You Don't Wash Dishes Alone
The Hour of the Ox, somewhere between one and three in the morning.
The banquet, wild as a storm, was finally over. Jang Mugi had been hauled off by his aides like a sack of luggage, and the trainees had staggered away propping one another up. What remained in front of the shop was little better than a battlefield.
"Haa..."
I slid the bolt home and sank to the floor. Sweat, grease, and liquor clung to every inch of me. I wanted nothing more than to go home that instant and scour myself clean in hot water, but there would be no rest. If I meant to open tomorrow, the mess had to be dealt with now.
So this is the famous sorrow of the innkeeper. The thing they only ever mention in stories.
I staggered into the kitchen, and the sight that met me was despair itself. Hundreds of plates crusted with grease. Dozens of bowls filmed with dried cloudy rice wine. Hundreds of pairs of chopsticks. And on the floor, dumpling scraps ground into the boards, along with the unmistakable traces of someone having been sick.
"All of this, by myself?"
Impossible. Physically impossible. I could scrub until my hands blistered and dawn still wouldn't see the end of it.
"Help... I need to hire help."
But whom was I supposed to call at this godforsaken hour? I had posted a notice seeking a shop attendant, and not a single reply had come.
I stood blankly before the washbasin, the scrubber trembling in my grip. And then a devil's temptation slid through my mind.
Should I... use my martial arts?
No. If I was caught, it was over. And yet the shop was empty. The door was locked, the screen let down. Who, at this hour, would peer into a dumpling shop?
Just once. This once, and never again.
I checked my surroundings a second time. A perfect sealed room. I made my decision. For the sake of the dishes, the Heavenly Demon's pride could wait.
I drew demonic qi up from the depths of my dantian, and a dark crimson aura closed around me.
Third Form of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art
In its original form, the art conjures false images to throw an enemy into confusion. But who was I, if not the strongest Heavenly Demon in all of history? My clones were no mere phantoms. They had substance. They could wield only about a tenth of my main body's strength, but for washing plates, that was more than enough.
With a sharp burst, two shadows tore free of me. Black smoke gathered, and a moment later two men stood there who looked exactly as I did.
"......"
"......"
Clone One and Clone Two stared at me, blank as posts. They could not speak, but they shared my will.
"All right, boys. Let's get to work."
I tossed them each a pair of thick cotton gloves and a scrubber.
"You handle the soap-bean lather. You handle the rinsing. I'm on the dry cloth. Begin!"
They nodded and set to it at once, and the speed was no joke. Clone One smeared a plate with soap-bean water and scrubbed; Clone Two snatched it away and rinsed it clean; I took it and wiped it dry. A dream trio. No—a dishwashing machine in which one man played three parts.
Clatter, splash, scrub.
"Good, faster! Beautiful!"
I was elated. Alone, I managed fifty plates in half a double-hour. The three of us cleared a hundred before a quarter-hour was out. The mountain of dishes was visibly shrinking. This was what martial arts ought to be: useful in ordinary life, or it wasn't real martial arts at all.
"A little more speed! We finish inside the quarter-hour!"
I poured in more inner energy. The clones accelerated until their hands blurred out of sight, and the kitchen filled with the clash of bowls and the rush of water.
That was when it came.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Someone was rapping on the shop door.
"......?!"
I froze, and so did Clone One and Clone Two, all in the same instant. Silence settled over the kitchen. Had I misheard? Who, at this hour?
Knock. Knock.
"Proprietor? Are you within?"
A familiar voice. Cold, and very quiet. Namgung Seol.
Damn it.
My heart dropped clean out of my chest. Why now, of all moments? I shot the clones a frantic look. Vanish! But releasing the art takes time. To scatter like smoke, they need at least ten breaths.
"Open the door. There is something I left behind..."
She turned the handle.
Clack. Locked, thank heaven.
"Proprietor? I know full well the lamps are burning."
She leaned in, meaning to set her eye to a gap in the screen.
No! If she sees this, I'm finished!
My soul nearly fled my body. The clones had to disappear. Where? The ice cellar was too narrow. The stove was too hot. Under the washbasin, then?
"Hey! Hide!"
I seized them by the heads and crammed them into the cupboard beneath the basin. Crash, clatter, a tangle of limbs. I was just about to shut the door when—
Rattle.
The rear door opened. I had locked the front and forgotten the bolt on the back.
"Pardon the intrusion."
Namgung Seol stepped straight in through the rear.
"......"
I was crouched at the washbasin with my foot still shoving a clone's backside into the cupboard, and I froze exactly like that. Our eyes met dead on. Silence. A suffocating silence wrapped the kitchen.
