Severance -3

Once the morning's storm had passed, Tang Do-gyeong gathered every last Nangin and demonstrated his fist techniques while reciting the formulas for them.

He laid out the entire Fierce Tiger Fist for the Sichuan Nangins without holding anything back.

I studied hard right alongside them. Truth be told, the Fierce Tiger Fist fell short of a true Super-Peak Realm art in more ways than one, yet compared to anything else I could learn right now it stood on an entirely different plane. Even if I couldn't fully digest it, acquiring it was the only sensible move.

I had already learned the second form — Twin Tiger Fist Heads — so that meant I now possessed all seven forms of the first half of the Fierce Tiger Fist.

"This Tang fellow is lacking, so the Fierce Tiger Fist is nothing more than an incomplete art with only its first half. Still, I hope it proves of some use on the path you Nangins walk."

The Nangins returned the fist salute in a flurry of gratitude.

Watching Tang Do-gyeong exchange salutes with them and share warm conversation, I let out a long sigh. Even now I still couldn't make sense of the choice he had made...

"Senior."

"Ah, what is it? I'm already fretting myself to death over here."

"Aren't you curious about Tang Do-gyeong's personal history?"

I turned my head toward Black Cat. At some point she had put away the puffed snacks and taken on a slightly more serious air.

"You know something?"

"Enough of the information Senior wants, at least."

I looked at Black Cat for a moment, then shook my head. I had already guessed she was someone of real weight in the shadows. Super-Peak Realm, or Peak Realm close enough to it — of course she would have her own reach.

Having information on Tang Do-gyeong wouldn't be strange at all.

Hearing the story from Black Cat wouldn't have been a bad option, yet I still shook my head.

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"This kind of thing has to be done properly. Let's go ask ourselves."

In the alley beside the Soyo Inn I had Black Cat release her internal energy.

One of the Super-Peak experts from the Tang Family I had seen yesterday appeared as if to scout the place, and then Tang Dok-gi himself stepped into the alley. His face was dark; even at a glance it was plain he was deeply worried about Tang Do-gyeong.

"You've got quite the nerve, young man. To think the one who came out with the innkeeper that day was the very party involved in that affair."

Tang Dok-gi clearly remembered me from the time I had met him with Yu Sa-yeon.

I had covered my face with a black bamboo hat, but for experts of their level, reading a man's build and the habits written into his body was more than enough.

He seemed to have no idea at all why I had gone out of my way to seek him out.

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"There are a few things I wished to ask, so I came to pay my respects."

"Ha... you really are shameless."

Killing intent flickered in Tang Dok-gi's eyes.

"If only you hadn't raised that ruckus in front of the Golden Family that day...! No... no, that isn't right... Hah... what was going to happen simply happened."

Tang Dok-gi waved a hand in silence. Speak your piece and leave, the gesture seemed to say.

"If the severance goes through, what does the Tang Family intend to do with Brother Tang?"

"I don't know. I myself...! How am I supposed to guess at something that has never happened in the entire history of the Tang Family? All I can do is pour every last scrap of strength into making sure there is no punishment."

So even in the Tang Family's history this was a first. Severance itself was a grave matter, yet the actual offense was light enough that the outcome was anyone's guess.

"This may be an impertinent question, but may I ask why Brother Tang harbors such deep resentment toward the family?"

"Haha, that truly is an impertinent question. Why have you come to me with this?"

"Don't you need to know the cause before you can form a plan? If we want to turn Brother Tang's heart around, we first have to understand why it turned away."

I knew nothing of Tang Do-gyeong's personal history.

But I knew his traits, his stats, and his list of martial arts. I knew his combat patterns cold.

The Tang Do-gyeong I knew would never have chosen the option of severance.

That was why I was so confused.

To resolve that confusion I needed to know the man Tang Do-gyeong a little better — if only to close the gap between the choice the living Tang Do-gyeong had made and the information I held about him.

"...This is a story that must never leave this place."

Black Cat and I both nodded. Spreading tales of the Tang Family would gain us nothing, and besides, Black Cat already claimed to know it all.

"Do you know of the Tang Family's system of direct line, collateral line, and non-martial line?"

"I do."

In ordinary clans the bloodline of the family head is the direct line, and everyone else falls into the collateral lines.

The Tang Family is different.

There are simply too many people who carry the Tang surname for them to be locked into that kind of vertical structure. So the Tang Family selects its direct line.

The Tang Family is composed solely of those who bear the Tang name, yet its organization is closer to a martial sect than a traditional clan. From among the thousands of Tangs they gather only those ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with talent for the martial path and form the Tang Gate as a sect.

Ordinary great clans take in outsiders to fill out their numbers; the Tang Gate, already possessing more than enough people within the Tang bloodline alone, has no need to do so.

Add to that the peculiar nature of the Tang Family's main arts — hidden weapons and poison techniques. To use them you must continually manufacture poisons and projectiles, and the more you consume, the greater the power each individual can display.

Those who qualify to use the true secret-transmission hidden weapons and secret-transmission poisons of the Tang Family, and who specialize in those arts, are the ones who inherit the family's true martial legacy — the direct line.

