Jin Sohan was facing the man in blue martial robes.
A swordsman who cherished his shabby clothes and a longsword that didn’t look particularly good.
That was about the extent of Jin Sohan’s impression of him.
The man in blue martial robes found Jin Sohan interesting as well.
It was impressive how deep his knowledge ran—deep enough to make the suppliers who brought poisons and elixirs shut their mouths.
And the way he killed the Moonlit Night Pavilion Master the moment he came up to this floor, then sat in the seat of honor with the relaxed air of someone who had always been the true owner of Moonlit Night Pavilion—that, too, was striking.
The man in blue martial robes swept his gaze over the floor and spoke.
“Did you seize Moonlit Night Pavilion?”
Jin Sohan answered.
“That’s how it turned out.”
“What an intriguing man.”
They were curious about each other’s identities, but neither of them asked. As if to say it still wasn’t time to reveal such things.
Jin Sohan spoke to the man in blue martial robes.
“Do you like liquor?”
“Truthfully, I don’t. I came up to talk with you.”
Jin Sohan nodded.
From the first floor on, this man had been wiping down his longsword. Right now, Jin Sohan wasn’t even curious about his name or affiliation. After thinking for a moment, Jin Sohan asked—testing the man.
“Did you come to buy a sword?”
“I did. Shame the auction ended in such a muddle.”
Jin Sohan smiled faintly.
“I’d like to gift you one.”
The man in blue martial robes’ eyes widened.
“A gift? To me? Why?”
Jin Sohan’s answer was truly dry.
“Because I feel like it.”
The mood on the first floor hadn’t been led by Jin Sohan alone—the man in blue martial robes had quietly helped as well. This was repayment, but Jin Sohan skipped any long-winded thanks.
Just then, Choo Sahyeok returned and carefully set down a bundle of keys the Moonlit Night Pavilion Master had kept, along with the keys he himself had been holding.
“I brought them.”
Jin Sohan said,
“What are these big keys?”
“They’re for the front gate and the back gate.”
“Take those back.”
“Yes.”
“Go through the first floor and this floor again, and before that, assign me a guide. For now, I’m going to where the arms are.”
“Understood.”
As Jin Sohan rose, he said to the man in blue martial robes,
“Let’s go.”
The man in blue martial robes burst into laughter, knowing that the sword Jin Sohan meant to gift would be in Moonlit Night Pavilion’s warehouse.
“Haha….”
Wasn’t it shameless—already treating Moonlit Night Pavilion’s property like his own?
But Jin Sohan himself was utterly indifferent.
Because he intended to strip away everything Moonlit Night Pavilion possessed, not just one sword. To Jin Sohan, it was only natural.
*****
One of Moonlit Night Pavilion’s underlings opened the warehouse door where the arms were stored, then handed the key back to Jin Sohan.
Jin Sohan said,
“Go back up. If anything out of the ordinary happens, come down and report.”
“Understood.”
The guide hurried back up the stairs, terrified. He’d already seen the Moonlit Night Pavilion Master’s horrific corpse, so even on the way here, he’d felt like he was walking on thin ice. When he was told to leave, a breath of relief finally escaped him.
Jin Sohan stepped into the armory.
From outside, it looked like an unremarkable warehouse, but inside it was neatly arranged, and an unexpected number of weapons were on display.
The man in blue martial robes looked around, admiring it.
“Ha… impressive. For a mere pleasure house to keep this many weapons….”
As Jin Sohan examined a saber, he said,
“Looks like there are quite a few counterfeits.”
“There will be good ones too. These bastards are famous for mixing real and fake when they put things up for auction. If they sold only counterfeits every time, the auction itself would collapse. And even the counterfeits can have enough workmanship to be better than ordinary weapons. Either way, a weapon has to suit the buyer’s taste.”
At that, Jin Sohan pointed toward the racks of swords.
“Pick whatever you want.”
As he spoke, Jin Sohan watched the man in blue martial robes quietly.
From the start, Jin Sohan had only intended to give him a single sword.
If this man was greedy, he would obviously try to scoop up this and that in armfuls. The reason Jin Sohan had brought him to the warehouse wasn’t to learn his name or status first—it was to judge the man himself.
The man in blue martial robes looked almost dazed, absorbed in the displayed weapons.
“Then I’ll choose.”
Jin Sohan added, in a strange tone,
“Don’t touch the sabers.”
“Why?”
“I plan to break them all.”
“Hm?”
He didn’t understand the meaning right away, but he hadn’t been interested in sabers to begin with.
