Chapter 67
The rowboat, powered by a semi-automatic motor—human muscle, in other words—finally pulled into a corner of Wuhan’s harbor.
Thunk!
"Huff...! Huff...!"
"Good work, Cheetah."
We left the boat behind, along with the motor that had apparently gone and dispersed itself after reaching the domain of Unlimited Gong(0).
"Is everything finished now?"
Hayoung, carrying the unconscious Dang Yulin on her back and the child in her arms, asked Geom Mujin.
It was a heartwarming sight, like she was asking for some secret child-rearing technique, but the truth was a little different.
"Yeah. No one escaped except us here."
What Hayoung was asking about was cleanup, and Geom Mujin answered that he’d handled the cleanup neatly.
The escorts from Baekmun Escort Agency and the goema soldiers of the Neo Demonic Cult had taken a trip to the depths of the river along with the boat.
All set?
When he’d dropped that skull-cracking headbutt, the impact had gone and wrecked the bottom of the boat.
Ugh, this damn strength.
Normally that would’ve been a problem, but since he was planning to sink the boat anyway, it didn’t matter.
Water always knows the answer. It covers everything.
Especially the things that would be a pain if other people saw them.
That was why so many martial artists liked water, fire, and bone-melting powder—things that made the inconvenient convenient.
As for dirt, well, in an age with so many wild beasts running around, it wasn’t especially popular.
"By now they’ll be fish food."
"Then that’s a relief."
At his words, Hayoung nodded.
Setting aside the unknown goema, Baekmun Escort Agency was their enemy for using Dang Yulin’s head as a weapon and beating them into submission with it.
For the Sichuan Dang Clan, which never forgot a grudge or a kindness, the enemy’s life or death was a serious matter.
After all, there was no point in getting revenge on a corpse that was already dead.
In the Ming Dynasty era, when Confucianism had practically possessed everyone’s brains, posthumous mutilation was an extreme punishment even the emperor rarely used.
Unless the target was a traitorous snake of state-level influence, or a rebel of the same caliber.
Besides, there would be no rumor going around that the daughter of the Sichuan Dang Clan had been beaten around somewhere.
"Whaaat?? Y-you mean they all sank...?"
Dang Seorin, who had been crumpled up on the boat without getting off, shot to her feet.
Swish—!
She’d forgotten even why she’d been all folded up in the first place and hurried closer, sticking her face in as she asked,
"T-the goema too..?"
"That’s right."
"Aaah....!"
Dang Seorin swayed.
"High-grade weapon materials... all of them... gone to the bottom..."
With a sigh so drenched in regret it practically dripped from her mouth, her shoulders slumped.
As she said, goema corpses became material for weapons and sold at high prices.
Goema had never existed in Murim before, after all—they’d introduced an entirely new paradigm.
"We weren’t in a situation to bother with that."
I knew exactly how valuable they were, too, but while the boat was sinking in real time, was I supposed to leisurely collect corpses?
"Th-that’s true, but...."
At Geom Mujin’s logical and reasonable explanation, Dang Seorin ran out of things to say.
In the first place, Geom Mujin was the one who’d defeated the goema.
It was ridiculous for her to act like this when all she’d done was cheer him on from a safe distance by escaping first.
"And they’re not that expensive, anyway."
"Huh?"
I knew this field pretty damn well.
I could size up most goema just by looking at them.
The ones we’d seen on the boat didn’t have any special traits to speak of.
They were what you’d call chaff.
Even if you were being generous, their value sat somewhere in the lower-middle range out of upper, middle, and lower grades.
To count as mid-grade, they’d need to be at least on par with the wolf pelts I usually liked to use, or the bead-strung demonic wolf skins I’d gotten from Taehomun.
"So there’s no need to be disappointed."
If they’d been better than that, I would’ve scavenged them like my life depended on it.
"Y-yes...."
She said that, but some lingering regret still remained in Dang Seorin’s voice.
Forget value—goema materials were rare.
"Feeling calmer now?"
"Yes.... Thanks to you... hee—!?"
Dang Seorin nodded, then made a strange noise.
She’d realized exactly who she was standing in front of.
"Miss Seorin, a grown woman shouldn’t throw herself at an outside man like that."
"U-uhhe...."
Hayoung tugged Dang Seorin over toward her side.
"Especially black-haired men... no, no, that was out of line. Please pretend you didn’t hear that."
......
Hayoung covered her mouth with an "Oops!" gesture.
Pretend I didn’t hear what?
I heard all of it.
That was aimed at me, wasn’t it?
After I’d gone out of my way to save her, she still had some lingering grudge, huh?
"H-Hayoung, that’s not it."
Just then, Dang Seorin stepped in to defend me.
She even got serious for once.
"T-The Great Swordmaster would never be... pure-hearted about women, that black-haired barbarian..."
When was the last time someone else had defended me like that?
.....
...Come to think of it, maybe this was the first time ever.
"The Great Swordmaster has no interest in women at all... women are just humans with fat on their chests and hips..."
What?
No, I mean, that’s a little too far...
"Only the sword stirs his body and heart... more than even three meals a day, it’s the sword..."
Fine, the heart part I could accept, but "stirs his body"? What kind of bullshit was that?
I was thinking I should stop her, but Dang Seorin’s mouth didn’t slow down.
