“What a bumper year. A real bumper year.”
The X-shit was having an excellent harvest.
Sitting on the armchair, I muttered as I looked at the scene spread before me.
Below the stone foundation stood Kim nuisance—no, Scholar Kim—and his party, who had brought the “compensation” by the appointed date. Along the wall surrounding the East Hall courtyard, the onlookers who had followed to watch Scholar Kim and the party he brought were stuck together like barnacles, staring this way with eyes full of curiosity.
“So, all of those are the Wansang Merchants’ apology to me?”
At my question, instead of Scholar Kim standing to one side of the courtyard, a strange man beside him bowed his head and answered.
“Yes, Magistrate. These are things our Chief Merchant sent with his apologies and consolation, so please do not refuse and accept them.”
The man who had introduced himself as Manager Choe bowed deeply once more as he spoke, then looked straight up at me.
At that challenging gaze, as if asking, Now, how will you respond? a crooked smile escaped me before I knew it.
‘So that is how you want to play it?’
Beside Manager Choe, Scholar Kim was anxiously rolling his eyes with his swollen, battered face.
The “apologies and consolation” they had brought were splendid.
Five female slaves, all said to be sixteen this year, and one male servant. What they had personally carried in were five bolts of high-quality silk said to have been imported from the Western Regions, as well as the hide of a white tiger said to have been hunted in Hamgyeong Province.
“I do not believe this is what I told you to bring.”
“Our Chief Merchant said that those girls are of the age the Magistrate enjoyed when you served as Deputy Magistrate of Pyeongyang, so they should be suitable to soothe your weariness. The Western Regions silk is in the colors you often wore when you served as Magistrate of Yeongbyeon, so it should be suitable to ease your longing. The white tiger hide is finer than the one you were presented with while staying in Hanyang, so he told me to say it should be sufficient for you to understand our loyalty.”
At Manager Choe’s smooth, flowing speech, the corner of my mouth curled up again before I realized it.
“Is that so?”
I heard Clerk Jeong, standing beside me, give a small uncomfortable cough.
It was only natural.
What Manager Choe had just said was no different from the Wansang Merchants declaring all-out war against me, Byeon Hak-do.
It likely meant, We know every detail of what you have eaten up until now, so if you do not want to suffer an ugly fate, take what we are throwing you here and crawl on your own.
‘What remarkable confidence.’
I lightly stroked my chin.
They should know that I had closed a Dire Gate and beaten down Woo Hoe-jung and two former Special Military Officers.
Even so—
“So this is how you want to play it?”
When I slowly rose from my seat and took out my folding fan, Manager Choe’s shoulders stiffened with a flinch. It seemed he had heard a thing or two from that nuisance.
I stepped down from the stone foundation and stood before the “apologies and consolation” the Chief Merchant of the Wansang Merchants had supposedly sent. Then I lifted the chin of the girl standing at the very end with the tip of my folding fan, and I saw Manager Choe’s eyes relax slightly as if to say, I knew it.
“What are you good at?”
At my question, the person before me forced a smile onto her tense face and answered.
“S-singing.”
“Other than that.”
“P-poetry, a little.”
“Other than that.”
“I am good at pouring wine—”
It seemed she had no idea what I meant, so I asked more specifically.
“Do you know how to tan hides?”
“Pardon......?”
“Have you ever dressed ox tendons?”
“O-ox tendons, you say?”
The girl hurriedly rolled her eyes, looking for Manager Choe. Her gaze seemed to ask why this madman was acting like this.
Even if she was a slave by status, she was a gisaeng who had learned only refined things and tried to master only pretty things. With such a girl before him, a Magistrate who instead brought up tasks done by butcher caste workers, whose work was considered lowly even if their status was commoner, must have looked insane.
Manager Choe, similarly flustered, seemed about to open his mouth.
“Magistrate, what you just said—”
“I happened to need people. To think five young workers with all their limbs intact have come in. When the Works Clerk hears this news, his mouth will reach his ears. Would it not, Clerk Jeong?”
I cut off Manager Choe and asked Clerk Jeong.
