Chapter 109

A messenger eagle.

I’d heard that even the Jin Family of Taiyuan had only two of these birds. They were so difficult to train that they were used only to deliver important information…

Who sent it?

Just as I was about to approach the messenger eagle, Wolhwa’s voice stopped me.

“You’d better keep your distance. It’s extremely wary. If you try to catch it, Young Master Jin, it’ll fly away.”

“Ah, could it be?”

“It’s a messenger eagle from our sect. It’s trained to follow a specific tracking scent.”

Wolhwa pulled a small pouch from her robes and shook it. The messenger eagle cautiously approached and rubbed its beak against the pouch.

While it was distracted, a Lower District Sect member who had already slipped outside untied the cylinder bound to its ankle.

“Where’s it from?”

“It was sent to you from the Sakju Branch yesterday, Branch Leader.”

“Give it to me.”

Wolhwa accepted the letter and read it, her expression turning inscrutable.

After a moment, her tightly pressed lips parted.

“The Red Wind Band Leader… He’s more than I expected.”

“Is this about the Red Wind Band again?”

Wolhwa nodded slightly and handed me the letter.

She wanted me to read it, so there was no reason to refuse. Jin Mukyung and Hyuk Mujin, who had been hanging back, cautiously leaned in as well.

The Red Wind Band is heading south across Gaoyuan. Their numbers are estimated at approximately two hundred.

The meaning of that single terse line was clear.

“They’re planning to attack the Mount Heng Sword Sect again.”

“There’s no doubt about it. This news is already a day old, so they must have closed the distance by at least that much, if not more.”

We were currently a day and a half away from the Mount Heng Sword Sect.

As mounted bandits, they would be advancing on their destination at remarkable speed.

“Unfortunately, our branch doesn’t have a proper intelligence network in the north. The one fortunate thing is…”

Wolhwa’s gaze shifted toward the Red Wind Band’s mounted bandits. They had lost the will to fight long ago, and they flinched and lowered their heads.

“We have some valuable sources of information right here. Whether they know anything useful is another matter.”

She looked over the mounted bandits, then abruptly pointed at one of them.

“You. Stand up.”

“…M-me?”

The terrified young man rose. He was younger than I had expected. The youngest and weakest of the mounted bandits, he couldn’t even meet Wolhwa’s eyes.

“How old are you?”

“I-I turned twenty this year.”

“Twenty? You’re young. Then again, being young doesn’t stop someone from becoming a mounted bandit.”

“I’m not a mounted bandit! I only became a wandering martial artist recently, but then they said they’d give me a big cut, so I…”

“Ah, so you’re one of the wandering martial artists the Red Wind Band Leader gathered for the last attack?”

“Y-yes! I’ll tell you everything I know!”

“No, it’s all right.”

“Pardon?”

“You don’t look like you know much anyway. What would be the point? Isn’t that right, Chunsam?”

The Lower District Sect member who had silently played the part of our carriage driver until now.

Instead of answering, he pulled a small knife from his robes and drove it into the young man’s chest.

Thunk—

The swift, precise One Strike of a First Rate martial artist split his heart. The young man’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly before he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

Thud.

A frigid silence pressed down on the scene. While the mounted bandits stared in horror and fear, Wolhwa’s slender finger moved once more.

“You.”

“I-I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything! I’ve been with the Red Wind Band for a year…”

“Chunsam.”

Whoosh! Slash!

“Grrk… Gurg…”

The mounted bandit staggered backward, making a wet, blood-choked sound. He tried to cover his gaping throat, but couldn’t stop the fountain of blood spraying between his fingers.

“You only need to remember two things.”

Covered from head to toe in bright-red blood, Wolhwa continued in a dry voice.

“Answer only what you’re asked, and tell the truth exactly as it is.”

“…!”

In mere moments, we learned everything there was to know about the Red Wind Band.

Once we realized there wasn’t a moment to lose, we abandoned the carriage and each chose a horse—me, Jin Mukyung, Hyuk Mujin, and Wolhwa.

