The Fake - 1
“Lady Jegal Hyang has vanished, leaving behind nothing but a wooden doll.”
So the woman who was supposed to have my matchmaking meeting today was apparently named Jegal Hyang.
“What nonsense is this? Did I not post servants to see that the girl was dressed and ready?”
The Chief Steward stole a glance at me, then bowed his head and opened his mouth to answer the Mangeum Lord's question.
“Th-the thing is, my lord, the young lady said she wished to step away for a moment and ease her worries…”
So she said she was going to the washroom and bolted, huh. Don't tell me that woman I ran into earlier was my match.
“I impressed it upon you time and again! Did I not tell you the girl's martial arts were exceptional and you must not let your guard down!”
Face twisted with anger, the Mangeum Lord began laying into the Chief Steward.
My matchmaking partner had run off. Time to size up the situation, and fast.
It seems today is simply not my day. If I say my piece and head home, will that be the end of it? No. Today's meeting never happened, so they'll only ask to meet again next time. Relaxing because you've dodged the immediate crisis—that's amateur thinking. Going back now would merely postpone things; nothing would be resolved. So what do I do?
For starters, act furious.
Time to summon the angriest moments I could remember. The days before I had a word processor, writing manuscripts in Notepad as a kid. The computer freezes without warning. I reboot it—only to find myself regressed all the way back to Pallet Town.
The character the game community swore was so overpowered the game wasn't worth playing unless you pulled her. I even played the adult card—my own credit card, mind you—and weeks later came the nerf. I remembered chipping in money for one of those protest trucks gamers rent.
Five minutes before quitting time. A task due tomorrow, handed over with a smile by a boss who had “forgotten to mention it.” I remembered having to smile while something inside me boiled.
“What's the matter with you?”
Having dismissed the floundering Chief Steward, the Mangeum Lord finally turned his attention this way—to me, sitting there the very picture of barely contained rage.
“Let us consider this match as though it never happened.”
Don't detonate the anger—inflate it. The face of a man gripping with both hands a balloon that would burst at the prick of a needle.
Straining to keep the fury leashed, I made myself speak like a man gone completely numb.
“Is it because the girl has run off? I shall find her myself and bring her straight before you—”
I cut him off mid-sentence. Rude, certainly, but I was angry—this much would be forgiven.
“I believe the young lady knew about today in advance. And she fled anyway. As for why, only one reason comes to my mind.”
Time to lay the groundwork for my anger.
“And that would be?”
“That I am a barbarian.”
And with that, I turned my own weakness into a weapon.
“Hoh.”
For just an instant, discomfort flickered across the Mangeum Lord's face.
“Living in the Central Plains as a black-haired barbarian, I have endured contempt and humiliation beyond counting. To any ordinary woman of the Central Plains, I can hardly be prime husband material. And a daughter of the Jegal Clan, no less. The moment she heard my name, she must have recoiled in horror and run.”
I spoke as though I understood it all. In truth, I didn't.
A conversation isn't carried by words alone. Let him feel the rage through my actions, my expression, my gestures.
I am Kang Yunho, the black-haired barbarian. Of course I understand why the Jegal Clan's daughter fled—she did nothing wrong. But I, the man she was matched with, had been subjected to that humiliation and contempt all the same.
I made the Mangeum Lord understand exactly how that felt.
“The girl has a habit of hiding herself away whenever trouble finds her. She most certainly did not do this out of any disrespect for you.”
“That only makes it worse. A girl who won't heed her grandfather the Mangeum Lord, nor her own mother—would she ever obey the word of a husband who is nothing more than a barbarian?”
“Ahem…”
The Mangeum Lord let out an awkward cough. An unforeseen situation—and caused by his own granddaughter, of all people. Brief as it was, I had the great Mangeum Lord himself cornered.
Now that he was cornered, time to shut down his counterattack—by affirming every word he'd said.
“No doubt a man of great undertakings needs a good woman to stand beside him. But this was a formal match. With the family elders urging it on, and with full knowledge that the man was on his way, she ran. You may write it off as a granddaughter's prank, my lord, but to me it arrives as a towering humiliation.”
