The Return - 2
I am not the original protagonist.
The degenerate Kang Yunho whose body I now inhabit isn't even worthy of the word extra in the original story. He exists purely as a written record—a name on paper, created to furnish the heroine Moyong Sang-ah with her widow and wicked-woman attributes.
The protagonist of the martial arts visual novel makes it abundantly clear through the original's dialogue:
"That red hair... You must be of the Mount Hua Sect."
Red hair, just because he's Mount Hua. Yes, this is a world where the Green Forest bandits all have green hair and the Sichuan Tang Clan all have purple, but it's still absurd. No doubt they made him red-haired because the Plum Blossom Sword Technique is the most famous of Mount Hua's sword arts—and presumably that's also why the protagonist's hair is the precise crimson of a red plum blossom.
"The red-haired lay disciple of the Mount Hua Sect."
I quietly recited the line that had once shocked me so.
A good-hearted protagonist overflowing with a sense of justice, who—with money that wasn't even in his pocket—extended the kindness of buying noodles for the imperial princess the moment they met, and who once earned a small, exasperated look by insisting he simply had to buy her a bowl of carbonara.
Thoughts of the original protagonist refused to leave my head.
"He leaves the Mount Hua Sect, wanders the land performing deeds of chivalry, gets entangled in or dragged through one incident after another, and finally reaches the ending."
That was the protagonist's story as I'd experienced it. There was no end to the feedback I could have given that story, but boiled down to a summary, that's what it comes to.
Truthfully, the last thing I want is to get entangled with him. If I were an extra whose story began at Mount Hua, or a proper member of the murim, perhaps—but I'm Kang Yunho, the Joseon barbarian. It's hard enough taking responsibility for my own life and the lives of the women who trust me; I have no margin left to fret over the life of a total stranger.
If only there weren't one problem.
"The problem is that he's the one who plays the decisive role when the Demonic Cult rears its head."
In the original, the protagonist stands at the center of everything when the Demonic Cult sends the world into an uproar. If this world had flowed along its original rails, his destiny would have remained untouched.
If things had gone the way they were supposed to.
"Because of me, the storyline collapsed."
Two years now since I fell into this world. The omens had been there.
Gazing up at the ceiling, I thought back on the first heroine I'd met in this world.
"Moyong Sang-ah almost certainly has no more need of money."
When I fled the Moyong Clan, I'd assumed I hadn't disturbed the original plot all that much. Looking back now with a cooler head, I had disturbed it enormously.
The stat required to capture Moyong Sang-ah in the original game was money. I never played her entire route, so I can't say precisely what happened, but at some point in her story something must have demanded an enormous sum. And now she had no need whatsoever for the protagonist's enormous sum—because when I escaped the Moyong Clan, I handed over every last asset the Kang family held in the Central Plains.
I'd worried she might struggle to absorb the Kang family fortune, but that proved a groundless fear. The Joseon ginseng the Moyong Clan sent to the Sichuan Tang Clan had undoubtedly been Moyong Sang-ah's.
Compared to the fortune I'd given her, whatever money the original protagonist scraped together would hardly register as a large sum.
So the correct way to see it is this: with my appearance, the original protagonist's Moyong Sang-ah route ceased to exist entirely.
"The Heavenly Killing Star episode hasn't been deleted—but I'll make certain it does get deleted."
The Heavenly Killing Star. A butcher who wandered the Central Plains dealing out indiscriminate death. The So-hee who had been swallowed whole by the Star's murderous intent no longer exists. Not that she's gone for good—the hour has merely been postponed. If I stop moving forward, So-hee will meet her appointed fate all the same.
It doesn't matter. I will be the one to bar the road to So-hee's miserable future.
"The biggest problem is that the most important episode of all—Poison Contact—has vanished."
Even with Moyong Sang-ah's storyline gone, even with the Heavenly Killing Star episode gone, I hadn't worried overly much about the original protagonist. But the Poison Contact Tang Hwa-rin episode is another matter.
If the Heavenly Killing Star belongs to the middle chapters, Poison Contact belongs to the opening. It is the episode that makes the protagonist's name, the episode that draws him close to the imperial princess, and the episode that reveals just how formidable she truly is. Without Poison Contact Tang Hwa-rin, the entire early storyline of the martial arts visual novel grinds to a halt.
