Chapter 2: The Waiter Hides His Magic (2)

This is going to be a serious problem, isn't it?

With a face drained of all color, Hajin muttered blankly. His plan to adapt to life in the Central Plains and dream of modest happiness had shattered in an instant. At this rate, forget running an inn—he'd undoubtedly be dragged away branded as a public enemy of the martial world.

Above all, the moment he'd killed a disciple of a prestigious orthodox sect, being hunted by the Kunlun Sect was unavoidable. The moment he was caught, they'd probably sever his meridians, seal his energy center, or something along those lines.

Damn it, is this a murder charge……?

And that scream from the elder earlier? What on earth had happened?

Hajin had barely managed to shake off his bewilderment when several black-masked figures came bursting into the inn.

"Everyone! Protect the elder!"

In an instant, they cut down the remaining Kunlun Sect warriors and quietly assessed the situation. Like the warriors before them, they appeared to be searching for something.

He had barely a moment to feel confused at the scene before one of the masked figures approached Hajin and asked,

"By any chance, are you a disciple of Elder Yu Jinbang?"

Hajin looked at the masked figure staring at him with trembling eyes.

What on earth is this one saying?

Asked whether he was a disciple of Elder Yu Jinbang, Hajin quickly ran through his thoughts.

The elder had never personally called him a disciple.

But he had cherished him like a lucky charm, and he had indeed learned the ways of inn-keeping and even cooking from him. Above all, he was the only one who had reached out a hand to him in this unfamiliar land, and his teachings were what had given shape to his dream—

Well, broadly speaking, calling myself a disciple doesn't seem entirely wrong.

After a brief moment of deliberation, Hajin slowly nodded.

At that, the masked figure before him astonishingly began to tremble, as if unable to contain a surge of overwhelming emotion. Tears were visibly welling at the corners of his eyes, perceptible even through the mask.

"Aah……! We thought the elder had given up on his ambitions, yet here he was, raising a disciple in this place! He never abandoned his loyalty to the Order after all!"

The masked figure cried out, nearly weeping, and from among the others that followed, low gasps and emotionally charged murmuring spread through them. A few looked as though they might drop to their knees in reverence.

Hajin looked at them with a baffled expression.

What's wrong with these people? Do they have some kind of mania?

He muttered inwardly. It was because he couldn't make sense of the situation.

Elder Yu Jinbang was certainly a kind person, but could this mean he was once some extraordinarily renowned Grand Master Chef in his past? His cooking didn't seem to be at that level though……?

If that were the case, the inn would have been on a path to success long ago.

Hajin's mind was in complete chaos. The inn floor drenched in the blood of a Kunlun Sect disciple, and masked figures who had appeared from nowhere, moved to tears over calling him the disciple of Elder Yu Jinbang.

He couldn't get a feel for which tune he was supposed to dance to.

Just then, the masked figure who appeared to be the leader stepped forward and offered a respectful cupped-fist salute.

"We have failed to show proper courtesy to the disciple of Elder Ghost Hand until now! I am Yang Jun, Commander of the Guardian Corps of the Heavenly Demon Divine Order! It is an honor to meet the elder's disciple like this!"

Yang Jun's cry rang through the inn. Hajin's brow furrowed.

No, wait—where, now? The Heavenly Demon Divine Order?

Hajin was inwardly shocked. The Heavenly Demon Divine Order—in other words, the Demonic Sect. The kind of people who killed others on a whim, ate corpses and drank blood. Ah, wait, was that the Blood Cult?

In any case, wasn't this an enormous faction that typically appeared in martial arts novels as the axis of evil or the enemy of all?

And what? Disciple of Ghost Hand? Could Elder Yu Jinbang actually be this Ghost Hand person?

In that moment, the memory of the Kunlun Sect warriors shouting about what his connection to Ghost Hand was flashed through his mind.

At the time, he'd dismissed it as nonsense, but now, hearing what the masked figures were saying, it finally made sense. In other words, he was being mistaken for a disciple of the Demonic Sect.

That warm-looking old man is a member of the Demonic Sect?

Hajin made every effort to maintain a composed expression as he carefully opened his mouth toward Yang Jun.