I'll find a woman to stand beside me on my own. Just not one from the Jegal Clan. I struck my chest as though in anguish, making sure he saw it.
“I understand your heart.”
“A woman from a good family would surely aid a man with great work ahead of him. But I am carrying on the will of the master of the Baek Family Manor. I am truly grateful for your kind intentions, Lord Mangeum. So I shall regard this match as a proposal that never existed.”
Let the compromise be: the humiliation never happened. I pushed back from my seat at once and turned to go.
Perfect.
Walk out that door without so much as a flicker, and this whole absurd coercion would be erased for good.
“Hold there. I have yet to stamp your pass papers.”
“…”
This wily old codger, honestly.
Without letting a trace of it show, I turned back around.
“I understand your anger and your worry. The woman who is to stand beside a man must never be the one who rules the roost. I shall see to it that Jegal Hyang is thoroughly educated.”
“Elder.”
I would also very much like to go home.
“All who have laid eyes on my granddaughter call her the greatest beauty in Hubei. And the girl is the youngest daughter of the head of the Jegal Clan.”
“Did you say the clan head's own daughter?”
Not a distant branch of the Jegal Clan—the direct main line?
“Indeed. Just as you feel this situation a humiliation, should the match collapse, the Jegal Clan would count it a humiliation of their own.”
He had a point; I felt much the same. The Mangeum Lord added one more thing.
“However.”
“Well… I am not asking you to marry straight away. I would have you give the girl a chance to set the misunderstanding right.”
“You are asking me to grant Lady Jegal Hyang a chance to apologize?”
“That I am. And I will compensate you separately for today's rudeness. If you consent, I shall stamp right here.”
So in the end, he wanted me to meet her at least once.
The Jegal Clan, the Mangeum Lord, and Daseogak held hostage on top of it all. As expected, the risk of torpedoing this match was simply too great.
“So meeting her once would be sufficient?”
Wringing this much concession out of that absurd strong-arming was miracle enough. I asked the Mangeum Lord.
“Yes. Then you pass.”
With the stamp secured on my first-stage documents, I made my way to the inn.
Since the match could no longer be avoided, some serious thought was in order. I shut myself in my office and sank into thought.
“Who on earth is Jegal Hyang?”
The youngest daughter of the Jegal Clan's head. No matter how I ransacked my memory, nothing surfaced.
“The greatest beauty in Hubei, as far as I know, is sitting right beside me.”
Hubei's foremost courtesan. The Shadowless Divine Thief. Lim Hayeon.
She could be as prickly as a thieving cat with me, but in looks, she outshone anyone who might stand beside her.
And yet this girl was supposed to be Hubei's greatest beauty?
No doubt there was exaggeration mixed in, but if she were anywhere near as beautiful as Lim Hayeon, that alone was a problem.
“She could be a character from a route I never cleared.”
I had cleared only one route. What if she was someone who appeared on the other one?
The heroines of this world were beauties, every last one of them. Not every beauty was a heroine, but if she truly was as pretty as Lim Hayeon, there was every chance she was one.
I let out a small sigh.
“It can't be. It had better not be.”
Lim Hayeon's own situation wasn't resolved yet either. A match with a daughter of the Jegal Clan was trouble enough; if the woman turned out to be a heroine from a martial-arts visual novel I didn't know, it would be infinitely worse.
“What's with all the sighing?”
Lim Hayeon pushed open the office door and appeared.
“Lady Hayeon. Wha—?!”
Why on earth was she wearing that?
“Care for a drink?”
Lim Hayeon dodged my gaze as though embarrassed and held out a bottle.
All while wearing a black qipao cut daringly low.
“Here, take it.”
The moment I sat down at the low table, Lim Hayeon settled in beside me and offered the bottle.
“You could sit across from me. Why right beside—”
“Take it.”
As if she hadn't heard a word, Lim Hayeon tilted the bottle over my cup.
Feeling the liquor fill my cup, I stole a sideways glance. Why had she come in a qipao? I had designed the dress myself, and still I had no idea where to put my eyes.
Her face. Her chest. Her thighs. Any one of them was more than my eyes had earned.
