It May Have Already Begun (5)
“Mount Hua Sword Hyeoooooooob!”
As Hong Dae-gwang burst through the door with a crash, Chung Myung’s eyes narrowed at once.
“What, does this old geezer think this place is the front yard of some beggars’ den or something?”
“N-no, this isn’t the time for that! Mount Hua Sword Hero!”
“What now?”
“Namgung Clan!”
The moment he heard those words, everyone seated around Baekmae Hall all narrowed their eyes.
“The Namgung Clan has been surrounded by the Water Bandit Sect!”
“……”
When Chung Myung didn’t react in any particular way, Hong Dae-gwang raised his voice in frustration and rushed closer, practically sticking his face into Chung Myung’s.
“Their main force is trapped on Maehwado, surrounded by the Water Bandit Sect’s ships! If we don’t do something right now, they may all be wiped out! Are you even listening—”
“Ah! Shut the hell up already, you noisy bastard!”
Chung Myung pressed a finger against Hong Dae-gwang’s cheek and shoved him back. If it had been anyone else rushing at him like that, he would’ve already thrown a fist, but since this was a beggar who spent his life rolling around on the streets, he seemed to prefer minimizing physical contact as much as possible.
The Mount Hua disciples nodded with satisfied expressions.
“Chung Myung’s being polite. He even used his hand.”
“Yeah. I thought he’d just shove him with his foot.”
“He’s really become kinder. If this had been the old days, he’d have kicked him with the sole of his shoe. How heartwarming.”
“……”
Excuse me? You call that polite?
For a moment he wondered what sort of darkness the Mount Hua lot had endured, but that wasn’t important to Hong Dae-gwang right now.
“W-what are we supposed to do?”
“About what?”
“The Namgung Clan, of course! The Namgung Clan!”
Chung Myung looked at him in disbelief.
“What about the Namgung Clan?”
“Something has to be done!”
“About the Namgung Clan?”
“Yes!”
“Why me?”
Hong Dae-gwang’s eyes trembled violently.
“They’re all going to die! This is a massacre, do you hear me?”
“Aigoo, that’s terrible. So what are you gonna do about it? Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
Hong Dae-gwang’s mouth slowly fell open.
“Th—”
He was trying to say more, but before he could, Chung Myung snapped at him with a face full of irritation.
“And what, does this old man think I’m some kind of magic wand? Something bad happens and he comes running here to whine about it!”
“……”
“They went in there without thinking and got surrounded, so they should handle it themselves. What am I, their mommy? They’re not three-year-olds. They screw things up, and I’m supposed to clean it up?”
“W-well, that’s true, but still….”
“So why the hell did they charge in there in the first place? If that guy was going to go crazy, he should’ve done it in a pretty way. What the hell did he think he was doing, marching in there all bold and proud? They say if the mullet jumps, the goby jumps too—what, did he think because I can do it, they can too?”
It was easy to understand why Namgung Hwang had made such a mistake.
Just three years ago, Mount Hua’s power alone had been nowhere near comparable to the Namgung Clan’s. And then, to make matters worse, he had seen a portion of the Green Forest—not even Mount Hua itself—seize an island and keep both Jiangnan and the Water Bandit Sect in check. It was only natural that they would think they could do the same.
At least, that’s how it looked from the outside.
But Maehwado’s reality was nothing like that. Maehwado existed because of the treaty Chung Myung and Jang Il-so had formed out of mutual necessity.
It wasn’t a place easy to defend, where enemy raids could be fended off with natural advantages. It simply hadn’t needed defending because no one had attacked it.
The instant Mount Hua withdrew and the treaty’s existence vanished, everything changed. Maehwado was no longer a fortress. It had become nothing more than a hostile wasteland in the middle of enemy territory, with no route of escape. If you could occupy it, the gains were enormous—but that also meant it had become land that was impossible to occupy in the first place.
To put it bluntly, say Saperyeon and the righteous sects fought over that island.
