Why Are You Here? -1
“Senior, did you know that Hyeongwi Mountain is home to the Green Forest Seventy-Two Strongholds?”
“Huh? I’ve heard of them, yeah.”
“Then what were you planning to do if we ran into bandits?”
“Well… this might sound bad, but I’d just rely on you. Bandits don’t mess with experts anyway.”
Why are bandits bandits in the first place?
In the world of Murim Cheonha, even the unorthodox factions who draw their blades at the slightest provocation swagger around the cities like they own the place. The same unorthodox types who pick the pockets of merchants and landlords still stroll the main roads without a care. So what exactly is a bandit, this creature that has to hide up in the mountains?
Bandits are, at their core, cowards.
You might ask how cowards can possibly make a living as bandits, but that is simply the truth.
Whether orthodox or unorthodox, the moment you stake out a territory, conflict is inevitable. You become permanently exposed to the endless grind of turf wars.
But the mountains?
It isn’t as if bandits are nature-lovers who enjoy living in the hills. Living on a mountain means every aspect of food, clothing, and shelter is a pain. You have to haul liquor and food from far away. Nights are freezing, days are sweltering, and the place is crawling with bugs.
A mountain is a far harsher place to live than any village or city, and the only reason anyone endures that hardship to play bandit is safety.
A guest shows up on the mountain and turns out to be an expert with unusual presence and eyes that gleam with power? The bandits simply watch from a distance and let them pass.
Someone who looks like trouble appears? A little show of force, collect the toll, and send them on their way.
A traveler who looks like they can be cleaned out with zero consequences? Strip them bare.
Choice.
That is the real reason a martial artist chooses the bandit life. Claim a territory and you may find yourself locked into a fight you cannot walk away from. A bandit never has that problem.
Every now and then you hear of a stronghold that met a sudden, messy end at the hands of some passing super-expert, but that is a risk anyone walking the demonic or unorthodox path faces. In truth, bandits even sit outside the usual path of a hero’s chivalrous deeds.
Only the rare, pure-hearted hero who cares nothing for fame or reputation bothers to wipe out bandits. Ordinary heroes almost never do. You climb a mountain and clear a stronghold? There is no one left to testify to the deed.
Even if you happen to save someone, they are not climbing the mountain with you to help clear the place.
Unless a stronghold’s tyranny grows so extreme that its evil reputation spreads through the entire region, bandit-hunting simply does not happen lightly.
“If I just show them once, they’ll run and never come near again.”
“Well… that’s true.”
Heukmyo had traveled enough to run into bandits herself, so she seemed to have no real objection to my approach.
And the moment that conversation ended—
Rustle. Rustle.
We came face to face with five armed men.
“Haa…”
Yeo Il-ye let out a long breath. Even through the eyes of a Super-Peak expert, the two figures at the foot of the mountain were little more than dots. She could see them colliding with the bandit group.
She bit her lip hard, torn. If she moved now, word would reach Gaewang Stronghold. Yet if she pretended not to see, the travelers’ fate was already painted clearly in her mind.
They must know martial arts if they’re traveling as just the two of them, but…
The bandits who appeared at the mountain’s entrance were usually nothing but small fry. When the small fry got broken, the stronghold’s elite would block the path farther up. That was the usual pattern.
But the situation was different now. Wary of the Poison Doctor, Gaewang Stronghold had sent out real fighting strength instead of untrained fodder.
“Tch…”
Yeo Il-ye tightened her grip on her sword hilts.
The man might survive, but the woman was almost certain to suffer a fate too hideous to speak of. The bandits had been bottled up for a long time under the pressure of possible death; they would almost certainly move to vent their lust.
Yeo Il-ye wrestled with herself.
The entire stronghold’s attention was fixed on the men they had sent outside. If she rescued those travelers now, she would be exposed to Gaewang Stronghold without fail.
And if Chieftain Mak Yeo-bu of Gaewang Stronghold truly was one of the men who had burned the Yeo Family Mountain Villa…
If he realized Yeo Il-ye had come hunting him, he might destroy every scrap of evidence connected to the villa and flee. No—if it was the kind of man who would abandon even his own stronghold just to save his own skin, he would definitely do exactly that.
That was why Yeo Il-ye had endured for so long, waiting only for the moment she could seize Mak Yeo-bu by the throat.
She closed her eyes. Her father, her mother, every soul of the mountain villa.
She had to comfort their spirits.
And yet…
Even if I turn my back on those two and complete my revenge… will I be able to face the villa’s people in the afterlife with a clear conscience?
Behind her closed eyelids another landscape flashed past. The Jeomchang Sect.
Hyeok Gi-rin, who stood in the position of Great Senior Disciple. Her master, Cheongheo Jinin. The faces of her senior brothers and sisters, junior brothers and sisters.
…All right. I understand.
The years she had been born and raised in Jeomchang pushed her from behind.
