“H-how in the world did this happen......?”
Ju-hwan muttered with his eyes wide at the utterly unbelievable sight spread before him.
“My lord—”
“We are glad you are safe, my lord.”
Clinging to the Magistrate bastard’s sides were tiny bean-like things that had come running in from somewhere. The little things, who barely reached the waist of the Magistrate, who was on the taller side even among ordinary men, looked so identical that at a glance, it was as if someone had brought a bronze mirror and reflected one of them.
But those faces were strangely familiar...... so, those were the ones now crying so desperately inside that iron cage—
“My lord!! My loooord!!!”
“Huhuhuuung—”
Just then, the children trapped inside the iron cage screamed and cried again. At that sound, the Magistrate bastard, who had been patting the heads of the beans—no, the children—one after another, spoke to one of them.
“It is done now, so you may return them.”
What in the world did that mean......?
While Ju-hwan tilted his head, the children’s cries inside the iron cage abruptly stopped.
“!!!!!!!!”
Ju-hwan, who had turned his gaze toward the iron cage, saw the crying children vanish like mirages and hurriedly ran closer without realizing it. What entered his eyes were two clay dolls lying alone where the children had been.
“H-how could something like this—”
“Seamless, is it not?”
The Magistrate asked Ju-hwan, who was picking up the clay dolls and examining them with a vacant expression, with a triumphant face.
......The way he smiled with only the corner of his smooth face raised was so irritating that even an old soldier on the verge of death would leap up in outrage.
“So, this was from the very beginning—”
“Did you think Wailing Pool Village had been able to avoid the Wansang Merchants’ eyes until now for no reason?”
At the Magistrate’s words, Ju-hwan felt as if thunder had struck inside his head.
The reason the butcher caste people of Wailing Pool Village had managed to hide until now was all thanks to these children?
Ju-hwan looked anew over the beans—no, the children clinging to the Magistrate’s waist. The two pairs of eyes looking at him as if probing him with wariness seemed quite sharp.
Well, when he thought about it, there was no way that had been mere luck.
What sort of people were the Wansang Merchants? Were they not people who, if necessary, would break someone’s legs and gouge out both eyes just to keep them in their own hands?
In any case, to think Wailing Pool Village had repeatedly avoided the Wansang Merchants’ persistent pursuit thanks to these two boys.
‘Was that why Ju-pal specifically mentioned the children?’
Ju-hwan muttered inwardly.
Since boys with abilities like that had fallen into the Magistrate’s hands, it was only natural the Wansang Merchants would feel their stomachs twist.
“What is the situation at the warehouse?”
“Just as you ordered, the goods had been moved to the barracks in advance, so there was no damage at all. Except for the Works Office building burning down, that is.”
At Clerk Jeong’s words, Ju-hwan’s eyes widened again.
“You moved the goods out in advance?”
At Ju-hwan’s surprised reaction, the Magistrate nodded with a calm face and asked back,
“Did your boys not move them all day a few days ago?”
“No, those were stones...... Hah, no wonder. I wondered where so many stones had come from and why they were moving them to the barracks.”
Only then, feeling everything click into place, Ju-hwan nodded.
The “your boys” the Magistrate mentioned—in other words, the day-labor ruffians gathering at the Works Office, including Il-gu’s group—had spent an entire day a few days earlier carrying the stones piled up in the Works Office to the barracks.
‘So those were not actually stones, but Dire Species by-products disguised as stones.’
Among the ruffians who had carried stones that day were subordinates of Choi Ju-pal, who had proposed that Ju-hwan join the attack. Moreover, that had happened before Choi Ju-pal had even proposed that attack to him.
Was this what they meant by saying one could have one’s nose cut off with both eyes wide open?
“Hah, good grief.”
Ju-hwan let out another hollow laugh at a story he could hardly believe even after hearing it.
Whether or not he had tipped him off, the man before him had already been fully prepared to counter the Wansang Merchants.
And in the end, the one who had danced on the Magistrate’s palm from beginning to end had been himself.
When that thought reached him, a chill ran down Ju-hwan’s spine.
‘If I had not tipped him off......’
The Magistrate must have seen through the fact that he had been weighing the Wansang Merchants against him long ago.
He was truly ghost-like.
That attitude of neither showing all his cards nor hiding all of them.
‘The one holding the initiative was not me, but him.’
Only then did Ju-hwan realize he had been deeply mistaken, and he pressed his lips together tightly.
