This Is What Makes the World Interesting (1)
There was mockery in those eyes.
Those eyes seemed to be saying it all: did you really think you could predict this situation, you who had always acted as though the whole world lay beneath your feet?
Thud!
Without even realizing it, Jang Il-so raised a hand and covered his face.
Instinct told him he must not let anyone else see the expression he was making now.
He was the Lord of Maninbang. The Alliance Leader of Saperyeon.
He was not someone who should let his face twist over something as trivial as the Sect Leader of Mount Hua.
Then Chung Myung opened his mouth.
“Since the Sect Leader ordered it, Black Dragon King, you’ll be let go just as you wanted. But.”
Crush.
Chung Myung pressed down harder on the foot pinning Black Dragon King’s head to the ground. A ragged groan leaked from the man’s throat.
Chung Myung stared at Jang Il-so with an expressionless face, listening to that pained sound.
“I don’t trust you.”
“……”
“Black Dragon King’s going to be freed after we reach Jiangbuk.”
Jang Il-so glared at Chung Myung in silence. A deep blue killing intent churned in his eyes.
“So get lost now. My patience has limits too.”
Jang Il-so let out a low laugh.
His shoulders, which had been trembling faintly, soon began to shake violently. Yet strangely enough, no laughter could be heard at all.
A soundless guffaw.
The people watching that scene clenched their fists at the indescribable chill that crept over them.
After laughing without a sound for quite some time, Jang Il-so slowly removed his hand from his face. By then, his expression had already returned to its usual calm.
“Hmm.”
Jang Il-so slowly turned his head and looked back at Hyun Jong.
“Sect Leader.”
“Please speak, Alliance Leader.”
“I trust that you will keep the words you have spoken.”
Hyun Jong nodded quietly.
“I will.”
Jang Il-so nodded as if satisfied.
“You said you would not negotiate with Sapa, but that is the Sect Leader’s position. I’m a man with my own pride, so I can’t simply follow only your words. Therefore, I must keep the words I’ve spoken myself.”
He lifted a hand slightly. In response, two ships from the fleet waiting behind him began to move toward Maehwado.
Seeing that, the swordsmen of Mount Hua hardened their expressions, and Jang Il-so twisted his lips.
“They’re empty ships.”
“……”
“You don’t let people who have accomplished great deeds return in disgrace, swimming like drowned dogs. Take it as my courtesy.”
The disciples of Mount Hua looked at Jang Il-so with eyes full of suspicion.
To them, the words Jang Il-so and courtesy simply did not belong in the same sentence.
But Hyun Jong merely clasped his hands deeply and bowed in thanks.
“Thank you.”
“……”
Jang Il-so silently watched Hyun Jong bow toward him.
He stared for a long moment, long enough for the air to feel slightly awkward, before slowly speaking.
“The Sect Leader of Mount Hua. The leader of the Heavenly Alliance.”
His voice was calm, yet it carried a strange resonance as it spread.
“Hyun Jong.”
Jang Il-so gave the smallest nod. This was not the exaggerated display he usually showed.
“I’ll remember that name properly.”
“It is not such a great name that even the Tyrant Lord should remember it.”
“Heh heh.”
With a low chuckle, Jang Il-so turned away without hesitation. He walked slowly toward the small boat behind Chung Myung.
As if by fate, he passed closer and closer to Chung Myung. Their eyes met in the air.
“This time...”
Jang Il-so spoke with a faint, oily smile.
“I took one on the chin, Mount Hua Sword Hero.”
Chung Myung’s mouth twisted.
“This time?”
The moment a smile bloomed on his face, similar to Jang Il-so’s and yet unmistakably different, Chung Myung spoke again.
“For someone who’s only running back with his life intact, you sure do talk a lot.”
“……”
“Get lost.”
Jang Il-so shook his head lightly as if there were nothing else to do, then brushed past Chung Myung.
The instant his body passed Chung Myung and there was no longer anyone who could see his face—
Clatter-rattle-rattle!
The rings on his fingers struck against one another and clamped tight, scattering a screech like something from the underworld.
As though the wails of vengeful spirits were bursting out in pain.
Step. Step.
He strode onto the small boat, and the vessel moved of its own accord, gliding out toward the river.
Mount Hua, and... Hyun Jong.
A cold, ghostly light crept into Jang Il-so’s face.
Outwardly, the result seemed to be nothing but favorable for him. After all, he had prevented Black Dragon King’s death and shackled that man to a massive debt.
Even if the crisis itself had been caused by Jang Il-so and Maninbang standing by and doing nothing, the fact remained that he had saved Black Dragon King’s life.
To those who did not understand the conversation, it would look as if Jang Il-so had entered Maehwado, a place that was practically enemy territory, alone and without spilling a drop of blood, then used nothing but that treacherous tongue of his to rescue Black Dragon King.
Jang Il-so’s reputation would only rise further.
Yes. On the surface. Only on the surface.
But inside, Jang Il-so was filled with a humiliation he could not possibly swallow.
I...?
Jang Il-so’s face warped like an evil spirit’s.
I survived by begging for my life, thanks to the mercy of some bastard whose name I didn’t even remember properly? Me? Jang Il-so?
Hyun Jong had not been part of his calculations.
Everything up to Mount Hua and the Tang Family entering Maehwado, and Black Dragon King being placed in danger, had unfolded exactly as he had planned.
But what came after that was nothing like what he had imagined.
If it had been Mount Hua Sword Hero, then—if it had been that man who treasured his disciples more than his own life and never let go of any advantage once it was in his grasp—Jang Il-so had believed he would never be able to abandon the mediation proposal he had offered.
