The Hammer's Desperate Hideout
On a hill in the plains stood one ration and two hammers. Beneath the blanket on the bed, the woman’s form bulged unmistakably. Even knowing she was a muscular, veiled woman, the sight still stirred a man’s crotch—such was the immutable fate of the male. The hammer’s expression grew utterly lecherous.
“Hey there, Civil Engineering Fairy. We’ve come all this way, and you’re just going to lie there to greet us?”
The hammer called out, but the woman didn’t stir. He let out a sinister chuckle. “Khh khh, she really doesn’t know a thing about the world and just keeps on sleeping. She wouldn’t even notice if someone carried her off.”
With that, he yanked the blanket away. And then—ta-da. Regrettably, it was only the blanket. And jingle jingle! These were bells.
“What?”
One might call it too basic a trick to fall for, yet in truth it was a trap no one could avoid. How could the Civil Engineering Fairy have known about the Salwolpa’s ambush in advance to prepare? And even if she had known, how could she predict exactly when they would arrive and leave the bed empty?
But before any of that, the instinctive gut feeling unique to those of the sa-pa underworld kicked in.
We’re fucked. Something feels really, really fucked.
It was the exact moment the hammer raised his voice.
“Damn it! Everyone—”
—Aaaagh!
A bloodcurdling scream rang out from beyond the wall. Shadows of people flickered across the south-facing bedroom wall, a lattice of wood covered in paper to form a sliding door.
“Big brother…?”
“It’s a trap. Everyone hide. I don’t know who they are, but when they charge in, hit them all at once and escape in the chaos.”
Despite his dull appearance, the hammer made a swift decision.
The three major sa-pa factions of Gwangju were the Geumjeokbang, the Gwangju Seonbang, and the Salwolpa. Factions ending in “bang” indicated their trade, so the Geumjeokbang were usurers and the Gwangju Seonbang handled shipping and shipbuilding. The Salwolpa, on the other hand, had seized the underworld purely through brute force.
And the hammer was the action captain of that very Salwolpa—the man who had carved his way through the back-alley slaughterhouses to dominate the darkness.
While the sa-pa warriors pressed themselves into corners, weapons gripped tight and breaths held, the sound of shattering rang out.
Clang! Clatter! Something flew through the air and smashed against the paper door. Several pieces punched straight through the paper and shattered inside the room. In an instant, the thick stench of oil flooded the space.
The word “fire attack” flashed through every mind at once. These bastards meant to burn them alive.
The Salwolpa warriors exchanged glances, then stomped the floor in unison and burst outside.
Cheong sharpened her hearing. One seemed to be searching a different room while the other five had rushed into the bedroom together. Leaving the Jin Family members in the yard, she silently melted into the shadows.
Cheong had almost no presence to begin with. Of course, it was still rather lacking for a proper Divine Thief. Not because the Divine Thief’s lessons were insufficient, but because her original nature produced large, bold movements; she simply could not tolerate creeping around furtively.
Even so, the fact that she possessed almost no presence at all was clear proof that the Divine Thief’s training had been effective.
A villa could only be so big. She quickly located the sa-pa thug ransacking the house.
“Fuck, it’s all just trash.”
He flung open every cabinet and drawer, groping inside, but an empty villa naturally held nothing. Yet he refused to give up, focusing with indomitable will on opening every last drawer and cabinet. He never noticed Cheong standing right behind him, hammer raised.
If anyone had witnessed the scene, they would have screamed “Behind you! Behind!”
Cheong, for her part, trailed him cautiously, wondering exactly when he would notice her. Then—jingle jingle…!
At the sound of the bell by her ear, Cheong’s mouth split into a grin so wide it looked ready to tear.
Ding. Unfortunately, time’s up.
“Tsk tsk. How dare you desecrate a shrine. You’ll receive heavenly punishment. No, it’s Cheong’s punishment.”
“Eek!”
The thug spun around in shock, but it was already too late. With a sharp whoosh, the hammerhead cleaved the air. Swung at a slight angle, it slammed down onto the top of the sa-pa thug’s foot.
