Tae-yeong Fireworks
Escort duty for Yeo I-ryeong, day five.
At first it had been an obnoxiously difficult assignment, full of pitfalls and complications, but so far nothing had happened.
Probably because of Geukseon.
To be honest, whatever they were plotting now was insane.
Trying anything after recognizing Geukseon would be reckless. They’d deserve to die.
Failing to recognize Geukseon and trying something anyway would be ignorance. They’d deserve to die for that too.
In other words, nothing happening was the only natural outcome.
Now that Geukseon was here, that was how things should be.
So if I had to name the hardest part of the past four days of escort work, it would still be Yeo I-ryeong.
Yeo I-ryeong. A woman even chattier than Moyong Jua.
And on top of that, Yeo I-ryeong was the client. In other words, the boss.
"Miss Baek, you really won’t take off the veil? Just once? Please? I want to show you off! No, seriously! Why on earth would you hide such a breathtaking face so tightly!?"
That had been Yeo I-ryeong’s unrelenting demand for the past four days.
She wanted Baek Jin-ah and me to remove our veils and stay near her.
I had no idea why. Honestly, I didn’t understand it at all.
Normally, weren’t women less than thrilled when a prettier woman stood next to them?
Well…. I could say that with confidence because I used to be a man.
Yeo I-ryeong was definitely charming enough to be called beautiful.
At that level, she was more than decent. She was the sort of woman anyone would call a beauty without hesitation.
But compared with Baek Jin-ah and me, she came up a little short.
It was a bit embarrassing for me to judge my own looks like that, but the truth was the truth.
As for Baek Jin-ah, well, there was nothing more to say.
"You’d get in the way of the escort."
Anyway, I coldly refused again, and Yeo I-ryeong puffed out her cheeks.
Then she went over to Baek Jin-ah and said the same thing all over again.
I figured she was probably making the exact same request.
Of course, Baek Jin-ah refused too. There was no reason to agree to something like that. What would be the point?
Besides, Baek Jin-ah wasn’t even the one hired for escort duty, so she had no reason to indulge Yeo I-ryeong’s whim.
Anyway, that was how the final day of the escort began.
Since it was the last day, the banquet was being held on a grand and lavish scale.
It was so generous that, everywhere you went, people were talking about how "Lord Yeo is the best."
So much so that even the Beggar’s Sect disciples stationed on the outskirts of the banquet grounds were keeping random riffraff from so much as coming near.
That was a pretty funny sight too.
Beggars stopping riffraff. I guess that was mutual support or something?
Still, it wasn’t as though they were completely controlling access.
They merely watched over the people who quietly accepted food without causing a fuss.
I ignored all of that and kept my attention fixed on Yeo I-ryeong, calm and composed.
Honestly, no matter how splendid this banquet was, it looked to me like an old-fashioned festival and little else.
Interesting, sure. Even a college festival would be more extravagant than this, though.
Maybe that was why I noticed the suspicious people before anyone else did.
Fireworks burst loudly overhead.
The people here loved fireworks.
Simple crackers that only went tak-tak-tak! with sound had long been common among civilians, so those weren’t anything special.
But this banquet had been hosted by the Central Plains’ Number One Trading Company, so a full display of yeonhwa—colorful, blooming fireworks—was going off nonstop.
It was a rare spectacle.
Of course everyone watching would be awed. Their eyes were supposed to go that way.
But the ones I noticed weren’t looking at the fireworks.
They were staring only at Geukseon.
No matter how I looked at it, that was suspicious.
Unless those guys had all fallen for Geukseon at once and were gazing at him like that, it didn’t make sense.
Of course, Geukseon’s beauty really was exceptional. But if that were all it was, they wouldn’t have those expressions.
Anyone could tell they had some ulterior motive.
Maybe the reason I’d been able to spot them was that I wasn’t interested in the fireworks either.
To be honest, they were a little boring from my point of view. I was, after all, an irredeemable modern person.
At any rate, since I was wearing a bamboo hat and veil, it wasn’t hard to keep an eye on them.
They were pretending not to be obvious, but they were still unnatural as hell.
Watching Geukseon while also stealing glances at me and Yeo I-ryeong made it all but certain they were planning something.
But what exactly were they thinking? There was no way they could do anything to Geukseon.
Still, I couldn’t just keep watching forever. At the very least, I had to let Geukseon know about them.
But if I showed any sign of it here, they’d definitely notice.
Hmm. What was the better move? Tell them I’d noticed and shut down their plan before it even started?
Or wait until they made a move and then take them all down in one swoop?
Actually, in a place like this, where things worked a little differently from modern society, it wouldn’t be strange to investigate them on suspicion alone.
What I was worried about was something else. They might not be the whole problem.
If I only caught the underlings and missed the real mastermind, that would be worse than doing nothing at all.
It’d be no different from lopping off a lizard’s tail. I needed the body.
Just then, Dang Yeong-young came over to my side.
Her expression was faintly flushed, the face of a woman who had been enjoying this banquet more than anyone else for the past five days, including today.
