Chapter 511

Deep in the night, with darkness on every side, two ships raced along the Yangtze under full sail.

Whoosh!

Any sailor with good night vision would have been startled once by the vessels’ extraordinary speed, then twice by the flag visible beyond their faint torchlight.

The Yangtze River Channel League.

Those five characters, written in blue dye, were a sure pass for traveling safely and freely across the vast Yangtze.

But the flag was both a pass and a symbol of raiders.

“What the…”

“Th-the Yangtze River Channel League! They’re river bandits!”

“Eek!”

The passengers aboard a pleasure boat, who had been holding a feast on the water, fell into a panic. The fishermen hauling in their nets some distance away reacted differently.

“What the hell are they screaming for? They ought to get back to guzzling their booze.”

“Pay them no mind. It’s not like this is the first time. But is that the swift ship the Yangtze River Channel League’s so proud of?”

“I’ve seen one before. It’s damn fast, so that must be it.”

“If I had a ship like that, I wouldn’t want for anything.”

“How many more fish are you planning to catch?”

“What are you talking about? If I had a swift ship, why would I keep fishing to make my fortune? I’d become a river bandit on the spot.”

There was only a hair’s breadth between a fisherman and a river bandit. When making a living got hard, a man could take the net and harpoon he’d used to catch fish just days before and turn to raiding.

Perhaps that was why the fishermen showed no particular fear of the river bandits.

“Oh, they’re coming this way.”

“Let them. They won’t rob us.”

“Damn it. We’re so poor even river bandits won’t rob us.”

The fishermen chatted as they watched with keen interest.

Fishermen were as tough as any sailors on the river. Even a green river bandit who knew nothing of the world left them alone. He might come looking for a few coins and end up skewered on a harpoon.

The Yangtze River Channel League saw it much the same way. Robbing fishermen for a few coins wasn’t worth the trouble.

So the fishermen watched as though it were someone else’s house on fire.

But a little while later, when the swift ships picked up speed and disappeared, they tilted their heads.

“Huh? They’re just leaving?”

“So they are. Think there’s a young master from some powerful family aboard that pleasure boat? Someone they’d regret crossing?”

“They didn’t even stop to check who was aboard.”

“Forget it. What does it matter? Let’s finish hauling in the nets and get home before it gets any later.”

“Yeah, all right.”

Once the two swift ships had vanished without incident, lively music rose from the pleasure boat again. The fishermen smacked their lips, then turned back to their work.

Half a shichen¹ later, a strange cry rang out from somewhere.

“Kkyat-meu!”

At first, the fishermen thought little of it.

“Good grief. They ought to show some restraint. They’re making an awful racket.”

“Someone over there knows how to party.”

“I’m already half dead from exhaustion, and now I’ve got to listen to ‘Kkyat-meu’? I ought to punch a hole in the bottom of their boat.”

The graying fisherman who had muttered irritably pulled on his net again.

That was when another cry rang out.

“I’m going! I’m going! I’m going! Zoom, here I go!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming right now, you bastards.”

The fisherman snatched up his harpoon, eyes rolling back in fury.

“Fuck this. I’ll hurry over, punch a hole in their hull, and come right back, so nobody try to stop me.”

“Wait. Just wait a moment.”

The other fishermen had finally noticed something odd. They pricked up their ears.

“That… doesn’t sound like it’s coming from the pleasure boat.”

“You’re right. Then what is it?”

“The sound came from over…”

As if on cue, they all raised their heads and looked around for its source.

The music stopped abruptly aboard the pleasure boat as well. Apparently wondering what was going on, men and women dressed in dazzling silk stood at the bow and stared out at the pitch-black Yangtze.

“Did we hear wrong?”

“I definitely heard something strange.”

“Huh. It’s not like a ghost’s bewitched us.”

Just as everyone began to doubt their ears—

Whoooosh!

Water roared as it was violently split apart, and a person appeared.

No, strictly speaking, he wasn’t alone.

“…Oh, my.”

“W-what the hell is that?”

Everyone stared wide-eyed at the uninvited guest.

It was astonishing enough to see a young man crossing the Yangtze in the middle of the night, bare from the waist up. But when they recognized the enormous creature swimming ahead of him, bound by some strange rope, they could hardly believe their eyes.

“A s-sa-eo! It’s a sa-eo! A man’s riding a sa-eo!”²

The shout shattered the silence that had settled over the river.

And everyone realized that the bizarre noise they had heard was part of the reality unfolding before their eyes.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

A sa-eo. A monstrous fish with a huge, hideous body and a vicious nature, said to devour even humans.

And now one was swimming with a man riding behind it.

What was more—

“T-there’s more than one!”

“One fin, two… five! There are five sa-eo!”

It was a shocking sight. Sa-eo mostly lived in the open sea; seeing even one in the Yangtze was rare. Seeing five together was almost unthinkable.

But if that had been all, the fishermen wouldn’t have stood there speechless.

The reason they had been rendered speechless was simple.

“Tell me… am I dreaming?”

“I think I’m having the same dream.”

“It looks to me like that young man has put some sort of bridle on the sa-eo and is, well… driving it.”

