Chapter 16 :

Chapter 16. Third-Rate Warrior Who Saves a Girl (3)

Back to the Iron Sword Sect.

Seong Cheonwol had refused everyone else’s farewell, but he could not ignore seeing off the chief strategist of the Murim Alliance. After seeing Jegal Somyeong off with a rotten expression, he went to visit Seong Mohyeon, who was said to be causing disturbances every day in the golden prison.

“You bastard! Do you think you can still keep your life after doing this? Who is supposed to inherit the Iron Sword Sect in the future?”

Though he was the root cause behind the loss of the patriarch’s sword, Seong Mohyeon was brazen.

“Grandfather! This cannot be! He definitely learned the Great Energy-Absorbing Art. Call the Inspection Pavilion of the Murim Alliance and…”

“Shut your mouth, you bastard! You intend to uproot even the very foundation of the Iron Sword Sect!”

“I am certain. His techniques would not connect…”

“You foolish…”

Seong Cheonwol, the leader of the Iron Sword Sect, thought that if he entrusted the Iron Sword Sect to this foolish grandson any longer, a disaster would happen, and a very great disaster at that.

“Bring Moran here.”

“Pardon?”

“Seong Mohyeon. If you can endure fifty moves against Moran, I will pardon you for all the sins you have committed.”

“…What does that mean?”

At Seong Cheonwol’s sudden words, Seong Mohyeon, Seong Jutak, and the other warriors of the Iron Sword Sect all wore bewildered expressions.

“Moran, unfold everything you have.”

“…”

“Do not think of hiding it. As you saw, the survival of the Iron Sword Sect is already hanging at the edge of a cliff. In this situation, can that fellow Seong Mohyeon inherit the Iron Sword Sect?”

“…Understood.”

The others listening to the conversation between Seong Cheonwol and Seong Moran could not understand the current situation at all.

“Grandfather! This cannot be! How could you exclude the eldest son?”

“You foolish…”

“I did my best for the Iron Sword Sect.”

Seong Mohyeon’s anger, which had nowhere to go, naturally turned toward Seong Moran in the end. After all the care he had shown her until now, she too had ultimately been a rival aiming for succession.

“Moran! How dare you!”

“Shut up and come at me.”

Seong Mohyeon felt a rage greater than when he had been beaten by Jin Sowoon.

The sense of betrayal from a blood relative who had always been with him since birth turned into hatred that even stirred murderous intent.

“Someone like you…!”

From the very beginning, he unfolded the Mountain-Breaking Sword Art at ten-star mastery.

He used a killing technique right from the start.

As if representing his state of mind, the movement of his sword was violent and without restraint.

However.

“…!”

Bang.

The thunderous metallic sound could not continue even three times.

Seong Mohyeon was struck by the flat of Seong Moran’s sword, flew three jang away, and rolled across the ground.

“What…!”

“Get up, elder brother.”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It was a completely different sound from the duel with Jin Sowoon.

The collision between Mountain-Breaking Sword Art and Mountain-Breaking Sword Art scattered loud explosive sounds in all directions.

Unlike Seong Moran, whose expression did not change, Seong Mohyeon’s face was already filled with desperation and astonishment.

The feeling of wanting to use strength, yet no strength entering his body.

The feeling of becoming powerless despite the fact that his internal energy and achievement in techniques were clearly higher.

Boom.

This time, Seong Mohyeon flew four jang away and stared blankly at Seong Moran, unable even to spring back to his feet.

He had clearly thought she was beneath him.

There had been a few sharp counterattacks, but he had always overwhelmed her.

What was this?

It was as if his techniques were being cut off one by one, and his strength was draining away.

His hands and feet, which should have moved naturally, moved out of sync as if they were not his own.

“This is…”

A heavy voice of interrogation pierced Seong Mohyeon, who was dazed.

“Did Moran learn the Great Energy-Absorbing Art as well?”

“…”

Seong Mohyeon could not continue speaking.

“Take him away.”

The warriors of the Iron Sword Sect grabbed Seong Mohyeon, whom they had once favored, as carelessly as a great criminal and began dragging him to the golden prison.

Drag, drag, drag, drag.

Seong Mohyeon was in such great shock that he could not walk on his own and was dragged away.

‘But when that bastard’s hand touched me, surely…’

The doubts remained in his head, but Seong Mohyeon could not bring himself to speak them aloud.

