Who Needs a Reason to Save a Life?
Saving a human life? Who needs a reason for that.
I glanced around and spotted Kim Hobu, so I greeted him with a subtle nod. A smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Kim Hobu dipped his head slightly in return — as if he'd predicted all along that I would end up coming here.
Well, sorry to disappoint. Your predictions end right about there.
Sneering at him inwardly, I turned to Kim Shin, who was wearing the most benevolent smile he could manage.
Perhaps because his face was that of a treacherous courtier, all I saw in it was a cunning, venomous grin.
"Heh heh. So. You dealt a blow to Choe Chunghon himself, did you?"
"I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I won't deny it."
"Ha ha ha!"
Kim Shin chuckled repeatedly and showered me with hospitality, but my mood couldn't have been further from pleasant. I knew the true nature of the Kim Clan, for one — but more than that, his laughter simply reeked of falseness.
"I was quite taken aback when word first reached me that you'd come looking for me. From what my son tells me, you came all this way for closed-door cultivation."
"That's right. I'd gained some measure of success and was preparing to return to my clan when a certain matter arose."
"Ah! The business with Yushin Village, no doubt. I've heard a rough account of it myself. And since you've come to seek me out, I take it you're willing to make a deal?"
"Naturally."
When I nodded, Kim Shin's smile deepened.
"Heh heh. Well, well. I hadn't realized the Young Lord of the Wang Clan was quite so... sentimental."
Sentimental, was it? Dressed up in a pretty word, it amounted to nothing more than a jab — a accusation that I'd let my emotions dictate clan business.
But I didn't react. It wasn't worth the breath.
These were the people who had, in a fit of pique over a single unpaid toll, destroyed an entire village. Nothing looked quite as pathetic as a man with no right to speak opening his mouth anyway.
Snorting inwardly, I put on a smile.
"Then shall we get straight to business?"
"Ha! So decisive at such a young age — the Young Lord of the Wang Clan will go far!"
"Thank you for the compliment. First: I will keep silent about the fact that you deliberately spread the plague. In exchange, you will lend me your physicians."
"......"
Caught off guard by the sudden blackmail, Kim Shin's mouth snapped shut. Kim Hobu, too, hadn't seen it coming — his eyes went wide as he stared at me.
What are you looking at, you whelp.
The moment I fixed Kim Hobu with a level stare, he hastily averted his eyes. Apparently his own conscience was pricking him.
Kim Shin closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and spoke in a chilling voice.
"Now, see here."
"Yes, Clan Lord."
"Don't toy with me over such nonsense. Spread rumors like that, and you will bring grave calamity upon yourself."
Ooh, I'm terrified.
So terrified, in fact, that I decided to use Kim Yeonju as my shield.
"Kim Yeonju. Get out here."
At my words, Kim Yeonju — who had been fidgeting uneasily for some time — slowly stepped forward. And the moment she did, Kim Shin's face flooded with alarm.
"Go on. Tell him."
"Ugh."
Whether it was nerves or reluctance to betray her own father, she simply would not open her mouth. So I took extraordinary measures.
"Speak. Up."
Poke.
"Hyah!"
When I pressed a finger into the small of her back, Kim Yeonju let out a most undignified yelp.
"Speak. Now."
Poke. Poke.
"F...fine! I'll talk! I said fine!"
Clutching her back with both hands, Kim Yeonju looked Kim Shin square in the eye. He was so rattled that the composure he'd maintained until that moment had crumbled entirely.
"It's already done, Father. It's all over."
"You — you would betray your own father?"
"...That's exactly why I told you not to do it in the first place."
"You wretched girl! I indulged you because you showed some talent, and this is the disaster you bring into my house!"
Face flushed scarlet, Kim Shin hurled abuse at his daughter. This, presumably, was Kim Shin's true character on any ordinary day.
"There will be a mourning rites in this hall today! You there! Someone bring me a rod!"
Then it suddenly came back to me — Kim Yeonju's request that I protect her.
So that's what she meant by protecting her.
Haah.
Letting out a sigh, I pulled Kim Yeonju behind me and hid her from view. She was his own daughter, after all — I hadn't expected him to go this far.
Kim Yeonju, sheltered behind my back, grabbed hold of the hem of my clothes. Wondering what was wrong, I glanced back — and found her eyes squeezed shut, the hand gripping my sleeve trembling uncontrollably.
She looked like a cat abandoned in the dead of winter. Something about it struck me as pitiful, so I held out my hand. An offer to hold it.
Back in my past life, soldiers lying wounded and dying had found comfort whenever someone took their hand like this. I doubted this case was any different.
Kim Yeonju stared blankly at my outstretched hand for a long moment, then reached out her trembling fingers and took it. Little by little, the shaking subsided.
I had just allowed myself a breath of relief — and then the shouting between Kim Shin and Kim Hobu erupted.
"Stand still, damn it! Is Mujin not standing right in front of you? If you want someone held accountable, it can wait until later!"
"Let go of me! You wretch! You're in league with him too!"
"Father, please...!"
"Hold your tongue!"
Thwack!
Kim Hobu, who had been trying to restrain him, took a blow and crumpled to the floor. Kim Hobu was a bastard in his own right, but I hadn't realized Kim Shin was even more of one.
Sensing that things would only spiral further if I didn't wrap this up now, I decided it was time to calm Kim Shin down.
"Clan Lord. Discovering the truth behind this matter has nothing whatsoever to do with Lady Yeonju. She merely assisted me in verifying what I had already learned."
At my words, Kim Shin's sneering eyes swung toward me. The bloodshot fury in them told me that if this went on, he really might make a scene of it.
