Chapter 23

The Jin Family of Taiyuan.

As its name suggests, its headquarters were in Taiyuan. But like a conglomerate in the real world, the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s influence was not limited to a single city.

The family had been established two hundred years ago and had long since expanded its sphere of influence by setting up branches in county towns throughout Shanxi Province.

Scout the area near Jeongyang and return within five days.

That was the reconnaissance squad’s first mission. The squad members’ reactions to the order fell into two camps.

“Doesn’t sound like much.”

Some, like Hyuk Mujin, were disappointed. Others, like Han Yeop, sighed in relief.

Of course, neither reaction pleased me.

Hyuk Mujin was consumed by a pointless hunger for glory, while Han Yeop was afraid to fight.

Still, a safe mission is probably for the best.

The thought of running into the enemy with these guys was horrifying. I’d be safer fighting on the front lines with people I could trust.

Should I apply for a transfer?

Suppressing a sigh, I raised my fist. It was one of the hand signals I had taught them earlier. It meant stop.

Snort.

The eleven horses trotting at a steady pace came to a halt with a chorus of snorts. Hyuk Mujin, riding to my right, spoke irritably.

“Why are we stopping?”

“Rest.”

“Again?”

“Two hours of travel, fifteen minutes of rest. Didn’t I tell you that already?”

“I can keep going!”

“Then go by yourself.”

I jerked my chin toward the rear. The other squad members were breathing hard. Traveling on horseback was faster than going on foot, but it also consumed a considerable amount of stamina.

Hyuk Mujin’s much higher Level allowed him to hold up fairly well, but fatigue was building in the others.

“When I tell you to rest, you rest. That’s an order.”

Ignoring Hyuk Mujin’s scowl, I addressed the squad.

“Fifteen minutes of rest.”

They had been given fifteen minutes to rest, but the reconnaissance squad members didn’t look particularly happy. That was because I immediately pulled out a large leather backpack.

I reached inside and thought,

Open Inventory.

With a clatter, three shields materialized inside the backpack.

They were wooden shields plated with iron, taken from the armory before we left the Jin Family of Taiyuan. Light and sturdy, they were perfectly serviceable.

“Number Seven. Number Eight. Number Nine.”

The three designated squad members accepted the shields with doomed expressions.

They were the tanks I had selected by force.

Seven damage dealers. Three tanks. And me.

It was a party composition that would be wiped out the moment it entered a Gate, but for now, I had to make do.

“Everyone to your positions.”

Next came formation drills.

“Basic formation.”

The three shield bearers formed the front line. Six swordsmen, from Number One Hyuk Mujin through Number Six, made up the second. Han Yeop and I took the rear.

It was a formation focused on threats from the front.

“Spread out. Scatter and assemble. Disperse.”

Their faces were still full of complaints, but by now they followed the commands with reasonable skill. They were much better than F-rank Hunters fresh out of a Hunter training center.

These NPCs are better than real people.

The difference probably came down to whether they could use internal energy.

Unlike F-rank Hunters, who couldn’t manipulate mana at all, Murim’s NPCs could use internal energy, however faintly.

They were simply low-Level and inexperienced.

I moved on to the final stage of formation training.

“All-out retreat.”

The reconnaissance squad members hesitated.

“What?”

“What does ‘all-out retreat’ mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Retreat with everything you’ve got.”

“Then what formation should we—?”

“If it comes to that, formation won’t matter. Just run as fast as you can. Don’t look back, and scatter as widely as possible.”

“Heh. You call that an order?”

The mocking voice belonged, naturally, to Hyuk Mujin.

“I can’t stand this anymore. Third Young Master, do you think war is some children’s game? If you want to make nonsense sound convincing, you should at least read a military strategy manual first.”

“A military strategy manual?”

“Yes, a military strategy manual! Retreating in good order is one of the most basic principles of warfare. What kind of nonsense are you spouting?”

Hyuk Mujin’s open defiance drew hesitant murmurs from the other squad members.

“He’s not wrong.”

“We aren’t government troops. Why are we drilling formations and being forced to carry shields…?”

“I’ve never even heard of an all-out retreat.”

See? Everyone agrees with me.

That was what Hyuk Mujin’s smug face seemed to say.

Then Han Yeop cut in, his voice wavering.

“I-I don’t agree.”

“What?”

“The Third Young Master—I mean, the Captain—must have a reason for doing this… right?”

“A reason?”

Hyuk Mujin glared at him.

“What reason could there be? The Third Young Master spent his youth drinking with women instead of training. He caused every kind of trouble despite being like that. And that’s not all. He was also the one who caused this war—”

“Enough.”

Hyuk Mujin flinched when I cut him off. He seemed to realize that he had misspoken.

But some people were like that. When they needed to back down, they took another step forward instead.

“Wasn’t the Third Young Master the one who caused this war?”

Hyuk Mujin was too proud to stop himself.

Once the words were out, a chilly silence descended.

Gulp.

Someone’s throat bobbed loudly. Nine pairs of eyes turned toward Hyuk Mujin and me.

“D-do you have something to say?”

Something to say? Of course I did.

“Everyone gets another fifteen minutes of rest.”

At the same time, I slapped Hyuk Mujin across the face with an open palm.

Smack!

“One.”

His jaw twisted to the side. It was an ordinary slap, without even a trace of internal energy. His face was still dazed by the sudden turn of events when I struck him a second time.

“What the—!”

He wasn’t completely helpless, at least. He raised an arm to block.

What he had failed to account for was the difference in our strength.

Smack!

“Two.”

