Birthright
Luoyang Sword Family Supreme Operations Committee.
The emergency session had adjourned.
The emergency summons of the highest commissioners over urgent business was over. Yet many of the highest commissioners showed no sign of rising from their seats.
“Will the Central Investigation Department truly dig up the corruption of the Yeon bloodline that has been buried deep within Geomga Jeonjang?”
“Only if the Director of the Finance Hall cooperates can they hope to seize that vast current of wrongdoing…”
“The First Young Master visited Geomga Jeonjang in person. If he had not meant to meet the Director, there would have been no reason for him to go himself.”
“And if he did meet the Director…”
“Then it is more than possible that the Director showed the Central Investigation Department the secret ledgers that had been passed down in the shadows.”
The remaining highest commissioners murmured among themselves.
“…A blood wind is about to blow.”
Even the air drifting in from outside seemed already thick with the stench of blood.
“Even we of the Supreme Operations Committee do not know every name involved in those secret ledgers.”
“Already the bloodline members who look connected are flocking to the Second Young Master’s side.”
This was the House of Yeon; the Yeon bloodline had long monopolized the family’s key posts. Their power and influence within the Sword Family were immense.
“If they join forces with the Second Young Master’s faction…”
It would no longer be a mere question of succession. The entire Sword Family could be dragged into a great war.
“Then is this not fortunate?”
The Chairman, still arranging documents, spoke.
“The First Young Master has stepped forward at precisely the right moment and resolved the Third Young Master’s problem for us.”
Though they could not see one another’s faces, the highest commissioners could not help nodding at those words.
“Indeed.”
“Once the unrest at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering construction site is settled, the Second Young Master’s faction—who should have been the rallying point for the Yeon bloodline—will lose their footing.”
One commissioner even voiced open admiration.
“…As expected of the First Young Master. When and how did he prepare all of this?”
“That preparation took a full ten years.”
Another commissioner stroked his long beard as he answered the praise.
“When one considers how long the First Young Master was forced into silence, how sharply he must have whetted his blade—then even this affair does not strike me as so surprising.”
The commissioner whose beard reached his waist gave a bitter smile.
“If this old man’s judgment is sound, the First Young Master’s path has only just begun with this.”
Greater chaos than the present. Greater collision.
“….”
Every mouth closed.
“Dawn is near.”
The Chairman layered a touch of internal energy into his voice and broke the atmosphere.
“Before the next regular session begins, all of you should try to rest your eyes a little.”
He added,
“The discussion on renewing the Spanish trade-route usage contract has been postponed.”
“You mean…?”
“Far more critical agendas submitted by the First Young Master have arisen. At the next regular session we shall address those first.”
The moment the Chairman finished speaking, everyone left. Their departure looked almost like flight at the mere mention of agendas raised by the First Young Master.
“….”
Watching the lamps beyond the curtains wink out one by one, the Chairman sank into deep thought.
Or rather, he was about to.
“…Chairman.”
Not everyone had gone. At the voice of a female highest commissioner, the Chairman lifted his head.
“…Do you have a question?”
“Yes, that is…”
She was unusually hesitant to speak. She had long since left the ranks of the ignorant newcomers, yet still the weight of the man who had upheld the Sword Family through ten years of the Family Head’s absence pressed upon her.
“You and I are both merely highest commissioners. Speak freely.”
What needed saying had to be said. The female commissioner swallowed a burdened sigh and opened her mouth.
“…The decision just made cannot escape the public perception that it is one-sidedly favorable to the First Young Master. Even though it was the First Young Master who resolved the crisis, will the Third Young Master’s side truly accept it and withdraw without resistance?”
It was a decision that combined reward for the First Young Master’s merit with disciplinary measures against the Third Young Master’s faction who had caused the trouble.
“‘For now,’ that is so.”
The Chairman answered her.
“But soon a reason will surface that leaves them no choice but to accept it.”
“…It seems the Chairman has more that he has not shared with us.”
“You will learn of it soon enough.”
