Chapter 36
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"
A man with a panicked look spat out a string of curses.
Rustle, rustle—!
While his mouth ran wild, his hands moved without a moment’s rest, gathering up stacks of documents and ledgers.
Even if he was going to run, he had to deal with these first.
Double-entry books, secret ledgers—the whole nasty package of records you absolutely could not let anyone see.
If anyone traced the flow of money through what was written in those books, all kinds of trouble would come roaring down on him.
He had his arms full of papers when someone started pounding on the office door.
Bang, bang—!!
"Sect Leader! We’re in trouble..!"
A young disciple called out to the sect leader in a frantic voice.
Not An Gojun, who was currently locked in his own room, pissing and shitting himself in misery.
"What is it?"
Jo Pyeongho, who had risen from vice leader to sect leader after succeeding in his revolt, changed expression in an instant and answered.
"We can’t hold back the man An Dongshin brought with him. He called himself one of the Seven Martial Stars, and he looks like the real thing!"
While the Taeho Sect disciples were being thoroughly put in their place by Geom Mujin, a young disciple who had slipped away in secret reported the situation in a machine-gun rush.
The thing that had been slicing through enemy necks amid a ring of sword energy like it was plucking something from a pouch was no ordinary barbarian.
"At this rate, we’re all going to die!"
"Mm, got it."
Jo Pyeongho spoke to the disciple outside the door in a voice that was strict, solemn, and deeply serious.
"This sect leader already has another plan, so go back to your post and stop that bastard."
"B-but right now, shouldn’t we be running...?"
There was barely any time left to flee, and now he was being told to stop the enemy instead.
Unable to obey such an order, the disciple opened the door and tried to come into the office.
Click—!
Just as the latch gave a jolt and the door began to open.
"This is the turning point. If you hold him off and buy us time, the situation will definitely reverse. Or do you mean you don’t trust this sect leader’s judgment?"
Jo Pyeongho pressed the disciple harder, his voice even more grave and heavy than before.
The disciple had forgotten for a moment in his panic, but the current sect leader was a strategist who had overthrown the previous one through sheer scheming!
Of course Sect Leader-nim must have a plan!
"......"
After a brief silence, the disciple cupped his fists and shouted with confidence.
"...Understood! I’ll hold out as long as I can!"
"Mm! If we win, you’ll be first in merit."
"Yes, sir!"
The young disciple left with vigorous steps.
"Then I should be leaving too."
That was the plan he’d been talking about.
Namely, the thirty-sixth stratagem: run like hell.
As the footsteps faded into the distance, Jo Pyeongho let out a sigh and immediately gathered the papers and ledgers into one place.
He splashed the lamp oil stored for replacement all over the room, then pulled a Zippo lighter from his pocket.
Just as the disciple had said a moment ago, now was the time to flee.
Of course, the one running away would be him alone, and everyone else would have to serve as a shield.
"Hold them off as long as you can."
If the disciple had come all the way here, that meant they had already been pushed back this far.
Pop—!
He flipped open the Zippo and lit it, then tossed the lighter to the floor.
Whoosh—!
As the paper caught fire, the flames rose instantly.
The blaze devoured the documents and spread through the oil, leaping to the floor and pillars.
"That should buy us some time."
As a member of the demonic side who had seized power in one region, An Gojun had plenty of enemies.
Even the righteous sects, when they occupied a region, became entangled in all kinds of grudges and obligations—so how much worse would it be for a demonic sect?
He understood that well, which was why he had prepared a contingency plan.
Creak—
He shoved the office desk aside and pulled away the tiger pelt spread over the floor.
Exposed beneath it was a square trapdoor.
His emergency escape route.
If Heo Injun’s house had a secret room, then An Gojun’s house had a secret passage.
When he’d first been told to make an escape route, he’d cursed up a storm while building it, never imagining he’d be the one to use it.
Jo Pyeongho took the key he had stolen from An Gojun’s person during the revolt and slid it into the lock.
Not even An Dongshin, An Gojun’s son, knew this passage existed.
Click—!
The key turned, and the escape hatch opened.
After grabbing a separate wooden box, Jo Pyeongho slipped into the passage.
-Aaaagh!
-Hold on a little longer! Sect Leader-nim will be here soon!
"What a load of crap."
Ignoring the voices of the disciples searching for him, he shut the trapdoor behind him.
Whoosh—!
Before long, the flames swallowed the passage entrance.
* * *
Tap-tap-tap—!
Relying on the torches mounted along the wall, Jo Pyeongho ran through the tunnel.
"Dammit... where exactly did it all go wrong?"
As he fled the Taeho Sect, he muttered to himself.
He had spent a long time preparing to swallow the Taeho Sect whole.
