Chapter 52
"Girl, I came all the way over mountains and across rivers just to meet the craftsman, you know?"
As if mountains and rivers were all she’d crossed.
She’d crossed corpses and pools of blood, too.
"I even brought the letters the craftsman sent me."
Dang Yulin took several envelopes from inside her robes.
"W-wait, that’s—"
O Naho was sweating buckets, already edging toward a chance to flee when—
Thwip-thwip-thwip!
"Guh!?"
The envelopes slammed into the ground right at O Naho’s feet.
They said a master who’d fully mastered hidden weapons could pierce iron plate with a leaf, and Dang Yulin wasn’t quite at that level yet, but soft earth was absolutely no problem.
"Where do you think you’re going? You startled me, so my hand slipped before I even noticed."
Dang Yulin was smiling, but there wasn’t a trace of amusement in her eyes as she advanced inch by inch.
"I’ve come all this way through every hardship imaginable, and the craftsman keeps lying and trying to run away—do you think I won’t lose my temper?"
Her anger spread the way the distance between them was shrinking.
"What? A woodcutter? That’s absurd."
Dang Yulin snorted.
This sly old bastard. The more she looked, the more ridiculous he was.
She’d known at first glance that he was Lia-rudol.
They weren’t exactly acquainted, but even so—his appearance was off.
What kind of woodcutter doesn’t carry an axe?
That was like a swordsman leaving his sword at home, or a member of the Tang Clan forgetting his poisons and hidden weapons.
Well, you could argue that a woodcutter wasn’t a martial artist and might forget his axe now and then, but still.
Come on—did he think the mountains of old China were a joke?
You confident about that?
Unlike the feeble mountains of the modern age, the mountains of the Ming era were practically an inhuman wasteland.
There were wild beasts, bandits, and if you were really unlucky, even Goema could appear.
In that sense, an axe was the bare minimum for self-defense. Coming empty-handed?
Unless he was a master hiding his strength, it was highly likely he was just a lunatic.
And O Naho—neither a hidden master nor a lunatic, just an old man caught in a scam—swallowed hard.
"...Gulp."
This was like running from a wolf and running straight into a tiger.
The masked men, at least, hadn’t tried to kill him in a particularly painful way, but this young lady was different.
"So the commission I asked for is finished, right? It has to be, doesn’t it?"
"C-cough..! W-well, you see..."
Crack—crack-crack.
Dang Yulin flexed her tiny, potato-sized fists and asked,
"If not, my fists may well howl with rage."
Her potato fists sliced through the air.
Whoosh. Swish-swish.
That wasn’t the sound of her mouth. She hadn’t exactly learned any proper boxing technique, but at O Naho’s level, if she put even a little inner power into one punch to the pit of the stomach, he’d go down cold on the spot.
Facing nothing but a dead end, what was O Naho supposed to do now?
"S-sorry!"
He dropped to his knees at once.
What else was there to do in a situation like this?
He had to beg, that’s what.
He was sixty-five years old.
Old enough to hate getting hit with a passion.
And over the past month, beating had become especially terrifying to him.
"The truth is, there were circumstances here deeper than the sky and the sea! Please, just give me a chance to explain."
In a Confucian society, an elder kneeling and apologizing to a young lady young enough to be his granddaughter was the sort of thing that would make scholars tear their own hair out.
Which, for a man, was no small matter.
Most people would have softened and forgiven him.
"Nope. I’m not curious about any of that."
Dang Yulin was not most people.
As a member of the Sichuan Tang Clan, she possessed a poison-trained mind to match her poison-trained body.
And his circumstances?
After everything she’d seen and heard on the way here, it wasn’t as if she couldn’t guess he’d been imprisoned or something.
What did that have to do with her?
Justice, evil, and everything in between.
Sure, the details differed a little, but the Murim world was fundamentally built on the spirit of not my problem.
"The family motto of our Sichuan Tang Clan is: repay kindness twice over, revenge tenfold."
"S-Sichuan Tang Clan!?"
When O Naho went white at the name, Dang Yulin drew a slender needle from her sleeve.
"You’re overdue on one commission, so in return, I’ll need you to take on ten more."
"W-what!?"
That was the same as escaping with your life only to have the chain’s owner change hands.
"Don’t worry. You’ll be fed on time. Pancakes or hotcakes—which do you prefer?"
"P-pancakes...?"
The moment his meals for the foreseeable future were decided.
He was about to be forced to raise something again for the first time in almost ten years, not since he’d taken in and kept that poison frog as a child.
He’d even named it Gero Gero and raised it with such care.
