One Gold Coin Is a Month's Living for a Family of Four
In the murim, strength was everything.
That did not mean, however, that every matter was handled with brute ignorance. One could state that with certainty. Learning martial arts required intelligence from the start. The mere ability to read placed a person among the top three-tenths of the population; the rest might manage simple texts, but anything of greater depth left the vast majority unable even to comprehend it.
Martial artists, then, were hardly simple-minded brutes—yet they could not do everything. When matters turned professional, they tended to show respect, and nowhere was this more evident than with merchants.
Merchants were those who handled money. Put simply, they bought and sold goods, and through that trade provided convenience to others. And convenience, by its nature, was bound up with daily life and with power itself—so that, in the end, merchants came to wield an intangible force quite different from martial might.
Of course, life remained the most precious thing of all, and so martial artists still held the upper hand. But the fact that the relationship could sometimes reverse—that was what mattered. It made merchants an attractive option for people.
Woo Geum-moran was one such merchant.
We'll be entering Green Forest territory soon, they said. I've made thorough preparations, but…
The Green Forest had its customs.
A toll—a passage tax.
Pay the money and you would be allowed through unharmed. It wasn't a real tax, of course; the term was half pejorative, used as if it were one. To say she didn't mind losing the money would be a lie. Depending on how one looked at it, it was simply good coin vanishing into thin air. She could only tell herself she was paying for safety.
Avoiding them entirely would be best, but one always has to prepare for the worst. I should check one last time. You can never prepare too much—especially when this is my first assignment.
Woo Geum-moran called for the manager at once. A potbellied middle-aged man with a thoroughly bald crown hurried over.
Manager Yu has traveled with quite a few caravans, from what I know. I still can't figure out how he ended up with a gut like that.
"It's certain the Green Forest will appear from here on, correct?"
"Yes. I'm acquainted with them myself."
"And the money is prepared? If you tell me otherwise at this point, Manager Yu, I'll be in a difficult position."
"Haha. After all the caravans I've run? Of course it is."
Woo Geum-moran nodded and offered the manager a smile that said she trusted him.
In name, she was the one in overall charge. But that was only because her father was the vice-leader of the Haesang Bang—a matter of being born to the right parents. So unlike the usual arrangement, where the person in charge also served as manager, a separate man had been appointed for this caravan.
Well, what could go wrong?
She had chosen a relatively safe caravan route for the experience. If anything happened, it would simply mean terrible luck.
Tramp—tramp—
After they had been moving for a while, the underbrush far ahead began to rustle in an ominous way.
Looks like the Green Forest boys have arrived.
Before long, a group of men with mostly rough, fierce faces appeared. Bandits of the Green Forest, plain as day from any angle. There was one peculiar detail, however: every last one of them was wearing black monk's robes.
Having been briefed in advance, Woo Geum-moran was not startled by the unusual attire. These men had appeared roughly three months earlier. At a glance they looked somewhat like monks, but their heads were nowhere near as shaven as Manager Yu's—far from being bald-pated monks, they didn't know a single character of the Buddhist scriptures. They had nothing whatsoever to do with the faith; they were simply madmen.
Of course, there was a reason for the getup. The place they occupied was, in fact, a temple. They had killed or driven out every monk who had lived there, but the outward form remained. And as if to announce that they were the temple's successors, they called themselves Inwang Temple and went about in monk's robes.
There was one more thing.
Their leader—whom they call the abbot among themselves—supposedly found and learned some Buddhist-lineage martial arts left behind at the temple. So they said not to treat them as ordinary Green Forest bandits.
Since she hadn't come to fight, it wasn't particularly useful information. The leader's personal tastes would be far more helpful. Offering bribes was a time-honored tradition, after all—whether these particular men were actually worth the effort was another matter.
Then a booming voice rang out.
"Who dares trespass on our temple's domain without fear?!"
"Great Hero, it's been a while."
The manager stepped forward. Naturally, none of the men collecting tolls in a place like this deserved to be called "Great Hero"—but flattery never hurt.
The burly man with the striking thick eyebrows who had stepped out so boldly hesitated for a moment at the familiar face.
"Manager Yu? So it's the Haesang Bang."
"How could we pass through the Jeajin Mountain Range without seeing the Great Hero? Our connection runs deep. We've brought a gift as well—packed more generously than usual. I'm sure it'll please you."
"As expected, Manager Yu knows my heart well."
The moment the burly man received the pouch, he stuffed it straight into his robes as if someone might snatch it away. The motion looked less like a bandit than a common thief.
