Her Return
Afternoon sunlight filtered into the Myeolmade building.
Vice Leader Moyong Cheonghye rested her chin on the back of her hand, silently replaying the conversation she had shared that morning with Namgung Jin.
The fearless prodigy of the Namgung Clan, bold enough to hunt the Blood Sect on his own without any support from the combat units. If word of it ever reached the Murim Alliance Leader’s ears, all hell would break loose—but that was neither here nor there.
He had raided a Blood Sect hideout and seemed to have come away with some rather unsettling intelligence. From the sound of it, he had been making the rounds of the various combat units, looking to share what he had learned and solicit opinions.
“The Heavenly Killing Star… is it?”
The moment those words left Namgung Jin’s mouth, Moyong Cheonghye had been unable to stop herself from flinching.
According to him, the Blood Sect was seeking the vessel of the Heavenly Killing Star—a baleful star strong enough to endure the descent of the Blood Heaven God, a being whose very existence was still in doubt—so that they might summon it into the world.
“The Blood Sect.”
The shadow force that every combat unit of the Murim Alliance had been hunting with all their strength ever since the Dragon-Phoenix Blood Incident.
“Why would those people be chasing a dead star…?”
Moyong Cheonghye gazed out the window at the sun as it slowly sank toward the horizon.
When night fell, countless star-spirits looked down upon the earth, and among them were those that shone with an ominous light. The Heavenly Killing Star had surely lost its radiance—and an organization as steeped in every foul and heretical art as the Blood Sect should have noticed that in an instant.
And yet they were still skulking through the Central Plains in secret pursuit of it?
“What in the world are they after?”
Moyong Cheonghye narrowed her eyes and muttered the question under her breath, suspicion written plainly across her face.
These were creatures who had spent decades grinding the blade of their vengeance in the dark. The raid on the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering could not possibly have been the end of it. They would only have stepped into the open once they were certain they could win against the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans of the Central Plains.
Of course, their first grand enterprise had collapsed under a cascade of unforeseen setbacks—but still.
“They’re not the sort to give up so easily, either.”
Utterly venomous bastards. Even Clan Lord Moyong Cheon, who had faced them in the old days, had clicked his tongue and said as much.
And at that thought, one utterly preposterous possibility brushed across her mind.
“It can’t be… No. There’s no way.”
The moment it rose, she bit down hard on her lip and shook her head with desperate force.
The astrologer some unknown faction had sent to the Moyong Clan had been perfectly clear. The Heavenly Killing Star had lost its light and set. He had driven the nail in: it would not be seen again in this generation.
And yet what was this anxiety, this strange feeling that kept creeping over her?
“I have to confirm it. Properly confirm it…”
That day—the body they had never managed to recover from the torrent. The hasty judgment they had made based solely on the movement of the star-body itself. No matter how she turned it over, an organization like that would never cling to something with no chance of success.
Even if all they were after was the remains, the Moyong Clan ought to have been the first to find them—if only to keep the appearance of the Heavenly Killing Star buried.
“Ahem, Vice Leader.”
A subordinate’s presence, which had somehow drawn near without her noticing, broke through her reverie. Moyong Cheonghye fixed him with a look that asked what he wanted.
“Young Hero Dog-Beating Dragon has apparently had the head of a wanted man delivered here by escort.”
She could see two escorts from the Eunseong Merchant Group lingering at the Myeolmade entrance, each holding a salt-scented box at his waist. It seemed Dog-Beating Dragon Dan Mujin had once again saved the righteous and cut down a villain. The pure, upright spirit of chivalry that every member of the orthodox path ought to emulate.
“Dan Mujin…”
That strangely atmospheric young man who, in a moment of absolute crisis while she faced the Soul-Severing Demon Lord, had called her noona and thrown himself into the fray. The way he had risked his life for a complete stranger, the familiar air about him, the bizarre way he spoke—ever since that day, Moyong Cheonghye’s thoughts had grown steadily more chaotic.
And a certain idea that had begun to brush across her mind with increasing frequency ever since.
If her younger brother had survived the fall from that cliff, he would be a young man of exactly that age by now.
Yet Moyong Cheonghye repeated the denial over and over inside herself. There was no way. Because if he truly were her brother, then the story from the cliff—that the Heavenly Killing Star had never manifested, that it had stopped—would have been the truth. And that would mean she herself had cut down and cast away the very brother she had sworn to protect.
It was a hypothesis she could not bear to entertain, no matter what.
“Young Hero Mujin… why on earth did you call me noona…?”
