Chapter 2: Chapter 2
The interior of the inn was filled with light noise.
On the first floor of the two-story courtyard-style inn, a variety of people could be seen, those eating dinner, men drinking liquor, and people fiddling with dominoes at a corner table. Among them, a pot-bellied middle-aged man who appeared to be the innkeeper bustled back and forth carrying noodle bowls, liquor bottles, and side dishes.
Just then, a man wearing a bamboo hat parted the bead curtain of the inn and stepped inside.
He was an outsider. People eating noodles and drinking liquor stole glances at him. Judging by the sword at his waist, he was likely a martial artist, but in the New Continent, every Tom, Dick, and Harry held a spear or sword and babbled about being a martial artist, so he was hardly anything unusual.
As the man walked in with heavy footsteps and paused upon feeling their gazes, the innkeeper approached him. Wiping his hands on a towel attached to his belt, the innkeeper spoke.
“Ah, an outsider. Welcome, come on in.”
The man nudged up his bamboo hat with a finger and looked at the innkeeper. Observing the man’s eyes visible beneath the hat, the innkeeper continued.
“Staying the night?”
“And a meal.”
The innkeeper nodded.
“Ten copper coins.”
Without a word, the man pulled ten copper coins from his bosom and handed them over. Taking them, the innkeeper walked toward the kitchen and said,
“Take a seat wherever you like. I’ll whip up a bowl of noodles in no time.”
Walking over to a corner of the inn, the man drew the scabbard with his sword still inside from his waist, set it upright beside the table, and took off his bamboo hat.
Seeing that he was unlikely to cause any trouble, the inn, which had quieted down slightly, began to grow noisy again.
The man, Jang Geon, sat comfortably with both hands resting on the table, slowly scanning the people inside the inn.
Most of the patrons in the inn and tavern were local villagers or nearby farmers. Though a few had set swords or sabers beside their tables like him, there were three or four at most. In the cities and towns along the western coast, arrogance-filled fools posturing as martial artists outnumbered ordinary commoners, but this region was quite far from there. There were more farmers than swordsmen.
Thus, even the few swordsmen present seemed like nothing more than wanderers who had procured bladed weapons for self-defense.
Although there were quite a few customers, the innkeeper seemed to be the sole hand working the place. The waiters commonly seen in other inns were nowhere in sight, nor were the innkeeper’s wife or children. Given the state of the inn, Jang Geon figured it would take some time just to get a bowl of noodles cooked up.
“Dammit! You bastard! You just cheated, didn’t you?”
“What? Cheating? You don’t even think about your own clumsy fingers, and you dare say what?”
Just then, voices were raised among the men playing dominoes in the corner of the inn. A man jumped to his feet, glaring at the man sitting with his back to Jang Geon, and began accusing him of cheating. The two of them then leapt up from their seats, shouting verbal abuse about killing each other.
As if this were a common sight, the patrons in the inn merely shook their heads slightly or chuckled as they drank. Even the innkeeper, hearing the commotion, only popped his head out past the kitchen curtain, snorted, and went back inside. Since no one appeared tense or anxious, it seemed the altercation would end with them just trading curses.
However, Jang Geon’s eyes were fixed on them. To be precise, it was from the moment he heard the voice of the man standing with his back to him.
“Fuck! Then does it make sense that you’ve been winning all day while I’ve been losing?!”
“Look here, I’m telling you, isn’t that a problem with your own fingers? Everyone except you won plenty, didn’t they?”
“Why you little…?”
Unable to contain his anger any longer, the man accusing him of cheating shoved his opponent with both hands. The man who had been mocking him stumbled back a couple of steps before growling in return.
“What? You really want to do this?”
“Yeah, you bastard! Did you think I was a complete sucker just because I let you get away with it until now?”
Ultimately, the two men grabbed each other by the collar, shaking violently while screaming unintelligible curses. And Jang Geon, who had been watching the commotion until then, was finally able to confirm the face of the man who had shown only his back.