"So in the end, I've gone and deleted two of the protagonist's heroines."
With Poison Contact Tang Hwa-rin gone forever, the protagonist lost his one means of skyrocketing his fame stat. He can still roam the jianghu doing good deeds, but he'll be remembered as nothing more than an odd martial artist out of Mount Hua with a habit of chivalry.
"I'm an extra myself, and now I've made the protagonist one too."
Fine by me. If the original heroines are true heroines, that only means my chance has come. As for the protagonist, he'll go off chasing other women, play the field to his heart's content, and end up happy. With his talent for the martial arts, he'll carve out a place for himself somewhere without a care in the world.
"And so, the two extras lived happily ever after." If only the story could end there.
"The problem is that the world now has to face those Demonic Cult bastards without a protagonist."
Could it be done? Could the coming catastrophe truly be held back without the protagonist—and without the one woman he could only barely keep on a leash?
"Every bit as much of a headache as the true heroines."
So who is it—Tang Hwa-rin? Cheon So-hee? Someone else entirely? Or could the true heroine be Moyong Sang-ah, whose face I'll one day see again?
I have no intention of halting my celebrated serial, nor of giving up the heroines bound for my arms. But if that fated catastrophe arrives, the Demonic Cult's wretches may come crashing down on my bookstore.
There is time yet. And still it feels as though an unsolvable vacation assignment has been laid out before me.
Just what am I supposed to do about it?
"Young Master Kang. Won't you come along to the Seocheon Escort Agency?"
As I came back to myself, Tang Pae's voice drifted in from outside the door. Had I dozed off at some point? My mind was still tangled in a hundred problems, but I'd evidently slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted, and my body felt remarkably light for it.
"Are we departing for Yichang straight away?"
"No, my lord. They say the ship won't be in today. The Wushan branch of the Seocheon Escort Agency has asked to receive you, Young Master Kang—you had best come along with me."
"Understood."
The Seocheon Escort Agency? It was certainly run by the Sichuan Tang Clan, but what business could they possibly have inviting me?
Puzzled as I was, I made my way to the agency with the others.
"A thousand apologies! Customers have descended on us all at once. Honored guests, kindly wait just a moment. My apologies!"
"Take your time."
A man streaming with sweat emerged from the Seocheon Escort Agency and ushered us into a guest room. Sweat like that, in this weather—they really must be swamped.
"What do you mean, I can't? Can't I simply board when the ship comes in?"
"Young lady, passenger capacity is limited. You cannot demand passage this suddenly."
"What difference does one or two more passengers make?!"
"Only those whose identities can be verified may board."
"And where would you find anyone more verifiable than me?"
"Heh heh. Only those with reservations, I'm afraid."
"Grrr!"
"Look here, Escort Leader! Didn't I tell you I have money to spare?"
"This is not a matter that money can settle!"
"After all the years between us, you'd truly do this to me?!"
"The ship after next—I'll see you aboard that one. Even for me, this sailing is a step too far."
"Heh heh. Very well, I'll take that much, then."
So getting passage really was that difficult. Uproarious haggling drifted in from one room to the next. Everyone must be desperate to travel. The soundproofing left something to be desired, too.
"My sincerest apologies! The moment the winter cold broke, passengers bound down the Yangtze flooded in all at once, and—well, here is the mess it made."
The man introduced himself as the Wushan branch manager, entering the guest room with the face of a born people-pleaser. He quietly lamented that, befitting an agency run under the Tang Clan, the Seocheon Escort's ships were large—and so the customers wishing to board them were endless.
"You're run off your feet, and here we are adding to the burden for nothing. I'm sorry to trouble you."
"Not at all! Given who stands behind this agency, such words are unnecessary. If anything, I'm only ashamed that the branch is so cramped we must put you up at an inn instead."
Truth be told, I wasn't sorry in the slightest—I thought we'd lucked into an absolute steal—but decorum demanded the usual hollow courtesies be exchanged.
"It's we who should thank you for lending us a ship at all."
"Heh heh. Such a well-mannered young man. All the more fitting, then, that I place this tablet in your hands."
The branch manager drew something the length of a finger from his breast and held it out to me.
"A jade tablet?"
What lay in the branch manager's palm was an exquisitely carved tablet of jade.