"Now that greetings are done, may we pass?"
"Hmm. Seems there's still something I ought to be receiving. Haven't you forgotten something?"
"Uh… forgotten? What do you mean?"
"Making a man who ought to know say it himself. The toll. The passage tax. Even among friends, keeping the accounts clear makes everything easier, doesn't it?"
"I—I already gave it to you, didn't I? More than usual, even. If you come at me like this, Great Hero, I'm in a difficult position."
"Difficult? Shall I show you what truly difficult looks like?"
The burly man growled. In an instant, the atmosphere turned ugly.
Watching the situation, Woo Geum-moran sensed something going wrong and stepped forward.
"Manager Yu, is something amiss?"
"It's fine, young lady. I'll handle this. There seems to have been some misunderstanding in the conversation."
Feeling puzzled, Woo Geum-moran nonetheless stepped back to watch again. But the burly man had no intention of simply letting them go.
"Oh? And who might that be?"
"Great Hero, just a moment—"
"I wasn't speaking to Manager Yu."
A gaze thick with killing intent turned on her. Manager Yu flinched and drew back.
"Manager Yu, don't get the wrong idea. Just because I speak civilly doesn't mean we're equals. A mere merchant, of all people."
A merchant? And what are you if not a bandit?
He ground his teeth in fury, but at least he didn't let it show. Rotten as they were, picking a fight with martial artists had an obvious outcome—if you didn't want to die, swallowing it was the wiser course.
"So when do I get an answer?"
"Woo Geum-moran. One of the senior figures of the Haesang Bang."
"Oh? Of the Woo clan, is it."
The surname wasn't common, so he grasped her identity at once. Not that it particularly concerned him. Had she been from a great family it might have been different, but she was merely the offspring of a merchant house—and he knew full well he had no reason to bow his head over that.
"Well then, let our young lady answer. Will you pay the toll? Or will you fight us?"
"From where I stand, it looked as though Manager Yu already paid."
"Ha! He himself said that was a gift, didn't he?"
"Are you serious?"
The sheer brazenness of it was beyond belief. Even Green Forest bandits, so long as they practiced martial arts, tended to be on the clever side—they couldn't possibly fail to understand what a gift meant. Coming at them like this was an attitude she simply could not comprehend.
It would have been entirely natural for her temper to flare. Had the manager not stopped her, it might well have. At his silent signal, Woo Geum-moran cooled the heat rising in her chest, exhaled inwardly, and set about organizing her thoughts with calm deliberation. Who would be at a disadvantage if they fought now was obvious. She had no choice but to swallow her pride and take a step back.
"So you don't intend to pay?"
"…We'll pay. Manager Yu, you prepared a spare pouch, didn't you? Bring that one."
"Yes, understood."
Woo Geum-moran took the pouch and handed it over as it was.
"There shouldn't be anything missing, but check it yourself. And don't come back later with some other nonsense about this toll."
"Hmm. I'll check, as you say."
The burly man examined the contents of the pouch. After a moment, the corner of his mouth twisted as he spoke.
"Not enough."
"Not enough? That can't be. Ten silver coins—exactly the set amount. Are you sure you didn't miscount? Check again."
"Ten silver coins? No—twenty. Seems our young lady doesn't know how the world works."
Woo Geum-moran's eyebrow twitched. Fighting down the irritation climbing higher by the second, she turned her gaze straight to the manager and asked,
"Manager Yu, you heard that too. Is what he says correct?"
"…I know it as ten, without question."
"So that means he's lying? That won't do. I've taken a wound to the heart—so for that, I'll raise it to thirty."
At those words, Woo Geum-moran could no longer hold back.
"Ha! Do you even hear yourself? Ten silver coins is equal to a full month's wages for a laborer of our bang. Three times that—do you have any idea how much that is? You've been stuck in the mountains so long you don't know how the world works."
"Ha! Are you serious?"
"Why? Did I say something wrong?"
"That settles it. Forty—no, I'll take fifty silver coins. And an apology from you, you insolent girl, as a bonus."
"Fifty. If we hand over a toll like this every time we meet the Green Forest, we won't make a profit—we'll be on the fast road to bankruptcy."
"So you can't pay."
"Yes, fifty is impossible. Five silver coins, maybe."
"Five. Five, you say. Is that an invitation to fight?"
She had never dealt with anyone this unreasonable—but Woo Geum-moran was no pushover either.
"Yes. I see no reason not to."