The critical agendas he had said would be taken up at the next regular session, the sudden arrival of the First Young Master’s solution—everything. Something fundamental about the Chairman himself felt altered.
“Even if others come to accept this decision as you say… setting that aside, the manner you displayed in the emergency session just now….”
She bit her lip, then continued.
“Was unusually partial toward the First Young Master.”
Once the words began, they flowed more easily than she had expected.
“I understand now that the First Young Master was originally meant to inherit this Sword Family. But as things stand, he is not the master of the Sword Family. We are.”
At those words the Chairman’s brow twitched, though she could not see it.
“I know the Chairman feels guilt toward the First Young Master. Still, should you not show a bearing more befitting the Chairman of the Supreme Operations Committee that steers the Sword Family?”
It was an open rebuke of the Chairman who was obligated to maintain neutrality.
“…The master of the Sword Family, you say.”
Repeating her words, the Chairman abruptly spoke of something entirely different.
“Lately, whenever I have a spare moment, I have been reading a volume of European history. A tale concerning their religion.”
Though my talent is lacking and I must rely on a translation…, the Chairman’s soft laugh echoed quietly through the secret cavern.
“This is a story from the days of the Great Qin—the Roman Empire. More than a thousand years ago, their Savior walked that land.”
An incomprehensible tale continued, yet the female commissioner listened carefully to the Chairman’s voice.
“…And so his disciple asked him: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar, or is it not right to pay taxes?”
A dilemma. The question itself was a trap. Whether one answered that paying taxes was right or that it was not, an unfavorable outcome was inevitable. To say pay the emperor would invite internal revolt; to say do not pay would invite greater external persecution.
“To that question he instead asked this in return.”
Whose likeness and inscription are on this coin?
The answer came: Caesar’s.
“Then render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
Deep inside the encirclement.
“….”
Those racing toward the smoke of cooking rice made no sound of breath, nor even the squelch of footsteps on the rain-soaked ground. It was the extraordinary martial skill one expected of the Sword Family’s warriors.
“…If only we could keep eating white rice like this forever.”
“Aye. If only I could take some home for my little girl…”
“Makes me think of my late mother…”
The men who should have been standing watch at the outpost were too busy chewing and swallowing to notice anything else. Taking advantage of that opening, the approaching warriors settled into position beneath the outpost.
They aren’t even keeping proper watch—just stuffing their faces? We’ve been struggling against trash like this?
Coldly sneering at the fools on both his own side and the enemy’s, the squad leader conveyed his orders with hand signals and close-range transmission.
There are three sentries. You take the right, I take the center, you take the left.
The squad leader of the warriors positioned beneath the outpost sent the close-range transmission to his men.
On my signal, finish them in one stroke.
The warriors nodded. Rainwater slid down the matte-finished blades in their hands, reflecting the flash of lightning.
Now.
In an instant the warriors scaled the wall and struck. Exactly as planned, the squad leader’s sword pierced the middle figure. From the moment they climbed the wall to the thrust of the blades, the ambush was over before the thunder that followed the lightning had even finished rolling.
“…?!”
They thought it finished. It was not.
“Is there not even a shred of pity left in your hearts?”
Though the swords had been driven deep into their chests, the pierced figures twisted their faces as one and smiled grotesque smiles.
“Is there not even a shred of regret left in your minds?”
Their mouths split open all the way beneath the ears. At the same moment, fingernails sharper than any sword punched through the warriors’ chests.
“Keugh!”
“Kh…!”
The screams were brief. The long nails burst from their backs like longswords. The warriors flailed with bulging eyes, foamed blood from their mouths, and went limp.
“S-sorcery…?!”
The squad leader, whose superior skill had barely allowed him to deflect the nails, spoke without meaning to. They had thought the enemies were three; there was only one. They had thought it human; it was not.
“Sorcery, you say…”
In the successive flashes of lightning the rain-soaked white mask stood out with unnatural clarity.
“Interesting.”
This entire district had already been saturated by the vicious demonic energy of the Jeam Jincheon Scripture. The sentries they had seen had been nothing but illusions born of that demonic energy.