The collateral line are ordinary martial artists who are permitted to learn Tang Family martial arts but are not allowed to use the secret-transmission weapons or deadly poisons.

The non-martial line are ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠those who carry the Tang surname yet do not practice martial arts as their profession.

Even so, they remain vital pillars of the family: gatherers who collect materials for poisons, merchants who buy those materials, craftsmen who have mastered ironworking to forge hidden weapons, apothecaries who compound poisons and medicines, and more.

Unlike a pure martial sect, the Tang Family possesses comprehensive capabilities, which is why it is a powerful local clan and why it calls itself the Tang Family rather than the Tang Gate.

"Dividing direct and collateral lines was partly a matter of talent, but it was also meant to account for differences in nature. Those whose gifts suited the family's secret techniques became the direct line; those who lacked that particular fit yet still possessed ordinary martial aptitude were classed as collateral."

"The problem... yes, the problem began around the time the war with the unorthodox sects broke out in Sichuan."

Tang Dok-gi let out a heavy sigh.

"The number of secret-transmission hidden weapons the Tang Family can produce is limited, so to increase our strength in the war against the unorthodox we had no choice but to expand the collateral line dramatically. When the war ended, our family's territory had grown enormously — so much that we couldn't manage it all and had to cede portions to other sects. But is seizing territory the end of it?"

"Of course not."

"Petty disturbances kept flaring up without end. So the collateral line worked themselves to the bone. The direct line can handle large-scale affairs, but their specialty is still hidden weapons and poison. Throwing rare secret weapons or releasing poison over every little brawl was hardly practical, so the collateral line had to go out."

"As time passed and things stabilized, whenever people spoke of famous experts of the Tang Family they thought of the collateral line. Tang Mun-gi — Do-gyeong's father and my old friend — was one of them. There were many among the collateral who excelled at the fist and palm arts, but even among them Mun-gi stood alone."

"After the great war with the unorthodox, Sichuan went through countless upheavals. The Sichuan Nangins. Sichuan Fortress. the Langya Sword. the Zhongnan Sect's sealing of its gates... Our Tang Family was seething no less than any other sect; it was simply buried under the other rumors that shook all of Sichuan, and nothing leaked outside the Tang Family Estate."

"That seething was Tang Mun-gi's declaration of a challenge for direct-line status."

Tang Dok-gi did not spell it out, but I understood well enough. Mun-gi's challenge had been the event that gave voice to the collateral line's discontent.

"With every unorthodox sect rooted out of Sichuan, the occasions for the direct line to step forward dwindled to almost nothing, while those who suffered in the explosively expanded Tang territory were the collateral..."

"Mun-gi insisted that the times had changed. Even as a man of fist and palm, he said, if he possessed sufficient qualifications he should be recognized as direct line, and he demanded a duel with the direct line."

"And he lost."

"Haha. That he did."

I had no idea how strong Tang Mun-gi had been. But against a direct-line expert who was fighting in earnest, victory was never in the cards.

Why does a martial art come to represent a sect or a great clan? Because it is the strongest. If Mount Hua's Plum Blossom Sword Art were weaker than its Plum Blossom Palm Art, why would Mount Hua have become a sword sect instead of a palm sect? The Tang Family is no different.

And hidden-weapon arts have a particular trait.

Throw enough money at them and they become stronger. Would the secret-transmission weapons that the family's full-strength craftsmen can produce only one a week or one a month really be weak? They are made even at that glacial pace precisely because they are worth it.

Even if he had been the fist dragon of the Tang Family, the depth of the family's fist and palm arts could never match that of its hidden-weapon arts. No matter how great the talent, before the gap in martial arts and the sheer power of money it would have crumbled helplessly.

"It was a bone-deep defeat for Mun-gi. Heh... where do you think Do-gyeong's temperament came from? He inherited every bit of it from Mun-gi. After losing to the direct line, Mun-gi abandoned the martial path and returned to the non-martial line... and Do-gyeong... took a heavy blow from seeing his father like that."

"So that was how it happened."

"Mun-gi's challenge became a turning point for the Tang Family as well. It narrowed the distance between direct and collateral lines, and it forced the leadership to hear the achievements and voices of the collateral. But Do-gyeong stopped the hidden-weapon training in which he had already been showing promise and suddenly turned onto the path of fist and palm."

And after that he became the Fighting Dog Tang Do-gyeong of today.

"Will this help?"

"Yes. Thank you for telling me."

Young Tang Do-gyeong, throwing himself onto the path of fist and palm to restore his father's honor. Yet while he grew, his father's affair simply became a thing of the past. With the distance between direct and collateral narrowed, the collateral's grievances naturally faded, and Tang Do-gyeong became nothing more than a nuisance to the family.

A wild child who kept dredging up a past incident that had already been neatly settled — that was how the leadership saw him.

What must it have felt like from Tang Do-gyeong's side? Watching the Tang Family grow more harmonious with each passing year, what thoughts had filled his mind?

