Part Three: The Petition
Yongbongjihoe Arena Construction Site.
War Department garrison of the Luoyang Sword Family.
After Yeon So-hyeon’s Ironclad Fortress had departed, a man stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the Yongbongjihoe construction grounds.
The sun was setting, and though the man’s face was hard to make out against the light, the rock-solid mass of his body was plain even in silhouette. One of the legs that ought to have stood firm upon the earth had been replaced by a slender prosthetic, yet that changed nothing.
“Looking at it again like this—does it stir any fresh feelings in you?”
Elder Yeom had approached without a sound and put the question to him.
The man glanced back. There was no mistaking him: he was the Chief of Sword Family Construction, one of the living legends of the Luoyang Sword Family, the command tower of the clan’s core enterprise.
“Fresh feelings? No. Nothing of the sort.”
The Chief stroked his beard.
“I have looked over the blueprints and the bird’s-eye renderings of this site dozens of times a day.”
It was the answer of a man who had risen from the lowest ranks to shoulder one of the clan’s most vital businesses. Elder Yeom gave a slow nod and asked again.
“Then you must know every inch of that place.”
The reply came at once.
“From the VIP suites of the main stadium down to the meanest alley and sewer.”
His gaze settled on Elder Yeom.
“All of it.”
He raised a hand and tapped his own temple.
“It is in here.”
“…Remarkable.”
Elder Yeom’s words were pure admiration.
“But seeing it with my own eyes is different.”
Looking down again, the Chief’s expression had turned somehow melancholy.
“It is bound to be different from what one sees only on drawings and renderings, is it not?”
“I can picture every finished vista in my head from the plans alone. The way the landscape and the buildings melt into one another, the moment the foundations are packed, the skeleton rises, the roof tiles go on—every single instant of it.”
Only then did Elder Yeom understand that the man before him was the very one who had designed and conceived the entire complex.
“Then what is different?”
The Chief gave a bitter smile.
“At some point I forgot that there were people down there.”
Below them the construction site thronged with people. Men carrying food. Others playing flutes and dancing. Still others drinking and singing. A full-blown festival was underway. Thanks to the swift, precise response of the House of Mercy, the supplies they needed continued to arrive without pause.
Watching that scene, the Chief of Sword Family Construction recalled the conversation he had shared with Yeon So-hyeon only days earlier.
“This Sword Family, this Construction Division—it is my home, and it is our home!”
He had shouted at the First Young Master.
“We—the enterprises of this family—built the main house, and we made Luoyang what it is!”
And what had Yeon So-hyeon answered him then?
“But the materials that raised Luoyang? The foundations?”
The Chief murmured the words as if speaking to himself.
“…Today’s Luoyang, this Luoyang Sword Family, was built by squeezing the blood and sweat from the poor.”
Elder Yeom kept his silence. The Chief glanced sideways at him.
“Come to think of it, Elder Yeom—few men know that blood and sweat as well as you do.”
Hero of the Northern War.
“Is that not so?”
The blood and sweat he and his subordinates had shed were a weight no one could easily measure—nor the weight of the lives he had taken from the enemy. How much pain, how many prices, must a man pay to be refined until others called him Sword Peak?
Instead of answering the question, Elder Yeom spoke calmly of what needed saying.
“…So you came to the site in person to finish the work yourself?”
How startled everyone had been when the Chief appeared, bypassing all those officers. Even the First Young Master himself had looked surprised.
“It is the order of the Supreme Operations Committee.”
Elder Yeom shook his head at the answer.
“The Supreme Operations Committee entrusted the Sword Family Construction Division with on-site command of the finishing work. Not you personally.”
“Perhaps it was not that I forgot.”
The reply seemed to come from nowhere, yet Elder Yeom listened without comment.
“Perhaps I was trying to forget.”
The Chief gazed down at the construction site with a distant look.
“I may have deliberately turned my eyes away, using the excuse that it was necessary to support the family’s growth. But…”
He spoke of the youth who had sought him out.
“But the First Young Master never forgot. He never tried to forget, and he never looked away.”
As if to comfort the self-reproaching Chief, Elder Yeom offered a light jab.