A single line that had jabbed straight into her most private wound, perhaps. Surrounded by the entire Myeolmade watching, she could only keep heaving heavy sighs. The others had grown used to how often their Vice Leader sighed these days—but Leader Jeok Unyeop, passing by, never missed the sight.
“You’ve been muttering to yourself since earlier. So it was all about that Young Hero Dan Mujin after all?”
Jeok Unyeop, who had been watching the full range of emotions play across her face, asked with a broad grin.
“Honestly, the fellow hunts villains more diligently than the martial artists of the Myeolmade itself. Delivering the head all the way here, even. Might be better just to induct him into the Myeolmade outright.”
Then we wouldn’t even have to pay the bounty, he added, forming a little circle of gold with his fingers—utterly oblivious to the fact that the Vice Leader’s heart was already burning over the matter of the Heavenly Killing Star.
“Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, what do you think? A letter of application arrived from the Dang Clan recently as well. Perhaps we ought to bring them in as the same class… Wait, where are you going?”
Vice Leader Moyong Cheonghye shot to her feet mid-sentence, her expression grave. Whether the Heavenly Killing Star lived or died, the Moyong Clan had a duty to find it before the Blood Sect did. And for the woman who had cut down her own brother on that cliff, the duty was heavier still.
“Leader. I think I’ll take a business trip.”
The Leader’s face went pale at the Vice Leader’s declaration.
“To where? And for how long?”
“There are things I need to check… here and there. It might take a while.”
Moyong Cheonghye spoke with an apologetic look. The destination was vague, and she could not even guarantee a timeframe.
“This is insane. So you’re saying I’m supposed to handle the entire remaining workload by myself?”
For Jeok Unyeop, already buried under a mountain of work, it was not something he could easily accept. He sprang up to stop her.
“Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, don’t do this! You know we’re run off our feet because of the Blood Sect! If this is because of the teasing just now…”
“I’m sorry, Leader!”
She alone—as his sister—understood the Blood Sect’s extraordinary designs better than anyone. And for that reason, Moyong Cheonghye decided to set aside her duties as Vice Leader for a time.
“Vice Leader! Vice Leadeeeeer! Don’t abandon me…!”
And so the Vice Leader, who paid not the slightest attention to a word the Leader said, walked out through the Myeolmade gates—to confirm a suspicion that had festered for years.
“Iron Wrist Bear! So it was you, you bitch! You were the one chasing me!”
Shivering with cold, his face a deathly blue, the Ghost-Faced Guest—who had been hovering at death’s door—caught sight of Paeng Hwayeop’s face and roared as if he meant to kill her. A nickname with “bear” in it… her appearance and the feel of her both suited it far better than anything of mine ever had, I thought.
“To catch me… cough… you dug a trap like this…”
He glared at the woman in men’s clothing—Ilhong—and muttered as if a chill were running down his spine.
“What trap are you talking about?”
Paeng Hwayeop, on the other hand, tilted her head in genuine confusion. To her, the accusation must have come completely out of nowhere.
“You murderous bitch…”
“Enough. Accept the price of your sins, Ghost-Faced Guest.”
Declaring she would avenge the blood debt of the Paeng brothers, Paeng Hwayeop raised her massive greatsword high toward the sky.
“W-wait. I have a Cold Yin Body—I had no choice but to…”
“Save your excuses for King Yama in the underworld.”
That did not give him the right to take other people’s lives.
Slash!
The broad blade of the greatsword cleaved heavily through his skull. Such was the hollow end of the Ghost-Faced Guest, who had drained the yang energy and lives of countless men yet never once been exposed.
Paeng Hwayeop stopped the rolling head with the sole of her foot.
“Mujin, Ilhong. The two of you truly went through a great deal.”
They had drawn the bastard’s attention and even taken his head for her. It seemed this particularly thorny request was finally wrapping up.
“Here is the promised reward—though I’ve added a little extra, seeing as you finished him off.”
She pulled a money pouch heavy with the clink of pure yellow gold from her robes and held it out.
“Once again, my thanks for your aid, Young Heroes.”
“Ah, I’m the one who should be thanking you. In times as hard as these.”
It had been rough work, but the sight of that pure yellow gold made every last scrap of irritation melt away like snow. So what if I’d made a bit of a fool of myself, as long as the money came in? I’d done plenty of that back in my beggar days, too.
“Here, Ilhong.”
I took the pouch and tossed it straight to Ilhong. She stared at me with a face full of question marks, as if asking what this was about.
“You were the one who took him down. So it’s yours.”
