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Chapter 4
“…A foreigner?”
Unlike his rude opening, the man flinched when he saw me.
He nervously looked me up and down before speaking carefully.
“I don’t know which family’s daughter you are, but this is a private matter concerning the Yu Family Manor. That lowly servant stole something belonging to our young master and ran away. Surely you understand that we have to set things right?”
“N-No! It’s mine! Great Hero Neung Gwanggeom gave it to me…!”
Perhaps because they had just seen me knock away a sword, the men couldn’t act as recklessly with me as they had with the boy.
Instead, they spoke politely.
Judging by how strongly the man emphasized ‘Yu Family Manor,’ it seemed that this family had some influence in the area.
Unfortunately, the families I knew in the Central Plains martial world were limited to the Namgung Family, Sichuan Tang Family, Hebei Peng Family, Zhuge Family, and Murong Family.
In other words, if a family wasn’t one of the five major families, I probably didn’t know about it.
I looked up toward the second floor, wondering if Captain Baekung might know about them.
But…
“…”
He only gave me a meaningful smile, his eyes sparkling with interest.
He didn’t know either.
“If the child doesn’t know proper conduct, then you should teach him. But do you really get to decide his punishment however you please? In fact, you’ve ruined my appetite too. Should I cut off your arm as punishment?”
“That’s…!”
The man who seemed to be their leader sensed that something was wrong and watched me carefully.
But the man I had just defeated so easily suddenly jumped to his feet and charged at me.
“No matter who you are, you can’t interfere with the Yu Family’s affairs!”
Hmm.
Was this my first real fight against a martial artist who actually had hostile intentions toward me?
He seemed weaker than the palace guards I normally sparred with.
But in martial arts novels, the young heirs of famous families often lost because they underestimated their opponents.
I calmly analyzed the man’s footwork.
Tap!
I raised one finger.
“Guh!”
Cold Yin Finger.
It was a finger technique that sent cold energy into an opponent’s acupoints and disrupted the flow of their qi and blood.
My father had taught it to me specifically because whenever I used most ice-based techniques, my internal energy kept increasing whether I wanted it to or not.
It was a technique that allowed me to defeat an opponent by using only a tiny amount of energy.
“What kind of demonic technique is this?!”
The man had been struck with yin-cold energy at the Yin Philtrum acupoint, located in the middle of the forehead, where yang energy normally flowed.
He screamed and vomited blood.
Since he had collapsed so easily from such a simple technique, he clearly wasn’t anything special.
“I didn’t even see it…”
I pointed toward the table and gestured for the boy, who was clutching his bundle and muttering to himself, to hide underneath it.
“You defeated Sixth Liu with just one finger?”
The leader immediately backed away from me and drew his sword in one smooth motion.
When he signaled to the other martial artists, the remaining five formed a fairly proper formation.
“W-What trick did you use?!”
One of them shouted angrily.
But the leader ignored him and glared at him fiercely before carefully speaking to me.
“…We apologize for our rudeness. We didn’t realize there was an expert here.”
“Oh?”
“However, wouldn’t it be troublesome for even an expert like yourself to make the entire Yu Family your enemy? I apologize for disturbing your meal. We will quietly take the child and leave. I would appreciate it if you would also step aside.”
Captain Baekung had said that thugs would run away as soon as they realized their opponent was even slightly stronger than them.
This was exactly what he had described.
Captain Baekung was leaning against the railing on the second floor, watching the situation with great interest.
When our eyes met, he even smiled.
Apparently, he intended to watch rather than help me.
‘Apparently, making enemies with them isn’t much of a burden.’
I looked around.
The innkeeper and all the customers had either moved far away when the men drew their swords or were pressed against the walls, keeping completely silent.
There was enough space.
“Pointing a sword at someone and threatening them isn’t the proper way to have a conversation.”
They had been going on and on about proper conduct, yet they didn’t even understand basic manners.
Before I could teach them anything, I needed to put them into a state where we could actually have a conversation.
The leader took a middle stance with his sword.
He had apparently decided that I had no intention of backing down, so he would attack first.
The first man had been easy to defeat, but the leader’s stance was actually fairly decent.
Whoosh.
He rushed toward me and swung his sword downward.
The blade was pointed toward the floor.
If there had been a bundle of grain where I stood, it would have been cut cleanly in half.
‘He’s slow.’
Despite his clean technique, his speed was surprisingly slow.
I simply took one light step to the side.
His sword sliced cleanly through empty air.
‘There’s absolutely no need to use the Ice-White Divine Art.’
My father had told me that my body could now handle a certain amount of additional internal energy, so I could use ice techniques when necessary.
But I still hadn’t obtained any extremely yang spiritual medicine, so I intended to avoid using them whenever possible.
Of course, surviving was more important than slightly shortening my lifespan because of increased yin energy.
If I were truly in danger, I would have to use the Ice-White Divine Art.
But against third-rate trash like these men, I didn’t even think I needed to draw my sword.
Swish.
I raised my finger again.
“Aaaaaagh!”
…But before I could even use the finger technique, the leader suddenly grabbed his head and screamed.
Tap.
I moved behind him and struck the Dazhui acupoint, located at the back of the neck where yang energy gathered, with the same Cold Yin Finger.
“Guh!”
He couldn’t dodge or block.
He collapsed on the spot.
“S-Such an incredible master…!”
Once their leader went down, the remaining men were completely useless.
Their carefully formed formation immediately fell apart.
“Cough!”
“Urgh!”
“Aaargh!”
I defeated the remaining four with nothing more than a few movements of my fingers.
‘Hmm. They weren’t much.’
Six grown men were sprawled across the floor.
I secretly let out a sigh of relief.
