The Madman and the Great Thief
A lunatic.
A single streak of new-moon light slashed across the darkness of Yichang.
Like a frozen fish washed ashore, Jin Seongun moved with half-dead eyes, scouting for something to steal. So this is why I became the disciple of the Martial Gods, is it.
But what could he do? The memory of Divine Thief's gleaming eyes was still vivid in his mind. And to be fair, the bastard who'd stolen the inn's signboard had it coming. Besides, I do feel bad about the young miss and the young heroes working themselves to the bone over this.
Reason upon reason kept shoving Jin Seongun down the road of thievery.
They say there's no villain in this world without a story of his own. The fact that those words fit his situation exactly struck him as strangely funny.
And so he passed between rooftops and over fences, without so much as a whisper of sound or a flicker of presence.
Honestly, this much he could have managed even without inheriting Divine Thief's brilliance. Still, the work came easily to hands that had.
He had just completed one wide circuit of the town when a small shop caught Jin Seongun's eye.
"……"
He dropped down onto the roof across from the shop and stared down at it, feeling a powerful hesitation wash over him. Is this really the right call?
The shop Jin Seongun was looking at was none other than the Sangwon Fabric Shop.
But surely stealing from someone he actually knew was better than robbing a total stranger? If anything from the shop vanished, Jin Seongun could compensate the owner himself.
He was in the middle of such rationalizations, just about to descend from the rooftop, when the voice of a woman muttering below reached his ears.
"Three hundred taels……"
It was Elder Byeok, desperate to earn her bounty. Apparently she hadn't left Yichang yet.
Jin Seongun held his breath and lowered his stance.
"……"
The muttering stopped. Elder Byeok had gone utterly still where she stood.
Jin Seongun activated the Great Turtle-Breath Art he had learned from Divine Thief. His breathing thinned and stretched out, just like a turtle's, growing so faint that in truth even he could scarcely feel it himself. His heartbeat slowed, his body temperature dropped, and the flow of his qi came under complete control.
It was, in the truest sense, the ultimate art of concealment.
Elder Byeok's head swiveled this way and that, searching. Time crawled by.
"Three hundred taels, my ass. Must be some dog's name from who-knows-whose house……"
Grumbling anew, Elder Byeok finally disappeared into the night.
Only then did Jin Seongun exhale and slip down beneath the eaves, landing without a whisper of sound. He gazed at the Sangwon Fabric Shop's signboard for a long moment.
I'm sorry. I'll return it, I promise.
Having apologized in his heart, Jin Seongun cleanly pried the signboard free and pressed a single note in its place.
— Justice —
Justice. The signature of the thief who had been striding across the realm of late.
The next morning, Yichang was turned quite literally upside down.
"My signboard!!"
Noh Sangwon of the Sangwon Fabric Shop howled in front of his store, and the martial artists who had yet to leave town began to gather. They crowded around to examine the note stuck where the signboard had hung.
The rumor spread in an instant.
The Great Thief is still in Yichang!
Two thefts committed in the same region!
The Great Thief's pattern has changed!
For some reason, the martial artists in Yichang were thrilled. Chasing a thief around, after all, was exhausting work. Short of walking patrol after patrol, there was nothing to do but wait for the man to strike again. Staying put in one region was at least a little better than trudging across the whole country after him.
The martial artists who had already left Yichang turned around and came trickling back as the news reached them. Tang Soyeon, Baek Sang, and Baek Seol — those who bore Jin Seongun goodwill — actually welcomed the situation, for the peace that had finally settled over Yichang had been shattered once more by Jin Seongun's night of thievery.
"Honestly, what does a man keep tearing down perfectly good signboards for!"
Noh Sangwon fumed as he glared at the empty signboard mounts of Seongun Inn and his own shop in turn. Then, noticing the martial artists steadily multiplying around him, a thought struck him. Wait — this is actually good for me, isn't it?