Because Seong Moran had already proven just how great a mistake he had made, he had now become afraid even to open his mouth.

#

To remove the Gyeryong Merchant Guild from the Taeul Sect, the Taeul Sect’s finances had to be reorganized first.

There would be various ways to resolve the Taeul Sect’s chronic financial deficit.

I could gather money by selling the elixirs recorded in the Murim Elixir Records, and there was also the method of retrieving treasures from undiscovered treasure vaults or tombs.

But I had to eat all the elixirs myself, and most of the treasures were in distant provinces, so I could not obtain them immediately.

“Even if I discover them, bringing back the treasures and disposing of them would also be a problem.”

Elixirs and treasures were the same.

If a rumor spread that something had appeared somewhere, wolf-like people from all over the murim world would gather, and a war would break out.

Since these kinds of wars caused damage no less severe than wars against the dark faction or the Demonic Cult, the Murim Alliance would dispatch faster than for any other report, trying to prevent bloodshed caused by elixirs or treasures.

Thanks to that, when mounted bandits or mountain bandits came rushing into a village, people sometimes reported that an elixir had appeared instead of reporting that a gang of robbers had come.

In any case, ultimately, the best method was to bring in a sponsor like the Gyeryong Merchant Guild, even if only as a temporary measure.

If one looked for a merchant guild that could replace the Gyeryong Merchant Guild, one could find quite a few even within Anhui Province.

Nearby were Nanjing in Jiangsu Province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, so Anhui Province had favorable conditions for merchants and escort agencies to expand their influence, and there were many wealthy magnates accordingly.

The problem was that those with tremendous financial power had no interest in the Taeul Sect.

To those who thoroughly calculated profits and losses, the Taeul Sect had nothing to give.

If so, what was needed was not a give-and-take relationship, but sponsorship arising from gratitude.

And for someone with great wealth, that gratitude would be sufficiently great as well.

“They say the Wang Family Estate’s house was so wide that they ended up creating an entire village.”

“How many employees and family members are attached to it? I heard even neighboring provinces said they would give free land if they moved their residence to their province.”

“I am the very person who built that Wang Family village. Wangbu!”

“Do you work at the Wang Family Estate?”

“I said I built Wangbu. I raised the roof tiles and the crossbeams and everything.”

“…Are you joking? Mr. Gwak, shut up and just eat your side dishes.”

The Wang Family Estate was a long-established family that had built enormous wealth over ten generations, starting with the Wang Fabric Shop.

Starting with the Wang Banking House, they operated countless businesses such as the Wang Merchant Guild, Wang Escort Agency, Wang Inn, and so on. They had even obtained the qualification of salt merchant, a monopoly right granted by the state, and had become a family that amassed such tremendous wealth that they ranked among the top three not only in Anhui Province but under all heaven.

Of course, such an enormous family had no reason to deal with the Taeul Sect.

“But it would be different if their precious daughter were involved.”

Wang Soso, the only precious daughter whom Wang Geumsan, the current estate lord, had obtained in his old age.

He cherished her so dearly that Wang Soso had never gone outside until she turned fifteen, and she took care of both her studies and hobbies within the huge mansion that was like a whale’s back.

It was said that even when she went outside, she merely circled the mansion courtyard in a carriage, so one could tell just how great Wang Geumsan’s wealth was, and how dearly he cherished his daughter with that wealth.

“They say Wang Soso’s beauty is so extraordinary that anyone who sees her once is enchanted, and anyone who sees her twice falls ill, so he hides her because he worries she will be taken by the emperor.”

“I heard she has already entered the palace and is no longer in Wangbu.”

In my previous life, there was an incident where that very girl went missing and disappeared forever.

Wang Geumsan emptied all the family wealth accumulated over ten generations to find Wang Soso, but in the end, Wang Soso was found nowhere.

And I knew the culprit whom Wang Geumsan had failed to find even after emptying all his family wealth.

“When I first learned this fact, I almost fainted. To think… they had moved…”

The Murim Alliance was a place where information from the entire murim world gathered and then spread out again.

As such, there was a wide variety of information there, from trivial information to classified information that must not spread to the world, and the Intelligence Department assigned grades to that information and classified it.

Most of the Intelligence Department’s information did not go beyond top-grade rank.

Each document was filled with information important enough to shake the state of the murim world, so the management of that information was just as strict.

