Monopolizing Fortunes (151)
Monopolizing Fortunes (151)
He turned his body sideways and saw the archer who had loosed the arrow. Soon the archers had grown to five, hurriedly nocking arrows to their bowstrings.
Do Tong-dal threw himself toward the archers. He needed to deal with the annoying ones first.
When he was in the air, the quick-handed archers loosed their arrows. But with two swings of Do Tong-dal's blade, the arrows became useless sticks.
The archers had no time to loose another arrow. When Do Tong-dal's blade swung twice, the five archers turned into cold corpses.
Do Tong-dal immediately headed for the courtyard facing Hwangbo Gil's quarters. Hwangbo Gil was there.
In a large space worthy of the name main hall, Hwangbo Gil stood with his hands clasped behind his back.
As if he had not yet fully grasped the situation, Hwangbo Gil's face held surprise, but no fear.
Soon ten reinforced private soldiers formed a wall between Do Tong-dal and Hwangbo Gil. And one step behind Hwangbo Gil, two bodyguards stood close. At a glance, one could tell they were the finest among the private soldiers.
Hwangbo Gil opened his mouth.
"You're wearing the uniform of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, but your face is unfamiliar."
"You speak as if you know every guardsman of the Embroidered Uniform Guard."
At Do Tong-dal's brief words, Hwangbo Gil frowned.
"You must have known who I was before barging in, so you're a fearless fellow."
"You're the one who should be afraid. You've sat too long in a high seat, and it seems you've lost your sense of reality."
"Even if you are an officer of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, I am Hwangbo Gil! I am Hwangbo Gil, the Minister of War of this nation! Do you think you can treat me like this and remain unharmed!"
"It's because you're Hwangbo Gil that I came to arrest you. If you kneel quietly, I can leave the necks of the scarecrows around you attached."
Hwangbo Gil, who had been glaring at Do Tong-dal, asked.
"I'll put off killing you for a moment and ask just one thing. Why has the Embroidered Uniform Guard come to arrest me?"
"The attempted assassination of His Highness the Third Prince."
Hwangbo Gil's brow furrowed.
"Assassination? Ah! That commotion in the marketplace a few days ago? You mean that incident where His Highness the Third Prince got caught up in a brawl among local thugs."
The Second Prince's faction was busily laying a smoke screen in that direction. Eight corpses, including guardsmen of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, had been produced, yet the fact that they could steer the incident that way was proof that the Second Prince's power was still formidable.
A sneer touched Do Tong-dal's lips.
"If you kneel and confess even now, you can avoid the calamity of your three generations being wiped out. Honestly, you're the one who did wrong, so it's too unfair for your relatives to die too. Isn't it?"
"With that mouth of yours, you're the one wiping out your own three generations. Having a wretch like you as kin is their crime."
"I knew you wouldn't listen."
Hwangbo Gil spoke to the private soldiers.
"Don't kill him. I'll personally pull out the tongue inside that mouth."
The private soldiers armed with weapons surrounded Do Tong-dal. It was the basics of a coordinated attack, but foxes surrounding a tiger could not defeat it.
The one standing behind Do Tong-dal moved first, and with that as the signal, all ten attacked at once.
They probably believed there was not a hair's breadth of error, but to Do Tong-dal, the order of the attacks was clearly visible.
He dodged the first attack, deflected the second, and swung his blade before the third attack could reach him.
"Ugh—!"
Do Tong-dal slipped through the gap left by the two men whose bellies had been split open. The encirclement, broken so simply, could not be reformed.
Each time his blade danced, the private soldiers collapsed like bundles of straw. If they were lucky enough to block the blade, their lives shattered along with their weapons.
Before a few breaths could be let out, the private soldiers Hwangbo Gil had trusted so much became lumps of meat in pools of blood.
The events that had occurred in an instant cast the surroundings into stillness. Hwangbo Gil learned for the first time that a fight between martial artists could end this quickly.
If Do Tong-dal, facing ten men, had died, that would have been the natural result. That one fist cannot defeat ten fists is an age-old truth.
But one man had killed ten in the literal blink of an eye. And the private soldiers he had believed were each worth a hundred had turned into corpses like that.
"Th-this... what are you all doing! Kill that bastard!"
