Team Leader Won Eop asked at my words.
“Th-That’s really true?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly is this antidote method?”
“Well…”
When I hesitated instead of answering, he asked urgently.
“What is it? Why start talking and then stop?”
“The antidote method is a little… difficult to explain. It is the proper way to detoxify you, but I’m concerned Great Heroes might think I’m mocking you.”
I let out a sigh.
“If that happens, it will be awkward for all of us to even look each other in the face. So while it may be painful, it may be better for you to simply endure it for five days.”
At my words, he hurriedly grabbed my sleeve.
“Urgh! Y-You’re telling us because you want to detoxify us. How could we possibly misunderstand that?”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do!”
“Well, that’s true. If someone held a grudge just because they were told the proper treatment method, they wouldn’t deserve to have their name registered with the Murim Alliance in the first place.”
“E-Exactly!”
I looked at the other team members and asked.
“Do all of you feel the same?”
“W-We do.”
“We’ll do anything you say, so please do something about this stomach pain.”
“Grrgh! I feel like I’m going to die.”
They clutched their bellies and stared at me with desperate eyes.
“Then very well. First, everyone lie down on the ground.”
At my words, they all obediently lay flat on their backs.
“Roll three times to the left.”
“…What?”
“Roll three times to the left. After that, roll three times back to the right.”
One of the team members snapped at my instruction.
“Isn’t this the kind of discipline drill they make dimwits do?”
I sighed.
“Haa, I knew this would happen. That’s why I told you to just endure it for five days. You’re already reacting like this, so how am I supposed to help detoxify you?”
“…”
“And you still call yourselves members of the Murim Alliance? You take pride in being representatives of the Orthodox Sect, yet you would suspect me like this?”
“M-My apologies.”
“That’s enough. I’ll stop here. I know you’ll be in enough pain to feel like dying for five days, but at least there will be no misunderstandings between us. I don’t want to die young because of that kind of accusation.”
And when I turned away without a shred of lingering attachment, they grimaced and staggered over to me before starting to beg.
“W-We were wrong!”
“W-We truly apologize.”
I put on a gloomy expression.
“This may not be the time to say it, but seeing as all of you keep speaking to me like I’m beneath you, it seems you have no intention of acknowledging me as a fellow martial artist. The Alliance Leader personally granted me the epithet Handsome Young Hero and ordered me to accompany you on this mission.”
“…”
“Well, I suppose that means you don’t agree with the Alliance Leader’s judgment.”
“N-No, that’s not… That is not the case.”
“Absolutely not.”
Good, their sentence endings got longer.
They should have done this from the start.
Maybe they were too distracted by the pain to think straight, but the respectful speech came out all at once.
“So please, I beg you, detoxify us.”
“This pain is far too agonizing for us to endure for five whole days.”
“And if we happen to run into suspicious people, we’ll be in serious trouble.”
“It’s all right.”
I said to them.
“My companions and I are fairly skilled, so we can protect all of you well enough.”
“H-How skilled could you possibly be?”
I looked at Team Leader Won, and under my gaze, he coughed awkwardly and corrected himself.
“How skilled could you possibly be, sir?”
Well, of course arrogant men like these wouldn’t remember my realm.
“Escort Guard Seo Wu and I are Peak experts. Escort Guard Yeo Eung-am also recently reached Peak.”
“T-Then there are three Peak martial artists…”
“Yes. Besides, we’re openly carrying the Murim Alliance’s flag. What empty-headed fools would attack us while knowing they’d be hunted for the rest of their lives?”
The more I spoke, the worse their expressions became.
In other words, they had realized there were plenty of reasons why I did not have to detoxify them right now.
“So while it may be a little painful, you can all rest easy.”
Thud.
At my words, they even dropped to their knees.
“P-Please, I beg you.”
“We will never make any foolish misunderstandings, so please save us!”
“At this rate, I really feel like I’m going to die!”
Watching Team Leader Won and the rest of them plead like that, I inwardly grinned.
“Very well. I will trust you Great Heroes one more time.”
At my words, they nodded over and over.
So hard that I wondered if their necks might snap.
“Then all of you lie on the ground and roll three times to the left, then three times to the right.”
They followed my instructions without complaint.
“Now roll five times to the left, then five times to the right.”
“Squat jumps in place, ten times each while facing east, west, south, and north!”
With every instruction I gave, Team Leader Won and the team members became more and more caked in dirt.
