Joining a Few Organizations Is Simply Civilized
When Gong Ryun hurried to the inn in answer to Un-rang's summons, the noise was already spilling out through the front doors.
It was the carbonara place where the samurai had fought a life-or-death duel last time. The whole building had been smashed down to its pillars, but someone had finally decided to rebuild it properly — the original two-story structure was now three, and the exterior looked clean and new.
He pushed open the door. Dozens of mercenaries packed the first floor, roaring and shouting at one another.
They had split into two camps, the center of the room marking the divide. Each side glared as if ready to devour the other, hands resting on their belts so they could draw at any moment.
What's going on?
Gong Ryun moved closer to get a read on the situation, scanning the room as he walked.
The first floor was wall-to-wall mercenaries. On the second and third floors, people with no stake in the fight sat at tables just to watch. Now that he looked, the interior design had changed too. Before, the floors had been ordinary separate levels; the rebuild had cut open the centers of the second and third floors so the upper stories could look down on the action — a coliseum layout. The same structure as that restaurant where the Three-Sword Style fighter had dueled Jason.
He turned his attention to the two rival packs. Most faces on one side were strangers. The other side held plenty of people he knew from mercenary work — and, decisively, Un-rang stood at the center of that group.
Guess I'm supposed to join that side.
Having figured out which camp was his, Gong Ryun started toward Un-rang.
Loro came into view as he drew near, working hard to match the mood by taunting the other side. The guy who'd hunted ostriches with them today was in the mix too — they'd never even exchanged names.
Gong Ryun edged through the crowd and went straight to Un-rang to get the story.
"Un-rang. I'm here."
Un-rang, who had been standing with his arms crossed and projecting an air of grave authority, turned his head and lit up with delight.
"Ohh!! Excellent timing, Gong Ryun!! We needed every last man we could get!!"
"What the hell is all this?"
"We got into it with the northern city boys! Over what happened at Morlaren Canyon!!"
Ah. Organization business, then.
Gong Ryun nodded.
In truth, he already belonged to unorthodox organizations — two of them, in fact.
One was the Mercenary Gate. The other was the South Mercenary Gate.
He hadn't joined either by choice. Living his life had simply enrolled him automatically.
The Mercenary Gate was the organization every mercenary in the galaxy joined by default. The moment you registered your face and DNA to start taking jobs, you were in.
There were no real obligations. It was closer to a self-built system the mercenaries had set up to make dealing with planetary governments easier. They provided services like the mercenary app and managed credit ratings.
Once you became a truly elite high-grade mercenary, the planetary branch would contact you and offer the rank of officer — a post that carried both the authority to shape the future of mercenaries on that planet and the duty to protect their way of life. Of course, Gong Ryun and the rest of the bottom-feeders gathered here held no authority and no duty. They just used the system's services.
Then there was the second organization he'd been auto-enrolled in: the South Mercenary Gate. Compared to the first, it was far more minor — and far more petty.
The South Mercenary Gate was the union of mercenaries working in the southern half of AE City. It stood opposed to the North Mercenary Gate up north. The city had been split clean down the middle: live in the south and you were South Mercenary Gate; live in the north and you were North Mercenary Gate.
It was human nature to divide into factions and start hating each other the moment you were shoved into one place. And these were uneducated, rough-edged mercenaries, so of course it was worse. Frankly, it was a miracle they hadn't torn themselves into east, west, north, and south.
They didn't go full gang war and butcher each other, thankfully. The unorthodox faction might be scum, but they still operated inside the law — surprisingly enough. At minimum they worked honest jobs and made a living. Still, even if they didn't kill each other outright, the two sides seized every chance to snarl and wage war of nerves.
Because of that, Gong Ryun couldn't take work up north. He'd taken jobs in the neutral east and west before, but accept a contract in the north and someone would start a fight over how dare you steal work from our turf.
This was what the unorthodox organizations called Gates.
Just as the orthodox faction divided into great families — the Namgung Clan, the Hyeokryeon Clan — or sects like Mount Hua and the Wudang, the unorthodox faction divided into Gates — the Hao Gate, the Mercenary Gate — or Leagues like the Black Snake League and the Sunken Palace League.
Leagues were corporate-style organizations. Gates were unions built around a particular trade or shared interest.
A trade-centered Gate, for example, was the Hao Gate: a union of everyday service workers — waitstaff, cashiers, taxi drivers. There was also the Salsu Moon, the assassins' union, and the Physicians' Gate for doctors.
The Mercenary Gate Gong Ryun had joined fell into that category. Trade-centered Gates were large and maintained planetary branches on every world.
Interest-based Gates felt more like loose clubs or local associations. Examples included the Great Drawing Gate, where every sword-drawing enthusiast in the galaxy signed up; the Iron Body Gate, where people with mechanical bodies shared intel on the latest models; and the Harbor Gate, an unorthodox neighborhood-watch organization formed to defend space stations against the Galactic Green Forest bandits.
Gong Ryun's second affiliation, the South Mercenary Gate, belonged to that latter type. Southern mercenaries had banded together purely to monopolize contracts in the southern districts and pocket the profits. It was a truly trivial, small-minded pretext. In scale, their grandeur didn't reach an inch beyond this one little city. Gates as small as the South Mercenary Gate weren't even formally registered. Organizations with the same name were probably scattered across the galaxy like dust.
Anyway, Gong Ryun was a forced member. He lived in the south, so without any prior notice he had simply already been enrolled.
He chose to look on the bright side. In this brutal galactic martial world, surviving without belonging to any organization at all was pure insanity.
Even ordinary civilians always belonged to at least one or two.
Your average convenience-store part-timer would at minimum be signed up with the Part-Timer Gate. (Full-timers joined the Hao Gate as well.)
