Soon the person in charge of the auction hall arrived, and I asked him a question.
“So, can I still get the real elixirs today?”
“I’m sorry, but I think we need to look into what happened a bit more clearly first.”
“I see.”
“Then, to prevent any unfortunate misunderstandings, would you allow us to search your bodies?”
If I refused a body search here, they’d definitely think something was up.
I stood up from my seat and spoke.
“If it’s to clear up the misunderstanding, I can put up with that much. But does every one of us have to be searched?”
“Yes. Given the situation…”
“In that case, she’s a woman, so please have a woman search her.”
“Understood.”
Soon, a woman in red came in, and each of us was searched in turn.
Naturally, they didn’t find anything on us.
I’d already sent Geumryeong off to hide somewhere else beforehand.
Once the body search was over, I asked the auction manager,
“So, is the misunderstanding cleared up now?”
“Yes. I’m truly very sorry.”
“The truth is, we have circumstances that mean we need to leave here the day after tomorrow at the latest. Can we receive the goods before then?”
“We’ll do our best. Two days from now, we’ll hang a blue cord on the third floor of the nearby Spirit Soul Inn. When you see it, come there.”
“Then I’ll wait to hear from you.”
We rose from our seats and left the building.
Then, browsing past the merchants’ tents as we went, we headed toward the Phantom Market’s exit. We were done with our business here.
Just then, I heard someone shouting.
“I’m begging you! Please sell me this sword!”
When I turned toward the voice, a man was bowing his head in front of the tent of a stall selling weapons.
“I’ll find a way to repay the rest of the money later, somehow…”
“And who do you think you are, to ask me to let this go for half price?”
“I, I mean… anyway, I’m begging you.”
Looking closer, the man was haggling with the merchant over a sword displayed on the stand.
The price tag said one thousand silver taels.
A pretty hefty sum.
Looked like he wanted to pay half now and put the rest on credit.
Does that sword have some kind of story behind it?
From his appearance and bearing, he didn’t look like some ordinary fighter. The way he couldn’t bring himself to reveal who he was said as much.
He pleaded again, even more desperately.
“If I can’t get this sword, I’m as good as dead.”
“I sympathize, but those are the rules here. And we have to hand over a big chunk of the sale price to this place’s owner, so we can’t just cut you a break because of your situation.”
His tone was gentle, but his eyes were cold.
“Please, I’m begging you.”
He even bowed down in front of him, but the merchant stayed utterly unmoved.
Well, without that kind of mindset, you couldn’t do business in a place like this.
Truthfully, just listening to him this far already made him a pretty decent merchant.
Still, I couldn’t help wondering what on earth that sword was for him to be begging like that.
I walked over to the sword and examined it closely.
Judging by the aura it gave off and the material, it was quite a fine treasured blade.
But who exactly was this man…
Just as that thought crossed my mind and I turned my head, the man’s upper garment rode up, revealing a scar across his back.
“…!”
That zigzag scar shaped like the character for ‘zhi’…
I rubbed my eyes, unable to believe it, but it was definitely that scar.
In my previous life, the Moyong Clan had been a clan loyal to the Murim Alliance. The way they actively threw themselves into everything the Alliance did made that clear.
But they hadn’t been like that from the beginning.
They only started down that path after a new Clan Lord took over.
That Clan Lord wasn’t the previous lord’s eldest son, but the third.
Normally, the position would have gone to the eldest, or at least the second son, but things happened to them, and the third son became Clan Lord instead.
I’d heard the eldest son had been more than qualified as the next Clan Lord, but was driven out of the Young Clan Lord’s position over some disgraceful incident.
And I knew that eldest son very well.
In my past life, when I was passing through the Liaoning region and ran into Forest bandits, I’d received his help.
His name was Moyong Tae-geol.
After being ousted as Young Clan Lord, he’d been put in charge of the clan’s martial forces.
Because of that encounter, we became fairly close.
Whenever I passed through Liaoning, we’d drink together, and in the summer we’d jump into the river and splash water on each other’s backs…
That’s when I saw that scar.
When I asked how he got it, he said he’d gotten it fighting hooligans when he was young.
It was such a distinctive wound that I never forgot it.
I couldn’t see his face under the goblin mask, but I was sure it was the same person I remembered.
