North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 74

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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74. The Scent of Karani

“The day’s waning. We’ll lodge here for the night.”
Garkan swept his gaze across the inn and spoke.
The common room stood empty. The lamplight was dim, the wick charred and cooling. Even the brazier’s fire was dying down to embers.
“Where’s the proprietor?”
Aelak asked without inflection.
“Vanished with whoever scattered the Confusion Drug. The serving staff too. This inn is abandoned.”
Garkan gave a slight shrug.
He’d already swept the corners of the room with his eyes: empty tables, an overturned chair, a single chopstick fallen to the floor.
“The kitchen’s still intact. Plenty of vegetables and meat—things the drug didn’t touch. We can prepare fresh meals from those.”
Taikan spoke tersely.
Serian nodded quietly.
“I’ll prepare the food.”
Serian’s voice was low and gentle. The resolve, the sharpness she’d shown fighting the Blaze Wolf Clan—it had vanished like a lie, nowhere to be seen.
‘I should have the servants—’
Cheok Ha-rin looked around for her attendants, but the maids and servants hadn’t fully shaken off the Confusion Drug’s grip.
One maid sat with her head resting on a table, eyes shut. Another was slumped against the wall, her lips moving faintly.
The servants were no better—neither awake nor asleep, still trapped in that murky in-between state.
‘Sigh.’
Only a thin breath escaped her lips.
So this was what it meant to be helpless. Was this what the martial world truly was?

Soon, a steaming broth appeared on the long table alongside perfectly cooked noodles and evenly sliced meat.
Steam rose straight up from the bowls.
The noodles gleamed with sheen, the meat lay in neat, measured portions. Dishes clicked and chimed as they were set down.
Aelak took the center seat.
Garkan and Taikan sat across from him, while Harku settled a distance away, pressing at his side wound.
Tonight’s watch fell to Arko, who chose a spot with a clear view of the entrance.
Before eating, Arko surveyed the darkness beyond the doorway, then set his Poison Blade carefully against his knee.
Serian took a seat to Aelak’s left.
Cheok Mu-yeong and Cheok Ha-rin faced each other at an adjacent table, with barely a step’s distance between the two.
The meal began.
“You said you were travelers, yes? Where do you come from?”
Cheok Ha-rin voiced her curiosity first.
She’d never seen anyone from the North Sea before. Nor anyone wearing furs in early spring.
“From far away.”
Garkan’s reply was brief.
Aelak’s group didn’t know Cheok Ha-rin’s status. Even if they had, they wouldn’t have deferred to her.
To them, she was merely a young girl.
“Are all people from the North Sea as tall as you? I’ve heard it snows there constantly—is that truly the case?”
“Some are tall, some are short. I’m on the larger side.”
Garkan spoke with a hint of humor.
It was true enough as well. There was no need to weave falsehoods into such things.
Garkan lifted his cup briefly, wetting his lips.
His hand was heavy as he set it down.
Cheok Ha-rin gave a soft laugh.
“And the snow? Does it really pile up all year?”
“Some places melt in summer, but in winter… many regions accumulate snow as high as a man’s height. Difficult to traverse on foot.”
“Really? Tall as a person?”
Cheok Ha-rin’s eyes widened with wonder.
Cheok Mu-yeong leaned over from beside his sister and spoke in a hushed voice.
“Sister, don’t ask our guests so many questions. This is a meal.”
His tone carried its usual gentle familiarity.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I suppose I got a bit carried away.”
“You needn’t apologize. It’s my sister’s first journey beyond our home—she’s been ill for so long. Everything will seem wondrous. Sister, your excitement is fine; just go gently, yes?”
Cheok Mu-yeong offered Cheok Ha-rin a warm smile, but he did not neglect to observe Aelak and his companions.
Subtly, yet keenly.
His gaze lingered especially on Aelak, who ate in unbroken silence throughout the meal.
Aelak’s spoon moved between bowl and mouth at a steady rhythm, his face revealing nothing—as though he were a man from whom all feeling had been drained.
And so Cheok Mu-yeong’s eyes found him again and again.
“This broth is truly delicious.”
“I’m glad it suits your taste. It’s prepared in the North Sea way, so it may seem rather plain.”
“No, it’s quite delicious.”
“Don’t you find these noodles a touch too salty? They’re more heavily seasoned than what we have in the north.”
Garkan spoke.
“The noodles from the north are less seasoned?”
“Rather less, yes. Up there, the cold does the seasoning for you.”
Cheok Ha-rin’s eyes lit up with interest.
Cheok Mu-yeong understood that his sister was curious, but too much talk was inadvisable. He quickly poured tea into her cup.
“Have some tea. Eat slowly, sister.”
“Yes, brother.”