Was the Tang Do-gyeong who developed his own unique martial art and devoted himself single-mindedly to the goal he had set as a child merely a willful boy who failed to understand the family's will? Or was he a great man who had held a firm resolve from childhood?

Was the changed Tang Family at fault? Or was the unbending Tang Do-gyeong at fault?

It was a difficult question.

Tang Dok-gi returned to the inn where he was staying, and I watched his retreating back while sinking into thought.

"Senior."

"...What?"

"From Senior's perspective, didn't this whole affair end ideally?"

Black Cat's words struck uncomfortably close to the mark in a certain sense.

"Tang Do-gyeong declared severance, so all the petty rumors about Senior will be swept away. From Senior's point of view things have worked out well, so there's no real need for Senior to step in any further, is there?"

"...Well."

Why had I originally wanted to get Tang Do-gyeong out of the Wanderer Inn as quickly as possible? Because if word spread that he was coming and going to compete with me at yabawi, my renown would climb by the day.

And now I no longer needed to worry about that.

Tang Do-gyeong's wagers no longer mattered. What mattered was that he had declared severance from the Tang Family itself. He had openly stated that he frequented the Wanderer Inn because he liked being a Nangin, so the rumor that he came for gambling would fade as well.

The whereabouts of the Blood Jade Tablet and the shell games surrounding it had suddenly become completely unimportant.

Rumors that had already spread could not be helped, but the talk that would occupy people's mouths for a while would be Tang Do-gyeong's expulsion declaration, not the wagers over the Blood Jade Tablet.

So whether Tang Do-gyeong was severed a week from now or not, I stood to lose nothing.

In the martial world, severance from a great clan is generally no different from expulsion from a sect; it is common to cripple the body so that the martial arts learned there can never be used again. Even a mild measure usually involves destroying the dantian.

Of course, expulsion is normally handed down only for crimes so foul they can never be washed clean. Tang Do-gyeong had committed nothing of the sort, so it was possible he would simply have his surname stripped and nothing more.

Even if he received an excessive punishment and became a cripple living out whatever life remained to him, that was the path he himself had chosen, and it had nothing to do with me.

"Martial arts."

Yet there was still a reason I had to intervene with Tang Do-gyeong.

Because the decision of the Tang Do-gyeong I had seen in Murim Cheonha and the decision of the Tang Do-gyeong of this now-real Murim were far too different.

When Tang Do-gyeong gains enlightenment he acquires a new trait.

That trait is Family Love.

It raises his stats when he acts alongside other companions who bear the Tang surname, and sometimes lets him throw a hidden weapon to save a companion with high favorability when they are in danger.

Because the Tang Do-gyeong who gains enlightenment awakens that trait, I had always assumed that deep inside him lay affection for his family. That was why I had believed that if a situation of extreme confrontation with his family ever arose, he would have no choice but to bend his stubbornness and yield.

"What?"

"I learned martial arts from him, didn't I?"

So I would give Tang Do-gyeong enlightenment and confirm it for myself. What exactly is enlightenment? How far can the power of enlightenment change a person? Could simply understanding a few lines of text, just like in the game, open the eyes of a Tang Do-gyeong who had chosen severance to family love?

I could not declare that I would give him enlightenment, so I used martial arts as the excuse.

"Heh-heh~"

Even I found the excuse so flimsy that I could only fall silent before Black Cat, who snorted as if it were not even worth laughing at.

"Well, shall we leave it at that?"

I decided I would give Tang Do-gyeong enlightenment.

That did not mean I intended to receive a Favor-and-Grudge Token from him as well.

A Favor-and-Grudge Token only gains meaning when it is handed over in the presence of others. The token itself is practically a blank check, so you have to declare it in advance if you want to handle matters without hesitation.

If the tail of "I gave him enlightenment" got stepped on in this affair as well, there would truly be no going back.

So I would have to arrange the situation and environment so that no one would think I was the one who gave it.

With the cooperation of the Wanderer Inn's people and by putting Yu Sa-yeon to work as well, slipping him enlightenment did not seem entirely impossible.

I named it Operation: Slip Enlightenment into Tang Do-gyeong's Pocket.

"Why pretend otherwise? Just say you like Tang Do-gyeong if you like him."

"Ha."

Black Cat's misunderstanding was so far off the mark that I could only snort. I was simply curious whether enlightenment could still change a person even in a situation like this.

I remembered the way Tang Do-gyeong had withdrawn cleanly even in the midst of his rage.

It was not that I had been moved by his chivalrous bearing, or that while learning the Fierce Tiger Fist he had created alone I had felt the passion he poured into it.

It was not that hearing his true feelings in the conversation with Tang Dok-gi had made me want to cheer him on.

Nor was it that if his dantian were sealed or his tendons cut I would keep thinking of him every time I tried to sleep.

I was paying no attention whatsoever to the way he had praised me for having guts.

"Hmm~ I see~ So there's no fondness at all~."

Leaving Black Cat's teasing — which painted my pure curiosity about giving Tang Do-gyeong enlightenment as something far less innocent — behind me, I headed for the Wanderer Inn.