Monopolizing Fortunes (92)
Monopolizing Fortunes (92)
The physician in black's courteous composure turned to screaming one shichen after they set out.
"You crazy driver! Slow down! Aaagh!"
While the other three sat at ease, the physician in black bounced and rolled around like a wind-filled pig's bladder, shrieking all the while.
Under strict orders to go as fast as possible, the driver whipped the horses until the wheels seemed about to shatter.
"Hm, this jerky's not bad. Is it beef?"
"Tastes like lamb, doesn't it?"
"Chewy, yet tender."
Even as the three of them critiqued the food, the physician in black couldn't get a single piece of jerky into their mouth and could only keep poking at their nostrils.
'If I ever follow Do Tong-dal out to treat someone again, I swear I'll lose my mind!'
After a little more than a day, they arrived at the place where the Northern Unorthodox Alliance Leader was staying. When the carriage stopped in the courtyard of a large manor, the three of them stretched as they stepped out.
"Traveling by carriage really is comfortable."
"No kidding. Let's take a carriage whenever we can from now on."
"Bleurgh—!"
Ha Su-ran patted the vomiting physician in black on the back.
"You should hurry along to treat him."
"J-just let me rest a little......"
"If the Alliance Leader dies because of that little rest, will you take responsibility?"
Ha Su-ran asked with a kindly smile in her eyes.
"I-I'll go. I'll go right away. Bleurgh!"
Namgung Seol-rin walked toward the rear garden and spoke to Ha Su-ran.
"You'll have to show us the Makya Blade first."
"Do you not trust my word?"
"Isn't inspecting the goods the basic rule of any transaction?"
"Do you have the eye to recognize the Makya Blade?"
"Are you doubting my eye, the same eye that picked out Tong-dal?"
"A stroke of luck that comes once in a lifetime is bound to find anyone eventually."
"A stroke of luck?"
"An underworld thug and a daughter of the Namgung Clan. It hardly seems like a relationship that began through a normal meeting, does it?"
"What matters between a man and a woman isn't the process, but the result."
"And isn't that result still a work in progress?"
"At least I'm making progress. You haven't even started, have you?"
"I chose not to."
"That sounds like you intend to."
"A man of Do Tong-dal's caliber is someone anyone would covet."
"Oh-ho, so you finally show your true feelings."
"I have never once been anything but honest."
"You're openly wagging your tail now."
Do Tong-dal quietly cut in.
"Um......"
"You stay out of this!"
"Do Tong-dal, please step back!"
"No, it's just—where are we going right now......?"
They were passing the pond in the rear garden and heading out through the back gate.
"Hmph! We've gone too far. It's this way."
Ha Su-ran guided them to a building adjoining the rear garden. The moment they stepped inside, the smell of medicine filled the air.
"The Northern Unorthodox Alliance's physicians have been slowing the spread of the poison as much as they can, but they seem to have nearly reached their limit."
Warriors and servants passing by bowed their heads toward Ha Su-ran.
"It's this room."
When she opened the door, they entered a reception room furnished with a table and chairs, and the room with the bed was to the left.
An old man with an unmistakably sickly look lay on the bed. The physician standing watch beside him bowed at the waist toward Ha Su-ran.
"How is the Alliance Leader?"
"He remains unconscious."
"I've brought the physician who cured the Blue Snake poison."
When Ha Su-ran stepped aside, the physician in black took their place at the bedside. Judging by their appearance, the physician looked more critically ill than the Alliance Leader.
After taking the pulse and removing the patient's clothes to examine his condition for a long while, the physician in black spoke.
"His condition seems better than the Namgung Young Head's was."
Ha Su-ran's face brightened at those words.
"Then you can cure him, right?"
"Even with the same illness, a cure can never be guaranteed. In any case, I will do my utmost."
Do Tong-dal reassured Ha Su-ran with the not-at-all reassuring words, "He'll earn his pay, so don't worry."
Everyone left the room as the physician in black began the treatment.
"Now show us the Makya Blade."
"Follow me."
Ha Su-ran led the two of them to a room at the end of the corridor. It was a room where the reception area and bedchamber were separated by a door.
"Please wait here a moment."
Ha Su-ran went into the room and spent an excessively long time just fetching a single sword before coming back out.
