Eleven Forehead Flicks
“A… forehead flick?”
Honestly, watching the Lord of the Tang Family’s face twist like that, I wondered if I might have gone a little too far—but outwardly I put on a shameless, perfectly calm act.
“To gamble, there must always be a price.”
Education required a lesson. If this had been a real-money game, simply letting him taste the hollow ache of losing his coin would have been enough. But on a table staked with family heirlooms, that kind of deep lesson was impossible.
If he had slumped in genuine despair—Ah, so I was cleanly taken in by that Nangin. Is this the true measure of my gambling skill…?—that would have been one thing.
But the face Tang Gwang-ryeol wore right now was pure gambling addict: the look of a man who only regretted that if there had been real money on the table, he could have won it. His entire way of thinking had already parted company with ordinary people. It was true he had grown somewhat used to my sleight of hand. But what did that mean in terms of probability? Even if his win rate had climbed, anyone could see that mine was still overwhelmingly higher.
Was it normal to go from a one-in-ten chance to two-in-ten, three-in-ten, and then sit there fretting that if you’d only pushed a little further you would have won? A normal person would have decided it was time to cut their losses and bolted from the seat.
The patient’s condition was more severe than I had expected.
So if counseling alone wouldn’t do it—wasn’t it time for physical therapy?
“Take a moment to think it over. Would you mind if I stepped out for some air under Brigade Leader Pungyeong’s guidance?”
“Go ahead.”
Leaving Tang Gwang-ryeol to his grim-faced deliberation, I headed for the reception hall with Brigade Leader Pungyeong.
“Brigade Leader Pungyeong—what do you make of the clan head?”
“Hah… To be honest, he does seem rather deep in the thrall of gambling.”
“Do you agree that the clan head needs treatment?”
Brigade Leader Pungyeong hesitated a moment, then nodded. Good. Guardian consent secured.
“Even from where I stand, in his current state he couldn’t beat Tang Do-gyeong even if he had the techniques. The situation is urgent in any number of ways—but urgency is no excuse for repeating bad moves.”
“There’s a chance the clan head may lose his reason, so I’d be grateful if you’d look out for me a little.”
“Of course. Stick close behind me.”
Guardian-slash-bodyguard successfully recruited.
“By the way, I understand that the clan head’s exclusive hidden weapons changed hands over gambling. Couldn’t you simply offer appropriate compensation and reclaim them? Is there really a reason to go this far?”
“Heh heh. That is a problem in its own right—but the real issue is that the clan head lost to Tang Do-gyeong at gambling at all.”
So there was something about the Tang Family I didn’t know.
“What of the heads of other great houses? Naturally, as men who live their lives in the Murim, a certain level of martial strength is expected. But strictly speaking, a clan head is merely the representative of his house. There is no absolute requirement that he be the strongest within it.”
“Mm.”
“But the head of the Tang Family must be undefeated. He receives not only the clan head’s exclusive hidden weapons, but the finest weapons and the finest poisons first. Whatever else they may overlook, when it comes to martial arts, the people of the Tang Family take it as a given that their clan head holds the highest seat. But is that truly a given?”
That was a fair point. To receive the best support and still be expected to produce the best results every time was a harsh demand.
“The head of the Tang Family is a seat that must accomplish exactly that—and our clan head has lived that way his entire life. You said he needs treatment, didn’t you? You’re right. The head of the Tang Family is a position that breeds chronic illness. A seat that cannot help but contract the disease of pursuing invincibility.”
“Mm…”
“Within the Tang Family, gambling and martial arts are considered closely linked—so the clan head’s loss to Do-gyeong at the gambling table is an event of the age. Especially since Do-gyeong is not even of the direct line yet, and still only a rising talent. The practical fallout may well be greater than a single clan-head weapon changing hands.”
“So the problem with the clan head’s exclusive weapons getting out is…”
“Exactly. Because it’s irrefutable proof that the clan head lost to Do-gyeong.”
“I see.”
I turned Brigade Leader Pungyeong’s words over carefully. The head of the Tang Family. The pressure of holding the highest seat. The fretting need to erase a defeat.
I chewed on what he had said, slowly. The more I turned it over, the more a single firm conclusion settled into place in my mind.
This…
Was just a gambling addict, wasn’t it?
What did the backstory of how he started gambling even matter? Brigade Leader Pungyeong had spoken with such persuasive force, and the man was the Lord of the Tang Family, so for a moment I’d been dazzled into thinking it all sounded profound.
