Gong Ryun Is Back
After receiving word from Hyukryeon Wiseol, Namgung Hyeong finished his meeting with the archaeologist and stepped outside.
By evening, at the city's western main gate, he was able to receive the self-driving cars carrying the detained cultists.
The cultists sat inside the autonomously piloted vehicles with their pressure points sealed and their bodies bound tight. All of them were injured, but they had received first aid and had circulated their qi and regulated their breath on the way in, so for the moment their lives were in no danger.
One of them, however, was so grievously wounded that he hovered between life and death, and Namgung Hyeong hurried to get things handled.
He ordered them all detained. If they contacted their order and blabbed everything they had learned about the fortuitous opportunity, it would be a disaster — so he meant to keep them locked up at least until the matter of that opportunity was more or less resolved.
Their place of confinement, though, would be a hospital. The method was known as humanitarian detention.
Their personal devices would be confiscated, all outside contact cut off, and they would receive treatment in a hospital while they waited for formal investigative procedures to begin.
This was, after all, a galactic society with highly developed human rights. Even criminals were never left untreated and locked in some dark room — that sort of thing simply did not happen.
While they remained in custody, Namgung Hyeong would submit to the judicial authorities the evidence that they had privately exploited the fortuitous opportunity.
…That alone would not be enough to punish the Jami Star Cult itself. The order would almost certainly claim it had all been the overzealous, unilateral actions of a few devotees and cut them loose. From the moment the cult had sent these people here, they had surely been ready to discard them the instant trouble arose. And these cultists were fiercely loyal; they would accept being the sacrificial tail without complaint.
Namgung Hyeong's mood grew heavy. The galaxy was so vast that no matter how bright the light of righteousness, it could never reach every corner. Somewhere out there, darkness always lay in wait. Even if Ancestor Namgung Hwe himself returned, it was a thing that would go on forever, inevitable.
Still, Namgung Hyeong would simply do what he must. He might never match Ancestor Namgung Hwe — but if he worked diligently in the place that had been given to him, he could make this galaxy a handful brighter.
In any case, he had them escorted to the hospital at once.
The severely injured cult leader went to the emergency room; the rest were sealed into the hospital's isolation ward.
The isolation ward was a hospital space built for humanitarian detention — a freestanding building separate from the main complex. Every form of electromagnetic wave and telepathic transmission leaving the structure was monitored in real time, so there would be no leaking information to the outside.
In his capacity as a committee member, Namgung Hyeong completed the admission procedures and filed a request for the highest level of information quarantine.
There were various administrative steps involved, but Namgung Hyeong had memorized the manuals cold, so nothing gave him any real trouble. A true talent of both pen and sword — for all that he could seem oddly dense at times.
Even so, he found himself thinking that for work like this, the direction of a strategist and administrator like Hyukryeon Wiseol would have been welcome. For the record, Hyukryeon Wiseol and the other colleagues were still on their way back to the city.
By the time he finished everything, night had fallen.
"I've gone and made myself late!!!"
Namgung Hyeong bolted through the city on lightfoot technique.
There was still one more task left to him.
There was a person Hyukryeon Wiseol's party had missed — a victim of the cultists' brainwashing who, they said, had driven off toward the city.
He had to find that person and speak with them.
Earlier that afternoon, Hyukryeon Wiseol had given him the vehicle's license number.
With that, tracking its location had been possible.
Judging by the travel path, the driving AI built into the car was so wretched that it kept losing its way, and the arrival had been badly delayed. The car had only just entered the city a short while ago.
And by the time Namgung Hyeong finally reached it, the vehicle was already empty. The road nearby was a wreck.
"Hah!!! I must find them at once!!!"
Namgung Hyeong spread his sensory field wide. Fortunately, he felt a presence not far away.
He went to it, and found two figures facing each other.
One was the succubus who had appeared on the list of this planet's Ji-chul-gyeong martial artists that Hyukryeon Wiseol had given him.
And the other was…
That's my friend! Why are you here?! Don't tell me you've fallen for the cult's wicked schemes!!
In that moment, his friend raised a finger.
No — what in the world!!! That's a form of the Heavenly Demon Finger Flicking Art!!!
Namgung Hyeong, who seemed to know everything, recognized the technique at once.
If that goes wrong, this whole city will be gone!!! I have to do something!!!
The principle was not to interfere in a life-or-death duel — but a situation like this was the exception, and so Namgung Hyeong decided to intervene.
And so he saved the city, and saved his fallen friend as well! Yahoo!
End of flashback.
"What a thoroughly eventful day that was!"
Having wrapped up the whole affair, Namgung Hyeong returned to the lodging house feeling as if he were coming home in triumph.
Now all that remained was to wait for his colleagues to return.
