A Deep Ill Fate
Dawn broke.
Warm sunlight seeped in through the window, and the soft chatter of birds tickled the ears—a gentle morning.
At the Jinju Eon Clan, after a meeting that had stretched through the night, they seemed to have finished selecting the personnel who would transport the evidence—the jiangshi and the Blood Cultist—to the Murim Alliance.
"So, I'd like to hire you."
Having uncovered the reason the corpses had vanished, Eon Wol-yeong of the Eon Clan paid out the corresponding commission for that job—and then came asking for another.
The solid weight of silver and gold coins in my hand. This time a corpse had come charging at us out of nowhere, so we'd really suffered for it. All things considered, it felt like we'd earned every bit of this.
"Another job?"
"Yes. Escorting the jiangshi's coffin. Please take it."
Apparently the meeting had concluded that since a few highly skilled masters who'd personally subdued the jiangshi were right there in front of them, they might as well put those masters to work.
Linked work—one commission leading straight into another. Judging by how generously they'd paid this time, they were a clan that didn't pinch pennies. No reason for me to complain.
That was the nature of freelancing: when you can make money, you make it hard and fast.
"But, Miss Eon Wol-yeong."
"Yes? Please go ahead."
"…Why are you talking while avoiding my eyes?"
A woman so gaunt she looked like a dry branch, pale as a ghost and the sort of person you'd rather not run into at night—and yet she was the one treating me like something frightening, dodging my gaze.
"It's not that I'm avoiding your eyes specifically."
Even with a person standing right in front of her, she whipped her head around and stared off at the distant mountains as she said it.
What kind of word game was that supposed to be? If she wasn't avoiding me, then what the hell was she avoiding?
"Boss, what did you do?"
Ilhong asked, suspicion thick in her voice.
"What? I didn't do anything."
This one I was genuinely wronged about. I had no memory of doing a single thing. Why had her attitude toward me flipped overnight?
"Anyway—Harang, Ilhong. The coffin escort job. You two okay with it?"
I turned and asked them how they felt. This wasn't a sightseeing trip; it was express delivery, so we'd be back faster than last time—but it still wasn't a short road.
"Yes, Boss. Finish what you start, right? Seeing it through to the end isn't a bad thing."
"I'm good too. The Blood Cult's clearly cooking up something in the Central Plains—this is the kind of thing we have to make sure gets reported, no matter what."
Ilhong, speaking up in favor because commissions this lucrative didn't come around often. And the Purple Micro Star, who loathed the wicked, nodded without hesitation for the sake of the jianghu's peace.
Good. That settled it—we were taking the job.
"On the deceased's final journey, the Dan Mujin Office will see them off with the utmost care."
"…They're not our deceased. I'll be going with you, so just make sure we don't get ambushed by the Blood Cult or lose the cargo."
She said it while staring off at the distant mountains again, looking thoroughly unimpressed.
Ambushes and lost cargo. Well, of course. That was the whole reason you hired martial artists for a delivery job in the first place.
I clasped my fists in a martial salute to say we'd take good care of it, and was about to move off to pack for the transport when—
Eon Wol-yeong suddenly seized my hand and locked eyes with me.
"…Be careful."
Her voice sounded as if she were crushing down her fear and wringing courage out of herself. From our joined hands came a crushing grip, as if she truly meant for me to watch myself.
"Careful of what?"
At that question, full of honest confusion, she locked eyes with me one more time—staring hard, like we were having a staring contest. Then—
"Ugh…! I can't do any more. I'm sorry…!"
And with that, she bolted from the spot in a frantic scramble.
"…What the hell."
A million question marks spun through my head. What was wrong with this woman all of a sudden? Careful of what? And what couldn't she do anymore?
And then there was that one red finger of hers, twitching as if she'd somehow won—even though I had no idea what any of it meant.
"…You really did something, didn't you?"
"I told you, I didn't. Seriously."
Why dump a bunch of unsettling comments on someone right before they leave for a delivery?
Eun Hwaran had brokered the introduction, but this client was shady in every direction.
"I just hope I never run into her at night."
Sorry to say it, but she was so ghostlike she was a little scary. Of course I didn't think anything of the sort actually existed… but in this world, you never really knew.
The funeral escort procession was fairly lean.
