Monopolizing Fortunes (55)
Monopolizing Fortunes (55)
"Whoa! Four of you showed up, so you must've brought a hell of a lot of money!"
Only the boss of a place could carry himself that boldly.
"You Mo In-sang?"
At Do Tong-dal's question, Mo In-sang's broad grin twisted into an ugly scowl.
"A little brat who's still wet behind the ears is talking down to me."
"We aren't close enough for a long conversation, are we?"
"Brat, you wouldn't happen to be Do Tong-dal?"
"You know me?"
"The little shit I caught kept calling your name. He was sure you'd come save him. As if his life weren't in my hands. Dumb bastard."
"Where's Branch Chief Hwang?"
"The money?"
Do Tong-dal swept his gaze around. The men crawling out of the shack one by one numbered over thirty, and there were more than twenty more where he couldn't see.
"Your crew's about fifty or so?"
"Brat, you got some kind of divine sight?"
"Hand over Branch Chief Hwang and I'll let you all live. That's a hell of a deal for you, isn't it?"
Mo In-sang, who had been staring at Do Tong-dal, walked over and spoke.
"I've got a good idea. You people know how to fight?"
"A bit."
"Then how about the four of you fight one of ours to settle this?"
Do Tong-dal thought Mo In-sang had misspoken.
"One against four. You'd be at a huge advantage."
"They said you had a master with you. Aren't you trusting that master a little too much?"
"Faith isn't something only thugs have."
"Fine. In that case......."
Namgung Seol-rin suddenly spoke.
"One on one."
"Hey! This is no time to get competitive!"
"I'm not ganging up on an opium addict. What about you, Jang Yu-seom?"
"I'm not particularly inclined to either."
"No, but people's lives are on the line......."
"You don't trust us?"
He trusted them. Not with the faith one put in religion, perhaps, but enough to trust them on a battlefield. Do Tong-dal looked back and forth between Jang Yu-seom and Namgung Seol-rin, then let out a soft sigh.
"Who's fighting?"
"Me."
"I am."
"I knew this would happen. Pick one person, fast."
Namgung Seol-rin handed Do Tong-dal a coin.
"I'm heads."
"Then Jang Yu-seom is tails. I'm tossing it."
The coin Do Tong-dal tossed rose a full jang into the air before falling. The coin bounced and came to rest showing heads to the sky.
Namgung Seol-rin clenched her fist, and Jang Yu-seom bit his lip hard.
"Heh heh...... the world sure is full of lunatics."
"We should see Branch Chief Hwang alive, shouldn't we?"
When Mo In-sang raised his hand, one of the men went into the shack and dragged out Hwang Chan-seok with his hands bound behind his back.
His face was a mess, and through his tattered clothes a fair number of wounds were visible.
"A barking dog has to be beaten into learning."
"What are the stakes?"
"The winner gets whatever they ask for."
"Whatever?"
"Heh heh heh...... I'd like a taste of that wench's bare flesh. I'll have to tell him not to kill her."
A blade-sharp edge rose in Namgung Seol-rin's eyes. Do Tong-dal muttered, "He's digging his own grave."
"Addict, come out."
At Mo In-sang's low voice, another man emerged from the shack. The gaunt, wild-haired man held a dagger in each hand.
His dark, mottled skin and skull-like face made his original features impossible to discern.
Mo In-sang draped an arm over the addict's shoulder and spoke.
"Don't kill her. You said if you seal these things called pressure points, they can't move, right? Use that to keep her from moving. Got it?"
The addict made a gurgling, phlegmy sound in his throat and nodded.
When Mo In-sang shoved his back, the man staggered as if about to fall before barely catching his balance. Looking at him, it seemed he might keel over dead on his way out to fight.
Do Tong-dal spoke, just to confirm.
"The promise will be kept?"
"Without my word, I'm nothing."
Con artists always talked like that. The addict shuffled over and stopped five jang from Namgung Seol-rin.
With his shoulders drooped and head bowed, the addict looked from a distance like a dead old tree.
"This coin's turning out to be useful."
Do Tong-dal tossed the coin between Namgung Seol-rin and the addict. There was no need to explain that the fight would begin the moment the coin landed.
Clink!
