The Dang Clan's Tomb Raider Duo
Seeing Dang Giyeong grinning his sly grin, I greeted him with a heart that was half glad, half annoyed.
"So what exactly is this order of my father's that dragged a man who was supposedly at death's door all the way out to Hubei?"
"Hmm... that is a little delicate to discuss out here... Let us head to your residence first, and I will report properly."
He was wearing a serious expression for once, and just as I was about to grudgingly nod him on—
"Oh, that reminds me, Young Master... they say you're a son of a bitch?"
I scrunched my face at the curse he dropped out of nowhere.
"What... where on earth did you hear that this time?"
"On my way here, I stopped to buy a skewer from a street vendor, and the moment the man saw the Dang character on my robes, he flatly refused to serve me. Naturally, I asked him why, and..."
"He called me a son of a bitch?"
"Yes!"
His face was so radiantly innocent as he answered that I smiled just as radiantly and replied.
"Why, you little shit!"
"They say you keep a fiancée on one hand while fooling around with this woman and that, and that you have even put the moves on a married woman?"
"What the hell kind of..."
"And that just yesterday at the tavern, you swept men and women alike into your arms without the slightest discrimination..."
THWACK—
Watching him run his mouth, I smiled sweetly and unleashed the shin-shattering technique handed down to me by the Execution Hall Master.
"AAAGH!"
The results were spectacular.
"Young Master... I am an injured man..."
"So what? My foot doesn't discriminate—patient, woman, old man, it treats you all the same. So just lie there and die."
I stomped down on Dang Giyeong as he rolled around in the dirt clutching his shin, shouting all the while.
"AGH! Young Master... my back! My back!"
"When your own clan's Young Clan Head is being slandered, you correct the record—not gleefully repeat it to my face!"
"Young Master... behind! Behind you!"
Dang Giyeong, wriggling under my heel like a pine caterpillar dropped from a tree, pointed past me.
"Behind what? So what!"
I kept up my spirited kicking even as I glanced back...
Jegal Baekhwa was staring at me with both hands clamped over her mouth.
"Ah.....?"
The sight of her covering her mouth with those tiny hands, as though she had just witnessed something shattering, made me turn to face her, my tap dance frozen mid-step...
"I... I can accept whatever your tastes may be, my lord... Only, please, do not leave me..."
Calling me by the title that had changed overnight, she nodded with an expression that said she could accept even this shocking news, and I asked her carefully.
"My lady... what on earth are you talking about..."
"Whether my lord's taste runs to married women... or to... to children..."
"No no no no no no!"
I flailed my hands, shouting her down as her words veered somewhere terrible.
"It's nothing like that! What kind of nonsense are you spouting!"
And so I, who had very nearly class-changed from the world's one and only piece of trash into a piece of trash that should never have existed in this world, pressed her sternly...
"Hhk... sob."
At the sight of Jegal Baekhwa on the verge of bursting into tears again, I raised both hands, clenching and unclenching my fists, and tried to soothe her.
"No... hey, what's wrong? It's not that... My type is a mature woman. The kind with curves where there ought to be curves."
As I traced the shape of a gourd with both hands.
"Waaaaaah...."
Jegal Baekhwa wept without end.
'Ah... what do you want me to do about it...'
I thought to myself, but the memory of the Jegal Clan Head's face from earlier surfaced, and I hurriedly gripped her shoulders, patting them as I spoke...
"The truth is, I... my type is someone with skin white as fresh snow, lips red as cherries, and... and... hair as white as a snow-covered mountain."
Only then did her tears begin to ebb, and as she looked up at me...
'Damn... she really is beautiful.'
Just as I was offering that mental appraisal, the useless Dang Giyeong uselessly wedged himself back in.
"Young Master, do not lie! Only the other day it was clearly a bronze-skinned..."
Fwoosh—
To shut that doomed mouth of his, I shaped my right hand into a pistol and pulled the trigger at him.
