The Peak Realm Shrimp
A middle-aged man in blue imperial robes opened his mouth with a sour look on his face.
"What the hell even are you?"
"The name's Dan Mujin."
A man who answered right back without flinching, even when one of the imperial family's closest retainers needled him at an angle. That man was me, Dan Mujin.
"What I mean is, why do I keep running into you in situations like this, you cheeky little bastard?"
A eunuch who looked like the Second Prince's lackey, Imperial Golden Guards, the Eastern Depot on the princess's side, and even the head of the Seomok Family—all of them, the real powers of the Imperial Palace, gathered in one place. And right there among them stood a mere troubleshooter, bold as brass. The whole scene seemed to leave him genuinely speechless.
"Well. Things just worked out that way."
I tried to brush it off with that, since explaining would only drag things out.
Cheon Su-gong's brow furrowed as one eyebrow twitched up. I saw pale energy gather around the hand he clenched and unclenched, and hurried to answer.
"I heard the husband over there was having an affair. Came to check it out on a job. Yeah, yeah."
I jabbed a finger toward the subject of the commission—the head of the Seomok Family.
"An affair?! I told you, I never did any such thing!"
The Seomok Family head leaped up again, protesting his innocence with every ounce of wounded dignity he had.
"Hmph. Even if you didn't step out, you clearly had a foot in both boats."
Cheon Su-gong pointed at the Golden Guards who had come pouring in without anyone summoning them.
Armed Golden Guards, and Wang Jingong—his face so caked in white powder it looked ready to float off on its own—were all staring hard in our direction.
"Playing both sides between the Second Prince and the Third Princess, waiting to see who offered the better deal? You've got some nerve."
So that was it—this man had been straddling both factions, ready to sell himself to whoever bid highest.
"Ahem."
He had nothing to say to Cheon Su-gong's accusation. He just cleared his throat and clamped his mouth shut.
Then Wang Jingong, who had dragged the Golden Guards along with him, scanned our faces—and suddenly jabbed a finger straight at me.
"You—! You're that—!"
The look of a man who had just spotted his mortal enemy on a single-log bridge. The other Golden Guards turned their eyes on me as well, wondering what the fuss was about.
"You little brat…! You're the kid who sabotaged our work at every turn in the Eunseong Merchant Group's Jamsil branch!"
The Second Prince's eunuch shrieked in that peculiarly sharp tone of his, his chalk-white face crumpling with rage.
"And you're with Cheon Su-gong! So you were a spy for the princess from the start!"
Wang Jingong stamped and raged as if he'd known it all along, snorting steam. Apparently that whole affair had shattered his dream of rising to Grand Eunuch, and he was taking it out on me with everything he had. On top of that, he claimed he'd lost the prince's trust for failing to handle a single merchant group.
"Preposterous. Her Highness Princess Dohwa has never kept a green, half-baked pup like him close—nor has she ever sent him anywhere."
The moment his own mistress was dragged into baseless suspicion, Cheon Su-gong stepped in at once to deny it.
True enough, I had nothing to do with her back then. Still—a green, half-baked pup? This old man's word choice left something to be desired.
"If he has nothing to do with her, then even if the Golden Guards beat him to death right here, you won't lift a finger—will you, Cheon Su-gong?"
The moment Cheon Su-gong stepped back, Wang Jingong of the Imperial Wardrobe seized the chance, a greasy smile curling his lips. He looked ready to settle the grudge of his fall from grace right here and now—as if fate itself had delivered me into his hands.
Shhhhing.
Three Golden Guards drew their long imperial swords and closed the distance at a measured pace.
Every one of them carried an aura that was anything but ordinary. And as if to confirm that impression, they lit the darkness with vivid, ice-blue sword qi.
"Son of a bitch."
If I remembered right, the one who had brought Wang Jingong down in Jamsil back then was Princess Dohwa herself. But a veiled woman like her was not someone you could even dare speak the word "revenge" about—so of course he was taking it out on a soft target like me.
"Hey. Cheon Su-gong."
"What is it, you brat."
The high-ranking man of the Eastern Depot turned his head at my low call.
I had managed, with the Heavenly Killing Star's absurd stamina and regeneration, to hold my own against two Peak Realm fighters before. But three? No matter how I sliced it, I could not guarantee a win. If I could, I would already have fully crossed into the Transcendental Peak Realm.
"Any chance of backup?"
Something about the question must have given him a strange sense of déjà vu, because Cheon Su-gong let out a short laugh.
"It's possible."
And with that, he kicked off the ground and slid well back, as if he wanted no part of this.
"…"
An answer that told me, literally, only whether it was possible. Not that he would help.
I blanked for a second at that beautifully pedantic reply—then snapped back to reality as the Golden Guard warriors trudged closer.
"Hey, then don't just stand there watching—help me!"
Apparently this old man still remembered me answering him and bolting in the mulberry field. Leave it to a eunuch to hold a grudge that long.
"I'll decide after I see what you can do."
Saying so, he clasped his hands behind his back and withdrew further, taking Ilhong—whom he had once tried to scout—with him.
"You son of a—!"
Even as I swore, the Golden Guards closed their encirclement with blank faces.
Even their footwork, moving in concert, was on another level—some exclusive formation art of the Golden Guards, no doubt. There were only three of them, yet the pressure was worse than being surrounded by a hundred mediocre martial artists.
Even staring through the Heavenly Killing Eye, I couldn't find a single gap to slip through. No way out. I was going to have to face this three-man formation head-on.
"Ohoho! Kill him!"
With Wang Jingong's snide laughter ringing out, the Imperial Golden Guards I had only ever heard about came crashing down on me.
