North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 84

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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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84. Not What Flowed In

The rain had stopped.
The downpour that had lasted all night had softened the earthen road completely, and with each step of the hooves, mud was sucked down with a wet squelch.
The sky had cleared, but the cold that lingered from the rain’s end bit deep into their skin.
Several days’ journey still lay between them and Hwasan. Cheok Mu-yeong led the way ahead, and the rest of the party drove their horses forward, following his back.
“Elder brother, what’s been wrong with you since last night?”
Cheok Ha-rin asked from her horse, studying his rigid shoulders. Her voice was bright, but no answer came.
“You haven’t said a word. Ever since you went out at night and came back, you’ve been like this.”
“…There’s nothing to say.”
“That’s not it. Something’s happened. I can see it in your face.”
“…No. Don’t worry about it.”
His words were short in a way that stung. This wasn’t his usual gentle reproof—it was a line drawn to keep her from coming any closer. Once she had read that line, she could ask no more.
Garkan drove his horse forward in silence, and Harku had nothing to say either. Aelak was a man who had forgotten speech. The journey these past days felt as lonely as traveling alone.

Se Rian counted the past several days differently. Had they truly chosen this path of their own will and come this far? She was the first to break the silence.
“Stop.”
Se Rian turned her horse’s head to the side.
The procession came to a halt. Among the party, no one could ignore Se Rian’s word. The four retainers treated her with the respect due to the clan leader’s wife, and even Aelak honored Fukoku tradition.
“We’re heading to Hwasan right now, aren’t we?”
Everyone turned to look at her with confusion.
Se Rian spoke.
“But why are we going to Hwasan?”
“……”
All were silent. The one who could answer that question was Aelak, but Se Rian was not asking because she didn’t know.
“Hwasan is the path the clan leader set. We all followed it.”
Se Rian swept her gaze across the party.
“But the clan leader’s words—’Let us go to Hwasan.’ If someone created circumstances that made him reach such a decision… shouldn’t we think about this? No matter how much the clan leader’s heart is set on Hwasan.”
She was not doubting Hwasan itself, but the process that had led to his decision to go there. The party looked at her.
“You have suspicions?”
Aelak’s gray eyes turned toward her as if to say, speak.
Se Rian drew a folded piece of paper from her waist and unfolded it across her lap. The finest daughters of Fukoku learn from childhood how to read the traces left by people.
“If Se Rian has finished her reckoning, then something ill surely has occurred.”
Garkan received her words without resistance.
“Please, hear me out.”
Se Rian pointed to one section of the paper.
“Before we entered the Narrow Gorge, there were corpses of guards piled there. Cheok Clan guards. They weren’t there by chance. They were laid out in the middle of the road, spread before us to see.”
“For us to see.”
Garkan stroked his beard.
“They knew we would take that path. The message was: abandon your journey to Hwasan and go into the Narrow Gorge to save people. The corpses were bait.”
“That’s true. We did go when we saw them.”
Harku interjected quietly. Interest flickered at the corners of his mouth, but following his brother’s teachings, he held his voice steady.
“A crude hand. To pave a road with the dead.”
“And second.”
Se Rian’s fingertip moved to another section of the paper.
“The Hwasaek Rang Army that attacked us—before their ambush, they received anonymous intelligence. Where those two would pass. They already knew the path. The attack in the Narrow Gorge wasn’t something the Hwasaek Rang Army carried out on its own. It was a planned assault that came from someone’s mind.”
Taikan, the one among the party who could hear and see the farthest, opened his mouth.
“I couldn’t hear all of it clearly. But then… a footstep from inside that leaks out makes no sound.”
“Then that leaves the question: ‘Why would someone do such a thing?’ Why did they make us meet those two?”
Se Rian looked around at the group.
“That person doesn’t want us and those two to be separated. Look at us now. We’re all traveling to Hwasan together. Everything that happened in between was meant to bind us to those two.”
As Se Rian finished speaking, the weight of her words settled one by one upon the shoulders of the party.
“So our straying into the Narrow Gorge, our turning back to Hwasan again…”
Garkan stroked his beard.
“We’ve simply been following the path that person laid out. Every place we set foot was a place that someone else had already stepped…”
“That’s the only way I can read it.”
Se Rian nodded.
The path she believed she had chosen of her own accord had transformed in an instant into ground that someone else had prepared.