As if to prove that desperation really can make the impossible possible, the Qi Bullet Art that had refused to cooperate no matter how I practiced flew from my fingertip at that moment—so beautifully that no one in the world could have loosed a finer shot.
"Urk....."
The qi bullet that burst from my hand struck Dang Giyeong square in the Adam's apple, and he went down at last with a final groan, like a dog felled by a tranquilizer dart.
"Th... nine things out of ten that come out of that man's mouth are lies, so don't let it trouble you..."
"My lord... then might you promise me one thing more?"
When Jegal Baekhwa asked with a face that would wring the heart of anyone who saw it,
"Sure... ask me anything. So long as it's within my power..."
"Then could you call me Baekhwa?"
"Of course... Baekhwa. Will that do?"
"Yes..."
The weeping woman from moments ago had vanished; she answered with the very picture of serenity and a shy smile, and for an instant the thought crossed my mind—'Was I just conned?'
"Then would you share this evening's meal with me, my lord?"
At the sight of Jegal Baekhwa asking, her face dyed red,
'Ah... who cares whether it was a con or genuine girlish shyness... She's cute, so it's fine.'
I thought, and nodded my answer to her.
"Alright... I'll be waiting at my residence this evening."
With those words she bounded off into the distance, practically skipping with every step.
I watched her retreating figure for a moment, then made my way over to Dang Giyeong, still sprawled across the ground...
"Khuff... if my body were in proper condition, I would never have taken that blow to the shin... and I could have dodged your Qi Bullet Art with the greatest of ease..."
He was muttering at the top of his voice, shedding crocodile tears, as if he wanted the whole courtyard to hear.
"Well, who told you to go around getting stabbed?"
"Wow... Young Master. That one genuinely wounded me."
He wore the expression of a man truly hurt, and I feigned indifference as I neutralized the paralytic poison lodged in his body.
Only then did Dang Giyeong stretch himself out long and groan.
"Aigoo... without my internal energy, I cannot even purge a little poison like this..."
"You can't use your internal energy at all?"
"Well... I can, if I set my mind to it... but it hurts a great deal. The Medicine Hall Master himself told me not to use it carelessly and crack my dantian open, and to take it easy for a while."
"What whining... A man ought to grit his teeth and endure at least that much."
"You have never had your lower dantian crack, have you, Young Master? That is why you speak so easily..."
I traded banter with him all the way back to my residence.
It was around the time when a good two hours still remained before my appointed hour with Jegal Baekhwa...
"Absolutely not! What kind of madness is this!"
Someone's voice was ringing through my residence.
"Aw, come now, Young Master... Jihyeon has always been a frightful coward. Why, she once bawled her eyes out at the mere sight of the Clan Head's face. Let us simply go."
"Hmm..."
"Does that make any sense to you! Things are unsettled enough as it is—where exactly do the two of you think you are going, a clan's Young Clan Head and an invalid who cannot even serve properly as a guard!"
"Well, if you're that frightened, going back is always an option for you?"
"Grr..."
Dang Jihyeon, her face flushed scarlet, was spitting furious roars, while Dang Giyeong, glued to my side, poured out honeyed words in an attempt to win me over.
"Fine... let's go! What could possibly happen again?"
At my words, which brought the argument to a close, she squeezed her eyes shut and dragged a hand down her face...
"As expected of the Young Master—a man among men!"
Dang Giyeong beamed with delight, rubbing his palms together and heaping flattery upon me.
Now, as for how this whole affair had come about...
Dang Giyeong, who had returned to my residence with me, ran into Dang Jihyeon there, and after their reunion he began explaining the Clan Head's orders.
"In any case, if we mean to make the Demonic Cult the common enemy of the world and see to it that those vermin never so much as dream of leaving Xinjiang, this is the surest way."
"Fair... since it all happened within the Five Great Clans, those sect bastards might well come out of it half-heartedly..."
The Clan Head's order was to stop at the Mount Hua Sect in Shaanxi and deliver a single letter to its Sect Leader...