Clerk Jeong clearly looked as if he was wondering what I was thinking, but for now, he kept pace with me and nodded.
“Well, that is true.”
“Magistrate, these children were taken in by our merchant group early, and from the time they began to walk, they have learned letters and honed their skills with instruments and song. Are you saying you will now make such children do the work of butcher caste people?”
Manager Choe asked. His face was full of displeasure.
It seemed he wanted to claim they were children he had raised with care.
What did that have to do with me?
“You said you were giving them to me, did you not?”
“Th-that is.”
“Where I use them is my decision, is it not?”
I took one step closer to Manager Choe, stared straight into his eyes, and asked again.
“Or must that also pass through the Wansang Merchants’ permission?”
“......”
Leaving Manager Choe, who could not dare answer and had closed his mouth, I turned away and pointed at the silk with the tip of my folding fan.
“This is a rare color even among Western Regions silk, so it must have been difficult to obtain. You managed to get it well.”
At that, Manager Choe quickly began reciting his sales pitch.
“Oh my, as expected, the Magistrate’s eye is exceptional. That is correct. If I may speak of this item, among the goods that came in last year when envoys arrived from the Great Kingdom, this is the only amount released to the private market, excluding what went to the Royal Wardrobe Office. Its weave is exquisite and its color is wondrous beyond words. It is truly an item worth whatever price one names.”
I silently listened to him, then muttered as if to myself.
“So it really is worth whatever price one names?”
“Of course. It is not an item that should have made its way down to this southern region, and we obtained it with difficulty, so each bolt should be worth at least thirty taels of gold.”
At Manager Choe’s proud words, I nodded and opened my mouth.
“That is good. I happened to be thinking of exactly that much. In my heart, I would like to call a higher price, but given our relationship, there is no need to be too harsh.”
“Pardon? What do you mean by that......?”
“I will accept just one each.”
I held up my index finger and waved it as I spoke.
“Pardon?”
To Manager Choe, whose dazed face showed he had not grasped the situation, I said,
“You said it was worth whatever price one names, did you not? Out of consideration for your labor and the Wansang Merchants’ face, I will be generous and count it at one mace of gold per bolt. If you can buy this back, I do not think it would be such a bad deal for you as a manager.”
“Th-that is.”
“As you said, even to my eyes, this clearly does not seem like an item that should circulate all the way down in this southern region. I guarantee that if the people over in Dongnae Prefecture see it, they will go mad and rush at it. What do you think?”
“Th-that is......”
“Why? Do you not want to trade with me?”
“That is not the case......”
Manager Choe looked flustered, as if he had not expected the goods to be resold to him right to his face. I asked him,
“Or you can go bring Mana Crystals again even now.”
“Th-that is......”
“This will not do, that will not do. Is this truly meant as an apology?”
When I snapped in irritation and struck my palm with the folding fan, the startled Manager Choe hurriedly said,
“It is not that it will not do...... However, if you suddenly make such unreasonable demands, even this lowly one......”
“Unreasonable? How can it be unreasonable for me to decide how to use what I have received?”
When I cut him off and shot back, Manager Choe’s face turned yellow.
I turned my gaze away from his face, which looked as if he had swallowed about a hundred sweet potatoes, and spoke to the person standing at the very edge among the “apologies and consolation.”
“You there.”
At my call, the servant holding the white tiger hide lowered his head even deeper.
“You answer me. Gisaeng I never called for, silk I never wanted, a tiger hide, and on top of that, an unidentified former Special Military Officer mixed in. How should I interpret this apology and consolation, hm?”
At my words, everyone gathered drew in their breath at once.
“!!!!!”
“A former Special Military Officer? Where? Where!!?”
“M-Magistrate, what do you mean, a former Special Military Officer......?”
Manager Choe asked, stammering with a deathly pale face.
I had been half in doubt, but judging by that reaction, he really did not seem to know.
But what could I do? I could see it clearly.
I stared at the characters wavering above the head of the male servant holding the white tiger hide with his head lowered and muttered inwardly.
Heaven-Destroying Thunderbolt.