At the words “anonymous intelligence,” Cheok Mu-yeong’s shoulders stiffened.
Someone who could see through the Inspector General of the Murim Alliance’s every movement as if looking into an open hand—but who?
It wasn’t the first time she’d spoken of this. Even after the fight in the Narrow Gorge, he’d heard it—the question of how she knew to come.
Whoever this person was.
Cheok Mu-yeong was searching for them too.
His hand moved toward his sword hilt, but he stopped short of touching the blade, aware of his companions’ eyes. He revealed nothing of the tension coiled within him.

Se Rian pointed to the papers in sequence.
“One hand laid out a path with corpses, and the other reported Cheok Un-hui’s movements to the Hwasaek Rang Army. The craftsmanship differs, so the hands are different. Not one person, but two. Two hands, yet the mind directing them is singular. It’s not just one person.”
Aelak asked a question.
“What’s the aim?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Se Rian’s voice lowered.
“It could be a trap to gather us all in one place and strike at once, or it could be bait to draw us forward and have us collide with someone. Which it is, we won’t know until we go. But…”
She let her words trail off.
“Either way, we’re walking into a trap.”
Se Rian’s gaze turned toward Cheok Ha-rin, then shifted to Aelak.
The chill Aelak was sensing from Cheok Ha-rin.
What if the hidden figure had kept them together precisely to expose him to this coldness?
If so, then striking Heaven’s Best Sword Cheok Un-hui first would not be the answer.
“Faceless hands. These kinds of bastards always stink the worst.”
Arko drew breath through his nose.
“There’s no scent yet, no name we can grasp.”
No one spoke.
“Then heading straight to Hwasan would be the same as walking into a place he’s already prepared, wouldn’t it.”
Harku cut in softly, his slight smile still lingering at the corners of his mouth.
“Right. If we go straight, he’ll already have the next trap laid out waiting for us.”
“Destroy it.”
Aelak spoke simply.
Trap or no trap, it made no difference to him. Anyone blocking the way would be destroyed. That included the option to keep heading for Hwasan. Even if there was a trap there, destroying it would suffice.
But everyone tilted their heads at Aelak’s words.
Why Hwasan?
They had set their course for Hwasan in the first place because Cheok Ha-rin, who carried the Aroma of Karani, wanted to go there. She had said she was going to meet an uncle in the Hwasan School—for that exact reason, to meet that uncle.
But now Cheok Ha-rin was here with them. There was no longer any reason to go to Hwasan.
This was what Se Rian and the four subordinates all thought.
The Cheok siblings couldn’t begin to understand why Aelak wanted to go to Hwasan.
What was he thinking?
Se Rian folded the papers and spoke.
“There are eight traces. We should leave the path the Tribal Chief set as it is and first catch whoever pushed us in this direction. It seems we could reopen the road to Hwasan afterward without issue.”
“Did those hands come to the North Sea?”
Aelak spoke for the first time, his gaze fixed ahead, low and brief.
“Even if they didn’t come to the North Sea, whoever knows about this incident must be deliberately steering us in one direction. Otherwise they wouldn’t be herding us this way.”
Se Rian had rephrased “Cheok Un-hui” as “one direction.”
There was no more perfect evidence than the Aroma of Karani.
If the Seol-ryeon-gwa reached Cheon Geom Mun, Cheok Un-hui would have no choice but to answer for it.
“What then?”
Aelak took a step back.
“And… I can’t be certain yet, but this person seems to have visited the North Sea as well.”
“What!”
Everyone startled and stared at Se Rian.
“Do you want to see this?”
Se Rian withdrew a dried wooden log from her robes.
“I found this in the ashes of the Abandoned Temple. It looks like it was cut by whoever was there before us—the way the Tribal Chief cut wood. But… look at this cross-section.”
She turned the charred edge toward her companions.
It was a clean, smooth cut across the grain, but the edges were singed black.
“Char marks from fire?”
Garkan asked.
“It’s not fire. The blade is so fast that the friction from the cut burns the wood in that instant. A sword that can achieve that speed is rare.”

