Information (1)
From the back of the workshop, an incredulous stare flew straight at Choi Yeon. It belonged to the workshop’s master, Old Man Song, who asked in a voice thick with disbelief,
“How many stalks did you pull up?”
“Two hundred.”
“What? Why? I told you a hundred Silver Snow Herbs would be plenty—”
Mid-mutter, Old Man Song caught on to what Choi Yeon was thinking. A hundred stalks would have been enough for ordinary-grade special processing.
Knowing that and still bringing back two hundred could only mean one thing: he wanted the higher-tier treatment among the three ranks of special processing.
“You sly little fox… ah, right. You really are a fox.”
Old Man Song muttered under his breath. The words were soft, barely carrying, yet they reached Choi Yeon’s ears with perfect clarity.
Ha-ha. Choi Yeon only smiled and asked the next question, adding nothing else. Old Man Song, of all people, would find the idea endearing.
“How long will it take?”
“Who knows. You’ll have to ask this little guy.”
“Pardon…?”
Choi Yeon looked at the Silver Snow Herb swaying in Old Man Song’s hand. Under the lights the pale grass seemed to shed the chill of Flower Mountain Dungeon along with its soft glow.
“If it accepts my touch, it’ll be done quick. If it refuses, I’ll have to wrestle with it for a while, won’t I?”
In other words, he had never worked with the material before and couldn’t guarantee anything.
Fair enough—Choi Yeon himself couldn’t even picture the process. Fibers from that Silver Snow Herb? Exactly how were they supposed to come out?
He had been about to watch in silence when—
“Yeon, you haven’t eaten dinner yet, have you?”
Old Man Song spoke up out of nowhere.
Dinner? Suddenly?
“No, I haven’t.”
“Go fill up first. By the time you’re back I’ll have a rough idea how long this’ll take.”
“…Understood.”
Choi Yeon nodded without protest. He understood at once: the old man simply didn’t want him watching the fiber extraction.
Maybe it was trade secrets. Maybe he didn’t want to show a few failed attempts with an unfamiliar material. Either way, it wasn’t a hard request to grant.
“Head out of the alley and keep right—you’ll find the Iron Cauldron soup house. I’m a regular. Drop my name and they’ll take care of you.”
“Oh. Got it.”
As Choi Yeon left the workshop he heard Old Man Song chuckling behind him—heh-heh. The laugh was so out of character it was unnerving. Put charitably, it was the eccentric cackle of a true craftsman.
Without the charity?
No need to say it. Straight-up pervert vibes.
“Iron Cauldron, Iron Cauldron… here it is.”
Choi Yeon’s steps halted deep inside the livestock market. The soup house with its battered sign was thick with the sizzle of meat on the grill and a savory aroma.
On the other side, a cauldron of rice soup bubbled, steam rising in soft white plumes.
Appetite tugged; Choi Yeon walked straight in.
Whoosh.
Instead of a greeting, an old woman’s wave steered him to a seat.
He sat at a two-person table. Other lone customers warmed themselves the same way—one bowl of soup, a side of soju.
Amid the market’s bustle the shop held a slow, easy warmth.
“What’ll you have?”
“What’s good?”
“The eater knows, not the seller. Everything tastes good to me.”
“Then one seolleongtang, please.”
Choi Yeon chose the seolleongtang with D-rank Rock-Horn Bison meat from the menu. He briefly considered grilling Sand Ox meat of the same rank, then decided against it—too much food.
While the old woman headed for the cauldron, his gaze drifted from the grease-stained menu to the television.
Right on cue, a woman with long straight hair and black sunglasses stood before a stand mic.
Someone once said the future is treacherous…
She began to sing, soft and clear.
The TV backdrop was so dark Choi Yeon wondered whether she could even see through those sunglasses.
Then, just as the song wound down—
“Yeon-ah. You really do like Modni, huh?”
A voice he did not want to hear arrived with perfect timing.
Cha Jae-hyeok set the soup bowl down in place of the old woman and took the opposite seat.
“…When did you get here?”
“Just now, as you can see.”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not a fan.”
“Who said you were?”
Cha Jae-hyeok shrugged.
Come to think of it, he had only declared that Choi Yeon “liked” her; he hadn’t asked if he was a fan.
That was annoying in its own right.
“…How did you even know I was here?”
“Came to eat, same as anyone. What else would I be doing?”
With that, Cha Jae-hyeok ordered a bowl of his own—soup with Sand Ox tendon.
“You already knew about this place?”
“Yeah. The elders talk about you here. Listening in is pretty entertaining. And completely ridiculous.”
