The Brightest Night
Hwa Yeonseol glanced around the interior of the inn with an awkward expression. It was one of the older establishments in Deokyang, but this was the first time she had ever set foot inside it herself.
“You eating?”
It was Seo Yugyeom's terse question.
Hwa Yeonseol shook her head. She was running on an empty stomach, but this was hardly the moment for a meal.
A strange feeling washed over her all over again. That she had come here on her own two feet to face the enemy she had spent so many years longing to kill—and that, now that they were actually face to face, her heart was calmer than she had expected.
It must have been because, deep down, she had believed Seo Yugyeom's words. She too had known her father was capable of such a thing, and she had long suspected the Chief Manager's behavior was strange.
The only person left in all the world she could trust was Chief Manager Hoyeon Baek.
And so the doubt she had so desperately turned away from had been dragged into the light by Seo Yugyeom himself.
Seo Yugyeom seemed no less uncomfortable with the situation, and he cleared his throat pointlessly before gesturing to an empty chair.
The two of them sat across the table from each other. Silence hung in the air for a while.
Jang Hong, who had been playing dead, realized no one was paying him any attention and quietly rose, slinking off toward a corner.
What is this atmosphere?
Jang Hong studied Seo Yugyeom and Hwa Yeonseol with a peculiar look in his eyes. They didn't look alike at all, so they probably weren't siblings…
Former lovers? Must be nice.
Right in the middle of these musings—
“I thought of you as my little sister.”
At Hwa Yeonseol's words, Jang Hong's eyes went wide.
Seo Yugyeom said nothing for a long moment. He had regarded her as a sister too, but now hardly seemed the time to say so.
She kept talking.
She told him about the life that had been handed to her after Seo Yugyeom killed Hwa Yuntak, the former leader of the merchant group, and vanished.
It had been exhausting, by and large. Emotionally and circumstantially, everything had worn her down.
Seo Yugyeom listened in silence, giving no particular reaction.
Around that time, Jin Seongun, having finished his breathing exercises in his room, came down to the inn.
The moment she laid eyes on him, Hwa Yeonseol froze mid-sentence and flinched hard. The image of Jin Seongun she had seen that day was still vivid in her mind.
The way he had observed everything in silence. The way he had hurled a stone out of nowhere like a dagger to the heart. And above all, those signature eyes—emotionless and bone-dry.
To Hwa Yeonseol, Jin Seongun was a rather terrifying man.
“……”
Jin Seongun, for his part, studied her for a moment as well.
His gaze was level as ever, but as it lingered on her, Hwa Yeonseol felt herself shrinking.
Did he come down to yell at me?
She did not see Seo Yugyeom and Jin Seongun as mere friends. She had noticed a subtle tug-of-war for the upper hand between the two.
She was a merchant, born and raised in a merchant house herself.
It occurred to her that Jin Seongun might very well throw her out. To a stranger's eye, his manner and his expression said exactly that.
After an awkward stretch of time, Jin Seongun turned and went back upstairs. When he returned to the ground floor, he was carrying a thin blanket in his arms.
“Put this on.”
“Oh.”
Hwa Yeonseol accepted it stiffly and draped it over her shoulders. Her thin clothes had been soaked through, which was mortifying enough, and a chill had seeped deep into her bones.
With the satisfied look of a job well done, Jin Seongun gave a single nod and headed for the kitchen.
A short while later, he set two cups of warm tea on the table.
“…Thank you.”
When Hwa Yeonseol expressed her gratitude, he simply nodded again with the same look of quiet accomplishment.
After that, he went about his work without another word.
He fed the stove until the warmth spread through the inn, lit the lamps to brighten the room, and then hauled the deadweight that was Jang Hong up to the floor above.
Every step of it was fluid and practiced. Once again, Jin Seongun was every inch the inn waiter.
Watching him, Hwa Yeonseol turned to Seo Yugyeom.
“Who is he, exactly?”
She had a keen eye herself. She had grasped at once that Jin Seongun was something out of the ordinary.
He clearly lacked the bearing and presence of a martial artist, yet his every action was too skilled, too effortless, for an ordinary waiter. That dissonance was what made him such a strange, uncanny figure.