The moment the coin struck a stone and bounced up, Namgung Seol-rin kicked off the ground. Before the bouncing coin could hit the ground again, she was already swinging her sword.
Humm—!
The addict looked harmless enough to invite carelessness, but there was no mercy in Namgung Seol-rin's sword. Do Tong-dal had no doubt that single stroke would sever the addict's neck.
Clang!
But the sound of metal rang out. Before he knew it, the two daggers had blocked the single longsword. The block alone was astonishing, but the addict's daggers didn't give an inch.
Shwik—!
One dagger thrust in, aiming for Namgung Seol-rin's face. As she bent her waist back to dodge, the dagger in his left hand went for her chest.
Namgung Seol-rin knocked the dagger aside with her sword and extended her arm fully as she retreated, anticipating that the dagger-wielding addict would close the distance.
Namgung Seol-rin had read him correctly. Even so, her sword cut through empty air.
The addict, as if he had anticipated the attack, rotated his body sideways to evade while extending his arm. The dagger pierced Namgung Seol-rin's right chest.
She hastily retreated and dodged by a hair's breadth, but the addict's attack didn't end there.
The dagger in his left hand aimed for her thigh from a strange angle, and when she blocked that attack, he immediately thrust at her throat.
The fight she had believed would end quickly instead became one where Namgung Seol-rin was driven onto the defensive.
Do Tong-dal suppressed the urge to shout, 'You idiot! Open up the distance!' Namgung Seol-rin, who was actually fighting, would know better than him.
She tried to create distance by retreating or moving sideways, but the addict clung to her like a fly buzzing over shit.
The addict was a master worthy of Mo In-sang's boasting.
"What are you doing! Put her down fast!"
Mo In-sang had never seen the addict fight this long. No matter the opponent, it had never gone beyond a single exchange. So he had believed the addict was the greatest master under heaven. At least, that was what it had seemed like to Mo In-sang.
"If you don't put her down within half a ke, no more drug!"
Mo In-sang's threat seemed to work. The two daggers moved faster than before.
Attacking in turns, then stabbing or slashing simultaneously, the addict drove Namgung Seol-rin helplessly backward. All she could do was dodge or block; she couldn't even think of attacking.
Unable to watch any longer, Do Tong-dal shouted.
"Use the Mujung Manbyeon Steps!"
While explaining the footwork to Do Tong-dal, Namgung Seol-rin had naturally learned it as well. Whatever else might be true, there was no footwork as effective as the Mujung Manbyeon Steps for evading attacks.
Slash!
Namgung Seol-rin took the attack coming at her chest on her shoulder while swinging her sword at the addict's neck.
At the cost of a wound near her shoulder, she managed to halt the addict's attack for a moment.
In that interval, Namgung Seol-rin unfolded the Mujung Manbyeon Steps. She went left, retreated, then leaped twice to the right, and only then was she able to escape the addict's range.
"Hoo—!"
The addict's attacks were so fierce and fast that she let out a long breath tinged with relief. Fortunately, the wound on her shoulder wasn't deep.
Namgung Seol-rin carefully circled to the left. The addict, his two daggers crossed in front of his face, shifted his steps to match her movements.
'A master like that would surely be known in the martial world.'
A master who used two daggers was by no means common. One name came to mind, but Namgung Seol-rin thought it couldn't be him. There was no way a man like that would be an addict in a place like this.
This time the addict attacked first. The pressure of the half-ke Mo In-sang had mentioned made the addict move in haste.
Namgung Seol-rin refused to let him close the distance. The moment the addict slipped inside her sword's reach, the same pattern as at the beginning would resume.
The two daggers and the single longsword clashed without pause. The only people in the hall who could properly follow the two fighters' movements were Do Tong-dal and Jang Yu-seom.
To everyone else, that clash would have looked like nothing but a silver whirlwind.
At some point, Do Tong-dal's tightly clenched palm had grown slick with cold sweat. It showed just how much trouble Namgung Seol-rin was in.
"This is difficult."
Jang Yu-seom's read of the fight was no different from Do Tong-dal's. At a glance it looked evenly matched, but the addict's dagger was far closer to taking Namgung Seol-rin's life.
"If we help, she'll never want to see us again, right?"
