The Reason Rules Exist - 4
One of the things that separates a genius from a mediocrity is a sense of incongruity. A mediocrity, dwelling as they do within the realm of ordinary people, thinks much as ordinary people do anyway.
Geniuses were different. They were always thinking, and within that ceaseless thought they organized themselves, producing conclusions that seemed perfectly sound by their own standards. And those conclusions could not help but look more than a little askew to ordinary eyes.
Wasn't it only natural? They arrived at their answers by reading dozens of moves ahead, so of course ordinary people couldn't follow the results they produced. That was why most who stood face to face with a genius ended up flustered.
By that measure, the Sword Saint had proven her genius beyond any doubt. Even I, who knew everything there was to know about her, had been struck dumb for a moment.
From the very first moment of our meeting she had gazed at me as though I were something dreadfully pitiable, then clenched her fist and told me to stay strong—and while I stood there frozen solid, Ryu Hyeon came back to her senses. She approached me, plainly at a loss for what to do.
"I apologize. This... this rudeness of mine..."
"No, no. There was nothing rude about it. My, my. I'd heard the Sword Saint was an eccentric. Truly, just as the rumors say."
"Ah. Yes. Thank you for taking it so graciously. Then... um. Sa Yun."
"Oh! Yes!"
Sa Yun, who had likewise been studying my mood, snapped back to attention. Ryu Hyeon addressed her carefully.
"Please show the Master Innkeeper around."
"Yes, yes! Of course!"
"And keep him out of the restricted areas. Understood?"
"Yes. Understood."
With a deep bow, Sa Yun lightly took my arm.
"Shall we be off, then?"
The bewilderment of my first meeting with the Sword Saint faded quickly enough. After all, I knew a fair bit about Na Yerin from my days playing Cheonsang Myeongwol. But Sa Yun, apparently convinced I was upset with the Sword Saint, kept fidgeting restlessly beside me.
Mm, that anxious look of hers was plenty endearing, but I couldn't leave her twisting in the wind forever.
"The Sword Saint is a good person."
"Ah. Yes. Our master is a bit... unusual, so... I'm sorry—what?"
Eyes gone round, Sa Yun looked up at me. I held her gaze for a moment, then smiled.
"People with power use it to fill their own pockets, to chase their own glory. But the Sword Saint, though it would be easy for her, doesn't."
I let my gaze drift casually around us. The handful of buildings that made up Hongseong Gate looked quite worn. The disciples clearly maintained them as best they could, but cracks showed here and there in the earthen walls, and the pillars bore the plain marks of passing years.
"And every disciple of Hongseong Gate accepts that life. If she weren't a good person, none of them would follow her the way they do."
Where my gaze had come to rest was Sa Yun herself. Her sect robes, patched in one place and another. And that sword of hers, worn down to its bones.
"That sword—isn't it the one you used against Hwaho last time? It looks about ready to fall apart."
"It's still perfectly usable!"
In what way, exactly? But with her crying out like that, face scarlet, I couldn't bring myself to tease her any further.
Of course, I did intend to get Sa Yun a proper blade eventually. As it happened, she would be getting her hands on a sword in the very next secret realm. Though that sword, in time, would be broken down and become the material for the greatsword needed to wield the strongest Great Sword Form of the Hongseong Divine Art. Even so, that alone would be several times better than that battered old thing, so it would serve her well enough for the time being.
"Anyway. Seeing such frugality on display, one thing seems certain: the Sword Saint is a truly remarkable woman."
Sa Yun's expression brightened by the moment. Whatever unease the earlier incident had left in her seemed to have melted away, and she led me along with noticeably lighter steps.
"Will you be starting with the training cave?"
"I'd say so."
"But how does the investigation work?"
I drew a small pouch from the bag of supplies I'd brought along. Inside was the White Jade Plaque I'd received from the magistrate's office, along with the reagents that would make the plaque respond to demonic qi.
"We use this to examine the demonic qi and work out which demonic art produced it."
"Wow. That's amazing."
"The Empire's hostility toward the Demonic Cult goes beyond imagination. There was even a time the Cult stormed its way into the Imperial Palace itself, so where a Cult practitioner is concerned, they practically foam at the mouth."
At my words, Sa Yun fell quiet for a moment. We walked on at an easy pace, and then she caught lightly at my sleeve.
"Then... could the Empire come to Hongseong Gate's aid?"
Because of her clash with that Cult practitioner, perhaps? A hatred of the Demonic Cult seemed to have taken root in her. Watching the fighting spirit gathered in her eyes, I smiled. But my heart was anything but easy.
