The mountain road toward Anhui was quiet, and Pung Hyeon's mood was perfectly at peace.
His pocket jingled with Gwak Family gold coins, a gentle warmth from the thousand-year snow ginseng still lingered in his belly, and floating through his mind was the image of one very expensive sword from the Namgung Clan.
*Swipe one fancy sword and I'll look like a master swordsman without ever drawing the thing. Yep. I'm a genius.*
This was, of course, the extremely confident delusion of someone who had never once held a blade.
The problem was that the peace lasted exactly half a day.
Around midday, Pung Hyeon's spine started to itch.
That sensation—the one that had woken him inside the tiger's den.
The cold feeling that someone was *watching* him.
He turned around. A beggar of indeterminate age stood there, smiling.
*…Again?*
Pung Hyeon sighed.
The martial world really couldn't leave a person alone for five minutes.
He activated the Grass-Skimming Step.
His toes flicked a blade of grass and his body shot down the mountain path like an arrow.
At that speed, an ordinary person would have lost even his silhouette in the blink of an eye.
Pung Hyeon thought to himself, quite pleased.
*That ought to shake him.*
Then he arrived at the inn over the next ridge, leisurely and unhurried—and that satisfaction shattered into pieces.
The same smiling beggar was already planted on the inn's wooden bench, waving cheerfully at him from behind two bowls of rice soup that looked very much like they'd been ordered in advance, one for each of them.
"Hey, great hero! Over here, over here! Saved you a seat!"
Pung Hyeon blinked.
*…I was definitely ahead of him. How is this beggar already here?*
The answer was simple.
The beggar wasn't faster than Pung Hyeon. He'd just figured out that a hungry Pung Hyeon would inevitably stop at an inn, and taken a shortcut.
Even the greatest lightness art in the world couldn't outrun a man who'd already read your appetite.
The beggar was hard to place in age—he could have been a young man, or maybe not. A grinning face beneath layers of grime. On his back was a staff knotted eight times, the mark of an elder in the Beggar's Sect—though Pung Hyeon, freshly emerged into the world, simply saw a very self-assured beggar.
The beggar thrust out a hand.
"This humble one is called Mok Eon, of the Beggar's Sect. The name means 'speak no more.' And yet I'm told I've never once lived up to it. Ha!"
A man whose name meant *stop talking* who had never once stopped talking.
Pung Hyeon's instincts fired immediately.
This one is dangerous.
More dangerous than any blade.
"…I think you've got the wrong person. I'm just a traveler passing through."
Pung Hyeon said this while failing to take his eyes off the rice soup.
His mouth said no. His backside was already sitting down on the bench.
Free food outweighed every principle the martial world had ever produced.
Mok Eon watched this and narrowed his eyes.
"Just a traveler passing through… and would that traveler be the one who crossed the Gwak Family's wall in a flash of blue lightning?"
Pung Hyeon's spoon froze in midair.
*…This beggar knows.*
"Wh—what are you talking about. The Gwak Family? What Gwak Family."
Pung Hyeon did his absolute best to play dumb.
Unfortunately, his acting was nowhere near the level of his footwork.
Mok Eon looked at that clumsy denial and slapped his knee with total conviction.
"I knew it! You hide your identity to the very end. That humility! That caution! Truly worthy of the legendary Cheonroe Sect!"
"…No, that's not—"
"I understand, I understand. It's not something to speak of lightly. You've delivered justice against the Gwak Family—who, under the banner of orthodoxy, have been hoarding sacred medicines by any means necessary. A true hero of the people."
Pung Hyeon's head began to throb.
*When did I ever— I just robbed the Gwak Family to get rich, grabbed what looked medicinal because it seemed useful, and then ran for my life when I got caught.*
There was no point telling the truth.
In this man's head, every single thing Pung Hyeon had done was being automatically translated into two words: *humility* and *heroism.*
Had Pung Hyeon known that a certain Martial Alliance strategist named Jegal Yeon was doing the exact same thing from a distance, he probably would have flipped the rice soup bowl right off the table.
"So. What do you want?"
Pung Hyeon finally cut to the point.
He'd learned through seven years of hard labor that there was no such thing as free soup.
Mok Eon's eyes lit up.
The eyes of a man closing a deal.
"I'll be direct, great hero. Let me travel with you."
"No."
"…I will spread word of your deeds throughout the martial world."
"Even less yes."
Mok Eon didn't flinch.
To him, a refusal was just the opening move of a negotiation.
"I may not look it, but I became an elder of the Beggar's Sect at thirty-five—the youngest in our history. The moment I got the title last year, the senior members dumped every piece of work on me. Which means nearly every scrap of information in the world passes through my hands."
He folded down his fingers one by one.
"Which roads have bandits."
"Which towns have people gunning for you."
"And…"
He dropped his voice with theatrical weight.
"Which alley in which village hides the greatest dumpling shop in the world."
Pung Hyeon's spoon stopped again.
This time, there was no denying it.