They'd spent serious money hiring masters like us, so the party had been built as a small, elite force.
Three of us on our side, seven martial artists from the Jinju Eon Clan. The cargo: one wooden coffin holding the Asura Heavenly Slaughter whatever-it-was, and one Blood Cult spy trussed up tight with a nice dent in the top of his skull. Two horse-drawn wagons carried the lot, rolling along a well-kept road.
Once more, the road from Hebei to Shaanxi.
Through the long journey I sat on the wagon feeling the rattle shake through my backside, walked for stretches with no end in sight, and at times shoved at a wheel stuck in the mud.
When the transport had gone on without incident for about ten days, Eon Wol-yeong spoke to me with a faintly surprised look.
"You seem more used to this kind of transport work than I expected."
Apparently she'd been a little taken aback watching me handle camp duties, bivouac prep, and cargo protection with real competence. Moving with a group like this for transport work involved a surprising amount of things to keep track of and fuss over.
That said, she still couldn't meet my eyes—still staring off at the distant mountains.
"Well, back in the day I worked as a Murim courier—no. I worked for a while at the Eunseong Escort Bureau."
Early on as a wagon hand, and later on a few escort runs.
"Ah—when you say escort bureau, do you mean the Eunseong Escort Bureau?"
I nodded toward the woman who still couldn't look me in the eye.
"Yes. That was when I was poor and starving. Thanks to them, I managed not to go hungry."
I'd worked until the sky turned yellow and it had been genuinely hard—but it was also the period when I'd held down a real job and escaped life as a beggar.
Come to think of it, I wondered how Ohchil and the kids who said they wanted to become escorts were doing these days.
"Ah, so that's why you're close with Merchant Master Eun Hwaran… But then how did you end up leaving Eunseong?"
Well, if all you did was make deliveries for an escort bureau, you never built up any good karma. That was the biggest reason. I had something like a ticking time bomb that could go off any time if I didn't hustle to stack meritorious deeds.
So even when Sister Eun Hwaran tried to hold on to me by offering the next chief escort captain's seat, I'd had no choice but to turn her down. Of course, it also helped that playing troubleshooter—taking on the jobs everyone else avoided and collecting both thanks and cash at the same time—was basically my calling.
"I just… found the work I was good at, and it ended up that way."
I couldn't exactly announce the existence of the Heavenly Killing Star, so I brushed it off and kept talking as if that were the whole story.
"You really are good at the work, though. This job included… You've never failed a commission, have you?"
So my sworn sister had been talking me up a lot at her gatherings. Next time I visited the merchant group, I'd have to show up with a gift bundle or two.
"Yes. I'm pretty good at what I do. And we'll finish this transport without a hitch too—so please spread the word hard in Hebei for me."
"Heh. Of course."
At my request that she put in a good word for the office, Eon Wol-yeong nodded, a pale smile on her lips.
I took that promising little agreement with me and walked on for quite a while longer. Then—
"Everyone, we'll rest here."
When a broad clearing opened up, our client called for a break. The Eon Clan martial artists, who'd been force-marching for fear the Blood Cult might be on our trail, finally exhaled in deep relief and dropped their rear ends onto the ground all over the clearing.
Sweet, honeyed rest after a long march. I flopped down with my back against the wagon.
It felt like I'd been getting my fill of the long-distance foot marches I used to do in the military, now that I was in this world. No matter how much internal force you built up or how many lightfoot techniques you learned, you still had to keep your body moving—so walking wore on the mind and tired the body out, at least a little.
"A hot bowl of cup noodles issued right here would hit the spot."
Or a chocolate pie. That hometown smell would have been a direct hit for restoring morale.
"Hah! What's that… Hup! Boss!"
Ilhong tossed the question my way while using the rest period to squeeze in bits of martial training. Looking at her sometimes, she seemed more of an iron man than I was—not in body, but in spirit.
"So what is it, huff. What is it, Boss."
Look at that endless thirst for knowledge, determined to understand anything she didn't know.
"There's just stuff like that, kid."
I pulled a strip of jerky from my coat and chewed as I answered. The Transcendental Peak Realm pretty boy immediately started grumbling that I always brushed things off like this.
"Hey. Why'd you suddenly catch fire about training, anyway?"
