Delivery Accident - 6
Who, exactly, is the owner of the Daseogak Wuhan Branch?
Me, the one holding the operating rights? Jegal Hyang, who received it as a gift?
The answer is neither.
The true owner of the Daseogak branch was, and remained, Mangeum Jeonjang. We hadn't signed the acquisition contract yet, after all.
By the Mangeum Lord's command, Mangeum Jeonjang had been charged with prettily wrapping up the gift called Daseogak to present to his granddaughter. And then the contents of that gift had been snatched away—right in Wuhan of all places, where Mangeum Jeonjang's influence ran strongest.
There was ample room for Mangeum Jeonjang to step in.
If only one small problem could be settled first.
"If Young Master Kang's account proves true, then we do intend to punish the Nokcheong Escort Agency in our own fashion. That said, this matter is, at its root, a transport accident on the Seocheon Escort Agency's part—a dispute between two escort houses. We are under no obligation to shed blood over it ourselves."
"So what I'm hearing is that the justification for using force is a touch thin."
"It is not a matter to be settled simply, but I will grant you that much."
"Then allow me to manufacture that justification for you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Everyone, draw your swords!!!"
And that is how I brought Jegal Hyang into the very heart of the Nokcheong Escort Agency, filling in the one missing piece of justification.
"Are you sure it's all right for us to stay put like this?"
The battle at the Nokcheong Escort Agency was in full swing. Dodging blind slashes, I made my way to the spot Jegal Hyang led me to—a damp, shaded corner that looked like something snails would love.
It was her first time visiting this place, yet she'd zeroed in on the perfect spot to hide and coast, like a sergeant counting down his final days of service. Was that pure instinct?
"Yeeees. No one will find us, I promiseee."
Jegal Hyang sketched out a few lines with some stones and string, then nodded.
"A formation that erases a person's presence. How remarkable."
Formations. In wuxia, they generally come in two kinds.
The first is the kind deployed by the many against a strong few. The most famous example is the Shaolin sect's 108 Arhat Formation, in which a hundred and eight monks attack a single person while drawing numbered queue tickets. It is a formation that has never once been broken in all of history—and it also carries the cliché of shattering the very moment it is deployed in a story, making it a close friend of the hole-riddled Heaven and Earth Inescapable Net.
The second kind produces special effects through natural or man-made objects; combined with mechanical devices, it is sometimes called a mechanism formation. The most renowned family in this art is the Jegal Clan, and thanks to formations like the Eight Formations Diagram said to have been devised by Zhuge Liang, the Jegal Clan had been revered since ancient times as the head family of formations.
"It's a formation only one person outside the family has ever seen through, so it'll be fiiine."
Jegal Hyang said this while regarding me as if I were some strange curiosity.
"It's my first time inside a formation, so I'm a touch uneasy, I confess."
If a sheltered young lady who never left her home had been seen through by her own family and then by an outsider too, wouldn't that make the formation effectively useless?
"Da—... It's a formation even Father acknowledges, so there's no cause for worry."
If the head of the Jegal Clan vouches for it, I suppose that counts as certified.
"Young Lady Jegal. Come to think of it, you mentioned having a favor to ask of me. Might I inquire what it might be?"
When I'd asked her to accompany me, she'd said there was something she wanted to request.
"Ah, I, th-th-th-that is... I'll tell you laterrr."
A favor too embarrassing to voice right away? It certainly didn't seem like the sort of thing to discuss mid-battle.
Better to wait until the situation settled than take a stray blade for nothing. And so, though the battle raged on, I settled in comfortably to watch, since not a soul on either side was paying us any attention.
Mangeum Jeonjang seemed to have the upper hand, but the Nokcheong Escort Agency wasn't yielding easily either—this was a fight for their very lives.
"The escort agency bastards must have kidnapped the Young Lady! Find her, quickly!!!"
One of Mangeum Jeonjang's warriors approached in our direction. Had he spotted us?
"Young Lady! Where are you?!"
As expected of the Jegal Clan's formation!
Contrary to my expectations, the warrior failed to detect us entirely.
"I believe you should go out now."
"..."
"Young Lady Jegal?"
