Chapter 29: Heuksangbang Raid-3
Chapter 29: Heuksangbang Raid-3
The moment his eyes met the man's, his mind went completely blank.
Why was there someone here?
No, more importantly, how could he have failed to sense the presence?
He had to subdue the bastard quickly.
If the bastard so much as shouted, it was all over.
But the man drew his sword faster than he could rush in.
Chang!
Drawing his sword, the man shouted in a low voice.
"What scoundrel is this?!"
In that moment, Jin hesitated and felt a sense of confusion.
He shouted quietly? Why?
Shouldn't he be shouting loudly to summon the warriors?
Then, the blanket beside the man, who was stark naked, wriggled, and from beneath it, a woman, also stark naked, poked her face out.
She was a beautiful woman with a youthful face.
She looked at Jin, and with a startled expression, cried out softly.
"Sang-rang! Close the door quickly! The sound will be heard outside at this rate!"
Huh? Close the door? The sound will be heard outside?
Having heard that much, Jin abruptly looked back at the door behind him.
Then, he felt the two of them flinch vividly.
Oh? Look at these two.
He shut the door with a click.
Then he could feel the presences outside being completely blocked off.
It was perfect soundproofing.
And seeing the man and woman's expressions turn relieved only after he closed the door, he felt he could roughly guess their circumstances as well.
The man, now seemingly reassured, thrust his sword forward and shouted at him.
"What are you doing, you scoundrel?! Daring to invade the Heuksangbang leader's quarters with a mask on! Are you a thief?!"
Well, a thief was right, he supposed.
But it didn't seem like you two were in any position to say that.
He smirked and answered.
"I don't think that's any business of a man who's rolling around with the faction leader's concubine in the faction leader's own room."
At that, the man's expression drained of color in an instant.
The man stammered and asked.
"D-don't tell me you were sent by Father? D-did he catch on to our affair from the very beginning?"
Well, well, Father, he says?
Then this bastard is...?
He answered with a sardonic grin.
"Go Mu-sang! Do you acknowledge your sins?!"
At that, the man was so shocked that he stumbled backward and collapsed onto the bed with a flop.
The man was muttering with a devastated expression.
"Th-this can't be! This is... how?"
It was exactly as he'd guessed.
That bastard was none other than Go Ju-yong's son, Go Mu-sang.
The one who, later on, when Go Ju-yong died, became enraged and killed Ma Jong-hwan's daughters.
Hearing that story, he'd thought the man was a truly devoted son, but to think he was a bastard who was screwing his own father's concubine behind his back like this.
It was then.
The woman beside him, who had also gone pale, suddenly made a vicious expression and shouted.
"Sang-rang! We haven't been caught yet! Kill that man! Then there will be no evidence at all!"
At those words, Go Mu-sang snapped back to his senses.
Then he extended his sword again and glared at Jin with burning eyes.
The woman was shouting beside him.
"Kill him quickly! You have to kill him before the people outside catch on!"
Before the people outside catch on, she said.
That was something to be deeply grateful for.
Abruptly, he grinned, swiftly turned his body, and reached for the door handle. The man and woman screamed simultaneously.
"No!"
Go Mu-sang desperately threw his body forward, stabbing his sword at his back.
"Die!"
Syu-hak!
The bastard's martial prowess seemed to be roughly at the mid-tier first-rate level.
If they had fought head-on, subduing him wouldn't have been so easy, but if he rushed in so hastily like that...
For Jin, it was nothing short of a blessing.
Merely by rotating his body slightly, he dodged the man's sword, and then, using that rotational force, he immediately drew his own blade.
Sya-ak!
"Keo-eok!"
His sword lightly grazed the neck of the man who had stabbed forward with all his might, and passed by.
The man, his throat cut, collapsed on the spot, eyes wide open as if he couldn't believe what was happening.
Blood belatedly gushed from the half-severed neck.
He had considered just subduing him, but looking back at the memories of his past life, and even considering his reputation in this life, the bastard wasn't worth keeping alive.
It seemed better to kill him when he had the chance.
As he killed Go Mu-sang without hesitation, Go Ju-yong's concubine froze, her face filled with terror.
