Chapter 238

The Namgung Family.

It was one of the Five Great Families that ruled the Murim alongside the Nine Sects and One Gang.

Their blood relatives alone numbered over a hundred, and once the martial artists under their command were included, their numbers reached into the thousands.

Perhaps that was why the sheer scale of their estate put the Jin Family of Taiyuan to shame.

“Wow.”

How many times larger was it? Five times? Ten?

As if to demonstrate the family’s wealth and authority, the guest room we had been shown was both spacious and lavish.

Jeok Cheongang watched me gape in admiration as though I were pathetic.

“Is this your first time visiting the Namgung Family?”

“……Of course it is.”

“Ah, right.”

It wasn’t as though the Namgung Family were some neighborhood convenience store.

Normally, I would have made at least one more sarcastic remark, but not today.

I knew that Jeok Cheongang and the Namgung Family were not on particularly friendly terms.

All because that bastard Jopil left a pile of shit behind.

When a student did something wrong, the school called his parents.

The Namgung Family was indisputably a great power of the Murim and the hegemon of Anhui. They could hardly have avoided becoming entangled with Jeok Cheongang after he took as his Disciple a murderer who had brutally slain dozens of commoners within the province.

Then again, that’s probably why he came along without complaint.

Remembering something I had heard at an inn in Shanxi Province, I asked, “He was the Azure Sky Sword King, right? The person who came looking for you back then.”

“That’s right. He was the one who first informed me of what had happened, and he was also the one who later granted my request. I owe him a great debt.”

On the day Jeok Cheongang had been unable to bring himself to kill Jopil and let him go, if the Namgung Family had intervened, Jopil would never have made it out of Anhui alive.

The person Jeok Cheongang had gone to see at the time was the Grand Family Head of the Namgung Family, the Azure Sky Sword King.

“What kind of person is he?”

“I have only met him twice, but… the Sword King I know is truly a man obsessed with swords.”

“Oh. A sword nut.”

“A sword nut?”

“It means someone who’s crazy about swords. It’s a compliment, so let it go.”

“There’s no trusting anything you say.”

Pretty sharp.

Jeok Cheongang gave me a suspicious glare, then continued.

“In any case, there is no doubt that he is an unpredictable man. He wanted a duel with this old man in exchange for sparing Jangcheon.”

“A duel?”

“Can you guess what kind of man he is now?”

“Yeah, I’m getting a pretty clear picture.”

A horrific series of murders had taken place in Anhui, yet the Grand Family Head of the Namgung Family—the hegemon of the province—had let the culprit go.

Setting aside the injustice suffered by the victims, it could not have been a welcome outcome for the Namgung Family either.

People would whisper that one of the Five Great Families was incompetent.

He really is a sword nut.

They said Supreme Peak masters trained endlessly for even the slightest scrap of enlightenment.

I had yet to meet the Azure Sky Sword King, but I suspected he was that kind of person.

That aside…

“Who won the duel?”

“The day after his duel with this old man, the Azure Sky Sword King entered seclusion.”

“Oh.”

“The difference was half a form.”

In other words, Jeok Cheongang had won by the narrowest of margins.

Even fights between Third Rate martial artists could be decided by the smallest detail. What, then, of a battle between Supreme Peak masters? The outcome would be decided by a difference as thin as a single strand of silk.

“It happened more than twenty years ago, so he must be even stronger now. He was formidable even then, but I can no longer guarantee victory with any confidence.”

I stared at Jeok Cheongang’s solemn expression.

Even a man with such earth-shaking martial arts was only human.

I had realized that several times during the year we spent together in Fire Gate Cavern, and it had brought us closer.

The infirmities of old age.

A curse wrought by time that even a Supreme Peak master could not overcome.

Fortunately, a stroke of heavenly luck had eased his symptoms. But it had only slowed the wheel already in motion. It could not stop it completely.

Guessing how Jeok Cheongang felt, I put on my brightest expression.

“Come on, don’t worry too much. We didn’t come here to fight. We were simply invited to the Sword King’s birthday celebration.”

“Do you truly think that?”

“Hm?”

“Didn’t this old man tell you? He is obsessed with swords.”

“……!”

A thought flashed through my mind.

People obsessed with something paid no attention to the world around them. They immersed themselves in it—literally, madly—solely to satisfy their desires.

Alcohol, gambling, drugs… martial arts were no different.

It had been none other than the Azure Sky Sword King who released Jopil so that he could spar with Jeok Cheongang.

“Now that I think about it, the timing is awfully convenient.”

“He must have been waiting.”

“So his birthday is just an excuse?”

“The Azure Sky Sword King is the sort of man who could change his birthday hundreds of times. I suspect the only day that truly matters to him is the day he draws his last breath. That is when he will have no choice but to put down his sword.”

“……”

What the hell? That was terrifying.

The bastard wasn’t just a sword nut. He was completely insane.

I was rubbing the goose bumps from my arms when a delicate woman’s voice came from outside the door.

“The Family Head wishes to meet Young Hero Jin.”

Clank, boom. Clank, boom.

The chains clashed, and the iron balls gouged deep into the ground, leaving long tracks behind them.

I glanced back and saw that the entire route I had taken was marked by a line.

Is this Hansel and Gretel?

If the siblings in the fairy tale had possessed something like this, they would never have gotten lost.

Even if they had, there would have been no need to worry. I imagined Hansel strangling the witch with a Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron chain while Gretel smashed her in the back of the head with an iron ball, then shook my head.

“Ugh, no. That’s not it.”

“Young Hero Jin?”

The maid was looking at me as though I were insane. I waved my hand.

“No, it’s nothing. Let’s keep going.”

“No, that’s not what I meant…”

“Yes?”

