That Filthy Beggar Wench's Life (2)
"If we rushed her right now, don't you think we'd win?"
Chunpal, who had been grumbling over the bathwater he was heating on account of the detestable guest who'd turned up unannounced and the boss breathing down everyone's necks, slid the suggestion sideways to his fellow Jin-o as if planting a seed. Jin-o jolted, glanced warily around, and hurried to talk him down.
"What? You crazy bastard, kill who? And you'd jump a woman while she's bathing? Have you no shame at all?"
"Since when do bandits have shame?"
"Huh... good point?"
Watching Jin-o mutter that's right, we're bandits, Chunpal's eyes gleamed and he pressed on.
"That bitch is soaking in piping-hot bathwater, all loose and lazy. You think she could put up a real fight? Just run in quick and, shwick, done. You saw those silver ingots earlier, didn't you?"
His eyes had rolled clean back at the sight of the silver So-yul had filched from her master, and he kept at Jin-o without pause.
"If we're the ones who do it, the boss would hand over at least a tael as our cut, wouldn't he? We do it together and split it. Eh? And even if that woman's martial arts are good, how good can they possibly be, is what I'm saying."
And with that, Jin-o understood.
Ah. This bastard never saw that ghostly display earlier. He was one of the ones who stayed back at the stronghold.
"Tsk tsk. You just don't get it. Forget it, you poor fool. For a second there I thought she was an immortal. One blink she's gone, the next she's standing right in front of me, big as life. My joints went numb. Scared the life out of me."
"Yeah, and? What's that got to do with fighting? Fine. You just stay put then, you coward. I'll do it alone and keep every last ingot for myself. Heh heh."
Chunpal let out a greedy little laugh.
"Hey!... Hey! You bastard, don't. Don't."
Jin-o couldn't raise his voice for fear the terrifying female master bathing inside might hear, and he pleaded desperately—but to a man blinded by silver and lust, not a word of it registered.
"Heh heh... Pin her down first, then have myself a little fun..."
Muttering that filth under his breath, he eased open the creaking bathhouse door and stuck his head in—and there, beyond the steam-clouded air, the woman stood directly before him as though she'd been waiting all along. Chunpal sucked in a breath and yelped.
"Huk—!"
Stripped of a body's worth of crusted sweat and grime, the woman was a beauty so overwhelming it practically blinded him. Her bare form, without a single thread on it, boasted curves so perfect they stopped a man's breath, and her water-glossed face alone would have earned the title of fairest under heaven.
The problem was that she truly did not have a single thread on her.
"Uh..."
That overwhelming beauty, that utterly unadorned naked body, presented square before his eyes—the bandit forgot entirely what he'd come in here to do and went blank as a struck bell. In that instant, So-yul flicked her hand with the air of someone brushing away a fly.
There wasn't even a whisper of cloth. The way a breeze brushes past a falling leaf—one light, careless sweep of her hand, and Chunpal's neck was empty, his head dropping with a thud to roll across the floor. Blood fountained upward like a spring, and not a single muscle of So-yul's face so much as twitched.
She watched the headless body sway for a moment before crumpling to the ground, and her eyes were beyond indifferent—devoid of any flicker of emotion whatsoever.
So-yul had been raised in the Heavenly Demon Cult, a world where blood and slaughter were daily bread, governed by nothing but the law of the strong devouring the weak. What was more, she had once been assigned to an assassination unit and beheaded orthodox sect dignitaries the way other people ate meals. Snuffing out the life of one clueless little bandit was no more remarkable to her than kicking a pebble off the road.
Sinking back into the warm bath, So-yul called out.
"Hey! Out there!"
"Y-yes!!"
Jin-o, who through the gap in the door had just watched his headless comrade crash down in a spray of blood with a heavy thud, answered in a panic.
"Come in and haul this one out. You at least knew your place, so I'll let you live."
"Th-thank you!"
It was obvious the demon of a woman had heard every word of the exchange outside even as she'd doused herself with water. Thanking his own prudence for not having been swept up, even for an instant, by Chunpal's sweet coaxing, Jin-o started toward the bath—then stopped short at the door.
"M-might I come in? You're... you're still bathing, after all..."
"As long as your eyeballs stay put, I don't care."
Jin-o gulped at the icy voice.
"Y-yes! I'll bear it firmly in mind!"
So-yul had said it lightly enough, sunk deep as she was in the steaming tub—but Jin-o, terrified of being suspected for even a moment of casting an irreverent glance, kept his head bowed to his chest, turned his back entirely, and eased himself inside, where he fumblingly hoisted Chunpal's corpse upside down and hurried back out.
It was his desperate, ironclad resolve to escape not even the suspicion that he had rolled his eyes—no, that he had so much as dared think such a thing.
"Ahh~ now that's refreshing."
The layers of ancient grime that had built up on So-yul's body over one full year defied imagination. Which was why it took a dozen-odd bandits a full two sijin—four solid hours—of gasping and sweating to gather firewood, haul bathwater up from a distant stream, and stoke the furnace before her long, long bath finally came to an end.
Her skin, clean clear down to its depths for the first time in ages, left her in high spirits, and she stepped out of the tub dripping wet and utterly naked, calling for someone.
"Hey there. Is anyone out there?"
"Yep! Right here!"
Jin-o—who had just finished dumping his comrade's corpse somewhere out of sight—boomed back like a soldier at rigid attention.
"Then could you bring me some clothes? You don't expect me to walk out there bare as the day I was born, do you? Don't tell me they're still not ready?"