Yeo Il-ye exhaled a long breath and kicked off down the slope. In the end she chose to save the travelers.
I don’t know if I’ll make it in time…
She had to descend from the summit all the way to the foot of the mountain. Yeo Il-ye unfolded the Floating Cloud Movement Technique to its absolute limit and drove her legs. If she could ignore the rough terrain, run in a straight line, and keep the downhill acceleration without ever killing it, she might just arrive before the woman at the entrance suffered the worst.
Thud-thud-thud!
Yeo Il-ye’s figure shot toward the mountain’s entrance at terrifying speed.
“Hey there, brothers. Where might you be headed?”
Swaggering bodies. Rough, insolent steps. Weapons handled with careless arrogance. Yellowed teeth and the greasy, unwashed look of men who had lived too long in the mountains.
Five men who screamed “bandit” with their entire being appeared before us.
“Oppa… something feels off.”
I agreed with Heukmyo’s whisper.
Normally a stronghold’s business model was simple: station only the most pathetic small fry at the entrance path into the mountain. From the stronghold’s point of view they were disposable fighting power—no one would miss them if they died.
They sent those men out to test the waters. Even small fry could still rob ordinary civilians, after all.
More importantly, it gave them a pretext. If travelers cheerfully beat the small fry to a pulp? The bandits now had the perfect excuse—“You laid hands on our brothers”—and would swarm the exit path in force, wait, and strip the travelers clean.
Robbing with even a flimsy pretext left fewer loose ends than robbing with none. Everyone knew it was just window dressing, but pretext still mattered.
So the bandits who should have been at the mountain’s entrance ought to have been nothing but small fry…
Yet these five were anything but ordinary.
All five stood at First-rate or very close to it. First-rate or Second-rate might not sound impressive, but for bandits they counted as elite strength.
“This one is a traveler by the name of Geum Bu-san. And who might you gentlemen be?”
“Us? We’re just nangin after the bounty on the bandits of Hyeongwi Mountain!”
“That’s right! We’re heroes who came to wipe out the bandits! But… why is that woman behind you hiding her face so suspiciously? Could she be in league with the bandits?”
“Suspicious! Show your face right now!”
A dry laugh slipped out of me.
Bandits claiming to be nangin hunting bandits, then turning around and harassing passing travelers.
The funny part was that, if you ignored how blatantly bandit-like they looked, there was nothing especially strange about the claim.
A “nangin” could turn into a pack of robbers who preyed on travelers in remote places and no one would bat an eye.
Among people who introduced themselves as nangin, fewer than one in ten were genuine wandering warriors who actually sold their skills for a living. The other nine-tenths were criminals who simply put on the label. They strapped on weapons to do shady work, needed something to say when questioned, and so they just called themselves nangin.
There was no license for it. If you said you were a nangin, you were a nangin. Nothing anyone could do about it.
“Even on a deserted road like this you’re covering your face with a veil?”
“Heh heh heh… we’ll have to check every last inch of that body.”
“Hmm. Oppa. Do you think these men are really nangin?”
“Of course not.”
“Then let’s just subdue them. Something’s clearly going on in this mountain.”
I nodded and drew my sword.
The moment I casually pulled steel, the bandits flinched.
At their level they could not read Heukmyo’s strength, so what they had read was mine. At best they only had to deal with one First-rate fighter, which was why they had started spouting filth the instant we met.
But I had decided to fight without the slightest hesitation, so they must have sensed that something was going wrong.
“I’ll take one.”
“Got it.”
Against bandits of this caliber Heukmyo could probably handle two without trouble, but she could also crush all five of these mongrels if they rushed her at once.
So the only thing that mattered was making sure none of them escaped.
Something had bothered me from the start: even with an overwhelming five-to-one advantage, they had not surrounded us. Instead they kept one man far enough back that he could run at any moment.
“You bastard!”
Had they already agreed that one of them would flee? The bandit I tried to chase spun and bolted without even looking back, while another of the remaining four stepped in to block my path.
Thud!
“Argh!”
But Heukmyo had already moved. She smashed the bandit who tried to close on me so I could pursue the runner.
In the split second the other three flinched at the sight of Heukmyo sending a man flying with a single blow, I sprinted after the fleeing bandit.
Thud-thud-thud!
The way he ran erased even the faintest possibility that these men might actually be nangin. No one could tear through mountain paths that freely unless they knew every trail by heart.
The gap between us widened a little. Even if the runner was only early First-rate, my strength and footwork should have been enough to catch any First-rate fighter—yet beating a bandit who knew the mountain like the back of his hand was another matter.
He knew it too. While running he glanced back and flashed a triumphant grin.
What that bandit saw was my hand disappearing into my robes.
I had never planned to catch him by running. I had only been waiting for terrain suitable for throwing a flying dagger.
A few high-quality daggers I had picked up from the Tang Family. Not so much a reward as leftovers from the research into the Tang Family Fierce Tiger Hidden Dragon Combat Method; I had ended up throwing hidden weapons a few times during the process and somehow walked away with several of them.
