Unraveling Questions (3)

Because he arrived early, Neung Je-gang had time to search every corner of Taepyeong Pavilion. He also mapped where everyone lay in hiding. He even set up a perfect infiltration route made only of blind spots outside their lines of sight.

During this, he realized someone else was also prowling through the Pavilion—and he knew who it was.

“Lady Go is overextending herself. This isn’t a place to strut around like that. Huh? She’s going back out? Solving food and sleep outside, is it? She’s still far from first-rate spycraft. The true first-rate handles everything inside the place they infiltrate.”

Nibbling on food he had quietly lifted from the Pavilion kitchen to sate his hunger, Neung Je-gang slipped back into the largest main hall.

Opportunity did not come easily. He still could not find the secret chamber. He had yet to think of the bed itself as the door.

So he waited for someone from the Martial Alliance to come see the proprietress. If he could only see the face and hear the voice, the job was as good as done.

And one night, Neung Je-gang knew the time he had been waiting for had come. The proprietress grew busy, and the number of sentries doubled.

“Tonight it is.”

He hid in the room adjacent to the proprietress’s chamber. He opened the ceiling and moved toward her room. With a few needle-holes, he made vantage points to look down, angling them so he could see anywhere in the room.

At last, the proprietress and someone else entered. Listening to their conversation, he watched So-hee through the pinholes—and the man.

“Damn.”

Unfortunately, the man’s face was hidden by a face veil. He was thorough in concealing himself.

But the conversation began to take a strange turn.

“So Lady Go has been exposed.”

They knew everything about Go So-jeong’s movements—and even that “he” was traveling by carriage.

So the carriage was indeed under watch.

“Looks like he’s doing well.”

He felt glad he had assigned the task to Gwanggeom. As a former assassin, the man naturally carried that aura; as long as he didn’t show his face, anyone might mistake him for Neung Je-gang.

“But if I waste time trying to see that ‘Great One’s’ face, Lady Go might die. What now?”

If he thought only of the assignment, her life didn’t factor in at all. But for his revenge he still needed Go Won-gi’s help; he couldn’t simply let Go So-jeong die.

“Even so, the mission comes first. I can only hope she holds out alive somehow…”

The instant he decided this, the man rose. Strangely, he moved not toward the door, nor toward the wall with the trap Neung Je-gang had experienced before—but toward another wall.

“Ah—idiot! I knew that was the secret passage and still forgot.”

Keeping an eye on the outer situation, Neung Je-gang carefully lifted the tiles above his head. Luckily, all watchful eyes focused on the proprietress’s room, so slipping out posed no trouble.

He raced for the place with the hidden passage, but the man was already far ahead—only a receding back.

Neung Je-gang launched after him. Since revealing himself to the martial world, this was the first time he truly poured all his inner power into lightness skill.

Hwiririk

He flashed past and cut in front. If he could just turn and glimpse the face, his assignment would be done.

“Figures! I knew it.”

The fellow still wore the face veil, just as when he had been with the proprietress.

He had to choose. He had to see the face beneath the veil.

“Cha-at!”

Shwik

The Mindless Sword leapt from its sheath and flew for the man’s neck.

“Who goes there?”

Chang-chaang

The man already had a sword out, blocking the blow, and barked back.

“Show me what you’ve got.”

Neung Je-gang pressed him harder, fiercer—while in the dark he set up a single decisive kill-strike.

Dozens of exchanges flashed by in an instant. Neung Je-gang unleashed the Chuk-yung Great-Heaven Sword Art he had learned at the Depot Martial Academy. Wedded to his inner power, the Mindless Sword drove for the man’s vital points.

Shwe-aek

At the same time, a razor gust shot for the man’s face.

“Uh!”

Startled by the sudden change in swordwork, the man sensed the gust and jerked his head aside.

Flap

Just then, through the lightly fluttering gap of the veil, Neung Je-gang saw the man’s face. Not the whole thing—but a face seen even halfway was as good as seen.

“Well learned.”

Leaving those words behind, Neung Je-gang once more blasted off at full speed.

“Let’s hope I’m not too late.”

Now was the time to return to Taepyeong Pavilion and rescue Go So-jeong.

Left alone, the man stood there, momentarily stupefied.

“I’ve roamed the martial world for near a full sexagenary cycle, and I’ve never seen such an ill-mannered whelp. They said Secret Shadow hadn’t arrived yet—did ‘Sweeping-Sword-at-Sunset’ bring in someone else for this? Whoever he is, I needed a clear look at that face… Only then would the Martial Alliance shun him as we planned.”

Muttering something opaque, he sped on in his original direction—until, in a moment, his body dwindled to a dot and vanished.

When Neung Je-gang made it back to Taepyeong Pavilion, Go So-jeong was still holding out. Her limbs were raked with wounds, and the roof tiles were slick with blood, but she was still on her feet.

“Why isn’t she dead yet?”

He had honestly thought she would be. Too much time had passed while he traded scores of blows with the man.

Yet despite blood and wounds, she was still standing—on her own legs.

It was truly suspicious. Impossible unless the enemy had been holding back…

“Anyway, good.”

Shweeeek

Neung Je-gang ripped through the cordon and charged toward her.

“Die!”

Seeing the sudden rush, Go So-jeong took it for an attack and swung her daggers with everything she had.

Thunk

“Guh!”

He slipped her blades and drove his shoulder hard into her abdomen. Her waist folded forward and spittle sprayed from her mouth.

Keeping that momentum, Neung Je-gang hewed with the Mindless Sword and crashed into the encirclement.

“Stop him!”

Like feral dogs losing their catch, they hurled darts and chopped wildly at the charging Neung Je-gang.

Uru-ru

Spin!

He spun his body as So-hee had moments earlier to evade Go So-jeong’s hidden weapons. But using the same method didn’t mean the same result.

Neung Je-gang smashed through the roof and dropped down—straight into So-hee’s room.

So-hee, who had taken a dagger to the rump from Go So-jeong, lay prone on her bed, applying medicine to the wound.

“Eek!”

A man bursting through her roof made her shriek; whatever her status as proprietress, she wasn’t about to bare her backside to a man—so the scream escaped before she knew it.

At her cry, the men on the roof, startled, leapt down in a flurry. She was the one whose life they were to protect at all costs.

Even as he crashed down through the roof, Neung Je-gang kicked off the floor again and sprang for another rooftop. In an emergency like this, who had time to admire a woman’s behind?

Kwang

Seizing a gap with no one blocking his path, he threw every ounce into his lightness skill and soon shrank to a dot in the distance.

In Taepyeong Pavilion, only So-hee’s venomous voice rang out—scolding subordinates who had missed Neung Je-gang and Go So-jeong because they’d been busy gawking at her rear.