I asked, watching her swing her sword with beads of sweat standing out on her skin. The way she cut on a diagonal and then twisted the path in a strange way looked exactly like the motion I'd used when I cut down that Asura whatever-it-was.
"Because—hup!—this time too, I was no help at all…!"
When everyone in the office had been in danger, she'd thrown every means she had at it and still hadn't been any use—and she was still beating herself up over it.
"Hey. Just covering your share of the meals is fine. You're already doing more than enough."
"No. Huff. That's not enough…!"
A subordinate who insisted she had to push herself harder and put even more fuel into her training.
Shiiing!
A sword tip charged with drive cut sharply through empty air.
Unbelievable. Training without even being told. Was an employee with real ownership mentality actually a thing that existed? First time I'd ever seen one. Where else would you find a subordinate this ridiculous?
At this rate I ought to hand her something like equity just because she was so damn endearing.
I dug through my coat, pulled out the round pill I'd received from the Moyong Clan, and held it out to Ilhong.
"Hey, Ilhong. Take this and keep going."
"Huh? What is this… Good heavens, this is a Supreme Gathering Pill! The Moyong Clan's elixir!"
She'd taken it without much thought—then nearly jumped out of her skin.
The Supreme Gathering Pill. The Moyong Clan's treasure, said to fill you with fifteen years' worth of internal force the moment you swallowed it. And back when I was Moyong Cheongjin, it was also the elixir whose fragrance I never even got to smell—loaded with that old bitterness.
"How can you hand over something this precious like it's candy… Are you in your right mind?"
Even when I was the one offering, she threw a fit.
And I was completely in my right mind. No matter how precious an elixir was, what was the point of leaving it to rot in your coat? At my level, taking it myself would be like pouring one more bucket of water into the ocean. But if I performed a good deed by giving it to Ilhong free of charge? Massive good karma stacked up, which meant my lifespan extended and my internal force grew. In short, it was a buy-one-get-one event. A utilitarian correct choice—no reason not to do it. That was why I could stay this detached even about an elixir.
"D-don't do this. I can't take it."
"Why not, kid? I've heard other people will kill without blinking just to get their hands on one of these."
"Last time I already received an elixir way beyond my station. If I take this on top of it, the debt in my heart… Anyway, no!"
Debts, repayment, all of that. The kid was already fretting over things that didn't matter. At her age, if someone handed you something you were supposed to yell jackpot and scarf it down.
"When an adult gives you something, you just take it. Tch, tsk tsk."
"What adult? For the hundredth time, it's a one-year difference. And when a person is struggling like this! You don't even try to understand, seriously!"
Apparently she was at that emotionally volcanic age. Driven off by Ilhong's barrage, I ended up retreating.
From not far away, Jo Harang had been watching the whole scene—and she let out a little snort of laughter.
"What, you want this too?"
I asked, tossing the elixir up and catching it like a marble. She shook her head left and right.
"I'm good. I already reached Transcendental Peak thanks to you. How could I take that?"
This body was offering a rare buy-one-get-one event, and somehow that was still driving people crazy. Why wasn't there a single person around me willing to accept it? I was starting to doubt whether these people were real murim folk at all.
"Um…"
Just then, a Jinju Eon Clan martial artist who'd overheard us carefully raised a hand nearby.
"If no one needs that… could I take it instead…?"
"Don't even dream of it."
"Ahem. Yes."
I was being generous because they were my people. How dare an outsider even think it.
Anyway, I was tucking the rarely-unpacked elixir back into my coat with nothing to show for it again when Jo Harang came walking over with deliberate steps. From the start she'd seemed uninterested in the elixir itself—after something else entirely.
A strange look in her eyes as she stared straight at me without a word.
"Not the elixir. I've got a different request."
"A different request?"
I tilted my head and asked back, puzzled.
"Yeah. Spar with me."
She said it while closing her hand around the hilt of her greatsaber.
"Ah. A spar?"
After watching me go at it with the jiangshi down in the basement last time, that competitive streak of hers must have kicked in again. Well—a spar with a master, and one where you could clash without dying, wasn't exactly common for me either.
I nodded and reached for my staff. She shook her head.
"No. Not that."
"Then what?"
"This."
She flicked a scabbard she'd taken from one of the Jinju Eon Clan martial artists toward me.
"Let's go blade to blade."