Chapter 41
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: Attacking the Escort (3)
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It didn't take long to eliminate all the Yuk Escort Agency's guards, porters, and the thirty or so disciples of the Mount Hua Sect.
It was still before the darkened sky began to brighten again.
"Gather all the baggage," the Leader of the Demonic Shadow Brigade said as he climbed onto a wagon.
"Hmph!"
The expressions of the warriors hardened at the thought of having to carry the loads the porters had been shouldering.
When had they ever carried such things?
They found it inconvenient even to carry their own belongings.
"Hah."
"Young Lady Shin is..."
In the end, the first to move was Shin Yehyang.
As she silently shouldered a porter's pack, the others began to exchange glances.
‘They’re all just watching each other.’
That was because Shin Yehyang held the highest status here.
In terms of birthright alone, her station was even higher than that of the Heavenly Demon's disciples.
‘If you’re going to carry it, then just carry it.’
Yet, following her lead and picking up a load still seemed to be a blow to their pride.
However, when even Jinmyeong picked up a pack, they finally began to move one by one, shouldering the baggage.
"Let's go."
The Leader of the Demonic Shadow Brigade started moving, pulling the wagon.
As they followed, the remaining members of the Demonic Shadow Brigade drew their swords.
Stab! Stab! Slash!
They began to brutally disfigure the fallen corpses.
The warriors of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult had used their martial arts while attacking the guards, and traces of those techniques were inevitably left on the bodies.
The Demonic Shadow Brigade members were mutilating the corpses to make those traces as unrecognizable as possible.
‘It’s a bit cruel…’
Jinmyeong watched the scene dispassionately.
This was different from simply killing people.
Even so, his expression remained unchanged.
He didn't think what they were doing was too much, nor did he feel it was going too far.
‘It’s times like these that I start to worry about myself.’
He knew he had to get used to killing to survive in this world.
He had even thought it was a good thing.
But he began to wonder if this personality, which felt no resistance to killing, would be alright if he ever returned to the modern world.
‘But can I really go back?’
It was a question he had deliberately ignored until now.
Jinmyeong was finally forced to confront it.
Why had he woken up in this novel?
As a character with the same name as him, who had never even appeared in the story.
And how could he return to his original world?
‘Do I just have to make it safely to the end of the novel?’
Of course, with his intervention, the middle of the story would have changed slightly.
But in the end, the novel's conclusion likely wouldn't be drastically different.
When the protagonist finally brought down the organization behind everything, would he be able to return to his world?
‘More importantly, what happened to my original body?’
Once the questions started, they came one after another in an endless chain.
When he first arrived here, he had assumed his original self had died.
‘Why did I think that?’
He had just naturally assumed it.
Without a shred of doubt, he had wondered who would take care of his body.
It was as if something was preventing him from wanting to return to his original world.
‘I really never felt any desire to go back.’
He had only thought about how he would live his life here, never about returning.
He might have unknowingly given up on the option of going back entirely.
‘There’s definitely something more to this.’
After being transmigrated into this novel's character, his personality became completely different from his original self.
And he naturally lost all lingering attachment to his old world.
‘Does a being like God exist?’
Did a god bring him here and change his personality?
‘Then is that god the author? Or some other entity?’
He didn't know.
There was too little to go on.
"Load all the baggage here."
Had he been lost in thought for quite some time?
Jinmyeong snapped back to reality at the sudden voice.
Looking around, he saw that everyone had already stopped.
The sky, once dark, was gradually beginning to lighten.
‘Wagons?’
Jinmyeong spotted two wagons that looked like they had been prepared in advance.
They were even larger than the Yuk Escort Agency wagon the Demonic Shadow Brigade Leader was driving.
"We will load the baggage quickly and move out."
These were the wagons they had prepared when leaving the Yuyun Escort Agency.
They had been arranged because traveling with the Yuk Escort Agency's wagons would inevitably lead to them being discovered.
"There are clothes to change into inside the wagons."
Inside the wagons were the clothes of escort guards and porters.
"Do we really have to go this far...?"
They were demons of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
The idea of having to wear such clothes and travel, as if they were afraid of a fight, didn't sit well with them.
"We are not doing this because we are afraid of a fight."
Sensing the thoughts of the young demons, Neung Byeokmun answered with a sigh.
"Our mission is not to fight the Righteous Alliance or the Heretical Alliance. It is to bring these items safely back to the main cult."
To do that, they had to avoid conflict as much as possible.
If their numbers were greater, or if the entire Demonic Shadow Brigade had come, they wouldn't have resorted to this.
But their numbers were insufficient, and they had no chance of winning a direct confrontation with the Mount Hua Sect.
"To think I have to explain things like this."
The Leader of the Demonic Shadow Brigade clicked his tongue.
What did it matter if they were young warriors?
Their thinking was so shallow.
His initial impression of them hadn't changed at all.
‘Completely useless burdens.’
He had thought so from the beginning, and that opinion remained unchanged.
He felt like a nanny.
He had to be on edge constantly, making sure they didn't cause any trouble that might jeopardize the mission.
‘Why on earth did my Lord assign me such a task?’
It had never happened before, but this time, he almost felt resentful toward the Heavenly Demon.
If he had been able to move with the Demonic Shadow Brigade, the mission would have been far easier.
‘Hmm. The clothes are a bit big.’
Jinmyeong chose the clothes of a porter rather than a guard.
They were a bit shabby, but they looked more comfortable than the guard's uniform.
‘Still, they’re changing without much fuss.’