A faint smile rose at the corners of his lips.
“That bastard was here.”
Muttering softly, Jang Geon quietly watched the scuffle for a moment before rising from his seat and stepping toward them with steady strides. Even as he approached, the two men were spitting harsh insults into each other’s faces. The other people at the table only smirked, having no intention of stopping them.
“Hey.”
Hearing Jang Geon’s voice, the two men wrestling by their collars turned their heads. The one accusing the other of cheating looked at Jang Geon with a face that said ‘Who the hell is this guy?’, but the other man froze in shock, his face draining of color.
“…What is it?”
At the question from the man claiming fraud, Jang Geon shook his head.
“Not you.”
Hearing Jang Geon’s words, the man whose face had turned pale rolled his eyes anxiously left and right, then forced a weak, slimy grin and spoke.
“…Brother Jang, I see you here?”
“Yeah. It’s been two months. Have you been well?”
The man quietly let go of his opponent’s collar and took a step back. Surprised, the other man let go of his clothes as well.
“Me? Well… I-I’ve been well. S-So, Brother Jang, have you been well?”
Smiling, Jang Geon shook his head.
“I haven’t been doing well. How is it that every single one of your gang says they’ve been doing well?”
“…It seems you found the other fellas too?”
“Yeah. You’re the last one.”
The man stealthily took another step backward.
“T-That is… To be honest, I-I said we shouldn’t do it. Isn’t that right? Does it make sense to fleece a sword-toting martial artist with dominoes? If we got caught, we’d obviously get sliced!”
“Yet in the end, you guys did it.”
Hearing Jang Geon’s response, the man stared blankly at him, let out a ‘haha’, and suddenly turned to flee. But the moment he turned, he felt a rough, brutal hand grab the back of his head. And that hand slammed his head straight down onto the table covered in dominoes.
“Argh!”
As the man’s forehead slammed into the table, the dominoes and coins bounced. The people nearby recoiled in surprise. With his face pinned down, the man flailed his arms and legs in pain from the dizziness, trying to escape Jang Geon’s grip, but the hand pinning his head remained as unyielding as a boulder.
“R-Really, I said we shouldn’t do it! And in the end, Brother Jang was the one who kept sitting there until all your money was stripped away! We had no intention of holding Brother Jang back if you stood up halfway through! Really! Please give me a break!”
Without answering, Jang Geon grabbed the man’s left hand, pinned it to the table, and pulled out the hidden dominoes from inside his sleeve. Thrusting the dominoes right in front of the man’s face, Jang Geon leaned close and whispered in a low voice.
“Does that change the fact that you cheated at the gambling table? Cut the bullshit, Yang Goeng. Where’s my money?”
The man named Yang Goeng swallowed hard upon seeing Jang Geon’s glistening eyes and answered.
“…W-Well, I paid it as a bounty to the Martial Alliance.”
“What the fuck? You paid a bounty with that?”
Terrified by Jang Geon’s grimacing face, Yang Goeng trembled violently.
“W-Well, there’s a branch of the Martial Alliance right here, so what was I supposed to do? I had to come into an inn and eat a meal too…”
Jang Geon grabbed Yang Goeng’s head from the table, hauled him up, and grabbed him by the collar.
“So you’re saying you don’t have a single copper?”
“N-No, it’s not that, I won some money after coming here… so with that…”
Yang Goeng gestured with his eyes toward the coins laid out on the table. Seeing that, Jang Geon shoved Yang Goeng aside and stepped over to where he had been sitting. He then began scooping up the coins scattered there.
The man who had cursed Yang Goeng as a cheater, the people sitting with him gambling, and all the patrons inside the inn merely stared blankly at the scene. It appeared that Yang Goeng had cheated at gambling before and fled, only to be caught now; even considering those circumstances, Jang Geon’s current actions were unhesitatingly ruthless.
“H-Hold on. Stop right there!”
Just then, the man who had been cursing Yang Goeng snapped back to his senses and shouted at Jang Geon.
