“Waiter, can you also tell where the one who killed this man went?”
The man in the ink-black martial arts uniform—no, the Ink Guest—asked.
His voice was low and quiet.
But it was clear that the quiet did not come from calm.
It was a voice like a well-honed blade wrapped in cloth.
Answer wrong, and you'd be cut.
Gulp. I swallowed dryly.
“Well. I don't know where the culprit went, but I think I know one thing.”
“What?”
“That he's somewhere nearby. Even if he ran, he couldn't have gotten far.”
The moment I finished speaking, the Ink Guest's gaze went to the body's neck.
The broken neck.
The wound in the chest.
As if bewitched by something, the Ink Guest knelt down on one knee in front of the body.
His rough hand felt along the body's wounds.
Blood got on his hand, but he paid it no mind.
“Three years ago.”
The Ink Guest murmured in a low voice.
“My wife died like this as well. She was hacked to pieces by an unseen sword, and then she was found with her neck snapped, as if to make certain of the kill.”
His fingertips trembled.
It was not only from grief.
It was a grudge that had sunk bone-deep, harbored for three years.
“I wandered the martial world to catch that bastard. I abandoned my clan, abandoned my name, abandoned even living like a human being. I followed his trail all the way here. And yet......”
The Ink Guest raised his head and looked at me.
The moment I met those eyes, a chill ran down my spine.
“Today, the very same corpse has appeared before my eyes. This is no coincidence. It means he is here.”
The air in the forest grew heavy.
Even the birdsong from far off cut off abruptly.
The Ink Guest gripped the great blade at his waist tightly.
“Waiter.”
“Yes?”
“Find him.”
“...!”
“Use that cleverness of yours to find his trail!”
The Ink Guest's pupils sank into black.
“Before I tear your limbs apart with my own hands.”
This wasn't a request.
It wasn't an order either.
It was a threat.
He looked ready to snap my neck in the culprit's place if I couldn't find him.
I backed away with a frightened look, but there was nowhere to run.
Beside us, the Mount Hua youth was still fuming.
“Hey, you! Avenging my Junior Brother's blood-soaked grudge comes first! How dare you run amok before me, Cheong-pung, a disciple of the Mount Hua Sect!”
Cheong-pung shouted, but the Ink Guest didn't even pretend to hear him.
I let out a deep sigh and examined the area around the body again.
‘Damn it, I'm tangled up in this good and tight.’
But strangely, my head was getting colder and colder.
If I wanted to live, I had to find him.
Before these crazy experts drew their blades and turned the forest into a sea of blood, I had to find the real culprit if I wanted to survive.
I looked at the ground.
It was the same dirt where Cheong-pung had raised a fuss earlier about finding footprints.
“Heroes, please be quiet for a moment.”
I raised a hand to stop the two of them.
“The Mount Hua hero said it earlier, didn't he? That the ground's dry, so no footprints show.”
“Th-that's right! Look! There's no trace of anything, is there?”
Cheong-pung shouted as if he'd been wronged.
I squatted down and rubbed the dirt on the ground with my finger.
“No. There is.”
“What?”
“It hasn't rained, so the dirt is hard, but a forest always holds moisture. If you look closely, you can see pressed marks.”
I pointed at the faint trail leading from the forest entrance to where the body lay.
“Look here. Two sets of footprints came in side by side.”
Cheong-pung's and the Ink Guest's gazes dropped to the ground at the same time.
“One is deep, and one is shallow. The deep one belongs to someone with some build. The shallow one belongs to someone light on his feet. Their strides are different, but their toes point in the same direction. That means two people walked in side by side.”
I gestured toward the dead Mount Hua disciple with my chin.
“The deep footprints are probably your Junior Brother's, lying over there. He's quite a big fellow.”
Then I touched the ground again.
“So whose are the shallow footprints next to them?”
Cheong-pung's brow furrowed.
“That's... obviously the culprit's! He must have dragged my Junior Brother here, or lured him in!”
“Right. It'd be the culprit.”
I rose from my spot and looked toward the other side of the forest.
The path that led further in from where the body lay.
“But it's strange.”
“What is?”
“Two sets of footprints came in, but only one went out.”
Silence descended.
I slowly continued.
“What's more, the stride and depth of the footprints going out are exactly the same as the shallow ones that came in.”
Cheong-pung's face stiffened.
I pretended not to notice and went over to the body.
A sword hung at the dead Mount Hua disciple's waist.
The plum blossom crest of the Mount Hua Sect was engraved on its scabbard.
But the sword had never been drawn.
Blood had spattered around the hilt, but there was no sign that anyone had actually gripped it.
“And here's what's even more decisive.”
I pointed at the sword.
“As you can see, your Junior Brother didn't even try to draw his sword. And yet there's no flesh caught under his fingernails, and no sign of his clothes being torn either. What does that mean?”
