Fury
"The First Young Master ordered the families who wished to ally with him to bring him the heads of every last one of them?"
Tang Ye-rin, strategist and closest aide to the Fourth Young Master, wore a sour look.
"I heard the attack on the Third and Fourth Young Ladies' merchant houses involved a broad swath of Luoyang's commercial circles."
The Fourth Young Master, Yeon Bi, answered in a clipped tone.
"So?"
Yeon Bi had always possessed a dual nature, yet he had never turned so cold a face even upon his own subordinates.
"…So?"
Tang Ye-rin's expression grew even more bitter. She spoke as if in protest.
"As you well know, interference and sabotage of this kind are everyday fare in the merchant world. We ourselves have done much the same, many times over."
She could scarcely believe she was having to spell out something so elementary to the Fourth Young Master himself.
"And the Young Ladies' houses haven't even been ruined. If we answer a merchant-world quarrel like that, Luoyang will drown in blood from end to end!"
Her voice hardened.
"It will only blacken the names of our lord and the First Young Master! Just as it did for the Second and Third Young Masters!"
Yeon Bi smiled.
"Like that, you say…"
Not a single emotion that ordinarily composed a smile lived in that expression. It looked like a mask that merely imitated feeling—much like his elder brother's.
"That is precisely the manner in which my elder brother wishes it done. And I, of course, wish it as well."
"……"
Despite the strangeness of his manner, Tang Ye-rin still meant to press her objection.
"But—!"
"My lord."
Before the younger strategist could commit a further misstep, an elderly woman cut in. Like Tang Ye-rin, she was one of the Fourth Young Master's innermost confidants—Gwak Nopin, once known as the Sleeping Dragon of the South.
"I shall carry out my lord's command."
Gwak Nopin bowed her head low. Yeon Bi addressed the old woman.
"I will examine the results myself and report them directly to my elder brother. Proceed without the slightest hitch."
All but dragged outside by Gwak Nopin, Tang Ye-rin cried out at the old woman.
"This is folly! It's the same as baring our reverse scale for our enemies to see!"
To answer mere economic sabotage with a response this excessive? It was no different from kindly confirming to their foes that the Third and Fourth Young Ladies were indeed their weak point.
"Reverse scale, is it."
The old woman's gaze settled on the young strategist. Tang Ye-rin, still flushed with heat, flinched under that deep look.
"A phrase from Han Feizi's 'Difficulties of the Age.' An exact expression for the circumstances."
Gwak Nopin's tone was mild and measured.
"A strategist of your caliber surely understands the meaning of reverse scale perfectly well, does she not?"
"Of course."
Tang Ye-rin answered as if the question were too obvious to ask.
"Beneath a dragon's throat there is an inverted scale about a foot across, and if anyone should touch that scale…"
She stopped mid-sentence, as if something had struck her. Watching her, Gwak Nopin finished the words for her.
"If anyone should touch that scale, the dragon will without fail kill the one who did it."
Tang Ye-rin pressed a hand to her forehead.
"Just now… the one prodding that reverse scale was me…"
Listening to the long, low sound she made, Gwak Nopin went on.
"People commonly take the reverse scale for a dragon's weakness. But there is a point they all misunderstand."
"…What is it?"
Gwak Nopin spoke with quiet evenness.
"A man dies when you strike his vital point. A dragon's reverse scale is different—it is the one who touches it who dies."
"……"
Tang Ye-rin fell silent. Gwak Nopin lifted her cane and pointed outside.
"You saw the line of people waiting before our lord's study from this morning, did you not?"
"…Yes."
"To anyone who truly understands those two, it looks like an absurdity. Like the act of men who have lost all fear."
The old woman's voice remained soft and steady.
"Looked at this way, it is plain that many in Luoyang still do not know our lord and the First Young Master—those two brothers—at all."
Her gaze turned toward the window, where the morning sun fell in peaceful light.
"After this affair, everyone will know."
Gwak Nopin's words ended there, but Tang Ye-rin understood what had been left unsaid.
Those who had believed the Third and Fourth Young Ladies a weakness and dared to touch them would all be destroyed. And if that came to pass, the two brothers would no longer be ordinary men who possessed a vital point as a vulnerability—
They would become the meaning of the word dragon.
Luoyang, a certain merchant house's council chamber.
The Ganghwa Merchants' Alliance.
At an hour unsuited to such things, the chamber deep inside the building was laden with wine and food as though a banquet were underway.
"All the same…"
One merchant spoke in a faintly uneasy tone.
"Laying hands on the Third and Fourth Young Ladies' houses still sits ill with me. Nothing will come of it, will it?"
Many merchants filled the room, every one of them a participant in the recent affair.
"Nothing, you say."
The others snickered and mocked him.
"Oh, something will come of it, no doubt. Can't claim nothing will happen, can we?"
"What a timid liver you've got…"
"Is that why your caravan sits in the same place year after year?"
Under their laughter, the man who had first voiced concern flushed.
"Have you not seen what the First Young Master has been doing these past few days?"
At that, even those who had been mocking him fell quiet for a moment.
The Yi clan—once a formidable house that had seemed unassailable—had collapsed overnight, their fortunes torn to shreds. And it had not ended there; the war among the powerful families acting as proxies for the Luoyang Sword Family's heirs was still raging.
"We saw it, of course."
A stout, imposing merchant nodded.
"If we were drawn into that, even our Ganghwa Merchants' Alliance, standing shoulder to shoulder, would be torn apart like wet rice paper."
Finding even one man who shared his unease, the first speaker brightened.
"Th-that's right, isn't it? So even now—"
"But."
The stout merchant raised a finger.
"Our case and theirs are different from the start."
The others nodded.
"Those houses are, in effect, fighting a full-scale war as proxies for the heirs. We are merely doing what is commonplace in the merchant world, are we not?"
