Those Who Gather
In the tea house before Jangro-won.
“...How should I put this.”
Leaning against the window on the second floor of the tea house, a young man stroked his short chin beard and spoke with a faintly sour look.
“Honestly, today’s goal was only to gauge the mood of the Luoyang main house and sound out local opinions of the Grand Young Master…”
The once-bustling tea house now stood empty; the only guests left were him and the middle-aged man who appeared to be his escort. The Yeon blood relatives had drained away like the tide.
“Who would have thought the Grand Young Master would smash the swaggering Yeon bloodline of the Luoyang main house to pieces and even toy with the famed Elder Council itself.”
They had no informants of their own here. Yet the scenes unfolding before their eyes and the rumors swirling around them made it impossible not to understand what had happened, even if they had wanted to remain ignorant.
They say a rumor without legs travels a thousand li…
No. That wasn’t it.
He shook his head. The vivid accounts of the events inside Jangro-won that he had overheard in the crowd’s conversations diverged far too much, in too many places, to be mere word-of-mouth rumor.
Come to think of it…
That sense of dissonance made the young man’s eyes twitch.
The rumor that first gathered that enormous crowd at Jangro-won in so short a time had something strange about it as well.
Was it not odd, when one considered it?
Everything that happened inside Jangro-won today…
From the elders’ standpoint, those were stories they would have wanted kept from people’s mouths at all costs.
And yet, for some reason, everyone is chattering about them as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
He stroked his short beard again.
From the morning rumor that the Grand Young Master would visit Jangro-won all the way to the rumors circulating now…
Could it be… the work of the same expert?
The short-bearded young man was no expert in the information trade himself. But living in the Palace had a way of teaching even ordinary men how to mimic the agents of intelligence organs.
“...Well, it’s none of our concern, I suppose.”
He shrugged.
“In any case, we exceeded our goal.”
The aim of learning about the Grand Young Master before meeting him had been fulfilled far beyond anything they could have imagined, thanks to today’s utterly unforeseen experience. They had felt it all with vivid clarity.
“Wouldn’t you say?”
The short-bearded young man glanced at his escort as if seeking agreement. The middle-aged escort gave no answer; he continued staring skyward as though nails had been driven through his feet, still chasing the sword light that had cleaved the azure heavens—light that had already faded with the passage of time.
And come to think of it, even after the crowds had dispersed from the front of Jangro-won, men who looked like warriors of the Luoyang Sword House stood there with expressions identical to his escort’s, examining the marks the Grand Young Master had left on the outer wall of the Elder Council Hall.
Those warriors shared a common pattern.
“The Grand Young Master used that one sword of the Supreme Patriarch?!”
At first they came rushing.
“Impossible—that’s absurd…!”
They denied reality.
“This is…”
They muttered something while staring at the traces. Then, midway, words failed them, and they simply continued to bore into those marks with their eyes.
Dozens of such warriors had already gathered before Jangro-won.
At first the sight had seemed almost comical. But as time stretched on, it became something that sent a chill down the spine.
“...Is the Grand Young Master’s martial art truly that impressive to a warrior?”
“Ah…”
A light tap on the shoulder brought the middle-aged martial artist back to himself.
“Well…”
“‘Well’?”
The short-bearded young man wore a look of sheer disbelief.
“You were lost that deeply over nothing more than that impression? That—”
“That is not what I mean.”
The middle-aged martial artist spoke while gazing at the vivid traces remaining on the outer wall of Jangro-won.
“I can tell for certain that the Grand Young Master has broken through the wall. Yet the technique contained in that one sword… the principles within it…”
Without realizing it, he clenched the window frame; the wood creaked and warped under his grip.
“The moment I think I have grasped one thing, another is revealed. When I chase that, still something else appears…”
Like the blind men and the elephant, was it not?
See only a part and you miss the whole; try to see the whole and you cannot examine each piece. He was feeling once more the remoteness and incomprehensibility of supreme martial arts that he had first known as a child.
“...In the end, there is nothing about which I can reach any conclusion.”
The short-bearded young man swallowed dryly. Had an ordinary martial artist said such a thing, he would have simply accepted it. But—
“...A master of the Imperial Palace cannot reach any conclusion at all?”
A master granted access to the Imperial Martial Archives—where every record of martial arts from the previous dynasty down to the present Jungwon Kingdom was kept—was now saying he did not know.
“...Yes.”
“Not at all.”
The middle-aged martial artist’s gaze left the speechless short-bearded young man and turned to the warriors gathered before Jangro-won.
“Their realms differ from mine, and even among them there are differences in realm. Yet I can swear this.”
He declared it flatly.
“They, like me, have failed to properly grasp a single thing.”
And for that very reason they stood there as if entranced—searching for an answer that seemed about to unravel yet never would, lost and captivated by the labyrinth itself from which they could never escape.
After a moment of shock, the short-bearded young man nodded.
“...I suppose that’s possible.”
He spoke as if making excuses, resisting a fact too hard to accept.
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? That was the martial art of the Supreme Patriarch, once called the Greatest Sword Under Heaven.”
He continued.
“If someone could instantly pierce the principles of that peerless martial learning, that would be the strange thing, wouldn’t it?”
He waved a hand as if it were nothing.
“So don’t think too deeply about it—”
“But.”
The middle-aged martial artist cut him off.
“The one who used that Greatest Sword Under Heaven’s martial art was none other than the Grand Young Master.”
“......!”
Could a man who did not understand a martial art still use it? Could one who had not realized its principles still embody that one sword?
“...Perhaps.”
The middle-aged martial artist’s eyes, still fixed outward, narrowed further.
“The talk among martial scholars that beyond the wall one has broken through may lie yet another new wall… may not be entirely empty words.”
