Do Gate — Part 4
“Dan Wan-gwi is no longer the Do Gate Hyangju?”
“Th-then what happens now?”
A single command had sent one man tumbling into the abyss.
“Barely pulled it off.”
Watching the enemy camp descend into confusion, I quietly let out a breath of relief.
— Raise Lim Ha-yeon as Mangju?
That was the plan I had put before the Hyangjus.
The branch heads didn't want to raise anyone as Mangju — not while another Hyangju's family lay dying, not even if blades came out between the Do Gate men. Elevating someone who had been your equal until this very moment to a seat above your head was a matter of power. No one could bring themselves to back a person they didn't trust.
— If no Mangju is raised, all that remains in the end is mutual destruction. And is there anyone better suited to the seat than Lady Ha-yeon?
Someone who, as the Shadowless Divine Thief, could command the respect of every Haomundo out there.
Someone born and raised in the Gi Gate, trusted by the Gi Gate Hyangju; trusted by the Simun, who owed her favors and could recommend her with an easy conscience. Someone even the Mamen Hyangju would acknowledge as incapable of harming others out of naked ambition.
The Shadowless Divine Thief, Lim Ha-yeon, was the perfect candidate for Mangju.
‘Though it took until the very last of the very last moments for her to be raised up.’
And even that — had the answer not been mutual destruction, she never would have been chosen at all.
“Hurry and kneel like the rest of them!”
“Wh-what do we do?”
“This is going nowhere.”
The tide had already turned. They were kneeling one by one, but no one could bring themselves to switch sides all at once, so the enemy camp spun in circles, unable to find its footing.
“Are you all right?”
“Truly unharmed?”
You're really okay, right? I sidled up to Lady Ha-yeon and asked after her once more.
“I'm fine. Oh! Here, I'll give this back.”
Was that the hidden weapon I'd told her to keep for emergencies? But where is she trying to pull it out from — how embarrassing.
“Keep it.”
Lady Ha-yeon had to keep projecting an air of authority as Mangju, after all.
I waved her off and stepped forward.
“What are you doing?”
“Just going to stir the pot a little. Don't wait up.”
“Sorry, what?”
The enemy is on the verge of splitting apart. This is exactly the moment to fan the flames and shatter them into four warring pieces — which happens to be my specialty.
Now was the hour for me, hardened by countless games of political maneuvering, to take the stage.
“You idiots!!! What are you doing?! If I go down, you all go down with me!!!”
Ah, Dan Wan-gwi. Do you really think barking orders with a panicked face is going to help?
No way it's truly over until the very end. He probably thinks he has to kill every Hyangju and erase the Mangju's elevation as if it never happened.
As if that would work.
“If a hole gets punched in a ship because of the captain's mistake, who wants to sink with the captain? Am I wrong?”
I stood at the very front of our ranks and called out in a voice raised for everyone to hear.
“Kang Yunho?”
Dan Wan-gwi. What's baring your teeth going to accomplish? The power balance has already flipped. Move carelessly now and it's over for you in an instant.
I turned to the Do Gate men whose faces were written all over with hesitation, and spoke.
“What are you all waiting for? If you're going to surrender, surrender — what's there to mull over? Can't you read the room?”
“Simun Hyangju. We are of the Do Gate.”
A man who looked to be one of the Do Gate's officers answered with fear plain on his face.
Did he think that even kneeling, punishment could not be escaped? I glanced around and saw several others wearing the same expression.
So their weakest point is fear of punishment, is it? Then I have a solution.
“What! You were hesitating over something as small as that?”
I snorted and answered at once.
“Wh… what?”
He started to snap at me and switched to honorifics mid-sentence. So you're willing to listen, are you? Then I'll scratch where it really itches.
“I understand! That's what working life is, isn't it? Even if your heart isn't in it, when your boss says jump, you jump. Look around, everyone. Honestly — anyone here who didn't want to be at this gathering today? Anyone? Anyone at all?”
The first rule of political agitation is empathy. Pretend to sympathize from the enemy's position. Pretend to be their ally.
Wearing a face that said I get it, I really do, I looked around the crowd.
“……”
A few of the standing men nodded their heads. Once you've become the enemy's ally, it's time, as their ally, to make another enemy.
“It's written all over your faces. Your plate's already overflowing — why would he scream at you to come fight his war? It's his seat on the line, not yours. Do any of us become Mangju? You come back and there's a mountain of work waiting. He came here cursing everyone out, didn't he?”
