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And so, starting with Eyeballs's name, Myeonghwa's words began pouring out like rapid fire.
"What is this wooden bowl? Don't tell me you carved it yourself?"
Myeonghwa's eyes had always seemed sunken to him.
But now, they flashed like a comet.
The temper Gu Yeong had always told her to hold back was finally bursting out.
"I—I made them."
Е n̂ umӑ . i d̆
Heuk Do-chi carefully raised his hand.
Drawing on his old skill as a carpenter in his youth, he had carved the bowls, chopsticks, and spoons.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
He'd deliberately given them a handmade feel—
"This isn't a battlefield ration, and it isn't offerings the monks eat at a temple. What is this? Just buy plain bowls and use those."
"........"
"Wouldn't something like this be a pain to wash, too?"
Е n̊ ů m ă
Heuk Do-chi's shoulders sagged.
He was the one who washed the dishes anyway, and with no customers it had been easy. Worst case, if scrubbing hard didn't get it clean, nothing wouldn't come off with enough force.
Still, he knew Myeonghwa was right.
I thought they were nice, though.
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Jin Cheon comforted him while feeling a pang of guilt himself.
If bowls like these were tossed out in the North, everyone would have gone wild fighting over who got to keep one.
Еn u̇ m̊ ӓ
They were practical and had a nice feel to them, but they were clearly unsuited for running a business.
From cleanliness to how long they'd hold up, to what would happen once more customers came—Jin Cheon, too, had nothing to say to Myeonghwa's criticisms.
Whip—!
Myeonghwa turned her head sharply toward Jin Cheon.
"And why doesn't the inn have a name?"
"I was going to hang a sign once business picked up a bit more."
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"You have it backwards. How is anyone supposed to find a place with no name?"
Jin Cheon's eyes widened.
Listening to Myeonghwa, that made sense.
"Even if you don't care about a name, shouldn't you at least write down that this is an inn and what it does?"
"........"
"There's no real difference from when it was the Black Spirit Faction. The bald Black Serpent Blade still walks around here just the same."
Enú.m a
Jin Cheon, Heuk Do-chi, and Eyeballs.
The three of them looked elsewhere, avoiding Myeonghwa's gaze.
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Once lit, she didn't care and kept pouring out everything she'd noticed since arriving.
It was clear now that all this time, Myeonghwa had been holding back and speaking politely, restraining herself as much as she could.
"The inside is a mess, too. Line up the tables properly and put out some decorations."
"Doesn't the natural look have its own charm?"
Е̌ń ŭm̈а̌
"Go see nature in the forest. An inn should look like an inn, Master."
"........."
Jin Cheon, sunk.
"And you're a problem too. Why did you let the Master carry out the noodles himself?"
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"Ah, that's because I was talking with Sister—"
"You're the server. If you carry it out, people will smile and eat happily, but what will they think if the Master brings it out?"
Еn ŭm̊ ă
"Th-that's..."
"You said you didn't want to go back to being a beggar. Then do your job properly."
Eyeballs, sunk.
"And clean up outside a bit too. If this is an inn, the outside should look clean like an inn, but right now the stains from the Black Spirit Faction days are still all over it."
Myeonghwa even put her hands behind her back as she spoke to Heuk Do-chi.
"Those aren't stains, they're the cool emblem of the Black Spirit—"
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"Is this the Black Spirit Inn?"
"No..."
"Then let's clean it up."
Nod.
Heuk Do-chi, too, fell in an instant.
The things Myeonghwa pointed out were the sort of thing any ordinary inn would naturally have. But all three of them here had such unusual pasts that they simply hadn't known any better.
Е̄ǹ_úma.і̊ d
As she went on comparing them to other inns, she looked straight at Jin Cheon.
"...What."
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Knowing he was bound to be criticized too, Jin Cheon scratched his right cheek.
Swish—
She glanced briefly back at the special noodles she'd just slurped down.
Then, letting out a small sigh, she opened her mouth with some difficulty.
