The Slave Broker of Sadoryeon
In 2030, the world had turned into something like the murim realm.
Lee Kang didn’t know exactly what had happened. Some said the sky had split open; others said a vast gate had opened beneath the earth, or that the murim world had been overlaid onto modern society. The gallery was full of every kind of speculation.
But the cause never mattered to Lee Kang.
One day, the Modern Murim Gallery had simply begun appearing before his eyes. Status windows floated above people’s heads. And outside, lunatics with swords were butchering ordinary civilians.
That was enough.
Lee Kang had made his judgment quickly.
The world was broken, and this was murim now.
At the time, Lee Kang had been hiding with his family in an abandoned house near Mount Ihang in Seoul. His parents, his younger sister, and Lee Kang himself had survived by sealing the windows, holding their breath, and rationing the food they had prepared. Four people, clinging to life in silence.
But that life did not last long.
His parents could not stand the confinement.
"Go out and see what the situation is."
Those were the last words they said.
His younger sister was the same.
"Oppa, we can’t live like this forever."
Lee Kang tried to stop her. He told her not to go out. But nobody listened to him all the way to the end.
In the end, neither his parents nor his sister came back. Whether they had died or survived, Lee Kang still didn’t know.
After that, he hid even deeper. He curled up in the basement of the abandoned house, held his breath, and read the gallery.
Modern Murim Gallery.
Posts kept appearing there. At first, the board had overflowed with pleas to be saved and desperate calls for rescue. But after a year, those posts vanished entirely.
The survivors gathered and shared information with one another.
Where the Mount Hua Sect had appeared. Which alley a bandit cultivator was hiding in. Which market was trading food.
Lee Kang spent about three years hiding like that, devouring every scrap of information he could find. He waited for his family to return, and he tried every possible way to change himself. In the process, he began to learn martial arts little by little.
"But most of the martial arts formulas shared on the gallery were fake."
With no other choice, Lee Kang collected every fraudulent formula post he could find. He sifted through the ones that seemed closest to real, then personally tore them apart and rebuilt them into martial arts of his own.
What he created in the end was the martial arts of the Black Moon Sect.
Night Moon Killing Sword.
Shadowless Night Walk.
Black Moon Soul-Calming Art.
All of them were junk-grade.
Compared to the martial arts of the great orthodox sects, they were almost trash. But Lee Kang had no other options.
"Sigh. I need to cut down on these old memories. What good does brooding ever do?"
Lee Kang opened the translucent gallery window.
His goal was simple.
How to pick a good slave at Sadoryeon’s slave market.
He placed a finger over the search box. Soon, an old post surfaced.
Title: For Newbies Going to Sadoryeon’s Slave Market for the First Time
Based on the slave market run by Sadoryeon.
I don’t know about anywhere else.
First of all, the slaves here are bound by something called a "blood pact," so they can’t betray you.
If they even think about betraying their master or act on it, they suffer pain.
Some kind of curse or something, I guess.
I don’t know the details, so moving on.
Now for tips on buying slaves.
Don’t buy someone who looks too normal.
They’re expensive, and usually there’s a bad master behind them.
They’re probably trying to bait you and stab you in the back.
Don’t buy someone too cheap either.
There’s a high chance they’ve got an illness or some nasty grudge attached to them.
Be careful with prisoners from the righteous sects.
They won’t thank you for rescuing them.
They’ll try to cut off your head and reclaim their honor instead.
Don’t touch anyone who’s learned demonic arts.
There’s a reason they’re being sold so cheaply.
The best buy is a promising young heir with flaws.
A damaged dantian.
Cast aside by their clan.
Unable to use martial arts.
But they still have their head, and their pride.
If you sweet-talk people like that, it pays off big.
Oh, and by the way, never buy modern people.
They don’t listen worth a damn, and a ridiculous number of them end up killing themselves.
If you’re going to buy anyone, just get murim people.
ㄴYeahRight: scum of the evil path
ㄴBadLuckNoHair: Why would you even buy slaves? Have you thrown human dignity away?
ㄴ(Author): There are various uses for them. Not the filthy kind you’re imagining.
ㄴ(Author): Though, yes, of course they can be used for filthy things too.
ㄴ(Author): But the pretty ones are way too expensive to even consider.
ㄴBadLuckNoHair: Are you insane?
ㄴNumberOneUnderHeaven: You should die.
Lee Kang read through the comments to the end.
That was all there was.
There were almost no recent posts. Posts from people who had actually visited the slave market, or bought something there, were rare. The ones that did appear were mostly just curses.
Slaves were nothing but expensive. You’d be better off spending that money on martial arts manuals or food.