“Hold on! That’s all money won through cheating! That’s my money!”
Glancing at the yelling man, Jang Geon kept gathering the coins and answered.
“That’s not my responsibility. Get it back from this guy yourself later.”
“Wh-What the fuck?”
Hearing Jang Geon’s response, the man’s face flushed with anger once more as he extended both hands. It seemed he intended to push him just as he had pushed Yang Goeng.
But the moment the man tried to push Jang Geon, Jang Geon grabbed his hands, pulled him forward, and lightly stepped aside.
“Whoops!”
Jerked forward, the man pitched forward and tumbled onto the floor. Having never learned martial arts, he slammed his face right into the ground. Whether his face got scraped up or not, Jang Geon turned back to the table and collected Yang Goeng’s coins.
Having gathered all the coins at the table in no time, Jang Geon stowed them into his chest pocket, turned around, and grabbed Yang Goeng, who was sitting slumped on the floor, by the collar once again.
“Wh-Why are you doing this, Brother Jang!”
“Why else, you bastard? Because this falls way short.”
“T-That is… I really don’t have anything left now…”
Yang Goeng offered a silly smile as if proving his point, showing his two empty hands. It was as if to say he truly possessed nothing more, and if he didn’t believe it, he could search his whole body.
Just as Jang Geon was considering whether he should strip this guy’s clothes off completely:
“Y-You bastard!”
The man who had fallen onto the floor stood up holding his nose, glaring at Jang Geon. Blood dripped steadily from between the fingers clutching his nose.
“Fuck! You turned my nose into this state? You’re dead meat!”
Seeing that unsightly mess, Jang Geon smacked his lips awkward-like and said,
“Sorry for hurting you. But I’ve lost more than a penny or two to this guy myself…”
Jang Geon trailed off. This was because the man, who looked ready to charge at any second, suddenly turned and fled right out of the inn. Staring blankly at the man’s retreating back, Jang Geon let out an amused snort and turned his eyes back to Yang Goeng.
“What kind of idiot is that guy?”
“W-Well… first of all, that guy’s name is Jin Yangseok…”
Jang Geon cut off Yang Goeng’s words and shook his head.
“Forget it. What are you going to do?”
“H-Huh? What do you mean?”
The grip of Jang Geon’s hand on his collar tightened.
“Are you going to return my money somehow, or do you want your dantian shattered?”
At those words, Yang Goeng’s left eye and both hands trembled violently.
“E-Even if you scatter my tiny speck of internal energy, what… what good will that do you, Brother Jang?”
Feeling not a single shred of sympathy despite the piteous tremble in his voice, Jang Geon silently thrust his left fist, clenched hard as stone, right in front of Yang Goeng’s eyes.
Looking nervously back and forth between that fist and Jang Geon’s eyes, Yang Goeng soon let out a deep sigh, slumped his shoulders, and spoke with lowered eyes.
“…Then please let go of me first. I have an item in my bosom.”
When Jang Geon released his grip, Yang Goeng loosened his collar slightly, tore open a neatly hidden corner of his inner tunic, and pulled out a small cloth bundle. Then, with sluggish movements, he unwrapped the cloth to reveal a small jade ring.
Looking at the jade ring, he let out another sigh before offering it to Jang Geon.
“…Well, you see, I got this in New Sichuan a while back. It’s real jade, so if you find a proper buyer, it’ll fetch a decent price.”
Accepting it, Jang Geon turned it this way and that before his eyes, then slipped it straight into his breast pocket. Watching Jang Geon’s expression carefully, Yang Goeng asked,
“H-How is it? That should be enough, right?”
“Yeah. This will do.”
Jang Geon smirked as he spoke. Glancing at Yang Goeng, who awkward-like imitated his smirk, Jang Geon turned his head toward the innkeeper standing outside the kitchen. Then, seemingly unbothered by the baffled stares sent by the inn’s patrons, he calmly asked the bewildered innkeeper,
“When are my noodles coming out?”