Cha Eunseol, Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs
Hongryeon, the Sword Demon assigned as his escort, stared in silence at the chest set before her. Inside was silver. All of it was silver. The whole of the chest was packed full of the stuff. With this alone, she would never have to fear hunger for the rest of her life—and not merely the absence of fear. She could live in open, shameless luxury.
It was a sum so staggering that anyone, offered it by anyone, would take it first and think later. The problem was the man who had given it to her: Baek Muheun of the Ghost Sword Baek Clan.
Hongryeon lifted her gaze to that face, decent only on the surface, and remembered the cruelties he had inflicted on her. She remembered everything he had done across the outer reaches of Tianshan.
How many women had he toyed with?
How many merchants had he threatened?
How many sects had he mocked?
…And how many Sword Demons had he ground underfoot like toys, for no better reason than that he was in a bad mood?
He was trash. The worst trash among trash. For the past two months—ever since the current clan head of the Ghost Sword Baek Clan had taken to his bed with rage-sickness—she had thought he was keeping somewhat quiet. And now he was playing a low, vicious game with her, dangling the one thing she wanted most in all the world.
Hongryeon looked at him. From behind her mask, her face twisted out of all shape, she stared up at the man before her. He was not smiling. His eyes were even lowered a little: a face that looked sorry. But after everything that had happened, she could only believe that even this was an act.
For nearly two months she had wondered whether he might finally have come to his senses. He had not. What was not, was not. He was toying with her—she was certain of it. The moment she reached for that chest, he would turn on her, stir the Soul-Binding Seal driven into the back of her hand, seize her life by the throat, and sneer that this was the full measure of her loyalty. He might even kill her. He had the authority to do it now. Whatever the past, with the clan head of the Ghost Sword Baek Clan laid up, he was exercising part of the rights over the Sword Demons in the clan head's stead.
So reaching for it was a bad move. Yearning for freedom was a bad move. Not one of those things would do her any good.
Disgusting.
He was revolting beyond words. Revolting enough that she wanted to kill him on the spot.
Sword Demon Hongryeon spoke.
"I am fine."
Through gritted teeth. With her hostility fully armed. Crushing down even the urge to kill the man who was toying with her using the one thing she wanted most—endlessly, endlessly—she said that she was fine, and packed the words with a bleak, bone-deep resentment.
Because hers had always been a life in which I am fine was the only thing she was permitted to say. Because she was a Sword Demon. Because she had been raised not as a person, but as a ghost.
"…I will continue to serve. My lord."
But the day this collar came off—the day the Soul-Binding Seals driven through her entire body disappeared, the day the one life she possessed was gone—she would kill him. No matter what it took.
Baek Muheun, standing right in front of her.
Things were not going the way I had planned.
"R-really? For real?"
"Yes."
"It's… freedom."
"I have no need of it. I will continue to serve."
Excessive loyalty!
And the important part was that there was not a single reason in the world for her to be excessively loyal to this Baek Muheun!
If I could at least see her bare face, I might have read something from her expression, but between those baggy clothes and that mask scrawled with bizarre characters, I couldn't make out a thing. Suggesting she take the mask off so we could talk felt, somehow, like a fine way to earn myself even more hostility. There was no rise or fall in her voice either. Reading what she was actually thinking was far too difficult!
"I'm telling you, you can leave."
"If that is an order."
"It's not an order… I'm telling you to pick whichever side you want…!"
"A Sword Demon is nothing but a sword, and does not think. If the master commands, we only obey."
And the moment the Soul-Binding Seal vanishes, that same sword sticks a blade in her master's throat!
I couldn't make sense of any of it, so in the end I gave up. But somehow, right after this exchange, an extra chill settled over the air, as if a sword drawn from its sheath were leveled at my neck. Somehow, I had the distinct feeling I had only bought myself more enmity…
Anyway, one thing I understood perfectly. I was screwed!
"Heh heh."
Life, ruined. Now what. Should I come up with another method? Or pile a second chest on top of the first? Maybe the money simply hadn't been enough. Considering the old grudges between us, I might need to stack several more chests before it evened out…
But here was the thing. The Ghost Sword Baek Clan was clearly a wealthy house, and yet the money I could actually spend myself amounted to almost nothing. The moment I spent even a little too freely—well, in the original story, there was a woman who came running.
The woman the original Baek Muheun had slapped across the face every time they met, telling her to stop clinging and making a nuisance of herself. The woman who, even so, never lost her nerve and came charging in all the same.
"Young Clan Head!"
Cha Eunseol. Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs of the Ghost Sword Baek Clan.
