The Protection Money Racket
Gong Hyeon, the leader of the Sayeongdae, came to see me in person to make his report.
Given the gravity of the matter, it seemed he had decided it warranted special care.
I welcomed him with warm tea and refreshments.
After giving a slight bow and wetting his throat with tea, he finally spoke.
“So it was true.”
There was no need for him to explain what he meant.
That the martial artists of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect had been collecting protection money from merchants.
And that it was not the will of the clan, but the private misconduct of certain elders.
“My men confirmed them collecting money from the merchants. But in case there was more to it, we didn’t subdue them on the spot...”
Gong Hyeon trailed off with a bitter look on his face, and I nodded.
“You did well. I intended to handle this matter myself.”
This was no minor affair. It was serious enough to say the trust placed in the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect itself was at stake.
If handled poorly, it would leave people with the impression that our clan preyed upon market merchants.
No—our reputation was almost certainly already suffering.
I need to resolve this as quickly as possible.
If I did not, there was every chance either I or Father would be forced to take the blame for it.
I rose from my seat and said,
“Take me to the merchants who claim they suffered losses. I need to speak with them myself.”
“Yes, Young Lord.”
We left the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect estate and headed for the marketplace.
The place Gong Hyeon led me to was a cloth shop.
The owner had been about to come out and greet customers, only to freeze on the spot.
All three of us wore swords at our waists. It was obvious at a glance that we were martial artists.
“W-welcome, honored guests.”
Even so, his mouth kept moving. He might have been afraid, but that did not mean he could stop doing business.
I addressed him in a gentle voice.
“We are from the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect. May I ask you something?”
“F-from the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect!”
The moment he heard that name, the cloth merchant cried out in shock.
“Aigoo, sirs! We already paid the tribute yesterday, so why are you here again...?”
“Did you just say tribute?”
At my question, the merchant’s face went pale in an instant.
It seemed he thought he had made a slip of the tongue.
“N-no. Not tribute. Just... a token of goodwill. Forgive me...”
“Please, calm yourself. We did not come here to harm you. We certainly didn’t come to take your money.”
I kept my voice warm and steady.
The merchant looked bewildered.
“You... didn’t come to collect a token of goodwill?”
“That’s right. Quite the opposite, in fact. We came to investigate the damage those men have caused.”
“...!”
Had he finally realized something was different?
The cloth merchant cautiously studied our faces.
I continued, giving him reassurance.
“The Northern Heavenly Sword Sect does not demand money from merchants under the name of protection fees. The men going around collecting money now are absolutely not acting under orders from the main family. Absolutely not.”
I fixed him with a direct look and emphasized the point.
Even then, he still looked uneasy.
“You still find it hard to believe, I see. In that case, I’ll show you proof.”
I took out the gold token engraved with Northern Heaven.
Naturally, the merchant would not know what it meant, so I explained.
“This is an identification token possessed only by the direct line of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect. That should be proof enough that I’m telling the truth.”
“B-by the direct line, you mean...?”
“Yes. This is none other than young master Jin Muyeol, the Young Lord of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect.”
Gong Hyeon answered in my stead.
At once, the cloth merchant’s face turned deathly white.
He must have been shocked to learn that the ordinary-looking young man before him was someone far greater than he had imagined.
He immediately bowed his head low, trembling all over.
“M-my apologies. This lowly one is ignorant and failed to recognize an honored person.”
“Please raise your head. As I said before, I have no intention of harming you.”
The cloth merchant cautiously lifted his head.
I questioned him calmly.
“Now then. Do you believe me?”
“Y-yes! Of course I do. But if that’s true, then those men... weren’t from the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect?”
“That is what we intend to investigate now.”
Of course, I already knew the truth.
But if I wanted the two men beside me to understand and move naturally with me, it was easier to show them the process of an investigation.
And there was always the possibility that the information I remembered might be wrong.
“Since when have they been collecting money?”
“Since the beginning of this year. All of a sudden, they started going around to the nearby merchants, claiming they were protecting the area and extorting money from us in turn.”
“So it hasn’t been going on as long as I expected. But did no one think to make an inquiry to the main family?”
“I-if we did that and got marked for it, it would be disastrous.”
The Northern Heavenly Sword Sect might have been in decline, but it was still the strongest martial force in all of Shanxi Province, enough to be regarded as the hegemon of the region.
From the perspective of common folk, they would never want to earn its enmity.
They had not even been forced to pay a crushing sum, so I could understand why they had chosen not to stir up trouble by scratching at an itch.
But that was exactly what those bastards were aiming for.
They had deliberately set the amount low enough for the victims to endure, allowing them to slip beneath the surveillance of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect.
Of course, it would still be exposed a few years later.
But back then, I had been unable to punish Wang Jin properly, even though he oversaw the whole affair.
At most, I had only been able to confine him to reflection.
Why?
Because I couldn’t find proof that Wang Jin was connected to them.
The men going around collecting money right now were not, in fact, Wang Jin’s direct subordinates.
