A Report and a Dragon with a Clear Conscience

Eom Gutaek wasted no time racing straight back to the branch leader of the Gyeongchae camp of the Janggang Water Sect. He was certain the wild goose chase he'd been put through hadn't been a pure waste of time — and layered on top of that certainty was a greedy little hope that he might even snag a reward out of the whole affair. Those twin emotions drove him to grovel and plead before a still-unconvinced branch leader until he finally dragged every fighter the camp could spare out into the field.

Of course, there were a few close calls along the way.

"I don't see anything. You sure this is the place?"

He hadn't exactly pinned down the precise ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠location of the cave Hae Sua was using as a hideout, so they ended up circling the general area where he'd last seen the fire burning.

"There! Over there!"

At last they spotted a cave with smoke curling up from its mouth. Nobody in their right mind lived alone along the Janggang. Not with a massive pirate syndicate like the Janggang Water Sect constantly raiding and stirring up the whole stretch of riverbank. Only a Divine ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Beast clueless about how the world worked would be dumb enough to light a fire and settle down in a riverside cave like this.

"This it?"

"Yes, sir! I saw it with my own eyes. A horned Divine Beast, right here. Had a nice, plump, meaty tail, too."

The branch leader still looked unconvinced. Plenty of greed in him, but not a scrap of a gambler's nerve no matter how hard you looked. Eom Gutaek clicked his tongue and insisted they push deeper inside, casting pleading looks at the other bandits trailing behind them — and that was when it happened.

"Th-this…"

"…!"

A bone-chilling killing intent flooded the area in an instant. Eom Gutaek might never have properly mastered martial arts, but his animal instincts were sharp enough to realize that murderous aura was aimed squarely at them.

"You fucking pieces of shit!"

"D-do you see her?"

He forced his mouth open and finally spat out the words he'd swallowed back down into his throat the first time he'd laid eyes on Hae Sua.

"That bitch! The one with the huge tits! Horns on her head, a tail on her ass! She's a Divine Beast, plain as day! Exactly what the Main Fort Leader's been hunting!"

Dozens of Gyeongchae bandits stood present. Half of them were thugs barely worth calling Samryu, but bodies were bodies, and numbers still counted for something. And men, as a rule, found bottomless courage the moment they had comrades to share the risk with.

"Haha, look at that pretty face on her."

"Aigoo, Branch Leader. You really gonna trust an Imugi bitch's face without knowing how many years she's been aging in the dark?"

"Who cares, so long as she tastes good? Kuhaha!"

"True enough!"

Dozens of them piled lewd jokes onto one target. Reminding himself he had so many companions at his back, Eom Gutaek felt courage welling up inside him too.

Then — BOOM!

"Huh?"

That courage melted away the second he watched the branch leader's head lurch sideways like a wobbly roly-poly doll, then crumple to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Huh…?"

In the blink of an eye, every last scrap of it was gone.

"So that's why Murim people swing first and ask questions later."

The Sea Dragon standing before them wasn't just pretty to look at. She had the thorns to protect that beauty herself. At the very least, she was no cheap flower a pack of third-rate thugs could pluck at will.

"Ugh, completely useless as always."

I clicked my tongue, tore my eyes away from the Murim Gallery, and took stock of my surroundings. The place was, quite literally, wrecked. Maybe it was because I was a Sea Dragon now, or because I'd already fought bandits once before — either way, the lack of revulsion I felt was almost surprising. The rage over them stomping out the fire I'd worked so hard to light probably played a part too.

Anyway.

"Ugh… uuurgh…"

"P-please spare us."

In that first blind fury, I'd swung without holding back. About five or six of them had died on the spot — necks twisted a full ninety degrees, skulls caved in, bodies that simply couldn't handle the excess force. After that I'd figured out how to moderate my strength, and for the next thirty or so who kept charging in with axes and clubs, faces twisted in disgust, I carefully and diligently broke their arms and legs just short of killing them. The remaining half-dozen dropped to their knees on their own and started begging for their lives.

The strange part was how little my emotions moved, even with people I'd killed, people I'd maimed, and people begging me for mercy all right there in front of me. In a Murim where enough power meant you could quietly bury this kind of trash without anyone ever knowing — was I feeling some kind of moral superiority just because I hadn't taken more than half their lives?

I'm adapting way too fast to this.

A flicker of unease crossed my mind — had I always been this cold? — but sorting out my feelings wasn't the priority right now.

"What am I supposed to do with these guys?"

Disposing of the dead was simple enough. The first one I'd turned into mush when I got here still had a pulse, so I'd floated him off on a raft. The ones who were already dead could just be fish food. But the ones still breathing?