Naturally, the next enemy had to be Dan Wan-gwi — the one man who would shoulder the entire blame for this affair.
“Pfft!”
Good reception. Laughter rippled from somewhere in the enemy ranks.
“When a superior asks for your support, what can you do? You follow. Isn't refusing the crazy thing to do? Right?”
Blow Dan Wan-gwi's sins out of proportion, and wash everyone else's clean. Before long, they'll believe they did nothing wrong at all — that every last thing was one man's fault.
“Well….”
“So! Now a Mangju has been raised. You were forced to obey a madman's orders — and then! A higher authority appeared! So you simply had no choice but to follow! Those of you with grievances — what should you do now?”
Now offer the way out. End this miserable game and hurry on to the next round. None of this is your fault. No need to cling to a sinking ship. Keep the whisper soft.
As men began kneeling one by one, the enemy officers couldn't just stand by and watch. One of the Do Gate leaders went red in the face and jabbed a finger at me.
“You! Do you think this is some marketplace where anything goes?!”
“We live in the marketplace, you fool! It's literally where we crawl!”
“……”
“Right now! The Mangju! Has declared that anyone who drops their blades and kneels will not be punished for merely having backed the Do Gate Hyangju! She is waiting! Are you really going to keep standing?”
Time to present the final lifeline. I pointed my palm toward the Mangju, Lim Ha-yeon, who was watching the enemy camp with a frozen face.
“Is… is that true?!”
The Do Gate warriors turned to the Mangju with the look of men catching a rope falling from heaven. Lady Ha-yeon then shot me a glance only someone who'd lived at my side all day could read.
— What on earth are you saying right now?
— You promised to trust me. Get them kneeling first; punish whoever turns out guilty later.
— Fine. Have it your way.
Lim Ha-yeon stared at the Do Gate warriors with a stony face.
Whether her silence was assent or refusal didn't matter. The point was that the enemy would find in her whatever they desperately wanted to see.
“We… we yield!”
“Our respects to the Mangju!”
These were men I had already shaken once, and shaken again. Even those who'd wavered back and forth at her wordless assent began lowering their weapons.
“You worthless bastards!!! You think I'll let any of you live?!”
“Dan Wan-gwi. It's over.”
One of the Do Gate leaders sank to his knees before the Mangju and spoke.
“What?”
“We backed the man who would become Mangju. Not a lunatic.”
That's right. Exactly. Once the Mangju stripped his title, Dan Wan-gwi was no longer the Do Gate Hyangju at all.
Until now, it could all be papered over as mere infighting among Haomundo. But with a Mangju born, everything was different.
He could never become Mangju now — so even siding with Dan Wan-gwi would gain them nothing.
“That's right! They clung to him for one more crumb of rice cake! What loyalty is there when even the crumbs he has are about to be stripped away?”
The officer's words were the final blow. The rest of the Do Gate men toppled to their knees toward us like dominoes.
“Kheheheh… miserable bastards….”
“Anyone still standing — are they all just men backing the Do Gate Hyangju? No. Just the lunatic Dan Wan-gwi?”
The surrender count seems a bit short. I need my ally's help. I shot Lady Ha-yeon a sidelong look. Feed me another line, quick.
Lady Ha-yeon read my eyes and spoke to the Do Gate warriors still standing.
“As Mangju, I declare: from this moment, anyone who draws a blade for the Do Gate Hyangju will no longer be treated as Haomundo.”
At the Mangju's ultimatum, the eyes of the Do Gate warriors went wide in an instant.
“Th-that can't—!”
“From now on, every man who keeps his blade drawn is throwing away everything he ever earned as a Haomundo! Standing by a man who's already finished? Magnificent! Truly magnificent! What loyal retainers we have here!”
Every man standing in this hall had climbed up from the very bottom as a Haomundo. They knew exactly how precious the things they'd barely scraped together were.
And they knew what their lives would become with Haomen torn out of them.
I clapped my hands in deliberately exaggerated applause. You lot. Planning to stay aboard a sinking ship?
“We obey the Mangju's command!”
“Forgive us for our belated congratulations!”
In the end, the only men left at Dan Wan-gwi's side were the ones who looked, at a glance, beyond saving.
“Kang Yunho!!! You son of a bitch!!!”
Dan Wan-gwi, unable to bear it, lunged for me — but it didn't matter.
“Oh my! How terrifying! So scary! But you see, there's someone out there with a very deep grudge against you!”
