Vanishing Without a Trace (3)
The moment Tang Soyeon went looking for Seo Yugyeom, the atmosphere turned strange. Hyeon Un made no effort to hide his delight, while Dang Taesan flinched and wore an expression of pure worry.
As the two men's reactions briefly crossed paths like combing lines—
Seo Yugyeom, who had just thrown together a simple stir-fry of meat and vegetables for an accompaniment, stepped outside. Spotting the Poison Lord and Tang Soyeon, he spoke.
"Has something happened in Deyang?"
Asking with deliberately feigned concern, he was answered by the Poison Lord's hearty laugh.
"As if anything could. Nothing will trouble Deyang from now on. The Tang Clan's warriors will be operating out of the Hwaun Merchant Group for the time being."
Seo Yugyeom nodded. In that case, there was nothing to fear from the Thousand Poisons Alliance or anyone else.
Before long, the Poison Lord had settled naturally into the gathering and continued his explanation.
"The reason we came is the thief."
"Ah. That lunatic who steals all sorts of random junk?"
He had already heard the rumors, so Seo Yugyeom acknowledged it with a knowing nod. The Poison Lord nodded back with evident satisfaction.
"The wretch has the audacity to hint at his next destination. Every time he steals something, he invariably moves on to an adjacent region and steals again."
In other words, anyone hunting the thief need only concentrate their watch on the areas surrounding wherever something had vanished.
Which, put another way, meant he was a skilled enough operator to remain uncaught even while advertising his whereabouts at every turn.
Jin Seongun, chewing through a mouthful of stir-fried vegetables, asked, "I take it the predicted next target is Yichang?"
The Poison Lord nodded.
The thief had struck in Wuhan, the heart of Hubei Province, and then moved a little west to Jingju. Judging by his trajectory, the odds were high that his next stop would be here in Yichang—or possibly Dangyang.
"Starting tomorrow, warriors from across the murim will likely come flooding into Yichang. It's turning into a contest of pride between the various sects now."
"……I see."
Truly, the murim never knew a day of peace.
Jin Seongun could only hope the whole situation would pass quietly.
Just as a natural lull settled over the conversation, everyone's eyes drifted toward Tang Soyeon. From some moments ago, she had been glaring at Seo Yugyeom with burning intensity.
Even Seo Yugyeom found the weight of that gaze uncomfortable enough to cough awkwardly.
Whereupon Hyeon Un said with a sly grin, "Poison Phoenix, why ever do you stare so fixedly at our handsome head cook?"
For some reason, there was a distinctly personal interest in his tone. The Poison Lord shot him a glare.
Undeterred, Hyeon Un pressed on like a man thoroughly enjoying himself.
"Though to be fair, our Cook Seo's features are truly……"
"Seo Sohyeop."
Tang Soyeon called out to Seo Yugyeom in a tone that sounded like a decision made. Seo Yugyeom looked up at her with tense eyes.
After a short breath, she declared, "Fight me. Once."
"……"
Hyeon Un's face crumpled violently.
What on earth kind of thing was that to say between a young man and a young woman? There were matters that simply were not said.
Regardless, Tang Soyeon's resolve was ironclad. Her deep green eyes locked on Seo Yugyeom, and before anyone noticed, a hidden dagger had appeared in her hand.
Seo Yugyeom let out an awkward laugh. "Why me, of all people?"
"Jin Sohyeop is too strong—I can't even imagine it—and Seomun Sohyeop is too weak to be any fun."
Seomun Ak, who had been quietly minding his own business, put on a wounded expression. Tang Soyeon continued regardless.
"Besides, you use a short blade. I may be a woman, but I am still a daughter of the Tang Clan. I simply cannot tolerate anyone my age being better at hidden weapons than I am."
"Oh ho."
A flicker of unusual interest passed through Seo Yugyeom's eyes. He had been bored stiff with the lack of fights anyway, ever since acquiring the windfall of the Millennium Ice Essence.
As if it were nothing at all, Seo Yugyeom flicked the Heaven-Killing Short Blade idly in his fingers and headed outside.
Moments later, Tang Soyeon followed him out.
And not long after that, a slender shriek rang out, long and drawn.
Having finished tidying the inn, Jin Seongun returned to his room.
It had been quite a while since he'd last come back, and the moment he stepped in, his heart eased and his body felt as if it were melting. This was the first time he had ever possessed a true home of his own, and he hadn't known it could be this comfortable.
He found himself feeling grateful all over again to Elder Shin Mok, who had built this house for him on the inn's grounds.
Jin Seongun wanted nothing more than to sink into sleep, but there was something he had to do first. He gazed at the built-in closet in the corner of the room for a moment, then rose to his feet.
.
.
.
The Realm of Martial Gods.