"......Proprietor?"
She tilted her head. Her gaze dropped to my feet, to the leg identical to mine sticking out through the gap in the cupboard door. Then to the face of Clone One, standing at my side. Then to me.
The proprietor... three of him?
"What... manner of situation is this?"
Her eyes wavered. My brain kicked into a full gallop. What excuse was there? A twin brother? Triplets? Practice at disguise?
"Ah... that is..."
I kicked the cupboard shut with a bang, rose, and laughed as awkwardly as a man can laugh.
"Young Family Head, you must be weary enough to be seeing things."
"Seeing things?"
"Yes. You drank a great deal tonight, and the hour is late... When fatigue accumulates, objects sometimes appear to overlap. Have you found your eyes growing dim?"
Complete bullshit. Suggesting the finest master under heaven was simply getting old in the eyes. And yet Namgung Seol, to my astonishment, pressed a hand to her brow with a grave look.
"Is that so...?"
She rubbed her eyes. By the time she opened them again, Clone One was already gone, unraveled into smoke the moment I withdrew my inner energy. Clone Two, stuffed in the cupboard, vanished with a soft pop as well.
"Eh...?"
She looked around. The identical man who had definitely been standing there a moment ago was gone. Only I remained, cotton gloves still on my hands.
"I am certain... there were three."
"There is one. As you can see."
I spread both arms.
"Might that not have been my reflection? There, in the gleaming door of the ice cellar?"
"......"
Confusion crossed her face as she looked from the ice cellar to me and back again. The bronze-finished door did shine like a mirror, that much was true. But what she had seen had been solid. She was sure of it.
"Have I... grown drunk?"
She murmured it low. In truth, she had accepted a few cups from Instructor Jang Mugi during the banquet. She had thought her inner energy had neutralized the liquor, but some of the drunkenness might still have been lingering.
"True enough. There is no reason for there to be three proprietors. A clone wrought by martial skill is a realm open only to the Heavenly Demon of legend."
She let out a short breath of a laugh. Correct. Because I was that Heavenly Demon. I laughed along with her anyway.
"Haha. If I were the Heavenly Demon, would I be washing dishes in a place like this? I would have conquered the murim."
"Quite. The jest went too far."
She shook her head, trying to gather herself.
"That aside, I left my sword."
"Ah, your sword?"
I pointed to a table in the corner of the hall. A sword ornamented with white jade lay across a chair. For a swordswoman to walk off without her blade, she must have eaten and drunk in a proper daze.
"It is here."
She took it up, and relief eased her shoulders.
"You have my thanks. Without this, I cannot sleep."
"A relief, then, that it wasn't lost."
"Then... forgive the disturbance. Carry on."
She swept the kitchen one last time with a suspicious eye and went out through the rear door.
Thud.
The door shut. Only then did I let out the breath I had been holding.
"Haaaa..."
The strength left my legs and I sat straight down. Ten years off my life, easily. I had truly thought my heart was about to leap out of my mouth. Caught using the clone art—and caught while washing dishes, no less. What kind of disgrace was that?
"Never again. Absolutely never."
I shook my head hard. Reality, however, was pitiless. A mountain of unwashed bowls still remained, and with the clones gone I was alone once more.
"......"
I picked up the scrubber. It was a wretched sight. The greatest man under heaven, and what he held was not a demonic sword but a scrubber.
"A shop attendant... Tomorrow, no matter what, I hire one."
I clenched my teeth and scrubbed. At sunrise I would post the notice again. Conditions? None required. Martial arts? Irrelevant. Two hands, two feet, and the job was theirs.
The next day, as if my desperation had finally reached heaven, people came knocking at last. One look at them, though, and I had to doubt my own eyes.
"Proprietor! You're hiring a shop attendant?"
Great muscular hulks. Vicious-looking men with knife scars on their faces or tattoos crowding their skin. Among them were the Murim Alliance troublemakers who had raised hell at the drinking party yesterday, and idle rakes from the neighborhood who had come chasing the rumor—not wandering swordsmen, just wastrels with time on their hands.
"Strength is the one thing I don't lack! I'll chew bones if you ask me!"
"I'm handy with a blade! I've cut down plenty of people— no, plenty of meat!"
This was no interview for a shop attendant. It looked like the entrance exam for a bandit den. Was there, among this lot, even one soul I could trust with my precious plates? Surely there was one who might suit me...?
I let out a long sigh and took the examiner's seat. The First Open Recruitment of Shop Attendants for Murim Alliance King Mandu. The curtain rose on that chaos, in which not a single normal human being was to be found.