Dang Yeong-young’s job was patrol duty. But "patrol" was more of a word than a real job here; she might as well have been out having fun.
Of course, since Dang Yeong-young had simply come along with me, she didn’t need to stand near Yeo I-ryeong like I did. That part was only natural.
"Well, they’ve done a pretty decent job, even if there are a lot of lacking parts."
Dang Yeong-young, who had spent the last few days enjoying herself to the fullest, now came over and made a prim little comment as if none of that had happened.
If Yeo I-ryeong had heard that, she probably would’ve wanted to flick her forehead.
"Yeong-young. Perfect timing. Go over to Senior Geukseon naturally. There are some suspicious people over there, so tell him to be careful."
Fortunately, Yeong-young was a clever girl.
Even after hearing me, she didn’t stiffen up or do anything awkward. Instead, she naturally slipped away from my side and headed toward Geukseon.
That gave us some room to prepare.
And yet, the whole thing still felt strange no matter how I looked at it.
What kind of guts did they have? Did they have a method?
Everyone knew Geukseon’s martial prowess.
Honestly, if Geukseon really put his mind to it, subduing everyone here would be child’s play.
He could probably do it with one hand while scratching his side with the other.
Anyway, I kept watching them.
In the meantime, Yeong-young had a brief conversation with Geukseon and then went over to Baek Jin-ah.
Are the five men seated in front of that screen the ones?
Then Geukseon’s voice transmission reached me.
I heard it and gave the tiniest, most discreet nod.
Yes. I understand.
Ah. I was jealous. I wished I could use voice transmission too.
Wasn’t there some secret manual for voice transmission and direct sound transmission? If so, maybe I could learn it right away.
But no, there was no such thing. What a shame.
And then, just as the banquet reached its peak around noon, I saw the men who had been sitting quietly until now slowly rise to their feet.
Don’t react. Stay calm. Just stay calm.
"Miss Baek! The Tae-yeong Fireworks are about to begin!"
Just then, Yeo I-ryeong also came toward me and said that.
Ah. Could they be planning to make their move during the Tae-yeong Fireworks?
The Tae-yeong Fireworks were a firework display the Man-gum Trading Company had put a great deal of effort into.
It was a full-scale show, unlike the smaller bursts that had been going off until now.
At that moment, all eyes would probably be drawn to the Tae-yeong Fireworks. There would be noise, and there’d be a lot of smoke too.
Good. I thought I knew when. But…. how?
No matter how you looked at it, it wouldn’t be easy to slip past Geukseon’s eyes.
And a moment later, loud drums and the clang of instruments rang out from that side.
A warning that the Tae-yeong Fireworks were about to begin.
And among the cheering crowd, the men were oddly tense.
I moved closer to Yeo I-ryeong. My duty, after all, was to protect her.
"Why? Ah! You want to get closer and watch too, Miss Baek? Then shall we go?"
"No, this should be better. Please stay here."
When I said that, Yeo I-ryeong gave me a slightly puzzled look, as if she had noticed something too.
"Why? Is something wrong?"
"Don’t worry. I’ll make sure nothing happens."
At my words, Yeo I-ryeong stared at me silently.
And in that same moment, a shrill whistling sound began to rise from the other side.
Not the kind of fireworks that painted the sky in colors like in the modern world, but crackers that used thunderous explosions and bursts of brilliant powder.
As they started detonating, the surroundings became chaotic. People’s shouts and cheers rose up all around us.
I stole a glance and saw that Geukseon, too, was acting calm on the surface, but his nerves were clearly taut.
That was reassuring.
How exactly were they planning to do anything to someone like Geukseon? Now I was genuinely curious.
And that question was answered almost immediately.
Along with a mass of fireworks flying toward Geukseon.
In an instant, everything happened at once.
Geukseon definitely drew his sword and sliced through the incoming fireworks.
What skill—cutting the burning fuses with pinpoint accuracy.
But there were simply too many fireworks. Too many to deal with all at once.
Bang! Bang-bang-bang! Boom!
"Kyaaah!"
Yeo I-ryeong let out a piercing scream.
I quickly drove the Ice Soul Divine Art to its limit and pulled her into my arms.
Heat blasted across my whole body, and thunderous detonations shook the air from every direction.
The good news was that the Golden Dragon Body and the Ice Soul Divine Art kept us safe from the blast.
But then I saw the men charging straight toward Yeo I-ryeong and me.
And I felt a strike land on one of my acupoints too.
I still didn’t fully understand acupoints, but the spot they hit me on was clearly Hunhyeol, the point at the back of the neck.
It was supposed to be a place where one would collapse if struck. But even after being hit there, I was perfectly fine.
And then I met the eyes of the man in front of me. His pupils were trembling with undisguised confusion.
Of course he was confused. I was supposed to have passed out, and I hadn’t.
I didn’t know why his strike hadn’t worked. But this wasn’t the time to worry about that.
So I gathered a massive surge of internal force into my palm and hurled the Ice Soul Divine Palm at the man.