The Weight of Justice
He frowned and spoke.
"What business does a constable from the Jangan County Office have coming here?"
"Eleven days ago, a group of strange men broke into the Nakan County Office within our jurisdiction. They murdered the Nakan County Magistrate and three military officials before fleeing. The perpetrators were bold enough to leave the mark of the Thousand Lotuses at the crime scene."
"Hmph! What does that have to do with our Seok Family Manor?"
"The wounds on the victims' bodies were quite striking. Their necks were cut halfway through, with long blade marks across their chests and stomachs. To be honest, I didn't recognize the technique at first."
"You come knocking late at night and talk too much."
"You must be the grandson of the elder known for his Saye Hyeonsi? You look too young to be his son."
At that moment, the old man who had shown no sign of being a martial artist burst into loud laughter.
"Puhahaha! How audacious for a mere constable. You must be relying on your backer, but do you really think the person next to you can protect you? Don't make me laugh, you bastard!"
When the old man roared, the entire floor and inner quarters trembled.
Dan Yeop's face stiffened with tension.
It seemed this old man was indeed the elder of Saye Hyeonsi.
Hwang Bi-won, who had remained silent until now, bowed respectfully to the old man.
"This one is Hwang Bi-won, Left Messenger of the Gwangpunghoe. Had I known the elder was staying at the Seok Family Manor, I would not have come."
The elder of Saye Hyeonsi frowned lightly. Though Hwang Bi-won himself was insignificant, he could not dismiss the leader of the Gwangpunghoe.
"Hmph! Why would the Left Messenger of the Gwangpunghoe associate with a mere constable?"
"Constable Dan Yeop and I have formed a sworn brotherhood. Our hearts connected. If you forgive my brother's rudeness today, we will leave immediately and never return."
As the elder pondered, the young man beside him interrupted.
"Grandfather, you mustn't. They already know the Seok Family Manor is connected to the Thousand Lotuses. If you let them leave now, the imperial army will swarm this place before long."
At that moment, fierce light erupted from the elder's eyes.
His grandson was right.
He feared the leader of the Gwangpunghoe standing behind Hwang Bi-won, but the dead could not speak.
If Hwang Bi-won died here, nothing would come of it.
Sensing the killing intent radiating from the elder, Hwang Bi-won spoke to Dan Yeop.
"Brother, it seems we can't avoid a fight. I'll handle the elder. You take care of those two."
"Understood, brother. I'll subdue them as quickly as possible and come help you."
The five of them immediately clashed in the courtyard of the Seok Family Manor.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Every time their blades met, sparks flew in the darkness.
The young man and woman, as direct descendants of the elder, possessed high martial skill and perfect coordination.
Beneath the faint moonlight, their movements were ghostly.
Yet Dan Yeop did not yield to them in the slightest.
On the contrary, he pressed them relentlessly, never giving them a moment's rest.
Had Dan Yeop truly intended to kill them, the fight would have ended long ago.
But since his goal was to capture the criminals, he held back.
The pair, however, attacked from the very beginning without regard for their lives.
They seemed determined to die here rather than be taken alive.
Because of this, the fight did not end as easily as Dan Yeop had hoped.
That night, the one who unexpectedly found himself standing at the crossroads of life and death was Hwang Bi-won.
As expected of the Left Messenger of the Gwangpunghoe, Hwang Bi-won's swordsmanship was formidable, but the elder operated on an entirely different level.
After more than a dozen exchanges, the elder spoke coldly.
"Not bad, but still far from enough. Die now."
A dazzling flash of sword light descended upon Hwang Bi-won like lightning.
It was the famous Saye Hyeonsi.
The elder's legendary sword technique descended like a bolt from the heavens, impossible to track with the naked eye.
Hwang Bi-won had been preparing for the elder's Saye Hyeonsi even before the fight began.
Yet the difference between what he had heard and the reality was far too great.
The moment he sensed something approaching, he realized it was already too late.
