The Assassin
Jin Seok-man didn’t open his mouth easily.
Even while he feared me, he was reluctant to talk about the internal layout of Black Night Gang Headquarters.
It was only natural. If he spilled everything he had worked so hard to learn while delivering liquor, he would lose his value.
And once that happened, they might stop bringing him along when it came time to raid Black Night Gang.
With that on his mind, intimidation alone wasn’t going to work.
“I’ve got a chance to get into Black Night Gang this time. If I’m going to scout it, I need to know the layout first, don’t I?”
Jin Seok-man paused in the middle of chewing a roasted rice cake and blinked at me in surprise.
“You’re serious?”
“I’m going to hop the wall with Won Seo-gang soon. Before that, I figured I should learn the inside of Black Night Gang a bit. It was hard enough getting this chance.”
I soothed him as I spoke, sliding two nyang of silver onto the table. After a moment of hesitation, Jin Seok-man took the silver.
For a backwater town gang, Black Night Gang Headquarters was large.
There was Wooryong Hall, where the gang leader lived. There were three five-story pavilions, each one occupied by a unit leader. And there were more than ten miscellaneous buildings and warehouses.
The more buildings there were, the more complicated the passageways between them became.
The information Jin Seok-man gave me covered the building layout, the paths between them, and the patrol routes and schedules. He didn’t know much about the gang leader’s residence except that it was attached somewhere on the grounds.
I asked him over and over, drawing the escape routes in my head as I listened.
Just from his explanation, there were plenty of gaps and weaknesses, but I memorized every scrap of information without missing a thing.
A few days after sending Jin Seok-man away, I went to the Rogue Inn. A familiar Black Night Gang member was waiting for me.
“The unit leader says he’ll carry out what he promised.”
“When?”
“Come here tomorrow at sunset.”
“I see.”
I answered calmly and turned away. The breath I exhaled trembled before I could stop it.
So it was finally happening. I was going to see Jeok Chu-yeong.
Keeping the rising excitement and anticipation buried inside me, I slowly ran through the possibilities in my head.
There was a saying that plans went wrong the moment you started preparing them.
I’d seen more than once how even good intentions and goodwill could turn into a mess because of everyone’s separate interests. And this was the stronghold of a gang of black-clad criminals. There was no need to say more than that.
I couldn’t trust Bok Ha-gyu completely, and if tension was already hanging between the unit leaders, there was a real chance that blades would come out from inside if anything went wrong.
Back home, I spread out a sheet of hemp cloth and took up a brush. I checked the internal structure and escape routes I’d gotten from Jin Seok-man in careful detail.
If the passageways were blocked front and back and I couldn’t move, I’d have to go over the wall.
I stepped out into the yard and stood before the wall. It rose two heads taller than I was.
If I stretched out my arms, I could grab the top and climb up without trouble, but I wouldn’t have that much time inside Black Night Gang.
Looking up at the wall, I drew internal energy from my dantian.
Thanks to all the hard training I’d been doing, the speed at which I circulated my internal energy had improved a little. It moved steadily through the body along the circulation path and spread into my limbs.
The moment I felt it gather faintly in the soles of my feet after traveling through my legs, I kicked off the ground and leapt.
Bang. Chaaak.
I landed on top of the wall without difficulty.
Using internal energy improved physical ability. My mastery of it wasn’t deep yet, but this much was well within what I could handle.
Of course, it was too early to be satisfied.
According to Jin Seok-man, the outer wall was about two jang high. The inner passageways were lower than that. As for the area around the gang leader’s residence, there was no telling.
I dropped down from the wall and stood beneath the eaves of a roof instead.
It was a proper tiled house, tall enough to be a full two jang high.
Circulating my internal energy to the limit of eight strands of raw silk, I crouched low and sprang upward with all my strength.
My body shot straight up like an arrow loosed from a bow.
It was the first time in my life I’d ever felt that exhilarating rush of ascent, enough to make the hairs on my head stand on end.
It felt as if I had grown wings. I could have shot all the way to the sky and grabbed hold of a cloud.
But reality was that my elbow only just reached the edge of the eaves.
I grabbed the overhang with both hands and pulled myself onto the roof.
I’d used precious internal energy without the slightest hesitation, and yet I still hadn’t made it past two jang. The density and efficiency of my internal energy were still poor.
Could Do Goeng-il have shot up to the roof in a single bound?
Come to think of it, I’d once seen a monster like that before.
Mok Sa-ryong, the Explosive Heat Fist Demon.
He had blown apart everyone in the gambling hall with Explosive Heat Fist, then set the place on fire and leapt onto a shop roof in one easy bound.
