The Orthodox Path of the Unorthodox
The night after two assassins in black had come and gone, Gam Taedeok, leader of the Mukyang Gate, gathered his subordinates in the great hall.
Seated on his chair, his face already flushed a deep red, he rubbed his shaved head with slow, deliberate strokes.
A row of hulking apostate monks stood at attention, watching their leader's every move. Not one of them dared let out so much as a breath.
The men who had gone chasing after the assassins had yet to return. Gam Taedeok strained with every fiber of his being to hold on to his patience.
"Unbelievable……"
His face grew redder by the moment.
The hall was so utterly silent that everyone could hear his breathing. It quickened and roughened, then at one point he let out a long, slow exhale, as if struggling to swallow down his rage.
"Amitabha……"
Gam Taedeok chanted a Buddhist invocation.
He had never once in his life set foot across the threshold of a temple, but he had shaved his head, worn the robes, and spat out the occasional prayer—and somewhere along the way, he'd come to feel almost like a real monk.
The reason he played the apostate monk was simple. First, he'd fought so much in his youth that his hair had been hacked off entirely, and once it was shaved clean, the look suited him surprisingly well. Second, claiming to be an apostate monk bought him credit even in the underworld.
And last of all, chanting the Buddha's name genuinely helped him keep his temper in check.
"The Buddha once said this."
"Yes……"
Gam Taedeok paused to pick his words.
But no suitable passage came to mind.
A brief silence settled over the hall.
"When in the hell are the men I sent coming back?"
"Did the Buddha say that?"
Gam Taedeok turned his gaze on the subordinate responsible. The man met his leader's eyes and immediately realized his mistake.
"……My apologies."
Gam Taedeok beckoned with a crooked finger. It was the classic attitude of the underworld, entirely at odds with the image of a shaved head draped in monastic robes.
The subordinate shuffled forward on trembling legs. Gam Taedeok's breathing had reached its limit.
CRACK—!
His palm, broad as a cauldron lid, tore across the man's cheek. The subordinate's neck twisted with a sickening pop, and he crumpled where he stood.
"Fucking hell. Amitabha."
Gam Taedeok spat out a curse, glared down at the limp body for a moment, then jerked his chin. The others came forward and dragged the man away. He seemed, mercifully, to still be breathing.
Just then, the men who had chased the assassins returned to the hall, all of them breathing hard from what was clearly a nonstop run.
"Well? How did it go?"
"We lost them."
"And what exactly are you looking so smug about?"
The man delivering the report frowned briefly at his leader's gruff question before answering.
"They were simply too fast for us to catch in the first place."
"I see."
Gam Taedeok motioned for the man to come closer. The man shook his head in refusal.
Gam Taedeok's eyes went round.
"Get over here, you little bastard."
"The Buddha taught us to renounce violence."
"What the hell is wrong with this guy?"
Gam Taedeok said, thoroughly dumbfounded.
He wasn't the only one—confusion was written plainly on every face. Perhaps they simply hadn't witnessed the man who'd just been slapped into unconsciousness.
But the subordinate stood firm. Naturally, he had his reasons. He knew his leader's temperament well.
The man had a ferocious temper, but he was no fool who refused to acknowledge results. The subordinate held up the tattered scrap of cloth in his grip and raised it high.
"When everyone else gave up and turned back, I kept searching alone. That's when I found this."
"What is it? Just get over here, damn you."
Paying him no mind, the man spread the cloth wide. It was a torn black combat uniform.
"And that is?"
"Yes—clothing worn by one of the assassins. There's even a wound mark from the blow our Gate Leader struck at the very end."
"You went to catch an assassin and all you brought back is a shirt?"
When the man continued to hold his ground instead of approaching, Gam Taedeok decided to go to him himself. As he strode across the hall, the subordinate spoke in a defiant tone.
"I found it on Mount Shipbang."
Gam Taedeok's footsteps stopped dead. Mount Shipbang—was that not the very place where Blue Night Valley made its home?
In that instant, the nonsense the assassins had spouted flashed vividly through his mind.
"A clear, bright night!"
Assassins. Mount Shipbang. A clear, bright night……
Gam Taedeok reached his conclusion in the space of a heartbeat. It felt as though lightning had struck him square on the head.
"Ha! Well done. Go straight to Blue Night Valley and ask those rats what the hell they were thinking. Ask them—do they want to die? Do they actually think they can strike at Mukyang Gate?"
At his words, the subordinate broke into a wide grin.
"I already asked."
