What Have You Been Getting Up To?

Ten warriors escorted a middle-aged beauty and two maidservants into the city. From the second story of a teahouse, two men looked down at them.

One of them had been glaring down with eyes as cool as a snake’s, and now he spoke.

“We have only just caught up with them.”

Gu Jin-ha’s mouth stretched into a long smile.

“Right. But I am not so hopeful about it.”

Gu Jin-ha’s voice was bright enough to drown out the worry in Gal U-heon’s voice.

“Ah! Because of the Namgung Clan warriors escorting her?”

“We have hired killers ready, but they cannot break through a Namgung Clan escort.”

“Ahaha.”

Gu Jin-ha wore a faintly mischievous smile.

“Which is why I have laid an astounding plan.”

Gu Jin-ha had been a frivolous man before, and now his fixation on revenge had gone past all measure. Gal U-heon looked at him and shook his head. To watch a man give himself over wholly to revenge was to look at the far end of human corruption, and there were times when that bottomless hunger for revenge on Cheon Tae-san was beyond his understanding.

Gu Jin-ha came to this by his own blunder, his own corruption, and nothing else — so why does he lay it at Scholar Cheon’s door?

The thought made him snort out a laugh. It had just struck him that he was doing this very thing for the very same reason, to be revenged on Scholar Cheon.

I am the same sort of fellow myself. Who is there for me to blame?

But his own house had turned its back on him, and the murim had turned its back on him too; if he did not do even this much, on whom was he to vent any of it? Gu Jin-ha had nowhere to vent it either, and so he was taking his revenge on Scholar Cheon, the man at the root of it all.

It is nothing but a man baring his own savagery through revenge.

Gal U-heon let out a sigh.

“Shall I hear this astounding plan of yours?”

Gu Jin-ha’s eyes came alive as they never had before, and he spoke.

“The Namgung Clan’s martial artists number about ten just now. A party that size will put up at a large inn.”

Gal U-heon nodded.

“So they will. Let this old man say it beforehand — this old man has not many venomous creatures left on hand. Bear that in mind.”

Gu Jin-ha grinned.

“If we use poison we may kill one or two, but we shall never hook Scholar Cheon’s mother as a hostage.”

“Then what is your plan?”

Without even using poison, what did he mean to do with hired killers who did not so much as reach first-rate? And a bare twenty of them at that. Five Namgung Clan martial artists could finish off that many between them.

“At the hour when they are all asleep, we burn the inn clean to the ground.”

“What? Burn it?”

Gu Jin-ha answered with a smile, bright and clear.

“Yes! If we set fires in one place and another at the same time and the inn is swallowed by the flames, the place will be carnage.”

“Even so, will the hired killers be able to get near Scholar Cheon’s mother?”

Gu Jin-ha gave a grim, chilling laugh.

“Elder Gal, you do not know how these things go. I have set a fire in this fashion before now. Most martial artists were too taken up with saving the people inside to spare a thought for anything else. The Namgung Clan’s martial artists will be no different.”

He went on.

“When that happens, one or two at the most will be guarding Scholar Cheon’s mother. No — it may be that not one of them stays at her side.”

Gu Jin-ha ran on, delighted with himself.

“Scholar Cheon’s mother, of all people, would tell them to go into the inn and save one more life rather than guard her.”

Gal U-heon could see the picture of it. There was every likelihood it would fall out as Gu Jin-ha said.

“That is the moment we take.”

“Haa…”

Gal U-heon was appalled at Gu Jin-ha’s cruelty.

“And the scores of innocent lives in the inn — what of them?”

“Is this the time to be minding such things? What matters is taking Scholar Cheon’s mother hostage. And if a hostage looks too hard to manage, we kill her and be done.”

“You are truly a remarkable man.”

Gal U-heon had meant it as a sneer at the cruelty in Gu Jin-ha’s nature, and Gu Jin-ha took it for praise.

