“The Honored Guest Pavilion, huh.”
The name sounded impressive.
A tiger skin thick enough to sink your ankles into was spread across the floor, and the table was the finest ebony adorned with gold.
On the ceiling, a fist-sized night pearl shed a soft glow.
Precious swords and precious blades hung on the walls, and on the bed lay neatly folded silk bedding as white as snow.
It was quite literally a room for receiving honored guests.
On the surface, that is.
‘Iron bars and axe-spears, huh.’
I glanced toward the window.
Outside the window, iron bars as thick as a finger were set close together.
In front of the door, two Peng Clan martial artists stood with enormous axe-spears crossed.
It only had the name of an Honored Guest Pavilion slapped on it.
For us, it was no different from a prison.
“Haaah......”
I flung myself onto a long couch covered in tiger skin and crumpled into it.
Once the tension eased, my legs trembled like aspen leaves.
Everything I'd been through today flashed through my head.
We'd run into a band of mountain bandits.
A man like a brown bear had fallen for Namgung Seol at first sight.
The Peng Clan Head had inhaled poison smoke.
And I'd nearly had my head cut off.
It was the biggest crisis of my life as a waiter.
No. The crisis wasn't over yet.
‘A month.’
The time left before Peng Clan Head Peng Jin-ak melted away.
If we didn't catch the culprit and find the antidote within that time....
We'd die.
“This is driving me crazy, really.”
I dry-washed my face and looked across the room.
Namgung Seol.
She was sitting upright at the table like someone whose soul had left her.
Her white fingertips, holding a teacup, were trembling.
It must have been a huge shock.
The gift she was to give her future father-in-law had come back as poison.
But there was no time to wallow in feelings.
If we wanted to live, we had to move.
“Miss.”
I called quietly.
There was no answer.
I tapped the table.
“Miss Namgung.”
“......Oh, what is it?”
Only then did she flinch and look at me.
Unfocused eyes.
I stared straight into those eyes and asked bluntly.
“You really didn't know?”
“......What?”
“That box.”
I lowered my voice.
“I'm asking if you really didn't know there was poison inside.”
Namgung Seol's eyes widened.
“If by any chance you knew and are just playing dumb, please tell me now. Then I can at least dig a tunnel and run away, right?”
I had neither the energy nor the leeway to beat around the bush, so I asked straight out.
Then Namgung Seol's eyebrow twitched.
Her dazed eyes filled with grievance and bewilderment at the same time.
“You there, waiter.”
She set down her teacup.
“Are you suspecting me right now?”
“It's not suspicion, it's confirmation. Given the situation.”
“Heo.”
Namgung Seol looked at me as if dumbfounded.
“Then earlier in the Main Hall, you defended me without even believing me?”
“Yes.”
“...Yes?”
“To be exact, it wasn't because I believed you, Miss, but because I didn't want to die.”
“......”
Namgung Seol's lips parted slightly.
It seemed she'd mistaken me for some kind of loyal retainer or righteous man.
It was so absurd I let out a hollow laugh.
Namgung Seol, maybe because she'd been raised like a potted flower in a prestigious clan, knew far too little of the ways of the world.
“Miss. Don't get the wrong idea. I didn't step up because I believed you, Miss. The root of the trouble was you introducing me as a subordinate of the Namgung Clan in the first place.”
I made a show of drawing my index finger across my throat.
“If you die, Miss, it's the same as me dying. That big lug of a bear Peng Mu-gwang tied us up as accomplices, didn't he?”
I let out a sigh.
“The moment your head flies, Miss, mine goes snick too.”
“......”
“Culprit or not, I have to keep you alive first. My lifeline's been tied to your skirt, Miss, so what can I do?”
Namgung Seol looked at me for a while without a word.
She'd apparently expected some moving comradeship, but she'd knocked on the wrong door.
“You...... are a much more calculating guy than I thought, are you not?”
“I'll take that as a compliment.”
I shrugged.
“Live in the martial world without calculating, and you'll get your nose cut off. Especially in a tiger's den like this.”
I took a crumpled notebook and a stick of charcoal from my robes.
It was what I'd used to keep the tab ledger at the inn.
“Now, let's put the emotional fight aside and get to work.”
I opened the notebook and licked the tip of the charcoal.
“If you feel wronged, you have to catch the culprit and prove it.”
I looked at her and asked.
“That box. Who did you get it from?”
Namgung Seol's expression twisted in a complicated way.
A sense of betrayal toward someone she'd trusted.
And a reality she didn't want to admit.
Those two things rose chaotically on her face.
She bit her lip so hard it went white, and after a long while she finally opened her mouth with effort.
“......Namgung Wi.”
“......”
“The adopted son of the Namgung Clan.”
