Groundwork
It had become something that could only be called inevitability.
Wherever Yi Do went, the place was turned upside down.
Jangryeong Commandery had been overturned, and Bushin County had been overturned, and Jushin County had been overturned, and the Asura Sword Sect had been overturned, and now it was Sambong-hyeon's turn.
And yet.
What happened in Sambong-hyeon this time was on an almost entirely different dimension from everything that had come before.
He had killed not one but both Branch Masters.
It was not even a proper beheading.
Their limbs had been severed, their dantians left intact, and their necks hung from a tree. With no limbs, they could not smash their way out on their own, and though their dantians still lived, their blood pathways had been ruined beyond repair, so they could not even draw up their inner energy properly.
They wanted to do something — anything — to survive, but they could do nothing.
The two of them thrashed about like that for a long while before they finally died.
Expelling every filthy thing inside their bodies, weeping tears of blood as they went, the only thing they could see was despair.
It was the worst death a human being could inflict on another.
Their corpses became a spectacle. The people of Sambong-hyeon, whom the two had tormented, hurled stones at the bodies and spat on them.
No one took the corpses down.
Not even the magistrate of Sambong-hyeon moved to remove them.
After all, this was the Yi Do who had killed the Governor of Jangryeong Commandery, slaughtered the commandery's soldiers to the last man, and then cut down two hundred Imperial Guards who had come in pursuit.
From the magistrate's standpoint, keeping his head down was the correct move.
Yi Do and Un Do-hyeon appeared at that scene.
Yi Do asked.
"Are you satisfied?"
"...Yes. Thank you."
"There is no need to thank me. And do not be satisfied with just this."
Yi Do gazed up in silence at the two corpses, then continued.
"This is only the beginning. Do you understand?"
"...Yes. Thank you. Truly, thank you."
Yi Do almost emphasized again that there was no need for thanks — then stopped himself.
It seemed the same words would only come back anyway.
Yi Do held out his hand. As if he had been waiting for it, Un Do-hyeon passed him a thick bundle of paper. Taking it, Yi Do read through it slowly.
His brow furrowed.
"...They ran up quite a bill."
It was an itemized account. The bar tab, of course, along with all the goods they had wrecked at the taverns — and even the cost of weapons they had sharpened at the smithy. What business did worthless curs like them have having weapons honed like that? The grand total came to over four thousand silver nyang.
Forget "quite a bill" — how much could two men possibly squander to produce a figure like this?
Truthfully, he hadn't expected it to come out anywhere near this high.
Add the hundred silver nyang owed to Un Ga-jang, and the total reached forty-one hundred.
"...Th-that, the cost of the staff and the amount for Un Ga-jang — you could leave those out."
Yi Do's gaze turned to Un Do-hyeon.
"How could we accept that money? A man has his dignity, after all."
"Enough. A promise only retains its meaning if it does not change, no matter the circumstances."
"Young Sect Master..."
"I said enough."
Strictly speaking, Yi Do had no obligation to repay the money. It wasn't, in any precise sense, money he had spent.
But it was money the Branch Masters of the Sambong Branch had spent, and letting that slide as if nothing had happened made no sense at all.
This was a matter of responsibility.
To stand at the head of an organization meant that the head had to answer for everything that organization did.
Yi Do had no intention whatsoever of dodging that responsibility.
"How much of this came from those two?"
"There's a fair amount of gold mixed in, but converted, it comes to a little over three thousand silver nyang."
And to think — if those two hadn't skimmed money off the top, who knows how deep they might have dug.
Yi Do drew a single pouch from his robe.
"This should roughly cover it."
What remained of the money he'd been spending. Gold coins were plentiful inside.
"Go and settle the accounts."
Un Do-hyeon's eyes lit up brightly.
"Yes. At once."
So Un Do-hyeon entered Sambong-hyeon proper with the bundle of documents, and Yi Do lingered there a while.
Staring up at the corpses in silence, Yi Do sank into thought.
The plan had hit a snag, but nothing had changed in any meaningful way.
Jangan Commandery was enormous.
It was several times the size of this Sambong-hyeon.
The number of sects was more than fourfold greater, and above all, there were a great many martial artists who had reached true realms of cultivation.
Everything has its season.
Yi Do was preparing.
Myeong Hyeon, sent to Yeon State, absolutely had to bring back the Thousand-Li Divine Escapade. Without him, the plan would fail.
Yi Do had no intention whatsoever of burying matters like this the way the sect's people had.
Most of all, though he did not know the man Dokgo Dan-ya in detail, he had a rough grasp of what the man was thinking.
For the Asura Sword Sect to survive being attached to the Eight Great Sects, one thing was absolutely essential.
Strength.
Before preserving any internal hierarchy or system, strength had to come first. Without it, the sect would collapse before any infighting or factional squabbling even began.
Dokgo Dan-ya was a master among masters.