Whiiish!
The dagger flew. The bandit’ s eyes bulged; he read the trajectory and rolled—
“Aaaagh!”
—but he never realized that from the moment I started throwing I had already applied the principle of the Two-Ring Flying Dagger and launched two blades.
I had spent two full days discussing hidden-weapon arts with the Tang Family’s Wind Shadow Pavilion Master, Tang Do-gyeong, and the family head while they created a new technique. My own throwing skill had no choice but to improve by leaps and bounds.
Normally you only earned recognition for applying the “ring” principle once you could perform the Three-Ring Flying Dagger, but even if I could not go that far yet, I could at least imitate it.
The bandit had seen the first dagger coming for his upper body and rolled to duck it—yet the second dagger had been aimed at his lower body from the very start.
He should have found it suspicious that I threw at his torso when the only way to stop him was to cripple his legs.
It struck his thigh dead center. He would not be running anywhere now.
“You bastard! You son of a—!”
The bandit yanked out his saber and flailed wildly, trying to threaten me, but even that desperate thrashing stopped the instant he saw the next dagger in my hand. He had just witnessed my skill; he understood that if a blade came flying while he could not even stand, only he would get hurt.
“Drop the weapon.”
“Y-you bastard! I am a bandit of Gaewang Stronghold, one of the Green Forest Seventy-Two! Our chieftain, Mighty Strength Mak Yeo-bu, is a Super-Peak expert! If you touch me, the brothers of Gaewang Stronghold will not sit still!”
“Yeah, yeah. I knew you were bandits the second we met. Now drop the weapon before I throw another dagger.”
“Khh… kuh…!”
Once I confirmed he had discarded the weapon I put my sword to his throat and forced him face-down. It was undignified, but pressure-point techniques only became possible from First-rate onward. I pulled a length of rope from my pack and bound his arms.
“Damn it…! Beaten by a mere Second-rate punk…!”
Smack!
He called me Second-rate and looked down on me, so I got annoyed and cuffed him across the back of the head. That was the problem with people who trained martial arts. The moment they decided your realm was lower than theirs, they stopped treating you like a human being. Actual martial realm was never an absolute measure.
In general a higher realm meant greater strength, but there were plenty of exceptions. I was not just being stubborn—there were quite a few factors that could overcome a difference in realm.
I adjusted the rope so that any movement of his arms would immediately choke him, then yanked.
“Get up and walk.”
“You bastard! The chieftain will come down any moment! If you let me go now—ugh!”
He was screaming so loudly I simply kicked him. He tumbled a good thirty feet, groaned, and finally shut up. If he kept yelling like that and real bandits actually came down from the stronghold, we would be in trouble.
Just then—
Whoooooosh—!
My senses caught a truly enormous flow of qi. A vortex of energy like a typhoon itself.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me…”
An overwhelming aura that crushed the chest with its mere presence. Even a tenth—no, a hundredth—of that power would be enough to put someone like me down in a single move.
The problem was that the massive presence was racing toward us at terrifying speed.
The bandit saw my face harden as I looked up the mountain. Something like hope flickered across his features; then he too began to feel the enormous aura, and color flooded back into his face.
The Tang Family’s qi arts were never this noisy, so it could not be the Poison Doctor. The owner of the aura descending the mountain right now was almost certainly a bandit. No wonder the bastard looked so happy.
I bit my lip and hid the recovered dagger under my palm. Heukmyo was some distance away. Even if she arrived, the odds of losing against that aura still looked better than seven out of ten.
Could I even survive a single exchange?
“Hahahaha! Looks like the chieftain himself is coming! You! A mere Second-rate martial artist dares humiliate me like this? I’ll slice the flesh from your thighs and feed it to the dogs! At least a hundred cuts before this anger cools!”
The bandit ranted freely, but I had no attention to spare for him. The speed of the approaching aura was simply insane. Even granting the acceleration of charging down a mountain, preserving that acceleration all the way required a movement technique far beyond the ordinary.
A true expert—someone who possessed not only high realm but refined martial arts—was coming down.
“Don’t even think of dying cleanly! Our stronghold is full of men who are experts at playing with people! After we peel the meat from your thighs you’ll live a long, long time screaming in agony! Wahahahaha!!”
Whether it reacted to his voice or not, the massive presence turned and locked precisely onto our location.
Boom!
A body shot upward with a thunderous report, leaping high to confirm the source of the sound with its own eyes.
“Chieftain! Over here! This lowly one is over here! Wahahahaha! Behold the majestic figure of our Gaewang Stronghold’s chieftain…!”
His words trailed off into nothing.
Because the figure hanging in mid-air was a woman. I stared wide-eyed, trying to make out the shape. She was moving so fast that the veil flapping uselessly around her face already failed at its job, and the features I glimpsed between the fabric were—
Yeo Il-ye.