Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 1
>Chapter Title: Opportunity
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Jungnang County
A huge crowd had gathered in the marketplace district.
The old woman selling snacks from her stall, the man precariously balancing his load of water jars, the children playing with their friends, and all the passersby heading in various directions—their eyes were all fixed on one spot.
A long procession snaked its way right through the center of the village street.
*Creeeak! Creeeak!*
The sound of thick wooden-barred cart wheels rolling along echoed through the air.
Amid the escort of official guards, prisoners with their hands and feet bound rode inside the barred cages.
"Look at that."
"Whoa. They're covered in blood."
Their faces were haggard and scarred, as if they'd endured terrible ordeals.
Their white prison garb was stained red.
The mood in the village watching the transport procession was downright ominous.
It was then, as the line stretched on endlessly,
that someone picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it into one of the barred carts.
"You filthy vermin!"
*Thwack!*
"Urk!"
The bound prisoner couldn't dodge and took the hit square on.
The sight of the prisoner writhing in pain.
Some of the onlookers saw this and soon began grabbing whatever they could and throwing it themselves.
*Thud thud thwack!*
The prisoners in the barred carts had no choice but to endure the barrage.
"You rotten scum!"
"Die, you bastards!"
"Take this and drop dead!"
Not a single one of the official guards escorting them tried to stop it.
They just sneered and watched the spectacle unfold.
That had been the point of publicly parading the prisoners from the start.
To confess their crimes to all the world.
"Hmm."
From the second-floor window of an inn, a certain middle-aged man looked down on the scene.
The man sat primly, sipping his tea, when the official in government robes seated across from him asked curiously,
"What's got you?"
They were criminals, after all.
The man before him wasn't the sort to feel pity for prisoners at a glance.
The middle-aged man eyed one particular cart.
Unlike the others crammed together, one prisoner sat alone in his cage.
His prison garb was soaked red across the chest and stomach.
"Young one."
The prisoner sat ramrod straight, his hair a tangled mess.
Half his face was obscured by the disheveled locks, but at a glance, he was clearly just a boy.
No more than sixteen or seventeen, by the look of him.
'.......Around the same age as the young master.'
The sight of the young prisoner suddenly reminded him of the young master he served.
He shook his head slowly.
What did age matter when it came to committing crimes?
The official watching him spoke up with a serious expression.
"It's hard to say for sure until the sentence is carried out, but even at a glance, that one's the gravest offender of the lot."
The middle-aged man blinked in surprise.
"What do you mean?"
"The kid you called young—the most vicious of all the prisoners being transported this time."
"The most vicious?"
The middle-aged man couldn't hide his bewilderment.
What made that young prisoner so vicious?
"......Did he harm someone?"
To the government, the worst crime was treason, known as high treason.
But those guilty of high treason were publicly named during transport, so that couldn't be it.
Which left only one crime vicious enough.
Murder.
"That's right."
The middle-aged man let out a soft sigh at the official's reply.
To ordinary folk, murder was a grave sin, but to martial artists like himself, killing and being killed was all too commonplace.
The official clicked his tongue at the sight.
"Tsk tsk. What else from a martial artist? Doesn't hit close to home, does it?"
"Killing and dying is par for the course in our world."
"I suppose so. But if you knew who that one really was, even you'd..."
*Thwack!*
Before the official could finish, a stone flew straight into the boy's head inside the barred cart.
The crowd stirred.
Blood trickled from the boy's scalp.
But unlike the other prisoners, the boy didn't so much as twitch. No groan of pain escaped him.
"That kid's one tough bastard."
"Doesn't it hurt? His head must be splitting open, and yet..."
Even the middle-aged man’s eyes gleamed with interest.
'That one.......'
Those trained in internal energy or martial arts could endure pain to a degree.
But that boy was no ordinary civilian.
Yet he'd taken a stone to the head hard enough to crack his skull without so much as a whimper.
Not even a flinch. That took real grit.
*Swish!*
As the flowing blood soaked his hair, the boy seemed annoyed and tilted his head back.
His face, hidden by the locks, came into view.
A gasp escaped the nearby onlookers.
Even the official was no exception.
"Whoa."
Bloodstained as it was, the boy's striking features couldn't be hidden.
Tall and refined, with delicate lines that gave off a strange allure.
Oddly, his face even seemed somewhat gentle at first glance.
"How does a face like that do things like..."
The official wondered aloud.
The middle-aged man stared piercingly at the prisoner boy, his face full of shock.
"You.....what's wrong?"
At the question, the middle-aged man flinched and shook his head.
"......Nothing."
"Nothing?"
He tried to play it off, but moments ago, he'd clearly looked stunned.
The official was about to press further when the middle-aged man stood up.
"The tea was good. Something urgent came up—I have to go."
"Hey, it's been ages since we last met..."
"I'm swamped. Next time I see you, drinks are on me at Moon Fragrance Pavilion."
"Moon Fragrance Pavilion? Heh heh."
The official's lips twitched at that.
What man wouldn't like being treated to the finest pleasure house in town?
* * *
Just before dawn, around the last watch of the ugly hour,
in the underground level of the Jungnang County office's Golden Prison.
Most of the imprisoned criminals were asleep, and even the guards stationed there dozed off, leaning against the walls.
Amid all that, one person remained awake.
The disheveled prisoner boy.
Locked in the Golden Prison, the boy stared blankly at the wall.
'.......'
Four days since he'd woken up, thinking he'd died.
A lot had happened in that time.
Surviving by some miracle was fortunate, but when he came to, he was already a prisoner.
On top of that, his public execution date had been set.
The punishment: Carriage Dismemberment.
Having his arms and legs tied to separate carts and torn apart.