I had thought they were opponents I could defeat without Captain Baekung’s help.
Still, this was my first real battle, so I had been a little nervous.
‘Am I actually considered fairly strong even in the Central Plains?’
“I-Incredible! How did you do that?”
“You defeated the Six Liu Tiger Swords with just one finger!”
Once the fight ended, the people who had been watching from against the walls slowly began approaching.
Some were still keeping an eye on the defeated men.
But one person praised me particularly loudly.
“Were they famous enough to have nicknames?”
“Of course!”
“You aren’t from around here, are you? If there were a beautiful young lady, no, a great martial hero like you around here, we surely would have heard rumors. Where are you from?”
“Gaaah!”
Just as I was about to answer…
The leader suddenly vomited a large amount of blood, staining the floor of the inn.
“W-What will happen to those people?”
The boy had already crawled out from underneath the table and was now asking me.
He had just been beaten terribly by them.
But since they were people he had known before, he still seemed worried about whether their lives were in danger.
“Don’t worry. I only planted a little yin-cold energy inside their acupoints. You can think of it as something similar to sealing their pressure points. Once I remove it later, they’ll be completely fine.”
I spoke gently to reassure the boy.
But then…
“T-The Manor Lord won’t stand by and let this go!”
One of the men, who apparently still hadn’t learned basic manners, suddenly shouted.
“…Of course it will become a serious problem if I don’t remove it. If the yin energy continues blocking your Du Meridian, you’ll die within half an hour. And the two who kept trying to forcefully circulate their internal energy probably have less than fifteen minutes left.”
There were always people who mistook politeness for weakness if you spoke too nicely to them.
“In other words, I’m saying you’ve become people with a limited amount of time left to live.”
I smiled sweetly as I said it.
Of course, the Cold Yin Finger was only a simple technique.
A martial artist stronger than me or someone with excellent control over their internal energy could probably dispel it easily, just like breaking through an ordinary pressure-point seal.
But with their pitiful amount of internal energy, which could barely even be called accumulated energy in their dantians, they had no chance.
After my declaration that they were now on a timer, all six men fell silent.
“Please spare us, great hero!”
Their attitudes immediately became extremely polite.
As expected, the Cold Yin Finger was most useful for quickly calming down a tense situation.
“Now you’re finally ready to have a conversation. Come, sit over here. As long as you don’t recklessly circulate your internal energy, it won’t hurt.”
I politely proposed a peace agreement.
“Yes, yes.”
“Of course.”
They accepted.
About fifteen minutes later, the truth finally came out.
“I’m sorry. The token really was given to Sowoon by the Radiant Light Sword. The Manor Lord said that there was no point in sending the son of a servant to the academy, so he wanted to send the First Young Master instead.”
“The Manor Lord ordered us to bring the token back, so we had no choice.”
“We didn’t want to beat a child either…”
The truth of the matter became perfectly clear.
So that’s why the boy had kept insisting that he was innocent.
Someone had given the token to the child, but the Manor Lord had forcibly taken it from him.
The boy had stolen it back and run away, only to be caught.
“Please spare our lives.”
“We failed to recognize a great master!”
“We swear to respect proper conduct, protect the weak, and live according to justice and honor!”
All the men repeatedly bowed their heads and desperately begged me to remove the yin-cold energy.
Well, I hadn’t exactly planned on killing them anyway.
“Hmm. Sowoon, was it? Then I suppose we can say that this child was never found here.”
“Yes, yes. Of course.”
“We didn’t see anything.”
The man who had been the first to attack me had been hit the hardest.
He had also tried to forcefully circulate his internal energy several times and had vomited blood repeatedly.
Now he was trembling as he lay flat on the floor and begged.
“Please spare me. Please, please!”
Was he trembling because of the cold?
Or because he was afraid of death?
Well, now that he genuinely had less than fifteen minutes left, I suppose he had a good reason to be scared.
“Hmm…”
I deliberately crossed my legs and paused for a moment.
“All right. Pay for the table you broke, the cleaning fee for the blood you spilled on the floor, and compensation for ruining the atmosphere of the inn for today’s customers. Then you can leave.”
I added one more condition to the negotiation.
“Of course, you can leave without paying if you don’t want to.”
The man, feeling death practically at his doorstep, didn’t argue at all.
He hurriedly pulled out his money pouch and handed it over.
I hadn’t even said that I wouldn’t spare the last man.
But the other five quickly removed their own money pouches from their sleeves and belts, each one trying to hand theirs over before the others.
“U-Ugh…”
Unfortunately, one of them apparently hadn’t brought his money pouch.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
His teeth began chattering rapidly.
He desperately looked toward his companions.
But they had already thrown their money pouches over.
“Innkeeper, I’ll definitely pay you back, so…”
Hey.
You can’t borrow money from an ordinary citizen just because you’re in trouble.
“You’ll work it off. Scrub the floor until every trace of blood is gone, and I’ll forgive you.”
“Th-Thank you, great hero!”
I removed the yin-cold energy from them one by one, in the order they had handed over their money pouches.
The men bowed deeply and hurried out of the inn.
“Great hero, may I… ask your name?”
Perhaps the leader was somewhat different from the others.
Unlike his subordinates, who had run away without saying another word, he stopped and added one more question.
“My name?”
“Yes. I want to remember the honor of having crossed swords with a great hero like you for the rest of my life, so I humbly ask.”
We hadn’t even crossed swords.
What nonsense was he talking about?
Still, there was no reason for me to hide my identity.
If they thought I was just some nobody, they might gather more people and come after me again, which would only become troublesome.
“I am Seol Suryeo, the daughter of the Lord of the Northern Sea Ice Palace.”
I proudly revealed my name.
