Chapter 200
Chapter 200
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 200
>Chapter Title: Proselytizing (4)
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Unlike Baek-cheon, who belted out a majestic hymn with clear, shining eyes, the gathered crowd at the assembly showed only tepid reactions.
It was only natural. The situation had come out of nowhere, and it was a song none of them had ever heard before.
But Baek-cheon was not a man to be swayed by such an atmosphere.
What mattered to him was simply the fact that everyone was looking at him.
With a perfectly composed face, he began singing the first verse of "We Will Fight Against the Wicked" once more.
He had no choice. Il-mok wasn't a true devout Christian, so even for a famous hymn, he only knew the first verse.
And as his song reached the chorus again.
"Glo~ ry! Glory! Maitreya Light~ Church!!"
"Glo~ ry! Glory! Maitreya Light~ Church!!"
Here and there among the assembly participants, a few people began singing along to the highly infectious chorus.
They were the ones Il-mok had planted there. None other than the branch members of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's sub-branch.
Just as the saying goes, "three men make a tiger," humans are inherently prone to getting swept up in the surrounding mood.
"It's some kinda weird song, huh."
"But doesn't it stick in your mouth real nice?"
"Kinda gets you pumped in a strange way."
The hymn's intense addictiveness had the power to make even those who knew nothing and had just shown up squirm with the urge to join in.
"Glo~ ry! Glory! Maitreya Light~ Church!!"
"Glo~ ry! Glory! Maitreya Light~ Church!!"
By the third repetition of the hymn, everyone at the assembly was excitedly singing along with beaming faces.
Meanwhile.
Perched leisurely on a tree that had grown a short distance from the assembly site, Il-mok gazed at the intensely religious scene and let out a faint sigh.
He had left the assembly in the hands of others and wanted to rest at the sub-branch, but in the end, he couldn't help sneaking over to the site.
It was due to his obsessive compulsiveness. Delegating was fine, but he needed to check it with his own eyes at least once to feel at ease.
'Good thing I came.'
Thanks to that compulsiveness, Il-mok had gained a small harvest.
Not that the hymn was working better than expected—that he could see with his own eyes.
No, there were grubby beggars, sweat pouring down their faces, mixed in among the crowd at various spots around the assembly site.
"Tch. The Beggar Clan bastards already sniffed it out, huh."
And these were beggars who had trained in martial arts.
* * *
Among the Central Plains' massive factions—the Nine Great Sects One Gang and the Seven Great Clans—one of the Nine Great Sects One Gang referred to the Beggar Clan.
The Beggar Clan, one of the Central Plains' renowned giant factions, was, as its name implied, a gathering of beggars.
Originally, the Beggar Clan hadn't been formed by beggars training in martial arts. Rather, it came about in the process of a martial artist protecting beggars.
In the era of endless wars when the Central Plains' overlords kept changing hands, countless beggars sprang up across the land, and a certain righteous wanderer took pity on them and stepped forward to help.
He was the one hailed as the founding ancestor of the Beggar Clan, and as he passed down martial arts to the beggars so they could protect themselves and his noble intentions were transmitted down the generations, the Beggar Clan naturally took shape.
But despite the founding ancestor's spirited will and efforts, even after hundreds of years, the world was still full of beggars, and before long, the Beggar Clan had transformed into one of the Central Plains' premier intelligence networks.
With beggars everywhere under heaven, they begged across the Central Plains, collected the information they picked up, processed it, sold it back for money, and used that money to feed the beggars—thus becoming such an organization.
Naturally, Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province, was also home to countless beggars, and the Beggar Clan's local branch was there to protect them.
"What the hell are you saying right now?"
At the question from Hong-gae, the Red Beggar and branch leader of Gansu as well as a Five-Knot Beggar, a young beggar with three knots tied at his waist sighed and replied.
"You gone deaf now? I said the Nancheon Society's done for."
At the yellow-tongued attitude of the Three-Knot disciple, Hong-gae smacked the back of the young beggar's head and said,
"You've gone and forgotten all your manners now? The nerve you have talking to the branch leader like that."
"They say even the Son of Heaven looks crooked after five days of starving—gotta keep up manners for a branch leader?"
Seeing the murderous glint in the Three-Knot disciple's eyes, Hong-gae's face turned beet red, true to his name, as he bellowed,
"Then you should've begged properly all this time! Blame your ugly mug for it. Where do you get off mouthing off."
"You think it's my face? It's 'cause the whole town's gone to shit! Thanks to those damn Nancheon bastards!"
At the Three-Knot disciple's shout, the branch leader clicked his tongue.
He had a point.
As the saying goes, "charity comes from the granary"—thanks to the Nancheon Society's vile deeds, public sentiment in Lanzhou had hit rock bottom.
