The Haomu Guild Master, Part 2
Jegal Se-ga.
The prestigious clan that traced its lineage back to the legendary Zhuge Liang.
A major power that never failed to appear in martial fiction.
Even if they lacked a bit in raw force, they more than made up for it with brilliant schemes, serving as the brain of the Martial Alliance. It was practically a cliché.
In other words, people from the Jegal Clan were supposed to be smart. That was just common sense.
And in this martial world, their reputation was no different.
“I’m sorry for hiding my identity all this time.”
But the girl bowing before me now, Cheongha, was not like that at all.
Wasn’t she that cute but slightly disappointing girl who’d gotten completely hooked on the childish magical-girl trash I’d written back in my chuunibyou phase, spouting nonsense about the Dark of Justice and all that?
There was no way I could believe she was someone from the Jegal Clan, the so-called greatest house of strategy under heaven.
My mind went blank.
“You… were pretending to be stupid all this time?”
I muttered in a voice full of betrayal, and Cheongha tilted her head in genuine confusion.
“Pretending to be stupid? What do you mean?”
I was left speechless by those pure, innocent eyes.
What was this reaction supposed to be?
“You kept talking about being a dark fallen angel or whatever.”
“But I am a fallen angel.”
She declared it proudly, without the slightest hesitation.
Cheongha was serious.
Completely serious about believing she was a dark fallen angel guarding justice.
Didn’t they say being in a cult had nothing to do with intelligence?
I seemed to remember a video I’d watched once saying that the smarter someone was, the more likely they were to fall for that sort of thing.
“Sister, the darkness of the fallen angel is the power of justice. The righteous path we walk is not mistaken.”
Cheongha’s eyes sparkled.
Apparently, the fact that she no longer had to hide anything from me had lifted a burden from her heart.
Cheongha had gone from a suspicious chuunibyou airhead to a pure, full-bore chuunibyou airhead magical girl.
I let out a deep sigh and decided to accept reality.
There was no point in talking with her for long; all it would do was make the embarrassment worse.
Anyway, with this year’s Dragon-Phoenix Gathering being hosted by the Jegal Clan, if I stayed with Cheongha, I was bound to get tangled up with them sooner or later.
“Do you… not get along with your family?”
At my question, the sparkle that had just been in Cheongha’s face dimmed.
She bit her lip for a moment before reluctantly speaking.
“The Jegal family… they’re nothing but schemers. People who treasure brush and inkstone more than a sword, and who talk only of plans for using martial arts instead of its true essence.”
Her voice carried a deep frustration.
Her temperament and her family’s way of doing things simply hadn’t matched.
“I couldn’t bear that frustration anymore… so I left the family. To carry out my justice.”
It was a headache, sure, but not the worst possible outcome.
For all I knew, they might be desperately searching for their runaway youngest daughter.
“All right, I get it. So they’re not your mortal enemy or anything?”
Cheongha gave a small nod.
I could understand her worry, but it didn’t seem like such a catastrophic problem after all.
Honestly, it was better than my own concerns.
I’d been half expecting the worst-case scenario: some pursuer sharpening a knife for revenge because she’d fled after cutting down a member of the clan.
“Let’s think it through slowly. It’s not like you can skip the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering anyway, so you should figure out in advance how to act if you meet your family.”
Cheongha nodded again.
If she really spent the rest of the time thinking about it with that brilliant Jegal brain of hers, maybe she could even work out a graceful reconciliation.
Of course, whether she truly had such a brain was still very much in question.
I decided to be a little optimistic.
Things had gone well every other time, hadn’t they?
This time would work out too.
“Good. Then before we leave Seoan, let’s take care of the things we’ve been putting off.”
The martial world was all about connections.
You had to build even the smallest ties carefully before moving on to the next place.
If our relationship with a prestigious righteous clan was shaky, then we’d just make a prestigious demonic one into our ally instead.
We headed straight for the Haomu Gate headquarters.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Inside the Haomu Gate headquarters, in the guild master’s office, only a few candles flickered as they pushed back the thick darkness.
