Chapter 46
"How do you know that, sir...?"
"Uh... well..."
Geom Mujin averted his eyes a little under the green-haired young lady’s gaze.
He should’ve just kept his mouth shut, but the whole thing had sounded so absurd that the words had slipped out before he could stop them.
Seal the Ghost-Bewitching Sword? Mount Changbai?
The Ghost-Bewitching Sword had rusted out and been thrown away ages ago.
And he’d never once set foot on Mount Changbai in his life.
In other words, Geom Mujin was basically a fashion barbarian.
"Well, you see... I heard it from the man himself! I happened to meet him once a long time ago."
"R-Really...?"
"Y-Yeah."
He heard it from the man himself.
And since he himself was, in fact, the man, it wasn’t exactly a lie.
You told me that story, didn’t you?
Of course.
See? It’s true, isn’t it.
"Th-Then please tell me what he was like back then...!"
Geom Mujin blinked in surprise at the girl, whose eyes were shining.
"What?"
Her eyes were sparkling like that over a story about the Great Swordmaster.
He’d seen that look plenty of times before.
Just never aimed at him.
That was the look people wore when they gazed at someone they admired and looked up to.
This was a first.
After more than two decades in the martial world, he had finally gotten a fan.
And his first fan was a young lady fan, no less.
Geom Mujin, you’ve finally made it.
The young lady’s parents must have raised her properly.
He didn’t know who they were, but they must be people overflowing with grace and intelligence.
"Uh... young lady. F-For now, could you calm down and move back a little?"
Even as he said that, Geom Mujin was leaning backward as far as his upper body could go.
The reason was simple: the moment the young lady pitched her torso forward, all three heads were trained on him.
"Huh? Please...?"
She had no idea how much of a threat she was posing. The young lady was unnervingly bold.
Given her usual personality, she probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do this, but whatever had made her eyes gleam had completely overpowered her caution.
Wobble—boing—
One of the three heads swayed.
The sight was like Cerberus, guardian of the underworld, or the maple-leaf warriors’ old nemesis, HonXil—
"There you are, young lady."
"H-Hiik! Hayoung..."
Just before the three heads could pounce, a woman suddenly appeared behind the young lady.
"A young lady who isn’t even married yet shouldn’t be doing this."
"Eh? W-Whaaaat...! I-I wasn’t doing anything..."
Snapping back to her senses too late, the young lady realized how she must have looked and quickly pulled away.
Shashashak—!
Despite appearances, she moved incredibly fast.
"S-Sorry...! T-That terrible thing..."
Covering her upper chest with both hands, the young lady apologized.
"It’s fine. Honestly, I’m gra— ahem, no."
What was there to apologize for? He’d practically gotten a front-row seat to mythological Cerberus.
Hades, you lucky bastard.
That bastard got to keep Cerberus because the creature was the offspring of Echidna, his enemy. No wonder he held onto it.
"I’m sorry if that disgusted you..."
"I wasn’t disgusted at all."
If this had been the modern era, he’d have accepted a full-blown dogeza of gratitude.
So why was she apologizing?
It was because of this era’s beauty standards.
In this age, a small, slender woman was considered beautiful.
By contrast, a woman like this green-haired young lady, with her ample chest and hips, would be sneered at as sluggish and cow-like—
What utter bullshit.
People would call large-breasted women vulgar in public, then go hunting for women with big maternal cushions in pleasure quarters at night.
It was all a fantasy cooked up by hypocritical moralists who couldn’t admit they liked big chests in front of others.
But since the young lady didn’t know that yet, she probably thought she had been rude.
"Y-Yes..."
At Geom Mujin’s firm reassurance, she meekly nodded.
Meanwhile, Geom Mujin looked at the woman standing behind her.
"My lady was rude."
"No, don’t worry about it."
He shook his head at the woman, who apologized with polite, composed gestures.
There seem to be a lot of people popping out of nowhere today.
The woman who had appeared so suddenly, with short blue hair, gave off the impression of a capable, cool-headed executive secretary.
Huh?
Seeing her, Geom Mujin’s eyes widened.
Black skirt and top.
A white frilled apron and headband.
A look so distracting it made something inside his chest itch.
This was the seductive outfit imported from the lands of western barbarians— the Meydu Outfit.
For some reason, it looked like a charm that would make food taste better.
I’m getting a serious eye feast today.
Is it my birthday?
At this rate, all that was left was to wait for the chimaera-like fertility booster of the nomad tribes to become widespread.
"Young lady, the package is ready."
The woman in the Meydu Outfit lifted up the packed food.