Hyuk Mujin’s upper body slammed into the ground. He sprang back up, my palm print stamped on one cheek like a tattoo.

It didn’t take long for his bewilderment to turn into rage.

“You fucking bastard!”

He was properly furious now. As he charged at me, eyes bulging, I hooked his leg and sent him sprawling. At the same time, I put some strength into my left hand and struck him.

Smack.

“Three.”

“Urgh.”

His legs nearly gave out, and he staggered. Three consecutive blows with that much force were bound to rattle his brain.

“What, are you saving your internal energy to make soup?”

That got through to him. Strength returned to his wavering legs, and internal energy surged through his body. He glared at me with venomous eyes.

“You’ll regret this.”

“I doubt it.”

I caught the fist flying toward my face.

Speed, strength, timing.

I could see it all. Compared to Lee Seogeun, Hyuk Mujin was nowhere close.

“Four.”

His head snapped back. Thick droplets of blood sprayed through the air in slow motion. His pupils had lost focus, and his legs hung limp.

Yet somehow, he didn’t fall. He couldn’t—not unless I let go of his fist.

“Five.”

Smack!

That was his limit. Hyuk Mujin finally lost consciousness. As he sprawled on the ground in a bizarre pose, something landed on his body with a soft patter.

Snow?

I looked up. The winter sky was showering us with tiny white scraps of garbage.

“Break’s over. We’re leaving.”

I tossed out the words and turned away. Behind me, the reconnaissance squad members finally released the breaths they had been holding.

When Hyuk Mujin woke two hours later, the first thing he did was charge at me.

“You fucking—!”

Smack. Thud.

“Move him.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

Another crisp slap knocked him out again, and the other squad members dragged him into a corner of the cabin.

A cabin. We got lucky.

According to one squad member who knew the surrounding area well, we should have reached Jeongyang before sunset at the latest.

But there was nothing we could do about the sudden blizzard, and this cabin was the only shelter we had managed to find.

Apparently, it was a hunters’ shelter known only to people familiar with the area.

It’s ridiculously small, but I’ll take it.

The mission might be delayed, but this was a hundred times better than trudging through the snow all night, collapsing from exhaustion, and then running into the enemy.

That was when—

“C-Captain.”

It was Han Yeop. Behind him, the other squad members stole glances at me, gauging my mood.

“What should we do now?”

“Hm? Sleep.”

“N-no, that’s not what I meant…”

Watching them fidget, a thought struck me.

Don’t tell me…

“Do you want to train?”

Nod, nod.

Look at those heads bobbing furiously. Look at those eyes burning with enthusiasm.

Seeing is believing, my ass. One beating beats a hundred explanations.

Beating them once really was better than explaining something a hundred times.

It was around noon.

Sunlight flashed off a sword blade. That was all the martial artist saw.

“Urgh.”

Thud.

His knees buckled, and his face slammed into the frozen ground.

Blood poured from the gaping wound running from his shoulder to his chest. It was beyond recovery. The martial artist knew he was going to die.

“The others… Please, let them live.”

His fading voice cut off abruptly. A middle-aged man clicked his tongue as he stared into the martial artist’s wide-open eyes.

“Good grief, you poor fool.”

How could he charge in like that without warning? The words that followed never reached the dead man. The fifty-odd wandering martial artists surrounding them snickered.

“Of all people, he had to run into the boss. Rotten luck.”

“Only an orthodox-faction bastard would keep playing the hero to the bitter end. What should we do, Boss?”

Their gleaming eyes turned toward the survivors, a group of six or seven women and children.

“Great Hero, please spare the children.”

At the plea from the oldest-looking woman, the middle-aged man—Jopil, One Question, One Kill—smiled gently.

“I’m sorry, but what can I do? I’m no Great Hero.”

“But you’re still human. How can you kill children who can’t even tell right from wrong?”

“Hah. You have quite a bit of spirit for a woman. Wait. I heard the Sakju Branch Leader’s family survived. Could you be…?”

“He is my husband.”

“Ah, I thought so. I never imagined such a pathetic man could have such a virtuous wife.”

Jopil smiled, and the woman’s expression hardened.

“You never intended to spare us.”

“Rest easy. Raping women before I kill them isn’t one of my hobbies.”

“The children…”

“This is a harsh world. How are little ones supposed to survive without their mother?”

“You’re worse than a beast.”

“Last words noted.”

That was the signal.

Swordlight flashed, and screams rang out.

A short while later, the blood-soaked wandering martial artists tossed the corpses into the mountain thickets.

“Only the wild animals will feast tonight.”

The man with the tiny birdlike eyes muttered. He was Jopil’s right-hand man, a first-rate wandering martial artist known by the nickname Black Mountain Blade.

“We should feast, too. If we finish this job properly, what’s a mere thousand pieces of gold?”

Jopil laughed in delight. The payment for this job would be enormous, but more than that, he was enjoying the situation itself.

“I never imagined the day would come when we’d hunt the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

His filthy leather shoe came down on the fallen martial artist’s corpse.

The martial artist had belonged to the Sakju Branch, one of the ten or so branches of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

“Was that the last one?”

“No, Boss.”

“They slip away like rats. How many?”

“Three in total. One martial artist and two children. They passed through Jeongyang only a few hours ago and are headed for Honju.”

“That’s troublesome. It’ll take half a day.”

“There’s no need for you to go yourself. I’ll take care of it.”

“Will you?”

A pleased smile spread across Jopil’s lips.

“Good. Take half the men. You have half a day. How does that sound?”

There was only one possible answer. Black Mountain Blade bowed deeply.