Е̂ n̆ ü ṁ_а̄
"Master, the last thing I have to say is something my teacher told me not to bring up, for now."
"......?"
"Actually, what I'm about to say is, in a way, a small thing. Because it's really about what's inconvenient for the customers who come into the inn."
The three of them rounded their mouths into an "oh" shape and nodded.
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Every point had been important, but none of them had been a direct way to actually get customers through the door.
Swk!
È n ûm а_
Myeonghwa pointed at the special noodles she'd eaten.
"How did you get your ingredients?"
Jin Cheon tilted his head.
It seemed like such an obvious question that he answered right away.
"Bought them."
"You didn't take deliveries?"
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"Take what?"
Myeonghwa looked at Jin Cheon for a moment.
Somehow it seemed, from the way things looked, that he'd always just been buying from the market out front, and sure enough, that was exactly it.
She'd never run a business herself, but she'd been working as a physician on this street for five years now.
"You need to arrange things in advance with merchants who sell ingredients, so you get a regular supply. That's how you get good-quality ingredients cheaply."
"......!"
Е num̃а̂
Jin Cheon's eyes went wide.
This, too, was something he'd never really thought about.
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Having spent his youth in the North, the concept of buying things had never been as natural to him as the concept of receiving rations. As long as he fought well, the Imperial Court kept the supplies coming steadily, and Jin Cheon's job had just been to divide them up properly.
Right, I suppose you'd have to buy ahead of time.
Jin Cheon's head nodded on its own.
If this were just a one-off, temporary thing, it wouldn't matter, but if he was going to actually run a business, it would be far more profitable to get everything delivered regularly—from bowls to ingredients.
Ӗń u m̊.ӓ
Then he remembered the merchants who always wore complicated expressions whenever they sold him something.
"But an outsider like me can't just start doing that from scratch, can I? I don't even know who handles that kind of supply and management around here."
"........"
"Now that I think about it, it is strange. Everyone must know I'm running an inn, but even the shops I've been to a few times haven't said much about it."
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Myeonghwa looked at Jin Cheon.
She'd thought he was just a fool who happened to cook well, since he didn't even know the basics of running a business. But this question cut right to the core of the matter—he'd simply not known, but he was sharper than she'd expected.
En u m̀ā. і̊ d
"........"
She didn't open her mouth easily.
It was a sensitive matter in several ways, so she couldn't just blurt it out the way she had everything else.
Seeing her hesitate, Eyeballs, seasoned from growing up in Sea Pine, caught on immediately.
"It's the Merchants' Guild, isn't it!?"
Heuk Do-chi, meanwhile, looked at Eyeballs, not understanding why the Merchants' Guild had suddenly come up.
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"Why the Merchants' Guild all of a sudden?"
"All the merchants in our district belong to the same guild. That's why the Black Spirit Faction only ever had to deal with the guild."
"That's true."
"And our Master is running a business here, but he never joined the guild."
Nod—
Naturally, you couldn't join something you didn't even know existed.
Е ṅ um ӓ
Since Jin Cheon hadn't even known that getting supplies delivered was more profitable, the Merchants' Guild had been far beyond his reach to even consider.
But at Eyeballs's words, he caught on at once.
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"Is the Merchants' Guild throwing its weight around?"
At Jin Cheon's words, instead of offering her own guess, Eyeballs turned to look at Myeonghwa.
She bit her lower lip for a moment, then nodded.
"Actually, the Merchants' Guild did send around a notice telling people not to come here."
Еn ù m̌а .і ḋ
"......!"
"For me and my teacher, since we're physicians, it doesn't matter much either way—"
"But everyone else living here is connected to the Merchants' Guild one way or another, is that it?"
"Yes. In a small town like this, everyone's tangled up with everyone else."
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Jin Cheon rubbed his chin for a moment.
Normally, there was such a thing as an opening rush in business.
Ênǔ m̀ ӑ . і̀d́
Whatever you open, a handful of passing strangers come by at first, and you're supposed to catch them and turn them into regulars.
