Chapter 17
Chapter 17
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: Outing
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Master, I have finished all my preparations.”
Jeong-a, having completed her preparations for going out, flashed a radiant smile.
She wore the simple outing robe she had arrived in at Won-gak Pavilion, and had merely paid a bit more attention to her makeup than usual.
Even so, her base beauty was so exceptional that this minor change alone was dazzling enough to hurt the eyes.
“Is that the best you can do?”
But Yeon So-hyeon did not seem pleased.
“……It is not to your liking?”
Honestly, dressing up to this extent was practically forbidden even in the reception hall where she greeted guests.
“As a maid attending the Luoyang Sword Clan’s Eldest Young Master, it falls far short.”
……Though he himself wore nothing but the plainest white cotton robe.
“Life-Seizing Ghost Sword!”
At Yeon So-hyeon’s call, the middle-aged man drew near while grumbling. He was the ‘security captain at Won-gak Pavilion’s main gate’, the ‘liaison for Won-gak Pavilion’, and a ‘master of unknown origins’.
“No matter that you’re the Eldest Young Master, what’s with calling me ‘Life-Seizing Ghost Sword’, ‘Life-Seizing Ghost Sword’? My name is…….”
“Quiet, Life-Seizing Ghost Sword. Cut the nonsense and go to any housekeeper in the Inner Residence to fetch women’s outing clothes. The finest quality.”
The Inner Residence was the division that attended to the Family Head and his direct blood relatives.
“……What did you just say?”
The sound of teeth grinding came from the Life-Seizing Ghost Sword’s mouth.
Yeon So-hyeon snickered.
“If you don’t dash off right now, you’ll go from Life-Seizing Ghost Sword to Won-gak Pavilion’s dung carrier.”
The Life-Seizing Ghost Sword instantly felt his vision turn crimson.
He had devoted his entire life to the Luoyang Sword Clan.
Though half-retired now, he still carried out the duties assigned to him at the clan’s main house.
In the past, he had fought countless real battles in places beyond the Sword Clan’s reach, crossing death lines as numerous as the stars.
How many of the Sword Clan’s enemies had he cut down?
Yet this Eldest Young Master—the clan’s shame and object of scorn—was now mocking him.
‘Hiding behind his father’s orders, still frittering away his days……!’
“Still not gone?”
At Yeon So-hyeon’s casual glance back, he clenched his teeth, unleashed his lightness skill, and shot out of Won-gak Pavilion.
“Ah……!”
Jeong-a let out an involuntary gasp of admiration at the movement technique that made his form vanish in an instant.
It was a transcendent lightness skill, enough to momentarily lose track of his position even with her ‘eyes’.
In the vast Central Plains Nation, how many could display such a technique?
‘Damn it……’
That lightness skill had been the Life-Seizing Ghost Sword’s own show of force.
But even so, he felt no relief whatsoever.
Instead, he was overcome with profound disgust at the cold sweat trickling down his forehead.
‘What in the world was that gaze……?’
In truth, deploying the lightness skill had been little more than a panicked reaction.
The instant the Eldest Young Master turned, he had reflexively leaped away.
A veteran of countless death lines, he had instinctively sensed a threat to his life.
He had managed to flee the scene with his lightness skill immediately after, but that gaze still seemed to pursue him.
‘It was the look of a madman. A truly deranged bastard. How could a guy who buries himself in books every day…….’
The forest path came to an end.
Won-gak Pavilion’s main gate came into view.
‘Yeah, just hold out a little longer. I’ve formally requested a reassignment, so just endure.’
But the trials he had to endure did not end there.
* * *
A short while later, at Won-gak Pavilion.
“……They won’t give them.”
“What?”
“They refuse. Said they won’t cooperate.”
The Inner Residence, tasked with serving the direct bloodline, had rejected the Eldest Young Master’s order.
The Eldest Young Master wore an incredulous expression—which was somewhat amusing—but it was the Life-Seizing Ghost Sword who had been turned down face-to-face.
“The reason?”
The Life-Seizing Ghost Sword shrugged his shoulders.
“You’d know better than I, Eldest Young Master.”
