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A Great Merchant. If martial artists had realms like second-rate or first-rate, then for a merchant, the title of Great Merchant was the absolute pinnacle.
What more needed to be said? That was me. I, Mok Hwi-young, was that Great Merchant. I had never even called myself that, but before I knew it, I had become one.
I hadn't slept, hadn't eaten properly, and hadn't clothed myself well, and through bone-grinding effort, I had become the wealthiest man in the Central Plains.
However...
"Hey, there's Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron here!"
"What kind of Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron is this big?"
"Everyone, be quiet. We did not come here to look for something like Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron."
The man who appeared to be the captain spoke solemnly. Seeing him act so high and mighty made my stomach churn, and the words slipped out of my mouth automatically.
"Such a bluff for a petty thief!"
My vision flashed instantly. I didn't even know how I was hit.
Blood trickled down from my mouth as I collapsed. A terrible pain tormented my jaw along with the blood.
"What we intend to take is an item of our sect. You people of the Central Plains stole it."
"I saw you slip a cat's-eye stone into your coat earlier. Is that yours, too?"
"...That belongs to my wife. I am just taking it as an interest."
"It's not your wife's, it belongs to this Hwi-young Merchant Guild. You damn petty thief!"
As I shrieked at him, something swung at me once more. A dull pain was etched into my jaw along with the sound of something cutting through the wind.
I looked back and saw what looked like my blood smeared on his scabbard. He had struck me with the scabbard. They said there were scumbags who would even beat a dead monk's backside... Then again, there was no way martial artists would have ever opened a scripture.
"Daeju! I found it. There is a box here."
Just then, someone's shout rang out from the corner of the guild warehouse.
"Oh."
The eyes of the Daeju, who had been glaring at me, curved into a smile.
Soon, a jade box was dropped in front of me, my arms and legs bound. I looked at it and let out a scoff.
"Even with the martial arts you boast so much about, you can't open it, can you? Of course not. It's a jewelry box made of Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron. You have no idea how much it costs to make that, do you?"
"I have no interest in vulgar money games."
Anger surged within me. A vulgar money game. Martial artists had always treated commerce that way. In their world, a merchant was nothing more than a vulgar money-grubber.
But at that moment, I wanted to ask all martial artists. Was it more vulgar to oppress and rob innocent civilians like this, or to accumulate wealth?
"Your mother must have raised you with money, too."
The scabbard didn't fly at me this time. Instead, a rough hand grabbed me under the chin and lifted my head.
"Where is the key?"
"Do you think I'd tell you?"
"Of course not. Look at me."
Along with the words 'Look at me,' his black pupils dilated. Faced with that eerie sight of his irises growing larger than the whites of his eyes, I somehow couldn't even close my eyes or turn my head away. It was as if his eyes themselves possessed a magnetic pull.
For a moment, it felt as though my brain was being thoroughly ransacked. It felt like I had been riding in a cheap carriage for twenty hours straight.
"Answer me. Where is the key?"
An unbearable wave of nausea and a splitting headache swallowed my body. I intuitively felt that the only way to escape this agony was to tell the truth. Even so, I decided to try resisting at least once.
"I... I won't tell you, you bastard!"
"If I increase the level of the Phantom Soul-Snatching Art, you will only suffer more."
The man in black brought his eyes closer and closer. I still couldn't avoid his gaze, and the pain became so excruciating that it felt like a porcupine was rolling around inside my head.
"Keuk, aaaaagh!"
"Tell me quickly. We do not have much time."
"Un... Under the chair in the Guild Master's office! It's under the chair!"
Only then did the man's black pupils shrink, and I was finally able to break free.
As soon as that happened, a crushing sense of defeat washed over me for having spilled the secret. Guilt and anger toward the Murim Alliance Leader, who had entrusted that to me, surged simultaneously.
"Heuk, heuk..."
"You brought this pain upon yourself when it was going to end up like this anyway. Still, you are the first non-martial artist to hold out this long."
Soon, the man's subordinates found the key and presented it to him. With a satisfied expression, the man inserted the key into the keyhole and turned it, but the box did not open.
"Oh my, it seems what your wife needs isn't a cat's-eye stone, but another man?"
I mocked him desperately. The man grabbed me by the hair once again and hoisted me up.
"What is this? Is this not the key?"
"It is. You're just incapable of doing it."
"I used the Phantom Soul-Snatching Art, so there is no way you told a lie..."
The man fumbled with the key and the box, but ultimately failed to open it and tossed it aside in front of me.
The moment the box clattered to the ground, a sword was pressed against my neck.
"Open it."
"And if I don't?"
"The Phantom Soul-Snatching Art can even force your actions."
It meant I should open it quietly if I didn't want to suffer the same agony as before. But I wasn't a fool. The moment I opened it would be the moment I died.
Even so, if I didn't open it, he would force me to do it with that Phantom Soul-Snatching Art or whatever it was called.
"Fine."
"That's more like it."
The blade sliced through the ropes binding my arms. I grabbed my shoulders and rotated my arms one by one. They were stiff from being tied up for so long.
I stared at the box in front of me. That damn Murim Alliance Leader bastard. As if extorting my money on a regular basis wasn't enough, he was now costing this merchant his very life.
It was something that had always happened. Martial artists taking what was mine. There had been times when bandits plundered over twenty of my wagons, and times when a manor I had built was smashed to pieces by a single person.
That was how martial artists snatched away a commoner's lifelong efforts in a single instant.
"Why are you martial artists so arrogant? Is there anything you know how to do besides killing people? You unproductive scums who can't even make a single brush with your own hands."
"Shut up and open it."
I closed my eyes. I had overcome all of that to climb to where I was. But it seemed this was as far as I would go.
"...I'm exhausted."
My true feelings had slipped out without me realizing it.
