Chapter 470: I Told You They Were Swindlers!

TL: FoodieMonster007

Lim Chu felt his breath catch.

Had he ever been this surprised in his life? Had he ever allowed someone to get this close?

Lim Chu instinctively tried to leap away and escape.

The moment his body shot into the air, he felt it. The man who had been standing with him was now right beside him, also in the air. He was stuck to his side like a shadow.

The instant Geom Mugeuk grabbed his shoulder, Lim Chu was brought back down to their original spot. He had been trying to break through the roof to escape, but now he descended with Geom Mugeuk.

The movement of being caught and returned was so fluid that it looked as if the two had performed a synchronized leap and descent.

Lim Chu felt that the man's martial arts completely overwhelmed his own. The move he had just witnessed was far more difficult than silently approaching and sealing one's acupoints.

"Since we've already started peeling, let's peel it all off."

Geom Mugeuk yanked off the plywood attached to the carriage.

RIIIIIP.

The wall of the carriage was revealed. The personal carriage of the Heavenly Demon, made of a unique metal, came into view. It was the sturdiest carriage in all of murim.

"Actually, considering who rides in it, there's no need to make it this sturdy."

Lim Chu didn't quite hear Geom Mugeuk's words. His eyes were wide as he stared at the carriage, mesmerized.

The painting on the carriage.

Just as Geom Mugeuk had said, it wasn't a crescent moon, but horns.

The terrifying face of a fiend with two horns, like a demon. It was a fearsome devil that sent a chill down one's spine just by looking at it.

Lim Chu was completely frozen. There was only one organization in murim that would openly display such a painting. What if this was the carriage of the place he was thinking of?

I'm a dead man.

Truly, when he entered this stable, he never would have dreamed that today would be the day of his death.

Whether he knew what Lim Chu was thinking or not, Geom Mugeuk walked back to his side. He stood next to him and spoke nonchalantly.

"Isn't it scary? Was there really a need to draw it so realistically and frighteningly? I get the chills every time I see it. What about you?"

Geom Mugeuk looked at him.

Lim Chu answered in a trembling voice.

"This is my first time seeing it."

"That's right. It's not a painting you get to see easily."

A meaningful statement followed from Geom Mugeuk's lips.

"Not just anyone can have this painting on their carriage. Only someone of very high rank can."

Normally, he would have said 'only one person', but he didn't reveal that much.

Then, a suspicion suddenly bloomed in Lim Chu's mind.

Huh? Are these guys really swindlers?

He thought it might be possible. High-ranking members of the Demonic Cult traveling with just three people? It somehow felt unbelievable.

Anyone can have a painting like this done if they just pay an artist, right? And the way he deliberately tore off the cover for me to see…

It was at that very moment.

When he came to his senses, he was standing in the sky. The sky was blue, and his surroundings were blue. He wondered if this was all a dream.

Yes, hoping it was a dream, he reached out and touched the blue floor.

SPLASH. It wasn't the sky, but incredibly clear water. What he was seeing was the sky reflected on the water's surface.

It was Geom Mugeuk's qi. His instantly manifested qi had pulled him into a new world.

However, Geom Mugeuk's true qi was beneath his feet.

An invisible energy pulled him down into the water.

He kept sinking. The terror of a bottomless abyss washed over him. The fear of that abyss was endless and dreadful.

"Uwaaack!"

When Lim Chu screamed, he was still standing in front of the carriage.

Geom Mugeuk was staring at him with a profound gaze.

Only then did Lim Chu understand.

They're not swindlers.

However, he soon corrected that thought.

No, they are swindlers. The greatest swindlers of all time.

Everyone was happily heading to the clan, unaware that they were demons or absolute masters of the Demonic Cult. And he, completely oblivious, had ordered an investigation on them.

Lim Chu squeezed his eyes shut.

"Kill me."

His voice trembled.

"Do you have any last words?"

"Who would I blame? I can only blame my own fate for getting caught up in this."

He kept his eyes closed for a moment, but the man didn't kill him. When Lim Chu opened his eyes, Geom Mugeuk was still looking at the carriage wall.

"Why don't you kill me?"

"What great crime did you commit that I should kill you? All you did was snoop around the carriage a bit."

"You people are…"

"What? Do we look like fiends who kill everyone we make eye contact with?"

Come to think of it, his acupoints hadn't been sealed yet. He briefly considered running away but quickly gave up on the idea.

"You're letting me live?"

Of course, there were conditions.

"Just as Young Lady Geum hired us, I will hire you. Just until this business is over and we leave."

Lim Chu was startled. He thought he was surely dead, but a path to survival had opened.

