Pride
Jeam Jincheon Scripture — Chapter 311
Arc Eleven: Pride
Luoyang Sword House, the Elder Council.
Today's agenda consisted of a single item: the no-confidence vote against the Head of the Sword House Bank.
"If things had gone as they should have… this would have been over in a heartbeat."
One of the elders seated in the lavish lounge stroked his long beard, making no effort to hide his foul mood.
"It should have been, yes."
An elder from the same faction clicked his tongue.
"For whatever reason, the Banker had already lost his fighting spirit. He wasn't putting up any resistance at all."
"All we needed to do was vote him out of office—"
Another elder picked up the thread.
"—and then recommend the 'candidate' every faction and clique had already agreed upon to the Supreme Operations Council."
On a board tangled with interlocking interests, a candidate the majority of elders could accept meant only one thing.
No matter how generously one put it, the man was someone who had neither the will nor the capacity to cause trouble.
"And yet, right then…"
Yet another elder of the same faction clicked his tongue.
"That Eldest Young Master suddenly barges in…"
Having said as much, he shuddered as if frost had bitten him to the bone.
"Ha. Aren't you being a little too frightened?"
At that sight, a more leisurely elder let out a soft laugh.
"This is the Elder Council, is it not? The Elder Council is our domain—the elders' domain."
Even in the days when the previous Patriarch still held his seat—
even in the days of the Patriarch before him—
those Patriarchs themselves had respected the Elder Council's role and its sphere of authority.
"But the opponent is—"
The uneasy elder's eyes hardened.
"He is no longer the Eldest Young Master of a few months ago. No. We cannot afford to take this lightly."
"Hmph."
The elder who had been talking big snorted even more loudly.
"Even so, how many elders do you think that Eldest Young Master can actually influence on this matter?"
"But…"
When the other failed to produce a proper rebuttal, the first man crossed his arms and let a sneer slip free.
"Honestly. For an elder of the great Luoyang Sword House to have such a small liver…"
At that, the uneasy elder flared up at once.
"What did you just say to me?!"
"You think I won't say it again if you ask? I'll say it ten times over if I must. For an elder of the great Luoyang Sword House—"
"Enough."
The man who had been sitting in the seat of honor, sunk deep in silence and thought.
"That is quite enough."
The moment Elder Paeng—the head of their faction—opened his mouth, the two quarreling elders clamped their lips shut at once.
The other elders followed suit and fell silent as well.
"First."
Elder Paeng of the Hebei Paeng Clan raised a finger and pointed at the elder who had been frightened of the Eldest Young Master.
"Caution is well and good. But do not stir up anxiety and try to force conviction without clear grounds."
"…Yes."
At once the elder who had been browbeating him wore a triumphant look.
"And."
But Elder Paeng's finger turned without mercy upon him next.
"Were you not anxious yourself?"
"I was not…!"
The once-triumphant elder immediately shook his head and cried out as though deeply wronged.
"On what possible grounds do you claim I was afraid—"
"Then tell me."
Elder Paeng cut him off.
"Why is a man as busy as you already here—long before the council session has even begun?"
Elder Paeng pointed at the floor of the lounge.
"Why are you already in this place?"
Why, indeed.
Was it not because they had heard of the chaos that had erupted in the Hobop Court that very morning?
When the elder lost his words and fell silent, Elder Paeng began to draw the matter together.
"…Still. What the two of you were saying was not fundamentally wrong."
When the faction head opened the subject that way, the others nodded.
"Indeed."
An elder a little farther off, still stroking his beard, took up the thread.
"We may not know how the Eldest Young Master intends to intervene in today's council, but that he constitutes a real threat is an undeniable fact."
The elder seated near the entrance, who had been constantly checking incoming intelligence, spoke as well.
"We cannot overlook what happened in the Hobop Court this morning."
"And that means?"
The elder who had been unfolding a note turned his gaze upon the gathering.
"The Eldest Young Master may well have made the same preparations here in the Elder Council."
An uneasy silence settled over them.
That Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon—
might already have laid the same groundwork within the Elder Council itself.
