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The Divine Thief.

In the world of wuxia, an epithet bestowed upon thieves of legend.

Lupin, the Phantom Thief Gang, the Whirlwind Phantom, the Iron Mask — picture any of those elusive, ghost-like thieves from your favorite media and you won't be far off the mark.

Divine Thief Supreme, Void-Spirit Divine ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Thief, Hundred-Faced Divine Thief, Shadowless Divine Thief — every wuxia titles its legendary thief a little differently, but it hardly matters.

They all share the same clichés, more or less.

Like any self-respecting thief, he has to bolt the moment the homeowner catches him, so he wields lightness arts of legendary grade — beyond even rare and hero tier, or else the strongest in the entire setting — and he is every bit as handy with stealth and disguise.

And being a thief of legend, he also carries something of the golden goblin about him — the rare spawn nobody can ever catch — or the walking dispenser of fortuitous encounters.

The Shadowless Divine Thief.

In an ordinary wuxia, she would have been hailed as a master of peerless lightness arts — a phantom who appeared and vanished without a trace, a mysterious thief whose face no living soul knew.

In an ordinary wuxia, that is.

'The problem is that this world isn't a wuxia. It's a wuxia dating sim.'

The classic image of a Divine Thief, after all, is a middle-aged master who never once glimpsed the inside of a jail cell from his teens onward, who plied his legendary trade all the way into middle age while his name echoed through the jianghu. That's the picture, isn't it?

So why, in heaven's name, was the Divine Thief a young woman with pink twintails?

Within the story itself, the Shadowless Divine Thief's skills were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠certainly outstanding — but I'd had my doubts whether anything she actually pulled off in her episode deserved to be called the work of a Divine Thief.

'Well, I've met her now, so first things first — plant a good image.'

How much simpler life would have been if the Shadowless Divine Thief had just been a nice, comfortable middle-aged master character. I wouldn't have had to lift a finger for her, either.

But every woman who appeared in the original carried at least the possibility of becoming a true heroine — so help her first, I would.

"Catch that stowaway bitch!"

"Up to the top deck! Flush her out!"

I pushed open the cabin door and stepped out onto a deck in full uproar.

"Eek! Watch the blade, please!"

And there she was, dodging it. A woman, twintails whipping through the air, shrieking as the blades came flashing in at her.

It looked like she was evading them by the skin of her teeth, but a veteran of wuxia dating sims such as myself could see the truth at a glance: she was slipping every strike with the barest minimum of movement, in the cramped confines of a ship's deck.

So her footwork and lightness arts really were first-rate, as befitted her character. But her pursuers were no pushovers either, and this space was nowhere near her home ground.

A dozen-odd escort guards tightened the encirclement by degrees, and before long the Shadowless Divine Thief had been driven back against the corner of the deck.

A position crying out for someone to shout checkmate. At some point, the raging current of the Yangtze had appeared at her back.

Had she been a master capable of walking on water, or a swimmer on par with a Yangtze river dolphin, she might yet have escaped — but apparently she was nothing of the sort.

"Who are you, woman! How dare you stow away aboard a Seocheon Escort Agency vessel!"

The Eescort Leader raised his sword and demanded.

"..."

"Answer me, and be quick about it! One look tells me all I need — you're the very one the Sabo Sect has been hunting!"

"I'm only fleeing from the evildoers of the Sabo Sect!"

"Spare me your lies! My nose cannot be deceived. The whole deck is thick with the scent of powder and perfume. This strong a smell without a speck of paint on your face? You're a courtesan, aren't you, woman?"

A sharp deduction, worthy of an Escort Leader. An ordinary man would never have noticed, but the moment I focused my own sense of smell, the powder-scent of the courtesan quarter did indeed hang over the deck.

"I'm not a full courtesan — only an apprentice. Last night, while everyone was distracted by the commotion, I ran from the gyobang."

The gyobang. Put simply, a courtesan academy.

Select the 'Became an SSS-Class Courtesan Without Ever Hiding Her Power' ending at the gyobang, and you graduate from the courtesan academy as a cheonggi — a pure courtesan who sells chiefly her song and dance, drawing gasps of 'What is that voice?' — while a poor report card leaves you a honggi, one who sells chiefly her body.

