The Jade of Seokmun Valley
Thud-thud-thud-thud! Whoosh~ Thwack! Thud! Smack!
“Ugh!”
“Aaaargh!”
“It hurts so much!!”
Seo Jun brushed past them, thrusting and swinging his club. The bandits struck by it collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain.
Thud-thud-thud!
The last two remaining leaders managed to block Seo Jun’s attack together.
Hmm~ They’ve got good eyes.
It wasn’t an attack he had put his full strength into, yet it was still fast enough that most people would have struggled to react and defend. These shabby-looking bandits had blocked it.
Smack!
“Aagh!”
Seo Jun sped up slightly and struck both of them on the head.
“All of you, get over here and kneel! Anyone who’s late gets their head cut off.”
Scramble-scramble!
Having already experienced an overwhelming gap in strength, the bandits didn’t even think of resisting. They rushed over and dropped to their knees before Seo Jun. Their posture looked exactly like new recruits being drilled by an instructor.
They don’t have any real malice, and they’re not ordinary bandits either. What’s going on?
“Take off your masks, all of you!”
Whoosh!
When they quickly removed their masks, the faces that appeared were exactly as Seo Jun had expected—ordinary commoners with unremarkable features. The two who had acted as leaders were women. By the standards of this era, they had strong, sharp features that gave them quite a fierce impression. But to Seo Jun’s eyes, they actually carried a rather modern kind of charm.
They remind me of members from an old girl-crush idol group.
“Names.”
“I’m Jeong Ok.”
“I’m Gang Ok.”
They weren’t real sisters, but starting with the Ok sisters, the young man, the old man, and the young boy behind them all gave their names in turn.
“From what I can see, you don’t look like the kind of bandits who go around hurting people. So why are you doing this?”
“Well, you see…”
Their circumstances were as follows.
They were villagers from Seokmun Valley in Sangae County. Not long ago, the influential Bang clan of Sangae County had started lending high-interest loans to the people of Seokmun Valley and, using that as an excuse, began seizing their property or harassing them to drive them out of the village. The villagers had been suffering constant beatings and starvation, but they couldn’t easily leave their hometown, so whenever the loan repayment date approached, the entire village would gather to rob passing travelers or merchants of their goods in order to pay off the debt and survive.
“So you were robbing other people just to stay alive, huh?”
“M-My lord!! Even though we frightened people and took their belongings, we have never once killed or injured anyone!!”
“Please forgive us just this once, my lord!!!”
Amid the terrified cries of the villagers, an old man who had been standing right behind the Ok sisters hurried forward and prostrated himself deeply before Seo Jun.
“Who are you?”
“I am Jang Pal, the village head of Seokmun Valley.”
“So those two weren’t the real leaders?”
“Jeong Ok and Gang Ok only stepped forward for the sake of the villagers because they had learned a bit of martial arts from a warrior they met in their youth. They are truly good girls. I will offer my own life, so please spare the others just this once, my lord!”
“Village head, what are you saying? If we’re going to live, we all live. If we’re going to die, we all die together.”
“That’s right.”
Their willingness to protect one another wasn’t a bad thing, but right now they were bandits. Seo Jun didn’t think he could simply let this slide as if nothing had happened.
But why is the Bang clan trying to drive the villagers out? If they really wanted them gone, they could just use force. So what’s their angle?
Something smelled fishy.
“By the way, why does the Bang clan want to drive you out of the village? Is there something valuable in the village?”
“It’s really just an ordinary mountain village. We can barely produce enough food to feed ourselves.”
Gang Ok, who had a short haircut and a tomboyish appearance but possessed small yet deep and striking eyes, answered. At that moment, Seo Jun’s gaze fell on the necklace hanging around Gang Ok’s neck. It was clearly made of jade, and the quality of the jade was remarkably clear and beautiful—far too fine for villagers like them to obtain easily.
“Gang Ok, was it? Come a little closer for a moment.”
“Y-Yes!!”
Still clearly intimidated by Seo Jun, Gang Ok quickly approached on her knees.
Startled!
Gang Ok flinched as Seo Jun’s hand reached toward her neck.