Despair filled his eyes—then suddenly the elder's sword was deflected.
More precisely, it had been knocked aside by something.
Clang.
Hwang Bi-won did not miss the opening.
His sword thrust toward the elder.
Shuuuak—!
From the tip of his blade, white sword energy surged forth like a whirlwind.
Gwangpunghoe's secret art. A storm of unpredictable sword energy rushed forward in chaotic torrents.
The elder's face hardened before the impossible-to-predict barrage of sword energy.
He swung his blade desperately to block it, but he could not deflect every strand of the erratic energy.
Papapap—!
Though he cut down most of it, several strands still pierced the elder's body.
"Kugh!"
With a short groan, the elder staggered backward.
His attention had now shifted entirely to Hwang Bi-won's hidden helper in the darkness.
After all, that person had deflected the nearly untraceable Saye Hyeonsi.
But there was one thing he did not yet realize.
The Hwang Bi-won standing before him was not an opponent he could afford to ignore even for an instant.
Hwang Bi-won was not satisfied with merely wounding the elder.
Just as the elder had chosen to kill and silence them, Hwang Bi-won had decided to end the elder's life.
He closed in like a shadow and thrust his sword in a straight line.
The formless sword energy pierced the elder's chest before he could even react.
"Urk!"
The elder stared at Hwang Bi-won with disbelief.
To be defeated by the Left Messenger instead of the leader himself—it was humiliating beyond words.
While the elder stood frozen, Hwang Bi-won swung his sword like lightning to deliver the final blow.
Slaaash—.
With his neck half severed, the elder collapsed backward, foaming at the mouth.
"Grandfather!"
The young man who had screamed at the sight suddenly turned his sword on himself and slashed his own throat.
He chose death over being captured by Dan Yeop.
The woman followed suit, turning her blade toward her own neck.
But Dan Yeop refused to let her take her own life.
In a flash of movement like lightning, he stabbed the tip of his sword into her shoulder.
Her sword arm immediately went limp.
Even then, she tried to grab the blade with her other hand.
Dan Yeop rushed forward and struck her Jianjing acupoint with his finger.
With both arms hanging uselessly, the woman screamed in a voice that seemed ready to tear her throat apart.
"Why! Why are you interfering with me!"
Dan Yeop replied in a cold tone.
"Because you must pay for your crimes."
"It's a death sentence anyway! Just let me die right now!"
"As a constable who upholds the law, I cannot do that."
"Law? If you're so good at following the law, why do you leave corrupt officials alone?"
"If they enter my sight, I will naturally arrest them."
"What a joke! Most officials are corrupt thieves—how many have you actually arrested? Aren't all you constables just thieves yourselves!"
"……."
With nothing to say on that point, Dan Yeop sealed her mute acupoint.
A short while later, the constables who had been hiding on the roof entered the Seok Family Manor.
Dan Yeop ordered them to search the premises thoroughly, as there might be items connected to the Thousand Lotuses.
The constables, having witnessed Dan Yeop's martial prowess, obeyed without complaint and rushed into the inner quarters.
No other objects related to the Thousand Lotuses were found in the Seok Family Manor.
The next morning.
Hwang Bi-won bid farewell to Dan Yeop, saying he needed to return to the Gwangpunghoe.
Dan Yeop's group loaded two coffins containing the bodies onto the carriage they had borrowed from the Nakan County Office and left Nakan together with the woman.
***
Nakyeon.
Yellow River riverside.
Two men stood inside a pavilion overlooking the Yellow River.
They were Left Messenger Hwang Bi-won and an unidentified man.
Hwang Bi-won, standing respectfully behind the middle-aged man like an attendant, spoke.
"Dan Yeop will be returning to the Jangan County Office. Why didn't you meet him?"
It was the leader who had rushed all the way from Deungju to Hajungbu just to see Dan Yeop.
He had traveled a staggering three thousand eight hundred li—roughly fifteen hundred kilometers—yet the leader had not met Dan Yeop face to face.
