The Value of a Word - 9
Humankind had always lived by defying. To defy the darkness, they kindled fire; to defy the cold, they wove clothing.
To defy the treacherous world beyond their door, they raised homes of their own, and because a single pair of fists could not fight the world alone, they banded together and battled their way onward.
And so humanity had always challenged—and always seized. Yet the death that inevitably trailed that struggle was ever an unwanted reward.
That was why anyone who dared to strive longed to have the strong at their side, and a master of Hong Ryeon's caliber could only be welcomed with both hands raised—even if she belonged to Moon Lotus Pavilion, Hongseong Sect's eternal rival.
"Thank you for all your hard work."
Once again, Hong Ryeon had proven herself. The blood-drenched Sonachal and Rakshasa, and even the Yaksha enthroned in the secret realm's deepest chamber, commanding them all—every last one had fallen before her blade.
The girl with ink-black hair, her fine figure flaunted by a skin-tight outfit, bowed her head to the red-haired woman wiping dark-red ichor from her hands—Hong Ryeon, Eldest Disciple of Hongseong Sect, famed throughout the murim as the Sun-Falling Sword.
"Don't mention it."
Hong Ryeon's reply was halfhearted, but the reaction was hardly strange. After all, the team formed to spearhead this secret realm's conquest had been captained by none other than Moon Lotus Pavilion, Hongseong Sect's eternal adversary.
And that captain had been Chae Ryeon—daughter of the Blade Emperor, who stood opposed to her own master, the Sword Saint.
However much Moon Lotus Pavilion had promised her a share of the rewards and requested her company, it was only natural the arrangement felt a little strange.
"Did Moon Lotus Pavilion have no one else to send?"
"It felt a bit wrong to call my sister out for something like this, you see."
Shrugging, Chae Ryeon flicked her red tongue. At her words, Hong Ryeon pictured the girl's elder sister—Chae Jin, Moon Lotus Pavilion's Eldest Disciple.
"...Tsk."
And then she shook her head. To her, it went without saying. Whenever Hong Ryeon was working commissions for the Murim Alliance, Chae Jin would show up at every spare hour kicking up an absolute fuss about having a duel. Of course she'd get no welcome.
Not that Hong Ryeon felt obliged to grant her a sparring match. Chae Jin's everyday conduct was so frivolous one wondered whether she truly was the pavilion's Eldest Disciple—yet the moment a blade touched her hand, she became a warrior transformed.
Every clash with her left Hong Ryeon utterly drained, and so the thought of fighting her for no reason at all held not the slightest appeal.
"Ahaha... my sister is a bit like that, isn't she?"
"A warrior ought, by rights, to revere the martial path and carry a fighting spirit... but hers is a little..."
"I completely understand."
Smiling brightly, Chae Ryeon walked forward step by step. She fetched the chest holding the secret realm's rewards, opened it, and presented the three items within.
The first was a root of strange shape—mottled in mingled blue and red, breathing out a pleasant fragrance that tickled the nose.
Hong Ryeon knew it well: this was the elixir called the Azure-Red Herb, which when consumed granted a modest lift to one's inner power and greatly aided in purging impurities from the body.
The second was a fist-sized orb—one that gave off light of its own.
A Night-Bright Pearl. At that size, it would fetch no less than ten nyang of gold.
And the last was an ore—an ore that caught the pearl's light and threw it back in brilliant luster.
Meteoric iron, the iron of the heavens.
If that iron were forged into a weapon, it would yield an armament rivaling true masterworks.
Each of the three was a treasure that could command at least ten nyang of gold apiece even sold on the open market.
Chae Ryeon held the chest out with a smile.
"As promised, you may take one."
She had located the secret realm, secured the qualification to challenge it, and sent advance parties out time and again until every trap and trial within had been surveyed. That had all been Chae Ryeon's doing.
Hong Ryeon knew full well that even conceding one of the rewards like this cost her dearly.
"Oh my? And here I was sure you'd choose the Night-Bright Pearl."
Hong Ryeon blew a dismissive snort at her honeyed smile. It was true enough—measured against Moon Lotus Pavilion, Hongseong Sect was poor.
But that was no reason to choose money.
"I've got our youngest to raise."
"...Ah. Of course you do."
Chae Ryeon's fine brows trembled, just slightly.
Caring for the youngest.
At Moon Lotus Pavilion, the very thought was unthinkable.
Not that the pavilion's inner disciples hated one another enough to cross blades.