Another merchant smirked and chimed in.
"We are only after a share of the Ha family's Luoyang house's tea-market hold."
That was the public reason they had put forward.
Still another shared the same sly smile.
"It's the other side that has taken fright over a matter of this scale and started liquidating their houses, is it not?"
One merchant put on an unnecessary show of sternness.
"To dispose of their houses over a mere setback of that size—rather, it leaves us the ones taken aback."
"…That may be so. But they are young ladies of the Luoyang Sword Family, are they not?"
"And that is why the Second Young Master's faction promised to suppress any internal objections, is it not?"
Indeed. Behind them stood the Second Young Master's side.
"So let us keep our fretting to this and no more."
The stout merchant shook his head.
"Yes. It's all needless worry."
The others waved their hands as if to say he should leave off.
"Even if the First Young Master were to try something, he is already locked in confrontation with the Second and Third Young Masters' factions. He will scarcely have the strength left to deal with us as well."
"Honestly. Have we not already talked this all through?"
One man thumped his chest in exasperation.
"Whatever comes back will be nothing more than retaliation within the merchant world."
"And that is precisely why the merchants of our alliance must bind ourselves still tighter, to fend it off together."
"Besides, it is not only our alliance that took part in this!"
"We are only a fraction of the whole!"
The stout merchant broke into laughter.
"If something so small were enough to bring real calamity down on so many people—"
His laugh was easy and full of cheek.
"—Luoyang's commercial world would already be a sea of blood."
Another merchant sprang to his feet and raised his cup.
"Come now! Enough of that. Let us all raise a cup to the founding of our alliance!"
"Hear, hear!"
While the rest, flushed with good cheer, refilled one another's cups, the merchant who had voiced his unease rose from his seat.
"My stomach is unsettled. I need a breath of air."
Evading their jibes, he fled outside as if in escape.
The view of the luxurious garden seemed to settle his shaken heart.
Yes. Even if something comes of it—how great a something could it really be?
The house's security detail, standing watch outside the council pavilion, bowed their heads at the sight of him.
"All quiet on the watch, sir. Nothing amiss."
The merchant gave a rough nod. He drew a tobacco leaf from his robes, set it between his lips, and silently repeated the stout merchant's words to himself.
Yes. I was overthinking it.
If a matter of this size were enough to bring real calamity—
Luoyang's commercial world would already be a sea of blood.
Thinking so, he rummaged through his clothes and frowned.
"Hmm?"
The captain of the security detail approached and held out a fire-pot with a live coal inside—the kind they carried for emergencies.
"Do you need a light, sir?"
"Ah—thank you."
The captain smiled.
"It's nothing—"
The words never finished.
"……!"
An arrow punched through the captain's skull. He toppled slowly onto his side. The merchant standing close by, his face spattered with the captain's blood, let the tobacco leaf fall from his lips.
"Wh-what…?"
What in the world was happening in broad daylight?
"Ambush—!"
While the ordinary merchant's mind still groped to grasp what stood before his eyes, the guards fell one after another.
"Ghk!"
"Hah…!"
From every head and breast sprouted arrows dark and wet with blood. It all happened before the cigarette the merchant had held could even finish its fall to the ground.
"……"
In an instant, he was the only one left standing on his own feet in the garden. Into his field of vision came a band of men with crossbows, vaulting the wall and entering the grounds.
Judging by their arms and their skill, they were unmistakably a renowned mercenary company.
"……"
A figure who looked like their commander flicked a hand. At once the men smashed through the paper screens and poured inside.
"Wh-who are you?!"
"Wha—?!"
Startled voices turned to screams in no great span of time.
"P-please—spare us!"
"Is no one there?!"
Against the backdrop of those screams and the crash of furniture being wrecked, a middle-aged woman who appeared to be the company's captain approached the merchant still standing dumbly in place.
"Hmm."
She picked up the fallen tobacco leaf from the ground and held it to her nose, savoring the scent.
"You smoke good leaf."
The merchant came to himself at the sight and cried out in haste.
"For what reason are you doing this to us?!"
The mercenary captain stuck the leaf between her lips and shrugged.
"A mercenary company moves for a contract. What other reason would there be?"
A few merchants tried to flee outside, were seized, and had their heads struck clean off. Hot blood someone had sprayed painted a long streak across the paper screen.
"Do you think a mere mercenary company can do this in Luoyang and walk away unscathed?! Luoyang is not some lawless stretch of the South!"
"True enough."
She answered offhandedly, scooped up the fire-pot from the ground, and lit the leaf.
The merchant shrieked as if in a fit.
"Even if not the officials we keep on good terms, there is not a single official in all Luoyang who would simply overlook a massacre of this scale!"
The captain blew a long stream of smoke toward him and said,
"Of course not. But."
"But?"
She gave a low, chuckling laugh.
"I hear that as of this very moment, seas of blood are opening in more places than one. Everyone is so damned busy they won't have the leisure to notice each one."
"Seas of blood—in more places than one?"
As if something had dawned on him, an expression of pure horror settled on the merchant's face.
"S-surely not…?!"
"No use looking at me with that weighty face."
The captain shrugged.
"We only do the work we were hired to do."
At that moment her subordinates began to emerge from within. Without exception, they had severed heads hanging one or two at a time from their belts.
"Captain! This side is finished!"
The mercenary captain nodded.
"Good. This side is nearly done as well."
The merchant parroted her words with a vacant look.
"Nearly done…?"
No sooner had the words left him than his head was struck from his shoulders. The captain scooped it up, tossed it casually to a subordinate, and a cruel smile curved her lips.
"Yes. Now it's done."
And just as she had said—
all across Luoyang, seas of blood just like this one were beginning to open.