The Sahyeol Gate's Plot
That evening, once the hunt was finished and he had returned to the lodgings, Jin-soo went carefully through the auction house. An unexpected problem turned up.
Skills and items with heavy penalties ought to be easy enough to get hold of. That was what I thought.
There were no listings.
Then again, junk like this only eats a sales slot. People don't bother putting it up in the first place.
At first they tucked such things into their inventories, telling themselves they would sell later. Leave an item squatting on a single slot long enough, though, and the urge to throw it out began to stir. Throwing it away still felt wasteful, and there was always the chance it might prove useful someday — so more often than not, they either learned it themselves or handed it off to a companion for next to nothing.
High-level items are one thing. A skill book that starts at level 1 is genuinely awkward.
If someone's luck with item drops was so wretched that their auction slots sat empty, it might have been different. How common was a case like that, by any sensible measure?
No need to rush.
Whenever he had a spare moment, he could look in on the auction house and collect the listings one by one as they appeared. Jin-soo spent the rest of his time finishing the Skill Synthesis items and skills he had left undone the day before.
While Jin-soo was passing his days in that unhurried rhythm of hunting and rest—
A band of Players wrapped in a baleful aura was racing toward the Starting City of the Tower's 200th Floor at a frightening speed.
The Tower's 200th Floor was the first place where Players of three dimensions — Earth, Moosung, and Arius — met one another. For that reason, countless guilds and parties coexisted across it.
Sharing a space, however, did not mean they got along. Far more often, proximity turned them into bitter enemies.
And, contrary to what one might expect, guilds from different dimensions were less likely to treat one another as enemies than guilds born of the same dimension.
The ill will Earthlings had carried toward foreigners since long before the Tower, piled atop the old scores built up while they clawed at one another all the way to the 200th Floor, ran anything but shallow.
Israel and Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Russia and Ukraine, Britain and Ireland, Turkey and Greece, Brazil and Argentina, India and Pakistan — there was no shortage of pairs who had been at odds on Earth for one reason or another.
It was not unheard of for those who first met on Floor 100 to climb together as far as the 200th Floor, wash away the bad blood they had brought from Earth, and join hands. Far more often, though, the resentment only deepened.
Earth-born guilds, at least, ranked among the weakest on the 200th Floor, and so they tended, whenever they could, to link arms and pool their strength. Fight among themselves, and genuine disaster might well follow.
The relatively stronger guilds from Moosung and Arius were less given to that instinct. And so it was common enough for them to trade blows among their own.
Changsung Gate of the orthodox path and Sahyeol Gate of the unorthodox were a prime example. They had never quite gone as far as war, but their relations were so foul that contests held under the name of sparring regularly ended with men killing one another.
Perhaps that was why.
When word reached Sahyeol Gate's headquarters in the Final City that the branch in the Starting City had been annihilated by an enemy of unknown identity, the blame turned, as a matter of course, upon Changsung Gate. Changsung Gate all but leapt to deny it, insisting the affair had nothing to do with them.
Headquarters answered by dispatching its elites to the Starting City at once. The elites who arrived began a meticulous investigation of the branch, which had been reduced to ruins, and the results were not long in coming.
"We estimate the enemy to have been a single person."
"Lowest branch in the Starting City or not, Son Sanghyeok, a peak-realm master, was its head. They fell to one enemy?"
"Yes. There is no trace whatsoever of a melee fought by many. We judge that a supreme master of overwhelming power swept the branch alone."
"A supreme master's work, then. How likely is it that this supreme master is a Player from Earth, or from Arius?"
"Not even one chance in a hundred. We cannot tell whether the root of the martial art is orthodox or unorthodox, but the traces of the fight make it certain — this was the work of a master trained in proper martial arts. Players from Earth and Arius do learn martial arts on occasion. Not one of them has ever learned them to a level this high."
"So it was a Player from Moosung. One of our own."
"The probability is ninety-nine in a hundred, or higher."
"And the chance it was a Player of Changsung Gate?"
"Changsung Gate has at least ten supreme masters capable of sweeping the Starting City branch alone, so it is not impossible. There is, however, no clear evidence."
"It may have been Changsung Gate's doing. It may not. Either way, there is no proof," muttered So Chanseong, overall commander of the investigation unit, his face set hard.
"We'll start by searching the Changsung Gate branch in the Starting City."
"Changsung Gate will not permit it. And even supposing the culprit is one of their supreme masters, days have already passed. There is no reason he would still be lingering at the Starting City branch."
"That is not your concern."
