Silk Road 3
After Jin-wol delivered the decree, she withdrew without another word.
Even so, the leaden weather seemed to cling inside Red Lotus Manor like a bank of gathered cloud.
I couldn’t bring myself to speak at once.
It had all just been swept away in the wake of a storm, and I needed time to sort through the thoughts that had knotted themselves together inside my head.
I had to turn over, again and again, the words she had left me with. If there was anything that could be used as the Left Guardian’s weakness, I had to gather it all.
-Lately, His Grace has been in a foul temper because of some rat. He said the rats that used to lick up bean crumbs under the table are starting to crawl up toward the ceiling, and it’s made him terribly displeased.
-Your instincts are truly remarkable, my lord. I suppose that’s why you’ve survived so long. Am I wrong?
-Left Guardian. His Holiness knows everything. Even the truth of that day...
-Tell him I haven’t reached the ceiling yet.
...Crazy bastard.
I had more questions than I knew what to do with, but this clearly wasn’t the time. Even if I asked, there was no reason to believe they’d answer honestly.
One thing was certain: the Hyeolsadae was not the safe shelter I’d imagined it to be.
The vague hope that I could learn from him and eventually kill him someday had been nothing more than a comforting fantasy.
A way out of my own.
What a ridiculous phrase. To choose some other path was almost the same as giving up revenge.
Even if I betrayed him and turned him in, the filthy feeling in my chest would never truly go away.
I wanted to kill the Left Guardian with my own hands.
He knew that was what I wanted, which was why he kept me leashed and used me like a chess piece.
I let out a sigh. It was right in front of the Left Guardian’s face, but I didn’t care. He hadn’t dragged some laboring peasant girl here to teach her manners I’d already grown sick of.
Laboring peasant girl. Right. There had been a time when I was happiest with my head emptied, my hands busy with nothing but work.
And yet the Left Guardian’s sigh across from me sounded deeper than mine.
“Haa...”
I snorted back at him, sharp and rude.
“So why did you call for me?”
“That’s enough. We’ll discuss the details later.”
“Were you maybe going to—”
“Ahem.”
The Left Guardian’s eyes flashed, and I flinched before I could stop myself.
It was primitive fear, pure instinctive reflex. It was humiliating, but I had no choice but to lower my head, feeling his level of cultivation with my whole body.
“You still have ears.”
“That woman.”
“Yes. It seems Sohonmahu sent this battlefield out of spite.”
“Sohonmahu’s spite? But I heard Her Holiness ordered it.”
“An Executioner is such a position. The Cult Leader’s closest eyes and ears, and also her blade. If done well...”
She could even move people around like puppets.
Then did that mean the woman called Jin-wol was some hidden hand pulling the Demonic Cult Leader’s strings?
“She’ll be here before long. Your senses still aren’t dead.”
“I don’t understand any of this. I didn’t even notice she was right behind me earlier.”
“Then you’ll die without avenging yourself and with nothing to your name. Go find something to gnaw on and come back.”
“You want me to learn from that woman?”
“Anyone in this world can be a teacher.”
He truly was impossible to pin down.
“Hmph. Go chew on a rock, Left Guardian.”
—
Jin-wol was seated alone on the riverbank.
“Oh...”
Bathed in the pale yellow sunlight, her beautiful profile drew an involuntary murmur from me.
It was hard to believe this was the same woman who had been radiating such pressure only moments ago. She looked almost distant, almost wistful.
Beautiful women stole the gaze of everyone, man or woman alike. Even another woman was not exempt.
What if she hadn’t had that scar in her eye? She must have had some unspeakable story of her own.
For an instant, she overlapped in my mind with Hwa-yeong—no, with the sister who had been scarred by my father.
No. That woman was a martial artist.
Maybe she had piled up more evil deeds than even that Banghosa bastard. It was entirely possible.
How much blood had she spilled to reach the position of Executioner?
Still, that didn’t mean I could dislike her already.
I was a martial world woman now, too.
“I was rude earlier.”
I approached her hesitantly and came to a stop beside her.
From here on, I had to choose my words carefully. If she ever learned the truth of the Hyeolsadae, both I and the Left Guardian would end up dead by the Cult Leader’s hand.
Anyone in this world can be a teacher.
I was so mad I could spit. Wasn’t she afraid? What if I said something stupid by mistake? She acted as though her nerve had swollen until it was ready to burst.
“What brings you here?”
“Ah, I...”
“Not you. I mean, what game was the Left Guardian playing when he sent you?”
She had an extraordinary amount of presence. The face of Hwa-yeong that had flickered in my mind a moment ago vanished completely.
Being dismissed to my face lit a fire somewhere in me, a spark of pride I hadn’t expected.
“I came of my own accord. I’m not interested in what my master gets up to, and I didn’t receive any orders either.”
“Heh. How fierce for such a tiny thing. Though when you look at it, the Left Guardian does have a rather sharp eye for people. He looks like the sort who’d keep a concubine on the side.”
A man who looked like he’d keep a concubine on the side?
Anyone who truly kept one surely wouldn’t have a face like some pretty boy from a pleasure house.
“Isn’t an Executioner the Cult Leader’s eyes and mouth?”
Shifting the mood, she smiled with a sly, familiar ease. It was irritating.
“You hold such an important office, and yet you don’t know how to hold your tongue—especially in front of the Cult Leader’s direct disciple.”
Jin-wol’s pupils widened slightly. For a brief moment, she looked genuinely taken aback by the words direct disciple.
