The Simple-Minded Paeng Clan and the Despicable Dang Clan
Stomp... stomp...
The man who had appeared with such an imposing bearing that every gaze in the inn was snared at a glance made his way slowly through the door. He looked even bigger than the White Heaven Squad Leader, whom I normally had to tilt my head back just to look up at.
"Ooooh..."
I gaped in open admiration for a moment before coming back to my senses and tapping the table to summon Dang Jihyeon.
"White Heaven Squad Leader... take a look at that guy."
"Yes?"
At my sudden whispering and pointing over my shoulder, she shot a puzzled glance behind her.
"That fellow who looks like a bear... He's a bandit, isn't he? Has to be."
"That man is..." she said, continuing to study him — genuinely bear-like, with a bulk no human frame should carry and a face swallowed whole by beard — with all the fascination of someone watching a gorilla through the glass at a zoo.
"See? Told you. So from now on I can just call him Paeng Jihyeon, right?"
At that, Dang Jihyeon put on a look of utter disbelief and answered with a sigh.
"Haah... Young Master. That is Paeng San, second son of the Paeng Clan. What exactly goes on inside your head, that you see the character for Paeng written across a man's clothing and conclude he must be a bandit?"
"Huh...? That's the Paeng of the Paeng Clan?"
"..."
"Oh, so it is... My mistake — I mistook it for the paeng that means 'to puff up.' I honestly thought he'd written it on his own clothes to celebrate how big he'd gotten from all that exercise..."
Gazing at her clan's Young Master — apparently incapable of reading even a single character properly — with an expression of pure pity, Dang Jihyeon began seriously contemplating the future of the Dang Clan.
"Haah... Although, if he marries her and has children, perhaps the generation after next might hold some hope..."
While she was picturing a future a good thirty years down the road,
"Long time no see."
Paeng San, who had been scanning the inn since entering, walked up to me — still standing there with a vacant look on my face — and greeted me.
"So you're the Dang Clan's Young Clan Head... The Dang Clan's future looks very bright indeed, I must say..."
Watching the lowland gorilla of a man curl the corners of his mouth into a smug smirk, I tilted my head sideways and replied.
"Wow... so you're the Paeng Clan's second son... The Paeng Clan's past must have been quite dark, then..."
"Huh?"
Having tossed out a light jab only to be met with a savage counter, Paeng San froze with a dumbstruck expression, as if his brain had briefly crashed.
Watching him, I was privately cheering myself on, convinced I'd returned that volley rather well, when...
"Are you... still ailing? I heard you once drank poison. The aftereffects must still be lingering, I see."
His flustered face lasted only a heartbeat. Watching him reset his expression and address me again, I clicked my tongue inwardly.
Tsk... I was hoping he'd just lunge at me, but the man doesn't live up to that frame of his at all.
Guys like him were supposed to need only the faintest scratch before bellowing "How dare you!!!" and coming swinging — but defying the cliché, all he did was flap his mouth noisily, and just as I was starting to mourn the wasted trope...
"There's no elder sister to shield you this time... I sincerely recommend you hurry back to your clan before you see something ugly."
As Paeng San kept up his yapping, lobbing provocation after provocation, the spirit of my keyboard-warrior days began to stir awake inside my skull.
"I say all of this out of genuine care for you, so do try not to take it the wrong way..."
"Do you have some disease that kills you if you don't open that reeking mouth of yours?"
Cutting him off without warning left him sputtering for a moment.
Seizing that opening, I spoke again, resolved to show him which of us was truly better at fighting with our jaws.
"To think the second young master of the Paeng Clan — one of the renowned houses of the orthodox sects, no less — would commit acts even the filth of the unorthodox would blush at. Now I begin to understand the Paeng Clan's philosophy of education..."
"Wh... what—"
He faltered into stammers, but I gave him no room to breathe and kept right on running my mouth.
"Oh... could it be you had some other purpose all along, picking fights with everyone who crossed your path? If so, I humbly apologize. I truly never dreamed you'd attempt to assassinate the direct bloodline of the Dang Clan with halitosis."
At my words, Paeng San actually raised his right hand to his lips and huffed into his palm, checking his own breath. Watching him do it, I eyed him sidelong and pressed on.
"Now, now, don't cry... A fellow built like a bear whimpering behind his hand like a little girl would hardly be a dignified sight, would it? No... actually, I suspect it would be downright hideous, so please, do refrain."
"Th... th..."
His face flushing redder and redder as he ground out syllables, I drew one enormous breath and...
"Hooo... You don't live up to your size, and for all that, you're not even good at running your mouth — so tell me, are you at least good at holding your temper? Judging by that scarlet face, no. And the way you so readily went on about my sister — sounds to me like she worked you over once before. Getting thrashed by a woman and then taking it out on innocent bystanders... if that's the sort of man you are, why not simply cut that thing dangling between your legs off while you're at it? Ah, but wait — looking at that bulk of yours, you must have been carrying a generous layer of fat since childhood, so the job would call for a small knife rather than that long saber you're wearing. I'll pick one out for you myself, so my sincere recommendation is to duck into the outhouse, give it a rough trim, and come on back."
