Chapter 620

“Good to meet you, Blazing Flame Divine Dragon Jin Taekyung.”

“…!”

A low voice burrowed into my ears, and a ripple of agitation spread through the room. But instead of being startled, I stared quietly at the old man.

As we talked, I’d begun to suspect he might be an agent of the Hidden Shadow Pavilion.

He certainly fit the bill.

The old man before me was the owner of the meeting place Thousand-Faced Fox had told us about. And unlike the other non-Han locals, he hadn’t shown us any particular hostility.

Still, if you didn’t want to misstep, you had to knock on even a stone bridge before crossing it.

The System had warned me through the Journey to Nanman Quest, too. To stay alert at all times and act flexibly.

At least this time, I intended to follow that advice faithfully.

Shhhh.

Invisible internal energy spread through the inn, sealing it off from outside sound. Only then did I speak.

“Are you with the Hidden Shadow Pavilion?”

That was probably the question everyone wanted to ask.

With every eye on him, the old man rubbed a thumb over his filthy liquor cup.

“It’s been so long now since I was given my second name: Namho.”

Namho. Literally, “amber from the south.”

The Hidden Shadow Pavilion was an intelligence organization, so it gave its agents codenames to conceal their identities. The name Namho matched the information Thousand-Faced Fox had given us exactly.

“A certain fox said a fierce wind was blowing in Nanman.”

“Even if a typhoon rages, the Poison Flower rooted deep in the ground will not be shaken.”

That was the secret countersign too. Now I was sure.

I filled the old man’s cup—Namho’s cup—and said, “I was suspicious right up to the end. But you really are with the Hidden Shadow Pavilion.”

Namho drained his cup in one gulp and asked,

“Why? Did you never imagine that an agent of the Murim Alliance’s Hidden Shadow Pavilion might be one of the non-Han peoples?”

Just as Namho said, he was indeed not Han Chinese. His skin was dark from Nanman’s fierce sun, and his distinctive features were plainly not Han Chinese. Anyone with half an eye could tell.

I gave a small nod and answered,

“To be honest, I can’t say I didn’t think that. It’s just that you’re so far from the Central Plains that it was hard to believe you were with the Murim Alliance’s Hidden Shadow Pavilion. And from what I could sense, you didn’t seem to have learned martial arts, either.”

“Everyone has their own story. What matters is that most people think the way you do.”

“And because they do, no one suspects you?”

“Who would suspect an old non-Han man who hasn’t learned even a single martial arts move? It would be absurd.”

Namho emptied the last bottle of liquor. Then he looked up as though something had just occurred to him.

“Oh. Are you blocking sound with your internal energy?”

“Of course. We can’t let anyone outside hear us.”

“Then lower it for a moment. There’s something I absolutely must do.”

Something he had to do?

What was it?

I wanted to ask in more detail, but Namho’s expression was utterly serious. The moment I withdrew the internal energy sealing off the inn, Namho turned to Hyuk Mujin.

“You there. Is someone standing behind you?”

“Huh?”

Crash!

“Get the hell out of here, you rude Han bastards!”

It happened in an instant.

A liquor bottle struck Hyuk Mujin squarely in the back of the head, cracking his skull. The cheap bottle shattered, spraying fragments everywhere.

And Namho, the obvious culprit, started yelling at the top of his lungs.

“You bastards! Even tearing you apart wouldn’t satisfy me! How dare you cause trouble here!”

“…!”

“…!”

Everyone, myself included, stared with our mouths hanging open at the sudden turn of events.

No one was more stunned than Hyuk Mujin. Clutching the back of his head, he gaped at Namho before bursting out, “Has this old man gone insane?”

“Yeah, I’m insane! You motherless, fatherless Han bastard!”

“Whoa. That’s crossing a line. You’re crossing a line!”

“You Han bastards crossed the line! Murdering people in Nanman wasn’t enough, so now you’re eating without paying?”

“No, fuck! What did you do with the silver coin I gave you earlier? Boil soup with it?”

“You didn’t give me a single penny, so what kind of bullshit are you spouting? I took pity on you and gave you a meal after agonizing over it, and now get the hell out of my sight!”

Whoosh! Crash!

Bottles and bowls flew across the room. Within seconds, the inn was a wreck.

Namho screamed every insult he could think of and threw everything within reach. Then he looked at me, his lips moving just enough for me to read them.

Half a shichen¹ from now. Meet me by the lakeside ten li² away.

Only then did I understand the meaning behind his actions. I signaled to the members of the Fire Dragon Pavilion.

Ju Hwaran, Song Ilseom, and Sama Pyo caught on at once. They sprang up, overturned the table, and started smashing things. Each contributed a word.

“The food!”

“Dog!”

“Tastes like shit!”

Crash-crash-crash!

Crack! Rumble!

An unfortunate pillar broke apart, and the ceiling tilted.

Poison Flower Pavilion had already been on the verge of collapse. At this rate, it might as well change its name to Crumble Mansion.