Fifth Bloom.
The ability name alone was frightening.
And on top of that, he was a Fifth Bloom ability user.
I clicked my tongue shortly and asked him,
“It seems even Manager Choe does not know. Did the Chief Merchant send you himself?”
When I asked again, only then did the man slowly lift his head. As he did, the faint presence he had shown until just a moment ago seemed like a lie, and I felt the surrounding air begin to churn around him.
“Wow. I heard you were a model corrupt official who indulged in tyranny while mad for women. It seems the rumors of the world cannot be trusted.”
As his relaxed voice rang out, Manager Choe’s face turned white. His expression made it clear he could not believe that something like this had been mixed in among the things he had brought.
“!!!!!!”
The others in the East Hall were just as shocked.
Clerk Jeong could not seem to close his open mouth, and the yamen runners standing around me as escorts, in appearance at least, were floundering helplessly at the aura of the man who had suddenly revealed his presence.
“How did you know?”
The man abruptly asked me.
“I believe I asked the first question?”
At my words, the man tilted his head, then seemed to remember belatedly and said,
“Ah, whether the Chief Merchant sent me? Well, you could say that. I was curious too.”
“Curious?”
At my question, the man nodded with a grin.
“They said the newly arrived Magistrate closed a Dire Gate, then turned Woo Hoe-jung and two former Special Military Officers into bloody pulp.”
The man paused for a moment, looked me up and down as if assessing me, then continued.
“I do not know whether our Magistrate knows this, but even if Woo Hoe-jung was one thing, those two former Special Military Officers were talents the Chief Merchant cherished in his own way. It was quite a sight watching him fly into a rage.”
The Magistrate should have seen it.
When the man muttered as if regretful, I nodded and answered,
“Indeed, that is a shame.”
“They said you suddenly changed as a person, so I wondered what bizarre ghost had attached itself to you. But you look perfectly normal, do you not?”
How boring.
His comment about a ghost being attached was not exactly wrong, but unfortunately, this man did not seem to have an ability capable of seeing through that far.
“I am sorry about that.”
When I answered half-heartedly, the man stared at me again, then burst into laughter.
“Well, fine. I only have to sweep you away anyway.”
The man’s previously relaxed eyes filled with thick hostility.
I frowned.
‘What is this? We are clearly meeting for the first time, so why is he glaring at me like he wants to devour me? Ah, did I perhaps beat him up at some point?’
I looked the man up and down and asked,
“Do you have some grudge against me? Why are you glaring as if you want to kill me?”
“A grudge? I have plenty. Just looking at vermin like you, who live your whole lives standing above others and throwing your weight around as if it is only natural, all because you are nobles despite having nothing worth seeing, makes me want to vomit.”
“So righteous you joined hands with another piece of vermin called the Wansang Merchants in order to punish vermin like me?”
“The Chief Merchant pays properly, at least.”
The bastard answered with a shrug.
At those words, I burst into a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded and asked,
“So as long as money extorted from commoners is placed in your hand on time, it becomes an indulgence? My, my. It seems your sense of justice springs up only when you need it.”
My words must have struck the mark, because the man’s face distorted.
“I thought you were irredeemable trash, but it seems your conscience is still alive?”
“Shut up—!!”
At the same time, the sky above the man’s head flashed. It seemed he was about to raise his energy.
“Ah, I am tired.”
A sigh escaped me before I knew it.
It would be easy to simply deal with him, but seeing that, it was also true that I felt he was too wasteful. In a situation where I was already short on manpower, where else was I going to pick up another Fifth Bloom?
But straightening out someone that crooked looked like it would take some effort.
Too wasteful to throw away, too annoying to pick up.
‘A chicken rib, if ever there was one.’
I pressed down yet another sigh and asked him,
“What is your name?”
“What is a noble who will soon die going to do with my name?”
If you are curious, ask King Yama when you meet him.
At the bastard’s answer, something inside me that had been barely holding on snapped.
This dog-shit bastard.
You, brat, are confirmed below Chun-hyang.
As light flashed from the man’s hand, I charged at him.