“H-how is this… how…”

Gok Taejun could not seem to believe the situation and only went on murmuring stupidly.

Seo Woojin paid him no mind and dragged the chest at Gok Taejun’s side over to his own side of the table.

It had been filled with so much silver that it would not close properly.

“Haha. I don’t think I’ve ever had my hands on this much money in my life. I’m starting to see why people lose their heads over it.”

At Seo Woojin’s easy patter, Gok Taejun finally came back to himself.

“You—!!”

BANG!

Gok Taejun roared and pushed his chair back. Then he leveled a finger at Seo Woojin and berated him.

“You dared try to cheat me?! You truly want to be buried in this place!!”

For all the killing intent coming off him, Seo Woojin stayed at his leisure.

“Do you have proof?”

“What?”

“I asked whether you have proof that I cheated you.”

Gok Taejun was thrown for a moment by the change in the way Seo Woojin was speaking.

But he took stock of who was standing beside him soon enough, and put on that mean little smile of his.

“I don’t need proof, or anything like it. In this world the voice of the man with power ends up being the proof and the truth both.”

Gok Taejun gestured behind him, and the Blood Breaker warriors who had been waiting took a step forward.

With their weight at his back, Gok Taejun issued his warning.

“I’ll grant you one last mercy. If your life is worth anything to you, leave what’s there and get out. Ah — and the letter envelope inside your robe with it, of course.”

Seo Woojin ran his eyes slowly over the Gok Clan’s men.

Not one of them found the situation strange.

Because, as Gok Taejun had said, you take it by force.

Because that was the way they had always done it.

The corner of Seo Woojin’s mouth climbed.

“So you held back once because I’m a Murim Alliance warrior after all? Because I might turn into the cause of some dispute?”

“What?”

“Which means you aren’t a complete idiot. Well. That’s also how I caught you this easily.”

At the words, which made no sense to him, Gok Taejun’s face screwed up.

“Do you truly want to die? What are you talking ab—”

Gok Taejun’s sentence could not go on.

Because Seo Woojin put a hand to the side of his own neck.

Rrrrip!

And tore.

And there was Seo Woojin’s face.

Gok Taejun’s eyes went wide enough to split.

Seo Woojin was wearing a bright smile, as though enjoying his shock.

“To tell the truth, I’ve been finding that way of doing things fun myself lately. That unreasonable rule where the one with power takes everything.”

“…What?”

The moment Gok Taejun answered stupidly.

Shhk!

With a very small tearing of air.

Grab. Shhk!

CRAAASH!

A roar went off behind him.

Gok Taejun spun around, startled.

The head of the Blood Breaker warrior at the very back was buried in the floor.

A woman knelt with her hand on the back of the man’s skull.

Song Biryeong rose slowly to her feet.

She counted the Blood Breakers who were left, and let out a small sigh.

“Young Clan Head Gok. Haven’t you lived in a greenhouse a little too long? Bringing this few guards into a rough world like this one. It hardly makes it worth my staying behind.”

“F-Four Black Dragons…?”

Song Biryeong’s alluring smile felt ghastly.

She ran her tongue once over her lips.

That was all of it.

Whoosh!

She rushed straight forward.

She pushed past the tightly packed Blood Breaker warriors and went directly for Gok Taejun.

“How dare—!!”

Shhing—!

Wi Jinho, standing right beside Gok Taejun, drew his saber and blocked her path.

And the instant Song Biryeong came into range, he swept the blade fast.

It was movement worthy of a Blood Breaker squad leader.

Of course.

Which is not to say it was anything next to the Four Black Dragons.

Shhk.

Song Biryeong twisted her body sideways without losing any speed.

And drew her right hand back behind her.

Shhhhk!

Wi Jinho’s saber cut empty air for nothing.

Shhhk! CRAAASH!

And Song Biryeong’s fist caved his face in dead center.

Whirl! Thump!

Wi Jinho turned a full circle in the air and dropped to the floor.

His face was painted over with blood, and hard to recognize as a face.

He was dead.

“Uh… uh…?”

Gok Taejun was too thrown to get a word out properly.

Song Biryeong wiped the blood off her hand on Wi Jinho’s uniform.

“What a loyal subordinate. If it weren’t for you, I might have killed Young Clan Head Gok by accident.”

She said something appalling as though it were nothing. Rising slowly, Song Biryeong looked at Gok Taejun.

Her mouth wore a smile, but her eyes were as cold as a north wind over snow.

“Don’t open your mouth. I think if I hear that voice again I’ll kill you.”

“Hup!”

Gok Taejun covered his mouth with both hands before he knew he had.

Only then did Song Biryeong nod, satisfied.

“Good boy. Young Clan Head. Please go on being that good all the way to the end.”

And Song Biryeong turned.

Her reckoning was not finished yet.