He almost certainly knew the 'secret' of the Imperial Sword Sect and the Murim Alliance.
Which meant that from his position, he needed armed strength by any means necessary. Only with that strength could he protect anything at all.
The problem was.
Surrounding such a man, there had been nothing but fools.
The sect had grown large and was running along smoothly on its own, so Dokgo Dan-ya had likely focused all his energy on holding back enemies outside the sect — but he had made a mistake.
He had loosened the reins far too much.
If anything, Yi Do felt sorry for Dokgo Dan-ya.
As Sect Master, the man strove to become an absolute master himself in order to hold back the forces pressing on the sect from outside, while the wretches beneath him ignored that effort entirely and fought among themselves over petty profits.
The friction with the Heaven Cleaving Fist Sect. The vigilance of the orthodox Murim. The crushing pressure that came with it all.
The Grand Elder shared his will but acted far too willfully; the Asura Pavilion Master, the one person he could trust, lacked the disposition to ever overturn the hierarchy; and the heads of the elders were off wandering in a field of flowers.
It went beyond pity — it roused something like sympathy.
"Um... Yi Do... nim?"
Yi Do turned his head slowly. It was a man wearing a golden hat and draped in a golden long coat, staring at him with an expression of pure terror. Tucked into the man's belt was a coil of rope.
A constable.
"...Our magistrate wishes to share a meal with you... would that be agreeable?"
The man wanted to share a meal first, and there was no reason to refuse.
Escorted by the constable, Yi Do made his way to the government offices of Sambong-hyeon.
He was naturally led to a separate annex, where a spread of food so lavish it threatened to bend the table awaited him.
The man seated across from him shot to his feet and offered a fist-and-palm salute. The posture looked rather awkward, but it was not bad form.
"A pleasure. I am No Dae-won, magistrate of Sambong-hyeon."
Yi Do returned the salute.
"Yi Do, Branch Master of the Asura Sword Sect's Sambong Branch."
"Please, sit. I don't know your tastes, Branch Master, so I've had as wide a variety of dishes prepared as possible."
He was a remarkably courteous man. And Yi Do treated such men with the courtesy they deserved.
"Then I won't refuse."
He took his seat. The first thing to catch his eye was the braised pork belly.
He wondered whether Hwang No-baek, who had once promised him this very dish back in Jangryeong Commandery, was doing well.
The magistrate and Yi Do began eating in silence for a time.
A strange quiet settled between them.
Then the magistrate set down his spoon.
Yi Do set his down as well. The magistrate spoke first.
"Have you heard the news?"
"Which news would that be?"
"Some time ago, an imperial envoy from the royal court visited the Asura Sword Sect's headquarters."
This was news to him.
"So you haven't heard."
At Yi Do's nod, the magistrate continued.
"To give you the conclusion first — the Sect Master of the Asura Sword Sect and the envoy held deep talks, and they reached a compromise."
"What sort of compromise?"
"At first the envoy demanded that you be handed over, but Sect Master Dokgo Dan-ya retorted, asking how anyone could dare demand the sect hand over one of its own, and instead bellowed at them. Cowed by his presence, the envoy ultimately declared that the pursuit of Yi Do-nim would be halted."
"That is good news."
"Indeed. However, the envoy attached one condition — should an incident like this occur again, then not even the Asura Sword Sect would be let off lightly. To which Dokgo Dan-ya replied that they ought simply refrain from inviting death. And should anyone ever plot to kill Yi Do-nim the way the Governor of Jangryeong Commandery did, he declared with absolute finality that then they would find themselves facing the entire Asura Sword Sect — and in the end, the envoy bent."
It was interesting.
Yi Do did think well of Dokgo Dan-ya, but he hadn't expected this much. Making an enemy of the imperial palace would be a considerable burden even for a man like him — it almost made Yi Do wonder if the man was being too kind to him.
"But surely the envoy has a position of their own to protect as well?"
"No doubt."
"And you, Yi Do-nim, surely do not intend to let your debts and grudges end here, either."
"You read people well."
"Heh heh... a small talent of mine. The envoy made one final demand. And that demand, Dokgo Dan-ya accepted as well."
Now this, Yi Do was curious about.
"Might I ask what it entailed?"
"Of course. Do you remember Shin Gong-baek, whom you faced on Mount Bushin?"
How could he possibly forget?
"The government has concluded that the pursuit of Yi Do-nim, and your accounts with it, end here — but the matter of Shin Gong-baek is the exception. The Shin clan is a family of considerable standing in the capital, one that has produced Hundred-Household Chiefs of the Embroidered Uniform Guard for generations. Shin Gong-baek's own elder brother holds that post today. The palace has its face to keep as well, so they declared that the account with the Shin clan is one they will not touch on your behalf, and demanded that you not interpret this concession too broadly. That is the condition Dokgo Dan-ya accepted."