Yeom Hwijin, the master of Haomu Gate, sat alone in the black shroud of the room.
In his hand he held an old, faded hairpin.
Every time the worn jade brushed against the rough knuckles of his hand, memories rose like clouds from the past.
Long ago, in that pitch-black world stained with blood and fear, there had been one woman who shone brighter than all the rest.
A woman who captured the hearts of countless men with a smile as fresh and bright as a flower.
The former Sword Empress, Cheon Yuhwa.
Her beauty and strength had shaken the hearts of not only the Martial Alliance leader, but even the leader of the Demonic Alliance, and to some extent even the abbot of Shaolin, who walked the Buddhist path.
She had always been bright and positive, like the sun itself, so much so that merely standing beside her made people feel hope.
But that dazzling light had vanished all too easily beneath the cruelty of the Blood Cult.
Afterward, in the gap left by that loss, the Demonic Alliance leader was killed by a conspiracy, and the Martial Alliance leader lost his way.
Perhaps it was only because the Orthodox-Demonic War erupted that the pugilistic world finally managed to sober up.
Who could have guessed that one woman would have such an impact on the whole martial world?
“She truly was worthy of the phrase ‘beauty that could topple kingdoms.’”
Decades had passed, and yet there were still those who clung to the ache of losing her.
And before Yeom Hwijin now, a girl appeared who spoke with the same manner.
Justice isn’t something you learn from others.
A beautiful girl with an odd, peculiar method of speaking.
Though her level was far below what the former Sword Empress had achieved at the same age, Yeom Hwijin could still feel the dead woman’s aura in her.
That brazen face, saying the exact same things as the dead woman had decades ago.
Before he knew it, a dry laugh slipped from Yeom Hwijin’s lips.
…Looks like I really am getting old.
To find a dead woman’s shadow in a stranger.
He gave a bitter murmur and tucked the hairpin deep inside his robes.
Just then, he heard footsteps outside the door.
“Guild Master. Our honored guest has arrived.”
“Show her in.”
There was only one honored guest who could have come.
The Haomu Gate master straightened his posture.
This was not a problem to be brushed aside by dwelling on old memories.
He would have to test for himself whether that girl truly was someone who could remind him of her.
Soon after, Song Hyeon entered the office under the guide’s escort.
Just as before, she stood before the Haomu Gate master without the slightest concern for the heavy air in the room.
“You’re here.”
His voice was lower than usual.
His sharp gaze swept over Song Hyeon from head to toe.
“I hear you’ve been collecting secret manuals. What exactly do you intend to do with them?”
Haomu Gate was an organization well versed in information.
There was little in the Central Plains that they did not know.
Song Hyeon’s movements were no exception.
As if she already knew that, she answered without the slightest surprise.
“I’m just collecting them.”
“Hmm… if you’re collecting them, then you must be after something.”
He sensed that something far larger lay hidden beneath Song Hyeon’s answer.
Those manuals were ominous things, dangerous by their very nature.
For the sake of order in the martial world, they couldn’t be allowed to spread carelessly.
“That strange power should only belong to those who can control it.”
That was also why Yeom Hwijin stayed silent even as those arrogant Shaolin monks, who proclaimed themselves the founders of all martial arts, placed bounties on the manuals.
He disliked their methods, but he agreed with their goal.
At the Haomu Gate master’s mutter, a subtle expression flickered across Song Hyeon’s face.
“Who can control it? Shaolin?”
It was clear that she, too, already disapproved of Shaolin trying to control those manuals.
That rebellious streak brought a faint smile to the Haomu Gate master’s lips.
“If you’re gathering secret manuals, then you know they aren’t ordinary. Don’t tell me you’re unaware of that sinister, strange power that doesn’t burn and doesn’t tear?”
“Why do you assume it’s sinister?”
“Because everyone who was consumed by that power met ruin without exception.”
“That’s only because they failed to use it properly. Not everything mysterious is dangerous.”
The same words as before.