*…Advance warning of danger. And food recommendations?*
Don't die.
Don't get caught up in dangerous situations.
Eat well and live long.
Three out of Pung Hyeon's four life goals—and this one beggar was offering to cover all three at once.
There was no more tempting offer for a man on the run.
"…Only up to the dumpling shop information."
Pung Hyeon muttered, as if he had no choice.
Mok Eon's grin stretched ear to ear.
"A wise decision, great hero! Bwahaha!"
*I already regret this.*
The problem was that Pung Hyeon didn't find out what Mok Eon meant by *spreading word* until that very evening.
That night, at the inn where they stayed, Mok Eon planted himself before a crowd gathered around a drinking table and launched into a full speech.
"…And so! The great hero Pung of the Cheonroe Sect stood atop the Gwak Family's wall as a thousand hidden projectiles rained down upon him—and without moving a single step, deflected every last one with nothing but his sleeve!"
Pung Hyeon, eating noodles in the corner, choked.
He had very clearly been spinning like a top, throwing himself around like a madman.
*Didn't move a single step* was the exact opposite of what had happened.
"And that's not all! The words he left behind as he departed! 'I am Pung Hyeon of the Cheonroe Sect!' The very sound of his voice sent roof tiles crashing down from the Gwak Family's walls!"
No tiles had fallen.
Pung Hyeon's voice had been closer to the cracking shriek of a teenager sprinting for his life.
But the crowd listened with rapt attention, clinking cups and chanting *Cheonroe Sect* like a toast.
A good story always beats the truth.
*Is this guy not actually a Beggar's Sect elder but just a con artist…?*
Pung Hyeon buried his face in his noodle bowl and thought about it seriously.
Should he make a run for it right now?
But then he remembered the location of *the best dumpling shop in town* that Mok Eon had tipped him off about earlier, and his legs refused to cooperate.
The legend doubled overnight, without its subject's consent.
Mok Eon finished his performance and slipped back to sit beside Pung Hyeon.
"Great hero. There's one thing I've been curious about."
"…What now."
"The Cheonroe Sect. I've been eating Beggar's Sect rice for thirty years, and I've only heard that name once—a very long time ago."
Pung Hyeon glanced up.
Surprisingly, the mischief had drained from Mok Eon's face.
"There's an old story passed around among the elders of our sect."
He set down his cup.
"Decades ago, a man who commanded blue lightning swept through the martial world."
"The strange thing was where he struck."
"He only ever targeted clans with something to hide—orthodox or unorthodox, didn't matter."
A chill ran down Pung Hyeon's spine for no reason he could name.
*…Only clans with something to hide?*
The face of the old geezer on the mountaintop flashed through his mind.
That face, grinning shamelessly as he handed over a list of debts.
"One day, the man vanished without a trace."
Mok Eon lowered his voice.
"Word was, he'd stumbled onto some *very big secret* in the martial world—and disappeared right after."
"Well. It's all just rumors."
When Pung Hyeon went quiet, lost in thoughts of his master, Mok Eon watched him for a moment, then shrugged.
Then the grin came back, and he knocked back his drink and started making noise again like nothing had happened.
But Pung Hyeon couldn't get his noodles down for a while.
*…Old geezer. Just who the hell were you?*
For the first time, an uneasy feeling stirred—that the debts his master had dumped on him might not be the simple trail of a thief.
Of course, Pung Hyeon swallowed that feeling right down with a mouthful of broth.
Worrying about things that hadn't hit him yet wasn't a virtue for a man on the run.
The next morning.
Pung Hyeon packed up and set out, and Mok Eon fell into step beside him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Any attempt to shake him off had been abandoned long ago.
The dumpling shop was inside that beggar's head, after all.
"So then, great hero—where are we headed?"
"…Anhui. The Namgung Clan."
Mok Eon's feet stopped dead.
His face went through shock and excitement at the same time.
"Th—the Namgung Clan?! The greatest sword clan in the world?! First the Gwak Family, now the Namgung Clan!"
"Great hero, don't tell me you intend to judge the hypocrites of the orthodox sects one by one?!"
"No. I want to steal a sword."
"Ohhh… 'just a sword,' he says, hiding the deeper meaning once again! Truly!"
In the face of this cursed dynamic where every truth he told turned him into a hero, Pung Hyeon gave up on explaining himself entirely.
And so the fugitive and the loudmouth beggar walked side by side toward Anhui.
One with his eye on an expensive sword.
The other with his eye on a story worth selling.
Far away at the Martial Alliance, Jegal Yeon was drawing a red line across a map, connecting their *profound movements*, and the rumors of the martial world were growing another inch on the back of Mok Eon's silver tongue.
And at the very center of all those enormous turning gears, the supposed protagonist was asking, with complete sincerity:
"So—that greatest dumpling shop in the world. It's actually on the way, right?"
"Would I steer you wrong, great hero? Bwahaha!"
The fugitive's journey through the martial world rolled on, one companion heavier, still chasing the smell of dumplings.