"……What?"
"I've been all the way to Mount Shipbang and found this. Could I really just turn around and come home without at least inquiring?"
"Hooh……!"
Gam Taedeok was genuinely moved. To think a genius like this had been hiding among all those lumbering oafs.
The subordinate went on.
"And the answer they gave was quite the spectacle."
"What did they say?"
"Do you even know whose ground you're crawling onto, spouting your nonsense? Are you in a hurry to die? That's what they said."
Gam Taedeok's face ignited. Even a perfectly ripened autumn apple could not have matched that shade of red. The breath forcing its way through his lips was hot enough to melt iron.
Before long, he turned to his subordinates and declared:
"This is war. Everyone prepare yourselves."
The false monks of Mukyang Gate thrust their fists skyward and roared in unison—a sight that would have sent anyone from Shaolin clutching their forehead in despair.
Twilight Pavilion.
The most thriving pleasure house in all of Deokyang.
Every soul who worked within its walls lived by one supreme principle, held close to the heart:
Never strike a customer.
It was a somewhat peculiar rule—yet understandable, given that everyone in Twilight Pavilion was an underworld martial artist.
On the topmost floor of the pavilion, in a quiet room lit by a single lamp, a slender middle-aged man with sharp, refined features sat absorbed in a book.
Then came the sound of someone noisily clattering up the stairs from below.
"L-Lord Pavilion Master! Something terrible has happened!"
The frowning middle-aged man—Cha Huimyeong, master of Twilight Pavilion—set his book face-down on the desk and spoke.
"Enter."
The door swung open smoothly—clearly well maintained—and a pale-faced man hurried inside.
"Pavilion Master, assassins struck Mukyang Gate, they say!"
"What? And?"
"A few of their brutes got killed, but overall the damage was minor. However—Mukyang Gate's leader has suddenly declared war on Blue Night Valley."
"Huh?"
The Pavilion Master was considerably taken aback.
Wasn't something a little off about the flow of this story?
"Hold on. I understand it's urgent, but don't skip everything. Start over, and slowly this time."
"……That was everything. Two assassins tore through Mukyang Gate, and the Gate Leader declared war on Blue Night Valley. The end."
The Pavilion Master pressed a hand to his forehead.
A rather intense wave of dizziness washed over him.
"Has the man gone mad?"
"……He seems about the same as usual."
"I suppose. He's always been an idiot. No—things are barely holding together over the Hwaun Merchant Group business, so why on earth are these people doing this to me?"
The Pavilion Master's chest grew tight with frustration.
He and the others were lumped together as the Four Great Underworld Powers of Deokyang, but at their core, he and they were simply not the same breed.
Twilight Pavilion was orthodox underworld enterprise—a criminal organization built on tribute from gambling dens, brothels, and taverns. In other words, like most famous underworld factions, it was orthodox unorthodox.
The rest of them, though, were another matter entirely.
Salyong Trading Company, with its Infernal King Fortress scheme, was less an underworld outfit than a gang of predatory merchants. Mukyang Gate was, in truth, nothing but a congregation of lunatics—if pressed, one might call it less a criminal faction than a religious order.
And Blue Night Valley, a guild of assassins, went without saying. He couldn't even fathom how hired killers had ended up classified as underworld in the first place.
"And yet I put up with them. Why? Because of the enormous prize sitting right in front of us—the Hwaun Merchant Group."
But then the master of Salyong Trading Company had suddenly died. That was how money-men usually ended. They were merchants more than martial artists, so they couldn't read a true master properly, got arrogant, and paid the price.
In fact, the two mysterious masters who had visited Salyong Trading Company were said to have repeated, over and over, that they had come to collect a debt.
"Wait."
The Pavilion Master's eyes darkened all at once.
"You said there were two assassins?"
"Yes."
"Where is the Mukyang Gate leader right now?"
"He's declared that he'll storm Blue Night Valley at first light."
"Why not go right now? Knowing his temper, there'd be nothing strange about charging in this very minute."
"That is…… it seems he couldn't control himself and beat a few of his own subordinates half to death. There's some arguing going on inside."
The Pavilion Master squeezed his eyes shut.
Yes—actually, that was for the best.
"I'll go pay them a visit."
"Shall I arrange an escort?"
"Don't be absurd. An escort, to go gawk at those frauds? Anyone who heard would laugh themselves sick."
With that, the Pavilion Master threw on the black robe he'd hung over his chair and stepped outside.