"Hmph! It's all the same thing! And you — you dare blackmail me? Young Lord of the Wang Clan or not, I'll—"
Shring!
Kim Shin drew his sword and lunged — or would have, a heartbeat later.
"Stop!"
Kim Hobu threw himself between us. For my part, it was a genuine stroke of luck. If Kim Shin's assault had run its course, it could have escalated into open war between clans.
Thanks to Kim Hobu, disaster was averted — but it had been far too close.
Wait. Wasn't he supposed to be an arrogant pig? Why is he suddenly playing the good son?
As I regarded the back of Kim Hobu's head with bewilderment, Kim Shin's furious bellow came down like an axe.
"What? Your own father is speaking, and you dare cut him off?!"
"Father! Please, compose yourself, and think of the great enterprise!"
At that, some of the steam went out of Kim Shin. I had no idea what this "great enterprise" was supposed to be, but if it kept Kim Shin in check, that was good enough for me.
First things first — I needed to defuse him while I had the chance. Otherwise, blood could be spilled here in the Kim Clan estate.
"If my words came across as a threat, then I sincerely apologize."
It was absolutely a threat, of course.
"Hooooo...."
Exhaling a long, hot breath, Kim Shin looked at me with somewhat steadier eyes. But the sword was still in his hand.
"So. What is it you actually want? You didn't manufacture this whole mess just to borrow a handful of physicians, I trust."
Kim Shin was clearly fishing — expecting me to leverage the plague for gain — but that had never been my intent.
"Just lend me the physicians, as I said."
Kim Shin frowned, as though he couldn't make sense of it at all.
"That's truly all?"
"Yes. Well, one thing more — I'd like your promise that you'll never pull anything like this again."
"Ha! Why on earth would you go to all this trouble?!"
"People are dying. Is there any reason not to save them? If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, perhaps. But having seen it, it's simply my duty to see it through to the end."
"I truly cannot understand you!"
Kim Hobu blinked as well, evidently just as baffled. To people who didn't regard commoners as human at all, I supposed my reasoning made no sense whatsoever.
Inside Kim Shin's head, the calculations had no doubt long since finished: if word of the plague spread, how much would the Kim Clan lose, and how much would the Wang Clan gain?
If I spread the truth across the nation using the Wang Clan's reach right now, the Kim Clan's standing as one of the Six Great Clans would be shaken to its core. The villages that paid their tolls would slip from their domain as well.
But I had no intention of going that far. If I did, the people living in Kim territory would only suffer more for it.
"Hoo. Very well. We have a deal."
"Thank you."
"I'll assign the physicians immediately, so be on your way. I've seen quite enough of your face."
"Understood. Apologies for the intrusion."
Frankly, I had no desire to keep trading words with that bastard either, so I quickly released Kim Yeonju's hand and took Seonhwa's instead. We needed to leave before he could throw another tantrum.
I thought I heard Kim Yeonju make a faint sound of disappointment, but that had to be my imagination.
And just as we were leaving the room, voices — Kim Shin and Kim Yeonju — drifted out after us. Though "conversation" was a generous word for what was essentially one-sided decree.
"This is why you still can't get past that woman of the Jang Clan!"
The Jang Clan?
If the Kim Clan sat to the south-southeast of Gaegyeong, the Jang Clan lay to the southwest. Whether it was their close proximity or some grudge from the past, I'd heard the two clans despised each other.
"That woman has already reached the First-Class realm, and you — you...! Gwaaah!!"
"Sob... hic...."
By the time Kim Shin had begun shrieking outright, Kim Yeonju had apparently been driven to tears. She'd played a major part in securing the physicians, so I wanted to help her — she had asked me to, after all.
But I had no pretext. No justification to wedge myself between father and daughter and intervene.
"Mujin, my lord. Are you all right?"
"Hmm? Oh. I'm fine, more or less."
The image of Kim Yeonju's trembling hand kept nagging at me, but right now I needed to hurry to Yushin Village, not a moment to spare.
I'm sorry.
If we met again, I decided, I'd listen to her curse me out without a word of complaint.
By the time I arrived at Yushin Village with the four physicians I'd borrowed, Ansong came out to greet me.
"My lord! What took you so long?!"
"Whoa, whoa — keep your distance. I'll catch whatever they have."
Ansong took this hard, and his face immediately fell.
"So I'm a disease now...."
"Sorry, but we're exhausted. Sleep first, talk later."
Dragging physicians all this way in the dead of night had been no simple feat. Seonhwa and I could at least travel fast with lightfoot technique, but the physicians had no martial arts to speak of — we'd had to escort them the entire way while fending off wild animals.
Thankfully, there'd been no sudden blizzard or anything of the sort.
Seonhwa, evidently worn out as well, was leaning against me as she stood. Even for someone trained in the martial arts, it must have been a punishing forced march.
"I want to sleep too, my lord. We've been up a full day and night."
"You still need to brief the physicians here. Who's in the worst shape, what the symptoms look like."
"Ugh. Understood."
"Oh — did anyone die?"
"Quite a few of the people who'd collapsed outside didn't make it. I couldn't say if it had been summer, but it's winter."
I'd expected as much, but hearing it outright still left a bitter taste. I handed the physicians over to Ansong and made for the first empty house I could find to sleep.
Ansong needed time to rest as well, so I planned to depart within three days at the latest.
Come to think of it... feels like I'm forgetting something.
What was it?
It wouldn't come to me. Probably nothing important.
Meanwhile, at the Wang Clan estate, they waited endlessly for Mujin's return.