Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Buried Punishment
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Bang! Thud!
The door, which had been quiet, flew open with a force that seemed like it would shatter it, startling awake the Thunder Dragon Squad who had been sleeping soundly.
Geon Cheon-hwi shot to his feet like a bolt of lightning and glared at the shadow barging in as if to demolish the door.
“......Huh.”
Geon Cheon-hwi’s eyes went wide.
In the dim light, the face of the man standing with his back to the door came into view.
It was Namgung Hyeok.
“......Why?”
The Thunder Dragon Squad, who had risen from their beds radiating a menacing aura, flinched.
“Wh-what’s going on?”
“Y-Young master...?”
Groans leaked out from all around.
Namgung Hyeok gave a faint smile.
“Nothing much.”
He casually moved his arm.
Swoooosh....
Clatter! Crash!
Something was dragged out with a racket.
Geon Cheon-hwi looked puzzled at the lump rolling into view, then jumped in shock.
The bloodied faces, foaming at the mouth, were all too familiar.
“Huh?”
What the hell?
Why were those guys in such a state?
Come to think of it, weren’t they the ones who had suggested fleeing earlier that afternoon?
“......N-no way?”
His trembling pupils turned toward Namgung Hyeok’s smiling face.
“Y-Young master. There seems to have been some misunderstanding.”
“Hmm.”
“I don’t know what those bastards did, but I’ll make sure to discipline them thoroughly!”
“Never mind that. Dig a hole over there.”
“Yes? Over there?”
Why dig in the yard all of a sudden?
Ah, aaa....
Geon Cheon-hwi realized something and bellowed at the Thunder Dragon Squad.
“What are you waiting for! The young master said to dig!”
“No, but why in the middle of the night....”
“Shut up and dig!!”
The startled Thunder Dragon Squad scrambled to grab shovel handles and began digging up the yard.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Slash! Slash! Slash!
With over twenty warriors digging, a small pit formed in no time.
“I’ll bury them, young master! These damnable bastards were scheming all afternoon—I knew it! Shameless scum!”
Geon Cheon-hwi seized the three escapees and flung them into the pit.
“Bury everything but their heads!”
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The Thunder Dragon Squad, stealing glances at Namgung Hyeok, hurriedly shoveled in the dirt.
In an instant, the three escapees were buried up to their necks, with only their heads poking out above the ground.
“Ugh, ugh!”
“Kuh!”
“Euuuh.”
The three buried in the earth let out stifled groans.
Thud.
Geon Cheon-hwi jammed his shovel handle into the ground and looked at Namgung Hyeok.
“All buried, young master.”
Namgung Hyeok smirked.
“You lot too.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t play dumb. You went into the water together, so you go into the dirt together.”
“Ah....”
Ah.
So it wasn’t just those bastards.
Geon Cheon-hwi shot Namgung Hyeok a look like a merchant who’d lost his bundle, but Namgung Hyeok merely wiggled his finger.
“Get in. Hurry up.”
“......Yes.”
Fine, no defying until a chance to escape presented itself.
“Haah!”
Geon Cheon-hwi let out a deep sigh of resignation.
* * *
“Ah....”
Geon Cheon-hwi stared blankly up at the sky.
Even in early winter, the sunlight felt piercingly harsh.
From late night until the sun had climbed to midday, he’d been buried and sunbathing—his face felt like it was cooking.
It actually was.
“Hah....”
A lung-emptying sigh escaped his lips.
It was absurd.
Soaked in water yesterday, now soaked in dirt today.
He was speechless at the insane back-and-forth between water and earth.
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
This time, it was because of those three runaway bastards.
Not digging while he slept, but now buried, unable to budge, roasting in the sun.
Veins bulged on his forehead.
“You fucking bastards! Who said to run away! I said don’t run, you shits! Is the leader’s word a joke?! Hey? Hey, answer me!”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Geon Cheon-hwi thrashed wildly, trying to rise, but the flattening job had been too perfect.
All he could manage was to jerk his head back—no other movement possible.
But he wasn’t the only one shaking his head in fury to vent his rage.
“These punks!”
“You’re dead when we get out!”
“Spouting bullshit yesterday and look at us now?!”