Though it was a unit directly under the Cult Leader and trusted by him, the Demonic Shadow Brigade was not of a higher status than the elders or the Cult Leader's disciples.
It seemed their pride had been wounded by being looked down upon, treated like children, like burdens, by the Demonic Shadow Brigade Leader.
The young demons, despite their discontented expressions, changed their clothes without a word of complaint.
‘Grumbling any more in this situation would only put them at a disadvantage.’
To do so would be to admit the Demonic Shadow Brigade Leader was right, so they were somehow managing to swallow their complaints.
"We're leaving."
After seeing that the others had changed, the Demonic Shadow Brigade Leader started driving the wagon.
As a member of the Demonic Shadow Brigade began to drive the other wagon, the demons started moving along with them.
‘There are guards, but no escort leader.’
It was a different sight from the Yuk Escort Agency they had attacked.
Without anyone who looked like a leader, they appeared to be a disorganized mob.
‘By the way, I still don’t see what use these old relics have.’
Jinmyeong quietly observed the wagons.
They were just simple antiques.
There were no elixirs, no secret martial arts manuals, and no extraordinary weapons.
They were literally just old, exotic-looking objects.
‘I just don't understand why the Heavenly Demon would mobilize us for this.’
This mission, just as Jinmyeong had first expected, wasn't difficult.
It was the kind of event that wouldn't have been strange even if it was never mentioned in the novel.
Yet he still couldn't figure out why the Heavenly Demon had deployed all of those who could be called the future of the cult for this task.
‘Was it really to give these guys some experience?’
No matter how he thought about it, it didn't seem likely that the Heavenly Demon cared about them that much.
‘The Heavenly Demon must have had his reasons. Thinking about it more will only give me a headache.’
In the end, Jinmyeong gave up trying to figure out why the Heavenly Demon had sent them or why he wanted to acquire these treasures.
However, it wasn't long before he came to understand the reason, at least to some extent.
"Everyone, you've worked hard."
Though it took longer than the journey out, they managed to return safely to Shaanxi.
They had encountered a few groups from the Unorthodox Faction and the Green Forest, but Neung Byeokmun skillfully paid them off and passed by.
Ultimately, they returned to the Yuyun Escort Agency in Shaanxi, having passed through Shanxi without a single battle.
‘So they’re abandoning the wagons now.’
He could see the Demonic Shadow Brigade members dividing up the treasures.
Since they hadn't brought wagons on their way here, they couldn't use them on the way back either.
‘Why on earth are things like that necessary?’
Seeing the antiques being sorted by the Demonic Shadow Brigade members right before his eyes, the question arose once more.
It was even more puzzling because they looked completely worthless.
‘Unless you’re some kind of antique collector, I doubt anyone would even give them a second glance.’
Jinmyeong, losing interest in the treasures, was about to turn away when his body froze.
‘Why is that here?’
He whipped his head around and stared at a single object among the yet-unsorted treasures.
‘Could it be what I think it is? It probably is. Didn’t Shin Yehyang have that?’
Jinmyeong stared at it with bewildered eyes.
‘What should I call that? A holy grail?’
A single cup that looked incredibly ancient.
Inside the cup, a flame-like shape was engraved as a decoration.
Because of that, Jinmyeong was certain this was what he had been looking for.
‘I have to get my hands on that somehow.’
But how could he possibly take it?
It was a treasure the Heavenly Demon himself had ordered them to retrieve.
No matter how much he wanted it, he couldn't have it.
‘There’s no one around.’
Only about five members of the Demonic Shadow Brigade were sorting the treasures.
Perhaps they assumed no one would dare to secretly pocket the treasures, as the Brigade Leader was nowhere to be seen.
‘Of course, none of the others would be here.’
At first, most of them had been watching, intrigued by the treasures the Heavenly Demon had personally ordered them to fetch.
But upon seeing they were just old objects, they quickly lost interest and left.
Jinmyeong, too, would have lost interest if he hadn't spotted that cup.
‘My only chance is now.’
The Demonic Shadow Brigade members were meticulously counting and recording the treasures.
That meant he had to grab it before they sorted it.
‘If only I knew how Shin Yehyang obtained this treasure in the novel.’
Unfortunately, the current timeline was before the start of the novel.
That meant Jinmyeong had to acquire this treasure himself.
"What is it?"
As Jinmyeong approached the sorted treasures, the Demonic Shadow Brigade members stopped their work and looked at him.
"I was just curious why our master would want us to bring back such antiques."
"We haven't finished sorting yet."
When Jinmyeong picked up one of the sorted treasures, two Brigade members hurriedly tried to stop him.
Jinmyeong let their warnings go in one ear and out the other, continuing to scan his surroundings.
‘There’s still one who isn’t looking this way.’
Aside from the ones trying to stop him, the others hadn't stopped sorting the treasures.
"I'm not going to take it, I'm just looking, aren't I?"
"That may be so, but..."
"Or are you worried I might try to steal something?"
Jinmyeong approached the Brigade members who were restraining him, feigning irritation.
"Or perhaps because your esteemed leader looks down on us, you think a nobody like you can disrespect me as well?"
"N-No, that's not it, but..."
Was it thanks to him deliberately creating a tense atmosphere with his outburst?
Eventually, even the Brigade members who had been sorting the treasures had no choice but to stop and look at Jinmyeong.
‘Now.’
Seeing that everyone's eyes were on him, Jinmyeong shot his internal energy toward the treasure he was targeting.
He intended to use the profound art of Sword Control to move the treasure elsewhere.
"Young Master Jin, what are you doing right now!"
But at the sudden voice, Jinmyeong's body flinched.