I Told You, I Came to Pay a Debt
“I told you, I came to pay a debt.”
The two men left the inn and set off at a brisk pace.
Jin Seongun took in the main street as they walked. It was black way territory, to be sure, but the sight of ordinary people living their lives was hardly any different from Uichang. Porters hurried back and forth with bundles on their shoulders, merchants called out to passersby from their street stalls…
Thud!
At the sound of something heavy hitting flesh, Jin Seongun turned his head to find a man sprawled on the ground, blood streaming down his forehead. Catching fragments of the surrounding chatter, he gathered that a shoulder bump had escalated into a quarrel.
“……This town has its fair share of problems.”
At Jin Seongun's muttered remark, Seo Yugyeom snickered.
They walked on for a good while before both men felt something oddly out of place. As if bound by some unspoken agreement, they stopped mid-stride and looked at each other.
“Do you actually know the way?” Jin Seongun asked, a note of unease in his voice.
“I'm the one following you.”
A brief silence fell between them.
Jin Seongun scratched his head. “Well, this is my first time in Deokyang.”
“And it's been so long since I was here that everything's changed. I wouldn't know either.”
Silence fell again.
The two men glanced around awkwardly. The Saryong Gang couldn't exactly be called a minor black way outfit — they should have been able to find it easily enough. The problem was that asking around town for directions to such a place might stir up unwanted suspicion.
As a rule, it was better to approach a fight quietly.
“Oh, over there.”
Just then, Jin Seongun pointed to one side. The man they'd run into the moment they entered Deokyang was still hard at work.
Pretending to chat up an old woman, he was slyly dipping his fingers into her purse. Then, strolling along with a thoroughly satisfied look on his face as he twirled his stolen coin pouch, he happened to meet the two men's eyes.
“…….”
Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom simply stared at him. Nothing more than a look — and yet an indescribable pressure settled squarely on the pickpocket's shoulders.
The man stood frozen in place, weighing his options, then let out a small sigh and doubled back the way he'd come. Jin Seongun watched the whole thing in silence. The man returned the pouch to the old woman, whereupon she flew into a towering rage and began beating him about the head and shoulders with her cane. Black way territory or not, apparently even the grandmothers here had plenty of fire in them.
Seo Yugyeom doubled over, cackling.
Before long, the man came trudging over with a face full of petulance.
“What is your problem with me, exactly? Wh-why do you keep interfering with my business?”
“What did we do?”
Jin Seongun shot back with an air of utter bafflement.
The man glowered at him, scrambling for something to say. But he had nothing. After all, neither of the two had ever gone out of their way to bother him first.
When the man fell silent, Jin Seongun spoke. “There's something I'd like to ask you.”
“What is it.”
“The location of the Saryong Gang.”
The man's eyes went round, and his mind began to race. “……Why do you want to know about the Saryong Gang?”
“We have business there.”
“Are you, by any chance, a black way master?”
The man's tone grew noticeably more deferential.
Jin Seongun shook his head. There was no reason to lie. “No, nothing like that. I have some personal matters to attend to. In any case, you seem to know where it is, so guide us there.”
“I'd rather not.”
“Why not?”
“Because it looks dangerous.”
The man had been born and raised in Deokyang. He knew better than anyone what the Saryong Gang meant in this city.
And it wasn't just them. Anyone who got tangled up with the so-called Four Great Black Way Factions of Deokyang rarely came out of it unscathed.
For some reason, even the authorities and the other powers in town had lately taken to quietly giving those outfits a wide berth. Rumors abounded that the Hwaun Merchant Group stood behind them, but no one knew the truth of it for certain.
“It's nothing dangerous. And it isn't a request, either.”
“…….”
The man's eyes blazed as he glared at Jin Seongun. Just because he was weak, he figured, didn't mean he had to bow his head to everyone.
And naturally, Jin Seongun showed no reaction whatsoever — leaving the man to wage an entirely one-sided staring contest.
Smack!
Seo Yugyeom's hand cracked against the back of his head. Clutching his skull, the man whirled to glare at Seo Yugyeom this time — but unlike Jin Seongun, Seo Yugyeom did not remain unresponsive.
“When you caught pickpockets in Deokyang, didn't they used to cut off your wrist?”
The man glared at Seo Yugyeom a moment longer, then turned on his heel and grumbled over his shoulder. “Fine. Follow me.”
And so the two men followed the pickpocket's lead.
Watching the man's back, Jin Seongun felt he was coming to understand, little by little, what kind of place Deokyang truly was.
