Chapter 8
Summons Order
Cheongpung Inn, not far from the Guryong Branch.
"How can this keep happening every single time, not just once or twice!"
"Just think of it as a good life experience and work hard. There’s no other way. No other way."
I took a sip of liquor and patted Dangon on the shoulder.
Maybe it’s because it’s been a while since I drank, but the taste of bamboo-leaf liquor is really good? Hey, innkeeper! Bring me another bottle here!
To tell you the result of the last bet first, I ended up winning.
It would’ve been impossible if I had to grasp even the subtleties like during Amyeongbo, but if it’s just learning the form, honestly, it wasn’t that difficult.
With my upper dantian wide open and memory sharp enough to hold everything in the Heavenly Demon Library, do you think I couldn’t memorize just that much?
In the end, this was a bet Dangon could never win from the start.
He probably doesn’t even realize it himself. Hm-hmph-hmph!
「Seems like getting tangled up with the Young Lord and ruining one’s life is the same fate as ours.」
「Exactly. That’s why a man should choose carefully where to stretch his legs before doing so. Tsk, tsk.」
I heard the nonsense of the spirits who seemed to feel a sense of shared misery, but since the liquor tasted good, I decided to forgive them.
Anyway, getting some fresh air outside really feels nice.
It’d be even better if I could just run away like this.
When I left the manor, warriors from Namgung Sanyeong’s side blocked my path, leading to a brief scuffle, but shaking them off wasn’t difficult.
‘I’m taking this young master out under the qualification of martial tutor for his training. Is there some kind of problem with that?’
Namgung Sanyeong was the one who appointed Dangon as my martial tutor, so what could they even do?
Namgung Sanyeong will soon realize that something has started to go strangely.
But by then, it’ll already be too late.
“Since it’s thanks to me that you got out of the manor, shouldn’t you at least pay for this drink, Young Master?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then at least give the money back!”
“Come on. I won it fair and square. Why would I give it back?”
“I’m broke!”
I put on a pitiful expression.
“Then you should’ve won, shouldn’t you?”
“Arghhhh!”
Dangon suddenly jumped up from his seat and started pointing his finger at me.
“Didn’t you say you weren’t gambling for money in the first place!”
“I never said I wasn’t planning on winning, either.”
“Eeeek! You said you wanted my acknowledgment!”
“And I got it. That’s the end of it.”
“Aaaarghhh!”
This makes no sense! It doesn’t make any sense! Dangon clutched at his temples.
“Then at least stop ordering food! You’re about to order everything on the menu!”
For the record, the servers had been bringing out dishes nonstop for a while now.
Since the table we were sitting at couldn’t hold it all, we had to join three or four more tables together.
Thanks to that, the innkeeper’s lips, raised in delight at such a windfall after a long time, wouldn’t come down.
“I’m just trying to grease my insides a little. This is the first proper meal I’ve had in two months, you know?”
“I told you I’m broke! The Young Master took everything…!”
“Oh… I guess I do feel a little bad about that?”
“Arrrrghhhh!”
Now he was outright stomping and bouncing in place.
He must really love drinking with me to death.
The subordinates during the Young Cult Lord era always reacted like that whenever we had a drinking bout, so I guess I really was pretty popular. That’s the fate of sinful men, I suppose.
“Innkeeper! Bamboo-leaf liquor! Bring out every last drop of it you’ve got!”
“Wow. And you said you had no money. You sure you can afford to overdo it like that?”
“That’s none of your concern, Young Master! I’ll handle it myself! If I don’t drink, how am I supposed to endure this sober? You should just be grateful I’m not smacking you in the face right now!”
“Oh… I am a little grateful for that.”
“Innkeeper! Innkeeper! Bring the liquor, I said, the liquor!”
Dangon, deciding that talking to me any further would only make his blood boil, grabbed an entire jug of liquor and started drinking straight from it.
Down it goes. Gulp, gulp, gulp… I didn’t know, but turns out our comrade Dangon is quite the heavy drinker?
I chuckled and downed another glass myself.
Ah. That sharp burn tickling the uvula felt so good.
Meanwhile, with my left hand, I secretly drew a very small mark under the table.
A symbol of two swords stuck into a skull’s head.
