Chapter 669

The time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

No, perhaps mere moments.

It took less than the time needed to drink a cup of tea to settle everything in the underground prison.

Taishan, half-crazed with hunger, blocked the stairs. I advanced at the front with Yayul Mok and the Seven Miao Tigers behind me, and the Bai warriors lost their will to fight.

That was fortunate for me.

We needed to escape the underground prison as quickly as possible, but I was also beginning to feel my limits. I still had not completely grasped the full utility of the Middle Dantian.

Breaking my restraints had already consumed an enormous amount of mental strength. After one brief fight on top of that, my stomach was churning and my chest had begun to hurt. Taishan’s arrival was like getting an entire army as reinforcements.

“Gwoooooooh!”

Hmm. Actually, he was closer to the Hulk.

And it wasn’t just the presence of a Supreme Peak master that made the enemy surrender so quickly. Taishan’s eerie muttering had a lot to do with it.

“%#$%&^&%^&%^#$!”

“Gasp!”

His eyes gleamed with hunger.

To the Bai warriors, the sight of Taishan approaching while spitting out incomprehensible words at machine-gun speed must have been terrifying. But I knew exactly what his incantation meant.

“Roast duck! Maechae Guyuk¹! Fish-Fragrant Shredded Pork! Beijing Sauce Shredded Pork! Garlic Pork! Twice-Cooked Pork! Sweet and Sour Pork! Soy-Braised Beef! Dongpo Pork! Mapo Tofu!”

“……”

“Kung Pao Chicken! Stir-Fried Mushrooms and Vegetables! King-Size Dumplings! Beggar’s Chicken! Sweet-and-Sour Carp! Aaaaaaah!”

Hmm.

Good thing they couldn’t understand Han Chinese. Then again, a man slowly approaching while chanting food names like he was possessed might have been even scarier.

“Hungryyyyyyyyy!”

“Eek! Dark arts! That monster’s about to use dark arts!”

“I surrender! I surrender!”

That bastard was a Saiyan², at least by Nanman standards.

Judging by their reactions, you’d think he’d shouted “Kamehameha!”³ instead of “I’m hungry!”

Whatever I thought of it, his cry of hunger worked. Even the few brave men who stepped forward despite it got smashed by Taishan, and that settled the matter.

“Don’t be afraid! Charge!”

“We can do this! Strike him!”

The men who came forward were skilled enough to be considered decent Supreme First Rate masters even in the Central Plains.

Their only problem was who they’d chosen to fight.

Thud! Craaack!

Crack-crack!

Taishan swung his log-thick arms and legs, sending bodies flying in every direction.

The Bai warriors swallowed hard and lowered their weapons. Yayul Mok and the Seven Miao Tigers stared at me in disbelief.

“What? What are you looking at?”

“No, it’s just… wasn’t your internal energy sealed?”

“Yeah. It was. I still can’t use it.”

“……Then how?”

“Mine’s a long story. That guy was born like that.”

The human body had limits. I’d surpassed them by an absurd margin thanks to the System, but Taishan was a naturally occurring monster. Even without internal energy, he could beat down a First Rate master as easily as a rat.

Was he exposed to gamma radiation as a kid or something?

A reasonable suspicion, but it didn’t matter right now.

I looked at the Bai warriors who had lost their will to fight and disarmed themselves, then muttered quietly.

“All right. Let’s deal with this lot first.”

The short version is that the Bai warriors who surrendered survived. More precisely, Yayul Mok spared them.

Thud. Slump.

A warrior struck by a Pressure-Point Strike lost consciousness and fell. The Seven Miao Tigers, whom I’d gotten to know a few days earlier on the way to Ailao Mountain, gathered the unconscious warriors in one place and locked them in the underground prison. Then we headed straight for the stairs to the surface.

Squelch.

“I told you before… you’re going to regret this.”

I said it as we walked. Yayul Mok understood what I meant and shook his head.

“No, I won’t.”

“Our faces are out in the open. Once they wake up, whose name do you think they’ll give first?”

Yayul Mok was the Young Palace Lord of the Nanman Beast Palace. That alone said enough. The Seven Miao Tigers were also well-known warriors who represented the Miao people. Their tribes might be different, but some of the prisoners had probably recognized them already.

“It’s only a matter of time before this comes out. We should’ve silenced them.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Like hell it doesn’t. You said we weren’t going to flee along this path, so why wouldn’t it matter? If we remain here…”

“Our identities will be revealed. Our lives won’t be in immediate danger, but we’ll pay dearly for defying the Tribal Grand Council’s decision.”

“I hate to ask, but do you enjoy getting fucked over? Is being locked in the underground prison on your bucket list?”

“Bucki… I can hardly pronounce it. I don’t know what that is, but I knew the risk when I did this.”

Yayul Mok continued quietly.

“Our tribes are different, but we’re all Nanman people. We’ve lived together on this land for a long time. If we kill our own people, we become monsters too.”

His words brought someone to mind. A man who had become a monster for the sake of revenge.

Baeksang.

Maybe that was the difference between a human being and a monster: refusing to sacrifice lives for your own ends.

Even so, I spoke with a heavy heart.

“We should’ve killed them all.”

“You do like killing. Are all Han Chinese like you?”

“You crazy bastard. Do you think I’m some kind of fiend? It’s just…”

“That’s enough. I already know.”

“What?”