I turned my head to find Jegal Hyang gazing up at me with flushed cheeks.
"Ah?! Y-yes, yes?"
"Mangeum Jeonjang is searching for you. I believe you should go out."
"C-couldn't we wait just a little longerrr?"
With a strangely wistful voice, Jegal Hyang clutched at my sleeve.
"Haha. Carelessness could cost far too much blood, so I do think you should go out."
If some groundless rumor spread that Jegal Hyang had come to harm, this place might stop being the Nokcheong Escort Agency and become the Blood-Stained Escort Agency instead.
"Yeeees."
"Young Lady Jegal Hyang!"
The moment Jegal Hyang, shoulders slumped, stepped beyond the line she had drawn, the escort warriors spotted her in an instant.
"The Young Lady is over here!"
"Young Lady Jegal Hyang! Come this way! We shall protect you!"
"If so much as one scratch befalls the Young Lady, not one of you wretches will be spared! Attend her at once!"
"Ah, I, um, that is. Young Master Kaaang!"
Jegal Hyang looked toward me with a troubled expression.
Perhaps I should slip out with her now. I was slowly moving to step beyond the line when—
"Young Lady! Let us secure your safety first, then hear what you have to say!"
"We will search for Young Master Kang separately!"
"Move!"
"Nooo. That's, um, not what I meeeaaan."
The Mangeum Jeonjang men simply hoisted up the resisting Jegal Hyang and vanished. That was faster.
"Seriously, why do they have to leave that fast? Ha... honestly."
I muttered bitterly in a corner of the Nokcheong Escort Agency, now empty of people once more.
They must have been in quite a hurry. Even bodyguards securing an escape route for a VVIP under terrorist threat would be hard-pressed to do better.
"Entrance is blocked. I'll have to go over the wall, then."
With Jegal Hyang gone, the formation wouldn't hold for long either. I looked up at the wall—higher than the one at Jeon Gilsan's place, perhaps for the agency's security.
"Ugh!"
No good. I leapt, smacked into the wall, and dropped back to the ground. Too high to clear in a single bound.
"What I need is a stepping stone."
I had stepped on a person to get over the wall at Jeon Gilsan's place, after all. With a decent running start and something to plant my foot on, I could probably make it.
"You damn bas-taaard!"
Just as I was scanning for something usable as a stepping stone, an enraged shout rang out behind me.
"What now?"
I'm done for.
The ones who had appeared behind me were three escort warriors, blades drawn.
"So it was you—that barbarian I spied from a distance earlier!"
"Isn't he the one who stirred up this whole mess? Grab him and hold him hostage, and even Mangeum Jeonjang will have to back off!"
Who comes hunting you the very instant the newbie protection barrier expires? This is why old-timers are a plague, in the modern world and murim alike. No wonder newbies never get the chance to grow.
"Haha. Gentlemen of the escort agency. It appears there's been some grand misunderstanding..."
Three of them, blades out, no less. I extended a hand with my friendliest smile, hoping to calm them down.
"Silence! Earlier, from a distance, I watched the Mangeum Jeonjang warriors move at your signal!"
"Haha. I merely spoke on their behalf, as it were—a spokesperson, if you will. If I were anyone of consequence, would I be crouching here?"
It's a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding.
"Whether you're a spokesman or a piece of shit, we'll confirm it ourselves."
"Heh. Catch just this one fellow, and can we turn the tide?"
You won't be turning the tide—you'll be the one getting scammed.
"You take the left!"
As if they'd rehearsed it, the three warriors pressed in on me from three directions at once.
One formation experienced, and now they're serving me another on the spot? My newbie grace period ends and they lay out a full-course murim experience banquet.
"Phew."
Nothing for it, then. If I ran, my back would be left wide open. I had no choice but to face them.
I steadied my mind. One hand slipped into my breast, the other pointed at the enemy. The escort warriors crept closer, step by stealthy step.
The moment I circulated my internal energy, all three charged as if with a single mind. Head, legs, chest—attacks converging from every side at once. Had a swallow so much as flown through that space, it would have been cut down.
"Huh?!"
Because what I used was neither offense nor defense. It was an evasion technique.