Ah! This is so satisfying!
When I glanced behind me, my companions all looked as if a long-blocked knot in their chests had finally cleared.
After making them roll around for about an hour, I finally spoke to Escort Guard Lee Pil.
“Did you bring the herb I mentioned?”
“Yes. Here it is.”
I held out the herb to Team Leader Won and the team members and said,
“Now you just need to chew and swallow this herb.”
“Understood.”
They took the herb and began chewing it, and soon their faces filled with amazement as if the pain had vanished.
“Huh? My stomach doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Ha! It really worked!”
“Well now! That’s remarkable!”
Then someone spoke to me.
“By the way, could we not have eaten this herb from the start?”
“Why did you make us move around so painfully instead of having us eat this herb right away?”
I expected that question, and I was prepared for it.
I deliberately let out a sigh.
“Haa, there’s always someone like this. You save a drowning man, and he asks why you threw him a rope instead of a silk cord.”
I continued.
“Medicine can become poison or medicine depending on the situation. If you Great Heroes had eaten that herb without any preparation, it would not have detoxified you properly. The reason I made you move your bodies was to prepare you so the detoxification would take effect all at once.”
“…”
At my answer, they looked embarrassed.
“I explained this so carefully earlier, and yet someone still raises that kind of question! Truly, it makes me worry for the martial world’s future.”
They fidgeted with faces that looked as if they wanted to crawl into a mouse hole.
Then Palgap said,
“They say a man’s mind changes once he’s out of the outhouse… Young Master, you should not have trusted these gentlemen!”
“I feel the same. It makes me very sad. To think that these are the rising talents of the martial world… No. What more can I say?”
As I lamented like that, I glanced at Team Leader Won and the team members.
All of them looked ashamed.
“Then we’ll return now. It’s late, so please get some sleep.”
“Yes, sleep well.”
Team Leader Won hurriedly gave his farewell, and I silently cupped my fist before returning to our night camp.
“You look extremely refreshed.”
At Escort Guard Seo Wu’s words, I nodded and grinned.
“Do I even need to say it?”
Our night camp was a fair distance away from theirs, so it could not be seen easily.
And since I had set up a Qi barrier, our voices would not carry all the way over there either.
Escort Guard Lee Pil said,
“To think you came up with a plan like this using that herb! I can only admire you.”
“It was all thanks to you, Escort Guard Lee Pil.”
Escort Guard Yeo Eung-am said,
“Now they won’t dare treat us carelessly.”
“Yes. That’s also why I deliberately planted a little guilt in them.”
Palgap shook his head.
“I will never, ever make an enemy of you, Young Master. I want to eat well and live well until the day I’m meant to die.”
At those words, all my companions unconsciously nodded, then their eyes met mine.
And they laughed awkwardly.
“Honestly, I show you this side of me because you’re my people. If you weren’t, I would only show you the good parts.”
“Does that mean you trust us that much?”
At Palgap’s words, I chuckled.
“Think whatever you want.”
.
.
.
Day broke.
After we made and ate breakfast, we finished preparing to depart. Team Leader Won approached me.
“Did you sleep well last night?”
“Yes. Thanks to my stomach pain disappearing, I slept very deeply.”
They had been busy washing themselves this morning.
Last night, they had slept soundly without even washing, still covered head to toe in dirt.
Rolling around under the moonlight must have been fairly exhausting.
And Team Leader Won was now speaking to me respectfully as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
It seems last night’s discipline drill was quite effective.
“We plan to depart in fifteen minutes.”
“Understood.”
“Also…”
He scratched his cheek and continued.
“I was far too narrow-minded last night. I apologize.”
“I accept your apology.”
I did not know whether he was apologizing because he had truly realized how petty he had been, because of what happened last night, or because he had learned I was at the Peak realm.
But what mattered was that I had received an apology.
It wasn’t as though I would be seeing him for long, so whether that apology held any sincerity was not important.
The only thing that mattered was whether I could spend the rest of this trip comfortably.
A short while later.
We set out for Mount Tai again.
For some reason, even our horses’ steps felt lighter as we headed toward Mount Tai.
Ah, so these fellows had quite a lot pent up too.
Well, of course they did. We were their owners, after all.
The journey to Mount Tai was extremely peaceful and comfortable.
To them, I was both their benefactor and the target of their guilt, so they treated us well.
I may have been the one who caused the illness and then handed them the cure, but as long as the result is good, who cares?
