The Operation
Silence and darkness settled over the Imperial Palace at midnight.
"Ju Gachi, how go the preparations for the Garden Banquet?"
The Garden Banquet — an imperial feast held in the palace gardens, a gathering where every soul of the court assembled in one place. Ordinarily, preparations amounted to little more than dressing up one's subordinates and weeding out anyone likely to cause trouble. But the "preparations" of the two royals meeting in secret tonight were of an entirely different order.
"Yes. Everything is proceeding smoothly."
Right under the Son of Heaven's nose, at the very event where he intended to look upon every face, they were plotting something thoroughly unseemly.
"And securing it?"
The Empress asked without expression, her eyes sliding over him.
"We've secured as much as we need. Byeok Jinsang has been most cooperative."
Without the faintest idea what fate awaited him later, of course. For now, drunk on the empty wind this side had blown into him, he was swaggering about as if he held his entire clan in his fist.
"'Proceeding smoothly,' you say…"
Even when told her son was doing well, the Empress wore a look of faint distrust. Faced with those eyes that refused to fully believe in him, the Second Prince bowed his head low and clenched his fists tight.
"……"
No matter how hard he tried, the Empress's gaze was always measured against the Crown Prince — and always found him wanting. And after his recent failures, whatever trust remained seemed to have drained away still further.
"What of the Byeok Clan matter?"
"That, too, is progressing without issue."
But all he could offer was neither sulking nor complaint. Only the cry of I'll do my best, proven by results. He knew well enough that the more he reached for affection, the colder his mother's eyes would grow.
"Ah… if I may ask. What exactly do you intend to do with all of this?"
What are you plotting?
At that question, the Empress's blank mask finally cracked into a faint smile — thin, and laced with malice.
"If poison fails, my dear, you simply try another method."
The failed assassination attempt last time — this time, not with poison, but with something else. The Empress clearly meant to use the Garden Banquet, where everyone would gather, to wipe the Imperial Noble Consort's entire family from the board.
Second Prince Ju Gachi's expression hardened by degrees.
"B-but if we do such a thing before the Son of Heaven and everyone present… won't we immediately be named the perpetrators?"
Bold to the point of recklessness. Deny it all they liked, no one would believe them. Even if they offered up a scapegoat like Byeok Jinsang, the moment His Majesty decided it was their doing, it was over. In the Imperial Palace, his word was both the law and the rule of law.
The Second Prince stole a fearful glance up at his mother.
"His Majesty has many enemies. Does he not?"
"…I have heard that a seat above all men is, by nature, such a place."
The seat his elder brother had once nearly claimed. Lonely, friendless, and overflowing with enemies — that, he had been told, was the Son of Heaven's fate.
"Indeed. So many despise him, both within and beyond our borders, that if someone were to strike at him one day with some… device, it would hardly be strange."
A mass-killing tool devoid of killing intent or personal malice. Black-powder weaponry that could snuff out even a master who misstepped. But even if they erased the Son of Heaven that way, it would only plunge all of Zhongyuan into chaos — with no guarantee of ever sitting in that long-coveted seat.
"…Don't tell me you mean to disguise this as an assassination attempt on His Majesty, and target the Third Princess and Third Prince instead?"
Just as his mother said, suspects would be overflowing across Zhongyuan — unlike an attack aimed at the Imperial Noble Consort, they could slip off the list of suspects with relative ease. And the Consort's family would simply happen, by tragic coincidence, to be caught in the blast meant for the Emperor.
"It is the kin-slaughter His Majesty himself desired. We ought to show it to him clearly, right before his eyes. Should we not?"
Is that not the duty of a discarded wife? The Empress spoke with a face so cold it bordered on madness.
"……"
The Second Prince swallowed hard in silence. Watching the Crown Prince writhe in agony for years — had something finally swallowed his mother whole? If someone asked how far she would go, she looked ready to answer, with a face full of ghost-light, All the way.
"My son, Ju Gachi. You will naturally move to aid this mother of yours, will you not?"
But how could a child defy his mother's words? The warm tone and manner, as if she were speaking to his elder brother, left the Second Prince nodding before he knew it.
"Yes, of course. Leave it to me. I will see that Mother Empress has nothing to worry about…"
In that very moment, as he resolved to burn the Byeok Clan under a false charge for his mother's sake and massacre the Imperial Noble Consort's family—
KRA-KOOM—!
