Drunken Boxing
“Y-You! How—!”
I’d seen him drink the tea laced with SouI-Bewildering Powder with my own eyes, and I’d even confirmed that he’d fallen asleep from the drug.
So he was pretending to sleep?
Impossible.
I’d laced the tea with the powder, and on top of that, he’d drunk the wine himself. Wine and Soul-Bewildering Powder was a combination even seasoned experts struggled to endure.
There was no way Paeng Yeohun—the infamous wastrel—could have held up.
Did I put in too little? Or did he catch on? Damn it, I should’ve checked more carefully!
I hadn’t been able to drink while pretending to be Byeok Ungang, since that bastard was known to dislike alcohol.
So the moment I saw the wine, an unbearable thirst had surged up, and instead of checking on the man, I’d gone for the drink first.
In the end, this whole situation was Chuhongeom’s own damn fault.
“Ugh… I’m drunk.”
My vision swayed wildly, and the buzz of alcohol surged all the way to my scalp.
“You fool! Stop babbling and answer me! How did you get up?”
Chuhongeom shouted at me, furious.
He had to be wondering how I’d slipped out of his perfect trap.
“Do I really need to know?”
The alcohol had me slurring a little too much.
I did expect him to have a plan.
Even if Byeok Ungang hadn’t been Chuhongeom, would a father sit still after his only son brought some thug home from outside?
I expected some kind of trick.
And the instant he naturally handed me the teacup, I’d guessed what that trick was.
That made countering it easy.
“It should be kicking in by now.”
“What?”
Stagger.
The moment I finished speaking, Chuhongeom’s body swayed.
“You bastard! You poisoned the wine!”
“You shouldn’t have finished the whole thing.”
If he hadn’t drunk the wine, I would’ve used some other method.
But how could a sparrow pass up the mill?
I’d assumed he’d touch it, and I’d been right.
“S-So this was your plan….”
“It’s Qi-Dispersing Poison. Deadly to martial artists.”
Qi-Dispersing Poison.
The most lethal poison for a martial artist, one that scattered inner power and destabilized the flow of qi.
Of course, my own inner power was so pitifully small that the effect was negligible.
No problem moving.
In fact, thanks to the peculiar nature of the Blue Wolf Mind Method, I’d practically been unaffected.
“Ugh, you bastard! You rely on poison like a coward!”
“Says the guy who used poison first.”
What, it’s romance when I do it and adultery when you do? I snapped back at the fool spouting nonsense.
Ugh, I’m gonna puke.
Even though I’d avoided the effects of the Qi-Dispersing Poison, I wasn’t completely free of the Soul-Bewildering Powder.
Even one sip was deadly for someone like me, practically no different from an ordinary man.
Just to break down the poison, I’d burned through more than half the inner power I had.
If I pushed my inner power all the way, maybe one strike.
My already meager reserves had shrunk even further.
On top of that, I’d chugged the wine so he wouldn’t realize I’d poisoned it, which meant I’d drunk far too much.
I feel like throwing up.
Maybe it was the booze, but my stomach churned and my vision wobbled.
Still, it’s not all bad.
Attack power rises.
Accuracy decreases.
Attack power up, accuracy down.
From my perspective, where I had to put everything on one hit anyway, that wasn’t a bad trade.
“You little bastard! This is a matter between father and son! Outsiders should stay out of it!”
When he got no answer, Chuhongeom started throwing around absurd excuses.
“Do you actually think that makes sense?”
His voice was loud, but his argument had no weight at all.
I wondered if he’d been embarrassed saying it out loud himself.
“Grrr! Whatever! I’ll kill you too!”
“Wh-When people run out of things to say, they usually start cursing and shouting.”
“You worm!”
Maybe I’d hit a nerve. Chuhongeom screeched and swung his sword.
Fast. Threatening.
But.
“Too obvious.”
Maybe because he’d been poisoned, but he was far too straightforward.
Considering the rumors that he’d wiped out the Baekak Sect on his own, “lacking” almost felt too mild a way to put it.
Swish!
His blade skimmed past my hair by a hair’s breadth.
“Y-You!”
Swish!
Same result.
Whoosh! Swish!