"N-no, my lady! They... they will be!"
Over the thundering clatter of the terrified bandit scrambling away, So-yul slowly toweled the water from her skin with a cloth.
"B-Boss. The clothes came, right? ...Right?"
Jin-o panted, having sprinted all the way back.
"Oh, damn it all. They came, they came! Yeah, the youngest went and got them. Cost a damn fortune, too. That little punk didn't skim the price difference for himself, did he?"
Yang Gu-wol, who for an entire day had been forced to wait hand and foot on a monstrous uninvited guest for the crime of his mouth running loose, was well entitled to dump his pile of grievances on the blameless youngest—but Jin-o was in no mood whatsoever to sympathize.
Who knew whether dawdling with the clothes might cost him his head at the hands of that madwoman inside?
"Yeah, yeah, so hand them over!"
"Watch it! Where do you get off raising your voice at me! She's scary but I'm not, is that it?"
Yang Gu-wol, ignorant of the situation, glared down at him, but Jin-o didn't so much as bat an eyebrow.
"She took Chunpal's head off with her bare hand! No blade, nothing!"
"...What?"
"Give them here! I'd rather like to keep my head attached, thanks!"
With that, Jin-o all but tore the clothes from his boss's hands and bolted back for the bathhouse like a man possessed. Let the boss thrash him later on some trumped-up charge once the woman left—he couldn't have cared less.
At least the boss wouldn't kill him.
"Hah... hah... My... Great Hero. I have brought the garments you commanded. Might I humbly presume to ask whether I may set them here by the door?"
To this question, exaggerated to the point of reverence, So-yul answered simply.
"Leave them at the door and withdraw."
"Yes!"
The word withdraw must have been a blessing beyond measure, for Jin-o vanished like the wind in an instant, as if clutching a rope of salvation. Faintly registering the fading ripple of his presence, So-yul opened the door and dressed.
Except...
"What the—? What in the world are these clothes supposed to be?"
What had been handed over as "clothes" was barely a few scraps of fabric that did little more than pretend to cover her skin. The outer layer, finely woven from crimson silk, was so soft and sheer that the flesh beneath showed straight through. It had no sleeves—just thin cords looped over the shoulders—and was cut to barely contain her chest, an unstable construction that looked ready to slip away entirely with the smallest movement.
The lower garment was an even greater spectacle. A long skirt, at least, spared her legs from view, but the side slits plunged all the way up to the waist, promising a flash of smooth inner thigh with every single step. Worse still, the thin, supple silk clung to bare skin the moment it touched, gliding along every curve of her body in a way that somehow accentuated her figure all the more.
The one mercy was a thin, opaque outer robe worn over it all that preserved some degree of modesty—but with no buttons or sash to close the front, the opening stayed as it was, leaving the deep valley of her chest and the long, sleek line of her legs in plain view.
So-yul, naturally, had no idea what this outlandish garment was. In truth, it was the seduction garb worn by the courtesans of the most exclusive pleasure houses to entice their guests—clothing never designed for ease of movement in the first place, but crafted solely to please the eye and inflame the senses of whoever beheld it.
"Oh, to hell with it. Shi—..."
It displeased her, but she was hardly in a position to gripe about borrowed clothes, so in the end she simply threw the things on.
Moments later, when So-yul stepped outside in her new outfit, Yang Gu-wol's jaw dropped for two reasons.
The first was that, with a full year's worth of grime washed away, the beauty hidden inside that beggarly exterior now blazed so dazzlingly that one could seriously argue she was a beauty to topple kingdoms—the finest under heaven.
The second was that while the garment had lain neatly folded it had looked like nothing more than something rather gaudy, but worn on her body it was so lewd and mortifying a sight that he could hardly bear to keep his eyes open.
Aghast, Yang Gu-wol growled low in his throat.
"Hey, what the fuck! Who the hell bought that shameless outfit? Youngest! Where's the youngest? Get your ass out here!?"
"Right here, Boss!"
Yang Gu-wol thumped the head of the youngest, who materialized with comically unfortunate timing.
"Ow! What was that for!?"
"You... you little bastard. You bring back an outfit only courtesans wear—what am I supposed to do with that? You absolute lunatic..."
"You're the one who told me to buy the most expensive thing the budget allowed..."
"Why, you. You really are..."
Yang Gu-wol, about to continue, caught sight of So-yul walking slowly toward them and swallowed the rest in a hurry. Though she was doing nothing of the sort on purpose, every step she took radiated a devastating, bewitching beauty that seemed designed to melt the heart and soul of anyone watching.
But every last one of them had heard the gruesome tale of Chunpal, who had lost his head to a single careless stroke after daring to attempt an ambush, and so not a soul at this moment dared meet So-yul's eyes.
So-yul came to a stop before Yang Gu-wol, looked down at her own outfit, and frowned slightly.
"Hey, Boss. I think something's a bit off with these clothes? Are women's clothes all like this?"
Had So-yul's mouth instead produced a furious bark—What the hell!? You dare bring me this outrageous courtesan's outfit to make a mockery of me?—Yang Gu-wol had fully intended to drop flat onto the ground on the spot, then pour out a rehearsed stream of excuses like, Oh, forgive us, our stronghold's youngest simply didn't know any better and failed to choose a proper garment for such an honored guest...
But the woman's question was strange. She wasn't angry? For one instant, Yang Gu-wol's mind turned over faster than it had at any point in his life.
The woman knows nothing of the world. She must have been shut away in the middle of some mountains her whole life.