However, there was a place that made even the Intelligence Department’s information look shabby.

It was the Intelligence Department’s secret division, Simhyeon Pavilion.

Most of the information in Simhyeon Pavilion was assigned an above-top-grade rank.

The information in this place could only be viewed by the manager of Simhyeon Pavilion, the chief strategist of the Intelligence Department, and the Murim Alliance Leader. Once information was designated classified and sealed, even the Alliance Leader could never open it.

What kind of information was this important?

Most of it was the weaknesses and dirty secrets of the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families.

The materials of Simhyeon Pavilion were things gathered to tighten the leashes of the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families, who had become giant trees of the murim world.

“From the moment they made me memorize Simhyeon Pavilion’s materials in the first place, my life and death must have already been decided.”

After briefly recalling the final moments of my previous life, I quickly shook my head.

In any case, it was in this Simhyeon Pavilion that I learned the culprit behind the “Wang Soso Disappearance Case,” which had thrown all under heaven into an uproar.

It was that place, one that no one could have predicted at the time.

“Changgung Merchant Guild…”

At the time, there were three sects implicated in the Wang Soso Disappearance Case.

The dark faction sects Gyeonsa Sect and Hyeolju Fort, which were named as suspects, were annihilated, and even the righteous faction sect Tanghyeon Sect could not avoid annihilation.

Even so, no trace of Wang Soso could be found, and Wang Geumsan, who had recklessly pushed the matter forward, had to pay enormous compensation to the Murim Alliance and the Dark Faction Alliance.

“In the first place, they had been dancing on the board laid out by the Changgung Merchant Guild, so of course they could never find Wang Soso even if they died trying.”

The Changgung Merchant Guild was a newly established merchant guild created by the Namgung Family.

At this time, the Changgung Merchant Guild’s greatest concern was that it did not have history and tradition as deep as the Wang Family Estate.

To resolve this, they entered the bidding for the rights of a salt merchant, but they could not surpass the Wang Family Estate, which had protected the salt merchant rights for one hundred and ten years without any problems.

Namgung Sangwon, the head of a branch family of the Namgung Family and the actual owner of the Changgung Merchant Guild, judged that in order for the Changgung Merchant Guild to grow, it had no choice but to step over the Wang Family Estate, and he plotted the matter for that purpose.

“And this time, I intend to throw chili powder on that operation of yours.”

It was not as if there were no other useful matters in the memories of my previous life right now.

Even so, I deliberately chose the matter of the Changgung Merchant Guild.

I had not chosen the difficult-to-deal-with Changgung Merchant Guild because of some petty chivalrous spirit or sense of justice.

“At the Iron Sword Sect, they acted as if it had nothing to do with them.”

The bloody battle with Seong Mohyeon.

The “forbidden art” incident, in which even the chief strategist of the Murim Alliance had stepped forward.

In the middle of all that, Namgung Sangwon had been yawning on the platform as if bored.

Knowing that the Iron Sword Sect’s tyranny within Anhui Province was also thanks to the tacit approval of the Namgung Family and, furthermore, the influence of the Changgung Merchant Guild, there was no way I could see that sight in a favorable light.

That attitude of driving another person’s life to the edge of a cliff and still acting as if it had nothing to do with them.

“In that case, there should be no great problem if I throw a little chili powder into your business, right?”

Even though the opponent was the Changgung Merchant Guild of the Namgung Family, I was not that afraid.

If they were warriors of the Changgung Merchant Guild, they would naturally have learned the Boundless Blue Sky Sword Art, and since I knew the details of the kidnapping process, there were many things I could prepare.

Most of all.

“Seong Moran may not be such a bad woman after all.”

The spirit pill Seong Moran handed over was none other than the Steel Guardian Pill.

It could not compare to the Mount Hua Sect’s Snow Plum Pill, but it was an elixir so precious that it could not even be compared to something like an Iron Heart Pill.

She had readily given me that spirit pill, which only the most direct of direct descendants in the Iron Sword Sect could eat.

After digesting the Iron Heart Pill and the Steel Guardian Pill, my internal energy was approaching forty-five years in one breath.

“Let’s see your clothes get dirtied by the filth you splashed around.”

In any case, in the future, I would have to face the Demonic Cult and the entire Murim Alliance.

The final boss was far too great an existence for me to fear something like a branch family of the Namgung Family.