“Kh?!”
Even the squad leader, whose marrow was already steeped in rising demonic energy, managed only a couple of sword strokes before meeting the same end as his men.
“Th-this unorthodox… gkrk—”
Instead of last words, a bubbling froth of blood spilled from the squad leader’s chest as the nails slid free.
“I see.”
Amcheonjonza looked down at the sprawled corpses and sneered.
“So this Dark Heaven Venerable is an unorthodox creature who resorts to sorcery, while you are righteous martial artists who wield proper martial arts?”
The words dripped with sarcasm. Of course no answer returned from the dead.
“…Damn it!”
Those who had kicked open the doors of the buildings from which cooking smoke rose came pouring back out, shouting.
“Empty!”
“No one here!”
Atop a tall building, Amcheonjonza watched the warriors spill back into the street and twisted a smile beneath his mask.
Enemies many, infiltration routes many, people to protect many—and he alone. In that case…
I need only lure the enemies.
Yeon So-hyeon had already withdrawn the poor and the Spring of Luoyang collaborators from the approach routes. Following his orders they had lit cooking fires and retreated. Exactly as he intended, enemies hungry for merit swarmed to the smoke like flies.
“Damn it—was it a trap…?”
The commander of the right wing who arrived late, the Master of the White-Hemp Martial Hall, ground his teeth.
“All hands, be alert! It is the enemy’s trap—watch for ambushes!”
Before his shout even finished, a scream-like cry rang out from one of the warriors.
“Unidentified enemy spotted!”
One of the warriors milling about in the street pointed at Amcheonjonza; every eye turned to the rooftop.
“A white mask!”
“A-Amcheonjonza?!”
Even through the driving rain, even through vision shaken by the fierce wind, the presence looking down on them from that distant rooftop was immense. The black overcoat hanging from Amcheonjonza’s shoulders billowed in the wind and stretched long, as though it would blot out the sky itself.
“So that is the Amcheonjonza of the rumors…?”
The Master of the White-Hemp Martial Hall scowled. Who in Luoyang had never heard that name?
“A-Amcheonjonza…?”
“The one who delivers Heaven’s punishment in Heaven’s place…?”
As uneasy murmuring spread at once, the Master of the White-Hemp Martial Hall raised his sword toward the distant figure.
“By what right do you obstruct the affairs of the Luoyang Sword Family?!”
His internal-energy-laden roar was about to pierce the rain when the answer came from directly behind him.
“And by what shamelessness do you seek to trample the right of those who merely wish to live?”
A chill raced up his spine.
“…?!”
The cold breath that brushed his ear seemed to freeze the entire pinna. A thick reek of sulfur flooded in and paralyzed his sense of smell.
“Kh…!”
The sword he reflexively swept backward sheared through the rain in a single stroke. But the opponent had already retreated far back.
How did he move behind me in that brief instant…?!
He roughly gauged the distance from the rooftop where Amcheonjonza had stood to his own position. It was an impossible distance to cover in a single moment.
Damn it…!
Whatever had bewitched him, it had done a thorough job. The old man leveled his sword again and shouted as if seized by a fit.
“No matter how ghostly your movements, do you truly believe you can survive in Luoyang after becoming an enemy of the Sword Family?!”
“I, an enemy of the Sword Family?”
Something in those words seemed to provoke Amcheonjonza. His pitch-black overcoat melted into the darkness and writhed in mid-air as though alive.
“You who, in the name of the Sword Family, force the poor into starvation and brutal labor, who try to crush their thrashing agony beneath your swords, who squeeze Luoyang dry for your own profit…”
A growl rose from beneath the mask, and a row of fangs that could not belong to a human was bared.
“You yourselves are the enemies of the Luoyang Sword Family.”
The Luoyang his mother had raised. The family his father had raised. Amcheonjonza—Yeon So-hyeon—as its rightful heir made no attempt to hide his wrath.
“Silence, monster!”
One man and one monster collided inside the sword formation.