“Hahaha. Come now, Elder Gal. A thing of this order is nothing at all.”

Gal U-heon was genuinely taken aback.

Here I am, seeing with my own eyes what they mean when they say revenge sets no limit upon sin.

Gu Jin-ha saw Gal U-heon’s astonishment and burst into a satisfied laugh.

“Hahaha! Cheon Tae-san, I shall show you hell.”

At the start of the ox hour¹ Gu Jin-ha moved the hired killers and gave the order to set fires on every side of the inn. They scattered heaps of dry straw all about and set them alight with torches. In a moment the flames were up.

“Fire!”

A moment later a great uproar broke out inside the inn. The twenty hired killers had hidden swords and sabers in water jars beforehand, and now they stood ready, dressed to pass for men come to put the fire out.

People came pouring out of the inn. They had come straight from their beds, and a great many of them were not properly dressed. There were plenty in their underclothes with only an outer coat thrown on, and plenty who had barely managed to grab their trousers on the way out.

The Namgung Clan’s martial artists came out too, and shouted.

“Go inside and get the people out.”

In a place like this the only ones who could move quickly were the martial artists.

Outside, Yu Mun-bi looked at the inn that had gone up so suddenly and frowned. She had come out fully dressed and with her pack besides; in all that confusion she had gathered up everything worth gathering. The two maidservants attending her were fully dressed as well, which set the three of them apart from everyone else.

“Put the fire out! Bring water!”

Here and there men rushed about in a flurry, shouting.

Watching the three women from a distance, Gu Jin-ha said.

“Elder Gal. That middle-aged woman over there looks to be Scholar Cheon’s mother.”

The three women stood looking at the burning inn, and Gu Jin-ha readied the hired killers with a gesture.

“Something is a little odd.”

“What is?”

Gal U-heon felt a wrongness he could not quite put his finger on.

“Hm. Something is not right.”

As people came up from all sides carrying jars of water, Gu Jin-ha made his sign. The hired killers took up jars and moved toward the three women.

“Ah!”

Gal U-heon saw what the wrongness was.

“Those three women alone came out properly dressed. Which means they move quickly enough to get their clothes on in that time. Those three women are…”

“Bah, Elder Gal. The fire started before they had turned in, and they came out just as they were.”

Gu Jin-ha waved it away as nonsense and watched the hired killers pull their weapons out of the jars and rush in.

“Let us make ready to pull out ourselves.”

Once Scholar Cheon’s mother had been carried off they would have to flee at once, and he got to his feet.

“Oh?”

But the hired killers closing on the three women went down all at once. The two maidservants had drawn daggers and killed them.

“Oh, damn it! The two maidservants are escorts as well!”

He shouted it, reckoning his mistake had been to overlook the pair of them.

“Ten of you hold the two maidservants! The rest, take the target!”

It irritated Gu Jin-ha to have to give every order himself.

“Mm?”

But the hired killers moving in to carry off Scholar Cheon’s mother went down as well.

“What are you doing? Is this a joke?”

Gal U-heon’s voice came from behind him.

“Does that look like a joke to you? Can ordinary people get every stitch of clothing on with a fire in the house? That is a thing only masters can do.”

“Masters?”

“This is no time to be standing here talking. It seems we at least had better get ourselves out of this place.”

“What are you saying? Why should we—?”

He turned his head toward the inn, and there they lay, close on twenty hired killers, every one of them down on the ground. The three women had dealt with the whole lot.

“Fuuuck.”

Just then Gu Jin-ha saw Scholar Cheon’s mother glaring straight at him, and his flesh crawled.

“Let us run.”

The two men swung quickly onto the horses they had ready and fled. But the two maidservants came after the horses, running as though they flew.

“What are those things?”

Gu Jin-ha shouted in a panic.

“Elder Gal! Deal with those things for me.”

Gal U-heon rummaged in his robe and scattered something.

“Poison!”