They, too, might suffer the same fate that had befallen the Hobop Wonju at the Eldest Young Master's hands.
That was the true root of every man's anxiety—
and the precise reason they had gathered in the Elder Council at this hour, even though not a single one of them had been summoned.
"But just as Elder Paeng said that both elders had a point—"
The long-bearded elder spoke again.
"We need not simply be frightened ourselves. Because—"
Elder Paeng finished for him.
"At this very moment, most of the elders will be sharing that same 'anxiety.'"
Scarcely had the words left his mouth when—
"Forgive the interruption during council."
An elder who had been waiting outside opened the door and entered.
"Requests are pouring in from the heads of every faction and clique. They all wish to speak."
"Which factions and cliques?"
The messenger elder merely shrugged.
"All of them."
At those words, a faint smile touched Elder Paeng's face.
"Ordinarily, the one thing that can never unite under a single banner in this Sword House is the factions and cliques of the elders."
The Elder Council was a place like an arena where winners and losers were cleanly divided.
When someone won—
someone else necessarily lost.
That every faction and clique of that Elder Council now desired dialogue at once—what did that signify?
"So that's it…!"
An elder who grasped the meaning let out a low exclamation of admiration.
"Because of the Eldest Young Master, those who could never unite have been forced to unite…!"
Through the spectacle he had staged in the Hobop Court—
the elders had come to share a common sense of crisis.
"Precisely."
The long-bearded elder narrowed his eyes.
"Perhaps he wished to flaunt his own standing. I cannot know the Eldest Young Master's intent. But as for the result…"
Elder Paeng nodded.
"That arrogant Eldest Young Master has carelessly stirred up a hornet's nest."
Elder Council, the conference chamber.
The chamber, originally intended for committee sessions, was now packed so tightly with the elders representing every faction and clique that there was scarcely room to set a foot.
"We cannot respond to this affair as we ordinarily would!"
One elder raised his voice in a ringing boom, and others answered him like a chorus of roaring beasts.
"Indeed!"
"To meddle in the Banker's dismissal after the elders had already finished their consultations among themselves—!"
"This is no different from the Eldest Young Master declaring war upon our Elder Council!"
It was a scene hard to believe of men who, under ordinary circumstances, would have answered anything said by a rival faction or clique with nothing but cold sneers.
Behind those who raised their voices to urge a joint response, elders of a more cautious bent were exchanging words of their own.
"The Eldest Young Master is presently violating the tacit rules handed down from previous generations."
"The Elder Council is a sacred place."
"Even if he is the Eldest Young Master, we cannot simply stand by and watch him soil the Elder Council with muddy feet."
Even those who ordinarily never bared their teeth except at the decisive moment were grinding them now.
"We know the Eldest Young Master's ability is formidable, and that his prestige is riding high at present…"
"Yet I cannot erase the impression that he has grown far too arrogant."
"Perhaps it is time we elders took it upon ourselves to break that arrogance once and for all, is it not?"
Watching the spectacle from a corner, the Hobop Il-bujang shrugged his shoulders.
"…It seems we need not lift a finger ourselves."
No one had quicker feet—
and no one had words faster still—than the elders of the Luoyang Sword House.
"They are all simply wounded in their pride."
At his words the Hobop Wonju nodded.
"Pride, is it…"
They belonged to the Hobop Court, yet they were elders as well; they had come here to stop the Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon—
"Honestly."
The Hobop Il-bujang wore a bitter smile.
"The chaos the Eldest Young Master stirred up in our Hobop Court this morning has turned out to be a blessing in disguise."
Not that they could simply call it a good thing.
The gain had been purchased by a corresponding plunge in the Hobop Court's standing.
That gain was nowhere near enough to make good the damage—
nor even enough to salvage their pride.
Hence the bitter smile that rose of its own accord.
"…At any rate, it appears there is no further need for us to interfere on this side."
"Agreed."
The Hobop Wonju pushed himself away from the wall and concurred.
"If we clumsily stick our hands in and ruin this atmosphere, it will only become more of a headache for our side."
"In that case…"
The Hobop Wonju stepped out through the door first.
