Beef Is Traditional Cuisine
—Mooooooooooo!!!!!
A herd of oxen came thundering in.
The mercenaries planted themselves in the beasts' path and leveled their spears and blades.
"Aim for the neck!!! Their heads are too hard!!!"
"Their charge is a straight line anyway—dodge clean!!"
"There better not be any idiots who can't use lightness skill! Hahaha!"
They still found time for a little banter in the gaps.
"They're almost here! Distance to the enemy—about twenty meters!"
"Spears up!!!"
"Here they coooooome!!!"
In the next breath, oxen and mercenaries tangled together.
It looked for all the world like a mass bullfight. An enraged bull would hurl itself at a man; the man would slip aside, bleed off the charge, and drive spear or sword home. The animal only grew more frenzied, blood sprayed, and the sight drove the other oxen wilder still as they piled in. The bulls themselves were red-coated, so the whole field of vision washed crimson almost at once.
The mercenaries rode that red wave like surfers, vaulting up onto the onrushing masses of scarlet muscle and toying with them. Hoofbeats, the spat of blood, the bellowing of beasts, the scrape of steel on bone—all of it broke and mixed like the froth of a crashing sea.
And far from that thrashing mass of flesh and blood, one mercenary sat hunched on the ground, scratching idly at the dirt with a finger. It was none other than our twisted oddball, Gong Ryun.
Still sunk in the blank, half-conscious frailty of his depression, Gong Ryun saw nothing of battle or anything else. He simply scraped at the earth with his fingertip in a gentle little dirt-play that had nearly reached the realm of infantile regression.
"Kyaaaaah!!! What the hell is that guy doing over there!!"
"Hey! You!! Give us a hand here!!!"
"Aaaargh!! Bull horn just cracked my bone!! Support!!!"
The mercenaries wrestling the oxen called for him desperately, but Gong Ryun did not hear a word.
Even the bald client, watching from a distance, grew uneasy enough to speak to Un-rang beside him. (Un-rang's assignment was not to charge the front; he was on client-escort duty against emergencies.)
"Un-rang. That friend of yours… are you sure he's really all right?"
"Hmm. This won't do. We'll have to take special measures."
Un-rang walked over to Gong Ryun. Then, exactly the way one picks up a cat, he seized the crouching man in both hands and lifted him.
And—
"Hryaaap!!!!!!"
—threw him.
Straight into the densest knot of the oxen herd.
Gong Ryun's body arced limply through the air in a helpless parabola. Having finished the job, Un-rang strolled back toward the client. The client stared, mouth open.
"Eeeh?!! What did you just—?! Don't tell me you're punishing him for not working!!!"
"Hardly. That simply is the proper response. Drop him into the middle of the herd and he will fight of his own accord. He is depressed, not diminished in combat power."
"And if he gets trampled to death…?"
"Absolutely not. The man is absurdly durable."
"Ah. Well then…"
True to those words, Gong Ryun was durable.
—Thud!!!!!!
He landed head-first and still took no meaningful damage. His protective aura had been running unconsciously. Un-rang had not put internal energy into the throw; a fall of only a few meters under ordinary gravity was never going to crack his bones.
Damage or no, however, Gong Ryun did not get up. He simply sprawled where he had fallen. Standing was too much trouble.
—Moooooooo!!!!
Most of the passing oxen took him for a boulder-like piece of terrain and either swerved around him or stepped clean over him. Even being stepped on did nothing; Gong Ryun had his protective aura at full burn while he lay there, too lazy either to rise or to dodge.
Then one overexcited bull lowered its head, took aim, and rammed him with its horns.
—Boooooom!!!!!
Gong Ryun went sailing off in a cartoonish parabola again. Nearby mercenaries gaped at the sight.
—Thump!!!!!!
He hit the ground once more. That one actually hurt. It was not a Hydra charge, but it still packed a solid weight.
A little more present now, Gong Ryun rose slowly.
"Oh, Gong Ryun! You're up!"
Un-rang's voice rang inside his skull in a telepathic transmission.
"Work time! Work! The boss says he'll share out some ox meat when we're done! Delicious beef! Let's do a barbecue! Ah, I can already taste it!"
"…Right."
Gong Ryun answered in a lifeless voice.
"Gotta work… work…"
—Mooooooooooo!!!
As if on cue, a red ox came charging straight at him.
A sturdy one. Eyes blazing, it pounded toward him as if it meant to skewer him clean through with its horns.
Gong Ryun met it head-on.
This was not the bullfighting everyone else was doing. When Gong Ryun did it, the event itself changed.
—KRAAAAASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ox and man collided. Pure flesh against pure flesh.
Bullfighting.
Only now one side was human.
There was no yielding. Only a contest of strength.