"Are you perhaps loyal enough to Geum Ajong to die for him?"

"No."

"I thought so."

The Geum Ajong he knew was not the kind of person to inspire such loyalty from his subordinates.

"His fate will have nothing to do with your decision anyway. So there's no need to feel guilty. I'll pay you three times what you're getting now."

"We have a relationship where I just work as much as I'm paid. I don't feel any guilt."

The problem was this. How would this new employer treat him? This person wasn't a merchant from a rival Trading Company offering more money.

"Are you going to feed me a gu poison or something?"

"Nothing like that will happen."

"What if I expose your identities? How can you trust me?"

"I don't trust you."

Geom Mugeuk's gaze turned to the carriage wall.

"I trust that."

Lim Chu's gaze also turned to the fiend on the carriage wall.

Geom Mugeuk made no threats. He didn't utter a single common threat, like imprisoning and torturing him for life, killing him cruelly, or even killing his family if he betrayed them.

That made it even more terrifying.

"What do you need me to do?"

"I intend to intervene in the Golden Dragon Clan's succession battle."

To Geom Mugeuk's words, thrown out like a declaration of war from inside the moving carriage, Geom Woojin replied.

"Isn't that your specialty?"

"Isn't instigating fights between others the most fun?"

Of course, that wasn't the reason he was intervening.

"If a succession battle breaks out, everyone's attention will be on that fight rather than on us. We need to use that fight to find the mastermind, deal with them, and get out. Please leave it to me."

Geom Woojin nodded silently, as if telling him to handle it as he saw fit.

Just then, Hwi said from the driver's seat.

"The horses are tired. We'll stop for a rest."

The moving carriage slowly came to a halt.

Where the carriage stopped, Geum Arin's carriage, which had been ahead, was waiting.

After letting the horses loose in the field, Hwi prepared a meal.

"I'll prepare the meal this time."

"I'll help."

Lim Hyuk rolled up his sleeves and stepped forward, but Hwi refused.

"Just rest. You can take care of the meal during the next break."

"Understood."

Was it because he recognized him as a fellow bodyguard? Of the three, Lim Hyuk was most conscious of Hwi. He felt a strange kinship and the feeling of meeting a great senior in the world of bodyguards.

Just then, Geum Arin said to Geom Mugeuk.

"Let's have a talk."

"Let's."

Geom Mugeuk and Geum Arin slowly started walking.

Lim Hyuk was about to follow, but Geom Mugeuk spoke to him.

"When she's with me, you can just rest."

"I have never once left the Young Lady alone."

Looking into his loyal eyes, Geom Mugeuk said.

"Try it just this once. If there's ever a time to do it, today would be the perfect day."

Geum Arin just watched Geom Mugeuk, thinking that there must be a reason when he acts like this.

"Are you perhaps going to have a conversation that I shouldn't overhear?"

Geom Mugeuk shook his head.

"No. I purely mean for you to rest. I know you won't be able to rest well because you'll be worried, but I'm still telling you to rest."

Geom Mugeuk's gaze turned to Hwi, who was beside him. These words were also meant for Hwi. He wanted his loyal bodyguard to rest this time.

These loyal men were skilled in all sorts of things, but they truly had never learned how to rest.

Standing beside them, Geum Arin nodded at Lim Hyuk with an expression that told him to do as he was told.

Lim Hyuk no longer refused.

"Understood. Please go ahead."

And so, Geom Mugeuk and Geum Arin left.

Feeling uneasy after sending them off, Lim Hyuk stared at their retreating backs for a long time.

Lim Hyuk couldn't bring himself to leave Hwi's side and hovered around him.

"Do you have something to say?"

"No, sir."

Finally, the hesitant Lim Hyuk brought up what he had been holding back.

"Yes, I do. May I ask just one thing?"

"Go ahead."

I don't know if we're close enough for me to ask this, but…

"It's about your nephew. Do you think he believes that me always staying by the Young Lady's side is hindering her growth as a martial artist?"

"I'm asking because I wondered if that's why he told me to rest."

He used Geom Mugeuk as an excuse, but it was his own worry. He truly cherished Geum Arin like a daughter and always tried to protect her.

But was he ruining her because of it? He had been wrestling with that concern.

He wanted to ask Hwi about this problem. He felt like Hwi would have an answer.

"I don't really know what my nephew was thinking. It could be that, or it could be that he simply wanted to let you rest."

Hwi, who had started as if he was going to brush it off with an 'I don't know', lifted his head, looked at Lim Hyuk, and asked.

"Whatever it is, what does it have to do with us?"

"Pardon?"