I scrawled the name in my notebook.
[Suspect One: Namgung Wi (adopted son of the Namgung Clan)]
“What kind of person is he? Even the tiniest thing is fine, so tell me everything you know.”
“He is......”
Namgung Seol stared into space for a moment, choosing her words.
“A diligent man.”
“Diligent.”
I took down Namgung Seol's words.
“He is not of our clan's blood. He comes from a small clan in a corner of Anhui called the ‘Baek Clan of Azure Cloud.’”
“The Baek Clan of Azure Cloud?”
I tilted my head.
“Never heard of it.”
“Of course not. It was a third-rate clan, with neither outstanding martial arts nor a respectable family name.”
Namgung Seol's voice was careful.
“But he was steadfast. On that steadfastness alone, he caught my father's eye, became his adopted son, and received the Namgung surname.”
“So.”
I tapped the notebook with the tip of the charcoal.
“No backing, no money, and a weak family. But he became a member of a prestigious clan through effort alone. That's roughly the story?”
“You certainly put things cheaply.”
Namgung Seol frowned slightly.
“But it is not wrong.”
“Good. Please go on.”
“He was always the first to come out to the main training grounds and the last to go in. Everyone in the clan called him the Stone Buddha.”
“Stone Buddha?”
“That is how taciturn and dependable he was.”
A dependable Stone Buddha, huh.
Hmm.
I stroked my chin.
There was one thing I'd learned from seeing every sort of humanity at the inn.
A guy who looks too perfectly good is one of two things.
Either a genuine saint.
Or a hypocrite whose insides have burned pitch-black.
Especially the ambition of someone who's climbed up from the bottom doesn't show easily.
It's pressed down and pressed down, and one day it pokes out like an awl.
“Then did this Stone Buddha fellow hand the box to you directly, Miss?”
“He did.”
Namgung Seol nodded.
“It was the morning I set out. He said my father was busy with urgent business and asked him to deliver it in his place. He tied the red knot himself right in front of me, too.”
“That settles it.”
I drew two stars in my notebook.
“Unless it was swapped along the way, the culprit is Namgung Wi.”
Namgung Seol's face stiffened.
I immediately added.
“Or there's someone else who handed the box to Namgung Wi.”
“......”
“Was there ever any grudge between you two? Like, say, you stole his food, or broke the bridge of his nose while sparring.”
“Of course not!”
Namgung Seol shook her head reflexively.
“I followed him like a real older brother. And he cherished me dearly too.”
Her voice grew small.
“Every time I got lost, it was Orabeoni Wi who came to find me.”
Tears welled up at the corners of Namgung Seol's eyes.
“He is not that kind of person. Never...... there is no way.”
“Miss.”
I cut her off coldly.
“It's always darkest beneath the oil lamp, and it's the axe you trust that chops your own foot.”
Namgung Seol bit her lip.
“You followed him like a real older brother? Then all the more reason to suspect him.”
“Why?”
“Because he's the one who could aim for your throat from the closest distance.”
“......”
“This isn't the time to wallow in feelings. Whether he put the poison in or was used, it's a fact that the box came out through his hands.”
Namgung Seol couldn't refute it.
Her expression looked pained, but I didn't stop.
If I went soft here, we'd lose the culprit.
“Either way, for now, suspect number one is Namgung Wi.”
I snapped the notebook shut.
“When it's light out, I'll have to ask Sir Peng Sa-ryang to start digging into this Namgung Wi's background. There's a ninety percent chance the one who handed it over first is the culprit.”
Before I knew it, it was already pitch-dark outside the window.
Fatigue rushed over me like a tidal wave.
Once the tension eased, my eyelids felt as heavy as a thousand catties.
Too much had happened today.
My head was throbbing.
I lay straight down on the floor.
“Take the bed, Miss.”
“And you?”
Namgung Seol sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me.
“Will you be all right sleeping on the floor?”
I put on a nonchalant air and pillowed my head on my arm.
The night pearl on the ceiling shone dimly.
“This tiger skin—one of these is worth more than our whole inn.”
“......”
“It was my dream to sleep on something this precious.”
“But......”
“I really am comfortable here.”
That wasn't entirely untrue, but the real reason was something else.
A man and a woman, alone together in one room.
And with a beauty called unrivaled under heaven, no less.
On top of that, a situation where our heads might fly tomorrow.
If we shared the bed in a situation this extreme, my heart wouldn't survive.
“......I am sorry.”
Namgung Seol whispered softly.
Rustle.
The sound of silk brushing tickled my eardrums.
It was the sound of her lying down toward the inside of the bed.
My hearing, sharpened by the <Yin Kill Secret Record>, began running wild on its own.
The sound of her pulling up the blanket.
