Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 204 - Water Ghost (5)
Chapter 204 – Water Ghost (5)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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One day, three years earlier.
[Hyeon-a.]
[Yes, Fa…]
[When it is only the two of us, you may call me Father.]
[Yes, Father.]
[Our little tomboy is seventeen this year, so you have become a grown young lady.]
[Heh. If I am a young lady, does that mean a graceful and virtuous one?] The girl called Hyeon-a swirled the hem of her splendid skirt and proudly showed off her excitement. At that, the handsome middle-aged man of refined bearing smiled and said,
[So you have been studying the Book of Songs.]
[Yes. Does it not say in the Book of Songs, “A graceful and virtuous young woman is a fine match for a gentleman”?] The Book of Songs says: A graceful and virtuous young woman is a fitting match for a gentleman. It meant that a gentle and virtuous woman suited a noble man as his mate.
[But I do not want to become some graceful and virtuous lady.]
[And why is that?]
[Most of the world is women, and all they ever say is for women to become graceful and virtuous and all that, but I do not want to become so old-fashioned.]
[Then how do you wish to be?]
[Men keep three wives and four concubines, so why should there be some law saying I cannot do the same?]
[………] At those words, the middle-aged man shook his head. Perhaps because he had doted on his one and only daughter too much, there were times when he worried. Right now, while she remained within his embrace, there was nothing she feared, but both this place and the world beyond it were filled with intrigue and power struggles and were harsh beyond measure.
[Hyeon-a.]
[Yes.]
[You need not concern yourself with things like being a lady or being demure. But now that you are fully grown, this father will give you one warning.]
[About what?]
[Everything you enjoy now exists solely because of your surname and the blood in your veins. You are of a more noble bloodline than anyone, and you have the right to enjoy it. But…]
[But?]
[The world is not so easy a place.]
[What about the world?]
[Do not place too much faith in the power of the surname and bloodline that have been given to you.]
[……..Why are you saying this to me?]
[Right now, your bloodline and this father are the walls that protect you, but the day will come when those walls are of no use whatsoever.]
[……..]
[When that fearful and confusing moment comes, what will protect you in the end will not be this father, nor that surname, but only your own judgment.]
* * *
-Thud! The strength left her legs and she found herself falling to her knees without meaning to. She had lived her whole life without fear or worry. Yet the fear born from another’s malice, something she was experiencing for the first time in her life, seemed to tear at her heart and would not let the trembling stop.
-Tremble, tremble! As she looked at her hands and feet, which would not stop shaking, she suddenly remembered what her father had once said. Her father, who had always doted on her, had once for the first time worn a stern face and warned her.
[When that fearful and confusing moment comes, what will protect you in the end will not be this father, nor that surname, but only your own judgment.] At the time, she had thought he was speaking out of a bad mood. So she had not taken it seriously. Would such a moment he spoke of ever really come? She had always believed that, because she possessed absolute blood and that surname, no one outside the same bloodline could ever dare approach her. But now that she had come outside and faced a dangerous moment where none of that held any use, she could only slam into the wall of reality.
That bastard’s voice rang by her ear.
“Now that you have already knelt, all that remains is for you to apologize.”
At those words, her eyes shook violently.
‘I…
I am to kneel and apologize to such a base rogue as this?’
She possessed the noblest bloodline in the Central Plains.
For someone like her to suffer such humiliation was something that simply should not happen.
It might even be more proper to preserve the face of that noble bloodline, even if it meant dying instead.
But reality was not so easy.
“It seems saying those words is truly difficult for you.
Then this will inconvenience everyone here.”
No sooner had Mok Gyeong-un said that than the people inside the inn began glaring at her in resentment and whispering among themselves.
‘Damn it, is it really so hard?’
‘If she just apologizes, the matter ends!’
‘Why do we, who have nothing to do with any of this, have to suffer too?’
‘What makes her think she is so special?’
They were whispering quietly, and yet those voices struck her eardrums strangely hard.
It drove her into a corner where she could not cling to pride.
With difficulty, she lifted her head and looked toward someone.
That someone was Old Man Beom.
“Guuuh.”
Old Man Beom, whose shoulder bone had broken through his flesh.
Though wracked with pain, he was desperately mouthing something toward her.
‘Endure… this…?’
-Clench!
At those words from Old Man Beom, she bit down hard on her lower lip.