Seo Yugyeom let out a short laugh.
“A friend. That's all.”
He saw no need to explain the long way around.
After a stretch of silence, Hwa Yeonseol finally spoke.
“Was what you said true? My father, he…”
She couldn't bring herself to finish, and bowed her head slightly. It was Seo Yugyeom who answered, in a tone as level as still water.
“Killed your parents, you mean? My parents.”
“……”
“It's true. I've confirmed it again and again since then. And for the record, I also killed the fortune-teller who talked Hwa Yuntak into murdering my parents in the first place.”
Hwa Yeonseol shut her eyes tightly.
A dozen emotions and thoughts flashed through her. The old resentment suddenly felt hollow, and her father's sins left a sour unease in her chest. In the end, after working through it all, the conclusion Hwa Yeonseol arrived at was this:
“…I'm sorry.”
She apologized.
None of it was her fault. But she believed the sins of a father had to be atoned for by his child all the same.
Because she had lived a life of abundance on the wealth and power that father had built.
Seo Yugyeom gave a calm nod. He didn't bother saying there was no need for her to apologize.
He had wanted an apology from Hwaun Merchant Group, and after all these long years, it had finally come.
“I'm not sorry, though. It was a personal matter of revenge.”
Hwa Yeonseol felt something seize in her chest. Never mind her own guilt— hearing the man who killed her father say it so plainly did not sit easily.
And yet she knew she had no standing to reproach him for it.
After a brief silence, Seo Yugyeom moved on.
“Let's leave the old history there. Judging by the fact that you came all the way here, something's happened at Hwaun Merchant Group.”
Hwa Yeonseol nodded.
She explained everything—the contract Saryeonggeuk had presented, along with the Leader of Twilight Pavilion, the Leader of Blue Night Valley, and Chief Manager Hoyeon Baek, demanding the transfer of shares.
Seo Yugyeom listened intently, then said flatly:
“Well. You're screwed.”
“……”
Hwa Yeonseol's head drooped low.
Seo Yugyeom went on.
“From the moment Hwa Yuntak died—no, the plans were probably in motion even before that. The Thousand Poisons Alliance and that Chief Manager at the center of it. The Manager's been deliberately stoking the anger in your heart all this time. If you judged things too cleverly, you'd have gotten in the way. And he's the one who pushed you to place the contracts with Salmak, isn't he?”
Hwa Yeonseol's lips parted slightly.
He was exactly right. Looking back over the years, the Chief Manager had always been the one stirring her heart.
Hwa Yeonseol realized, yet again, that this was not the Seo Yugyeom she had known. Time had shaped him just as it had shaped her.
Then a question occurred to her.
“How did you know I hired Salmak?”
“Uh…”
For once, Seo Yugyeom faltered.
Hwa Yeonseol didn't miss it. Merchants never did.
In that instant, thoughts chased each other's tails, and at last she reached her conclusion.
Hwa Yeonseol's eyes, nose, and mouth all went wide.
“You—you! You were in Salmak!”
“……”
“So that's it. That's why Salmak…”
At last, the pieces were falling into place.
The reason why Salmak—the greatest assembly of assassins under heaven—had failed contract after contract.
“So that's why, even after more than ten contracts, Salmak always failed.”
“Hold on. Ten?”
Seo Yugyeom was struck speechless for two reasons. First, that this insane woman had actually placed ten separate contracts on his life. Second, that only two contracts had ever actually reached Salmak.
He made his judgment in a heartbeat.
“The Chief Manager's been blinding your eyes and gagging your ears on purpose. There were two contracts with Salmak. The other eight—he never even sent them. He just pretended he had.”
“……”
Hwa Yeonseol's face drained into shock and betrayal. Seeing it, Seo Yugyeom clicked his tongue. One thing was certain: that Manager had to die.
The reason was simple. Because he tormented her? Because he muddied the world with his vile schemes? No.
Because he made me the most wanted man under heaven, that's why?
Seo Yugyeom's fury was, quite purely, on his own behalf.
Blood pounded hot all the way to the tips of his hair.
