Honestly, Even I Can’t Handle This Anymore (3)
Traveling by cart was, in its own way, quite comfortable.
Of course, it didn’t compare to riding in a proper carriage, but when measured against walking on foot all the way, it was practically a luxury.
So it ought to have been comfortable.
And yet, the cart carrying Do Un-chan was filled with so much discomfort that not even the smallest trace of ease could take root in his heart.
“Uuuuugh……”
“Damn it! Seriously!”
“I’m gonna kill him. One day, I’m really gonna kill that bastard.”
“……Why am I…….”
Listening to the pained groans from the front, Do Un-chan broke out in a cold sweat. Even looking at the backs of the people dragging the cart made his skin crawl.
“…….”
His gaze drifted downward.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Every time the cart made of thick iron moved, it gave off a heavy, dull vibration.
No matter how you look at it, this was not a cart made for traveling comfortably.
A cart, by nature, had to be both sturdy and light. If you focused too much on sturdiness, it became unbearably heavy and put too much strain on the oxen—or whatever was pulling it.
That was why the craft lay in making it as sturdy as possible while still keeping it light.
But this cart had achieved only one goal perfectly: sturdiness. It was built as if it didn’t matter whether the horses—or men—dragging it died doing it.
……And people were dragging it.
“Um…… Daoist Chung Myung.”
“Yeah?”
“……Are we really going all the way to Guizhou like this?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“……Ha. Haha.”
Wiping away his sweat again and again, Do Un-chan scrambled for the right words in his head.
“I-it’s not that there’s any real problem, but going like this might be a little slow. So maybe, if anything…….”
But before he could even get to the point, Chung Myung sprang to his feet.
“He says it’s slow! Can’t you run faster? Useless bastards!”
“Aaaah!”
“I really will kill you! I really will!”
The sound of Chung Myung smacking them across the back and the cries that followed rang out in a pitiful cacophony.
Do Un-chan, who had unintentionally caused this whole disaster, was now drenched through with sweat. The cart pullers, through all their suffering, kept turning to glare at him with knife-sharp eyes.
Do Un-chan looked at Chung Myung with a resentful expression.
That’s not what I meant, you crazy bastard!
What kind of lunatic rode on a human-drawn cart and crossed a city gate with it?
Sure, there were rickshaws pulled by people and sedan chairs carried by people. But no one took those on a journey of a thousand li.
Because it was obvious madness.
Do Un-chan glanced at Gye Hyeong, who was sitting uncomfortably beside him, and opened his dry lips.
“Gye Hyeong.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“……I’m sorry. I should’ve believed you.”
“……No. I understand completely. I wouldn’t have believed it either.”
That Daoist named Chung Myung was simply impossible to explain in words.
Who in the world could have imagined there was such a person?
And that one-of-a-kind madman was now standing at the front of the cart, giving a long, meaningless sermon.
“Do you know how much trouble I went through making this thing? If I went to all this effort, everyone should be grateful!”
“What the hell is this crazy bastard saying……!”
“How grateful are we? I want to bite him to death!”
“What the hell is the Ghost Sect doing?”
“Oh? You still have enough strength left to talk?”
Chung Myung lightly used Heavenly Weight to increase the load.
“Aaaagh!”
“I told you not to do that, you son of a bitch!”
“My back! My fucking back!”
Meanwhile, Hye Yeon, who silently pulled the cart at the head of the line, had a clear bead of sweat rolling down his head.
Abbot.
Sunlight reflected off his smooth, polished scalp, making it shine brilliantly.
You should have stopped me harder.
Why didn’t you break my legs when I said I was going to Mount Hua? Why didn’t you do it? Why?
I really was insane……!
“Monk. Are you all right?”
“Baek Cheon patron…….”
Hye Yeon opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he could not continue and squeezed his eyes shut.
Baek Cheon looked at him with a sympathetic expression.
“……Just endure a little longer. That bastard does have some conscience, so he does rest once the sun goes down, doesn’t he?”
“Rest? At that time, we start training.”
“Ah, well, that’s only natural.”
“…….”
These idiots are all insane……!
