We're Screwed
The Haomu Gate heir, with those bright, sharp eyes of hers, was staring straight at me.
There seemed to be a faint thread of resentment woven through that gaze, so I scratched my cheek with a look that said I had no idea what any of this was about.
What on earth had happened while I was away in Shaanxi?
Merchant Leader Eun Hwaran glanced back and forth between the two of us as if she found our reactions endlessly entertaining, then soon huffed a soft laugh and opened her mouth.
"Ilhong's been coming by the merchant group regularly these days for training with Old Man Hwang. And whenever she has free time, she helps me with my work like this."
Calling her a wonderfully clever and thoroughly delightful child, she tapped Ilhong's shoulder with the tip of her folding fan.
"Mujin, she's far too sharp to leave sitting idle at the agency with nothing to do. Would you consider handing her over to this sister of yours?"
Eun Hwaran's eyes sparkled exactly like a merchant who had just spotted a prime bargain.
Her administrative skill was outstanding and her memory astonishing, she explained—work was progressing so much faster now. She declared she could never go back to the days before Ilhong, and then casually tried to poach my subordinate, suggesting that working for the merchant group would suit her far better than life as a troubleshooter whose business mostly involved swinging fists.
"What do you think? I'd love to take her off your hands."
She even wanted to raise her as successor to Steward Jin, who handled the entire household management of the group.
"No. Ilhong is mine. Not even you, Noona, get to take her."
I gave Ilhong's arm a light tug, staking my claim that she was an employee of my detective agency.
First it was that old eunuch Cheon Su-gong, and now this—why did everyone around me keep trying to steal my subordinates?
I sure had myself a multi-talented underling who attracted scouting offers from every direction.
"But Ilhong, what wind suddenly blew you into training this hard?"
I asked the question of Ilhong, who had allowed herself to be pulled toward me with a limp, half-resigned air.
Hwang Geolgae's training was brutally intense even when he wasn't beating you senseless. A single continuous week of it would leave anyone utterly drained and collapsed. For her to clock in every single day and grind that hard, something had clearly shifted inside her.
"……Because the boss abandoned me and left."
The words came out thick with hurt, and I scratched furiously at the side of my head.
"I—I didn't abandon you."
From my side of things, I had simply been trying to be considerate by not dragging her into somewhere as dangerous as the Demonic Cult.
But she was a First-class Realm martial artist with real pride in her own skill, and being cast aside at the most critical moment had clearly hit her hard.
"Because I was weak…… You left me behind so I wouldn't hold you back."
At her age, reaching the First-class Realm meant almost no one would ever call her weak. It was just that our agency had absurd standards, what with things like the Heavenly Killing Star and the Purple Micro Star hanging around.
"When you stopped by the office briefly, you told me yourself. About the Shaanxi commission…… That this time you really almost died."
I had spun the story like a proper martial arts adventure—I really almost kicked the bucket—but Ilhong's face looked exactly like someone who had just heard that family or a lover had nearly lost their life. Her chest seemed to seize up on the spot.
"Well, there were a few close calls."
I shrugged and put on the tough-guy face of a proper Murim man, as if it were nothing worth fussing over. Ilhong's expression only twisted further.
"I never want to hear about someone precious dying…… while I'm powerless to do anything. I'd rather die fighting right beside them."
"……."
She had already lived through that once, she said, during the slaughter of her family. This time, even if it killed her, she would not step back—she would throw herself in.
It wasn't as if she had a star lodged in her skull scrambling her reason. Unlike me, she was making these vows of death with a perfectly clear mind. I had treated the whole thing lightly, and now the weight of the feeling reaching me left me briefly speechless.
"Oh my."
Eun Hwaran, who had been watching our exchange with keen interest, snapped her fan shut against her palm with a sharp tak.
As if deliberately changing the subject, she brought up something new.
"Come to think of it, little brother."
My refined Noona Eun Hwaran looked at me with a sweet smile.
