Chapter 58
"Do you want to get out of here?"
"Huh?"
Dang Yulin’s eyes went wide when she saw the face of the person who appeared across from her.
It was the sculptor O Naho.
"No, why are you coming out from over there, old man?"
"If you wish to leave, then this old man can—"
"Ah, so they caught you too, huh."
"Give this old man that wire—"
"Mm? But leaving us aside, what on earth did they catch you for, sir?"
"Just give me the wire for a moment—"
"I think they probably dragged him in to keep him quiet, miss."
"Oh, so that’s it?"
"S-t-o-p! Stop cutting me off mid-sentence!"
At the Dang pair’s habit of slicing his sentences to ribbons, O Naho let out a low shout.
There are two ways to make a person angry in this world.
The first is to stop speaking halfway through, and the second is to speak and then get cut off in the middl—
"Ah! You startled me. Why are you shouting all of a sudden?"
"Aaaargh! Goddammit!"
Now even his inner monologue had been interrupted, and he went into a fit while calling for his father in heaven.
Only after that brief seizure did O Naho finally manage to steady himself.
"Haa... Fine. As you said, Lady Dang knocked out the blue-haired lady beside you with her full-body martial arts, and I was dragged in along with her."
Full-body martial arts.
In other words, what had become a splendid weapon in Bang Dupil’s hands—physical, with poison attribute.
"I-I told you to be quiet..!"
This wasn’t just defeat; it was the first defeat of a type she had ever experienced, and Dang Yulin bristled at once.
"I only lost because I let my guard down. If I’d gone all out, I would’ve won."
That wasn’t bravado. If she really had gone all out, the result might have been different.
"Then why didn’t you?"
"...Hmph, because I had my reasons, all right?"
"......"
Dang Yulin jerked her head away and clamped her mouth shut, while Hayoung watched her in silence.
"No, that’s not what matters right now. Blue-haired lady, could you give me that wire?"
"The wire?"
"Yes. It seems to have been difficult from the start, so let this old man try."
"You, old man?"
Hayoung’s expression turned faintly odd.
"We don’t have time to waste. They have no intention of letting us live."
Unlike the two who had been brought here unconscious in the boat, O Naho had been hauled in on his own feet without resistance.
No matter how little of a threat he might have been, it was strange that they hadn’t even knocked him out.
"I don’t know what business they have here, but once it’s done, they’re probably planning to wipe us out and bury the evidence."
All three of them looked in the same direction.
There were as many barrels there as there were people in the room.
They might contain drinking water or liquor—or they might be empty, waiting to be filled.
Far away in the western lands, they apparently called this the cat of something or other.
"If I hand it over from my side, the distance is too great, miss."
Hayoung had zero intention of becoming a cat of something or other—some quantum mechanics theory centuries ahead of its time—and immediately flicked her fingers.
Dang Yulin caught the wire as it flew over from the side.
"Old man, are you confident?"
"Have you forgotten who I am? I’m the greatest sculptor in Hubei Province."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I’ll turn this wire into the shape of a key."
A shiver ran through them.
"!!"
"....?!"
At that moment, the hair on Dang Yulin and Hayoung’s entire bodies stood on end.
"...Hayoung."
"Yes, I felt it too."
The two of them turned toward the warehouse door.
Just now, they had sensed an unfamiliar energy from outside.
...There!
...Don’t let... him... get away!
Before long, harsh voices rose through the crack in the door.
From time to time, they could even hear weapons clashing.
Something was going very wrong out there.
"Hey! Hurry!"
O Naho, who couldn’t sense energy but could hear just fine, urged them on.
"All right. I’m sending it now, so hurry—"
Click-!
Just as she was about to flick the wire toward O Naho, they heard the sound of a lock being opened at the warehouse door.
Could they already be moving in to wipe them out?!
As the three of them each felt a sense of disaster looming—
"A-are you all safe...?"
A voice so drained of energy it made even the listener tired drifted to their ears from the masked figure.
That voice sounded oddly familiar.
The person who opened the door and came inside was the last person they expected.
"...Seorin?"
