Juvenile Offenders
"What the hell are you bastards doing in someone else's house?"
Whatever the situation, this was our precious shelter — the place that kept out the rain and the wind. I wasn't about to let a bunch of strangers tear through it however they pleased.
I stepped forward with a snarl, and only then did the unfamiliar beggars pause, looking back and forth between the kid they'd been thrashing and me, confusion plain on their faces.
"What? This guy wasn't actually Dan Mujin?"
"But they said he had a pretty face and pale skin."
"Hey, the one standing over there looks exactly the same."
One of them pointed at me as he said it.
Fair enough — a half-decent face was one of the few perks that came with this body. The raw material had a promising future, at least.
"Hic… I told you it wasn't me…"
The little kid named Ilhong protested in a voice thick with pure injustice.
The beggars who'd been manhandling the wrong guy spat on the ground and slowly started to circle me instead. Roughly ten of them. Bigger than us, too — high-school age, if this were Earth.
"So you're the Dan Mujin everyone's talking about these days?"
"You were begging around here without our boss's say-so, huh?"
"About time somebody stomped you flat."
Brats whose milk teeth hadn't even finished falling out, playing gangster.
I waved back the kids who'd brought the greens stew ingredients, then strode forward. From the look of them, they still had no idea who they were dealing with. They'd just heard the rumors that I was making a little money and come running.
"First, that pretty face of yours is getting smashed to a pulp—"
He never finished the sentence. My fist cut through the air before the words were out. A dull thud. The guy coughed up his teeth and went down in a single blow.
That right there was the secret of the first-strike victory.
"You son of a—!"
I kicked the next one who came charging in square in the chest. He bounced off and went tumbling across the ground in a clatter.
A destructive red aura writhed along my hands and feet.
"G-Gubong just went flying!"
"Nobody said he was like this!"
Two of them dropped in the blink of an eye, and the rest stirred in a panic.
"All of you at once."
I crooked a finger at them, daring them to come.
Conveniently, I'd been curious about the performance and durability of this body that carried the Heavenly Killing Star.
"Shit! Rush him together!"
"Wreck him!"
Today seemed like a fine day to put those limits to the test.
"…You monster bastard!"
Half a quarter-hour later.
Five beggars lay sprawled near the shack. The ones still on their feet were gasping for air, faces blotched blue with bruises, split lips — none of them looking anywhere near fine.
"What the hell kind of kid has a body like that?!"
"W-we need to get the boss!"
"You little shit! Just you wait—!"
Kid fights were all about momentum. The moment I bulldozed in and dropped five of them in a blink, the rest lost their nerve and bolted.
A thoroughly one-sided brawl.
Almost a shame. I kind of wanted to hit something more. Watching the red mist still crawling over my skin, the thought drifted through my head unbidden.
I'm not going to end up a madman like Moyong Cheongjin, am I? I decided to rein it in a little.
"…Incredible, Great Hero! To thrash those troublemakers in a single breath!"
Out of nowhere, the runaway-ninja kid who'd just popped his head up from the dirt started singing this body's praises. He'd taken a dust-kicking beating after being mistaken for me earlier, but from the way he was running his mouth, he was in better shape than expected.
"The valor to charge into enemy ranks, that monstrous strength — it was as if I were watching Hegemon-King Xiang Yu himself! Today, this Ilhong has truly opened his eyes!"
His flattery rolled out smooth as oiled silk, like he'd greased his tongue for the job.
And up close, I could see why the intruders had mixed us up. Even under the dirt, that striking jade face was unmistakable. Slim build, too — the kid looked like a pretty-boy from a pleasure house.
I'd thought I was the only flower beggar in this neighborhood.
"I heard you ran away. Why'd you come back?"
Ilhong, right. He shut his mouth for a moment at my question, then scratched the side of his head with a sheepish "heh heh."
