Chapter 5
'Huh? What are you doing here?'
Geom Mujin tilted his head at the sight of the Baekmun Escort Agency’s scout leader sprinting toward him like a dog on the run.
He’d figured the man would be laid out after getting battered by the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle.
Behind him, his escort men started edging into view one by one, all of them wearing familiar faces—every last one of them had lost an ear.
"W-we deeply apologize for the offense. We failed to recognize the honored deceased."
The scout leader and the escort men folded their hands in a formal bow and apologized.
"Forget the offense and whatever else. Explain this to me first."
Geom Mujin tapped the fallen arrows at his feet with the toe of his boot.
He could guess the reason well enough, but he wanted to hear it from their own mouths.
"W-well, that is..."
The scout leader of the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle team—U Ha-sik—shot a sidelong glance at the stocky young master hidden among the escort men under a hood and silently cursed him.
They’d definitely made eye contact a moment ago, but the young master was pretending not to notice a thing.
'That bastard young master is out of his damn mind!'
It was all the young master’s fault.
After the failed attempt at Lia-rudol—or whatever the hell the name was—and the resulting bombardment, the scout party had eventually come to their senses.
They were debating whether to continue the search when the young master, who’d had nearly seventy percent of his hair torn out, insisted on pressing on.
-[damage] HP
"S-sob! I am absolutely going to catch that bird! I’ll pluck every feather off it!"
And because no one could bring themselves to oppose him when he was making such a huge deal out of his hair, that became the problem.
While they were taking care of the injured escort men who couldn’t move, the young master led the rest away.
Only after the fact did U Ha-sik realize it and rush after them.
'Please! Don’t do anything stupid!'
That was the desperate prayer he’d been chanting as he chased down the young master—only to arrive and find arrows flying through the air, and a man casually waving them aside with a single gesture.
"Are you ignoring me right now?"
"N-no, sir!"
He’d arrived at exactly the worst possible moment, which meant he’d been thoroughly marked for death.
'If he weren’t the young master’s son, I’d just—!!'
Swallowing his rage, U Ha-sik wondered what would have happened if he’d ignored the warning and fled, but he quickly shoved the thought away.
Just remembering the killing intent from a moment ago made the back of his neck go cold.
It had been so vicious he’d genuinely felt as if his head had been severed.
Running from a monster like that? That would be insane.
"Then why are you ignoring what I’m saying? Huh? Why the hell did arrows suddenly start raining down on this perfectly sunny day?"
It felt like a blade had been suspended at his throat all over again.
Shivering at the sensation, U Ha-sik looked at the hawk perched on the man’s shoulder.
"Kreee—"
That hawk, with the crescent curve of its eyes, was the very White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle they’d been chasing all this time.
Drawing on long experience, U Ha-sik pieced the situation together.
For reasons he didn’t know, the creature that usually refused to come down from the sky was now on the ground.
And that damn young master must have seen it and immediately loosed his arrows.
He’d been vowing to strip the bird bare, so there was no way he’d planned on taking it alive.
As for the man the eagle had perched on, and the woman in his arms?
If the man had enough sense to care about that, none of this would have happened in the first place.
'Still sitting on his shoulder, huh.'
The situation was obviously a mess, but at the same time, it was an opportunity.
"...First, let me make it clear that the attack just now wasn’t aimed at you, honored expert."
U Ha-sik glanced at the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle and bowed his head deeply.
"We sincerely apologize for unintentionally threatening you and your companion."
For now, he needed to soften the man’s mood.
And apart from the killing intent, the fact that he hadn’t made a move suggested he might not be as dangerous as he seemed.
"W-what was that?! W-who exactly do you think is whose companion..!"
At that moment, Moyong Yehwa, who had been clinging to Geom Mujin’s arms, had a complete meltdown.
"Eek..! How long do you plan on holding me like this!"
"I mean, I was protecting you."
"...A-anyway, put me down!"
At his rebuttal, Moyong Yehwa found herself at a loss for words and flailed like a freshly landed eel before escaping from his arms.
"Wh-what if I get pregnant...."
He heard her mutter under her breath, but he deliberately ignored it.
Lady Moyong. No matter how black the hair is, no human has the ability to make a baby through violent proximity alone.
Gleam—!
Moyong Yehwa shot U Ha-sik a murderous glare.
"....."
Geom Mujin flexed his hands open and shut.
Just a moment ago, those hands had held a whole pile of Liaoning’s finest honeydew—
Ahem.
The empty feeling in his hands transformed into anger.
Geom Mujin glared at U Ha-sik too.
Gleam—!
"Huh?"