“What are you all doing? Your superior is dead and you’re going to keep standing there looking stupid?”

The Blood Breaker warriors flinched, but not one of them stepped forward willingly.

Song Biryeong wore a thick sneer and nodded.

“Fine. There aren’t many of you, so I’ll come to you.”

Swish.

Thud!

Whoosh!

She stamped down and shot forward again in a straight line.

The warrior she had marked jumped and moved to a comrade’s side.

The two of them swung their sabers at the same moment.

Another warrior used the gap to come in behind her.

An attack from front and back.

Song Biryeong snorted and twisted at the waist.

Her right leg flew out like a whip.

At the same moment she drove a fist backward.

CRAAASH! CLAAANG—!!

CRAAASH!

The two sabers that met her leg cried out in an ugly sound and broke apart.

And the man who had come in from behind never got his blade properly swung.

He was thrown far off and driven into the ground by the fist-wind she put out.

There was no time even to recover from the shock.

Because Song Biryeong had already gathered herself and closed fast on the two men in front.

Both her fists moved short and fast.

Thwack! Crunch!

They struck the two men square in the ribs.

Their bodies crumpled with the sound of ribs breaking.

They could not draw breath through the pain. Their organs had probably ruptured too, so they would not last long.

Song Biryeong turned and counted what was left.

“Ten or so. I’d like it if you kept me entertained.”

It was not only Gok Taejun.

Even the Blood Breaker warriors could not put a foot forward.

The fine tremor running through them was the proof.

But unfortunately.

Because once she has drawn blood she has to see it through to the end.

Song Biryeong moved again.

And the warriors who were left, sensing the death coming for them, had to spend their last moments regretting their lives.

They should never have staked their hopes on Gok Taejun.

They should never have put money on a wastrel.

They had beaten out a lot of competition to get into the Tenth Squad, looking only toward the day Gok Taejun became clan head.

That had been the worst hand they held.

And so the stake that was their lives guttered out for nothing, along with the regret.

The carnage Song Biryeong had made was cleared away as though it had never been.

Everyone who had been inside the gambling den to begin with was one of Mun Seok’s men.

They cleaned the place up fast, and the unsettled air gradually calmed.

Gok Taejun sat tied to a chair. Both his eyes were covered with a black cloth.

The fear of not being able to see was evidently greater than he had expected; he was sweating heavily.

Several times his lips seemed about to move, but Song Biryeong’s warning came back to him and he could not easily get the words out.

That was understandable. The killing intent she had shown then would have been hard for most warriors to bear.

Seo Woojin turned his head and looked at Mun Seok and Kang Boksu.

“Well done. Thanks to you the business went smoothly.”

Mun Seok waved his hands on behalf of them both.

“Aigoo, not at all! It’s only what we ought to be doing. Hahaha.”

That awkward laugh carried a clear wish to be out of the room quickly.

A short laugh escaped Seo Woojin, and he nodded.

“Then take your brothers and go, Brother Mun. Payment for this will come later. Ah — and if there’s something you want, think about it in advance.”

The eyes of both Mun Seok and Kang Boksu lit for a moment. They swallowed and bowed low enough that their heads nearly touched the floor.

“Thank you!! We’ll take our leave, then!!”

And once Mun Seok’s people had left the gambling den, only Gok Taejun and Seo Woojin’s party were left in that pitch-dark basement.

Seo Woojin kept his eyes on Gok Taejun and spoke.

“Chief Bae.”

Bae Seokjin, standing behind Gok Taejun, took a step forward.

“Yes.”

“How much is White Blossom Hall’s debt?”

Instead of answering, Bae Seokjin took a ledger from inside his robe and handed it over.

“The ledger that was inside Wi Jinho’s robe. The repayment date passed several days ago, so twenty taels of silver in interest have to be added.”

Seo Woojin opened the ledger, looked it over, and gave a hollow laugh.

Only a few days had passed and the interest alone was twenty taels of silver. It was a kind of arithmetic you would not find anywhere.

“Greedy, aren’t they.”

Seo Woojin pointed at the chest beside him.

“Take out exactly White Blossom Hall’s payment. Count the interest in precisely, so nobody can say anything about it.”

“Understood.”

Bae Seokjin opened the chest and put exactly the amount of the debt into a sack.

Seo Woojin pushed the paper, brush and ink lying on the table toward Gok Taejun, who was sitting in front of him.

And when he tipped his head, Muk-yeong took away the cloth over Gok Taejun’s eyes.

Gok Taejun squinted at the sudden light, but he grasped the situation quickly enough.

He glared at Seo Woojin and growled, low.

“Do you think… do you think you’ll walk away from this?”

Seo Woojin frowned and clicked his tongue.

“Tsk. That isn’t it.”

“What?”