“I-I beg your pardon, but those things you have with you are rather…”

“Ah.”

The maid was pointing at my iron balls.

Apparently, I had done quite a number on someone else’s courtyard.

Several sturdy servants had gathered by then, filling in the marks I had left with dirt while wearing gloomy expressions.

“I’m sorry. I’ll just carry them, then.”

Clank.

I gathered the chains together and lifted the iron balls.

I had weighed them faithfully during the first few months, but after that, I gave up. Whenever they got heavier, I simply assumed more weight had been added and left it at that.

They must weigh a hell of a lot by now.

In any case, there was no way I could cross the grounds of the Namgung Family like that without attracting attention.

To everyone else, I probably looked like a fruit seller hauling several dozen watermelons.

Every step brought more murmurs to my ears.

“Who is that guy? Have you heard anything?”

“No idea. With those iron balls chained to him, he looks like a prisoner.”

“Can you really say he’s chained to them?”

“……I suppose not.”

“No one could possibly carry that many iron balls of that size. They must be weapons plated with iron.”

“What on earth is he? Judging by his appearance, he’s a beggar among beggars. At that level, he’d be an Elder even in the Beggars’ Sect.”

“He doesn’t have any knots,¹ so I don’t think that’s it…”

As I listened to the Namgung martial artists quietly debate among themselves, one thought crossed my mind.

You fucking bastards.

A beggar among beggars? An Elder of the Beggars’ Sect?

That year in Fire Gate Cavern had been a literal hell of scorching heat.

If a sauna was dangerous to pregnant women and the elderly, Fire Gate Cavern was simply dangerous to human beings.

My sweat had formed puddles, and every breath had felt as though my lungs were burning away.

I’d even deliberately endured it without using Logout.

After going so long without washing, the habit had become so ingrained that I could no longer tell whether I smelled or whether insects were crawling over my body.

I should’ve washed as soon as we arrived.

If we had gone to the inn first, I could have soaked in hot water, but everything had gone wrong when we came straight to the Namgung Family.

Jeok Cheongang had been speaking so seriously about the Azure Sky Sword King. I couldn’t exactly have told him I was going to scrub off some grime first.

“You bastards try it yourselves… It’s not like you’re going to scrub my back.”

The maid’s steps quickened after I muttered that. It was definitely my imagination.

A short while later, I arrived at a pavilion surrounded by tight security.

The Namgung Family’s guards, each with the two characters for Azure Heaven embroidered across his chest, blocked my path.

“Are you Young Hero Jin Taekyung of the Jin Family of Taiyuan?”

I concealed my surprise and nodded.

There were ten guards. They ranged in age from their twenties to their forties, and every last one of them was a Peak master.

Good heavens. They were using ten Peak masters merely to guard a pavilion.

Is this why they’re counted among the Five Great Families?

For the first time, I could truly feel the power and status of the Namgung Family.

Perhaps he noticed my reaction, because the youngest-looking guard let out a quiet laugh.

“Disarm yourself.”

I suppressed my surprise and answered, “Disarm myself? I don’t have any weapons on me.”

“Then what do you call the things in your hands?”

“Oh.”

Right. I had these.

If even a ballpoint pen could kill someone, the iron balls I was carrying certainly qualified as weapons.

To me, they were merely heavy clothes I had to wear, but other people saw them differently.

The problem was…

“I’m sorry, but I’m still training. I can’t just take them off whenever I want.”

“Training?”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t a lie. I had grown so accustomed to them that I saw no particular reason to remove the iron balls.

But the young guard looked thoroughly displeased.

“It can’t be helped. Rules are rules.”

“Well, then I can’t help it either.”

Clank.

I deliberately raised my hands and feet one after another.

Shackles were fastened tightly around all four limbs, and unusually gleaming chains connected them to the iron balls.

“These can’t be removed without a key.”

“Who has the key?”

“Of course, the Ol—no, my Master has it.”

“Your Master would be…”

A year had passed since Jeok Cheongang had publicly declared me his Disciple.

Even a servant would know that much. There was no way a Peak master could be unaware of it.

No matter how vast the continent was, the Fire King Jeok Cheongang was one of only a handful of Supreme Peak masters under heaven, and his every move attracted attention.

“Hmm.”

The young guard furrowed his brow as he looked back and forth between me and the iron balls. Then he abruptly said, “We’ll have to cut them off.”

“What?”

No, what the hell had he just said?

Even when I gave him an incredulous look, the young guard remained perfectly confident.

“The Namgung Family has its own rules. Great Hero Jeok will understand.”

“……Uh, I don’t think he will.”

Something Jeok Cheongang had always said in Fire Gate Cavern suddenly came to mind.

“This old man entered the Fire Gate Clan at the age of nine. Say a hundred people began learning martial arts at that age… This old man is the only one who grew as strong as I am now. So how do you think I came this far?”

“How?”

“I shoved aside bastards from the unorthodox factions, sent dark-path figures packing, and killed every bastard who set fires like a Demonic Cultist. In that spirit, add a hundred geun² to the iron balls.”

It was a history written in blood and violence.

Even the Roaring Fury Swordsman, the Senior Brother of the Zhongnan Sect’s Sect Leader, had been beaten black and blue. I could only imagine what would happen to this young guard.

I offered him my most sincere advice.

“Do that and you’ll die. Seriously, you’ll be in real trouble.”

“……What did you say?”

“I mean, you won’t die by my hand.”

“How dare you—!”

The young guard shouted angrily and placed his hand on his sword hilt.

That was when a deep, resonant voice infused with internal energy reached everyone’s ears.

“Enough. Let him in.”

It was Namgung Ryong, Family Head of the Namgung Family.