“Indeed. There is a debt between us that must be settled.”
Because standing before me was already a father who had lost his beloved wife to a madman.
“You old bastard!!!”
The moment Dan Wan-gwi laid eyes on the former Shadowless Divine Thief, his steps froze —
“Restrain him.”
At the Mangju's command, it was our side that moved first.
“Kugh!”
“Hyangju-nim!!!”
“The Do Gate Hyangju's arm!!!”
With Dan Wan-gwi — his arm severed by Brother Wang — falling back, the battle paused into a standoff.
A cornered rat can still bite the cat. And with these men's killing intent blazing, no one could approach them easily.
“Stop groveling and just surrender. Save yourselves the trouble.”
Even the Do Gate men who'd drawn blades to the last for Dan Wan-gwi had numbered few, and now half of them lay sprawled as corpses.
Shouldn't this be the point where you give up? I spoke to the blood-drenched Do Gate Hyangju.
“You…!”
Perhaps because I knew the voice so well, bloodshot eyes burning with rage turned toward me.
“How does it feel, Dan Wan-gwi? To have the seat you clawed at for ten years snatched away in a single breath?”
Do you have any idea how much hell I went through because of you?
This man had driven countless people into death and agony. One severed arm was nowhere near enough to quench the anger burning toward him.
“Kang… Yunho!”
Yes, it's me. I opened my mouth with a smile spread across my whole face.
“That's right. Our own Dan Wan-gwi — the single greatest contributor to the birth of the Mangju! Without you, how would a Mangju ever have been raised? Everyone, applause! Give it up for our greatest contributor!”
Clap clap clap. At my lead, this time everyone clapped for Dan Wan-gwi without a moment's hesitation.
So this is the taste of power — people laughing even at the department head's terrible jokes. The moment the tide settles, everyone cheers along without hesitation. Lovely.
“Kheheheh.”
Hey. Keep that up and your face will split. How furious do you have to be for your laughter to sound like crying?
“What's there to be angry about? A man who circled the gambling tables that long should have swept his seat and walked out the moment he realized he was the sucker. Instead you lost everything down to your underwear, didn't you?”
The coveted Mangju seat stolen, not even his stake recovered, returning home in his underclothes — wasn't that practically naedora-rae, arriving naked as the day he came?
“So… in the end, the sucker was me….”
“The mighty Dan Wan-gwi only just figured that out? No, wait a moment — you've only got one arm now. Should I start calling you 'One-Wrist Ghost'? Or maybe swap out a single character of your name for you? Hey. Which one do you like better?”
“Kheheheh… you dog of a barbarian.”
“What was that? Say it again. A loser's nonsense is always a pleasure to hear.”
I deliberately cupped a hand to my ear and stepped closer so Dan Wan-gwi could see me clearly.
Behind me, the Tu Gate Hyangju was muttering that the man had real nerve, that at this rate he'd die of rage-induced illness before Dan Wan-gwi did — but I paid it no mind.
Countless people had suffered because of this man's greed. Far more than one or two.
“Yes… it was all because of that barbarian bastard….”
“Only just figured that out, did you? It was all this great body of mine—huh?!”
Crack! The sound of Dan Wan-gwi's molars shattering rang out. His bloodshot eyes went past red and turned the color of blood itself.
“Hey. Don't tell me you just ate something?”
“Swallow the Hoehon Pill!”
Crack crack crack! All around, the sound of the Do Gate men's molars shattering rang out in unison. This situation is not good.
Why are their faces suddenly turning red?
“Hey. You can't just swallow any pill you find. Medicine goes to the pharmacist, examinations go to the physician — do you people not know the basics?”
Do these men not understand the division of medical labor? For now, I should fall back—
“Stop him!”
Dan Wan-gwi was a beat faster. The Do Gate men's bodies launched into the air.
Countless warriors stood between Dan Wan-gwi and me, but he charged straight at me without caring what happened to his own body.
“You, of all people! You I will drag down with me!”
Before I could even react, his body slammed into mine. This bastard — why is he so strong?
Our tangled bodies were flung toward the window in an instant.
“Ah.”
The great window shattered in the space of a breath.
Hold on.
We're on the seventh floor, aren't we?
Beneath the madman who'd lost all reason to fury stretched the black expanse of the Yangtze River.
“You insane bastaaaard!”
Balance lost, the two of us plummeted straight toward the Yangtze.