Hey, Comrades Faction—Won't You Join the Protectors?
"You filthy hypocrites! You don't get to call him Great Hero Tang! How is sitting on your hands and watching supposed to be the path that serves him?!"
"What absolute nonsense! I'd throw myself into a fire for Great Hero Tang too—but what good would that actually do him?! You're the real hypocrites, forcing a path of thorns on him just because you want to stand at his side!"
The clash between the two camps raged on with a ferocity that rivaled the great scholarly debates of old.
"A martial artist needs an unbreakable will—the kind that doesn't flinch from spilling blood to see their chivalry through!"
"If pure fighting spirit alone could solve this, we'd have done the same! Drawing your sword at the drop of a hat is nothing but a commoner's reckless bravado!"
"You bastard! Yeo Jinsang!"
"Jeong Sam! I always figured I'd have to beat you down someday and settle black from white—looks like that day's today!"
"Fine. Draw your sword! Martial artists settle things with steel!"
The two former comrades stormed off toward the training grounds, the rest of the nangin trailing after them in a roaring chorus of "Jeong Sam!" and "Yeo Jinsang!" I was mid dry-face-wash, wondering how on earth to fix this mess, when Heukmyo jabbed me in the side.
"Senior, we should go watch."
"Heukmyo. Read the room."
Those two really were evenly matched—wins and losses swung with the luck and condition of the day.
"Fine. Then how about the two of you tell me what you heard outside from the Tang Clan?"
Yu Sa-yeon approached our table with a look that said her head already ached.
"At this rate, even if the Tang Family comes for Tang Do-gyeong, it won't be easy."
"You're telling me. Those Comrades Faction types look ready to draw steel the second anyone says they're taking him."
Among the ones raising hell out on the sparring grounds were more than a few Peak Realm experts—and most of them were Comrades Faction.
If you asked why Peak Realm fighters were carrying on so undignified, the only answer was: because they were Peak. Once a nangin hit Super-Peak, they quit the wandering life and went off to claim some proper post somewhere. So where else were the Peak fighters of this Wanderer Inn ever going to get a chance to learn under a Super-Peak master?
Ordinary sects didn't even have Super-Peak experts, and even in the great sects that did, the number of people who could receive direct instruction from one was vanishingly small.
Tang Do-gyeong's visit—and the possibility that he might become a Sichuan nangin—was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them.
Which meant that when Tang Clan experts showed up to subdue him and drag him home, these people were fully prepared to draw weapons in a last-ditch free-for-all.
Heukmyo crunched a mouthful of puffed snacks and swallowed.
"Mmph. You two didn't know? Tang Do-gyeong is completely insane."
"Of course we knew that. We just didn't expect the support to run this deep."
"No—I'm saying he's crazier than either of you thought. Tang Do-gyeong taught the nangin his own personal techniques."
He did what? Was that bastard actually out of his mind?
"He really opened up his true personal arts? He taught them the Tang Family's fist, palm, and leg techniques? For real?"
"Not the Tang Family arts themselves—but he did pass on parts of the fist-palm-leg system he'd spent years compiling on his own."
"...Wow."
No wonder the nangin had lost their minds. Once you'd tasted martial arts refined by a Super-Peak expert, of course your eyes would spin. If my own ceiling weren't stuck at Second-rate, I'd have been over there shouting Tang Do-gyeong's name myself.
Yu Sa-yeon, who had gone rigid at the rumor that Tang Family arts had been leaked, melted with visible relief. Fair enough—if even a scrap of actual Tang Family martial arts had gotten out, the entire Wanderer Inn would have been massacred.
"Proof that Senior Ho was working even while he slept, maybe?"
"Yeah, well. Can't really argue with that one."
I'd thought Tang Do-gyeong was just reviewing the nangin's martial arts for them. I had no idea he was stripping down his own techniques and teaching them. Since nothing good ever came of catching his eye, I'd carefully managed my routes so our only meeting was that single hour of yabawi.
Which meant that while my eyes were elsewhere, Heukmyo had been circulating on their own, keeping watch on Tang Do-gyeong.
Considering Heukmyo had also been one of Tang Do-gyeong's sparring partners, that was no small risk on their part. Between the bet with me and the fever pitch of the Sichuan nangin, maybe Heukmyo had simply been pushed to the back burner.
With Yu Sa-yeon looking like a limp dishcloth, I filled Heukmyo in on what I'd discussed with the Tang Family people. Heukmyo had been working this crisis too, so asking for their take on how to resolve it seemed worthwhile.
"Hmm."
