Baek Chan-yeol bared his teeth, both eyes bloodshot, looking ready to tear someone limb from limb.
Baek Do-gyeom, by contrast, was beyond calm. There was not the slightest flicker in him.
"Do you have anything more to say? I merely set an ill-mannered younger cousin straight as the Young Clan Head, exactly as you taught me."
"Hah......"
Baek Chan-yeol let out a hollow breath, aghast. Then again, this was the kind of brat he had always been.
A scoundrel bastard who knew nothing of his own place and ran wild with no regard for above or below.
'So be it. Enjoy yourself all you like. That one scrap of authority you hold will not last much longer.'
His head cooled. And then it was his own son who looked strange to him.
'Struck by a Young Clan Head who has not even learned martial arts. Pathetic wretch! And what was that terrified look in his eyes?'
For the boy who would one day be Clan Head to be so feeble. And to take a slap in the face from a lowly wretch like that?
'Wait......'
Doubt flashed in Baek Chan-yeol's eyes as he swallowed a sigh.
Come to think of it, did any of this make sense?
Unlike the Young Clan Head, Baek Tae-jin had been born with martial bones.
Naturally, he had trained without a single lapse since childhood.
On top of that, he had recently reached the ninth stage of the White Flower Sword Art, the Baek Clan's foundation and its basic martial art.
Which meant that, however much older the Young Clan Head was, Baek Tae-jin could have dodged easily if he had wanted to.
At the time he had been too dumbfounded to see it properly, but the more he chewed it over, the less ordinary it seemed.
'That brat seized the spot in a single instant, cut off Tae-jin's attack, and landed a slap. Is such a thing possible by chance?'
It could not be.
'Then could he have secretly learned some martial arts?!'
Baek Chan-yeol narrowed his eyes and glared at Baek Do-gyeom.
"Haah......"
But from a few slaps alone his breathing was irregular, and his face looked pale.
Sickly through and through, any way you looked at it.
'Even so, I must make certain.'
Baek Chan-yeol was a snake that fed on suspicion. With a cold look in his eyes, he shot out his hand as fast as lightning.
He snatched Baek Do-gyeom's wrist in one motion and sent his own true energy flowing into him.
And yet.
"......!"
His furious eyes went blank in an instant.
No reaction. Nothing came back at all.
Normally, if a man had inner arts, the true energy would be repelled or would fall into step. Any response at all would have been normal.
Not the faintest trace of energy could be felt from Baek Do-gyeom's body.
Which meant he still had not learned martial arts. It meant he was nothing at all.
'So he flinched simply because that brat is his elder?! What a pathetic bastard!'
His fury at Baek Tae-jin, standing there sullen for no reason, only doubled.
Not that any of it mattered.
"What exactly do you think you're doing?"
Baek Do-gyeom asked with a cool smile. Baek Chan-yeol let go of his hand with a start.
"First you strike a warrior of the main family, and now you'd do harm to me, the Young Clan Head. Am I to read this as your true intent, Uncle?"
"Ahem!"
At the chilling reading, Baek Chan-yeol coughed and smoothed the shock off his face.
"There was no other meaning. You simply looked unwell, so I checked your pulse."
"Is that so? I'm grateful for the concern, but I'll look after my own body."
The insolent bastard. Baek Chan-yeol's face twisted.
But what was he to do?
For now, Baek Do-gyeom was still the Young Clan Head, and the one who stood above him in this house.
'Prance about all you like. The days when you can strut are all but gone.'
"What are you standing there for? Go and pay your respects to the Clan Head!"
"Pardon? Yes......"
Baek Chan-yeol raised his voice at Baek Tae-jin for no reason and headed for the Clan Head's Hall.
"Ah, that reminds me."
Not far along, he stopped and said with a grin.
"You'll have heard that the Myriad Talent Assessment is to be held here in fifteen days?"
"......!"
"Oh dear, don't tell me you hadn't heard? Then again, there's no need to tell you."
Baek Do-gyeom was mildly surprised. His uncle's provocation had not landed in the slightest, but the Myriad Talent Assessment was a phrase he remembered.
'So the Jiangnan Baek Clan held a Myriad Talent Assessment too.'
Cheon Su-hyeok had come in by sitting the examination, so Baek Do-gyeom had never seen one for himself, but he had heard the rumors.
Win the recognition of one of the Ten Great Masters and take home a recommendation letter, and a boy could enter the Righteous Heaven Academy with no conditions at all.
And to think there had been no need to tell him.
When he looked over, puzzled, Baek Chan-yeol twisted his lip upward and answered.
