Chapter 72 - Better Than I Expected

RUSTLE

The silk dress slipped down, revealing skin smoother than the silk itself. Li Qingyu, her bare body as beautiful as a doll’s, pulled out the jade hairpin holding her hair in place and spoke calmly.

“So that’s what happened?”

“Yes.”

“I wondered why requests for an audience from clan members connected to our domestic subsidiaries had suddenly increased. So it was thanks to the Sword Lord after all.”

Li Qingyu brushed back the hair that had fallen loose, stepped forward, and slowly lowered herself into the steaming marble bath.

“But why are you reporting this to me, Chao?”

Beyond the thin curtain screening the bath, Chao knelt in silence, dressed as a man. As if she had expected that, Li Qingyu calmly put Wei Ling’s unspoken question into words.

“Did you want to know whether I created Guardian to stir up fear and discord and strengthen my own power, as the Sword Lord said?”

“Yes.”

Perhaps Wei Ling answered because Li Qingyu had struck a nerve, or perhaps because she could not be rude any longer. At her subdued reply, Li Qingyu nodded quietly.

“In short, yes. It’s true that was part of my calculation.”

Wei Ling’s face stiffened at the answer she had expected but had not wanted to acknowledge.

“But you’re the one who drove matters to this point, Chao.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it might not have happened if you’d done your job properly.”

“... Are you saying I should have taken action before the Sword Lord did? Gone around tearing through our clan’s subsidiaries like him?”

“You don’t agree?”

Wei Ling’s expression darkened. Sensing both her self-reproach over her mistake and the question she still had, Li Qingyu smiled.

“I’ve thought this before, Chao, but you really are rigid.”

“...”

“Oh, I’m not criticizing you for it. I’ve always been grateful for your unwavering loyalty, including that rigidity so unlike the rest of our clan.”

She was not merely being polite. Everything about the Black Dragon Clan, from its psionics and martial arts to its culture, was suited to schemes and conspiracies. Few in the clan were as rigid as Wei Ling. Li Qingyu had chosen her as a bodyguard in part because she valued that upright nature even more than her loyalty or talent.

“But unless you let go of that preconception, Chao, you’ll only hinder the Sword Lord instead of helping him.”

“Are you saying I’m unfit to be his attendant?”

“When it comes to work, you’re undoubtedly the best. But in other matters... I’m not so sure.”

Wei Ling clenched her fists. Li Qingyu’s refusal to give a definite answer was answer enough. If it had been anyone else, perhaps she could have accepted it. But to be told she would only hinder Limon, who so often scratched his head because he couldn’t make sense of a few documents? Renowned as a Black Dragon Clan prodigy since childhood, she could not accept that.

“Chao, don’t underestimate the Sword Lord.”

Her voice rang cold through the air.

“He is a Sword Master, certainly. He has lived by cutting through everything with his sword rather than relying on plots and schemes.”

Her voice was sharp, as though she had read Wei Ling’s unspoken contempt for Limon.

“But he is a veteran of the martial world. He survived both the Bronze Age and the Age of Heroes, saved the world several times, and is humanity’s last Sword Master.”

He had faced a dragon that devoured even gods. He had won a war between Sword Masters. Armed with a single sword, he had cut down several absolute beings and protected the peace of the world—an ageless, undying guardian deity.

As Li Qingyu recounted Limon Aspelder’s past, she fixed Wei Ling with a gaze so heavy it could be felt even through the curtain.

“Do you truly think he accomplished all that with swordsmanship alone?”

“... Are you saying I shouldn’t underestimate a veteran’s experience?”

“I can’t say for certain. I don’t know whether his second sword is the wisdom born of experience or something else entirely.”

Chuckling as if to say she did not know everything herself, Li Qingyu let the chill leave her voice.

“But one thing is certain.”

“What is that?”

“As long as you see him as nothing more than an ignorant swordsman, Chao, you’ll never truly become the Sword Lord’s attendant.”

How could someone who looked down on her master become an attendant who served as his hands and feet? Li Qingyu spoke with a smile, almost as though she were joking, and Wei Ling lowered her head. She understood both the warning hidden in that light tone and the sincere concern behind Li Qingyu’s advice.

“... Why?”

“Why did I assign you to him as his attendant?”

“I’m asking why Your Highness is making the Sword Lord your husband and, as if that weren’t enough, giving him power by putting him in charge of a dangerous organization like Guardian.”

That was why Wei Ling had to ask, despite knowing it was rude. If Limon was more than a mere swordsman, as Li Qingyu said, he might use Guardian to seize all the clan’s power.

Li Qingyu remained silent for a moment, as though deciding whether to answer. Then, apparently having made up her mind, she spoke quietly.

