Who’s the Mount Hua Bastard! (1)
“Grrrrr.”
Behind Chung Myung, who was spewing steam from his mouth like a furnace, the Five Swords lay sprawled on the ground, twitching as if they’d been kneaded with mud and baked half to death.
“……That insane…….”
“Oh, God……. I’m dying…….”
The proud young disciples of Mount Hua, a sect counted among the finest in the present martial world, had been reduced to the point where simply running had nearly sent their souls out of their bodies.
They’d hauled up the ones who’d fallen behind, dragged the ones who’d gone face-first into the dirt, and kept the ones on the verge of collapsing upright, and by the time they all arrived together, the hearts of the Mount Hua Five Swords were already overflowing with a strange sort of affection for one another.
We should’ve just left him lying there face-first!
Those heartless bastards! They dragged me along just because they couldn’t be bothered to leave me behind…….
So you’re saying none of us get to die alone, huh?!
And so, somehow or other, they arrived in Nam-chang—each of them glaring at Chung Myung with eyes full of murderous resentment. But Chung Myung, as if he couldn’t feel a thing, was staring at Nam-chang with the eyes of a predator who’d already picked out its prey.
“But…….”
Baek Cheon, having finally caught his breath, asked Chung Myung,
“What do you plan to do now?”
“…….”
“We don’t even know what he looks like. And there’s no telling whether the one claiming to be a Mount Hua disciple is even still in Nam-chang.”
“…….”
“So for now, why don’t we find an inn, wash up a bit, and look for him slowly…….”
“Sasuk.”
“Huh?”
But Chung Myung cut him off without even turning around.
“And how exactly are you gonna lead Mount Hua with that kind of thinking?”
“…….”
“You don’t know what he looks like? Don’t know if he’s still in Nam-chang? What does any of that matter?”
“……Why wouldn’t it matter, you little punk?”
“Watch and learn. First off, if you’re gonna lead people, the art of using the right person is what matters.”
Chung Myung lifted one hand slightly and curled his fingers in a casual little beckoning motion.
And then, from behind the trees standing to the left and right, several black shapes shot out like lightning.
“What the—!”
“An ambush?”
The Five Swords, who had been lying there, jolted upright in shock just as—
“We greet the Mount Hua Divine Dragon!”
“We’ve been waiting for you! Welcome to Nam-chang!”
A welcoming cry burst forth.
Everyone stared blankly at the people flattened on the ground before them.
“……Beggars?”
“It’s the Beggars’ Sect, Sasuk! The Beggars’ Sect!”
“Isn’t the Beggars’ Sect just beggars?”
“……No, this guy’s personality is getting worse by the day.”
Whether anyone else grumbled or not, the disciples of the Beggars’ Sect kept sneaking glances at Chung Myung’s face as they spoke in quick, efficient tones.
“We received word from Hall Division Leader of Huayin. We’ll cooperate with anything and everything we can!”
“We’re in your care!”
Cold sweat formed at the nape of Baek Cheon’s neck.
No, wait…….
Of course, Mount Hua and the Beggars’ Sect—well, more precisely, Chung Myung and the Beggars’ Sect—weren’t on bad terms, so it wasn’t strange for them to cooperate. But the problem was that this attitude was so over the top it could hardly be called “cooperation.”
What on earth kind of rumor has spread through the Beggars’ Sect?
He was curious, but honestly, he didn’t want the answer. Knowing would only make his head hurt.
“What about that bastard?”
At Chung Myung’s words, the Beggars’ Sect members sprang to their feet.
“He’s still in Nam-chang.”
“We’ll take you there at once!”
“Move!”
“Yes, sir!”
As the beggars shot off as if they were about to break into a full sprint, Baek Cheon and Jo Gul cried out in alarm.
“W-wait, let us catch our breath first…….”
“We’re running again?! Again?”
Chung Myung shouted without even looking back.
“We can rest after we catch that bastard! What are you waiting for? Move!”
“Yes, sir!”
The Beggars’ Sect disciples took off at full speed, running themselves into the ground. And right behind them, without hesitation, Chung Myung followed.
“Agh, damn it! Seriously!”
“Stop running! Just stoppppp! You bastardddddd!”
The Five Swords, tears practically spilling from their eyes, ran after him.
To be fair, Chung Myung wasn’t entirely wrong. If they dragged their feet and let the fraudster slip out of Nam-chang, they’d only end up chasing him for even longer.
But the problem was that they were, quite literally, on the verge of losing their last breath.
That rotten bastard!
If you were gonna impersonate someone, why the hell did it have to be Mount Hua?!
If I catch him, I’m going to grind him to dust!
All of their anger was pouring toward the impersonator somewhere in Nam-chang.
They knew.
They knew the source of this suffering wasn’t solely the fraudster. If they were being precise, it was really Chung Myung’s fault.
