A Life-or-Death Duel Is Truly the Perfect Way to Resolve Conflict
(This episode features some rough language that lays bare the average speech and conduct of the unorthodox types.)
A bone-chilling silence swallowed the tavern whole.
And then…
From every direction, the spectators erupted into pure frenzy.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!!! This can't be happeninggggg!!!!!"
"So that's what it was about!!!!"
"He's a lunatic!!!! Absolute fucking lunatic!!!!"
"Is this a family drama!! Or a romance problem!!!!"
"What the hell does 'we had a good time' even mean!!!!"
"Don't tell me!!! He forced himself on the mother!!!!"
"Whaaaaat!! No way!!! We still don't know if it was rape or not!!! If it was forced, we could beat him to death right here and walk free!!!"
"Then this isn't a life-or-death duel—we should hand it over to the authorities!!!"
"Authorities my ass!!!! Just kill the bastard right here!!!!!!"
Then Three-Sword Style opened his mouth.
"Back then, Mother had gone to the trouble of putting on a bunny-girl outfit, you know. But her son was too dense to notice."
"It was consensual!!!! We're back in life-or-death duel territory!!!!!"
The crowd plunged into another cauldron of madness.
"No!!! If there was mutual consent, what the hell is even the problem!!"
"There's gotta be more to the reason!!"
"Maybe as a son he just couldn't stand it!! Imagine some random trash walking out of the same room as your mother one day!!! You could kill him and still be innocent!!!"
"Wait—it's definitely a single mother, right!! Don't tell me she's not!!!!"
"Of course it's a single mother!!! Wait, unless…!!!!!"
Unless.
Three-Sword Style spoke again.
"A widow wants to find a new connection, and instead of cheering her on…"
It was a single mother!
The people in the tavern breathed a strange sigh of relief. Chivalry was not yet dead in this galaxy.
Everyone looked a little calmer now.
"So it's just a son's revolt against having to call some trash 'Father.'"
"The son's a real filial boy. He must've been worried about his mother."
"If she's a widow, it can't be helped. This one's innocent."
"She's got to find a new partner. What else can she do."
"They settle it cleanly like men with blades, and at the end the son acknowledges him as Father. Classic plot."
"Heh heh heh. Life-or-death duels have been racking up big data for thousands of years—you can see the patterns by now."
The spectators turned warm and amicable.
Life-or-death duels had run through human history for millennia. Of course countless heroic tales of them had piled up and up. Everyone here had grown up hearing those stories from parents, teachers, and neighborhood older brothers, so the patterns were plain to the eye.
Just when it seemed headed for a happy ending—
Arm-Maxed roared a rebuttal.
"Shut up!!!!!! Three-Sword Style, you son of a bitch!!!! What you did is a crime!!!!!"
"Hm? What crime would that be? Is stealing a person's heart a crime?"
"Don't give me that bullshit!!!! I've got proof right here!!!!!!"
With that, Arm-Maxed Jason yanked a thick sheaf of papers from his coat and flung them into the air.
"These!!!!! Are the receipts for all the shit you scammed out of my mother while playing gigolo, you bastard!!!! Our entire family fortune that Mother spent her whole life building!!! You fraudulently stole it all!!!!!"
"Jason. That can't be right. Those were simply gifts your mother bought for me. The weather got cold, so she bought me a coat; my mouth got bored, so she bought me fine dining; my body was frail, so she bought me martial manuals—that sort of thing."
It wasn't over.
"What!!!! It was a gigolo scam??!!!"
"Kyaaaaaaah!!! Financial crime!!!!!!"
"This is just fucking criminal!!!"
"He drained the entire fortune!!!"
"Come to think of it, that Three-Sword Style guy is pretty handsome!!!"
"So that's why a face is terrifying!!!"
"A named mercenary doing gigolo work!!"
"Martial manuals aren't cheap!!!! The strong ones are even worse!!!!"
"How could this beeeee!!!!"
Arm-Maxed's face flushed purple. Thinking he was about to charge in for a real kill, the tavern fell silent.
But unlike Arm-Maxed, who looked ready to lunge at any second, Three-Sword Style still hadn't even reached for a weapon. Did he still have more to say?
Three-Sword Style calmly thundered at Arm-Maxed.
"Listen, Jason… even if this is a crime… how is that my fault?"
Jason looked flabbergasted.
"Wh… what??!!!"
"This is… your fault… you brought this on yourself…"
"What the fuck are you talking about, you bastard!!!!!!"
In that instant, Three-Sword Style exploded.
"I rebuke thee!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"???!!!"
"How lonely must a son have left his mother!!!!!! For her to fall for a scheme like that, that's what I'm saying!!!"
"What the hell is this crazy bastard saying!!!!!!"
"Jason, you!!! When was the last time you saw your mother's face!!!!! If not for this incident, you never even planned on going home, did you!!! How much your mother poured her heart out to me!!!!!"
"What the hell!!!!!!"
"Your mother raised you hard as a single parent so you'd never want for anything!! And her one and only child!! Always throwing harsh words at her!! Raising his voice!!! The second he got a little older he left without a word and never came back!!!!! Maybe calling once a year if she was lucky, and whenever she asked to see his face he said he was busy and refused!!!! You unfilial piece of shit!!!!!!!"