To that end, he had earned An Gojun’s favor and risen to the position of vice leader, then steadily expanded his own faction in secret using that authority.
But the sect leader’s power base had been sturdier than expected, and just when things were starting to stall, a good opportunity had fallen into his lap.
A Goema had appeared near Gangneung.
There was no way greedy An Gojun would let that slip by, so Jo Pyeongho used it.
When he intentionally formed the Goema extermination squad, he filled it with people from the sect leader’s faction.
According to the information received from the main branch, the Goema was no ordinary opponent, so he judged the extermination squad would suffer losses too.
But then—who would have guessed.
He had been satisfied with merely weakening their power, but then the sect leader came back as a cripple.
His once-mighty martial prowess had become meaningless; with his right arm severed and his body wrecked, he was reduced to nothing but eating, sleeping, and shitting.
Once it reached that point, there was nothing left to see.
In numbers, the sect leader’s people still outnumbered his own, but many within the sect had already tasted Jamsungdan.
The addicted ones obeyed his orders.
And with the effects of Jamsungdan, he could simply crush them through brute force if he needed to.
In fact, his calculations had been right, and the rebellion had ended in a swift victory.
He had missed An Dongshin, yes, but he’d figured that one bastard alone couldn’t change the tide, and catching him would only be a matter of time.
"...That’s what I thought."
Until the bastard showed up again today.
The one who had fled with only his life intact had come back with one of the Seven Martial Stars.
Who could have imagined that?
He had heard rumors that the sect leader had been reduced to that state by a great swordmaster who had infiltrated the extermination force, but he never imagined it had been true.
Just how on earth had An Dongshin found a Seven Martial Star in the first place... and of all people, dragged in the most alien one of them all? He still couldn’t figure it out.
Some of the disciples had really wondered whether it was the same person, but the martial power that man was unleashing answered for him.
The one slaughtering his way through the Taeho Sect right now was no impostor.
He was the real great swordmaster.
"Why the hell is that barbarian bastard sticking his nose in this...!"
He had not seized the Taeho Sect out of personal greed.
He intended to use it as a base to aid the greater plan, and yet one barbarian bastard had reduced years of his effort to rubble.
Anger boiled up inside him, but there was nothing he could do.
For now, he had to get out of here with this wooden box.
And then...
"That bastard Heo from Heo's Medical Clinic. He has some kind of connection to the great swordmaster."
He remembered.
The last time he had gone to Heo's Medical Clinic on the previous sect leader’s orders, there had been that barbarian standing there as though guarding Heo!
That bastard had been the great swordmaster.
But this was another opportunity.
He had found a clue to the great swordmaster’s tangled web of connections.
If he handled it well, it could become a weakness to exploit.
He had to report this to the main branch.
How long had he been running with the aid of lightness arts?
At last, the end of the escape tunnel began to appear.
Clunk— clunk— creak—!
"Grrr...!"
Jo Pyeongho strained his arm and opened the ceiling hatch.
The tunnel led to the outermost edge of Gangneung.
"......"
"Huh?"
Just as he carefully lifted his head to look around, he made eye contact with a group of beggars.
Like beggars everywhere, they had made themselves at home even in this outer district.
They had been roasting mice impaled on twigs when they spotted Jo Pyeongho.
"Y-you—what are y—"
"Shut up."
Before the beggar could raise his voice, Jo Pyeongho lunged.
Slash—!
"Ghk...!"
"Keugh!?"
As the sword aura-laced edge of his hand sliced across their throats and flashed past in an instant, the beggars clutched their necks and collapsed.
"Tch."
Jo Pyeongho clicked his tongue and flicked his hand clean.
He had deliberately built the exit in some secluded place to keep it hidden, but it seemed the beggars had settled nearby anyway.
Leaving the corpses of the beggars behind, Jo Pyeongho climbed the wall.
Ever since the Northern Yuan had been driven out, the imperial troops outside the border had never exactly been diligent.
"Zzz..."
"Grrrraaaah...."
He slipped past the soldiers conducting combat sleep so they could fulfill their official duties tomorrow, and crossed over the wall.
After landing on the ground, he headed straight for a nearby low mountain.
In the Central Plains, mountains were one of the most reliable places to hide.
Self-sufficient and, compared to modern times, thick with growth, a mountain was hard to search if someone was determined to disappear into it.
If you’d learned even a bit of martial arts, you could even go full bandit in a pinch, so it was basically a treasure trove of free gains.
As he entered the foothills, a song floated out from somewhere.
"Hide and seek, hide and seek~ Don’t let your light brown hair show~"
"!!"
Startled, he turned around, and someone emerged from the darkness.
Drip, drip—
Under the moonlight, a figure appeared holding a sword from which drops of blood were falling.
