Chapter 16
"Thank you for helping me!"
"Mm."
Geom Mujin, who had somehow ended up as the Joseon boy’s benefactor, gave a solemn nod.
"Then I, Park Seongchul, will give my thanks to you in the proper way!"
Before anyone could stop him, the Joseon boy—Park Seongchul—smashed his head straight into the bare ground.
Thud.
"No, what the hell are you doing?"
Geom Mujin stared at Park Seongchul, blood streaming down from his forehead, as if he were looking at a complete lunatic.
Who the hell was this kid trying to extort?
"Huh? Where I’m from, everyone thanks people like this."
Park Seongchul tilted his head, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.
"And where exactly is your hometown?"
What kind of deranged place was that?
"Busan."
"Ah."
- Ma! You want to die?
- Ma! Ma! You got a problem?
- Ma! What are you supposed to be?
Busan, the city of maniacs.
So its terrifying reputation was still alive and well in this age, huh.
"From the way you talk, you don’t seem to be from Busan, Haem. May I ask where your hometown is?"
"Me? I’m from Seoul, Dobong District..."
"Seoul?"
I nearly blurted out my modern address without thinking.
"I mean, I came from around Hanyang."
"Ah, Hanyang! I knew it, somehow you seemed different from the other Joseon people. So that must be why!"
Being asked about my hometown caught me off guard.
No one had ever asked me something like that before.
To the Chinese barbarians of the Central Plains, the hometown of a black-haired man wasn’t important.
Black hair only split the world into two categories.
Men on horseback and men not on horseback.
The ones on horseback were barbarian savages, and the ones not on horseback were just barbarians.
"But earlier, you were incredible, Haem! You turned one of the Jang bastards into a complete mess. How did you even do that?"
Park Seongchul’s eyes sparkled.
He still couldn’t forget the miraculous reversal of toes and heels.
"You know those guys?"
"Yes! They’re a pack of lowlifes causing trouble for the Joseon people here in Gangneung. They’re the kind of scum you don’t want to befriend or even get near, so people call them the Chinpira—the Avoid-Em Gang."
According to Park Seongchul, the Chinpira bastards actually knew a bit of martial arts.
They weren’t real warriors, not by a long shot, but that was still enough to threaten ordinary commoners.
On top of that, they were in a foreign land, with nowhere to go for help, so the Joseon people had no choice but to endure their abuse in silence.
In this primitive age of savages, what, exactly, would they have? An embassy?
They could only grit their teeth and survive.
"Anyway, you’re clearly no ordinary man, Haem. I figured you must be here to take the Taeho Sect’s entrance exam too."
"Entrance exam? Me? For what?"
"You weren’t?"
Geom Mujin and Park Seongchul both raised imaginary hooks over their heads at the same time.
"This is just a labor recruitment test. What the hell are you talking about?"
And it wasn’t even a regular job—just contract work.
"You didn’t know? The Taeho Sect often recruits disciples this way."
According to him, they selected not only people who were good workers, but those who did something worthy of great merit.
"That’s why those Chinpira bastards tried to mess with me earlier."
So that was why they’d gone that far over a labor opening.
For them, this wasn’t just hiring. It was a gate into the sect.
They could simply accept disciples in the normal way, like any other sect, so why use a method like this?
I thought I understood.
After all, was there really anyone who entered a demonic sect with a clean heart?
You went to a demonic sect precisely to examine the black greed clogging your own soul.
Could an organization full of people like that really run smoothly?
For an organization to function, you need passionate suckers who’ll keep working without even realizing they’re being taken for one.
In that sense, people who had done meritorious deeds were exactly the kind of talent such places wanted.
There’s nothing easier to exploit than someone who gives everything to an organization that’s never done a damn thing for them.
Even if such people became disappointed in the organization later, they could never quite leave.
Every time they tried, the hardships they’d endured to get in in the first place grabbed them by the ankle.
They couldn’t shake the feeling that quitting would just mean taking a loss.
The reason Geom Mujin understood that kind of psychology so well absolutely had nothing to do with personal experience.
It had nothing at all to do with the fact that he’d once worked overtime without proper pay, been called in on weekends and even at dawn, and still couldn’t bring himself to hand in his resignation before his soul transmigrated into a martial world.
Long-buried memories from deep inside him began to stir.
Ugh... Get out of my head!
"I’ll definitely make a name for myself in this Beast Hunt and get into the Taeho Sect. Then I’ll be able to let my mother live in comfort."
Just as Geom Mujin was being eroded by memories darker than the abyss, he barely managed to pull himself back together.
Park Seongchul spoke with a determined face.
"....."