That was what Jin Seongun called this place.
As always, it was a space that seemed carved straight out of some corner of a vast night sky.
The moment he entered the Realm of Martial Gods, something came charging at him at a terrifying speed. Neither Hyeon Un's Taichi Sword nor the Poison Lord's daggers nor even Saryeonggeuk's saber arts had ever been this fast, this ferocious.
Rarely startled, Jin Seongun was so taken aback that he instinctively unleashed the Blood Demon Palm.
"You son of a—!"
At the same instant, Shintu spewed out a curse and twisted his body into a spin. Having barely dodged the Blood Demon Palm, he turned to Jin Seongun with a look of utter disbelief.
"You brat! You throw palm-force at your master?"
"Ah—I didn't know. I'm sorry……"
Truthfully, Shintu had been flying in so fast that it was hard to make him out even with the eye.
From the direction he had come, a massive, crimson energy was now churning closer and closer. Shintu's face went bone-white.
Anyone could tell it was the Blood Demon's energy. Apparently Shintu had done something to wrong him.
"S-Sword Immortal, Elder! Do something about that insane devil, please!"
No answer came back. After fidgeting in agony for a moment, Shintu ducked behind Jin Seongun.
Jin Seongun's expression turned flat. A truly enormous force was drawing steadily nearer—the kind of energy that sharpened every nerve in his body to a razor's edge.
Before long, the Blood Demon arrived and found Jin Seongun.
And then Shintu, hiding behind him.
"……"
"……"
Jin Seongun and the Blood Demon held each other's gaze for a moment. Then Jin Seongun bowed his head slightly.
"I'm back."
"……Mm."
The Blood Demon glared at Shintu, cowering behind Jin Seongun, for a long moment—then sighed, turned, and walked away.
Once the Blood Demon was gone, Shintu poked his head out cautiously beside Jin Seongun's shoulder.
"Well, I'll be. Looks like the bastard does think of you as his disciple after all."
"……"
Jin Seongun found it utterly absurd. Yet unlike before, not a single thought of 'these are Martial Gods?' crossed his mind.
The more martial arts he learned, the more he came to grasp just how extraordinary the Martial Gods' abilities truly were.
"Thanks to you teaching me Body-Shifting Transposition, Master, I was able to finish the fight quickly."
The mutual-destruction gambit Saryeonggeuk had unleashed at the end had scattered helplessly before Jin Seongun's Body-Shifting Transposition.
Walking along with Shintu, Jin Seongun told him everything that had happened in Sichuan. The other Martial Gods would surely be listening too, no matter how far away they stood—distance meant nothing in this place.
By the time he reached the spot where the Martial Gods were gathered, his account was finished.
As always, the Sword Immortal sat deep in thought over a baduk board, and he nodded with a satisfied face.
"Well done. Only when one does good with the sword does the chance to ascend truly arrive."
"I have no plans to ascend."
"Ahem. Well—well done regardless."
Jin Seongun gave a faint smile and bowed his head.
The Realm of Martial Gods was comfortable in a way his real home was not—because this space, this time, and the figures of the Martial Gods were always, always unchanged.
After admiring for a while the countless stars blanketing the space around them, Jin Seongun seemed to remember something and spoke.
"Ah—Merchant King, Elder."
"Call me Master."
"Yes, Master. The saber art you taught me—is it an art of the unorthodox path?"
Exchanging saber techniques with Saryeonggeuk had made him realize it on his own. The Merchant King did not deny it, and nodded at once.
"Sharp eyes. Though it has since vanished, there was once an unorthodox faction called the Black Wolf Band that unified the entire Black Dao. The saber art I taught you was created by that faction's leader."
"Were you one of the Black Wolf Band too, Master?"
The Merchant King pulled an exasperated face.
"Hardly. When would I ever have wallowed in the unorthodox path? Besides, the Black Wolf Band's leader lived in a different era from me entirely. I simply bought that martial art."
The martial art of the greatest blade under the Black Dao was powerful, but fiendishly difficult. Unfortunately, no one in the Black Dao had arisen who could carry it on in full. And so it had survived merely as a manual—which the Merchant King, then the master of Mangeum Manor, had purchased outright.
The Merchant King himself possessed insight worthy of being called one of the Ten Great Masters of his era, so he had mastered the Black Wolf Saber Technique without much trouble.
"Ah……"
Jin Seongun nodded. He had expected some grand, dramatic tale—turns out the old man had just bought it with money. In a way, that was even more like the Merchant King than anything else would have been.
"I also met the Chief Steward of Mangeum Manor. A middle-aged man with the family name Jang."
"Oh?"
For the space of an instant, Jin Seongun saw the Merchant King's expression harden. The other Martial Gods, too, seemed to be glancing oddly in his direction.
