Request: Ambushing Da-jeoyong, the Pork Cutlet Expert of Gyeongyang Restaurant - 1

“Hmm.”

Today I had Heukmyo go through the brokers and bring back some requests. I still had my doubts about whether she was truly aiming to become the greatest Sichuan Nangin, but the way she kept following right behind me made it clear she was taking the wandering warrior life seriously.

Having Heukmyo as a partner was good for me too.

Just the fact that a Super-Peak expert—or at least a Peak Realm martial artist on the verge of Super-Peak—was listening to me was already a rare advantage.

If I could keep her properly on my side, I could finally poke at all the options my own lack of martial skill had forced me to leave alone.

So far Heukmyo had obeyed me without much fuss. Errands that had nothing to do with being a Nangin—handing out flyers, pasting notices at the Wanderer Inn, even playing assistant for some of my schemes.

Wait. Thinking about it now, I’d basically been treating her like a general-purpose gofer.

Surely she hadn’t stabbed me with a poison needle over the firewood-fetching job… right?

The fact that I couldn’t completely rule it out was the scary part.

“Ta-da! I’ve prepared the requests we can take today.”

My earlier impression hadn’t been wrong. Ever since the Tang Do-gyeong incident, the distance between Heukmyo and me had shrunk. Not the emotional kind—the physical kind.

She now stuck close enough that the slightest movement made our shoulders brush. After that day her sense of personal space had simply collapsed. I’d already flinched now and then because of her looks; having her this near was enough to make me jump.

There was definitely goodwill in the way she looked at me now. But why?

“Senior?”

“Ah, right. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Let’s see…”

The requests themselves looked ordinary enough.

“Hey, that Azure Snow Cat isn’t a regular cat, you know.”

“It’s just a somewhat large cat.”

To a Peak Realm expert, maybe cats and tigers really did look about the same. Then again, an Azure Snow Cat was a cat with a tiger’s bulk, so was it technically still a cat? If a cat grew to tiger size, wasn’t it just a tiger? Suddenly I was confused.

“Hmm.”

The Azure Snow Cat request was doable if we could just subdue the beast. The client had been searching for ages, so on top of the base fee we could squeeze out a nice bonus.

But today it was Da-jeoyong.

“What about Da-jeoyong? Think we can handle him?”

“Mm… if we take him down with a surprise attack it shouldn’t be hard. He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠commutes from home to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the sect every day, and the route is fixed.”

Whatever the truth of the Tang Do-gyeong incident had been, one thing was now clear:

Heukmyo wasn’t going to leave my side anytime ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠soon.

She generally followed my instructions well. If I could lock down just one more thing, we could start tackling all sorts of jobs together.

That one thing was command authority in combat.

By any normal standard, a Second-rate martial artist telling a Peak Realm expert how to fight was pure nonsense.

So I needed to secure that authority through agreement and proven results.

Da-jeoyong was a martial artist who had only just stepped into the Peak Realm. The only reason I even remembered this otherwise unremarkable Sichuan fighter was his name. To the people of the Central Plains who had never heard of Gyeongyang cuisine or pork cutlets, it was just another ordinary name.

“Can you move according to my instructions in a fight?”

“What do you mean? Don’t we just need to knock him out? A simple ambush should finish it.”

“True, but even if it’s a bit more work, let’s suppress him efficiently.”

My argument was basically unreasonable. It was like telling a hunter who could drop a rabbit with a single arrow that the arrow was too precious, so why not herd the rabbit into a trap instead.

Of course a hunter who could already hit the rabbit would push back…

“All right. So what exactly are you planning?”

“Huh?”

I’d prepared a whole speech in my head expecting her to refuse. In one breath it all evaporated.

“You said you had a plan. Let’s try it.”

Would she have agreed even if I’d just asked casually?

The thought crossed my mind, but I shook my head. I’d decided to change, so I had to do this properly.

She might nod lightly now, but if I wanted her to follow my orders even in a real crisis, she needed trust in those orders.

And trust came from results proven in actual combat.

I needed to burn the success of my plans into her mind at least a couple of times.

“So here’s the idea…”

I explained the plan to Heukmyo.

“Whoa, he looks ridiculously strong.”

Heukmyo let out a light gasp of admiration the moment she saw Da-jeoyong in the flesh. His presence really was something else. The classic muscle-pig build—thick, bulging muscles padded with a healthy layer of flesh. His arms were thicker than most men’s thighs. His palms looked twice the size of an ordinary man’s.

With hands like those, he probably didn’t even need a mallet when he made pork cutlets.

For a cook—or rather, for a martial artist—his face was surprisingly gentle. He looked like the kind of man who would blend right in behind a butcher’s counter.

“Let’s go.”

Heukmyo nodded and stepped out into the street. This request was purely about damaging Da-jeoyong’s reputation, so of course there needed to be witnesses.

