The Incompetent Hero and the Emperor of Yeom (3)
"Head."
THWACK!!
"Skull."
CRACK!!!
"Crown."
CRUNCH!!!!
So this was what it felt like — a veteran farming newbies for sport. By this point a flicker of pity almost stirred in me, only for the sight of full-grown men collapsing with their eyes rolled back to irritate me all over again, and my hand tightened of its own accord.
Ah. On that last hit I might have put a little too much into it. His skull may have cracked a bit… nah. Surely not.
"Th-this can't be…"
"They all went down…"
"Thanks for the wonderfully cliché exposition."
Honestly, these guys' skill level couldn't even match half of Baekryeon's — never mind Baekryeon herself. They never so much as grazed me. One-hit KOs, every last one of them, and the whole mess was cleaned up in seconds.
All that remained were household retainers who had never once trained in martial arts — complete combat novices. They didn't even dare think of charging me. They just stood there trembling, staring.
"P-please spare us… We never learned any martial arts at all!…"
"I know. Take every last one of these collapsed idiots and get out of here. And pass this along — if anyone so much as mutters that absurd nonsense about surrendering control of this place again, the next thing that gets smashed won't be your heads. It'll be your entire clan."
Sword King's Intimidation
I dialed the pressure just enough that they wouldn't pass out. Staring them down while I delivered the threat, I watched them nod furiously, over and over.
"Y-yes, sir! We'll make sure the message is delivered!!…"
Whether on the Central Continent or in the Yeom Kingdom, ordinary commoners almost never strayed far from the region they were born in. To them, the Moyong Clan wasn't merely a martial family — it was a sturdy fence that protected them.
And I had just shattered that fence with almost no effort. Add the intimidation on top, and of course they couldn't even entertain the thought of defiance.
"One problem handled, then."
I sheathed the sword and watched them retreat into the distance. Still, something about their presence didn't sit right.
"Not a scrap of fighting spirit among them."
"You're telling me. They pick the fight and walk away with nothing… If it were me, I'd be too ashamed to ever show my face again."
Baekryeon and Seollin watched the Moyong Clan's people scramble away with their tails between their legs — a rather pathetic sight, if you asked me — and both of them looked thoroughly unimpressed.
"Magnificent, Sir Cheon-woo! I've heard a great deal about your martial prowess, but I never imagined it would be to this degree!!"
The adjutant, on the other hand, was staring at me with sparkling eyes after witnessing my combat ability firsthand.
Well… during the pirate cleanup, any real fighting had been finished by Baekryeon and Seollin before the Yeom army even arrived. After that I'd run into Fukhaedaeseong, but with no room to spare for anyone else, I'd told the others to run first and fought him one-on-one — so nobody had gotten a proper look. From their perspective, the only basis they had for judging me was the rumors from the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering and the fact that I was a member of the Jaryong Unit…
"Truly magnificent! Next time, it's your clan that gets smashed!… Of course, as a member of the Yeom army, making enemies of another house isn't something one can do lightly… but in this case the fault clearly lies with the Moyong Clan, so they won't have much to say about it!"
"Don't make a fuss over nothing."
I waved a dismissive hand at the adjutant, who was still bubbling over with excitement, and returned his sword.
"Good blade. Looks like you've taken decent care of it."
"Y-yes, sir! I was taught that this is the sword you entrust yourself to in a crisis!… I'll make it a family heirloom!!"
"No… don't go that far. Weapons and armor are consumables at the end of the day. Don't hoard them for no reason. The moment you decide something's too damaged to use, replace it without hesitation."
A family heirloom? Come on. There's a limit to how much you should inflate a guy. What kind of brain-rot was this.
Anyway — sword returned. Time to move.
"Let's go."
"Ah — allow me to guide you! This way, please!…"
The one who responded was a subordinate of the inn's proprietress, the one assigned as our guide. Unlike the rumors that I always wore a mask, I'd been barefaced — and I'd been cheerfully hanging around with two women in broad daylight — so he'd been half-skeptical of me the whole time. Watching me smash every last Moyong skull had drained the color from his face.
Granted, he'd started with suspicious looks and acted pretty damn annoying about it. But I'm a generous man. I don't draw steel over something that petty. I just mess with people a little.
"S-Sir Cheon-woo?"
"?"
"To enter the city, we have to go this way… Where exactly are you…?"
Right. He had been heading through the gate toward the city of Dandong. My steps were going the opposite direction. More precisely, I was walking the way the Moyong Clan people had vanished.
"I'm not going."
"Pardon?"
"More accurately — tell them something urgent came up."
"Something urgent? What on earth do you mean, Sir Cheon-woo!…"
I spoke quietly to the flustered man.
"Think about it. Something's off. Why did those guys show up?"
"Well — they heard the pirates had been wiped out, and came for their own interests…"
"And how exactly did they hear the pirates had been wiped out?"
"That is…"
I turned my gaze toward the adjutant. Startled by the sudden attention, he snapped to attention and met my eyes.
You don't have to stand that straight. When you do that, it makes me look like I've done something shady.
"Hey."