After traveling for several more days, we soon reached Jinan.
“We’ll rest here today, then visit the Mount Tai sect tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“Do you happen to know a suitable inn nearby?”
At that question, I pointed somewhere with my hand and said,
“Cheongsan Inn over there is quite good.”
It was the inn where I had stayed before when I came here for the Hundred Great Merchant Groups Under the Heaven gathering hosted by the Baekyeom Merchant Group.
It had been fairly decent.
We found rooms there and unpacked our luggage.
“I’ll take a quick look around the area.”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
My companions and I left the inn.
Since we had come to Jinan, I intended to browse the shops in the marketplace.
Jinan was a place where trade with foreign nations was active.
Because of that, goods and culture flowed through it briskly, making it one of the places that led imperial trends.
Those trends would then pass on to Beijing and develop further.
In other words, if you looked carefully at Jinan’s shops, you could predict roughly half of what would become fashionable in Beijing.
So examining this place was extremely important for a merchant.
“Hmm, there are quite a few interesting things here.”
As I wandered around observing the market, something caught my eye.
I approached it.
“Isn’t this a rouge container?”
“That’s right.”
Shandong was as famous for porcelain as it was for ironware.
That was because it had good clay suited for making porcelain.
The detailed painting and gold threadwork made it look truly pretty.
“I should buy one of these.”
At my words, Palgap said with an expression that showed he understood.
“Since you’re buying a rouge container anyway, it might be good to choose a rouge color that suits Deputy Gwak and fill it before giving it to her.”
“That’s a good idea too… Huh? I never said I was giving it to anyone.”
“I am your attendant, Young Master. I know these things right away. Hehehe.”
This is somewhat embarrassing.
Just as Palgap said, the rouge container was a gift for Young Lady Seohyang.
She had to keep dressing plainly to hide her identity, and for several other reasons, I felt both sorry for her and a little tenderhearted.
Then Escort Guard Seo Wu said,
“I should buy this rouge container. I think my wife would like it if I gave it to her.”
Escort Guard Yeo Eung-am followed after him and said,
“This one looks pretty to me. My wife will like it too. Hahaha.”
I chuckled.
“Then let’s go together to a nearby shop that sells rouge.”
Most of the customers in the rouge shop were women.
But had they not said that the power of a group was great?
Thanks to that, we were able to buy rouge without feeling embarrassed.
The amusing part was that the place where we bought the rouge received its supply from the Eunhae Merchant Group.
If I wanted, I could have bought the rouge without paying, but that would be nothing but cutting into my own flesh.
After leaving the rouge shop and heading back toward our lodging, I heard a voice calling me.
“Who might this be? Isn’t this Deputy Merchant Lord Eun Seo-ho of the Eunhae Merchant Group?”
When I turned around, I saw a welcome face.
It was Young Lord Ho Gyeong of the Baekyeom Merchant Group.
“Ah, Young Lord Ho!”
“It’s good to see you, Deputy Merchant Lord Eun. What brings you here?”
“I stopped by briefly because of some business. But you seem to have grown taller since the last time I saw you.”
“Hahaha! Yes. I grew a little more.”
Well, if my memory was right, he would grow even taller than this, to the point that I would have to look up at him.
“At the last gathering, your eldest Deputy Merchant Lord attended.”
“Yes. That is how it should have been in the first place. I had simply been attending in his place until now.”
“So the successor has been decided.”
“It had already been decided.”
After we exchanged a few more words, Young Lord Ho Gyeong said,
“Deputy Merchant Lord Eun, I still have not forgotten the grace you showed me back then.”
He was talking about the time I saved him when the Baekcheon Merchant Group played a trick and tried to harm him.
“You could forget it, you know.”
“I absolutely cannot. I hope that dagger will be used someday without fail.”
He meant the dagger that served as proof of his oath to risk his life to help me.
“Understood.”
A day would likely come when it would be needed.
“Where are you staying right now?”
“At Cheongsan Inn.”
“Then how about staying at our merchant group?”
I politely declined.
“I appreciate the offer, but if I did that, you would also have to bring the Murim Alliance’s people into your merchant group.”
“Pardon?”
I smiled and said,
“In truth, by the Alliance Leader’s order, I am currently carrying out a mission while escorting people from the Murim Alliance.”
His eyes turned cold in an instant.
“Don’t tell me you’re working with the Murim Alliance?”
–TL Notes–
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