They had rattled off several excuses, but they were all nonsense. In the end, it meant they had no desire to cooperate with the Swordless One’s Won-gak Pavilion.
“……Unbelievable.”
Yeon So-hyeon clutched his forehead and stared into empty space, while Jeong-a simply bowed her head in dismay.
“What will you do?”
It was a subtly provocative question from the Life-Seizing Ghost Sword, but Yeon So-hyeon merely looked baffled and stayed surprisingly calm.
“No helping it.”
Jeong-a, reading the mood, seized the moment to interject.
“With time already delayed, perhaps we should depart now…….”
But upon seeing what Yeon So-hyeon drew from his sleeve, her words gradually faded and stopped.
“I forgot about it since it’s been so long.”
At first blankly staring at the object in Yeon So-hyeon’s hand, unsure what it was, the Life-Seizing Ghost Sword’s jaw suddenly dropped wide.
“Th-that’s……?!”
Yeon So-hyeon approached a nearby pavilion and picked up a brush.
With a single flourish of the brush, he wrote a letter.
‘Bring clothes.’
It was a letter utterly lacking in form or courtesy—an absurd missive.
Yet its calligraphy was so extraordinary that Jeong-a and the Life-Seizing Ghost Sword, watching in a daze, unconsciously let slip small exclamations of awe.
Thud!
Before the ink had even dried, Yeon So-hyeon stamped the letter with the object in his hand.
There appeared the majestic seal reading ‘Supreme Sword of the Realm’.
“Here. Take it.”
Yeon So-hyeon roughly folded the letter and handed it to the Life-Seizing Ghost Sword.
“.......!”
The Life-Seizing Ghost Sword turned pale with shock and dashed right up to Yeon So-hyeon.
There, he dropped to both knees and received the letter with both hands.
“Y-your command!”
His hands shook as he accepted the letter.
“What are you waiting for? Dash off.”
“Your command!”
Before Yeon So-hyeon had even finished speaking, his figure vanished.
“M-Master. That truly was……?”
Yeon So-hyeon perched on the railing and held up the object in his hand.
“This?”
“Yes, that one.”
Yeon So-hyeon grinned.
“Yeah, that’s right. The Family Head Seal.”
Jeong-a’s complexion, which rarely betrayed emotion, turned ashen.
“The Sword Clan Golden Seal!”
It was the seal symbolizing the sole absolute authority in the Luoyang Sword Clan—a wondrous artifact.
Merely beholding the actual object was astonishing enough, yet to use it for ordering a mere maid’s clothes……
“W-why do you have that, Master……?”
Yeon So-hyeon looked at Jeong-a with an expression asking what sort of question that was.
“With Father in ‘that state’, who else but I, the main house’s Eldest Young Master, could hold it?”
It was logical.
“B-but to issue a command for my clothes with something so precious……?!”
“Don’t worry.”
Yeon So-hyeon snickered and tucked the Sword Clan Golden Seal back into his pocket within his sleeve.
“I’ve used it for trivial matters like this plenty of times before.”
In fact, it could only be used for trivial matters, Yeon So-hyeon added.
“If I don’t pull this out, no one cooperates properly.”
He let out a hearty laugh.
“Well, it’s just a tool I use for buying books, or paper and brushes, things like that.”
Jeong-a wanted to faint on the spot.
* * *
After that, everything proceeded without a hitch.
The Luoyang Sword Clan’s Family Head artifact, the ‘Sword Clan Golden Seal’, had been personally bestowed upon the Family Head of the time by the emperor himself.
No one in the Luoyang Sword Clan was dim enough to take ‘Bring clothes’ stamped with the Family Head Seal at utter face value.
At the forefront appeared a female housekeeper from the Inner Residence.
Behind her strode over a dozen Inner Residence maids in disciplined formation, exuding grandeur.
Following them came a line of sturdy manservants bearing massive chests on their backs.
The chests were lined up in the courtyard one after another, and when their lids were opened, dozens of women’s outing robes, shoes, and accessories were revealed.
Every single one was the finest quality, without exception.
And Jeong-a, escorted away by the Inner Residence maids, transformed into something akin to the cassia fairy of the Moon Palace in the blink of an eye.