Something was writhing strangely behind his back, a bizarre sight—but to Jo Pyeongho, it was fear itself.
"G-great swordmaster...!"
"There you are. I thought you’d burned to death."
Geom Mujin smiled.
"H-how did you get here...?"
He had clearly checked to make sure nobody was chasing him.
"What can’t I find with a net cast heaven and earth-wide?"
"A net cast heaven and earth-wide...?"
As Jo Pyeongho stood there in confusion, a hawk circled overhead.
He could not escape heavenly net and earthly net.
Jo Pyeongho thought to himself.
What he needed right now wasn’t strength, but logic and reason!
A slippery tongue!
"Even if you’re the famed Seven Martial Stars, this is not the proper way to do things!"
"You started a rebellion... and you’re talking back?"
Jo Pyeongho pressed on hard.
"That’s right. As soon as the previous sect leader fell ill, I launched a rebellion. It is certainly a crime deserving death."
"Oh?"
Geom Mujin looked interested at the sight of him admitting the rebellion so readily.
"But that is solely the Taeho Sect’s problem. It is not a matter for the great swordmaster to intervene in."
That was true enough.
I wasn’t a disciple of the Taeho Sect, nor was I part of An Gojun’s family, nor was I even a guest in the proper sense.
As a complete outsider, I really didn’t have enough justification to involve myself this much.
Even if it was resolved, it should be left for the Taeho Sect to settle among themselves.
"When did your demonic lot ever start caring about that kind of thing?"
That is, if we were talking about the righteous sects.
"That’s..."
"Well, your point isn’t entirely wrong. I’m not planning to take this any further."
The bastards clinging to the vice leader had become rust on my blade, and the ringleader himself was now a severed-limbed wall hanging.
If I’d done that much, it basically meant I’d made it possible for An Dongshin to come back and reclaim the sect.
"Then why did you come after me all the way here?"
"Ah, that? I’ve got something to check."
I pulled a single pellet from my robes.
"You know what this is, right?"
"I don’t—"
"If you say you don’t know, I’ll just cut you down. I looked into it already. You were handing it out to the disciples, weren’t you?"
Geom Mujin gave his sword a small flick.
"—I was about to say I didn’t know, but now that I look again, that’s the medicine I handed out. It was dark, so I couldn’t see it well."
He activated an emergency evasive maneuver and saved his life.
"Where did you get it?"
"One day, a black market merchant recommended it to me, saying it was a good medicine. Just as he said, the effect was incredible."
"If I ask who that black market merchant was, you’d naturally say you don’t know, right?"
"As you know, people like that are common contacts for us demonic sect types."
Jo Pyeongho answered without so much as changing expression.
"Really? Then repeat after me. The Heavenly Demon is a bastard."
"The Heavenly Demon is a bastard."
Jo Pyeongho immediately repeated Geom Mujin’s words.
"Hmm..."
I narrowed my eyes.
"May I leave now?"
"Sure, but before that, should I apologize and tell you a little about the Heavenly Demon?"
"Y-yes?"
"The Heavenly Demon was an incredibly ugly bastard. So ugly it was hard to keep your eyes open and look at him."
Without even listening to his reply, Geom Mujin kept talking at his own pace.
"His eyes were like a sparrow’s, all crooked and mismatched, his nose was a snubbed-up pig nose, and his teeth were such a mess it was like he’d been punched in the mouth by his mother as a kid."
.....
Scratch, scratch—
"His head was balding in the middle like a bald eagle’s, and if it were me, I’d have shaved it all off. Guess he treasured it in his own way."
As Geom Mujin snickered, the muscles in Jo Pyeongho’s brow twitched ever so slightly.
Scratch, scratch—!
"And he was so short, like some undersized runt. I bet everything below the belt was as short as his legs, so he probably wasn’t much use in bed either. Ah, but he was the cult leader, after all, so women must have fawned over him by performing all kinds of tricks and pretending to be half-dead with pleasure. He probably spent his whole life thinking he was amazing in bed."
Scratch, scratch—!!
The convulsions in his facial muscles grew more violent.
"And this is a super, super secret, so make sure you’re the only one who knows."
Geom Mujin lowered his voice with mock seriousness.
"....What is it?"
Clenching his teeth, Jo Pyeongho asked.
"He’s actually Christian. A lifelong believer from birth."
Crack—!!!
At that moment, the sound of something snapping in abundance echoed out.
"Kraaah!! There’s no way His Supreme Eminence, the Heavenly Demon, could ever be that way!!"
Jo Pyeongho erupted in a lion’s roar.
"I’ll kill you!!"
Jo Pyeongho, driving his demonic qi to the extreme, lunged like a rabid dog.
What an intense bastard. He can tolerate being called a bastard, but he can’t tolerate having his character mocked.