So What
The child led onto the platform was Gae-sam — the boy who came to Seongun Inn every morning for his free meal.
Jin Seongun reached for the Black Iron Sword, and Seomun Ak caught his wrist.
"Not yet."
Jin Seongun was furious. Having lived his whole life as a simple waiter, he had never witnessed a scene like this before.
Seomun Ak was different. He had never taken part in an auction like this, of course, but from his days rubbing shoulders with the scum of the unorthodox factions, he knew there were plenty of men out there even filthier and more repulsive than these.
It was also the difference between a martial artist and everyone else.
Seomun Ak calmly surveyed the situation.
As the auctioneer muttered his opening lines, bids began to ring out from around the hall.
Even behind their masks, the bidders' faces felt vile and ugly.
"Ten nyang in silver. Will no one offer ten more?"
The auctioneer cast about the room as he spoke, his expression clearly unsatisfied. Evidently he was hoping for a higher price.
That was when Seomun Ak raised his hand.
"Twenty nyang."
Every gaze in the room turned to him.
Seomun Ak did not avoid their eyes. He met them flatly, and whether it was the plain white, unmarked mask he wore or something else, a strange aura gathered around him.
Those who met his gaze coughed awkwardly and looked away.
"Twenty nyang! What a generous hand, great hero! Come now, will no one go higher?"
The auctioneer's voice rose. Twenty nyang was actually a bit more than he'd expected.
A murmur rippled through the crowd. They seemed displeased that the bid had jumped from ten to twenty in a single move.
Before long, the auctioneer broke into a wide grin.
"Twenty nyang! Sold!"
The auctioneer glanced to one side, and Heukgeom climbed onto the platform to fetch the boy.
Heukgeom smirked and added, oozing oil from every word, "My, my. Twenty nyang for a porter. Rich young masters really are built different, aren't they? It's plain as day."
He was babbling like his mouth had been greased. It seemed he'd decided that since things had come to this, he might as well flatter his way into squeezing out a little pocket change.
"Now then, you can just hand me the twenty nyang. And if you're feeling generous, feel free to add a tip. Hahaha."
Heukgeom juggled his jokes and held out his palm.
Seomun Ak stared at that hand for a moment before speaking.
"I'll pay it all at once."
"All at once? Planning to buy more porters?"
Seomun Ak simply nodded, as if he had no desire to waste another word on him. He had lived his own life like garbage, he knew, but even so, these men went far beyond the pale.
When Seomun Ak brushed him off like that, Heukgeom's face twisted — and at the same moment, Jin Seongun turned to look at him.
"Is there a problem?"
"......No, sir. Of course not."
Heukgeom's stomach lurched. He'd felt it back at the tavern too — something in this bodyguard's eyes that made a man's skin crawl.
And with the golden mask hiding everything but those eyes, the unease only deepened.
Because Heukgeom had already witnessed Seomun Ak's wealth at the tavern, he didn't press the matter and stepped back.
Jin Seongun looked down at Gae-sam, dragged over in Heukgeom's grip. The boy who was usually all swagger and rough talk, so full of life, was trembling now, paralyzed with fear.
It was only natural. A child, after all, was still just a child.
Jin Seongun laid his palm gently against Gae-sam's back. The boy flinched hard and looked up at him.
Jin Seongun channeled the Yowol Heart Art, sending his refined qi flowing into the boy — an energy as gentle and warm as Daji's smile.
Little by little, the trembling subsided.
Jin Seongun and Seomun Ak turned their eyes back to the platform. Another child had been led up.
This one was not one of Gae-sam's pack — a stranger.
Jin Seongun let out a soft sigh. Just how many children had fallen into these men's hands?
He too had once been young and homeless, wandering the streets. Perhaps that was why — a killing intent he rarely felt was rising within him.
He was glad he'd come with Seomun Ak. If not for him, he would have drawn his sword the moment Gae-sam first stepped onto that platform.
The auction continued.
Some faces he knew, some he didn't.
Every single child, of course, was won by Seomun Ak's deep purse.
