The Second Trial - 1
“Lady Jegal, this is going to take a while, so why don't you rest somewhere quiet for a bit?”
The moment Lord Jang stepped away to select the successful candidates, every eye in the room swung toward Jegal Hyang and me.
For Jegal Hyang, staying seated was an absolute torture. If she remained a moment longer, she might melt right into the floor. So I escorted her out of the hall.
“B-but I could have stayed. I can just h-hide inside the formation if I need tooo...”
Apparently the option of simply not hiding didn't exist.
She averted her eyes from my gaze, looking apologetic.
Given her personality, I understood. The barrage of attention from relatives was burden enough, but she also felt guilty whenever someone sacrificed their own comfort for her sake.
“All those burning stares were getting to me too, honestly.”
Times like these called for a show of solidarity. I wore an awkward expression as I admitted it.
“Ah! Y-you too, Master Kang?”
Only then did Jegal Hyang look up at me, her face brightening with color.
“They've decorated the garden beautifully. Let's rest out there.”
And besides, I had something to say to Jeon Gilsan, who'd gone out ahead of us.
“Huhu. Yeees.”
“I can't live like this!!!”
“M-Mom! Just calm down and listen for a second! I'm telling you, I don't regret it!”
“Do I look calm to you?! Just when I thought you'd finally come to your senses! And this time I actually trusted youuu!”
“Jegal Hyang. Please, go the other way.”
We'd found a secluded corner of the garden without trouble — only to discover the person I was looking for was on the verge of spontaneous combustion. Fine. Might as well enjoy the show.
“Hey! Kang Yunho! Hyangie!”
He must have heard me despite my whisper, because Jeon Gilsan fled his mother like a drowning man spotting a rescue boat and hurried over to us.
“Haah.”
“You shed tears of gratitude and this is your thanks? I came to help and all I get is a sigh.”
Jeon Gilsan looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.
“Where do you think you're running, boy! Of course I'm sighing, look at the state of me!”
Ooh. A picture-perfect flyswatter block. Jeon Gilsan's mother smacked him squarely on the back, loud enough to echo.
“Ow—! Mom, I need to talk to him!”
“Talk? About what?”
“Man-to-man business! Hyangie, give us a minute, would you? Let the two of us talk in peace.”
“Huh?”
“Sigh. Come along, Hyangie.”
Jeon Gilsan's mother looked back and forth between me and her son, heaved an enormous sigh, and led a bewildered Jegal Hyang away.
What should I even say to him?
“Thank you.”
Gratitude first, naturally. Reasons aside, he'd thrown away his own future just to back me.
“Yeah. That's the right place to start.”
Jeon Gilsan nodded, looking satisfied.
“So what in the world happened?”
I demanded an explanation — how could he make a decision like that without saying a word to me?
“Told you already. I thought it over, and hauling your water pitcher seemed like the better gig.”
“No way it's that simple.”
“Here's what I've learned from working. Turns out I'm the type who does better when someone else gives the orders. I'm a number two, not a number one. Call me the Zhang Liang who'll help build your Emperor Gaozu.”
Zhang Liang, the foremost statesman who helped Liu Bang unify the Han. It was what a man traditionally said upon finding the person who'd stand closest beside him in some great undertaking.
“Doesn't that line only mean something when the number one says it about you?”
I'd never met a self-proclaimed Zhang Liang who wasn't at least a little cracked.
“Don't you worry. Soon enough you'll be shouting it in admiration — my Zhang Liang! Now listen to what I'm about to say. And don't freak out.”
“What's going on?”
What was with him? This wasn't like him at all. Jeon Gilsan's face had gone utterly serious.
He kept glancing around to check for listeners, confirmed that even his mother and Jegal Hyang were far out of earshot, and then finally turned to face me.
Something huge, then?
With the expression of a man handling extremely fragile cargo, Jeon Gilsan opened his mouth.
“In Grandfather's heart, you're already chosen.”
“Huh?”
“Not just a candidate. He's already settled on you as the successor.”
“...”
Was I supposed to act surprised?
Jeon Gilsan stared at me like a man confessing an unforgivable secret — then his eyes went wide and he took a step back.
“Y-you already knew?!”
“Roughly. But how'd you find out?”
I'd heard it straight from the source, after all.
Perhaps disappointed that he hadn't been the first to tell me, Jeon Gilsan gave a wry smile, scratched his head, and looked toward his mother in the distance.
“Because Grandfather gave you the best thing he had.”
“You mean Lady Jegal?”