At Do Tong-dal's question, Jang Yu-seom answered, "Obviously." Even so, Do Tong-dal bent his knees slightly.
Never seeing Namgung Seol-rin again was still better than dying. The problem was whether he could intervene at the right time and place.
Right now, not even a needle-point gap was visible among the three blades. If he cut in wrong, he could put Namgung Seol-rin in even greater danger.
Clang-clang!
After the two daggers and the longsword clashed almost simultaneously, the addict made an unexpected move. When he should have closed the distance, he suddenly leaped back.
Naturally, Namgung Seol-rin chased after the addict and sprang forward. But the addict suddenly hurled the daggers in both hands.
"Hup!"
Namgung Seol-rin, on the receiving end, was startled, and the spectators Do Tong-dal and Jang Yu-seom flinched too. If Namgung Seol-rin had been even a little slower bending her waist back, her chest would have been pierced.
"What the—!"
Throwing away one's weapon without surrendering made no sense. Yet one impossible thing followed another.
The dagger that had grazed past Namgung Seol-rin stopped briefly in midair, then aimed for the back of her head.
"Watch out!"
Namgung Seol-rin reacted even before Do Tong-dal finished shouting. Dropping her body parallel to the ground, she spun and knocked the dagger away.
The dagger, which had been sent flying far away, returned to the addict.
"Ah!"
What made Do Tong-dal exclaim was the line stretched between the dagger and the addict. The fine strand glinting white in the sunlight was silver thread.
If Do Tong-dal was surprised by the thread, Namgung Seol-rin was surprised for a different reason.
"Life-Stealing Twin Swordsman, Great Hero Won Dae-yeon!"
Her cry was almost a scream. It was the very name she had been certain couldn't belong to her opponent.
"How can Won Dae-yeon be here?"
As if showing the turmoil in his heart, the addict Won Dae-yeon's hands trembled.
"What's your relation to the Namgung Clan?"
"I am Namgung Seol-rin."
"So you're Baek-jung's daughter."
She had no memory of it, but she had heard that she had met him when she was very young.
"To think Heaven's punishment for me would be this cruel."
"Won Dae-yeon, please put down your sword......."
"The half-ke is almost up. I have no choice but to kill you if I want the drug."
A dagger flew. Namgung Seol-rin knocked it aside and shouted.
"Stop! Are you really going to kill me?"
The answer to that question came from the two daggers flying at her throat. Won Dae-yeon had no intention of stopping the fight.
Namgung Seol-rin desperately knocked away Won Dae-yeon's attacks, but she no longer radiated the same killing intent as before. Even as she fought, part of her was wavering.
Do Tong-dal didn't know who Won Dae-yeon was, but he understood that he was an opponent Namgung Seol-rin couldn't fight properly.
"Jang Yu-seom."
"Yes."
"I think we're going to have to cut in."
Jang Yu-seom let out a soft sigh.
"I was thinking the same."
Do Tong-dal gauged the distance to Hwang Chan-seok, who was on his knees. Roughly twelve jang.
Right behind Hwang Chan-seok stood a man holding a sword. If things went wrong, he would cut Hwang Chan-seok's throat.
"Jang Yu-seom, when I move, you subdue Won Dae-yeon together with Protector Namgung."
Jang Yu-seom glanced at Hwang Chan-seok.
"Can you save him?"
In Jang Yu-seom's estimation, the distance was too great. If it were only about seven jang, there might be a chance, but at twelve jang, Hwang Chan-seok's head would fall before Do Tong-dal could reach him.
"I have to try. If this goes on, Protector Namgung could die."
While they were forming their plan, another wound opened on Namgung Seol-rin's left arm.
Do Tong-dal drew a deep breath, signaled Jang Yu-seom with his eyes, and kicked off the ground. The moment he moved, Jang Yu-seom also leaped into Namgung Seol-rin's fight.
Startled, Mo In-sang shouted.
"What the hell is this!"
Mo In-sang saw Jang Yu-seom first, then belatedly noticed Do Tong-dal's movement.
"Kill him! Kill that bastard!"
The man standing behind Hwang Chan-seok flinched in surprise and raised his sword. Do Tong-dal moved as fast as he could, but he had only closed half the distance.
* * *