21

The day of the grand banquet hosted by the Namgung Clan.

Hojeongmun, who had received an invitation, also set out early in the morning to attend.

Two wagons carrying gifts and one wagon carrying people.

The visitors numbered nine in total: Ho Yeonam, Ho Yeyang, and seven first-rate escorts, including Chief Escort Ju Yehwa.

Two professional coachmen were assigned, and beneath them, four stable boys followed along to assist with the wagons.

But.

Among those faces, Chui was nowhere to be seen.

Chui, who had complained of a stomachache since dawn and gone to the latrine.

“……”

Only after watching the wagon carrying Ho Yeyang depart did Chui climb over the wall.

Leaving behind the now-empty and quiet Hojeongmun, Chui crossed the mountain ahead of them and headed for the Namgung Clan.

From here on, it was time to act separately.

---

A slaughterhouse near the Namgung Clan.

Amid countless butchers working busily—

“Hurry it up, you lazy butchers!”

A swordsman with a blade at his waist was shouting arrogantly.

His name was Gauhyeon.

He was a low-ranking warrior belonging to the Namgung Clan.

“These are the beef cuts for the grand banquet of the great Namgung Clan! Each piece is worth more than the flesh carved from your own bodies, so handle them carefully! And hurry and load them onto the wagons before they spoil!”

He stopped short of using a whip, but his manner was no different from how one treated slaves.

The butchers watched Gauhyeon’s mood as they carried large chunks of meat, hanging them one by one from hooks attached to the ceiling of the wagon’s rear compartment.

“They laze around all the time and only pretend to work when they’re being yelled at. Born low, the lot of them…”

Gauhyeon openly displayed his deep-seated contempt toward the butchers.

He was not of the Namgung bloodline—an outsider who had once wandered the martial world as a vagrant before being specially recruited into the Namgung Clan.

Gauhyeon took immense pride in being able to work for the Namgung Clan, enough to regard it as the greatest achievement of his life.

A group envied and admired by everyone who lived by the sword.

That was the Namgung Clan.

And so Gauhyeon looked down on everyone who worked outside the Namgung Clan, believing it only natural.

He had been born clever and had not relied on talent alone, but had worked tirelessly to rise to this position, while others were lazy, stupid, and incompetent, forever stuck at the bottom of society.

Thus, Gauhyeon poured out his disgust toward the butchers before him without restraint.

“Hey! You there, the vacant idiot! What are you dawdling for? The banquet’s about to start—move the meat, now!”

“S-Sorry, sir. It’s just very heavy…”

The butchers floundered under Gauhyeon’s irritation.

“What’s going on?”

Gauhyeon walked deeper into the slaughterhouse.

Beyond the butchers standing there with troubled expressions, he saw a massive animal carcass hanging.

A wolf. A single wolf so enormous it could be mistaken for a tiger lay dead on the slaughterhouse floor.

Beside it lay a smaller wolf, clearly a pup, also dead.

“Hm. A sacrifice for the blood oath. Don’t drain the blood from this. It needs to be kept exactly as it was right after death. You managed it that way, didn’t you?”

“Of course. It was a direct commission from the Northern Palace Garden of the great Namgung Clan. We paid special attention to it.”

“Fine. Then hurry and load it onto the wagon. Don’t you know we don’t have time?”

Gauhyeon’s temper continued to worsen.

The butchers hurried to appease him.

Grumbling in low voices was all they could manage.

“That crazy bastard. Think he’ll pull his sword again?”

“Remember when Chunsik talked back and got his fingers chopped off?”

“He’s still a mad dog. A bastard with no parents—ptui!”

“Seriously, every swordsman from the Namgung Clan’s Northern Palace Garden is out of their mind.”

Just then, Gauhyeon beckoned to one of the butchers.

“…Hey. You.”

He crooked a finger at a butcher who looked at least twenty years older than himself.

“What’s that wolf over there?”

“Eh? Ah, that’s a wolf pup. Seems to be the offspring of that big one… They came in together.”

“Load that too.”

“Yes, sir.”

The butcher gestured sideways.

At that, a small boy who appeared to be the butcher’s son hurried over and hoisted the wolf pup’s carcass onto his back.

Then—

“Oh!?”

Perhaps it was heavier than expected.

The butcher’s son lost his footing and crashed into the hem of Gauhyeon’s robe as he stood there.

In an instant, Gauhyeon’s face twisted into something terrifying.

“You damned spawn—how dare you smear my robe with the stench of beasts!?”

Before the boy could even apologize, Gauhyeon’s foot flew out.

Thud!

Kicked by Gauhyeon, the boy was sent flying and rolled far away.

Several teeth broken, the boy passed out on the spot.

The butcher, who seemed to be his father, scooped the boy up in horror.

“M-My lord! He’s still just a child!”

“So what? You got a problem with that?”

Gauhyeon sneered as he looked down at the father and son.