'.......Only to be expected.'
He'd killed so many brutal deaths that they'd dubbed him the Sickle Murder Ghost.
No matter the method, the death sentence was unavoidable.
Yet not a trace of regret or anxiety showed in the boy's eyes.
If anything, his mind was preoccupied with something else.
[What? Martial arts? Hey, kid. You run into some martial artist or something?]
The words of one of the other prisoners transported with him.
They'd finally answered the question he'd been harboring.
'Martial artist......'
He'd heard the term now and then when accompanying Grandfather to the village.
They could run as fast as the wind, they said, cultivating this thing called qi to surpass ordinary human strength.
What he'd only heard in rumors was real.
That man had driven him to the brink in the blink of an eye.
'.......Even if we met again, it'd end the same.'
No matter how much he racked his brain without sleeping, he couldn't think of a way to kill that man.
Even ambushes or traps—would they work?
The guy was a monster in human skin from the start.
'Are all martial artists that strong?'
If so, avenging Grandfather might be hopeless.
No matter how he struggled, he couldn't kill something like that.
Lost deep in thought for a long while, the boy suddenly remembered.
'Martial arts.'
There was only one difference between him and that man.
One knew martial arts, the other didn't.
That single gap had led to this outcome.
So the conclusion was simple.
'I need martial arts.'
Under the same conditions, the result could change.
He finally had an answer.
But problems remained.
'Or two, rather?'
First, he had to get out of here.
Stay put, and he'd face Carriage Dismemberment, limbs ripped apart.
Second, how to learn martial arts.
'Who from?'
He needed someone to teach him, but finding such people was vague at best.
Even if he escaped, he was still a prisoner.
Break out, and a manhunt would be inevitable.
Who would teach martial arts to a fugitive criminal?
'......A mountain of obstacles.'
His head grew complicated again.
Grandfather's warning suddenly rang true.
Even for revenge, he shouldn't have revealed his true nature so easily.
'I've dug my own grave.'
Too late for realizations now.
What was done was done.
At least that man didn't seem to know he was still alive.
Or maybe he knew but left him to die on the executioner's block.
As he wrestled with these thoughts,
*Shoooo...*
A faint sound drifted from somewhere.
The boy turned toward it.
Sensing something off, he held his breath and focused on the noises around him.
'What is it?'
As curiosity peaked, something caught his eye.
A thin haze, like heat shimmer, crept in from the bottom right of his Golden Prison cell.
The boy's eyes narrowed.
'Fire?'
He wondered if the Golden Prison building was ablaze.
But the doubt soon vanished.
No fire would spread this quietly, without any commotion.
Yet,
*Thud! Thud!*
Sounds of bodies hitting the floor echoed.
From the direction of the patrolling officials, judging by the noise.
'This is.....'
The creeping haze now seeped into the boy's cell.
A faint scent tickled his nose, bringing certain herbs to mind.
'Three-leaf grass.....angelica, wild ginger root, drowsyweed......'
Ten years gathering and cultivating herbs with Grandfather.
Terrifyingly sensitive to scents, the boy instantly identified the herbs mixed into the thin smoke.
'......Sleeping Incense.'
Wild ginger root and drowsyweed induced sleep.
This blend would keep anyone who inhaled it out for about two hours.
But the boy was different.
'Sloppy mix.'
Grandfather's blend might've worked, but he'd built resistance to various herbs since childhood. This level of Sleeping Incense wouldn't knock him out.
'Hmm.'
Something was happening, he judged.
Everyone asleep in the dead of night, Sleeping Incense filling the county office's Golden Prison.
The boy leaned against the wall, focusing on the sounds.
*Swish swish!*
Muffled footsteps moving stealthily.
Faint enough that most wouldn't notice, but it reached the boy's ears.
'Who?'
Someone who'd spread the Sleeping Incense and slipped in.
With clear purpose.
Very quiet steps patrolled the cells here and there.
'What are they after?'
No clue who or why they'd infiltrate.
Then the footsteps headed his way.
The boy promptly lowered his head and pretended to sleep.
*Swish swish!*
They stopped right in front of his cell, not moving.
'No way?'
*Click!*
The lock on the Golden Prison cell opened.
'........Me?'
His target was clearly the boy.
Thoughts raced through his mind.
Maybe that man, knowing he survived, came to finish him off.
But why bother with someone already sentenced to death?
'Doesn't matter.'
Whatever the goal, he was the mark.
The boy breathed as evenly as possible.
To avoid tipping off that the Sleeping Incense hadn't worked.
*Swish swish!*
More muffled entry.
The intruder slipped in cautiously.
Eyes closed, but the boy sensed them right in front.
*Tap!*
The intruder nudged the boy with a foot.
Checking if he was truly asleep.
The boy went limp, unmoving.
Convinced, the intruder suddenly lifted the hair covering the boy's face.
The intruder's steady breathing hitched.
'........'
Emotional turmoil.
Trained by Grandfather to read ordinary people's emotions, the boy could keenly gauge moods from expressions, actions, and breaths.
'Chance.'
Such agitation was an opening against an enemy.
In an instant, the boy jerked the wooden restraints binding his hands upward fiercely.
*Thwack!*
"Gh!"
The unguarded intruder took it to the jaw and staggered back.
The boy seized the moment, swinging the wooden frame down at the intruder's head.
But at that instant, the intruder kicked him square in the gut.
*Thud!*
As the boy reeled back, the intruder's fingers flashed toward his chest in a Pressure Point Strike.
*Tap tap tap tap tap!*
His body seized up, frozen in place.
Unsure what was happening, the intruder muttered in disbelief.
"How are you still awake?"