‘When did she find this?’
Cheok Mu-yeong stared at the piece of wood in astonishment.
He had searched the area yesterday too and found traces of those who had passed before. But he had not found any sign of a fire.
Had Se Rian come here first?

Se Rian spoke.
“Among the wood-carving traces, you can see this mark, yes? A blade that scorches flesh in the moment of cutting.”
Garkan’s eyes narrowed.
“Which means that hand came to this Abandoned Temple before us. And that hand is pushing us toward Hwasan.”
Garkan deliberately left out the matter of the Cheok sisters.
“Are you certain of this, Se Rian?”
Harku asked.
“It’s still conjecture, so I can’t say with certainty. But if we go to Hwasan like this, I have the feeling we’ll be dragged along.”
Cheok Ha-rin held her breath and listened.
These people were speaking of the death of Bing Gong-ju in the North Sea. This was not a place for an outsider to intrude. And she had confirmed that their purpose in going to Hwasan was to find the culprit.
‘If there is a culprit, I can ask Uncle for help. He will help.’
She alternated her gaze between her brother’s stern profile and the sharp eyes of his companions.
Aelak looked at Se Rian.
“We put off going straight to Hwasan. We hunt the hand that pushed us first.”
“We’ll do as you say, Chief.”
Garkan tightened the Bing Cheol Swae once around his wrist.
“Better to seize them by the throat than to be dragged along blindly. That much is clearer.”
Aelak looked at Se Rian again and spoke.
“But we don’t even know where that hand is. Which way do we go?”
“Away from Hwasan. In any other direction.”
Se Rian answered at once.
“Once we change course, the hand that pushed us will approach again. In some way. And that approach will lead us toward where that hand is. Until then, we must wait with patience.”
“We could sweep the area as we go.”
Se Rian understood what Aelak meant.
There were two people right in front of them to seize. It seemed one was with Hwasan, and it was very likely that Cheok Un-hui had gone north.
If they seized these two, couldn’t they find the others?
Se Rian shook her head gently.
A swordmaster of Heaven’s Best Sword caliber would never betray his allies. She didn’t know who had joined Hwasan, but anyone who had visited the North Sea’s Bing Gong would be a master as well. He would never name names.
She would have to find them one by one.
This was her chance to identify the third culprit.
Aelak stared at the silent Se Rian for a long time. She understood what he meant, yet only shook her head—saying nothing.
“Very well.”
Permission to change direction fell from Aelak’s lips.

Cheok Mu-yeong furrowed his brow.
The blade mark that had scorched the wood resembled his father’s sword in one respect. But it was quite different. Where his father’s blade had passed, the wood turned black and hardened. This log had been burned by fire.
His father’s blade was a step faster.
‘Who is this person?’
He knew all the supreme swordmasters in the martial world of the Central Plains, yet he had never heard of anyone wielding a blade like this.
But from what these northerners were saying, this person had gone north with his father and was now leading them toward Hwasan.
‘Is he planning to stab Father in the back?’
“…Whichever direction you choose.”
Cheok Mu-yeong spoke briefly.
“We will take the lead. I will make a formal report to the Murim Alliance. With the Alliance’s help, we will find the culprit. Needless conflict is something the martial world of the Central Plains does not desire either.”
“Brother.”
Cheok Ha-rin looked at his profile.
“That would be appreciated.”
Se Rian smiled broadly.

The party changed direction.
In Cheok Mu-yeong’s mind, a single line to send to his father was taking shape.

– The northerners are pursuing someone who visited the North Sea’s Bing Gong. Their target is Hwasan. And a swift swordmaster who can burn wood with his blade.

Should I report this, or keep it hidden?
Father must already see through all their movements clearly.
Perhaps it would be better to part ways with them here. That way, at least I wouldn’t become part of the group pursuing Father.
Her doubts deepened.

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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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