Mount Hua Will Grow Stronger (4)
“You were waiting in line to make a reservation?”
“Y-yes. They told me to line up here, and then that man over there was—”
“Just a moment.”
The burly man silenced Ma Cheol with a booming voice, then glanced around as though searching for something. A second later, he suddenly barked a command so fierce it sounded less like a shout and more like a tiger’s roar.
“Mu-O! Where the hell are you, Mu-O!”
“Y-yes, sir! I’m coming, Boss!”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a man came scrambling over from the side.
What the hell is that supposed to be?
The man had a huge scar slashing across his face and an expression so frightening it could have haunted people’s dreams. He rushed over in a panic and stopped in front of the giant of a man.
“J-just a moment, I need the latrine—”
Bang!
Before he could finish, the burly man’s fist came down on Mu-O’s head. Mu-O was smashed straight into the ground and rolled around clutching his skull.
“Aaaagh!”
Wow...
Hadn’t the ground just trembled a little when he got hit?
“Get up, you worthless bastard!”
“Yes! Yes, Boss!”
The scar-faced man sprang to his feet.
His naturally horse-like face seemed to have shortened a little from the blow, but that hardly mattered right now.
“I told you to guide them, and you disappear in the meantime?”
“I really just went to the latrine for a moment! I swear, Boss!”
“If there’s one more disturbance today, I’ll skin you alive and serve you as drinking snacks. Understood?”
“Yes! Absolutely! That will never happen!”
“Useless, all of you!”
The burly man glared as though threatening them both, then snapped his gaze back to Ma Cheol.
Hiiik!
Just meeting those fierce eyes made his mouth go dry and sweat break out all over him. In the end, he had definitely caused a scene, so it looked like trouble was coming.
But once again, the giant’s behavior defied Ma Cheol’s expectations.
“Oh dear, I’m terribly sorry.”
“……”
“We should have guided you in advance, but this worthless fool disappeared on us... We’ll fix this right away.”
The giant actually began bowing and scraping, forcing that massive body of his to bend over in an almost comical show of humility. Ma Cheol, still dazed, gave a stiff nod.
“T-thank you.”
“However.”
“Yes?”
Then the man straightened his back.
“Whatever the reason, fighting is not allowed on Maehwado, and neither is making a commotion. I’ll let it slide once because you seem to be here for the first time, so please be more careful in the future.”
“What? Ah... yes! Yes! Of course! Right!”
So he couldn’t make a scene, then.
How was anyone supposed to make a scene after seeing those muscles? He’d just watched a man get punched in the head and driven face-first into the floor.
“This is where merchants waiting for cargo ships line up. Reservations for cargo ships are taken at the hall behind me, so please go there.”
“What? Th-this isn’t the place?”
No, wait—was that really the important part?
“Then all the people here are loading cargo today...?”
Ma Cheol’s eyes went wide.
There were already enough merchants here to make his head spin. And this wasn’t even all of them?
R-right. Come to think of it, that makes sense.
That had to be why there was an inn and a warehouse back there.
“Yes. Go over there and make your reservation. Then they’ll give you a date for loading your ship.”
“Th-thank you.”
Contrary to that face and that body, which looked like they belonged to a jailer from hell, his voice was impossibly gentle.
That somehow made him even scarier.
“Yes, then.”
The man spun around and shouted.
“Quit gawking and load the cargo! You useless loafers! If today’s shipping gets delayed, don’t even think about eating dinner tonight! Understood?”
“Yes!”
“If you understand, move already!”
As Ma Cheol watched in stunned silence, he overheard people nearby talking.
“The foreman seems to be in a good mood today. Look at him, actually letting this slide.”
“You said it. He’s even got a great expression on his face today, doesn’t he?”
“Ha! I thought I’d seen a Buddha for a second there. Must be something good happening.”
That? A good expression?
Were all these people blind?
“W-was he always like this?”
The merchant Ma Cheol had been arguing with looked just as bewildered, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
“Like what?”
“I mean, that man over there...”
“Ah, the foreman? He’s always like that.”
“……”
“He looks like a demon on the outside, but he’s unfailingly kind to merchants. Truth be told, everyone on Maehwado is like that.”
