The Finest Side Dish Is a Brawl
Orthodox? Yeah, right.
"Grrr... Lower your sword this instant, and I'll let it go for the price of one arm!"
"Does Diancang fight with its mouth? Well, they do say a dog that barks never bites—you two are the very picture of it."
Even when Dang Mulin flung the door open hard enough to rattle it on its hinges, the pair never once glanced this way, too locked in their war of nerves.
"Muyeong, where do you want to sit?"
"Let's take the seats at the far end. No sense getting launched onto the table in the middle of a meal."
"Good call."
"Uncle, what will you have?"
"Aigoo... somen noodles will do for me. My stomach hasn't been right lately."
"Then we'll make it four bowls of somen all around?"
"Young Master, how about some roast duck?"
"We're nowhere near Beijing—what roast duck? Just eat your meal nicely..."
"Aiyo, I ran myself so ragged my legs still ache... A bit of Yiliang roast duck might actually do me some good..."
"Haah... fine, fine. Order it. Order whatever you want."
"You can't take that back now! Waiter!!!"
So we, too, ignored the pair entirely, settling into our seats and putting in our order.
Glancing over, I saw the other patrons watching the two with uneasy eyes, the air so charged it felt like blades would fly at any moment.
"So that's four bowls of somen... plus the roast duck, the mushroom hotpot, and the chilled beef slices, yes?"
"Bring out a jug of Jukyeopcheong as well."
"Very good, sir."
The waiter, at least, seemed used to this sort of thing; he took the order with perfect composure and headed off—though he did break into a sprint passing the drawn blades.
"If Tutor Taejin hears of this, your head will..."
"I have no idea who that is. This is getting tedious—why not just come at me already?"
Why on earth were those two still going at it like that?
If a man draws a sword, he ought to be slicing radishes or carrots with it. What manner of disgrace was this? It wasn't as if they were brawling over a family registry.
Sighing at the pathetic display, I said, "Haah... they're still at it. Can't someone just... stab! them and be done with it?"
"Heheh... Muyeong, you still have much to learn."
"I'm sorry? What's that supposed to mean?"
"You fight when the food comes out—that way you get a show with your meal. Watching a brawl is the finest side dish there is."
"Clan Head, aren't those fools so wretched in skill that they aren't even fun to watch?"
"Giyeong, don't you know? A fight between two no-talents is always the more entertaining one."
So this was what they called experience...
I could only marvel at the Executive Clan Head's keen eye. Then again, it was a free dinner show—and not just any show, but the reputedly funniest kind: a shit fight between two bottom-feeders.
"Grrrkh!"
The moment the loudmouth's face flushed redder than the sunset hanging in the sky, we murmured as one heart, one mind:
"Hold it in... just a little longer..."
Just then, the waiter was threading his way over with the somen and the duck dishes...
CLAAAANG—
The ring of saber against sword rolled through the tavern.
CRASH—
Had the two posturers not expected to actually come to blows, or had the sudden eruption of noise right beside him simply startled him? Either way, the waiter jumped out of his skin and lost his grip on every dish he carried...
"NO!!!"
Du-sik's scream, louder than the clang of iron on iron, shook the tavern to its rafters.
"You fucking bastards!!!"
Curses from another world entirely came flying out, their mainland flavor fully intact.
I was howling with laughter at the sight of Du-sik, out of his mind with rage, hammering away two-fisted...
"Young Master, do not stop me!"
And there was Dang Giyeong, collecting every eye in the room as he rolled up both sleeves.
Watching the man whose eyes you could never tell were open or shut go wide-eyed and raring to go, I laughed out loud for the first time in ages—and then it occurred to me.
Back in Yunnan it was nothing but fifty different offal dishes, in Nanman it was jerky and nothing but jerky, and a few days ago we ran ourselves half to death. No wonder the man's at his limit.
I felt a fresh wave of sympathy for him.
Naturally, Dang Mulin and the Executive Clan Head were both wearing looks of deep disapproval...
"Go on, then. Just don't kill them."
"Yes, sir!"