But the weight behind them was different now.
Too confident, too deep to dismiss as the recklessness of youth.
There was even a kind of arrogance in her eyes, as though she knew everything already.
“Do you not understand that the very idea of controlling mystery is arrogant? Shaolin isn’t gathering them for no reason, merely to seal them away.”
“Fear comes from ignorance. New things are always the targets of fear.”
“I’ve seen many people like you over the years. Do you know how they all ended up?”
The Haomu Gate master gave Song Hyeon a look of exasperation.
It was the reckless confidence born of foolish youth.
But Song Hyeon didn’t shrink back at all.
In fact, her eyes now looked at him as if he were the foolish one.
“Experience is fine. But do you know the greatest poison that experience brings?”
The girl’s brazen counterquestion made Yeom Hwijin’s brow tighten slightly.
“Bias. The more experience people gather, the less willing they are to accept anything new. They dismiss opinions that differ from what they already believe. That’s the curse of knowledge, and the fear born from experience.”
To Song Hyeon, those manuals were not some unknown mystery.
They were merely the product of her own past, of the embarrassing black history she wanted to bury forever.
Because she knew their origin, she could face them calmly, without blind fear or mindless reverence.
She wasn’t trapped by vain hope, nor crushed by nameless terror.
After everything she had been through, the strange had become so outrageous that most odd things were easier to accept than to reject.
That was the difference between her and everyone else.
Yeom Hwijin fell silent.
In the darkness where candlelight swayed, the dead woman’s shadow seemed once again to overlap with the girl before him.
You all always say the same thing. That nothing can be done.
That brazen figure, refusing to be shackled by old conventions and trying to see the essence of the world for what it was.
That sharp rebuke she’d once hurled at old men clinging to dusty tradition.
For an instant, he almost forgot the passing decades and felt as though it were all being revived before his eyes through the girl standing there.
After a long silence, Yeom Hwijin finally spoke first.
This time, his voice held a strange, almost excited warmth instead of his former coldness.
“Fine. Then let’s make a deal. From now on, every piece of information related to the manuals will be exchanged only through us Haomu Gate, not Shaolin.”
“And what do I get out of that?”
The question came without the slightest hesitation.
The Haomu Gate master couldn’t help but laugh at her boldness.
A low chuckle rumbled through the air.
It felt so familiar that the sensation went beyond nostalgia; it was as if some forgotten vigor from his youth had risen again inside him.
“If you keep collecting manuals, you’re bound to clash with Shaolin sooner or later. When that time comes, Haomu Gate will stand behind you.”
“Then I’ll be treated like part of the demonic side.”
“It isn’t much different from the way you’re moving now, opposing Shaolin.”
At that, Song Hyeon seemed to realize something and opened her eyes slightly wider.
She’s weak on politics, huh.
Even that was like her.
Yeom Hwijin went on.
“Don’t worry. The demonic side these days isn’t as tightly bound together as it was during the old days of the Demonic Alliance. The era when people protected each other out of loyalty is long gone. Even if we step in, they’ll only guess that some sort of deal took place.”
Song Hyeon fell into thought for a moment.
Haomu Gate as a backer.
It was far more useful than any of the merchant houses influencing the Guanzhong region.
It was clearly the kind of shield that would prove invaluable amid the countless events still to come.
A deal with far more to gain than to lose.
After a short consideration, she nodded.
“Not bad.”
“Heh heh… yes. Not bad at all.”
Yeom Hwijin let out another pleased laugh.
If one of his subordinates had seen this scene, they would have been stunned speechless.
I wonder whether she really can become the key that shakes the entire Central Plains.
Even he himself wasn’t sure whether he was chasing the shadow of his dead lover or investing in possibility.
Seeing his laughter, Song Hyeon looked at him with open confusion.
So even the old man got hooked in one shot. Guess my beauty really is sinful.
She had no idea about the sorrowful memories buried in Yeom Hwijin’s heart.
As far as she was concerned, she was simply, as always, trusting in the magnificence of her own body.