Even a thief needs a false identity for laundering her money, after all. So in this world, the Shadowless Divine Thief was still an apprentice courtesan.

"A runaway courtesan, just as I thought."

"No wonder there were people searching the courtesan houses."

"The Seocheon Escort Agency, breached by a mere stowaway! Who in blazes was minding the cargo?!"

"I'll sit quietly and disembark when we dock. If you'd like, I can even pay the fare... Huh? Uh-oh?"

Amid the commotion, the Shadowless Divine Thief had been rummaging through her generously filled bodice — and then her eyes went wide, as though catastrophe had struck.

A thief, losing her money? She frantically patted herself down from head to toe, but in the end she drooped, crestfallen.

"I'll take no fare from you."

The Escort Leader said it indifferently.

"Truly?"

The Shadowless Divine Thief — who until that moment had been carrying on exactly like a student whose transit card came back insufficient balance, frozen over what to do — heard his words, and color bloomed across her face.

"Bind that courtesan and hold her for delivery to the Sabo Sect."

"Wh-why?!"

"A runaway courtesan and a stowaway. Do you need another reason?"

Fair enough. Even in a world where courtesans enjoyed something like idol treatment, lowly status was still status. Handing her back to whoever held her courtesan registry was only proper.

"Ugh!"

"Bind her!"

At the Escort Leader's command, the guards began cautiously closing in on the Shadowless Divine Thief.

Blades before her. And all around, the middle of the Yangtze. In Yichang, where the river runs deep and full, perhaps — but to leap from a ship here in Wushan, where the rapids churned white, was to make one's peace with death.

The situation had ripened to perfection.

With a trembling face, the Shadowless Divine Thief looked back at the churning water. To be caught, or to go overboard. She was weighing her options, surely?

Either way ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she chose, it ended in despair.

And now, at long last — my turn to take the stage!

"One can only help someone once the truth is properly laid bare."

Channeling the Soyun Mind Image Art, I spoke so that every gaze on the deck slid off the guards and settled onto me, standing behind them.

"Young Master Kang!"

"Miss. Keep lying, and you'll only make things worse for yourself."

With an air of perfect composure, I pressed her.

"Wh-what lie have I been telling?"

"No paint on your face, yet the scent of powder clings to you, and your hands bear the calluses of brush and instrument — a gyobang courtesan, clearly. And yet."

"And yet?"

"Those same hands bear, quite plainly, the calluses of a weapon as well. And on a ship tearing through rapids, you moved faster and lighter than the sailors themselves — proof enough that you have trained the ascending lightness arts too."

Let's pretend every piece of evidence is plain to my eye. I knitted my brow and fixed a pointed stare on the Shadowless Divine Thief's hands. Sure enough, she started and tucked both hands behind her back.

"I just picked up a little martial arts as a pastime."

Said the bride-in-training who learned dragon-slaying magic in bridal class.

"You should simply have told the truth. Besides, the Sabo Sect has furnished plenty of evidence of its own."

"Evidence?"

"Had they merely been moving to seize a runaway courtesan, it would have been enough to ask for our cooperation in the search. Yet they never once said 'runaway courtesan' — which tells us the Sabo Sect had no wish to draw other people's eyes... The pleasure quarters. An evil sect, the Sabo Sect. A courtesan versed in the martial arts. And from there, only one conclusion shows itself."

The culprit is among us! Striking the pose of a master detective upon whom murder cases descend wherever he goes, I slowly parted the ring of guards and approached the Shadowless Divine Thief.

"And what conclusion would that be?"

The Escort Leader eyed me, now barely an arm's length away, and asked with unconcealed curiosity.

I stepped past him, looked at her, and delivered my deduction straight to the Shadowless Divine Thief.

"Haomen."

"Huh?"

"Miss — what business have you with the Haomen?"

Haomen.

As the orthodox sects have the Beggar Sect, an intelligence ring built from beggars, so the evil sects have the Haomen — an intelligence ring built from society's lowest rungs: thieves, gamblers, courtesans, servers.