The two maidservants split left and right and closed in again, and Gal U-heon scattered hidden weapons. In the dark they avoided every one of them, and he swallowed a low groan. These two were no ordinary sort. If it was this hard for him, he thought in alarm, what must it be for Gu Jin-ha? He turned his head to look.

Gu Jin-ha was swinging his sword wildly and to no purpose at the maidservant closing on his horse. She sprang up to take his neck, and Gal U-heon, seizing the moment, scattered hidden weapons.

“Hidden weapons!”

At the shout the maidservant reversed her body in midair and dropped to the ground, then threw her dagger instead at the wrist of Gu Jin-ha’s sword hand.

— Pshuk!

The dagger grazed the wrist and passed on.

“Ugh!”

Gu Jin-ha spurred his horse and rode harder.

Gal U-heon flung poison powder about him in handfuls, and the two maidservants pressed no further; they went straight up into the trees and out of the poison’s reach.

After they had ridden a long while, Gu Jin-ha looked at Gal U-heon and said.

“I owe my life to Elder Gal. I truly thought I was going to die.”

He saw that Gal U-heon’s eyes had gone to his own right hand, and looked down. There was no feeling in the hand that held the reins. The wrist was half severed, and the hand swung loose with every jerk of the leather.

“…”

Gu Jin-ha stared at it blankly, and only then screamed.

“Uwaaaaah!”

Once he had taken it in, the pain came after.

“Cheon Tae-san, you bastard! I will kill you!”

Even as he poured his resentment out at Cheon Tae-san, Gu Jin-ha drove his horse faster still.

The middle-aged beauty’s face was pale, the sickness deep in her. Having drawn on her vigor besides to deal with the hired killers, she was in a worse state now than before.

“Mistress, are you all right?”

The two maidservants came and helped the middle-aged beauty over to a rock nearby, and sat her down.

“I am well. Did you find out who it was that attacked us?”

“One of them uses poison and hidden weapons, and is a peak master. The other seemed to be a scholar, and knew no martial arts.”

“You let them go?”

“That scholar fellow will have no use of his right wrist.”

“Hm. You should have gone for the neck rather than the wrist.”

“The old man who uses poison blocked it.”

The other maidservant spoke up.

“And as he fled, the fellow was cursing the young master.”

“Tae-san? Then both of them have some connection with Tae-san?”

“It would seem so.”

Looking at the inn, where the fire was all but under control now, the middle-aged beauty murmured.

“They set the inn afire to get at us. They are vicious creatures. If you see them again, do not hold your hand — simply kill them.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

The middle-aged beauty murmured.

“My son, what in the world have you been going about doing, that fellows like those should come swarming to you?”

The Namgung Clan’s martial artists came up soon after and were startled by the bodies strewn about the place. It shook them that hired killers had made an attempt on Scholar Cheon’s mother while they were busy putting out the fire.

“Our apologies, madam.”

“Not at all.”

“But who was it that killed these men?”

“My girls know how to use martial arts.”

At that the Namgung Clan’s martial artists were left with nothing to say. Two maidservants had dealt with close on twenty hired killers between them, and there was no taking the measure of skill like that. The warriors apologized again and again, and moved the party to another inn.

Gal U-heon passed through several villages, burst into a clinic and woke the sleeping physician, then put a blade to him and bullied him into seeing to Gu Jin-ha’s wrist. Shaking all over, the physician set to work.

“Well? Will he be able to use the hand?”

The physician, gauging his mood, answered.

“The nerves of the wrist are all severed, so I do not think he will be able to use the fingers. It would be better to take it off. Left as it is, inflammation will set in and the whole right arm may have to come off.”

Gal U-heon could not decide it for him, and asked Gu Jin-ha.

“You decide.”

Gu Jin-ha chewed at his lip a while, then answered.

“I would sooner have it cut off.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and murmured.

“This grudge I shall repay without fail, Cheon Tae-san. You are an enemy I cannot live under the same heaven with now.”

Gu Jin-ha ground his teeth.