“So they say you can’t judge a person by his looks...”
“That’s not it.”
“Pardon?”
The merchants wore smirks on their faces.
“The ones who used to treat merchants badly when Maehwado was first built were beaten so badly by the island lord that they still probably remember it every time it rains.”
“Heh. I still remember it too. I saw it myself back then, and it was the first time in my life I learned a person could be beaten that badly. What was it again? ‘This is how you beat someone the way my master taught me!’ Was that it?”
“Hahaha. The island lord is really great with jokes, isn’t he? Learning how to beat people from a Taoist priest—hahaha!”
No, you lunatics. Is this something to laugh about?
“Y-you can beat people like that?”
“Why not? The ones who got hit were the lucky ones.”
“What?”
The merchant grinned and jerked his chin toward the mountain in the distance.
“See that mountain over there?”
“...Yes. I do have eyes.”
“I heard a few fools touched the merchants’ goods and got buried in that mountain.”
Ma Cheol’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
“B-buried?”
“That’s right. I heard it myself. The island lord smiled brightly and said, ‘Beat them until they’re barely breathing, then bury them alive.’”
“……”
“Then he apologized to the merchants a hundred times over and compensated them tenfold for their losses.”
“He could have just returned the goods, but what a magnanimous man.”
“Exactly. The island lord is a true gentleman. A true gentleman!”
Have these people all gone insane?
Did they even realize what they were saying? He buried people alive, and that made him a gentleman? A gentleman?
“Th-that island lord of yours sounds like an incredibly frightening man.”
“What are you saying? I told you, he’s a gentleman! Born and bred, through and through!”
Ma Cheol gave up trying to understand them.
And, in truth, whether the man was a gentleman or a bandit who buried people alive had nothing to do with him.
But the next words shattered that thought cleanly.
“If you’re curious, why not see for yourself?”
“Pardon?”
“You said you were going to make a reservation, didn’t you?”
“W-well, yes.”
“Then go and have a look. The island lord personally takes reservations.”
“……”
“Oh, and just in case—watch your words. The island lord may be a gentleman, but the people around him are not.”
“Heh heh. Slip up, and your head goes slash!”
“Wouldn’t that be refreshing? Indeed. Hahahahah!”
Ma Cheol squeezed his eyes shut.
Everyone on Maehwado seemed insane—innkeepers, laborers, merchants, all of them.
* * *
“...It’s huge.”
“It really is huge...”
“They say all the money from the Yangtze ends up in Maehwado.”
At the grandeur of the hall before them, everyone’s mouths fell open.
They couldn’t even see where the walls ended.
They had traveled all over the Central Plains and seen countless places with their own eyes, yet they could barely remember ever seeing a building this large.
“I think even the main hall of the Central Merchant Guild was smaller than this.”
“R-right?”
“...And it’s packed with people too.”
Men came and went through the huge front gate in a steady stream. The only difference from the docks earlier was that nobody here was carrying cargo.
“Should’ve gotten rooms and left the carts behind.”
“We should’ve just done as we were told.”
The merchants, stuck with their own pointless extra work, cast resentful looks their way. Ma Cheol twisted his face in annoyance.
They didn’t even say a word before, and now they’re blaming me?
When something goes wrong, they always shove the blame onto someone else later. Merchants were all the same.
“Let’s go in first.”
“Yes.”
Passing through the gate, they found themselves in a large courtyard. Guided by the attendant standing at the entrance, they moved farther inside, where a rather unfamiliar sight spread out before them.
In a space large enough to dwarf the home of any ordinary wealthy family ten times over, rows of desks stood in order, and the people seated behind them were writing furiously without pause, filling out document after document.
“Where did the ledger for that ticket go?”
“The accounts! The unloading ledger from yesterday! Who took the one I put here?”
“I told you today was collection day!”
“Agh, I’m going crazy! The numbers don’t match! Who made the mistake?”
It was a battlefield in every sense of the word.
Those are all ledgers?
He had no idea how many goods must be moving through here for so many people to be assigned solely to bookkeeping. Even the largest merchant houses in the Central Plains probably wouldn’t use this many people just to keep their ledgers.