"Erm……Commander Yang? I think there may be quite a serious misunderstanding here. I am nothing more than an ordinary waiter working at this inn……"

But the words he intended to say never made it out of his throat. Midway through speaking, his gaze drifted to the floor, and he saw the corpse of Baek Hak lying there, split in 2.

Ha……

Hajin let out a deep inward sigh.

With a corpse laid out on the floor, claiming to be ordinary at this point—fat chance anyone would believe that.

It was clear that insisting he was a plain waiter in this situation was entirely unconvincing. In the end, Hajin sought to clear up the misunderstanding by a different approach. And to do that, assessing the situation had to come first.

"Erm, Commander Yang? Would I be able to find out what level of mastery Baek Hak had reached?"

"Baek Hak was a First-Generation Disciple regarded as one of Kunlun Sect's most promising, a master who had reached the First-Rate level. He was someone with considerable skill for his young age."

He had cut down a First-Rate master in a single strike. Since falling into the martial world, Hajin had never been able to gauge what level his magic was at. There had been few occasions to fight at full strength, and the magic he could use was limited due to his mana reserves.

He had only recognized for certain that things were clearly different from the days in the modern era when he'd been called a "prodigy mage."

He'd had absolutely no sense of how powerful his magic was, or how it compared to the level of martial arts in this world—but regardless, it seemed he was at least capable of finishing off a First-Rate master who had let his guard down.

So, would I have to say it was luck? Is that what this amounts to?

Just then, Yang Jun's eyes suddenly lit up as he looked at Hajin.

"Come to think of it, to have faced a First-Rate master like Baek Hak and come out without so much as a scratch—as expected of Elder Ghost Hand's disciple, you've been hiding tremendous skill! Did the elder perhaps pass on some special secret art to you?"

"Pardon……?"

Yang Jun's voice carried reverence. Seeing this, Hajin despaired inwardly.

He won't believe a word I say.

He realized it was his fate to be seen as a disciple of Elder Ghost Hand, no matter what he said, rather than a disciple of innkeeper Yu Jinbang. On top of that, he sensed that his future had become thoroughly tangled.

I've killed a Kunlun Sect disciple, and now I'm going to be called a disciple of the Demonic Sect? My chances of living in the martial world are finished.

Just as his vision was going dark at the thought that his future had been severed in an instant, Yang Jun's face came back into view.

Come to think of it, hadn't he said Heavenly Demon Divine Order?

Don't organizations like the Demonic Sect tend to take in people on the run? Like defectors in history books. In that case, would it actually be better to go to the Demonic Sect……?

Either way, having killed a Kunlun Sect disciple, it was as good as turning his back completely on the orthodox sect side.

To someone like himself, who knew not a single person in this world, the enormous organization that was the Demonic Sect might actually prove to be a reassuring backer.

Figuring he had nothing to lose, Hajin asked Yang Jun once more.

"……Well, something along those lines. More importantly—you people are members of the Heavenly Demon Divine Order, yes?"

"That is correct. Heavenly Demon Descends Anew! Ten Thousand Demons Bow in Reverence!"

Ugh, like a bunch of fanatics. Hajin swallowed briefly, then asked what had been his most pressing question.

"If I were to go there, would it be possible to open a shop like this inn and live……no, wait. Are there villages where people gather and live there?"

Opening one would be meaningless in itself. To run a business, there had to be a commercial district, naturally.

"But of course. Near the Ten Thousand Mountains, there is a village called Black Wood Cliff. Countless common people who fled persecution from the Central Plains gathered there and built a village, and it has grown quite prosperous now."

"Oh?"

From the way he spoke, it sounded like the scale was fairly substantial. Hajin made up his mind.

"In that case, may I go to the Heavenly Demon Divine Order as well?"

At Hajin's question, Yang Jun's face brightened.

"But of course! As the disciple of Elder Ghost Hand, we welcome you with open arms! In fact, the reason we came all the way to Xining was to escort the elder to Black Wood Cliff."

"……Oh no! Speaking of the elder!"

Hajin hurriedly turned his steps back toward the inside of the inn, where the elder's scream had come from earlier.