「Young Cult Lord, that is…!」
The spirits who recognized the mark trembled violently.
It was a Summons Order.
A command to notify the cult followers living in this region, including Guryong County, to assemble.
The skull represented an emergency order, and the number of swords represented rank.
One sword meant elder level, two meant Young Cult Lord, three meant Cult Leader.
In other words, I had announced the summons under the authority of the Young Cult Lord.
By now, ‘Yeon Woon-hwi’ would be reported missing with my master, or even presumed dead, so it was bound to cause an uproar.
Since some of the Nine Great Demon Lords might be involved with the Society, or thinking of declaring independence in this chaos, I cast sorcery to place restrictions on the summons.
Only the followers of the Angma Shinhwajong would be able to see this symbol.
The Angma Shinhwajong was the sect my master and I belonged to, a venerable order that had produced more Cult Leaders for the Demonic Cult than any other through the generations. Its predecessor was the Zoroastrian fire-worshippers who came from the Western Regions.
It was the only place I could trust completely right now.
And if even the Society’s influence reached that far?
Then finding my master and restoring the Demonic Cult would truly become a distant dream.
That was how central the Angma Shinhwajong was to the cult, and I had absolute faith they would never waver, no matter what happened.
After leaving even the location where the assembly would be held, I was finally able to relax and focus on my drink.
“Next time… I’ll take it all back… I will… zzz…”
Dangon, who had already emptied five whole jugs of liquor, drooled as he slumped face-first onto the table.
Well, well?
「This ungrateful wretch is trying to shirk paying for the drinks, Young Cult Lord! Just give me the order and I’ll throw him straight into the latrine!」
「Since using the latrine might be unpleasant for you on the way home, allow me to fetch some ice water and dump it on him instead! Leave it to me!!」
Such an obvious ploy that even the spirits were competing in pointless displays of loyalty.
“That doesn’t mean I’ll let it slide.”
“……”
“Asleep?”
“Snore…”
“Guess he really is asleep.”
I let out a dry laugh and raised my hand to call over a server.
“You called, honored guest? What would you like this time?”
Huh. I definitely called for a server, but it was the innkeeper himself who came over.
Maybe it was because it had been a while since a big spender like me showed up, but his attitude was sharp and eager.
“Looks like the inn is packed right now. How many guests do you have?”
“Pardon? Well, we’d have to count to be exact, but since our inn is the largest in Guryong County, I’d say roughly about three hundred people.”
He answered politely, without the slightest fluster at my odd question.
“Then if we ring the golden bell for them, they’ll be very happ—”
“Wahaha! Just a short nap and I’m completely sober again. Young Master, let’s share another drink. I feel like we can have a deep conversation now!”
“??”
The innkeeper stared blankly at Dangon, who suddenly shot up in a rush after dozing off. He looked quite startled.
“Five-spice pork. That was my favorite. Please add another order of that. Could you perhaps bring it out a little quicker than the others?”
“Oh! No problem at all, sir! I’ll have it out immediately!”
As expected, nothing’s as delightful as a little financial treatment.
After sending the innkeeper off, I saw Dangon sitting down with a sulky face.
“The world is a scary place, isn’t it? Take your eyes off for just a moment, and they’ll try to cut your nose off.”
“Are you really going to keep this up?”
“Yup. I am.”
“…Hah! Damn it. If I got caught, I sure got caught by the wrong person.”
Unable to soothe his frustration, Dangon had no choice but to take another swig of bamboo-leaf liquor.
Pisik!
I let out a small laugh and snatched the bottle away.
Golden Snatching Hand of Flying Fluff Palm.
Naturally, it was a technique I had learned from Dangon today.
“Come on. What fun is there in drinking alone? You’ve got to share it.”
Glug.
Dangon quietly watched as I quickly filled his empty glass with bamboo-leaf liquor. More precisely, he was watching my hand.
“…Now you’re even applying it?”
“When I twisted the qi flow from the Flaming Lotus Palm’s Whirling Mountain Crush into Hundred Strikes Break, it linked into the Tattered Cloud Hands’ Flowing Spring Thread, you know? That’s what gave me the idea. Everything connects together, doesn’t it?”
Mixing in the hand movements as well, his expression became quite a sight to see.