Shadowless Body Art. I activated it and exploded backward in a single step. Three pairs of startled eyes snapped toward me.
There!
I drew the hidden weapons from my breast and scattered them in one motion.
"Gwaaah!"
One of them took a dart squarely to a vital point on the first throw.
"A lowly barbarian and his cheap tricks! ...Urk?!"
Another batted them aside with his blade, but couldn't stop the volley that came hard on its heels.
"Uuuurgh!"
"Uuughhh!"
"What in the world is—"
The last warrior stared, aghast, at his companions, who were now writhing and rubbing their whole bodies against the dirt.
"Paralytic poison."
The Tang Clan's special paralytic poison. A first-rate martial artist might, with agonizing effort, force it out with internal energy—but judging by how instantly they'd dropped, they had to be second-rate.
"Y-you f-filthy b-barbarian, w-with your f-filthy t-tricks..."
"A lowly barbarian resorting to dirty tricks, is it? Now that's a line the good people of Sichuan would simply love to hear."
Smirking, I looked down at the warrior who could no longer get a word out straight.
"Coward! There's no honor in this! How does a man who calls himself a murim warrior stoop to such sneaky hidden weapons!"
The only warrior still standing upright roared at me in a fury.
They were mere escort guards, but because they fancied themselves true murim martial artists, they refused to touch hidden weapons?
"The Escort Chief uses hidden weapons! Beware!!!"
A great bellow rang out from far away.
"..."
"Your superiors don't seem to share that sentiment, though."
"Re-regardless, it's cowardly!"
"And three of you gang up on one man, and that's not cowardly?"
"...Ugh!"
The warrior's eyes darted between his fallen companions and me, and then he began, ever so subtly, to back away.
If he runs off and calls for reinforcements, that's a problem.
Hidden weapons aren't an all-purpose item—they're a cash item. FPS games get infinite magazine reloads; once my supply runs dry, I'm weaponless.
What to do? I had to put this man down here and now.
Then, in a flash, the perfect idea struck me.
"Very well. Out of special consideration, I'll forgo the hidden weapons I carry and use only this brush."
I drew a single brush from my sleeve and thrust it toward the warrior.
Scared?
In moments like this, you go for a man's pride.
"A brush? You mean to... mock me?"
What a reaction. The warrior, who had been stealthily backing away, finally stopped where he stood.
"Mock you? Against a coward who can only think of running, a single brush is more than enough."
"C-could it be that the brush in your hand is no ordinary brush, but a Judge's Brush?!"
A Judge's Brush is an iron brush wielded in the martial arts of acupoint striking. In wuxia, anyone striking a cool pose with a Judge's Brush was, nine times out of ten, an insufferable young master of the Jegal Clan—a weapon with its very own cliché attached.
"Who can say? It might be an axe. It might be a spear. It might even be a bow."
He must have been wound tight indeed—for the brush to look like steel to his eyes. Playing the part of a truly insolent young master, I sneered and thrust the brush toward him once more.
"Kuh! Fine! To think the day would come when I, of all people, would be mocked by a barbarian! Very well! I shall face you at full strength!"
Don't use your full strength.
In murim, they say you should always keep thirty percent of your strength in reserve. You, my friend, should probably hide about seventy percent.
The warrior gripped his blade anew and fixed his gaze on me. Had he truly believed my brush to be a threat?
He charged—not at my arms, but with killing intent aimed at my abdomen.
Why so fast? One slip and I'd be the one skewered.
"Hraaaaah! Huh?!"
That's what you get.
The charging warrior crumpled mid-stride, struck squarely by a single dart fired from the tip of my brush.
"So fixated on the blade, you never considered the variable."
"You said... no hidden weapons..."
"I said I would use only the brush."
The brush was, after all, a special hidden weapon of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
"You swindler!"
Yeah, yeah. Not listening.
Clutching his chest, the warrior sank to his knees. The potent paralytic poison was already threading through his veins; in moments he would lose consciousness and fall.
What a perfect moment. I have a line prepared for exactly this.
Wearing the grave expression of a martial arts grandmaster, I walked around behind the collapsing warrior and spoke.
"You're slow. Even at falling."
Remember this: when your skill falls short, it's called a cash item.