Hwangbo Gil screamed at the two soldiers standing to his left and right as if shrieking. The shaggy-haired man on the left in his mid-thirties and the bald middle-aged man on the right were the bodyguards Hwangbo Gil trusted most.
If he had not trusted them so, he would not have kept them as personal guards.
The shaggy-haired man and the bald man exchanged glances. Then their gazes soon turned to Do Tong-dal.
The shaggy-haired man spoke.
"Our only crime is having stayed in this house as retainers."
The bald man picked up the shaggy-haired man's words.
"We know nothing of any attempted assassination of His Highness the Third Prince. If we had known such a thing was being done, we would not have stayed in this house."
A master recognizes a master. And a master recognizes one far above himself even more clearly.
The martial arts Do Tong-dal had shown when dealing with the archers and when he had just killed the ten private soldiers were not at a level the two of them could handle.
They might hold out a few seconds longer than the already-dead soldiers, but the result of death would not change.
"Y-you bastards! You mean to betray me now! Do you know how much money I've fed you!"
The two men moved away from Hwangbo Gil and spoke.
"If we had known Your Excellency was doing such lawless things, we would not have stayed here."
"How could chivalrous men get entangled in something like the murder of His Highness the Third Prince? We will take our leave now."
Just as they were about to launch themselves away, Do Tong-dal's cold voice fell.
"Stop moving."
The voice was low, but as if the words carried force, the two men flinched and stopped.
"If you've been paid all this time, you should earn that money."
"That means..."
"First, make that treasonous bastard kneel."
It wasn't attacking Do Tong-dal, and making Hwangbo Gil kneel was something they could do easily enough.
"Y-you bastards! You really... Ouch!"
Kicked in the back of the knees, Hwangbo Gil flopped forward. The bald man grabbed Hwangbo Gil by the hair and forced him to his knees.
The bodyguards he had relied on most had turned in an instant into clubs that broke Hwangbo Gil's knees. Private soldiers bought with money were much like the fickleness of the world, changing with morning and evening.
"You wretches worse than dogs under heaven! I will surely catch you and cut off your heads!"
At least for now, his rage toward the two men was greater than his rage toward Do Tong-dal.
"That wish of yours, Minister Hwang, I'll grant it."
Before the meaning of Do Tong-dal's words could sink in, his blade split the air first. The two men were beheaded simultaneously, wearing expressions of "Huh?"
Their blood, spurting out, pattered down onto Hwangbo Gil's head.
The warm blood extinguished Hwangbo Gil's rage, which had blazed like fire, in an instant and planted terror in its place.
"Uh-uh..."
Frightened by the vivid sensation of the fresh blood and the sudden rush of its smell, Hwangbo Gil kicked his legs while sitting on the floor.
Hwangbo Gil, sliding across the main hall, could only stop when he struck the corridor wall.
Do Tong-dal, walking without hurry, stopped right in front of Hwangbo Gil, whose lower jaw was trembling.
Hwangbo Gil wiped the blood from his face. When the hand that had swept his face passed his chin and his closed eyes opened, he saw Do Tong-dal's face right in front of him.
"Huhk!"
That white face, smiling faintly, was more frightening than the face of a reaper. What Do Tong-dal wanted was exactly Hwangbo Gil's terror.
Because it was far easier to read the expression of a man ruled by fear.
"Minister Hwang. By now you should face reality. Would the Embroidered Uniform Guard have come all the way here if the assassin you sent hadn't opened his mouth?"
"Th-that's impossible! So Cheol-eum would never open his mouth under torture... Hup!"
He spoke in his fluster and then clamped his mouth shut in alarm, but Do Tong-dal had heard everything he needed to hear.
"Hm. So the man's name was So Cheol-eum. His mouth was heavy, all right. But just because he won't speak doesn't mean I can't find out."
Do Tong-dal took from his chest a drawing of the layout of Hwangbo Gil's house. Twenty-two buildings were drawn on it.
"Which of these is So Cheol-eum's quarters?"
Even while Do Tong-dal was speaking, screams could be heard without pause. Hwangbo Gil looked over Do Tong-dal's shoulder with desperate hope, but he saw no private soldiers coming to save him.
"You're dreaming a vain dream."
Do Tong-dal placed the drawing in front of Hwangbo Gil's face.
"So Cheol-eum's quarters?"