The party arrived around dawn. Fortunately, none of them was seriously hurt.
They treated their injuries with emergency kits, then collapsed into sleep, exhausted to the bone.
Everyone looked so tired that he decided to tell them about his friend another time.
Namgung Hyeong, too, went to sleep. Another righteous day had passed.
Flash!
Gong Ryun opened his eyes.
It was a hospital.
"Huh? A hospital?"
It had been a very long time since Gong Ryun had been admitted to one. In the earliest days of his mercenary work, before he knew what he was doing, he had been run over by charging cosmic locusts a few times and ended up in a hospital bed. Once he got the hang of things, though, he had never been admitted again.
How had he ended up like this? Had he gotten hurt on a job?
He couldn't remember. It felt as if the film of his memory had snapped.
Still, little shards of recollection seemed to flicker at the edges… hmm… what came to mind was… purple…? Slippery…? Hmm. What was that?
…Uuugh.
No idea.
Maybe it would come back if he gave it more time.
He had definitely gotten hurt on a commission, though. The last place he remembered was… Morlaren Canyon, he thought. Had a nest of cosmic locusts set up there? If he had been caught off guard and taken a full-power charging attack from a fully grown swarm matriarch, that could easily have knocked him out.
Gong Ryun went through the discharge procedures for now.
He was told he had been lying there for three days, and that his wounds had all healed in the meantime.
There had been some minor brain damage, so he was advised to circulate his qi and regulate his breath often, and to abstain from alcohol and tobacco for two weeks.
Someone else had already paid the entire hospital bill. …Who?
"What on earth happened?"
Thinking Un-rang might know, he tried calling — but Un-rang knew nothing either. Un-rang had not even been aware that Gong Ryun had been hospitalized.
And even though Gong Ryun had vanished without a word for three whole days, Un-rang had simply figured that was just how things were.
"I assumed you'd gone camping in Morlaren Canyon. You know — that thing you've been doing lately, going out there with clients and camping out to drive around? If anything, I'm the one who feels slighted! You've hardly contacted me at all these days, have you? Too busy shopping for purple clothes to even eat with me!!"
"Huh? Did I do that?"
"And what is this about gifting bath bombs to an android! Where has your mind been lately!!"
"Ah. Was giving bath bombs to an android racist, by any chance?"
"Honestly, it's less about me being an android and more about two grown men exchanging that sort of thing. It feels unclean."
"Yeah, that does sound about right. Why on earth did I do that?"
With nothing much gained from the call, he headed home.
When he stepped into the tteokbokki shop on the first floor, he found the Succubus Boss chatting with a woman in green clothes.
The woman in green looked young at a glance, yet she wore the kind of old-fashioned style more often seen on aunties and grandmothers.
The two seemed to know each other; they sat at a table eating tteokbokki and talking quietly together.
The Succubus Boss lit up the moment she saw Gong Ryun.
"Oh my~~ Gong Ryun~~~ You're already out of the hospital~~~? Youth really does heal absurdly fast~~~~~"
"Ah!! So Boss, you know why I was admitted! What was it, exactly? It was a cosmic locust charge, right?"
"Aww~~~ So you don't remember well~~? Well, there was a bit of brain damage~~ But there won't be any aftereffects, so you're fine~~~"
"Good grief. An opponent strong enough to cause brain damage. The doctor said it looked like I'd been slammed into a hard floor over and over like a rice cake — do you know anything about that?"
"Mmm~~~~~~~~~~ Well~~~ It wasn't anything major~~ I'll explain little by little later~ later~ You just got out of the hospital, so your head must be spinning — go rest first~~ I'll make you something to eat, so go up to your room, wash up, get plenty of rest, and come back down~~"
"All right. So it wasn't anything too serious, then. I'll see you in a bit."
Gong Ryun felt a weight lift off his chest.
He climbed the stairs toward home. Ah — and speaking of which.
"Ah!! The Sangongcho!!!"
They needed water!!
Sure enough, when he reached the room where he kept the Sangongcho, the leaves were dry and brittle, thoroughly desiccated.
Nooooo! My babies!!!
Gong Ryun frantically filled a watering can.
And at that same moment, down on the first floor—
"No, look, Vice President. How could you fire something like that in the middle of the city? A person of your standing really ought to show some restraint."
"Aww~~~ Madam President~~~ I haven't even said a single word yet about whether I fired it or not~~~"
"How many people on this planet can even use a technique that strong? And in this city, the only master at the Earth-leaving Realm or above is you, Vice President."
"Well~~ there were circumstances~~~"
The Succubus Boss was in the middle of a meeting with the president of the Green Parents' Association — one of the highest authorities in the city, and a close friend of hers.