But every last one of them was competing to become the master of Moon Lotus Pavilion—the Blade Emperor's successor.
So who would raise whom? Each was busy enough minding her own front.
Hongseong Sect was different.
No blood ran between them, yet they cherished one another like sisters born, and always stood for each other's sake.
Through the eyes of Moon Lotus Pavilion, where competition was creed, it may have looked like a child's game of house—still, watching such a sight, even she sometimes felt a stab of envy.
"I do wish Chae Jin had even half your composure, Lady Hong. The Demonic Cult has spent the past few months pawing at strong masters, trying to complete their half-baked Heavenly Demon Divine Art—who knows when Father might be attacked in his turn? She could stay put in the pavilion for once, but no, this is exactly when she goes traipsing about... Aigoo."
Apparently quite a lot had piled up in that heart of hers. Seeing real feeling bleed into the grumbling, Hong Ryeon huffed a soft laugh—and Chae Ryeon flashed a smile radiant enough to sway her for a heartbeat.
"A Moonlight Blade tame enough to need chaining down—that I cannot picture."
"Ahaha. Fair, right?"
Chae Ryeon giggled, nodded, and closed the chest. All business was concluded; it was time to part.
"Heading straight back?"
"That's the idea."
Hong Ryeon slipped the paper-wrapped Azure-Red Herb into her pack.
"My girls are waiting for me."
"Yes, yes. You've earned your rest. Here—and this as well. I threw in a little extra."
She liked the jingle it made. Hong Ryeon opened the coin pouch Chae Ryeon had pressed on her: two nyang of gold inside.
Extra payment for handing over the Yaksha's horn and claws, which Hong Ryeon herself had claimed.
Truthfully, they were precious materials—but Hongseong Sect possessed neither the craftsmanship nor the funds to work them anytime soon.
A pity. With those, she might have outfitted her sisters with gear finer than anything they carried now.
Swallowing down the bitterness coating her mouth, Hong Ryeon shook her head.
Mourning what one lacked got one nowhere.
One had to live by wielding what one had.
"Then let's meet again next time."
"Heehee. Yes."
With that farewell to Chae Ryeon, Hong Ryeon set off for Seomhwa Village.
Having to fight a Yaksha had been unexpected—but for Hong Ryeon, hardly a misfortune.
After all, it had brought in this windfall.
With it, she could settle her tab and buy each of her sisters a brand-new sword besides.
Which was why, stopping in a city not far from Seomhwa Village on the way home, she had purchased one thing after another from its merchant guild, the Cheonghoe Merchant Guild.
A new sword. Hidden projectiles. Sweet candy. Spring books for Ryu Hyeon, who would cry absolutely not! with all her might—then read every page the moment one was bought for her anyway. And liquor for her master.
And.
"...Did I buy this one for nothing?"
Hong Ryeon shook her head. Surely not for nothing.
Yu Wol's help, after all, had been central to her making the secret realm expedition at all. Because he had extended her credit, she hadn't needed to take on other work.
The thought of him set a corner of her chest tingling anew. Savoring that strange, smile-raising feeling, she stole a glance into her bag.
What lay inside was a smoke tube—a kind of pipe made for those who smoked tobacco.
The Divine Physician had devised it, claiming that tobacco smoked through it would do somewhat less harm to the body.
Hong Ryeon recalled Yu Wol as he had been when they last met. She had caught it then, unmistakably—a faint wisp of tobacco on him.
Bitter, and tickling the nose.
The scent of an adult who understood the world.
Thinking of it made that corner of her chest itch again.
"...I should pay the Murim Alliance a visit before long."
Given how the Hongseong Divine Art fed on emotion, she ought at least to prepare for oddities like these.
Even if his examination and his medicine would mean taking on a commission from the Alliance.
Still, the Divine Physician's care was worth that much and more—it would be fine.
So thinking, Hong Ryeon was racing toward Seomhwa Village when she spotted something strange at the village's outskirts.
What in the world is that?
Men who could hardly pass for Seomhwa villagers—men giving off the vile reek of the battlefield.
They sat snickering at the roadside, then began moving off toward somewhere—and Hong Ryeon, as if bewitched, made for the spot.
And then, from the place where they had gathered, voices came riding in on the wind.
"So who are we grabbing this time?"
"Client says the priorities are the magistrate at the Seomhwa village office and that old village chief. And... a fellow named Yu Wol—he's to be brought in alive. Oh, and if there's time to spare, flip the whole village inside out."