But if a typhoon blew in, tore a house apart, and sent it flying, who would blame the typhoon more than the person who’d built the house out of scraps and called it shelter? Cursing the typhoon, the true source of the disaster, wasn’t all that meaningful.
Likewise, there was no real point in blaming Chung Myung. The one who’d made Chung Myung run wild like that was the real culprit.
“I don’t care who he is—let’s start by punching his face in!”
“That’s a wildly messed-up thing to say, but I absolutely agree!”
“Kill him!”
The Mount Hua disciples, eyes bloodshot and teeth clenched, sprinted toward the Golden Sword Manor.
“Hm?”
Jo Mu-seong, a guard stationed at the front gate of the Golden Sword Manor, frowned at the sight of a group of people charging straight toward him.
“What is it?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Look over there! Over there!”
Yeom Gong, the guard on duty with him, also looked where Jo Mu-seong pointed and flinched.
“Some beggars……?”
Their clothes were so caked in pale dust they had turned the color of yellow earth, and it was difficult to tell their original hair color beneath the grime. Their faces, peeking through the tangle of unkempt hair, were dripping with filth.
“Stop! Stopppp!”
Yeom Gong bellowed like thunder and stepped in front of them.
Screeeech!
The young beggar leading the group shot one leg forward, skidded, and brought his body to a halt. Yeom Gong scolded him sternly.
“You lot! Do you know where you are that you’d come causing a ruckus…….”
“Enough!”
But the beggar in front cut him off bluntly.
“There’s some crap inside calling itself Mount Hua, right?”
“Mount Hua?”
Yeom Gong narrowed his eyes and looked over the beggar before barking at him.
“Have you lost your minds? Who talks about a Mount Hua expert like that? You deserve a proper beating, you little brats!”
Then he slapped the golden scabbard at his waist with a crack.
“I ought to rough you up properly, but since we have guests, I’ll let you off this once. Be grateful and scram. If you cause trouble again, you won’t leave in one piece.”
“There he is!”
Among hundreds of words, Chung Myung had a special talent for hearing only the one thing he wanted and deleting the rest from his head.
As expected, the only words that remained in his brain after hearing all that were Mount Hua, expert, and guests.
Chung Myung’s eyes flashed as he snorted out a hot breath.
“That damn fraud.”
As he pushed past the guards and tried to enter, two men simultaneously clamped hands onto his shoulders.
“And where do you think you’re going, you brat!”
“Ahem, little brother! Did you not hear what this fellow just said? Please step back.”
Chung Myung’s eyes drifted to the hands on his shoulders, and his gaze turned razor-thin.
Startled, Baek Cheon rushed forward.
“Wait!”
He politely clasped his hands and explained the situation in a calm, measured tone.
“We’ve come from Mount Hua in Shaanxi. We were told that there is someone in Nam-chang impersonating a disciple of Mount Hua, and we’ve come to investigate. We ask for your sect’s cooperation.”
The two men tilted their heads and looked at Baek Cheon. Compared to the others with him, he was a little less ragged, but in comparison to the so-called Mount Hua expert they had just seen, he looked like a beggar all the same.
“……You say you’ve come from where?”
“The Mount Hua Sect in Shaanxi Province.”
“Ah…… so you’re the ones?”
Yeom Gong burst into open laughter. Jo Mu-seong didn’t laugh outright, but he clearly couldn’t suppress it completely, turning his head away with the corners of his mouth twitching.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
After shaking with laughter for a long while, Yeom Gong suddenly barked at them.
“Do you really need a good beating before you’ll come to your senses?”
“……Yes?”
“You know what kind of place Mount Hua is, and yet you idiots think you can impersonate it? The Mount Hua Sect is renowned for its noble Daoist gentlemen! And you dare speak of Mount Hua looking like you’ve rolled through a battlefield for three straight days?”
Baek Cheon shot Chung Myung a resentful look.
I told you to wash up first, you bastard!
“Tsk, tsk. The end of the world, truly the end of the world. Where are these young punks so brazen as to commit fraud like this? If I hadn’t seen a genuine Mount Hua disciple just now, I might’ve actually been fooled! Enough talking. I was going to let you off because you look young, but if you keep making trouble, I’ll show you just how harsh the world can be. Get lost—now!”
Yeom Gong’s aura turned fierce.
Baek Cheon let out a deep sigh and looked at Chung Myung with a tragic expression. Chung Myung, in turn, grinned.
“Why make this so hard? We just need to prove we’re really from Mount Hua.”
“……How?”
“How…… how, huh…….”
A wicked smile crept across Chung Myung’s face. The moment Baek Cheon saw that expression, he instinctively took a step back. It was pure reflex.
“Hmm…… how should we prove it? Man, that’s tough. Really tough.”
“Ch-Chung Myung?”