"Her growth as a martial artist is a separate issue from us, isn't it? Someone who is meant to grow well will do so on their own, whether they have a bodyguard or not. For a mere bodyguard like us to worry about such things is overstepping our duties, wouldn't you say?"

It was a simple answer telling him not to get too emotionally invested in his charge, but he felt a weight lift from his chest.

How could he not have had the same thought himself?

However, even after pondering it a hundred times, he couldn't reach a conclusion.

But hearing it from someone else was a relief. And since it came from someone who felt like a great senior in the world of bodyguards, he felt he could just follow his words.

"Yes, you're right. It's not a matter for me to interfere in. Thank you so much for your guidance."

Hwi spoke more than usual today. Just as Lim Hyuk felt Hwi was special, it was a special connection for Hwi as well.

It was as if he had met a junior in murim who was contemplating the duties of a bodyguard. That's why he added one more thing.

"My nephew's words are probably right. The part about it being fine when she's with him. So think of this as your last vacation and enjoy it."

Lim Hyuk had a strange feeling.

It was difficult to refuse these people. Geom Mugeuk, this bodyguard, and that man standing over there with his back turned.

He felt they were all people he couldn't handle.

Lim Hyuk's gaze turned in the direction Geum Arin had disappeared.

So, Young Lady, you must choose well.

Geom Mugeuk and Geum Arin stood side by side on a hill.

The view from the hill was beautiful.

The reeds rippled as if alive, and beyond them, the river flowed gracefully, sparkling in the sunlight.

"I have something to tell you."

Geum Arin had been pondering one thing the entire carriage ride. She had reached a conclusion and was about to tell Geom Mugeuk what it was.

"The reason I made a contract with you isn't because you made a contract with the Milky Way Trading Company and were trying to kill me."

"Then what is it for?"

"I want your help in the succession battle."

She spoke honestly. This decision was a gut feeling, just like her choice to hire Geom Mugeuk in the first place. If this feeling was wrong, she was ruined.

"Make me the heir of the Golden Dragon Clan."

Geom Mugeuk wasn't particularly surprised.

"You knew, didn't you."

"I had a rough idea."

Geum Arin felt she had done the right thing by speaking up. Even if she was doomed to fail, the sense of stability this man gave her felt truly good.

That must be why she could ask such a question.

"Can you make me the heir?"

"That depends on you."

Geom Mugeuk's gaze towards her was serious.

"How far can you trust me?"

Geum Ajong was also returning to the clan.

He was actually traveling faster than Geom Mugeuk and Geum Arin's carriage. He had sent Lim Chu to investigate Geom Mugeuk while heading back to the clan first.

And Lim Chu, whom he had been waiting for, returned.

"Did you find anything out?"

"Yes, I did."

Lim Chu lowered his voice and said.

"Your prediction was correct, Young Lord. I was lucky enough to overhear their conversation. They said they were going to the clan to pull off an even bigger score."

"Right? I told you they were swindlers! Those damn swindlers!"

Geum Ajong was overjoyed that his prediction was correct.

"What about proof?"

"I haven't found any yet."

Geum Ajong's expression soured. It was useless without clear evidence.

Even if Lim Chu claimed to have heard them, they would just argue he was framing them since he was his subordinate.

"I need to find proof. That's the only way to get rid of Arin."

Then, Lim Chu spoke cautiously.

"May I offer my thoughts?"

"Speak."

"Use them to frame the First Young Lord, not the Third Young Lady."

It was an unexpected suggestion.

"My brother?"

"After all, isn't the Young Lord's true rival the First Young Lord?"

He was right. He had worried that his father might make his younger sister the heir, but that was closer to an obsession.

The most likely heir right now was his older brother. Perhaps he was tormenting his sister as a form of escapism, lacking the courage to confront his brother.

"It's a good idea, but how?"

"Aren't they swindlers? Throw the First Young Lord to them as prey."

Geum Ajong's eyes flashed. The words hit home.

If he could just entangle these guys with his brother, he could drastically lower his brother's standing with their father and the clan's martial artists.

"Will my brother fall for it easily?"

"You have to make him fall for it."

"How?"

"That, I don't know."

He had been told to only say this much, as speaking too perfectly would arouse suspicion.

He was told that the rest would be handled by Geum Ajong himself. That he was a man with a knack for scheming, so he would figure it out on his own.

Indeed, just as Geom Mugeuk had predicted, Geum Ajong started racking his brain.

"Lure my brother in with those swindlers?"

His eyes gleamed cunningly as he searched for a method.

In the world of merchants, a financial incident is always the most fatal. His sister had caused a two-million-nyang incident.

"How big of an incident should I make my brother cause?"