Suddenly, in the short-bearded young man’s mind, there rose the image of a sea so deep that neither feet nor sunlight could reach it, a place where the bottom could not be seen—and the sensation of glimpsing some vast, malformed shape passing through those abyssal depths.
Was it wonder? Or awe born of primal terror?
“Welcome!”
The tea-house clerk’s voice from the floor below snapped the short-bearded young man back to himself.
“...In any case.”
He cleared his throat once or twice and continued.
“So His Majesty has chosen the finest talent for resolving the northern problem?”
A complicated expression crossed his face.
“How in the world…”
Deep doubt settled in his eyes.
“How could His Majesty the Emperor—who has all but lived in seclusion within the Imperial Family until now—know of the Grand Young Master of the Sword House and name him so precisely—”
“Shh.”
The middle-aged man raised a hand, stopping the young man’s words.
“Well, well.”
With footsteps nearly silent, the man who had been climbing the stairs smiled sheepishly.
“It was too much for me after all, was it?”
His features were gentle enough, yet the short-bearded young man felt at first glance that this was a man who hid a keen blue edge deep within that good-natured smile.
“With my modest martial skill, I could not deceive the ears of General Geum Mun-hwi, whose name is renowned even within the Imperial Household.”
“...Mm.”
The middle-aged martial artist let out a low hum; the short-bearded young man gave a bitter smile.
“...I expected suspicion, but I never thought my identity would be exposed so quickly.”
“Haha. Is that so?”
Everyone present accepted the young man’s casual mode of address as natural.
“Still, you may rest easy.”
As if to soothe the wariness of Geum Mun-hwi, who was fingering the short sword at his waist, the newcomer spoke.
“I am Yeon Ha-eung, serving as an external advisor to this Sword House. People also call me ‘Legged Rumor.’ And…”
Yeon Ha-eung edged closer with a casually familiar manner and delivered the decisive point.
“I am also a man of the Grand Young Master.”
“Is that so?”
But the short-bearded young man was no easy mark.
“I fail to see what your being the Grand Young Master’s man has to do with me.”
Perhaps that refusal to take the bait pleased him; Yeon Ha-eung smiled faintly.
“Buma-dowi, by His Majesty the Emperor’s command, you originally arranged a meeting with the Grand Young Master for two days from now, did you not?”
At those words the short-bearded young man—Buma-dowi, husband of Princess Yeonghwa, the Emperor’s younger sister—had no choice but to concede.
“...That appointment was known only to the parties involved: His Majesty the Emperor and the Grand Young Master. So you are, at the very least, someone sent by the Grand Young Master.”
“Did I not say as much from the beginning?”
Smiling, Yeon Ha-eung gestured toward the stairs.
“Then, since the Grand Young Master is waiting, allow me to escort you.”
“...Wait.”
Before rising, Buma-dowi still had a question that needed answering.
“How exactly did you find me? How did you know that I—who had made the appointment for two days hence—would be here today?”
“To be precise…”
Yeon Ha-eung scratched the back of his head with a faintly embarrassed air.
“I merely moved as the Grand Young Master instructed.”
The Grand Young Master again.
Buma-dowi had come early to the Luoyang Sword House to learn about the Grand Young Master before meeting him under the Emperor’s secret command. Yet somehow every one of his own actions felt as though it had been dancing on the palm of the Grand Young Master’s hand.
“...How did the Grand Young Master come to know His Majesty the Emperor?”
Once the dam broke, the questions Buma-dowi had been holding poured out one after another.
“Just what is the relationship between His Majesty the Emperor and the Grand Young Master of the Sword House?”
“Is my presence here His Majesty’s will—or the Grand Young Master’s?!”
Yeon Ha-eung neither affirmed nor denied. He simply smiled quietly, waiting for Buma-dowi’s momentary agitation to settle.
“...Forgive me. I got carried away.”
“It’s quite all right.”
Even that response alone told Buma-dowi why Yeon Ha-eung served as an external advisor to the Sword House, and just how adroit a man of means he was.
“As for the answers to those questions, it would be better to hear them directly from the Grand Young Master rather than from the likes of me. I happen to have an unusually large number of tasks today—”
“Legged Rumor.”
And in that moment Buma-dowi understood.
“Yes?”
“It was you.”
“What was, exactly?”
To Yeon Ha-eung’s feigned innocence, Buma-dowi said:
“The source of all these strange rumors today. You were the mastermind behind this information operation.”
In place of an answer, Yeon Ha-eung—Legged Rumor—simply offered his characteristic light smile, as if he had no idea what the man was talking about.
As the sun sank low.
“Surely the head of a faction would not attend a celebration after having his youngest elder stolen away like that?”
Elder Paeng, leader of the Hebei Faction, had shaken his head at the leader of another faction.
“Of course not!”
He had declared it firmly.
“However thick-skinned this Paeng may be, I am still the head of a faction. How could I commit so shameful an act?”
That was what he had said.
“Elder Paeng, what should our faction do?”
“To attend would be shameful…”
Even now his face burned when he thought of the youngest elder who had abandoned their faction to their faces and joined the Grand Young Master’s camp.
“Not to attend would look like siding with the Third Young Master…”
To the fretting elders of the Hebei Faction, Elder Paeng had shaken his head.
“Our faction will not participate!”
He had said it clearly.
And yet—
“Ahem, ahem.”
Dressed in plain martial robes to conceal his identity, Elder Paeng cleared his throat needlessly near Wongak-jeong.
I am not here as the head of the Hebei Faction. I am here merely as a single martial artist who takes an interest in that one sword…!
Even Elder Paeng was trying hard to convince himself of that.