“Just you wait. I’ll drown you all when I’m out!”
“The runaway bastards will die and get buried, so don’t even think of coming up when it’s time!”
The Thunder Dragon Squad snarled and barked.
The three runaways merely hung their heads, holding their breath.
After fuming for a while, Geon Cheon-hwi scowled.
People passing by the wide-open front gate were glancing at them.
“Isn’t that the Thunder Dragon Squad?”
“Yeah? It is? What the hell are they doing?”
“Crazy bastards. What’s with burying themselves in the ground?”
“Leave ’em be. Their antics aren’t new.”
“Tsk tsk, what a sight.”
Geon Cheon-hwi ground his teeth at the sound of their clucking tongues.
“Remember those faces.”
The moment he got out of this dirt pit, he’d stomp them all flat.
Things that couldn’t even meet their eyes normally were now yapping away right in front of them, figuring they looked easy while buried.
Humiliation and scorn welled up.
Tak Hyuk-dong couldn’t hold back and growled.
“Show’s over! Get lost!”
The people scattered in panic at the thunderous voice.
“Bunch of nobodies.”
“Don’t waste your strength.”
“What strength? Heh heh, compared to water, this is downright refreshing. Got dragged in unjustly because of those bastards, though.”
It was stifling, sure, but being able to breathe freely made it leagues better than being underwater.
No way he’d suffocate to death like this.
‘Maybe just play along moderately?’
Geon Cheon-hwi pondered deeply.
Namgung Hyeok handled them roughly, bellowing that he didn’t care if they lived or died, but in the end, no one in the Thunder Dragon Squad had died.
Was he getting duped by this extreme method he’d never seen before?
‘Yeah, eventually he’ll get tired, we’ll pass out or whatever, and he’ll pull us out.’
Maybe Namgung Hyeok was simpler than he seemed.
Flatter his ego a bit and do as told—couldn’t they just coast along like before?
Geon Cheon-hwi sneered inwardly at Namgung Hyeok.
‘I’m the one above you.’
This wasn’t true absolute submission; he figured Namgung Hyeok was just clueless about the world.
He could always pay back this humiliation anytime.
And so time passed.
* * *
“Young master...... how long do you plan to leave them like that?”
The thirty heads poking up plumply about fifty paces away evoked the image of ripe watermelons.
Though they looked far from ripe, being all shriveled and dried out.
Geum Cheomsang stole glances at the thirty heads stuck in the ground and asked cautiously.
“They’re still wailing.”
“......Aren’t their tongues hanging out?”
“Look at their eyeballs. The eyeballs.”
“You can see that?”
How could anyone make out eyeballs from fifty paces away?
“Is this really necessary?”
When Geum Cheomsang spoke with pity, Namgung Hyeok snorted.
“If it’s that heartbreaking, you get in.”
“......On second thought, it seems like they still haven’t come to their senses.”
“Exactly. You think this’ll straighten them out? This wouldn’t even catch a single dog.”
“Yes?”
They’d already been beaten enough to tenderize the meat plenty.
Geum Cheomsang nearly blurted it out but swallowed the words.
Namgung Hyeok snickered.
“You’ve got to beat them just right while teaching. Do this, don’t do that. Long road ahead.”
“......So you’re saying we keep beating them.”
“They don’t know fear of people. Biting and growling just gets annoying.”
“......”
Geum Cheomsang shook his head, watching Namgung Hyeok treat the Thunder Dragon Squad like disobedient mutts.
‘......Well, they are dogs, in a way.’
A pack of dog-like personalities was what formed the Thunder Dragon Squad.
Namgung Hyeok glanced at the Thunder Dragon Squad and clucked his tongue.
“Those guys lack venom. You need venom to make them hustle at orders.”
“......They’re fierce enough.”
“Pfft, that? You don’t even know what fierce is.”
No matter how much a cat thrashes, it’s less than a tiger’s yawn.
“Well, you wouldn’t know the Sword King or Iron Pillar.”
Even Shaolin’s Buddha Star, who boasted the pinnacle of virtue in the jianghu, had been called dog bastards’ spawn, spitting curses.
The great figures who’d made me catch and thrash them.
