What Kind of Waiter Is This?
So this is what a waiter amounts to?
Smack.
Prosperity Association Leader Jo Taeho gave his own cheek a light slap.
A faint sting lingered, so this was no dream after all.
"Haah..."
It was all utterly surreal. The fact that the waiter had come back. The fact that his men had been cut down by that waiter. And even the terribly dangerous aura radiating off the man himself.
"Just who are you?"
The association leader asked, genuinely curious.
He had grown up around truly formidable masters from childhood—hardly surprising, given that his father was the overlord of Hubei's Black Dao. The Southern Black Alliance had more than a few masters who had surpassed the Peak Realm, yet not a single one of them carried an aura or presence like this.
Crack—!
Jin Seongun twisted the necks of the Prosperity Association executives held in both his hands.
That was his answer.
He flung the men he had slain in a single stroke aside without ceremony and took a step forward.
"......"
Jo Taeho found himself holding his breath without realizing it. The man had only taken a single step, and yet it felt as though a mountain had suddenly come bearing down on him.
"He's here!"
The association leader bellowed, pouring internal energy into his voice, and immediately the sound of dozens of armed men came thundering closer.
Amid that chaos, Jo Taeho stared into Jin Seongun's calm eyes and felt a creeping sense of dread.
"Leader, are you unharmed!"
The association's top enforcer, the Blood Merchant Unit Leader, arrived at the leader's office.
He was a warrior dispatched from the Southern Black Alliance, and it was said that in pure martial skill he stood on equal footing with—or even half a step above—the association leader himself.
Behind the Blood Merchant Unit Leader, several dozen warriors stretched out in a long line, blades drawn, glaring at Jin Seongun's back.
A brief silence fell.
Then Jo Taeho took a step back and screamed.
"Kill him!"
At once, dozens of warriors surged forward in a wave. Even as they closed in on him, bristling with murderous intent, Jin Seongun didn't so much as move—he kept his back turned to them all.
The Blood Merchant Unit Leader's crimson blade shot out, aimed dead center at Jin Seongun's back.
Saaaaek—!
Befitting a Peak Realm master, his ferocious sword qi made the very air tremble on all sides.
In an instant, the blade reached Jin Seongun.
No—or so everyone believed.
The Blood Merchant Unit Leader froze mid-thrust, his arm still extended. Behind him stood Jin Seongun.
Shadowless Steps.
He had not yet fully mastered it. If he tempered his speed and stealth, he could run at roughly one-tenth of its true capacity, but at its extreme limit he could manage only a couple of steps.
Even so, that was more than enough against a Peak Realm master.
Having seized the space behind the Blood Merchant Unit Leader, Jin Seongun raised his sword.
The Black Gao Sword, taken from the Vice-Leader of the Prosperity Association he had killed. True to its name, the blade rang out in a clear cry the moment it lifted.
Wuuung—!
The sound of a blade responding to its master's internal energy—and thus, sword-song was also the mark of unity between body and blade.
Under the influence of the Yeowol Mind Art, the white mist coiling around the Black Gao Sword began, in an instant, to bleed red.
Fire Dragon Escape Sword.
True to its name, the energy dwelling in the blade suddenly roared to life as flame.
The Blood Merchant Unit Leader swallowed hard at the presence welling up behind his back and turned his head—only to find flames raining down upon him. But he, too, was a Peak Realm master, and he had no intention of taking the blow meekly.
He swung his blade to meet it.
The energy packed into the waiter's sword was anything but ordinary, so he resolved to accept some damage in exchange—rather than a head-on clash, he would deflect and let the force slide away.
The Black Dao's swordsmanship was seasoned and practical, and the Blood Merchant Unit Leader's was no exception.
The moment the two blades met, he gave his sword a subtle twist, channeling the force away—and to a degree, it worked.
What he had failed to account for was this: even after shedding nine parts of the force, he still could not withstand the remaining one.
Sweeereok—!
Jin Seongun's blade sheared straight through the Blood Merchant Unit Leader's sword. Losing not a whisper of its momentum, it fell on in silent, implacable force.
The Black Gao Sword struck home in an instant.
Chwaaaak—!
It cleaved the man's body in two. Blood sprayed in every direction.
Jin Seongun wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand.
Silence descended. No one could bring themselves to move.