"One bulgogi set ordered by the eldest young lady, and one Haengbok set ordered by the young lady who so very, very emphatically requested it. Both are packed and ready."
"H-Hayoung...! Quietly...!"
The young lady hurriedly clamped a hand over her mouth.
"I-I mean, why would you say it so loudly...?"
Originally, the Haengbok set was for children, so for an adult who had just come of age this year to order it was a little... embarrassing.
How should he put it?
It wasn’t exactly a crime, and yet it somehow made you feel everyone around you was watching.
Unable to bear that pressure, the young lady had asked Hayoung to place the order for her— or rather, dumped it on her— but Hayoung was five years older than she was.
Which meant she felt exactly the same way the young lady did!
The reason she was acting like this was because she wanted her own hard work to be acknowledged.
Absolutely not because some overenthusiastic shopboy had taken her order at the top of his lungs and dragged the attention of every customer in the place onto the young lady.
"Let’s go now. The eldest young lady is waiting."
"Mm-hm..."
At Hayoung’s words, the young lady nodded.
"S-Sir... we should be going now."
The young lady returned Great Swordmaster Somersault to the child and said her goodbyes.
There was still lingering regret in her eyes, but there was nothing to be done.
He’d wanted to give it to his fan as a present, sure, but there was no way he could snatch a child’s toy just to hand it over.
A shame.
"...Very well. It was a pleasure meeting you."
"Yes... then..."
"Please excuse us."
The two of them bowed lightly and left the inn.
* * *
"....."
Once they were outside, Hayoung silently turned her head and looked back at the inn.
That man just now...
She thought of the man she had just met inside.
I couldn’t see his face at all.
All the time she and her lady had spent talking to him, she hadn’t once seen the man’s face.
The best she’d caught was the line of his jaw.
During the conversation he had kept subtly tilting his head, so his face remained hidden beneath his bamboo hat the entire time.
The motion had been so natural that even she, despite her training, hadn’t seen through it.
It couldn’t have been a coincidence, which meant he had done it on purpose. If so, then he was no ordinary man.
He hadn’t exactly done them any harm, but for some reason the whole thing still nagged at her.
"Ahh..."
At that moment, a dejected little voice came from beside her, and Hayoung’s wandering thoughts snapped back to reality.
Her lady— Dang Seorin— was making a tearful face.
"What is it?"
"I didn’t get what I wanted..."
She had opened the Haengbok set from the bag they had brought home, and in her hand was a toy modeled after a bald monk.
"......"
"O-One more time, please..."
"No."
Hayoung was merciless.
She led Dang Seorin eastward into Hubei Province.
That was the purpose of this trip to Hubei— or rather, this bit of truancy.
* * *
Meanwhile, while Hayoung was wondering about Geom Mujin, he was tilting his head too.
...Feels like I’ve seen her somewhere before.
The woman named Hayoung whom he had seen a little earlier.
She looked familiar.
He was sure he knew her face, but he couldn’t quite remember where from.
That meant he had probably seen her a long time ago, but she looked to be only in her early or mid-twenties.
What was this, a miraculous baby face?
Or was she actually older than she looked?
He was casually having thoroughly rude thoughts about a woman in her prime.
She looked like she hadn’t seen me before either.
Knock, knock—
Just as his thoughts were deepening, the child who had hopped down from his side and moved closer tugged at his sleeve.
"Hm? What is it?"
"......"
The child stared up at him silently, as though she had something to say.
Wait. Did she feel something too, like him—
"...That."
The child pointed at Great Swordmaster Somersault.
She wanted to play with it.
"Oh. Sure, here."
As long as you’re having fun, I guess.
* * *
Eastern Hubei Province.
In the eastern region bordering the Yangtze River lay the Dabie Mountains, where the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle, Sodam, had once been hiding out.
The Dabie Mountains were steep and deep, and at the northern end of the range there was one particularly prominent peak.
With its seven summits rising like stars, people called that mountain Seven Star Mountain.
For a long time, rebel bands and righteous thieves alike had used it as a place to vanish after making a fortune and running for the hills, which said plenty about how good a hiding place it was.
Sodam was living proof of that.
It wasn’t only for troublemakers, either; people also used it to cut themselves off from the world and cram for martial training or the civil-service exams.
Halfway up Seven Star Mountain stood a small cabin.
It had been built as a workshop, a place to work without outside interference, but its current owner was in a very poor position.
Inside the cabin.
"....."
The old man, whose hair had gone the color of plant roots with age, moved his hands in silence.
