Chapter 29
Chapter 29
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: Promotion (2)
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The members of the Seventeenth Squad blended into their new department better than I expected.
“So, what happened then?”
“‘Do you vile Dark Sect bastards dare disrupt a Nine Dragons Fortress event and still hope to live?!’ I shouted, then threw my Flying Meteor Bomb, and wouldn’t you know it, those Dark Sect guys scrambled away screaming.”
With a flair for bravado he'd picked up from who-knows-where, Yang Gang quickly won over the senior members.
“I’ll dictate, so you write it down. ‘Hyeon’ for profound, ‘Hwang’ for yellow. Good grief, are you a monkey? How can your memory be this bad... No, that’s not what I meant. Please put your fist down…”
Yu So-pyeong gathered the illiterate members of the squad and taught them how to write.
“Extra! Extra! Someone saw the Fifteenth Squad Leader with the Seventh Squad Leader!”
Ha Jin-hyeong drew the seniors' interest by peddling gossip laced with fabrications, much like a tabloid paper.
Lastly, Lee Dang-pal…
“…Poisons… are… difficult… by nature.”
“Hey, just write it down instead. Someone get this guy some paper!”
In more ways than one, he was driving the senior members up the wall.
Well, at least they all seem to be getting along without forming cliques. That’s a relief.
“Alright, let’s get to work.”
“Yes, sir.”
Unlike other squads, which maintained five to seven members including the leader, the First Squad had over thirty.
The First Squad’s duties didn’t involve patrolling and guarding a designated area.
Instead, their responsibilities included guarding important facilities like the levee I once destroyed or the stables, responding to problems in the outer fortress, and handling various incidents.
It was a job that was half law enforcement.
This wasn’t due to the principle of martial artists not interfering with government affairs, as seen in other martial arts stories.
It was simply because the imperial court was a complete mess, and the empire's administrative power had become hopelessly weak.
Against this backdrop, the Emperor had entrusted the administration of the region to the Nine Dragons Fortress.
He had calculated that it was better to leave an area to a powerful entity than to let it be overrun by bandits.
Basically, you could call it privatization.
And so, the Outer Hall came to fulfill the role of a judicial body, one of the government’s functions.
*Chatter, chatter.*
The once-quiet courtyard of the First Squad’s building soon filled with people.
From those who came to report injustices to pickpockets caught in the act and drunkards dragged in for causing a ruckus.
A whole spectrum of humanity showed up, each with their own story to tell.
For someone like me, who had been living peacefully, it was utter chaos.
Still, as a salaried man, slacking off was not an option.
I lay down in a shady spot and watched the First Squad at work.
Woo Je-jun, the most senior member of the squad, began to deal with them one by one.
“You drank and smashed a street vendor’s stall.”
“I’ve been wronged, sir. I just tripped and kicked it, I didn’t know it would break so easily.”
“You caused damages, so it’s only right that you compensate for them. Go and pay for what you broke.”
“Huh? How much should I pay?”
“You should pay whatever the victim asks for. Even if you get overcharged, just pay it. If you refuse, I will issue an order of banishment.”
“…I understand.”
One drunkard dealt with.
“You stole someone’s money pouch… You, how many times have you been caught?”
A nearby squad member answered his question.
“This is the fourth time this year.”
“Sentence him to five lashes.”
At that, the captured man protested, veins bulging in his neck.
“What? Lashes?! I already paid the money back…”
“Would you rather be banished from the outer fortress?”
“…No, sir.”
The repeat offender was also handled.
I was watching this solemn administration of justice for a good while when…
“There’s a fight between underworld gangs on Taeryong Road!”
A dispatch order came in.
The squad members looked at me as if to ask what to do.
“I’ll go myself. The rest of you, keep an eye on things here. We’re busy enough as it is. Do we really need to rush over there in a group for something like this?”
Woo Je-jun then approached me.
“I will go with you.”
“I can go alone.”
“You haven’t been properly briefed on everything yet, have you? It would be helpful if I went.”
“Well, if you insist.”
A short while later.
