Chapter 108

Hunters?

Wolhwa’s guess was only half right. They were hunters, all right—but the uninvited guests were something more special and far more vicious.

“Move it, you bastards.”

“What good are grown men this scrawny?”

There were ten of them in all, every one of them rough-faced and armed. Ahead of them staggered a line of prisoners strung together with rope like dried fish.

Thud! Thud-thud!

“Ugh, Boss!”

“We’re moving! We’re moving, so please stop…”

“Hah, stop? You bastards still haven’t learned your lesson.”

“Hey, don’t hit them too hard. If something breaks, their price drops. They’re already so small we probably won’t get full value for them.”

“We should get a decent price if we sell them to a circus troupe. Let’s hurry inside and have a drink.”

“Ah, my mouth’s watering just thinking about it… But what’s that?”

The human hunters stopped dead. Their eyes lingered on the four-horse carriage parked before the shrine, then slowly shifted aside.

Their gazes came to rest on Wolhwa and me.

“…Who are you?”

I stepped forward when the apparent leader spoke.

“Just a traveler passing through.”

“A traveler, huh? Dangerous time to be wandering around.”

The oily gleam in his eyes said he himself was one of those dangers.

Of course, at a mere Level 25, he didn’t even qualify as a threat to me.

“Would you look at that. A four-horse carriage and a stunning beauty. You must be the Young Master of some wealthy family.”

If he had come closer to inspect it, he could have seen the crest of the Jin Family of Taiyuan carved into the carriage. But it was pitch-black outside, and he didn’t possess particularly sharp eyesight.

“I’m not from a poor one.”

“Well now. You’ve been awfully informal with me from the start.”

The leader licked his cracked lips. He seemed to be getting irritated, but he still hadn’t let down his guard around me.

“Whatever. We’ve been staying here for the past few days… So what are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“What do you think? If you show us a little sincerity, we might let you have the place.”

“Anyone listening would think you owned this shrine.”

“It’s abandoned. Doesn’t that mean whoever claims it first owns it?”

“Then bring me a certified deed.”

“What?”

The leader turned to his men in bewilderment. Naturally, it was probably the first time any of them had heard the term. Not that his men were likely to know any better.

I clicked my tongue as they whispered among themselves about certified deeds.

“If you can’t prove you own it, leave quietly. And untie those people.”

“…You’re crossing the line. Are you waiting for bodyguards?”

“I don’t have any.”

“Then what are you relying on?”

“Me.”

The leader’s gaze shifted to my two empty hands.

“Without even a weapon?”

“For the likes of you, my fists are enough.”

“Looks like the Young Master learned a move or two somewhere… But aren’t you taking Murim a little too lightly?”

“Murim isn’t a joke. You are.”

The moment I stepped toward the brightly burning torch, the prisoners who had been quietly restrained began screaming.

“Wh-what?”

“Boss! Boss!”

“Have you bastards lost your minds? Shut your mouths!”

The men in the rear drew daggers and held them to the prisoners’ throats in response to their violent reaction. The leader stared at me with wary eyes.

“You know them?”

“No. Never seen them before in my life.”

Their reaction was so sudden that even I was caught off guard. And why were they calling me Boss?

“Bosss! It’s me! It’s us!”

“These men seem to know you.”

“They’re just asking me to save them… Huh?”

I looked closely at the prisoners. They were all short as children and had uniformly ugly faces. They looked vaguely familiar.

Is it because they’re built like goblins?

Wait. Goblins?

A distant memory suddenly surfaced. No, it wasn’t even that distant. It had happened only a few months earlier, during the tutorial Quest.

“Don’t tell me… You were with the Heavenly Axe?”

The prisoners—or rather, the Five-Colored Ghosts¹, former subordinates of Jang Sam the Heavenly Axe—nodded frantically.

“That’s us!”

“Boss! Please save us!”

I never expected to run into these bastards here. While I stood dumbfounded, Wolhwa, who had been watching from behind, asked,

“Are they acquaintances of yours, Young Master Jin?”

“We’ve met before, at least.”

Human traffickers and bandits. It was hard to say which was worse.

A moment ago, I’d been planning to save them. Now I was having second thoughts.

“Bosssss!”

“Are you going to abandon us?”

“We quit being bandits after that day and have lived good lives ever since!”

“…”

Their ability to read the situation was almost supernatural. No wonder. They had surrendered immediately when the Heavenly Axe died, after all.

“Are you going to save them?”

“Tsk. I think we have to, at least.”

They said they had turned over a new leaf after that day, and leaving them like this wouldn’t sit right with me. More importantly, former bandits were far better than active human traffickers.

The leader overheard us and cut in with a growl.

“Save them? You?”

“You heard the whole thing. Why ask again? You sure know how to make life difficult for yourself.”

“You little shit. I’ve let you run your mouth long enough…”

Clang!

The leader leveled his spear at me, and his men drew their weapons as well. Wolhwa clung to my side with a deliberately frightened expression.

“Oh my, I’m scared. You have to protect me, don’t you?”

Her moist eyes stirred a man’s protective instinct. Her expression was pleading.

Knowing Wolhwa’s true nature, I found the sight ridiculous. The men, however, swallowed hard.

“Now I have one more reason to kill you.”

When the leader gave her a lecherous look, Wolhwa shrieked.

“Oh no, oh no! This maiden is so scared!”

“Ho ho, don’t be so frightened. Though I may have lived a rough life, you’ll soon learn that I’m a man with a heart as soft as silk. In a little while, we can have a conversation with our bodies.”

“Hey, look at me first.”

I needed to tear that filthy mouth open so he’d never say anything like that again.

I strode toward him, then abruptly stopped. The leader saw me halt and burst into laughter.