The sound of her burying her head in the pillow.
And even a faint sigh.
Everything was as vivid as if it were right beside my ear.
‘This is driving me crazy.’
I rolled over and tried to cover my ears.
But it was no use.
When I shut off my sight, my sense of smell came alive.
The air in the room had changed.
In a room that had smelled of old wood mixed with iron, a faint scent of skin began to spread.
It wasn't the fragrance of flowers or perfume.
A person's natural scent.
It strangely got on my nerves.
It was sweet, like the smell of ripening fruit.
“Gap-saeng.”
“......Yes.”
I answered with my eyes closed.
“You're not asleep?”
“Do you......”
Her voice came from the darkness. It was a voice wet with tears.
“Do you truly believe me?”
“......”
“I wonder whether you truly believe me from the heart.”
I kept my mouth shut for a moment.
In the darkness, I could feel her uneasy breathing.
Namgung Seol was trembling slightly in the unfamiliar room.
I looked at the ceiling and said quietly.
“Miss. Do you know what the scariest thing in the world is?”
“......I am not sure.”
“It's not monsters, or ghosts.”
I smiled bitterly.
“It's people.”
Namgung Seol didn't answer.
“Ghosts run away if you just stick a talisman on them, but people smile while they plant a knife in your back.”
I continued, gazing at the ceiling.
“I rolled around the inn for ten years and saw every sort of humanity. They say you can fathom ten fathoms of water, but not one fathom of a person's heart.”
“......”
“So by the rules.... I shouldn't believe you, Miss.”
Silence passed.
Her breathing grew faint.
“......I see.”
Namgung Seol's voice grew small.
“That is not wrong. I cannot blame you.”
The blanket rustled.
It seemed she had turned her back to me.
It was a dejected voice.
Because by any reading of the circumstances, she was the culprit.
I chuckled and went on.
“But, I believe you.”
“......?”
I felt a very slight movement from the bed.
“You're not someone who'd scheme something like that, Miss.”
“How would you know that?”
“Like I said before, I've seen every sort of humanity.”
I chose my words for a moment.
“People who mean to harm others have murky eyes to begin with.”
“......”
“But you, Miss......”
I swallowed the rest.
Because you look so happy when you eat noodles.
I couldn't exactly say that.
“I can just tell by looking.”
I closed my eyes.
“You're not the type to harm anyone, Miss.”
“Thank you.”
Namgung Seol's voice trembled.
“Truly...... thank you.”
After that, perhaps because the tension had eased, her breathing gradually grew even.
Before long, I heard soft, steady breaths.
In the middle of enemy territory.
In one room with a man who wasn't family.
With martial artists keeping watch outside the window.
And yet she was drifting off to sleep.
That defenseless sound made me even more tense.
‘Dammit.’
I sat up.
Sleep was a lost cause.
The room was peaceful.
A beauty's breathing and a faint fragrance.
But outside, just one wall away, was hell.
[Open the Ear Gate.]
I closed my eyes and sharpened my hearing.
The sounds outside the room rushed in like waves.
Step, step.
Two martial artists guarding the door.
Rough breathing.
The sound of armor clinking.
Beyond them, on top of the wall.
Rustle.
The presence of an assassination squad lying in ambush with their presence suppressed.
‘The watch is tight.’
At least ten.
No, there were twenty of them.
There wasn't a gap for even a single baby ant to slip through.
Peng Mu-gwang, that bear of a guy, was really going all out.
I turned my gaze back to the bed.
In the darkness, I could see Namgung Seol's silhouette.
She was sleeping dead to the world, with the blanket half kicked off.
A white ankle was sticking out from under the blanket.
‘How am I supposed to get through this crisis dragging that young lady along?’
A sigh came out on its own.
But strangely.
I didn't entirely dislike that defenseless sight.
If anything, it stirred a strange protective instinct, like I had to look after her.
I got up clumsily and went over to her.
Muffling my footsteps and erasing my presence, I approached the bed.
Up close, it was even more of a sight.
Namgung Seol was sleeping with her lips slightly parted.
One hand was clutching the pillow tightly, and for some reason, the other hand was raised up in the air.
The hand that held a sword seemed to be searching for something even in her dreams.
‘Even the world's greatest beauty can't help it when she's asleep.’
I chuckled and carefully pulled up the blanket she'd kicked off, covering her up to her shoulders.
That was when it happened.
She mumbled in her sleep.
“Mmm......”
I froze in place.
“Noodles......”
“......”
“More......”
“......This is driving me crazy, really.”
The tension drained right out of me.
I shook my head and went back onto the tiger skin.
Even lying down, sleep wouldn't come.
The night at the Honored Guest Pavilion was long.
Far too long.