It was the kind of heartwarming display you’d expect from a filial son determined to give his poor mother a better life, but Geom Mujin’s expression remained lukewarm.
He was acting like he was declaring some grand ambition, but really...
He just wants to become a thug.
The Taeho Sect was a demonic sect, in other words, a gang.
Its main business—collecting rent on turf that wasn’t even theirs, extorting protection money they didn’t actually provide, and running loan-sharking scams—was nothing but illegal activity.
Honestly, the righteous sects weren’t all that different, but at least they had the title of orthodox sects and Buddhist-style front-facing decorum, so they were comparatively softer around the edges.
"Still, wouldn’t it be better to join an orthodox sect than a demonic one? I mean, there’s even Cheonmu Academy, right?"
I spoke casually to the seedling of future criminality.
"Cheonmu Academy? Unless you’re from one of the prestigious righteous sects or the Five Great Clans—actually, no, even before that, they wouldn’t even glance at Joseon people like us."
Park Seongchul let out a dry, cynical laugh.
"...Fair enough."
As part of the post-Devil-Martial War recovery efforts, they were supposed to discover hidden talents buried in the wild and train them.
That was the purpose behind the academy’s founding, and yet ironically, Cheonmu Academy was a place that was hard to enter unless you had powerful backing.
That was because most of the academy’s leadership came from the Nine Great Schools and the Five Great Clans.
It wasn’t impossible for people from smaller sects to get in, but if you had black hair, the hurdle became even higher.
It was like trying to force an elephant through the eye of a needle.
Of course, if you had a talent so absurd it could chew through your entire background, that was another story.
I appraised the boy’s bones and sinews.
"And I’m already too late to learn orthodox martial arts."
Even when people entered as children, mastering orthodox techniques was no easy feat.
What if a full-grown adult tried to learn them?
Based on Park Seongchul’s build, as far as I could tell...
It’d be a miracle if he reached second-rate status before he died.
Unless he learned some demonic techniques, there was no way he’d make a proper martial artist.
And even that “proper martial artist” role would probably amount to little more than a blade-warm body.
"What did you just say?"
"...Nothing."
"......"
A weird tension hung between us.
In fact, I’d already realized some time ago that the boy was secretly expecting something from me.
He wants me to teach him martial arts.
He’d been looking at me like I was a hidden expert all this time, so it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out.
But I had no intention of teaching anyone.
I’d played the role of a miracle vending machine for the protagonist and Moyong Yehwa, but that had been a special exception among special exceptions.
"Still, think twice about trying to earn merit in this hunt and join the Taeho Sect. It’s not something you can handle."
Instead, I gave him a warning.
"Huh? But I..."
"I’m saying this because you’re not doing it for blind ambition or a hunger for status alone."
Because what the Taeho Sect needed this time wasn’t workers, and it wasn’t even prospective disciples.
"Well then, I’ll be off."
Geom Mujin left behind those meaningful words and turned away—
"Haem!"
—or tried to, but Park Seongchul called him back.
"Haem! Haem! Haemhaem!!"
He tried to ignore it and keep walking, but the boy kept shouting after him like a dog whose chew toy had been stolen, so he stopped in place.
"...What now? What is it this time?"
"What should I do with this guy?"
Park Seongchul asked, pointing at the orange-haired man still foaming at the mouth and collapsed on the ground.
"....Just toss him by the roadside or something."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
After noon, at the hour of the monkey.
"Then I’ll begin the second test!"
We gathered in a different place from the first test.
"As I said beforehand, the second test is a test of endurance!"
The examiner cleared his throat.
"Once the Beast Hunt begins, the situation will change every moment. What you’ll need then is endurance—the ability to keep pace without falling behind no matter what happens!"
To lag behind on a hunt where beasts were running wild meant death.
Thunk. Thunk.
The Taeho Sect disciples set down boxes in front of the examinees.
"Each one contains handcuffs and shackles with ten-kilogram iron weights attached. Put one on each limb."
At the examiner’s order, we fastened the cuffs and shackles to our arms and legs.
Clack. Clank.
Iron weights the size of a baby’s head hung down from chains.
"Ugh...!"
"So heavy..."
The examinees flinched at the weight pulling on their limbs.
It was clearly lighter than the iron masses we’d carried in the previous test, but for some reason this felt heavier.
Pathetically light.
Of course, that didn’t apply to Geom Mujin.
"For this test, we’ve opened one of the sect’s special training grounds, so count yourselves honored!"
The examiner puffed himself up proudly.
"You’ll run through this training ground until the sand in that hourglass runs out. The ones who remain standing until the end will pass."
When he finished explaining, he pointed toward the training ground.
