Who Dared Touch What? (2)
So Jeong-bok instinctively clutched the cargo crate strapped to his back.
For a courier, it was as precious as his own life. It was something that could never, under any circumstances, be taken from him.
Damn it.
But in a situation like this, there was nothing he could do. Unless he had wings, how was he supposed to run?
“So that’s the cargo that special escort is carrying. I hear the nobles of Beijing pay a fortune to have their valuables delivered?”
“Heh heh. I heard they mainly haul things so precious a man could live off them for the rest of his life.”
“Wouldn’t mind getting a look at one of them myself.”
As the water bandits laughed in those slimy, knowing voices, So Jeong-bok bit down hard on his lip. At times like this, there was no choice but to break through head-on.
He raised both hands and gave a respectful martial salute.
“Forgive my rudeness. I am So Jeong-bok, a special courier of the Eunha Merchant Guild.”
“Thought so.”
The man nodded, as if pleased.
“I understand the relationship between the Eunha Merchant Guild and the heroes of the Yangtze isn’t exactly poor. If you need compensation, we can certainly pay more, so let’s avoid making a problem where there isn’t one.”
“A problem, huh…”
The man repeated the words slowly, then burst out laughing.
“Sounds like you’re saying you’ll do something to us if a problem does come up?”
“That’s not what I meant, but…”
So Jeong-bok realized he’d misspoken and wiped the sweat beading in his palm against the hem of his trousers before hurrying on.
“I only meant that it would be better for us to continue on good terms. As far as I know, the Eunha Merchant Guild—indeed, even Mount Hua Sect—doesn’t have bad relations with the Water Bandit Sect….”
“Mount Hua Sect?”
The corner of the man’s mouth curled.
“So what you’re saying is, because you’ve got the Eunha Merchant Guild and Mount Hua Sect behind you, we’d best back off if we don’t want to get hurt?”
“...That’s not what I meant. The compensation, I’ll—”
“Compensation, is it? Not bad. I’m not trying to make trouble either. If you do that, I won’t want to make one.”
“Thank you.”
So Jeong-bok quickly reached into his robes and pulled out a money pouch.
Protecting the cargo mattered far more than money. And if it was the Eunha Merchant Guild, they would surely understand the situation and reimburse him for this amount.
But things didn’t seem likely to go as smoothly as he’d hoped.
“Ah, no, that’s not it.”
“...Pardon?”
“That sort of money is only enough to buy the life of an ordinary man. A special courier of the Eunha Merchant Guild ought to be worth a far higher price, no?”
“...Then…?”
“Nothing difficult. The box you’re carrying on your back should do nicely as a token of your sincerity.”
So Jeong-bok’s face hardened at once.
“...That’s impossible.”
“You don’t understand. That isn’t for you to decide. It’s for me to decide.”
The man approached with a chilling smile.
“Well? What’ll it be? Hand it over? Or…”
So Jeong-bok clutched the crate tighter and raced through every possibility in his head.
What was I supposed to do in a situation like this?
There had definitely been a method for handling this in his training.
After a moment, he finally let out a heavy sigh, lowered the crate from his back, and held it out in front of him.
“Hmm?”
“Take it.”
The Eunha Merchant Guild’s ironclad rule.
Nothing was more important than your life.
The cargo might be valuable, but the courier was more valuable still. If the cargo would bring trouble, abandon it without hesitation.
“Hah! I heard special couriers valued their cargo more than their own lives. Seems that was all nonsense after all?”
“What could be more precious than life?”
“Exactly, exactly. That’s the right answer. I like that.”
The man slowly stepped forward, took the box from So Jeong-bok’s outstretched hands, and tossed it behind him. A waiting bandit rushed up and caught it.
“Lucky for you, we’ve met someone who can talk sense.”
Tap, tap.
Now standing right before him, the man lightly patted So Jeong-bok’s shoulder.
It was a gesture that might have been mistaken for praise, if not for the mockery curled into it.
“You and I, I think we understand each other rather well. Especially in the way we both value our lives.”
“... ”
“So I trust you’ll understand me as well.”
“Pardon?”
Whoosh!
In that instant, a dark, hawk-like three-clawed talon shot from the man’s sleeve. He drove it into So Jeong-bok’s side like a bolt of lightning.
Crunch!
“Aaaaargh!”
With a horrifying sound, an involuntary scream ripped from So Jeong-bok’s throat.
The long claws—each easily three inches, perhaps more—had pierced straight through his flank. It was only natural that he screamed.
“Gh… Ngh…”
Shuddering from the pain, So Jeong-bok looked up at the man in disbelief. The man, meanwhile, stared down at his suffering prey with a smile on his face.
“W-Why…?”
“Think about it.”
The man spoke gently, almost soothingly.
“If you were to return alive, wouldn’t you rush back and report this to your superiors? And then, naturally, this little matter would reach Mount Hua’s ears.”
“... ”
“And would Mount Hua Sect just sit still after that? I’m not afraid of some Mount Hua Sect, of course, but I can’t stand troublesome things.”
“T-That…”
Crack!
The man twisted the three-clawed talon buried in So Jeong-bok’s side. The three blades gouged through flesh and intestines alike.
“Aaagh… ngh…”
The pain was so overwhelming that So Jeong-bok could no longer even scream. His knees gave way, and his whole body lurched violently.
“The fish in the Yangtze must be starving, so think of it as charity. I’m sure you’ve made plenty of money by now. You won’t have any regrets.”
“M-Mount Hua will definitely….”
“Ah, yes.”
The man answered idly and gave So Jeong-bok a light shove. The powerless body staggered, nearly tumbling over the railing.
“Go on then. Believe in that and die.”