The problem was that the letter's contents were enough to turn Mount Hua on its head.
"The poison drawn from my body—it's definitely the same poison that killed the former Alliance Chief, right?"
"Yes... the Poison Manufacturing Hall Master and the Medicine Hall Master cross-verified it."
"Then the former Alliance Chief's poisoning was the Demonic Cult's doing? And if we carry that word to his disciple, the present Sect Leader of Mount Hua..."
"The Nine Sects and One Gang will be turned on their heads as well."
"Ha... if this isn't the old stratagem of killing with a borrowed knife..."
"We gain one more steadfast ally, and Mount Hua has already glimpsed the fiend's true nature—so it profits both sides, does it not?"
"Father is a more frightening man than I gave him credit for..."
"Of course he is. Do you have any idea how terrifying the Clan Head truly is?"
Dang Jihwan was half-convinced that the recent bloodletting among the Five Great Clans was the Demonic Cult's work, and this scheme to draw Mount Hua to our side in case the Murim Alliance responded with lukewarm half-measures—I nodded, inwardly impressed.
In the midst of it all, Dang Giyeong addressed me in a slyly casual voice.
"So, about that... would you care to come along?"
At his words, the White Heaven Squad Leader, our designated escort, leapt and shouted...
"What nonsense is this!"
But at what followed, I found myself accepting before I knew it.
"I cannot use my internal energy at present—if we ran into bandits, I would be utterly helpless. Honestly, the road from Hubei to Shaanxi is all but free of the unorthodox factions... it is not particularly dangerous."
"You think so? No... you're right. If a Squad Leader of the Dang Clan got beaten to death by common bandits, it would bury the clan's dignity for good."
Only after I had accepted did he finally lay out his true purpose...
"So, about that... wouldn't you like to come see some ruins with me?"
I asked back, puzzled...
"What ruins are you talking about..."
"A while back, I happened—purely by chance, you understand—to come into a certain map..."
Dang Giyeong sidled up close and whispered into my ear.
"They say it is a map of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang..."
"Uh... huh? What are you even saying?"
"I mean for the two of us to slip in, sweep the place clean, and slip back out."
I raked through my memory, turning it over carefully.
'The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang... it is without question a jackpot of a place, if you can strip it... but the difficulty of clearing that dungeon is flat-out insane...'
Seeing me deep in deliberation, Dang Giyeong drove the wedge home.
"Ah... and they say the human-shaped Snow Ginseng lies within... That alone would more than mend a shattered dantian... A certain someone's dantian, shattered while trying to save a certain someone, is aching terribly..."
"Fine, let's go... let's go!"
"Understood."
"Absolutely not!"
And so, after the two Squad Leaders had bickered back and forth, matters had arrived at this pass.
"If you are set on this, then report to the Clan Head and go afterward."
"Ha... the way I see it, the White Heaven Squad Leader is simply afraid to go."
"Wh...who's afraid!"
"The White Heaven Squad Leader has been bolting from her bed in tears at the mere mention of ghosts since the old days."
"Grr... you cracked-dantian fool. What do you propose to do if something happens, spouting such nonsense!"
"Honestly, neither of us is truly needed to guard the Young Master. You are weaker than he is, after all. Short of Dang Yun or Dang Jiha, there is not a Squad Leader alive who could beat him as he stands, so..."
The two of them tore into each other as though I were not even there, until at last Dang Jihyeon shouted in a sulking voice.
"Do as you please! I wash my hands of this—go and die out there for all I care!"
"Oh... Young Master, the escort commander's blessing is secured, so let us be off."
Watching the Squad Leaders brawl over nothing, day after day, I began to dimly understand why the hall masters of the clan kept fighting like this no matter how old they grew.
While they squabbled, the appointed hour had crept up on us, so I readied myself to go out and said,
"Anyway, I'll decide by the end of the day and let you know... for now, let me think it over a little more."
At that, Dang Giyeong smiled pleasantly, while Dang Jihyeon snorted, as if the very thought exasperated her.