Unlike modern prisons, where human rights have been mixed in just enough to make them palatable, underground prisons in the Murim served their purpose exceptionally well.
The concept of human rights didn’t exist here in the first place.
The underground prison of the Sichuan Tang Clan, for example, had been closer to a torture chamber than a place meant to hold prisoners.
Even the old guard who had died during Dark Heaven’s attack had been a torture expert with decades of experience. He would often reminisce about his prime with a pleased smile.
“Those days right after the Great Faction War were wonderful. We had three or four head of notorious fiends brought in every day.”
“…Head? Not people?”
“Yes. When we lined up fifteen or so of the beasts and got to work, the response was incredible. They were so happy they nearly passed out.”
He even counted people the way you counted animals.
I had never bothered to ask for details, but it was hard to imagine prisoners screaming with delight because he’d given them pretty irezumi tattoos with the small knife he kept tucked so carefully into his belt.
Like hell they were tattoos.
It was obvious.
Bones and flesh splitting apart, blood spraying everywhere—something like that.
I’d gone a little off track. Anyway, most underground prisons in the Murim were more or less the same.
Cold, damp, and nine times out of ten, buried deep underground.
Just like the underground prison of the Nanman Beast Palace where I was locked up. And…
“Pavilion Master. Taishan hungry. Got locked in underground prison because Taishan eats too much.”
“Ah.”
The difference between me and that accursed bastard was only one floor.
The third and fourth underground floors, for example.
So this is how it turned out.
In a way, it was a coincidence born of an aging, poorly built prison taking a considerable blow.
I stared blankly at the ceiling, then gave a quiet laugh at Taishan, who was blinking his enormous eyes through the small hole above me.
“Pavilion Master, why laugh?”
“Because I’m happy to see you.”
“Happy? Pavilion Master happy to see Taishan?”
“Yeah, you bastard. I’m so happy I could die.”
“Oh. Then Taishan happy to see Pavilion Master too.”
It was a conversation that made no sense out of context, but every time I saw his eyes peering through the gap, I couldn’t help laughing.
Seeing a familiar face was one thing. If things went well, I might be able to get out of here sooner than expected.
Besides, Taishan was the only person who could answer the question worrying me most.
“What about everyone else? They’re all doing okay, right?”
At my question, his enormous calf-like eyes filled with tears.
“Are you… crying?”
“Sniff. Pavilion Master.”
No way.
Dread hit me. I hurried to ask, “Stop sniveling and tell me what happened.”
“Taishan… sniff. Couldn’t help it. It’s so unfair.”
“…!”
Damn it. My vision went dark. I could already picture the members of the Fire Dragon Pavilion lying there as cold corpses.
Or were they tortured? But how could they do that?
It had only been half a day since I’d surrendered on the condition that the Fire Dragon Pavilion members would be kept safe.
The Beast Miao King himself had promised me. No matter how powerful Baeksang’s faction had become, they couldn’t do this.
If they were harmed, then what the hell did I surrender for…?
Just as the thought ran hollowly through my head, Taishan spoke through his tears.
“I still can’t believe it. By now, everyone must be eating without Taishan.”
“…?”
“Taishan hates Lord. Hates Namho too. It’s so unfair.”
“…!”
“Pavilion Master. Speaking of which, do you have anything to eat?”
What the hell was going on?
I fell silent for a moment, then answered from the bottom of my heart.
“No, you fucking bastard.”
“Aw. Taishan hungry.”
“…Come down. Come down right now.”
That son of a bitch. He really wanted to die.
My blood pressure shot up, and rage took over my entire body. I thrashed harder than I had at any point since being locked in the underground prison.
Clatter! Clank!
If not for these goddamn heavy iron balls, I would have started by punching that bastard in the mouth.
Taishan watched me panting with interest before speaking.
“Namho and Lord are doing well. They’re being held in different places, so Taishan doesn’t know much, but White Tiger’s master told Taishan.”
“White Tiger’s master? Yayul Mok?”
“Oh. Taishan remembers. Right. Yayul Mok.”
It seemed the Beast Miao King had stepped in after all. I stopped thrashing and let out a sigh of relief.
“You should’ve said that first, you lunatic. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Taishan hasn’t eaten for two whole shichen.1 Taishan’s mind is hazy.”
“…People don’t usually call it hunger after two shichen.1 More importantly, how did you end up locked in here? Great Hero Yayul would’ve stopped it before it got this far. There’s no way you were locked up just for eating too much.”
“Taishan was treated unfairly. A Nanman man was going to leave after giving Taishan a mouse-dropping-sized portion of food. Taishan grabbed his wrist to ask for more, and the bone broke.”
“…”
“Taishan was surprised and grabbed his other wrist. That one broke too. It was obviously a trap.”
Clatter! Clank! Clank!
“Pavilion Master, calm down. Taishan was angry too, but Taishan held it in and surrendered, just like Pavilion Master.”
“…Come down. This time, really come down.”
I was already trying to keep a low profile, and this bastard had broken both arms of the man who came to feed him?
At this rate, I was going to die of rage before noon two days from now.
I walked into the tiger’s den to save a bastard like that?
I barely managed to calm my anger before asking, “Then what about the others? Not Namho or Sama Pyo. Everyone else?”
“Hmm. Ah.”
Taishan rolled his enormous eyes around as he thought, then answered.
“I heard they were captured.”
“Captured?”
“Yeah. But they said they weren’t coming here. Taishan doesn’t know why, but White Tiger’s master said it was safer that way.”
Ju Hwaran, Song Ilseom, and Hyuk Mujin.
For a moment, my heart sank at the news that all three had been captured. But I agreed with Yayul Mok that it was much safer that way.