"Let us go look in on the prospective new Banker."
"The Eldest Young Master has involved himself in this matter?"
Compared with the other lounges the space was a little narrower, yet it was still luxurious enough for a single man to wait in.
"No. That cannot be allowed…"
But the middle-aged man pacing restlessly within it felt as though he had been locked in a prison cell.
He was choked with frustration and anxiety.
"If I fail to become the new Banker here—"
"Is anyone within?"
Ordinarily he would have flared up at anyone who opened the door without so much as a by-your-leave.
"Ah—ah. You have come."
The prospective new Banker, however, dared not show anger.
His expression transformed in an instant; he gathered his hands with the utmost courtesy and offered a greeting.
"We thought the news from our Hobop Court might have made you uneasy, so we came to look in on you."
At the Hobop Il-bujang's words the prospective new Banker waved both hands in frantic denial.
"Ah, not at all!"
He could not hide his flustered air, as though the Hobop Court held some weakness of his.
"Uneasy? What reason would I have to be uneasy? I feel nothing but the security of a man seated comfortably in a carriage racing along a broad highway…!"
"For someone who claims that, you are sweating rather heavily."
"Th-this is…!"
While the Hobop Il-bujang spoke, the Hobop Wonju sat down in a chair as naturally as if it were his own house and opened his mouth.
"Let us get to the point."
"Y-yes, of course."
The Hobop Wonju regarded the prospective new Banker and asked in a low voice,
"You still remember your role after you become Banker, I trust?"
"Of course…!"
The prospective new Banker nodded hastily.
"I am to properly bury every matter connected to the Yeon bloodline—"
The Hobop Il-bujang cleared his throat with a deliberate "Ahem," and the prospective new Banker hurriedly amended his words.
"—to handle them. That is my first duty and my sacred mission. No one knows it better than I."
"Good. You remember well."
The Hobop Wonju continued, casually releasing an invisible pressure.
"If that work is not handled properly, the one who will find himself in the most difficulty is you. Remember that well."
Then the Hobop Wonju enunciated the man's title with deliberate clarity.
"Vice Head of the Bank."
The middle-aged man who was both the prospective new Banker and the original Vice Head of the Sword House Bank stiffened.
"Of course. I know my own position better than anyone. You may rest easy on that score."
The Hobop Wonju had phrased it as "you will find yourself in difficulty" if the Yeon bloodline's corruption was not properly buried.
But the Vice Head of the Bank, entangled in those corruptions from their deepest roots, knew all too well that the phrasing was a vast understatement.
If this affair goes wrong, even my corpse will not be left intact.
Last spring.
He still remembered, with vivid clarity, the words the Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon had spoken to him when he stormed into the Sword House Bank.
"Struggle with your life on the line."
The Eldest Young Master's bleak voice, spoken forehead to forehead, still rang in his ears.
"Drag in every force you can muster and resist me."
The blue ghost-fire that had risen from the depths of the Eldest Young Master's eyes—he could not forget it even in his dreams.
"Otherwise you will fall into hell alone and in silence."
Those were the words the Eldest Young Master had spoken to him after he had destroyed every piece of evidence that directly linked him to the affair.
How could he ever forget that day?
"It is a rare chance to reap great profit from dealings with the high-nosed Yeon bloodline, after all."
The elders would bury the corrupt Yeon bloodline's misdeeds and, in return, harvest substantial political gains.
"I expect much of you."
Instead of investigating the Vice Head of the Bank, the Hobop Wonju had entrusted the cleanup of the case's core suspect—the Vice Head of the Bank himself—to the man in person.
"…I will keep it firmly in mind."
The Vice Head of the Bank forced a smile onto his face as he spoke.
I will survive by this chance. I will live, and I will laugh in that Eldest Young Master bastard's face…!
How hard-won was this opportunity?
With the heavens collapsing around him, it was a hole he had found by the barest of margins—
a lifeline he could not afford to let slip.
"I was told you were nowhere to be found. So this is where you were."
An elder friendly to the Hobop Court stuck his head in and delivered the news.
"The Eldest Young Master has just arrived."