The Ragtag Sichuan Dang Clan
I'd been planning to shed a single tear, whimper out a tearful plea of 'The Demonic Cult are bad men, please punish them,' gloss over exactly how I'd dealt with the demonic beings, and wrap the whole thing up with a hearty round of ha-ha-ho-ho, but...
"Hoo....."
The Clan Head exhaled a long, deep breath that seemed to rise straight from his dantian, staring me down the entire time, while around him dozens of pairs of eyes flicked this way and that, lips twitching as if they were all checking someone else's reaction—every one of them silently begging my mouth to open.
What the hell is going on here? Ugh... I'm going to lose my mind.
The situation had gone so far off the rails that, despite myself, I found my own eyes sneaking glances around the room, exactly like everyone else.
Glug— glug—
I moved my Adam's apple as slowly as I could manage, trying to buy myself a little time to think, but—
"Finish that up and tell us the whole story of yesterday. Right now."
Ha... that damned old man. So much for help... so much for that.
As the Execution Hall Master urged me on while I sipped my water with exaggerated slowness, I cursed him thoroughly under my breath and hurriedly finished sorting out my thoughts.
Clack—
I set the cup down on the table, squeezed my eyes shut once, and then opened my mouth.
"So, the way it all happened was..."
In an atmosphere so thick with killing intent that even a Third-Rate—no, a Second-Rate—warrior set down in it would have clutched his heart and dropped dead on the spot, I began slowly unspooling the tale of yesterday.
My saga of derring-do, which had certainly begun around the time the sun, far off on the horizon, finished revealing its shy face, came to an end just about when it climbed to its zenith. Honestly, it wasn't a story that needed to run that long, but...
"And then when I looked back over my shoulder—"
"Hey, you brat! Explain exactly how you were sitting and exactly how you turned around!"
"I beg your pardon...?"
...and things like that.
"They were all swathed head to toe in pitch black, and they drew their swords and rushed me—"
"Plain black cloth with no emblem whatsoever, was it? And nothing distinctive about the swords either?"
"I'm afraid my memory doesn't quite reach that far..."
"Then dig through that memory a little harder!"
...and more like that. With the Execution Hall Master and the rest of the hall masters grilling me so relentlessly that they practically demanded the color of the underwear I'd worn that day, actually reaching the end of the story took a very long time indeed.
In any case, however fervently I had delivered that long, long tale...
"Haah..... Whew... could someone please get me a glass of water?"
I accepted the water and drank, moistening my bone-dry mouth, then took a slow look around.
Inside the meeting hall, where the skin-flaying atmosphere of the morning still lingered, the various squad leaders—who apparently held no speaking rights here—kept a solemn silence, while...
"Clan Head... I believe him. If you ask me, that incident was likely another scheme of the Demonic Cult as well..."
"Haa..."
"Shouldn't word of this matter be sent to the Murim Alliance as well?"
Dang Jihwan and several of the hall masters were murmuring back and forth in quiet council...
"Heh heh..."
while the white-haired elders stroked their beards, chuckling 'heh heh heh' between sips from their teacups.
But as the saying goes, wherever people gather, there's always one oddball in the crowd—and among them sat at least one man who seemed constitutionally incapable of reading the room, because he was busy yelling his head off...
"Hey, you rotten brat! You really think that story of yours holds water?!"
The Execution Hall Master—who could ordinarily read a room with the finesse of a seasoned courtier—had, as ever, failed to let anyone down: finger jabbed in my direction, he was bellowing in that window-rattling voice of his.
Perhaps half a day of torment at his hands had inured me somewhat, because by now I replied with perfect composure.
"It's the truth. What am I supposed to do about that?"
At my breezy answer, both hands raised in a shrug, Dang Hawun clutched the back of his neck...
"Th...this brat! Aigoo... my neck."
He raised his other hand and trembled, still unable to bring himself to actually plant a fist in my face—and seeing that, I grew only more shameless.
"Exactly which part of my account fails to make sense? All I did was earnestly report what happened."
At the sight of me cocking one corner of my mouth in open provocation, the Execution Hall Master promptly gave up on regulating his blood pressure; veins bulging at his neck, he roared with a face gone scarlet.
"Hey, you rotten brat! A Transcendent Realm demonic being, with its target right in front of it, suddenly started beating up its own underlings?! And in the middle of all that, you crept up behind it and went wham... boom... kablooey... bang... and it died?! You think that sounds like sense?!"
Whether the Clan Head sat nearby with a glacial expression or not... whether one of the elders decades his senior had been startled so badly his voice went hoarse and he was now hacking away or not... whether some of the squad leaders could only gape at him in stupefaction or not...
None of it mattered in the slightest as he ran amok. With a face so flushed that a well-ripened apple would have bowed and called him elder brother, the Execution Hall Master lunged at me.
"That's it! Muyeong, you brat, it's plainly obvious you took a knock to the head—so I'll fix it with my own two hands!"
At that, the Medicine Hall Master beside him clamped a hand on his throat, subduing him like a mad dog, and stopped him short.
"Calm yourself first! What sort of rampage is this, in the Clan Leader's Hall of all places!"
Maybe those words, and the grip holding him back, cooled his head a little—the Execution Hall Master settled down for a moment.
Pfft—
When I flashed him a smile angled to be visible from his line of sight alone, the Execution Hall Master practically tittered with delight and sent his blood pressure soaring right back up.
"Let go of me..."
"I'll release you once your temper cools, so bear with it a moment."
"I said let go..."
"Your head's still hot. Just a little longer..."
"Get your hands off me, you son of a bitch!"
At those final words, the Medicine Hall Master—who had been restraining the frantic, tooth-grinding man—turned to him with the veins standing out on his forehead.