“So tough that I can’t think of any other way besides this.”
The instant Chung Myung’s hand closed around the hilt of his sword, Baek Cheon squeezed his eyes shut without even realizing it. Smiling devilishly, Chung Myung said,
“You two over there.”
“Hm?”
“This is really unavoidable, so please forgive us. I absolutely, definitely have to get inside.”
“You little—!”
“I already said everything nice beforehand, so from here on out…… it’s your responsibility!”
Chung Myung’s eyes erupted with a brilliant blue light.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“It’s here.”
Golden Sword Manor leader Sang Man-hui handed a thick stack of payment bills to Jin Yang-geon.
Jin Yang-geon quietly looked down at the stack on the table. His face remained calm as ever, but the hand hidden beneath the table trembled uncontrollably from excitement.
How much is all this……? To actually get my hands on this…….
He had stood before a fortune he had never even dared to imagine in his entire life, and for a moment he almost swallowed hard—only to force himself to stay calm.
Clenching his thigh to suppress his shaking, Jin Yang-geon spoke as nonchalantly as he could.
“I’d heard that Master Sang is a man of great spirit, but I never imagined you’d make such a decisive decision.”
“How could we ever dare to doubt Mount Hua? If we doubted Mount Hua, famed for righteousness and honor, the whole world would mock us.”
Jin Yang-geon smiled faintly, nodding as he slowly laid his now-steady hand on the table.
“All this money will be put to use for the starving. And my own sect will never turn away from the righteousness shown by the Golden Sword Manor in helping those in need.”
“If you’ll do that much, what more could we ask for? Thank you, Commander Jin! No, no—Daoist sir!”
Sang Man-hui seized Jin Yang-geon’s hand.
Jin Yang-geon gave a relaxed nod and reached out with his other hand to gather up the stack of bills.
Kwaaaaaaang!
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
“Hm?”
“Huh?”
But at the sudden huge explosion and the scream that followed from outside, Sang Man-hui and Jin Yang-geon both snapped their heads around.
“……What?”
Kwaaaaaaang!
At the second blast, Sang Man-hui’s face went white.
“A-a raid? Is it the Iron Spear Gang?”
His gaze shot to Jin Yang-geon.
“D-Daoist. It looks like the Iron Spear Gang is attacking us.”
Jin Yang-geon gave an awkward smile, looking mildly startled.
“Ha ha. They say a calf born yesterday doesn’t know fear of the tiger…… don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”
“As expected!”
Sang Man-hui’s face lit up at once.
“Shall we go out together?”
“Ah. I should probably first put these bills away…….”
“……Yes?”
Sang Man-hui stared at Jin Yang-geon with a blank expression.
Under that suspicious gaze, Jin Yang-geon broke out in a cold sweat and clenched his teeth.
“Vice Manor Lord!”
And then, just then, the chief steward burst through the door, his face drained of color.
“What is it? Is it the Iron Spear Gang? Those bastards know someone important is here, don’t they…….”
“N-no! It’s not the Iron Spear Gang!”
“Hm? Not the Iron Spear Gang?”
At the unexpected answer, Sang Man-hui looked dazed.
If it wasn’t the Iron Spear Gang, then what on earth was causing those explosions?
“Then who is it?”
“W-well…….”
The steward hesitated, sneaking a glance at Jin Yang-geon before speaking.
“The Mount Hua…… the ones claiming to be Mount Hua disciples are rampaging outside. The disciples at the main gate are holding them back, but they’re being overwhelmed…….”
“Mount Hua?”
Sang Man-hui frowned as if to say this was complete nonsense.
“Mount Hua? What kind of ridiculous thing is that? Why would Mount Hua be causing a commotion here?”
“I’m not entirely sure either…….”
“Who on earth would impersonate Mount Hua…….”
Just then—
Kwaaaaaaang!
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
With a thunderous explosion, the inner gate installed before the vice manor lord’s hall was blasted apart. At the same time, several of the Golden Sword Manor disciples were sent flying over the main gate like frogs kicked by a child, then crashed face-first onto the ground.
Sang Man-hui blinked at the unbelievable sight.
And then he saw it.
Through the shattered main gate came some strange monster, strolling in as leisurely as if he were taking an evening walk.
He was covered head to toe in dust, and blue fire seemed to blaze from his eyes. It was a sight that made the back of one’s knees go weak.
Hrrrrr…….
Emitting a strange growl, the monster slowly turned his head from side to side, and then his gaze locked precisely onto Sang Man-hui.
“Who’s the Mount Hua bastard?”
Flames poured from the eyes of the monster—of Chung Myung.
“Which bastard brought up Mount Hua? Come out! What, you won’t come out?”
“…….”
Did he come from the Southern Sect?
That was the first thought that flashed through Sang Man-hui’s mind.