Presence
The office of the Head of the Elder Council.
A knock sounded at the door, reaching the ears of the Head of the Elder Council as he sat in silence, lost in thought.
"Come in."
The figure who appeared was one of the elders who followed him.
"…The Deputy Head was accompanying the Eldest Young Master's procession."
The Head of the Elder Council swallowed a short, bitter breath. So it has come to this after all. The last day he had spoken with the Deputy Head alone rose unbidden in his mind.
"You have just made an enemy of that mad old monster!"
His own voice, roaring with fury.
"And you did it by taking the hand of the Eldest Young Master—the man he hates most!"
After the Inner Court's "book-price incident," the Deputy Head had forced the Chief of the Inner Court to pay the Eldest Young Master a punitive indemnity of staggering size.
"…I, too, now carry too many precious things on my shoulders."
The result had been to turn the most formidable man under Heaven—the Chief of the Inner Court—into an enemy. …And afterward, the Eldest Young Master claimed victory in his struggle for power against the Second Young Master. For the Deputy Head, then, there could have been no other choice.
The only man who had scored victory after victory against the Chief of the Inner Court—who until then had flaunted overwhelming political dominance—was none other than the Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon. It was a choice made to survive.
The Head of the Elder Council sank into deep reflection, recalling the secret conversation he had shared with the Eldest Young Master not long ago.
At that same hour, before the main gate of the Elder Council Hall.
"…Before you concern yourself so greatly with the Elder Council's dignity, perhaps you might first attend to the dignity of your own person—which is about to be thoroughly ruined?"
The mid-ranking elder's words were honed to a blue-edged sharpness. The Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon, merely bared his teeth in a smile and offered no reply of his own.
Once, it might have been different. But the Yeon So-hyeon of today no longer needed to speak for himself alone, nor defend himself alone.
"For someone so concerned with appearances, you left the Eldest Young Master of our House standing blankly at the entrance when he came to visit our Elder Council?"
The elders of the Eldest Young Master's faction, who had already formed a curtain at his back, each cast a barb in turn.
"Tsk, tsk. As fellow elders, it is shameful."
"Before this great crowd, far from making the Elder Council's courtesy known to all the world, you only bring disgrace upon it."
"Anyone watching would take this for a Luoyang marketplace, not the Elder Council of the great Luoyang Sword House."
Having seized a single fault, the Eldest Young Master's elders poured it on without mercy.
"Ahem…"
The mid-ranking elder's face twisted inwardly at once—but as their words made plain, like it or not, one could not leave the Eldest Young Master standing in the blazing sun.
"…What, are we quarreling from the very start?"
"Surely the Elder Council does not mean to bar the Eldest Young Master from even setting foot inside?"
"If so, would that not be something for all under Heaven to mock?"
Already a murmur had begun among the crowds watching from a distance. The mid-ranking elder's eyes narrowed as he cast them a sidelong glance. Are the crowds on the Eldest Young Master's side?
Even a rotten mackerel still counts as fish. From the indistinct murmuring of the crowd and their barely confirmed movements alone, the mid-ranking elder—well practiced at reading a room—grasped the atmosphere. Tsk, tsk. And these same people used to be the ones who slandered the Eldest Young Master the most and cursed him behind his back…!
Looking back, it was exactly as he said. The Eldest Young Master had been the easiest target for the lesser folk of the Luoyang Sword House to tear down, and wherever they gathered, one could easily hear him cursed. How else would there have been the "book-price incident," when the Inner Court had refused to pay for the Eldest Young Master's books?
"The elders of the Elder Council seem thoroughly cowed by the Eldest Young Master."
"When they stand in the same place, the long and the short of it cannot help but be compared. So they grow petty, no doubt."
But that atmosphere had begun to shift at some point—and from the battle in the Valley of Sin onward, public opinion had overturned completely. For now, there is no help for it. The mid-ranking elder swiftly settled his own thoughts and bearing.
"When did I ever say I would not receive the Eldest Young Master?"
He fumbled the matter away and spread his hand toward the Eldest Young Master.
"Come, Eldest Young Master. First, inside—"
But just then, someone stepped lightly into his path and brought both hands together toward the Eldest Young Master.
"Haha. As Deputy Head of the Elder Council, I cannot abide talk that the Elder Council is lacking in hospitality."
Just as expected. The one who had shrewdly cut in was the Deputy Head—a man whose bones had long since been hardened in the political arena of the Luoyang Sword House.
"Deputy Head…!"
The mid-ranking elder, brushed aside by the Deputy Head, flushed red—but the Deputy Head paid him not the slightest mind.
"Come, come, Eldest Young Master. The sun is fierce. Please step inside at once."
As though he had plated his face in several layers of iron, he ignored the mid-ranking elder and gestured to Yeon So-hyeon.
"Deputy Head. I have received your welcome well."
Yeon So-hyeon answered with matching, shameless ease and moved his steps inside.
"For the Deputy Head himself to come forth to welcome this Eldest Young Master—I express my gratitude for the Elder Council's protocol."
"Not at all. It is our honor that the Eldest Young Master has come to visit our Elder Council."
Before anyone quite knew how, the Deputy Head—who had arrived together with Yeon So-hyeon—had become the man in charge of the Elder Council's official reception of the Eldest Young Master.
"Come to think of it, Eldest Young Master—have you heard of our Elder Council's tea?"
"I have heard there is a leaf that can be drunk only within the Elder Council."