He kept swinging again and again, but nothing changed.
“You bastard! Are you looking down on me?”
Chuhongeom was so worked up he started flailing wildly, shrieking as he swung his sword in every direction.
“O-oh!”
Byeok Unseong, watching me dodge the charging blade like some kind of acrobat, kept letting out cries of admiration.
Damn it, this is harder than I thought!
From the outside, it probably looked like I was toying with him, but the reality was different.
Dodging a sword with my vision swaying from alcohol was nowhere near as easy as it sounded.
It may have looked like I was teasing him by narrowly avoiding every strike, but I was actually just narrowly avoiding every strike.
I need to end this fast.
There was also a huge gap in stamina.
I had next to no external martial training, while Chuhongeom, even poisoned and unable to use inner power, had spent years building a body through hard physical training.
The longer this dragged on, the more it favored him.
Wait for the opening.
I only needed one shot. One clean hit, and this was over.
Heavenly Luck Fist activated!
11
Failure
My boldly thrown punch only managed to graze Chuhongeom’s face.
Damn it. Accuracy being lowered means the difficulty jumps too.
“Y-You?”
Chuhongeom was thrown off by my sudden offense, but he quickly recovered his composure and reset his stance.
Don’t back off.
I punched again.
Heavenly Luck Fist activated!
7
Failure
But luck still refused to side with me.
Swish!
Failure
Again and again, every punch missed, failed, failed, failed.
The high threshold raised by my drunken state was more than the Strong Luck trait alone could overcome.
“Are you making a mockery of me?”
Chuhongeom, who had been dodging my repeated assaults, could no longer hide his emotions.
Narrowly dodging. Narrowly missing.
From his point of view, it probably looked like I was messing around with him.
“That’s enough playing around!”
He barked and corrected his stance, then slashed again with all his might.
Swish!
The blade skimmed my cheek.
In that instant, a hot sting flared, and bright blood trickled down.
That was close.
If I’d reacted even a fraction slower, I’d have been dealt a fatal wound.
This time, I’d genuinely gotten lucky.
“If you don’t want your throat cut, kneel now and beg for forgiveness.”
Convinced he had the upper hand, the bastard didn’t stop mocking me.
Not yet. Not yet.
Swish!
Failure
My next punch sliced through empty air again.
“You still don’t understand it won’t work?”
Chuhongeom frowned as he danced around my fist.
His voice was thick with irritation.
“If your head can’t understand it, then I’ll make your body learn.”
The atmosphere around him changed, turning savage.
He was clearly planning to end this with his next attack.
A hair’s-breadth standoff.
But the moment I saw the place he was standing, a grin slipped across my face before I could stop it.
“That’s what I was waiting for.”
The chance had come. Time to land one clean blow.
“Have you lost your mind?”
He trailed off in confusion, staring at me as I suddenly smiled and clenched my fist.
“At this distance, there’s nowhere for your attack to go wrong.”
“What?”
As soon as I finished speaking, he looked around.
W-When did this happen?
Somewhere along the way, the retreat route had been sealed off by walls.
And right in front of him was me. There was nowhere left to run.
“Y-You bastard!”
Realizing the situation had turned against him, he quickly raised his sword and brought it down.
But.
“Too late.”
The dice of Cheongyeoljeon were affected by the surrounding environment.
For example, if movement was restricted, the dice value took a -5 penalty.
And if an opponent was completely restrained, it gained a +5 bonus.
So right now, with him boxed in and unable to escape, I got a bonus.
Pour it all out!
All in.
I’d been saving my inner power for this exact moment.
The energy of the Blue Wolf Mind Method gathers in my fist.
18
Success
Clang!
“What?”
The instant my fist slammed directly into his sword, Chuhongeom’s blade snapped in two.
The result of stacking the attack boost from drunkenness, the Heavenly Luck Fist, and finally the Blue Wolf Mind Method.
“What?”
Chuhongeom stared with wide eyes at his broken sword.
“Your stomach’s wide open.”
I didn’t waste the opening.
Heavenly Luck Fist activated!
17
Success
Thud!
My fist slammed into his abdomen.
“Ghhk!”
Chuhongeom collapsed with a pig’s death squeal.
