496 — Side Story 11. Tsering (3)

“Uh, uhh…….”

As he stepped into Wind Forest Inn, Geum Yang-bae let out that stupid groan.
Wind Forest Inn was not some especially grand place, but the prices were reasonable and the innkeeper was a good cook, so it was always busy.
But today, not a single guest could be seen drinking boisterously.

A few chairs and tables lay broken and scattered about, not even properly cleaned up.
And beneath them were bloodstains that had not been wiped away.

Above all, the smell of blood.
The tangy stench of blood filled the air.

Inside the empty inn, one man sat clutching a mop.
His eyes met Geum Yang-bae’s.

“You.”

It was the innkeeper.
He recognized Geum Yang-bae.

“You! You’re with those merchant guild people, aren’t you!”
“What? What happened?”

Geum Yang-bae had been to Wind Forest Inn a few times before.
The usually genial innkeeper looked utterly worn out.

He staggered over and grabbed Geum Yang-bae by the collar.

“My inn got wrecked because of your guild members! Someone showed up and your guild members got…….”
“Wh-who!”
“How would I know! Before dawn, people dressed all in black showed up, smashed everything, and dragged the people away!”

Geum Yang-bae’s pupils widened.
His eyes fell on a reed mat lying in one corner of the inn.
What the mat was covering was clearly a human corpse.
He roughly shoved away the innkeeper clutching his collar.

Then he rushed over to the corpse.
He carefully grasped the reed mat covering even the corpse’s face. His hands trembled violently.
Grinding his teeth, he pulled the mat away.

“Ugh, bwek!”

Geum Yang-bae retched.
It was a corpse that had died horribly.
There was a bright red hole in the neck, and for some reason dried blood had caked around the mouth and eyes.

“Hhh, who did this, and why?”

It was one of the guild members.
Though his body shook, Geum Yang-bae still felt relief.
It was a tragedy, but not the worst one. At least the corpse was not Warrior Jang.
If Warrior Jang, who was little different from an uncle to him, had died, Geum Yang-bae might have burst into tears.

“M-my inn got smashed to pieces…….”

Even the innkeeper, who had seemed ready to blame Geum Yang-bae, lost his steam. A man being killed was the greater matter, after all.

Geum Yang-bae staggered to his feet and spoke in a hardened voice.

“I, Geum Yang-bae, Vice Merchant Guild Master of the Golden Measure Merchant Guild, give you my word that the damage to your inn will be compensated as much as possible.”
“……I would be grateful if you did.”
“But.”

When Geum Yang-bae raised his head, his eyes were blazing.

“You will have to explain exactly what happened here.”

The innkeeper nodded.

The black-clad figures came very late at night.
At the time, the innkeeper had been nodding off on the first floor.
That was because the merchant guild members at Wind Forest Inn, including Warrior Jang, had stayed up waiting for Geum Yang-bae.
He had brought them snacks for their drinks and was resting a bit.
Wind Forest Inn’s specialty was pork steamed with liquor. The innkeeper had prepared that dish that night as well.
He had probably been roughly slicing up the steamed meat when…….

“Forget that. When did those black-clad men arrive?”
“Before dawn, the door creaked open, and about five black-clad men wearing bamboo hats came in.”

Five black-clad men in bamboo hats.
They sounded suspicious just from the description.
Were they men from the dark path? Naturally, dark path factions existed here in Chaesang County as well.

“People from the dark path?”
“Probably……?”
“Which faction? Wanderer’s Forest? Or Three Pleasures Butchering Guild?”
“One of them had a saber at his waist.”

Then was it the Three Pleasures Butchering Guild?
Their members wore black clothes and bamboo hats.
The Three Pleasures Butchering Guild was a faction that began from butcher shops selling meat.
That didn’t mean it was some insignificant faction.
At least in Chaesang County, it was the strongest dark path faction.
It was the force second only to Nam Family Manor, and a faction that was always in opposition to it.
He had heard they were supposed to have a martial match with Nam Family Manor in a few days…… but even so, something felt off.

“Why would those bastards target us……. Damn it!”

Geum Yang-bae slammed the table hard.
Why had they attacked Warrior Jang and the guild members?
To be fair, he did have a guess.
The Golden Measure Merchant Guild had long been trying to build ties with Nam Family Manor. In the middle of that, there had been a time when Three Pleasures Butchering Guild tried to offer them a job, only to be flatly turned down.
Had they held a grudge over that?