After that, he’d skipped across the rooftops and disappeared in an instant.
Back then I’d only thought of him as a monster, but looking back, he must have been using internal energy.
How much training and how many spiritual herbs would it take to reach that level? I let out a sigh, shook my head, and turned away.
The roof was still damp from the rain that had fallen the day before. With nowhere comfortable to sit, I stood and looked over the surrounding landscape.
The night wind sweeping across the fields swallowed in darkness was so cold it made me want to curl in on myself.
Seochon’s brightly lit nightscape glowed warmly below, almost like a dream.
It looked as though if I reached it right now, someone would open the door and welcome me inside. But that wasn’t going to happen.
Where had Jeok Chu-yeong taken Soso noona and the villagers?
I’d know once I met him in person.
Even if he was bedridden and couldn’t speak, so long as he was alive, Bok Ha-gyu would force him to sit up somehow.
You could usually tell what sort of man stood above the rest by looking at the people beneath him.
Bok Ha-gyu was a man who didn’t belong among black-clad gangsters.
And if that man followed Jeok Chu-yeong with genuine loyalty, then Jeok Chu-yeong himself was probably not quite the kind of person his vile, cruel nickname of the Black Killing Sword suggested.
What I’d heard from Jin Seok-man was also somewhat encouraging.
Jeok Chu-yeong hadn’t threatened the villagers or forced them onto wagons. He’d taken his time and persuaded them calmly, saying there was a place they could move to. That wasn’t how black-cased gangsters usually operated.
If he had lied to Soso noona’s family and sold them off somewhere...
Then Jeok Chu-yeong would pay the price.
Even if it cost me every last bit of internal energy I had, I would make sure of it.
*
The next day, when the western mountain was dyed red with sunset, I strapped on my long saber and headed for the Rogue Inn.
As I sat at a window seat chewing on jerky, Bok Ha-gyu appeared with his men in tow.
“Let’s go.”
With three Black Night Gang men in front, Bok Ha-gyu and I walked side by side.
“Why did you come yourself instead of sending your subordinates?”
“If I come, you’ll believe it, won’t you?”
There was something strange about the feeling of it.
It looked, at a glance, like he was walking the talk and keeping the promise he’d made, but beneath that, he seemed to want my trust.
It was true that I’d helped Bok Ha-gyu in several ways by now. My martial strength wasn’t weak, and I wasn’t tied to anyone.
Was he hoping I’d lend a hand in conflicts with the other unit leaders?
Come to think of it, the men he’d brought with him numbered only three.
“Aren’t the guards a little light?”
“Who in Seochon would dare touch Black Night Gang?”
Bok Ha-gyu answered with obvious confidence, as though it were nothing at all.
Where had the dozens of subordinates who’d once ringed the Rogue Inn like an iron wall gone?
I hadn’t heard word of any fighting, so they were probably busy taking over the businesses managed by Blood Corpse Gang.
“If I go in, won’t Im Ja-gyeon and Seon Do-mu make a move?”
Bok Ha-gyu looked at me and gave a dry laugh.
“Why? Scared now that you’re actually about to enter Black Night Gang?”
“I am scared. Scared I’ll be blocked by a bunch of trash and never get to see the gang leader.”
“Don’t worry. The gang leader’s residence is guarded by our people. No matter how short-handed we are, we won’t pull men from there.”
So that meant Im Ja-gyeon and Seon Do-mu might even be aiming for the gang leader.
I clicked my tongue inwardly and shook my head.
As expected of black-hearted gangsters...
I also knew the front gate of Black Night Gang. On the first day I came home, Gu-sam had guided me there so I’d seen the surrounding area.
Bok Ha-gyu and the others entered by a back route I’d never seen before on the opposite side. It was an unfamiliar alley, but it still led into Black Night Gang.
This was the same road Jin Seok-man used when he hauled liquor carts into Black Night Gang.
If you followed this alley and turned left after a long walk, you’d arrive at the back gate of Black Night Gang.
It looked as if they were taking the rear entrance to avoid attention.
A little farther down the alley, I spotted a group of some twenty beggars. They were all small children.
When armed adults appeared, the ragged children flinched and held their breath.
As we drew closer, one of the beggars, seeing an opening, carefully stepped forward.
“Hey, you great heroes, spare a coin?”
He seemed to be their leader, because the others rushed in at once as if they’d been waiting for their chance. They thrust their beggars’ bowls toward the Black Night Gang men and Bok Ha-gyu, begging in one another’s faces.
“We haven’t eaten in three days! Please, just one coin!”
“Give alms and you’ll go to paradise!”
“Great heroes...”
