That's Not How You Use Martial Arts

Chapter 35
Investigating the Incidents (3)

『 Translator – Divinity 』

“Welcome. What kind of tea are you looking for?”

“……”

Dae-un remained silent despite the owner’s request for an order.

His face clearly showed his annoyance.

“…Do we really have to go through this pointless charade?”

“Master?”

Seol-i, who was likely visiting this place for the first time, looked at her master curiously as he spoke rather casually to the owner.

Despite Dae-un’s words, the owner continued speaking with a smile on his face.

“We have everything from the finest Xi Hu Longjing to Junshan Yinzhen, just name it.”

“…Sigh.”

Dae-un let out an annoyed sigh and then spoke awkwardly.

“…I heard that you have Bi Luo Chun produced in Song Mountain. Do you have any?”

“We don’t have any Bi Luo Chun produced in Song Mountain.”

“That can’t be. I clearly heard about it. I was told that its taste is like the divine tea drunk by the immortals in the heavens.”

Dae-un continued speaking in a somewhat resigned tone, saying things that made no sense.

The owner stared at him silently for a moment, then shrugged and said,

“Oh my, it seems you already know everything, so there’s no point in pretending. Please come in.”

The owner left the customers to his assistants and led the two of them inside.

He opened a secret door hidden in the floor and went down to the basement.

“Wow…!”

Seol-i gasped in admiration as she saw the countless documents lining the basement walls.

And she realized why the name of the teahouse was Changcheon.

“This is a secret branch of Changcheon, isn’t it? Right?”

“To be precise, it’s my personal safe house from my days in the Skynet Division, which I remodeled into a teahouse… Ouch!”

The owner couldn’t finish his sentence.

Because Dae-un’s fist had landed squarely on the back of his head.

“Ow… Why did you do that, Master Yeo?”

“Why? You ask why? Did we have to go through that ridiculous question-and-answer routine when you know my face, you rascal Go-heung?”

The owner of the Changcheon Teahouse, the man called Go-heung, grumbled as he rubbed the back of his head.

“That’s just the protocol for an intelligence organization. Don’t you know the saying, ‘When entering a village, follow its customs.’?”

“You little…!”

Seeing Dae-un clenching his fist and trembling as if he was about to hit him again, Go-heung hurriedly changed the subject.

“Now, now, now, you two came all the way here, which means you have something to ask me, right? Ask me anything. I have a firm grasp on this Hefei…”

“You, who didn’t even know that the Sword Saint had passed away, have quite a lot to say.”

Go-heung closed his mouth at Dae-un’s pointed words, then mumbled an excuse.

“Th-that hasn’t been confirmed yet, so I couldn’t report it carelessly. The Namgung family is desperately trying to hide it… You know, the Sword Saint’s death is a huge…”

“Enough with the excuses.”

Dae-un cut off Go-heung’s words without mercy.

Go-heung grumbled inwardly as he looked at Dae-un, but like a skilled intelligence agent, he quickly hid his true feelings and sat down opposite the two.

“So, what did you come to ask?”

“About the Namgung family’s escort mission failures over the past year.”

“Ah, that?”

Go-heung got up again and went inside, bringing back a rather thick stack of papers.

“Here are the records of the escort missions over the past year.”

“…You’re not telling me to read all of this, are you?”

“Of course not. The top page is a summary.”

Dae-un picked up the top sheet of the stack and carefully examined its contents.

Then, he frowned.

“This is…”

“Ah, you’ve noticed? As expected of Master Yeo.”

“Enough with the flattery. Is this true?”

“Yes. It’s accurate.”

Seol-i, who had been sitting quietly beside him, was completely lost and just rolled her eyes.

Dae-un, noticing his disciple, handed her the summary he was holding.

Finally able to see the investigation report, Seol-i slowly read through it.

And she couldn’t help but be surprised.

“…Aren’t there too many deaths?”

Indeed.

The summary stated that in the past year, or to be precise, in the past three months, over half of the Namgung family’s warriors who had participated in escort missions had died.

“That’s not all. Look closely at the list of the deceased.”

“The list of the… deceased?”

At Dae-un’s words, Seol-i checked the names of the deceased again.

Namgung Bang, the Heavenly Wind Sword.

Namgung Seong-il, the Best Sword of Lu’an.

Namgung Jong, the Blue Sky Sword.
…

Seol-i soon noticed another commonality among them, besides the fact that they were all from the Namgung family.

“All of the deceased were masters with titles, weren’t they?”

“Indeed.”

Having a title.

It meant that they were recognized as masters in the Jianghu.

In this murim world, being recognized as a master with a title meant achieving the feat of defeating over fifty martial artists.

