Ghosts Die, and People Get Wrecked (1)
The room was lavish beyond measure.
Pillars painted in royal purple and fine silk draped here and there over the walls made the place itself seem to sigh in admiration.
The luxurious furniture filling the room, along with the ornaments that looked expensive at a glance, all testified to just how wealthy the owner was.
But there was something even stranger, something that drew the eye more than anything else.
On the ornate dais where a massive throne ought to have stood, a wide couch had been placed instead.
Of course, it too was made of costly rosewood, so it would be hard to say it didn’t belong here, but the mismatch still gave the place a subtle, unsettling feel.
And then there was the man lying there, resting his chin on one hand.
How should one even describe this man?
The pure white robe wrapped around his entire body was embroidered with a golden dragon, and every finger of the hand that slipped out from beneath his sleeve was packed tight with rings set with brilliant, multicolored jewels.
His hair, carefully combed back so not a single strand escaped, was tied up neatly beneath a white crown.
And beneath it, his pale face was smooth and unlined.
His appearance was extravagant to the point of being ridiculous, but no one would have dared laugh in his face.
For this man was none other than Jang Il-so, the Lord of Maninbang, the man who shook the world to its foundations.
“Hmmm.”
Jang Il-so let out a low, bored sound. Fitting his flamboyant appearance, there was a heavy languor in his eyes.
“And so?”
“L-Lord…”
Bang Seung was trembling like a leaf.
The same man who had not backed down even in front of Yeop Pyeong, the Red Snake Blade, was now drenched in cold sweat as though he had met the King of Hell himself.
“You went into Xi'an, where Southern Edge had closed its gates, got beaten like a dog on a sweltering summer day, and were driven out?”
“T-that’s… w-we never imagined Mount Hua would be there…”
“No, that’s not it.”
Jang Il-so cut him off with an indifferent tone.
“No matter how stupid you are, you couldn’t have failed to know those Mount Hua bastards were in Xi'an. You simply thought that even if they were there, it wouldn’t be a serious problem. Isn’t that right?”
“Y-yes! Please kill me!”
Bang Seung slammed his forehead to the floor in terror. His back was shaking so hard it was plain to see just how completely fear had consumed him.
Jang Il-so waved a hand slowly.
“That can happen.”
The ornaments on his person clinked softly.
“Your judgment wasn’t bad. No, really, it wasn’t bad at all. If I’d been in that situation, I would’ve gone into Xi'an too. Up to that point, it was a sound decision.”
“T-thank you, Lord.”
“But you see,”
Jang Il-so slowly pushed himself upright.
As he perched lightly on the couch, his white robe rippled like water, and flashes of red martial garments showed through beneath it.
“The next part is the problem. The next part.”
Jang Il-so smiled.
His eyes, narrowed to slits as if drawn by a brush, curved into a soft crescent.
“So you swaggered into Xi'an, got beaten by some Mount Hua brats… and that fool not only had every tendon and muscle in his limbs severed, but even had his dantian pierced?”
“T-that…”
“Yes. That can happen. It can happen.”
Jang Il-so rose slowly.
“But there’s still something I don’t understand, Bang Seung.”
“Y-yes! Lord! Yes!”
Then he looked down at Bang Seung in silence.
“Why are you still alive?”
“……”
His voice was gentle.
Not a shred of reproach lay in it. At first hearing, it might even have sounded like the warm counsel of a close relative.
But the moment Bang Seung heard that voice, his body began to go cold, as if he’d been thrown into an ice cave.
“L-Lord…”
“Ah, is that hard to understand when I put it that way?”
Step.
Jang Il-so began to walk slowly. His descent down the steps had the unhurried feel of a casual stroll.
“The reason the Red Snake Unit can move on its own without asking me for permission is because it brings back results of that caliber. That’s why I’ve never blamed you for anything until now. Isn’t that right?”
“Y-yes. All of it is thanks to the great grace of the Lord…”
“But every authority comes with responsibility, doesn’t it?”
A smile bloomed at the corners of Jang Il-so’s mouth.
How many people in the world could look at that bright, radiant smile and read the malice beneath it?
It was easy to understand why one of his other epithets was “a knife hidden behind a smile.”
“You barged into Xi'an on your own, got utterly defeated by a bunch of brats who haven’t even ripened yet, and still had the nerve to come back with your head held high?”
“L-Lord! But I had to bring the leader here somehow!”