But Hye Yeon and the other Mount Hua disciples had it comparatively better. The one truly staring into hell right now was none other than Hong Dae-gwang.
“Uuuuuugh……”
Dragging the cart with iron weights hanging from his arms and legs, Hong Dae-gwang looked half out of his mind.
“W-why……? Why me?”
The others were at least in the position of being trained by Chung Myung, so they could endure most of the absurdity.
But Hong Dae-gwang wasn’t in that position, was he?
“M-Mount Hua Divine Dragon! Mount Hua Divine Dragon!”
At last, unable to hold it in any longer, Hong Dae-gwang screamed in a fit of near-hysteria.
“Why am I doing this? I’m just an informant!”
“What are you talking about?”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue at him, panting as he spoke.
“You think enemies don’t kill informants? If you’re gonna stick around Mount Hua, you’d better know how to protect your own damn life! There are no weak friends in Mount Hua!”
“You brat! Even so, what are you talking about? How old do you think I am? This is supposed to make me stronger?”
“You’re a bright young thing and you’re whining about your age.”
Eh?
At my age, eh?
Ha, I should just keep my mouth shut! My lips are the only ones suffering here. This is exactly why I hate the young these days!
“Instead of complaining, pull harder. At this pace, when the hell are we getting to Guizhou?”
As Chung Myung grumbled, Baek Cheon suddenly whipped around in shock.
“Ch-Chung Myung?”
“What?”
“Guizhou? We’re going to Guizhou? Not Sichuan?”
“Of course not. The Ghost Sect is in Guizhou. We have to go there first.”
For some reason, the road had looked different from last time. After a brief moment of thought, Baek Cheon frowned and hurriedly asked,
“W-wait. But Guizhou is below Sichuan, isn’t it?”
If you went southwest from Sichuan, you reached Yunnan; if you went southeast, you reached Guizhou.
“Right.”
“T-then why don’t we stop by Sichuan first? Why do we have to go to Guizhou first? That means we’re going in a circle!”
“Because I feel like it.”
“…….”
Without realizing it, Baek Cheon clenched the sword at his waist tightly. It was a real sword he had brought from Mount Hua.
But Chung Myung didn’t even snort.
“What? You gonna let me take another one?”
“Uuuugh…….”
Defeated, Baek Cheon angrily seized the metal bar attached to the cart.
Why does he insist on doing this every time when he never even gets his money’s worth?
Leave him be.
After Yoon Jong and Jo Gul whispered together softly, Jo Gul suddenly turned his head and looked ahead. Then he smiled in satisfaction.
“Senior Brother.”
“Hm?”
“Bite down hard.”
“Why?”
“It’s a mountain road. We’re going up.”
“…….”
Yoon Jong slowly raised his head, and sure enough, a steep mountain road stretched before them.
He laughed aloud. Then he thought.
Should I just throw this all away and run?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Boss, Boss!”
“What?”
“We’ve got customers!”
“What? Customers?”
The man who had been lying down with the most inconvenienced expression imaginable brightened and bolted upright.
“Customers? You’re sure?”
“Yes, absolutely sure!”
“Couldn’t they be robbers pretending to be customers again?”
“I said I’m sure!”
The man called Boss scowled hard.
“Damn it. What a hard world this is! How the hell can you cross the mountains without a blade at your waist?”
“It’s probably because of that cart trade thing or whatever. Things will settle down soon.”
“Whatever! Customers, you say? Are they armed?”
“They are. But there are fewer than ten of them, and the cart they’re riding on is apparently huge.”
“That means they’re customers!”
The man called Boss jumped up at once and grabbed his axe.
“It’s been a while since I wet my throat. Call the boys! Let’s go!”
“Yes!”
The bandits of Jeokho Chae, nestled in West Mountain in Sanyang County, chattered happily as they gathered their weapons.
“……They’re not coming?”
“They should be arriving any moment now.”
“You’re sure you saw it right?”
“I told you, yes!”
“No, why are you raising your voice at me!”
Smack.
The man who had been struck on the back of the head let out a groan and clutched his skull. Then he lifted his head with an aggrieved expression.