“…Excuse me? But I barely did anything this time. Let’s just split it half and half.”
She insisted she had done almost nothing. But when we arrived, she was clearly the one who had put him on the ground.
“However you want to look at it, you were the one who finished him, so it’s yours. And you said last time there were a bunch of things you wanted to buy. Just keep it.”
You had to acknowledge a subordinate’s achievements and lift them up if you wanted to keep an office running for the long haul—especially when the employee was as capable as this one. So the whole cross-dressing act? We’d just call that playtime and move on.
“Boss…”
A faintly moved expression crossed her face—and then she linked arms with me again, clinging in that peculiar way of hers. Paeng Hwayeop, who had been watching with narrowed eyes, carefully opened her mouth.
“Young Hero Dan Mujin. There is one thing I simply must ask…”
“Yes? What is it?”
“You don’t… actually prefer men, do you?”
“…”
What kind of question was that?
Our acting must have been a little too outstanding. She was asking with complete seriousness.
“Of course not. I don’t have that particular inclination.”
“…Truly? This is important, so answer honestly.”
“Of course. What would I gain by lying?”
Paeng Hwayeop looked back and forth between me and Ilhong—still clinging to my arm—with an expression of half-belief, half-doubt.
“Hss… Hmm… Hmmmm…”
For reasons I could not begin to guess, her agonizing and fretting looked enormous. Even after catching the lecher she had longed to bring down, she looked as if an entirely new headache had just landed in her lap.
“The boss is open to either side. Right?”
Ilhong grinned and clung even more blatantly, right there beside me for all to see.
“…Uuuungh!”
Paeng Hwayeop let out the biggest groan yet.
“So please be sure to pass this information along to Young Heroine Paeng Hwayeop’s dear friend—”
“Quit the nonsense.”
Paeng Clan martial artists were already shouldering the Ghost-Faced Guest’s corpse and disappearing somewhere. It was not the sort of matter one spread around, even if they planned to hush it up.
I rapped Ilhong once on the crown of the head to shut her mouth, then turned to exchange parting words with Paeng Hwayeop.
“It was a strange request… but thank you all the same. If you see Dang Yeohye, please give her my regards.”
Paeng Hwayeop nodded with a stiff face.
“Ah, I’ll go find her and tell her myself. I think I’ve just found a reason I need to inform her quickly…”
Her expression said that, Ghost-Faced Guest or not, she now had something else that needed handling immediately. Even the great clans of Beijing seemed to have no shortage of backlog. At least this affair had gotten us properly acquainted—that was something.
“Well then.”
“Yes. If you ever have more work, come by the office again!”
Paeng Hwayeop hurried off as if she had somewhere urgent to be. All in all, it had been one thoroughly eventful request.
These days the Beijing Vagabond Association never seemed to run short of clients. Inside the branch leader’s office, plastered with strange beast illustrations, a man with a streak of gray in his hair scratched at the scar across his eye and warmly greeted a Rank-B vagabond who had shown her face for the first time in a long while.
“Well, well, look who it is. The pride of our Beijing branch—Peak Realm martial artist Young Heroine Jo Harang herself.”
When he had sent her off on her journey to Shaanxi, she had been nothing more than a solidly capable vagabond. Now she had returned from her training a polished master. Gam Un could not help but beam as if he were looking at a walking gold mine.
“That was a long training period, Jo Harang. You must have gained some considerable insight, yes?”
“Yes. Thanks to a certain incident that drove me to throw myself into training… and thanks to my master’s help, I did gain a little insight.”
Jo Harang nodded with an expression that was somehow both joyful and sorrowful, complex and hard to pin down.
“So—you came looking for work the moment you came down from the mountain?”
“I handed everything I’d saved over to the sect, so now I have to work hard.”
She told him she needed the usual sort of request: one that paid well and let her beat up bad people. Branch Leader Gam Un muttered that she truly was a Rank-B vagabond he could count on, and began rifling through the thick stack of request slips.
Then one of them snagged perfectly in his hand.
“Ah. For a return-and-rehab job, this one’s just the thing.”
Easy work that paid a lot—the kind of request vagabonds loved most. Gam Un fluttered the paper under her nose, saying she was sure to like it; it listed the client and the location.
“Branch Leader, what kind of request is this?”
Jo Harang asked, her slender brows twitching.
Gam Un wore a peculiar little smile as he answered.
“Have you ever heard the saying that a children’s fight turns into an adults’ fight?”
At the top of the request slip, the name of a famous Beijing academy was written in brief.