Thud! Thud!
Bang Seung drove his head into the floor. Blood began streaming down his forehead.
“If we had just left him there, the leader would have…”
“Should have died.”
Bang Seung went rigid.
Jang Il-so’s calm, icy voice cut straight into his soul.
“Better that the world’s Red Snake Blade had died there than be humiliated by an unknown brat. At least then he would’ve kept his name. Don’t you think?”
“Th-that’s…”
“And if he had died that way, at least the rumor wouldn’t be spreading that Maninbang got beaten senseless by Mount Hua and driven out of Xi'an. Better yet… better if you’d all died.”
There was a chill in Jang Il-so’s voice.
“So why are you still alive? You should have died there with the crippled fool after suffering that humiliation. And if you ran away instead of dying…”
His voice rising, Jang Il-so slowly closed his eyes.
When those eyes opened again, a gentle smile had spread across his lips.
“…you should have run somewhere far from my sight and lived like a rat, squeaking in the dark. Bang Seung, Bang Seung. You spent your whole life thinking yourself clever and relying only on your own head, so why are you acting so stupidly now, you little bastard? Hm?”
Step. Step.
At last, Jang Il-so stood right before him and looked down at the top of Bang Seung’s head, pressed flat against the floor.
“You were afraid, weren’t you?”
“L-Lord.”
Crack.
Jang Il-so’s foot came down on Bang Seung’s hand. The sound of bones breaking rang out sharply, but Bang Seung, eyes bulging red, only trembled violently and did not dare even moan.
“What an amusing thing. That means it was more frightening to you to die there than to come back and report this to me, doesn’t it?”
Crack.
His wrist shattered.
“Bang Seung.”
Crouching in front of him while keeping one foot planted on the wrist, Jang Il-so smiled in circles and whispered very softly.
“Do you know why Maninbang is called Maninbang?”
“L-Lord… I, I…”
“Because people are afraid of it.”
“……”
Jang Il-so reached out and lightly twisted his hand around Bang Seung’s throat, as if pinching him.
“An evil faction that people don’t fear is meaningless. So anyone who chooses the path of evil must never be shamed. It’s better to die than be disgraced. Isn’t that so?”
A suffocating silence spread through the great hall.
The sound of Bang Seung’s sweat dripping onto the floor felt as loud as thunder.
Everyone else held their breath, terrified of making even the slightest noise. They kept their eyes lowered and their mouths shut, desperately hoping that icy wrath would not turn toward them.
“And yet… I don’t understand. I truly don’t know whether there is a way to be more humiliated than what you’ve already done. Rather than endure that sight, I feel like I’d be better off stripping off all my clothes and dancing in the market. Don’t you think?”
“L-Lord…”
“No need to tremble so much.”
Jang Il-so smiled brightly.
And with that smile, with that soft voice, a spark of hope returned to Bang Seung’s eyes. But that light died faster than it had been born.
“The result is the same anyway, isn’t it?”
Crack-crack-crack.
In that instant, Jang Il-so seized Bang Seung by the throat and twisted.
RIIIIIP!
Blood burst in a fountain from the neck where flesh had been torn away.
“Aaaagh! Agh! Aaaagh!”
Bang Seung screamed in agony, clawing at his own throat. But Jang Il-so only smiled more brightly as blood splattered across his white robes and Bang Seung thrashed helplessly.
“How very funny. To think the day would come when I’d be humiliated like this.”
“L-Lord! Please, s-save me…”
“Take him away.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Tear his limbs off and feed them to the dogs. But!”
As the guards rushed toward Bang Seung, Jang Il-so chuckled darkly and whispered,
“He must not die. Not until he’s alive to watch his own body being torn apart and devoured by dogs. If this bastard dies before that, then you’ll be the ones to watch your bodies ripped apart while still breathing.”
“Yes, sir!”
The guards, faces drained white, dragged Bang Seung out.
“Aaaagh! Lord! Lord! Please, save me! Looooord!”
His wretched screams echoed through the hall, but no one even looked at him.
No one dared turn their heads, because no one knew what might happen if they did.
“Tsk. These are expensive clothes.”
Jang Il-so frowned as he looked at the blood splattered on his robe.
At that, Ho Gamyeong, the Poison Heart Rakshasa and strategist of Maninbang, who had been watching the scene, quietly opened his mouth.
“Shall I summon the maids?”
