Chapter 34 - Moonlight

Spirit Eye targeted only the single closest person whose level differed from Dong Bongsu's by at least ten. If one such person stood ten meters away and another five meters away, the only one Spirit Eye could detect was the person five meters away.

That characteristic had allowed him to pinpoint the appearance of an enemy other than Do Heo-ok.

[..., 12, 13, 14.]

Even as Dong Bongsu descended below the upper deck by the stairs beneath the towerlike cabin, the distance reported by Spirit Eye continued to increase.

The lower compartment was larger than he had expected. Miscellaneous equipment lay scattered about, along with the Namgung Clan's boat hands, who were sleeping wherever they could. Being called out at all hours whenever members of the clan wanted a late-night excursion was the unavoidable lot of hired servants. They had to snatch what little sleep they could, whenever the chance arose. Had Dong Bongsu remained a horse handler, he would still have been living much as they did—outwardly, at least. Not that it would have changed his essential nature.

"Where can I relieve myself?"

Dong Bongsu woke a boat hand sprawled beside the cabin stairs and asked where the privy was. It was merely a formality. He had not come down to attend to that sort of business, after all. He had other business to take care of.

"See that partitioned compartment in the corner over there? You'll find a chamber pot inside. If you'd rather not use it, you can go through the oar port beside it. We always leave the oars out unless we're going a long way. To tell you the truth, that's where all us boatmen do our business."

The boat hand could hardly have been pleased with Dong Bongsu for interrupting his precious nap, but he answered the question diligently all the same. Whatever Dong Bongsu looked like, to the boat hand he was a guest of the Namgung Clan—and an important enough guest to share a pleasure boat with Namgung Hye. A mere boat hand had no way of knowing that, until only yesterday, Dong Bongsu had been a horse handler.

Dong Bongsu looked where the man pointed, toward the stern. Sure enough, a wooden partition stood upright on either side. They reached precisely from the lower planking to the upper deck, leaving no gap. A narrow passage ran between them, down the center of the boat, so that he could not see inside the partitioned compartment from here.

If the boat hand's explanation was anything to go by, there would be an oar port behind each partition.

He walked toward the compartment as directed.

All the while, Spirit Eye's warning continued to grate on his nerves. When he had first acquired it, the noise had been loud enough to give him a headache. Now, instead, hearing it sharpened his concentration. It was as though it brought his brain to the highest possible state of alertness.

The distance reported by Spirit Eye had kept increasing as he descended beneath the cabin, eventually reaching fourteen meters. That was his distance from the first new enemy he had detected.

[14, 13, 11, 10, ...]

The closer he drew to the partitioned compartment, the smaller the numbers became.

Do Heo-ok and the new enemy were clearly toward the bow. Dong Bongsu, meanwhile, was heading toward the stern. Normally, the distance between him and the enemy should have kept increasing until Spirit Eye's warning ceased altogether. Instead, after reaching fourteen meters, it had begun decreasing again.

That meant...

'There's another one!'

More than one enemy had stolen aboard this boat.

[6, 5, 4, ...]

At last, Dong Bongsu entered the compartment.

Just as the boat hand had said, there was an oar port on either side. The space farther inside seemed to serve as storage, with all manner of tools for navigating the lake scattered about. There was also a fairly large chamber pot with a lid, exactly as promised.

Since he had never intended to use any chamber pot, he ignored it and pressed as close to the hull as possible.

The left side first.

The oar port lay at the boat's outer edge. As the boat hand had said, the men used it to piss and shit instead of a privy, and a foul stench assaulted his nose as he approached. Undeterred, Dong Bongsu pressed as close to the port as he could and checked Spirit Eye.

[3.]

Spirit Eye now indicated three meters. Someone he presumed to be an enemy was clinging to the bottom of the hull, three meters beneath this oar port.

'Two so far.'

Including the one he had found at the bow, that made two.

But two might not be the end of it.

Dong Bongsu moved to the opposite side of the compartment. Sure enough, the distance increased, then decreased again.

At the oar port directly across from the spot where he had just obtained a reading of three meters, there was another enemy—even closer, only two meters away.

'Three!'

Having confirmed three additional enemies, Dong Bongsu left the compartment and walked toward the bow. There might be more there besides the one he had already detected.

SNRR...

The boat hand who had given him directions was already asleep again. His soft snoring was proof of how deeply he slept.

