Come to Deokyang Inn
"The head of the guild is wavering."
At Chief Manager Ho Yeonbaek's words, Saryeonggeuk gave a slow nod. In his eyes, Hwa Yeonseol was indeed a woman shaken all too easily.
It wasn't that she lacked ability. A woman who had kept a merchant guild of this magnitude running for this long clearly possessed competence.
What she lacked was experience. And, well, there was the small matter of a dead father who had spent his life dragging every cutthroat in the underworld through the guild's doors before conveniently dying.
"Seo Yugyeom, was it?"
"Yes. The man who killed the previous guild leader, Hwa Yuntak, and fled."
Ho Yeonbaek laid out everything he knew about Seo Yugyeom.
As the explanation unfolded, Saryeonggeuk's expression shifted by the moment. At the mention of the Heavenly Killing Star in particular, something flashed behind his eyes.
"If it was also Seo Yugyeom who dismantled Saryonggangbang like that... he may well be the most dangerous enemy we face right now."
"Why is that?"
"As an adopted son, his claim to succession is unambiguous. No one will acknowledge it, of course—but that's how claims to legitimacy have always worked."
Saryeonggeuk nodded.
Legitimacy only ever required the bare minimum. The rest was settled by the logic of force.
By that measure, Seo Yugyeom was a man armed with a faint but undeniable claim.
"He's strong. Inevitable, given that he was born under the Heavenly Killing Star. A boy of barely fifteen, breaching the defenses of Hwaun Merchant Group, walking into the guild leader's own chambers, cutting her father down, and walking out alive. Who knows how much stronger he's become since..."
The reason Ho Yeonbaek feared Seo Yugyeom was plain: the empty years in between. No one could know how a man born under that star, nursing a blood grudge, had spent the time since.
And a fear that cannot be seen always arrives wearing its largest shape.
"I hear they've commissioned Salmak quite a few times over the years. Why has Salmak never killed him?"
"...There was only ever one commission."
"That differs from what the guild leader has said."
Saryeonggeuk gave him a puzzled look.
Ho Yeonbaek coughed awkwardly, then pressed on.
"It's true that the first commission failed. But when word of the failure reached her, Hwa Yeonseol was badly shaken. So from then on, we merely went through the motions of taking commissions and reported back false results—always failures. Every time she seemed on the verge of seeing the truth, that's what we told her."
Saryeonggeuk let out a low chuckle.
So that was it. Hwa Yeonseol's abilities were even finer than he'd thought.
She was running the guild masterfully even in circumstances that were never easy, with an obstructionist like this one clinging to her heels at every turn.
"You really are a vile piece of work, aren't you?"
"......"
Ho Yeonbaek simply bowed his head. It was hard to tell whether that was praise or condemnation.
"Then again," Saryeonggeuk went on, "that's exactly why a man like Hwa Yuntak trusted you, and why the Alliance Leader trusts you now. Good. Let's go see the guild leader at once."
Saryeonggeuk barged straight into Hwa Yeonseol's office.
"I have words that require your serious attention."
He strode in as naturally as if he held every right to be there, and this time he claimed the seat of honor.
Caught off guard, Hwa Yeonseol stood frozen for a long moment, unable to take her seat, merely staring at him.
Saryeonggeuk was smiling no longer. He simply faced her with still, quiet eyes.
"Sit."
The tone had shifted unmistakably to open condescension.
Choked with humiliation and dread, Hwa Yeonseol sat.
Tap. Tap.
Saryeonggeuk drummed the desk with his index finger. In the stretched silence, nothing sounded but that sharp, repeated knock.
"Decide by today's end. Whether you keep your life or not."
This was not an invitation to consider whether she would hand over the guild. It was spoken as though that were already settled.
Hwa Yeonseol's heart pounded as if it would burst.
Saryeonggeuk offered her no time to breathe, pressing on without pause.
"Stamp the seal before the sun rises."
A single document was placed on the desk.
It stipulated that twenty percent of Hwaun Merchant Group's shares would be handed over, in equal measure, to Twilight Pavilion, Blue Night Valley, and the Thousand Poisons Alliance.
"If you refuse, the Thousand Poisons Alliance will begin two things. First, we will kill you. Second, using the ledgers of Blue Night Valley and Twilight Pavilion, we will expose every irregularity Hwaun Merchant Group has ever committed and bring it down completely—then, of course, step in ourselves to clean up the mess."
He delivered these chilling words in the flattest of tones.
And it was precisely that flatness that let Hwa Yeonseol feel the truth of every single one of them.
If she did not choose today, she would be dead tomorrow.
She had to force herself to breathe. A pressure closed over her, as though her mind might give out at any moment.
"...I'll decide by today."
Saryeonggeuk nodded with a bland, unreadable face. Whatever she decided, he seemed utterly indifferent—the same unwavering indifference from start to finish.
Left alone in the office, Hwa Yeonseol glared at the document and the seal. The smoke of the forget-sorrow herb filled her lungs and settled heavy in her chest.