"Well… it was even worse out there. Nobody takes in a little kid like me, and then they beat me up for having an annoying face…"
Apparently he'd stormed out saying he was done with it, only to suffer worse and come crawling back. Made sense — other crews only picked the big, fight-ready kids. Over here, though, we had a walking human weapon named me, so that wasn't necessary anymore.
"Hmm."
Looking at him again, the kid really was handsome. Give him a few years and some meat on his bones, and he'd have women crying in the streets. By then, a wink while walking down the road would probably rain alms down on him. This might be worth the investment.
"Call me Boss Mujin."
I held out a hand so he could pull himself up as I said it.
"Ah, so you're the one from the rumors…! No wonder I sensed a spirit that could uproot mountains and overshadow the world. Not only gifted at begging — you've got talent in martial arts as well!"
He piled on every flowery phrase he could find and even threw in classical allusions. For a beggar, his brown-nosing skills were absurdly polished.
"Tone it down."
"Yes, sir."
Ilhong grabbed my hand and sprang to his feet. But something felt off — his body was strangely light.
"Hey. You are a guy, right?"
The androgynous voice I could chalk up to him not hitting puberty yet, but those long lashes and faintly rosy lips were a little… something.
"…Of course. I'm a man through and through, no matter how you look at it."
"Then why are you so light?"
"Because I don't get enough to eat."
He spread a pair of bony fingers. The baggy rags had hidden it, but he was even scrawnier than I'd thought.
Orphans really did have it rough in this era.
"Boss, so what do we do with these guys?"
Ohchil nudged the beggars who'd charged me and then passed out, kicking them lightly with his foot.
Their buddies had just left them lying there when they ran. Typical beggar-crew solidarity.
"What were they even after in the first place?"
I should've asked before knocking them out.
Ohchil just shrugged, as if he didn't know either.
"Oh, them. Boss Eom Baek sent them."
The answer came from Ilhong instead. He clearly knew something. I jerked my chin for him to keep going.
"Looks like the territory they wrote off as worthless is looking tempting again. All thanks to Boss scraping up copper coins left and right with that begging technique of his."
So they'd heard I was making money. Probably meant to swallow the turf, or beat our crew into paying protection.
Real class acts. No code of the trade at all — nothing left to fleece, so they start fleecing other beggars.
"Eom Baek, huh. What a joke of a guy."
The ones who'd fled earlier had told me to wait and see. People who said that were rarely actually scary… but they could still become a nuisance.
"They're the biggest beggar crew in the area. Lots of numbers, and lately it seems like they've got a line into a Black Path sect too."
Black Path meant gangs that made their living on murder, theft, plunder, and general villainy. So Eom Baek wasn't content running a runaway family — he was dreaming of full-blown organized crime.
"You know a lot about this kind of thing, huh?"
"…I just happened to overhear a lot."
Was that really the kind of thing you "just happened" to overhear?
I turned to Ohchil, who was still poking the downed kids with his toe.
"Hey. Why don't you know any of this?"
"I was too busy just trying to eat, Boss."
"Yeah. Fair enough…"
You couldn't run an organization on muscle alone. You needed at least one sharp-minded type who knew how this world worked. And by that measure, Ilhong seemed to know an uncanny amount.
He had the feel of someone with a story. Then again, what orphan didn't?
"Ilhong. Come grab a bowl of greens stew."
I said it while watching the little ones dig a battered pot out of the wrecked shack.
"Eugh, isn't that just bitter grass porridge?"
"Dan Mujin-brand greens stew is different."
I pointed at the hefty cut of meat I'd bought from the butcher. Right on cue, one of the kids plopped the meat into the pot they'd just got a fire under.
"Huk — you should've led with that! I'll eat well!"
Ilhong dashed over, drooling like a puppy that had just spotted food. When the portions started going around a moment later, he fished out his share of meat like someone might snatch it away, shoved the whole scalding piece into his mouth, and chewed with a face full of pure bliss.