"..."
At my torrent of abuse, Dang Jihyeon... the innkeeper... the waiter boy hauling a tray of noodles... the Dang Clan retainers eating at the neighboring table, and the Paeng Clan retainers who had trailed their young master into the inn after him — every last one of them stood gaping, mouths hanging open.
"What's this... suddenly speechless?"
I flashed a grin at the quivering Paeng San and needled him one last time...
Grrrrk—
A sound like stone grinding against iron tore out of his mouth, and Paeng San drew his saber and roared at me.
"You cur! H...how dare you belittle me!"
It had cost a little more time and effort than expected, but watching him act out the cliché all the same, I shook my head slowly.
"Knew it... You really do play exactly to type."
Whether I shook my head or not, Paeng San snorted through his nostrils like an enraged gorilla and leveled his blade at me.
Huff... huff...
Watching him, coiled to bring that blade down at any instant, I clicked my tongue and said...
"Tsk tsk... A martial artist of the orthodox sects, planning to run riot inside a crowded inn? There's an empty lot I spotted on the way here. Let's take this over there."
Fortunately, he could still tell sense from nonsense; grinding his teeth, Paeng San answered in a trembling voice.
"Lead the way..."
I snorted a laugh at the sight of him and rose from my seat — and there was Dang Jihyeon, watching me with an anxious expression...
"It's fine. Just wait here. It'll be over before you know it."
I said it to put her at ease, but she only scrunched up her face and spoke.
"It is not that I worry for you, Young Master... Haah... Young Master. You must not kill him, and you must not cripple him. If it comes to that, this will not slide the way the Qingcheng Sect affair did."
"You sneaky bastards!"
Paeng San spat a curse at her words, but I ignored him entirely and answered her.
"Oh, relax... I know where the line is. Give me some credit."
"You truly promise?"
Ducking away from the stare she fixed on me — one that made her doubt crystal clear — I stepped out of the inn and threw a remark over my shoulder.
"What are you waiting for? Not coming?"
"I would follow whether you bid me or not, so get moving already!"
"If you understand, just say you understand — why burn energy yelling for nothing..."
Just how long did we walk?
In the empty lot we had glimpsed in passing during the carriage ride here stood, face to face, me — looking to any eye like a promising rising star — and Paeng San, looking to any eye like the elder of some venerable clan.
Back at the inn, Paeng San had ordered the guards who meant to follow him to stay behind, so in the wide clearing only the two of us stood, staring each other down.
"Shall we begin, then?"
At the sight of me still snickering and strutting about like a smug little punk, Paeng San tossed aside the calm of "clear mirror, still water" that the Blade King had always hammered into him and drew his saber.
"By the way, about that thing — you know, the—"
"Begging now will do you no good!"
Paeng San cut off the sudden remark with a roar, and I scratched my head.
"Ah... no, that's not it..."
At the vague trailing-off, Paeng San tilted his head slightly, and I opened my mouth again.
"I hear that when a master faces an amateur, the courteous thing is to yield the first strike..."
And with those words, he thrust his right hand forward and beckoned lazily with two fingers — index and middle. Something audibly snapped inside Paeng San's skull, and with a scream he flung his hulking frame forward.
"Hraaagh... I'll kill you!!!"
Watching him come barreling at me with his eyes rolled white, an irrepressible smile spread across my lips...
"Ha... how is it that not a single thing ever deviates from expectation?"
I murmured the words to myself and flung my body backward to evade the descending saber.
CRASH—
Paeng San's full-force blow smashed into the earth where I had been standing a heartbeat before, and with a deafening roar a geyser of dust billowed upward.
"Cough, cough... Whew, the dust... I'll grant that you can't fight with any elegance, but flinging dust everywhere like this — isn't that just plain bad manners?"
Waving the cloud of dust aside with a hand as I approached...
Grrrrrgh...
He came into view — bloodshot eyes, saber planted in the ground, frozen in that exact posture, growling low and long.
"I mean... I told you plainly, didn't I? The amateur gets the first strike..."
I snickered and snickered... then, confronted with the mystery of a man gripping his blade and unable to move so much as a finger, only his mouth barely managing to work, I walked up to him, patted the top of his head, and said:
"So I went ahead and poisoned you first — do you have some problem with that?"
"...You... despicable..."
"Wow... I mean, I dosed you with a serious amount of paralytic and you can still talk? Jeez... your body really is something else..."
He was too furious to string his words together. I flashed him one wide grin, took a fistful of his hair, and murmured:
"Now then... let's get you beaten."
All Paeng San could do was stare, eyes shuddering and quaking as though an earthquake had torn through, at the sight of me raising my free hand high.