Who would have the advantage?
The side with the Water Bandit Sect in Saperyeon would be guaranteed to take it.
That was why Chung Myung and Im So-byeong had pulled out before the war even began.
And yet they had blundered into that dangerous place headfirst without thinking….
If you’re weak, you get hit. If you don’t know, you get hit. If you act arrogant, you get hit. Well, maybe scratch that last one.
In any case, wasn’t ignorance getting beaten the truth of the martial world?
“Still, the Namgung Clan used to have a fair amount of brains, didn’t it?”
Normally it was the Peng Clan that caused trouble, and the Namgung Clan that cleaned up after them. So what in the world had happened over the last hundred years to leave the Namgung Clan in that state….
“Hold on.”
“Hm?”
“I’m asking because I’m curious. That Namgung Hwang guy.”
“Hm? The Namgung Family Head? What about him?”
“Who’s his mother?”
At that moment, Hong Dae-gwang’s eyes widened to the point they couldn’t widen anymore.
“M-Mount Hua Divine Dragon, I know you’re fearless, but I think that’s crossing a line a little….”
“Damn it!”
Chung Myung kicked Hong Dae-gwang over on the spot.
“What, does this old man think I’m some kind of pervert who’d ask that out of nowhere? Do I look like that kind of person to you?”
The Mount Hua disciples who heard that all nodded with satisfied expressions.
“Could happen.”
“He’d do it and more.”
“He commits the destruction of a lineage as casually as breathing, so that’s nothing.”
What the hell was wrong with these bastards?
“Not that! I mean her family name! Her family name!”
“Ah, the family name?”
Hong Dae-gwang let out a relieved breath and dug through his memory.
“Let’s see… If I remember right, the current Family Head’s mother was from the Peng Clan….”
“Ah, right?”
There it was. Of course.
That blood never lied.
Only then, as though a lingering question had finally been solved, Chung Myung looked positively refreshed.
“I knew it. I wondered how someone like that came out of the Namgung Clan.”
In ordinary sects, that could happen. A sect was a place where countless people gathered around one shared ideal.
But a family was tied by blood. If people with similar temperaments were raised under similar teachings, of course their natures would eventually resemble one another.
Of course, even taking into account that Namgung Hwang had some Peng blood mixed in, he was a little too much….
“Chung Myung.”
“Yeah?”
At that moment, Baek Cheon of the Mount Hua Five Swords approached and asked,
“What do you think will happen? Do you think the Namgung Clan can escape from there?”
“It’ll be hard.”
“……Then what happens now?”
“Hm. The general course of events is what I expected, but it’s a little different too.”
It was obvious the Namgung Clan would suffer a complete defeat. Warriors of this era had never experienced a full-scale war. Because of that, they didn’t understand how important terrain really was.
They’d studied military strategy, sure. But they would have believed that their own martial power was enough to overcome anything.
“I did predict that the Namgung Clan would advance toward Maehwado. The problem is the Black Dragon King.”
“The Black Dragon King?”
“He looks like the type who’d charge straight at Maehwado and start a ‘you die, I die’ brawl on the spot… but he’s unexpectedly seasoned. Like an old raccoon.”
“You can’t judge people by appearances, but….”
Baek Cheon could relate to that. The Black Dragon King he had seen on the Yangtze three years ago had looked, in the truest sense, like the embodiment of tyranny. Who could have imagined that the Water Bandit Sect he led and the Namgung Clan under Namgung Hwang would end up in a standoff like this?
“If that Black Dragon King bastard really has a hair-trigger temper like we think, and charges onto the island to wipe everyone out while they’re surrounded, then Namgung will actually have a way out.”
Baek Cheon’s expression darkened at those words. Whenever Chung Myung said things like that, it usually meant he was already considering some other possibility.
“Then what if,” Baek Cheon said in a grim voice, “the Black Dragon King and the Water Bandit Sect have no intention of storming the island? Does it become a race to see which side’s rescue arrives first?”
