Chapter 72
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 72
Chapter Title: Better Than Expected?
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Swish.
The silk dress slipped off her like flowing water, revealing skin smoother than the silk itself.
Li Chingwei, the girl who thus bared her doll-like, exquisite nude form, calmly drew out the jade hairpin securing her hair and spoke.
"So, that's what happened?"
"Yes."
"No wonder the requests for audiences from families tied to our domestic affiliates suddenly spiked. It must have been thanks to you, Sword Duke."
She lightly swept back the hair that had cascaded down from removing the pin, then took a few graceful steps forward.
Immersing herself slowly into the marble bathtub where steam rose in gentle curls, she asked,
"But why report it to me, Chao?"
From beyond the thin curtain veiling the tub, the woman disguised as a man knelt in silence.
As if she had expected as much.
Li Chingwei calmly pierced through to Chao's inner thoughts with a steady voice.
"You wanted confirmation? Whether, as the Sword Duke said, I created Guardian out of fear and chaos to bolster my own power?"
"That's right."
Whether pierced to the core,
Or because she could no longer afford to be disrespectful.
Li Chingwei nodded quietly at her subordinate's low, subdued reply.
"To put it bluntly, yes. That was part of my calculations."
Wei Ling's face hardened at the answer she had anticipated but desperately wished wasn't true.
"But you drove the situation to that point, Chao."
"What do you mean?"
"If you had done your job properly, this might never have happened."
"...Are you saying I should have taken measures myself before the Sword Duke stepped in? By rummaging through our clan's affiliates like he did?"
"Can't accept that, can you?"
Wei Ling's expression darkened.
Sensing the self-reproach over her own failures and the lingering doubts embedded in that question, Li Chingwei smiled faintly.
"I've felt this for a while, but Chao, you're so rigid."
"..."
"Oh, I'm not blaming you for it. I'm always grateful for your unwavering loyalty—including that stubbornness so uncharacteristic of our clan."
These were no empty words.
The Black Dragon Clan was specialized in intrigue and schemes, from psionics to martial arts and even culture.
As such, someone as rigidly principled as Wei Ling was rare among them.
Li Chingwei had deliberately chosen her as a guard not just for her loyalty or talent, but because she valued that upright nature even more.
"But if you don't shed those preconceptions, Chao, you'll only hinder the Sword Duke instead of helping him."
"Are you saying I'm inadequate as his attendant?"
"In terms of duties, you're undoubtedly the best. But beyond that... well."
Wei Ling clenched her fists tightly.
She knew the deliberate refusal to give a clear answer was as good as affirmation.
Anyone else might not grasp it.
But for her, a prodigy of the Black Dragon Clan since childhood, the idea that she—someone who could barely understand a few documents without scratching her head—would be nothing but a hindrance to Rimon was utterly unacceptable.
"Chao, don't underestimate the Sword Duke."
In that moment.
A chilling voice rang through the air.
"He's a Sword Master, after all—one who has lived by cleaving through everything with his blade rather than plots and schemes."
A sharp tone, as if reading the subtle disdain for Rimon hidden in Wei Ling's heart.
"But he is an old master of the martial world. Humanity's Last Sword Master, who survived the Bronze Age and the Heroes Age, saving the world time and again."
He had faced dragons that devoured even gods.
Triumphed in wars between Sword Masters.
Protected world peace by felling countless absolutes with a single sword, an immortal guardian deity.
As Li Chingwei recounted Rimon Asfelder's past, she fixed Wei Ling with a gaze so heavy it pierced even through the curtain.
"Do you truly believe all that was possible with swordsmanship alone?"
"...Are you telling me not to underestimate an old master's experience?"
"I can't give you a firm answer on that. Whether his second sword stems from the wisdom of experience or something else entirely, even I don't know."
That she didn't know everything herself.
Chuckling softly, Li Chingwei shed her earlier chill and spoke lightly.
"But one thing is certain."
"What is it?"
"If you keep seeing him as nothing more than a brute swordsman, you'll never truly become his attendant, Chao."
How could someone who looked down on their master become an indispensable limb?
Wei Ling bowed her head to Li Chingwei, who delivered the warning with a playful smile.
She understood.
That the light tone concealed a bone-deep admonition.
And that it was sincere advice born of genuine concern for her.
"...Why?"
"Why I assigned you as his attendant?"
"Why you're not content with making the Sword Duke your consort, but even handing him a dangerous organization like Guardian to bolster his power."
That was why Wei Ling had no choice but to ask, despite knowing it bordered on insolence.
If Rimon wasn't just a simple brute, as she said, then how he wielded Guardian could strip the entire clan of its power.
She fell silent for a moment, as if pondering whether to answer.