"At the Myriad Talent Assessment, recommendation letters are written only for prodigies. What would you do there, when you can't even learn the family's martial art? It would only sour your stomach."
"......!"
Kang Woo-jin seemed to be hearing it for the first time, and looked greatly startled.
"Oh dear, this is something only the family knows. Was that a slip of the tongue? Hahaha! But what can I do? You coddle that butcher so much that I naturally assumed he knew. Still, don't trouble yourself over the Myriad Talent Assessment. Tae-jin here will stand in your place. Hmhmhm. Well then, do carry on."
With that jab, Baek Chan-yeol led his household away.
"Wow, damn. That guy's fucking insufferable. What kind of person is that?! Now I see why you turned into a scoundrel."
Kang Woo-jin forced out his indignation. But it was plain to see, the way he kept glancing over, unable to settle.
"No need to walk on eggshells. Nothing changes now that you know, and it's not something I'd hide."
"No, I just......"
Kang Woo-jin smacked his lips awkwardly. But he had meant it.
The truth was, even I had not known Baek Do-gyeom's situation was this dire.
'The heir of a martial family who can't learn martial arts, with the man who calls himself his uncle tightening a noose behind his back. It must have felt like walking on thin ice. And that's my future now.'
Of course, I would never let it run that way.
I let out a shallow sigh and spoke to the warriors around me.
"All of you, go and rest. Put some ice on it, too."
And then.
"Loyalty—!"
The warriors shouted it at the top of their lungs, voices full of devotion, gave the clasped hands greeting, and filed out.
"What's with them?"
Baek Do-gyeom tilted his head at the excessive reaction, but Kang Woo-jin understood their hearts perfectly.
'Why else? Because they're grateful. Same as me...... Honestly, what a strange guy.'
Bit by bit, whether he knew it or not, Baek Do-gyeom had begun to occupy Kang Woo-jin's thoughts.
***
Late that night.
"Why, what brings you here?"
Baek Do-gyeom had come to Chief Steward Dan's quarters. He had a few things to ask.
"Hey! I came too."
It was not particularly welcome, but Kang Woo-jin had come along as well.
"May we come in for a moment?"
"Is there anywhere the young master of the house may not go? Please, come in."
Chief Steward Dan nodded readily and showed the two of them inside.
"It is humble, but please, sit."
"Oh, it really is humble."
Kang Woo-jin landed a blunt truth without an ounce of tact. But he was not exactly wrong.
For the room of a Chief Steward, the second man of the clan, it was old and plain. A detail that said everything about how he spent his money.
"So, what brings you......?"
When Chief Steward Dan asked carefully, Baek Do-gyeom came straight to the point.
"I want to know about the Myriad Talent Assessment that will be held in fifteen days."
"Gasp!"
Chief Steward Dan felt a pain in his gut and asked in a trembling voice.
"Did you...... hear it from your uncle?"
"What are you, a ghost?"
When Kang Woo-jin marveled beside him, Chief Steward Dan clenched his teeth with a troubled look.
There seemed to be a long history between the main family and the uncle. But none of that mattered.
"Rather than who told me, isn't it more important that I, the Young Clan Head, didn't know?"
"Hmm, my apologies. The Clan Head asked everyone to hold their tongues......"
"I'm not trying to lay blame."
With the old Baek Do-gyeom, it would have been understandable. His first thought would have been how to wreck it.
"Since you have already heard it, I will tell you. It is true. In fifteen days, one of the Righteous Heaven Academy's Ten Great Masters will come here."
"Aren't the Ten Great Masters some of the top masters in the whole martial world?"
It was just as Kang Woo-jin said.
The Righteous Heaven Academy's Academy Head was one of the Ten Venerables Under Heaven, the greatest masters of the age.
Ten remarkable figures whom the Gold Venerable, Wi Jung-geo, had hired himself.
Their stations and their histories all differed, but one thing was certain. Every last one of them was a master no one could afford to dismiss.
"The one who will come to the main family this time goes by the courtesy name Sword Dream."
"Sword Dream? Who's that?"
Kang Woo-jin tilted his head as though hearing it for the first time. That was fair enough. The man was known by his epithet far more than by his name.
"A man mad for the sword. They say there's nothing in his head but swords."
"Don't tell me......"
"That's right. The Sword Madman, Sword Dream."
"Gasp!"
Kang Woo-jin let out a cry of amazement. That was how widely known the man was.
He was one of the very men who had raised the fame of the Ten Great Masters.