“It is not certain that it was Three Pleasures Butchering Guild…….”
“That’s true…… but.”

What should he do?
Unlike Geum Yang-bae and the innkeeper, both pale-faced with fear, there was someone here who was not afraid of dark path factions.

“We can just go ask them.”
“……What?”
“If it looks like this Three Pleasures Butchering Guild kidnapped the guild members, then we just go ask them. Why did they do it, and tell them to hand them back.”
“Haa.”

Geum Yang-bae’s head spun.

“And you think those bastards will just……”
“Then are you just going to sit still?”
“……”

That was not something he could do.
The Three Pleasures Butchering Guild had not slaughtered everyone, including Warrior Jang.
Maybe they had not wanted to cause too much of a stir, but the fact that they had gone through the trouble of kidnapping them instead…….

“Maybe I should meet them first.”

Could it be that they had used force because they wanted something?
Seeing Geum Yang-bae sink into gloom, Tsering thumped the table hard.

“Let’s eat first and talk after. Hey, innkeeper, can you make us some noodles?”
“N-noodles?”
“And if you have dumplings, make some of those too.”

The innkeeper glanced at them uncertainly, then nodded.
There were no customers to begin with.
Geum Yang-bae stared blankly at that scene.
He was hungry, admittedly.

“Damn it…….”

When facing a major matter, it was best to fill your belly first.
The innkeeper really did prepare thin noodles and dumplings in no time.
As soon as hot broth made from chicken and vegetables went into his body, his stomach trembled pleasantly.

“Damn it, isn’t this exactly when the constables are supposed to step in?”

He had asked the innkeeper just in case, but the constables had already come and gone.
Naturally, the moment they realized Murim people were involved, they merely clicked their tongues and left.
When they said, ‘We’ll investigate,’ what they really meant was, I don’t want to get involved, so deal with it yourselves.

“There really is no choice but to go and face them first.”

As Tsering said, they really did need to pay the Three Pleasures Butchering Guild a visit.
If they were lucky, it might even end with handing over a few coins.
The only problem…… was that if things went wrong, Geum Yang-bae’s life itself could be in danger.

“Don’t worry, Mister. I’ll go with you.”

Tsering said that while biting into a dumpling with her grimy face.

“I’m good at fighting, you know?”

That sight was oddly reassuring, and Geum Yang-bae felt his chest tighten.
Surely Tsering could not really be stronger than the thugs of Three Pleasures Butchering Guild, but she would still be a great help anyway.
His voice trembled on its own.

“Th-thank you…….”
“A crisis like this is nothing compared to what I’ve been through.”
“Hm?”

In Geum Yang-bae’s eyes, Tsering was definitely no ordinary beggar.
She must have gone through a lot in life.
What kind of crises had she overcome?
Since they were already eating, he asked, and the answer came right away.

“When I was little, I lived in a village where a yokai pretending to be a dragon ate people.”

Hearing that, he thought, Huh?
There might be yokai like that these days, but back then too?

“But then one of the Evil Cult’s Cardinals brought the Mad Wind Temple with him and the village got destroyed. So I ended up taking refuge at Potala Palace.”

At that point, he had no words.
Geum Yang-bae was not a man of the Murim, but even he knew of the Evil Cult.
A Cardinal was one of the three monsters who had nearly brought about the end of the world.
Tsering was claiming she had survived one of those legendary villains.

‘Is that true?’

For a moment, he actually wondered.

“Wow, it was really insane at Potala Palace. The sky opened up, and then Buddha’s hand just appeared and swatted the Cardinal like a fly.”
“……”
“And then this thing called the Great Desert Yellow Dragon, a sandworm as big as a fortress, burst out of the ground. It started going at it with a real dragon all at once…….”
“Haa……”

Geum Yang-bae clutched his head.

‘She really is crazy after all.’

He felt stupid for having wondered, even for a moment, whether it might be true.
Listening to her out of curiosity, all he got was talk of the Buddha’s hand and giant dragons. She was clearly delusional.
That must be why someone so young and strong was living like a beggar.

Kwaang!

“Anyway. Let’s go!”
“Mm…….”

Even so, the only one left by Geum Yang-bae’s side was this slightly crazy girl.
Geum Yang-bae gave a bitter smile.