That was when it happened.
Seo Yugyeom's eyes darkened and sank low.
When Hwa Yeonseol opened her mouth to say something, he pressed a finger to his lips.
“They're here.”
Rising from his seat, Seo Yugyeom drew the Heavenly Killing Short Knife from inside his coat. Now that he had resolved to kill the Chief Manager, he fully intended to slaughter the black-path rabble along with him.
“Y-you have to go.”
Hwa Yeonseol grabbed his sleeve.
She hadn't come to Deokyang Inn purely for peace of mind, after all.
“As long as you live, Hwaun Merchant Group lives.”
That was the condition of the contract with the Thousand Poisons Alliance.
Before the Alliance could absorb Hwaun Merchant Group's shares, they were required to kill Seo Yugyeom first.
And so Hwa Yeonseol believed that if Seo Yugyeom escaped alive, he could grow his strength and bide his time for the future.
Seo Yugyeom, naturally, thought differently.
“That's nonsense. The moment you give ground, it's over. You think the Thousand Poisons Alliance leaves loose ends?”
Hers was a merchant's logic.
But Seo Yugyeom knew the way of the black path. To them, a contract was nothing but a pretext.
“This is a fight where the first one to leave Deokyang loses. Either we cross blades, settle it in one clean clash, and one side drops dead—or one side loses its nerve and runs. Either way, it ends there.”
That was the world of murim. It lived by laws utterly unlike a merchant's.
Just as Seo Yugyeom began subtly drawing up his energy—
In the same instant, his and Hwa Yeonseol's eyes both turned toward the stairs.
Jin Seongun was coming down them with the most placid face in the world, a sword gripped loosely in one hand.
“Go on with your talk.”
When troublemakers show up at an inn, what is a waiter to do?
If they're stronger than him, he grovels low—persuading, pleading, wheedling until the matter is settled. If they're weaker, he beats them black and blue and sends them on their way.
A waiter's duty is to ensure that no guest's meal, and no guest's conversation, is ever disturbed.
“Look, you two seem to be under some kind of misunderstanding, but the people out there aren't some neighborhood gang.”
At that, Seo Yugyeom burst out laughing and said in a quiet voice:
“Does Salmak strike you as a bunch of neighborhood killers?”
“……”
Hwa Yeonseol's mouth snapped shut.
He was right, undeniably. And yet—even if they were assassins of Salmak, how could anyone hold off the Thousand Poisons Alliance and every black-path sword in the city all at once?
Oblivious or indifferent, Seo Yugyeom kept talking.
“Ever since I left Salmak, I've spent my whole life being hunted. The elite assassins Salmak raised at the cost of ten thousand gold came after me night and day to kill the runaway. I honestly never slept a single night with an easy mind.”
Hwa Yeonseol fell silent. She realized there were more stories she had never heard.
Seo Yugyeom went on.
“But ever since I've been with that guy, I haven't feared an assassin's blade even once. Even when the ones coming were Salmak.”
Hwa Yeonseol's gaze drifted, without her noticing, to Jin Seongun standing before the inn's entrance.
His back was utterly calm. Utterly unbothered.
Jin Seongun pushed the door open with a clatter. The sound of the rain swelled, and a gust of wind swept into the inn.
Hwa Yeonseol stared outside with a tense face. There were easily dozens of armed men out there, glaring this way with oil-soaked torches raised high.
Like hunters toying with cornered prey, they snickered among themselves, letting their bloodlust show.
It felt like standing in the midst of a pack of dozens of wolves.
She had lived fairly close to black-path martial artists her whole life, but she had never seen a sight like this—Hwa Yeonseol's heart pounded so hard with fear it felt about to burst.
“Even so, this is…”
That was when it happened.
After a moment's leisurely survey of the scene outside, Jin Seongun moved.
With the casual motion of a man shooing away an insect, he swept his sword in a single horizontal arc.
And in that instant, Hwa Yeonseol witnessed the brightest night of her twenty-odd years of life.
One stroke of the sword, unhurried as brushing away dust—and the rain-drowned darkness split open, flooding the night with blinding light.