Thunder crashed in successive peals, and a shockwave like an earthquake swept through the Imperial Palace. Beyond the window, a towering pillar of flame rose somewhere in Beijing.
Few places could produce an explosion of that scale. Judging by the direction, it had to have come from the Byeok Clan.
"…'Nothing to worry about,' you said?"
The Empress's eyes turned ice-cold once more.
"……"
The Second Prince closed his mouth, at a loss for words. His gaze locked on the direction of the Byeok Clan and would not move. He had been told everything was rolling along smoothly. And yet, once again, someone had just shattered the plan.
He ground his teeth and glared at the afterglow of the blast lighting up the night sky.
"Who the hell… How dare they."
The day after the midnight operation.
When morning came, the clan members who had fled, thinking the smoke was poison, began returning one after another. And what greeted them upon their return was a Byeok Clan with a new order already in place.
The masters Byeok Jinsang had brought with him lay sprawled unconscious all over the grounds, and their ringleader, too, had fallen into our hands. Whether the clan people were simply quick to read a situation, or whether popular sentiment had always leaned toward the siblings — most of them, thankfully, welcomed Byeok Nana and Byeok Muji back with open arms.
The brother and sister they had grown up with from childhood must have seemed more trustworthy than the prodigal son who had run off and come home trailing a pack of shady strangers.
"So then. The remaining problem is how we get the Byeok Clan's Family Head out of there."
The clan, restored to "normalcy." The high-ranking members had gathered to discuss what came next. And I, seated in the place of honor right beside Byeok Nana, was turning over how to rescue the Family Head.
Even so, the assembly kept whispering nonstop about something. Their eyes kept sliding toward the long, outstretched shape beside me.
"Young Lady Byeok Nana… what in the world is that grotesque posture?"
At an elder's question, Byeok Nana answered while recalling a slightly mortifying memory.
"He says it's a grand jeté."
"A grand jeté? What is that?"
"…I don't know either."
Byeok Jinsang was sweating buckets beside me, both legs thrust toward the sky as if serving out a punishment. Sensing my gaze on him, he scanned the people around him with anxious eyes and made a desperate plea.
"C-can I put my legs down? This position is killing me."
When he'd had unidentified masters flanking him on both sides, he had called me every name under the sun for interfering — a bastard who stuck his nose in everything. Now that he was alone with no one left to rely on, he had turned infinitely servile.
A guy like this should never have been running a clan of this size. Mm-hmm.
"You may put them down."
"Hah — really?"
"Though, as I said earlier, your head will simply fly off."
I had put him in the grand jeté and told him that if he didn't do it properly, his neck would go.
"You son of a—"
Byeok Jinsang swallowed the curse that had risen all the way to his Adam's apple and glared at me as if he wanted me dead. Byeok Nana might have ordered the attack out of a misunderstanding, trying to save her brother — but this man had very deliberately commanded his subordinates to kill us.
The gravity of the crimes was not even close.
"You… just wait… The one backing me won't let you off easy… Grrk."
How did he manage to sound so exactly like a third-rate villain? Listening to him was almost fascinating.
"And who, exactly, is the one backing you?"
At that, Byeok Jinsang clamped his mouth shut again and went mute. Must be someone fairly important and highly placed.
I kicked him hard in the ribs with my foot — thud.
"Guh—!"
He lost his balance and went sprawling across the floor in an instant.
"Oh. Legs came down."
With those words I reached for my sword hilt. Byeok Jinsang jumped as if electrocuted.
"W-wait! That was because you kicked me—!"
"So what? I said if they came down, I'd cut."
"Th-this is insane… What kind of demon-spawn are you!"
A man who sold out his own father and tried to kill his siblings, calling someone else a demon. I was pressing him on that point, determined to dig out the identity of his backer by any means necessary, when—
"H-Hyungnim!"
Byeok Muji burst into the main hall, gasping for breath, face full of shock. For the record, he hadn't used that form of address before — but ever since we saved the clan, he had insisted on treating me as his elder brother and now called me Hyungnim at every turn.
"What? What's going on?"
I thought we had already swept up every master and every force that had stuck with Byeok Jinsang. Was there still something left?
"Th-they're invading!"
He was so rattled he left out the subject entirely, trembling as he spat the words.
"Who's invading?"
Just as one job was about to wrap up, people barging in with zero sense of timing. Whoever they were, I vowed to smash them flat before they even got started. I demanded their identity accordingly.
