A Good Experience - 1

Once I had read it through to the end, I went back and read the letter again. She seemed to have worked out a style of letter-writing all her own — she had managed a proper formal opening, however clumsily, but the further it went, the more her true feelings came spilling out, and it wrung a smile out of me all the same. I folded the letter neatly, slid it into a drawer, and sat for a while in silence, basking in a quiet swell of pride.

Sa Yun had always been alone. She had lost her sect, lost the people of her village, and then lost even the friend she had only barely managed to make. And after that, unable to bear the agony of watching the people she loved die, she had sealed her heart away and shoved aside anyone who dared come near. It would not be until somewhere around the middle of Part Four that she would finally meet someone she could even begin to call a friend — and through all the time between, she suffered without end.

And that same girl had just come to know the joy of giving to the people she loved — and had felt happy because of it?

Ah, I can't take this. Keep going, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exactly like this!

The pride brimming in a corner of my chest kept tugging the corners of my mouth upward.

"Mmmmm..."

That said — so Hong Ryeon was suspicious of me. Well, that would be the normal reaction. I had, after all, sent a whole silver ingot out of nowhere, with a message no longer than a single line. Good thing I'd decided against approaching her directly. And even if she was wary, there was nothing she could actually trace. Sure, Na Yerin might be a benefactor of the Courier Gate, with Hongseong Gate's mail requests handled free of charge, but the Courier Gate kept its confidences airtight; they would never breathe a word about me. So no matter how much Hong Ryeon suspected me, there was nothing whatsoever to worry about.

Without any evidence, what could she possibly do?

— Scratch... scratch...

I immediately ground some ink, swiftly wrote a single line on paper, let it dry, and slipped it into an envelope. I would have the Courier Gate summoned again tomorrow to send that one off as well.

— CRASH!!

"What now?"

The ruckus drifting up from below sent my good mood plummeting in an instant. The inn, was it? A place that sold liquor and food, and a courtesan's songs on top of that, could hardly claim to be entirely free of brawls — but this was the first time since I had come to this world that things had gotten this loud.

I opened the door and headed straight down. By the time I reached the ground floor, several burly men had one of the young waitresses by the collar.

"Get the owner out here!!"

"Fuck!! This inn's service is total garbage!! You call this an inn?!"

As a rule, wherever a sect held ground — a sect with any real renown, at that — street punks could not come sniffing about freely. Naturally so. If the sect belonged to the orthodox faction, it was those punks' sworn enemy; if it belonged to the unorthodox, it would guard the place in exchange for protection fees. Either way, second-rate drifters tended to keep very quiet wherever a strong sect presided.

And Seomhwachon, naturally, sat squarely under Hongseong Gate's influence. Not that the village paid the sect any protection money, of course — they wouldn't have dreamed of accepting it in the first place. Instead, Seomhwachon had offered up goods rather than coin, surplus supplies here, trial products there, and the sect, unable to flatly refuse even those, had accepted only the barest minimum before granting the village the right to bear its name and standing as its protector.

And now street punks had shown up in Seomhwachon? To the folk who had come out for a drink after work, or simply for supper, it was nothing short of flabbergasting.

"Owner, get out here!! Fuck!! We just wanna run a tab, that all?! You think I've been coming here a day or two?! And you've got courtesans here, huh? Then they'd better show a little skin!! Me and your boss here...!! Huh? We hit the bathhouse together yesterday! Huh?! Drank together?! Huh?! Done it all!!"

Four or five burly men were on their feet, kicking up their scene. On the table where they had sat was the cheapest dish the inn sold — a plain bowl of somen noodles.

I watched them for a moment, then picked up an empty bottle from a nearby table.

"Get the own—"

— CRACK!!

The bottle slammed into the head of the thug who had been bellowing so boldly, waitress still in his grip, mid-laugh. Looking down at the man crumpled on the floor, twitching, I turned my gaze on his flustered companions.

"Wh-what the hell! Who are you?!"

"If you're that starved for a woman, go pay a brothel a visit. Or go home and jerk off. Why are you throwing a fit here? Looking to die?"

"The hell did you say?!"

"I'm the owner of this inn — the one who did not hit the bathhouse with this bastard yesterday, did not visit any courtesan house with him, did not eat with him, and did not drink with him."

Ignoring how the air had frozen solid in an instant, I shifted my gaze to the thug standing at the very back of the pack — the one still snickering even with his underling's skull cracked open and him out cold. A mountain of flesh, memorable for the pair of blade scars across his face.

I knew this guy.

"Hey. You. You're Jang Woochul of the Iron Sand Sect, aren't you?"

"...You know me?"

Only then did the grin slide off his face.

How could I not? This was the thug Sa Yun fought the very moment Chapter One began — your standard starter-villain mob. An action squad leader of the Iron Sand Sect, an unorthodox sect from a nearby village who, once Hongseong Gate was destroyed in the original story, had naturally stepped up to swallow Seomhwachon whole. As for his actual skill...

Nothing worth mentioning.