“If you think about it normally, yes. But… that won’t happen.”
“Hm? Why not?”
“Because the Black Dragon King knows that too.”
“What do you mean…?”
Baek Cheon tilted his head in confusion for a moment, then suddenly seemed to realize something and flinched.
“Ah… right. I see.”
Jo Gul, who hadn’t understood a word of their exchange, looked back and forth between them with a puzzled expression.
“Sasuk. What are you talking about? Could you explain it so I can understand too?”
“……The Black Dragon King, who’s surrounding the Namgung Clan, will also know that the side whose rescue arrives first has the advantage.”
“Right. He’s not an idiot.”
“But think about it. If the Black Dragon King believes the righteous sects’ rescue will arrive first, do you think he’ll just politely let the prey inside the jar go free?”
“……No.”
Baek Cheon bit his lower lip slightly.
“At the very least, he’ll try to grind down the Namgung Clan’s strength before any rescue arrives. That means this won’t turn into some long, stagnant standoff where both sides just glare at each other and waste time.”
Chung Myung nodded.
“And the Black Dragon King’s position is different too. If Saperyeon arrives first, it means the destruction of the Namgung Clan. But if the righteous sects arrive first, it’s just a slightly more troublesome situation for the Water Bandit Sect.”
“Because they’re on the river?”
“Exactly.”
Chung Myung’s lips curled faintly.
In the past, when they had conversations like this, Chung Myung’s mouth had been busy doing all the explaining. But now Baek Cheon understood the situation first and answered before he could.
“In any case, all Namgung can do now is hold out. That’s all there is to it.”
“Can they hold out?”
“Namgung Hwang is a madman, but he isn’t stupid. Holding out at least is something he can do. The problem is….”
Chung Myung’s face twisted slightly.
As if choosing his words carefully, he paused for a moment before speaking slowly.
“Do you know when a person breaks?”
“……”
It was a sudden question, but Baek Cheon couldn’t bring himself to object. There was a weight in Chung Myung’s voice—something deep and unknowable—that he could feel all too clearly.
“A person doesn’t break when things are hard. Hardship can be endured somehow. As long as there’s still hope you can survive.”
“……”
“People break the moment that hope is cut off.”
Chung Myung gave a faint sneer.
I’m curious too. Will that man, who likes to calculate his wars so carefully, really have the guts to risk his life just to save the Namgung Clan?
No name had been spoken, but everyone here knew exactly who Chung Myung meant. No, they couldn’t not know.
“N-no way….”
“It’s just a thought. Just a thought. Something that hasn’t happened yet.”
Chung Myung waved a hand as if to say not to read too far into it. But despite that careless, light gesture, his eyes remained dark and sunken.
“Still, if….”
He paused slightly, then continued.
“If, by one in a thousand or one in ten thousand chance, what I’m thinking does happen….”
The atmosphere grew heavy and still.
“Then the Namgung Clan will live to see hell.”
For an instant, silence fell. No one could speak.
“Well, we can just sit down, eat taffy, and watch the show.”
“Chung Myung. Then shouldn’t we do something?”
“Hm?”
“If the Namgung Clan is in that much danger….”
“Sasuk.”
Chung Myung cut Baek Cheon off sharply, as though pressing his words flat beneath his own.
“The moment you step onto a battlefield, you have to take responsibility for every judgment you make.”
“……”
“If you think it’s only natural that I’ll step in and help, then when you’re in danger, you’ll think someone else will naturally step in and help too. That kind of complacency gets people killed.”
Baek Cheon closed his mouth.
“That’s the battlefield, and that’s war. Remember it. Unless you want to watch my martial brothers die because of some lazy judgment like that, instead of me.”
“……I’ll keep it in mind.”
After nodding, Chung Myung shrugged his shoulders.
“Watch carefully. This might be something we’ll have to face ourselves someday.”
For some reason, everyone swallowed hard, as though their throats had gone dry.