Crunch! A horrifying sound like meat being tenderized. In the blink of an eye, flesh burst and bones were pulverized—the sensation of crushing something living. Since the hammer had been swung with pure physical strength and no internal energy, the condensed, ecstatic tactile feedback dug straight into her palm.
Haaah.
An involuntary sweet sigh slipped from Cheong’s lips, but a far louder scream swallowed it.
“Aaaagh!”
The hammerhead that had crushed the foot had sunk slightly into the hard wooden floor. One could easily imagine what had become of the flesh caught between.
Cheong looked down at the sa-pa warrior writhing and screaming as if the house itself were collapsing. Within her shadowed, pitch-black eye sockets, an ominous starlight twinkled.
Hmm. Too bad, but this one’s mine. The Jin Family people should get to enjoy themselves too.
Cheong clicked her tongue, then suddenly adopted a desperate expression and dove into immersive acting.
“No! Warrior! Your foot! Your foot!”
“Aaack! Aaaack!”
“Warrior! Snap out of it, come back to your senses!”
“Aaaagh! Ack, ack, ack, ack!”
Cheong slapped the warrior’s cheeks with loud smacks, abusing the vocal cords of a man who could only scream with his mouth wide open. Yet the shock therapy seemed ineffective. Instead, the sa-pa warrior sank deeper into terror, flailing his hands to strike her.
Of course, Cheong’s ignorant body would gladly throw itself at blades if they looked easy. A mere sa-pa underling’s flailing hands were nothing.
She released the completely confused warrior’s collar and pondered how to bring him to his senses. If slapping his cheeks didn’t work, the shock must simply be too weak. Greater shock overcomes greater fear!
The Nuclear Noogie descended on the sa-pa warrior’s head.
Death itself, the destroyer of worlds, violence incarnate—an overwhelming power that could not be resisted.
CRACK!!!
The warrior’s pupils rolled upward as if flipping over, trembling violently, before barely returning to position.
“Huuuurk.”
When the pain was truly unbearable, even screams refused to emerge. It seemed he had finally regained some sense. Cheong squatted in front of him and spoke gently.
“Hey. Can’t you grasp the current situation? You’ve been ambushed. Your right foot has turned into complete jerky. Is this really the time to just scream comfortably? Looking like that, do you think you can beat me? So tell me—what should you do now?”
“S-Spare—”
“Have you ever spared someone who begged you for their life? Even once—”
“I have!”
“Isn’t that answer a little too quick? When? What year, month, and day? Where? Who did you spare and why? Answer. One. Two. Three. Four…”
Cheong folded her fingers one by one like a child playing a game. The sa-pa warrior could not answer.
“See? Begging for your life doesn’t work anymore. So what then? You have to run. Go on. Try to run away.”
“Huh? Huh?”
“I said run. Or are you planning to hop on one foot?”
Cheong bared her white teeth in a grin.
If you slapped someone’s cheek when they already wanted to cry, they would probably think, This is it, now’s the perfect time to cry my heart out, and unleash a full-scale flood of tears.
The Jin Family people wanted to hate.
Their family and relatives who had lived together under one roof had been brutally murdered, yet the enemy had fled. While they nursed that bitter grudge, unable to move forward or back, robbers had shown up to overturn the funeral hall and steal the condolence money. Even a magistrate would bang the gavel and declare, “Those who deserved to be beaten to death were beaten to death, so isn’t this simply a case of natural causes?” and rule it self-defense.
The sa-pa warrior bursting through the paper door suddenly thrust his blade at the figure blocking his path. The sword path split at the tip, extending in two directions. Before such excellent sword energy, the white hand that looked like it belonged to a scholar seemed ready to be sliced apart.
But only for an instant. The sa-pa warrior suddenly felt a soft force lifting him. His body rose without his control, naturally rotating a full circle along a flat back, and then—thud!
Slamming into the floor, the sa-pa warrior looked at his shoulder as searing pain surged through it. After one full rotation, the dislocated joint now displayed a sharp, protruding broken bone. For the first time, it revealed its pale form to its owner.
Hello, Master. I am the bone from the right upper arm. It is most regrettable to greet you while messily dripping marrow like this.
“Aaaagh!”