The subordinate left behind caught sight of the book the Pavilion Master had been reading. He'd always felt a quiet admiration for a man who never abandoned his reading even while living in the underworld.
He approached and checked the cover.
The Perverse Path of the Lecherous Fiend.
"……"
The title alone told him everything he needed to know about the contents, so he decided he had seen nothing at all, and slipped quietly outside.
His respect diminished, slightly.
When Cha Huimyeong arrived at Mukyang Gate, a gatekeeper blocked his path—a man with a certain presence born of sheer, unshakable confidence.
A bit dim, sure, but this is exactly the sort of man you use as a guard dog.
He made a mental note: if things went well later, he'd sweet-talk a couple of these oafs into serving as his own gatekeepers.
Cha Huimyeong stared at the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper stared back.
"Move aside, friend."
"……The Gate Leader has ordered that no one be admitted."
"And I'm hardly 'anyone,' am I?"
"Still, I cannot let you pass."
The gatekeeper stood at least two heads taller than Cha Huimyeong. Cha Huimyeong was admittedly on the small side, but the martial artists of Mukyang Gate were uniformly built beyond all common sense.
Thus the gatekeeper peered down at him from above.
"What's with those eyes?"
"My apologies. But you still cannot enter."
The gatekeeper's tone was stiff. No—beyond stiff, it carried a faint edge of insolence.
The warriors of Mukyang Gate believed themselves to be the strongest in all of Deokyang. Salyong Trading Company went without mention; the assassins would be no match in a straight fight; and as for Twilight Pavilion, those scrawny lot hardly looked capable of putting real force behind their blows.
"So we're going to trade blows now, is that it?"
"Turn back and go home, sir."
"Heh heh……"
Cha Huimyeong chuckled low in his throat. The gatekeeper's eyes hardened—the little runt grinning in front of him apparently made the man want to smash his face in.
Cha Huimyeong glanced around.
Once he confirmed no one else was in sight—
SLAP—!
A light flick of the palm across the cheek. The gatekeeper, large as an ancient timber, dropped like a felled tree.
Cha Huimyeong rolled his wrist loose.
"Little bastard, trying to die."
By his own assessment, Deokyang was a city riddled with problems—starting with idiots like these swaggering about playing at being the underworld.
Cha Huimyeong pushed open the door and strode in, bold as brass.
Every eye in the hall turned to him.
The Mukyang Gate leader, who had been pounding on his own subordinates, glared at him with bulging eyes.
"Pavilion Master Cha? What brings you here? More to the point, the gatekeeper should have been standing right there."
"He seemed terribly sleepy. Snoring away, so I let myself in quietly."
"You cursed lunatic! Someone go out there and beat that gatekeeper properly!"
At the order, three Mukyang Gate warriors filed outside and began pummeling the sleeping gatekeeper.
Cha Huimyeong laughed heartily and approached the Gate Leader.
"Tell me, why are you beating your poor subordinates to a pulp?"
"That's internal affairs of my sect. What's your business here?"
"I hear you're launching a war against Blue Night Valley."
The Mukyang Gate leader nodded with a broad, self-satisfied grin.
"That's right. I've been itching for it a long time. Since when were assassins ever proper underworld? Won't you join us? Let's go burn Blue Night Valley to the ground together."
"……Tell me."
"What?"
"Do you have any actual evidence that Blue Night Valley is behind this?"
The Gate Leader showed him the black combat uniform with utter confidence—the uniform found on Mount Shipbang, where Blue Night Valley was based.
"And so. You're telling me that counts as conclusive evidence?"
Cha Huimyeong pressed at the heart of the matter.
The Gate Leader's expression shifted subtly for a moment before he shook his head.
"No, I suppose it isn't direct evidence. But listen here. That's not the important thing."
"……Then what is?"
"The important thing is that I never liked those bastards to begin with."
A wave of dizziness swept over Cha Huimyeong. Every single conversation with this bald moron gave him a headache.
"No, listen. What kind of assassin slashes people in someone else's front yard while announcing their own affiliation? They shouted 'a clear, bright night,' for heaven's sake."
"Exactly. It's sheer confidence. A mockery of us, an insult. Do you not know the Blue Night Valley leader's temperament? Look how long that bastard has looked down on us and trampled us underfoot."
Trampled you, maybe—not us.
Swallowing that remark with tremendous effort, Cha Huimyeong let out a long, long sigh and spoke.
"Gate Leader. In my view, this was not Blue Night Valley's doing. I have someone in mind who fits."