"Y-you, how could you kill the faction leader's son...?"
Then, as if suddenly realizing something, she exclaimed.
"You weren't sent by the faction leader, were you?!"
He was slightly impressed.
Her quick-wittedness was far from ordinary.
Then, as if a thought struck her, the woman suddenly rose from the blanket, revealing her body to him.
Her naked, bewitching figure spread out before his eyes.
She immediately smiled seductively and spoke to him.
"Look here. If you're not one of the faction leader's men, please take me with you. I was forcibly held captive here. If you get me out of here, I will become your woman and repay the favor with my life."
Speaking with dewy eyes like that, she looked truly like the tragic heroine of a melodrama.
He almost fell for it too.
If only she hadn't been shouting at him to die with a vicious face just moments ago.
Pu-uk!
As his sword, thrust without hesitation, pierced her heart, she stared at him with eyes of disbelief before collapsing just like that.
If she had shown a less cunning side, he might have at least considered it, but he couldn't leave a snake-like woman like that alive.
He suddenly felt relieved that Squad Leader Seolpung hadn't come this way.
If it had been the squad leader, even knowing it was a lie, he would have been flustered simply because she was a woman and wouldn't have been able to resolve it, right?
That damned phobia of women of his.
After that, he was able to descend to the faction leader's private warehouse on this floor, designed to be accessible only from this room through a passage in the back of the room.
To cut to the chase, his side drew a blank.
He knew as soon as he entered; this warehouse wasn't a place where people could be imprisoned.
But he wasn't disappointed.
No, rather, he could only whistle in admiration.
"Hwi-yuu, impressive."
The items displayed inside the warehouse were enough to make his eyes spin.
Inside the warehouse were piles upon piles of gold coins, gold bars, and jewels, as well as weapons that looked incredibly rare, and even spirit medicines.
That bastard Go Ju-yong had hoarded all these spirit medicines in his warehouse and still coveted another's, causing that whole disaster.
His eyes, scanning the room, were gleaming.
"Hoh, look at this."
***
Meanwhile, for Seol Pung, who had gone toward the Thunder Prison, finding his way was not very difficult.
It was simply because the overwhelmingly most heavily guarded place was the Thunder Prison.
However, precisely because the security was so tight, infiltrating secretly was a difficult situation, just as it had been for Seonwoo Jin.
After pondering for a moment, Seol Pung ultimately had no choice but to give up on infiltrating in secret.
The Thunder Prison was a one-story building, but according to intelligence, it was designed to hold prisoners up to three floors underground.
At the entrance of the Thunder Prison, six sentries stood a constant watch, and four sentries patrolled the perimeter in shifts, interlocking like gear teeth.
Seol Pung hid his body within the shadows and waited for the right moment.
Seol Pung, who had been crouched like a predatory beast, finally launched himself at the sentries at the main gate like a flying tiger the moment one sentry rounded the corner.
Pa-bak!
By the time the sentries realized something was barreling down on them, Seol Pung's fists and feet were already smashing into their heads.
"Wh...!"
"Yo...!"
Pa-ba-ba-ba-ba-bak!
It was nearly the span of a breath for all six to lose consciousness and collapse.
Seol Pung did not stop there.
He charged toward the opposite corner from where the sentry had just gone around.
Then, the eyes of the sentry who was just rounding the corner widened in shock and enlarged greatly.
"Wh...!"
Peo-eok!
But he too could utter no sound.
Seol Pung knocked him down, immediately rounded the corner, and went around in the opposite direction of the sentry patrol, subduing all the sentries. The time it took to complete one full circuit was a mere three breaths.
Seol Pung briefly considered whether to kill them or not, but soon shook his head and decided to shove them all into the first cell inside the Thunder Prison.
For someone who lived on the frontlines, taking a life was far too easy.
That was precisely why Seol Pung always tried to avoid killing unless it was absolutely necessary.
Because while he fought monsters, he didn't want to become one himself.
Seol Pung, having locked them in the cell, asked the other people imprisoned on the first floor of the Thunder Prison.
"Are the two daughters of Saengsagwoe-ui Ma Jong-hwan by any chance confined here?"