Over where he was looking, Jegal Hyang stood wearing an embarrassed little smile too. He nodded and went on.
“I thought it was strange, honestly. I kept quiet because I couldn't read Grandfather's intentions, but there's no cousin who can touch Hyangie. Sure, the girl's a bit hopeless in a crowd. But she's beautiful, brilliant, endlessly talented — and she's a Jegal, for heaven's sake. Where would you find a better bride?”
“Quite the woman for a black-haired barbarian.”
There was no reason to argue the point.
“At first I just shrugged — great, I get a drinking buddy brother-in-law. But then you got forcibly made a successor candidate, and a fact none of the other cousins know came back to me.”
Without turning his head, Jeon Gilsan gave me a sideways glance.
“Guess which.”
“You already had another fiancée.”
“...”
“Don't freeze up on me. I know the Lord of Baek Family Manor and Grandfather are old sworn friends. They were as close as two men can be — and then you go poaching his granddaughter as a son-in-law? Even for Grandfather, that's crossing a line no grandfather crosses to grab a granddaughter's groom. Only then did it hit me.”
“Hit you with what?”
“That he wants you badly enough to swallow absolutely everything. Badly enough to hand over the best thing he owns, just to keep you close.”
There was even a look of relief on Jeon Gilsan's face as he studied me.
“...”
“I wrestled with it myself, once I realized. Grandfather's not the type to give up just because someone knows what he's thinking. But here's the thing. What kind of man are you? No matter how I turned it over, my conclusion matched his.”
“Jeon Gilsan...”
“Kang Yunho. From everything I've seen, you can genuinely do this. I'll work hard to help you too. So go win it.”
He thumped my chest a few times with his fist, then held out his hand as if pouring out the last of everything he had.
There was no reason to refuse it.
It was the hand of a friend offering his help without hesitation.
“Time's up! They're calling us in. Gilsan! You're coming home with me later!”
Just as he'd pledged to trust and help me, I pledged the same to him.
The instant we let go of our clasped hands, his mother's voice rang out from far away.
“Ugh... hey. Can you at least grovel for a few days after this is over?”
Hard pass.
“And that makes six. Thank you all for your patience.”
The last candidate was finally decided. The newest competitor bowed in turn to Lord Jang and me, then quickly took his seat.
“...”
So the second trial was finally here.
The first trial had passed without much worry thanks to Lady Ha Yeon and the Joseon Hometown Association, but the next one would be a different story.
Everyone was equally on edge about what form the trial might take; the whole room sat in silence, lost in thought.
Lord Jang seemed rather pleased by our obvious tension. He smiled and stroked his beard.
“Let us begin the next trial. Chief Steward.”
“Yes. At once, my lord.”
At the Chief Steward's signal, two sturdy men carried something over and set it before us.
“A scroll?”
What lay before us was an enormous scroll, tightly rolled. The Chief Steward undid its fastenings.
“Gentlemen, this is the trial you are next to undergo.”
A sealed scroll, then. Like the imperial examinations — would they give us a topic?
An essay question, perhaps? Surely the genre hadn't changed so drastically that we'd be asked to cook a dish that would satisfy the Mangeum Lord.
The scroll unfurled.
What could it be? What kind of trial?
“Huh?”
“This can't be?!”
Spread before us tense candidates were exactly two characters.
“Chusim... debt collection?”
Chusim — the act of recovering money owed.
The second trial was debt collection? We all stared at Lord Jang in bewilderment.
“A money house does not merely lend. It must, without fail, recover what it is owed. Fail to collect, and you are no longer a money house — you are a money pouch. And once a money house is treated as a mere purse, I need hardly tell you what follows.”
In the martial world, a money house was something like a private bank.
Naturally, it lent money to people — and inevitably, some of them had no intention of paying it back.
You lent it; now go collect it.
As a trial for becoming heir of Mangeum Money House, it was undeniably apt.
“You mean us to become debt collectors, my lord?”
One of the candidates asked Lord Jang, clearly flustered.
“Is that beyond you?”
“Grandfather, debt collection is—”
“Father! Do you have any idea how dangerous collecting debts is?!”
When Lord Jang's daughters jumped in to defend their children, the Mangeum Lord furrowed his brow at them.
“Back when you two were still at the breast, this father walked out to collect money in person, even with blades at his throat.”
“...”
Wow. The founding lord of Mangeum really was built different. One sentence and his daughters' mouths snapped shut.
“Chief Steward.”