The young woman who used to bare her teeth the moment she laid eyes on me was, this time, shouting as if she meant to swallow me whole.
"Where did you spend money this time?! Well?!"
"No. It's. Nothing much…"
"Did you cause trouble again?! The moment I got up I thought my insides were going to flip inside out! I thought I was going to come down with rage-sickness too, I tell you!?"
Oh. Even so. In the story, she only ever lowered her voice and picked him apart point by point. This time she seemed genuinely, properly furious. She was even jabbing a finger at me.
Aah. Terrifying. I slowly curled in on myself like a small animal…
"Severance for one Sword Demon…"
"What severance?! Are you insane?! I said, are you insane?! What does retirement even mean for a Sword Demon?! What?!"
"Well. I figured she'd done enough…"
"Is this man for real?! After running around committing every filthy, doglike outrage under the sun…! Now you're pulling some nonsense like this…?"
Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs Cha Eunseol, who had been shouting, suddenly crumpled.
"…Huh?"
"What?"
"S-something's off. No. By now you ought to be raising a hand and yelling that I'm noisy, that I'm meddling, that I should mind my own business… why aren't you saying anything…?"
What did she mean, why.
Because she was right.
"I've been coming to my senses since two months ago."
"Who says that about themselves out loud?"
"That, too, is because I've come to my senses."
"What… no… then, since you're so reformed, go on and explain it. What severance? Hmm?"
"Sword Demons are people too!"
"A man born into the clan that raises Sword Demons—a man who's treated them like objects his whole life—doesn't get to say that, does he?!"
"I told you, I've come to my senses!"
"It's not as if you died and came back to life. How does a person change in an instant?!"
Huk. Had she caught me?
Cha Eunseol looked at me with suspicious eyes…
"You little bastard… you're not the Young Clan Head, are you?"
"What kind of nonsense is that."
"Well. It is nonsense, I'll give you that. There are how many Sword Demons watching this estate… and someone slips past all of them and plants a double? That isn't possible. Even if it were…"
Cha Eunseol let out a deep sigh.
"Fine. This is better, actually. At least we can talk. The reformed stand-in Young Clan Head."
"The modifiers keep piling on."
"So what. Anyway, you being quiet is nice. Then shall we talk business? You can't just help yourself to the clan's money like that. It's the most basic of basics. Until now it was possible because the Clan Head had said something about it, but with the Clan Head laid up from rage-sickness, the Elders' Council is the one leading the clan, so you need to restrain yourself. Hmm? Keep this up and even the little allowance you have left could get confiscated, you know?"
Wait.
"I'm not the one leading the clan?"
"The Young Clan Head doesn't do anything, does he? What's currently running the Ghost Sword Baek Clan is the Elders' Council. They're handling every matter, great and small, in your place."
So that was it. No wonder nobody had told me to do any work, even though I'd spent one month in a sickbed and the next shut up in the study.
Baek Muheun, you see, only really shows up after the incident known as the Blood Purge. Before that he appears here and there, but his role is practically an extra's. I'd had very little information on him, and now I understood why. Before all that, he'd been nothing but cold rice pushed to the side of the table…
"The Young Clan Head just needs to stay put. Now that you've come to your senses, please, just stay quiet. Understood?"
Staying put. My specialty!
But I couldn't do that, could I?
…Nah. Surely it was only because I was the Young Clan Head at the moment. Yeah. Once I rose to the clan head's seat, it would be different.
"So if I quietly take the clan head's seat like this… then I'll be able to do whatever I want with my clan's money…"
"You think so? That? The Clan Head gave a direct order from his sickbed. The current Young Clan Head is utterly unreliable, so from here on, decide matters in consultation with the Elders' Council. That's why ownership of the Sword Demons is currently split fifty-fifty. And they call it fifty-fifty… honestly, the present Elders' Council is probably running about ninety percent of the clan's Sword Demons on their own, you know? The person farthest from real power is the current Young Clan Head. Even if you ascend to the clan head's seat, nothing much will change. Things will only get tighter than they are now. So start adapting from today. To a life of spending less."
Only then did I understand why Baek Muheun doesn't pop up until after the Blood Purge…
This bastard was pure chaff until then, wasn't he?! No! After the Blood Purge he gets tangled in so deep he can never get out! One wrong step and I'll really be dragged in!
"Is there anyone who follows me?!"
"Would there be?"
"…Not even one?"
"After all the cruelties you've committed, isn't it strange to go looking for someone who'd follow the Young Clan Head of their own free will? If you use the Soul-Binding Seal, there are Sword Demons who'll obey, sure. But I doubt there are many. The Elders' Council has done a great deal of work under the table. I don't think it'll function properly."