Please let that scream have been someone else's. And please let Yu Jinbang have escaped through the back door, explaining the silence afterward.

But inside the kitchen lay Yu Jinbang, cold and still, his eyes never having closed. As if bearing witness to the brutal nature of the fight, his body was riddled with sword wounds.

And beside him, the corpses of the warriors who had stormed into the kitchen earlier were piled up. They had been said to be elders of Kunlun—yet they had been slaughtered mercilessly. To have reduced individuals who were undoubtedly considerable masters to this state, and alone at that?

"Elder!!!"

Hajin hurried to check on Yu Jinbang's condition. But with no response whatsoever, it seemed his breath had already left him.

The masked figures too appeared startled by the sight—eyes going wide for a moment before they quietly wiped their tears. After a long bout of sniffling, one of them spoke to Hajin.

"Damn it. We were too late. We should have brought the elder to Black Wood Cliff sooner! Regrettable as it is, retrieving the body seems to be the best we can do now. We must relay news of Kunlun to the Order without delay."

Following that, the other masked figure who had stormed into the shop along with Yang Jun entered the kitchen. He too surveyed the situation and then spoke in a heavy tone.

"He was not someone who should have died at the hands of such crude people. If only he hadn't sealed his own energy center as a pledge of loyalty to the Order Master before leaving the Order, if only his arm had at least been whole……"

"You wretch! That is slander against the Order Master!"

Yang Jun rebuked him, but he too remained visibly indignant throughout.

Hajin stood in silence for a moment, looking down at Yu Jinbang's final form. He had been the first to show him warmth in an unfamiliar world, and the one who had given him the means to live.

Without him, his own life would already have been forfeit. Hajin paid silent tribute inwardly.

—Running a peaceful inn nice and snugly was my humble dream.

The words Yu Jinbang always used to mutter drifted in his ears.

Thanks to you, elder, I was able to adapt safely in this unfamiliar land. It was a short time, but I am truly grateful from the bottom of my heart for the grace you showed me. That dream of yours—I will carry it on without fail.

He quietly closed Yu Jinbang's eyes and rose to his feet. He felt it keenly now—his ties to this inn, and his ties to Xining, had truly come to an end.

"Let us go. To the Heavenly Demon Divine Order."

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Shortly after. Hajin came out of the inn with a single pack of luggage on his back.

"Let us depart now."

Yang Jun looked over his modest appearance once, then asked,

"Is that all your belongings?"

"Yes, it is."

At Hajin's concise answer, Yang Jun asked nothing more, nodded, and stepped outside the inn. A carriage that looked quite sturdy came to a stop in front of the inn.

"The distance to Xinjiang, where the Order is located, is quite considerable."

A jolting vibration greeted him as he climbed into the carriage. Hajin looked out the window at the Kunlun Inn and the scenery of Xining growing rapidly distant, and thought,

I'm really going to the Heavenly Demon Divine Order.

It was a path he had chosen himself, but it still felt unreal. From Hunter to inn waiter. And now heading to the headquarters of the Demonic Sect. Life was truly unpredictable.

Just then, Yang Jun, seated across from him, carefully opened his mouth.

"Come to think of it, it seems you've heard very little from the elder about the Divine Order?"

Hajin nodded. He genuinely didn't know. He hadn't known that Yu Jinbang was a member of the Demonic Sect, nor that he was some incredible person called Ghost Hand or whatever.

"No, I hadn't heard the details."

"In that case, while we make our way to the Divine Order, allow me to explain at least the broad strokes. It seems better that you know before we arrive."

"That would be most appreciated."

Hajin agreed readily.

The information he vaguely knew about the Heavenly Demon Divine Order through martial arts novels was, for the most part, heavily biased and negative—things like the sworn enemy of the orthodox sects, or a faction that plunged the Central Plains into chaos.

Naturally, it was of little use to him now.

Yang Jun composed himself briefly, then began speaking in a calm voice. And from the very first words, it was enough to stop him in his tracks.

"Although the Divine Order does use the character 'demon' in its name, it is not a place that values wickedness the way most people commonly think."

The Demonic Sect isn't a wicked place……? Then what on earth is it?