“……”
Why hadn’t he realized sooner? Old Man Song had said he was a regular at the Iron Cauldron.
This was the place. The starting point where the elders exaggerated Choi Yeon’s stories and sent them spreading farther and farther.
“You didn’t know?”
“Ugh…”
“Then I guess you also didn’t know In-beom’s a full member of the club?”
“…Why would In-beom-ssi be in it?”
It wasn’t even Cha Jae-hyeok’s fan club—it was Choi Yeon’s. Why was Kim In-beom mixed up in that?
The kindly answer that came back only made it more absurd. Kim In-beom had not joined of his own free will.
“He’s a high-school junior of yours.”
“So?”
“The elders dragged him in saying he must know you well. Our soft-hearted In-beom couldn’t dare refuse.”
“……”
“Still, he’s keeping your secret locked down tight.”
“My secret?”
“That you use sword ki.”
“Ah. That.”
Choi Yeon nodded, relieved.
A C-class Dongdae hunter who could use sword ki.
The moment that intel hit the elders’ network it would scatter everywhere—straight into Dongdae Chief Kim Jaesang’s ear, of course, and even as far as the young caretaker in Dong-gu he had run into today.
“Seriously… why are these elders so obsessed with me?”
“Heh. I’m jealous.”
“Of what?”
“The elders. They don’t seem to like me much.”
“Well…”
This was a gathering of old men who liked Choi Yeon. They knew full well that Cha Jae-hyeok, leader of Nubyeok, was the reason Seonhwa-dong got called a useless Dongdae. Of course they wouldn’t warm to him.
Cha Jae-hyeok knew it too and changed the subject.
“…By the way, Yang Dae-geun showed up here too.”
“Who?”
“Yang Dae-geun.”
“What was he doing here?”
“What else do people come to a restaurant for?”
While Cha Jae-hyeok answered as if it were nothing, their soup arrived.
His bowl was piled high with tendon—so much that the difference from the meat in Choi Yeon’s seolleongtang was obvious at a glance.
I should’ve ordered that.
“…A guy who lives on his own superiority complex wouldn’t come all the way to a market just to eat.”
“Here’s how it went.”
Cha Jae-hyeok launched into the story.
Dawn at the Iron Cauldron was nothing like the quiet evening. It was loud and lively.
Sizzle. Elders pairing Mist-Goat meat with soju were already deep into talk about Choi Yeon.
“Hey, you see the paper?”
“About what?”
“About Yeon. Says he nabbed one of the Jeokryeohui officers this time?”
“Ah! Saw it. Of course I saw it. And that wasn’t all—he protected the kids too, I hear?”
As they spoke, Manager Park Choong-jae and Old Man Song both turned their eyes on Kim In-beom.
Kim In-beom laughed and played along. They could have just kept talking among themselves, but the old men always wanted a proper response.
Unlimited free meat was his only consolation.
Still, only two of them today—should be over soon, he thought.
Rattle! The restaurant door slammed open. The big man who swaggered in was B-class hunter Yang Dae-geun.
“Whoa, that guy! That’s the one! The sucker Yeon completely played!”
“……”
Yang Dae-geun’s brow furrowed. Getting pointed at the second he walked in was enough to sour anyone’s mood.
Manager Park Choong-jae, however, paid it zero mind. The one who had started the bad blood was Yang Dae-geun, wasn’t it?
A month was nowhere near long enough for the old man’s grudge to fade.
“Old man, put that finger down.”
“Don’t wanna. Why should I?”
“Or I might just break it.”
“Puh-heh-heh! Go ahead! The second you do, I’m calling Park Do-kyeong and ratting you out.”
“You damn old coot…”
Grind. Yang Dae-geun clenched his teeth.
The memory of being fooled by Choi Yeon and meekly backing down surged up again.
It was a memory he desperately wanted to forget. It already rose every night when he tried to sleep and left him irritated; having it scraped raw like this made him want to lose his mind.
Fine. He’d finish the power trip he never got to complete that day—right here.
He had come for exactly that, but he layered the excuse over Manager Park Choong-jae anyway.
Sensing the shift, Kim In-beom stood and blocked his path.
“Settle down. The elder’s just drunk—why get so worked up over words?”
“Drunk? So if you’re drunk you can say whatever you want?”
“Of course not. But your reaction’s way over the line for something like this.”
Kim In-beom arched one eyebrow.
Getting mocked over past mistakes would sting, sure. But enough to decide to snap an old man’s finger?
“That’s for me to decide.”
“You?”
“Yeah. Not you worms.”
