Chapter 357: Feudal Lords of the Empire (4)
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“…….”
Silence enveloped the gathering.
None of the feudal lords, not even Yeo Bul-jin, seemed to have expected that I would defeat Wave Exalt.
I had no particular grudge against Wave Exalt either. It was just that he was a person of the Private Martial Union, and the difference between us was not so large that I could spare his life by a narrow margin.
Naturally, my martial arts level and movements could not yet match Wave Exalt. Even so, the only reason I was able to win was my eyes—thanks to the Heavenly Eye.
I looked at the feudal lords. They stared blankly at Wave Exalt’s corpse before being startled out of their wits when their eyes met mine.
“There seems to be no need for further talk. Since you feudal lords brought Wave Exalt to kill me as well, after all.”
I walked forward. Although the feudal lords had brought other bodyguards besides Wave Exalt, from the moment Wave Exalt—the highest expert among them—was killed by me, they were meaningless existences.
“A-Are you trying to intimidate feudal lords!”
Prince Han shouted in a deliberately loud voice, but the trembling in his tone could not be concealed.
“Don’t you think we have come too far to brush it off with such words at this point?”
As I approached, Yeo Bul-jin belatedly stepped forward and held my shoulder as if embracing it.
“Look here, Association Master. Endure it. They are still feudal lords.”
“They are people who tried to kill me.”
“Even so……”
Yeo Bul-jin trailed off as if in a difficult position. Seeing that, the feudal lords seemed to place their final hope on Yeo Bul-jin.
“C-Company Lord. Please stop the New Justice Association Master. We understand he is angry, but there is a need to think rationally.”
I scoffed. For Prince Ye, whose ear had been severed while putting on airs before me, to say such a thing.
Yeo Bul-jin raised his voice even further at the feudal lords’ gazes.
“If you harm the feudal lords right now, the imperial palace will immediately suppress the New Justice Association with great force. You would merely be handing justification to the imperial palace.”
“When the Wudang Sect burned down, I already decided not to care about things like justification.”
“I beg of you. The esteemed feudal lords are people who share connections with me as well.”
At Yeo Bul-jin’s words, the eyes of the feudal lords became even more desperate. They had also realized by now. That Yeo Bul-jin was the only hope capable of saving them.
I sucked my lips with a clicking sound. Blood from Wave Exalt was still smeared on my blade, dripping down.
“This is troublesome.”
“I make this request of you. Being feudal lords, they are not significantly related to the imperial palace either, are they?”
Yeo Bul-jin bowed his head to me. Having been a Company Lord of a Great House merchant company myself, I could understand. Rising to that level of status made even bowing one’s head a difficult task. Yet he had bowed his head for the sake of the feudal lords.
The feudal lords looked at Yeo Bul-jin with moved expressions. They seemed not to have expected Yeo Bul-jin to hold me back to that extent.
“Then, it cannot be helped.”
At my words, the feudal lords burst out sighs of relief. Since I had been radiating killing intent until just now, as mere commoners, their spines must have felt not just chilled, but as though ice had been placed upon them.
“Y-You thought well.”
“That is the right choice for your sake as well.”
Thinking they had survived, the feudal lords each flapped their mouths once.
Internally, I shook my head from side to side. To maintain an attitude of being superior even in this dire situation facing death. Indeed, because the high and mighty had been in high places since birth, they took that for granted.
“However, I do not know what I should trust to let you feudal lords go. This time as well, while pretending to cooperate, didn’t you bring Wave Exalt? There is no guarantee you won’t retaliate again next time.”
At my words, the feudal lords froze. They realized that the situation was not over yet.
This situation was something that ended only when I wished to end it.
“……In what manner can we provide a guarantee?”
Realizing the situation was not over, the voices of the feudal lords grew small once more.
“I can no longer trust mere words. Given your past record.”
“A feudal lord’s guarantee is worth a thousand pieces of gold. If necessary, I will even write a pledge for you.”
“When that guarantee was broken today, what are you talking about? A written pledge would be the same if it holds no actual binding force.”
At my words, the feudal lords fell silent.
“……If you propose another method, we will follow it.”
They had now completely lowered their tails. But I knew. Even if they genuinely feared me right now and dared not touch me, with the passage of time, even such emotions would fade.
And they had just walked into my trap.
“You said you would do as I say, correct?”
“Y-Yes.”
The feudal lords had likely blurted that out thinking there was no other means to provide a guarantee.
However, what could be done? For me, there was a means more certain than anything else.
“Come out.”
I spoke toward the interior of the building. At my sudden action of turning around and calling someone, the feudal lords looked puzzled.
At my call, a woman wearing green warrior attire emerged from within. It was Gwan Seo-ye. The feudal lords seemed to show more interest in Gwan Seo-ye’s beauty, but because I stood before them, they did not openly cast glances.
Without even greeting the feudal lords, Gwan Seo-ye quietly brought out four boxes and handed them to the feudal lords. When Gwan Seo-ye handed over the boxes without a word, the feudal lords accepted them in a daze.
“What is this?”
“Open them.”
The feudal lords opened the boxes simultaneously. Immediately, Prince Ye dropped his box in sheer terror. The other feudal lords were equally frozen in shock.
“W-What is this!”
“You shouldn’t carelessly throw around something so precious.”
I picked up the wriggling insect that had fallen to the floor and placed it back into the box. Prince Ye looked at me with an utterly contorted face.
“……Could it be what I suspect it is?”
Among them, Prince Wen, having seen it before, was already trembling like an aspen leaf. I shrugged my shoulders.
“You must tell me what you suspect for me to know.”