Come to think of it, there were far too few of them.
If the Merchants' Guild was behind it, that would explain it.
Looking back over the past ten days, Myeonghwa's words carried real weight.
"Master."
Thud—!
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Heuk Do-chi stepped forward with his large frame.
He clenched his fist, cracking his knuckles.
"I know those men. I'll go give the Ten-Thousand-Grain Hall Master a proper scolding first."
What had the Black Spirit Faction even done here?
They'd shaken down the Merchants' Guild and squeezed protection money out of them.
So to Heuk Do-chi, this was both absurd and infuriating.
Е̊ñ u m̂а
The very people who had once groveled before him were now scheming like this behind his back.
Just as his rising anger was about to send him straight to the Merchants' Guild, Myeonghwa frowned sharply.
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"Actually, this is exactly why my teacher told me not to bring up the Merchants' Guild."
"Why?"
"Both the Black Serpent Blade and the Master settled things with a blade the moment you arrived here. But merchants have their own way of doing things."
"........."
Е̃ n ú m̊а̌
"If you want to rule over them, do it however you like. But if you want to work together with them, you'll need a different approach."
Myeonghwa was right.
If he wanted to solve it with a blade, what couldn't he do? But the reason Jin Cheon had come back home was so he wouldn't have to solve things with a blade.
In this new era, I suppose I have to hold back from drawing a sword just because things get a little inconvenient.
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At the same time, Heuk Do-chi felt something stir in him at Myeonghwa's words.
He'd resolved to live an honest life, and yet the moment things turned against him, his fists were the first thing he reached for—he felt ashamed of himself.
Е̃ ň ùm̄а̄
Still, looking at the empty inn, he did feel a clear urge that something needed to be done.
"Do-chi."
"Yes."
"You remember everything Myeonghwa said, right? I'm going to step out with Eyeballs for a bit, so get things ready while we're gone."
Jin Cheon nodded.
A blade is met with a blade.
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Then merchants had to be met as merchants, and an inn had to be met as an inn.
Heuk Do-chi was startled to see Jin Cheon looking as though he'd found a way.
"What are you planning to do, Master?"
Myeonghwa, too, tried to stop Jin Cheon with a worried expression.
"I'm telling you again, you can't just go in with a blade the way you wiped out the Black Spirit Faction!"
"There's no rule against using an even bigger blade, is there?"
É n̆ ũ m̆ ǎ
Tap—
Jin Cheon tapped the Gift at his left waist.
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But this sword was far too overwhelming a thing to draw for something like this, so Jin Cheon decided to handle it his own way.
"Eyeballs."
"Yes?"
"I'm counting on you and only you."
Ё n̂ ū m̂ ӑ .і d
Eyeballs blinked her big eyes.
She had no idea what exactly he was counting on her for, out of nowhere, but she reflexively grabbed the hand Jin Cheon held out.
"What are you going to do...?"
Myeonghwa called out to Jin Cheon's back as he headed straight for the door.
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"And once you've seen them?"
She worried that Jin Cheon's fists would leave the Merchants' Guild members with black eyes all around.
Е̃ nu_m̈ a . ĩd̊
Of course, she and her teacher would be the ones treating them, so that would just mean more money for the clinic.
Jin Cheon grinned and lifted Eyeballs's hand, still held in his.
"No matter how much I sit here and think it over, nothing's going to come to me anyway, right?"
Jin Cheon knew himself well.
Despite how he looked, his head only really worked for one thing: beating people up.
But what was the point of sitting around at the inn wasting time?
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Jin Cheon stroked the head of Eyeballs, who had struck him from the start as sharp-witted, and said—
"So I should leave it to whichever of the three of us has the best head for this."
"......!!"
For a moment, Eyeballs's eyes spun in circles.
At the same time, she racked her brain desperately.
To survive—no, to somehow hold on and keep her place at the inn!
Е̌ n̆ ûm̈ӓ
"Round and round, so you're bound to be some kind of help."
Jin Cheon said this while patting her head as he moved.