Heukmyo thought for a moment, then spoke.
"First thing we have to handle: the Tang Family's request, right? Until their people arrive, we stop Tang Do-gyeong from coming and going at the Wanderer Inn. And ideally, we keep him pinned here until they show up. That much correct?"
"Right."
"And the other thing we have to deal with is Tang Do-gyeong's request to join the Sichuan nangin. The Tang Family is screaming absolute no, Tang Do-gyeong is screaming take me in, and the nangin themselves have split into for and against and are brawling over it?"
"Right."
Wait. I was starting to see an angle here.
Between the nangin's uproar and Tang Do-gyeong's deranged streak, I'd been hit with so much dizzying news all day that my head had fogged over without me noticing.
Laying out the conditions this cleanly, though—a way through was starting to take shape.
"Then first, we call Tang Do-gyeong to the Wanderer Inn."
Heukmyo seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
"Yeah, that sounds right. As long as people don't see him coming and going from the Wanderer Inn, we're fine."
"Hmm."
Yu Sa-yeon was sharp enough that she'd already caught the gist of what the two of us were driving at.
"So we summon Tang Do-gyeong in secret in the dead of night and lock him up in the Wanderer Inn? And the pretext?"
"How about this? We say we're putting him through a few days of Wanderer Inn life as a trial—to test whether he can actually live as a Sichuan nangin."
"That's a good idea. The nangin will be thrilled just to have him around, so no complaints there. And the anti-nangin camp will hesitate once there's a 'trial' as cover."
"And Tang Do-gyeong ends up living at the Wanderer Inn either way... so he shouldn't have any major objections."
Whatever the real substance, as long as no one saw him enter or leave, the rumor that Tang Do-gyeong was frequenting the Wanderer Inn stayed bottled. If he slipped in unseen, from the outside it would look like he'd never come at all.
That settled both of the Tang Family's requests in one stroke—don't let them lose face, and keep Tang Do-gyeong contained.
"Then the real problem is when the Tang Family people come to take him... With the mood in the Wanderer Inn right now, half of them might rise up."
"Hmm. But the other half is opposed, so it might settle into a stalemate of sorts."
"That part we handle while Tang Do-gyeong is here—we steer public opinion in our favor."
Three heads put together, and this was the best we had. For now: lock Tang Do-gyeong in the inn under the pretext of a trial, then work hard at boosting the Protectors Faction's standing over the twin bastard factions those twin bastard comrades were leading—the Comrades Faction and the Protectors Faction.
That way, when the Tang Clan experts came to collect Tang Do-gyeong, the nangin wouldn't stand against them.
"Hey, you brats, cut it out! I said stop fighting, you little bastards! Jeong Sam!"
Yu Sa-yeon bellowed at the top of her lungs and shoved her way into the sparring grounds where the two of them were brawling. Something—a teapot, a cup, who knew—went flying, and the sound of shattering followed.
"You brats—I've had it up to here! Is the innkeeper a joke to you? Want me to throw you all out of your rooms? Nangin splitting into factions and fighting each other?!"
While Yu Sa-yeon wrangled the training-ground nangin like she was catching rats, I grabbed one of the go-betweens and asked them to pass word to Tang Do-gyeong that I'd be looking for him tonight. The go-between had eyes and ears of their own and could guess the situation well enough; they nodded and headed out.
"Well... looks like a whole new fight starts now."
It was time to cast off the mask of the sorcerer who commanded the power of the Phantom of the Vast Hell Sea, and be reborn as the foremost champion of the Protectors here at the Wanderer Inn.
From today until the Tang Family experts arrived, I would run full tilt toward one goal: turning every last nangin in this Wanderer Inn into Protectors Faction.
Heukmyo cackled.
"Wow, this is actually going to be fun. Got any honey snacks around?"
"Hey. From this moment on, you're Protectors Faction too. Got it?"
"The Comrades Faction sounds better, honestly... but fine, whatever."
"Ugh, damn it—Comrades is a hard no even if you beat me to death."
Keep poking the army trauma, why don't you. Heukmyo was a critical asset for this job, so I planned to work them hard.
Picture it: Heukmyo grabs some Comrades Faction nangin off the street, slams them into a wall, and goes, "Protectors Faction... you in?"—they'd nod on the spot. Of course, if I leaned too hard on Heukmyo's looks for fraudulent recruitment, the Comrades Faction would dig in and resist to the death, so I'd have to use that carefully.
Heukmyo must have sensed something off in my eyes, because they tried to edge a step back—I caught them by the shoulder.
Time to work, kitty.