A Field Without Flaw
Once inside the chili pepper field, Yoo Eunhyeon set to work at once.
The hard rain had left its mark—snapped and fallen branches lay scattered throughout. Beneath them, leaves coated in muddy spray hung in long, sodden rows.
I'll have to clear these first.
The surface of the soil teemed with the sources of diseases that could prove fatal to the crops. When rain came down hard, those pathogens rode the splash of the droplets, clung to the fruit, and spread their blight. Worse still, the damp air after a storm only fanned the sickness into a fiercer blaze. Fail to act in time, and an entire field could be lost.
Still, this sort of work goes quickly. Easy enough.
No matter how tall the pepper plants grew, they never rose much higher than Eunhyeon himself. He reached out without difficulty and kept his hands moving. Basket in hand, he plucked the peppers that had ripened enough for harvest, set fallen branches upright again, cut away without regret any that looked hopeless, and pinched off leaves marked with disease spots, tucking them lightly into the earth. His hands never hesitated.
Yeo Chang-dong watched him from behind in silence.
Indeed… He hadn't been boasting for nothing.
Eunhyeon's movements were far quicker than expected. More than that, there was not the slightest hitch in his motions—he worked with a speed and precision that suggested every action had already been calculated. It was a skill that could never be achieved without a deep well of experience and the quickest sort of judgment in the moment.
Too soon to decide. I'll watch a little longer.
Of course, speed alone meant nothing. Without solid results to show for it, better not to have started at all. Farming, once botched, could not be undone. Cut the wrong branch, strip the wrong leaf, and there was no way to put it back. If one's hands were clumsy and inaccurate, it was better to move slowly.
"Let's see…"
Yeo Chang-dong approached a pepper plant Eunhyeon had already passed over and narrowed his eyes. Because a branch twisted by the rain had not been thinned out, a single stem jutted oddly into the furrow.
"Rushing, just as he said—and of course he made a mistake. This twisted branch would be better cut—"
Whoosh.
Just as Yeo Chang-dong reached for the grotesquely warped pepper branch, he stopped dead. The moment his fingertips brushed it, the breeze that had been drifting past fell still as if by some lie.
He let go of the branch. The gentle wind rose again as though nothing had happened. Yeo Chang-dong lifted one eyebrow.
Did he leave it on purpose? To draw the wind from the neighboring furrow?
Wind that should have slipped away along the row was caught by that single protruding branch and guided along the stems into the next furrow. Even a faint breeze made no small difference when it came to whether the air could circulate or was choked off. Only then did Yeo Chang-dong understand why Eunhyeon had deliberately left that branch.
Then… all of these as well?
Yeo Chang-dong straightened from his crouch and rose. He took a few steps back to the edge of the field and began to survey the whole of it with a wider gaze.
From that new vantage, everything came into sharp focus. Every touch of the hand seemed organically linked; he could not find a single weak point. Moreover, the way the pepper plants had been pruned to keep a measured distance from one another suggested Eunhyeon had already envisioned how they would grow and spread before he ever set to work.
How in the world did he do it? Is this even possible?
It was a field he had set foot in for the first time, yet there was no hesitation in Eunhyeon's hands. Completing a meticulous design from the very corner without so much as a rough draft—Yeo Chang-dong could only click his tongue in awe. It was the sort of work no one could dare imitate without years upon years of accumulated experience. A realm ordinary people could not even conceive of.
"Remarkable. It almost inspires a kind of reverence. If I want to truly understand this, I suppose I'll have to learn farming myself."
Even after voicing the honest thought, Yeo Chang-dong continued to watch the field Eunhyeon was shaping as if lost in appreciation.
He had forgotten the passage of time when, at last, Eunhyeon finished and began walking slowly toward him.
"I'm done."
"So I see. Well done."
Yeo Chang-dong nodded with carefully neutral calm, concealing his surprise. He glanced once more over the finished field, then quietly clapped his hands a few times.
"Excellent. Truly excellent. Not a single thing to find fault with."
"Thank you."
"By the way… Yeo Geumhyeon, was it? With skill like this, you would more than qualify as a team leader. Why apply as an ordinary laborer?"