Gok Taejun put the question at once, but the answer came from behind him.

Grab!

Someone took a fistful of the back of his head.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

And drove it into the table over and over.

“Guhk!”

His nose burst and his forehead split, and whoever had hold of him had no intention of stopping.

At the moment he seemed about to lose consciousness.

Seo Woojin raised a hand.

Only then did Song Biryeong stop. She looked down at him with indifferent eyes, then brought her mouth to his ear.

“Please. I’m begging you — don’t fall apart so easily. If you really are the heir of the Tyrant Blade Gok Clan, which sits at the top of the Seven Families, then show me that spirit. That’s the only way I’ll be able to manage my own anger.”

Had a woman’s voice ever felt this skin-crawling before?

Gok Taejun bit his lip, resentment and terror mixed together on his face.

Blood from his split forehead ran into his eyes, and he did not dare wipe it away.

The humiliation and the fear, the first of their kind in his life, left him unable to think normally.

Whoosh!

Song Biryeong let go of Gok Taejun and stepped back again, and Seo Woojin let out a small sigh.

“You ought to think before you let words out. Saying whatever your mood tells you is how you end up taking this kind of treatment.”

Seo Woojin took a plain cotton cloth from inside his robe and wiped the blood off Gok Taejun’s face.

Gok Taejun wanted to jerk his head away and refuse it, but he could not, for fear of being humiliated again.

Seo Woojin got the blood roughly off him, then looked at the paper on the table.

“Well, now.”

The paper was soaked through with Gok Taejun’s blood.

Seo Woojin looked at the reddened sheet and thought a moment, then nodded.

“Can’t be helped. What does a little blood matter. What’s written on it is what matters.”

Saying it, he picked up the brush from the inkstone and held it out to Gok Taejun.

Gok Taejun took it without meaning to.

“What in the world are you plotting.”

Song Biryeong started to step in again at the question, but Seo Woojin raised a hand and stopped her.

Then he folded his arms and answered him kindly.

“Plotting, you say… Can’t you tell from looking? I’m taking back what was taken.”

Gok Taejun set his teeth.

Rage came out from between them.

“Handling a matter this high-handedly…! Do you really think—”

Gok Taejun was mid-sentence when he caught himself with a start and checked behind him.

Fortunately he felt no movement from Song Biryeong, so he was able to finish it.

“Do you really think this is going to work?!”

Seo Woojin smirked and shrugged.

“What’s not to work? Isn’t this your way of doing things? Take it by force and hold it down by force.”

“To the Gok Clan, that is—!”

Gok Taejun started to argue again, and Seo Woojin shook his head firmly.

“Ah, ah. The name of the Gok Clan doesn’t carry in here, so spare me the nonsense. What matters is this. That in this room, right now, you are thoroughly the weaker party. And that if you want to hold on to that precious life of yours, you’ll keep any further remarks to yourself.”

“Kuh…!”

Seo Woojin jutted his chin at the paper.

“Write it out.”

“Write what.”

“It needs to say that White Blossom Hall has paid its debt with the interest included, and that you cleanly surrender all claim on White Blossom Hall. You’ve done plenty of these, so you’ll know how. Make it convincing. Ah, and be sure to press your handprint at the end.”

“But that money is—!!”

“Yes. It’s my money, won at cards.”

“…!!”

Gok Taejun thought the injustice of it would drive him mad. He had clearly walked into a trap, and there was no one he could complain to now.

Gok Taejun glared at Seo Woojin as though to kill him and took a proper grip on the brush.

And he wrote out everything Seo Woojin wanted, leaving nothing out.

‘Getting out of here alive comes first. No other Blood Breaker warriors have come in, which must mean they were taken as well. Damn it…’

How he was to raise this with his father he had no idea, but surviving came first.

And this humiliation I will pay back without fail.

He finished writing it all and wiped his own face with his palm.

Then he pressed his handprint down with the blood-covered palm.

“Is that it! Then untie me at once! You have what you came for, so send me home!!”

Gok Taejun raised his voice, but Seo Woojin only went carefully through what he had written. Then, satisfied, he nodded and passed it to Bae Seokjin.

Then he put both hands on the table and laced his fingers.

He leaned forward slightly and looked steadily at Gok Taejun.

There was no feeling in his eyes at all. It was a different kind of fear from Song Biryeong’s killing intent.

Far deeper, and colder.

Whatever Gok Taejun might be thinking, Seo Woojin spoke without any expression in his voice.

“I think you’ve misunderstood something.”

“…?”

“This is where it starts.”

“What?”

“There’s a fair amount I have to get out of you.”

The line of Seo Woojin’s mouth curved up steeply.

That smile, twisted with blood in it, came at Gok Taejun as something crueler than a brand from the King of Hell.

“The night is long, so let’s take it slow.”

(End of Chapter 57)