*Thwack. Pow. Crack.*
When we arrived at Taeryong Road, we saw about a dozen gangsters swinging clubs and fists at each other.
It was broad daylight, so they weren’t using blades, but I couldn’t just let it be.
“Stop right there!”
I shouted with my internal energy, and the gangsters’ movements ceased as they split into two groups, left and right.
“What is this nonsense in the middle of the day? Can’t you see you’re scaring people?”
One of the men in the left group asked.
“Are you from the Outer Hall?”
This bastard. He must not recognize my face.
It seems the ‘Fighting Dragon’ brand needs a bit more viral marketing.
“Yes.”
“You seem to be a new warrior here, but you could get into big trouble if you’re too uptight. We’ll leave for today, but be sure to remember my advice.”
With that, the men began to leave.
“Wait.”
“…What now?”
“Clean all this up before you go. And if you broke anything, pay for it.”
“……”
The man glared at me.
“What? Feeling defiant? You want me to knock some sense into you?”
Just as I was about to teach him a lesson, the glaring man glanced at Woo Je-jun and bowed his head.
“It will be done.”
As we were heading back after wrapping things up, Woo Je-jun spoke quietly.
“I believe you may have pushed them too hard.”
“Do we really need to care about a bunch of gangsters?”
If worse comes to worst, I’ll just declare a war on crime.
“Individually, they are nothing, but when they gather, they are not easy to deal with. Like the Two Immortals Gang of Heuksa Road, for example.”
“The Two Immortals Gang?”
“Yes, they are the largest gang on Heuksa Road, with their numbers recently surpassing five hundred. You’d probably have to combine all the other gangsters in the outer fortress to match their numbers.”
‘They’ve gotten that big?’
Turns out the bald guy was more capable than I thought.
I’d only ever seen him eating with his head shining, so I had no idea.
“Anyway, you must be especially careful when dealing with the Two Immortals Gang, even if you’re not with others. If those guys decide to throw their weight around, things get very difficult.”
As I listened to his explanation of the Two Immortals Gang, an idea popped into my head.
“Would things get easier if he helped us?”
“What?! Do you mean the leader of the Two Immortals Gang?”
“Yeah. If the Two Immortals Gang just told the local thugs to stop causing trouble, wouldn’t our workload be cut in half?”
“That may be true, but he is famous for not revealing himself. It’s said that even the members of his own gang don’t know where he is.”
He stops by my house every morning and evening, though.
“Don’t worry about that. I have a way.”
I can just meet him over dinner later.
“…As expected, a master is different.”
“What does being a master have to do with it?”
“Are you not planning to spread your senses to find him?”
“…It’s not like I’m a THAAD missile system or something. The outer fortress is huge, how would that even be possible? Let’s just go back. We have a lot to do.”
“Huh? A THAAD, you say?”
It exists. It’s a missile defense system your descendants will one day resent.
“Let’s go. I’m tired.”
I headed back to the First Squad’s building, leaving a bewildered Woo Je-jun behind.
***
Dinnertime.
I brushed off the squad members who wanted to have a team dinner and headed home.
A long line stretched from outside the house.
The Cheong Family's branch clinic for the penniless, with Cheong So-so as the specialist and Myo Hyang as the nurse, was bustling with business as usual today.
“Alright, alright. We’re closed for the day, so everyone go home.”
“Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?”
“Me? I’m the landlord.”
“The… the Fighting Dragon!”
“Are you going to get lost or not?!”
“Ye-yes, sir!”
The people in line moved quickly and dispersed.
‘That’s more like it.’
“Next person, please come in.”
Just then, Myo Hyang came outside.
“Oh? What brings you home so early?”
“Now that I’m promoted, my work hours are flexible.”
It was a privilege held by the only three executives of the Outer Hall.
For the record, the executive positions in the Outer Hall were the Hall Master, the Vice Hall Master, and me, the First Squad Leader.
“By the way, did you see the people who were outside? There were so many just a moment ago, but they suddenly disappeared.”
“Ah! Them? I chased them all away.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s almost dinnertime. So I sent them all home.”