People had a habit of feeling roughly twice the pain once they confirmed the wound with their own eyes. The horrific agony finally tore a scream from his throat.
The same scene played out all around them. Of course, the refined technique of rotating a shoulder one and a half times in a single strike and pulling the bone outward was only possible for a master of the Jin Family Head’s caliber. The other sa-pa warriors were not injured quite so severely.
Which only made their luck worse. Seeing they didn’t appear too badly hurt, the enraged Jin Family warriors began beating them without mercy.
Aack! Ack! Aaaack! Spare me! Sa!
Screams and desperate pleas filled the night air.
It was around this time that Cheong returned to the yard, dragging a sa-pa warrior behind her. Upon seeing the brutal violence taking place, she pretended to be shocked, flung away the handful of hair she was holding, and leaped into the fray.
“Ah! You started without me! Let me join in!”
And so Cheong joined the beating. She kicked, stomped, slapped with her palms, smashed heads, kicked cheeks hard enough to knock out teeth, stepped on hands, and snapped fingers.
With more Jin Family warriors present, pairing up one-on-one made the whole affair even more enjoyable. Anyone watching would have thought they were not the righteous faction at all, but rather evil spawn of the Blood Sect.
Then Cheong suddenly spoke up.
“Huh? Family Head. We’re missing one. Five definitely went in, but there are only four here?”
“Hmm?”
The Jin Family warriors stopped their fists and all turned to look at the annex—specifically the bedroom now clearly visible beyond the utterly shattered paper door.
The hammer had used his head. When his subordinates burst out, he had quietly slipped under the bed alone.
Sounds reached his ears. Endless screams. The wet thuds of flesh being pounded. Groans cutting off sharply in rhythm. To a sa-pa member, the sounds were all too familiar. He could roughly picture the scene.
Just what kind of bastards are they? Daring to interfere with the Great Salwolmun’s business?
Since the enemy had greater numbers, he would endure for now. But this humiliation would be repaid without fail.
Then one voice in particular dug into his ear. Perhaps because it was a woman’s voice. Or perhaps because, even among women’s voices, it was so beautiful it clung sweetly to the ear.
Family Head, we’re missing one.
The hammer’s heart sank.
It was the Jin Family. The Jin Family bastards!
No matter how toothless the tiger had become, while the collateral line had been wiped out, the direct line had not. Moreover, they had called her “Family Head”? If the Jin Family Head had come out personally, then even if not his big brother but the eldest brother or the Sect Leader himself appeared, he would have no chance in a one-on-one fight.
So the hammer held his breath with everything he had. Going out now meant death. Better to stay hidden like this. Maybe they would think they had missed him and leave without searching further.
Then—tap, tap—footsteps approached.
“Strange. Where could he have run off to?”
“Has he already escaped?”
“Hmm, should we have guarded the back door?”
“We need to pursue immediately. Hurry. It will be troublesome if we miss even one.”
“Yes, Family Head!”
The footsteps hurriedly receded. The hammer felt a brief wave of relief but did not dare let out a sigh.
And then came the greatest dilemma of his life. If he emerged too quickly, he might still be caught. But if he waited too long, they might return.
One quarter-hour felt like a full year.
The surroundings were deathly quiet. It was winter; even the usual insects were silent. The stillness was so complete that the thump of his own heartbeat sounded deafeningly loud.
Time passed. Sweat flowed. Time refused to pass. Sweat dripped drop by drop.
Just how long had it been?
His nerves, stretched to their absolute limit, seemed to elongate time itself.
After what felt like an eternity, the hammer carefully extended his arm and began moving his body that was stuck to the floor.
Scraaape. At the sound of his body dragging across the wood, his heart plummeted. He put strength into his fingertips and toes, lifting himself, exerting every ounce of effort to avoid even the slightest rustle of clothing. Slowly, ever so slowly, he pushed his torso out.
At that exact moment, a voice rang out.
“Hiya. So you’re finally crawling out now?”
Thud!
The hammer tried to leap up, only to slam his back against the bed. The movement was so violent that the bed itself lifted slightly—clunk! Creak!—shaking wildly.
And only then did he meet the gaze of ten pairs of eyes staring straight at him.