The Gentry of Jing Province (11)
Outside the banquet hall, all hell had already broken loose.
"I refuse to die here!"
"Move—! I said move—!"
The gentry scattered in every direction, faces twisted with terror as they fled.
"M-Milord!"
"Please wait!"
Officers scrambled after the fleeing magnates, straining to shield them as best they could.
"Wh-what's going on?"
"...?"
The mansion's servants stood rooted in place, too bewildered to make sense of it all—and then there were the suspicious fellows clad in strange black outfits.
"...So things went wrong, huh?"
"Tsk tsk. I knew it would come to this."
Hang on—I feel like I've seen those outfits plenty of times in historical dramas. You know the ones: only the eyes left exposed, every other inch swallowed in black. The costume that proudly announces, "I am about to do something extraordinarily evil."
Anyone with eyes could see that men this suspicious, weapons drawn and hostility aimed squarely at me, could be treated as enemies without a second thought.
"..."
Even amid all this chaos, Hua Tuo kept pace at my side without losing a shred of composure.
...She really is basically a robot.
"Gahk!"
"Good. That's another one down."
All the while, Lü Bu methodically cut down the fleeing gentry with a steady rain of arrows.
"Hmm... I'd say two or three of these are going to slip away."
Lü Bu muttered, counting off the magnates who remained.
I answered in an even voice.
"Can't be helped."
"..."
"Nothing done by human hands is ever perfect."
At that, Lü Bu nodded.
"Setting that aside..."
Suspicious figures kept flooding in from outside—where on earth were they all springing from? I looked over the men glaring at me with open hostility, weapons in hand, and asked.
"Just who the hell are you people?"
Hearing my question, Suspicious Guy A hollered back.
"Why don't you go ask your father in the afterlife!"
Huh? He's just going to open with a 'your father' jab like that? Now my feelings are wounded.
While I was still wearing my briefly startled expression, Lü Bu's face flushed scarlet, as though the insult had been hurled at her.
"You son of a—"
"Lü Bu."
I caught the shoulder of Lü Bu, who had been about to step forward.
She turned her head and looked at me.
"It's fine."
"..."
"But thank you for getting angry in my place."
"Grr..."
The moment her eyes met mine, Lü Bu reined in her temper, just as she always did.
Impressive anger management. Honestly, where would I even be if Lü Bu weren't such a romantic?
I took a single step forward and addressed Suspicious Guy A, the man who had insulted my parents.
"Just what kind of upbringing did you have, that your opening move is to drag another man's parents into this?"
"What did you say?!"
Suspicious Guy A's eyes bulged, evidently stunned that I would summon parents into the exchange out of nowhere.
Fair enough—he probably never imagined the General-in-Chief would sling 'your father' insults right back at him. I'm human too; push me far enough and I can curse with the best of them. I could have simply ignored him from start to finish, but that isn't my style.
I spoke in a level voice.
"My apologies. That came out wrong."
"..."
"No sense dragging innocent people into it."
Still, bringing someone's parents into it is a low blow. He started it, sure—but no matter how angry you get, there are lines a person doesn't cross. This one was on me.
Having owned my mistake without hesitation, I pressed straight on.
"Your parents were surely good, decent people—people who would never have had a child at all, had they known he would one day grow up to insult strangers' parents out of nowhere."
"...?"
"They could never have dreamed a thing like you would come crawling out from beneath them. Which would make the most unfortunate souls in this room your parents, I'd say."
"...You bastard───!!"
Apparently I'd touched on something unforgivable, because Suspicious Guy A came roaring at me.
I said, incredulous.
"Seriously? You started this, and now you're the one throwing the tantrum?"
"Shut up!"
What's that saying—the one who dealt it is always the first to raise a stink? You're the one who ran his mouth about my father!
Naturally, one man charging alone wasn't going to accomplish a thing against me.
"H-Hey! You can't just rush in alone—!"
One of his comrades, evidently of the same mind, lunged to hold him back, but it was already too late.
"..."
Seo Yeo swung the Chu Heaven Sword, her face so frigid it made the knees of anyone watching buckle.
"GYAAAAAGH!"
Suspicious Guy A shrieked as the arm clutching his weapon was lopped off from just above the elbow.
Anyone could see she'd spared him on purpose.
"..."
Without a word, Seo Yeo kept swinging the Chu Heaven Sword.
