Chapter 181
Chapter 181
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 181
Chapter Title: The Double
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Hwang Byeong-chan, an elder of the Orthodox Murim Alliance.
Unless a message was sent beforehand, he always returned home at nearly the same time.
His questions were always the same, too.
“Was everything alright?”
“Yes, everything was fine.”
A routine question and answer.
The guard captain, Jo Geum-san, answered with a smile and ordered the main gate to be opened.
“Welcome back.”
As always, when the gate opened, all the servants of the house would rush out, line up, and bow deeply in greeting.
For the servants, this was the most agonizing time of day. It was a relief if he merely glanced at them and found nothing out of the ordinary, but if, by some chance, he spotted something that displeased him, a harsh beating would begin.
*Step, step.*
The sound of Hwang Byeong-chan’s footsteps as he walked between the two lines of servants.
As the sound gradually faded, the servants breathed a sigh of relief.
But in that moment.
“What is this smell?”
“...!”
At the last second, Hwang Byeong-chan stopped walking.
The servant standing where he had stopped began to tremble like a leaf.
“Alcohol?”
“M-Master!”
The servant singled out by Hwang Byeong-chan immediately prostrated himself, touching his head to the ground.
“You crazy bastard! Have you lost your mind? How dare you greet me after drinking alcohol?”
“I was wrong! Please forgive me!”
“Shut up!”
*Thwack!*
“Gah, gurgle.”
Kicked by an irritated Hwang Byeong-chan, the servant rolled across the ground.
“Throw that bastard out of my house this instant!”
“Yes, sir!”
As if this were a frequent occurrence, warriors rushed over in perfect unison, grabbed the servant's arms, and dragged him away.
As the servant was dragged away limply and thrown out the gate, the lined-up servants all prostrated themselves on the ground at once.
“Master, please forgive us. We knew nothing of this.”
They began to beg for forgiveness together, though they had done nothing wrong themselves.
“Lowly creatures...”
Hwang Byeong-chan glared at the prostrated servants before coldly turning his head and heading to his room.
Only after he had completely disappeared did the servants cautiously get up and return to their posts.
And watching this scene unfold clearly, hidden in the forest outside the manor with their presence concealed, were Hyang-i and Neung Un-bi.
Looking at the situation now, Hwang Byeong-chan was the bad guy.
Couldn't a servant have a secret drink after a hard day's work?
But then, something unexpected happened.
“Look at that bastard.”
“...”
Hyang-i laughed in disbelief.
The servant who had been thrown out slowly got up, dusted the dirt from his clothes, and walked away perfectly fine.
Wasn't that ridiculous?
Hwang Byeong-chan was an elder of the Orthodox Murim Alliance. Even if he hadn't used his internal energy, the force behind that kick would have been too much for a mere servant to handle.
Having seen the blow land himself, Neung Un-bi could guess just how powerful the impact was.
But he gets up and walks away as if nothing happened?
It was absurd.
In other words, that man had been faking his pain.
To put it another way, he wasn't an ordinary servant, but someone trained enough to withstand Hwang Byeong-chan's kick.
The question was why...
“He's making me real curious what kind of bastard he is. Should we follow him?”
“No.”
“...?”
“He's probably not alone. It could get messy for no reason.”
“Huh?”
He couldn't be alone. This was a man who had infiltrated the manor of Hwang Byeong-chan, an elder of the Orthodox Murim Alliance, disguised as a servant.
And there were usually two reasons for infiltrating a place.
To hide after committing a crime, or to disguise oneself to observe someone.
The man was likely the latter. This meant someone had planted their eyes around Hwang Byeong-chan to watch him.
Neung Un-bi squinted, observing the people inside the manor.
Of course, the distance prevented him from seeing their expressions.
He was simply observing their actions.
Surely he wasn't alone; there had to be collaborators inside.
“Are you just going to keep watching?”
“Hmm?”
“He's probably going to switch with a double soon.”