His mouth did not open. It didn't matter. Do Tong-dal pointed to one building on the drawing.
"Here? No. Here? Hm, if not that, then here?"
A reaction came.
"It's here."
Hwangbo Gil's startled gaze lingered on Do Tong-dal. A smile hung at the corner of Do Tong-dal's mouth.
"It's too early to be this surprised."
At that moment, six people appeared in the courtyard behind Do Tong-dal. It was Tae Jun-seo and three other officers of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, along with Yang Su-pan, and Hwangmi Dal, who had dealt with all the private soldiers.
"Captain Tae."
Tae Jun-seo, who had been looking around at the nearby corpses, flinched in surprise and answered.
"Yes...!"
He needed to attach some suitable title, but only his clothes were gold; Do Tong-dal was not actually a member of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Nor was he a government official.
What Tae Jun-seo knew was that Do Tong-dal was a precious person who held Ju Hyeong-seon's favor and Yang Su-pan's trust.
"Give your orders, sir."
For the sake of his career, it was best to stay in the good graces of someone like Do Tong-dal.
Do Tong-dal pointed to a part of the map he had shown.
"This is the quarters of the assassin who tried to kill His Highness the Third Prince. Search it thoroughly."
"What should we look for?"
The existence of the Second Prince's personal letter was still a secret known only to a very few. Yang Su-pan spoke.
"I'll go with you."
When Yang Su-pan took Tae Jun-seo and left the courtyard, Do Tong-dal's gaze shifted back to Hwangbo Gil.
"The letter So Cheol-eum had will be somewhere in his quarters, so where is your letter, Minister?"
"Wh-what are you talking about!"
"The Second Prince's personal letter."
Hwangbo Gil's lower jaw trembled. If they even knew of the personal letter's existence, then everything had essentially been laid bare.
'So that bastard So Cheol-eum spilled everything!'
Do Tong-dal said So Cheol-eum had not talked, but unless it was So Cheol-eum, there was no way Do Tong-dal could know that fact.
"I don't know anything about that."
He had to deny it no matter what. As long as the Second Prince's personal letter was not found, he could mobilize all his power, money, and connections to escape. At the very least, there was a possibility.
Do Tong-dal crouched down in front of the collapsed Hwangbo Gil.
"I don't need your mouth to get a confession. I can tell just by looking. It'll be somewhere in your room or study."
A slight crease formed between Do Tong-dal's brows.
'It's not there?'
He had been sure it would be hidden somewhere within arm's reach. Then a thought suddenly flashed into his mind.
"It's not in this house? I see. It was here, but now it's not. That means someone took it and fled when the Embroidered Uniform Guard came charging in. Who? You would have entrusted it to the person you trust most, so it would be family... A daughter? A son? Your wife? It's your wife. Well, you're no fool either, so you must have prepared for a situation like this."
"I-I never said any such thing! There's no such fact either! I truly know nothing of any letter from His Highness the Second Prince!"
Hwangmi Dal, who had been watching the two from the courtyard, spoke.
"If his wife has fled, shouldn't we go catch her?"
"Old man, you still don't know me?"
"You've already made preparations?"
"A rabbit only digs two burrows, but I dig a hundred depending on the situation."
Watching Do Tong-dal's back as he spoke to Hwangbo Gil again, Hwangmi Dal felt goosebumps rise.
He was not afraid of those strong in martial arts. Because one only had to be stronger than them. And he was confident he could be stronger.
But a fellow like Do Tong-dal, if he became an enemy, seemed terrifying.
'Fortunately, there's that clever Su-ran.'
He tried to reassure himself by thinking of Ha Su-ran, then spat out a curse. 'Damn it!' Even Ha Su-ran was on Do Tong-dal's side.
If he ordered her to point her sword at Do Tong-dal, she would clearly quit as the Northern Unorthodox Alliance's strategist and run away from home.
Just as Hwangmi Dal was thinking, 'I'll have to think about beating that bastard,' he sensed someone approaching.
'Three.'
Every one of them had fast, light footwork. From their movements alone, he could tell the three approaching were masters enough to put Hwangmi Dal on edge.
He was preparing to grip his sword when the three appeared over the wall. They acknowledged him first.
"Oh? Alliance Leader Hwangmi!"
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