I inserted the key into the groove. Then, I guided the rat-poop-sized amount of qi I had accumulated through the Three Powers Mental Method into the key.
The reason the man couldn't open the box was simple. Only the Murim Alliance Leader and I knew that this box was a type of mechanism. It would only open when qi was precisely dispersed and rotated along the grooves. The key was nothing more than a medium to channel the qi.
Click.
Along with the sound of the box unlocking, the lid popped open as if it were springing off.
A small, black-gleaming pill rested carefully inside the box.
"Ooh. So this is the Divine Demon Pill..."
The man's deeply moved voice rang out from above me.
"Hey."
"What is it? I will at least listen to one last will before you die."
Now he was openly saying he would kill me. Then again, I hadn't expected any less.
"Do you know what the Way of the Merchant was that I followed to become a Great Merchant?"
"I am not particularly curious."
"I always pay back what I owe. Whether it is a favor, or a grudge."
I laughed. And immediately shoved my face down toward the pill.
I didn't know what kind of pill that was, but I knew one thing. Because the Murim Alliance Leader had strictly warned me about it.
Don't even think about letting your tongue touch it. It's an incompletely refined pill, so it will melt and disappear instantly.
It seemed they were unaware of that fact. That was why they were acting so leisurely.
The tip of my tongue instantly touched the pill. The pill dissolved, wrapping around my tongue with a bitter taste.
"You crazy bastard!"
Realizing too late what I was trying to do, the man slashed at my neck with his sword. The moment the pill touched my tongue and the moment my head was severed happened in a mere fraction of a second. It was a testament to just how extraordinary the man's martial arts were.
But what could he do? I had already consumed the pill. It had turned into a drop of water and was already circulating through my body... Even if he chopped me into pieces or tore me limb from limb, he would never be able to retrieve the absorbed pill...
I wanted to mock him to my heart's content, but I could no longer speak. Because my head and neck were separated. Forcing my lips to twist into a smirk was the absolute best I could do.
And just like that, my consciousness faded away.
My life flashed before my eyes. The countless things I had done throughout my life rushed past me like the fierce rapids of a narrow valley.
<><><>
My consciousness continued to fly backward into the past, before ethereally touching down at a specific moment.
"Gasp!"
I bolted upright.
I cracked my neck from side to side. Even then, I couldn't believe it, so I grabbed my own head. Surprisingly, my head was still attached.
"Wake up!"
At the same time, I heard a booming shout that felt like a blow to the chest, accompanied by the sound of a grass flute.
I knew this sound.
It was the shout and grass flute that signaled the wake-up time for the lay disciples of the Wudang Sect. And the reason my chest had thumped was because it wasn't just a simple shout, but the Six Harmonies Sound Transmission imbued with internal qi.
The kids next to me began to wake up one by one, letting out groans.
However, having woken up first, I had time to think.
'But I left the Wudang Sect after less than a month, didn't I?'
I remembered. Thanks to my father's countless donations to the Wudang Sect, I had managed to enter as a lay disciple, but I had absolutely no talent for martial arts. So, I was kicked out in less than a month. My peers had mocked me so relentlessly back then that my face still burned just thinking about it.
That had probably been around the time I turned twenty.
"How can those who have entered the gates of Taoism be so lazy!"
The door to the room burst open, and a Taoist with a black beard reaching down to his navel started yelling in anger.
"Cheonghyeon Jinin?"
As I muttered blankly, the Taoist glared at me.
"What? Am I your friend? This guy is spouting nonsense because he isn't fully awake yet."
Cheonghyeon struck me on the head with a long bamboo sword he had pulled out from who knows where. Naturally, there was no way I could dodge a martial artist's bamboo sword.
"Argh!"
I saw stars for a moment. Only then did I remember. Despite being a martial artist, Cheonghyeon was a merciless Taoist who would casually mix internal qi into his strikes against lay disciples, who were practically no different from commoners.
"Have you come to your senses now?"
Cheonghyeon spoke to me, but I couldn't answer him.
[ Recommending talents to the user. ]
[ Agile Movements — Grade 9 ]
[ Price : 3 Copper Coins (Beginner's Discount!) ]
Because ridiculous floating text was flickering before my eyes.
And right below that text, even more ridiculous things were listed in a row.
[ Martial Bone — Grade 7 ]
[ Price : 300 Silver Taels ]
[ Talent for the Sword (Lowest Grade) — Grade 8 ]
[ Price : 10 Silver Taels ]
...
[ Heavenly Eye — Grade 2 ]
[ Price: Unviewable ]
[ Body of the Martial King — Grade 3 ]
[ Price: Unviewable ]
Seeing that they had price tags attached, it seemed like they could be bought. The prices were at an absurd level from my perspective as a merchant.
Ten silver tales? Three hundred taels? It might have sounded easy, but a single silver tale was worth two bags of rice, and ten silver tales could buy around thirty pyeong of land.
The names of the items were beyond absurd; they were completely out of this world. Let's just gloss over the Martial Bone or the Talent for the Sword. The Body of the Martial King was a heaven-blessed physique said to appear only once in a thousand years, and the Heavenly Eye was one of the six supernatural powers possessed by Buddha.
'I must have gone crazy.'
I shook my head. The most rational explanation was that I had died and was currently wandering the afterlife. My lingering attachment to life must have caused me to hallucinate.
Still, since things had turned out this way, I wanted to test it out. A Great Merchant couldn't simply ignore a product they were seeing for the first time. One had to be able to handle all kinds of goods to truly be called a Great Merchant.
"Jinin. I would like to ask you one thing."
"Ha. Your way of speaking has gotten strange after getting hit on the head. Fine. What are you going to ask?"
"Could you lend me three copper coins?"
The moment I politely asked, the bamboo sword flew at my head once again.