"What about you?"
"Not me either? I'm the Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs. All I look at is money. I only came all the way here to be faithful to my duties."
Haha. The plan had failed from the very first step. Damn it. The whole point was to tidy up the clan's assets, and it looked as if I wouldn't even be allowed to tidy them up.
My head throbbed. Still… now that I knew what the problem was, I could at least try, couldn't I. Yeah. Let's give it a shot.
"Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs, Cha Eunseol!"
"What."
"What work was I originally supposed to be in charge of?"
"Having to explain that with my own mouth is already… haaah… Ah. Yes. I'm busy, so I'll send someone else, and you can just work things out with—"
"N-no. You explain it. The way you speak plainly to me is already different from the others. The rest of them will only tell me what I want to hear! Don't abandon me!"
"W-what is this?! Have you really come to your senses, or have you gone mad?! Don't cling to me! Where is there a Young Clan Head who hangs off the feet of a fully grown woman?!"
"Step on me and go! I'll do anything to survive!"
"Who said anyone's going to kill you?! I'm telling you to just live the way you normally do!"
I tussled with Cha Eunseol, and in the end it was her side that raised the white flag. Right. I was the Young Clan Head, no less. Even if the Young Clan Head's authority had hit the dirt, the name still carried weight!
"The Young Clan Head is currently the acting clan head, isn't he? Of course you should be overseeing how the clan runs, overall. The flow of funds. The dispatch of Sword Demons. The training process. Whether the merchant companies are operating properly, and so on—there's more than one thing to manage. The Elders' Council is doing all of that right now."
Hearing it laid out, something felt off.
"No, I understand that it's because I'm incompetent… but shouldn't they at least drop me a hint? How things are running. That sort of thing. If the current clan head is lying in a sickbed, the Young Clan Head ought to inherit that authority. I'm the acting clan head, aren't I?"
"You even entrusted them with the clan seal, didn't you? The Elders' Council? They're using it to stamp their own approvals as they please."
"I did?"
"Yes! The Young Clan Head did!"
"Why would I?"
"Well… it's closer to having it taken than to handing it over. But you did give it to them of your own accord. To the Elders' Council. Don't you remember? No. Better not to say it. Back then you really looked… ahem. Please pretend you didn't hear that."
Aigoo! This crazy bastard! He's completely lost it! For real!
"…I've changed my mind."
"Yes?"
"I'm getting my clan seal back first… What's the point of an acting clan head who doesn't even know how the clan is running!"
If I was going to skim a little here and a little there and build an escape fund, I first had to see how the clan actually operated. And for that, I had to recover the seal.
But then Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs Cha Eunseol said it to my face.
"Are you going to piss yourself again?"
"What?"
P-piiiiss myself?!
"What the Elders' Council wants is a Ghost Sword Baek Clan they can twist to their liking. If the Young Clan Head suddenly turns around and tries to run the clan his own way, do you think they'll be pleased? You might suffer something even worse than last time. Since I've already said this much, I might as well say it outright… The rumor has spread everywhere, Young Clan Head. That you dug in and refused to hand over the clan seal, and the moment the Elders' Council showed up with Sword Demons in tow, you were crushed under their killing intent and pissed yourself."
Aigoo! Aigoo! Baek Muheun, you son of a bitch! Just how far did you fall?! A rumor going around inside the clan that the Young Clan Head wets himself… You really went as far as a man can go!
I trembled all over. To think I might have to live through something that terrifying myself this time. Too scary. Becoming a man who had pissed himself in front of other people not once, but twice…
But there was no helping it.
To secure an escape fund, I had to be the one running the clan. Only then could I quietly dispose of assets and siphon the money without anyone noticing. There were plenty of other places to get money, sure, but if I went around hunting all of them down, word would get out eventually. And if word got out, what then? Right. I'd be handing the people already gunning for me one more reason to take aim. Worse, if I happened to catch the Heavenly Demon's eye… then I'd truly be forced aboard a sinking ship, with no way to get off halfway!
If the goal was to make an escape fund in secret, I had to reclaim power inside the clan. Which meant I needed real authority in my own hands. I had to be the one turning the businesses over if I was going to skim so much as a coin.
"You."
"Me?"
"What do you think? About me taking power back."
"Me?"
Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs Cha Eunseol asked it back, incredulous.
"You're… asking for my opinion?"
"If not you, who else is here?"
"…What… You're really not a double? You're asking my opinion, here? When you usually treated me like a bug?"
Ugh.
"I… I'm sorry?"
"What?"
"I'm sorry. Truly. I must have been a bit out of my mind. I didn't act my age, and all I did was commit cruelties. I'll apologize. Sincerely."