The Ink Guest narrowed his eyes.
“That he was ambushed, or that the gap in skill was so great he could not even react?”
I shook my head.
“But no matter how great the gap in skill, no martial artist dies without even laying a hand on his sword when an enemy comes at him with killing intent. Right before death, the hand goes for it on instinct.”
I looked down at the dead Mount Hua disciple's stiffened hand.
“But this man didn't.”
I slowly continued.
“He let his guard down.”
The stillness of the forest made my voice all the clearer.
“Your Junior Brother didn't suspect the culprit. Even while walking with him all the way into this dark forest, he trusted him enough to show him his back. Someone very close to him, or......”
My gaze moved to the side.
The Mount Hua youth wearing the same blue Taoist robe as the dead Junior Brother.
Cheong-pung.
“Because he was a comrade.”
The blood drained from Cheong-pung's face.
Bewilderment.
Anger.
All those emotions mixed together in his eyes in an instant.
I drove in the final wedge.
“Hero. You said earlier that you came here looking for your Junior Brother, didn't you?”
“......”
“Then why are the footprints... laid down as if you walked in side by side with him from the very start?”
For a moment, the entire forest went silent, as if it had stopped breathing.
And what broke that silence was a low laugh that burst from Cheong-pung's mouth.
“Heh, hehk......”
It wasn't a laugh a young disciple of Mount Hua would make.
A rough, low laugh, like the sound of chewing and swallowing iron filings.
“Hehk, heh-heh-heh-heh.......”
Cheong-pung's shoulders heaved.
Bewilderment and fear were nowhere to be found.
When he raised his head, I took a step back without realizing it.
The decent look in his eyes, raging over his Junior Brother's death until a moment ago, had vanished without a trace.
In its place was something like a child who'd found an amusing toy.
No, only the glint in the eyes of a snake facing its prey gleamed there.
“Waiter.”
Cheong-pung twisted the corners of his mouth.
“You're wasted on just rolling noodles.”
A chill crawled down my spine.
“Footprints, huh. Well, I was too hasty. That Junior Brother brat caught on, so I had to deal with him in a hurry and got sloppy cleaning up.”
Cheong-pung ran his tongue along his lips.
“Normally I'd have quietly disappeared, but with a Mount Hua disciple dead, people were bound to come pouring in soon.”
His gaze turned toward the Ink Guest.
“But right then, I spotted some guy passing by the edge of the forest. Vicious-looking face, and a great blade the size of a man's torso hanging at his waist.”
Cheong-pung snickered.
“If a guy like that popped out right where a Mount Hua disciple died, who wouldn't suspect him?”
“So you pinned it on him?”
When I asked, Cheong-pung shrugged.
“Having a nasty face is a crime.”
The corners of Cheong-pung's mouth twisted crookedly.
“While law enforcement or Mount Hua grabbed the wrong guy and started swinging blades, I could've just run off.”
“......”
“But you went and butted in for no reason, waiter.”
He admitted his crime all too easily.
He was as calm as someone reciting the side dishes for today's lunch.
Veins bulged on the back of the Ink Guest's hand.
“So you...... were the culprit.”
“Culprit?”
Cheong-pung snorted.
“That's a little hurtful. I just did my job. I took a commission and handled it. That's all.”
The Ink Guest raised his great blade and took a step forward.
But far from backing away, Cheong-pung stood his ground and stroked his chin.
“But you know, waiter. You got one thing wrong.”
“Wh-what's that?”
“I'm not a Mount Hua disciple.”
Cheong-pung smiled at me with his eyes.
Goosebumps broke out all over me.
“This guy's face was so stifling. Sweaty, itchy.”
He dug his fingernails in beneath his own chin.
Then he roughly tore it away.
Rrrip—.
There was the sound of skin tearing.
But not a single drop of blood came out.
Instead, the skin of his face peeled off in one piece.
A thin, intricately crafted human-skin mask dropped to the ground with a soft plop.
His true face was revealed.
The fresh-faced Mount Hua youth was gone.
A long scar running from the corner of his left eye to the corner of his mouth.
Skin pale to the point of being white.
The corner of his mouth twisted to the left.
The moment I saw that face, my breath caught.
A name I'd only ever heard in the rumors of the martial world flashed through my mind.
“Th-Thousand Faces...!”
Thousand Faces, Dokgo Yeong.
A murderer the likes of which were rarely seen, said to carve the facial skin off people and wear it as masks, and to kill without fail any target he was commissioned for, regardless of man or woman, young or old.
Dokgo Yeong cackled.
“A waiter in some backwater knows my alias? What an honor.”
“Thousand Faces......”
The Ink Guest's voice seemed to boil up from the very bottom of hell.
The killing intent pouring from his body shook the bamboo forest.