And they certainly wouldn’t all be working this furiously, not even for a moment.
“This way. Please line up here.”
Moving past that area and deeper inside, they saw a line of people waiting, and at the end of it sat a large desk.
“Oh...”
Behind the desk, a huge folding screen painted with the Ten Longevity Symbols had been set up, and between the desk and the screen sat a man greeting visitors with a gentle smile.
“...He gives off an incredibly impressive aura.”
“He does, doesn’t he?”
He wore spotless white scholar’s robes and a large official’s cap. His eyes were a little narrow, which might have been a flaw, but the soft smile on his lips made even that seem kind.
And with the feather fan in his hand...
“...He looks just like Zhuge Liang come back to life.”
“R-right. Exactly that feeling.”
Once he took in the workers in front as well, the impression only grew stronger. It really did feel as though this was what the Chancellor’s office of Shu in the old days must have looked like...
“But wasn’t the island lord of Maehwado supposed to be a former bandit?”
Huh?
“Then those people must all be bandits too.”
Huh?
Ma Cheol blinked and looked around again.
Now that I look more closely...
Something was definitely odd.
They were all wearing neat scholar’s robes and diligently filling out ledgers, but if you looked at their faces, they felt less like scholars and more like the kind of scoundrels you’d find in some back alley.
No... did they all roll through a field of blades or something?
The wrists peeking out between their sleeves, the necks visible above their collars, even the blatant scar slicing across a face here and there—it was enough to send a chill down the spine of anyone watching.
What in the world is this place?
Why were people like that writing ledgers? Why? Why weren’t they out running their “business” in some back alley instead?
“This way.”
By the time Ma Cheol was flustered and still looking around, it was already their turn.
“Yes!”
Following the guide, he stepped forward and found the island lord in scholar’s clothing greeting them with a bright smile.
“Welcome. I’m told you’re from Dabo Trading Company.”
“Yes, yes. That’s right. This is our first time here, so we came to make a cargo reservation...”
“Then you’ve come to the right place. I am Im So-byeong, the island lord of Maehwado.”
“Ah... yes! I’m Ma Cheol, and I manage Dabo Trading Company.”
“Since this is your first visit, I came out to receive you personally. Welcome to Maehwado. It would be wonderful if we could build a good relationship, wouldn’t it? I sincerely hope we can continue to get along well from here on.”
“Ah, yes! We should be the ones asking that of you! Please take good care of us.”
“Haha. Think nothing of it.”
Im So-byeong smiled broadly.
That smile, clear and pristine without a speck of stain, gave no hint of anything sinister or dangerous.
Maybe it was a misunderstanding?
This man had buried people alive?
How could a scholar who looked as though he wouldn’t even be able to catch a rabbit commit such a vicious act?
There must be some mistake...
That was when it happened.
A man hurried into the hall and whispered something into Im So-byeong’s ear. Still smiling as he listened, Im So-byeong’s lips curled a little higher.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, Island Lord.”
“If he committed a crime, then he should pay the price. Work him over until evening, then toss him into the middle of the river after sunset and feed him to the fish.”
“He’s pretty skilled in water combat. Won’t he still get away?”
“Tsk tsk. Must I spell out everything for you?”
In an instant, Im So-byeong’s expression turned cold.
“Cut the tendons in his arms and legs, and bind his hands and feet with iron chains. Break his dantian too, just in case. Then fasten weights to his ankles so he can never rise again. Ah, and sprinkle salt over the wounds where you cut the tendons. His crime was too great to let him leave in peace.”
“Understood.”
“Make it clean. Clean.”
“Yes, Island Lord.”
“Anyway, bandits by birth are always trying to cause trouble if you don’t keep an eye on them for even a moment. Make sure they understand exactly what happens when they put their hands on someone else’s property. Have everyone watch carefully.”
“I will.”
Waving the man away, Im So-byeong clicked his tongue and then turned back to Ma Cheol with that bright smile again.
“My apologies. Where were we?”
“......”
“Guild Master?”
“...Please, spare my life.”
“Pardon?”
It seemed... he had come to a place he should never have set foot in.