Ah—so he could never afford to lose at gambling, and to cover his losses he staked something bigger, and so he spiraled toward ruin until he was sitting on the street muttering, Listen, even if I’m in this state now, back in the day I was the head of a house everyone knew by name!—how was that any different from a homeless man living on old memories?
Emotional sympathy was not much help in solving a problem. Brigade Leader Pungyeong had probably just wanted to plead his superior’s hardships… but there was no grave without a story.
And if we were ranking stories, no one had one like mine. I’d been gaming in my room when a truck fell out of the sky and hit me, and now I was eight years into this miserable grind!
Let me be perfectly clear: gambling addiction is first and foremost a failure of self-control, and secondarily a failure of real consequence.
What is that failure of real consequence? It is the state in which, despite causing a disaster through lack of restraint, luck or some other factor keeps a person from properly experiencing the results.
Tang Gwang-ryeol probably thought his current situation was rock bottom. As clan head, he had lost to Tang Do-gyeong and suffered a stain he could never wash out—or so he believed. But beneath the floor there is always a basement. Only when he had been thoroughly, bone-deep humiliated would he be able to reform.
“If the clan head refuses, I’ll take that as proof he still has self-control and stick quietly to the lessons. If he doesn’t… then we’re agreed I proceed my own way?”
Brigade Leader Pungyeong nodded at once. Clearly he still trusted the clan head’s restraint.
The moment we returned with Brigade Leader Pungyeong, Tang Gwang-ryeol made his declaration.
“I’ll take the family heirlooms as the stake!”
And Brigade Leader Pungyeong’s head sank.
Needless to say, reclaiming Tang Gwang-ryeol’s ten family heirlooms did not take long.
Tang Gwang-ryeol stared at the ceiling in bitter regret. It was true he was gradually adapting to my Yabawi. His win rate had probably climbed to four or five tenths by now. A state in which he saw only possibility and never risk.
“Shall we go again?”
“…Fine!”
“Then first you’ll need to settle up.”
Brigade Leader Pungyeong, who had resolved not to interfere, kept clearing his throat in frustration—but by now such sounds no longer reached Tang Gwang-ryeol’s ears.
“…Nngh.”
Tang Gwang-ryeol thrust his face forward with clear reluctance. I loaded a forehead flick into my right hand and took aim at his brow.
My Strength stat was 9. The upper limit of a mere Second-rate, so it sounded trivial—but a Strength of 9 was training that could match a professional athlete. In grip strength alone, it was enough to crush a walnut shell.
Thwack!
A Strength-9 fire-flick detonated against Tang Gwang-ryeol’s forehead.
“Heh… heh heh… You Nangin have quite a sting in your fingers.”
The hand rubbing his forehead was trembling. The cross-shaped veins standing out on his brow twitched; he was clearly seething. The look he fixed on me was sharp enough that I hastily changed the subject.
“Heh heh—shouldn’t we get back to gambling?”
“Hoo. Right. We should.”
Tang Gwang-ryeol shook his head to clear it. Fighting spirit blazed unmistakably in both eyes.
On the fourth round of Yabawi, I deliberately lost once.
“That’s it! Finally!”
It was only a single-heirloom stake, but it was Tang Gwang-ryeol’s first win. He was so delighted he shot up from his seat and threw an uppercut. Watching an elder edging into his later years rejoice like a child, I couldn’t help smiling myself.
Haha. Clan Head—how does the taste of your first and last victory feel?
“Haha! You, Nangin! You’d better start sweating! Even one successful read multiplies the odds by four!”
Flushed with excitement, Tang Gwang-ryeol crowed with confidence—but not a single heirloom that had entered my hands ever left them again. After neatly lining up a hundred family heirlooms in perfect rows, I rose from my seat.
“Heh heh. Then let’s settle accounts and call it here.”
Dusk was already settling outside. Gambling at all was already a stretch to call official business, and we had long since passed the hour when a normal day’s work would end.
The clan head leapt up, shouting.
“What nonsense is that! You, Nangin! They say everything comes in threes—you ought to give me at least one more chance!”
“Heh heh… I’ve lost track of how many hours we’ve been at this Yabawi. But since the clan head finds it so hard to let go… how about five heirlooms for one forehead flick?”
“Even so, cutting it in half all of a sudden…”
“Heh heh. Unlike the clan head, I am merely a Second-rate martial artist. There’s only so much I can do about flagging stamina.”
