“So, that’s what you’ve decided?”
At Jeok Cheongang’s question, I nodded.
“Yes. I think I need to stay here after all.”
If Ma Junggeol and his men had arrived half a day later, I’d probably already be on my way to Qinghai with the Fire Dragon Pavilion members.
Gansu had enough forces as things stood.
The Kongtong Sect and the Zhongnan Sect.
Two towering powers of the Nine Sects and One Gang stood firm here, and the Black Dragon Demon Gate, led by Sima Gong, was every bit their equal.
The dark-path figures and unorthodox factions gathered under the Black Dragon Demon Gate might have been inferior in quality, but their sheer numbers made them an enormous force.
But now the situation had changed.
The massive Dark Heaven army—estimated to number at least tens of thousands—was a problem. But the biggest reason I’d decided to stay in Gansu was time.
The time it would take them to reach us.
“When exactly did you return to Ningxia?”
Ma Junggeol answered.
“Three days ago. We arrived in the middle of the night, so I suppose you could say it was two days ago.”
“Three days ago?”
Jeok Cheongang cut in abruptly, furrowing his brow. Ma Junggeol hurriedly continued.
“W-we were facing an emergency ourselves. We were so busy sending urgent messages throughout Ningxia and getting our men moving that we barely had time to think.”
He’d apparently taken Jeok Cheongang’s reaction to mean, You arrived three days ago, so why are you only coming to us now? But I knew why Jeok Cheongang had frowned.
That was right around the time.
A memory suddenly came to mind.
Several hundred people, trembling with fear, had said mounted bandits were roaming not far away.
Ningxia Province must still have seemed lawless to them. With Ma Junggeol’s urgent message causing an uproar, they’d probably mistaken the commotion for a mounted-bandit attack.
It had all happened so recently that even the Lower District Sect member from the Shaanxi branch hadn’t known the details.
So that’s what it was.
Things come around, and everything connects.
The outcome of one incident becomes the beginning of another, until eventually it all leads here.
And Ma Junggeol’s answer—that they’d arrived three days ago—gave everyone plenty to think about.
“How long did it take you to get back?”
At the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord’s question, Ma Junggeol counted on his fingers.
“Let’s see. It took seven days and nights just to get out of the desert, and crossing the grasslands again took a day longer than that… About a month, I’d say.”
“Wait. Didn’t you say earlier that it took twenty days just to get there? And then you spent another day and a half following Dark Heaven.”
“That’s right. But traveling a route for the first time isn’t the same as taking it on the way back. Do you think we’re mounted bandits—no, horse caravans—for nothing?”
“…Hmm.”
It was hard to argue with that.
Just as the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord, a Supreme Peak master, could judge an opponent’s level and the kind of martial arts they practiced from only a few forms, no one could match mounted bandits and horse caravans at finding the fastest route.
“Too much caution can be its own poison. There’s something more important here.”
Jeok Cheongang stopped the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord before he could respond and fixed his gaze on Ma Junggeol.
“If you were leading an army of tens of thousands, how long would it take you to reach here?”
“W-well…”
Ma Junggeol thought hard for a moment, then sighed.
“That’s hard to answer. But…”
“But?”
“Assuming they had enough camels, desert horses, and supplies—and every last one of them knew enough martial arts to endure a grueling forced march… Yes. Even with delays, a month at most.”
“One month. Just a month.”
“Of course, depending on the circumstances, it could be much shorter.”
Ma Junggeol glanced around as he added that last part. Sima Gong’s face stiffened.
“What circumstances do you mean?”
“Have you forgotten? We lost more time than necessary crossing the grasslands. Where we spotted them wasn’t all that far from Gansu. Even taking that enormous force into account…”
Ma Junggeol trailed off. He swallowed hard before continuing.
“A-about twenty days should be enough.”
“……!”
“……!”
The air in the meeting room turned cold.
No—it froze like a glacier.
His words reminded everyone of a fact they’d briefly forgotten. They stared at one another, eyes wide.
That was right.
Unlike Ma Junggeol, who’d had to hurry back the way he came, Dark Heaven had another option.
They could advance.
Instead of detouring across the grasslands, they could break through the front by sheer force.
And if they chose a direct assault, there would be precious little time left before the fighting began.
One day, or maybe two.
Of course, that was the worst-case scenario.
No one knew whether Dark Heaven’s army had stayed there for several more days after Ma Junggeol left—or whether they were still there now.
But we had to plan for the worst.
That was war.
“I think we can throw any more armchair strategizing out the window. Don’t you all agree?”
Over Jeok Cheongang’s low voice, which broke the silence, rang a clear chime that didn’t fit the situation at all.
Ding.