I turned to find Yayul Mok smiling silently.

“You’re worried about us. You feel guilty because we got ourselves into trouble trying to save you.”

“……”

“The Central Plains and Nanman have different languages, but we have a word for friend too. Perhaps that’s what you and I have become without realizing it. Unless I’m the only one who thinks so.”

“……!”

Damn it. I had no idea what to say.

While I stood there speechless, the seemingly endless stairs finally came to an end. The entrance to the underground prison was before us.

“Wonhu.”

At Yayul Mok’s call, the middle-aged man nodded and stepped forward. He looked like a monkey. He tried the keys on a large ring one after another, and the enormous iron door began to open with a heavy rumble.

Grooooan.

Faint moonlight slipped through the widening gap. Yayul Mok took two small wooden cases from inside his robes.

“An antidote to lift the seal on your internal energy. It’s made with a secret Bai technique, so I could only get two. Once your internal energy is restored, you should be able to lead the others out of Nanman.”

“The others?”

“I don’t know if it was because they’re old and injured, but security around them was remarkably lax. Uncle Baeksang isn’t usually so careless.”

As Yayul Mok spoke, I saw them beyond the fully opened door: two unconscious people lying across a White Tiger’s back.

“Lord! Namho!”

Seeing the familiar faces, Taishan hurriedly ran out of the underground prison. I stared at Yayul Mok with complicated emotions.

“You…”

“Go. We’ll buy you as much time as we can. They’ll discover what happened within half a shichen⁴ at most, but even that should help.”

I didn’t know what to say.

What would have happened without their help?

Taishan and I might have escaped the underground prison on our own, but we could never have gotten out of the Nanman Beast Palace this quickly. As long as Namho and Sama Pyo were being held somewhere in the Inner Palace, I was bound more tightly than I’d been by ten thousand geun⁵ of iron balls.

I might’ve been captured again trying to get them out.

But these people had given everything they had to help me, knowing the danger it put them in.

Thanks to them, I had a second chance to undo my bad move.

“……Thank you.”

At the thanks I had not managed to offer until now, Yayul Mok and the Seven Miao Tigers—as well as the men disguised as Bai warriors outside the underground prison—smiled faintly and shook their heads.

“No need to thank us.”

“That’s right. We’re only repaying a debt Nanman owes you.”

“My hyung⁶ was on Ailao Mountain. Thanks to you, I’ll get to see him again.”

People whose faces and names I didn’t know had helped me. One even called me his benefactor.

I looked at each of them, committing their faces to memory. Then I took the wooden cases from Yayul Mok and stepped into the faint moonlight.

Soft crunch.

The moment my foot landed on the damp earth—

Ding!

System

• Escape from the underground prison before the execution (Complete)
• You have fulfilled the Quest success conditions!
• You have successfully completed the Quest, Escape from Namshank!
• Issuing the Quest completion Reward!
• You obtained a massive amount of EXP!
• Level Up!
• Some injuries and Status Effects have been removed!

System

• Escape from the underground prison before the execution (Complete)
• You have fulfilled the Quest success conditions!
• You have successfully completed the Quest, Escape from Namshank⁷!
• Issuing the Quest completion Reward!
• You obtained a massive amount of EXP!
• Level Up!
• Some injuries and Status Effects have been removed!

As the Quest notifications rang in my ears, a cool breeze that only I could feel swept through my body.

Whoooosh!

My muscles, stiff for more than a full day, loosened. The fatigue that had built up as I forced out the still woefully insufficient power of the Middle Dantian faded. Finally, the force constricting my Lower Dantian melted away.

Hoo.

Heat from the Scorching Yang Qi mingled with my long exhale.

Yayul Mok and the Seven Miao Tigers widened their eyes, as if they had sensed something from my appearance.

Of course they’re surprised. I haven’t even taken the antidote yet.

But I had neither the time nor the intention to explain every little detail.

I tossed Taishan a pill from one of the wooden cases, telling him it was a snack, then fed the other to the unconscious Sama Pyo.

Fwoosh. Sssslip.

The Scorching Yang Qi melted the pill like water. As the liquid ran down Sama Pyo’s throat, color returned to his slightly pale face.

He’s in better shape than I expected, but he shouldn’t push himself for a while.

Namho aside, losing Sama Pyo’s full strength as a fighter was a serious disadvantage. But it didn’t mean we couldn’t escape.

If anything, we were in a better position than before I’d surrendered.

We’ve got everyone except the reconnaissance squad, and I’ve gained a little insight too.

Then Yayul Mok offered one more kindness I hadn’t expected.

“Take him with you.”

Grrrr.

A familiar growl.

The White Tiger, looking at its lifelong friend and master with sad eyes, held out its back toward me.

“Muyaho is called a spiritual creature even among Nanman’s White Tigers. He’s like a brother to me. I trust you’ll take good care of him.”

As if it understood Yayul Mok’s low voice, the White Tiger licked my hand, then pressed its nose against me and sniffed.

Yayul Mok smiled faintly as he watched it, then pointed in one direction.

“Go. Run straight northeast from where we first met, and you’ll find the reconnaissance squad.”

That was when it happened.

Thud.

At the sound of a blow, Yayul Mok’s body jerked. Wonhu caught him as he collapsed, then grinned at me.

“I trust you understand without us saying it.”

“You people…”

“Please look after the Young Palace Lord.”