Of everyone in town, Noh Sangwon had been nearly the sole beneficiary of the recent influx of martial artists. Men with nothing to do spent their days sparring and training, and martial robes wore out fast.
The Sangwon Fabric Shop was enjoying a golden age. An age that had nearly ended — until the thief gathered the martial artists back together one more time.
The more he thought about it, the less there was to be angry about, so Noh Sangwon declared it was time to eat and headed for the inn.
"Well hello there, Jin Seongun."
"Oh! W-welcome, sir."
"……"
Noh Sangwon stared at Jin Seongun through slitted eyes. They had always been narrow to begin with — the man's face was all soft flesh — but now they narrowed until they seemed nearly shut.
Faced with that blade-sharp gaze, Jin Seongun felt his heart begin to pound.
Before long, Noh Sangwon spoke.
"There's nothing you're hiding from me, is there?"
"I wouldn't dare, sir."
Jin Seongun's insides went cold. For all his soft appearance, Noh Sangwon was a merchant who had survived in the same spot for decades. Every now and then a surprisingly sharp side of him showed — very, very occasionally, but it did.
"No, something's off. Something's definitely strange here."
Noh Sangwon wagged his finger slowly, studying Jin Seongun with care.
Jin Seongun spoke up first.
"Shall I bring out the noodles, then?"
"Oh, noodles!"
Suspicion evaporated in a heartbeat. Seo Yugyeom's noodles had lately become one of Noh Sangwon's reasons for living.
"Ahh, I can already taste it."
A flavor that thrilled him no matter how many days in a row he ate it.
That was Seongun Inn.
On the border between Yichang and Dangyang, a peddler passing through a small county town heard a strange story at a guesthouse.
"Did you hear? The Great Thief's still in Yichang, they say. Looks like the Noh family's fabric shop got hit last night."
Dangyang and Yichang were practically neighboring counties, and traffic between them was constant.
Hearing this rumor of a thief, the peddler froze in his seat, his brow furrowing. What kind of bullshit is this?
The Great Thief had committed two thefts in Yichang? Impossible. Because the Great Thief was him.
"Same as before, they say — signboard torn clean off, and a note written with the word 'Justice' stuck in its place."
"……"
The peddler's brow creased deeper still.
This was, in plain terms — a copycat crime.
And between thieves, a copycat crime was as good as an open challenge. Who in the world was this bastard? No matter how he turned it over, he couldn't arrive at an answer.
There was nothing for it. He would have to go back and see for himself.
Yichang remained in a state of daily panic.
The young heroes who had gathered to catch the thief in particular wandered the streets all day with faces drained of every last shred of spirit. For the past several days, the thefts had come one after another.
It had started with a wealthy household in Yichang — the fangs of the guardian beast statue in its courtyard had vanished. Naturally, a note reading "Justice" sat where the tooth had broken away.
Back then, the young heroes had actually welcomed it. If the Great Thief really meant to steal only in Yichang, over and over, his chances of being caught rose sharply.
But then the crimes kept coming, night after night for seven straight days, and the young heroes lost their fighting spirit entirely. The situation was plain: the thief was definitely in the region, and a theft would definitely happen the next day. The young heroes and every wandering ronin they could muster had guarded every last corner without a gap.
Even so, things vanished overnight.
With defeat piling upon defeat, everyone's self-loathing only grew. For those who had been praised all their lives as the Poison Phoenix, the Sword Phoenix, and the Spear Dragon, the blow landed all the harder.
"This is so damned annoying."
Tang Soyeon vented her frustration as she stepped into Seongun Inn. At that very moment, nearly fifty martial artists were assembled in Yichang alone. Every one of them had eyes blazing with vigilance, and the thief had still pulled off his job, calm as ever.
It was as if Divine Thief himself had been reborn.
Having ordered noodles, Tang Soyeon muttered to herself, her face heavy with the flavor of defeat.
"……What kind of lunatic even is this guy?"
Before long, the lunatic in question — Jin Seongun — brought out her noodles.
Tang Soyeon looked up suddenly.