The pickpocket's name was Jang Hong.
By nature, he was quick on the uptake. It was the only way a man with abysmal fighting skills could hope to survive in Deokyang.
And right now, his instincts were screaming at him without pause: Do not get entangled with the two men behind you.
Jang Hong glanced back at them. One wore an almost perfectly blank expression, while the other was the talkative sort. Neither seemed to pay him the slightest attention. He briefly considered bolting — a sudden dash for freedom — but some deep-rooted instinct told him that would be a very bad idea.
Damn it all….
The Saryong Gang's compound was drawing ever closer. A creeping dread settled over him — the fear that he was about to get dragged into trouble for no reason at all.
“Um, honored heroes,” Jang Hong said with careful politeness, “you're not going there to do anything… strange, are you?”
This was Jang Hong's greatest worry. Young, hot-blooded martial artists like these two had a habit of picking fights over nothing and dying for it.
Worse still, as their guide, he might well earn the Saryong Gang's wrath himself.
Seo Yugyeom waved a dismissive hand at him. “Just quit flapping your lips and keep walking.”
“Yes, honored hero.”
You son of a bitch. Swallowing the words, Jang Hong quickened his pace.
How much time had passed? In the distance, the Saryong Gang's compound came into view. It was vast enough that calling it a small fortress wouldn't have been an exaggeration.
“Wow, that's enormous. The food there must be incredible.”
“……I'm beginning to understand exactly how vicious these people are.”
The conversation drifting back from behind him made Jang Hong's anxiety swell all the more.
Without warning, he blurted out, “Honored heroes — that's the Saryong Gang right there. So if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way.”
Jin Seongun gave a nod, and Jang Hong exhaled in relief. His best move was to clear out before the gatekeeper got a good look at his face.
But the moment he turned to hurry away—
“Well, if it isn't Jang Hong.”
A familiar voice rang out.
Jang Hong cursed under his breath.
There, before the massive front gate of the Saryong Gang compound, a bald hulk of a man was waving at him in mock friendliness.
“You know him?” Seo Yugyeom asked.
“Ah, a little.”
“How do you know him?”
“We'd drink together sometimes, share a meal…”
“And I take it you were always the one paying?”
Seo Yugyeom smiled, the picture of a man who already knew the answer. A flush of embarrassment crept across Jang Hong's face.
“Men like that are always the same. Judging by the look of him, he's the type who picked up a bit of martial arts and now struts around like a rooster.”
Seo Yugyeom knew the ways of unorthodox thugs all too well. Black way fighters with any formal training tended to treat beggars, courtesans, stable hands, gamblers, pickpockets, and petty thieves like their personal hands and feet.
“Jang Hong, you little shit! Get over here already!”
Jang Hong bit his lip. No matter how he looked at it, these two had the air of men about to cause a scene.
And the bald brute had clearly seen him guiding them here.
“Hey, he's calling you?” Seo Yugyeom snickered.
Jang Hong let out a long, deep sigh. “You're really, really not here to do anything strange, right?”
Having said his piece, he trudged toward the front gate of the Saryong Gang compound, with Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom falling in step on either side behind him.
“Made a good haul today, you little weasel?”
The bald man asked with a tone of mock intimacy. It was always like this. On the days Jang Hong scored big, he got shaken down for liquor; on the days he came up empty, he got shaken down anyway.
More than once, drifting off to sleep, Jang Hong had fantasized about becoming a supreme master and beating this man to a pulp.
“Well, I suppose…”
“And who are these two?”
The bald man looked Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom over. The longer he studied their faces, the more his expression soured.
“What's with the girl faces?”
At the bald man's remark, the other black way thugs clustered around him burst into snickers. Jang Hong forced an awkward laugh of his own — while Seo Yugyeom laughed louder and heartier than any of the thugs.
The laughter rolled on for a moment before the bald man turned to Jin Seongun. “Wasn't that funny?”
“It was all right.”
Jin Seongun answered with perfect equanimity. The bald man's face twisted with displeasure.
“You're Jang Hong's friend, I take it, but you've got a short tongue on you.”
“We're not friends.”
Jin Seongun gave the bald man and the rest of the Saryong Gang's fighters a leisurely once-over before continuing. “I've come to see your Gang Lord.”
The amusement drained from the bald man's face at once. The other thugs were no different.
They exchanged glances among themselves, and the bald man spoke again, his tone suddenly careful. “And who might you be?”
“Someone who's come to collect a debt.”