Cha Eunseol blinked. Absurd, she muttered. Ha. Honestly. This can't be real. She went on like that for a while, and then she grabbed her own head and tore at her hair.
"…You do know I'm the Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs, right?"
"Hm? I know."
"I am the Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs, but honestly, I have nothing. No power, or anything like it. I'm only a Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs for show. Do you even know what's so ridiculous about the Financial Affairs Pavilion itself? All I manage is money related to the Young Clan Head. A subcontractor, so to speak. Above me sits the Treasury Pavilion, run by the Elders' Council. I'm a pavilion master who isn't a real pavilion master—cut off from power, dedicated solely to cleaning up the Young Clan Head's shit. Park one girl under a troublesome bastard and let her take the scolding in his place. The end of my workday is being summoned to the Treasury Pavilion and getting my shins kicked, while I eat the curses meant for the Young Clan Head."
"Ahem."
"Anyway, I barely see any real work. All I do is record where the subsidy the Elders' Council doles out like pocket money happens to be leaking. I don't even have a proper merchant company. I don't even have a neighborhood hole-in-the-wall. I'm the Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs, and the only thing I actually do is keep the Young Clan Head's allowance ledger. That's the end of it. Do you understand? I am never going to succeed. Not in the Ghost Sword Baek Clan, at least. I fell out of favor with the Treasury Pavilion Master. That pig. He wanted to screw me, I turned him down, and he shoved me into a cesspit… ahem… But I have no intention of ending here. I want to show the people who look down on me just how frightening I am once I become their enemy."
Cha Eunseol folded her arms and looked at me sidelong.
"I want power. So if you've truly come to your senses—if you truly want something to change, if you truly want to win me over, if you truly want to apologize to me—then I'd rather have one promise than a thousand apologies. A promise that if I take the Young Clan Head's side, a benefit worthy of that will fall to me."
"Oh?"
"What's with the 'oh'? You want the clan seal back? You want to run the clan yourself instead of being the Elders' Council's puppet? It's close to impossible, but if I join in, who knows. So promise me. If the Young Clan Head's head has gone from the worst to at least halfway decent, promise you'll seat me beside it. And while you're at it, promise you'll actually take my words to heart. Don't ignore me like before!"
There was nothing in it for me to lose. I wasn't particularly interested in power. Yeah. I meant to throw the clan away and run before trouble arrived anyway. A clan I was going to discard in the end… wouldn't it be fine to hand it to her instead?
Besides, she was the first person to speak plainly to me. Fearless, this one. Pavilion Master of Financial Affairs Cha Eunseol. As I recalled, in the original she had defied him without a scrap of fear and died at Baek Muheun's hands. What was it again. On a day he was in a foul mood, she tacked on one unnecessary word and got her skull cracked open.
But this time would be different.
Because I was the one holding out my hand.
"Right hand of Baek Muheun, acting clan head of the Ghost Sword Baek Clan… Cha Eunseol. Help me find the clan seal."
"Right hand. I like it. I just hope this coming to your senses is the real thing. They say gambling beats living out your life in a cesspit, but if possible, I'd like the odds a little higher."
Cha Eunseol took my hand. Good. One ally secured, for now. Dedicated exclusively to cleaning up Baek Muheun's shit.
"Then shall we go find the clan seal together!"
"Why me?"
"Huh?! You're my right hand! You just said you would!"
"Thinking about it, this much you ought to handle yourself. How am I supposed to trust and follow a superior who can't even bring back the clan seal on his own?"
Cha Eunseol drew a cold, clean line. Why so cold. But then, well—this body must have been plenty vicious to her, too. I ought to allow for that much. Besides, I had a feeling I wouldn't particularly need Cha Eunseol's help for this one.
"Crushed by killing intent until he pissed himself, was it…"
"Closer to it streaming down."
"Quiet!"
Killing intent. Killing intent. Ha. A term straight out of a martial arts novel. But killing intent, in the end, was something you could fend off if you had a shield, wasn't it?
Fortunately, I had one. A shield. One Sword Demon who still hadn't retired, even after I'd paid her severance.
"Hongryeooon."
I called her name, carefully. The escort Sword Demon rose smoothly out of my shadow and knelt before me.
I smiled awkwardly. I really had no conscience. But what could I do? If the other side was going to make a show of force, then I ought to go wearing a sword of equal measure. I'd just ask her to help with this one thing. Make it sound as little like an order as possible. As inoffensive as I could manage!
"Will you help me out? I'll add a little more to the severance later. It's a request, of course. Not an order. All right?"
"……?"
The mask twitched.