The one weighing things from the beginning until now had always been the Magistrate, not himself. From the moment they first met until now, the Magistrate had been continuously testing whether he was useful or not.
‘......If I had sided with the Wansang Merchants this time.’
He remembered the Magistrate calmly answering that he would have killed him first. Ju-hwan, who belatedly realized that the words he had half-dismissed as a joke had not contained even the slightest hint of one, trembled.
“Ah, right! Clerk Jeong told us to hurry and bring you over.”
What pulled Ju-hwan out of his thoughts was the voice of one of the beans.
“He said that?”
At the Magistrate’s question, the other bean stamped his feet excitedly and said,
“Yes! Yes! He made his face all wrinkly like this and said, ‘Since it is a board my lord set up, should my lord not be the one to clean it up? Oh my, what suffering this is for the crime of meeting the wrong superior. Oh my, my fate!’ He was like that!”
“D-Dam.”
Despite the flustered restraint of the other bean, the boy realistically imitated Clerk Jeong grumbling about the Magistrate behind his back while letting out a sigh deep enough to make the ground collapse. Seeing that, the Magistrate burst into a small laugh, but Ju-hwan could not laugh.
‘Is Clerk Jeong not his closest aide? To think he even uses these bean-sized boys to watch his closest aide. Does that mean he trusts no one that much?’
At first, Ju-hwan had thought he was simply a madman drunk on his own strength, but now that he saw it, the depth of the man’s schemes was no ordinary thing.
Ju-hwan glanced at the Magistrate.
Whether he knew Ju-hwan’s thoughts or not, the Magistrate patted each of the beans’ heads once as they still clung to his clothes and refused to let go, then strode forward.
“Then shall we go see how our Lord Clerk, who met the wrong superior, is handling the cleanup?”
At that voice, which sounded almost cheerful, Ju-hwan inwardly sent a thought of sympathy toward Clerk Jeong.
***
“So, are you saying you intend to drag down a local magistrate appointed by His Majesty? Do you know what you are saying when harming a local magistrate carries beheading at minimum!?”
Clerk Jeong shouted with veins standing out in his neck.
The flames had already died down, yet the entrance to the Works Office was still as bright as daylight. It was because of the torches held by the people gathered before him.
The crowd’s clothing was all different. Ruffians seemed to be the most numerous, but here and there, wandering people were mixed in as well. Behind them were hat-wearers who looked like members of the Confucian literati, and even onlookers who had come to put out the fire and stopped at the disturbance. The open ground outside the Works Office was truly packed with people.
Clerk Jeong tilted his head because the face of the man standing at the very front of the crowd and agitating them somehow looked familiar.
Where have I seen that bastard before......?
While Clerk Jeong pondered for a moment, the bastard began agitating the people in a loud voice.
“If we are going to die this way or that anyway, then we would rather charge in and die! That is what we are saying! As if going around beating people as he pleases was not enough, a ruined man under heaven who throws himself at anyone wearing a skirt, whether she has a man or not, is supposed to be our local magistrate! How could such a thing happen unless the country is showing signs of ruin!”
“That is right! Right!”
When the ruffians in the back loudly agreed, the atmosphere heated up at once, and the bastard turned this way, lifting his chin as if to ask what Clerk Jeong thought.
Only then did Clerk Jeong remember that the bastard was Woo Hoe-jung, the Special Military Officer the Magistrate had beaten and driven out on his first day in office.
It seemed that bastard had still not come to his senses after being treated like that back then, judging by the fact that he had crawled back out.
“You received the heavy flogging not because you offended my lord’s mood, but because you broke discipline—”
But before Clerk Jeong could finish, Woo Hoe-jung raised his voice.
“Was it not the Magistrate who broke discipline! Everything that comes out of a Dire Gate, even a single hair, must be gathered and sent up to the Capital Granary! Yet he gathered it in this Works Office and tried to privately line his own pockets, only for all of it to burn clean away like this, did he not!!”
At his words, the people standing behind him began to stir.
“Come to think of it, before, whenever anything came out, they were busy sending it all to the Capital Granary.”
“Still, did the Magistrate not say there was no need to do that this time?”
“That means he was planning to eat it up instead, does it not?”
“Of course. I wondered why he was so generous even to people like us.”
“Oh my, he burned all of it clean away like that.”
“Surely the state will not blame us because all of that burned up, will it?”