“...”
“It was about an hour after Hwang Byeong-chan went into his room. That's when I followed him in.”
“He switched in that short amount of time?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn it...”
Neung Un-bi's face contorted at Hyang-i's words.
There was no time to be observing the people in the manor.
First, he had to keep an eye on their target, Hwang Byeong-chan.
And that secret passage in his room.
“Let's go.”
“Okay!”
With that quiet word, Neung Un-bi and Hyang-i vaulted over the wall and into the manor.
* * *
*Click.*
After entering his room and changing into black clothes, Hwang Byeong-chan sat for a long while, seemingly lost in deep thought.
A moment later, he rose from his seat, approached the bed, and firmly pressed a protrusion on the decorative cabinet by the window.
*Click.*
With a soft clicking sound, a small passageway opened in a section of the wall on the opposite side of the cabinet, hidden by a folding screen.
From within, another Hwang Byeong-chan emerged.
With a familiar glance at each other, they quickly switched places.
The process of the real and the fake swapping roles was utterly seamless.
The real Hwang Byeong-chan, now in black, slipped into the darkness within the open wall and vanished. His double moved the folding screen back into place, concealing the entrance, and approached the cabinet.
The moment he reached for the protrusion the real one had pressed.
*Thump!*
With a soft impact, Hwang Byeong-chan's double slumped to the floor.
And appearing in the room were Neung Un-bi and Hyang-i.
He hadn't wanted to use force if he could help it, but there was no other choice.
Time was short, and if they were to not lose the Hwang Byeong-chan who had vanished into the passage...
“Should I kill him?”
Hyang-i asked, holding a dagger to the fallen double's throat.
“Why are you always trying to kill people? Just put him to sleep until dawn.”
“Just put him to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm... It'll get noisy when he wakes up, won't it?”
“No, he won't be able to move so easily.”
“Because of that guy from before?”
“Yes.”
“Tch!”
Was she disappointed she couldn't slit his throat?
Hyang-i smacked her lips and struck the double's pressure points to plunge him into a deep sleep. He probably wouldn't wake up easily, even when the sun rose.
Neung Un-bi briefly thought of the incredibly suspicious servant.
A spy of unknown identity.
Perhaps Hwang Byeong-chan knew about the spy's existence. Seeing as he had a secret passage and even a double, he must have known for a very long time.
And throwing out the servant on the pretext of drinking might have been because he had figured out his true identity.
Furthermore, his actions after entering the room.
He had seemed to just be gathering his thoughts, but Neung Un-bi, hidden with his presence concealed, had clearly felt it.
Hwang Byeong-chan had been expanding his senses.
He was checking if anyone was around the room.
The double must have known all this as well.
Therefore, unless he was a fool, he would never act rashly. Causing a commotion inside the manor would likely expose his own identity.
In the process, the secret passage might be revealed.
Besides, by the time he woke up, everything would be over.
If the meeting he anticipated didn't happen, Hwang Byeong-chan would return to his room safely. If it did, there wouldn't be an issue.
Because by then, Hwang Byeong-chan would know Neung Un-bi's identity.
“Hyang-i, we need to hurry and follow him.”
“Okay.”
After laying the double on the bed, Neung Un-bi entered the wall with Hyang-i, pulled the folding screen shut from the inside, and flicked his finger.
*Flick!*
His targets were the protrusion on the cabinet and the candle on the table.
The flame went out, and the passage in the wall disappeared.
But a moment later.
“Elder.”
Someone called for Hwang Byeong-chan from outside.
“Elder!”
When there was no answer from inside, the owner of the voice called again and waited for a reply.
*Creeak.*
But it was only for a moment. Soon, a man entered through the carefully opened door.
It was the guard captain, Jo Geum-san.
“Elder?”
Entering the room, he approached Hwang Byeong-chan, who was lying on the bed.
A face sleeping soundly, oblivious to the world. Small, even breaths.