I grabbed Hyuk Mujin, who was still shouting at Namho at the top of his lungs, and Taishan, who was shoveling the remaining food into his mouth, by the backs of their necks and ran.

“You crazy old man! Did you get this old by shoving years up your ass—urk!”

“No! Taishan’s chicken leg! He was saving it!”

“Quit your bullshit and get out! All of you!”

Crunch!

Screams mingled with clouds of dust. I led the Fire Dragon Pavilion out through the chaos—and found a crowd of a hundred people waiting for us.

“The Han bastards are coming out!”

“They dared attack Elder Chao!”

“Kill them!”

“No, throw them into the snake pit alive!”

Of course, there wasn’t a single sane person among us who wanted to be thrown alive into a snake pit.

Swish! Thud!

I sighed and dodged a pickaxe. A belated System notification sounded in my ear.

Ding.

System

• Mission Contact with a Hidden Shadow Pavilion Agent completed!
• Quest Seeds Planted in Nanman completed successfully!
• Quest completion Reward acquired!
• A small amount of EXP acquired!
• A small amount of Fame acquired!
• A new linked Quest has been generated!

Okay, but where’s the lakeside?

Namho appeared exactly half a shichen¹ later, as promised. He carried a bundle in one hand. The other was wrapped in bandages.

“The pillar. Who broke it?”

“…”

“…”

“The inn I ran for forty years collapsed. I nearly died without leaving a will.”

I tried to console him. “We didn’t know that would happen. It’ll be all right.”

“You call that consolation? Does saying it’s all right make it all right?”

“We’ll compensate you properly later.”

“That helps a little.”

There was nothing like financial therapy. Namho’s condition improved at once, and he turned to the rest of us.

“Try to understand what happened at the inn. I had to keep the villagers from getting suspicious. Things have been tense lately. If I’d defended you, they’d have started watching me too.”

Hyuk Mujin replied sourly, “So you had to kill off my parents when they’re both alive and well?”

“I apologize for saying you had no mother or father. I had no choice.”

“How would you feel if someone said that to you?”

“I grew up alone. My parents died when I was little. I don’t even remember their faces.”

“Oh.”

You didn’t spend years as a Hidden Shadow Pavilion agent without learning a thing or two. Namho had silenced Hyuk Mujin in a handful of words.

He took something from his bundle and held it out.

“What’s this?”

“A wooden map. For the past fifty-odd years, whenever I had time, I traveled around Nanman recording its terrain and the locations of its tribes in detail.”

Many years had passed since the Great Faction War, but not everyone had settled into peace. Namho had kept working, never forgetting his duty.

“Nanman is full of treacherous terrain, predators, and venomous beasts,” Ju Hwaran said. “That couldn’t have been easy. You must have worked terribly hard.”

Namho looked bitter.

“I only did what needed doing. Truthfully, even as I made this map, I hoped no one would ever need it.”

But peace had ended, despite his hopes.

Dark Heaven had shed the shell of the Demonic Cult and run rampant. Blood had stained every corner of the Central Plains, and that dark shadow was now stretching beyond the Central Plains into Nanman.

“I’ve already heard what’s happened,” Namho said. “The Pavilion Master is deeply concerned. Do you share those concerns?”

“Yes.”

I nodded without hesitation.

After everything that had happened around the Water God Dragon in Hubei, Nanman looked like a powder keg about to explode. It teemed with spiritual creatures, venomous beasts, and predators on a scale the Central Plains couldn’t begin to match.

“I assume you’ve heard about the rift.”

“Nanman is remote. Word hasn’t reached the people here, but I received a missive by messenger eagle. If the Pavilion Master hadn’t sent it, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Anyone would have felt the same. Even people in the Central Plains who’d heard about the Water God Dragon dismissed it as a ridiculous rumor.

But it wouldn’t be long before these impossible things became reality—just as they had during the time people in the modern world called the Great Cataclysm.

“Dark Heaven is definitely targeting Nanman. Even if nothing has surfaced yet, something will happen before long.”

Namho stared at me with sunken eyes as I spoke with complete certainty.

“Long ago, I left Nanman of my own accord, traveling with a merchant caravan from the Central Plains. For the past fifty-odd years, though, I haven’t left this land once. And except for that recent incident, nothing has happened.”

“Do you mean the incident where the Central Plains people claiming to have come from the Heavenly Demon Escort Bureau attacked a nearby village?”

“Yes. The non-Han locals grew furious, and the atmosphere became dangerous, but that was all. It wasn’t common, but it wasn’t something that had never happened before, either.”

“I don’t know whether that incident had anything to do with Dark Heaven, but…”

I lowered my voice.

“What’s coming will be a tragedy far worse than that.”

“…!”

Namho’s eyes trembled.

This was his homeland, the place where he’d spent his life. After a brief silence, he spoke in a tired, elderly voice.

“Even as I packed my things and left my home, I didn’t want to believe it. But there’s no avoiding it now.”

He slung the bundle over his shoulder and started walking.

“Come. Wherever you’re headed, I’ll guide you.”