“Are you crazy?! How could you chase away the patients?!”
In an instant, her eyes blazed with fury.
“N-no, I was just worried you were overworked…”
“You’re the one causing the most trouble, Squad Leader!”
The nagging didn’t stop there.
“What? You chased away the patients? Squad Leader Jin, have you lost your mind?!”
Cheong So-so, who had been inside, joined in on the verbal assault.
The high-pitched scolding echoed through Heuksa Road.
A short while later, at dinner.
*Thud!*
A soup bowl flew through the air and landed in front of me.
The spilled soup soaked the area, but I didn’t say a word. No, I couldn’t.
*Glare.*
The two women’s auras were just that murderous.
‘This is not good.’
As I scooped up my soup, I decided my top priority was to break up the bond between these two women, a bond as strong as the alliance between Korea and America.
“My dear sister? It seems my bowl is the only one without any meat…”
“What did you say?”
“N-nothing.”
The chilly atmosphere of the dinner felt like a dagger to my heart.
I shoveled the rice into my mouth as fast as I could.
*Slurp.*
“Kuh! As expected of Lady Myo. The deep flavor resonates within my very soul.”
Yong Ma-san, for some reason, was in high spirits, downing his soup in one go and exclaiming in admiration.
‘That stuff is boiling hot…’
I didn’t know for sure, but the roof of his mouth must have been completely scalded.
Taking advantage of the moment he was nursing his injured mouth, I spoke.
“Hey. Yong Ma-san.”
“Speak.”
“Let’s have a drink.”
“A promotion celebration?”
“How did you know I got promoted?”
“There is nothing that happens in the outer fortress that I do not know.”
“You’re quick on the uptake, just like the underworld scum you are. Then let’s have a drink to celebrate my promotion.”
“Well, I see no harm in that.”
And so, the drinking session began.
We were going to go to a tavern, but Myo Hyang prepared some side dishes, turning our dinner table into a drinking table.
As I tilted the bottle to fill our cups, Yong Ma-san’s voice came.
“What’s the occasion for a drink? You usually ignore me.”
“When have I ever ignored you? Hey! That hurts my feelings. We’re comrades who’ve crossed the line between life and death together.”
“A comrade who charges for meals? Two nyang a month at that?”
“You don’t understand. The food at our house is made with organic vegetables and meat from certified animal-welfare farms, so the ingredient costs are different.”
“Cut the crap.”
Yong Ma-san raised his cup and took a drink before asking.
“Just tell me what you want.”
“Ahem, well, you see…”
I asked Yong Ma-san to cooperate with the Outer Hall’s duties.
Yong Ma-san, who had been nodding along as I explained, replied with a faint smile.
“What kind of nonsensical bullshit is this?”
“Hey, this isn’t a bad proposal for you either, you know?”
“How so?”
“From what I’ve seen, the Two Immortals Gang doesn’t bother civilians, and sometimes you even help the poor. You ordered that, right?”
“That is correct. Even gangsters must have principles and rules.”
“So you only clash with other gangs, right? Mostly over territory.”
“That is also correct.”
“In that situation, what do you think would happen if I, the First Squad Leader, had your back?”
“...!”
The thick vein in the middle of Yong Ma-san’s forehead twitched.
It was the first time I had seen it since Myo Hyang had grabbed his hand and asked him to help me long ago.
“How about it? A little more tempting now?”
“…I will not deny it. However, if we were to join hands with you, the Two Immortals Gang would not be able to avoid condemnation.”
“Am I an idiot? You think I’d support you so obviously?”
I gave Yong Ma-san a few examples.
There were many ways, like not cracking down on gambling dens run by the Two Immortals Gang.
Or not pursuing fleeing members of the gang.
“On the other hand, what do you think would happen if we conducted daily raids on your rivals’ businesses? On the condition that you continue to leave civilians alone.”
“…A tempting offer indeed.”
“Are you in or out?”
“I am in. However, I have one condition.”
“What is it?”
“I will consider it if you stop charging me for meals.”
That was something I’d have to think about.