"That was because I was fucking busy!!! And that's just how it is when you go independent!!!"
"I rebuke thee!!!!!! And while doing that you pull stunts like cutting off your arm and attaching it!!!!! You borrowed money from your mother for that surgery, didn't you!!! Her heart was torn to shreds then!!!!!"
"Fucking dogshit!!! That still doesn't change the fact that you stole our family's money!!!!!"
"How is that 'our family's' money!!!! It's your mother's money, earned with her own sweat!! Don't tell me you were already planning to 'borrow' that savings later and spend it!!! You unconsciously thought of that money as yours, didn't you!!!!!"
"Shut your mouth, you bastard!!!! Either way it's our family's money!!!!! What Mother set aside as my marriage fund!!!!! Spit it out right now!!!!!!"
"You piece of trash!!!!! You're worse trash than I am!!!!!"
"You bastard!!!! The mouth-flapping ends now!!! Pick up your weapon, fuck!!!!! I'll kill you and sell that expensive sword to cover the losses!!!!!!"
"I may have played the gigolo, but somewhere along the way my heart became sincere!!! I'll half-kill you and remarry Arwen!!!!! Then I'll drive you out of the house so you can never return!!!!!!!"
"You fucking bastard, don't you dare say my mom's name with that mouth!!!!!!!"
Shock and reversal.
The tavern's atmosphere had gone beyond frenzy into something else entirely. Everyone screamed and bellowed as if possessed by asuras. Even with the life-or-death duel about to begin, the spectators didn't shut their mouths—they raved and poured out gasps of admiration. The material was that inflammatory.
"What the hell is thisssss!!!! I can't believe it!!!!!!"
"They were both trash bastards!!!!"
"Unfilial son versus gigolo!!! A trash big matchup!!!!"
"Both of them are such pieces of shit I don't know who to root for!!!!"
"This is the unorthodox!!!! Truly unorthodox to the core!!!"
"This is the unorthodox average????!!!!"
"I'm ashamed to be a mercenary like themmmmm!!!!"
"And the kill point is that the gigolo actually fell in love for real and wants to remarry!!!!"
And in that brief moment the atmosphere inside the tavern split cleanly in two.
Which of the two was the bigger bastard to kill.
"Financial fraud is a clear crime spelled out in the law!! No matter how unfilial the son is, he didn't break the law!!! The gigolo bastard should die!!!"
"What!! Unfiliality violates the heavenly bonds before it ever touches the law!! Does the law come before the heavenly bonds!!! The unfilial son deserves to die more!!!"
"Draining the money a mother scraped together with hardship makes him trash!!! And she's a single mother, no less!!!!"
"The son who abandoned that single mother like some elderly shut-in is the trash!!!!!"
"He seized the entire fortune, the entire fortune!!"
"They're remarrying anyway, so the assets will be joint now, won't they!!"
"It wasn't a cash transfer—he bought physical gifts, so even if the assets merge there's no way to get them back!!!"
"He bought martial manuals!! So the new husband just gets stronger and earns more to pay it back!!!"
"What makes you trust a gigolo bastard enough to jump to that!!!"
Gong Ryun and Un-rang had joined the debate and were going completely wild. Un-rang held back Gong Ryun as he tried to charge out.
"Let me gooooo!!!!!! I'm gonna kill him!!! I'll kill that bastard myself!!!!!!!! That fucking unfilial piece of shit!!!!!"
"Calm yourself, Gong Ryun!! He still didn't break the law itself, did he!! The one who defrauded the mother is more of a problem, no?"
"He should have taken proper care of his mother!!!!! She's a single mother!!! A single mother!!!! Mother raised him alone with love and devotion!!!!! And he doesn't even know that heart!!!!!!"
"Put the joint-lock technique away!!!"
"Kieeeeeeek!!! Arm-Maxed, you bastard, treat your mom right while she's still here!!!! Treat her well while she's alive!!!!!!"
The spectators' debate kept blazing higher.
"Anyway the unfilial son is worse trash!!!"
"No, the gigolo is worse trash!!!"
Trash versus trash.
This was the unorthodox.
One side bore the legal wrong of financial fraud; the other, the moral wrong of being unfilial.
Their sins blended together like a well-mixed sauce.
It was like a thread tangled into something utterly bizarre.
Truly a conflict worthy of a life-or-death duel.
"This is exactly the kind of case that needs a life-or-death duel!!!! There's no room for the authorities to step in here!!!!!"
"This can only be settled by the blade!!!!!"
"Decide it with swords!!!!!"
A knot tied too tight can only be cut by a blade.
Just as Alexander the Great had sliced through the knot with his sword.
"Fight!!! Both of you are trash so evenly matched no one can tell who's worse!!!! The God of Martial Arts will decide which is the greater trash!!! So fight!!! The God of Martial Arts will stand with the lesser trash!!! Survive and prove it!!!!"
Yes. Just as that nameless, fussy old geezer shouting from the third floor said.
That was what a life-or-death duel was.
That was what a martial artist's spirit was.
The tavern was thirsting for blood.