10
Chapter 10: Stairway
From the family?
"The family? You mean our Danri Family?"
"Yes."
Gi Dae-hyo scratched his chin for a moment, lost in thought. It was his habit whenever he fell into contemplation.
A moment later.
"Where did the two commit suicide?"
He made his decision.
"At Bongyang Inn."
"Let's go."
"What?"
The reason Gi Man-ji was surprised was that Gi Dae-hyo was going to see it himself. Usually, the leader of the Black Five Group didn't step to the forefront in such matters. The customary practice was to just give orders from behind.
"For father to personally go to this exten—"
"No. I need to see it myself."
Gi Dae-hyo cut off Gi Man-ji's words and left the Black Five Hall without delay.
Swoooosh.
Gi Dae-hyo immediately deployed his movement technique and disappeared eastward.
That direction was where the main gate of the Danri Family was located.
***
At the time Gi Dae-hyo was heading to Bongyang Inn.
Dong Bong-su was spending his day as the groom Sosam, just as he always did.
He'd already finished waking up early in the morning, cleaning up horse dung, and feeding the horses.
What he had to do from now on was the most important task of his daily routine.
Walking the Ferghana Horse.
There was only one Ferghana Horse in the Danri Family.
Its name was Yeoro. The beloved horse of Danri Cheon-u, head of the Danri Family.
Yeoro, splendidly fluttering its white fur and mane, was by far the most expensive horse in the Danri Family.
Because of that, it was the VIP management target of all the grooms in the family. If even a small wound appeared on Yeoro, the grooms could be in deep mourning. In fact, previously when a small boil appeared on Yeoro's skin, the grooms had been collectively beaten.
However,
Since Dong Bong-su—not Sosam—took charge of Yeoro, such incidents never occurred at all.
Animals instinctively recognize 'beasts' that shouldn't be touched. All the horses in the East Stable became very docile after Sosam changed to Dong Bong-su.
Previously, they'd occasionally cause accidents, but now such things absolutely never happened. Even newly brought-in wild horses only reared at first, then became gentle lambs the moment their eyes met Dong Bong-su's.
People who saw this whispered.
[After Sosam was injured, he lost speech but gained horse spirit!]
Sometimes they also called him horse demon. To that extent, Sosam could control horses freely. As a result, the contemptuous gazes directed at him greatly decreased.
As an extremely natural consequence, managing Yeoro became Sosam's responsibility. There were several grooms in the Danri Family, but aside from Danri Cheon-u, Sosam was the only one who could perfectly control Yeoro.
From Dong Bong-su's perspective, there was also no reason to refuse taking charge of Yeoro. There were many benefits to be gained by being responsible for Yeoro.
After taking on the task of caring for Yeoro, he had more free time. Those who picked fights unnecessarily also decreased, and there were almost no humans dumping work on him anymore. Machil, who had tormented Dong Bong-su the most, had also already disappeared into the hellfire pit.
Naturally, he had more spare time.
And...
The number of people dying from the suicide epidemic in Bongyang also increased accordingly.
***
Dong Bong-su took Yeoro and left the family estate, heading for the marketplace of Bongyang. He usually searched for prey during walks. If possible, he dealt with them on the spot. However, there were also cases where immediate disposal was difficult. In such cases, he observed the target, memorized them, then killed them later.
Yeoro was like wings to him not only within the family estate but outside it as well. When he went around with Yeoro, people naturally got out of the way. Everyone in Bongyang knew well whose horse Yeoro was and what kind of being it was.
'Borrowing the horse's prestige.'
It was a phrase people coined saying Horse Dung Sam was acting big by borrowing the horse's prestige. Actually, rather than acting big, he was just passing by, but perhaps it looked that way to people.
In any case, Dong Bong-su was reaping great benefits from Yeoro. Thanks to the creature, he could comfortably stroll through the marketplace searching for suitable prey.
However,
'It's no longer useful.'
Dong Bong-su realized the time had come to stop this kind of hunting. He'd recently killed 196 people, but the experience bar was only filled about a third. At this rate, there was no telling when he'd level up and become stronger.
From an efficiency perspective, it was clear he'd nearly reached the limit of marginal utility.
'There's a clear limit to accumulating experience points this way.'
Just as he was having such concerns.
Dong Bong-su finally clearly confirmed that there was also a difference in the amount of experience points among humans.