"If you know me, this'll go quick. This inn here — from now on, you'll be paying protection money to the Iron Sand Sect. Can't guarantee punks like him won't show up again, now, can I? Hongseong Gate only lends you its name, but we're different. We..."

"Without you bastards, it never would've happened in a lifetime."

I sneered, and his face twisted. As the mood tilted inevitably toward a fight, the guests began to rise from their seats, grumbling.

— SHRIING!!

A long saber slid free of the sheath at Jang Woochul's waist. Taking that as their cue, the others drew their weapons as well.

"Ooooh... Namu Amitabha... What wickedness is this! You're truly set on seeing blood today, are you?!"

"That's right! Let's see some blood!!"

"Courtesy would be a luxury for the likes of you!! We'll cut you all down!! Boys!!"

At my cry, the inn's servants came pouring out armed with cudgels and kitchen knives, and even the saw-toothed blade they used for slicing dang-gwa, the house's sugar-glazed sweets.

"Now then — shall we put on a scene more dangerous to children under eighteen than smallpox, plague, and war combined?!"

Beginning with my low growl, the tension swelled like a balloon. An air spread through the room as if steel would fly at any moment.

"That's enough."

What let the air out of that balloon was a voice from the direction of the inn's entrance — low, and rather pleasant to hear. Every gaze snapped toward it. Standing there was a young woman in martial garb.

Her hair was red like a rose — or like hot blood freshly spilled. Left loose and uncombed, as if she had rumpled it herself; perhaps that was why her wild, untamed beauty stood out all the more. And in the jet-black eyes glimpsed between those red strands lay a supreme indifference. A beauty at once noble and overwhelming enough to seize the entire room in a heartbeat — and desire kindled in the eyes of the thugs who had been ready to draw steel moments before.

There was nothing odd about that. She was simply that beautiful, and the swell of her chest beneath her snow-white clothes radiated womanhood thick enough to drown in.

But Jang Woochul's face alone turned as white as the very clothes the woman wore. And no wonder — he knew exactly who she was.

"...N-Nak-ilgeom... f-fuck. They said Hongseong Gate never comes down here...!"

Nak-ilgeom, the Sun-Falling Sword — Hong Ryeon. Personal disciple of the Sword Saint Na Yerin, and the eldest disciple of Hongseong Gate. A powerhouse of the murim who could halve monsters with a single stroke of her blade.

At Jang Woochul's words, the other thugs froze stiff. The ones who had been flaunting their lust at her moments before, most of all.

"To bare your desire at the sight of my beauty and my body, I could forgive... but a gaze of mere carnality, without so much as a shred of true love behind it — that I find genuinely displeasing."

"Ghk."

"And, since I take it you know full well that Seomhwachon is a place under Hongseong Gate's protection..."

She slowly laid her hand upon her sword's hilt.

"You may leave an arm and a leg apiece behind on your way out."

It was a single line. But that one line became the frost of the northern frontier in an instant, more than enough to freeze most everyone present to the spot.

And I, who did not number among that 'most everyone,' picked up a liquor bottle.

— CRASH!!

The bottle shattered — and so did Jang Woochul's head. I gave the crumpled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠man a couple of kicks, then patted the cheek of the half-conscious Jang Woochul as I spoke.

"Your name, from this day forth, shall be Chunsik."

Unable to manage even a reply, the man dropped into unconsciousness, and in the same instant the waitresses and servants set upon Jang Woochul's — no, Chunsik's — underlings with their cudgels.

"Oof! Oof!"

His own skills were nothing to brag about, so his underlings could only be mob-tier trash as well. Looking down at the men getting the cudgel treatment, I murmured quietly to the waitress sneaking glances at me.

"Contact the Cheonghoe Merchant Guild. Tell them we've got the Chunsiks tied up and waiting."

There was a time, once, when this very question had been the bait that fed whole threads through the game's community forums: how could one prevent the destruction of Hongseong Gate? I had taken part in those discussions myself, naturally, and these past few days I had been preparing one of the more plausible methods to come out of them.

Namely — a connection with the Cheonghoe Merchant Guild. They were a guild I had sought out and bound myself to only recently, all in preparation for this; in the main story they do not appear until midway through Part Three. On the surface they were wholesalers dealing in sundries, but their true face was one of the conscription bureaus answering directly to the Emperor. Their line of work was quietly snatching up those who charged around the murim with no grasp of their own station and forging them into soldiers for the Empire's battlefields — something like a military manpower office that could turn absolutely anyone into active-duty material.

And so, in tying myself to them, I had promised a steady supply of useful bodies. In return, I would receive troops and expert support whenever I needed them. There had, admittedly, been 'just a pinch' of friction in the process, but it was a fine bargain all the same. I could borrow manpower in a crisis; the Chunsiks could escape their trash lives of tormenting others and labor for the Empire instead; and the Empire could fill its perennial shortage of soldiers. A blessing for everyone involved.

The men squirming over there would be reborn as first-class conscription resources — fine, upstanding heroes who would help make the Empire great again.