Listening to the onlookers stir, Woo Hoe-jung’s eyes shone, and he raised his voice again.
“Did you all not see it! All those Dire Species and by-products! If they had been moved to the Capital Granary, you might have at least received wages, but now they have all burned away like this. What do you think will happen if the state investigates? Do you think the Magistrate will step forward and protect you?”
Watching the people’s gazes grow cold, Clerk Jeong clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘They said that bastard was the only Special Military Officer in Namwon. Perhaps wagging that three-inch tongue was his ability. He is quite skilled at agitation.’
Clerk Jeong, who was not behind anyone when it came to deception, incitement, threats, and persuasion, pressed down the urge to answer him back one by one and watched how far Woo Hoe-jung would go. When the bastard confirmed that his opponent was silent, he looked around the crowd with a triumphant face and shouted.
“Furthermore, everyone. Do you know what our magistrate’s nickname was up in the north? It was Byeon the Lecher, Byeon the Lecher!”
‘Goodness, of course. I wondered why he had not played that card yet.’
Clerk Jeong frowned and muttered inwardly.
As if pleased by that reaction, Woo Hoe-jung grew excited and shouted in an even louder voice.
“What do you think the famous Byeon the Lecher did first after coming all the way here to Namwon!?”
“A gisaeng inspection!”
One of the ruffians mixed into the crowd answered.
“That is right! And as if that were not enough, he dragged in even a young lady from a respectable household, made her sit before him, and told her to attend his bedchamber or not!”
“And in the end, did he not succeed in bringing her to sit beside him!”
The ruffians joined in one by one and shouted. Some of the bastards even looked Chun-hyang, who stood beside Clerk Jeong, up and down filthily.
“They do not call him Byeon the Lecher for nothing!”
“Goodness, his methods sure are impressive!”
Clerk Jeong looked over the bastards snickering together and shouted with veins standing out in his neck.
“Be silent! If you keep causing a commotion here like this—”
But before he could finish, Woo Hoe-jung took a step toward him and said,
“What will you do? Can Special Military Officer Seong handle this alone? I do not know about me, but the brothers here will be difficult for her.”
He gestured behind him with his chin as he spoke.
Clerk Jeong had wondered why his voice was so loud, and it seemed he had brought several former Special Military Officers as a hill to lean on.
Clerk Jeong glanced back at Chun-hyang standing beside him. Then, seeing the calm gaze that met his, Clerk Jeong nodded slightly.
“I will say it again. This is rebellion. You people, who do not know the strictness of national law—”
Just as Clerk Jeong opened his mouth toward them again, another voice cut in.
“That strict national law knows very well how to punish a corrupt official who does not care for the people. Does Clerk Jeong not know that better?”
It was the hat-wearers standing behind them—no, the Confucian scholars. Clerk Jeong’s eyes sank deeply.
“So you intend to submit an impeachment memorial?”
When Clerk Jeong asked in a lowered voice, the people who understood the meaning contained in that question drew in short breaths.
After a moment, the Confucian scholar spoke, cutting through the coldly settled air.
“There is no reason we cannot. Did you not hear it just now? What the people of Namwon think of the Magistrate, that is.”
He took out a sheet of paper from inside his clothes and continued.
“This is what we call the will of the people.”
‘An impeachment memorial.’
Clerk Jeong’s eyes shone, and he snorted before opening his mouth.
“To call the words of a former Special Military Officer dismissed for corruption and ruffians who go around tormenting commoners the will of the people. First, I think you people should put down your brushes and clean out your earholes.”
At Clerk Jeong’s words, the Confucian scholar stroked his goat beard as if it were precious and spoke solemnly.
“However, it does not change the fact that they too are pitiful subjects of this country. Is that not so?”
“Should I understand this as the will of the entire Namwon Confucian literati?”
“Is there any need for you to know that?”
As if asking why he was asking such things when it was obvious the tide had already turned, the Confucian scholar answered back. Then someone’s voice came.
“There is.”
At that short yet somehow weighty tone, the Confucian scholar’s eyes, which had been curved in satisfaction, stiffened. Then, when he confirmed the face of the figure walking out beyond the half-burned Works Office door, his face turned deathly pale.
The Magistrate, having appeared, looked around at the crowd where cold silence had settled and spoke.
“I need to know whether I only have to screw over you lot, or whether I have to clean out every last one of them.”
He curled up the corner of his mouth and grinned broadly.