The moment my permission landed, Giyeong slipped two daggers out from somewhere, eyes glinting, and advanced on the pair.
What stopped him in his tracks was neither me, nor my sister, nor my uncle, but one of the Diancang warriors.
"Oh...? Might you be the young hero Smiling-Face Sword? What business brings a man of the Dang Clan all the way out to Yunnan..."
Perhaps he hadn't expected anyone here to know his face.
Giyeong faltered for a beat.
And small wonder—furious as he was, you can't exactly pummel a man who has just greeted you so warmly.
Still... Small-Eyes Sword, of all things.
"Does that mean 'swordsman with small eyes'?"
"W-well, Muyeong, the Green Heaven Squad Leader does happen to have small eyes, but surely that's not how the nickname came about. It means 'swordsman with a smiling face.'"
"Then from today on, Small-Eyed Swordsman it is."
Smiling-Face Sword, Small-Eyes Sword—what did the difference even amount to? If I decided to call him a small-eyed bastard, then Small-Eyes Sword it was.
"Sis, but can a man who fights with a blade that tiny really get the word 'Sword' in his nickname?"
Honestly, it was the last character that baffled me more than the first two. Could a warrior whose blade was shorter than a man's forearm truly lay claim to the word sword? By time-honored rule, a swordsman might be excused a greatsword as excessive, but he ought to at least carry a proper full-length blade.
At my question, the Executive Clan Head looked at me as if I were beyond saving.
"Oi, you brat. By that logic, the Clan Head is a king, so he must be the Poison King—and you're a ghost, so that's why they call you the Mad Blood Ghost? A nickname is, by nature, a bell hung on your ear or a bell hung on your nose—whatever people hang on you is what it is. Why are you picking apart things that were never meant to add up?"
"Come on, it's not like that's common knowledge."
At the reproach in his voice, I scratched my head for a moment, then...
"Wait—my nickname is still Mad Blood Ghost?"
"It is. Don't tell me you're only finding out now?"
"Then what about the others! Uh... what was it—what did they pin on the Sword Saint's disciple?"
"Fighting Phoenix, if I recall?"
"Yes. Fighting Phoenix."
"And the Taoist bastard?"
"That one was dubbed 'Sword Dragon,' and the fellow you met in the semifinals was apparently 'Divine Dragon.'"
"And I get Mad Blood Ghost? How does that add up?"
I had won the Dragon-Phoenix Tournament outright, so why was I the only one left without a dragon or a phoenix to my name?
As I floundered, too dumbfounded to get a proper word out, the Executive Clan Head carried on.
"Muyeong, you did have a dragon nickname once, you know."
"Then why..."
"The moment he heard it, the Clan Head fired off a threat... no, a letter of protest to the Murim Alliance, and it vanished."
What kind of nickname could it have been, that he wiped out the one his boy had worked so hard to earn?
"What exactly was it?"
"Malevolent Dragon. He flew into a rage the instant he heard it—how dare they hang a name like that on someone else's precious son?"
"Honestly, I'd have been fine with—"
"And did they truly believe it was remotely acceptable to pin such a name on the Young Clan Head of the Dang Clan? Honestly... In any case, every clan head was livid, and the mood inside the clan turned downright vicious for a time."
"I really was fi—"
"Even the Demon Cult crowd rarely hangs 'malevolent' on a name... That was practically a declaration of war."
"I—"
"Mad Blood Ghost spread on its own, mouth to mouth, so there was nothing to be done about that one. But the family managed to bury that pathetic 'Malevolent Dragon' business for good, so don't go losing sleep over it."
".........."
Unable to force out so much as another syllable, I turned to stone right there in my seat.
What snapped me out of my deep freeze was the sound of a watermelon splitting, echoing through the tavern.
CRACK—
"Say that one more time."
For reasons beyond my understanding, Dang Giyeong now had his fist buried in the back of the loudmouth's skull.
While the Dangs had been busy squabbling over nicknames, Giyeong had forced his anger down little by little, found his smile, and struck up a conversation with the Diancang Taoist.