"Haha. As expected of the Eldest Young Master! While you wait, I shall personally present that tea to you."
"Haha. My thanks."
The Deputy Head stuck close to his side, and—for the very benefit of those who had originally come out of the Elder Council to receive the Eldest Young Master—plastered himself against the Eldest Young Master and even rubbed his palms together. This damned old man…! Veins stood out on the mid-ranking elder's wrinkled brow. He is quietly stealing my role…?!
The role of receiving the Eldest Young Master was, even within the Elder Council, a point of quietly fierce competition. Among so many elders, it was an excellent chance to make one's presence felt.
"This way, Eldest Young Master."
But it was already too late. One could hardly take offense that the Deputy Head of the Elder Council was guiding the Eldest Young Master who had come to visit. And for him, a still greater problem remained.
Because the mid-ranking elder they followed had failed to hold the line from the very start, the eyes of the junior elders watching him had begun to harden, little by little. That look in their eyes… The mid-ranking elder knew that look well. It was not the gaze of those who follow a leader of the pack. It was the gaze that comes out, licking its lips, when the leader of the pack has grown weak. Damn it. Somehow, he had to show a way to overturn this situation.
"E-Eldest Young Mas—"
The mid-ranking elder had meant to call out to the Eldest Young Master—but the one who turned and opened his mouth first was the Eldest Young Master himself.
"Elder Yeom."
"Yes, Eldest Young Master."
As Elder Yeom stepped forward, flaunting his massive frame and oppressive presence, the mid-ranking elder had no choice but to fall back once more.
"Ah—no, this man…"
"Command me."
When the word command left the mouth of Elder Yeom—who had brought his hands together in a manner beyond all courtesy—the faces of the Elder Council's side went rigid at once, and their eyes bulged as though ready to pop from their sockets. …That Elder Yeom, asking to be given a command.Just what has passed between those two? The scene looked less like the relationship between one of the heirs and an elder than like the absolute chain of command one would see in the military.
"Those people have been looking down at me for some time."
As Yeon So-hyeon's hand rose, the elders of the Elder Council flinched away from its direction by reflex. The Eldest Young Master had never meant to point at them in the first place, and paid them no mind—but the elders, who had only fled his hand out of baseless fright, could not help but flush.
"Ahem, ahem."
But they had no chance to clear their throats and open their mouths to justify their own behavior.
"To dare look down upon the Eldest Young Master…!"
Elder Yeom's thick brows twitched as he spotted the Yeon blood relatives pressed against the windows of the tea pavilion, looking down at Yeon So-hyeon.
"How insolent!"
A rumble. Elder Yeom's mountain-crushing presence shook the air in every direction.
In the tea pavilion before the Elder Council Hall—
"How insolent!"
Could the crash of a thunderbolt striking the earth in the form of a lightning bolt sound like this? At that single roar of the Mountain-Shattering Sword Grip—enough to split eardrums and set legs trembling—
"Oof."
"Ahem…!"
The Yeon blood relatives who had been packed tight, peering outside, scattered from the windows like roaches.
"I have been standing so long my knees are throbbing."
"Talking so long has left my throat parched…"
A few of them tossed out whatever words they could, as if to excuse their own disgrace—but in the end, like the others, they realized that whatever they said in this situation would only make them look more wretched, and their faces burned with shame.
"Aigoo. The tea has gone cold, hasn't it?"
"Tsk, tsk. Look at the state of this tea pavilion's management."
They simply returned to their seats, cursed the innocent tea pavilion, and drained cup after cup of cold tea.
"…Truly, they call him the Mountain-Shattering Sword Grip—and it was no empty name."
The middle-aged man was no weakling in skill himself, yet before the Mountain-Shattering Sword Grip he could not help but feel small.
"Indeed."
Watching the middle-aged man who had hidden his body against the wall by the window, the short-bearded young man did not mock him. He himself had already sunk deep into his chair to escape the seething-lava gaze of the Mountain-Shattering Sword Grip.
"They say the Elder Council of the Luoyang main house was seized long ago by political operators, and that pure martial men lost their place."
That the pure martial artists who had once shone so brilliantly had already been pushed off into the War Department was no particular secret.
"And yet still."
Feeling a tingling ache rise from inside his ears, the short-bearded young man clicked his tongue.
"The lofty Mountain-Shattering Sword Grip still holds his ground firm…!"
After that admiration, he cautiously lifted his head and stole a glance outside. Whether he was pleased by the sight of the Yeon blood relatives flinching back in fright—
"Hahaha!"
The Eldest Young Master laughed once with openhearted boldness.
"A fine sight!"
Then, with his black coat flaring, he turned, planted his hands firmly behind his back, and strode straight into the Elder Council Hall. The elders of the Elder Council trailed after him late, chattering something behind him—but the figure he cut was that of a master entering his own house, so leisurely it almost seemed absurd. Who, seeing that, would dare think he was walking into the enemy's camp?
A crane among chickens.
They had not even spoken. He had never seen the face before. He had only watched from far away—and yet the short-bearded young man could say it with certainty. The Eldest Young Master of the Luoyang main house is a man beyond the rumors.
When Elder Yeom, following behind the Eldest Young Master, looked this way one last time, the young man hastily bowed his head and wiped cold sweat as he thought, Ah, how I wish I could enter that Elder Council Hall myself and see how things turn out…!
In that moment, that was what he regretted most.