Every moment of this humiliation was painful and infuriating, but if she showed all of that here, then she, and everyone around her, would die.
‘………’
It would not have mattered if all the insignificant wretches in the inn died.
But she could not allow her own noble life, nor Sir Beom, whom her father had assigned to her, to die in a place like this.
In the end, with the heart of someone lying on brushwood and tasting gall, she opened her mouth.
-Grit!
“I…
to the young master…
committed…
a great…
wrong…
hik…”
-Drip, drip!
Her pride was wounded so badly that tears would not stop throughout the entire time she spoke.
[What will protect you in the end will not be this father, nor that surname, but only your own judgment.]
But as she repeated her father’s words to herself, she at last finished saying everything.
“Please…
forgive me.”
Once she finally yielded and apologized, every gaze in the inn shifted toward Mok Gyeong-un.
All of them wore tense expressions.
What if that man broke his word and killed them all anyway?
It was fear of that.
At that moment, Mok Gyeong-un smacked his lips and said,
“It is regrettable, but I suppose this is where it must end.”
‘Regrettable?’
At those words, Old Man Beom inwardly clicked his tongue in genuine shock.
It was little different from saying that if the young lady had persisted to the end, he had truly meant to slaughter everyone in the inn.
He had feared as much, and indeed the man’s nature was vicious beyond measure.
‘Young lady…’
Old Man Beom felt that she had shown true resilience.
If she had failed to endure, burst with anger, and insisted on preserving her pride, then everything would have ended.
In that sense, this incident might prove more medicine than poison for her.
At the very least, she had come to realize that noble status and bloodline would not protect her from everything.
-Slide.
Old Man Beom carefully looked toward Mok Gyeong-un.
Then Mok Gyeong-un let out a short laugh and said, his gaze moving toward Mong Mu-yak,
“Put it away.”
“Yes.”
Once the order fell, Mong Mu-yak withdrew the sword from her neck.
As soon as the blade left her throat, she, who had endured humiliation and apologized, made a vow inwardly.
She would take this incident as a lesson from another mountain’s stone and would never again allow herself to be placed in a situation where she had to kneel or suffer humiliation before another.
And
‘I will not forgive this.’
That man who had forced this humiliation upon her.
She would absolutely never forget him.
He had brought such shame and disgrace upon her, she who bore the noblest bloodline in the land, so he would surely pay the price.
Enjoy it while you can.
Before long, that bastard would be begging her in the most miserable form imaginable.
She raised her head and looked at the people inside the inn.
All of them were relieved and rejoicing that, because she had knelt and apologized, the situation had ended safely.
And to her, the sight of them was contemptible.
Those wretches were all the same.
Worrying only over their own safety, they had not dared say a single word to the one truly threatening them, and had instead driven her into a corner.
‘Insignificant insects, how dare you!’
She could not forgive them either.
They had contributed to her humiliation and had watched every moment of it without omission.
She glared at them.
Perhaps because they sensed that gaze, all of them avoided meeting her eyes.
‘Just wait a little longer.’
Once those men left, she would have her guards kill every one of these wretches to the last.
She had not revealed her identity, but she wanted none of this shameful event to reach anyone’s ears.
Watching her murderous expression, Mok Gyeong-un curled the corner of his mouth upward.
Then he lightly patted Old Man Beom on the opposite shoulder, the one that had remained uninjured, and turned his steps toward the inn’s entrance.
* * *
-Swaaaaaaaa!
Once they had come outside and gained some distance from the inn, Mong Mu-yak glanced back with somewhat worried eyes.
Seeing that, Seop Chun asked in puzzlement,
“What is it?”
At his question, Mong Mu-yak looked not at Seop Chun, but at Mok Gyeong-un, and said,
“My lord.”
“What is it?”
“Will it truly be all right to leave just like this?”
At that question, Seop Chun first wondered why he was asking, then nodded, apparently feeling the same.
“To tell the truth, I am thinking the same as Mu-yak.”
“About what?”
“She submitted under force, yes, but she seemed extremely proud.
And the way she kept speaking of status…”
“She seemed like the child of some high-ranking official, or perhaps someone from the imperial palace.”
At Mong Mu-yak’s guess, Seop Chun tilted his head and said,
“The imperial palace?
Is that not going too far?
If she were truly of the imperial house, would she not have had far more guards?”
“A peak master at the extreme of transcendent peak, plus eight first-rate guards.