Bok Ha-gyu and his men did not draw their swords.
They were just children, barely as tall as an adult’s waist.
Their cheeks, hollowed by hunger, were black with grime because they hadn’t even been washed properly. The beggar bowls they held with both hands, wrapped in cloth to keep out the cold, were half broken.
At a glance, they were unmistakably child beggars.
“Get out of the way!”
The subordinates waved their hands and shoved the beggars back. But the beggars didn’t retreat.
“Just one coin, great hero...”
Whoosh!
Three or four of the little beggars who had tried to come at me were smashed by the scabbard of a long saber and went down hard. I glared at them and warned them firmly.
“Don’t come within reach of my blade.”
I didn’t want to do this to children, but from the moment I stepped in here, my nerves had gone taut for reasons I couldn’t quite name.
There was a sticky, sharp presence in the air that felt all wrong.
More than a dozen beggars clung to the Black Night Gang men and blocked the road.
“Let go of me. Quit hanging on. Get lost!”
“Tch, these beggar brats must’ve gone feral from hunger. Get off!”
Even when the Black Night Gang men bared their teeth and kicked viciously or struck their heads, the little beggars clung on with relentless stubbornness.
Still, pulling out my purse here would only make things worse. The best course was to drive them off coldly.
While everything was stuck in this awkward standoff, Bok Ha-gyu and his men were completely mixed in with the children.
The distance had gotten too close. Had they decided the kids were nothing more than a nuisance and not any real danger?
At least Bok Ha-gyu and his men seemed to think so. And soon they paid the price for it.
“Ghhk!”
Bok Ha-gyu suddenly staggered and smashed the beggar leader’s face with a heavy swing.
Flung aside and slammed into the wall, the child beggar had a bloodied blade stuck in his hand.
“Eat this!”
At the leader’s shout, the din of “give us a coin” vanished at once.
In the eerie silence, the child beggars tossed aside their bowls and revealed blue-steel blades.
They hadn’t been holding them in their hands. They’d wrapped them tightly in leather cords and hidden them under cloth so they wouldn’t slip free.
“Meals! We’ve got a meal!”
The children, eyes wild, jabbed their blades frantically into the adults standing nearest to them.
The three Black Night Gang men surrounded by the beggar swarm were carved up without mercy in an instant.
“Aaaagh!”
Little knives plunged again and again into bellies, thighs, and waists, drawing out streams of blood. The three of them collapsed in despair without even getting a hand to their sword hilts.
Bok Ha-gyu, who’d taken a slash to the leg, swung his scabbard like a club and retreated fiercely.
...I’d thought it felt wrong. So that was killing intent.
Because I’d kept a proper distance, I escaped the ambush.
From both sides, child beggars a beat too late came rushing in with daggers.
No matter how young they were, I couldn’t just let their blades land on me.
I smashed the face of the one charging at me with a dagger using my scabbard.
His head snapped aside, blood burst from his nose, and several broken teeth flew out. He’d have a hard time eating for a while, but that was still better than dying.
I kicked one down and swung my scabbard again.
By then they should have been frightened and backed off, but these brats had gone completely mad.
They weren’t children anymore. They were hungry wildcats. Savage killing intent, honed by starvation, burned in their eyes. It was as if they meant to kill me and tear into my flesh.
I finally understood why they had been ordered not to “kill” but to “eat.”
These weren’t beggars. They were assassins. The most deranged kind of assassin there was.
Even men who would cut down old people or women without blinking had to hesitate before children.
In real combat, that brief hesitation could cost you your life.
The children didn’t guard themselves much even when they got that close. They must have thought there was no way I’d be beaten by a few kids.
As far as I knew, the only place that kidnapped children and raised them as child assassins to exploit that was the Assassin Society.
If the weak threw themselves at you with enough resolve to die, they could still tear away a corner of a master’s robe.
Fighting these child assassins, who charged in like starving hounds without caring whether they lived or died, was becoming more and more of a nuisance with just my scabbard.
After kicking and smashing a few more of them aside, I checked the wall. It was higher than the one at home, but still within reach.
Just as I grabbed my long saber to open some distance, another group of beggars came swarming in from farther down the alley.
They were bigger than the children here, but still kids.
One of them looked familiar. He was dressed in ragged beggar’s clothes and had soot smeared across his face, but not enough to keep him from being recognized.
Pung O-bok froze when his eyes met mine. His pupils shook violently.
Only now did I understand what he had been trying to tell me yesterday.
Pung O-bok clenched his teeth. Before he could even get a word out, he threw the dagger in his right hand.
The dagger, its blade honed to a pale white, came straight at me.