Is the Little Taoist Really a Daoist? (1)
"I got you. You bastard!"
Chung Myung grinned and sprang to his feet. The fiend whose wrist he had seized twisted with a startled look, trying to yank his hand free, but there was no chance Chung Myung was going to let go that easily.
"You little punk!"
The fiend quickly raised his other hand to strike Chung Myung down. But just then, the door flew open, and the whole room was suddenly flooded with light.
It was Hwang Jong-ui.
Thud. Thud.
He strode in with a hard face, and when he spoke, his voice was heavy.
"Just what, exactly, are you doing here, Administrator?"
"……"
Beon Ja-bok, the Galaxy Merchant Guild’s chief administrator, whose hand Chung Myung still held fast, slowly turned around in confusion.
"L-Young Master!"
"I asked what you were doing."
Beon Ja-bok’s face twisted.
"I was merely checking the little Taoist’s condition……."
The reply that came was not from Hwang Jong-ui, but from Chung Myung.
"Oh, so you were checking whether I was ready to kill?"
Chung Myung shook the administrator’s trapped hand.
"There’s clearly been a misunderstanding……."
"A misunderstanding? I’m fond of misunderstandings too. Hup!"
With that, Chung Myung shot upright.
Beon Ja-bok stared at him in alarm.
"Y-you were supposed to be badly injured……."
"Looks like that was the misunderstanding. I’m perfectly fine, as you can see."
"……You were unconscious."
"Ah. I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I finally got to sleep properly for once."
Beon Ja-bok ground his teeth.
"You fooled me."
"Hey now, you shouldn’t say that. At least keep insisting it’s a misunderstanding. If you say things like that, people will start realizing you cooked up something."
"You—!"
With his free left hand, Beon Ja-bok lashed out at Chung Myung. But Chung Myung neatly slipped past the strike, let go of the man’s wrist, and leapt down from the bed.
Then, without even looking back, he walked straight toward Hwang Jong-ui.
"See? I told you he’d show himself."
"……Hmm."
Hwang Jong-ui gave a heavy nod.
"I half-doubted your words, but after this result, I’ve nothing to say. To think the administrator, of all people—the very man I trusted least to be the culprit—was the one behind it."
The eyes Hwang Jong-ui turned on Beon Ja-bok were colder than ice.
Seeing that gaze, Beon Ja-bok realized no excuse would matter now. His face turned rigid as he glared back at Chung Myung.
"How did you suspect me?"
"I didn’t."
"……What?"
Chung Myung shrugged.
"I never guessed who the culprit was. How would I know something like that when I’ve only just gotten here? I just figured that if I acted like I had some idea of how to treat Master Hwang and then lay there pretending to be injured, you’d come to kill me."
"……And if I hadn’t come?"
"You had no choice but to come."
Chung Myung smirked.
"Killing the first person is hard. After that, killing the second isn’t such a big deal. And if you killed me now, you could dump all the blame on Southern Edge. Why on earth would you pass up a chance like that?"
"So you’d already struck a deal with Southern Edge?"
Chung Myung looked at Beon Ja-bok with a blank expression.
"Nope."
For a moment, Beon Ja-bok’s contorted face went dumb.
"……No?"
"Yeah. They were just looking for trouble. I was already wondering how to deal with this mess, and they practically set the stage for me. Quite considerate, really."
Beon Ja-bok bit his lip hard.
"Then the internal injury! Whatever else, the physician said for certain that he was grievously wounded, nearly at death’s door!"
"If it were hard to fool an ordinary doctor, I wouldn’t have started this in the first place. You keep asking obvious things."
Chung Myung shrugged.
"You seem to have a lot of questions, but whether I satisfy your curiosity isn’t important. The important thing is that you walked into a trap, and I found the bastard who tried to murder Hwang Jong-ui."
"Hahahahaha!"
All at once, Beon Ja-bok threw back his head and laughed loudly, then turned to look at Hwang Jong-ui.
"Young Master. Surely you’re not going to believe this brat, are you?"
"……Would I have any reason not to?"
"That’s not like a wise Young Master such as yourself. There’s something missing from that child’s logic, isn’t there?"
"Something missing?"
Beon Ja-bok nodded.
"Yes. The fact that I tried to harm that boy is not proof that I murdered the clan head. Why would I ever do such a thing? The clan head has done so much for me. Isn’t that precisely why the Young Master didn’t suspect me in the first place?"
"Hmm."
Hwang Jong-ui let out a low hum.
It was an obvious excuse, but it wasn’t exactly wrong.
"Then why, in the world, did you try to kill the little Taoist? And why did you hide the fact that you knew martial arts?"
"That boy is beguiling the Young Master! Even the greatest physicians in the world failed to cure the clan head. How could that brat possibly heal him?"
"Then you should have persuaded me!"
"Would you have listened if I tried to persuade you? Your mind was already gone! The bewitched never listen to others, not ever! The only way to bring the Young Master to his senses was to kill that boy and remove him! Only then could treatment of the clan head continue!"
At that, murmurs rippled through the room.
Hwang Jong-ui turned his head slightly.
The servants who had gathered after hearing the commotion were whispering among themselves. It seemed they were saying that Beon Ja-bok’s words might not be so far-fetched after all. They could not be heard clearly, but their expressions and glances made their meaning plain.
Beon Ja-bok’s speech was persuasive enough.
"Finished?"
But then Chung Myung cut through the mood and stepped forward.
"……"
Beon Ja-bok glared at him.
"It is true I tried to kill you, but I never murdered the clan head. You, too……."
"Ah."
Chung Myung waved a hand lightly, cutting him off.