A yapping Thunder Dragon Squad was nothing.
“Yes?”
“Never mind. Talking just tires my mouth.”
Namgung Hyeok clasped his hands behind his back and strolled off.
“Young master, aren’t you going to let them out?”
“Just leave them.”
“......How long?”
Namgung Hyeok paused briefly, pretending to mull it over.
Then tossed out a casual remark.
“That’s up to them.”
“......Yes.”
Better not say more.
Geum Cheomsang thought so and followed behind Namgung Hyeok.
* * *
“Ugh, ugh...... kuh......”
Ragged breaths wheezed faintly through Geon Cheon-hwi’s lips.
His sunken eye sockets slowly shifted, gazing up at the sky.
The blazing sunlight roasted his head, while the cold wind parched his lips.
“Muuu...... waaater.”
Tak Hyuk-dong drooled endlessly, tongue lolling out.
The Thunder Dragon Squad groaned.
“Water......”
“W-water.”
“Water...... give.”
The unbearable thirst was pure hellish torment.
Geon Cheon-hwi barely steadied his spinning head and squeezed out a voice.
His throat scratched like he’d swallowed a handful of sand.
“How...... many days......”
Jang Woong rasped in response.
“F-fourth day...... no piss......”
“Four days......”
At least four days.
The roughly dug pit had them in a squat, so their bodies had long lost sensation, and breathing properly was a struggle.
Cold below, hot above.
Four days with no food, not even a sip of water.
As stamina ebbed, hallucinations appeared and phantom sounds rang in his ears.
Unable to eat or drink, something beyond hunger and thirst gnawed at him.
A true sense of death crisis.
No—certainty that he’d stop breathing any moment wouldn’t be strange.
His body began to tremble faintly.
A terror on another level from the water engulfed him.
Anxiety and dread that he might dry up and wither away right here froze his mind.
‘Why isn’t he pulling us out! We’ve done enough! Is he really planning to kill us?’
Despair flooded Geon Cheon-hwi’s mind.
Was that threat no bluff after all?
This...... this is what......
“Leader...... gonna die. Kuh......”
Tak Hyuk-dong, who’d been twitching, finally foamed at the mouth.
“Snap out of it! Hey, get up! Open your eyes! You sleep, you really die, you bastards!”
Geon Cheon-hwi clenched his teeth and bellowed.
But there were no sane ones left.
Jang Woong had been the least bad off, but after answering earlier, he’d started babbling nonsense.
Geon Cheon-hwi gazed vacantly at the sky.
Suddenly, dark clouds gathered over the clear blue.
His eyes widened at the eerie sight.
How much time passed.
Rumble! Pourrrrrr!!!
Thunder crashed, and rain poured from the heavens.
“Water! Water!”
“Waaaater!”
The Thunder Dragon Squad hoisted their heads with ragged, halting voices.
Then, without regard for each other, they all stuck out their tongues.
Lap!
Pourrrrrr!!!
Lap!
Plop! Plop! Plop!
Geon Cheon-hwi opened his mouth to catch the rain falling from the sky.
Ah, sweet.
Was rainwater always this sweet?
“S-survived.”
It felt like his cracked throat had been unclogged.
Lap! Lap! Lap!
The thrill of returning from death’s door brought tears to Geon Cheon-hwi’s eyes.
“Waaaah, waaaah! Water! Water!”
Tak Hyuk-dong, back from the brink, lapped at the rain.
However.
The brief joy on the Thunder Dragon Squad’s faces turned to even greater despair the next day under the fiercer sunlight and chillier air.
The water that had seeped into the soil plummeted the temperature, blanching their faces in an instant.
Tak Hyuk-dong’s head already hung limp, and Jang Woong bubbled furiously.
It was then, as Geon Cheon-hwi sank into despair.
Namgung Jangcheon passed by outside the front gate.
‘F-Family Head!’
Hope flickered across his face.
Squeezing out his last strength, he cried out.
“F-Family Heeeeaaad!!”
His desperate plea for rescue halted Namgung Jangcheon’s steps.
Namgung Jangcheon turned his head.
“Hm?”
Relief flashed across Geon Cheon-hwi’s face.
‘S-saved.’