Losing a formal duel against a Nangin dealt a heavy blow to one’s standing. But getting someone onto an official duel stage wasn’t easy. The reason duel-challenge delivery requests were so common was that a single challenge letter almost never got a response.

Only after repeated public disturbances drew enough eyes would a sect or individual finally accept just to make the noise stop.

It wasn’t a one- or two-day job.

That was why ambush requests like this existed. Sichuan folk would factor in the surprise element when they judged the result, but even so, the target’s prestige still took a hit.

Da-jeoyong flinched when Heukmyo suddenly blocked his path.

“Da-jeoyong. I challenge you to a duel.”

“I refuse.”

He turned her down coldly. From the look on his face, he clearly knew who she was. Among the current Sichuan Nangin there was only one woman—Heukmyo. Anyone who had heard the rumors of the female Sichuan Nangin who had once stood as Yeo Il-ye’s equal would know he had no chance of winning.

“I only display my martial arts on a proper duel stage. If you wish to fight me, send a formal challenge letter.”

There was no reason for Da-jeoyong to strike first. Yet instead of simply ambushing him we had issued this mild challenge for a reason.

Because I was confident we could make him charge us.

Heukmyo stared at Da-jeoyong’s head, which was reflecting the blazing summer sun.

“That’s why you have no hair.”

“……What?”

“A martial artist should never flee from a challenge. What good is it if only your head resembles the sun when your heart isn’t hot?”

Most practitioners of the Hot Yang Art lost their hair to the heat rising from their own bodies. Heat was the enemy of hair roots.

Heukmyo delivered the finishing blow to the trembling Da-jeoyong.

“Ah! Using the Solar Fist! You claim you won’t duel yet you strike first—how cowardly!”

“I’ll kill you!”

Da-jeoyong transformed into a literal demon of wrath and charged. Fists wreathed in flame, murderous aura pouring off him, he unleashed a ferocious barrage on Heukmyo. I climbed onto the rooftops.

Sichuan has a subtropical climate.

True to that climate, sudden showers were common and annual rainfall was abundant. Many houses therefore had large barrels for catching rainwater. Hauling water from a well was hard labor; with a barrel you could simply collect what fell from the sky.

Naturally the best place for a heavy barrel was the ground floor, but some households had installed them on the first-floor ceiling to catch runoff from the second floor.

And the spot where I had been lying in wait was exactly one of those places.

Summer had only just begun and the showers had already started, so the huge barrel was full to the brim.

“Here we go!”

KWA-AAAAAH!!

A barrel big enough to hold several grown men tipped over, and water poured down like a waterfall.

“Puh-huh-huh!”

The water bomb scored a direct hit on the head of Da-jeoyong, who had been charging Heukmyo in a blind rage.

Steam boiled up the instant the water touched him, but it lasted only a split second. In the next moment Da-jeoyong was soaked from head to toe.

“Y-you bastards…!”

He clenched his fists and tried to rage, yet no flames rose this time.

In the martial world people often said the human body was a microcosm of the universe, and that wasn’t empty Chinese exaggeration. Depending on the nature of the internal energy, the method, and the meridians it circulated through, the results truly were infinite.

The same held for Yang-strong or Yin-cold internal energy. When Yang-strong energy with its heating nature circulated through the blood and qi, the heat gradually intensified until, after the reinforcing stage, it became actual flame.

If First-rate was the realm of reinforcing the body with qi, what was Peak Realm? It was the realm of projecting qi outward.

Weapon users could coat their blades; bare-handed fighters could leave palm imprints or wrap their fists in fist qi.

“Th-this is…!”

On Da-jeoyong’s panicked fists only a pathetic little flame flickered—too weak even to call fire. Steam kept rising from his arms, but until every drop of water evaporated he would have a hard time producing proper fist qi.

For a Hot Yang Fist user the results of the internal art usually appeared from the shoulders downward. The internal energy that finally became flame traveled down the arms and concentrated in the fists.

So most of the heat that should have gathered from shoulder to fist was instead swallowed by his soaked body and clothes; only a tiny spark remained.

If Da-jeoyong had reached full maturity even within Peak Realm and could perfectly control his projected qi, the effect might not have been this dramatic. But he had only just stepped into Peak. When it came to fist qi he was still a beginner whose energy leaked from the shoulders.

“Aha.”

What was the true strength of the Hot Yang Art? Defense. Against an unarmed opponent, simply blocking or grabbing with those scorching fists was enough to inflict burns.

Those two oversized fists on that massive frame were Da-jeoyong’s greatest advantage. He hurriedly crossed them to meet Heukmyo’s sudden palm strike, but heat that belonged on a dying campfire couldn’t hurt her.

A palm technique packed with internal energy sent Da-jeoyong’s huge body flying.

Thud!

He hit the ground and did not get up.

That was the end of today’s request.