Chunsam would take the Five-Colored Ghosts and the surviving mounted bandits to the nearest Lower District Sect branch and report the situation.

“Was that too cruel?”

Wolhwa asked as she saddled her horse. I scratched my chin.

“To be honest, I was a little surprised.”

I’d only ever seen her relaxed and playful, so I had briefly forgotten that she was a martial artist too.

And an experienced one at that.

How old was Wolhwa, anyway?

I’d never asked, so I couldn’t be sure, but she couldn’t have been over thirty.

Becoming the Branch Leader in charge of all Shanxi Province at such a young age meant she possessed the decisiveness the position demanded.

Cruel, but effective.

She had killed two people without hesitation. Just as casually as swatting flies.

Jin Mukyung’s display against the leader must have terrified the mounted bandits, but the fear of death was even greater.

Driven to the edge of a cliff, they had no choice but to pour out information desperately.

“I think I would’ve spilled everything too.”

“I’m saying this in case Young Master Jin gets the wrong idea, but I don’t enjoy killing people. They weren’t innocent commoners, either… Ah, this bastard’s blood just won’t stop, even when I wipe it.”

The blood streaming down her belonged to the second mounted bandit she had killed.

As she wrinkled her nose, someone held out a piece of cloth.

“U-use this to wipe it off.”

“Oh my.”

“Huh?”

“Hmm.”

At the reactions from Wolhwa, me, and Hyuk Mujin, Jin Mukyung cleared his throat repeatedly.

“I thought you might need it.”

“Thank you, Young Hero Jin. This is exactly what I needed.”

“It’s nothing.”

He said that, but he looked awfully pleased with himself.

No way. Is he…

The type who’s only nice to women?

There was always at least one guy like that wherever you went. Even the Heaven Shaking Sword wasn’t any different, apparently.

After wiping away the blood, Wolhwa pulled a rolled-up piece of leather from her robes and spread it out.

This is a rough map covering all of Shanxi Province. We’re here. The Red Wind Band has probably… If they’ve been moving without rest, they may already have broken through Datong.

“They’re faster than us.”

“By half a day, for now. But the official roads along our route are well maintained. If we ride day and night, we should be able to close the gap.”

In short, we shouldn’t expect any rest.

I followed the others and vaulted into the saddle.

Why does trouble always break out the moment I arrive?

I sighed inwardly, but what could I do? This wasn’t my first hardship—or my second. By now I just had to accept it.

Wasn’t this supposed to be a really simple Quest?

Ding.

System

Quest difficulty has changed to Peak.

“…”

Right. Not anymore, I guess.

He was a man who resembled a fox. His pointed chin and ears, along with his sharp, slanted eyes, watched and observed everything around him at once.

“Graaah!”

“Kill them! Kill every last one of them!”

“Aaaah!”

Smoke billowed from a large manor, accompanied by screams.

Pung Yang, the Red Wind Band Leader, sat astride his horse atop a hill and watched the scene below. He didn’t speak until the manor had fallen silent.

“Is it over?”

A mounted bandit who had just ridden up the hill to report answered him.

“We killed all the men and gathered the women and children together.”

“Why?”

“Pardon? Why, it’s the tradition of Gaoyuan…”

Any male taller than a cartwheel—even a child—was killed without mercy, while the women were taken or sold as slaves. It was a tradition—or something close to one—passed down from the nomads.

At the mounted bandit’s words, Pung Yang quietly crooked one finger.

“Come closer.”

The mounted bandit approached hesitantly and asked carefully,

“Leader, did I perhaps make some serious mistake…”

“Who were you with before?”

“Until recently, I was the deputy leader of the Earth Tiger Band.”

“The Earth Tiger Band? Ah, I remember. You were their deputy leader.”

“Y-yes! I was so impressed by your formidable martial arts and noble character that I swore to become your loyal subordinate!”