Yi Do's eyebrow twitched.
No Dae-won was not finished.
"Do you know who gave the order to pursue you?"
Yi Do shook his head.
"A Hundred-Household Chief named Du Jin-bung. And he stepped down from his post to take responsibility."
"Stepped down?"
"Yes. And that is not the end of it. This is something I only heard myself this morning, but... it seems Du Jin-bung was found dead near the capital."
Everything in this world has a reason.
The man who had ordered Yi Do killed was found dead, the imperial palace declared an end to the pursuit, and the account for Shin Gong-baek, whom Yi Do had killed, was left in Yi Do's own hands.
All of it was far, far too clean.
However one looked at it, this was the result of someone's whispering behind the scenes.
Yi Do tossed the question out casually.
"The War King, is it?"
No Dae-won's eyes went wide.
"...Your insight... truly is no ordinary thing. How did you know?"
"Ears that hear things. I had little choice but to find out."
No Dae-won marveled, but in truth Yi Do had heard nothing at all. He had, however, regressed — and he knew what was coming.
The War King was the man who would one day become Emperor of the Kingdom of Jeok.
The current emperor of Jeok was Janganje.
Janganje had three sons, and the third of them was the War King.
At present, Janganje's grandson In-dan stood as heir to the throne, and in the not-so-distant future In-dan would become the fourth emperor of Jeok, to be called the Divine Dragon Emperor.
And exactly two years after that man took the throne, the War King would raise a rebellion and claim the crown for himself.
He remained Emperor of Jeok until the day Yi Do died.
The fifth emperor of Jeok — the Gyeongryong Emperor, Prince Incheon. That was the War King.
Their backgrounds were alike. One could hardly compare some backwater like Jangryeong Commandery with the imperial palace, but they shared this much: both were sons of concubines.
They were even both third sons.
The War King had been a man exceptionally friendly toward martial artists, and he had shown Yi Do a great deal of favor in the past.
Bold and hearty, one who settled his debts and grudges with absolute certainty, and once he set his mind on something, he saw it through to the end no matter what stood in his way.
A fascinating man.
It seemed that, just as in his previous life, his connection with the War King was about to begin in this one as well.
"That Hundred-Household Chief who was found dead — Du Jin-bung — was he a man of the Crown Prince?"
Again, No Dae-won was visibly stunned.
"...Good heavens... no — you've been in the Murim hardly any time at all, and you already know the inner workings of the palace that intimately?"
"A small talent of mine."
There was no other way to explain it.
No Dae-won, still staring at him in astonishment, began to fidget. He seemed to want to say something, and was wrestling with whether he ought to.
"Don't worry about it. Just say it."
"...Very well, then. The reason I have received you this way is that I have one favor to ask."
"And that is?"
"Those two corpses hanging at the entrance — how long do you intend to leave them there?"
From a magistrate's standpoint, having something so grotesque displayed at the gateway into his county would plainly put him in an awkward position. Yi Do could understand that well enough.
He answered flatly.
"I intended to take them down when they had rotted clean through and fallen apart on their own. That would take about a month, I'd say."
"...A whole month...?"
"But you've treated me to this fine meal and given me valuable information, so this time I will be the one to yield. Exactly seven days. I'll leave them hanging for seven days precisely, and then take them down."
A broad smile spread across No Dae-won's face.
"Hahahaha! I had no idea you were such a magnanimous man. Thank you. I've been quietly worried, truth be told — the mood in the county has been sour of late — and your generosity comes as a true relief, Yi Do-nim."
Yi Do studied No Dae-won in silence for a moment.
He didn't know just how capable the man was, but he did not look especially old. Early thirties at most.
To hold a magistrate's seat at that age clearly meant he had ability of some kind.
Yi Do picked up the wine bottle and filled No Dae-won's empty cup.
"Hehehe. Much obliged, I'm sure."
Thud.
The moment the bottle touched the table, Yi Do fired off the question.
"Are you satisfied with the magistrate's seat?"
The man, caught mid-bite of meat, choked and coughed.
"Ex... excuse me?"
"I'm planning something rather interesting, you see... Would you care to hear it?"
No Dae-won's expression turned serious in kind.
After a moment's silence, he filled Yi Do's cup in turn.
"Then I shall open my ears and listen."
They clinked their cups together and drank. Thud. Setting down his cup, Yi Do began, slowly, to lay it all out.
When he had heard everything, No Dae-won was dumbstruck. His two eyes began to tremble violently.
"...I say this with all due respect... you are a truly terrifying man."
"I'm not asking for an answer right away, so take your time and—"
"No. There's no need."
Cutting him off, No Dae-won broke into a wide grin. His answer came in a resolute voice.
"I shall cooperate."
Yi Do extended his hand, and No Dae-won grasped it. Yi Do said with a smile.
"Good. From this moment, we are allies."
"Gladly."
The groundwork was all complete.