The bald man's eyes narrowed. He sized Jin Seongun up and down, the way one might appraise a strange animal.
But there was nothing for him to find. Jin Seongun offered him nothing at all.
Jin Seongun endured the unpleasant scrutiny for a moment, then said in a low voice, “Lead the way.”
“Lead the way?”
The bald man's probing did not last long. This was the Saryong Gang's own stronghold, after all — and neither of the two strangers showed the slightest trace of having trained in the martial arts.
“Jang Hong.”
“Ah — yes, hyung-nim.”
“You want to die? Where the hell did you dig up these idiots?”
Jang Hong's shoulders flinched.
Inside, he was dying a little. The reason was simple: he was in a position where he had to appease the bald man, yet his instincts kept refusing to let him do it.
Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom were staring straight at him. Their eyes seemed to ask: Are you on their side too?
Jang Hong let out a small sigh. It had been a wretchedly ugly day from the very first light.
“Did you just sigh at me?”
The bald man laughed as if he couldn't believe it. The other fighters began to stir, working themselves into a mood.
Before long, the bald man ran his pot-lid-thick hand slowly over his scalp and growled, “Looks like you're getting a beating alongside your little friends today.”
With that, he raised his hand toward Jang Hong — who flinched hard. For all his fear, the words had come out of nowhere.
“That's quite enough of that, hyung-nim.”
The bald man froze mid-gesture, then turned to stare at Jang Hong with an expression of dead seriousness. “What did you just say?”
“Haah. I'm not your underling, I'm certainly not your little brother, and I've never wronged you in my life — so why is it that every single time you see me, you're so desperate to torment me?”
Words he never, ever would have said on a normal day.
But so much had built up inside him, and the day had been wretchedly ugly from the start, and his mood was foul as a cur's morning breath — and above all, his instincts were telling him that now was the time to shout.
Calling himself an idiot even as he did it, Jang Hong screwed his eyes shut.
The bald man, apparently thinking much the same thing, spat out a curse. “You absolute moron. Who do you think you're talking to?”
He flicked his thick hand out in a casual swipe.
Against a trembling wretch like Jang Hong, a single careless blow could snap his neck outright.
Smack!
A crisp, ringing crack split the air.
And in the same instant, the bald man crumpled to the ground.
He was such a mountain of a man that the earth itself seemed to shudder briefly beneath his fall.
Jang Hong's eyes flew open in shock.
Jin Seongun was dusting off his hand.
The Saryong Gang fighters, who had been blinking in open-mouthed bewilderment, drew their blades as one — as if bound by a single unspoken signal.
Shring!
Sunlight gleamed off the naked steel, a ring of threatening points aimed squarely at Jin Seongun.
“Y-you little…!”
The blades trembled faintly at their tips. Not one of them was confident he could bring the bald man down in a single blow.
They had understood at once: this man was stronger than they were.
Jin Seongun regarded the wavering blade tips and spoke. “Like I said — I came to pay a debt.”
“…….”
Jang Hong felt as though he were dreaming. The terrifying bald man lay sprawled neatly on the ground, the Saryong Gang's fighters stood brandishing gleaming sabers — and the two men he had guided here hadn't shown a flicker of disturbance through any of it.
Are these lunatics?
Lunatics or not, one thing was certain: they were masters. The very fact that he had tried to pickpocket them and was still breathing was nothing short of a miracle.
Jang Hong held his breath and watched — no, he tried to watch.
BOOM!
He had been staring at Jin Seongun's back. But the instant the front gate exploded inward with a thunderous crash, Jin Seongun was already standing there, amid the wreckage.
The black way fighters panicked and shouted.
“Th-those…!”
“Intruders!”
The front gate, shattered without warning. The fighters' cries.
Within the compound, an uproar erupted in an instant.
Oblivious to all of it, Jin Seongun stood amid the splintered gate and said to Seo Yugyeom with perfect calm, “Shall we go in?”
With that, Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom strode into the Saryong Gang's compound, while the black way fighters — too unnerved to actually strike — could only level their blades and scurry in after them like crabs.
Jang Hong, watching the whole spectacle, slapped himself across the face. It stung, so he wasn't dreaming after all.
He stood dazed for a moment, then his gaze drifted to the fallen bald man. Jang Hong walked over, waved his palm in front of the man's closed eyes for a moment…
Smack! Smack! Smack!
…then used that very hand to hammer three slaps across the brute's cheek, turned tail, and fled back the way he had come as fast as his legs could carry him.