Scary Uncle Service
One shichen earlier.
Jo Harang had come to a place called the Golden Dragon Academy to meet her client.
Even in Beijing, this was where the ambitions of parents dreaming of their children placing first in the imperial exams burned hottest. Word had it that a scholar here could predict the exam questions with uncanny accuracy, so wealthy parents arrived clutching their savings, desperate for an edge.
And this particular client belonged squarely to that anxious breed of parent.
"That Jang brat brought some 'uncle' along and threatened my boy! Can you believe it? A grown man sticking his nose into children's fights—has he no shame at all?!"
The gist was this: a young master of the Jang clan had hired an outsider to intimidate the young master of the Ha clan. The Ha clan head spat as he poured out his rage.
"I hear the fellow's some local troubleshooter. So he scared my child over a handful of coins, is that it? Scum like that needs to pay the price!"
And so he had placed a high-paying request with the Vagabond Association to make certain that price was collected.
"That's right! He was a bad man!"
The Ha clan young master chimed in, agreeing that the troubleshooter was thoroughly rotten. The Ha clan head urged her to thrash the man thoroughly while she had the chance.
"A troubleshooter in Beijing, huh…"
A certain handsome face sprang to mind unbidden, but Jo Harang quickly shook her head. How many evil-path troubleshooters were there in Beijing, chasing the scent of money? True, few had the nerve—or the coin—to open an office inside the expensive city walls…
Don't think about it. Just don't.
He would simply be one more greedy, low-grade troubleshooter among the many littering the streets. The man was an adult martial artist who had threatened innocent Ha clan children; now she, a true expert, would simply step in and put the other side in their place.
With that resolve, she headed for the meeting place.
And the person waiting there was, of course, the very last one she had wanted to see.
"Dan Mujin? What are you doing here…?"
Her voice trembled slightly.
"…That's what I want to ask you."
They said enemies—or rather, awkward acquaintances—always met on a single-plank bridge. The opposing troubleshooter the Ha clan people had been savaging nonstop was, it seemed, the person she knew better than anyone.
While the two clan heads jabbed fingers at each other and bellowed at the top of their lungs, Dan Mujin and Jo Harang—reunited after so long—simply stared at one another in awkward silence.
Normally she would have asked when he came down the mountain, how he had been, whether his realm had risen—small talk first. But of course they had to meet again as hired blades on opposite sides of a confrontation.
"…Boss, what do we do? Should we just back out?"
Vagabonds and troubleshooters were basically the same trade—people who took commissions and got things done. So he had always half-expected a day when they would face each other from opposite camps.
"And leave the client who trusted me enough to come this far high and dry? You finish the job you take."
He glanced at the little client who had sought him out when work was scarce and said as much. Lawyers who were friends still fought their hardest for their own clients in court, right? This was simple professional ethics.
"No. Drop the weird pride and step back, Dan Mujin."
Apparently the other side felt the same. She toyed with the hilt of her greatsword and demanded he withdraw before things turned ugly. Somehow her voice and tone felt harder than before. Was he imagining it? She used to call him "Mujin" so casually.
"Why should I?"
"Why? Are you saying a grown adult has any business sticking his nose into kids' affairs?"
The fact that an adult—worse, a trained martial artist of the murim—was diving headfirst into a children's quarrel clearly did not sit well with her. Only some money-grubbing evil-path troubleshooter would stoop to it, she said; it simply wasn't right.
Fair enough. Even Yang Jo and Yang Wi, the escorts who once took a job from Mangeum Money House's Salt-and-Pepper Beard, had found the idea of a murim man laying hands on civilian children deeply distasteful. In short, it was a face-losing act for any righteous-path martial artist.
"That's exactly why an adult steps in when it's kids, Harang."
Especially teenagers full of hot blood—they could fly off in any direction. They committed violence and cruel words they would bitterly regret once they grew up, often without even realizing it. Someone had to mediate.
"So why does it have to be you…?"
"The Ha brat has been relentlessly beating our little guy. How is this uncle supposed to just sit still? I have to do something."
The whole point of the scary-uncle service was to imply an even greater violence and make the bullying stop. Why else would the Jang kid have tracked down some hole-in-the-wall troubleshooter's office? He wasn't after grand revenge—he had simply been in too much pain to endure it alone. The sign that said We Handle Anything had drawn his feet without him meaning to.
"You said you were an orphan. So you're not even an uncle."
"…"
She had stabbed him right in the sore spot. No malice at all—just a pure, factual observation. Sometimes those clear-eyed lunatics were the scariest of all.
"Anyway, I'm not backing down. You're the one who should stop defending kids who throw violence around at the academy and get out of the way."
He waved her off with a shooing gesture, telling her side to withdraw instead. Her elegant brows twitched.
"Kids this age grow up by hitting each other. They fight, they make up, they build friendship that way. But if some adult murim suddenly barges in and scares them, what then? Were you always this kind of low-grade troubleshooter?"
Friendship? After daily beatings and shaking kids down for money? A student's job was to cultivate proper character and accumulate knowledge, not to grow up through brawling. Where did she even get this outdated mindset…?
"Ah."
Right. Jo Harang was from the old era. In a way it was only natural here—an age where romance and violence walked hand in hand. An age when a teacher who had "loosened the clock" would slap a student while asking what his father did for a living. But Dan Mujin knew this was the wrong way to raise anyone.