"Young Hero Jin."
"Wh-what is it?"
"……Why are you stammering?"
Tang Soyeon's eyes narrowed.
Jin Seongun scrambled to defend himself.
"I didn't stammer."
Not an excuse so much as plain denial of reality.
Tang Soyeon had always thought Jin Seongun was a slightly odd man anyway, so she let it pass. Besides, she had a different matter to raise.
"Couldn't you help us, Young Hero Jin?"
"With what, exactly?"
"Catching that lunatic."
"……"
Impossible. Half of the recent thefts were Jin Seongun's own handiwork.
Of late, the thief and Jin Seongun had been waging an invisible war of nerves. The stakes of the thefts kept climbing, as though each were saying to the other, See? I can steal even THIS. Take that, you fake!
This, too, was Divine Thief's advice. Every time Jin Seongun visited the Martial God Realm and reported the situation, Divine Thief would clutch his belly and howl with laughter, like a child who'd just gotten a new toy.
"I do have a business to run, you understand……"
Jin Seongun declined as tactfully as he could.
Tang Soyeon nodded, as if she'd expected as much.
"I suppose so. It was a bit of a stretch to ask, wasn't it?"
She knew Jin Seongun had his proper trade, so she couldn't press further. He was simply cut from different cloth than martial artists, whose lives revolved around fighting, chasing, and training and nothing else.
"Still, if you lent us even a little help, Young Hero Jin, we might catch him easily……"
Tang Soyeon's regret ran deeper because she already knew the extent of Jin Seongun's martial prowess.
Of course, Jin Seongun catching Jin Seongun was out of the question, so he answered with fresh tact.
"If I find the time, I'll keep an eye out myself."
"Even that much, thank you."
Just as Jin Seongun nodded once in acknowledgment, Seo Yugyeom, who happened to be in the kitchen, slipped outside to grab a breather now that the customers had thinned out.
Tang Soyeon's eyes lit up.
"What about Young Hero Seo?"
"What?"
"Wouldn't Young Hero Seo be good at catching thieves?"
This was Seo Yugyeom they were talking about! A martial artist so steeped in the arts of stealth and hidden weapons that even Tang Soyeon herself — young matriarch of the Sichuan Tang Clan — clicked her tongue at him. In her eyes, Seo Yugyeom might actually be better suited to this affair than Jin Seongun.
What came back, however, was a thoroughly indifferent response.
"Says who? Why would I bother with that nonsense?"
Plainly put, there was simply no reason for him to step in.
Tang Soyeon's disappointment lasted only a moment before her eyes gleamed again.
"Scared?"
"……"
Seo Yugyeom's brow twitched.
Jin Seongun looked at Seo Yugyeom with surely-not in his eyes. Surely a grown man wouldn't fall for a childish, transparent trick like that.
And "surely," as everyone knows, is precisely how ordinary men get caught.
"Haaah. What is it about that damn thief that's got everyone in such a state? You're telling me you've all been flailing around for days and can't catch ONE thief? Tonight. I'll bring him in tonight, myself."
Both of Seo Yugyeom's eyes blazed with competitive pride.
An assassin and a thief were, after all, cut from the same cloth, separated by a single knife's width of difference. That's right — could a former special-grade assassin of Salmak really fail to catch one petty burglar? This was his chance to draw a clear, unmistakable line between himself and Tang Soyeon and all the rest of them!
Seo Yugyeom pictured himself dragging the thief through the streets by the collar, shouting to all the world:
Seo Yugyeom, head cook of Seongun Inn, has caught the thief that the so-called Spear Dragon and Sword Phoenix couldn't! All that martial fame is just hot air, isn't it?
Just imagining it was delightful.
"Heh heh heh……"
Seo Yugyeom wore a sinister grin.
Unseen by anyone, Jin Seongun pressed his temples hard.
The martial artists were already multiplying by the day — and now, from tonight on, he'd have to deal with Seo Yugyeom too.
If Master's advice holds true, it should be any day now……