“Let me see that necklace for a second.”
Seo Jun took the necklace and examined it closely.
This is definitely jade. The quality looks excellent. Did they steal it?
He didn’t have a trained eye, but after looting several powerful clans lately he had seen quite a few jade items. He roughly knew what high-quality jade felt and looked like.
“Where did you get this? Did you take it while robbing people?”
“We didn’t steal it!! It’s a necklace made from polishing strange stones that sometimes appear on the mountain behind our village!!”
“Strange stones?”
“They’re quite hard and have a subtle, mysterious color, so the villagers call them strange stones.”
This is definitely jade, but it seems the villagers don’t realize it’s jade.
“Did anything unusual happen in the village before these stones started appearing?”
“Now that you mention it, a few years ago there was an earthquake that caused part of the mountain behind the village to collapse. That’s when the strange stones started appearing, my lord!”
It was obvious. The earthquake had collapsed part of the mountain and brought jade from deep underground to the surface. The villagers, unaware of its value, had simply thought of it as pretty stones. Just like Gang Ok had made a necklace, when the Bang clan happened to notice the villagers carrying crude ornaments made from the jade, they must have planned to drive everyone out and claim it for themselves.
Seo Jun decided to go check the place where the jade was coming from first.
“Everyone, listen up. I’m not going to attack or hurt you anymore. In exchange, we’re going to your village with you.”
The villagers had no choice. Seo Jun, A-chan, and A-on followed the villagers along the mountain path at a leisurely pace. After walking about ten li, the village they lived in came into view.
Seo Jun dismissed the rest of the group and took only the village head and the Ok sisters with him toward the mountain behind the village where the strange stones appeared.
“This is it.”
After rummaging through a pile of rocks for a moment, Jeong Ok brought over a stone the size of a fist and showed it to Seo Jun.
Hmm. This is definitely jade.
Seo Jun gestured for the three of them to come closer.
“Listen carefully to what I’m about to say. This stone is jade. It’s not something you can just call a strange stone and carry around carelessly. Even if you’ve never seen real jade before, you know it’s valuable, right?”
“J-Jade, you say?!!!”
“Yes. I’ve never seen it myself, but I’ve heard stories, so I know it’s precious.”
“Right. This is an extremely expensive item. And from what I can tell, the Bang clan seems to have figured out that jade is coming from here. That’s why they’re trying to quietly drive you out.”
“Th-Then what should we do?”
At Jeong Ok’s question, Seo Jun fell into brief thought. He had no intention of protecting them indefinitely. He had only come this far out of curiosity after learning about the jade. That didn’t mean he was greedy for the jade here either. To claim ownership of the jade produced here, he would need to manage it continuously, but he didn’t have that kind of time or leisure.
“This is just my suggestion. The final decision is yours. First of all, don’t use the jade unless it’s absolutely necessary. Even if you ever need to sell it, do so quietly somewhere far from here. If word gets out that jade is being produced here, the villagers could lose their lives without anyone ever knowing.”
When Seo Jun made a serious face and drew a line across his throat with his hand, the three of them swallowed nervously.
“I’ll take care of the Bang clan quietly. That’s all I can do for you! The rest is up to you.”
“How will you deal with the Bang clan?”
“That’s my own method, so you don’t need to know. Just think carefully about what I told you.”
Well, I’ll just loot one more place on my way out.
Leaving those words behind, Seo Jun descended the mountain first and returned to the village. After spending the night there, Seo Jun headed for Sangae County early the next morning. Upon arriving, he went around the inns gathering information about the Bang clan’s reputation.
Hmm~ The clan head and his two sons are all complete scoundrels.
From the information Seo Jun had collected, it seemed all the men of the Bang clan were trash.
It’s going to be a busy day.
That night, Seo Jun looted the clan head’s safe and embedded axes into the foreheads of the three men of the clan.
“Not even worth the money.”
Despite their notorious reputation, the Bang clan didn’t actually possess much wealth. There were only a few gold ingots and some jewelry, so Seo Jun filled a sack with old coins for the first time in a while and stored it in his dimensional space.