“Hmm. This will do.”
As Yeon So-hyeon nodded in approval, the female housekeeper crisply called out, “Withdraw!”
“If you’d cooperated smoothly from the start, it would’ve been easier on everyone…….”
Every time, what nonsense is this, Yeon So-hyeon clicked his tongue at her.
But she paid no heed to Yeon So-hyeon’s words, offered a salute, and turned to leave.
Like an ebbing tide, the personnel withdrew, leaving behind the chests they had brought and all their contents.
“What are you doing?”
At Yeon So-hyeon’s words, the Life-Seizing Ghost Sword—who had been avoiding his gaze—scowled.
“……What do you mean?”
In response, Yeon So-hyeon wordlessly rummaged in his sleeve.
“A-alright, enough already!”
Grumbling, he shuffled toward the chests.
“Handling something so precious so carelessly is absurd,” and the like drifted from his mutterings, but Yeon So-hyeon paid it no mind.
“Do you like it?”
Jeong-a gazed into the full-length mirror placed in the courtyard.
She appeared to maintain her composure, but she could not hide the faint flush on her cheeks.
“……It does not suit someone of my humble station.”
Yeon So-hyeon shrugged.
“You came to Won-gak Pavilion, and I’ve begun to move.”
His tone was casual, but the implication was anything but light.
“You’ll have more occasions to wear such attire from now on.”
Jeong-a’s hair, black as ebony, swayed in the gentle breeze.
At that moment, she intuited it.
This breeze, now lazily drifting westward, would one day return as a raging typhoon.
“……Yes, Master.”
Resolve entered Jeong-a’s eyes.
* * *
“……Do you truly not require an escort?”
Yeon So-hyeon smiled at the Luoyang Sword Clan escort unit members blocking his path.
“With this fellow here, it’s fine.”
The direction Yeon So-hyeon indicated held the ‘Life-Seizing Ghost Sword’, his face twisted as if chewing shit.
With his already ferocious features contorted so, he resembled a fiendish rakshasa.
Liaison, errand runner, and now bodyguard besides.
There was no way his mood could be good.
“We have no choice but to obey the Eldest Young Master’s orders, but without permission from the Escort Captain…….”
Yeon So-hyeon cut off the escort member’s words.
“Yeah, yeah. Handle the reporting yourselves.”
“But we…….”
Only after Yeon So-hyeon produced the Sword Clan Golden Seal once more and issued another makeshift order did they finally withdraw.
“Who’s that guy in the guard uniform?”
“No idea. Looks like a master, though—he’ll be the one suffering in our stead today.”
Freed from ‘escorting the Swordless One to the market’, they made no effort to hide their relief.
As Jeong-a moved to step forward at their attitude, Yeon So-hyeon raised a hand to stop her.
“Enough. We’ve a long way to go.”
But they were inevitably stopped again at one of the Luoyang Sword Clan’s rear gates.
The guards blocked their path, citing that the ‘higher-ups’ had not approved the ‘Eldest Young Master going out during the day’.
And it was only natural that Jeong-a, her fury erupting, laid into them with fiery intensity.
The guard members, caught between the Eldest Young Master and their guard captain, were the pitiful ones.
“Haha, we haven’t even set out, and already the amusements overflow.”
The only one finding it entertaining was, naturally, Yeon So-hyeon.
The Life-Seizing Ghost Sword regarded that Yeon So-hyeon with thoroughly exasperated eyes.
‘What on earth is inside this so-called Eldest Young Master’s head?’
What of the figure who had relentlessly hounded him yesterday, or the mad glint that occasionally flashed in his gaze?
And what of this version he showed today—this embodiment of the Swordless One, seemingly devoid of all pride?
Yet amid it all, one certainty crystallized for him.
‘I must transfer out at once!’
And so, in the end:
One maid who resembled the Moon Palace’s cassia fairy yet held the lowest status in the group.
One who merely looked like a Luoyang Sword Clan guardsman, but whose true nature was an enigmatic master.
And one who appeared a handsome scholar attending a young lady, yet harbored an ancient fiend—the Luoyang Sword Clan’s Eldest Young Master.
This peculiar party set foot into the streets of Luoyang.