Pung Yang scratched his nose with an ambiguous expression.

Was that so?

All he remembered was killing a piece of trash in a single strike—the man who had swaggered around calling himself a bandit leader while commanding some thirty subordinates.

“My memory differs a little, but thank you anyway.”

“Not at all! It’s an honor!”

“Still, whatever the Earth Tiger Band may have been like, things are different in the Red Wind Band. Petty matters like the traditions of Gaoyuan, for instance.”

“Ah, I didn’t realize.”

“My orders as leader take priority. Do you understand?”

“I’ll keep that in mind—over and over again!”

“Those fellows probably followed Gaoyuan’s traditions because they didn’t know any better. They all joined recently, just like you. Would you go and tell them what I want?”

“Your command is my law. I won’t leave a single one alive.”

The mounted bandit even gave an awkward military salute, though there was nothing military about a mounted bandit. Pung Yang waved him away.

“Yes, go on.”

“Yes, Leader!”

Pung Yang watched him ride away, then suddenly flicked his sleeve.

Whoosh!

A streak of light split the air and pierced its target ten jang—about thirty meters—away.

Thnk! Thud.

The horse kept galloping.

It had no idea that its rider was already dead, his foot caught in the stirrup and his body being battered to pieces against the ground.

“Go and tell them. There are no prisoners. Kill them all and burn the place.”

“Yes, Leader.”

Not long after Pung Yang’s subordinate departed, the entire manor was engulfed in flames. As he watched the signboard burn away in an instant, a faint smile touched the corners of his mouth.

Mount Heng Sword Sect, Datong Branch.

It was the moment the Red Wind Band crossed Gaoyuan once more.

The messenger’s report left the people arguing in the spacious main hall breathless.

“They’ve broken through Datong!”

“A-already?”

“What about the Datong Branch? What happened to the men who went out to stand guard?”

“Wiped out. They were all wiped out. The Datong Branch was reduced to ashes, and there wasn’t a single survivor.”

“What?”

“Could the report be wrong? They must have suffered heavy losses last time, so how could they have come this far so quickly…?”

“They appear to have absorbed another mounted-bandit group. At least two hundred men—possibly more.”

“Is that certain?”

“Yes, without a doubt.”

“Th-then when will they reach us…?”

“If they’re fast, the attack will begin within a day. At the latest, we expect it within two days.”

“We’re finished.”

The muttered words were not much different from what most of the people gathered there were thinking.

There were a little over ten of them, all senior figures holding important positions in the Mount Heng Sword Sect. Yet every one of them was already turning the word defeat over in their minds.

“Iron Sword Squad Leader, are you confident in this fight?”

“Why are you asking me, when you’re a Pavilion Leader? Am I the only martial artist here?”

They were squad leaders, hall leaders, and pavilion leaders of the great Mount Heng Sword Sect.

There had been a time when he had desperately wanted to rise to that position. Once upon a time, that was.

To hell with the great Mount Heng Sword Sect. What good is a promotion now, with the sect in this state?

We were already on the verge of collapse, and now a mounted-bandit group has come to raise hell. Let’s see… If we scrape together everyone we have left, we might reach a hundred.

The war with the Jin Family of Taiyuan had cost them nearly eighty percent of their strength.

They had lost the elite martial artists they had painstakingly trained and the seasoned senior figures who had weathered countless trials in the martial world. Most painful of all was the loss of the Peak masters who embodied the sect’s power—and of its financial resources.

“Damn it. If only the Sect Leader were still alive.”

Lee Cheonbaek had started as a mere wandering martial artist and built the Mount Heng Sword Sect into what it was now. With his martial arts and resourcefulness, he could have turned this situation around.

But the Blood Wolf Sword, Lee Cheonbaek, was already dead. Of his bloodline, only one person remained alive.

“To think we have to serve some little girl who isn’t even twenty as Sect Leader at a time like this.”

The moment someone spat out those words in anger—

Boom!

The tightly closed doors of the main hall exploded.