No one—except one.
Jin Seongun, who had cut down the Prosperity Association's strongest, the Blood Merchant Unit Leader, in a single stroke, began to walk again. Naturally, his steps were directed at the association leader.
A few warriors with courage to spare moved first, and emboldened by them, the others stirred as well.
But it meant nothing. The dozens of blades that poured out in unison never once stopped Jin Seongun's stride.
The Sword Immortal always called himself the finest swordsman of all time. As those men always do, a bit of warrior's bluster was surely mixed in.
But for a man to say it of himself, he need not have truly been the greatest in history—still, there was no doubt he ranked among the handful of finest swordsmans the ages had ever known.
Jin Seongun, bearer of the Heavenly Martial Body, had learned that man's sword. He walked the steps of Shintu, the greatest thief in history, and swung the sword of the Sword Immortal. And beneath it all, the mind art of Daji—acknowledged as supreme even by the Martial Gods themselves—held everything up without the slightest strain.
Shaaaek—!
One warrior hurled a straight saber. The moment demanded that someone do something, but closing the distance meant death—so this was what he chose.
Jin Seongun caught it without so much as glancing at it. Gripping the black saber in his left hand, he swung it through the empty air a couple of times, then abruptly lowered his stance. He planted his rear foot to gather force, bent his front knee, and settled into a posture coiled to be loosed at any moment.
Black energy pooled beneath Jin Seongun's feet. Not a soul dared step closer.
"My blade art belongs to the Black Dao. It is the martial art of the man who united the Black Dao for the first time in the history of the murim."
"And did learning the Black Dao's martial arts do you any harm? Only a man without money thinks like that, hahaha!"
It was Sangwang speaking. Jin Seongun had been curious about the story of how the first Master of the Heavenly Duel Grounds—the man standing before him in memory—had come to learn the Black Dao's blade arts, but there had hardly been a reason worth asking.
Recalling Sangwang's laughter, Jin Seongun fixed his gaze on the association leader.
Precisely speaking, on the area around the man's shoulder. A single imaginary point appeared there, and everything outside it vanished from his vision.
Black Wolf Annihilation.
A single blade, hurled toward one point and one point alone.
Shaaaek—!
Jin Seongun shot forward, a long black afterimage streaming behind him like a tail.
Thud.
Jo Taeho blinked, then lowered his head. A black straight saber was buried in his shoulder. Drip, drip—blood ran down along the blade.
Before the blood could reach his hand, Jin Seongun drew his fingers away from the saber.
"L-Leader!"
At that instant, dozens of warriors threw themselves at Jin Seongun. They encircled him so thickly that not an inch of ground remained, and every one of them thrust their blades in at once.
Jin Seongun was still standing where he had been.
Suddenly, a dark crimson energy began to flow between the dozens of blades the warriors had extended. It spread its range in moments, swallowing the space on all sides entire—
KWAAAAAAANG—!
A colossal detonation, and a blood-colored energy that filled the entire field of vision engulfed the Prosperity Association's warriors whole.
"......"
A short span of time passed. Only two people remained standing. Everything else had collapsed into blood and shredded flesh upon the floor.
Blood Demon Soul.
There were two eras darker than any other in the history of the murim: the Age of the Darkened Sky, and the Age of the Blood Sky—each the era in which one of the two most infamous demonic overlords of all time had rampaged.
The scene unfolding now in the Prosperity Association's small office recalled the Age of the Blood Sky—though neither Jin Seongun nor Jo Taeho himself knew it.
Jo Taeho opened and shut his lips several times before finally falling silent. The sight before his eyes was so divorced from reality that his mind had gone white.
After a long stillness, he forced the words out.
"...Spare me."
Jin Seongun shook his head. There were reasons he could not let Jo Taeho live.
First, Jin Seongun intended to do business here. Second, that was the will of the Martial Gods. And third, he had heard of the atrocities Jo Taeho had committed against merchants once he stepped beyond Yichang's borders.
There had been plenty of horrors. Stabbing the family of a noncompliant merchant to death right in front of him, for instance. Or carrying off the young children of merchants who could not pay their tribute—boys and girls alike, it made no difference.
With this many reasons to kill and not one reason to spare him, that was why the Prosperity Association would cease to exist today.