Even as the conversation flowed between them, Aelak’s nostrils flared ever so slightly. The muscles beside the bridge of his nose tightened and released in rapid succession.
Garkan did not notice. Harku did not notice. Taikan and Arko did not notice. The infinitesimal movement at his nose was swallowed by the sound of eating.
Across the table, the lamp’s wick was guttering. Its light slowly died. The shadows on the dining surface lengthened in silence.
He drew a sharp breath inward.
Aelak breathed in again.
A familiar scent met his nostrils—the white flower of Bing Gong, the fragrance of the Seol-yeon Technique.
That scent wafted from Cheok Ha-rin.
The spirit and scent that had driven Karani to her death now emanated from this woman’s body.
He drew another breath.
Beneath the Seol-yeon fragrance lay a thin veil of Cold Qi—not the cold air of the North Sea’s Bing Gong, but a different coldness, ominous and sickening.
One fragrance and one energy released from the body of a single person, wafting from within Cheok Ha-rin’s garments.
Han-seo-ji-byeong and the Seol-yeon Technique.
Aelak’s thoughts crystallized with sharp clarity.
The Seol-yeon Technique that vanished from Bing Gong had been taken by the murderer. How it was used remained unknown. Yet now that very scent was before him.
Karani’s scent.
The fragrance that had risen from her corpse now emanated from another person’s clothes. The woman he had known was gone; only her scent lingered on someone else.
A cold light flashed briefly in Aelak’s gray eyes.
He set down his spoon slowly.
Garkan did not see it. Harku did not see it. Taikan and Arko did not see it. But Serian saw. She was always watching Aelak. Yet she did not speak.
Her hand touched the rim of her teacup lightly, as though she saw nothing, felt nothing, as though nothing at all had occurred.
She never spoke before Aelak opened his mouth.
Cheok Ha-rin opened her mouth again.
She did not notice that a corner of the atmosphere had turned rigid.
“Father mentioned something the other day…”
Her tone was bright and crisp, the tone of someone wishing aloud that plum blossoms would bloom. Yet her words trailed away.
“We ought not speak of family matters while traveling, sister. My apologies—ours is such an unremarkable household, after all.”
It was not his usual affectionate manner. It was a sharp, clipped rebuke. An intonation wholly unlike him.
Cheok Ha-rin’s mouth fell open. Her expression blank with shock.
Her brother had never spoken to her that way.
Yet she did not ask why. Curious she might be, but a fool she was not. She detected at once that the air around them had grown strained.
When brother spoke like that, there was always a reason.
Cheok Mu-yeong’s own mind raced.
A traveler from the north. Bing Gong-ju, who had died some two months before. The Seol-yeon Technique vanished from Bing Gong. And his sister’s overcoming of her inborn flaw.
If this were so, then was the object of their revenge Father?
For now it was mere conjecture, yet it was a question he could not ask. Worse—it was dangerous. He needed to find an opportunity to extract themselves.
He set down his spoon slowly.
He poured tea into his sister’s cup. His hand did not tremble. Steam rose straight up. She accepted the tea he offered.
After pouring, he calmly rearranged the bowl before him, shifting its position inward by the width of a palm.
By such a gesture, he steadied his expression.
Serian’s blue-gray eyes followed that movement in silence.
An affectionate tone had become a sharp rebuke, then reverted to an affectionate gesture. Between them lay a line of unspoken meaning.
Cheok Ha-rin, now calmer, gave a brief order to her attendant.
“Brew fresh tea. This has gone cold.”
“Yes, miss.”
The maid took the cup and disappeared toward the kitchen.
Her footsteps were light. The maid’s shoulders, beginning to wake from the Confusion Drug, had stiffened slightly.
Just then, Aelak rose from his seat and stepped outside.