Snorting at his daughters, Lord Jang called for the steward to continue.
“I shall now present the young masters with three kinds of ledgers.”
Sensing the mood had settled, the Chief Steward drew three small books from his robes.
“What do you mean, ledgers?”
“Impossible. Malignant. Dangerous. Three ledgers, sorted by difficulty for your trial.”
“Impossible... malignant... dangerous?”
“Impossible means exactly that — debts we have judged beyond all hope of recovery. Malignant covers debtors whose payments have been seriously overdue for a long time; collecting from them will take considerable effort. Dangerous lists those whose terms have not yet lapsed, or who have only just fallen into arrears. The time is approaching to send collectors after them.”
Not going to be easy, huh.
It wasn't for nothing that loan sharks hired hardened enforcers as their collectors. Just hearing about it sounded brutal.
“So we find the people in the ledgers and bring the money back?”
At another candidate's question, the Chief Steward shook his head.
“You need only choose a ledger.”
“Choose... a ledger?”
“Each of you may carry out only one ledger. Recover the money lent to the people written within it.”
So that's why they showed us three. The world outside, you see, is far too safe to wander alone. Take one of these ledgers and go put yourself in danger. He said it so very calmly.
“Is there a difference in score between the ledgers?”
“Given that they are divided at all, I suspect the scales in the Mangeum Lord's heart weigh quite differently.”
Everyone's eyes turned to Lord Jang for confirmation, but he didn't bother denying it.
“Mmm...”
“I will give you time to examine the ledgers. Chief Steward.”
“An hourglass. You have until every grain of sand has fallen to make your choice.”
There really isn't much sand in that hourglass, though. Someone apparently shared my thought, because an anxious voice rang out.
“Lord Jang. May we not take all the ledgers and collect from all of them?”
“Judging, from the faces of those you lend to, whether they are the sort who will repay or the sort who cannot — that too is an ability. Choose your ledger with judgment.”
“Ah...”
“We begin. First, the Dangerous ledger.”
So it was a double trial — testing not just our collecting ability but our judgment as well.
Before I could even process it, the first ledger was laid before my eyes.
The Dangerous ledger is full of people we can plausibly get money back from.
Not as hard as I'd expected. The names were tricky customers, sure — but doable. Worth a shot.
“Next, the Malignant ledger.”
The malignant-difficulty ledger followed.
“Ah!”
“Dear heaven...”
“This one?!”
A chorus of groans. Understandable.
THIS is malignant difficulty?
Plenty of names in the ledger — and not a single one you could realistically collect from. Maybe one, two, if you truly bled for it. No. Could even that be done? Wasn't this just hope as a form of torture?
Then what on earth did Impossible difficulty hold?
“Finally, the Impossible ledger.”
My curiosity didn't last long.
“...Th-the Prefectural Magistrate?!”
“This is madness!”
The very first entry was a mountain to climb.
This time it wasn't groans but screams of pure disbelief.
The Prefectural Magistrate — in modern terms, a city mayor. A rank or so above, yes, but this was the office whose corruption investigations had nearly cost an imperial-appointed Inspector his head not long ago.
The Magistrate owed money, and they wanted us rookies to go collect it. How many candidates would be nodding along to that?
Impossible.
The ledger was exactly what it claimed — a list of people for whom collection was impossible.
If malignant difficulty means maybe one or two people are barely possible, then with Impossible difficulty, pushing too hard probably costs me my life.
Even reading the personal details inside, every name belonged to someone a black-haired barbarian wouldn't dare so much as greet, let alone haggle with.
“We will now place the hourglass.”
Choose one of the three ledgers. Which one?
The others won't even touch the Impossible ledger.
It was a test. Anything less than top marks was a zero. Choosing that ledger was simply too dangerous a gamble. So the sane choice was Dangerous or Malignant.
I was just lowering the Impossible ledger like everyone else when it happened.
My eyes happened to meet Lord Jang's.
— Will you give up too?
Didn't you swear you'd prove yourself? A flicker of faint disappointment passed through the old man's eyes.
No. Elder, this is too much even for you. The other candidates couldn't handle Impossible even as pampered young lords of endless privilege. What power does a black-haired barbarian possibly—
Wait.
I opened the ledger again.
Could it be... maybe?!
If my hunch was right.
“Close your books.”
The time had flown by far too quickly.
“Master Kang Yunho, choose your ledger first.”
There had never been time to examine every ledger in exhaustive detail.
And yet.
“Impossible.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I'll take the Impossible ledger.”
I had found my clue.