“I don’t know what that is. It’s frightening…”

Just as the fishermen said, each of the five sa-eo wore something like a bridle. A faintly glowing rope was wound around their snouts, its ends held tight in the young man’s hand.

“Turn left!”

The young man shouted and pulled his wrist.

Whoooosh!

The sa-eo all moved left at once.

“Turn right!”

He twisted his wrist the other way.

Whoosh!

The sa-eo changed course with it.

With their great stamina and speed, the five sa-eo cut through the water ahead while the young man followed, keeping himself atop the river on his two feet.

They were every bit as fast as the swift ships that had passed earlier—faster, if anything.

“What in the world am I looking at?”

As someone muttered in a daze, the young man closed the distance in the blink of an eye and waved to the fishermen.

“Welcome, fishermen.”

“…!”

“Sorry to ask when we’ve only just met, but could you give me directions? Did two ships pass through here earlier? Maybe half a shichen to one shichen ago?”

The fisherman who had been planning to attack the pleasure boat lowered his harpoon and answered awkwardly.

“W-we saw ’em. You mean the swift ships?”

“That’s right. Yangtze River Channel League. There’s a kid standing at the stern who looks like he has one hell of a nasty temper.”

“I-I don’t know about the kid. But the swift ships went that way. About half a shichen ago.”

“Half a shichen? I’ve almost caught up. Whew, fuck. I damn near shit blood getting here.”

“…?”

The fisherman paused at language as colorful as anything he’d heard from a sailor. Just then, the young man loosened the strange rope in his hand.

The fishermen belatedly realized that one of the sa-eo had been released and panicked.

“Urgh!”

“Th-the sa-eo’s loose!”

“Back! Back! Row!”

But what they feared didn’t happen.

The sa-eo merely blinked at the young man as meekly as a crucian carp. The young man looked unconcerned.

“Sa-eo? Oh, you mean a shark.”

“W-what do you think you’re doing?”

“I know what you’re worried about, but my boy doesn’t bite.”

“Your boy?”

“I’ll show you. Here, fin.”

The fishermen’s eyes bulged.

No sooner had the young man held out his hand than the sa-eo, its eyes darting about, offered him its fin.

“See? He listens. I told you he’s a good boy.”

Not good. More like he’d been made good.

The fishermen swallowed the words before they could reach their lips.

The sa-eo’s ragged fin and trembling body were just their imagination. They had to be.

Whether he noticed the fishermen staring at his muscles or not, the young man went on calmly.

“He’s got anger-management issues, but he’s been controlling them fine since I beat the shit out of him. You’ll be all right. You won’t get another chance like this, so take one off my hands.”

“P-pardon?”

“As thanks for the directions. I need to let them go soon anyway. Got anything to eat? I’ve had raw fish three meals a day, and my stomach feels like an aquarium.”

The fisherman had no idea what was happening, but instinct told him what would be best for his safety. Trembling like a leaf, he handed over the food tucked inside his clothes.

“H-h-here.”

“Ah, yes. Th-thank you.”

The young man took the lightly seasoned rice ball and flashed a playful grin.

“Then catch lots of fish.”

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

That was the last they saw of him.

The fishermen stared blankly as the sight of one man and four fish vanished into the distant darkness in an instant. Then they looked at the only trace he had left behind.

Shudder!

The sa-eo had foolishly picked a fight with the wrong person, been thoroughly beaten, and now feared human beings themselves. The shark—or rather, the white sturgeon—trembled violently.

And the fisherman who had become its new owner realized that his fate had just changed dramatically.

“…I guess I don’t need a swift ship anymore.”

That was the moment a new Morning Star was born among the river bandits.

I guarantee no one in either the modern world or Murim has ever experienced water skiing as eco-friendly as mine.

Whoosh!

“Shark number four. Your posture’s slipping.”

Flinch!

“Yeah, you. The one who just flinched. What, are you an individualist?”

Swish!

“Just keep going like that. You’re not going alone. Match fins with your friends and go together.”

Of course, I’d used a little violence.

A few punches hadn’t been enough to satisfy them, apparently, because they kept coming at me. So I worked over their fins and pulled out a few teeth.

If an environmental group had seen me, they’d have called me a destroyer of nature whose crimes outraged heaven and humanity, and a fish abuser doomed to suffer even after death.

I hadn’t cared from the start.

It’s not like I’m Shanks.³

A bighearted guy who gives up an arm because a shark looks hungry only exists in old comic books.

I caught one, taught it a lesson, then called over more of its kind and founded the Shark Water-Ski Team. I called it the Catch-’Em Fish Farm.

Still, I wouldn’t have made it this far without them.

I looked fondly at the team members who had carried out their mission so well.

Over half a day of alternating between rest and travel, I’d replenished some of the internal energy that had bottomed out and closed much of the distance to the swift ships. Their reward for all that hard work was freedom.

“All right, everyone. Off you go.”

I was untying the ropes around their snouts—or rather, the Water God Dragon’s sinew I’d stashed away last time—when a voice reached my ear.

“…Would you look at this lunatic.”

I turned my head.

Beyond the deep darkness, someone was walking toward me across the surface of the water.