“Even that First Young Master spent ten years in seclusion.”
“To hear a joke from the famous Sword Peak Mountain Breaker himself.”
The Chief gave a short laugh.
“I will have something to boast about at drinking tables until the day I die.”
Elder Yeom smiled as well.
“I am capable of the occasional joke.”
After a quiet nod, the Chief spoke again.
“Ten years of seclusion, you said?”
“Yes. What of it…?”
“Now I understand.”
The Chief of Sword Family Construction wore a wry smile.
“One of the departments people in Construction most dread is the safety oversight and inspection office.”
“…Because it means making enemies of one’s own colleagues?”
“That is part of it, of course.”
The Chief shrugged.
“But more than that—”
He closed his mouth. Elder Yeom had raised a hand.
Following Elder Yeom’s gaze, the Chief turned as well.
“Well, well! What is so illustrious a Chief doing in a shabby place like this?”
Three elders were approaching—the same elders who had come to see the Chief the day Yeon So-hyeon visited Sword Family Construction. Elders of the Second Young Master’s faction.
Elder Yeom’s sound transmission reached him; the Chief gave a small nod and addressed them.
“As you yourselves say, it is a shabby place. What business brings elders of the main house all the way out here?”
“Do not pretend you do not know!”
One elder stormed up, jabbing a finger.
“The Chief broke his promise to us!”
In exchange for securing large-scale contracts through dealings with the Second Young Master’s side, the Chief had agreed not to accept any commission from the First Young Master.
“I broke a promise?”
Another elder glared back and forth between the Chief and Elder Yeom, eyes wide.
“You took the business rights we offered and then accepted the First Young Master’s work as well? Chief—are you not afraid of the consequences?”
“Consequences?”
The Chief’s face hardened. The Second Young Master’s elders flinched despite themselves.
“I broke no pledge.”
“But Sword Family Construction has taken charge of the finishing work at the Yongbongjihoe site—”
“This matter has nothing to do with the First Young Master. Sword Family Construction is simply following the order of the Supreme Operations Committee.”
“That is sophistry—!”
Elder Yeom stepped forward.
“As head of the Investigation and Oversight Team, I can personally guarantee that point. In the Construction Division’s involvement, First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon exercised neither commission nor influence of any kind.”
He produced the written order of the Supreme Operations Committee from his robes.
“Th-this…!”
As the elders read, their faces flushed dark with rage. The document clearly ordered Sword Family Construction to take direct on-site command and supervision of the finishing work in support of Yeon So-hyeon.
“Well, given how things stand, the large projects entrusted to us by the Second Young Master’s side will have to be postponed.”
The Chief shrugged at them.
“Unavoidably so. But do not worry.”
A smile touched his lips.
“Whatever happens, we will take full responsibility and see every large project you entrusted to Sword Family Construction through to the end.”
The First Young Master had either foreseen this outcome or planned from the beginning that events would unfold this way when he told the Chief to accept the Second Young Master’s pledge.
“Thank you for placing your trust in Sword Family Construction.”
If one were to translate the Chief’s words more freely, they amounted to something like: We ate well.
“You—!”
“Do not think you can humiliate us like this and walk away unscathed, Chief!”
“There are any number of ways we can interfere with this mud-hole of a site—!”
The Second Young Master’s elders never finished their threats.
It was as if molten rock that had been writhing beneath the ground had finally erupted.
“You would sabotage the work here?”
A low voice. A mass of iron came flying through the space between them and landed in Elder Yeom’s hand—a greatsword so massive an ordinary martial artist could not have lifted it with both hands.
“Work that I myself am charged with investigating and overseeing?”
The Second Young Master’s elders found their breath caught in their throats.
“Are you declaring war to my face?”
The air itself did not move, yet it had grown dozens of times heavier; their lungs seemed to sink in their chests. Even the wind that had roamed freely through the sky grew too heavy and collapsed to the ground.
Th-this is…
One of the elders who had trained in martial arts recognized the phenomenon.
The harbinger of the Mountain-Breaking Force of Sword Peak Mountain Breaker Yeom Gwak-chu…!