U Ha-sik, who’d tried to slap away one bump only to end up with another, looked flustered.
"Who are you people? You need to explain why you attacked that Moyong Yehwa!"
"Moyong Yehwa?"
At her protest, U Ha-sik and the escort men stirred in surprise.
They were shocked once by the surname Moyong, and even more by the name Yehwa.
In the martial world today, Moyong Yehwa meant...
"Liaoning’s greatest beauty!"
"Liaoning’s greatest prodigy!"
"The future number one beauty of the martial world!"
The escort men shouted in unison.
In the jianghu, when someone had a bit of reputation, people were supposed to shout out their epithet as a matter of courtesy.
If I ever introduced myself out there, my own epithet would pop out automatically too...
-The Great Swordmaster!
-That black-haired barbarian swordsman!
-Hide the black-haired guy! He’s with the women!
...let’s just not go there.
The beauty that had been hidden in Geom Mujin’s arms now came into full view.
The escort men’s eyes widened at the face of the greatest beauty in the city, and the young master’s eyes widened even more.
Meanwhile, at the words “future number one beauty of the martial world,” Moyong Yehwa nodded along.
"Seeing such thorough and righteous speech, I suppose you lot aren’t completely rotten after all."
"Hey, wake up."
At that display, I stared at her in disbelief and poked Moyong Yehwa in the side.
"Eek?! What are you doing!"
Startled, Moyong Yehwa glared at me for a moment, then turned her head away.
"Trying to distract me with obvious words won’t work. Explain yourselves regarding the attack just now."
Clack—!
As Moyong Yehwa rested her hand on the sword hilt, a sharp aura rose from her, not as fierce as Geom Mujin’s, but still keen enough to make the air tighten.
She might have looked dazed for a moment, but she was still the daughter of a prestigious martial family.
"Let me say it again: we weren’t targeting you or Lady Moyong."
Faced with an unknown master and the Moyong family’s precious jewel on top of that, U Ha-sik swallowed hard and forced the words out.
To escape this situation, he had to tell at least some of the truth.
After all, nothing was more effective for deceiving someone than mixing truth with lies.
"In truth, we came to catch the hawk perched on your shoulder, honored expert."
That much was true.
"This thing?"
Geom Mujin stroked the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle and glanced sideways at U Ha-sik.
"Yes. It’s an extremely precious hawk imported from Joseon, but during transport it unfortunately suffered an accident and escaped."
That, too, was true.
The unfortunate accident had been the young master cracking open a bottle of liquor at night and taking us out for entertainment, but there was no need to mention that.
"Because the promised deadline is almost up, my men must have panicked during the search and made that mistake."
"What kind of nonsense—"
"So what you’re saying is that this thing belongs to you?"
Moyong Yehwa tried to say something, but Geom Mujin cut her off mid-sentence.
"More precisely, its ownership remains with us until it is delivered to the client."
"You lot say one thing, but what do you think?"
"Kree."
The White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle whipped its head around.
"It says to go fuck myself?"
"Ha... haha, honored expert, your joke is truly amusing."
"It wasn’t a joke, though."
I’d told him the truth, but the bastard still wouldn’t believe me.
"If you return the hawk, we’ll also pay compensation for the mistake and a reward for the trouble."
"Oh? How much are we talking about?"
"I’d estimate around eighty million gold."
At the figure, Geom Mujin snorted.
'Look at these bastards with less conscience than a dwarf’s ass hair.'
Eighty million gold was certainly not a small sum, but it wasn’t enough to buy a spiritual beast.
No—there wasn’t anyone who would sell a spiritual beast in the first place.
Calling the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle merely a “precious hawk” was obviously just a ploy to make him think he was some gullible idiot they could fleece.
They must have assumed he didn’t realize it was a spiritual beast.
Which meant they were trying to wrap things up with a decently large amount of money before he noticed.
"How about it—"
"Wait. You’re saying you imported this hawk yourselves?"
At that moment, Moyong Yehwa cut off U Ha-sik mid-sentence.
Right now, the arrows weren’t the important issue.
Whether the story of that hawk-hunting crew was real or not, if this kept up, the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle could be taken from her.
'I can’t afford to miss the chance to obtain a spiritual beast and get ahead of the other competitors.'
For reference, she also had no idea that Geom Mujin knew the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle’s true identity.
"...Yes, that’s right."
"Then naturally, you must have a trade permit too?"
A trade permit was a sort of government-issued certificate for commerce.
Even though Joseon was right next door, you needed one to trade with another country.
If you didn’t have one, that was smuggling.
At her question, U Ha-sik and the young master’s pupils trembled.