"And what do they want with them, once caught?"
"Beats me? No details given... still, not a bad job. That Yu Wol fellow's supposed to be rich as sin, no? Grab him and squeeze out a nice ransom..."
"Heh heh. Loaded, they say. How about we take him and crack the inn open while we're at it? Heheh. Either way, once we've torn the place up proper, even Hongseong Sect will be thrown into chaos..."
Listening to a few dozen black-clad men snicker together, she gripped her greatsword without a moment's hesitation.
Those men were enemies.
Then mercy was unnecessary.
—CRUNCH!!
The head of one of the black-clad men simply ceased to exist. The others startled at the greatsword that had hurtled in out of nowhere and whipped around toward it—but the crimson star had already claimed this ground, finished and ready to unmake everything.
Nothing whole remained where the star of destruction passed.
All of them dead—or one breath from it.
Hong Ryeon walked up to a man whose arm had vanished entirely.
"Haah... heek... m-monster... monnnster...!"
"Who are you people? You mentioned a client, didn't you? On whose orders were you planning to touch Seomhwa Village and Hongseong Sect?"
"Urgh... aaargh... ah..."
She laid her hand over his terror-frozen dantian. The inner power of the Hongseong Divine Art seeped through and bored into it. Beneath the horrific agony it bred, spitting up blood-froth, the man finally forced out a single word.
"Th-the... Demonic... Cult..."
The Demonic Cult.
A monstrous foe that sowed chaos through the empire.
Why did its name surface here—and why would it appear in Seomhwa Village of all places?
Hong Ryeon swung her greatsword, took his head, and leapt away.
Like a star plummeting to earth to pass judgment, Hong Ryeon became a star herself.
Shattering everything that barred her way as she tore a straight line forward, she burst into Seomhwa Village—by which point the village was already deep in turmoil.
The one blessing was that, the moment she crossed the gate, she found someone who could tell her what was happening.
The girl sat slumped and heaving for breath before two downed men in black—and Hong Ryeon shouted the instant she saw her.
"Lee Seo-jeong!!"
"Eldest Senior Sister...!! You've come!! Please—hurry to the village chief's house! They were attacked there too...!"
"...Understood. But are you all right?"
"This much is nothing!"
"...Good. Still—take care."
Hong Ryeon rumpled the girl's hair and bounded off. Somewhere along the way to the village chief's house, her steps halted without her willing it.
"Oh?! Isn't that the Sun-Falling Sword!"
She had stopped before the inn—Seomhwa Village's only inn, sharing walls with the trading house.
Was it chance, then, that his face rose in her mind at that very moment?
Just as Hong Ryeon made to demand answers, a shop boy called out.
"The master went with Miss Sa to the village chief's house!"
"...Much obliged."
She nodded and tossed him her bag. The moment the boy caught the bag of gifts for her sisters and dipped his head, she was gone on the wind of her movement art.
Faster. Faster still.
She passed a handful of bodies on the way, but mercifully they were only the black-clad corpses from before.
No corpses of villagers—and none of her sisters.
And for that very reason, her heart refused to stop pounding.
The Ominous Star's rage climbed her throat.
Just as the Hongseong Divine Art seized on that dreadful brew of dread and fury, striving to summon its baleful star—
she saw.
A man clad in black. A wielder of wicked demonic energy.
And the ones that wielder's glare was fixed upon.
And—
wearing that blunt, unreadable face—a man who had stepped out, one single pace ahead of her sisters,
who had placed himself in front of Sa Yun and Yu Hui to shield them.
A man with scarcely any training behind him, with no inner power worth the name, moving to the front for no other reason than that he was the adult.
The instant she saw it, Hong Ryeon swung her greatsword—and as the master of that demonic energy went sprawling from the blow, she grinned.
"So that was why a pack of lunatics had been lurking outside the village... I'm glad I cut them down fast and ran."
She meant it. One step slower, and her sisters might have been gravely hurt.
...And, and—
the flutter that tried to follow, she ignored, and smiled in satisfaction instead.
Then—sweep—she brushed back her hair, stiff and tacky with the blood of the men she'd killed, as if wiping it clean, and tied it up.
"Innkeeper Yu. I'm not too late, am I?"
And the adult with his signature bitter-sweet whiff of tobacco answered her with an easy chuckle.
"You timed it perfectly."
What a relief.