I'd seen this scene before. Back in Xiliang, when she butchered the guard who'd picked a fight with me—it looked exactly like this.
A short while later, just as with that guard, Suspicious Guy A had been reduced to a state too gruesome for anyone to put into words.
You know that tactic—deliberately making an example of one enemy, as brutally as possible, to shatter the morale of the rest? That was exactly what Seo Yeo was doing. It wasn't a woman simply losing her temper and dicing a man up like vegetables.
...Honestly. Among men bound by strong camaraderie, this kind of brutality would only backfire—enraging them and steeling their will to fight—but these men weren't built that way. One glance was enough to tell they were the sort to scatter the moment things went sideways.
And just as my prediction held, the suspicious men reacted in every manner imaginable.
"Ulp...!"
Some averted their heads, revolted by the sight of the corpse wallowing in its pool of blood.
"How can anyone be so cruel..."
Others, faces drained chalk-white, shuffled back a half step.
But what mattered right now wasn't how they reacted.
I'd already figured out what manner of men stood blocking my path.
The head-to-toe black might have hidden their faces, but their bearing, their speech, and their weapons added up to a fairly clear picture of who they were and what they'd been doing.
Going by the hard-earned experience I'd rolled in with from Bing Province, these bastards were bandits, plain and simple. Call it birds of a feather: the corrupt gentry of Jing Province had joined hands with plunderers who lived off banditry, then smuggled them into the city and dug this trap well in advance.
If every mountain bandit and river pirate in Jing Province had converged on Jiangling Castle, how many would that make? Even a rough guess put it in the five figures.
Judging by the uproar beyond these walls, the escort troops I'd brought along were already fighting battles of their own—but there was no need to worry on their account.
My escorts were elites handpicked from the very best, and the ones leading such soldiers were generals who stood a match for ten thousand men. By now Guan Yu and Zhang Fei would be churning the enemy through like a blender. And Liu Bei, commanding them both, knew her way around a fight as well—I didn't believe for a second they'd lose to a rabble of bandits.
"We'll have to get outside first."
Lü Bu murmured, eyes still on the bandits.
Like Seo Yeo, her expression hadn't fully softened.
So her anger hadn't burned off completely after all.
"This place is too cramped to fight in."
"...?"
Her words gave me slight pause.
When the few face off against the many, isn't a narrow space supposed to be the advantage? In tight quarters the larger force can't rush you all at once—they die one by one instead. But to Lü Bu, the cramped quarters were apparently the greater inconvenience. Was that the confidence of a woman who knew this rabble couldn't lay a finger on her? If so, then I had no reason to hold back either.
I spoke to Lü Bu.
"Lü Bu."
"?"
She turned at my call and looked at me.
I gave the order without missing a beat.
"Carve us a path outside."
"..."
"At this rate, we'll lose ones we could still catch."
The gentry had already vanished from sight. About half had been dealt with inside the banquet hall, and most of those who'd fled with their backs turned had met their end to Lü Bu's unerring shots—yet a small handful still drew breath.
Reading my intent, Lü Bu flashed a grin.
"Got it. Then you'd better keep up with me."
"I will."
Lü Bu strode briskly ahead, and Seo Yeo fell into step beside me, matching my every movement as she guarded me.
The suspicious fellows... I suppose there's no need to call them that anymore.
As we advanced at an unhurried pace, the bandits in league with the gentry tried to fall back—but found they couldn't.
"Hey! What are you idiots up there doing?! Fight, damn it!"
"What the hell is going on up there?"
"Can't see a thing, so how would I know?"
Well, no wonder—their line of retreat was being jammed by their own comrades.
"Damn it..."
The bandit at the head of the pack ground his teeth at the sight of his sealed escape route.
"If it's come to this, we all rush them at once! CHARGE───!!"
"U-UWAAAAAH—!"
"GO—!!"
One bold bandit led the charge, and the rest came howling in behind him. Just as I'd observed, some wore the suspicious black garb, while others—likely disguised as the gentry's servants—were dressed in perfectly ordinary clothes.
Bandits packed shoulder to shoulder down the corridor, surging toward us like a wave.
Just how many of them had they crammed into this building?
But one thing was certain.
"My, don't they look lovely, all bunched up like that."
"..."
The ones walking out of here alive would be us.