A courtesan trained in the martial arts. A thief besides.

That the Shadowless Divine Thief belonged to the Haomen was canon in the original work, so her affiliation would not have changed.

"I have hardly anything to do with the Haomen..."

"Think it over carefully, Miss. As of this moment, you are a runaway courtesan. Let this play out as it stands, and you'll be escorted straight to the Sabo Sect. But should this become a matter between sects, one must first weigh whose side to favor. Speak honestly, and I may yet find a way to help you."

I said it to her with a look that claimed to know everything already. Her face hardened, and she dipped her head, just slightly.

Don't agonize over it. Take the help while it's on the table. Deny even that now, and you get dragged away.

"...Last night, the Haomen's Wushan branch was attacked."

Having evidently finished her deliberation, she gave me the truth of the night before.

"The Wushan branch of the Haomen?"

"Several sects — the Sabo Sect among them — fell upon us all at once, and the branch chief who ran the Wushan gyobang was killed as well. I alone, a mere apprentice courtesan, managed to slip away."

"And you were bound for Yichang to carry word of it?"

"Yes. Had I been dragged off in a commotion, the information might have leaked — so I was trying to be careful."

So that was the shape of it.

The Haomen was an evil sect of nationwide reach. The Sabo Sect was an evil sect rooted in Wushan.

At first glance, it looked like madness on the Sabo Sect's part — but the reality ran differently.

The Haomen was an organization assembled from society's outcasts. Less a martial sect that swung blades than a syndicate that sold information.

The Haomen surely kept its own arm for handling force as well, but so long as word never leaked that far, one could well convince oneself they were worth taking on.

"My thanks for your honesty. Now, Escort Leader — seizing a runaway courtesan may well be the proper course, but if this is a matter between sects, wiser still to wash our hands of the whole affair."

This was no runaway-courtesan matter; it was a war between evil sects. Better to play the ignoramus than to have an escort agency wading in where it had no business.

With due care, I counseled the Escort Leader to feign blindness.

"Young Master Kang. A runaway courtesan trained in the martial arts may well be lying to us."

I'm asking nicely here. The Escort Leader was the true authority aboard this ship, and it seemed he would not step aside at a single word from me.

Then it was time to play the move I had set aside.

"And where was the woman hiding?"

"In a liquor jar, sir."

"And I bought that liquor jar. Which makes her my responsibility, then."

"..."

"Set her ashore at Yichang."

I said it in a tone that brooked no argument.

"Young Master!"

"The woman was already inside when I bought it — so her fare was paid the moment I paid for the jar."

"If word reaches the Sabo Sect, they may come to do us harm."

"Had they the wit to think that far, they'd have done it at the wharf."

The Sabo Sect's leader had cursed me to my face, and I had watched every last man present draw his blade. Men who lost their nerve even on their own home ground — sailing all the way to distant Yichang to do me harm?

And with both the Tang Clan and the Seocheon Escort now witness to it all, if so much as a finger on my hand were bent, the Sabo Sect would not walk away whole.

"If that is your will, Young Master..."

"Miss."

"Yes? Yes, of course!"

"Your safety, Miss, I guarantee with my own name. The misfortune that found you must weigh heavy on your heart — but let your body travel in peace."

I said it to her with the grave bearing of a hero out of a chivalric tale, then made for the cabin without a backward glance.

"Perfect."

With the commotion settled, I stood alone on the moon-washed deck and allowed myself a smile of victory.

What is the surest way to forge a bond with a woman?

The knight-on-a-white-horse operation, naturally.

Show off your brains with brilliant deduction, then pluck her from danger without fail — and the debt of a life saved is carved into memory for good.

I couldn't say whether the Shadowless Divine Thief was a true heroine or not, but if our paths crossed again someday, I would at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠least be remembered in a fine light.

And even if she wasn't — well, I could count on one fewer break-in at my bookstore.

'Now, time to wrap this up.'

I had now saved the Shadowless Divine Thief's life twice over. All that remained was to wait...

"Young Master."

There it is. Right on cue.