Maybe it was the nature of his trade, but even for his age, his hands were deeply wrinkled and split in places.
They were the hands of an ancient tree.
And yet, for all that, there was nothing clumsy about them.
Swish— swish—
On the worktable sat a hawk perched on a stand.
The old man was carefully inserting feathers one by one into its body.
Not plucking them out, but putting them in.
So the hawk wasn’t alive?
Looking closer, both of its eyes were empty hollows.
What the old man was working on was not a living hawk, but a hawk-shaped sculpture made to look alive.
The thing was so vivid it looked ready to take flight at any second.
Not only that, but unlike an ordinary hawk, it carried an odd air of dignity.
To make something like this by hand was no ordinary skill.
Only someone like O Naho— the Hubei Province master sculptor and model maker known as Lia-rudol— could do it.
Sculptor and model maker.
If someone said those were the same thing, then swordsmiths and dao smiths would probably lose their minds and start a fight.
Anyway, the fact that a martial artist had a byname meant that person was truly recognized in their field, but...
Damn it.
O Naho cursed inwardly.
The people in his industry envied him, and he had taken pride in his byname too, but that was all in the past now.
O Naho glanced over his shoulder.
At the entrance to the cabin, two sturdy men stood guard, seated and watchful.
Both had clubs hanging from their waists, and just by looking you could tell they were not for massages.
Those clubs were magical— in the physical sense— devices for making stubborn people become cooperative.
They were also known as etiquette injectors.
How did he know that?
The bruises scattered across his skin answered that for him.
The byname that fed me my whole life is now trying to kill me.
O Naho remembered what had happened about a month ago.
He had been working on a sculpture as usual when someone knocked on the cabin door.
-What is it!?
Annoyed at being interrupted mid-work, he’d yanked the door open.
That was his mistake.
He had come all the way up the mountain specifically because he didn’t want to receive visitors while working, so the fact that someone had tracked him down there meant this was no ordinary matter— but he had failed to consider that in time.
-W-Who the hell are you...!
-Are you O Naho, Lia-rudol?
The men with their faces covered in masks had simply barged in and dragged him out.
-Don’t worry. We have no intention of hurting you. Not yet.
The one who seemed to be their leader had made a single demand of him.
And the demand was obvious enough for a sculptor.
-From now on, carve what I tell you to carve.
-If that’s all, you can just submit a commission...?
-Ah, I mean right now.
-What!?
The masked man had swept aside all previous orders and demanded that he make his commission first.
-Enough! Promises with clients must always be kept! Nonsense!
For a man who had made his living by keeping promises to clients all his life, that was unacceptable. It went against craftsmanship itself.
With pride in his craft surging through him, he shouted back defiantly.
Unfortunately, craftsmanship could not stop a club.
For a man who had spent his whole life carving and had never once thrown a street punch, the magical bludgeoning began raining down on him.
-Aaaagh! Kyaaah! I’ll make it...! I’ll make it...!
Thinking he really might be beaten to death, he finally managed to wake up his good sense.
-You must work as quickly as possible, but also do your best.
If they wanted top quality, they should’ve given him ample time. What kind of nonsense was “as quickly as possible”?
Normally he would’ve dumped a bucket of cold water over their heads for that.
-Y-Yes, sir. Leave it to me.
He had already been broken once by the taste of a thick, weighty club, and now he kept nodding like a trained doll.
Wasn’t it said that when a man was desperate, anything was possible?
Over the past month, he had created a sculpture with a level of finish that ranked among the best of his career.
"Hey, old man. Is it still not done?"
"...It won’t be much longer."
"Tch. How many times have you said that now? I’m warning you in advance—if you pull any tricks, this won’t be fun for you."
"...Understood."
O Naho responded to the masked men’s threats.
Dammit.
He should have retired the moment he signed that contract to supply Great Daria, or whatever the hell McDaria was called, with Haengbok set toys.
He had foolishly insisted he still had plenty of years left in him, and now look where that had gotten him.
To outsiders it might not have looked like it, but he had been secretly slowing his work down as much as possible.
He was trying to buy himself a little more time, but even that had now reached its limit.
The work had entered its final stage.
Me, what a man. I’m so fast that even when I deliberately slow down, I still finish quickly.
I’d love to know what “slow” even feels like.
Goddamn it. Is it really over for me?
Was the last shred of hope truly withering away like this?
"...Someone’s been taken down."
"What? Wait, you mean the intruder...?"
Then, from outside, came a commotion.
It was different from the sound usually made when the guards changed shifts, and at that noise, a spark lit in O Naho’s eyes.