At my theatrics, Tang Gwang-ryeol bit down hard on his lip—then finally nodded.
“Clan Head!”
“Brigade Leader Pungyeong, stay out of this!”
Brigade Leader Pungyeong could hold back no longer and intervened. From his perspective, Tang Gwang-ryeol’s relentless crawl toward the jaws of ruin must have been incomprehensible.
But Tang Gwang-ryeol had already taken my bait. Brigade Leader Pungyeong was too busy focusing on the fuming clan head to notice—but I had been steadily eroding the man’s reason with subtle performance: a slight twist of the mouth, a faint smile in the eyes.
Tang Gwang-ryeol still hadn’t learned enough. To absorb my gambling techniques in a short time, a receptive attitude was essential—and how was I supposed to work with a man who already believed himself a gambling master? He needed to be sent to rock bottom for a full mental overhaul.
All of this was for Tang Gwang-ryeol’s own good. Honestly speaking—getting a few forehead flicks from a Nangin, was that even rock bottom? Preventing a true descent into the abyss with nothing more than a lump on the forehead was practically a stroke of fortune.
“Then kindly present your forehead.”
Thwack!
Struck on the brow, Tang Gwang-ryeol snorted like a water buffalo and steeled his fighting spirit—but the five heirlooms melted away in an instant.
I let out a long sigh of relief and leaned back in my chair. How would this look to Tang Gwang-ryeol? At a glance, it would seem I had simply gone limp from the long stretch of Yabawi…
“You, Nangin! One last round!”
To him alone, my posture would have read as: Ah, the Yabawi nearly got read—barely scraped through. Whew. That was close~
“Heh heh, Clan Head. Didn’t we just say the last round a moment ago?”
“Ending it like this leaves a bitter taste! I’ve heard of last-hand reversals at the gambling table! I’ll put up fifteen family heirlooms—let’s settle it with one final round!”
Tang Gwang-ryeol, putting his whole soul into swallowing the bait I had dangled. Right—two forehead flicks, was that really the abyss?
“Heh heh. Then shall we decide the final round with eleven forehead flicks on the line?”
“Eleven… flicks? Fine! That’s exactly what I wanted!”
The final round. I lifted the cups.
Swish. Swish-swish. Swish-swish-swish-swish!
And Tang Gwang-ryeol’s mouth fell open.
I’d been wondering how to close out the day, and decided this was the method that would deliver the greatest shock.
Internal energy.
I was burning internal energy without restraint as I worked the Yabawi.
Watching this, Tang Gwang-ryeol would finally realize that until now I had been gambling with pure physical ability alone—no internal energy at all.
Even as a mere Second-rate, he had been treating this as a contest between martial artists. The mental impact of the Yabawi before him now would be considerable.
It was like a sports story where, in the middle of what seemed a blazing, evenly matched duel, the opponent suddenly switched the racket to the other hand.
Actually, I’m left-handed!
As if saying: the truth is, until this moment I never used internal energy against you! Take this—my true ultimate technique! Internal Energy Yabawi Art!
I could practically see that kind of fantasy racing through Tang Gwang-ryeol’s head.
Tak.
The cups stopped. Tang Gwang-ryeol froze in the same posture.
“Choose, Clan Head.”
With dead eyes, Tang Gwang-ryeol wordlessly knocked over a cup at random. Naturally, it was empty. Confirming it, he bowed his head.
I straightened both sleeves.
“I’ll deliver them in succession, Clan Head.”
There was no response, but a debt was a debt. I formed forehead flicks with both hands and took aim at his brow.
“I hope today’s events leave the clan head with much to reflect on. Starting tomorrow, from the proper mindset for gambling, to the hand techniques, all the way to the art of winning—I will pour everything I have into teaching you.”
Praying that these flicks would become exorcising strikes to drive the crooked thoughts from the Tang Family Head’s mind, I snapped my fingers.
Thwack-thwack! Thwack-thwack-thwack! Tha-tha-tha-thwack! Thwack!
In an instant, eleven consecutive hits rocked the clan head’s head backward—a pose that called to mind some great villain gunned down in a movie.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Clan Head.”
I ducked behind Brigade Leader Pungyeong for safety, but I genuinely hoped that by tomorrow Tang Gwang-ryeol would awaken to a proper state of mind.
Tang Gwang-ryeol did not move until the moment I left the clan head’s hall.