"I-If you kill me, the Seven Ghosts of Hongho will come for you. You have to keep me alive—only then can I even rescind the order."
"What's that?"
"......"
The Seven Ghosts of Hongho were assassins famed throughout Hubei Province—savable as the finest killers in the land, save only for Salmak, the organization called the greatest assassination syndicate under heaven.
But a threat means nothing to someone who has never heard of the Seven Ghosts of Hongho.
Jo Taeho blinked for a moment, then changed tactics.
"I wasn't always like this."
What followed was a long account of the environment he had been born and raised in. To Jin Seongun's ears, it sounded like seven parts excuse and rationalization to three parts outright lies.
When Jin Seongun's expression made it clear there was no reason to listen to any more, the man began to rage instead. That was what people did, in the end. They tried to persuade, they tried to stir sympathy, they tried everything—and when none of it worked, they got angry.
"You son of a bitch! You think you'll walk away unscathed after killing me? My father is Jo Raeak of the Southern Black Alliance! Do you have any idea how many Black Dao masters my father can call upon? Even the Martial Alliance itself shrinks from opposing him—"
Thud.
The words never finished. The Black Gao Sword had pierced his chest.
Jin Seongun drew the blade out slowly and said,
"Bragging about your father in front of an orphan."
The sword came free. Jo Taeho, eyes bulging wide, toppled slowly backward, dead before he hit the ground.
Jin Seongun flicked the blood from his blade and let out a light breath.
"......"
A glance around told him it was quite the scene.
So this is what a waiter amounts to?
But with the Prosperity Association gone, he could finally do business in peace. And so it should be.
Yichang, Hubei Province.
A long line of carts rolled into Yichang. In the lead carriage sat two men.
"Guild Leader, forgive me, but are we truly right to antagonize the Southern Black Alliance on the word of a single waiter?"
Jang Taeseok, Vice-Leader of the Jingzhou Merchant Guild, asked, and Oh Jeongsan, head of the guild, let out a booming laugh befitting his enormous frame.
"Haha! You should have heard how brazen the fellow's proposal was."
Before visiting the Prosperity Association, Jin Seongun had come to the Jingzhou Merchant Guild—not with a request, but with a trade.
It had been Sangwang's advice.
"You're from the Wudang Sect, so the Southern Black Alliance can't simply run roughshod over you either. The problem is that neither you nor the guild has any reason to shoulder that burden for Yichang's sake."
The terms Jin Seongun had laid out were simple: the Jingzhou Merchant Guild would take the Prosperity Association's place. Profits from ordinary guild operations within legitimate bounds would be split seven to three between the guild and Jin Seongun.
Taken on its own, that was absurd. The gall of the man—three whole shares for doing what, exactly?
Just as they were ready to say exactly that, Jin Seongun had continued.
"The real issue is the cost of establishing the guild's position—and I'll pay half of it. What money does a waiter have, you ask? Your guild's warriors are said to be highly skilled, which surely means their hiring price is steep. So I'll fight in their place. One tael of gold for every Prosperity Association warrior killed."
"I'm sorry—what?"
The Prosperity Association's forces numbered some hundred and fifty men. In theory, if Jin Seongun annihilated them single-handedly, that was worth one hundred and fifty taels of gold.
In truth, that was nearly equivalent to the initial cost of establishing the guild's position. Even killing only half would amount to the guild and Jin Seongun splitting the startup cost evenly. It saved the money they would have had to pay their warriors to fight the association—and, better still, it meant far fewer of their own men injured or dead.
"Factoring in the profits to come, the offer was actually to our advantage. The commercial district of a city like Yichang is by no means small."
"That's exactly it, though. You're talking about the waiter who supposedly killed at least a few dozen Prosperity Association warriors on his own. You believed he could actually do it?"
As his subordinate grumbled in frustration, Oh Jeongsan smiled slyly.
He understood the worry. The waiter's proposal rested on the assumption that he was a master capable of fighting the Prosperity Association himself.
Of course, neither Jin Seongun nor Sangwang could possibly have missed that point.
"Lord Sangwang, do you think the guild leader will accept the proposal? I'm just a waiter."
"He's from the Wudang Sect, isn't he? A man of real substance will recognize your worth, so don't worry. And who taught you the sword?"