They had smuggled the thing in—what trade permit were they supposed to have?
"We only transport goods after receiving a commission, so we don’t have one."
U Ha-sik’s improvisation sounded plausible.
People would assume a permit was needed for trade, not for carrying cargo.
For any ordinary opponent, his excuse would have worked.
For any ordinary opponent.
"Hmm~ That’s odd."
Moyong Yehwa touched her chin with one finger and let out a nasal hum.
"Goods brought in from another country can’t pass through the gates without a permit, even during transport."
She was the daughter of the Moyong family, the clan that traded with Joseon more actively than anyone else in the martial world.
That meant there was no one here who knew this field better than she did.
North Hubei and Liaoning.
There wasn’t just one or two checkpoints between those two provinces.
"So how exactly did you bring that hawk all the way here?"
Moyong Yehwa said this in a voice so certain she might as well have been staking the honor of her grandfather on it.
.....!
Mentioning Joseon to make the story sound more believable had been a mistake.
No matter what he said now, without a permit it would only sound like a lie—or a confession to smuggling.
If they were ordinary commoners, he could have just crushed them and called it a day, but these were the Moyong family.
U Ha-sik, unable to do anything while also unable to claim ownership over something they themselves had brought, heard a voice transmission in his ear.
Leader, what exactly are you doing?
He glanced sideways and saw his men wearing faces full of irritation.
What do you mean?
Why are you making this so difficult?
What?
No matter how much it’s Moyong Yehwa, can’t we handle it here?
The location, the equipment, everything was in a convenient state for disposal.
You think I’m doing this because I don’t know that?
He was trying to talk his way through this not because of Moyong Yehwa, but because of the monster beside her.
He’d thought maybe these idiots had spent so long around the young master that their brains had gone bad, but then one of them said something that made him unable to ignore it.
There’s a single barbarian next to her, but that guy’s basically irrelevant, isn’t he?
What?
U Ha-sik turned his gaze to Geom Mujin’s face.
Somehow, the black hair and black eyes had become visible beneath the tilted bamboo hat, which had slipped back a little.
'A real barbarian?'
People of the Central Plains in this era had a thing called Sinocentrism.
That trait made a person feel twice as strong whenever they saw a barbarian.
At least, they felt stronger.
For reference, during the Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties, it had the opposite effect and made them weaker instead.
Once his Sinocentrism kicked in, U Ha-sik started to see Geom Mujin as insignificant.
'Some barbarian punk dares to—'
Now brimming with ethnic superiority and courage, he silently signaled the others.
!
...!?
Since returning the White-Headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle to them in one neat bundle was no longer possible after Moyong Yehwa’s trap, there was only one path left.
Kill them and bury the truth.
The men caught the signal, and in particular the young master’s eyes filled with lustful intent.
If they were going to kill him anyway, might as well have a bit of fun first, wasn’t that right?
Though it bothered him that, aside from himself, no one else seemed to be sensing the barbarian’s killing intent.
'I must’ve been tired and imagined it. What killing intent could some barbarian possibly have?'
Such a trivial matter was easily overcome by contempt for barbarians.
"Haha, I think there’s been some misunderstanding."
U Ha-sik stepped forward with a friendly smile.
"Rather than making trouble here, why don’t you come with us to our main base first? We have the relevant documents there, so I’m sure we can clear up the misunderstanding."
"Clear up a misunderstanding at your main base? That’s not bad. But before we go, let me ask you one thing."
"Of course."
A few of the men’s hands shifted toward the backs of their waists.
"What’s the name of your escort agency?"
Geom Mujin pointed out a detail that had never been mentioned once.
"It’s the Houwon Escort Agency."
U Ha-sik answered without hesitation, and Geom Mujin’s eyes narrowed.
"Look at this bastard. His face doesn’t even twitch while he’s ratting out the name of his rival escort agency."
"Now!"
The moment U Ha-sik flinched and shouted reflexively, dozens of nets flew through the air.
"Damn it...!"
"Come out."
Moyong Yehwa hurried to draw her sword, but Geom Mujin stepped forward before she could.
"Don’t take your eyes off me for even a second."
"Pardon?"
Shing—
Before she could say another word, Geom Mujin drew his sword.
Six Extremities Sword of the Dark Abyss
First Extremity
Sword Qi Wounds Men
A red line was carved through the air, and the nets were torn beyond recognition.
Rattle-rattle-rattle—!
"Thanks."
"Wh-what...?"
"I was worried you might not rush me if I didn’t provoke you first."
Holding the sword as crimson blade qi rose around it, Geom Mujin flashed a toothy grin.