“Because it’s necessary.”

“Necessary...?”

“Yes.”

Leaning back against the bath, Li Qingyu gazed at the lights on the ceiling, shining like stars in the night sky, and finished softly.

“It’s necessary to entrust the Sword Lord with all the power of our clan—no, of all seven clans in the Seven Dragons Society.”

* * *

After Limon tore through the subsidiaries in the incident dubbed the “Mad Dog Rampage,” Guardian began to operate. Whatever the means, Limon had obtained contracts, and simply choosing which ones to take on gave the company months of work at a stroke.

Of course, with only Limon and Wei Ling on Guardian’s staff, there was a limit to how much work they could accept. But Wei Ling proved capable as ever. She borrowed staff from Leviathan to bolster their numbers, if only temporarily. It was almost like outsourcing half the work, but by taking on and completing contracts, Guardian acquired at least the basic trappings of a security firm.

It was definite progress. A company that had been little more than a name had begun to function as one. But the results were not entirely positive.

“Have you heard what that Limon Aspelder did?”

“Who in the Black Dragon Clan hasn’t? Smashing up subsidiaries and forcing contracts out of them because they wouldn’t hand over work... The crazy bastard.”

“I hear he nearly beat more than five people to death that day. Director Wang among them.”

“Director Wang? Surely you don’t mean Wang Gi-neung, head of the Wang family of Shanghai?”

“I do. They say he was beaten within an inch of being left a wreck, without even getting a chance to put up a fight.”

Rumors of what Limon had done during the Mad Dog Rampage spread through the Black Dragon Clan like wildfire on a dry spring day. Reactions varied.

“Head Wang is a master-level expert from a distinguished clan, yet he was helpless against him. Times may have changed, but the Sword Lord is still the Sword Lord...”

Some feared Limon’s strength.

“I can’t fathom what he’s after. He didn’t get angry when they offered bribes or make a fuss when they didn’t. Who takes the bribes and then wrecks the place anyway?”

Others were uneasy because they could not discern his intentions.

“I hear he even dumps all the work on his subordinates and goes off to enjoy himself. He only shows his face at the office now and then.”

Still others despised him for idling while others worked.

They each formed their own judgments from what they had seen and heard, but most arrived at the same conclusion.

“I’ll have to ask Your Highness whether she can keep the Sword Lord under control.”

“In any case, Your Highness is the only one who can stop him.”

“We must make sure Your Highness is more wary of that man.”

Whether they wanted to assess the situation, find a shield, or sound a warning, Black Dragon Clan members flocked to Li Qingyu. With no telling what might happen if they approached the mad dog Limon directly, going through her was their only relatively safe option.

Li Qingyu, once scorned as the cause of the clan’s decline, had become the center of the storm overnight. Some found the turn of events suspicious, but it changed nothing. In any age, the only way to avoid disaster at the hands of a watchdog agency with both power and authority was to curry favor with the person in charge. There was a reason rulers throughout history had given their directly controlled watchdog agencies such outsized powers.

The problem was that, as Li Qingyu’s support grew, someone else’s reputation fell at an exponential rate.

[“The rumors about you have been spectacular lately, Team Leader.”]

“What rumors?”

[“Oh, there are plenty. That you’re a perverted old lolicon, a thug who lives for violence, an incompetent kept man who only cares about money...”]

“Hmm. That’s not too bad.”

[“... If that’s not too bad, what would be?”]

“At least no assassins have come for me.”

[“Well, that’s a clear standard.”]

Limon gave a small laugh. Whatever nasty rumors spread about him in the Black Dragon Clan, he did not care in the slightest. He was the Seven Dragons Society’s archenemy to begin with; his reputation had no further to fall. And compared with all the insults they had called him in the past, these were nothing.

What had actually been giving him a headache lately was something else entirely.

“Still, I can’t seem to get past this.”

[“Get past what?”]

“The violin. I feel like I’m finally starting to understand it, but I’m not getting any better.”

[“... If another violinist heard you say that, they’d try to kill you, Team Leader.”]

“Why? It’s true.”

Limon sounded unimpressed. His violin lessons, which had been progressing so well, really had slowed lately, as though he had hit a wall. But Yu Na-gyeong stared at him in disbelief.

[“You’d need room to improve first. Didn’t you hear what Julia said? She has nothing more to teach you technically.”]

“That’s only the technical side. I’m still behind Julia in everything else.”

[“Doesn’t it strike you as strange to compare your playing with a world-class violinist’s after just one month of lessons?”]

“I can’t help it,” Limon said flatly.

He glanced at the case holding the Violin of Deepest Black, which he had been playing moments earlier, and continued.

“If I’m going to overcome this violin’s curse, I have to get better somehow.”