Taejeong Hall
"What on earth did you do to make a band of bandits send us a letter like this? Gyeokseon! If you have a mouth, then speak!"
Taejeong Hall of the Murim Alliance. The place where the most important affairs of the martial world were decided.
The atmosphere here was fiercely hostile.
The man shouting sharp words at Gyeokseon, seated beside me, was an elder of the Namgung Clan named Namgung Cheongmin.
He was practically steaming with anger as he bawled at Gyeokseon. It was impressive enough to make me want to applaud.
Was it because he was an elder of the Namgung Clan? Was that what let him throw his weight around like that just because his standing was a little higher?
Then again, in the righteous Orthodox Sects, not everything was decided by strength and cultivation.
Prestige and practical influence could be enough to make someone powerful in their own right. Just like that old man there.
But even with Namgung Cheongmin shouting at her like that, Gyeokseon’s expression remained utterly flat.
If I had to put it more accurately, it was the kind of look that said, You can bark all you want. I’m not listening.
Maybe that was why the other old man beside Namgung Cheongmin slammed the table and shouted, "Gyeokseon! Do you not understand the seriousness of this situation? If you have a mouth, then speak!"
What was his name again? He was an elder of the Moyong Clan, if I remembered right.
Anyway, perhaps because he disliked Moyong-whatever banging on the table, Gyeokseon frowned faintly and finally opened her mouth.
"I do not know anything about it."
"You already said that before! Is that it, then? You say you don’t know, and that’s the end of it? Surely not!"
The Moyong elder shouted again, sounding exasperated. But Gyeokseon was not the sort to ramble on and on, either.
Well, even if she were a chatty type, she still wouldn’t have much to say right now.
What was she supposed to answer when they were telling her that the bandits we had not killed had been massacred?
More than ten bandit strongholds in the Dabie Mountains. We had, in fact, wiped out every bandit there.
And if someone had made an issue of that, the Murim Alliance wouldn’t have even sniffed in annoyance.
We had merely cut down the bandits who lived by banditry. We had plenty to say in our own defense.
If that had been the case, the response would have been something like, How dare the Green Forest send a complaint like this? Those bastards are really asking for a beating!
But that was not the problem now.
It was the three places among the seventy-two Green Forest fortresses, including Maseok Fortress. Places that had been like villages, with children and women living there too.
They had all been wiped out. Not a single survivor, and the scene was nothing short of horrific.
In truth, those people were bandits in the end. They could be seen as accomplices and criminals.
Being children and women didn’t mean they had committed no crime, after all.
They had helped bandits. They were the ones who would become bandits in the future.
So even if the government had swept through and suppressed them, they would all have been killed anyway, or at least reduced to slaves.
But the problem was that the slaughter had been too brutal, too merciless.
Those three places had been left in a state of utter ruin. Every one of them had died in gruesome fashion.
The Green Forest had pinned that on us. They were claiming that we had massacred the innocent people of those seventy-two strongholds as well.
This was a conspiracy. A frame-up.
Just what kind of bastard had done something like this?
Someone had gone in after we left and done it, then neatly shoved the blame onto us.
"Now, now. I think things are getting a little too heated. Let us take a break for half a shichen. The elders should also go cool off for a while."
The Alliance Leader, who had been listening quietly all this time, said that much, and the elders were just about to protest again when they caught sight of his face. Tsking, they flicked their sleeves and filed out one by one.
Gyeokseon also rose from her seat as she watched them go.
"Yeong-ok and Ran-ah, remain seated for a moment. You as well."
The Murim Alliance Leader called out to Gyeokseon and Geumran, and Gyeokseon stared at him for a moment before sitting back down again.
We, too, had half-risen in awkward confusion before sitting down once more.
"Yeong-ok."
Gyeokseon glared at the Alliance Leader, and the man quickly looked embarrassed before speaking again.
"Gyeokseon."
It seemed he had been admonished through voice transmission or something. Probably been told not to call her by name so casually in a public setting. That was the vibe, anyway.
"What is it?"
"I know very well that you did not do this. The elders likely know it too. So…."
"I know that much already."
What? She knew? Then what had all that shouting and ignoring each other for over an hour been about?
"The Clan Conference simply wants to seize on this matter however it can. So there is no need to dwell on that part. What I am curious about is something else. Do you have any idea? You saw it for yourself, did you not? Why would the Green Forest go so far as to abandon its own people and yet try to cast blame upon the Alliance?"
"If I knew that, I would already have said so."
"Tsk. I see."
"Alliance Leader. The Green Forest tried to block the Dabie Mountains and cut off the flow of goods between the south and the north, did they not? Could this not simply be an extension of that matter?"
At Geumran’s words, the Alliance Leader clicked his tongue and fell silent, thinking it over.
Listening to them, I suddenly remembered how I’d cursed at the elders in my head earlier.
So it wasn’t as simple as I thought. They weren’t just clueless and incompetent; they were all playing a fairly political game after all, weren’t they?