“Alright.”
Jin Sohan began examining the sabers again.
He had already checked the condition of the straight sabers used by Choo Sahyeok and the other guards. If there was a saber here of higher quality than those, he meant to take it out and give it to Choo Sahyeok first. He had assumed there would be no treasured saber here worth using himself.
But the way Jin Sohan searched for a good saber was, in a word, violent.
Without warning, he seized two sabers that looked decent—one in each hand—poured inner energy into them, and smashed their blades together.
CLANG!
With the sound, one blade dropped to the floor.
Startled, the man in blue martial robes asked,
“What are you doing?”
Jin Sohan tossed the broken saber to the ground and replied,
“I told you. Most of them are trash. A broken saber is useless.”
The man in blue martial robes shook his head and went back to examining swords.
What a strange man.
Meanwhile, Jin Sohan kept grabbing two sabers at a time and smashing their blades together, fully intent on breaking every saber in the place.
Sometimes, both sabers snapped at once.
Sometimes, one saber broke three or four others before it finally cracked.
Each time, Jin Sohan threw the ruined weapon to the floor without the slightest hesitation.
Before long, what was happening inside the armory was a stark contrast.
Jin Sohan kept breaking sabers, while the man in blue martial robes—someone who cherished swords—kept scrutinizing their outward form, stroking the blade, weighing the balance, and taking his time.
But Jin Sohan had no interest at all in a saber’s appearance. He was checking only one thing, quickly: sharpness.
CLANG! CLATTER, CLANG! CLATTER, CLANG! CLATTER….
His pace was so fast it felt like every saber in the warehouse would soon be broken.
After some time passed, Jin Sohan—now holding a fairly decent saber—started breaking the other weapons as well.
Iron rods, spiked clubs, halberds, hook-sickle spears… he slammed and snapped them without discriminating between short weapons, long weapons, or blunt weapons. The rhythm was so fast and crisp that the man in blue martial robes felt something stirring in him.
His speed doesn’t drop at all.
Breaking blades by smashing them together and slicing an iron rod in half weren’t quite the same thing. Yet Jin Sohan maintained his speed, neatly splitting a variety of weapons into pieces. Because of that speed—and the sound—the man in blue martial robes judged him to be a formidable master whose depth was hard to measure. As he continued choosing a sword, a question came to him, and he asked.
“Then why do you use a saber?”
Jin Sohan answered as he kept breaking weapons.
“I’ve used a saber from the start. Everyone around me used sabers too. And the person I took as my master used a saber.”
“Fate, then.”
“Maybe.”
The man in blue martial robes was a wanderer overflowing with pride in the sword. But after seeing Jin Sohan’s attitude, he had nothing to say.
The man himself is a saber.
Then, suddenly, he discovered a longsword that truly pleased him. He cried out in admiration, and for a moment he forgot all about Jin Sohan.
Jin Sohan was the same.
A straight saber with a reddish tint had already smashed eight weapons to pieces. Only then did Jin Sohan actually look over its craftsmanship.
Not bad….
Since it was an auction item, a brief description was attached. On the tag hanging beneath the hilt, it read Joyful Death Saber, and the starting price was written as twenty thousand taels.
Joyful Death Saber—the meaning was ambiguous.
It could mean killing beautifully, or it could be read as a saber that grants a beautiful death. The description was so minimal he couldn’t tell who had used it, but more than anything else, it was sharp and light enough to suit Jin Sohan’s taste.
By shape and weight, it was a saber that fit fast bladework rooted in lightness art—or assassination.
But it wasn’t a weapon for Jin Sohan to use.
Jin Sohan already had the two blades of Twin Moon at his waist. And from the beginning, he had never even considered clashing Twin Moon with Joyful Death Saber.
Because Joyful Death Saber would break.
It was simply a weapon of a different grade; it couldn’t be compared to Twin Moon, Venom Demon’s former weapon. There was no way something buried under a pleasure house would surpass what Venom Demon had used.
Still, Jin Sohan thought it was a saber worth handing to his underlings.
I should give it to Choo Sahyeok.
The saber Jin Sohan needed to use wasn’t Joyful Death Saber—it was Choo Sahyeok. So giving him Joyful Death Saber was only a way to make the saber named Choo Sahyeok sharper.
Holding Joyful Death Saber, Jin Sohan looked toward the man in blue martial robes, who was still choosing a sword. Jin Sohan’s gaze carried a single meaning.
Can I make that man my sword….
Just as the man examined swords, Jin Sohan was examining him.