“No.”
Jang Il-so waved a hand.
“Once something is stained, no amount of washing can make it as it was.”
He took off the bloodstained white robe and tossed it carelessly to the floor.
“Reputation is the same. No matter how carefully you build it up, once it collapses and gets dirtied, it’s not easily recovered. Don’t you think so, Yeop Pyeong?”
Yeop Pyeong, kneeling in a corner, raised his head weakly.
Having lost his dantian and with the tendons and muscles in his limbs severed, he could no longer be the Red Snake Blade he had once been.
Seeing his unfocused eyes, Jang Il-so shook his head.
“You too…”
“L-Lord…”
As Yeop Pyeong’s cracked lips parted, Jang Il-so stopped speaking.
“Don’t… underestimate Mount Hua…”
Pow!
Yeop Pyeong was kicked across the floor by Jang Il-so.
“A dog that comes back after losing can’t bark whenever it wants.”
Jang Il-so pointed at Yeop Pyeong with a tilt of his chin.
“Don’t kill him. Death would be a mercy for him right now. Keep him alive and make him suffer every humiliation possible. Use him as a slave of Maninbang and make him an example.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Take him away.”
“Yes!”
Once Yeop Pyeong had been dragged out as well, Jang Il-so went back up the stairs with a distinctly irritated stride and flopped down onto the couch.
“Useless trash.”
Ho Gamyeong, who knew better than anyone that his lord was in a foul mood, asked carefully, “What shall we do?”
“Why else would I ask?”
With an irritated flick of his hand, Jang Il-so swept his hair back. One stray strand that had slipped loose earlier kept irritating him.
“We kill them.”
“Mount Hua is in Shaanxi, and Shaanxi is far from our territory. Besides, Mount Hua is close to Henan; attacking them recklessly would be dangerous.”
“I know.”
Jang Il-so said flatly, looking down at his fingertips.
“And we’re in the middle of a standoff with those Green Forest bastards.”
“Exactly.”
“Tsk tsk tsk. Those orthodox bastards can unite even with their enemies if there’s profit in it, while evil bastards like us can’t even compromise over a single coin and end up clawing each other apart.”
“Frankly, we don’t have much leeway. Realistically…”
“That’s why we kill them.”
“……”
The rings on Jang Il-so’s fingers knocked against each other, producing a clear metallic sound.
“There’s no gain in it. Only losses.”
“Gamyeong, Gamyeong. Why must you be so foolish? Gain is not just money.”
Slowly, Jang Il-so lifted a hand and removed the pure-gold crown from his head.
“The important thing is whether we’ll still be able to make money later. If word gets out that Maninbang was humiliated by Mount Hua, who is not even one of the Gupailbang, who in the world would fear Maninbang anymore? Then our business is finished.”
Crk, crk, crk.
The pure-gold crown crumpled in his hand like a sheet of paper.
“If people begin looking down on us because of things like situation or profit, then before you know it, we become easy to trample. It’s all about profit and reputation, profit and reputation. If you pursue only profit, reputation collapses. But if reputation collapses, profit will collapse too. Use your head, your head.”
Jang Il-so idly stretched out a hand and waved it through the air.
“Gather everyone who’s left.”
“Send them to Xi'an?”
“Why there? I’ve said we don’t need money anymore. What matters is taking back the name of Maninbang before it turns into the ragged footcloth of a beggar.”
“Then…”
“Yes.”
A cold blue light flickered in Jang Il-so’s eyes.
“Shaanxi. Send them to Mount Hua. If that mountain, the steepest of the Five Mountains, is dyed red, it will be truly beautiful.”
He could not wait for the autumn leaves to come, so he would stain it with blood instead.
“Ah, and have them cut off every Mount Hua bastard’s head and load them onto carts. As for the one called the Righteous Sword of Mount Hua and the little brat known as the Mount Hua Divine Dragon, bring them back alive. I want to hear with my own ears exactly what kind of screams they make.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ho Gamyeong bowed his head heavily.
Everything would go exactly as Jang Il-so said. In Maninbang, his word was law, no different from an imperial decree.
Having finished speaking, Jang Il-so once again lay back lazily on the couch.
“Mount Hua… Mount Hua, huh.”
A faint, peculiar smile touched his lips.
“Burning twice in a span of a hundred years is quite a rare experience, isn’t it? Hahahah!”
His high laughter rang through the great hall.
---