Because his record against the Namgung Clan Head, known as the Sword Saint of this age, stood even at one win and one loss.
"S-someone like that's coming here? In fifteen days, no less?!"
"That is so. And he will watch the demonstrations of Jiangnan's prodigies and write a recommendation letter for one person alone. If one of the Ten Great Masters vouches for you, there is no need even to sit the entrance examination. That is the Myriad Talent Assessment."
Now it made perfect sense.
"Hold on. Then that insufferable punk earlier, saying he would stand in for the Myriad Talent Assessment......"
"That's right. It means he intends to put Baek Tae-jin forward as the main family's representative in my place."
"What the hell!"
Chief Steward Dan let out a deep sigh and added.
"I have heard that Sword Dream never speaks falsely where the sword is concerned. To be acknowledged by such a man would be more than simply receiving a recommendation letter."
"Then what is it?!"
What else? It was obvious. I shrugged and answered evenly.
"It means shaking the Baek Clan's line of succession. He's after the next Clan Head's seat."
"Whaaat?!"
"If Baek Tae-jin makes his name known under heaven overnight as a rising talent, the clan elders will have no reason to object."
"Hey, damn it, that's not right!"
Kang Woo-jin burst out in shock and glanced at Chief Steward Dan. Asking whether this was true.
But the one more shocked was Chief Steward Dan. Not because Baek Do-gyeom knew of it.
'How can a man who ought to be raging like fire be this calm?'
Because he was sipping his tea as if they were discussing someone else entirely.
'He truly has changed. This is not the Young Master of before.'
It felt as if he had become another person overnight. Not that this was a bad thing. It was good. It was the very thing he had longed for.
But that was exactly why it was all the more bitter.
"......He has coveted the Clan Head's seat since long ago. It is plain that he means to shake the family with this Myriad Talent Assessment. But we have no grounds to stop him. If the main family's own rising talent were absent from a Myriad Talent Assessment held in the main family, our face would be worth nothing."
In a word, there was no one at all to replace Baek Tae-jin.
"Does Father know as well?"
"Of course. But whatever his hidden intent, Young Hero Baek is also of the main family's blood. The Clan Head believes his chance must never be blocked."
A posture worthy of the Clan Head. Chief Steward Dan knew it too, and that made his heart heavier still.
'If only the Young Master had learned the White Flower Sword Art, things would be different......'
But that was no more than a dream.
With a mere fifteen days left, by what means could anyone learn the White Flower Sword Art?
And yet.
"Then I'll go out there myself."
"......!"
An utterly unbelievable declaration came out of Baek Do-gyeom's mouth.
"Go out, you say...... out where?"
Chief Steward Dan was so startled that he asked again. But the answer was the same.
"The Myriad Talent Assessment. I'm saying I'll take part."
"G-gasp!"
Chief Steward Dan's eyes bulged as if they might fall out. Had he misheard just now?
But the reaction of Kang Woo-jin beside him was even more of a spectacle.
"Oh, good idea! It'd be too unfair to have it stolen by a lout like that!"
What in the world was this......
"Fifteen days is tight, though."
T-tight?!
"Are you mocking me right now?"
"Hm?"
Chief Steward Dan raised his voice sharply.
"Or do you think the Myriad Talent Assessment is some trifle? The Ten Great Masters will be there, and so will the clan elders and all the notables of Jiangnan. It is not a place a man may step into lightly, in a playful mood!"
"I know."
"Pardon?"
"And I'm not treating it lightly."
Quite the opposite. Right now Baek Do-gyeom was more serious than anyone.
'The whole thing began when Cheon Su-hyeok entered the Academy this year.'
So having resolved to stop the original, he had to enter the Righteous Heaven Academy without fail.
And into the Azure Dragon Corps, not the Black Tortoise Corps.
On top of that.
'I can't let Baek Tae-jin, who picked fights with Cheon Su-hyeok at every turn, have that recommendation letter.'
And naturally, the Baek Clan could not be handed over either.
In the end there was only one answer left.
"Let's do this properly. In earnest."
Baek Do-gyeom looked Chief Steward Dan straight in the eye, without a trace of humor on his face.
At that, Chief Steward Dan shut his eyes tight.
Do not fall for it. Do not fall for it. This is the scoundrel throwing his weight around!
But.
"You'll help me, won't you?"
Hah. What had gotten into him in his old age? He knew it made no sense, and still that shamelessness kept pulling him in.
"What in the world do you intend to do?"
In the end, at the question of a resigned Chief Steward Dan, Baek Do-gyeom smiled faintly and answered.
"Let's start from the basics."