Finally, as if having made up her mind.
Li Chingwei quietly spoke.
"Because I have to."
"You have to...?"
"Yes."
Leaning back against the tub, Li Chingwei gazed up at the ceiling lights twinkling like stars in the night sky and murmured her conclusion.
"I need to entrust the Sword Duke with the full power of our clan—no, all seven clans under the Seven Dragon Society."
After the incident dubbed the "Mad Dog's Rampage"—where Rimon had turned the affiliates upside down.
Guardian began to roll.
Regardless of the process, with the contracts Rimon had secured, they suddenly had months' worth of work just sorting and handling them.
Of course, with only Rimon and Wei Ling as Guardian's staff, there were limits to what they could take on.
But Wei Ling was capable, as expected.
She bolstered their ranks temporarily by borrowing staff from Leviathan.
It was half like outsourcing, but it allowed them to take on jobs and maintain the bare minimum form of a security and guard firm.
It was clear progress.
For a signboard-only company like Guardian to start functioning as a real business was a remarkable achievement.
However, the results weren't entirely positive.
"Did you hear? What that Rimon Asfelder did?"
"Who in the Black Dragon Clan hasn't? Smashing up affiliates just because they wouldn't hand over jobs, forcing contracts out of them... What a lunatic."
"They say over five people were half-killed that day. Even Branch Chief Wang was one of them."
"Branch Chief Wang—you mean the head of the Shanghai Wang family, Wang Jinong?"
"That's right. Word is he couldn't even mount a proper resistance before getting beaten to the brink of crippledom."
The rumors of what Rimon had done during the Mad Dog's Rampage spread through the Black Dragon Clan like wildfire on a dry spring day.
Reactions within the clan varied.
"Wang is a top-tier expert from a prestigious family, yet he was taken down without a fight. Even if the era has changed, the Sword Duke is still the Sword Duke..."
Those who feared Rimon's power.
"I can't fathom what that guy's after. It's not like he raged over bribes or anything. Taking the bribes and still causing havoc? Where's the logic?"
Those unsettled by his inscrutable motives.
"They say he dumps all the work on his subordinates, gallivants around, and only shows his face at the office once in a blue moon."
Those who despised his freeloading ways, and so on.
Based on what they'd heard and seen, they each thought and judged—but their conclusions were much the same.
"We need to ask if the princess can properly control the Sword Duke."
"Only the princess can stop him anyway."
"She needs to be more wary of him."
Whether to gauge the situation,
To secure a bulwark,
Or simply to stay vigilant.
The Black Dragon Clan swarmed Li Chingwei.
In a situation where direct contact with the mad dog Rimon could lead to who-knows-what fate, going through her was the safest bet.
Li Chingwei, once dismissed as the culprit behind the clan's decline, had overnight become the eye of the storm.
Some sensed something suspicious in the shift, but nothing changed.
The way to avoid the calamity of an inspection agency armed with both might and authority was, in any era, to stay in the good graces of those in power.
There was a reason past rulers granted their direct inspection organs such disproportionately vast powers.
The problem was that as Li Chingwei's support base grew, someone else's reputation plummeted exponentially.
[The rumors about the team leader these days are just killer.]
"What rumors?"
[Oh, plenty. Perverted lolicon geezer, thug who finds joy in violence, money-grubbing deadbeat husband despite being incompetent, you name it.]
"Hm, that's pretty tame, actually."
[...If that's tame, what's not tame?]
"At least no assassins have come after me."
[That's a solid benchmark, alright.]
Rimon chuckled.
No matter what vicious gossip spread through the Black Dragon Clan, he didn't care a whit.
He was their sworn enemy from the start anyway. There was no lower to fall, and compared to the past litany of insults hurled at him, this was nothing.
What was truly giving Rimon a headache lately was something entirely different.
"Man, this just won't budge."
[Won't budge? What?]
"The violin. I finally feel like I'm getting it, but my skill just isn't improving."
[...If another violinist heard that, they'd try to kill you, team leader.]
"Why? I'm just stating facts."
Rimon replied indifferently.
It was true—the violin lessons that had seemed to progress smoothly had hit a wall lately, stalling out.
But Yuna Kyung looked incredulous at his words.
[Your skill has to have room to grow first. Didn't Julia say there's nothing more to teach technically?]
"That's just the technical side. In other aspects, I'm still behind Julia."
[Comparing yourself to a world-class violinist after just a month of lessons—isn't that the abnormal part?]
"Can't be helped."
Rimon said flatly.
He glanced at the case containing the jet-black violin he'd been playing moments ago and continued.
"To overcome this violin's curse, I need to somehow raise my skill beyond what it is now."