At last, the talon was yanked free from his side. So Jeong-bok’s body lost all strength and fell beneath the deck.
Splash!
White foam burst up, and soon red blood spread across the surface.
Even a healthy body would have little hope of surviving after falling into the middle of this vast river. For a body mangled like that, the outcome was all too obvious.
“Hmph.”
The man shook the blood from his talon and turned away.
“It’s always the ones with no real skill who act up because they’ve got backing. Never even realizing that out on the river, only strength can protect you.”
“Well said, sir.”
The water bandits cackled with laughter.
“Helmsman. What should we do with the rest?”
“Hmm?”
“You saw everything, didn’t you?”
“Hmm…”
The man called the helmsman looked over at them with an odd expression.
“Right. This isn’t something that can be solved just by getting rid of that mouth. What to do with them…”
“Shall we kill them all?”
The bandits lifted their weapons threateningly.
The passengers and crew recoiled in terror, faces drained white. They had just seen a man thrown into the river to die, so their fear was beyond words.
“Even if we kill them and toss them in, a few bodies will float up. Then someone will know something went wrong…”
After a brief pause, the man smirked.
“Take the whole ship. If we sell them as slaves in a foreign land, that should fetch a nice price. Kill only those who resist.”
“Yes, sir!”
The moment the order was given, the water bandits surged forward.
“Aaaagh!”
“Please, spare us! I have family at home!”
“P-Please, let us go!”
The man stood there enjoying the sharp, echoing screams, then turned away with a faint smile.
He gestured to one of the bandits, took back the cargo crate, and turned it over in his hands.
“If you’re transporting something valuable, you should be prepared for this much. You weren’t planning to make money hand over fist for nothing, were you? Hmm?”
Amid the shrieking, the man laughed loudly.
And then.
Grrr… rrrumble…
In the middle of the broad river, far behind the two ships that had spread their sails and pulled away, one person slowly lifted his head above the water’s surface.
“Ghk…”
So Jeong-bok’s face was deathly pale and bloodless as he coughed up water again and again with only his head above the current.
I have to… I have to tell them…
Forcing his body to obey, he tried to swim toward the shore, but his strength failed him and he sank back into the water.
“Haaah!”
He fought desperately, but consciousness kept slipping away, flickering in and out like a dying flame.
Mount Hua… I have to… tell them…
Before long, So Jeong-bok lost consciousness completely, and his body drifted slowly along the cold currents of the Yangtze.
* * *
In front of Mount Hua’s mountain gate.
“Damn, it’s freezing.”
“Ugh. You never get used to the cold at dawn in the mountains.”
The Cheong generation disciples on watch shivered violently.
They were martial artists, yes, but winter in the mountains was still cold enough to bite through flesh.
It had seemed a little less bitter when snow fell through the night, but now that the snow had stopped, the knife-like wind kept stabbing and scraping at their armpits. Mount Hua was already known for its fierce terrain and constant winds, and that made the cold feel even worse than it truly was.
“If it’s this cold here, how cold is the Northern Sea?”
“Don’t even ask. The sahyung who’ve been to the Northern Sea still wear summer training clothes these days.”
“Seriously?”
“Not long ago, Jo Gul sahyung was even swimming in a stream. Said it was warm?”
“...Isn’t that just insanity?”
“...”
“If anybody else said that, I’d think, ‘Oh, he must’ve gone to the Northern Sea.’ But if it’s Jo Gul sahyung, doesn’t it sound like the sort of thing he’d do even without ever going there?”
“...Now that you mention it.”
In the past, there wouldn’t have been any need to stand watch in the middle of such an early dawn, shivering through the cold. But Mount Hua now had so many people coming and going that it had become necessary.
So while the cold was miserable, no one had any real complaint about the watch itself. They just wanted the boring hours to pass faster.
“Ugh, when’s the shift change?”
“Soon.”
“I’d rather be training right now. Standing watch feels like such a waste. In this time, I could probably run through the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art five times.”
“What? Only five? That’s so slow you couldn’t even catch flies. I could do it ten times in this same stretch.”
“Tsk tsk tsk. Listen to this amateur. A weakling obsesses over speed; a master obsesses over precision. If I used my sword as sloppily as you do, I could probably do it a dozen times.”
“Oh? A master? Then how come I beat you so badly last time?”
“I told you, I wasn’t feeling well then! Hey, let’s go again.”
“Anytime.”
They were bickering and growling at each other when one of them suddenly stopped mid-sentence and tilted his head.
“Huh?”
“What is it?”
“Doesn’t it look like someone’s coming over there?”
“Who’d be coming at this hour? The sun isn’t even up yet.”
“No, look.”
What he pointed to was not the cliffside path normally used by Mount Hua disciples, but the gentler trail beside it—a path that had recently been widened and repaired.
Looking more closely, they could indeed make out dark shapes moving along it.
“Huh?”
Almost reflexively, a hand went to the sword at his waist.
No one climbing Mount Hua at this hour was likely here for anything good. Just as they were debating whether to ring the alarm, the face of the one in front finally came into view.
“Huh? Young Master Hwang?”
Hwang Jong-ui, the young master of the Eunha Merchant Guild, was hurrying toward them with a group of people in tow.
“What brings you here so early?”
“Please, take me inside.”
“Pardon?”
As though he didn’t even have time to explain, Hwang Jong-ui bit down on his sweat-dampened lip. His expression was grave enough that the Cheong generation disciples immediately sensed something had happened.
“There’s been a problem. I know it’s impolite to come at such an hour, but this is no time to worry about courtesy. I need to see the sect leader immediately.”
One of the Cheong generation disciples nodded at once, opened the gate without hesitation, and ran inside.
An uneasy feeling began to settle over Mount Hua in the pale dawn.