"The Imperial Army! There's an army camping right outside the Byeok Clan gates!"
"…Ugh."
Not wandering swordsmen, not Murim people — the Imperial Army itself had shown up. I let out a low groan at the intrusion of something I had not anticipated.
Zhongyuan was vast. Over long ages the realm had carved up power to prevent independence and rebellion, leaving kings, marquises, and generals scattered across the land. But when authority was divided and central influence failed to reach every corner, and each man played king in his own territory, unseemly thoughts sprouted like weeds.
And so the previous Son of Heaven had created an army that belonged to the Emperor alone: the Imperial Army. In a world where martial artists ran rampant, it was a force forged with painstaking care to crush kings, feudal lords, and local magnates whenever the need arose.
"This officer is Jangson, holding the post of Chiliarch in the Imperial Army. Last night, eyes and ears confirmed a most unfortunate incident at the Byeok Clan. We have come to inquire into the matter."
Hundreds of troops in flashing gold armor. A general introduced himself from before the main gate in a solemn, booming voice.
The Byeok Nana siblings, the elders, and our party stood on a raised platform before the manor's fortress-like main gate, peering out over the scene. The people of the Byeok Clan were thoroughly rattled by this untimely visit from the Imperial Army.
"Speak. What happened here?"
And Byeok Nana, rattled herself, could not get a word out under the Imperial Army general's questioning. That would only make us look more suspicious. I stepped forward and spoke first.
"Nothing more than a minor mishap in warehouse management."
"…A minor mishap? Are you mad? This affair has thrown all of Beijing into a panic."
The general called Jangson glared daggers, as if telling me to cut the nonsense.
"Were you startled? At the Byeok Clan, which handles black powder, an explosion of this scale is merely a mishap. It went off a bit larger this time, but some days are like that."
I fired back without yielding an inch. Jangson fixed a hard stare on my face.
"And what are you supposed to be? I have a rough grasp of the Byeok Clan members' ages and appearances."
"Dan Mujin, the Dog-Beating Dragon. Today I am employed as a troubleshooter by Young Lady Byeok Nana."
At the name Dan Mujin, his eyes flickered slightly. Seems my reputation had spread to the Imperial Army as well, to some degree.
"A troubleshooter who thinks a little recent fame puts him above his station. Running your mouth so insolently before an imperial proceeding…"
I laughed inwardly. I had already run this mouth in front of the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard. What was one mere general?
"Not you. Byeok Jinsang. Bring me the Family Head of this place. I will speak with him no matter what."
His grip on the clan was a relatively recent development. For the Imperial Army to have a handle on Byeok Clan affairs and to be calling for him by exact name felt… odd.
"Boss, as you know, even the Imperial Army has been splitting into two camps these days, trying to pick a side."
Ilhong murmured advice from beside me. Not only the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard — the Son of Heaven's eccentricities had begun to shake the Imperial Army as well. Which meant this fellow might have been sent by one of those two split factions. On someone's orders to find out what was going on.
Still, he seemed to have come only to assess the situation; he clearly did not yet know what had actually happened last night. In that case, we just had to play dumb and buy time.
"…Family Head Byeok Jinsang is in critical condition after being caught in the blaze, and cannot come out at once. As soon as his condition improves, even a little, he will present himself then."
Byeok Nana, rising past her dismay, stuck her face out over the platform and spoke. But the Imperial Army general snorted, utterly unconvinced.
"I will go in and confirm it myself."
"That is not possible. At present bombs and black powder are strewn everywhere, and there is risk of the clan's secret techniques and arts leaking out. Please wait."
"……"
The Byeok Clan was, in its own right, a renowned house that had produced many promising officials. It had ample connections at court, and no shortage of assets or influence. On top of that, Jo Harang and I were leaking no small amount of qi from the main gate — the Imperial Army could only groan under their breath, in no hurry to force their way in.
"Mark my words. You will regret barring us entry today."
Apparently meaning to reorganize and return, the Imperial Army general left those cutting words behind and turned away with his troops.
Unlike Byeok Jinsang's threats, that "mark my words" landed with real weight.
"They say the authorities are not to be trifled with, Boss, but you really do dive headfirst into one mess after another."
Once the Imperial Army was gone and the tension snapped loose, Ilhong muttered half in complaint.
"Didn't you know? That's my charm."
"Honestly."
She let out a helpless little laugh.
Well, what could you do? The deed was already done. Now it was time to clean up — and prepare.