Chapter 238

The Nangong Family.

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

They supposedly had more than a hundred blood relatives, and when their subordinate martial artists were included, their numbers reached into the thousands.

Perhaps that was why their estate was incomparable to the Jin Family of Taiyuan, even in sheer size.

“Wow.”

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

The guest room we had been shown was spacious and lavish, as though meant to prove the wealth and authority of the family.

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

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

“……Of course it is.”

“Ah, right.”

It wasn’t as though the Nangong 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 Nangong Family were not on particularly pleasant terms.

Because that bastard Jopil left a pile of shit behind when he went.

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

The Nangong Family was indisputably a great power of the Murim and the hegemon of Anhui.

There was no way they could avoid having ties with Jeok Cheongang, who had taken a murderer who had brutally killed dozens of commoners in Anhui as his Disciple.

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

I remembered something I had heard at an inn in Shanxi Province and 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 that fact, 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 Nangong 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 Nangong 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 who is crazy about swords.”

“Oh. A sword nut.”

“A sword nut?”

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

“There’s no trusting anything you say.”

He was pretty sharp.

Jeok Cheongang glared at me suspiciously, then continued.

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

“A spar?”

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

“I get the picture.”

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

Setting aside the victims’ grievances, it could not have been a welcome outcome for the Nangong Family, either.

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

He really is a sword nut.

They said that Supreme Peak masters repeatedly trained without end to gain even the smallest enlightenment.

I had never met the Azure Sky Sword King, but I suspected he was that kind of person.

That aside……

“Who won the spar?”

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

“Oh.”

“It was a difference of 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 would a battle between Supreme Peak masters be like? The outcome would be determined 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 silently at Jeok Cheongang’s solemn expression.

Even he, a man who possessed earth-shaking martial arts, was only human.

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

The infirmities of old age.

A curse brought 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, not stopped it completely.

Guessing at Jeok Cheongang’s feelings, I put on my brightest expression and spoke.

“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 crazy about swords.”

“……!”

A thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

People who were crazy about something did not look around them. They immersed themselves in it—literally, madly—solely to satisfy their own 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 perfect.”

“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 the day of his birth hundreds of times. I suspect the only day that matters to him is the day his breath stops. He will have no choice but to put down his sword then.”

“……”

What the hell? That was terrifying.

At this point, the bastard really was completely insane about swords.

I was rubbing my gooseflesh-covered 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 a line drawn through every part of the estate I had passed.

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 did get lost, 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 the back of her head with an iron ball, then shook my head.

“Ugh, no. That’s not it.”

“Young Hero Jin?”

At the maid’s stare, which seemed to regard 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 the things you’re carrying are rather……”

“Ah.”

The maid’s finger 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 in, then.”

Clank.

I gathered the chains and lifted the iron balls.

I had weighed them regularly during the first few months, but after that, I gave up. If they got heavier, then I supposed they got heavier.

They must weigh a hell of a lot by now.

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

To other people, I probably looked like a fruit seller carrying dozens of watermelons.

Every time I moved, murmuring voices pierced my ears.

“Who is that guy? Did you hear anything?”

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

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

“……I suppose not.”

“To begin with, no one could carry that many iron balls of that size. They must be weapons with only an iron shell.”

“What on earth does that man do? From his appearance, he’s a beggar among beggars. At that level, he’d be an Elder in the Beggars’ Sect.”

“He doesn’t have any knots, so maybe not……”

Listening to the Nangong martial artists quietly argue among themselves, I thought,

You fucking bastards.

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

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

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

I had made puddles out of my sweat, 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, it had become such a habit 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 Nangong 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 dirt 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 Nangong Family’s guards, each with the two characters azure heaven embroidered across his chest, blocked my way.

“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 people call them one of the Five Great Families?

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

Perhaps he noticed my reaction, because one of the guards who looked the youngest let out a quiet laugh and spoke.

“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 become so accustomed to them that I could no longer find any 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 the few Supreme Peak masters in the entire world, and everything he did attracted attention.

“Hmm.”

The young guard furrowed his brow deeply as he looked back and forth between me and the iron balls. Then he abruptly spoke.

“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 completely confident.

“The Nangong Family has its own laws. Great Hero Jeok will understand.”

“……Uh, I’m not sure he’ll understand that.”

A phrase Jeok Cheongang had repeated like a habit in Fire Gate Cavern suddenly came to mind.

“This old man entered the Fire Gate Clan at the age of nine. If we assume that one hundred people began learning martial arts at that age…… I’m the only one among them who became as strong as I am now. So how did this old man come 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 geun to the iron balls.”

A history of 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 gave 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.”

Namgung Ryong, Family Head of the Nangong Family.