Every time I visited, she welcomed me warmly, fed me delicious food, and called me her little brother. Coming to the Eunseong Merchant Group always felt like returning to a real family home.
"What is it, Noona?"
I looked at her as if to ask why she was calling me, and a meaningful smile settled at the corners of her lips.
"It just occurred to me—you're nearly of age for the coming-of-age rites, aren't you? A little late, perhaps, but shouldn't we be looking for a marriage prospect?"
At her question about when I planned to take a wife, Ilhong's faintly sulky expression underwent a complete transformation.
Both women fixed me with stares that clearly expected an answer.
"Uhhm, a marriage prospect, you say……."
Even if this place felt like a family home, there was no need to copy every tradition.
The unfamiliar suggestion left me tongue-tied all over again.
The Heavenly Killing Star getting married……? Don't make me laugh.
And right beside me, Salsung snorted as if the whole idea were utterly ridiculous.
"I'll think about it once my circumstances improve."
I couldn't exactly bring up the Heavenly Killing Star, so I reached for the most ordinary refusal I could think of.
At least back in my old world, it was the excuse men of marriageable age used all the time.
"What are you talking about? You're already a successful young man with a thriving business in Beijing. What more do you need to improve before you'll even look at a woman?"
"……."
If I had actually had a real older sister, would I have been getting this exact lecture every time I went home?
The pressure was seriously not easy to shake off.
"She's right. A groom of the boss's caliber? There are only a handful like that in all of Beijing."
Substantial income, still young, outstanding martial skill, and a reputation that had already spread across the entire Central Plains—Beijing's matchmakers were probably watching me with their mouths watering, she said.
"If you want, I can arrange the match myself as merchant leader. The great houses and famous clans of Beijing would line up just for a meeting."
This space that had always felt so warm and welcoming every time I visited suddenly felt just a little oppressive.
Ah. So that was why the subordinates back in my old world used to refuse leave and stay put rather than go home.
"Boss, I'm slightly against the matchmaker route. Those people only come running because of the conditions. Wouldn't it be better to pursue natural meetings with people already around you?"
Specifically, people you'd known since childhood, whose inner selves you understood through and through. Wouldn't that kind of "love among acquaintances" be better? Ilhong casually slipped the suggestion in.
"……."
I had only come to see my sworn sister after a long time, deposit a bill of exchange, and casually show off a few heroic tales.
Instead I suddenly felt like I was drowning under the two women's combined assault.
"Anyway, just keep it in mind. Seeing you constantly risking your life for work makes this sister's heart ache."
Stop wandering around like some rootless outsider, she told me, and consider putting down roots and settling somewhere.
"Agreed. I'm fully on board with that one."
Ilhong cried out her enthusiastic support. The earlier atmosphere of hurt had vanished without a trace.
I was glad she seemed to feel better, but the real problem was how to handle this awkward topic that had just landed right in front of me.
That problem solved itself almost immediately, thanks to Steward Jin bursting into the merchant leader's office in a panic.
"Merchant Leader! Merchant Leader Eun Hwaran!"
Steward Jin stumbled into the office, gasping for breath.
I had a clear memory that whenever that man called the merchant leader's name in that urgent tone, it was almost never good news.
Probably the time the Mangeum Money House refused to extend their loans, and the time there was trouble with the silkworms.
"……What is it this time, Steward Jin?"
Eun Hwaran asked back, her face slightly tense—she clearly remembered the pattern too.
While everyone waited for him to speak, Steward Jin steadied his breathing, stopped his trembling beard, and opened his mouth.
"I-It's serious."
Steward Jin's beard quivered as fear filled his expression.
"So what kind of serious are we talking about?"
As far as I knew, nearly every problem surrounding the Eunseong Merchant Group had been resolved lately, and they were walking a smooth, solid road now. Even if some half-baked fools tried to scheme against them, Hwang Geolgae and I were around—there shouldn't be any real issue.