“……Shall we go, then?”
“Yeah, let’s go!”

As they stood up, the innkeeper came over, wiping the moisture from his hands on his clothes.

“Two bowls of noodles and one plate of dumplings. Eight pun.”
“……”

Rummaging through his clothes, Geum Yang-bae suddenly froze.
The beggars had taken all his money. Reflexively, he looked at Tsering.

“I don’t have money.”
“……”

Of course a beggar would not have money.
Geum Yang-bae immediately grabbed Tsering by the wrist and bolted outside.

“Hey, you bastards! Pay up!”
“I-I’ll come back later and pay!”

The innkeeper came chasing after them with murder in his eyes, but Geum Yang-bae barely shook him off.
The innkeeper rolled on the ground and groaned.

“Aigooo, aigooo!”
“We really will pay you back!”

Tsering shouted that.
Limping, Geum Yang-bae ran off together with Tsering.

“I am Geum Yang-bae, Vice Merchant Guild Master of the Golden Measure Merchant Guild.”

Geum Yang-bae arrived at the headquarters of Three Pleasures Butchering Guild.
It was a place that smelled of blood and raw meat.
The headquarters of the Three Pleasures Butchering Guild stood in the marketplace of Chaesang County, in the section lined with butcher shops.
Around them, fierce-looking butchers holding cleavers stared at Geum Yang-bae and Tsering.

And standing in front were black path men who looked even fiercer than they did.
The sabers at their waists were clearly not for carving meat, but for carving people.

“Please allow me inside.”

Geum Yang-bae said that as boldly as he could.
But he couldn’t help his voice from trembling.
The men who looked like guild members stared at Geum Yang-bae as if sizing him up.
Would he be turned away at the gate?

“What do you want?”
“Golden Measure Merchant Guild?”

Without hiding their threatening air, they glared at Geum Yang-bae and Tsering.
For a moment Geum Yang-bae almost lost his nerve, but seeing how unbothered Tsering was, he steadied himself.

“Did you not visit Wind Forest Inn yesterday? I came to confirm that.”
“What kind of bullshit are you talking?”

The guild member wore a look as though it was the first he had heard of it.
As things failed to go the way he expected, Geum Yang-bae grew flustered too.
Then he noticed the blue-black bruises on the man’s face.
It looked as though someone had beaten him badly.

“……Wait here. I’ll ask inside and come back.”
“I would appreciate that.”

Maybe the lackeys guarding the door really didn’t know about last night.
One of the guild members went inside.
For a while, an awkward silence passed.
Tsering casually picked up a pebble from the ground and absentmindedly kept tossing and catching it.

Soon, the man came back out, bringing someone with him.

“Strategist, it’s these two.”
“……Oh.”

Geum Yang-bae, who had been about to greet the strategist with a fist-clasp salute, flinched in surprise.
The man called strategist had a face that was almost one giant bruise.
His eyes were badly swollen with bruises, and his lips were split open.
With reddened eyes, he looked Geum Yang-bae and Tsering over.

“What are these losers doing here?”

Right after that dismissive remark.
Tsering tightened her grip on the pebble in her hand.

Wadeudeuk!

Amazingly, the pebble shattered into pieces and fell apart.
A sort of display of force.
But the effect was even more immediate than Geum Yang-bae or Tsering had expected.

“Ah, ah! So you were honored guests. Please, come in at once, hehe.”

Even so, the strategist’s attitude changed far too abruptly.
Geum Yang-bae and Tsering followed him inside in a daze.

“Because you said merchant guild, I almost misunderstood.”

The strategist laughed in an almost servile way.

“Misunderstood?”
“Yes, your companion is already inside.”
“Companion…….”

Geum Yang-bae could not make any sense of what he meant.
Seeing that, even Three Pleasures Butchering Guild’s strategist looked confused.

“Aren’t you from the Green Forest?”
“……No.”
“What?”
“……?”

The strategist came to an abrupt halt.
His expression turned cold, and just as he was about to bark at them.

“What’s going on?”

Jang Man-chun came walking out from the front.
Cheongho was beside him.

“You suddenly went out, and now you’ve brought back some beggar?”

Jang Man-chun swaggered as he looked at Tsering and Geum Yang-bae.
Cheongho’s eyes met Tsering’s.