"Jo Harang, don't you even know what a school-violence committee is?!"
"…What nonsense are you spouting now?"
How many cases had festered and exploded simply because adults dismissed them as nothing serious? Memories of being beaten were wounds you carried all the way into adulthood. Far better for an uncle like him to step in and cut the bad blood clean.
"Therefore, Jo Harang, in this commission I am the side of good."
Acting on what one believed to be justice and accumulating merit—that was supposed to be the purpose of the Purple Micro Star, wasn't it? At his claim that his side was the righteous one, her eyes—full of violet starlight—narrowed.
"Dan Mujin, it's only been a while and already I can't talk to you."
"Funny, I was about to say the same."
Normally they would have listened to each other at least this far. For some reason, though, she seemed a touch sharper than usual today.
"Then we'll have to talk with our fists, the murim way."
When words failed, fists spoke—the barbaric problem-solving method unique to this world. Looking as if she had no other choice, she clenched the hilt of her greatsword tight. She had taken the job as a vagabond; she would see it through for the fee she had accepted.
"Boss, that woman was ridiculously strong. Can you even win?"
Ilhong jabbed him in the side, face full of worry. Having witnessed Jo Harang's martial arts up close more than once, she clearly found the matchup unsettling.
"Beats me. I can't really gauge it either."
They had once stood back-to-back and cut through lines of death together. But once they split up to work, situations like this apparently happened.
"Hyung, you have to win!"
"We cannot retreat from a contest with those Ha clan dogs. You must take the victory."
The Jang clan family sent him expectant looks. Having heard he had casually dropped a Second-class Realm troubleshooter, they clearly assumed he possessed considerable martial power.
"Jo Harang, was it? An E-rank vagabond—I look forward to the show."
"Unnie, smash that smug troubleshooter in one hit!"
The Ha clan people, for their part, cheerily rooted for Jo Harang, certain an E-rank vagabond would crush a mere troubleshooter with ease. Two groups who knew nothing, simply yelling for their team to win and fanning the fight.
"Hah. Never thought we'd end up crossing blades like this."
Right—none of these people had a clue. They were currently goading a battle between the Purple Micro Star and the Heavenly Killing Star that had stretched across more than a dozen centuries. Somehow a kids' fight had escalated to the adults and now all the way to a clash of ominous stars.
"How did it come to this?"
And the funny part was, the only person in this entire place who knew that crucial fact was him.
Flee!
Flee!
Ah—right. There was also Salsung, who used to throw a fit the moment the Purple Micro Star was mentioned. So he wasn't completely alone. A tiny comfort.
Shhhhing.
Jo Harang drew her massive greatsword and leveled it before him. The Heavenly Killing Star—who desired the Purple Micro Star's death more than anyone—was screaming for him to run, which meant her current realm was almost certainly higher than his.
So rationally speaking, withdrawing was the correct move…
"What, scared?"
The moment he hesitated, the other side hit him with the classic "chicken?"
No!
No!
Salsung, apparently reading his mind, frantically shouted at him not to do it. She seemed absolutely certain he would lose.
But did she know? For a man…
"There are times you have to fight even when you know!"
Taat!
He kicked off the ground and closed the distance in a flash. Jo Harang's face filled his vision. Grinning, he swung the staff packed with every ounce of his power at the smiling woman.
"Uwaaaah!"
Kwaaang—!
A thick, vivid blade of sword qi flashed. The male martial artist went flying, slammed into a wall, then bounced right back to his feet. The dance-like exchange of blade and staff between two Peak Realm masters tore across the academy's front courtyard.
Kwaddeuk!
The greatsword shredded the empty air in a frenzy, trying to land a hit on the weaving Dan Mujin. The monstrous strength and internal energy packed into each strike made the academy's stone walls collapse and explode outward. In an instant the entrance of the Golden Dragon Academy had become pure chaos.
"Eek! Hiiik!"
"Rocks! Get down!"
The unexpected ferocity left the wives of the Jang and Ha clans pale with terror as they clutched their children.
"What in the world is this…!"
"Those two are Peak Realm masters?!"
The two clan heads, who had thought they were merely hiring an ordinary troubleshooter and a common vagabond, stood slack-jawed and unable to close their mouths.
"Jo Harang! Why are you going this far?!"
Dan Mujin shouted in disbelief at Jo Harang, who was coming at him with everything she had—not some friendly spar to fulfill a commission.
She kicked off the ground with the expression of a tragic heroine.
"You betrayed me!"
"…What betrayal?!"
To Dan Mujin the line was so baffling he wanted to tear his clothes. What betrayal had he committed? All he had done this whole time was diligently complete commissions. Then she dropped out of the sky after a year and threw that at him.
"…I don't know either! I just feel betrayed, okay?!"
As if trying to fling away the sticky emotion in her chest, she poured massive internal energy into her greatsword and unleashed a ferocious saber technique.
Kwaddeudeuk!
"I'm going crazy, seriously!"
Floorboards and nearby fixtures shattered under Jo Harang's monstrous strength. And so the fated showdown between the Heavenly Killing Star and the Purple Micro Star—passed down through the generations—unfolded for the most absurd reason in history.