She was afraid. No matter how she turned it over, there was no answer.
Hand over Hwaun Merchant Group and beg for her life—or die and have it taken from her anyway.
The truly absurd part was that even choosing the former gave no guarantee she would live.
There was nothing—absolutely nothing—she could choose.
Long hours crawled by in silence.
Her eyes drifted half-shut.
The meeting with Seo Yugyeom earlier that day rose in her memory.
He used to be such a sweet boy.
Just as Seo Yugyeom had said it of her, so too had there been a time when she genuinely thought of him as a little brother.
Useless sentimentality, surfacing only now, at the hour of her death. Apparently that was how it worked.
She was still sinking into that self-mocking laugh when—
"Seo Yugyeom?"
Why hadn't she thought of it before?
She began to write something across the document.
Deep in the night, Saryeonggeuk arrived with the chief manager in tow.
On any other day she might have wondered about the relationship between the two men. Tonight, it no longer mattered.
"I've made my decision."
Saryeonggeuk studied her intently.
Unlike the daytime, she seemed to have settled something within herself.
To Saryeonggeuk's eyes, that composure looked exactly like resignation.
Hwa Yeonseol placed the document on the desk.
It was the same paper Saryeonggeuk had handed her that day—except that a single clause had been added.
— The Thousand Poisons Alliance shall hunt down the man who killed the previous guild leader Hwa Yuntak and fled, sparing no means, until he is dead.
It was not a condition to follow the agreement. It was a condition that had to come first.
That is, only once it was fulfilled would Hwaun Merchant Group pass into the Thousand Poisons Alliance's hands at all.
Saryeonggeuk snorted.
"And why, pray tell, should we honor that?"
Truthfully, it hardly mattered. They had always intended to hunt down that Seo Yugyeom anyway—kill him or win him over.
A man born under the Heavenly Killing Star was not someone they could simply let walk.
"Because even if you can seize Hwaun Merchant Group by force, there is one treasure you can only obtain with my full cooperation."
In an instant, the chief manager's face twisted viciously.
Saryeonggeuk did not miss it.
"A treasure? And what would that be?"
"The Millennium Ice Essence."
"What did you say?!"
Saryeonggeuk shot to his feet.
Even for a man who had cultivated an air of steely composure as deliberately as he had, the Millennium Ice Essence was a divine elixir whose surprise he could not suppress.
The Millennium Ice Essence was the treasure of the North Sea Ice Palace.
More than twenty years ago, after the essence was stolen from the Ice Palace, the palace had stirred up a colossal bloodbath across the realm—all in the name of reclaiming it.
In the end, the Ice Palace had spilled oceans of blood and never found the essence.
"Do you have any idea what you're saying, woman?"
Hwa Yeonseol's eyes trembled for a heartbeat, then recovered their firmness at once.
Watching this, Saryeonggeuk let out an odd, strangled laugh.
"Ho. So the Ice Essence was here all along. That worthless wretch Hwa Yuntak..."
Back then, the Ice Palace had pushed all the way into the Central Plains in its fury, and countless people—orthodox and unorthodox alike—had paid the price.
Among them, the Thousand Poisons Alliance had lost a fair portion of its strength as well.
Saryeonggeuk glanced at the chief manager—the same man whose face had contorted at the mere mention of a treasure.
So this snake had his own ambitions coiled inside him too.
He had clearly been concealing the essence's existence, intending to snatch it for himself somewhere along the way.
A sneer settled on Saryeonggeuk's lips. It was a treasure far too great for some mid-level guild manager to shoulder.
Handing it over to the Thousand Poisons Alliance was, in fact, the better outcome for the man—treasures too heavy for their bearers had a way of swallowing them whole.
"Why should we believe you?"
"Why would the Thousand Poisons Alliance need to worry about that?"
At her audacity, Saryeonggeuk burst out laughing despite himself.
She had a point.
Stamp the mutual seal first, lay eyes on the treasure, and if it proved a lie—kill her and be done with it.
"Very well."
Saryeonggeuk nodded, agreeable enough.
Seated in her chair, Hwa Yeonseol drew a long, deep breath.
The contract was sealed.
She handed over the key to the basement where the essence was kept. Beyond the lock alone, a formation guarded it as well, so either she or the chief manager had to accompany them.
Saryeonggeuk wanted both of them to come along.
But she refused, citing that she was too emotionally exhausted.
It was not a particularly convincing excuse.
Still, Saryeonggeuk had no intention of haggling with her when the Millennium Ice Essence was within reach.
And so he took the chief manager and headed for the basement, leaving Twilight Pavilion warriors behind to watch her from inside the room.
Hwa Yeonseol exhaled a plume of forget-sorrow smoke and looked at the warrior.
The warrior was grinning broadly.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing. You're just so pretty I can't help looking."
The reality of her position struck Hwa Yeonseol anew.
A single underworld thug could toy with her to her face, and there was nothing she could do about it.
If Father were still alive...