Whsssh—!
Clang-clang-clang!
Sword qi and crimson trails flashed madly before my eyes.
I threw my whole body into dodging the storm of blade strikes, driven steadily backward.
Clang!
Every time sword qi met staff qi, a fierce shockwave swept the alley.
Each hard-won step became a dance that slipped past a razor edge.
Slash!
A blade skimmed my side. I twisted away before I even had time to grimace.
Even the ghostlike slip of Whirlwind Steps was useless against the net of blades they had cast.
"Hah— hah—!"
If I could just land a proper counter and drop them one by one, I might turn this around. But the moment one man thrust, the next was already waiting to cut, and if I slipped that, another blade came crashing down on my crown.
Their seamless group-combat skill was steadily shrinking my room to move.
"Whole body's cut to ribbons again. Goddamn it."
I should have known, the second I took this job, that I'd end up getting stuck full of steel. Today I was getting my fill of sharp edges, no question.
"Ohoho! How's the taste of the blade? You should have kept your snout out of imperial business!"
And from behind, that loathsome eunuch's voice, scraping at my insides without rest.
Somehow he managed to be even more hateful than the swordsmen actually stabbing me in the face.
For the first time in a while, the Heavenly Killing Star and I were of one mind—and killing intent rolled off me in waves.
"Hoho. At first I was a little surprised you were Peak Realm… but a street mutt could never beat these specially chosen Golden Guard masters!"
Even if a blade buried itself deep, I wanted nothing more than to smash through this formation and wreck that bastard.
"Boss!"
Ilhong cried out in alarm as the extraordinary imperial masters pressed me harder and harder.
"Stay there. Don't you dare get involved."
Thankfully, Cheon Su-gong had a firm grip on him. As if a Second-class fighter had any business jumping into a fight between Peak Realm martial artists. He'd need ten necks and still come up short.
"As they say—know your place! Reach beyond your station, and this is the calamity that befalls you! Hoho!"
Whish—!
While my attention snagged on that grating voice, another slash raked across my forearm.
From left to right, blood fountained out.
"Kh—!"
A wound deep enough to bare the bone. An ordinary man would have lost the use of that arm on the spot.
The next Golden Guard came in right on cue, seizing the blind angle on the wounded side.
Crack!
But I forced the tendons to regenerate with this monstrous body of mine and paid him back with a crushing fist.
My straight punch smashed into his face. He grunted and staggered two steps back.
"Guh— you piece of filth…"
His proud yellow uniform was turning red as blood spattered down from his nose.
"What are you doing?! You can't even put down one mangy mutt! And you call yourselves Golden Guards?!"
Wang Jingong ranted, riding high on his status as the prince's confidant.
I sucked in ragged breaths and eased back, buying time for the slashed arm to fully regenerate.
Beyond the shoulders of the Golden Guards reforming their formation, I could see Wang Jingong's sneering face.
Kill.
A strange feeling. It had been a long time since I wanted this badly to kill someone.
"Yeah. You're thinking the same thing, right?"
The brink of death. The Heavenly Killing Star, seething with thick crimson energy.
At my muttering, the Golden Guards started looking at me like I had lost my mind.
"Then give me a hand."
A rare opportunity. I didn't want to die—and I wanted to kill.
Tssssss—
Wrapped in that crimson aura only I could see, I threw the shrimp's body into the jaws of the whale.
"You're dead!"
When the powers of the Imperial Court gathered in one place, that insolent brat Dan Mujin and the little kid with him had muttered something about a shrimp caught between fighting whales—about how the shrimp dies when whales clash.
But look now. Where else in this world—
"Gyaaah!"
—would you find a shrimp thrashing three Peak Realm martial artists?
Cheon Su-gong watched Dan Mujin with a strange look—watched the youth take a sword through the gut and still blow a Golden Guard's head clean off.
A young man soaked in blood from head to toe, still fighting with vicious tenacity.
"Hmm. I had heard he'd reached Peak Realm…"
There had been parts he found hard to believe, and so Cheon Su-gong had deliberately stayed out of it—to see just how far the boy's level had truly risen.
But the youth before him was putting on an even more remarkable show than expected.
"Last time I saw him he was only Second-class. An absurd rate of growth."
He had thought of the boy as little more than someone with an uncanny nose for killing intent. And now that was paired with martial skill far beyond the ordinary. The look in Cheon Su-gong's eyes shifted—from "green, half-baked pup" to something else entirely.
"Argh! What are you doing?! Flinching over one bastard like that!"
With one Golden Guard down and the tide suddenly uncertain, Wang Jingong leaped and shrieked.
"Hah— hah. You son of a bitch—I'm cracking that skull of yours for sure."
Cheon Su-gong had no idea what a "skull-bowl" was, but from the way Dan Mujin pointed at the fallen Golden Guard, he clearly meant to cave someone's head in.
Wang Jingong squeaked and scrambled a couple of steps back from the blood-soaked figure.
The back alley filled with the rough breathing of martial artists and the thick scent of blood.
"S-strike! Cut the bastard's head off, now!"
He goaded the Golden Guards with words, but unlike before, they no longer rushed in so readily.
Men who barely stirred for ordinary crises—and yet this vicious mongrel's resistance had shaken them hard.
"Damn these fucking eunuch bastards…"
At the shrill, stamping shriek, Dan Mujin ground his teeth and let his rage flare.
Then he glanced back over his shoulder.
"Ah—that wasn't aimed at you, Cheon Su-gong. You know what I mean, right?"
"…"
Even when he was this close to earning favor, the green pup always found a way to wreck it.