Entering the Imperial Palace
"Hahaha. Well then, have a safe journey."
"Yes, Prefect. I'll pay my respects again once we've returned."
A lavish six-horse carriage, its golden banners streaming and glittering in the light, waited for us under the escort of more than ten mounted guards. The escorts' martial skill sat somewhere between first-rate and second-rate at best, but no madman would be foolish enough to lay a hand on a carriage flying the imperial banners—so their actual cultivation hardly mattered.
This would be the first truly luxurious carriage I'd ridden since arriving in Murim Cheonha.
The Bicheon Carriage… well, that one was more about speed than luxury.
"A high-class carriage really does ride differently."
The thick doors shut, and the world outside fell silent. Even the clatter of hooves reached us only as a distant murmur. If we hadn't been martial artists—if we'd been ordinary people—we might not have heard a sound from outside at all.
The seats were plush, and the jostling was markedly gentler than anything I'd known.
"It really does feel like an official procession."
Heukmyo patted the broad seat with both hands as she spoke.
"And waiting a day let us see how Sichuan has changed, too."
I thought of the Wanderer Inn and clicked my tongue in mild regret. I'd hoped to see everyone after so long, show off how much stronger Ho Cheon-an had become, and climb a few ranks while I was at it.
We'd stopped by the Wanderer Inn during our outing, but every last nangin was out on a commission. Only a handful of brokers held the fort; even Yu Sa-yeon was gone.
According to the brokers, manpower was so short that Yu Sa-yeon herself had taken to running jobs.
Every sort of riffraff had poured into the province, leaving a mountain of black-path thugs that needed sorting out. For every outsider they actively recruited, just as many assault commissions came flooding in.
The brokers had clung to Heukmyo and me, begging us to take just one raid job before we left. We'd barely managed to shake them off and escape.
"Are you all right, Miss Heukmyo? After all, you also had a hand in setting Sichuan's banner straight."
"I'm fine. Given my position, having my identity exposed would be far more of a hassle."
"Hmm. Still, it's a pity. Once the audience is over, what do you say to touring the imperial capital?"
"I'd like that."
"Heh. There's no shortage of sights in the capital."
The imperial capital—Luoyang.
The historical backdrop of Murim Cheonha was a completely fictional nation… but that didn't mean it had no history. Betrayals, princes' rebellions, power struggles, and all the rest—everything that tends to happen in history had happened here too.
Great clans rose, imperial authority waxed and waned, rebellions flared. Ordinarily, when the throne weakened or the provinces grew strong, the realm would fracture and a new dynasty would take its place. In this setting, though, things never quite reached that point; the empire simply continued under the same name.
In other words, they might swap out the emperor, but they never swapped out the name of the country.
A detailed history of the empire surely existed somewhere, but I had no particular interest in the past of a fictional nation that existed only as the backdrop of Murim Cheonha.
What mattered wasn't history—it was the present and the future.
I watched Heukmyo and Hyeok Gi-rin sketch out their Luoyang sightseeing plans and sorted through my own thoughts.
Maybe this, too, was one of the charms of travel. When you had no choice but to kill time on the road, you could afford to let your mind wander at leisure.
Luoyang, huh.
I cast back through my memory, searching for any event worth snagging while we were there.
Hmm.
Truth be told, players of Murim Cheonha didn't much care for Luoyang. More precisely, it was a region they avoided because it had so little of nutritional value.
Even in a martial world, Luoyang was the imperial capital. Raise a ruckus as a martial artist and punishment came down at once. Most martial artists had no ties to officialdom, so sentence reductions were hard to come by, and they found themselves in sticky situations with ease.
In return, the rewards available in the capital were nothing special. The best you could hope for by getting tangled up with the capital's power brokers was gold or an official post.
The monetary rewards were generous enough, true—but money could be earned anywhere, so there was no real need to come all the way to Luoyang. That left official rank as Luoyang's distinctive offering, and it wasn't particularly useful. A title carried real weight among civilians, but a martial artist of high cultivation already commanded the same kind of deference from ordinary folk that a bureaucrat did.
Officials might be held in higher regard than martial artists in a general sense… but high-realm martial artists were hardly low on the social ladder either.
And above all, there was this problem.
For a martial artist to succeed in the world of officialdom, what did you ultimately have to become? A military officer! Which meant—enlisting!
Enlisting. In a wuxia game. Were they out of their minds?
Even setting aside military trauma, if you asked whether there was any real advantage to joining the army, the answer was no. If you wanted subordinates, you could just found a sect.
Granted, a general commanding thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers and a sect master operated on different scales…
But this was a peaceful era without conflicts on a national scale. A general had no wars to fight with an army at his back.
