How Does Namgung-hyeong Know That?
"A high-level succubus's tail is extraordinarily soft and silky."
"How does Namgung-hyeong know that?"
In a bustling inn, a group of young people sat chatting in one corner.
Handsome faces and refined speech. Hair and skin in excellent condition from careful upkeep. Clothes that, though they had chosen them as the cheap options, looked rather expensive to come by on a rural planet like this.
Young masters of the Orthodox faction.
The place they currently occupied was called BD City—a town situated a short distance above Morlaren Canyon.
Why, then, would scions of the Orthodox be visiting a backwater city on a backwater planet?
"A succubus's tail is an organ known as the 'external neural nanomaterial.' The higher the master's cultivation, the more developed this organ becomes—the nanomaterial aligns more neatly, making it even softer. And because it connects to the nervous system, it sometimes functions as an erogenous zone as well."
"That is not what I am asking. How do you know that, Namgung-hyeong?"
"I read it in an encyclopedia."
The man they called Namgung-hyeong was a strikingly handsome youth with brown hair. His golden-brown eyes flashed like a hawk's.
Namgung Hyeong was not his real name. It simply meant "older brother of the Namgung surname."
The Namgung Clan. Commonly known as the SouthPalace Clan.
There was no one who did not know that name.
The Namgung Clan was the foremost house in the galaxy—and the clan of the Martial God.
It was the family into which the Martial God Namgung Hwe had been born. Though the Martial God had sired no children and thus left no direct line, they were the descendants of his siblings, and so could be said to carry the blood of a god by indirect descent.
Of course, the Martial God had always called himself human rather than divine, and later generations of the Namgung Clan had never once claimed to possess divine blood.
Even so, they remained a divine house—the most important bloodline in the history of humankind.
The strongest clan, which had never once stepped down from its place as the foremost family of the Orthodox faction. The so-called First House of the Galaxy.
The reason they had held that position for so long was not simply because they were the family of a god.
On the contrary, they abhorred any abuse of the Martial God's prestige.
The Namgung Clan understood the weight of its name all too well. They were careful with every action. They were fanatically incorruptible, obsessively devoted to rooting out graft and impropriety. They strove, almost pathologically, to uphold the public good, the survival of the galaxy, and above all the values of chivalry and righteousness.
Such conduct had continued for hundreds of years, for thousands. A desperate struggle not to stain the Martial God's name.
And that struggle had elevated the Namgung name to the heavens. They had become the very symbol of humanity itself. A degree of trust higher than any other house or power in existence—that was their true strength.
Of course, quite apart from that trust, they were also the strongest in pure martial force.
They were the Martial God's clan, after all. How many secret manuals of Namgung Hwe himself must be stored in the family vaults? In raw power, too, they stood at the apex of the Orthodox faction.
Their sphere of influence was the largest as well.
Supreme trust. Supreme martial strength. The greatest power base.
From that perfect trinity came enormous capital—and with it, they realized the public good.
They founded charities and nonprofit committees, invested in education and training, and gave the galactic government their full support. The joke that the galactic government was the Namgung Clan was not entirely a joke. It rested on a certain amount of truth.
And so their name rose higher still…
With that greater name they grew stronger…
With the capital earned from that strength they gave back to society once more…
And so their name rose higher still…
They had kept at this cycle for a very long time.
At this point, it was almost frightening.
In other words: they were the real thing.
A true pillar of the Orthodox faction, standing on an entirely different plane from the half-baked pretenders who merely invoked the Orthodox name. The moment any rumor of corruption or abuse arose in some Orthodox house, their eyes would flip white and they would be the first to show up with blades drawn to enforce justice—absolute lunatics of righteousness.
They were the center of gravity that kept the Orthodox faction from sinking into graft and decay, and allowed it to remain a force of justice.
At any rate.
Namgung-hyeong was a direct descendant of that extraordinary house.
Of course, as the ages passed the Namgung Clan had grown so vast that even the direct line numbered a great many people. Still—he looked as though he had stepped straight out of a painting of the ideal Orthodox young master.
He had left his homeworld of Terra for the first time in his life and set foot in the outside world.
In other words: a complete novice of the martial world.
"No, but Namgung-hyeong—how can a man's hobby be reading encyclopedias? You are a genuine monster. You must barely have free time under the elite education of the Namgung Clan, and you spend those precious hours reading encyclopedias?"
Beside him, needling him without pause, sat his colleague and friend Hyukryeon Wiseol.
His full name was Hyukryeon Wiseol KindleLink.
Tall and lean, with narrow, slanted eyes that gave him the look of a weasel.
Hyukryeon Wiseol was a direct descendant of the Hyukryeon Clan.
The Hyukryeon Clan—also known as the KindleLink Clan—was a house that had existed since the Terra era, combining ancient tradition with real power. Not on the level of the Namgung Clan, but a force to be reckoned with in its own right.
And seated beside Namgung-hyeong and Hyukryeon Wiseol was a silver-haired young woman.
"Fufu. As expected of the Namgung Clan. The elite among elites, is it not so? Even the depth of one's effort is on another level."
Carina.
Her full name was Carina Normandy Rothschild.
Cascading silver hair worn straight. The speech of a Western noble lady. A face that would not have been out of place on a villainess from a storybook.
She, too, was a scion of a formidable house.
Carina belonged to a branch line of the Rothschild Clan—also known as the Judea Road House—and her talent had been recognized to the point that she was treated as virtually equal to the main line, a rising star of the family.