"What... did you just call me?"
"A son of a bitch! You got a problem with that?"
"Heh heh... So that stretch you spent holed up in the Medicine Hall taught you to look at me as nothing more than a dog's dick... and I never even noticed..."
Still chuckling softly with a mild expression, the Medicine Hall Master shifted his grip from the man's neck to his head in a flash—and slammed it straight down into the table.
CRASH—
The Execution Hall Master's head shattered the table outright and stopped only when it met the floor. It rose slowly from the wreckage, wearing an expression of dazed bewilderment.
"Ha... the old geezer's actually lost it..."
With those words as the opening bell, the two hall masters—wagers apparently riding on the outcome—battered the meeting hall's furniture to splinters as they traded blows back and forth, but...
"Heh heh heh... The blood still runs hot in those two..."
"You're telling me... Those were the good days."
Not a single soul moved to break it up; they merely watched. I could only wear a look of pure incredulity and think:
This is the "prestigious great clan of the Orthodox sects"? Fuck me, we're basically a discount Demonic Cult at this point... What a scuffle—so narrow-minded it's making my own heart feel small by association.
Whether or not I stood there lamenting in complete disillusionment, the fight between the two only grew more ferocious, and...
WHAM... crack... thud...
...at last it ended when the Execution Hall Master was pounded clean through the wall and out of the building.
And even that was, in truth...
"All right, that's quite enough of that."
...brought to a close only because the Clan Head, after glancing at the Financial Hall Master's rapidly whitening face, finally stepped in and held the two apart.
When the Execution Hall Master shuffled back into the hall looking like a beggar, Dang Jihwan—shooting a warning glance at the Financial Hall Master, who was glaring daggers at the man as though he'd tolerate no more of it—cleared his throat and spoke.
"Ahem... In any case, Muyeong."
"Yes?"
At the Clan Head's voice summoning me so abruptly, I answered in bewilderment, and Dang Jihwan spoke with a face somewhat eased from before.
"Are you quite certain you slew a Transcendent Realm demonic being all on your own?"
"Yes... luck was very much on my side, but it's the honest truth."
To my answer, offered with a sheepish scratch of the head, the Clan Head replied in a low voice.
"Well then, thank goodness... And you've done well."
At the sight of it, the Execution Hall Master spoke up with the look of a man grievously wronged...
"But... Clan Head! Wouldn't it be far more plausible to say the Battle King of the Unorthodox Sects burst in unannounced..."
"Muyeong would hardly tell me a lie to my face."
As the Clan Head severed his protest with finality and the Execution Hall Master was left gaping, the other retainers began nodding along and chiming in.
"The boy has never once lied, even back then..."
"Well... he is a demonic being, no? The demonic qi may have eaten into his brain and rattled it completely loose..."
"I believe the Young Master."
The very people who had kept their mouths tightly shut until moments ago were suddenly lining up to declare their support for Dang Muyeong, and the Execution Hall Master flopped down where he stood, wearing the face of a man whose nation had just fallen.
"Th...th... you treacherous bastards..."
Leaving him to mutter behind me with the face of a defeated man, I cautiously addressed Dang Jihwan.
"Clan Head... I've been through a rather large ordeal, and I'm terribly tired—might I be permitted to return to my quarters and rest?"
At the sight of me speaking with the haggard face of someone who'd been awake two nights straight, Dang Jihwan nodded at once.
"Of course... You must have been exhausted. I shouldn't have kept you here all this time. Go on back to your quarters and rest."
The moment permission left the Clan Head's lips, I bowed deeply and made my exit from the Clan Leader's Hall.
On the road back to my quarters...
Letting the cold wind wash over me as I ambled along, I muttered to myself.
"Huh... the Clan Head's son is a monster that rips out people's hearts and eats them... the clan's senior officers settle their business by beating each other half to death in the meeting hall... Honestly, could this place actually be the Demonic Cult..."
I was trudging along in the grip of these idle thoughts when someone threw an arm over my shoulder and spoke.
"Young Master! That was magnificent!"
The sudden arm made me jolt, and I looked up at its owner—none other than the Dark Heaven Hall Master.
"Ah... well... I suppose it was?"
I answered with an awkward smile and glanced back to find the squad leaders from the meeting hall strung out behind me like links of sausage.
"So why is everyone here, exactly?"
At my puzzled question, the Dark Heaven Hall Master answered with an easy grin.
"The Clan Head sent the likes of us out, apparently?"
"Ah... I see."
No sooner had he finished than the Red Heaven Squad Leader behind me stepped forward, showing off his enormous bulk as he spoke.
"In any case, I'm just glad you came through it safe and sound, Young Master. And please, accept this..."
I took what Dang Yun had abruptly thrust into my hands and looked it over...
"What is this?"
A tablet of jadeite, the character for 'Dang' engraved on both faces.
"It's the identity tablet certifying you as the Young Clan Head of the Dang Clan."
"What did you say?"
"Congratulations on your appointment as Young Clan Head."
"What...?"
Though I kept gaping in disbelief and demanding he repeat himself, Dang Yun simply plowed on with what he'd come to say.
"Ah, and one more thing. The Clan Head says to make ready to depart for Hubei tomorrow, for the gathering of the Five Great Clans."
"Wha......"
"Well then, we'll take our leave."
Having handed me nothing but my own bewilderment and a tablet, the squad leaders bowed and vanished like the wind.
Watching their receding backs, I laughed hollowly and murmured.
"Hah... ha ha... So the Heavenly Demon I raised like the apple of my eye got outdone by the Young Clan Head of a family like this?"
I felt a tangle of emotions churning in my chest, ran a dry hand down my face, and then recited, very quietly:
"...Fuck....."