He hadn't forgotten his grudge over the duck, of course—but thrashing a man half to death in front of someone who recognized his face would cost not just his own dignity but the Dang Clan's as well.
And so, true to his nickname, he mustered a smile and asked:
"So... what exactly is all this about?"
Giyeong had plainly addressed the man who knew him, yet the answer arrived from somewhere else entirely.
"That graceless brute laid hands on a Diancang warrior without the slightest warning."
It was the mouthy one from before, all talk and nothing behind it.
"Ha... unbelievable. Skipping clean over what your own side did—have you no shame at all?"
The man with the drawn saber shook his head in dismissal, and Giyeong turned his question to him.
They were called the Orthodox because they bore the very word for righteousness. Surely one ought not to pass a slanted judgment after hearing only one side of the story.
"Then tell me, young hero—why did you lay hands on a Diancang warrior?"
"'Young hero,' my ass! That bastard is Unorthodox trash!"
Once more, the answer came from the wrong quarter.
Where on earth had these people picked up the charming habit of talking over one another?
Giyeong traced the word endure once through his heart, then spoke.
"Kindly don't interrupt me. I wasn't asking you, was I."
The bite in his voice wrung an awkward cough out of the Diancang Taoist...
"Ahem... My apologies. My temper does run a touch hot..."
Only when silence settled back in did the man finally speak.
"That Diancang warrior at the very back brushed past my arm while I was quietly eating my meal."
"And for that alone, you attacked him on the spot?"
"You think that was the whole of it? He looked down his nose at me with a hollow little laugh and simply walked off. So I tried to settle the matter with words and receive an apology—and the man tossed a few copper coins at me."
Slinging his saber across his shoulder, the man pressed on.
"And I'm meant to swallow that?"
"Young hero Smiling-Face Sword, that man is an Unorthodox fighter. Are we simply to stand by while Unorthodox scum struts about like he owns the world?"
"Join this fight if you must. Even if this spot becomes my grave, I will not run."
"Haah..."
The whole tale gave him a headache all on its own. Why was it always the Orthodox lot in the sorriest shape...? No... forget the Orthodox—what on earth was wrong with the Taoist sects?
Still, the fury from earlier had long since gone stone cold, so Giyeong slid his daggers away and said:
"Sort it out amongst yourselves. Debts of gratitude and grudge alike are for those who incurred them to settle."
He was washing his hands of the affair...
"Much obliged."
...and a roar went up in the same breath.
"Smiling-Face Sword!!!"
"You would simply leave that Unorthodox bastard be?"
Why did every single word out of that man's mouth scrape across the nerves...
Giyeong traced one more endure through his heart and answered.
"You don't strike me as lacking in martial skill, so I truly cannot fathom why you're carrying on like this? Just settle it among yourselves."
"Th-that man is the direct disciple of Nangwang!"
Only then did the whole affair finally make sense.
Just as the Orthodox had theirs, the Unorthodox, too, counted ten masters known as the Heavens.
And these fools, too wary to lay a hand on a disciple of Nangwang themselves, had decided to borrow the Dang Clan's hand instead.
Their earlier reluctance to strike made sense now, too: they had feared that avenging the disciple might send Nangwang himself marching to Yunnan.
"With the Clan Head present, if a man of the Dang Clan steps in, surely even Nangwang couldn't act rashly?"
"Th-that's not—"
"Are you a complete idiot?"
But pull the plan apart, and it made no sense at all. Diancang was the one who had hurt the direct disciple, and with a Dang squad leader tangled up on the sidelines, Nangwang's wrath would obviously fall on Diancang first...
Ah...
"And you meant to hand the blame to the Dang Clan?"
"W-well..."
"Wow... fuck. I'm washing my hands of this. Sort it out yourselves."
The moment Giyeong carved his final endure into his chest and turned his back, that grating voice came again from behind him.
"Aren't we all Orthodox! You can't even lend a hand with something this small? No wonder he couldn't protect the last Young Clan Head, the way he guards his own hide..."
CRACK—
The sound of a watermelon bursting echoed through the tavern.