"Not the warm, soft touch of a woman’s skin, but the cool, hard feel of a blade turns him into a beast..."
"So, the Great Swordmaster of the Seven Martial Stars is the kind of extraordinary—no, eccentric—man who can only be stirred by a sword. Thanks to that, I’ve gained enlightenment."
Thanks to her defense, Geom Mujin had gone from black-haired barbarian to sword addict.
Hayoung quietly took several steps back.
"What do you mean, enlightenment?"
Smack-!
A finger-flick landed on Dang Seorin’s crown.
"I have perfectly normal tastes in women! Long hair, a pure impression, beautiful legs, and someone who can be a good wife and mother, okay?"
"Aiee!"
Dang Seorin toppled backward, a lump swelling on the top of her head.
"Where the hell did you hear that kind of nonsense?"
"Uuuu... in Murim Monthly... the May issue, in the feature about the Seven Martial Stars..."
Rubbing the bump on her head, she answered with a miserable look.
Murim Monthly?
"You mean that thing the Beggars’ Sect prints and sells?"
"Y-yes...."
What the hell! Those beggar bastards really wanted to die, didn’t they!
Murim Monthly was one of the Beggars’ Sect’s business ventures.
When it came to handling information, they were top of the food chain in Murim.
Among that information were plenty of spicy tidbits that could grab the public’s attention, and those beggar bastards packaged them into books and sold them as merchandise.
Basically, it was celebrity gossip.
Were the facts accurate?
They did make a point of fact-checking, since they lived off information, but every now and then, like just now, they still screwed up.
And whenever that happened, the Beggars’ Sect’s official policy was...
-If you have complaints or suggestions, please visit the Beggars’ Sect main headquarters.
-The Beggars’ Sect’s ears are always open.
For the record, the Beggars’ Sect was a decentralized organization.
Unlike the other Nine Great Sects and Five Great Clans, they didn’t have a fixed base.
The place where the sect leader parked his ass became the Beggars’ Sect main headquarters.
Thanks to that, the Beggars’ Sect’s suggestion box had proudly recorded zero submissions ever since the monthly magazine was launched.
Another peaceful day for the Beggars’ Sect.
Those bastards.
Scratch, scratch—
After McDaria, now the Beggars’ Sect...
I really needed to pick a day and whip some discipline into them.
"T-the information in the magazine... is it fake?"
"What, you think it’d be real?"
The crap some beggar wrote versus a firsthand, real-life, unfiltered answer from the person involved.
Which one do you think was more accurate?
"Then the thing about how she approached the Maehyang Sword Lady, trying to covet her beloved sword, and ended up becoming her enemy—is that fake too...?"
"...No."
As for that guy and me...
Ugh, no point even talking about it.
"Mm...."
Just as my head was starting to ache, Dang Yulin twitched.
"S-sister..! Are you awake now...?"
"Where... am I?"
She opened her eyes with difficulty and asked.
"We’re at Wuhan Harbor."
"The harbor...? ...!?"
Dang Yulin looked around, then suddenly her eyes snapped wide open and she jumped down from Hayoung’s arms.
She’d remembered something important.
"You! Barbarian swordsman!"
Spotting Geom Mujin, she shouted with the fury of an enraged red panda.
"You’ve got some nerve showing up in front of the Sichuan Dang Clan!?"
"Tsk. That’s no way to speak to your benefactor."
Dang Yulin growled, but Geom Mujin remained calm.
"Benefactor my ass—"
"Let’s see. Who was it that saved your little sister after she was injured in the mountains and passed out?"
"T-the Great Swordmaster..."
"Hey!"
She glared at her sister, who answered immediately, but Dang Seorin only averted her eyes.
"And who was it that helped that sister and bravely infiltrated enemy territory to rescue the hostages?"
"....The Great Swordmaster."
"A-and that..."
At Hayoung’s answer, Dang Yulin’s face darkened.
She wanted to refute him, but every fact he was throwing at her was impossible to deny.
"Finally, who was it that stopped the inner energy from going berserk after an unexpected a.c.c.i.d.e.n.t. and almost poisoning all the others in the group?"
In the middle of all this, Geom Mujin casually turned the goema’s head being crushed by his palm into an “unexpected accident.”
It wasn’t intentional, so yeah, it was an accident.
......
Dang Yulin fell completely silent.
"Th, that’s...."
"What was that? Can’t hear you."
As her tightly shut lips trembled, Geom Mujin leaned in close, pretending to listen.
"B-barbar—"
"Now, now. Are you saying the Dang Clan’s been teaching people to use ethnically discriminatory language against their benefactors these days?"
At his rebuke, Dang Yulin flinched.
She glanced around, but neither Dang Seorin nor Hayoung was going to help her here.
"G-Great Swordmaster... Thank you for helping me."
As when dealing with enemies one needed persistence, when dealing with benefactors one needed manners.
As someone who inherited the direct bloodline of the Dang Clan, she couldn’t afford to neglect that.
"Good. I received that thanks nicely."
Watching her offer her gratitude with a strangely submissive look, I nodded.
That made it Dang Seorin, Hayoung, and Dang Yulin.
Three for three in the benefactor acknowledgment department!
"So, shall we settle accounts now?"
"S-settle accounts...?"
Seeing him unconsciously lick his lips, Dang Yulin clutched both shoulders.