He’d been bitter watching the Moyong Clan get pushed around, yanked this way and that by the Murim Alliance’s will.
“What use is it for me to say anything? The Clan Lord now is… that guy.”
“…”
“It eats me up inside. If only I hadn’t lost that sword! I wouldn’t have been forced out of the Young Clan Lord’s seat!”
“What sword are you talking about?”
“A sword my grandfather gave me, saying it was a divine heirloom passed down through the family. It only reveals its true form in the hands of our main bloodline. But… one day, it just disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes. I searched desperately for it, but in the end… I never found it. After that, I lost my grandfather’s trust, and the elders’ as well… and I was forced to step down as Young Clan Lord.”
If so, that sword had to be the one Young Clan Lord Moyong Tae-geol lost.
He must have tracked the sword’s whereabouts, somehow learned it was here, and come running.
But the steep price of one thousand silver taels was keeping him from taking it back.
In my previous life, I’d often wondered.
If, instead of the third son Moyong Seong-geol, Young Clan Lord Moyong Tae-geol had become Clan Lord… what path would the Moyong Clan have walked?
And putting that aside, I was glad I’d been given a chance to repay the debt I owed him.
I walked up to him and the merchant.
“This sword, it’s one thousand silver taels, right?”
At my question, the merchant selling the sword nodded.
“Ah, yes. That’s right.”
I took ten anonymous drafts, each worth one hundred silver taels, from my pouch and held them out.
There are two types of drafts.
Named drafts, and anonymous drafts.
With a named draft, the money is taken out of the person written on it, and the bank pays on their behalf. With an anonymous draft, the amount has already been paid to the bank when it’s issued, so anyone who brings it in gets the money on the spot.
Naturally, the drafts I’d brought here were anonymous ones.
I couldn’t afford to expose my identity.
And in a place like this, people usually use anonymous drafts anyway.
“Please, check them.”
The merchant checked the drafts and nodded.
“They’re genuine.”
“Then this sword is mine now, right?”
“Of course. Thank you for your business.”
As the deal wrapped up just like that, the young man who’d been begging to buy the sword, Moyong Tae-geol, flailed his hands in panic.
“W–wait, hey, you can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?”
“The transaction between the merchant and me isn’t finished yet.”
The merchant snapped back, his voice suddenly cold.
“What transaction? The rule of the Phantom Market is simple – whoever puts the money down first owns it!”
“That’s…”
His voice was hollow with shock.
I let out a small chuckle and held the sword out to him.
“Take it.”
“…Huh?”
“It’s yours now.”
I went on.
“I bought it because I wanted to give it to you as a gift. So hurry up and take it.”
His eyes were stunned and confused.
That familiar gaze made me smile.
“Don’t lose it again.”
I pushed the sword into his arms, then turned away without a second’s hesitation.
“W–who are you?”
“It’s bad manners to ask that in a place like this.”
“But…”
“Just think of it as being briefly possessed by a goblin.”
Leaving only those words behind, I exited the Phantom Market and returned the mask.
Then I moved quickly.
I could sense people tailing us.
So I pushed my speed to the limit, twisting our route again and again as we tore across the Liaoning region.
After running flat out for about fifteen minutes, I could no longer feel any sign of pursuit.
I spoke to Young Palace Lord Bing Hae-rin.
“You held yourself back well.”
“The Ice Palace’s future depends on how I act.”
“That’s the right mindset. So let’s put it to use for one job.”
“What kind of job… do you mean?”
I grinned and continued.
“I’ll tell you once we’re back.”
A short while later, we returned to the Gwangjun Merchant Group.
I stopped by my own quarters first, then headed to Young Palace Lord Bing Hae-rin’s quarters.
“Here, take this first.”
“…?”
She tilted her head in puzzlement as she accepted the basket and lifted the lid.
“…!”
She stared at me, completely shocked.
“Oh my! Th–this is…”
“That’s right. They’re the elixirs North Sea Ice Palace was cheated out of.”
“But earlier, you clearly said they were fakes…”
I didn’t answer that and brought up something else instead.
“I’m going to spread word that you, the Young Palace Lord of North Sea Ice Palace, brought these here to sell. By tomorrow your sect’s disciples will be arriving, and they’ll only help those rumors spread faster.”
Young Palace Lord Bing Hae-rin already knew her disciples were on their way.