"This is news from the Imperial Palace, from a reliable source……."
But the opponent the steward named was no half-baked fool.
It was the kind of terrifying force even Hwang Geolgae had told me to stay the hell away from. In a way, they were the Central Plains itself.
"It seems…… the Crown Prince has regained consciousness."
"……!"
At that unbelievable piece of news, Eun Hwaran—who had rejected the Second Prince and staked everything on the Third Princess—snapped her eyes wide open.
His condition was still so poor he could not move his body, but he had at least barely recovered consciousness, according to the palace insider. The fact that imperial news had trickled all the way down to an ordinary merchant leader meant the information had already spread like wildfire inside the Imperial Palace.
"Hmm. So what happens now?"
The political dynamics of the court seemed to have just gotten one layer more complicated.
In short, this meant—
"We're screwed, Boss."
Ilhong's assessment of the situation was short, sharp, and devastatingly accurate.
Deep in the mountains, in a hermitage nestled in a forest where moonlight and starlight were the only lamps, an old man communed with the stars of the clear night sky in a place untouched by the clamor of the secular world.
His fingertips traced mystical trajectories through empty air as if casting a divination, moving between the constellations with a power that was both divine and uncanny, as though he were reading the invisible threads of Heaven's will.
Then, suddenly, one of the stars he had been watching flared with an ominous light, and his hand stopped.
Anxiety trembled in the old man's eyes.
"Heavenly Killing Star."
That star was the most vicious of the malevolent stars that had ever accepted his teachings.
Heaven's cruel will seemed to be driving the star's bearer into an endless vortex of slaughter. Beyond the celestial mechanism, he could almost glimpse someone's fate tossing like a tiny boat in a merciless storm.
"Please…… defy the natural order."
Gazing down upon the radiant constellations, he murmured those words.
Even as the trials pressed in, he prayed the bearer would not lose themselves.
"You must reverse course."
To go against Heaven's will and break the chains of destiny—that was the only way.
It was at that exact moment.
KWAANG!
A thunderous roar that split heaven and earth shook the mountain. A massive pine tree was torn up by the roots and slammed into the place where he had been standing like a cannonball.
At that monstrous strength—impossible for any human—Ilwol's brows drew tight.
Then the master of that terrifying power revealed herself.
Hwarrrrrrk!
Crimson flames swallowed the entire forest, and from within the writhing fire a woman appeared.
Scarlet hair cascading to her waist whipped in the wind, and a smile full of madness curved her lips.
"Jeok-il……? What is the meaning of this all of a sudden!"
No words were needed. She swept both hands through the air, and Yeolyanggi hot enough to melt stone surged toward the old man like a tidal wave.
KAAANG! KWAANG!
The red-haired woman raged like a storm.
Every strike that poured out Yeolyanggi swept a vast area and turned the surroundings into a sea of fire.
The old man, forced to receive her attacks, called her name over and over in a voice full of bewilderment.
"Jeok-il! Why are you doing this so suddenly……!"
Jeok-il only burst into another peal of arrogant laughter.
"Kyahaha! Old man, that's my question to ask!"
Endless flames welled up from both her hands.
Ilwol instinctively gathered the power of the stars at his fingertips and split the firestorm, but the two severed torrents of flame only crashed more mercilessly through his retreat and hermitage.
KWAANG!
The once-tranquil mountain range was swallowed by hellfire in an instant, until heaven and earth could no longer be told apart.
"You know, I thought that among the beings beyond the heavens, the only one I really had to watch out for was that old man who's obsessed with the moon."
Jeok-il's voice rang out from within the flaming inferno.
She was the one who had stirred up the quiet mountain in the first place, yet she was the one sounding more incredulous as she continued.
"But it turns out the craziest bastard of all was you, Ilwol!"
The sheer absurdity she had felt when she faced the Heavenly Killing Star at the North Sea Ice Palace—
She gathered that emotion to the fullest in both hands and hurled it at Ilwol.
KWAANG!