"The very reason I invited you here is that tablet. Should you ever have need of the Seocheon Escort Agency, simply present it, and nearly any request you make will be honored."
A free pass to the Seocheon Escort Agency, no less.
The right to an escort agency's services free of charge was no mere complimentary courier voucher. Delivery might be an escort's bread and butter, but commissions requiring martial force could be requested as well. An exceedingly fine thing to have. And yet—
"I'm grateful, but I must decline."
I handed the jade tablet back.
"Why ever would you refuse?"
"Young Master Kang. This is a precious thing. Don't turn it down."
At my refusal, Tang Pae, who had been watching from beside me, stepped in to dissuade me. Turning down a free courier pass. I must look like a lunatic.
"Mistress So has regained consciousness. My continuing to live off the Tang Clan's goodwill may not be a welcome sight—from the clan's point of view."
This is poison, you know. One sip and you're dead.
"Your course is certainly the correct one. However, there is something you've misunderstood."
Tang Pae, as though he'd seen straight through my intent, nodded and then called my reasoning a misunderstanding.
"A misunderstanding, you say?"
"This tablet is not the Tang Clan's gift to you, Young Master Kang. It is Miss Tang Hwa-rin's gift to you."
"Hwa-rin's? What do you mean?"
"Will the two of you not be using the agency to exchange letters?"
"Ah."
"The Seocheon Escort Agency keeps branches spread across Hubei, Shaanxi, and every province near Sichuan—and its headquarters, naturally, stands in Chengdu, the very city where the Sichuan Tang Clan resides. Letters you send to Miss Tang Hwa-rin will reach Chengdu faster through us than through any other agency alive."
Tang Pae, who had apparently known the reason behind the gift all along, elaborated for my benefit.
"I wasn't told the particulars myself—only that the tablet was to be placed in the hands of one Young Master Kang Yunho, by Miss Tang Hwa-rin's instruction."
"So that's what it's for—our letters."
Come to think of it, I had told Hwa-rin I would write to her. What I had never done was say how. Had Hwa-rin arrived at the same thought, and arranged all of this for my convenience? It wasn't quite on the level of those rare, priceless moments you can count on one hand in a lifetime—but it was moving, all the same. A little.
"Send letters as often as you please, and if other business brings you this way, you are welcome at any time. As it happens, the head of the Seocheon Escort Agency has, for reasons unknown, ordered the Yichang branch greatly expanded—so think nothing of it, and come by whenever you wish."
Because of me, is it. A larger agency at my call was something to be glad of, yet it sat uneasily in my stomach. That expansion must have been breathed into being by the Tang Clan Head himself. And the Tang Clan Head's excessive attention could all too easily turn to poison where I was concerned.
I shot Tang Pae a look that asked whether I'd survive drinking this particular poison.
"The owner of that tablet is Miss Tang Hwa-rin. You need not concern yourself overmuch with anything else."
Tang Pae nodded as though there were no problem in the world.
So even if trouble arises, Hwa-rin answers for it—is that it? I felt a touch guilty toward her, but as a Poison Human her footing within the clan would be unshakeable. She could afford to be leaned on this much.
"I'll put it to good use, then."
Just so long as I don't overuse it. In the end, I accepted the jade tablet.
"The tablet belongs to Miss Tang Hwa-rin, and cannot be transferred to anyone but you, Young Master Kang Yunho. Furthermore, you may send letters to others besides Miss Tang Hwa-rin—but should anyone else wish to send letters to you, Young Master Kang, they must pay for the privilege."
"I wouldn't dream of expecting that much."
Beyond letters to Hwa-rin, when would I ever have use for—
Huh?
Hold on.
Letters?
"Young Master Kang? Is something the matter?" Tang Pae asked after me, worry in his voice, the moment my expression turned grave.
There is, as it happens.
A very good idea has just occurred to me.
"There was a way, after all!"
I hurried back to my room and snatched up the brush, ink, and paper that Hwa-rin had given me as a gift.
There was something I could do. A storyline smashed to pieces. A protagonist whose growth had been cut short before it ever began. Even if the heroine routes were beyond saving, there was still a way to make the protagonist grow.
A method that only I, in all this world, could possibly manage.
"I'll write a letter."
Not to Hwa-rin,
but to the original protagonist.
From this moment on, I would become—