Dong Bongsu passed him and approached the bow. Once again, Spirit Eye's warning count increased, then began decreasing after reaching fourteen meters. There he confirmed that, besides the enemy he had detected earlier, another was clinging to the fir planking on the opposite side.

'Four.'

Four in total.

There were four enemies beneath this boat whose levels differed from his by at least ten. Five, if he included Do Heo-ok.

One clung to either side of the hull's underside at the bow, and another to either side at the stern.

Spirit Eye's distance readings had allowed him to pinpoint all four.

Then why had they sneaked aboard?

By now, the answer required little thought.

If their goal had been something like abducting Namgung Hye, they would have done it already. The only person aboard capable of stopping them was Do Heo-ok, and everything indicated that he had brought the four here himself.

Four Peak Realm experts, doing nothing but clinging to the underside of the boat?

'They're just waiting for the boat to return where it came from—the Namgung Clan.'

The boat would soon return to the Namgung Clan, and no one would suspect it. Who would question a boat carrying Namgung Byeok's second son-in-law and second daughter? That meant the Peak Realm experts clinging beneath it could infiltrate the clan without interference.

These people were at least ten levels apart from Dong Bongsu. He had no way of knowing whether that gap was twenty or thirty. For no fewer than four such people to slip secretly into the Namgung Clan meant...

Its overthrow.

The great undertaking, the major incident Do Heo-ok was plotting, was exactly what his instincts had told him. The first, third, and fourth possibilities fell away, leaving only the second.

Do Heo-ok and this force intended to overturn the Namgung Clan completely. They were not after just one or two lives. Absolutely not.

'They mean to erase the Namgung Clan from Murim.'

Then D-day would, as he had thought, be...

That very day.

Do Heo-ok's wedding day.

They would be making their preparations one by one to act then, and this, too, would be one stage in preparing for their operation.

There were no ifs here. The chance that Do Heo-ok and these people were on opposing sides was zero.

The Namgung Clan was, after all, the foremost noble clan under heaven. When this pleasure boat returned, they would certainly inspect it, including checking for anyone hiding aboard. Normally, the intruders would be caught then. Even if they were lucky enough to get off the boat and infiltrate the estate, the clan's warriors would soon pick up their trail.

But if someone bought them time to slip inside and even provided a place to hide, that changed everything. Do Heo-ok would already have made all those arrangements, and events would follow their course. There was no longer anyone who could stop them.

Dong Bongsu could not stop them either.

Even if he returned to the estate and announced there were intruders, who would believe him? And if he added that the person who had hidden them—or would hide them—was Do Heo-ok?

It was as plain as day that he would only be endangering himself with a self-defeating move. That was not an option he could take.

Then what was he to do now?

Do Heo-ok's plan was progressing step by step, and Dong Bongsu had no way to stop it.

He could neither advance nor retreat.

With Tang Hwa or Tang Wu always at his side, he could not leave the Namgung Clan. But if he stayed, Do Heo-ok and the force behind him would attack when the time came, and the outcome was fairly easy to predict.

In the worst case, everyone within the Namgung Clan would be annihilated.

If he stayed close to Tang Wu, he might survive with luck—but only with very good luck. Had Dong Bongsu left things to chance every time something like this happened, he would never have lasted this long without being caught.

Luck was nothing but a chance windfall that only fools believed in, and Dong Bongsu was no fool.

Dong Bongsu set about finding a sure solution.

An ordinary person might well give up when caught between two impossible choices. But Dong Bongsu did not give up. Whatever the circumstances, he maintained his cold reason and worked his way through the crisis.

If the paths ahead and behind were blocked, he would escape to the side. If both sides were blocked, he would rise above or hide below.

And if even that proved impossible...

He would subdue both obstacles.

That was Dong Bongsu's way. And Dong Bongsu was someone capable of doing it.

Before he knew it, the look in his eyes had changed from Sosam's back to Dong Bongsu's own empty gaze.

What was he thinking?

As yet, no one knew.

Dong Bongsu returned to the deck as though nothing had happened and drank with Do Heo-ok. There, he got drunk and reeled off Sosam's entire life story. As for Tang Wu, he wrapped that part up with a vague claim that he did not really understand why the old man was doing any of it.

Do Heo-ok could find no holes in his story. In the end, he had no choice but to accept it.

Dong Bongsu knew nothing.