Then, the prisoners, who had been staring wide-eyed at him from the moment he had stuffed the sentries into the prison, spoke all at once as if competing with each other.
"Th-there are no such people here! More importantly, please save me!"
"That's right! As far as I know, there are no women here! Who are you, daehyeop?! I, No Sang-won of the Jungsan Association, am a man who has lived with nothing to be ashamed of under heaven! If you release me, this debt of gratitude...!"
"Daehyeop!"
"Daehyeop!"
The prisoners began clamoring.
Seol Pung smiled wryly and spoke to them.
"If you intend to make that much noise, then I shall not release you and shall simply abandon you instead."
At his words, everyone let out a "Hup!" and shut their mouths.
Seonwoo Jin had said this before.
That the first floor of the Thunder Prison would mostly hold petty criminals, while those who had opposed Heuksangbang would be imprisoned on the second and third underground floors.
When Seol Pung had asked what to do with them, Seonwoo Jin had answered casually.
'Just release them? If Heuksangbang imprisoned them, the proportion of good people is probably higher than bad ones. And even if some are bad, if they were people Heuksangbang could capture, they won't be that dangerous anyway.'
For Seol Pung, the possibility that he might end up releasing bad people was not an entirely pleasant matter.
But it was true that he couldn't afford the time to sort through them one by one.
Seol Pung spoke to the prisoners.
"I will certainly release you all. However, I will do so after I have checked the lowest floor as well, so I ask that you remain quiet and avoid detection until I return."
At that, the prisoners fell as silent as dead mice, and Seol Pung descended to the lower floor.
In conclusion, Seol Pung's search also proved fruitless.
The Strange Doctor of Life and Death's two daughters were not imprisoned in the Thunder Prison.
Instead, Seol Pung freed everyone imprisoned on the third underground floor who had been hostile to Heuksangbang.
Among them was Jong Won-ik, the leader of the Salsanghoe, an organization formed by those who had lost their families or had been ruined by Heuksangbang.
Jong Won-ik shed tears as he thanked Seol Pung.
"Thank you! Had it not been for you, daehyeop, I would have ended my days imprisoned by those Heuksangbang bastards, unable to avenge my wife and children! Truly, I thank you! I shall never forget this debt!"
After releasing everyone from the third underground floor, Seol Pung went back up and freed the prisoners on the second and first floors as well.
This was, of course, to free the unjustly imprisoned, but it was also to throw Heuksangbang into chaos.
For amidst all this confusion, Heuksangbang would never be able to determine who had committed these acts.
***
If the orthodox faction bestowed the title of Phoenix upon young female masters who surpassed the peak level in their twenties, the unorthodox faction would bestow the title of Jjak (Magpie) upon young female masters who had surpassed the peak.
Among them, the one called Yeomjak (Magpie of the Netherworld), Hyeolpyeonseosi Ya Un-hyang, was currently in her sixth month of employment with Heuksangbang.
She had not done anything in particular since coming to Heuksangbang.
As was always the case with the employers who hired her, Heuksangbang's leader Go Ju-yong had hired her not so much for her martial prowess, but because he wanted to somehow spend a night with her.
But Ya Un-hyang, though a free-spirited unorthodox woman, was no easy woman.
She never granted a relationship to a man unless he was to her liking.
So there was no way she would permit a relationship with someone like Go Ju-yong, who was little more than an old man.
For now, as she was still affiliated with Heuksangbang, her continued rejection of his advances could have created a difficult situation, but she was not particularly worried.
She always made sure to receive her payment in advance for precisely such contingencies.
If an employer attempted to pull too much nonsense, she simply returned the hiring fee and left without a second thought.
In that respect, Go Ju-yong had not been such a bad employer so far. At the very least, he had never attempted to force anything.
'At least, until now.'
But watching what he had done this time to the Strange Doctor of Life and Death, she had grown utterly disgusted with Go Ju-yong.
To stab a trading partner in the back and take his family hostage — she had clearly realized that he was someone who simply hadn't done anything to her yet, but could very well do so in the future.
Even though she was from the unorthodox faction, she believed there were certain lines of decency one must uphold as a human being, and this was something she could not possibly tolerate.