“I-I’m telling you, Bangho saw it clearly! They can’t take any other road with that cart, so they’re definitely coming this way!”
“That bastard’s eyesight seems to be getting worse these days.”
The man called Boss frowned, clearly unconvinced.
“Maybe we should find someone with better eyes. Even if we put him on the watchtower, he never sees anything right.”
“……This time it’ll be fin—oh! There! They’re coming!”
“Oh?”
The bandit bared yellow teeth and grinned.
“Hehehe. Those stupid bastards don’t even know where they are, and yet they still had the nerve to…… to…….”
The sneer on his face tilted slightly.
“Hey.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“That cart right now…… is that a person pulling it?”
“……Looks like it.”
He blinked a few times, but no matter how he looked at it, it was a person—not an ox or a horse—pulling the cart.
“Are they crazy……? What kind of place do they think this is, that a person would pull a cart?”
“Even a cow would be gasping for breath on a mountain pass like this.”
“L-look at that. They’re staggering all over the place.”
“My, my. Tsk tsk tsk.”
The world was wide, so of course crazy people came in all sorts of varieties, but this was a strangely different kind of madness.
“Well, whatever. Even if they’re crazy, they’re customers if they have money! Let’s go, boys!”
“Yes!”
They waited until the cart drew near, then burst out of the brush with loud, booming laughter. Quickly, they blocked the road in front of it.
“Stop right there!”
Thud.
The cart, which had been creeping forward as if it might stop at any second, came to a halt on the spot. At the same time, the men pulling it collapsed where they stood as if they had been cut down all at once.
“Haaah! Haaah! Haaah! Haaah!”
“W-water. Water, please……! Ah, damn, I’m…… dead.”
“…….”
Seeing them collapse to the ground—no, half lie there—the bandits hesitated.
Uh, this isn’t right…….
To get a reaction, they were supposed to startle at the sight of the bandits springing out, eyes bulging in shock, so they’d have a place to shove in the next line.
But this…….
And then the man standing beside him jabbed his side.
What are you doing?
I know that!
The bandit cleared his throat and roared at the top of his lungs.
“Kahahahahaha! You bastards! You really made it all the way here! If you value your lives, leave everything you have and turn back. Then I’ll spare your lives!”
It was a voice full of extravagant swagger.
Wrapped in beast pelts, sporting a bristling beard that made him look like some fearsome warrior, and holding a massive axe in one hand, there was no way anyone could look at him and not feel a shiver crawl up their spine.
But…….
“……Who are those guys?”
“Looks like bandits?”
“Bandits? Hah, last time it was horse thieves, and now it’s mountain bandits?”
“Aren’t those just the kind of people you meet on the road?”
“……They stink.”
The reaction he got was completely different from what he’d expected.
Are these bastards all insane?
Just as he was about to shout, the man beside him, Im Saeng, shot up first and screamed shrilly,
“You idiots! Do you even know who this is? This is the Boss of Jeokho Chae, the Giant Mountain Great Axe, Gwak Gyeong!”
Then the handsome man half-sprawled on the ground propped up his upper body with great effort and asked in a weary voice,
“What?”
“He says they’re Jeokho Chae bandits.”
“What kind of mountain camp calls itself dragons and tigers like it’s the most natural thing in the world?”
“It sounds impressive.”
“……You really have terrible taste.”
Im Saeng’s eyes flared with fire.
Even after he had announced the name Jeokho Chae, their reactions remained maddeningly lukewarm.
“You lot! You dare react like that after seeing the heroes of the Green Forest! I was going to spare your lives, but now I can’t! Boys!”
“Yes!”
“Show these fools exactly what the Green Forest is!”
“Yes!”
The bandits, each gripping a weapon, began creeping toward the cart.
And then—
“Damn it!”
A head poked out from the top of the cart.
“What is it?”
“Bandits, apparently.”
“You useless bunch! And you’re using that as an excuse to rest? Why aren’t you cleaning this up and moving out already?”
“Uuuugh.”
At the words of the young brat sticking his neck out from the cart, the men who had collapsed on the ground slowly, lazily struggled back to their feet.
