Chapter 64
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: Black Tiger Gang (2)
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“Heh heh. Is it true?”
“Yes. We've brought the courtesan the Gang Leader desired.”
A smile spread across the Black Tiger Gang Leader's lips upon hearing his subordinate's report.
He had spotted the woman a few days ago.
Ever since seeing her enter Myeonghwaru, he had thought of nothing but her for days.
A beautiful woman with a cold expression.
This must be what they meant by love at first sight.
“Let's go. I must see for myself.”
The Black Tiger Gang Leader rose from his seat with a pleased heart and moved with his subordinate.
“Heh heh.”
It wasn't long before the smile that seemed permanently etched on his lips vanished.
“What is going on?”
His bedroom, where the abducted courtesan had been locked up, was already a mess.
His subordinates who had been guarding the bedroom lay scattered about, hacked to pieces.
“Kuaaaack!”
Hearing the scream, he quickly turned his head to see one of his men running out of the bedroom, screaming.
“Hey!”
The Black Tiger Gang Leader called out, but the man ignored him and hastily ran outside.
‘What in the world is happening?’
The Black Tiger Gang Leader still couldn't grasp the situation.
Even though he didn't know what had happened to the courtesan he so desired, he didn't dare enter the bedroom recklessly.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“Go check it out.”
“M-Me?”
And so, the Black Tiger Gang Leader decided to send the subordinate who had come with him in first.
“Isn't it obvious? It looks dangerous at a glance, so you go in first.”
The subordinate's face contorted at the gang leader's words, spoken as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
However, he couldn't defy the glaring gang leader and hesitantly entered the Black Tiger Gang Leader's bedroom.
“Stop muttering and get in there.”
“…Yes.”
The Black Tiger Gang Leader watched as his subordinate entered his bedroom.
“Uwaaaah!”
A moment later, another scream echoed from inside the bedroom.
“Hey!”
The subordinate bolted out of the bedroom almost as soon as he went in.
Then, ignoring the gang leader, he started running somewhere.
‘What on earth is in there?’
The subordinate's face was pale with terror.
The Black Tiger Gang Leader drew the sword from his waist and cautiously began to enter the room.
“Hup!”
The inside of the bedroom was a complete wreck, as if a great storm had swept through.
It wasn't just that the furniture was strewn about.
The Black Tiger Gang Leader's eyes trembled as he looked at the room, stained red with the blood of his men.
“You? What in the world are you!”
The only person standing in his bedroom.
The woman his subordinates had abducted.
She held a massive saber, larger than her own body, and stared at the Black Tiger Gang Leader with emotionless eyes.
“Hoo.”
Shin Yehyang, standing still with the saber in hand, let out a small sigh.
She couldn't understand what was so amusing about this situation.
“Are you the Black Tiger Gang Leader?”
“Hup!”
With the surroundings stained entirely red, Shin Yehyang's pristine appearance felt incredibly out of place.
The sight of her, without a single drop of blood on her face or clothes, holding a blood-soaked saber was bizarre beyond measure.
The Black Tiger Gang Leader now understood why his men had run out screaming.
“Uwaaaah!”
The Black Tiger Gang Leader, too, ran out of the bedroom, terrified without realizing it.
“Quick! Get in there and kill her! Kill her!”
He began to shout and summon his subordinates.
But the sound of his men, who should have rushed to him immediately, was nowhere to be heard.
“Keoheok!”
“Kuaaak!”
Instead of the sound of his men's footsteps approaching, only a continuous stream of screams could be heard.
“W-What is this?”
What the Black Tiger Gang Leader saw as he hastily exited the bedroom were five swords flying on their own.
He rubbed his eyes several times as if he were seeing a hallucination, but the scene before him did not change.
His men were unable to block the flying swords at all, dying as they were pierced through the head, neck, and body.
“Hello? We haven't met before, have we?”
At the sudden voice, the Black Tiger Gang Leader quickly turned his head.
There, a brown-haired young man, Jinmyeong, was smiling at him.
“You... you're from Myeonghwaru.”
“That's right. I'm here to pick up the person you kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped? Here to pick her up?”
At first, he thought he had kidnapped her. But not anymore.
Shin Yehyang was an expert of a level the Black Tiger Gang Leader couldn't even fathom.
She was kidnapped by his subordinates?
No. She had simply come along quietly.
“She's not someone whose status you can trifle with.”
“…Please spare my life.”
He was curious about her status.
Normally, he would have asked what her status was.
But the Black Tiger Gang Leader was a quick thinker.
It wasn't difficult to realize that the young man before him was the one controlling those five swords.
The Black Tiger Gang Leader wasn't foolish enough to challenge an expert who could single-handedly wipe out the entire Black Tiger Gang.
“You're quick on the uptake.”
“Hahaha….”
As soon as he saw his subordinates dwindling in an instant, the Black Tiger Gang Leader dropped to his knees without a moment's hesitation and began shamelessly begging for his life.
“If you're so quick-witted, why did you do something like this?”
“I-I didn't know.”
“Really? I wonder why you didn't know.”
The Black Tiger Gang Leader couldn't answer Jinmyeong's question.
Why didn't he know?!
It was because Jinmyeong and Shin Yehyang rarely showed themselves, and even when they did, they returned to Myeonghwaru as soon as their business was done.
Moreover, with the Underworld Sect controlling all information about them, it was almost natural that the Black Tiger Gang knew nothing about the pair.