Come to think of it, the ones haranguing Gyeokseon were the elders of the Five Great Clans, led by Namgung Cheongmin and the Moyong elder.
They knew Gyeokseon had not done it, and still they were pressuring her anyway, trying to make her take responsibility somehow.
And Gyeokseon had simply ignored the whole thing without answering back.
Honestly. Politics are a pain no matter where you go. It had looked infuriating from the outside, but it turned out every bit of it was a move in the same martial routine.
It was a bit flimsy, sure, but still, this really might be a feasible scheme for the Clan Conference to pursue.
But wait, did the Nine Orthodox Sects and the Clans not get along very well? I hadn’t really gotten that sense from the Jegal Clan Manor.
Were the Namgung Clan and Moyong Clan just particularly intense about it?
Still, the Murim Alliance Leader seemed to be thinking from a more neutral standpoint.
Well, he wasn’t from either the Nine Orthodox Sects or the Five Great Clans to begin with.
A prodigy who had emerged from Baeksung Sect, a lesser faction. In this martial world, where everyone was tangled up by blood ties and connections, everyone knew exactly what it meant for someone from a small or middling sect to become the Murim Alliance Leader.
It was an impressive feat. To rise to that position without any real power base at all, and without being at the mercy of those elders—that alone was worthy of respect.
"In the end, the only conclusion is that there must be someone behind this. This is not the sort of thing the Green Forest would do on its own. They may be violent, but they are not cunning."
"Then who could be using the Green Forest like a puppet on a string? This is no simple matter. You know that too, Alliance Leader, do you not? The Green Forest may be nothing more than petty bandits, but they are fiercely loyal to their own people."
I knew that much, too.
Perhaps because they were well aware of how insignificant they were, the Green Forest was especially tight-knit among themselves.
On top of that, their hierarchy was strict, and they were the type to uphold their own code among themselves.
Even if they were still nothing more than bandits.
"Yes. That is precisely why this is a problem. Those people sacrificed their own to pull something like this off. We cannot simply overlook it."
"Who could possibly be capable of ordering the Green Forest around?"
At Geumran’s question, the Murim Alliance Leader let out another low groan and closed his mouth.
Then, all of a sudden, he looked at us, relaxed his grave expression, and said, "My apologies. I seem to have lost myself there. You may go now. The rest of this is just the sort of thing those who do nothing but eat the Alliance’s rice can argue over endlessly. And you are Baek Harin, yes?"
"Yes, Alliance Leader."
"Go directly to the Hall Master of the Guest Hall. Regardless of how matters have turned out, you completed the mission, so you ought to be rewarded, should you not? Go on, then."
Since the Alliance Leader had effectively shown us the door, we bowed and stepped outside.
It looked like Gyeokseon and Geumran would have to endure a bit more of this mess.
Really, they had just followed me. How had things ended up like this?
Hong Si-yeon gave us a respectful bow and returned to her quarters, while Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young followed me.
When we went to see the Hall Master of the Guest Hall, he greeted us warmly, took out a silver token from his drawer, and handed it to me.
"Take this, Miss Baek. You’ve had a hard time of it."
"It was hardly anything worth calling hardship."
As I took the silver token, the Hall Master of the Guest Hall looked at me for a moment.
He had the expression of someone with something to say, but couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.
"Is there something you wish to ask?"
"Ahem. I do have a question for you, Miss."
"Yes. Please ask."
"What exactly is your relationship with Gyeokseon?"
He must have been terribly curious. Well, who wouldn’t be?
"She is someone I respect. And senior sister also cares for me."
"I am not asking out of idle curiosity. You will need to receive the next token, will you not? That means you will be taking on more missions in the future, and I was wondering whether Gyeokseon would continue to accompany you. I say this because there is no Gyeokseon here now, but… you understand, do you not? What sort of personality that person has. What sort of martial prowess she possesses."
When I only smiled without answering, the Hall Master of the Guest Hall let out an awkward laugh and went on.
"Just having someone like Gyeokseon accompany a mission settles more problems than one or two. That is why I asked. It looks like you two have quite an unusual relationship."
"Even so, I cannot promise that senior sister will always accompany me wherever I go."
"I feel as though she will, nonetheless."
Well, I had said that, but I’d already been expecting Gyeokseon to keep following me around.
That was just the kind of person she was. There was no way she’d let me go off alone after all this and act as if nothing had happened.
She might look chilly on the outside, but she had a warm heart.
She was the sort of person who had wanted to do all the things she had been unable to do until now, and was only now trying to make up for lost time in one go.
That was how I judged Gyeokseon, anyway.
Like she was trying to cram in everything she had missed all at once.
"In any case, you have only just returned, so rest for now. I shall let you know about the next mission slowly."
"Yes, Hall Master."
After answering that, I headed back to the lodging with Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young.
And then, a few days later, the Hall Master of the Guest Hall’s grand dream shattered into pieces.
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