“Again.”
I didn’t stop.
Success
Success
As if mocking the failures from before, success notifications started pouring up one after another.
My fists hammered his stomach again and again.
“Kgh! I-I’ll… end this with this….”
“Third-rate villains always say the same thing.”
Success
Thud!
Chuhongeom struggled to speak, trying to force out his final line, but my fist was faster.
There was no need to sit here and listen to predictable garbage.
“I-Is it really over?”
Before I knew it, Byeok Unseong had come up beside me and grabbed my collar, gulping nervously as he asked.
Oh right, I’d forgotten about him.
With ten years’ worth of weight suddenly lifted off me, I’d momentarily blanked on Byeok Unseong’s existence.
Even though he was my enemy, I was still wearing Byeok Ungang’s face, so from Byeok Unseong’s perspective, my earlier behavior probably hadn’t looked very reassuring.
“Yeah, it’s over. I told you before we came in—no matter what happened, trust me.”
Before entering the estate, I’d grabbed Byeok Unseong by the shoulder and spoken in my most serious voice.
“Y-Yeah, you did.”
Byeok Unseong nodded, looking dazed.
But the look on his face made it obvious he’d been doubtful more than anything else.
He’d never dreamed I’d take down Chuhongeom on my own.
“Just in case, I should tell you this bastard isn’t Chuhongeom.”
“Hm?”
“Or rather, he’s not the Chuhongeom from the rumors. The rumors were exaggerated.”
The Chuhongeom who supposedly wiped out an entire sect by himself probably never existed in the first place.
Based on the records in Cheongyeoljeon and the Haomen’s investigation, my best guess was that Baekak Sect had probably self-destructed while drunk out of their minds, and Chuhongeom had simply managed to survive somehow.
After that, some faction that wanted to turn the rumor into truth probably murdered him in prison. Something like that.
Though, honestly, that’s all just speculation.
I simply didn’t have enough information to draw a firm conclusion.
“I-I see. W-Well, then I suppose that’s why you won….”
After hearing me out, Byeok Unseong nodded.
Still, how quickly he accepted it was oddly annoying.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Huh? Now?”
Suddenly becoming the target of the question, Byeok Unseong blinked in confusion.
“I’ve taken care of the impostor who was pretending to be Byeok Ungang. I left his head for you, but before long, news of the Byeokun Merchant Group leader’s death will spread all over Beijing.”
“It will.”
“A pack of wolves is probably going to come running.”
The pillar supporting the Byeokun Merchant Group had collapsed with ridiculous ease.
Soon, a swarm of vultures would descend on the shaken organization.
“I appreciate the concern, but the Byeokun Merchant Group isn’t so weak that it’ll collapse over this.”
Byeok Unseong’s calm confidence showed through.
Confidence was a good sign.
At the very least, it meant he wouldn’t crumble easily when the waves came crashing in.
“Well, that’s a relief. So you’ll be the one leading the group from here on out?”
“No. My elder sister’s here, so she’ll probably take full control.”
Byeok Unseong shook his head.
“Elder sister? You had family?”
“Yes. She’s away managing another branch of the merchant group right now, but if she hears Father has died, she’ll come back.”
“A blessing in disguise, I guess.”
“A blessing in disguise indeed.”
After that, the two of us stood in silence for a while.
“Then let’s settle the bill.”
Breaking the silence, I held out my hand to Byeok Unseong.
The job was done. Time to finish the transaction.
“Yes, let’s settle it.”
Seeing my hand held out right in front of him, Byeok Unseong blinked a few times, then understood and broke into a smile.
“You carried out the request beautifully.”
An ounce of silver dropped into my palm.
“Well, I’m grateful too.”
With this much silver, I wouldn’t have to worry about idling around for a while.
Which meant I’d bought myself time to invest in my own growth.
“Is that so?”
Clink.
Still smiling, Byeok Unseong dropped another ounce of silver into my hand.
“What’s this?”
I tilted my head at the second silver piece resting in my outstretched palm.
“An extra payment.”
With that, Byeok Unseong let out a clear, relieved laugh.
He laughed and laughed, as if the emotion inside him were overflowing right up to the edge of his eyes.