System
Quest
Road of Blood
Long ago, this land was a trade route linking one continent to another. Today, it has fallen into grave peril.
The foreign merchants with their unfamiliar features are gone. So are those who crossed the desert for foreign lands with wagons piled high with silk.
The rulers of the vast desert have cut off the trade route that once brought prosperity to the Central Plains. Now they want everything within the Great Wall.
The old days, when silk flowed in abundance, have become a distant, dusty past.
Steel without end, blood, and corpses will be the present and future of this land.
May fortune be with you.
Grade: Supreme Peak
Restriction: Jin Taekyung
Mission: Annihilate enemy forces in the Gansu region — Incomplete
Reward: A large amount of EXP and Fame
Linked Quest based on your choice
Failure: Dark Heaven wins
— Lose control of the Gansu region
Rumble, rumble.
Was this what a small mountain would look like in motion?
With the Black Dragon Demon Gate, the Zhongnan Sect, and the hundreds of martial artists Sima Gong had conscripted from nearby, our force had grown to more than two thousand—close to three thousand. I looked at the endless wave of people and horses stretching out behind me, then raised my eyes to the air.
More precisely, to the translucent holographic window floating there.
System
The conditions for the current Quest have been met!
Head West — Complete
Quest Desert Mirage successfully completed!
Quest rewards have been granted!
Gained a large amount of EXP and Fame!
A new linked Quest has been generated upon completion of Desert Mirage.
Would you like to view the new Quest?
Barely half an hour.
That was an impossibly short time for an army of nearly three thousand to finish its preparations and set out. I certainly hadn’t had a chance to check the newly generated linked Quest.
Not that I needed to check it right away. I had a rough idea what it would say.
I adjusted my grip on the reins of my galloping horse and gave the command in my head.
Open Quest window.
Ding.
As expected.
It was more or less what I’d anticipated.
Actually, I knew full well that if we failed, it wouldn’t end there.
If the Gansu front collapses, the entire west will be in danger.
War was like a line of dominoes.
No matter how carefully and thoroughly you prepared from beginning to end, one mistake could bring everything you’d built crashing down in an instant.
We have to stop them before it’s too late.
At least Gansu Murim had prepared thoroughly.
Three successive defensive lines, with thirty thousand troops deployed according to each line’s importance.
Dunhuang, the foremost of those three lines, was close enough to reach within three days if we pushed ourselves to the limit.
The Silk Road.
Better known by that name to people in the modern world, this region was an endless stretch of plains and wilderness.
There was no narrow path to slow us down, no terrain so rugged we’d have to abandon our horses.
We just had to ride until the horses collapsed from exhaustion.
The problem was…
Dark Heaven could do the same.
That was why we couldn’t afford to lose even a moment.
Even with camels and desert horses, there was a limit to how fast they could travel through the desert. But once they reached land covered in soil and grass instead of sand, that would change.
Dunhuang would be the first domino to fall, and tens of thousands of enemies would soon swarm across Gansu like locusts—
“What are you staring at so intently?”
“……!”
“Checking the shape of the clouds or something?”
I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I nearly jumped out of my skin.
It wasn’t the sudden voice that startled me. It was the menacing face that filled my vision the moment I turned my head.
“Ah, damn. You scared me. What’s with you all of a sudden?”
Ma Junggeol answered, sitting as comfortably as ever on his violently bouncing saddle. A former mounted bandit and current horse-caravan chief through and through.
“Nothing much. You’ve been staring into the air for a while, so I thought I’d talk to you.”
“What’s it to you where I’m looking? And I don’t think we’re close enough to be chatting.”
“Of course we’re not. You’re the one who had them rain arrows down on me. Three times, no less.”
His already vicious face twisted into a scowl. I answered flatly.
“So?”
“…You’ve got no conscience, do you? And even if I can understand the first two times, what on earth were you thinking when you ordered them to fire the third?”
“Just thought stopping at two would make me look cold.”
“……?”
“That’s it. Happy?”
At my offhand answer, Ma Junggeol gaped at me as if I were insane.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? Are you even human?”
“Feels like that’s a question I should be asking you.”
“…What’s that supposed to mean?”
What did it mean? He knew perfectly well.
But I was too tenderhearted to hit him with the facts about his looks.
I silently shrugged. Looking at Ma Junggeol, I had another thought.
Still, he really is nothing like he looks.
Judging by his face alone, he looked like some evil spirit who could plunge the world into ruin. But from the way he acted, and the bits of his personality that showed through now and then, he seemed surprisingly stupid.
Even now, at the strong insistence of a few leaders who still suspected Ma Junggeol and the other horse-caravan men, he was practically being held hostage. Yet he seemed utterly carefree.
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