“Ha. I’ve really seen everything now.”
“Uncle. Shall I kill them?”
“You’re a Daoist, aren’t you? Kill only half of them.”
“Yes!”
Giant Mountain Great Axe Gwak Gyeong was stunned.
Jeokho Chae, fine. He could accept that.
But these men were traveling so far that they had to climb this mountain; there was no way they had never heard the name Green Forest before. Were those the sort of reactions that made any sense?
At the very least, one of them should have jumped at the name and trembled in fear.
Are they really crazy bastards?
Looking at them, they did seem out of their minds.
The one in front was a monk, after all.
Good grief, a monk was pulling the cart. And he was even wearing a yellow-and-red monk’s robe, apparently having picked up whatever rumors he’d heard about the outfit.
Anyone would think he came from Shaolin. Hah.
That wasn’t all.
The guy behind him looked like a beggar, dressed in rags.
Just how many times in a lifetime did anyone get to see a beggar pulling a cart?
And the rest…….
Are there two women?
They’d been too covered in dirt to tell properly, but now it looked like even the women were pulling the cart.
“What kind of Daoists are these, pulling a cart? My, what a sight. Oh? They even have embroidery on their robes? What kind of Daoists put flower embroidery on their clothes…….”
Huh?
Flower?
That…… wait.
Plum blossoms?
Gwak Gyeong’s eyes grew wider and wider. Eyes already at their limit pushed beyond the limit as if determined to break through it.
Plum blossoms?
Daoists wearing robes embroidered with plum blossoms?
Where? At the waist…….
Swords? Swords engraved with plum blossoms?
Gwak Gyeong’s jaw began to tremble.
I’ve heard of…….
Right. He definitely had. So then……
If it was the Daoist sect that used the plum blossom as its symbol, then that meant the one that had recently beaten the hell out of the terrifying Maninbang like dogs…….
……Huh? Ah!
Gwak Gyeong’s face went deathly pale.
But Im Saeng, still failing to grasp the situation, arrogantly jutted out his chin and shouted at the top of his lungs,
“You little brats! Today I’ll strip the skin from your bodies and feed it to the beasts! You’ll regret ever stepping into Jeokho Chae’s territory…….”
“Aaaahhh! Shut up! You insane bastard!”
BOOM!
The fist Gwak Gyeong launched knocked Im Saeng’s jaw out of place. His broken teeth flew out like stones shot from a slingshot, and Im Saeng sprawled on the ground like a frog.
Even as his subordinate spasmed from the unexpected strike, Gwak Gyeong did not spare him a glance.
“Huff! Huff! Huff!”
Sweat poured down his face. Under the bewildered stares of the bandits around him, Gwak Gyeong threw himself flat on the ground and shouted,
“I-Immortal Gwak pays respects to the Daoists of Mount Hua!”
It was a desperate cry packed with a single, fervent wish: survive at any cost.
“Get down this instant! You idiots!”
As Gwak Gyeong screamed frantically, the surrounding bandits hurriedly flopped face-first onto the ground as well. If you lived by banditry, first and second and third all came down to reading the situation, didn’t they?
“…….”
Baek Cheon, who had drawn his sword, stared blankly at the bandits.
“……What’s wrong with them?”
“Beats me.”
At that moment, a face that had been inside the cart poked out again.
“Hey, are we moving or what!”
“…….”
At that instant, Gwak Gyeong—having quickly figured out who the leader of this group was—shouted in a thunderous voice,
“Daoist!”
“Yeah?”
Chung Myung’s gaze turned to Gwak Gyeong.
“Please spare us!”
Thud!
Gwak Gyeong slammed his forehead into the ground.
“…….”
At the unexpected sight, Chung Myung glanced sideways at Baek Cheon.
“They’re bandits, right?”
“……Looks like it.”
“Then why are they acting like that?”
“……Exactly.”
Chung Myung tilted his head, then suddenly looked at the Mount Hua disciples, who were now coated head to toe in dust. And with a strangely accepting nod, he muttered to himself,
Well, come to think of it.
You lot do look more like bandits.
Objectively speaking. Objectively.