That was roughly the consensus.
And they weren’t wrong.
To Lee Kang, there was usually no reason to go to a slave market for recruitment. Good slaves were expensive, and cheap slaves came with defects. A beginner who wandered in would be perfect prey for the Sadoryeon merchants.
But Lee Kang was different.
He had a status window. He could see talents and affection levels that other people couldn’t. There might be someone there whose value nobody else recognized.
Don’t get too optimistic. If I want to find something good, I may have to visit more than once.
Lee Kang closed the translucent window.
And then, in the dead of night before even the dusk could rise, Lee Kang pulled on a black coat. He covered most of his face with black cloth as well, leaving only his eyes exposed.
He paused outside the office door of the Black Moon Sect and listened for a moment.
It was quiet outside.
Through a narrow gap hidden between iron shelves, he checked the alley. A blue-black darkness had settled over the lane leading toward Mangwon Haomu Market.
Lee Kang went down the stairs carefully.
One step. Then another.
Shadowless Night Walk.
It was a light-foot technique that worked especially well when moving quietly in the dark.
As soon as he reached the first floor, Lee Kang slipped into the alley. He avoided puddles standing on the ground and detoured around patches littered with broken glass.
He kept close to the wall, and every time the alley bent, he checked the shadows first.
He advanced while staying alert to every direction.
Fortunately, there were no righteous sect bastards in sight. The lot from the Plum Blossom Squad seemed to have left this area too, judging from the gallery.
I still can’t relax, but righteous sects mostly move during the day.
That was one of their traits. They didn’t completely stop operating at night, but it was still relatively safer than daytime.
Besides, the Mangwon Haomu Market area was the border of Sadoryeon territory. It wasn’t a place righteous sect bastards could just stroll into at will.
Lee Kang walked while hiding himself between decrepit commercial buildings.
Red cloths hung from all over the streets. They were all Sadoryeon markers: a black circle with a red sword slash cut through it.
Lee Kang skillfully moved along the boundary between righteous sect territory and Sadoryeon territory.
It was a kind of safe zone.
For a modern person like Lee Kang, it was about as good as it got.
After a long stretch of walking, he finally arrived.
Mangwon Sadoryeon Slave Market.
It really is colorful. Modern people are all poor, and yet here this is.
In the faint light before dawn, red lanterns hung in rows. Their glow spilled between tattered awnings and crumbling shopfronts.
Countless stalls and merchants filled the area, and the market was so lively it was hard to believe it was still dawn.
Lee Kang slowly surveyed the surroundings.
There were many people dressed similarly to him. Some revealed only their eyes beneath deep low-hanging bamboo hats, some wore things like gas masks, and others covered their entire faces with iron masks.
Apparently, hiding your face was the proper thing to do here.
Good.
Lee Kang muttered inwardly.
His own clothing didn’t stand out. It blended naturally into the crowd.
No one stopped him as he walked toward the market. There was no checkpoint or anything like that.
A few Sadoryeon martial artists stood near the entrance, but they didn’t grab passersby.
Keeping his head lowered, Lee Kang entered the slave market proper.
The air changed as he went deeper inside.
The smell of blood, sweat, and rotting cloth. The smell of people who had not been washed in a long time.
All of it clung beneath the red lanterns.
The first thing Lee Kang saw was the cages.
Behind the old iron bars were people.
The first ones he spotted were modern civilians.
Ripped padded jackets. Stained sneakers. Bloodied office shirts. A young girl in a school uniform with a blanket draped over it.
They were different from the long robes and martial uniforms of murim people. They looked so familiar that they seemed strange.
People who had struggled to survive without adapting to the murim world, only to be captured in the end.
Lee Kang slowly passed in front of them.
Their conditions were all bad. Some stared blankly at the floor, some muttered while gripping the bars, and some trembled and backed away the moment Lee Kang passed by.
Their eyes were dead.
Lee Kang drew in a small breath.
Status window.
Above the head of the middle-aged man in the nearest cage, text appeared.
[Character Information]
Name: Unknown
Talent: Waste
Affection: Unknown
Lee Kang immediately shifted his gaze.
Next.
[Character Information]
Name: Unknown
Talent: Waste
Affection: Unknown
Next.
[Character Information]
Name: Unknown
Talent: Waste
Affection: Unknown
Lee Kang frowned.
Most of the modern slave laborers had terrible talent.
Their prices were very low too. Most of them were 30 to 50 nyang. At the high end, a young woman might cost 80 nyang.
Even then, they didn’t seem to be selling well, because the cages were overflowing with inventory.
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