"As expected of Brother Namgung. The Namgung Clan, the elite above all elites—and among those elites, a two-character name that stands on an entirely different plane, is it not so?"
Carina spoke with open envy.
"Hahaha! And yet Namgung-hyeong is so embarrassed by that name that he asks everyone to call him Namgung-hyeong instead."
Hyukryeon Wiseol needled him further.
"Hmph! I simply cannot understand it! If it were me, I would wear it with pride!"
"Well, that is because you are a woman, Carina. Namgung-hyeong's name is the sort that would embarrass a man. It might have suited you rather well, though."
Namgung-hyeong's real name.
It was this:
"Is that not so? Namgung Rina?"
"Hmph. And what is wrong with Rina? It is perfectly pretty."
Namgung Rina.
That was Namgung-hyeong's true name.
"…It really is embarrassing…"
Namgung-hyeong's face colored slightly.
He might feel embarrassed, but in truth it was a name to be proud of.
Namgung Rina SouthPalace.
The "SouthPalace" at the end marked him as a member of the Namgung Clan, and the "Namgung" at the front marked him as a direct descendant. That alone made him a giant among giants.
But the truly remarkable part was the given name itself: Rina. A two-character name.
That alone revealed just how monstrous a human being this Namgung Rina was.
There was a special rule governing names in the Namgung Clan.
The rule against duplication.
Among the living, no two people could share the same name. If there was already a Namgung Byeok in the family, for example, no newborn child could take that name while he still lived.
That much was a sensible regulation to prevent confusion.
But there was a further clause.
What if this Namgung Byeok achieved great deeds in his lifetime and became a figure of legend?
Then the name Namgung Byeok would be permanently retired, preserved in honor of that person.
In other words, later generations could not use any name that shared the pronunciation of an illustrious ancestor's.
The origin of this naming law lay with the Martial God Namgung Hwe himself.
Who would dare take the Martial God's name? An unspoken rule had forbidden anyone from giving a child a name with the character "Hwe."
As the ages passed, the custom expanded until it became family tradition not to reuse the names of any ancestor of legendary stature—something like a ban on duplicate nicknames.
But the Namgung Clan was no ordinary house.
Their power base was vast, their population large, and the quality of their people so high that outstanding figures emerged in great numbers. To make matters worse, a tremendous span of time had already gone by.
Eventually the single-character names ran out completely—Namgung Byeok, Namgung Hon, and the like—and by the modern era even two-character names had grown scarce—Namgung Hyerin, Namgung Cheonha, and so on.
Family members now either took three-character names—Namgung Baeryedan, Namgung Yuhansul, and the like—or abandoned tradition altogether and named their children after Terra's natural landmarks: Namgung Everest, Namgung Amazon, and so forth.
And so what followed was a competition for names.
Children of the Namgung Clan lived under provisional names until their coming-of-age ceremony. At that ceremony they could choose their official names—and selection rights went in order of excellence, beginning with the most accomplished.
Naturally everyone wanted a two-character name. But two-character names were always in critically short supply. For a new two-character name to become available, some living Namgung with a two-character name had to die—and die without having achieved any special legacy.
For reference, average lifespans in the galactic age were long, and the higher a martial artist's cultivation, the longer they lived. The Namgung Clan was the strongest martial force in the galaxy. Neither failing to achieve great deeds nor dying young was particularly easy.
It was rather like diners waiting for a table at the most famous restaurant in the world—except that the order of the line was determined by academic rank.
In the end, only one or two two-character names became available in a given year, if that.
So what did it mean that Namgung-hyeong bore the name Namgung Rina?
It meant that in the Namgung Clan—the galaxy's strongest elite collective, a place where countless direct-line descendants and every genius child adopted from the branch lines of the entire galaxy competed without rest—he had recorded the highest scores of all and completed his coming-of-age ceremony at the top.
In short: a monster.
Hyukryeon Wiseol and Carina might tease him about the name so lightly, but deep down they held considerable respect.
A two-character name in the Namgung Clan was something even blood-coughing effort alone could not guarantee.
They understood the staggering depth of effort woven into the life Namgung Rina had lived.
"But… I had no choice… The only name available was Namgung Rina… There was one other candidate, but…"
"Oh my. What was the other two-character name?"
"Namgung Bonbon."
"???"
In other words, he had been forced to choose between Namgung Bonbon and Namgung Rina.
There had been no other option. With tears in his eyes, he had taken Namgung Rina.
"Namgung-hyeong… you did the right thing… Bonbon really would not have done."
"Indeed… Even so, Namgung Rina is a little embarrassing. In private, Namgung-hyeong feels warmer and better."
"Haha. Understood, Namgung-hyeong."
Feeling the heat of embarrassment, Namgung-hyeong ordered another drink as if his throat had gone dry.
Before they knew it, they had finished their meal.
Carina had picked out only the meat, declaring that cheap food did not suit her palate. Hyukryeon Wiseol had shoveled his down whether it suited him or not. Namgung-hyeong had cleaned his plate down to the last drop of sauce.
"So this is the taste of the Unorthodox… How mysterious!"
"Ah… Namgung-hyeong. That is what people call 'cheap food.' Does it suit your palate?"
"Truly novel! A flavor I never knew before! New experiences are irresistible!"
It was not sarcasm—only pure curiosity. He could not stand not knowing something.
Namgung-hyeong, novice of the martial world and absolute monarch of curiosity.