And with that, Sangwang had pointed at the Sword Immortal, who—somewhat unexpectedly—wore an expression of swelling pride.
And Sangwang's prediction had proven correct.
Oh Jeongsan smiled and spoke to his subordinate.
"You may not see it, but I saw it plainly. That fellow is no ordinary waiter. In any case—let's hurry. I only pray the boy didn't overexert himself and die on us."
The worry was genuine. How long had it been since he'd met a young man with such daring? Boldness, shrewdness, and martial skill besides. Talent, after all, could not be priced. Even if it meant friction with the Southern Black Alliance, that waiter was a man worth reaching for at least once.
Talent for both the sword and commerce is a truly rare combination.
Being, like Jin Seongun, both a man of the murim and a man of commerce, Oh Jeongsan found the brazen waiter all the more remarkable.
.
.
.
Oh Jeongsan stared blankly ahead for a moment. Something was burning brightly off in the distance.
"......"
It was the Prosperity Association's headquarters, set somewhat apart from the residential quarter. Headquarters in name only—it was, in truth, nothing less than the fortress of the Southern Black Alliance leader's pampered idiot son.
And dozens of constables had the place surrounded. They had their long spears leveled, but it seemed they could not bring themselves to go in.
"Tch. I honestly can't tell whether those are constables or the association's lackeys."
So saying, Oh Jeongsan approached. This was a fight between men of the murim, so naturally the constables could not intervene at will.
"Constable Hwang, it's been a while."
At Oh Jeongsan's voice, Constable Hwang Myeongseok flinched. He had been close with the Prosperity Association, which made the presence of the Jingzhou Merchant Guild awkward in the extreme.
"Ah, Guild Leader."
"So what's going on here?"
"Some demonic overlord supposedly appeared and is tearing the Prosperity Association apart, so I came, but..."
Hwang Myeongseok trailed off, and Oh Jeongsan nodded as if he understood everything.
"You're afraid to go in."
"It's not fear!"
"I understand. Though the Prosperity Association is Black Dao—is there really cause for official troops to step in?"
"First of all, the Prosperity Association is not Black Dao. And second, it's for fear the harm might spread to the common folk."
Hwang Myeongseok answered brusquely and pulled a sour face. This bastard knows exactly what's what and is just needling me.
As he glared, Oh Jeongsan burst out laughing as if it were all a joke.
"Hahahaha! Don't glare so hard. Instead, I'll go in myself. As a man who once walked the Wudang path—if there's a demonic overlord in there, I'll cut him down."
Hwang Myeongseok nodded. Awkwardness aside, the guild leader was a master of the real sort—not some ambiguous tough who threw his weight around within the bounds of a small city, but a master whose name was known across the entire Central Plains. A secular disciple of the Wudang Sect and patriarch of the Oh Family, a Baek Do clan of considerable renown—of course it was so.
"If you would do so, I shall be certain to repay you."
Tap, tap.
Oh Jeongsan gave the constable's shoulder a light pat, drew his sword, and headed for the association's grounds.
"Wait here. If he truly is a master capable of taking on the Prosperity Association alone, he'll be dangerous."
His men held back and waited. In truth, Oh Jeongsan was tense within as well. For all the waiter's talent, surely he hadn't slaughtered the entire Prosperity Association single-handedly. Could some demonic overlord truly have appeared—one with nothing to do with the waiter at all?
If so, it would be no easy fight for Oh Jeongsan himself either.
Gripping his Taiji Sword firmly, he pressed deeper inside. The corpses of warriors and spilled blood lay scattered everywhere.
Within his sharply honed senses, only one man's presence could be felt. Following that presence, Oh Jeongsan arrived at last at the leader's office.
The sight that met his eyes left him speechless for a long moment.
The corpses of dozens of warriors. The association leader, dead with his chest run through. And beside them, the waiter who had been resting stood up at the sight of him and bowed his head politely.
"You really did come."
"...You did all this yourself?"
Jin Seongun nodded calmly.
"One hundred and fifty-four. As agreed, you and I each cover one hundred taels of the guild's initial costs."
"......"
"Beyond that, you actually owe me an additional fifty taels. I'll keep the remaining four on tab at the inn, so do stop by for a meal now and then."
"Haah..."
Oh Jeongsan burst into a hollow laugh before he could help it.
He felt as though he were dreaming.