"I-I came to rescue you..."
When the masked figure removed her mask, a familiar face appeared beneath it.
"Seorin! I knew I could count on you!"
Dang Seorin quietly tossed the wire she was holding onto the floor.
* * *
About half an hour before Dang Seorin descended into the warehouse.
Once the escorts boarded the merchant ship, the chief escort, Ma Soong, gave the order to set sail.
"Raise the sails. We’re departing."
"Yes, sir!"
Flap—! Whooosh—!
The merchant ship spread its sails and surged forward with the wind and current.
Leaving the northern docks of Wuhan, the vessel soon slipped into the Han River, the Yangtze’s largest tributary.
Great Expert... what are we supposed to do?
Dang Seorin, who had been assigned to keep watch near the stern with me in advance, had gone pale.
It was understandable. The ship we were on had already moved quite a distance from Wuhan’s pier.
In other words, we were floating right in the middle of the river.
At this rate, even if I rescue Big Sister and Hayoung...
With water on all sides, there was nowhere to run.
A textbook problem for low-level scrubs.
That part’s nothing to worry about.
Huh?
I’ve got plenty of ways to get us all out.
Someone of my level wasn’t the type to be bound by terrain.
The river? Please. If I used Light Step Across Water, crossing the river would be easy.
Though it’d burn a disgusting amount of manpower.
If all else failed, I could even fly on a flying sword.
And right now, that’s not what we should be worrying about.
...Yes.
Dang Seorin swallowed hard.
After interrogating the escort guards and learning their purpose, she had grown tense on her own.
Baekmun Express hadn’t put this ship out on the water for some innocent midnight cruise.
The atmosphere was far too murderous for that.
There was nothing strange about a merchant guild taking a ship out on the river.
Then and now, water transport was more useful than land transport in many ways when moving goods.
It was easier to move large shipments, and the odds of running into bandits were lower than on land.
What about river pirates, you say?
Of course they existed, but surprisingly, there weren’t that many of them.
If bandits were normal-grade monsters, then river pirates were more like rare-elite monsters.
Unlike bandits, who only needed to grab a weapon and wander into the mountains, river piracy required a decent amount of startup capital.
Why? Did your ancestors build the boat for you?
Even in this era, just like in the modern one, boats were expensive as hell.
And since river piracy required more than some little skiff—you needed at least a decent boat—it cost a lot.
Build one yourself? Anyone with that kind of skill would already be making a comfortable living as a technician, and wouldn’t need to become a pirate in the first place.
Maybe that was why river pirates were even more vicious than bandits, just to cover the expense.
Anyway, for those reasons, many people used the waterways, and Baekmun Express was no different.
People who usually transported goods by river had come out onto the water again today for a shipment.
This time, though, they weren’t being paid in money for the freight—they’d be paid in something else.
"Guild Master, there they are."
"...Right. Bring out what we prepared."
"Understood."
At the Guild Master’s order, Ma Soong stepped back for a moment.
Standing at the bow and watching the front, he pointed ahead.
In the direction he indicated, a single boat was approaching them.
So those are the demonic cult bastards. It’s been a while.
Since the end of the Great War Between Orthodox and Demonic Sects and the extermination of the Goema, it had been nearly two years since I’d last seen them.
If anything happens, move immediately. Stay ready.
Y-yes, sir!
The chances of a full-on bloodbath were a hundred percent.
The two boats gradually slowed, then came to a stop facing each other.
Creak— thud.
A bridge was laid between the two ships.
The people from the opposite boat crossed over by way of the bridge.
In black capes and faceless masks, they were impossible to identify.
One of them stepped forward.
Bang Dupil bowed deeply and clasped his hands in a respectful salute toward him.
"Welcome, Lord Sama Ryeong."
"Unlike your sluggish handling of things, this time you made it on time."
But despite Bang Dupil’s courtesy, the other man answered in a cutting tone.
His personality was already shit to begin with, and today it was somehow even shittier—but that didn’t matter.
No matter how shitty he was, he couldn’t be shittier than me.