The Mercenary Gate imposed no real duties, but the South Mercenary Gate, being smaller, was tighter-knit — which meant the occasional nuisance of being called up for a brawl like this. Still, they didn't collect dues, so he could put up with that much.
Sometimes, when the northern boys tried to shake down their rookies, the southerners would pour out in a swarm to fight back. Early in Gong Ryun's mercenary days, a nearby South Mercenary Gate man had stepped in when someone tried to pick a fight with him in the eastern district. Even the unorthodox had a bare minimum of loyalty.
Anyway.
Gong Ryun pressed Un-rang with another question.
"Did one of our people get beaten up in Morlaren Canyon or something?"
"Not that — it's about monopoly rights on contracts! Who gets exclusive claim to escort duty for the Morlaren Canyon survey teams!"
"What a petty little issue."
Gong Ryun's interest evaporated on the spot.
"This is a matter of the utmost importance!! Every mercenary in the city is frothing at the mouth to take those canyon survey escort jobs! You've heard the rumors of fortuitous encounters in the canyon, yes? Right now that work is every city mercenary's dream job!!"
"Can't they just split the contracts amicably? Or at least negotiate a division?"
"A foolish question. As if uneducated mercenaries could manage such a thing. Their way is for one side to take the whole monopoly."
"Fair enough. No chance these idiots make a rational call."
Gong Ryun accepted it. Morlaren Canyon happened to lie west of the city, which was the problem — east and west were neutral zones.
No cheerful sharing. No systematic negotiation. Especially not when the prize was this tempting; emotion always outran reason.
Better to settle it cleanly and take the monopoly. All or nothing. That matched the unorthodox temperament.
"Success means a jackpot, failure means total ruin… It thrills the heart like a gamble. Heh heh heh."
Gong Ryun firmly suppressed the urge to smack the back of the man's head.
The inn kept filling up.
People drawn by the racket, or reinforcements arriving to bolster either mercenary faction.
Crude insults flew back and forth without pause.
"You southern pig bastards! Time we sorted out the pecking order!!"
"Kee-hee-hee! You northern brats! Well said! After we sort the ranks, we'll grind you under our asses!!"
"See this massive axe?! I'll jam it between your cheeks and split you clean along the dotted line!!"
"See this nice straight dagger?! That's going straight up your asshole! Gonna feel a lot thicker than the sticks you're used to, hee-hee-hee!!"
"Couldn't find real fighters so you dragged along baby rookies?! Go home, kids! Kya-ha-ha!"
"You lot came to trash someone else's turf and you don't even have one decent heavy-hitter among you!!"
"You only know long from short once you measure! From where I stand, you all look pretty stubby!"
"Long tongue you've got! Ah-ha! Compensating for what's short down below, are we!!"
"Kya-ha-ha! Fight us right now, you cowards!!!"
"Bring it, you piles of trash!!!!!!"
Just as the vulgar shouting match hit its peak and hands began to draw steel one by one, someone shoved into the middle of them.
"Hey!! What do you think you're doing?!"
It was a waitress.
A cute, youthful-looking woman had forced her way into the center of the circle of hulking brothers and muscle-bound sisters who were busy glaring each other down, planted herself between the two sides, and roared at the top of her lungs.
"You're seriously going to brawl as a group inside the building?! Absolutely not! We only just finished remodeling! No way! If you're going to fight, take it outside!"
Un-rang offered an apologetic excuse.
"Heh heh. Deepest apologies for the disturbance. But these fellows came here first and started the ruckus, did they not?"
"Hey!! That's why I'm telling you to move! Fight in the street or find an actual arena!"
At that, the North Mercenary Gate's representative refused to stay quiet. A rough-faced muscleman, he snarled at the waitress.
"What?! You're refusing an inn life-or-death duel?! Inn life-or-death duels are a sacred custom handed down since the days of Terra, and the inn has no right to—"
"That's only for one-on-one fights! For group fights of two or more, small inns have the right of refusal! Even after the remodel and expansion, we're still legally registered as a small inn by building class! Pursuant to Article 12, Clause 7 of the Act on Merchant Protection and Support Regarding Life-or-Death Duels — Special Provisions on Life-or-Death Duels in Small Buildings, this establishment hereby exercises its right to refuse to provide a venue for the collective violence currently underway!"
"A waitress can't decide—"
"As the owner and legal rights-holder of this establishment is currently absent, and in accordance with the planetary government's registered proxy succession list for the inn life-or-death duel refusal right, I — the proprietor's granddaughter — will exercise the right of venue refusal by proxy!"
The waitress rattled off the legal articles with practiced speed, then beamed with pride.
Gong Ryun was mildly impressed.
Bolstered by her refreshing smackdown, the South Mercenary Gate mercenaries piled on with comments of their own.
"North Mercenary Gate just took one to the chin!"
"Ayy, well said! The boss's granddaughter's sharp as a tack!"
"Hey, you ignorant bastard! Boooo~~ trash!!"
The northern leader's face flushed crimson with shame. Embarrassed, he lashed out, clamping a hand on the waitress's shoulder and issuing a threat.
His hand, as massive as the rest of him, roughly seized her narrow shoulder.
"Hey! Waitress! I was being nice and you think I'm a joke?! You don't want something ugly to happen, you'd better start playing nice!"
That was a mistake.
"Haaah?"
The cuteness vanished from the waitress's face at once.
Her eyes flashed open and she looked up at him.
Shadows gathered across her features; the muscles of her face tightened until veins stood out.
And her tone shifted — a bone-chilling bellow.
"The fuck. You gonna let go?"
"…Huh?"
"You laying hands on a waitress? Get your filthy fucking hand off me right now, you shit-stain pig bastard, unless you want your throat cut."