She carefully set a sword wrapped in red silk cloth down on the table. To Do Tong-dal, the sight was enough to make him laugh in spite of himself.
"What's so funny?"
"A sword is a weapon for fighting, isn't it? In a fight, it's going to clash with other swords, blades, axes, and the like, so handling it that carefully is naturally funny. What, will it shatter if you drop it?"
Namgung Seol-rin scolded him.
"For a martial artist, there's a certain courtesy you owe even to the weapon you wield."
"Courtesy to a lump of metal? Please."
"Haah—! I'm not sure Do Tong-dal is qualified to wield the Makya Blade."
"Ignorance is his crime. He's not a bad sort, really."
Over a single sword, Do Tong-dal had become an ignorant lout. Ha Su-ran was even careful about unwrapping the cloth.
The leather-wrapped hilt was contoured to follow the shape of fingers, and the scabbard was a deep, pitch-black ink color.
The two dragons embossed on the scabbard, with a wish-granting jewel between them, were so finely wrought they seemed alive and moving.
Do Tong-dal said, "Looks pretty expensive," and got smacked on the back by Namgung Seol-rin. He couldn't understand how the two of them could feel reverence for a mere sword.
"May I draw it?"
"Be careful."
"Of course."
Namgung Seol-rin gripped the sword hilt with extreme care. She used only her fingers, as if afraid sweat might stain it. Do Tong-dal was so exasperated he wanted to tell her to just drop the whole act.
Swing—!
The sound of metal scraping against the scabbard was unlike any ordinary sword. Merely leaving the scabbard, the blade seemed to sing.
"Ooh—!"
Namgung Seol-rin let out an exclamation as she drew the sword. Do Tong-dal, too, admitted that the Makya Blade was clearly different from other swords.
Just from drawing it, he felt a chill that made the fine hairs stand on end. The blade cast a silver light without a single blemish, and it was perfectly straight with not the slightest bend.
The fact that the edge had not a single nick was surely because it had been handled so gently. Do Tong-dal thought that sword had likely never been used even once.
"Incredible. Is this really the sword that cut down six hundred Blood Cult followers at the Battle of Wonjinya sixty years ago?"
"Yes. Even after that fierce battle, the edge wasn't damaged in the slightest."
Do Tong-dal asked.
"It hasn't been resharpened, has it?"
Both Namgung Seol-rin and Ha Su-ran bristled.
"That's an insult to the Makya Blade!"
"That's right! The Makya Blade isn't a sword that just any craftsman can casually sharpen!"
"I was only asking. No need to get angry over that......"
At times like this, Namgung Seol-rin and Ha Su-ran got along like lifelong friends. After admiring the Makya Blade for a long while, Namgung Seol-rin sheathed it again.
"It'll be yours soon, so start thinking of it as precious from now on."
He said he understood, but to Do Tong-dal, a sword was still just a sword.
While the physician in black carried out the treatment, Do Tong-dal and Namgung Seol-rin had nothing in particular to do. But they couldn't exactly go sightseeing around Hanam in the middle of all this, so they sparred whenever they had a spare moment.
Though most of those sparring matches only happened because Namgung Seol-rin dragged Do Tong-dal over by the ear.
There was no dedicated sparring ground, so their matches were visible to anyone passing through the back courtyard.
They had nothing to hide, so they didn't care. But then Ha Su-ran said something that got their attention.
Do Tong-dal had finished sparring and was sitting slumped against the wall when Ha Su-ran approached.
"It seems Do Tong-dal has taken the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King."
It wasn't Do Tong-dal but Namgung Seol-rin who shot to her feet.
"What kind of absurd thing are you saying?"
Do Tong-dal shook his head. Too strong a denial always looks like an affirmation. From Namgung Seol-rin's reaction, Ha Su-ran became certain that her casually tossed-out remark was true.
"I'd thought it might be so, since your martial arts have grown incomparably stronger since we first met. As expected."
"As expected, my foot!"
Do Tong-dal calmed the indignant Namgung Seol-rin.
"Enough. I don't have the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King on me anymore, and I've already eaten it. What could anyone do about it?"
"Still, it was supposed to be a secret."
"A secret that's been found out."
Ha Su-ran spoke.
"I'll keep the secret. As you said, Do Tong-dal, you've already consumed it, so it's not much of a secret anyway. Still, I am curious how you obtained the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King."