“Someone will definitely try to approach you, Young Palace Lord.”
“…And that person will be the one behind all this?”
“Most likely.”
Unless he recovers the real elixirs and hands them over, he won’t be able to escape the Phantom Market owner’s grasp.
Next to Merchant Lord Im Cheong-mil’s residence stood a fairly large house.
Its owner was a man named Cho Seok, and he’d been preparing to leave this place at any time.
One part of those preparations was to sell off the North Sea Ice Palace elixirs he’d acquired through an auction at the Phantom Market.
He hated North Sea Ice Palace.
Because his proud, prosperous family had fallen to ruin thanks to North Sea Ice Palace.
While he lived nursing dreams of revenge, a golden opportunity came his way.
Someone approached him and told him how he could get that revenge.
“North Sea Ice Palace sells those elixirs to buy food. But because of the current famine, it’s hard for them to secure grain. Now imagine if the elixirs they brought out to sell turned out to be fakes. Wouldn’t that make things… interesting?”
“North Sea Ice Palace starving? Heh heh. Just hearing it makes me happy.”
“For something like that, the wealth you still possess is more than enough.”
Even with his clan ruined, he still counted as fairly rich.
The man then laid out the details.
“…The elixirs you skim off the top can be passed on to the Phantom Market in Liaoning. They’ll take a large cut as a fee, but even so, it’ll be more than enough.”
“I see. But why are you sharing this method with me?”
“Because I don’t much care for North Sea Ice Palace either.”
Cho Seok immediately carried out the plan the mysterious man had given him, and by watching the wagons heading up to North Sea Ice Palace, he confirmed the man’s words were true.
The amount of supplies going to the Ice Palace had clearly dropped.
At any rate, with orders to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice, he’d turned the elixirs over to yesterday’s Phantom Market auction.
Morning came, and the Phantom Market’s auction manager visited his residence.
“Hahaha! Welcome, welcome!”
He greeted them with a broad grin, sure they’d brought his payment.
“Please, come inside.”
He led them into the reception room.
“Would you like some tea?”
“No. There’s no need for tea.”
Before, the manager had always spoken politely and courteously, but today his whole attitude was different.
The auction manager glanced back, and one of the warriors behind him stepped forward and held out a box.
“Take a look.”
Cho Seok peered into the box.
Inside weren’t stacks of silver, but elixirs.
But they weren’t the real elixirs he’d turned over – they were fakes.
He recognized them at a glance because, to avoid confusing the fakes they’d given him with the real ones, he’d secretly marked the counterfeits in a way only he knew.
‘No, why are these here…’
Cold sweat broke out down his back.
He’d definitely handed over the real ones, yet now they were bringing him the fakes.
For those counterfeit elixirs to go full circle and come back to him!
“You must have learned how to appraise elixirs at some point.”
“N–no, I don’t really know much about elixirs. Haha. Those elixirs just happened to fall into my hands…”
“And yet you spotted they were fake so quickly. Remarkable.”
“…!”
His eyes flew wide open.
He was trapped with no way out.
“While I’m still speaking kindly, hand over the real elixirs you skimmed off.”
“W–what are you talking about? Real elixirs? I clearly handed over the genuine ones, not these fakes!”
“The fact that you recognized these as fakes is proof enough you tried to deceive us.”
“…”
“So we can’t settle this the easy way.”
At that, the warriors behind the manager grabbed his arms and pinned him down.
Then the auction manager struck his pressure points.
“!”
Even with bone–crushing, tendon–tearing agony ripping through him, Cho Seok couldn’t even scream with his mute point sealed.
“Huff… huff…”
After several minutes that felt like ten long years, the auction manager released his mute point and said,
“We’ll be back tonight.”
Then they left the reception room.
Cho Seok’s vision went dark, and he collapsed where he stood.
If he didn’t somehow get the real elixirs…
He hastily tried to contact the man who’d taught him how to take revenge on North Sea Ice Palace.
The man had said he was in Liaoning as well.
However…
“They say… there’s no such person.”
–TL Notes–
Tired of seeing Ads? Then please support me on Patreon! Any tier of subscription will make it so you won’t get any ads!
If you want to support me or give me feedback, you can do it at patreon.com/InsanityTheGame
Join my Discord! https://discord.gg/BWaP3AHHpt