A moment later, Aelak returned.
In his hands was a large wooden figurine—taken from the horse’s saddle.
Silver-colored hair had been carved into it with fine detail.
Blue-gray eyes were marked with thin lines of blade work. Eight deep marks had been carved into the shoulders, chest, and ribs.
Slash marks, puncture wounds, scorch marks.
Aelak set the figurine quietly onto the table before the two of them.
Thud.
The dull sound of wood striking wood echoed softly. The steam rising from the dishes trembled slightly at the sound.
“Can you tell whose martial art is carved here?”
His voice was brief and heavy.
It took the form of a request, yet it was no request at all. It carried far more weight than any plea could.
Cheok Mu-yeong’s shoulders stiffened slightly.
Cheok Ha-rin’s gaze fell upon the figurine. Her hand, without thinking, moved forward by a span toward the figurine’s shoulder.
Cheok Mu-yeong’s eyes fixed upon the mark on the shoulder.
The scorch mark of friction heat carved into the shoulder. The area around the slash was blackened with the mark of burning.
That mark, he knew.
His father’s blade moved so fast it seared flesh with friction heat itself.
A swordform he had watched from childhood.
The grass where his father had finished his demonstration, turned black as char. The thin wisp of smoke rising from a split bamboo. He had witnessed it all.
The darkness carved into the wooden figurine was the same as the darkness he had seen at the tips of grass blades in his childhood.
Cheok Ha-rin’s gaze followed the same path.
A mark she had never seen before, yet one she could never forget.
Her hand moved closer to the mark by another span, trying to see the scorch clearly. Her lips parted slightly.
Then Cheok Mu-yeong spoke first.
“It’s dark now since night has fallen—I cannot tell. Let us examine it again in daylight, when it is clear.”
His tone was courteous. No awkwardness showed through.
Cheok Ha-rin’s hand froze just short of the mark.
Her brother’s profile was serene. Yet she sensed that beneath that serenity lay something else.
‘What is this?’
A brief flash of light crossed Cheok Ha-rin’s eyes.
“That’s true. The Central Plains has so many similar martial arts. But what is this wooden figurine?”
She spoke as though she had not recognized it at all.
“Sister. That’s not a question you should ask.”
“Oh! Is that so? I didn’t know.”
Her hand left the wooden figurine and slowly came to rest on her own lap. She understood now that her brother was holding her back.
Aelak’s gray eyes looked toward Cheok Mu-yeong. It was a brief glance.
“I shall examine it more carefully when daylight comes.”
Cheok Mu-yeong spoke with courtesy.
“Very well.”
Aelak withdrew his gaze as though it were nothing of great moment.
He did not force an answer.
He picked up the figurine and moved it back beside his knee.

The meal resumed.
Garkan picked up the chopsticks he had set down for a moment. He lifted a strand of noodles with his chopstick and brought it to his mouth. The firmness of the noodles remained unchanged.
“Noodles should be eaten before they cool. Once they’ve grown cold, they’re no longer proper noodles.”
“The noodles are quite well-made, sir.”
Harku started to chuckle but caught himself with a wince at his side.
“This cursed rib—I can’t even laugh freely. If this side weren’t throbbing, I’d eat two more bowls.”
Harku pressed his hand gingerly against his ribs, prodding again at the source of the pain. Then he slowly brought noodles to his mouth.
“Eat well. Who knows when you’ll have another chance.”
Garkan’s words carried weight beneath them.
The Aelak tribe had seen everything, lived through everything. They were not people who would miss the strange currents of Qi flowing through the inn. They understood the reason, too.
Taikan emptied his bowl without a word. He wiped the broth from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. Arko’s gaze scarcely left the darkness of the entrance.
“We should retire now, I’m afraid. The aftereffects of the Confusion Drug linger—my head still isn’t clear. Please forgive us for tonight.”
Cheok Mu-yeong rose first, assuming a fist salute.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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