"It was thanks to this guy's divine gift."
"Divine gift?"
"He said he saw in a dream where the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King was."
Do Tong-dal grumbled.
"You called it a secret, and now you're blabbing away."
"Didn't you just say it's not a secret anymore?"
"That doesn't mean you had to tell her about my divine gift."
"Oh? Is that so?"
Ha Su-ran asked.
"You two are in on this together and teasing me, aren't you?"
"What would we get out of teasing Strategist Ha?"
Ha Su-ran was startled by Namgung Seol-rin's serious counter-question.
"Do Tong-dal really has something like that? That's just superstition, isn't it?"
"If not for this guy's divine gift, how else would he have gotten the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King?"
"So how did he get it?"
"I'm telling you, this guy saw the place where the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King was in a dream!"
"What kind of dream was it?"
Namgung Seol-rin briefly explained how Do Tong-dal had come to obtain the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King. It was an astonishing story that truly couldn't be explained without a divine gift.
"Come to think of it, I did more of the suffering back then. I wiped out an entire mountain stronghold just to bring back that bastard's head."
"That's why I told you two to eat the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King. Why did you feed it to me?"
"Because you needed it more than we did."
"What's an underworld thug going to do by getting even stronger? I'm sick of saying this."
"It's already in your belly, so that's that."
Ha Su-ran asked.
"Do Tong-dal tried not to eat the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King?"
Namgung Seol-rin told her the story behind that as well.
"This guy reads people's minds like a ghost, so you can imagine how hard it was to trick him."
"To think you each tried to yield the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King that everyone would risk their lives to take. I envy your friendship."
"For me, it's not friendship. It's love."
"Shameless girl, every chance you get......"
"Shut it. If you weren't such a womanizer, I wouldn't be like this."
"What womanizer? Me?"
"You have two women besides me! And that Jegal Cheong girl was looking at you with unusual eyes too, and also......"
Namgung Seol-rin's gaze turned toward Ha Su-ran.
"It seems Strategist Ha here is interested as well."
When Ha Su-ran stayed silent, Namgung Seol-rin flared up.
"So you really are interested!"
"I told you, I don't lie. But the competition is fiercer than I thought."
Uncomfortable with the two women's conversation, Do Tong-dal stood up, saying, "I'm going to go wash up."
"Go where?"
Namgung Seol-rin forced him back down into his seat.
"Why are you doing this to me? What did I even do?"
Do Tong-dal felt truly wronged. When bees gather around a flower that's just sitting still, you can't blame the flower.
"It's because you go around reeking of male musk."
"Then should I go around reeking of female musk?"
"Cover your face with a veil like Strategist Ha here!"
At that, Ha Su-ran spoke.
"It isn't Do Tong-dal's looks that women find attractive. Not that I'm saying he's ugly, so please don't misunderstand."
Namgung Seol-rin glared at Ha Su-ran.
"Subtly wagging your tail again...... Take off that veil for a moment."
"Why the veil?"
"Since we're on the subject of looks, let me see that beauty that earned you the title of the greatest beauty of all time, past and present, beyond even the greatest under heaven."
"My face is not a spectacle."
"I should at least know the face of the woman wagging her tail at my man. I have that much right, don't I?"
"What childish obstinacy."
Namgung Seol-rin gripped her sword hilt.
"Shall I remove it by force?"
She really looked ready to draw her sword and swing it.
"I can't fight Lady Namgung, so......"
While Ha Su-ran checked that no one else was around, Do Tong-dal said to Namgung Seol-rin.
"You're going to regret this, you know."
"Why would I regret it?"
"You'll know the moment that veil comes off."
Ha Su-ran removed her veil.
"Goodness, a person's face is a person's face, what's the big......"
Namgung Seol-rin couldn't finish her sentence. Every bit of scenery vanished, and even the wind against her skin came to a halt.
All things in the world disappeared, and all that remained was Ha Su-ran's face. She was not merely beautiful. Even the word "beauty" felt like an insult to Ha Su-ran.
Ha Su-ran covered her face again with the veil, but the afterimage still held Namgung Seol-rin in its grip. Only after a long while did she manage to mutter, "This is impossible."
Do Tong-dal let out a soft sigh as well. He had been trying hard to forget, but it seemed Ha Su-ran would be appearing in his dreams for a while.
* * *