"Sir!"
"How long does it take to get from here to the Moyong Clan's territory? Not on foot as a regular martial artist — by horse or something equivalent."
"To the Moyong Clan, sir?"
He thought it over carefully, then answered.
"Pushing hard, roughly a week."
"See? Doesn't that strike you as strange?"
"W-what does, sir?"
"For word of the pirate cleanup to spread, it should take at least a week. And today marks exactly one week. So how did the Moyong Clan know and show up? Even if we assume the rumor reached them, you'd still need several more days for them to travel here. And yet they arrived in a single week."
Coming purely for their own gain — to expand the range of their influence — was far too suspicious. Especially the Moyong Clan… they were already a group I'd been warned to watch carefully back in Sichuan. There was even talk that the Moyong Clan and the Beastman Alliance might have some kind of deal going.
When Fukhaedaeseong appeared, I'd figured the Moyong Clan had genuinely tried to suppress the pirates and simply failed. But showing up at a timing like this? Deeply fishy.
Almost as if…
"They'd been managing a smuggling route through Dandong via the pirates — and the moment it was exposed, they moved to seize the Dandong region themselves to stop any further evidence from leaking."
"!!"
"So pass the message. I'm going to chase those guys down. We'll postpone the meeting. And tell this to Yeogibuk."
"It's Yeogibuk, actually…"
Names can get mixed up, all right? No need to make a guy feel awkward about it.
I started walking without another word. Baekryeon and Seollin followed, the corners of their mouths twitching upward. Only the proprietress's subordinate grabbed at me.
"P-please wait! Y-you absolutely must meet the person coming this time!…"
"Hey. Do you even know who I am?"
"Pardon…?"
He tilted his head at my question, then answered carefully.
"Well… aren't you Sir Jang Cheon-woo? Of the Jaryong Unit…"
"That's the identity I use to operate in the Yeom Kingdom. I'm asking if you know who I actually am."
"Y-your true self, Sir Cheon-woo…? That is…"
When he couldn't answer properly, I reluctantly explained.
"In the place you people call the Western Lands, I'm known as a Hero."
"A H-Hero…"
"That's right. Hero Leon. That's my name. And a Hero is the Goddess's sword — meant to cut down evil. If the Moyong Clan pulled this farce for their own profit, I have a duty to stop them."
And as a bonus, you'll get absolutely shredded by the proprietress for failing to bring me in. Ah, beautiful. That's what you get for looking down on people. Don't do it again.
"So tell them this. I'm borrowing the name of the Purple Dragon for a while here, but at my core I'm a Hero from another land. Unless it's the King of Yeom himself who wants to meet me, I have no choice but to prioritize my duty."
He had nothing left to say. He just stood there staring at me. Confirming that, I looked at Baekryeon and Seollin.
"All right. Let's go. Time to hunt down the Moyong Clan."
The top floor of the Haejo Inn.
A distinguished guest was present, and the entire establishment had gone into emergency mode. Hwa Miryeon, the proprietress of the place, was carefully receiving a young boy alongside Jong-ui — boatman and branch chief of the Haoman's Dandong office.
"The tea here is excellent."
"I-it uses green tea leaves from Jo. A flavor one rarely encounters in the Yeom Kingdom, I imagine."
"Jo… Come to think of it, Jo's isolation edict has been in place for quite some time. I heard there was an assassination attempt on Jo's king… Have you still been unable to uncover the full details?"
"My apologies. As you know, after the Baek family — once one of Jo's key houses — was wiped out, the country closed itself off so thoroughly that gathering information on their movements became nearly impossible. We were unable to obtain anything of real substance. I am sorry."
Jong-ui bowed deeply. The young boy waved a hand.
"It's fine. There's nothing to apologize for. Simply a string of unfortunate circumstances. More importantly… has he still not arrived?"
"I've sent someone to fetch him. He should be here shortly."
"I heard he crossed blades with Fukhaedaeseong. The fatigue must have been considerable."
"Mm…"
Jong-ui swallowed his words. That would have been the normal reaction, yes… but Jong-ui remembered. After returning, the man had casually enjoyed the festival, drunk, and even overseen the Yeom soldiers' training as if nothing had happened.
Knock knock knock.
"Ah — that must be him. Come in."
Hwa Miryeon's face brightened as she turned toward the entrance. Standing there carefully, however, was not the man she had been expecting — but one of her own subordinates.
"?"
"Is that him?"
"N-no!… Where is he?"
"Well, about that…"
He explained everything that had happened before he arrived. The boy listened, eyes going wide — and then burst into laughter.
"Pwahahahahaha!!"
"I-I am deeply sorry, Your Majesty, Emperor of Yeom!…"
"No… no. He's even more than the reports suggested. Yang Jamun."
At the boy's question, the man standing behind him — Yang Jamun — gave a faint smile.
"What will you do, Your Majesty?"
"Indeed… the Moyong Clan's sudden movement is far from clean."
With that, the boy rose from his seat. At the same moment, the Right Protector and Left Protector who guarded him stood as well.
"We go to the Moyong Clan."