Because it was a proposal that could not possibly be bad for Mount Hua Sword Hero.
He could return with all of Mount Hua’s disciples alive, without sacrificing a single one of them, and gain the reputation of having rescued Namgung from Maehwado.
With that one achievement, the Heavenly Alliance and Mount Hua would seize the moral high ground over Shaolin and the Nine Great Sects.
Any man with a brain would never be able to pass up such an offer.
Especially someone as sharp as Mount Hua Sword Hero—separate from his emotions, he would have had no choice but to take Jang Il-so’s hand. No matter what!
That was why Jang Il-so had been able to head for Maehwado alone, without even a single guard.
Because he had been certain Mount Hua Sword Hero would never refuse the offer.
And yet...
Hyun Jong.
Hyun Jong had rejected his mediation proposal.
An offer no one who understood even a little of profit and loss could ever refuse, that bastard Hyun Jong had casually thrown to the ground.
It was something Jang Il-so’s way of thinking could not, no matter how he tried, comprehend.
And if one looked at it coldly, at that very moment Jang Il-so had been as good as dead.
He had missed the variable named Hyun Jong, and once his proposal was rejected, Jang Il-so was nothing more than a clown who had overestimated his own brain and stuck his head into a tiger’s jaws.
That he had survived at all was nothing but luck.
The Jang Il-so who had controlled everything up to now, holding the world in his hands and shaking it at will, had somehow ended up escaping with only his life intact for reasons even he could not understand.
“Heh heh heh heh.”
Blue killing intent returned to Jang Il-so’s eyes.
“...Hyun Jong, was it?”
The reason a madman was called mad was because he committed acts that common sense could never explain.
In that sense, to the eyes of others, Jang Il-so might have seemed the mad one—but to Jang Il-so, Hyun Jong was the madman.
A man impossible to understand, impossible to calculate, impossible to predict.
And that kind of man was the Sect Leader of Mount Hua, the leader of the Heavenly Alliance. And he held that position with the unwavering support of Mount Hua Sword Hero.
Jang Il-so ran his tongue over his lips. His lips, red as blood, took on an even more sinister hue.
“This is why... the world is interesting.”
Suppressing the fire burning in his belly as though he had swallowed charcoal, Jang Il-so twisted his lips into a forced smile.
But his eyes were sinking, dark and ominous, without a trace of light.
“Huuuu.”
“Ah...”
The moment Jang Il-so left Maehwado, a collective sigh escaped the lips of the Mount Hua disciples.
Some were wiping the sweat from their brows, while others were shaking their heads hard as if trying to clear them.
That was how overwhelming the pressure of Jang Il-so’s presence had been.
Merely facing him made it feel as if one could not breathe, as if the skin itself were being sliced by sharp blades.
Every time they confronted him, they came to understand in their bones why that man was the Alliance Leader of Saperyeon.
But because of that...
Sect Leader.
It was only natural that deep trust would fill the eyes they turned toward Hyun Jong.
That Jang Il-so.
Even against Jang Il-so, the ruler of Jiangnan and the ruler of Sapa, Hyun Jong had not retreated even a single step. No, it was more than that.
Hyun Jong had not even forced himself to meet Jang Il-so with added pressure, nor had he inflated his own momentum to push him away.
He had simply dealt with Jang Il-so as he always dealt with others, calmly and without fuss.
Who could do that?
Once again, they were made to feel just how remarkable their Sect Leader truly was.
“You’ve had a hard time, Alliance Leader.”
It was Tang Gun-ak who spoke.
Which meant Tang Gun-ak had been thinking exactly the same thing as they were.
“Not at all, Family Head.”
Hyun Jong shook his head repeatedly.
“I was drenched in sweat just trying to keep my legs from trembling. Tyrant Lord is truly Tyrant Lord. How can a man be so...”
Tang Gun-ak smiled faintly.
He is extraordinary.
Anyone who had seen Jang Il-so turn away with his back to them would have felt the same way as Tang Gun-ak.
Who in this world could send Jang Il-so away like that?
“That was truly remarkable...”
“I’m sorry, but I think we need to talk later, Family Head.”
At that moment Hyun Jong’s gaze turned toward Namgung Clan.
“If the Tyrant Lord has promised it, there will be no further attacks. First, we need to move Namgung’s injured ashore and treat them as quickly as possible.”
“Yes. Alliance Leader.”
Tang Gun-ak was not someone who often had the experience of being cut off mid-sentence.
But there was not a trace of displeasure on his face now.
Hyun Jong’s urgency to prevent any more of Namgung Clan’s severely wounded swordsmen from dying came through to him clearly.
“Move the injured onto the boats! We’ll return to Jiangbuk!”
“Yes!”
The disciples of Mount Hua shouted back with excited faces. And what was interesting was that even the martial artists of the Sichuan Tang Family were raising their voices in response.
Tang Gun-ak let out a small laugh at the sight.
It seemed even his own family members had, at this moment, fully recognized Hyun Jong as their Alliance Leader.
We gained a great deal.
It had begun on impulse, but they truly had gained so much.
Reputation, legitimacy, achievements.
Yes. So many things.
Then Hyun Jong, standing before him, seemed to grow anxious and hurried over to help support the Namgung disciples himself.
Watching that back, Tang Gun-ak nodded.
But perhaps the greatest thing we gained here was that person.
As soon as he thought that, something else occurred to him.
Tang Gun-ak slowly turned his head.
In his eyes appeared Chung Myung’s back, as the youth planted one foot on the unconscious Black Dragon King and glared across the river at Maninbang.
Did you come here having already seen this far ahead?
Of course.
Chung Myung would never answer him.