In the prologue of Cheonsang Myeongwol, the Empire never came to Hongseong Gate's aid. After all, what had moved back then was not the Demonic Cult, but the Iron Blood Dan. The Iron Blood Dan would grow into a genuine threat to the Empire in its own time, but judged by present standards, they were no great danger next to the Cult. And so, even with word that Hongseong Gate was under attack, the Empire had sent not a single soldier.
In time, Sa Yun would forge ties with the Imperial family, and in the course of that she would hear the full circumstances behind Hongseong Gate's destruction and regret it beyond all measure. But that came later.
"Ah... they'll help."
For me, at least, that was a future that must never be allowed to happen. Because the trials and suffering Sa Yun would have to endure on the road there made for a human tragedy no one could watch with dry eyes.
I smiled for the girl looking up at me. So that she could be at ease. So that she would never have to be afraid.
"Without fail."
At my answer, a smile touched Sa Yun's lips.
The first place we arrived at was the site of the half-collapsed training cave—a cave at the crest of a hill, so unstable it looked ready to come down at any moment. The interior had caved in completely, so in the end we couldn't go inside and had to make do with examining it from outside. Even now, long after the attack, the residue of demonic qi still lingered there, sharp enough to prick the nose.
"This spot should do."
I carried the White Jade Plaque to where the demonic qi lingered. According to the Magistrate's explanation, once the plaque was set down and the combined reagents sprinkled over it, a day's passing would see the demonic qi settle into the jade. All the while, I scanned our surroundings—there was always the chance that some trace of a demonic art I might recognize had been left behind.
And as I circled the training cave, I stumbled upon something curious.
"Oh ho."
"What is it?"
"Nothing. This, here."
It was an enormous boulder perched at the crest of the hill where the training cave stood. The problem was the holes in it. As if bored by some precision instrument, without so much as a crack around their rims—round holes like the burrows a worm leaves through fruit. There were seven of them.
"It's not the Hongseong Divine Art, is it?"
"No. It isn't."
And yet no demonic qi lingered on this boulder. Then what in the world was it? I rapped my knuckles against the rock, thinking it over, then snapped my fingers.
Seven Birds, Seven Bugs. Yu Gyeong-seon.
One of the Demonic Cult's Outer Protectors—a sorcerer who kept seven birds and seven insects at his side at all times. A Cult man, certainly, but one who gathered intelligence at speed through his birds and bugs rather than wielding demonic qi. That said, beyond the insect-and-bird arts he had mastered, techniques like the Snakebone Claw or the Dark Blood Art were hardly weak as demonic arts went, so he was no opponent to take lightly.
Now then. Yu Gyeong-seon had come to attack the Sword Saint? Then the party behind it came into much sharper focus.
Yu Gyeong-seon was a man who served the Dark Five Families, one of the Cult's five great houses. In other words, if he had come here, he had moved on their orders. And why would Ogi—patriarch of the Dark Five Families, a man with his eye on the next seat of Heavenly Demon—want to attack the Sword Saint?
...There are far too many reasons, actually.
Kill the Sword Saint and throw the orthodox sects into chaos. Kill the Sword Saint and flaunt the Dark Five Families' power before the whole Cult. Kill the Sword Saint and steal her body to raise her as a jiangshi. And so on, and so forth.
Coming to any firm judgment on this much alone was a bit much... But every one of those reasons shared a single common thread. They all treated Hongseong Gate as contemptibly, laughably easy pickings.
Would they ever mount an attack this brainless against the Blade Emperor or any other true powerhouse? The answer was 'no.' At the very least, they would plan with far more care than this and strike with a host of stronger masters. They would have dragged out every fighter they possessed, staking nothing less than the very survival of the Dark Five Families.
I looked around me. Worn, shabby buildings and furnishings at every turn. This, I supposed, was one of the things that made Hongseong Gate seem weak. Left as it was, the sect might well wither away and die on its own one day, Iron Blood Dan or no.
"Tsk."
"Hm? What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. Shall we try somewhere else?"
Sa Yun and I made for the wrecked warehouse. There, too, a foul stench, heavy with demonic qi, drifted from every corner. Once I had set the White Jade Plaque down there as well and stepped back, Sa Yun peered up at me with obvious worry.
"You don't look well. Is it the lingering trace of the demonic qi... Um. Master Innkeeper? Could you come with me for a moment?"
Where was she taking me? When I looked puzzled, she only beamed.
The place she led me to was a field behind Hongseong Gate. A herb garden, apparently—which would explain the cool, clean fragrance beginning to tickle my nose.
"It's a herb garden we sisters tend ourselves. This is actually the first year we've managed to raise them well enough to be worth selling."
Delighted, Sa Yun broke into a wide smile and stroked the herbs. The leaves were a deep green, brimming with life. They had clearly been raised with the most devoted care.