I harvested the poison sac from inside its body and put it to good use.
What a nostalgia trip. Truly.
"H-hey, young lady! Let’s not do this—let’s talk it out instead!"
O Naho tried desperately to calm Dang Yulin, but it was useless.
"Yup-yup~ Just stay still. If the paralyzing needles are taken gently, they don’t hurt."
"Aaaargh!"
Just as O Naho was about to become Gero Gero No. 2—
"...!"
Dang Yulin’s body jerked.
She sensed a fierce qi somewhere nearby.
"...What is that?"
She tried to sharpen her senses to pinpoint the source, but there was no need.
BOOOOM!
With a thunderous blast, two figures came toward Dang Yulin.
One was a huge middle-aged man who looked like a bear, and the other was...
"Hayoung..?"
Her eyes widened.
* * *
Thrown back by the explosion and the wave of qi, Hayoung landed lightly with her footwork.
"Hayoung!"
At the sight, Dang Yulin abandoned O Naho without a second thought and ran to her.
"What happened?!"
For the first time, Dang Yulin’s voice trembled, losing all its usual composure and confidence.
And no wonder—Hayoung’s Meydu outfit was torn in several places, revealing the wounds beneath.
"My apologies, young miss."
Wiping the blood that ran down her forehead, Hayoung apologized.
Unlike her rattled mistress, her voice was so even it was hard to believe she was injured at all.
"I did my utmost to keep from becoming a burden to Miss Dang Yulin, but he broke through after all."
"Broke through? Who on earth—"
Before she could finish, Hayoung moved the whip in her hand.
Whip—swish! Sseeeaak!
Golden Flood Dragon Whip Arts
Tail-Whip Piercing Strike
The whip, with a sharp iron needle at its tip, flew toward the enemy’s body to pierce straight through him.
"I told you. It won’t work."
The iron needle at the end of the whip was caught in a brutal fist.
Grrrk—!
As strength surged through that grip, Hayoung’s whip was not merely bent but snapped apart.
To crush a leather whip that was both tough and flexible like that—what monstrous grip strength.
Thud. Thud.
With heavy steps, the attacker revealed himself.
"So, you must be that woman’s master."
Shaking off the shattered fragments of the iron tip, Bang Dupil’s eyes gleamed.
In truth, Hayoung had wanted to lure him in the opposite direction, away from here.
But the man had somehow sensed Dang Yulin’s presence through his qi and come straight here instead.
Hayoung had latched onto Bang Dupil to keep him from reaching Dang Yulin, but it had been a losing battle.
"Hmph. I don’t know where you’re from, but you’ve got plenty of confidence to leave a member of the Tang Clan looking like this."
Dang Yulin tilted her chin, invoking the name of her clan.
The killing intent rolling off the other man was thick enough to sting.
Still, not using the clan’s name in a moment like this would be insane.
The clan might be all about abusing its privilege, but it didn’t mean you’re on your own, go die.
"The Tang Clan, huh... no wonder my underlings were poisoned to death."
Bang Dupil stroked his chin for a moment, then growled.
"You poison-peddling bastards. You should’ve stayed holed up in Sichuan instead of crawling out here to interfere with my plans."
"You’re really not in a position to complain about people being forcibly detained, but wow, that’s unfortunate... you know."
Dang Yulin, looking annoyed, flicked the needle from her hand.
From the earlier conversation, she’d confirmed that he had no intention of ending this peacefully.
In that case, there was only one answer left!
First rule of Murim.
Strike first, strike hardest!
If that needle was coated with paralytic poison, this guy would be done on the spot.
"Ha! That’s pure Tang Clan for you."
Bang Dupil twisted aside, dodging the flying needle.
Despite his appearance, he was surprisingly agile.
"I’m glad I came in person and checked after all."
Over the past month of undergoing the Blood-Cleansing Great Method, Bang Dupil had come to a realization.
Why had he lost his son?
Of course the root cause lay with the demonic bastards who killed him—but was that really all there was to it?
Before that, it had been him who had put his son in harm’s way.
His son had gone in his place to a job that should have been handled by him, and come back as a corpse.
I’ll confirm everything myself until the plan is complete!
That was why he was here after finally finishing the great method.
He’d been told the eagle replica was nearly complete, but he needed to see it with his own eyes before he could rest easy.
And, sure enough—
As expected, when he came to check, all the underlings he’d stationed here had been killed by some Tang Clan girl.
If he hadn’t come, the whole thing might have collapsed again.
Black hair had stirred up chaos, and now the Tang Clan girl was about to bleed for it. Heh.