That is not exactly a small escort, is it?”
“Even so, if she were of the imperial house, would there not have been soldiers too?”
“Who knows?
Perhaps they came out quietly in order to travel incognito.”
At Mong Mu-yak’s words, Seop Chun frowned.
If his guess was correct, it might create trouble later if they stopped at this point.
So Seop Chun said to Mok Gyeong-un,
“My lord.
Since things have gone this far already, perhaps your subordinates ought to…”
“There is no need.”
“Pardon?
Why?”
“Do you know the phrase borrowing a blade to kill?”
“Borrowing a blade to kill?”
Borrowing a blade to kill.
It meant using another’s hand to harm a third party.
Seop Chun could not tell why Mok Gyeong-un was bringing up that expression.
And as he was wondering,
-Kyaaaaaak!
A scream came from the direction of the inn.
Seop Chun and Mong Mu-yak turned in confusion to look that way.
* * *
Once Mok Gyeong-un and his party had left, she hurried over to the injured Old Man Beom.
In a worried voice, she asked,
“Sir Beom, are you all right?”
“Haa… haa…
I am fine.
This much can be endured.”
“Even so…”
Seeing that the bone had broken and pierced through the flesh, she did not know whether that could truly be called fine.
However, Old Man Beom was a great master of martial arts whom even her father acknowledged.
Surely, as he said, he would be able to overcome this much without great difficulty.
“Are you truly all right?”
“Please do not worry too much.”
At his answer, she leaned to his ear and whispered,
“Very well.
Then, Sir, may I ask one favor of you?”
“What is it?”
“After you recover yourself, can you and the escort guards kill every person in this inn?”
‘!?’
At those words, Old Man Beom’s pupils shook.
He had sensed to some degree that her temper had been deeply wounded, but he had not imagined that even the people in the inn would become the target of that rage.
Of course, it was not impossible to understand.
She had suffered humiliation before them, she whose bloodline was exalted.
‘It cannot be helped.’
He could not blame her for such a cruel choice.
So Old Man Beom nodded and was about to say he understood.
It was at that very moment.
-Shushushushuk!
‘!?’
At the sound by his ear, Old Man Beom hurriedly tried to move.
But because of the injury to his shoulder, his body would not obey him properly.
So,
-Pupupuk!
“Hup!”
Using his own body as a shield, Old Man Beom took the things flying at them across his back.
Judging from the burning pain there, they were surely hidden weapons.
But then,
‘What is wrong with my body?’
Certainly the injury to his right shoulder had been severe, but not so severe that it would weigh down his whole body and keep him from moving like this.
Come to think of it, the sensation in the shoulder that that vicious bastard had lightly patted earlier had felt strange.
As though he had been poisoned by something…
It was at exactly that moment.
-Flinch! Pak!
Old Man Beom twisted his body with all the strength he had left.
Even so, a sharp sword burst out through his abdomen.
-Thrust!
Seeing this right before her eyes, she screamed in shock.
“Kyaaaaaaak!”
-Paak!
“Ak!”
Old Man Beom hastily shoved her forward away from him and twisted his body to unleash a claw technique.
-Papapak!
“Kuk!”
-Skrrrrr!
The man struck in the chest by Old Man Beom’s claw technique staggered backward.
That man was none other than one of the wandering fighters who had been watching the situation from within the inn.
And there was not merely one.
Those wandering martial men had already drawn their swords and sabers and were surrounding Old Man Beom.
‘…H-how did these men…’
Old Man Beom’s face darkened at once.
* * *
-Swaaaaaaaa!
At the same time, outside the inn,
Mok Gyeong-un smiled faintly and said,
“I just casually mentioned one thing to one of those wandering martial men inside.
I asked him whether, after that noble young lady had suffered such humiliation, she would really leave them alone.”
At those words, Seop Chun and Mong Mu-yak immediately clicked their tongues.
That was because they now understood what Mok Gyeong-un had meant by borrowing a blade to kill.
Inside that inn, the matter would now turn into a bloody hell where they slaughtered one another.
“Then shall we go now?”
Mok Gyeong-un turned away as though he no longer had the slightest interest in the matter.
Watching his retreating figure, both Seop Chun and Mong Mu-yak genuinely felt fear toward him.
He was toying with the entire situation exactly as he wished, as easily as turning over the palm of his hand.
If a man like that became an enemy, he would be truly terrifying.