She shook her head. She had resolved not to think this way anymore.
If only I had held on to power.
Would a worm like him have dared mock her then?
Hwa Yeonseol's gaze sank low.
"I'm tired."
With that, she rose from her seat.
She picked up the nightclothes laid out to one side, began pulling off her top—and paused, looking at the warrior.
"Planning to stay there?"
"Heh heh. Go ahead and change. I'm under orders to keep watch—what can I do?"
"You're insane."
"It's a hard world to live in sane."
The warrior gave a lecherous smirk as he said it.
The display was so revolting that Hwa Yeonseol felt a brief surge of nausea.
"What's your name?"
"What do you want my name for?"
"So that when this is over, I can beg the venerable Saryeonggeuk to kill you first. And if he won't kill you, I'll at least ask him to make you a eunuch."
"......"
The warrior's complexion paled somewhat.
There was not a trace of hostility in Hwa Yeonseol's voice as she named Saryeonggeuk. None at all.
What is this?
It was unlikely that the head of Hwaun Merchant Group had suddenly opened her heart to the Vice Alliance Leader of the Thousand Poisons Alliance.
But if even that slim possibility held his own life dangling from it, it was not something he could afford to ignore.
Hwa Yeonseol calmly began removing her top.
"I hear the venerable Saryeonggeuk never leaves alive anyone who covets what is his. Go ahead—look all you like. It doesn't bother me; I just assume I'm staring at a corpse."
"......"
In the end, the warrior retreated out the door.
The office sat at the very top of a four-story pavilion in the first place—there was no way she could flee.
A short while passed like that.
Unease welling up inside him, the warrior called out.
"Have you finished changing?"
His tone had slid, without his noticing, into full formality.
No answer came.
A darker anxiety settled over the warrior's face.
"I'm coming in?"
"......"
In a flash of an instant—
The warrior flung the door open with utter desperation written across his face.
The room was empty.
He ransacked the chamber with his eyes, corner to corner.
The window was shut. Which meant she hadn't leapt. It wasn't a height anyone could have leapt from anyway.
And yet she was nowhere to be found.
Just as the warrior was spinning in frantic circles—
"That goddamn witch!"
Saryeonggeuk stormed into the office, his face flushed crimson. Behind him trailed the chief manager, whose cheek was swollen as though he'd taken a thorough beating.
The warrior's heart plummeted.
"......"
Saryeonggeuk swept the room with his eyes for a moment.
Then, apparently grasping the situation, a deep killing intent kindled in the gaze he turned on the warrior.
"V-Venerable Vice Alliance Leader, it's not what you— that witch, with that filthy little tongue of hers, she said to me—"
Shk—!
The warrior's body split clean in half.
Blood sprayed across every wall of the office.
In Saryeonggeuk's hand gleamed a straight saber of a most sinister hue.
The chief manager moved carefully.
Behind the office desk, he ran his fingers along the wall until one section gave way, sinking inward to reveal a passage.
Organizations of Hwaun Merchant Group's standing always had such arrangements—it was practically a rule.
The chief manager let out a long sigh.
"This is why I told you to keep watch inside the room..."
Rain fell in sheets that night, hammering down like a curtain of rods.
Hwa Yeonseol ran through the streets with the last ounce of strength she possessed.
Her waterlogged clothes hung on her like lead.
If anyone comes to kill you—come to Deokyang Inn.
The hidden transmission Seo Yugyeom had sent her from the rooftops earlier that day.
She couldn't understand herself, either. This was the man who had killed her father. Walking straight into the jaws of such a dangerous enemy of her own accord made her feel like a fool.
And yet her instinct kept whispering, without end. If you want to live—go to Deokyang Inn.
Bang bang bang!
Arrived at last, she pounded on the inn's door.
Her hand ached from knocking so hard, but the fear that the underworld's men might come at any moment hurt far worse.
She stood staring tensely at the door, and after a brief pause, it swung open.
"What in the hell kind of bastard comes banging at this hour..."
The pickpocket Jang Hong trailed off mid-sentence. He rounded his lips into an o and looked Hwa Yeonseol up and down.
A flicker of disgust washed through her, but she suppressed it and spoke.
"Yugyeom sent for me."
"Yugyeom? You mean..."
Jang Hong's brain had stopped working. The most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on was standing before him, drenched to the bone by the rain.
While his thoughts remained stalled—
Someone appeared to resolve his predicament for him.
Smack—!
Seo Yugyeom brought his palm down hard across the back of Jang Hong's head. For an instant, the pickpocket's eyes seemed ready to pop out of his skull.
"Guwack!"
Jang Hong clutched the back of his head and crumpled to the ground.
Seo Yugyeom clicked his tongue down at him.
"Those eyes of yours, I swear..."
Anticipating the rest of the sentence he was wise enough not to hear, Jang Hong played dead on the spot.
Oblivious or not, Seo Yugyeom ushered Hwa Yeonseol inside, glared out into the dark for a moment—then barred the inn's door firmly shut.