"Hic… thash sho goob…"
Definitely burned the roof of his mouth.
Interesting little guy.
It was the day Mujin's crew picked up one more useful family member.
The southern market street was as loud and chaotic as ever.
I pointed at a silk-robed merchant passing by.
"Ilhong. What about that one?"
"Look at the mark on his belt. He's from the Mangeum Money House."
Moneylenders were dangerous. I'd done debt collection myself — I knew. Face meant nothing to those people.
I nodded and pointed at the next one over.
"The fat one?"
"A constable who works out of the yamen. Could come back to bite us."
Making enemies of government men was a headache. Especially ones with the authority to hunt people down. In the old days I might have stepped on that landmine without knowing better.
But our crew had a strategist now.
"The scruffy one over there?"
"A wanderer. No sword, but the calluses on his fists say he's a fist fighter."
Wanderers. This era's troubleshooters. Men who'd seen every dirty, ugly side of life — a little begging wouldn't even make them blink. Now that we had a way to pick soft targets, there was no reason to pick a fight with that.
"What about the tall one next to him? Safe to hit?"
"A merchant from the Oga Family. Soft, no blowback. And with the musk smuggling lately, his purse should be pretty fat."
Nice. We could squeeze a decent amount out of him.
But how did this kid know the backstory of smugglers so thoroughly? If I asked, he'd probably just clam up — the same way I couldn't go around talking about the Heavenly Killing Star. In that case, I'd just use him quietly.
I motioned to the kids who'd already started gathering around the marked prey.
"Let's go, juvenile offenders."
Today, once again, we fleeced the fat pigs who never shared.
Just to survive one more day.
"What's a juvenile offender?"
"Dunno. Boss always says weird stuff."
"Just make money."
The little ones grumbled about my nonsense while closing the distance.
It was panhandling time.
"Kind siiir—!"
People who rob a rich man's granary to feed the poor are called righteous thieves.
And since I'd been fleecing fat merchants to save orphans on the brink of starvation, I figured I fell into a similar category, in a way. Utilitarian wealth redistribution. A kind of Murim Hwalbindang, you could say.
"Boss, look at this! A silver coin — silver!"
After a long, eventful begging run, Ilhong plucked an unusually glittering silver piece out of the bowl.
A silver coin issued by an emperor called Hongrak.
With what Chinese history I'd absorbed through public education, my first instinct was "Who?", but in a world with internal energy, sword aura, and people carrying cursed stars, an emperor I'd never heard of was something I could live with.
"You kids… this money's clean, right?"
We'd scored a decent haul off the smugglers, so we'd come to a dumpling shop for something better than pig slop. The bearded proprietor looked us over with suspicion — a pack of filthy little beggars.
"We earned it fair and square."
At least it wasn't stained with anyone's tears or blood. Other beggar crews supposedly pickpocketed as a baseline and didn't blink at outright robbery. In our crew, that kind of thing was completely banned. Orphans fell into crime easily enough as it was. One slip, and a whole life went off a cliff in a heartbeat.
"Dumplings up!"
"Waaa!"
Steaming, plump dumplings sat on the rack, white vapor rising off them in soft curls. Not the dense steamed buns that were basically bread — these were real meat dumplings, packed with juice.
The kids stood with their mouths hanging open, drooling in rivers.
And of course, right at this perfect moment, people showed up to dump chili powder all over it.
"Booooooss—!"
A breathless voice. Someone came sprinting up in a panic.
Ohchil appeared, with about a dozen of Eom Baek's furious crew hot on his heels.
"There he is! That pale-faced bastard is Dan Mujin!"
I knew that one. Last time, he'd tried to smash my pretty face in and gotten his own face wrecked instead.
They say even a dog doesn't get bothered while eating — and these idiots had to pick a fight the second the dumplings came out.
"So? You not buying? I'll clear the table."
The bearded owner said it with a face that screamed I don't want any part of this.