Baeksang’s influence can’t reach that far right now.
The two tribal chieftains leading the squad were loyal to the Beast Miao King. Some of the Nanman people I’d rescued from the Poisonblood Grounds were their kinsmen, too. Unlike the other chieftains who had gone over to Baeksang, they wouldn’t switch sides easily.
The three of them are more likely to be in danger than they are now if the reconnaissance squad runs into the Blood Monk.
The Blood Monk was an unidentified old monster who had stained Guizhou with blood single-handedly, wielding Supreme Peak martial prowess.
Almost nothing was known about him. But if he really was a subordinate of the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, as I suspected, things could take the worst possible turn.
He would certainly head south on the Southern Heaven Demon Empress’s orders. And if he encountered the reconnaissance squad, the three people among them would fall into his hands as well.
“…Damn it.”
But for now, I had no time to worry about that.
They were on the move even now, while I was trapped deep underground, unable to move an inch.
All I can do is hope I’m wrong about the Blood Monk.
So there were only two things I could do.
The first was prayer.
The second was…
Escape.
Ding.
System
A new Quest has been generated!
Would you like to check the linked Quest, Escape from Namshank?1
Y / N
System
A new Quest has been generated!
Would you like to check the linked Quest, Escape from Namshank?2
Y / N
I nodded and thought, I don’t know who developed the System, but that’s one shitty Quest title.
“So, Pavilion Master. Do you have anything to eat?”
…Correction. That bastard was the shittiest of all.
Among the countless martial artists on the continent, river pirates were an especially rough and free-spirited bunch.
They didn’t want laws restricting them or the authorities arresting them. They didn’t want to live decent lives, either.
Sudal, the Deputy Stronghold Lord of the Water Dragon Stronghold, had become a river pirate for exactly those reasons.
Unlike his father, who had lived and died a good fisherman, Sudal had boldly resolved to live and die as an adventurer.
He’d done fairly well as a river pirate. Only recently had he begun to wonder what he was doing with his life.
What the hell am I doing?
Nothing. Every day, he sat at the bow and stared at the calm river. When the sun got too hot, he went swimming. That was all.
His immediate superior, who ruled the Yangtze in Sichuan, had been summoned to League headquarters by the revered Alliance Leader. Meanwhile, Sudal and his men had come down the tributaries to backwater Yunnan and were wasting their days.
By now, merchant ships loaded with all kinds of valuable goods must be traveling through Sichuan.
The Yangtze was a gold mine right now. With war approaching, all sorts of supplies were moving along it.
Sudal knew that and desperately wanted to return immediately. But every time he did, one man’s presence kept flashing before his eyes.
“I’ll come running whenever you call!”
That was the boast he’d made seven days and nights ago. Naturally, he hadn’t meant a word of it.
But the much younger man had smiled warmly and answered,
“Oh, good. Then stay nearby.”
“Excuse me?”
“Heh heh. Did someone stick a marlin in your ear? I said stay nearby. I’ll need another favor when we head back.”
“Great Hero Jin, forgive me, but we have a living to make…”
“A living. That’s nice. But you have to be alive to make one, don’t you?”
“…!”
“Come on, I’m asking a favor! Just a favor!”
“Gasp.”
“For fuck’s sake. I might just snap every mast and burn the whole lot down. Want to swim to Sichuan?”
He called it a favor, but it was a threat.
What could Sudal do? In the Murim, whoever had the stronger martial arts was king.
Worse, that monstrous young man’s Master was a crazy old monster who really was called a king.
Jin Taekyung, you bastard…
Swallowing his tears, Sudal had nodded. For more than seven days and nights, he and his men had stayed on a tributary at the edge of Yunnan where they couldn’t even spot a small boat, doing nothing but catching fish.
Until an idea occurred to him yesterday.
Wait. Why am I doing this? It’ll be a while before that Jin Taekyung bastard comes back.
Sudal had only ever operated on the Yangtze, but even he knew what a godforsaken dump Nanman was.
He didn’t know exactly what Jin Taekyung’s mission was. Still, if it had brought him all the way here, it couldn’t be simple.
But did he really need to worry about someone who wasn’t even here and whine like a dog that needed to shit?
He gave his adventurous life some serious thought, then ordered his men,
“Hey, boys. Let’s go get some fresh air.”
“Excuse me?”
“Where?”
“Guizhou’s right next door. Let’s make a sweep through it, raid the place, and come back.”
His ambitious plan didn’t go over well.
“Deputy Stronghold Lord, have you lost your mind?”
“Fuck. If you want to die, die alone. Why should the rest of us get cremated when you’re not even the Stronghold Lord?”
But Sudal had a plan for that, too.
“Dunk that bastard. The Yangtze… the Yangtze…”
“The Yangtze dip?”
“Yeah. That thing Jin Taekyung does all the time.”
After sending two of them into the water one after another, the complaints disappeared. Under Sudal’s spirited command, three swift ships traveled along the western tributary toward Guizhou.
At last, after all this time, they found a target.
Just like now.
“There’s a ship roughly two hundred zhang3 ahead!”
“Seize it! Don’t let it get away!”
How long had it been since their last raid? Sudal stood tall at the stern like a Great General, smiling with satisfaction as the ship drew rapidly closer.
Then, before fifteen minutes had passed, he realized something was wrong.
Whoosh!
The ship was almost upon them now. There was no crew and no captain.
Only one person waited for them.
“A swift ship of the Yangtze River Channel League. What fortunate timing.”
“…!”
The bald, middle-aged man holding a blood-soaked Zen staff smiled broadly at the frozen Sudal.
“Does this ship go to Nanman too?”
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