin come easier. Trash's arithmetic, through and through.
Or — children with decent looks were sold off to wealthy households, or to those with stranger appetites.
"Where was this?"
Jin Seongun asked the children for the precise location. He might have looked away if he hadn't known — but now that he knew, he could not. They ate from his hands every morning, after all; were they not at least that much his people?
Seomun Ak watched Jin Seongun listening intently to the children's account, then nodded to himself. This was a man who had beaten down even a First-Class Murim Public Enemy. If this fellow went, then whatever waited in Dangyang — man or demon — would be dealt with in short order.
Before long, Jin Seongun retrieved the Black Groove Sword and, seeing Seomun Ak standing there blankly, asked:
"Will you help me?"
"Me?"
Seomun Ak pointed at himself with a flustered finger, and Jin Seongun nodded as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Seomun Ak thought that if he came along, he wouldn't merely fail to help — he'd probably only get in the way. His self-esteem had been scraped down to the bedrock lately, which made the thought all the heavier.
"What could I even do to help?"
"There is one thing only a Young Hero can do."
"There's such a thing?"
"There is."
Jin Seongun had never sounded more certain. Seomun Ak scratched his head.
"Then who handles the waiting tables?"
"With me here, what is there to worry about?"
The voice belonged to Han Seongchun — former master of the Hwawollu, present cook of Seongun Inn. He was a man who had run wine houses and inns far larger than this one for decades.
Jin Seongun nodded, then fixed his gaze on Seomun Ak once more. His eyes were remarkably resolute.
Ordinarily, he would have refused on the spot. The old wastrel Seomun Ak had no hobby of helping strangers.
But whether it was because he knew the depths of Jin Seongun's power, or because a soft spot had grown in him for those children who came every day, ate their fill, bowed their little heads, and left — the words of refusal simply would not come.
"Fine. Let's go."
Jin Seongun nodded as if he had expected nothing less, and the two of them set out from Seongun Inn together.
Dangyang Lake was not far.
Jin Seongun and Seomun Ak stood side by side, gazing out over the vast stretch of water. A faint sense of helplessness settled over them. A few words from children were the only clue this entire affair offered.
"So what's the plan?"
Seomun Ak asked. Jin Seongun looked out at the lake with his usual placid eyes before answering.
"I haven't the faintest idea."
"…You dragged me out here on a whim?"
"I thought that if anyone could dig up the truth, it would be Seo the Young Hero. You know the martial world far better than I do."
"What—"
Seomun Ak pressed a hand to his forehead. He was hardly a tracker for the Martial Alliance.
Then Jin Seongun continued.
"Suppose Seo the Young Hero were a Black Dao fighter. A shameless wretch who kidnaps children. What would you do?"
"I am a fighter of the Orthodox path."
"I said suppose."
Seomun Ak let out a long, heavy sigh. Then he closed his eyes and, for a moment, imagined.
I am a Black Dao thug. I am a bad man. I am a depraved, monstrous—
Seomun Ak flinched.
The imagination had come far, far too easily.
Truthfully, it was no surprise. Looked at in full, Seomun Ak's track record differed little from that of a shameless Black Dao wastrel.
Only then did he understand.
He understood, at last, what Jin Seongun had meant by the one thing only a Young Hero can do.
Seomun Ak's eyes flew wide open, and he turned to stare at Jin Seongun — who broke into a quiet grin and gave him a single, solemn nod.
"There is no one better suited to this job than you, Young Hero."
"……"
Seomun Ak wept in his heart.
And it grieved him all the more that, even now, he could already predict exactly how the Black Dao bastards would behave.
"…They'll be over there, most likely."
Seomun Ak pointed toward a pavilion rising high in the distance — the grandest, largest wine house in all of Dangyang.