"Seems the Sichuan Tang Clan looked like sharks to you!"
"I’m not afraid of anything anymore!"
If it had been before, he would have backed down at the Tang Clan’s name, but not now.
With inner power amplifying his physical strength, Bang Dupil charged like a predator hunting prey.
"Get out of the way!"
"Die!!"
As Dang Yulin and Hayoung retreated, the fist came crashing down where they had stood.
BOOM!
From the dust thrown up by the impact, throwing knives flew out.
"Hup!"
Bang Dupil swept a hand through the air, and a fierce gust scattered the knives.
Hayoung, having discarded the broken whip, hurled hidden weapons as well, but the wind pressure blocked them too.
It was a matter of matchups.
The Tang Clan’s martial arts were fundamentally built around ambush.
If the first strike failed, it had to become a long fight of hit-and-run tactics—and that was terrible against an opponent who charged straight in without hesitation.
Chasing-Soul Flying Serpent Knives
Twisting Snake—
"You slippery bitch!"
Snatch!
"Kyah..!"
Dang Yulin, who had stepped back to create distance and throw her knives, was caught in Bang Dupil’s grip.
"Young miss!"
Hayoung rushed in, drawing a knife from the strap around her thigh.
Bang Dupil tried to subdue Hayoung with his free hand, but then a thick iron needle came flying in.
Whoosh!
"Tch!"
He coated his palm with qi and blocked the needle aimed at his head by a hair’s breadth.
Slash—!
Seizing the opening, Hayoung lunged in and swung her knife.
She failed to cut his wrist clean off, but she made him lose his strength just enough for Dang Yulin to slip from his grasp.
"Cough! Cough..."
She’d barely escaped, but Dang Yulin still didn’t put distance between them.
There’s no chance with hidden weapons alone!
She had to use another method.
Poison close in, hidden weapons from afar.
She pulled out a small vial from inside her robes.
Rumble—!
At her gesture, the poison within the vial was drawn out, gathering in the air.
The secret art of the Sichuan Tang Clan, the clan that commanded poison: poison qi control.
"Eat this!"
The Janghong Poison she’d brought just in case was unleashed.
BOOM!
Poison qi engulfed Bang Dupil.
It wasn’t an instant-kill poison, but poison was poison—taking a full blast of it like this couldn’t leave you untouched.
The more he moves, the deeper the poison will dig into his insides—
"Get away!"
"What—aaagh!?"
While Dang Yulin was still puzzling over Hayoung’s shout, a hand burst through the poison and seized her head.
"What the—!"
"Bad luck. You had to run into me now of all times."
The Blood-Cleansing Great Method had brought an unexpected change to Bang Dupil’s body.
One of them was resistance to drugs and medicine.
It wasn’t full immunity to all poisons, but he could endure something like Janghong Poison.
"Young miss!"
"Kraaaagh!"
Bang Dupil raised the arm gripping Dang Yulin.
"W-wait—hold on!"
Sensing something dreadful, Dang Yulin tried to stop him, but there was no reason for him to listen.
The instant Hayoung closed the distance, his arm moved.
BOOM! BANG-BANG!
Bang Dupil used Dang Yulin as a weapon—something poisonous—and smashed Hayoung over and over with her.
"......"
"......"
How many times had he swung her around like that?
When the attacks finally stopped, the two women collapsed in a limp heap.
"The Tang Clan is weak."
* * *
Right after Hayoung was beaten with a newly invented method of assault, Dang Seorin was heading down the mountain with a bamboo tube in her hands.
"Huu..! Haht...! Sis... Hayoung..."
She’d provided cover with her hidden weapon, the Bamboo Tube Drill, during the fight, but the enemy had been stronger than expected.
She wasn’t running off like this because she wanted to save herself alone.
Just before Dang Yulin became a weapon in Bang Dupil’s hand, she had sent Dang Seorin a telepathic message from within the forest.
Get out of here and go get help!
Following that order, Dang Seorin had immediately turned and run.
Because of her body type, the more she ran, the more her chest hurt, but her life and Hayoung’s depended on her now.
B-but who am I supposed to ask for help...?
I can’t go to the clan—it’s too far...
Should I go to the academy..?
No, even if I do, will I really be able to speak properly to people I’m not even close to...
And yet, for some reason...
Now that she’d been told to seek help,
the person she’d met at lunchtime kept coming to mind—
Thud!
Dang Seorin tripped and fell because of the thing in front of her that kept swaying and blocking her view.
"Uwaah!? Aahh!!"
Bump-thump-roll!
It looked like saving the two of them might be pretty hard.
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