Eunhyeon flinched inwardly. Judging by the question, Yeo Chang-dong was clearly someone who understood farming well enough to see through the intent behind the field he had tended. A clumsy lie would be exposed at once. After a brief struggle, Eunhyeon offered a careful falsehood.
"I only know a little about pepper farming, you see. From what the others told me, a team leader needs to be skilled in every kind of crop…"
"Even so, this level of skill is more than enough. You look a hundred times better than the other ragtag team leaders. No—rather than leave it at that, why not take a team leader's post while the chance is here? The position for Group Six happens to be vacant."
"Pardon? Is that something that can be decided so freely?"
"Faster than hunting down someone new, and the trading house won't object. If you're willing, I'll put in a word. What do you say?"
Caught by the unexpected proposal, Eunhyeon could not hide his confusion. The offer itself was startling enough, but more than that, the oddly gleaming light in the other man's eyes made refusal feel impossible.
"If you insist that far… I'll follow your lead."
Turning it down might only invite suspicion. In the end Eunhyeon said nothing more and offered only a light show of humility.
"Then may I head back for now? I should check whether anyone needs a hand."
"Yes, go on ahead. I'll follow shortly."
As Eunhyeon had said, there was still some time before the sun would begin to sink. Finding the young man rather admirable, Yeo Chang-dong gave a small nod.
Only after Eunhyeon's retreating figure had completely vanished toward the chestnut grove did Yeo Chang-dong finally withdraw his gaze and slowly sweep the pepper field once more.
"…Heh."
In that instant, the face that had worn only a mild smile turned chillingly hard—then a low, mad laugh slipped free.
"Hahaha! Just as my lord said! I'd been bored stiff with nothing but nobodies gathering here… and at last, it seems the results are starting to show!"
Muttering the meaningful words, Yeo Chang-dong slowly twisted the corner of his mouth upward. But only for a moment. As if nothing had happened, he turned his back and melted away into the darkness.
Around the time Yoo Eunhyeon was making his way toward the chestnut grove, deep in an underground prison near the Demonic Cult, Chang-hae was lost in his usual grim pastime.
"Wake up. It isn't time for you to collapse yet."
Chang-hae gave the half-unconscious Won Ilchu a few kicks. The man's limbs, bound in iron chains, were grotesquely twisted as if every bone had been broken, and blood dripped steadily from his slack jaw. Chang-hae paid the wretched sight no mind and drove another rough kick up into that hanging chin.
"Gah!"
Pain dragged Won Ilchu back to consciousness; a wretched scream tore from him. For a moment he stared around in a daze. The instant his eyes met Chang-hae's, his face contorted.
"S-spare me… No! K-kill me! Please!"
"You dare beg to be killed after the shame you brought upon our Cult. Fine. I'll grant that wish."
Sneering down at Won Ilchu, Chang-hae was about to strike again when—
"As consistent as ever, Chang-hae."
A familiar presence seeped in from the doorway. Chang-hae's eyes wavered for an instant. He spun at once and bowed respectfully toward the man leaning against the open frame.
"Vice Commander Yeo. What brings you all the way to a squalid place like this?"
The figure who stepped into view was none other than Yeo Chang-dong, Vice Commander of the Cheonwidae. Compared with the middle-aged Chang-hae, Yeo Chang-dong looked barely past his late twenties, yet the vast gap in years did not put the slightest hesitation into Chang-hae's deference. Yeo Chang-dong passed the bowing man and examined Won Ilchu.
"Is this one dead?"
"He lives."
"Well done. Keeping him alive will spare us future trouble."
"Yes. Come to think of it… I heard the Vice Commander has temporarily taken this man's place. It must be a bother."
"It is the will of the Cult. What other choice is there?"
As he spoke, Yeo Chang-dong casually wiped away Won Ilchu's blood. That chilling composure made Chang-hae's face stiffen for a moment. A brief silence fell before Yeo Chang-dong spoke again.
"I've recently discovered something rather interesting. Do you remember that young man from before?"
"The one whose martial arts I examined? Has he caused some sort of trouble?"
Chang-hae tilted his head, not understanding. Even to his eyes the youth had seemed out of the ordinary, yet when he had checked the flow of internal energy earlier, the man had clearly been an ordinary person with no inner power at all.
Yeo Chang-dong regarded him steadily for a moment, then opened his mouth.
"I intend to bring him into our Cult."