But as if nothing had happened at all, the Merchant King laughed his usual hearty laugh and asked, "And what did you make of him?"
"He seemed a remarkable man."
"Remarkable? Why so?"
"He had clearly never trained in martial arts, yet the flow of his energy was as solid as a murim master's."
"Good eye. Anyone who reaches the summit of any field carries an air like that."
Jin Seongun nodded without thinking much of it. Something unspoken seemed to linger in the Merchant King's heart, but he did not press.
'He'll tell me when the time comes.'
At bottom, this relationship was a kind of contract. In exchange for learning martial arts and much else from the Martial Gods, he had agreed to grant their requests one by one.
So Jin Seongun intended simply to wait until they chose to speak first.
The atmosphere had grown somehow awkward, and Jin Seongun deliberately changed the subject. "Ah—right. They say there's some famous thief going around lately. There's even a rumor he's your disciple, Elder Shintu……"
Shintu snorted.
"I have never taken a disciple but you. The world crawls with pretenders imitating me—though most of them could not touch so much as the tip of my shadow. I understand, of course. The mark I left on murim history is simply that monumental……"
"And if that thief breaks into your inn, strike him down in one blow. Better yet, batter that loose mouth of his shut first so he can't run it so freely."
At the Merchant King's advice, Shintu turned to glare at him. The Merchant King, far from avoiding it, met his eyes head-on with a look that said, What? Got something to say?
The two held each other's glare for a moment—and then, as always, grabbed each other by the collar.
Jin Seongun watched the scene in quiet observation. At first it had flustered him a little, but with masters of that caliber, even a simple collar-grab was full of things worth studying.
Meanwhile, Daji came over without a word and laid her hand on Jin Seongun's back.
Her lunar qi flowed gently down through her palm and into his body. The energy swept once across every meridian in him—and in the process there wasn't the slightest trace of foreignness. If anything, his fatigue melted away at once and his mind grew calm.
Daji smiled softly. "You've grown again in the little while you were away."
"All thanks to you, Elder."
Her Yeowol Mind Art spurred his growth night and day alike. In his daily life, in his sleep—even, improbably, in the middle of a fight—the art continuously gathered and honed internal energy in his dantian.
"This next part may take some time. But if anyone can manage it, it is my disciple Seongun—so don't be impatient."
Then a tiny, grain-shaped mote of energy settled fresh into his body. Moving in a way unlike anything before, it drifted buoyantly through his whole frame.
When Daji taught, she never explained with words. Instead she let Jin Seongun feel and comprehend it for himself, just like this. Of course, that was only possible because her mind art had reached its absolute zenith—and because Jin Seongun's own insight was every bit its equal.
Having finished her task, Daji gave his shoulder a gentle pat and returned to her place.
As Jin Seongun contemplated the mind art's new form, a cool, low voice sounded beside him.
"Seongun."
"Ah—yes."
It was the Blood Demon.
Even for Jin Seongun, the Blood Demon remained difficult. The air around him was frigid by its very nature, and he was a man of almost no words at all. Even the other Martial Gods—excepting the Sword Immortal—could not treat him with ease.
Now that same Blood Demon stared intently at Jin Seongun and said, "Do you see what lies at that far end?"
He pointed toward the distant void of the Realm of Martial Gods.
Jin Seongun looked. As always, the realm held nothing but a pitch-black sky glittering with countless stars.
But a man as sparing with words as the Blood Demon would never point unless something was truly there—so Jin Seongun raised his internal energy and sharpened his inner sight.
That was when it happened.
KRA-KOOOOOOOM—!
A tremendous explosion sounded behind him, followed by Shintu's scream, long and unbroken. When Jin Seongun whirled around in shock, a dark crimson blood-qi was scattering like mist.
Since there was no death in the Realm of Martial Gods, no one was in any real danger. There was only pain. Plenty of it.
"One cannot strike a man in front of his disciple."
Having said that with utter nonchalance, the Blood Demon walked back to his usual spot and lay down on the ground.
Jin Seongun watched him for a moment, then burst into a helpless laugh. The more one came to know the Blood Demon, the stranger a man he was.
Still—this was the first time he had heard the word disciple from his mouth, and the feeling wasn't bad at all.
And so, four of the five Martial Gods—all but the Sword Immortal—had formally acknowledged Jin Seongun as their disciple.
Before long, a sound transmission from Shintu—who knew how far he'd been flung—burrowed into Jin Seongun's mind.
"My request is this: get even stronger, and beat the living daylights out of that Blood Demon bastard for me!"
It was obviously a joke, so Jin Seongun could only scratch his head awkwardly.
After all—did anyone in the world know that the true Divine Thief was right here, in this very place?