Become a general and the only time you'd ever muster thousands of troops was when you possessed some dung-general NPC and barked, "This general is disappointed in you lot!" for a bit of drill-sergeant catharsis. There was no chance to feel the high of commanding thousands with real strategy. At best, a general of the imperial army might lead a few hundred soldiers to suppress bandits or river pirates—and sect masters could do that just as well.
Of course, becoming an imperial officer and ordering soldiers around was easier than running a sect. No publicity needed, no disciple recruitment, no managing the sect's finances. The state handled all of that for you.
But you got just as little in return. Pour your heart into training subordinates, and the moment your posting changed, it was over. Your income stopped at a government stipend.
All in all, Luoyang was a gilded empty shell.
"Senior! Is there anywhere you'd like to go?"
"Hmm? Not really. If it's a famous tourist spot, anywhere's fine."
"Heh. In the capital there's a place called the Gold-Iron Forge. It houses the largest kiln in all the Central Plains—the one capable of reaching the highest temperatures. Why not commission a weapon there?"
"Not a bad idea."
"Great! Then we'll add that to the list!"
Hyeok Gi-rin reeled off Luoyang's famous attractions one after another, and Heukmyo nodded along without a second thought, locking in the itinerary. Even a rough count in my head put the schedule well past a week already.
Just working through that list would be no small feat.
I'd tried to dig up some worthwhile events while we were in Luoyang, but nothing useful came to mind—and anything that did was trivial.
Fine. Clean and simple: collect the emperor's reward, do a bit of sightseeing with these two, and leave.
"I've heard that if you climb to the upper floors of Seongya Pavilion, you can take in all of Luoyang at a glance."
"Oh, is that so?"
"Then we'll go there too!"
With my thoughts settled, I joined the two of them in easy conversation about touring Luoyang.
"Oh? So this is Luoyang."
We opened the carriage windows and took in the view. Fundamentally, it wasn't so different from Sichuan. Sichuan, after all, was one of the most refined cities in the Central Plains.
But the atmosphere was unmistakably different.
Clean streets without a single street vendor. Crowds kept at a measured density.
It was clearly a controlled city. Thanks to that, the capital felt quiet relative to how many people filled it.
"Pardon me, heroes. Now that we've entered Luoyang, we should begin preparing for the palace audience. Shall we first secure an inn for the lady to stay at?"
"Please do."
The cavalry captain led us to a high-class establishment called the Yongsang Inn.
"Senior, I'll amuse myself here on my own, so hurry back. You too, Hero Hyeok Gi-rin!"
"Heh. We'll do our best."
We watched Heukmyo disappear into the inn, then set out for the Imperial Palace ourselves.
"Halt! What unit are you, and where from?"
"Imperial troops from Sichuan! This is a travel permit bearing the seal of Sama Yeom, Prefect of Sichuan!"
After the garrison forces conferred among themselves, we underwent a light inspection without even leaving the carriage.
"Welcome, guests of the Imperial Palace. Within the palace grounds, those without authorization are forbidden to carry weapons. For your safety, we ask that you entrust us with all your belongings—metal ornaments included. They will be returned when you depart the palace."
Only after handing over everything—swords, throwing knives, the Qi Thread Bracelet, health pills, coin pouches, the lot—were we allowed to enter the Imperial Palace.
"Oh…"
Clop. Clop.
The scenery inside the palace was magnificent. First to catch the eye were the vast, ornate halls. Every single roof tile bore delicate carved patterns, and ornaments seemed to melt naturally into pillars and rafters alike.
The endless stretch of work ground out of a craftsman's devotion seized the gaze at once.
The Imperial Palace was more than mere luxury.
Flagstone roads laid without a hair's breadth of gap or misalignment. Trees and flowers lined the paths, yet not a single fallen branch, leaf, or petal marred the roadside.
It felt as though the unreal had been unfurled into reality.
Even a layman like me could sense, in an instant, an overwhelming dignity.
"Remarkable."
"Yes. It is."
Hyeok Gi-rin looked proud as I praised what was, in a sense, her family home. A corner of my mind wondered whether she was even trying to hide that she was a princess—but I knew full well she was returning to the palace she could call home for the first time in a very long while, so I pretended not to notice.
Until we entered the palace, her expression had carried a quiet worry. The moment we were inside, she was positively glowing.
The carriage rolled on for some time before stopping before one of the halls.
"Welcome to Gongcheong Hall."
A host of palace maids greeted us with deep bows.
"Honored guests who have come to the Imperial Palace—before you are presented to members of the imperial family, we ask your understanding as we conduct the rites to purify body and mind."
The first procedure for meeting the emperor.
More than a week of killing time had just begun.