“P-Please spare me.”
“And if I do?”
“Pardon?”
“There has to be some benefit for me to spare you.”
The Black Tiger Gang Leader's mind started racing again.
He was pondering what he could possibly offer Jinmyeong.
“Royalty! How about a connection to the royal family?”
“Royalty? A punk like you?”
Even Jinmyeong had to pause at the mention of royalty.
After all, the only person from the imperial palace who had appeared in this novel was the emperor.
And the royalty the Black Tiger Gang Leader was talking about now likely referred not to the emperor's immediate family living in the palace, but to those who had been pushed out of the line of succession.
“Members of the royal family sometimes visit Dongting Lake for leisure.”
“And?”
“I will introduce Myeonghwaru to them. If rumors spread that royalty has visited, Myeonghwaru will get even more customers.”
“That's certainly true.”
As Jinmyeong nodded, the Black Tiger Gang Leader's face brightened.
“But how would you introduce us to royalty? As far as I know, this isn't the place they visit.”
Jinmyeong thought the gang leader was just spouting nonsense out of desperation.
Even in a novel, there was no way a nobody like the Black Tiger Gang Leader could speak with royalty.
‘At the very least, you'd need the status of the Heavenly Demon, the Righteous Alliance Leader, or the Leader of the Heretical Alliance for that to be possible.’
Anyone else wouldn't even be able to get close to royalty.
So there was no way he could believe the Black Tiger Gang Leader's words.
“I know the owner of the tavern that royal frequents very well. Through him, I can introduce Myeonghwaru.”
Impossible.
No matter how often a royal visits a tavern, there's no way the owner could speak to them so directly.
“I don't think it's possible, but even if it were, I refuse.”
“Pardon?”
“That's all you need to know.”
Jinmyeong replied lightly and swung his sword.
With that, the Black Tiger Gang Leader's head dropped to the floor with a thud.
“Ugh.”
The faces of the Black Tiger Gang's ruffians, who had been watching Jinmyeong and their leader, turned deathly pale.
They had been warily observing from the start, not daring to attack Jinmyeong.
Even when their leader knelt and begged for his life, they had wanted to flee but could only continue to watch the situation unfold.
Because there was a chance Jinmyeong might spare their leader.
But now the gang leader had lost his head, and they no longer had to fear his retribution.
“Uwaaaah!”
Jinmyeong simply watched as the ruffians fled from the Black Tiger Gang's headquarters.
He neither stopped them nor pursued them.
“Good work.”
“…Is this supposed to be fun?”
Shin Yehyang's expression as she approached Jinmyeong seemed no different from usual.
But Jinmyeong could tell she was displeased.
To be precise, it was an expression that said she couldn't understand his plan.
“I know, right? It was less fun than I thought.”
“…Is that so?”
In truth, this wasn't what Jinmyeong had expected.
Shin Yehyang would wreak havoc inside, instilling fear in the gang leader.
Then, when the gang leader came outside, he would despair at the sight of his gang, completely destroyed by Jinmyeong.
“Then it went according to plan, didn't it?”
“Did it? But how should I put it? It wasn't a face of despair.”
Jinmyeong had wanted to see the gang leader's look of frustration, not watch him scramble for his life and run his mouth.
“…That's not a very nice personality.”
“I know.”
Shin Yehyang felt that Jinmyeong was gradually changing.
He had never been hesitant to kill before.
It wasn't that it was wrong, either.
For a member of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult to feel revulsion at killing was a joke in itself.
“But you didn't seem to enjoy it, either.”
“…I'm not so sure about that.”
Though Shin Yehyang said that, Jinmyeong actually thought he had enjoyed killing martial artists on the battlefield.
It was just that it had gotten a little worse recently.
‘Can I fix this?’
He didn't know.
If he could have fixed it, wouldn't he have done so already?
That's why, for now, rather than trying to rashly fix this part of his personality, he was trying to first assess the situation and be as careful as possible.
‘The problem is that I tend to do whatever I want when the situation isn't too bad.’
Letting the conversation with Shin Yehyang trail off, Jinmyeong quietly looked around.
“Aren't we going back?”
“There's something I need to find.”
Replying curtly, Jinmyeong began to move toward the place the gang leader had run from—his bedroom.
Shin Yehyang followed Jinmyeong with a puzzled expression.
“Actually, we didn't have to go this far.”
“That's true, isn't it?”
No matter that they had laid a hand on a courtesan, from Jinmyeong's perspective, there was no real need to attack the Black Tiger Gang.
“Turns out this guy had more wealth than I thought.”
“……”
Jinmyeong had already received a large reward from the Honam Merchant Guild and the Underworld Sect.
So she wondered if he had really gone through all this trouble for money again.
“Ah, this time it's not about the money. Do I really seem that obsessed with money?”
“Yes. Am I wrong?”
“…You're right. I am obsessed with money. It's nice to have.”
Jinmyeong didn't deny it. But this time, he really hadn't come here for money.
Entering the gang leader's bedroom, Jinmyeong suddenly began to lift up the floorboards.
From beneath the floor, a small wooden box appeared.
“I came for this.”
“…Why is something like this here?”
Shin Yehyang's face showed surprise as she saw the contents of the wooden box.
A smile touched Jinmyeong's lips at the fact that her usually unshakable expression had cracked.
“I know, right? This is why I had no choice but to come here.”
Looking at the elixirs from the wooden box, the smile wouldn't leave Jinmyeong's face.