At So Chanseong's words, the Player charged with the investigation ventured, carefully, to speak.
"Has the Gate Lord resolved upon war?"
"I believe I told you it was none of your concern."
"Forgive me."
At that, the investigating Player bowed his head in silence and withdrew. A smile, however, spread across his face.
The same smile touched the Sahyeol Gate Players who had overheard the exchange.
In So Chanseong's answer, every member of the investigation unit caught the thick smell of blood.
The Gate Lord has finally made his decision.
And who but Changsung Gate would dare lay a hand on our Sahyeol Gate?
If they play dumb and hide behind a lack of evidence, we tear their mouths open. That settles it.
At last — the chance to slaughter those hypocrites of Changsung Gate.
Most of the Sahyeol Gate Players carried grudges, great and small, against Players of Changsung Gate. They also believed their overall strength stood ahead of their rivals', and so they had no qualms about war.
I'd better take a proper cut of this.
The perfect chance to grow explosively stronger.
Once Changsung Gate is gone, who will be left to stop our Sahyeol Gate?
War meant casualties. That was inevitable. But the Players of Sahyeol Gate were far more accustomed to the sweetness of victory than to the pain of defeat. Until now, as they devoured orthodox and unorthodox sects alike, the times they had walked away with great profit and little damage vastly outnumbered the rest.
The mood is heating up.
Watching the investigation unit's morale rise, So Chanseong allowed himself a quiet smile.
Sahyeol Gate had been preparing for war with Changsung Gate from the very beginning. What they lacked was a justification, and without one they could not readily strike first. Pick a fight for no reason, and other orthodox sects might well ride to Changsung Gate's aid.
So they had laid their groundwork with care. Son Sanghyeok — belligerent, and exceptionally skilled — had been made branch head of the Starting City precisely in the hope that he would cause an incident.
If they had truly wanted a man of his temperament to sit quietly, they should never have appointed him lord of a city to begin with.
Son Sanghyeok was the classic sort who cringed before the strong and crushed the weak. Had the leadership of Sahyeol Gate meant to prevent conflict, they would long since have transferred him and set him beneath a martial artist capable of keeping him in line.
Even so, something about this feels wrong.
The intention had been to stir disputes, large and small, that would be difficult to pin on anyone, and so induce Changsung Gate to draw steel first. Annihilating an entire branch, however, was — given Changsung Gate's usual character — a far more violent stroke than necessary.
Did Geomsal Gate or Heukrim Hall play a hand in this?
They were unorthodox, like Sahyeol Gate, but on poor terms with it. Either of them might have schemed to force a head-on collision between Sahyeol Gate and Changsung Gate. Failing that, it could have been a ploy by some orthodox sect that bore Changsung Gate a grudge.
Or, by sheer rotten luck, they offended some unaffiliated supreme master and were wiped out for it.
Catching the true culprit behind the destruction of the Starting City branch was not So Chanseong's purpose. His mission was to make Changsung Gate the culprit of this affair, no matter whose hand had done the deed.
And in truth, the odds that the one responsible belongs to Changsung Gate are the highest of all.
It might not be so. That hardly mattered. They could simply bind Changsung Gate up with whoever was guilty and dispose of them together.
Above all else, the current Gate Lord of Sahyeol Gate and its leadership wanted a full-scale war. So Chanseong wanted the same.
Only a year left.
In one year, they would be forced to leave the Tower's 200th Floor. The present leadership had already seized, three years prior, most of the achievements to be gained on the 200th Floor. Worse, their levels had climbed so high that killing monsters scarcely brought a level-up anymore.
If faster growth had been what they wanted, they ought to have left the 200th Floor three years ago. But they could not bring themselves to abandon a life in which they reigned like kings and start again from the gutter, and so they had put it off, day after day.
Now the hour of forced departure was closing in.
And so the leadership resolved that, before they left the 200th Floor, they would make one proper killing through war.
The target, of course, was Changsung Gate, with whom they had collided time and again in matters great and small. If the enemy was Changsung Gate, there was no need to trouble themselves persuading the ordinary disciples.
Should the war fail to end quickly and drag into a long campaign, both Sahyeol Gate and Changsung Gate would suffer grievously — and if things went poorly, they might even destroy one another. To the leadership of Sahyeol Gate, however, who would be forced up to Floor 201 in a year's time regardless, that was no problem at all.
The Starting City branch has been annihilated. If Changsung Gate stands behind it, that is justification enough for war.