"No need to worry. We'll be back before these dumplings go cold."
I cracked my joints and stepped out front with a swagger. I'd dropped ten of them alone last time — a dozen-odd wouldn't be a problem.
"There's not even that many! Let's just thrash them all!"
Ilhong and the kids strode out full of fire, as if they agreed. Ilhong in particular had his fists clenched tight — leftover grudge from the straw-mat rolling, no doubt.
And then, around the corner, another wave of Eom Baek's crew poured in.
"I told you! Just wait and see!"
Enemy numbers ballooned to thirty in an instant. That boss Eom Baek must have scraped every last member of his crew together on purpose.
Faced with that crushing numerical disadvantage, Ilhong silently tapped my arm.
"Should we run?"
Whatever happened to the boldness from a second ago — he already had his body half-turned, ready to bolt like a runaway ninja.
But run where? Back down now, and we'd have nowhere left to beg.
"All of you at once. The dumplings are getting cold."
So I clenched both fists and shouted for them to come.
A fairly fierce clash between two crews, with begging rights on the line.
It was time to decide who owned the southern market street.
"Waaa!"
On Earth, no matter how much martial arts you trained, taking on two or three people at once was already hard enough.
But in a place where qi, martial arts, and special constitutions like the Heavenly Killing Star actually existed — what then?
Thud!
"Aagh!"
Smack!
"Ghk!"
Wherever my fists landed, bursting impact sounds and groans erupted. On a battlefield, the vanguard mattered. I hurled myself into their ranks and sprayed fists and feet in every direction without pause.
Even after a life cut off from martial arts, the moment it was needed, my body moved on its own — like it already knew exactly how people were supposed to be beaten. Trajectories to dodge appeared in my vision; my fists found the places they needed to hit. A truly bizarre sensation.
"Son of a bitch!"
"Somebody take that little brat down!"
I coiled around an incoming punch, knocked it aside, and answered with a solid thud to the chest. Grabbed elbows and knees, twisted, tapped the hollow of a knee — and kids went down with little yelps one after another.
I vaulted over a guy whose back had bent from a kick to the gut like a vaulting horse, then snapped both legs out hard and smashed the chests of two more coming in with a twin crack.
I can see something.
Red lines scribbled wildly across my field of view. The killing intent the enemies were packed with. Every flickering scarlet thread — I could see exactly where each one was about to lash out.
A sensation with no real explanation. Probably tied to the Heavenly Killing Star inside me.
"Swarm him all at once!"
Of course, even reading the trajectories didn't stop the times when fists came from every direction and I just had to take them. But so what? The rocks I'd smashed into while being swept down a raging current, the knife tip that had stabbed into my gut — those had hurt a lot more than this.
"That tickles, you bastards—!"
A roar that shook the air. I drove a front kick into the guy charging from the front with everything I had. It sounded like a leather drum bursting.
"Urgh!"
One short scream, and he went flying — and the formation of his own crew collapsed in a heap under him.
From the tangle of sprawled limbs came shouts of pure disbelief.
"What kind of kid hits that hard…!"
"And why is his body so tough?!"
Fighting was about momentum.
I rode the flow, poured on the pressure, and dropped them one by one. Thud-thud-crack-crack! Screams and impact sounds rang out everywhere.
As I tore through the battlefield from end to end, the fighting spirit in their eyes thinned out and fear started taking its place.
Crack!
"Ghk!"
I kicked the jaw of a guy who'd gone for my back. His mouth snapped shut hard and he collapsed with his eyes rolled up.
Scarlet killing intent had been writhing right behind me — hard to ignore that. And watching a kid who seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, Eom Baek's crew found themselves too scared to even charge in.
"…Monster bastard!"
The beggars edged backward. A few of them decided the odds were gone and straight-up fled in a hurry.
"Puhaha! Look at Eom Baek's dogs scrambling away!"
"That's our Boss Mujin!"