“What’s wrong? Lost your nerve now that it’s time to fight? Too late.”

“Exactly. You’re in real trouble now.”

“…What?”

I gave the bewildered man a broad smile.

“I said you’re fucked, asshole.”

The moment I finished speaking, the ground shook, and a powerful wind whipped through the area.

Boom—whoosh!

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Something swept past Wolhwa and me at terrifying speed and was already standing in front of the leader.

“Say that again.”

Jin Mukyung.

An overwhelming wave of qi poured from his entire body and crushed the entire scene. The leader’s face turned deathly pale, and his hands began to tremble.

“F-forgive me. Please…”

A cold voice answered.

“You’re far too late.”

Perhaps Jin Mukyung was the greatest pacifist among us. In just over ten seconds, he had put an end to all the unnecessary fighting that would have followed.

“S-surrender! We surrender!”

“Please spare us! Please, just let us live…”

Their faces were frozen with terror. Everyone’s legs gave out, and they collapsed where they stood. Someone’s urine trickled down the hill.

The Five-Colored Ghosts were no different.

“Quiet.”

Jin Mukyung wiped the blood from his face and tossed out that single word. A deathly silence fell.

Hyuk Mujin, one eye bruised deep blue, whispered to me,

“Am I actually alive right now?”

“Yeah. Your breath against my ear is giving me goose bumps, so move away.”

“Just a moment ago, I was wondering how anyone could get beaten like a dog that badly, but now…”

Gulp.

Hyuk Mujin swallowed dryly, his gaze fixed on the fallen leader.

“Hng… Hng…”

With all four limbs broken and his dantian destroyed, the man struggled for breath. If he received proper care, he might be able to walk again, but his life as a martial artist was over.

The Level window I sensed through Qi Sense was proof.

System

Level 2 — Lee Sam

The dung flies those watchers used as Familiars were Level 1, if I remember right.

The culprit who had reduced a Level 25 martial artist—one who had once been close to First Rate—to a living corpse kept stealing glances in our direction.

“Captain, please save me. I think the Second Young Master is still short on blood.”

“Stop talking nonsense and move that guy somewhere suitable. He’ll die if you leave him like that.”

“Doesn’t he deserve to die? They were selling perfectly innocent commoners.”

“Move him anyway. He’s still alive.”

One of the greatest sources of dissonance I had felt while moving between Murim and the modern world was the issue of killing people.

For twenty-seven years, I had lived in a society governed by law and order.

I had trained to kill enemies with bladed weapons, but my targets had been monsters, not living humans.

I was sure that was the case…

Now I couldn’t even remember how many people I had killed. Even after realizing that the enemies who had died by my hand might have been real people rather than NPCs, I hadn’t felt much guilt.

They were enemies. They were trying to kill me too.

I didn’t know whether it was because I had lived as a Hunter or because I had grown accustomed to Murim’s ways. I was only surprised by my own numbness and the simplicity of my self-justification.

For now, this much should be fine.

I was living in two completely different worlds. I couldn’t afford to play at being some half-baked Buddhist disciple.

I shook off the thoughts clinging to me and approached the men cowering on the ground.

“Eek!”

“Uaaagh! Save me, Boss!”

“You bastards make a fuss even when I’m trying to save you. Hold still.”

I untied the ropes, and the Five-Colored Ghosts were free. They stood on trembling legs.

“Th-thank you.”

“We’ll serve you as our Benefactor for the rest of our lives!”

“Like hell you will. Anyway, how did you end up getting caught by men like these? All five of you at once?”

The Five-Colored Ghosts were small, but they were grown men, at least in name. They had been strong enough to commit banditry alongside the Heavenly Axe.

“Um, well…”

“…?”

What was wrong with these guys?

Sensing something off in their hesitation, I grabbed the nearest human trafficker by the collar and hauled him up.

“How did you catch them?”

“We caught them trying to steal our money pouches in the marketplace.”

“…”

What the hell, these Ten-Colored Ghosts. I thought they had quit being bandits and might have taken up farming, but they had only changed occupations?

“Explain yourselves.”

Under my piercing stare, the five men’s eyes darted around.

“W-well…”

“Boss, this is the only kind of thing people like us ever learned to do.”

“E-even so, we only started recently!”

“We tried to work honestly, but nothing went right… We said we’d pull just one job and get out, but then…”

“If we’d known they were mounted bandits, we never would’ve touched them. We’re victims too. Boss, please forgive us just this once!”

As I wondered what to do with these men, a familiar word made me pause.

“What did you say?”

“We’ll live honestly if you forgive us just one more time!”

“No, not that. What did they say?”

“Ah, do you mean the mounted-bandit group?”

“Yeah. That.”

“We only found out after they caught us. Some ruffians were throwing silver around at a pleasure house, so we followed them… Turns out they were from the Red Wind Band, infamous for their viciousness even among mounted bandits.”

“The Red Wind Band? Are you sure?”

“Yes. I heard it clearly with my own ears. Right?”

The others began eagerly adding their own pieces.

“They also said they were leaving at first light tomorrow.”

“They said they’d have to ride without stopping to reach Saneum. They were even worried they might lose their heads if they arrived late.”

“So that’s how it is.”

Yesterday, and now today.

Running into mounted bandits from the Red Wind Band two days in a row was already an uncanny coincidence. On top of that, Saneum was close to Eung-hyeon, where the Mount Heng Sword Sect’s headquarters stood.

“Are these men telling the truth?”

The human trafficker whose collar I held in my right hand—or rather, the mounted bandit from the Red Wind Band—nodded, trembling.

At that moment—

Shriek!

A hawk landed in front of the shrine with a sharp cry. A small cylinder tied to its ankle caught my eye.

A messenger eagle.

Things were taking a strange turn.