Sahyeol Gate would be the side that had suffered the great blow first and was answering with bloody revenge. Even orthodox sects on friendly terms with Changsung Gate would find it difficult to step in.
First, the rumors.
Something roughly along these lines would do. "The one who attacked the Sahyeol Gate branch in the Starting City is a supreme master of Changsung Gate." "The Changsung Gate branch in the Starting City, steadily driven back by the Sahyeol Gate branch, secretly dispatched a supreme master to wipe them out." "Traces of Changsung Gate's martial arts were discovered at the annihilated Sahyeol Gate branch." Rumors of that order, and the pretext would be piled high enough.
Tomorrow afternoon, I'll erase the Changsung Gate branch in the Starting City.
Drag the matter out, and Changsung Gate's headquarters might send reinforcements, or propose a joint investigation. In the worst case, the Players stationed at the Starting City branch might simply flee. A single day was just about right.
They have to die brutally, and in front of as many eyes as possible.
In truth, what Sahyeol Gate — hungry for war — dreaded most was Changsung Gate swallowing its fury even after a branch had been annihilated, coolly forming an investigation team, and picking apart right and wrong. The chance of Changsung Gate answering that way, however, was slim.
The Tower or the martial world — both are places ruled by strength.
In a world where the strong devoured the weak, show a soft face and enemies came running from every side, taking you for easy prey. Take a blow and stand there unmoving, and no one called it magnanimity. They called you a fool, and then everyone rushed in for a swing of their own.
Misunderstanding or mistake, whether a pretext had been given or not, whatever the reason — if the disciples of a subordinate branch were slaughtered and there was no retaliation, all the world would look down on Changsung Gate. Its own disciples would abandon their faith in the Gate Lord.
The leadership of Changsung Gate would have no shortage of doubts. They would not, however, have the leisure to coolly grasp the situation, let alone carry out an investigation.
This is only the beginning.
Beginning with the erasure of the Changsung Gate branch in the Starting City tomorrow, a war that reeked of blood would break out.
I'm looking forward to it.
So Chanseong summoned a subordinate, gave the order to spread the rumors, and turned in early, the better to leave nothing to chance in the opening clash that would come with the morrow.
Jin-soo and Shin Sua took seats in the restaurant on the first floor of the lodgings for breakfast. A full stomach made for a better hunt.
"So the massacre of the Sahyeol Gate branch was the work of a supreme master belonging to Changsung Gate?"
"You heard it as well? So did I. True enough, the Changsung Gate branch in this city has been losing a great deal of ground to the Sahyeol Gate branch."
"And who heads the Sahyeol Gate branch in this city? Blood Viper Hound Son Sanghyeok, a man who has reached the peak realm. Flash Spear Hero Ak Chanseo, branch head of Changsung Gate, is a first-rate master. Of course he would be outmatched."
"Even so — how could an orthodox sect like Changsung Gate do such a thing?"
"I know. I can scarcely believe it myself."
"Might it not be a frame-up?"
"There is a rumor that Sahyeol Gate found traces of an orthodox master's martial arts. And those traces, they say, closely resemble the arts of Prismatic Divine Sword Jo Unhaeng, a supreme master of Changsung Gate."
"Is that true? Prismatic Divine Sword Jo Unhaeng is a renowned master of the orthodox path, famed as a great hero. How could he commit so lawless an act…"
"How long do you mean to go on about great heroes and renowned orthodox masters? The Tower has no such things. Is the Tower not precisely the place where a renowned orthodox master can fall lower than some unorthodox lackey?"
"True enough. Then Sahyeol Gate, having taken a blow, will not sit quietly."
"Of course not. It seems they are preparing a massive retaliation. Word is that elites of Sahyeol Gate have crossed over in force from headquarters in the Final City."
"A storm of blood will sweep the whole city before long."
"So it will. We had best watch ourselves, lest we be caught up in it."
The talk of the Moosung-born Players reached the ears of Jin-soo and Shin Sua.
A master of Changsung Gate massacred the Sahyeol Gate branch, so Sahyeol Gate's elites came over in force for revenge? What kind of bullshit is this?
The one who had massacred the Sahyeol Gate branch in the Starting City was Jin-soo himself.
And yet Changsung Gate, which had done nothing at all, was about to have his crime dumped on its head and suffer retaliation for a deed it had never committed.
"Today's hunt is off."
"Because of what those people just said?"
"Yeah. I need to see how this is unfolding."
"All right. I'll help."
Jin-soo and Shin Sua finished a simple breakfast and left the lodgings in a hurry.