The final blow that had broken the Sword Lord of a thousand-year volcano—after absorbing the essence of that very mountain—was this Mountain-Breaking Force.
With effort the elder raised a hand that now felt scores of times heavier.
“E-enough!”
He forced the words of surrender out as though wringing them from his lungs.
“We will withdraw…!”
Elder Yeom kept his eyes on them until the last moment. When he finally withdrew the Mountain-Breaking Force, they fled like rats. One man’s trembling legs gave way and he sprawled face-first in the mud.
“Even in leaving they manage to provide amusement.”
The Chief laughed heartily at the sight.
“But do not lower your guard.”
Elder Yeom drove his greatsword into the ground as he spoke.
“Those men belong to the Luoyang faction even within the Second Young Master’s camp. They are far more skilled at schemes than at martial arts.”
He watched the retreating elders of the Second Young Master’s side.
“Just now they came only to test the waters before hatching some plot.”
“Do you take me for a man who won this seat by a lucky throw of the dice?”
Perhaps Elder Yeom had earned his favor; the Chief addressed him in a far lighter tone than before.
“Do not worry. My political advisors will handle it.”
Elder Yeom nodded. It was not his place to worry—not when the man standing beside him was the Chief of Sword Family Construction.
“What were you saying earlier?”
“Hmm? Ah. About the First Young Master.”
“About the First Young Master? I thought you were speaking of the department everyone in Construction tries to avoid.”
“That is exactly the story.”
Elder Yeom listened in silence.
“Every month there were anonymous petitions. Sometimes one. Sometimes they came in a flood over several days.”
“Petitions about what?”
“Different things each time. But most of them pointed out problems with the safety regulations on site and proposed improved rules.”
“…A headache, I imagine.”
The Chief smiled.
“Indeed. Reviewing the new rules, distributing them, implementing them, training everyone—men worked until they were ready to drop.”
“Because if they did not, no one knew where the next anonymous petition might land.”
“Exactly.”
Ignore the petitions, and if a major accident then occurred with loss of life and property, the matter could end up before the Disciplinary Bureau—or higher still.
“Those petitions never stopped. Rain or wind, they came every month without fail.”
“And you are saying the one who sent those anonymous petitions was the First Young Master?”
“The anonymous petitions stopped at the very same time the First Young Master ended his seclusion.”
“That alone is not—”
The Chief raised a hand and pointed below.
“And here.”
A site where food distribution would never have gone wrong if Construction had been willing to risk conflict with the Third Young Master’s faction over proper oversight.
Elder Yeom closed his mouth and fell into thought. The Chief nodded.
“So only today did I become certain.”
His gaze returned to the ground below.
“The First Young Master—no, His Young Lordship—never once, even after entering seclusion, forgot or turned away from the lives of the poor laborers.”
He continued.
“Not long ago, when the First Young Master visited me, he said: ‘Today’s Luoyang, this Luoyang Sword Family, was built by squeezing the blood and sweat from the poor.’ Those words struck me hard, a man who had covered his own eyes.”
“…And that is why you came to supervise the site yourself.”
“It is.”
The Chief turned from the cliff.
“Let us go back. There is much to do if we are to prepare for the work that begins tomorrow.”
Elder Yeom fell into step behind him.
“Ah, and one more thing. The man who acted as leader among the laborers.”
“Yes, I know him. I interviewed him personally.”
“After speaking with him I found him quite a solid fellow. I think he would serve well under me.”
“…Him? The matter was settled cleanly enough, but he was still at the center of the uprising.”
“Born with a rebellious bone. A strong bone as well.”
The Chief laughed heartily.
“I like him very much. He reminds me of myself when I was young.”
“…I would be curious to hear about your younger days, Chief. Almost no one knows those stories.”
“Excellent! Then while we work late tonight I shall tell you my old tales!”
“I look forward to it.”
The two men walked toward the tents, talking quietly. Soon their conversation was swallowed by the sounds of the laborers’ festival rising from the construction site below the cliff.
Those sounds the festival made so naturally somehow went beyond simple merriment; they carried a feeling that made the listener happy.