They were not even martial artists of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect.
So when they named Wang Jin as the backer behind them, no one believed it.
There was too little evidence, and for some reason public opinion spread that it was all part of some scheme to frame Wang Jin.
That was probably the work of his faction.
But this time, I had no intention of letting him wriggle free that easily.
I questioned the cloth merchant for a while longer.
Then I obtained one useful piece of information.
“You’re saying the dumpling shop next door is due to be shaken down next?”
“Yes. I believe the day is today... Ah!”
The cloth merchant suddenly pointed somewhere.
Three martial artists in the uniform of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect were approaching from the distance.
“It’s them! Those are the bastards collecting protection money!”
Well now.
In the lands beyond the sea, I had once heard a saying: speak of the tiger, and it appears.
This was exactly that.
To think they would show up just as we were investigating them.
“Shall we subdue them?”
“No. Wait for now.”
We watched to see what they would do.
As if this were routine, they strolled over to the dumpling shop and called the owner out.
The owner bowed repeatedly in flustered panic.
The three men puffed themselves up and barked something at him.
Then the dumpling seller handed over a pouch with trembling hands.
That would be the tribute money.
“Good. We can arrest them in the act.”
There was no reason to keep watching.
I told my two companions to stay where they were and walked over to the men.
“Nobody move.”
“Hm?”
They tilted their heads and looked at me.
They seemed a little startled.
It was only natural. A stranger who clearly looked like a martial artist had suddenly spoken to them.
I did not give them time to regain their bearings.
“Put the money down. Return it to the owner immediately.”
“What the hell are you—”
“Hah. Looks like the brat wants to play wandering hero.”
One of them sneered at me.
Perhaps because I looked young, they had decided I was easy prey.
I did not mind.
If they let their guard down, all the better for me.
“Quit acting stupid and get lost. Unless you want a beating.”
“You think we’re taking money by force? This is protection money.”
“Protection money? And why should they be paying you protection money?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Because our Northern Heavenly Sword Sect protects them. If not for us, how would they do business here?”
“The Northern Heavenly Sword Sect?”
At my deliberately surprised expression, the bastards snickered.
“That’s right. We’re men of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect. So—”
“Funny. Men who claim to be from the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect, yet they can’t even recognize their own Young Lord.”
“What? What the—”
I had no reason to hear another word from them.
I swung my scabbard.
Crack!
“Guhk!”
One of them collapsed, coughing out a ragged breath.
The other two stared blankly for a moment, as if they had never imagined they would be attacked.
But soon enough, anger flooded their faces and they drew their swords.
“You son of a bitch!”
“How dare you!”
Their sharp sword strikes came slashing toward me.
Shhk!
I evaded them with nothing more than a backward tilt of my head.
Then I smashed my fist into the nearest man’s jaw.
“Nngh!”
His brain must have rattled in his skull, because he dropped unconscious on the spot.
“W-what...”
The last one seemed to realize at last that I was far above them.
He swung his sword wildly through the air and shouted,
“Don’t come any closer! Don’t come near me!”
...
“D-do you have any idea what you’ve done? We’re martial artists of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect! You just laid hands on the martial artists of the greatest martial family in Shanxi!”
“Hah. I can’t listen to this any longer.”
I let out a sigh.
“Didn’t you hear what I said before? If you had any sense, you would have figured out who I am by now.”
“Who you are...?”
The man faltered, his expression twitching.
Only now had he caught on.
“D-don’t tell me... the Young Lord of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect!?”
“Took you long enough. You’re slow.”
As I spoke, I brought the scabbard down hard on his shin.
“Aaaaargh!”
He crumpled with a scream.
At the same time, I stepped over him, climbed onto his body, and pressed his sleep acupoint with internal energy.
The terror-stricken bastard fell asleep as though he had fainted.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Sagong Cheon and Gong Hyeon, who had been watching from a distance, approached.
“Y-Young Lord... remarkable.”
Sagong Cheon, who already knew my strength, remained calm.
But Gong Hyeon looked a little stunned.
Even if the opponents had been weak, I had subdued all three far too easily.
“Are you all right? Here, take this.”
I returned the pouch I had taken from them to the dumpling shop owner.
The man had been staring blankly at us, but he jolted in surprise and waved his hands frantically.
“Wh-what?! B-but...”
“These men will never demand tribute from you again. To begin with, they were never martial artists of the Northern Heavenly Sword Sect. So put your mind at ease.”
After saying that, we gathered up the three men and headed into an alleyway.
Sagong Cheon asked,
“What shall we do? Turn them over to the clan immediately and have them tried?”
“We can’t do that. If we do, the rest of the gang will scatter at once.”
Men who did this kind of work were always quick to sense danger.
The moment we made a public move, the others would wipe their hands clean and vanish.
And if that happened, we would never catch the ones behind them.
Why trade everything for a few little fish?
That was why I woke one of the unconscious men and said,
“Take us to your hideout.”
“...!”
“Right now.”