“Three years ago. Was it you who killed the woman of the Hebei Peng Clan as well?”
Dokgo Yeong tilted his head for a moment.
“The Hebei Peng Clan?”
Then he soon clapped his hands.
Clap—.
“Ahh, I remember, I remember! She was a pretty little thing. The commission was to take care of her while her husband was away for a bit.”
The Ink Guest's eyes widened as if they would tear.
Dokgo Yeong licked his lips.
“She kept calling her husband's name while she was dying. And that husband's name was...... Peng Hwi, was it?”
BOOM!
The ground the Ink Guest was standing on caved in.
No more words were needed.
The Ink Guest's eyes were no longer those of a man.
A beast.
A beast that had caught the scent of blood.
CLANG—!
A sharp metallic sound tore at my eardrums.
A flexible sword shot out of Dokgo Yeong's sleeve like a snake.
That slender blade curved in midair and bit toward the Ink Guest's nape.
But the next moment.
Something unbelievable happened.
The Ink Guest raised his left hand and seized the flexible sword's blade bare-handed.
Drip, drip.
Dark red blood fell from his palm.
But the Ink Guest didn't so much as flinch.
Rather, he gripped the blade even tighter with his bleeding hand.
For the first time, Dokgo Yeong's eyes wavered.
“Crazy bastard, bare-handed?”
“Got you.”
The Ink Guest's voice was like the growl of a beast.
“You slippery eel of a bastard.”
KABOOM!
Pitch-black energy exploded from the Ink Guest's body.
It was not the bold blade qi of the Hebei Peng Clan, one of the Five Great Clans.
It was the sticky, ominous, blood-reeking demonic art of the unorthodox sects.
When the Ink Guest yanked back his left hand still gripping the flexible sword, Dokgo Yeong's body was helplessly dragged forward.
“Aren't you a Peng Clan bastard? How do you have the martial arts of the heretical demonic path?!”
Dokgo Yeong screamed and flung hidden weapons with his other hand.
Dozens of poison needles flew at the Ink Guest's face.
But the Ink Guest didn't so much as blink.
Black energy wrapped around his entire body and deflected every last one of the poison needles.
“To catch a demon like you......”
The Ink Guest's great blade shot straight up.
“I must become a monster as well.”
His eyes gleamed as if they would chew Dokgo Yeong up.
“My clan, my honor, even my very soul. I sold them all. All for the sake of killing you!”
WHAM—!
The great blade crashed down.
Dokgo Yeong hastily abandoned his flexible sword and retreated, but the Ink Guest's blade flux looked as if it would cleave space itself.
Shlk.
Dokgo Yeong's left shoulder flew off entirely.
“Kyaaaaagh!”
Thousand Faces Dokgo Yeong, a murderer feared across the land, rolled on the ground and let out a wretched scream.
But the Ink Guest didn't stop.
He stomped down on the agonized Dokgo Yeong's chest and ground it under his foot.
Crunch.
The sound of ribs shattering rang through the forest.
Behind a rock, I clamped a hand over my mouth.
The Ink Guest wasn't simply killing Dokgo Yeong.
He was carving a grudge that had festered for three years into every single piece of his flesh.
“Keuheok, cough......”
Clots of blood poured from Dokgo Yeong's mouth.
His limbs twisted, and his breathing grew thin, as if it was about to cut off.
Anyone could see it was the end.
The Ink Guest leveled his blood-drenched great blade at Dokgo Yeong's throat.
“I have no need for your last words.”
His voice had sunk cold.
“Go to hell and beg my wife for forgiveness.”
It was at that moment.
A grotesque smile spread across the dying Dokgo Yeong's lips.
It was a chilling laugh that didn't suit his pain-contorted face.
“Heh, heh-heh......”
The Ink Guest's eyebrow twitched.
Dokgo Yeong spat out blood-flecked spit and laughed.
“You idiot. Beg your wife?”
“......”
“Why would I?”
His eyes gleamed with one last burst of madness.
“Do you know what a pretty sound your wife made when she died?”
Right up until the moment his life was cut off, Dokgo Yeong gouged at his opponent's deepest wound.
“When I strangled her, she called your name. Save me, darling, save me. Please, save me...... It was so heartrending.”
The Ink Guest's hands trembled.
“So I told her. That your husband wasn't coming. That she was going to die here like a dog.”
Dokgo Yeong cackled.
“And at the end, when I snapped her neck, that feeling in my hands...... heh-heh-heh. It was such a thrill I'll never forget it as long as I live.”
The Ink Guest's last shred of reason snapped.
“Die!!!”
His great blade fell like a bolt of lightning.
SPLAT!
Dokgo Yeong's skull was crushed like a watermelon.
There were no more screams, no more mockery.
It was all too hollow an end for a murderer who had made the whole land tremble in fear.