The tide of victory looked completely settled. Our little ones cheered with their faces all puffed up and swollen.
On the other side, Eom Baek's crew — thoroughly crushed by a single kid — poured out bitter accusations with sick faces.
"Martial arts! That was definitely martial arts!"
"A Murim fighter showing up in a kids' fight?!"
"Aren't you ashamed?! You cowardly bastards!"
Beaten dogs barking on their way out. That, from the side that had charged in with more than three times our numbers? Pathetic beyond words.
I dug at my ear with a pinky and answered like they were a nuisance.
"There's no such thing as cowardice in a fight. A heavy cavalry unit popping up in front of foot soldiers — that's a battlefield!"
War was the peak of unfairness, after all. Sometimes a Heavenly Killing Star just showed up in a kids' brawl. I preached that cold, hard reality right to their faces.
I was still savoring the afterglow of victory when a set of hulking shadows suddenly fell over my head. I tilted my face up to look at the owners of those shadows.
"Looking at the way that little hellion is running wild…"
"You're the one called Dan Mujin, are you?"
Adults, a full two heads taller than me. Broad shoulders, bodies tempered by training. The type that practically wore a sign reading I am a martial artist.
People from a nearby escort agency, maybe? But they had no reason to be looking for me.
"Your name's been coming up a lot among the merchants lately."
"They say you're a real piece of work."
So my name had been flagged as a problem child among some of the merchants. Still — for actual martial artists to come looking? The code of the jianghu had hit rock bottom.
"Hah! How dare Murim people interfere in a kids' fight!"
Our little ones huddled together and glared at the martial artists in pure disbelief. Grown men with proper jobs, taking a contract to come beat up children?
They must have felt the shame too — they scratched the backs of their heads at my scolding.
"Hey, but didn't you just say it yourself?"
"Battlefields are unfair, right? So a Murim fighter can show up in a kids' fight too."
…Damn it. Those were my own words. I couldn't take them back.
"Boss, this time we really run."
Even a Third-class martial artist — the bottom of the Murim barrel — was a natural disaster to a child.
"Run where, you idiot."
I shook off the runaway-ninja kid's hand and stood in front of the martial artists.
Where in the world would a rolling stone ever be welcome?
"Don't hate us too much. We owe that goat-bearded merchant a debt…"
So now I knew who was pulling their strings. That vicious goat-bearded bastard — so bitter over a few copper coins tossed to a kid that he hired Third-class martial artists.
"You filthy grown-up bastards."
I muttered it through gritted teeth. The martial artists coughed awkwardly.
"…Ahem. Filthy might be a bit much."
But after taking so many hits in the brawl, that familiar scarlet mist was crawling up out of my body again. The suspicious energy that always handed me superhuman strength whenever I hit a crisis.
"Come on, Third-class!"
Both fists raised to chest height. I struck a plausible ready stance and shouted for them to bring it.
Looks like the dumplings were going to be ice-cold by the time we ate them.
Beijing — Eunseong Merchant Group.
A name with a hundred years of history behind it, one that always came up whenever people discussed the Ten Great Merchant Groups of the realm. Branches and affiliated merchants across the vast Central Plains, a towering oak that had long held sway over the commercial world.
But as the saying went — power does not last a hundred years.
After the sudden death of its master, Eun Jincheong, the family's fortunes had begun a steep decline. A string of failed escort runs by their subordinate Eunseong Escort Agency, and on top of that, a sericulture venture the group had poured a fortune into now teetering on collapse.
Eunseong Merchant Group had started sinking, slow as a body going under in a swamp.
But there was still someone thrashing to keep it afloat.
A woman who had inherited her father Eun Jincheong's genius for commerce — and whose beauty had earned her a place among the Three Flowers of Beijing.
"So what you're telling me is…"
Merchant Master Eun Hwaran eyed the third-grade escorts in front of her with a look of pure disbelief.
"You got beaten up by a kid and came back?"