‘Then, does Young Master Gun also qualify for a title?’

Seol-i shook her head, recalling Ja-seong effortlessly toying with sixty wanderers.

A young master at the age of twenty, it was truly an unprecedented event in the history of the murim.

Seol-i brought her wandering thoughts back to the main topic.

Anyway, some of the strongest members of the Namgung family had died. And during escort missions, no less.

This could only mean one thing.

“…Does this mean that Paecheon Fortress specifically targeted and attacked the Namgung family’s experts?”

Go-heung nodded vigorously at Seol-i’s conclusion.

“Yes. In fact, whether the escort missions succeeded or failed wasn’t that important… or maybe it was. Because the Namgung family deployed their renowned experts on escort missions due to the repeated failures. As a result, all those experts were eliminated, and the Namgung family’s strength was greatly reduced.”

Paecheon Fortress’s goal was to weaken the Namgung family.

Then, their true objective was…!

“D-don’t tell me they’re planning to attack the Namgung family…!”

Seol-i exclaimed in shock and jumped to her feet.

The reason for eliminating the family’s experts and weakening their forces beforehand…

In her mind, it could only be to attack the family.

But Dae-un and Go-heung shook their heads.

“I don’t think that’s it. The Namgung family isn’t some unknown minor sect in the countryside. They wouldn’t act so recklessly.”

“I agree. That would be too much of a gamble.”

“Then why would they do such a thing…?”

Neither Dae-un nor Go-heung could answer Seol-i’s question.

They still lacked the information to make any judgments.

“…Were there any clues left at the sites of the attacks that could identify the attackers?”

“As you know, they’re very thorough in that regard. A few of my men went to investigate, but there was nothing special.”

“What about the bodies of the deceased Namgung experts? Were there any traces of specific techniques?”

At Dae-un’s following question, Go-heung’s expression darkened.

“…The bodies of the deceased Namgung experts were all severely damaged. It was probably to erase any traces of their techniques.”

Seol-i and Dae-un simultaneously grimaced at the news that even the bodies of the deceased had been desecrated.

Dae-un asked a few more questions, but there was nothing particularly noteworthy.

“…So all we learned is that those Paecheon Fortress bastards were aiming to weaken the Namgung family’s forces.”

Dae-un sighed in frustration and muttered to himself.

Go-heung lifted the stack of papers he had brought and said,

“I’ll look into it further. I’ll contact you if I find anything new.”

“Please do.”

With that request, Dae-un and Seol-i left the Changcheon Teahouse.

***

Around that time, Hwa-ryeon and Yak-bing were at the armory warehouse, which had been completely burned down in a sudden fire.

“This is… devastating.”

Yak-bing, who had identified herself using the Young Master’s token borrowed from Namgung Hyeon, groaned as she took in the sight of the completely burned-down warehouse.

“Yes, yes. It spread so suddenly and widely that there was nothing we could do.”

The man who introduced himself as the armory manager looked at the two beauties sent by the Young Master with anxious eyes and desperately made excuses.

The family had already suffered a tremendous loss due to the complete destruction of the warehouse.

As the person in charge of the armory, he couldn’t avoid punishment.

He was already losing sleep every night, worried about further trouble.

“Armory Manager, we’re just trying to understand what happened with the fire. This won’t cause you any harm.”

“Yes? Ah, yes… Thank you.”

Yak-bing comforted the manager with a kind smile, as if she understood his feelings.

The manager’s face turned blank, seemingly surprised by her unexpected comfort.

“Then, could you tell us what happened during the fire?”

“…Alright.”

Perhaps encouraged by Yak-bing’s kind words, the manager began his story with a more relaxed expression.

“It’s been exactly seven weeks. I had finished my work as usual and returned home.”

But not long after, one of the armory staff urgently visited his house and informed him that the warehouse had caught fire.

“And it was the largest warehouse, number one.”

“I hurriedly returned to the armory.”

Upon returning, he saw the warehouse completely engulfed in flames.

“The fire spread so quickly that there was no time to do anything. And then the fire spread to the records warehouse next door…”

Hwa-ryeon and Yak-bing turned their gazes and saw a small, half-burned building next to the destroyed warehouse.

“So, does that mean all the armory records were lost?”

“…Half of them survived the fire, but the other half turned to ashes.”

Was it a disaster that half the records were gone, or was it fortunate that half were saved?

One thing was certain: the Namgung Armory had suffered a significant loss of trust, the most important asset for an armory.

“…The number of people entrusting their valuables to our armory has plummeted. There’s also an endless stream of people withdrawing their stored valuables or demanding compensation for their losses.”

The manager’s face darkened at the realization of the tremendous damage the armory had suffered.