He had merely helped from the shadows and quietly withdrawn.
Hwang Bi-won looked at his leader with pity in his eyes.
Dan Yeop had called it "rape," but Hwang Bi-won did not agree with that assessment.
To be chosen by the leader was an infinite honor.
The leader of the Gwangpunghoe, Seok Je-hwan, spoke in a calm voice.
"It is not time yet."
Hwang Bi-won asked no further questions.
He could not hope to understand the thoughts of Seok Je-hwan, a man who was practically a celestial being.
Still, he wondered why the leader had traveled such a vast distance if it was not yet time.
But that was a private matter, so he kept his curiosity buried deep inside.
***
On the road back to the Jangan County Office, Dan Yeop asked the woman for her name and the reason she and her brother had killed the officials at the Nakan County Office.
But the woman remained silent.
She did not even take a single sip of water for three full days.
It was as if she had resolved to die.
Her condition, already worsened by the shoulder wound, deteriorated further with each passing day.
Tonggwan County.
Dan Yeop's group took rooms again at the same inn where they had stayed before.
When night fell, the constables once again headed out into the village.
Only Dan Yeop and the woman remained in the room.
Then, after three days of staying as tightly shut as a clam, the woman's mouth finally opened.
"You seem a little different from the other constables."
"I am quite different. I'm a constable. They are horse constables."
If constables were walking investigators, horse constables were those who rode on horseback.
Of course, it was a light joke.
That was not the meaning behind the woman's words.
She gave a faint smirk and said, "You must have some sense of mission, right?"
"I have something similar, but it has nothing to do with being a constable."
Finding her probing burdensome, Dan Yeop drew a clear line from the beginning.
"Then what is a constable to you?"
"I have my own work. I only became a constable temporarily to resolve the incident at the Nakan County Office."
"Do you believe justice still lives in this world?"
"No. But I do know that what the two of you did at the Nakan County Office was not justice."
"Hehe. Do you know what kind of man County Magistrate Yi Ja-seong of Nakan was?"
"I heard he was not exactly a clean and upright official, but not a greatly corrupt one either."
"Did you know that three years ago he served as magistrate of Wiwon County in Nongwu Province?"
"I did not."
"Wiwon County lies near the border with Tobon. Yi Ja-seong frequently commanded battles there. Along with his subordinates."
"……."
"On their way back from battle, Yi Ja-seong and his men would often stop at a small frontier farming village. A beautiful young woman named Su-yeon lived there. It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it? But the ending was no fairy tale."
"Sigh. I'm not particularly interested."
"You asked why we killed the magistrate and the officials. I'm telling you the motive for the murder. That day as well, on their way back from battle, Magistrate Yi Ja-seong committed his crime. He raped Su-yeon, then handed her over to his subordinates. While they were raping her, she died."
"So you took revenge for that young woman?"
"Of course not. That was only the beginning. Magistrate Yi and his men slaughtered everyone in the farming village. They couldn't let the incident become known. When I asked Yi Ja-seong why he had done it, he claimed he wasn't in his right mind because of the war."
"……."
"But there are no perfect secrets in this world. One person survived that tragedy. He joined the Thousand Lotuses to get revenge, and after many twists and turns, my brother and I ended up carrying out the deed. Well? Do you still think what we did to that magistrate was excessive?"
"You could have reported him to the authorities."
"And what would that have changed? Yi Ja-seong was a war hero. At worst he would have been stripped of his position and exiled. He might even have been sent to another battlefield to earn more merit. That is the law of this empire."
Dan Yeop, who had memorized the legal codes thoroughly, could not refute her.
The woman's words were true.
No matter how grave the crime, great achievements could reduce the punishment by half. Sometimes criminals were even sent back to the battlefield to wash away their sins.
"Can't you just let me die? If things continue like this, I'll be beheaded or executed by lingchi."
Dan Yeop, who had been listening in silence, asked.
"What are your two names—"