For once, it felt like I’d landed a blow.
“A direct disciple? Do you even understand what you’re saying?”
“I’m the true successor to the Left Guardian’s line. I suppose the Cult Leader’s proxy doesn’t seem interested in acknowledging that.”
“Hoho. For something so bold, you’re acting rather like a child about to die. Just like on that day.”
That day.
That day’s events.
There it was again. What on earth was this “day,” and what had happened then?
“That day?”
“You don’t know? No, of course you wouldn’t. It’s the Left Guardian’s weakness, after all.”
That piqued my interest. The Left Guardian’s weakness? Then I had to hear it no matter what.
“You want to know, don’t you, little mouse girl?”
I changed my attitude at once.
“Please tell me.”
“Hahaha! Very well. I’ll tell you gladly. Consider it a reward for your nerve.”
—
About fifteen years ago.
News spread far and wide that the Left Guardian, who had rarely ever taken disciples, had opened the gates of Red Lotus Manor.
It was only natural that people seeking to become his disciple came flooding in like a tide.
The cold and mysterious Left Guardian.
His martial arts, which ordinary masters could barely even hope to glimpse, were a rare opportunity; to learn them was like grabbing hold of the rope that led to fame and fortune.
After countless rivals were eliminated, the total number of people who finally became the Left Guardian’s disciples was seven.
Among them were the son of a distinguished clan that had long produced elders, and the leader of a smaller sect who had distinguished himself in the Great War of the Demons.
Age and background mattered not at all. Only skill. Skill alone.
For that reason, the Left Guardian cherished his first disciples, and they, too, respected one another’s strength and lived without pretense.
Could flowers be beginning to bloom even in the bleakness of Red Lotus Manor?
And then it happened, perhaps in the spring.
Rumors began to circulate that the Left Guardian, himself descended from a fallen Blood Cult noble line, had been raising disciples to organize a private army—the very foundation for the Blood Cult’s revival.
Jin-wol added another detail: the stigma of being bloodline descendants of the Blood Cult had continued to torment the Left Guardian even after he had proven his skill.
In any case, the rumor—whether false or true—bred distrust.
The seeds of tiny, insignificant conflict began to grow among the disciples.
And yet...
The smallest seed carried a vicious poison within it.
Although discussion of the rumor itself had been kept silent among the disciples...
blood was eventually spilled.
A disciple from the minor demonic sect known as Maheon Sword Gate murdered the daughter of the prestigious Heavenly Mountain Clan.
The girl who was killed was also one of the seven disciples.
The Left Guardian learned of it not long afterward.
But for some reason, he remained silent. He watched. He chose not to act.
The entire Red Lotus Manor trembled. Cries of grief filled the night.
Voices rose in waves, fearing the line of the manor would be severed altogether.
This is a false accusation. It’s just the babble of rabble with old grudges. Nothing but wild talk.
Everyone in Red Lotus Manor believed that and raged on the disciples’ behalf.
Everyone, that is, except the one person standing at the center of the incident.
And then, contrary to everyone’s expectations...
The next morning, an unbelievable scene unfolded.
All six of the remaining disciples were beheaded and hung hideously beneath the signboard of Red Lotus Manor.
The corpses bore obvious signs of resistance.
When Jin-wol, who was then serving as the chief inspector, examined the sword wounds on the bodies, they were unmistakably the Left Guardian’s blade forms.
Fortunately, the fact that the Left Guardian had massacred his disciples was immediately hushed up.
The bodies were taken down in haste, and as is often the way of the world, the matter was soon dismissed as idle rumor and forgotten.
Now only a handful of high-ranking figures, including the Cult Leader, knew the truth.
But the strangeness of it all remained intact.
Wasn’t the matter something he could simply explain away?
Of course, it wouldn’t have been easy, not as easily as it sounds—but given time, he could have done it.
If the Left Guardian had stepped forward himself and denied it outright, the masses would have shut their mouths out of fear of his authority alone.
Even if he had chosen to punish someone, wouldn’t it have been enough to take the head of the disciple from Maheon Sword Gate?
Then there was only one conclusion.
If the Left Guardian had been hoping to rebuild the Blood Cult from that point on, then it made sense that he had already organized a secret faction before the Hyeolsadae ever existed.
Perhaps because of that, among the few who knew the truth of the incident, suspicion hardened into certainty.
That was why the Executioner had called it the Left Guardian’s weakness.
And yet it was strange.
The Left Guardian wasn’t that stupid. He would not have failed to foresee this outcome.
Would he really kill his disciples over nothing more than a rumor, and with his own hands deepen the suspicion around him?
Or had the rumor been true after all?
I didn’t know.
The more I learned about the Left Guardian, the more I peeled away the layers of that shell, the more I felt as though I was standing before something that had wandered far beyond the bounds of ordinary humanity.
And they wanted me to kill a monster like that. The world really was cruel.
—
I looked at Jin-wol.
Her half-lidded red eyes, as though she were looking down at me, held a fierce vitality completely unlike the Left Guardian’s.
Before long, she spoke again.
“Girl. Want me to tell you one more thing?”
“There’s more?”
“You said the disciple from Maheon Sword Gate killed the Heavenly Mountain Clan’s daughter.”
“Right.”
“There is no such place as Maheon Sword Gate.”
“What?”
“It was just a screen the Cult Leader had spent years preparing. That disciple was an informant planted in the Cult Leader’s Palace.”
Only then did the truth of the incident come into view.
From the rumor itself to the murder, everything had been a stage the Cult Leader had set.