"You rascals. Don't you forget me when you've made it big. And, everyone — these gentlemen here are bound for a good place. See that they're received with the utmost care."

Strip them bare and string them up from some pillar somewhere — that ought to do it. Jang Woochul had trained in the martial arts, sure, but he was a Third-Rate nothing; bind him properly and he'd never squirm his way out.

The waitresses moved fast. The trussed-up men were hauled away, but the frozen air in the room did not thaw a single degree. And so, as the owner of this inn, I felt it my duty to do something about that myself.

"My apologies for the disturbance. By way of apology for spoiling your meals, no one here will be paying for tonight's food. Surin — a song, if you would. Music, now."

"Yes? Ah — yes, of course~!"

The courtesan, zither in her arms, called back in a bright, ringing voice; I gave a light round of applause, and a moment later her golden melody — a BGM quite familiar to me — began to fill the hall.

"We shall also serve each of you a bottle of cheongju, our clear rice wine. I hope it will settle, even a little, the fright I've given you."

"Eh, well, if you insist..."

As the old saying goes: nobody hates a freebie. Only when the guests were laughing and returning to their meals did I turn to Hong Ryeon. She stood by the entrance, hand still resting on her hilt, staring straight at me.

"Hmmm... I had intended to deal with those men myself."

"Whatever happens in my inn is mine to handle, I should think. But — that you lent a hand is fact enough that I cannot simply see you off with nothing."

A faint glimmer touched the ice rose that had been nothing but blunt edges. Meeting the smile climbing her lips, I headed for the general store beside the inn. Everyone there had gone wide-eyed at the ruckus from the inn, but they all seemed relieved it had ended without anything worse.

"Box me up some dang-gwa, would you."

"Right away!"

The clerks bustled about and quickly produced several bamboo boxes. I held them out to Hong Ryeon, who stood there looking a touch awkward.

"I hear Hongseong Gate takes no money for such things. It falls well short of what your help was worth, but take these at least."

"Oh... dang-gwa? But I hardly did this expecting anything in return."

"They do say little girls are made of sugar and spice, and everything nice. Then a refill would be in order, no?"

"...Little girl?"

"Am I wrong?"

Compared to me, Hong Ryeon was plenty girl enough.

"That's the first time anyone's ever treated me like a little girl."

"Hm. If being counted a girl sat poorly with you, I'll apologize."

"Ah, no, no. It's only that it wasn't the reaction I expected, so it caught me off guard. Heheh. The eldest disciple of Hongseong Gate, a little girl... Haha. Well, true enough. You do still have a young girl's heart in there."

Anyone else overhearing would call me a shameless windbag — I could do without that, frankly. But she laughed it off in high spirits, as if her earlier scowl had all been for show, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and gave a light shrug of her shoulders.

"In truth, it's because of what's been happening lately."

Hong Ryeon's fine brows knitted slightly. An expression of faint displeasure. At the sight of it, the words written in Sa Yun's letter floated back to me.

Hong Ryeon is suspicious.

"Hm... has something happened, then?"

I stole a glance at the waitresses clearing the floor, then made a show of idly straightening the cups on a table as I asked, ever so casually. And perhaps that show worked — Hong Ryeon, catching nothing of my heart, answered without much weight.

"I've just returned from the Murim Alliance. Some madman has been sending strange letters to young girls."

"Strange... letters?"

Cold sweat trickled, slow and steady, down my spine.

Those strange letters wouldn't happen to be the ones I've been sending... would they?

Hm... Right. Couldn't be. What I send is pure, heartfelt concern — has she been eating properly? Nothing but worry and care. Absolutely nothing strange about it!

"Well. One said, marry me when you're grown. Another asked what she was wearing underneath today. Let us meet before long, said a third. Let us be secret friends who meet in private. No love in any of it — nothing but the man's own desires... that sort of content, I mean."

"...Now I've seen every flavor of lunatic there is."

...Thank the heavens I scrapped the secret-friend plan. But seriously — what kind of raving lunatic even does that?

"Perhaps the whole world has grown strangely unsettled of late? Our youngest received one of those strange letters too, same as that man from earlier. Could it be the same sort of creature?"

The air went frigid again. A dagger slid between my ribs.

"Suspecting people without a shred of evidence hardly seems fitting conduct for a member of the orthodox faction."

In that instant, the eyes leveled at me sharpened like blades!

Watch that glare, will you!

Hong Ryeon, in her capacity as an outside inspector and investigator of the Murim Alliance, began combing over me from head to toe. Even beneath that gaze — one that seemed to see straight through a man, to taste the hostility of others — naturally, I didn't bat an eye. I am, after all, a man who can look up at the heavens without a single speck of shame.

"Living as Hongseong Gate's eldest disciple, I've come to where a person's eyes alone tell me, more or less, who they are."

"And?"

"You're a good person."

Only after I watched that hostile glare settle back into its natural shape did I let myself smile. She does seem terribly proud of those peepers of hers... Still, she can read people well enough.

Because among the people who love Sa Yun, there is not a single bad one.