As its name suggested, the Taeho Sect’s special training ground was indeed special.
There were obstacles everywhere: tree-climbing, tightrope walking, climbing a seventy-degree incline, crawling through mud trenches, and more.
"...Why does everything here look like it belongs in the military?"
"Do sects even do stuff like this these days?"
The contestants murmured among themselves at the sight of those bizarrely un-Murim obstacles.
"These obstacles will build your ability to respond to sudden situations during a Beast Hunt!"
This is basically a field exercise... Ugh...! My head...!
With the examiner’s explanation, my head started pounding almost immediately.
Rattle. Rattle.
The seal in my mind shook.
I didn’t know why so many people were poking at my seals today.
"We’ll be starting now, so take your positions at the starting line."
Holding my throbbing frontal lobe in place, I walked toward the starting line.
Huh?
As I took my place, I spotted a familiar face.
It was the Chinpira gang—the same bastards who’d tried to force Park Seongchul out, only to lose one of their own instead.
I’d thought they’d run off and given up, but apparently not.
...So they decided to keep going after all.
And on the other side, I saw Park Seongchul too.
He’d still joined the exam despite my warning, and I shook my head at him.
It was ridiculous to think a guy you’d just met today could tell you what to do and not do.
If he’d chosen to participate, then whatever came afterward was his burden to bear.
"Ready..."
As the examiner raised a flag to signal readiness, everyone dropped into a running stance.
In that moment, when my concentration was so sharp I could hear the breathing of the people beside me as well as my own,
"Start!!"
he gave the signal.
Clatter-clatter! Clatter-clatter-clatter! Clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter!
As the contestants burst forward, clouds of dust rose with the clanging of iron weights and chains dancing in the air.
No one immediately shot ahead in a blazing sprint.
In a test of endurance like this, speed mattered far less than pacing your strength.
Control your power, control your speed, control your power, control your speed.
I repeated those two things to myself as I ran.
This kind of course would’ve been over in ten seconds flat, like eating chilled cream soup, but this was not the time for that.
Then, as he was running somewhere in the middle of the pack, someone approached him.
It was none other than the Chinpira gang.
The Chinpira bastards had quietly closed the distance and taken positions all around Geom Mujin.
We have to kill him here.
If word gets out that we got taken down by some barbarian, our reputation will hit rock bottom.
We’ll get our chance when he’s wearing those iron weights.
He caught us off guard earlier with his sorcery, but not now.
Two of the Chinpira slipped out to the sides, cleverly blocking the examiner’s line of sight.
Meanwhile, the other two moved behind Geom Mujin.
He didn’t notice over the clatter of the chains.
Small daggers emerged from their sleeves.
With these blades, they’d stab and kill the barbarian bastard.
Through long years of thug life, they knew exactly where to stab so that an enemy would die without even managing a scream.
They could just crush the wound afterward with one of the iron weights and be done with it.
It seemed crude, but in the Central Plains, the death of a barbarian rarely drew much attention in the first place.
And just as they were about to drive the daggers in—
"What are you doing? You’ll miss the sunset at this rate."
"What the—!?"
Geom Mujin’s head suddenly whipped around.
He’d figured out the Chinpira’s intentions ages ago.
People like them were easy to read just from the way their eyes rolled around.
"Damn it!"
For a split second they panicked and tried to thrust the knives forward, but their hands met empty air.
"Huh?"
"Looking for this?"
The daggers were in Geom Mujin’s hand.
"You idiots."
Trying to kill the Great Swordmaster with a dagger? That was a whole new level of stupidity.
The right arm holding the dagger moved.
Flash—!
A tiny, blurred streak of sword light flickered, and the Chinpira’s bodies tilted sideways.
"Huh?"
"Why are we suddenly—"
The blade had been so subtle they didn’t even realize it had sliced through their Achilles tendons, like a casual hello.
With one man at the front collapsing, the others followed in a chain reaction.
"Aaagh!"
"M-move!"
The Chinpira groaned and cried out, but by then it was too late.
The iron weights that had been hanging in the air for a brief moment when their owners fell had already started swinging back toward them.
Crunch—! Crack, crack—!!
"Kuhek!"
"S-save... me... urgh!"
A few of the Chinpira who got their heads smashed by the iron weights at the worst possible angle had their skulls caved in.
"Honestly, I told you to take your friend and go home. Since people have collapsed here, could you please clean this up?"
Geom Mujin tucked the daggers into his robes and began running again with brisk little steps.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"We’re off!"
The middle-aged man raised a massive dao and shouted with bravado.
Three days after the labor recruitment test ended.
The Beast Hunt had begun.