The day before yesterday, he'd killed a man somewhere around here, and at that time the experience bar filled quite a lot. Only then did Dong Bong-su discover that the difference in experience points between people could be quite large. The last man he killed had more experience points than the previous 195 people combined.
His goal changed.
From just killing people to eliminating stronger people.
Then who were the stronger people?
There was no way to confirm, but he already instinctively knew who the relatively stronger people were and where they were.
Murim people.
Why wouldn't that be so?
Even in games, elite mobs with high levels give dozens of times, perhaps hundreds or thousands of times more experience points than rabbits in front of the village.
That was human nature.
If this was a world where a leveling system applied.
'It must be so.'
It was almost certain.
If he killed Murim people, he could easily accumulate experience points.
But he hadn't yet directly sparred with or crossed hands with Murim people.
He'd only occasionally watched them training within the Danri Family.
Based on judgment from that experience...
'Even the weakest martial artist in the Danri Family is still too much for now.'
He needed more time to become stronger.
Or.
'There needs to be an intermediate stage.'
No matter how much an ordinary person trained in high jumping, they couldn't reach the second floor in one leap.
There needed to be stairs, a footstool, or something like a ladder.
Prey in between that would bridge ordinary people and Murim people.
What was it?
People like that man he'd killed the day before yesterday. Such people were just right.
'What did that man do? Where should I go to meet more guys like that?'
Dong Bong-su was naturally strolling through Bongyang's marketplace, his walking route, while having such thoughts.
As he passed beside an alley.
A raspy voice came from inside the alley.
"Hey, Horse Dung Sam. Why are you just passing by? If you've seen your elder brother after a long time, you should greet him and have a chat. You fucking bastard."
Dong Bong-su turned his head toward the alley.
There, five or six men were squatting with slovenly postures. Especially the man looking at him from the very front appeared extremely vicious with bushy sideburns covering his lower jaw.
'Do Pal-du.'
Do Pal-du.
He was the leader of the riffraff in this marketplace. Moving about twenty riffraff, he was one of the lowlifes who extorted the marketplace's small merchants.
Since the authorities' constables had been spread throughout all the alleys recently, he hadn't been seen for a while, but for some reason he was loitering in a highly visible alley.
Their prey wasn't only the marketplace merchants. Occasionally, servants or farmhands from wealthy houses like Sosam or Machil also became targets. The reason Do Pal-du didn't bother them much was fear that the wealthy houses might find out. Especially since those wealthy houses were Murim families, he had to be even more wary.
But that was only when their bellies weren't empty.
The riffraff's eyes were gleaming.
Dong Bong-su could tell at a glance. How starved they were. Well, given Bongyang's recent atmosphere, it would be natural. They couldn't hold onto money for more than a day even when they got it. They spent it all on alcohol and women as soon as they got it. For such people, these days when the suicide epidemic was rampant must be a complete recession itself.
Should it be said that today they came down from the mountain bearing risks to raid the village?
Even wolves come down to where people live during severe droughts, and even lions hunt big game like elephants when cornered.
However,
They chose the wrong opponent.
The target they took as prey today was.
Not Sosam, but Dong Bong-su. They just didn't know that fact.
Dong Bong-su opened his mouth wide and grinned stupidly. Maintaining his expression, he approached Do Pal-du.
Do Pal-du and the riffraff took him and Yeoro deep into the alley to a place where there were no people. Do Pal-du apparently judged that as long as Yeoro wasn't hurt, he could freely lay hands on someone like Sosam.
Before entering the alley following the riffraff, Dong Bong-su looked around. Perhaps because it was still early morning, there weren't many people either. Some merchants were visible in the distance, but since this place was somewhat distant from the main road of the marketplace, no one was paying attention to this alley.
The reason for checking the surroundings was simple.
If he eliminated all 'these things' here, how should he handle the aftermath? Should he process it as suicide this time too?
That would be proper in principle. But it wasn't appropriate given the location's characteristics. Processing over ten men as suicides in an alley wasn't an easy task.
What if he staged it as them killing each other with knives or put the corpses in his Inventory and dumped them somewhere else? Not bad. But it was just not bad—there wasn't much real benefit.
Even if he killed them all, it wouldn't amount to much experience points, and the disadvantage he'd suffer by not killing them would be at most getting beaten a few times and having a few coins taken.
The scales between benefit and disadvantage, and risk, swayed back and forth.