Gong Ryun planted himself, both hands locked on the animal's horns, body angled like a wrestler driving an opponent forward, and stopped the full force of the charge in place.
A chest-swelling wrestling bout between beast and man.
And it did not end there.
Gong Ryun tightened his grip.
With the crushing palm of the Geumnasu maximizing the power of his hands, he wrenched the horns outward to either side.
—Crrrrrrrack…!!!!!
An ominous sound came from the ox's head.
The beast thrashed, to no avail.
An ox's horns are ordinarily half-fused with the skull. The structure of these galactic red oxen was similar—except theirs went further: horn and skull were completely one piece.
Which meant that if you seized both horns and forced them apart like this…
—CRACK!!!!!!!!!!!
The skull itself shattered.
The bone where the horns grew tore free. Brain fluid burst out; the brain was laid bare.
The ox died instantly.
"Beef… let's eat beef…"
Gong Ryun muttered, staring at the horns still in his hands. Clumps of skull bone, flesh, and scalp dangled in shreds from the bases. Ox blood soaked his body.
—Moooooooooooooo!!!!!
Other bulls, whipped into frenzy by the sight, charged him.
—KRAAAAAASH!!!!!!!
And Gong Ryun began bullfighting all over again. One against many, and he did not give ground. Their charging power was weaker than a Hydra's; no problem.
—Crack!!!
—Crrrack!!!!!!!
Wherever his hands reached, a crude butchery unfolded.
By this point one almost felt sorry for the oxen.
Watching from afar, the client's face brightened with relief.
"Ah, he was just a diligent, hardworking fellow after all. Good skills, too. I was suspicious for nothing."
"He is the type who cannot lose against charging monsters. The matchup is simply too favorable."
"But that friend—isn't he from the Sichuan Tang Clan? Do the Tang usually fight like that? Weren't they the assassin type?"
"Ah… well… who can say…"
"Aha! I know what it is! That thing—the iron sand! They drive their hands into poison sand to temper them and make Poison Hands! That's why this fellow can smash an ox's skull with his bare hands—the result of that training! Mystery solved. Am I right?"
"…Mm… I wouldn't know… Perhaps so…"
Un-rang gave him a vague agreement.
Not long after—
"Suppression complete!!!"
"The hunt's done!!"
"Yes! Job over!!! Payday!!!"
The suppression was finished.
A mountain of ox carcasses stained the gray earth red.
Gong Ryun collected his pay.
On top of the base wage he received a generous bonus. By bullfighting out front and drawing wide-area aggro with his body, he had made the hunt far easier for every other mercenary.
He also came away with some meat.
"There, Gong Ryun. Working made you feel a little better, didn't it?"
Un-rang patted his back. He assumed the depression would have lifted by now. After all, Gong Ryun was a money devil who had just raked in a fat bonus; how could his mood not soar?
Amazingly, Gong Ryun's depression had not improved in the slightest.
He stared at the ox meat in his hands and wept, utterly forlorn.
"Hic… sniff… Mother said she didn't like beef… Living like that, regretting like that, shedding tears like that…"
"Good heavens. This is depression of historic proportions. What on earth are we to do?"
"There's beef right here and I can't even eat it… I could finally make her beef soup and I can't even feed it to her… sniff, waaah…"
"Ugh. Gong Ryun. Plan B. Let's go eat something delicious! Something delicious!!! What do you want? Ah—right. Since we bagged oxen, we could find a place and do a charcoal barbecue—"
"Carbonara."
"Hm?"
"Carbonara…"
"Ah, this carbonara maniac. Heh heh heh. Fine, let's go eat! We'll go to the usual carbonara place!"
"…"
"Ah. Gong Ryun was banned from there for a while, wasn't he. Well then, some other place that does carbonara spaghetti—"
"Carbonara… tteokbokki…"
"…What—what did you just say, Gong Ryun…? Did I mishear? If there's a place in this city that sells tteokbokki, then surely…"
And so they arrived at the succubus ajumma's Korean restaurant.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaah!!!!! Gong Ryun!!!!!! You actually came back here again!!!!!!"
"There's nowhere else…"
"Did I not tell you not to go near this place!!! Do you even know what the owner of this establishment really is!!!"
"The taste is similar…"
"???"
"To Mother's cooking… the taste is similar…"
"Ah."
Un-rang realized they had walked into a dead end.
And in that instant the restaurant door opened—someone inside had drawn it wide with telekinesis.
"Oh my~~ Gong Ryun~~~ you're here again today~~~"
And there, visible within, was a nine-tailed succubus.
"Hmm~~~??? The monk came again too~~~? Is a Shaolin monk really allowed to just stroll into a place like this~~~? Well, if you're a fallen monk you're already outside the order~~ so maybe it doesn't matter~~~?"
The seductive-eyed tteokbokki shop ajumma smiled with her eyes.