"Enough, enough. I don’t care about your reasons, and I’m not interested in listening to your excuses either. Why would I bother with such a pain in the ass?"
"What……?"
"When I can just beat you down!"
Before anyone could stop him, Chung Myung shot forward at incredible speed toward Beon Ja-bok.
Then he thrust out his right hand toward the man’s head.
With a sound like silk being ripped apart, Chung Myung’s hand burst with fierce light. Sensing the power contained in the incoming strike, Beon Ja-bok’s expression changed drastically. He threw up his own right hand to block Chung Myung’s blow.
Shaaaaak!
The two hands crossed, and Chung Myung was sent skimming backward.
"Now, look here!"
And he raised his right hand high.
"Th-that!"
Everyone who saw that extended hand doubted their own eyes.
The black handprint stamped near Chung Myung’s wrist was painfully clear. For an instant it seemed as though it might fade to white and disappear, but before long, the whole wrist had turned a deep red.
As everyone held their breath and watched, Chung Myung spoke slowly.
"That’s Danmasu, isn’t it."
He gave his hand a little shake, as though telling them all to look properly.
"Anyone struck by a mastered Danmasu won’t last even half a day before their whole body turns blackish-red and they die. Of course, this old bastard’s isn’t at that level, but even this degree is enough to kill a person. Especially if the target is just an ordinary old man with no martial training—it’d be easier than eating cold rice."
"……"
Beon Ja-bok, who had been wavering, tensed his throat—and Chung Myung struck first, not giving him a chance.
"If there’s anyone else who could stay at Master Hwang’s side, never arousing suspicion, and keep injecting Danmasu into him, then I’ll believe you when you say you’re not the culprit."
That was the fatal blow.
The eyes of the onlookers filled with anger. Seeing is believing, as the saying went. No one here would trust Beon Ja-bok’s words more than what their own eyes could see.
The change in Chung Myung’s right hand was identical to the symptoms now afflicting Master Hwang in his bed.
"Y-you! You ungrateful, dog-like bastard!"
"You dared murder the clan head and still shamelessly kept playing administrator right beside him!"
"Someone beat him to death already!"
As the atmosphere in the room shifted, Hwang Jong-ui no longer wavered either.
"Administraaaator!"
His furious voice thundered through the Galaxy Merchant Guild.
"Seize the administrator at once! If he resists, you may kill him!"
At Hwang Jong-ui’s command, the servants rushed into the room in a crowd. With his lips tightly bitten, Beon Ja-bok slammed palm strikes at those surging toward him.
"Aaaagh!"
"Ghk! Ugh!"
Those who entered the room were smashed by Beon Ja-bok’s palm force and sent flying backward.
"Damn it, we were almost done!"
Beon Ja-bok glared at Chung Myung with hatred burning in his eyes.
"If not for this brat……!"
"Hey, that’s pretty rude to the brat you’re talking about."
Chung Myung pouted.
He wasn’t even a kid, and yet he was being insulted like one. That made it twice as annoying.
"If only a little more time had passed, my revenge would’ve been complete! If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve killed you long ago instead of wasting my time trying to manipulate that idiot Young Master! I only thought about that……."
"Ah."
Chung Myung waved him off.
"Sure, sure, I’m sure you’ve got all kinds of tragic reasons, but save them for the magistrate later. Let’s wrap this up now. I just woke up, and I’m still sleepy. I’m going to knock you flat and go back to bed."
"Knock me flat?"
Beon Ja-bok burst into manic laughter.
"Hahahahahaha! You insolent little brat beyond all measure. I don’t know how you figured it out, but you yourself said the martial art I practice is Danmasu, and now you’re boldly claiming you’ll knock me flat? You? Me?"
"Nope."
"……Huh?"
"Hey, how could I do something like that? There’s someone else for the job. There, there."
Chung Myung pointed somewhere behind him.
All at once, everyone’s gaze converged on one spot.
"……Me?"
From the back, Yi Song-baek, who had been dumbly watching the situation unfold, pointed at his own face with a dazed expression.
"Me?"
"Krrr. The hero of Southern Edge has come to subdue the fiend. Please, try not to get hurt."
"N-no, me?"
"Then who else is there?"
When Chung Myung widened his eyes and asked back, Yi Song-baek finally understood. Come to think of it, with Gi Mok-seung having already taken his disciples and gone back, the strongest person here was obviously Yi Song-baek.
'Ah, right!'
This was his chance to clean up the mess he’d made. Looking back now, it was fair to wonder whether it had really been a mess at all, but still!
"The villain will be handled by Southern Edge’s sword!"
Yi Song-baek drew his sword and charged forward. Chung Myung immediately stepped aside to clear the way and even clapped.
"Krrr. What a heroic bearing!"
He wanted to tell him to shut up, but Yi Song-baek had no spare attention for that now that the battle had begun.
Leaving the two men tangled in combat behind him, Chung Myung slowly walked toward Hwang Jong-ui.
"That’s one problem solved."
"……But it isn’t over yet, is it?"
"He’ll be caught soon enough. He’s a disciple of a prestigious sect, after all. No way he loses to someone who hasn’t even properly learned martial arts."
"Hasn’t even properly learned? Just now, didn’t you say that at this level……."
At that moment, Chung Myung extended his hand toward Hwang Jong-ui where no one else could see.
The hand turned black, then white again, and finally crimson.
"……"
"I didn’t lie. It’s true that man learned Danmasu. I was just showing you, in advance, what stage it’ll reach later."
"Heh……."
Letting out a dry laugh, Hwang Jong-ui couldn’t hold back his question.
"Is the little Taoist really a Daoist?"
"Of course."
He’s the most seasoned Daoist in the world, for that matter.
Huh?
It’s true, though?
Geez.