Drowning them all at once still sat wrong with me. The sudden change in environment had made me a little more high-strung, sure, but I wasn't broken enough yet to toss dozens of living people into the river without blinking. Sending them off on rafts, though, meant someone who noticed the anomaly would almost certainly come sniffing back my way. And even if they were begging me to spare them right now, the second I said I was going to sink them in the river they'd fight like hell not to die — and that would just be more of a hassle.

Nothing to lose by trying. In a messy situation like this…

Nothing beats a collective monologue. Toss a question post up on the community, skim the comment reactions, and let that organize your thoughts — most efficient method there is.

"Oh."

Come to think of it, across thousands of years of Chinese history, it was common practice for the state to shove convicts and soldiers onto government-owned farmland — the so-called Dunjeon system — and make them work. Especially convicts. Most of them labored until the day they died.

"Okay. Decision made."

I'd dump the whole lot at the government office. Looking at these rough-faced thugs, the officials would probably think they'd hit the jackpot and ship them straight into the Dunjeon.

There was just one problem.

"Even so, I can't exactly show up at a government office looking like this."

Going to the office itself wasn't the issue. Running into people on the way there, though? That would be mortifying.

So.

"Hey. You."

"M-me, miss?"

"Yeah, you."

I pointed at the guy nearest me, clutching an arm broken so badly the bone was sticking out and moaning in pain.

"What's your name?"

"E-Eom Gutaek, miss."

"Alright, Gutaek."

Solid build, clothes in decent enough shape. Black fabric, so the tears and fraying didn't show much. Wearing that should put out the immediate fire, at least.

"Strip. I need clothes."

"P-pardon…?"

"I said strip. I need something to wear."

"I-I'll strip! Argh — ah —!"

Gutaek groaned through the pain in his broken arm as he peeled off his shabby clothes and held them out. I took them, put them on, then pointed at the ones who'd surrendered quick enough to avoid getting hurt.

"All of you strip too. Then tear the clothes into strips, tie them together into rope, and use that to tie yourselves up."

String them up like a line of dried fish, drop them at the government office, and my peace and quiet would stay intact. Better get this done fast and get back.

A few days later.

Murim Alliance Headquarters.

"Rin, you hear about that?"

"What story would that be, sir?"

"One of the Janggang Water Sect's branches got wiped out."

"Suddenly? They have so many people and they're so fragmented that even the government never bothered launching a proper suppression campaign—"

The young man called Rin trailed off mid-sentence.

Come to think of it, that newly arrived Divine Beast asked about body disposal and handing over criminals. I was the one who advised her to send them to the government.

In truth, the Murim Alliance Guard who'd advised Hae Sua had been Rin all along.

If that Divine Beast critically wounded one of the Janggang Water Sect's branch camps, left the bandits at a government office, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the officials who confirmed their affiliation seized the chance to erase an entire branch…

Then Rin's advice had snowballed into the quiet removal of a headache even the Murim Alliance couldn't touch — without anyone lifting a finger. Wiping out a single branch wouldn't uproot the whole Janggang Water Sect, but it was very likely to put a real crack in the foundation. In a way, it was an achievement that belonged to Rin as a member of the Murim Alliance.

"What are you smiling about?"

"Nothing, sir. Nothing at all."

Of course, he didn't show it openly. Ever since a few Murim Gallery users had flaunted their real identities, gotten into flame wars, and ended up hunted down and killed, the community's culture had hardened into a strict no-doxxing rule. Rin himself was a Murim Alliance martial artist — the kind of person easy to hate — so he never let slip the slightest hint that he used the Gallery.

Still.

"Someone must have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠provided the cause for the government to move. I hope fortune stays with that person."

"Come on, what kind of chivalrous hero exists in this day and age? How many people would clean up bandits nobody even asked them to deal with and then go report it to the government?"

"There might be one. I'd like to believe there is."

With those words alone, Rin wanted to pay his respects to ApexPredator. If she had taken his advice, delivered the bandits to a government office, and the officials who identified their affiliation had then moved to destroy one pillar of the Janggang Water Sect — then Rin, who had provided the information that made her actions possible, could take quiet pride in that single comment.

In daily life Rin lived as an ordinary person cosplaying as a civilian, but watching his gallery-lurking produce a positive influence put him in a genuinely good mood.

"Maybe I should head down to the Janggang while I'm at it. We need a situation report from that area anyway."

"Sure. Just file a short-form report and head out."

Volunteering himself for a dispatch mission to clean up the aftermath and investigate the circumstances — that was the unmistakable look of a young man hopelessly addicted to the Gallery.