By the time four children from Gae-sam's pack and two strangers stood gathered beside Seomun Ak and Jin Seongun—
Someone could no longer contain his displeasure and spoke up.
"You do have the money, right?"
"Why are you talking down to me?"
Seomun Ak shot back in equally rude speech.
The instigator's brow furrowed beneath his mask. The middle-aged man in the red mask did not seem to be a martial artist.
For one thing, his flesh was so thickly layered that his belly bulged out even further than Noh Sang-won of the fabric shop next door.
"Do you know who I am?"
The man in the red mask said belligerently.
Seomun Ak scoffed.
"And do *you* know who *I* am?"
Seomun Ak's signature arrogance came alive.
Normally, by this point, most people would start wondering whether the other fellow had something up his sleeve and back down.
But the man in the red mask still wore his displeasure openly.
"Look here. Has he paid you or not?"
At that, the auctioneer looked toward Heukgeom.
Heukgeom scratched his head, looking cornered.
He already knew the extent of Seomun Ak's wealth, so he had believed the claim that he'd pay in one lump sum. And this place was their home ground — the thought that the man might walk out without paying had simply never crossed his mind.
When Heukgeom failed to give a proper answer, the auctioneer's face darkened.
Reading the room, the man in the red mask sneered.
"What's this? So all this time you've been letting him bid without taking a single coin? What if — just what if — he's a plant, a shill for this auction house? What exactly are we supposed to trust when we come here in the future?"
The man's words had a point.
The auctioneer shot Heukgeom a meaningful look, and Heukgeom, with a resigned sigh, approached Seomun Ak.
"Great hero. Let's settle up partway for now. It's not that I doubt you, but we do have our rules here, you understand."
"Rules?"
When Seomun Ak came back at him with a sneer, Heukgeom exhaled. Damn wastrel young masters — this was exactly the problem with them.
Did the fool even understand where he was?
Heukgeom's tone dropped a notch.
"Look. I'm not asking anything unreasonable. Just the money for the lots you won."
As Heukgeom's voice turned hard, the martial fighters waiting in the back of the auction hall began to emerge one by one.
That was the moment.
Seomun Ak nodded — and in the same instant, Jin Seongun drew the Black Iron Sword.
The instant the blade cleared its sheath, Heukgeom's head soared into the air.
Blood sprayed in every direction, and a silence fell over the hall as if ice water had been dumped over the whole room.
"Wh-what—!"
The auctioneer cried out in shock.
The unorthodox fighters behind the platform surged forward, radiating murderous intent.
Jin Seongun looked down at the headless Heukgeom and murmured, almost to himself.
"Calling people *goods*."
His sword leveled at the unorthodox fighters, and that alone was enough to stop them in their tracks, their shoulders crushed under an invisible weight.
Jin Seongun spread his qi sense wide. Every last one of the fighters hiding in the rear had now come out.
Which also meant — no one remained behind the platform who could take the children hostage.
*Sshraaak—!*
Jin Seongun's movement stretched out long and fluid. To their eyes, there was no hope of tracking it.
The scrambling fighters turned their heads at a sudden sound beside them.
*Thwack—!*
In a blink, five men were lying in spreading pools of blood — and at the center of them stood Jin Seongun in his golden mask.
"He's— he's insane!"
They were low in cultivation, but they were martial artists all the same. Realizing they faced a master beyond them, they turned to flee.
One man sprinted for the door.
Jin Seongun didn't bother chasing him. He simply watched.
Then, the moment the man's hand touched the door handle—
*BOOM—!*
His head burst apart on the spot.
A single punch from Seomun Ak had ended him instantly.
Seomun Ak fiddled with his white mask and said,
"Who was it that said they could leave?"
With that enormous frame planted in front of the door, no one dared think of escape.
All the more so after watching their comrade's head explode like a well-ripened gourd. And no one had any desire to rush the man in the golden mask either. In their eyes, Jin Seongun with his drawn sword was far more terrifying than Seomun Ak, a mere fist master.
Everyone stood frozen, unable to advance or retreat.
That was when it happened.
The man in the red mask rose from his seat.