Then he openly scoffed at the butcher’s clenched, trembling fists.

“Oh? You want to hit me? Just what I’d expect from an ignorant butcher. Go on, try it. Let’s see what happens. Hahaha—”

Though he was only a third-rate martial artist guarding the front gate of the Namgung Clan, to ordinary people who knew nothing of martial arts, he was no different from a god.

“Go on, you bastard. You just going to stand there after I kicked your kid? Hm?”

Gauhyeon prodded the butcher’s chest with the sheathed sword, mocking him.

At that moment—

“My lord, all the meat has been loaded.”

An old butcher nearby reported cautiously.

Only then did Gauhyeon turn his head.

“You didn’t cut off a bit and sneak it away, did you?”

“Oh no! Please don’t say such things. How could we dare to—”

“If anything like that is discovered, you know what happens, right? I’ll cut twice as much flesh off your bodies. Understood?”

“How could we not understand, sir.”

The butchers bowed their heads, flustered.

Only then did Gauhyeon clear his throat and leave the slaughterhouse.

He patted the shoulder of the old butcher standing respectfully by the wagon and said,

“The reason I come out here and raise hell like this is because it makes you work a little faster. If you want me gone quickly, you should finish the work quickly too. You understand, right?”

“Of course, my lord. We deserve the scolding.”

“Good, good. You know your place, old man. Then I’ll be off.”

Gauhyeon slapped the old butcher’s cheek lightly a few times with his palm and climbed onto the wagon.

Soon, the wagon laden with meat began to move.

Toward the Namgung Clan, where a grand banquet would soon be held.

---

Clatter—clatter—clatter—

The wagon jolted up and down as it traveled along the mountain path.

Gauhyeon yawned as he drove the horse.

“Tch. Meat delivery at my rank. And without even a coachman. What a miserable position. Hoo…”

During a grand banquet, there was always a shortage of hands.

Normally, he only had to guard the gate, but during busy times like this, he occasionally had to handle menial tasks as well.

With a bored expression, Gauhyeon lashed the horse with his whip.

The sooner he returned to the clan estate, the sooner he could at least snag a seat at the edge of the banquet table and get a taste of wine.

Just then—

Creek—

A strange sound came from the back of the wagon.

At first, he thought it was just a one-off noise.

But—

Creek—creek—

The sound continued, repeatedly.

It was like something scratching a wall with its fingernails.

Creek—creek—creek—

In the end, Gauhyeon stopped the wagon in the middle of a sparsely traveled mountain road.

“What is it? Did a stray dog get inside?”

Grumbling, Gauhyeon got down from the wagon.

He walked around to the back, opened the rear door, and peered inside.

The interior of the wagon was wide and dark.

Chunks of butchered meat hung in rows from hooks on the ceiling, cold air flowing between them.

“Let’s see. Where’s this stray dog?”

Gauhyeon pushed aside the hanging meat and stepped deeper inside the wagon.

Then—

Rustle—

He heard something moving further in.

Thinking he’d found it, Gauhyeon shouted,

“Found you, you bastard!”

And in that very instant—

…Chrrk!

A wire noose slipped around Gauhyeon’s neck.

“Ghk!?”

The noose yanked upward without warning, cutting off his breath mid-inhale and forcing a ragged gasp from him.

Krrrrk…

The wire bit savagely into the flesh of his neck.

The noose, wrapped around an iron beam above, tightened around Gauhyeon’s throat as it hauled him upward.

Then, from between the rows of hanging meat, something stepped forward.

“You’re the dog.”

A pair of red eyes loomed before Gauhyeon.

Chui. He was calmly looking up at Gauhyeon’s face.

“Kh! Khehk! Nghk!”

Gauhyeon struggled, but the more he thrashed, the tighter the noose became.

Chui put strength into the hand gripping the wire on the opposite end and pulled.

The noose, suffused with red inner energy, tightened to its limit.

As Gauhyeon trembled, his tongue lolling and his body shaking, Chui spoke.

“I’m curious about the internal layout of the Namgung Clan estate.”

At the same time, the noose loosened ever so slightly.

Finally, Gauhyeon opened his mouth.

“Go… to hell, you fucking bastard… You think I’ll talk?”

Chui nodded, as if he’d expected that.

“You don’t really need to talk.”

“…?”

As Gauhyeon was about to respond, the noose snapped tight once more.

Thrash—thrash—

Gauhyeon struggled even more violently than before.

After briefly tasting the sweetness of air, having it stripped away again in an instant was only natural.

‘I’ll talk! I’ll talk!’

The light of unmistakable regret poured from his eyes—

But it was already too late.

“The dead are more honest than the living.”

Chui had already decided to turn Gauhyeon into a vengeful spirit and use him.

Soon—

…Crack! Snap!

Gauhyeon’s neck, bound in the wire, twisted sharply to the side.

And so, one more chunk of meat was added to the wagon’s cargo.

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