I drained the cup, which was filled to the brim with embarrassment.
“Say 'ah.'”
The moment I drank, Lim Hayeon picked up a morsel of food with her chopsticks and brought it straight to my lips.
Smooth, that. Apparently her courtesan training hadn't gone to waste.
“Your turn.”
“You as well.”
We topped up each other's cups, then simply gazed at one another without a word.
Why the black qipao? Perhaps she sensed my gaze drifting to her dress despite myself, for Lim Hayeon's face flushed red.
It was certainly not a garment for a sober mind. A qipao pared down to the barest minimum of fabric—whichever scoundrel invented that thing, I take my hat off to him.
Surely she hadn't come to seduce me. So what was this about?
Lim Hayeon looked at me with something like pity, as though she had something difficult to say, then began.
“I know you gave it your best.”
So she hadn't come to seduce me—she'd come to console me for my hard work. That was a close call.
“I did work hard.”
I gave a wry smile and emptied my cup.
“I know even you can stumble and fall sometimes.”
“Hm?”
Why did she sound like a girlfriend nursing her man through yet another failed exam?
“I'm fine. You staked your life for my sake, after all. I could never blame you.”
Lim Hayeon gripped her cup in both hands as though in torment and spoke with her head bowed.
“Sorry, Lady Hayeon, but…”
Something about this conversation felt off-target.
“Don't apologize. I'm the one who's sorry. All I lose is my return to being a courtesan, but you…”
Lim Hayeon raised her head and looked at my face. Guilt toward me was written plainly across her expression.
Ah. So that was it. In that instant, I understood why she had come.
“I passed.”
“What?”
For a moment, everything about Lim Hayeon simply stopped, as if my words had crashed her brain.
“I passed the first round.”
Her eyes flew wide, and she shot to her feet.
“What is wrong with you! Why didn't you tell me something this important!”
“Slipped my mind.”
I'd been too busy fretting over the match.
“Slipped your mind, my foot! Honestly! I thought you'd failed. Sob.”
Lim Hayeon's face went scarlet, and before long she was quietly crying.
“Are you all right?”
“Do you have any idea what I was—eep!”
Suddenly conscious of what she was wearing, Lim Hayeon clapped a hand over her chest.
“Ha ha.”
“Honestly! Wait right there!”
Lim Hayeon bolted from the room, changed into something comfortable, and came back in.
“Talk. And explain why you were setting a mood back there.”
Sulking mightily, Lim Hayeon this time took the seat across from me and glared daggers.
“Because there are still plenty of gates left to cross.”
“Unbelievable. Haah.”
Lim Hayeon heaved a sigh, as if it were unfair that she had worried for nothing.
“So why were you wearing that outfit earlier?”
“The older sisters said that when a man is going through a hard time, seeing a woman in a dress like this… cheers him right up… eep.”
Lim Hayeon glared at me resentfully for a while, then drained her cup alone. Apparently the scheme had been to offer me some courtesan-style comfort.
“Here, have a drink.”
“D-don't get the wrong idea.”
Lim Hayeon looked at me, so flustered that tears had begun to pool at the corners of her eyes.
I know. It's just that for a former courtesan, that sort of thing is what springs to mind first.
“You've been through a lot.”
The match could wait. This was a moment to be purely, simply happy about passing the first round.
“…You too. Truly, you've worked so hard.”
Lim Hayeon and I raised our cups to our plans for the future, and the room grew warm and lively once more.
Right up until a nightmare of a customer showed up in the middle of the night and we had to rush out to subdue him.
Contrary to my worries, even as the days passed, no one came from the Mangeum Hall to summon me to the next meeting.
“Could they not find Jegal Hyang?”
This woman, Jegal Hyang. Had she become a runaway? Business was booming for me, so it hardly mattered, but still.
“Th-this is a disaster!”
Now what? Lim Hayeon flung open the office door.
“What is it?”
“Author Hopil is publishing Dangga Pungun through another bookstore!”
The book in Lim Hayeon's hands. It was, unmistakably, a copy of Dangga Pungun that Daseogak had never printed.