So she had refused the order to pursue the Strange Doctor and remained at Heuksangbang.
And she had resolved to leave this place.
'I should leave as soon as Go Ju-yong returns.'
Honestly, she had also briefly considered killing Go Ju-yong herself and taking the Strange Doctor's elixir.
But she had decided to restrain herself, not wanting to stoop to the same level as the man who had just been her employer before stabbing him in the back.
Ya Un-hyang was now making her way toward the rear of Heuksangbang.
The reason was that a commotion had erupted at the main gate, and people's attention was focused there.
She had thought that given how few people were already stationed here, the rear would be extremely vulnerable in this state.
Of course, she did not have any particular affection for Heuksangbang such that she would want to prevent an attack.
But as long as she was under contract, she felt a professional obligation to at least provide the value of her pay.
That was when it happened.
"Hm?"
Her ears suddenly caught the brief commotion that had flared up near the Thunder Prison.
It was only for a moment, but that made it all the more suspicious.
So she went to the Thunder Prison, thinking something might be amiss, and found that all the guards who should have been watching the front had vanished.
Something had undoubtedly happened.
Ya Un-hyang briefly considered calling for people, but decided to go in alone — there weren't many people to call anyway, and they were too far away.
Just then, people came surging out of the Thunder Prison.
Their clothes were shabby as if they had undergone hardship — they were unmistakably prisoners.
"Hmm."
She had suspected something might be wrong, but something truly had happened after all.
This was nothing if not troublesome.
She murmured in a languid voice.
"Work is work, after all."
In an instant, the black whip coiled around Ya Un-hyang's slender waist writhed like a living snake, then shot out and struck the ground in front of the Thunder Prison.
Chaah-aaaak!
"Uwaaaaak! Wh-what the?!"
"What is it, what's happening?!"
The prisoners charging forward froze like ice and had no choice but to halt in their tracks.
The mark of the whip that had slammed into the ground was gouged deep, as if a dragon had passed through.
Ya Un-hyang addressed them in a languid voice.
"Everyone stop right there. If you don't move, I won't kill you."
The prisoners' gazes landed on her face, gleaming mysteriously beneath the moonlight.
A face that was dreamlike and enigmatic, a bewitching figure revealed by her form-fitting black martial attire, the black whip writhing and coiling around her body as if alive — among the martial artists of Gangnam, there was no one who did not know her name.
Someone gulped and murmured.
"Hyeolpyeonseosi."
"Hyeolpyeonseosi Ya Un-hyang."
At that, she spoke in her languid voice.
"I'm sorry, but an escape while I'm still under contract is a bit problematic. If you quietly return to your cells, I'll pretend I didn't see anything."
The moment she finished speaking, the black whip coiling around her body lashed the ground again with terrifying force.
Kwaaaaang!
So immense was the impact that smoke was even rising from the deeply gouged whip mark in the earth.
Having demonstrated such overwhelming martial might as if it were nothing, Ya Un-hyang warned in her characteristic languid voice.
"But if you resist, I'll have no choice."
Hyeolpyeonseosi — the Bloody Whip Beauty.
Her face was as beautiful as Xi Shi herself, but her black whip was stained with countless layers of blood, hence the epithet.
In particular, the incident where she had annihilated the leader of Heukgalbang, the ruler of Uiju in Guangxi Province, and all of his subordinate officers in a single night — after they had drugged her and attempted to violate her — remained a legend among female martial artists in the Gangnam region even years later.
Just as the prisoners, fired up to escape, had frozen and become rooted to the spot upon meeting her, a man wearing a black mask slowly stepped forward from among them.
It was Seol Pung.
Ya Un-hyang's eyes gleamed with interest upon seeing him.
"A black-clad masked man? You appear to be the mastermind behind this incident."
With those words, the black whip swirling around her began its dragon-like undulations once more.
It seemed she had immediately recognized that Seol Pung was no easy opponent.
But unlike Ya Un-hyang, whose languid eyes now flashed with competitive spirit, the light in Seol Pung's eyes only grew darker.
It had to be a woman, of all things.
Damn it.