Rage welled up in Prince Wen’s eyes. But he could not immediately vent that rage at me. Regaining his composure, Prince Wen opened his mouth again.
“A gu worm, is it?”
“Your knowledge is broad.”
I smiled brightly. Naturally, the complexions of the feudal lords turned dark and murky in contrast.
“Gu worm, did you say a gu worm?”
“Do you not know that using gu worms is punishable by death under the laws of the Empire!”
The feudal lords instantly flew into a frenzy. Originally, the Yunchang Merchant Company had scattered gu worms across the Central Plains, so there were some left over.
In any case, when even the imperial palace colluded with the Blood Cult, for me to avoid using Demonic Cult items under the guise of orthodox morality was laughable.
Truthfully, I did not want to go this far either. But what could I do? It was also a fact that there was nothing quite like a gu worm to bind untrustworthy people.
“Are you serious?”
“The ones who said they would follow my method were you feudal lords, weren’t you?”
“Is this not illegal! And an act punishable by the most severe penalty!”
“Then will you report it to the imperial palace?”
Saying so, I locked eyes with each of the feudal lords once. Not a single person held my gaze straight for even a brief moment.
Because saying they would report to the imperial palace here was no different from saying they would die right now.
“You will have to consume it, won’t you?”
At my question, the feudal lords exchanged glances. The feudal lords looked to Yeo Bul-jin as their final hope, but he looked away as if there was nothing he could do about this.
It was trust that the feudal lords had already cast aside. Coercion was inevitably necessary.
“Are you not going to consume it?”
When I let out a chilled voice, the feudal lords picked up the gu worms with their fingers.
To the feudal lords, who had only eaten rich and fine delicacies, the foul food known as a gu worm would be utterly unfamiliar. As I radiated killing intent, the feudal lords finally placed them on their palms and tossed them into their mouths.
“……It is done.”
“Just in case you played any tricks, I will merely check whether you swallowed it.”
“W-What trick could we possibly play?”
“What else? You could have pretended to eat it while not doing so.”
“Even in this situation, we lack the liver to play such games!”
“How am I to know that?”
I took out another box from my chest. It was the box containing the mother gu of the gu worms they had swallowed. The moment I tormented the back of the mother gu, screams of agony immediately poured from the mouths of the feudal lords.
“Aaaagh!”
“Stop! Stop it!”
Abandoning all dignity, the feudal lords rolled on the floor while shedding tears and drool. Indeed, before unbearable pain, emperors and beggars were equal.
I appreciated the sight for a brief moment before closing the box. When the mother gu calmed down, the offspring gu did not emit poison. Soon, fear was engraved in the eyes of the feudal lords whose pain had vanished.
“You wouldn’t want to experience such pain ever again, would you?”
“To call that a question……”
Prince Ye spoke before shutting his mouth. It was because Prince Han jabbed Prince Ye with his elbow. It seemed to mean he should not provoke me any further.
“Once a month, I will provide you with a sedative for the offspring gu. If you do not take it, the offspring gu will emit poison and you will die vomiting blood from all seven facial orifices, so be sure to take it.”
“…….”
Vitality vanished from the eyes of the feudal lords. As long as they had swallowed the gu worms, they were now truly my puppets.
“You may leave. Next time, I hope we meet without any reason to redden our faces.”
I said. Looking at me as if looking at a monster, the feudal lords fled the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company as if running for their lives.
“At any rate, what an extraordinary fellow.”
Once they disappeared, Yeo Bul-jin clicked his tongue from behind.
“To think of feeding gu worms to feudal lords. Such an insane notion could only be conceived by you in this entire Central Plains.”
“Aren’t you just as extraordinary, Company Lord?”
“Me?”
“In the midst of this, noticing that I wouldn’t kill them, you worked on the feudal lords first, didn’t you? Now, when we pioneer trade routes into their territories, they will try to offer their very livers and gallbladders to you.”
Yeo Bul-jin chuckled heartily. Baffling each other before the feudal lords was close to a staged gamble. It was just that we had not aligned our cues beforehand.
We matched our cues through sheer intuition, and that was possible because I, like Yeo Bul-jin, had been a Company Lord of a Great House merchant company in my previous life.
“I thought you would play along, but you acted even better than expected.”
“Is acting through life something that started only yesterday or today?”
And Yeo Bul-jin’s acting was good for me as well.
The cooperative relationship between the New Justice Association and the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company became even more ambiguous, and since the feudal lords would cooperate wholeheartedly with Yeo Bul-jin, that immediately translated into profit for us.
Of course, we could have threatened them with gu worms as well, but being threatened and yielding was distinctly different from offering things voluntarily.
“Right, what do you intend to do from now on?”
“Having seized the leash of the feudal lords, things have slowly ripened.”
I looked up at the sky. Dark clouds were still gathered in the sky. As if rain could fall at any moment.
They said the dikes in the regions of Shandong and Henan had already burst, throwing them into chaos.
“It seems it is time to choke their windpipes.”
“How?”
“It is simple. We have earned quite a lot, haven’t we? And we will earn even more in the future.”
“Indeed.”
Though I did not know the exact figure, the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company likely possessed the greatest amount of money among all merchant companies that had ever existed in the Central Plains.
At a time of pouring torrential rain like this, one had to transport goods using small boats to sell merchandise. While other merchant companies were all halted because they had no way to sell goods, only the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company was moving, so it was a natural outcome.
“Now, all we need to do is stop spending money.”
“……Heh.”
Yeo Bul-jin looked at me. Being a merchant, he must have understood what my words meant.
Right now, I intended to collapse the very economic system of this Central Plains.