“…The martial arts of the Tang family may look like separate, disconnected techniques when viewed individually, but in truth, they can be combined in dozens, even hundreds of ways like components of a machine. This is a result of the sheer variety of weapons we handle.”
“And the Mad Wind Arts serve as a kind of lubricant that strengthens those combinations far faster and more explosively, right? Thanks to that, the flow was much easier to see.”
Among the many sects of the Central Plains, there was probably none that used as many tools as the Tang family of Sichuan.
Throwing weapons, once hurled, were consumed. Because of that, the movements naturally grew larger, and gaps would form between actions as one replenished the spent weapons.
On a battlefield where life and death hung in the balance, such gaps were fatal.
So the Tang family carried out extensive research to compensate for this.
The compartmentalization of ultimate techniques was one such result.
All of the Tang family’s martial arts techniques were short in form. And depending on the situation, they could always be linked in sequence with techniques from other arts.
Since they had expertise not only in hidden weapons and poison arts but also in mechanical traps, they approached martial arts as if they were machines.
Thanks to this, the Tang family’s martial arts allowed for countless combinations, and if a fatal flaw appeared, the technique could be swapped out at any time.
The replaced form would later be improved upon, or discarded altogether.
The Mad Wind Arts were the ultimate form of all these combinations.
Faster, fiercer.
A single, decisive strike.
In just a brief moment, the practitioner poured all of their strength into ending the fight.
And if it failed?
Well, what else—then you’d just be left standing there like an idiot, waiting to be struck down.
That was the fatal weakness.
But because the power of that single decisive strike was so overwhelming, they didn’t seem to consider it a fatal weakness, even though they knew it was a problem.
To me, though, it looked like an opening.
Because I felt like I could find a way to cover that weakness myself.
If I could train in a way that compensated for it, it would be a very good fit.
And—
Wouldn’t it also be possible to apply the same method to the Heavenly Demon Nine Swords, which, like the Tang family’s martial arts, were all separated into segments?
The Mad Wind Arts were important, of course, but I was beginning to think it was about time to start working on the Heavenly Demon Nine Swords too.
“You’re remarkable. To already be seeing that far ahead.”
“Well, I just have an exceptional martial tutor teaching me.”
“If you’re going to flatter me that much, then how about you at least help pay for the drinks?”
Dangon grumbled, but since he was in a good mood, he couldn’t hide the twitch of his lips as he lifted his glass.
Glug.
I refilled his empty cup once again.
“Nope. Not happening. If not now, when else would I get the chance to swindle the Mighty Wind Knight of the world?”
“See? It’s always the ones who already have plenty that are the worst!”
Clink.
This time, we lightly tapped our cups together and drank.
“Where on earth did you cultivate such insight?”
“Through proper preview and review, focusing on the textbook.”
“…So you’re saying you’re not going to tell me. I bet there’s a teacher we don’t know about.”
I just stayed quiet and smiled.
“Damn it! Fine, fine. I get it. I won’t pry anymore.”
“This is clearly the first real conversation I’ve had with Tang Gak-won, but I keep feeling like we could become close from now on?”
“If you do, you’ll really end up ruined, you know?”
“Then just come under me. Can’t I at least give my drinking buddy a spot to crash?”
“Ha! Would you look at that. The Mighty Wind Knight of the world, being treated like this. Tsk, tsk.”
If we started talking about Master, it would never end.
Even if we stayed up for three nights straight, there would still be more to say.
His face, his way of speaking, his warmth, his laughter, even his little habits.
To me—someone who could be trampled at any time like a weed in a shadowed back alley—he was dazzling, radiant.
Everything I longed to learn and emulate was all within him.
“But there is at least one thing I’m certain of.”
“What?”
“I mean the master who taught you, Young Master.”
Well, well? Now he wasn’t even probing anymore—he was certain.
Curious about what he’d say, I just looked at him in silence.
“I think he must be a truly good person.”
For a moment, my breath caught in my throat.
“…How can you tell that?”
“Because you’re able to smile like this, aren’t you?”
“……”
Countless fragments of emotion whirled inside my mind.
After that, Dangon kept chuckling as he continued pouring down drinks.
I picked up a piece of side dish and chewed, turning his words over in my head again and again.
Chronicles of the Reincarnated Demon God
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