Wait—had this been in the game? Hongseong Gate had only flickered past in the prologue, and through the main story I'd heard of them only secondhand, through other characters' mouths, so I didn't know the details—but I'd had no idea they kept a herb garden like this.
"We can't lean on our Eldest Senior Sister alone, after all. We all see plainly enough how much she struggles."
"Hmm..."
"So we've been making efforts of our own, each in our own way. This garden is one of them."
Her pride was plain to see even from where I stood. Being able to help Hong Ryeon, and to help Hongseong Gate, clearly filled her with joy.
I bent to examine the herbs. Grown remarkably well. Did the sect have a disciple with a gift for cultivation? The quality was quietly impressive.
"This one is... Soul-Restoring Herb."
"Yes. They say if you dry it well and simmer it with Five-Treasure Root, it cleanses the blood and does wonders for the health. And this here is Meadow Root, and this one..."
Raised with care they certainly were. But while these herbs all went into tonics, none of them were particularly precious. Most could be found without much trouble. A few were somewhat harder to come by, but none were the stuff of true elixirs. On the whole, this was tonic-and-household-remedy grade.
"Do you know where these are meant to be sold?"
"As far as I know, nothing's been decided yet... but Senior Sister Ryu Hyeon seems to be thinking of Old Man Cheol at the village pharmacy for now."
"Is that so?"
As I walked the rows of the garden, I tallied up the varieties and quality of the herbs. The revenue from running that herb garden would come to roughly one gold nyang a month, give or ta—huh?
Hold on.
A spark flashed through my mind, and I began to build on it. The knowledge I carried with me, and everything I'd learned since arriving in this world. I shuffled all manner of other pieces together, this way and that.
Calculation. Calculation again. And calculation once more.
I turned the problem over and over—the risks and the labor they would demand, the routes I would have to travel, the people I would have to meet, every other variable besides—until a final figure emerged from the tangle. And the answer that came out of it held real, honest possibility.
Handled well, this could actually work. Perhaps I'd just found one more way to help Hongseong Gate, right here and now.
"Is there nothing else you can show me besides this?"
"Uh... ah. There is."
Sa Yun considered for a moment, then her eyes lit up. And off she led me, somewhere new.
A fair stretch of walking later, we arrived at the mountainside, where the fragrance of Thousand-Day Plum Blossoms hung thick and sweet in the air.
"The Thousand-Day Plum Blossoms here smell far lovelier than plum blossoms anywhere else. Whenever things get hard, the senior sisters and I all come up here to catch our breath before heading back down."
I gazed at plum trees somewhat larger and fuller than the others. Thousand-Day Plum Blossoms, blooming for a thousand days on end under the influence of Mount Hongseong, the sacred mountain. Fruitless trees, blessed with nothing but their magnificent scent.
"We're thinking of drying the petals and making sachets from them."
Sachets, hm. That sounded lovely too. I cast a sweeping glance over the plum trees, then rose from my spot.
"Well then. Let's go."
"Oh? You could rest a little longer, you know."
"I shouldn't eat up too much of your day, should I?"
"Okaaay..."
So, descending out of the plum grove with Sa Yun, I organized my thoughts one by one, and when we returned to Hongseong Gate, I said to her:
"Hongseong Gate doesn't accept help from outsiders. Money above all."
"Yes. It's a tradition handed down for generations, a rule of the sect. For one who has mastered the martial arts to spend that strength protecting those who haven't is only natural—how could anyone dream of demanding payment for it..."
"I see..."
I turned over the lore of Hongseong Gate as I knew it. Revere righteousness above all. Take no gain for saving those without the martial arts. Run through the rest of their rules, and the only conclusion available was: what a picture-perfect ideal of an orthodox sect. A fine recipe for starving to death, though.
Proposing they change it would get absolutely nowhere, so if I meant to hold back the Iron Blood Dan and prepare for the sect's destruction, I would have to prepare in ways that never touched that rule. And of course, ways to do exactly that were anything but scarce.
"Right. Yes. Sa Yun. Do you know why rules exist?"
"Um. Well—to prevent disorder, and to carry out the justice that follows from it..."
Hahaha. Oh, you sweet thing. Hahaha. How innocent you are.
The reason rules exist, my dear, is so that everything outside them can be used. If you can't take your profit from those who have nothing, you simply take it from those who have plenty.
And so I thought of the herbs those honorable, idealistic, beautiful disciples of Hongseong Gate had raised with such devotion on their sacred Mount Hongseong—and of the Thousand-Day Plum Blossoms destined for their sachets.
These things, right here.
Let's turn them into a 'local specialty', make them 'limited edition', slap a 'premium' on top—and sell them off at scandalous prices to every deep-pocketed fool in the realm.