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"Round and round—?"
Eyeballs's eyes spun just as much as her head, as an added touch.
.
.
Ẃe b n оṽ ӗ l Еn u mа̄
.
Sea Pine district's Jeongjeong Teahouse, the Merchants' Guild's regular gathering.
Merchants who liked to think fairly highly of themselves in this district had gathered at the teahouse.
Most sat on the first floor, chattering away, while on the second floor sat only three who considered themselves rather more important.
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"About that inn."
The owner of the silk and cloth shop, who held a monopoly on the silk and fabric coming into Sea Pine district, opened his mouth.
E nū m̃ ӑ
"The one where the Black Spirit Faction used to be?"
"Yes, its backing seems to be the Sea Pine Clinic—will that be alright?"
"Hm..."
The three merchants all groaned at once, mulling it over.
He might not make much of a show of it, but Gu Yeong was the true power behind this Sea Pine district.
He'd been established here even before Heavenly Sword Castle moved in, and had earned their recognition—no matter how much the merchants puffed themselves up, they were still weaker than Gu Yeong.
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What was more, rumor had it—unconfirmed—that he was on friendly terms with the Chief Clerk of Heavenly Sword Castle.
To them, he was someone they absolutely did not want to provoke, if only just in case.
"Still, Physician Gu doesn't tend to step forward himself."
"Even so, word came that if we keep freezing out that inn like this, he said he'd step in himself."
"Him? Since when does he act directly?"
The butcher shop owner replied cautiously.
Е̇ ǹ u m а̄ . í d
At that, the great merchant of Ten-Thousand-Grain Hall, who controlled the rice and grain trade—Hall Master Chu Man-ryang, who had been sitting quietly—nodded.
He lifted his teacup, steam curling up from it.
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"Actually, more important than that is dealing with the gap the Black Spirit Faction left behind."
"...Those men went cheap, though."
"Should we just ask Heavenly Sword Castle for protection instead?"
Chu Man-ryang immediately shook his head.
Ẅ ӗ b̃ n̊ ó v е l̄ Еn u ṁ а
Truthfully, the other two had only brought up Heavenly Sword Castle because they had nothing better to say.
Because the Renegade Sect's protection fees were far cheaper than Heavenly Sword Castle's.
It wasn't for nothing that the Renegade families held such sway within Heavenly Sword Castle.
"It really is bizarre. How did he manage to wrap that block-headed Physician Gu around his finger and wipe out the Black Spirit Faction the moment he arrived?"
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The silk shop owner sighed.
No matter how many years they'd tried and failed, Jin Cheon had pulled it off in an instant—however he looked at it, it was remarkable.
Еn̄û m̃а̄
"I heard he even brought down Black Serpent Blade with a single stroke."
At that, the butcher shop owner tapped his finger on the square table the three of them sat around.
"For now, let's spread the word again—everyone stay clear, no one is to deliver ingredients there, no matter what."
"It's just a matter of time, though—either he stays or he leaves."
At Hall Master Chu Man-ryang's muttering, the butcher shop owner nodded, satisfied.
"Exactly. He only came here as a drifter anyway—it's not like he can't leave as a drifter again. And how much different could that place really be from anywhere else?"
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"It's different, though?"
"Well now, different, you say?"
"The food there is really good."
"We issued a notice telling everyone not to go there—don't tell me you actually went?!"
The butcher shop owner glared at the silk shop owner.
But he only blinked, eyes wide.
Е̇ n̂ um̊ ǎ
He'd been drinking his tea the whole time and hadn't said a word.
Neither had Chu Man-ryang, for that matter.
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Just as they were baffled, wondering where on earth that answer had come from, as if some ghost were toying with them—
"So it really is you all throwing your weight around?"
In the seat that had been empty, Jin Cheon appeared as if out of thin air, smiling.
Beside him stood Eyeballs, her face deadly serious, thinking hard.
W̆ еb́ nо́v̇ е́ľ Ѐ ñu m̈ а
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