“Oh…”
Kim In-beom let out a soft sound of admiration. Was it because he was from Seoul? Because he was B-class?
The attitude was really something.
“Annoying as hell.”
“What? What did you just say?”
“Deaf? I said you’re annoying.”
“This bastard… what even are you?”
“I am something. I’m Nubyeok.”
“Nubyeok…?”
Yang Dae-geun’s brow creased.
He had never heard the word; making sense of it was hard.
Just as he was about to write it off as some Chungcheong dialect, Kim In-beom added an explanation.
“It means a mound of earth or stone built up to make a fortress.”
“Mound? Fortress?”
“In words even an idiot like you can understand—”
“Just think of it as a city wall.”
Cha Jae-hyeok finished the explanation for him. Somehow he was already in the restaurant, seated in the chair Kim In-beom had left, casually filling the meat-scented air with the aroma of coffee.
“Leader? When did you—”
“Hey, pretty boy. What are you?”
“…Me?”
“Yeah. You. What are you?”
“Cha Jae-hyeok. Same as my friend there—”
“Nubyeok, right? So you’re saying you’re some vigilante group?”
“Yep.”
Cha Jae-hyeok answered simply, then let out a soft chuckle.
Kim In-beom and the elders joined him. The confusion on Yang Dae-geun’s face was identical to the look he had worn a month ago at the deconstruction center—as if someone had hit play on that day’s footage.
“Actually, maybe I should reintroduce myself?”
“…What?”
“I’m Yeon’s friend. Don’t worry, though—I don’t have Park Do-kyeong’s number.”
“……!”
Clench!
Yang Dae-geun seized Cha Jae-hyeok by the collar so fast that Kim In-beom barely had time to react. B-class speed was no empty rank.
“You want a fight? Bringing that day up right in front of me?”
“Were you planning to just walk away?”
Tap, tap.
Cha Jae-hyeok lightly flicked the arm holding his collar with a middle finger.
“You already grabbed me by the throat. Were you really going to just back off? Even you have to admit that’d be pretty pathetic.”
Whether it was the words or the gesture, either was trigger enough. Yang Dae-geun moved.
Thud!
His fist never reached its target. A brick that hadn’t been there a second ago blocked it.
“…A brick?”
“Nice power. That all you’ve got?”
“Like hell it is!”
He roared and threw another punch. The impact was louder than before, but that was all.
The brick remained pristine; only the man who had thrown the fist looked thoroughly rattled.
While he muttered that this couldn’t be right, Cha Jae-hyeok tossed out one light remark.
“As I thought. You’re weak.”
“……”
No verbal reply came.
Or rather, the reply wasn’t in words—Yang Dae-geun answered with action, violently hauling up his mana.
Cough! The elders in the restaurant cleared their throats.
Thud, thud!
In that instant, bricks materialized in midair. As they multiplied one after another, the old men’s faces eased.
Rattle! Clank, clank.
Then came the frantic sound of the door. A young man loaded with bags kept banging into it, unable to open it all the way.
“Tch.”
“Hold on! Yang Dae-geun-ssi, what are you doing this time?”
“I wasn’t doing anything!”
Yang Dae-geun snapped, voice sharp with irritation.
The mana he had just been raising vanished as if it had never existed.
The bricks that had been filling the restaurant like a protective wall disappeared the same way.
“…And just like that, Yang Dae-geun left without getting to do a thing.”
“Hmm. Sounds like someone’s got him on a short leash.”
“Why does Park Do-kyeong even keep a guy like that around?”
“No idea. Don’t care either. More importantly—”
Slurp. Choi Yeon drank some water.
Cold water after the hot broth made the shape and path of his esophagus uncomfortably clear.
Not that he particularly wanted to know.
“What were you thinking, poking his temper in a restaurant? What if the elders had gotten hurt?”
“Wouldn’t have happened.”
“You never know. What if—ugh. Did I just sound like the Dongdae Chief?”
“Good thing. I almost dropped it thinking it wasn’t you.”
A brick had already been summoned above Choi Yeon’s head. Judging by the sunny smile, Cha Jae-hyeok really would have let it fall.
Even his jokes were murderous.
“…So? Did you come just to talk about Yang Dae-geun?”
“Of course not.”
“Figured. What is it?”
“Something on the Yuseong-gu side.”
Yuseong-gu… Red Fang?
As if reading the thought, Cha Jae-hyeok waved a hand.
“I know that business is already finished.”
“Then…?”
“This is info I picked up while looking into things on the side after that day.”
And with that, he laid out the information he claimed to have learned in passing.