Clench—
Bang Dupil tightened the fist hidden in his palm.
"If you’d been late, I would’ve cut off a limb for every minute you delayed."
The man called Sama Ryeong fiddled with the sword hilt at his waist and muttered to himself.
Bang Dupil watched him in silence.
"So, where is the thing?"
He got straight to the point.
He was busy enough as it was; he had no time to waste on these drug-addled bastards.
"Right here."
Bang Dupil pulled away the cloth covering the cage.
Flap—!
Inside the cage sat a hawk larger than ordinary birds of prey, its white head feathers striking and brilliant.
It was the star of the last few months, the one that had made countless people suffer—Baekdu Cheongak-eung.
Caw?
Some mysterious spiritual beast somewhere seemed confused, but no one heard it.
Sama Ryeong studied the Baekdu Cheongak-eung through the eye slits of his mask.
"Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be injured."
He actually recognized the Baekdu Cheongak-eung in the cage!
He had only ever seen it in records rather than in person, but the one made by a master’s hands looked even a little more refined than the original.
"Good work... no, I suppose not. You merely cleaned up the mess your own people made, so it wasn’t really much work at all."
After muttering to himself, Sama Ryeong took out a small wooden box from his robes.
Thump.
"Still, this one is generous, so I’ll at least give you the transport fee. It’s your beloved Jamsungdan."
He dropped the wooden box at Bang Dupil’s feet.
"What are you waiting for? Pick it up already."
Even though his face was hidden by the mask, he was definitely grinning behind it.
"......"
Bang Dupil wordlessly picked up the wooden box.
"Then I’ll take the Baekdu Cheongak-eung—"
"What should we do about this?"
Just as Sama Ryeong reached toward the cage, Bang Dupil cut him off mid-sentence.
A twitch ran through Sama Ryeong’s brow, and he opened his mouth, but Bang Dupil was faster.
"I wasn’t planning to accept this transport fee."
"What did you say?"
"Bring it out."
At Bang Dupil’s gesture, Ma Soong and the escorts brought something forward.
It was a coffin and a wooden chest.
He opened the coffin lid first.
"Can you tell me what this is?"
Inside the coffin lay a corpse preserved with salt and medicinal treatment.
All over the body were wounds as though it had been bitten and torn by beasts.
"Hmm... these sword marks are from the Eight Fierce Vicious Ape Sword?"
Seeing the distinctive sword wounds, he immediately thought of a martial art.
The Eight Fierce Vicious Ape Sword was well known even within the divine cult.
"You recognize it. Then what about this one?"
This time, he opened the wooden chest.
Inside was a severed head pickled in salt.
"The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult... was this carved by one of our own?"
Sama Ryeong stroked his chin as he looked at the words engraved on the forehead of the severed head.
In the current martial world, only cult members used the name of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
"To kill someone while carving our sect’s name into them... they must have really been someone worth killing."
When a cult member kills someone, it isn’t murder. It’s honor killing.
Much less if the victim was one of those degenerate Central Plains people.
However you looked at it, it was an honor killing.
"If that’s what you think, then that’s unfortunate."
At some point, Bang Dupil had abandoned honorifics entirely. He tightened his grip.
"I was going to ask for the head of the bastard who killed my son as this transport fee, but I don’t need to look any further."
Crack!
The wooden box and the Jamsungdan were smashed to pieces.
"How dare you ruin the medicine bestowed by this one. What exactly do you think you’re doing?"
The sound of splintering fragments falling to the deck made Sama Ryeong’s voice go cold.
Click—!
Rumble—!
Sama Ryeong’s hand went to his sword hilt, and Bang Dupil’s energy began to boil.
"What do you think I’m doing? If you place a request with the merchant guild, you pay the price!"
Bang Dupil launched the hand charged with force, the weapon qi surging around it.
"Ha, you bastards are crossing the line, aren’t you?"
"It was a long time of humiliation and oppression. Kill the fake cult scum!"
Clang-clang-clang!
The escorts of Baekmun Express all drew their weapons and rushed forward after him.
"Now. Go."
"Y-yes, sir!"
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