Jin Seongun and Seomun Ak turned to look at him.
The man abruptly pulled off his mask, baring his face.
The expression of a man declaring, *This is who I am.*
But neither Jin Seongun nor Seomun Ak recognized it. When the silence stretched on, the man, left with no choice, introduced himself.
"I am Gam Ji-won, the County Magistrate."
"The magistrate?"
Seomun Ak frowned.
A county magistrate was a Rank 7 civil official who governed an entire region. His authority was nothing to sneer at, and given the inviolable relationship between the government and the murim, Gam Ji-won carried himself all the more boldly.
"Should a magistrate be in a place like this?"
"Can't you see? I was undercover, rooting out the Black Market. I don't know who you people are, but thanks to your idiotic stunt, it's all come to nothing. I'll be sending the constables shortly, so step aside. Mind you, you'll be held accountable as well."
With that, Gam Ji-won made naturally for the door. It was the confidence of a man certain that no one in all of Dangyang County could stand in his way.
He tried to pass by Seomun Ak — and Seomun Ak shoved him square in the chest with one huge hand.
Gam Ji-won, thick with layers of fat, toppled over backward. He was round enough that it didn't look particularly painful.
"Y-you dare!"
County Magistrate Gam Ji-won roared with fury. He had revealed his identity, and still this man dared lay hands on him?
Through it all, Jin Seongun glanced at Seomun Ak — a look that said, *he's still an official; are we really doing this?*
Seomun Ak snorted behind his mask.
At that laugh, Magistrate Gam Ji-won convulsed with rage.
"Reveal your identity! I will arrest you on the spot with the full authority of my office!"
"You came alone to root out the Black Market?"
"Th-that's right!"
"How laughable. Officials don't investigate like this. Men who prize their own lives above all else — and you waltzed in here alone, no escort, into a den crawling with unorthodox fighters? Anyone here his escort?"
Seomun Ak shouted at the crowd.
No one stepped forward.
Gam Ji-won, deciding his identity was being doubted, drew a golden tablet from his robes — the tablet that symbolized a magistrate's authority.
"Do you still spout such nonsense after seeing this!"
His voice grew even more forceful. With the golden tablet now on display, the murmuring around the hall swelled louder.
Gam Ji-won expected the man to bow his head at once. Well — considering the insolence he'd shown so far, perhaps not. But surely they wouldn't dare harm an official of the government.
Seomun Ak stared straight at him.
To be fair, a county magistracy was a post of real power — the kind that let a man throw his weight around anywhere he went.
The problem was who stood in front of him: Seomun Ak.
After a brief moment of thought, Seomun Ak removed his mask.
Then he looked Gam Ji-won dead in the eye and said,
"Seomun Ak, second son of the Seomun Clan. Whether you're a real magistrate or a fake one is none of my concern."
At the mention of the Seomun Clan, Gam Ji-won's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
The Non-Interference of Officials and Martial Artists did exist in practice. But it only worked between parties of roughly equal standing.
A prestigious clan like the Seomun could reach, with ease, not a mere county magistrate but far more senior officials in the regional bureaus.
Worse still, the man before him wasn't even a retainer of the Seomun Clan — he was the patriarch's own son.
Gam Ji-won's eyes rolled wildly. No matter how he racked his brain, no good option presented itself, so his face simply froze.
Meanwhile, Jin Seongun sent a voice transmission to Seomun Ak.
*—Didn't the Clan Lord tell you not to use the family name? He'll be furious when he finds out.*
The Clan Lord Seomun Jeok had said exactly that, in a towering rage over his son's hopelessness.
At the transmission, the corner of Seomun Ak's mouth twitched in displeasure. The image of his father seething with rage flashed before his eyes.
*'So what.'*
A wastrel's nature didn't vanish overnight. Tell a wastrel not to do something, and he'd only do it harder — that was what made him a wastrel in the first place.
And so, loudly enough for everyone to hear, he deliberately shouted it once more.
"I am! Seomun Ak, second son of Seomun Jeok, Patriarch of the Seomun Clan!"
With that, Seomun Ak charged at the unorthodox fighters.