Realizing he was fast asleep, Jo Geum-san surveyed the room with sharp eyes.
Finding nothing particularly unusual, he glanced down at Hwang Byeong-chan and let out a dry laugh.
“Was I being too sensitive? I just wanted to check since he went to sleep at an unusual time...”
But for some reason?
There was no trace of deference on Jo Geum-san's face as he looked at Hwang Byeong-chan; instead, his lips were curled in a sneer.
“Tsk, tsk, exhausted from his duties and sleeping like the dead. Still, this is different from usual, so I should report it.”
Guard Captain Jo Geum-san. He, too, was one of the people who had infiltrated the manor to watch Hwang Byeong-chan.
And he had remained by his side like a trusted subordinate since long before Hwang Byeong-chan became an elder of the Orthodox Murim Alliance...
After Jo Geum-san left, silence once again filled the room.
As if nothing had happened at all.
* * *
A long time had passed since they began moving stealthily with their presences concealed, but the secret passage was still filled with nothing but darkness.
They had not reached a level so profound that they could see through the pitch-black darkness as if it were broad daylight, but for Hyang-i and Neung Un-bi, it posed no problem.
The sounds reaching their ears, the flow of the air.
Having transcended the limits of their five senses, the two could feel their surroundings hidden in the darkness well enough without needing to see.
It wasn't perfectly clear, but it didn't hinder their movement.
After advancing through the darkness for some time, a light finally appeared before their eyes.
And in the middle of that light, the silhouette of a person could be seen.
It was Hwang Byeong-chan. They had finally caught up right behind him.
But they couldn't reveal themselves yet. They first had to confirm what he was planning to do, or who he was meeting.
Neung Un-bi and Hyang-i hid themselves in the darkness and suppressed their presence.
The moment he, after glancing back into the passage for a moment, made a small movement.
*Grrrnd.*
A chilling sound came from afar.
Is this... a m-mechanism?
Damn it all!
Had Hwang Byeong-chan, having gone outside, activated a mechanism out of concern for anyone who might be following?
Panicking for only a moment, Neung Un-bi grabbed Hyang-i, who had sensed the mechanism's activation before him and was about to dash forward.
"Hey! Are you crazy? We don't even know what kind of mechanism it is! One wrong move and we'll die in here!"
"Wait, just wait a moment."
"Damn it!"
Hyang-i's face twisted in frustration at Neung Un-bi holding her back.
Meanwhile, the light ahead was disappearing. The door was closing.
And Hwang Byeong-chan's silhouette was no longer visible.
“Hey!”
“Now! Run! Full speed!”
Hyang-i's impatient voice and Neung Un-bi's breathless shout erupted at the same time.
Three Nothings Footwork and Thunder Movement.
With swift movement techniques of indeterminable superiority, Neung Un-bi and Hyang-i barely squeezed through the closing gap in the door and escaped the passage.
*Kwoooong.*
The door slammed completely shut, and before Neung Un-bi could even right his posture, he scanned his surroundings for Hwang Byeong-chan.
If they were spotted, they would have no choice but to subdue him.
Hyang-i must have had the same thought, as she was holding daggers in both hands.
Fortunately, there was no sign of Hwang Byeong-chan. It seemed he had left as soon as he activated the mechanism.
“Phew...”
As Neung Un-bi clutched his chest in relief, Hyang-i glared at him with the face of a demon.
“Hey! You really!”
“...”
“Goddammit! We almost died in there!”
Neung Un-bi couldn't offer any reply.
Who could have predicted he would activate a mechanism?
“Let's just go for now.”
“...”
“We can't lose him after coming all this way.”
Neung Un-bi grew more and more curious.
Just what had Hwang Byeong-chan been doing all this time...
If, contrary to his thoughts, he had been secretly up to no good... then he would take his head with his own hands.
Soothing Hyang-i, Neung Un-bi gently stroked his Flying Swallow Sword, which was wrapped tightly to prevent it from making a sound.