Most people were too busy scraping by themselves, so those giving alms to beggars could be counted on one hand.
But the Three-Knot disciple's true rage wasn't from failed begging.
It was the powerlessness of watching Lanzhou's common folk head straight into hell's pit with nothing he could do.
He'd lived as a beggar since childhood but joined the Beggar Clan with a sense of justice and learned martial arts.
Yet he never had occasion to use those skills here.
Even if all the Beggar Clan disciples in Lanzhou pooled their strength, beating the Nancheon Society was impossible. Even Hong-gae, the Five-Knot Beggar and branch leader, was far inferior to the Nancheon Society's leader.
To clean up the Nancheon Society without casualties, they'd need the clan leader or an Eight-Knot elder to step in, but they were busy elsewhere and had no time for Gansu Province.
The Central Plains were too vast, and Gansu was on the edge even within them.
In that sense, the Nancheon leader was quite clever. While selling women and doing all sorts of trashy deeds, he never touched the beggars.
To avoid needlessly provoking the Beggar Clan's wrath.
It was a bizarre symbiotic relationship. The Nancheon Society would drive people into debt mountains, creating new beggars.
Of course, the Three-Knot disciple, young and brimming with overzealous justice, was itching to defy the Nancheon Society even if it killed him, but he couldn't dare challenge their leader.
Because of the middle-aged beggar right in front of him—the branch leader Hong-gae.
The clan leader had ordered steady surveillance of Gansu dynamics, warning not to treat even beggar brats' lives as worthless as dung.
Instead, just beg and look after the poor beggars—that had been about a year ago.
Seeing the young beggar seething with a year's pent-up fury, the branch leader soothed him instead of smacking his head again.
"Well, at least you won't have to worry about food for a while now."
"Why? 'Cause the Nancheon Society collapsed?"
"Yeah."
"But if the ones who took down the Nancheon Society are even worse scum, we're totally screwed forever, right?"
"You ignorant fool."
"We're all the same beggars—ain't no difference in what we learned, is there?"
As the young disciple grumbled, Hong-gae replied with a sneer.
"Even without learning, there are smart ones and dumb ones, you punk. Think about it. If they took down the Nancheon Society overnight, wouldn't they be some hidden master or new group? Don't you think headquarters would value info on them?"
"Ah!!"
Only then did the young beggar grasp the branch leader's point and let out an exclamation, upon which Hong-gae flashed a grin. A grin with yellowed teeth and sweat dripping down.
"This is our chance. Time to use the money from headquarters to give the beggars some meat soup for once."
* * *
From the morning the Nancheon Society fell, a special order went out to Lanzhou's beggars.
Gather information on the entity—or group—that destroyed the Nancheon Society.
Along with the very enticing rumor that success might mean meat soup.
But beggars weren't fools. No, living as beggars honed their instincts to a razor's edge.
They didn't stupidly grab people and ask about the Nancheon destroyer.
They simply begged on streets, markets, near women's laundry spots, around brothels and pleasure houses.
All over Lanzhou, they kept one ear open while begging.
The countless snippets of info the beggars picked up reached the Beggar Clan disciples, who compiled them and passed them to branch leader Hong-gae.
"So, these Maitreya Light Church bastards cleaned up the Nancheon Society?"
"Yes. Not sure about elsewhere, but the red-light district's buzzing with it."
"And their base?"
"No idea."
"What?"
As Hong-gae gaped in disbelief, the Three-Knot disciple replied shamelessly.
"Yeah. They claimed they wiped out the Nancheon Society and took over the red-light district, but they didn't reveal their hideout. So the district's just full of rumors. They ordered everyone to attend tonight's assembly and vanished."
The Three-Knot disciple added as if recalling something.
"Oh! And they killed off all the brothel and pleasure house owners who wouldn't obey."
"All of them?"
"Yes."
"...Black Dao scum worse than the Nancheon Society."
"They seemed like good guys though?"
At the Three-Knot disciple's words, Hong-gae scowled.
"You gone mad from begging?"
"No, they wiped out all the bad guys, didn't they? Got a messenger pigeon from the Gorang County sub-branch too—they slaughtered some Black Dao group called the Red Yarn Room there and distributed their wealth to the locals."
"Distributed the wealth?"
"Yes. Something about if you follow their doctrine, when Maitreya descends in this world, the wicked all die and light comes to the good? That's their teaching anyway."
"So, they help the good ones and slaughter all the bad ones?"
"Yes. So aren't they the good guys?"
"You ignorant fool."
Unable to hold back, Hong-gae finally walloped the back of the Three-Knot disciple's head.
"Hey! I was already dizzy from days of starving—why hit my head, you... sir!"
Hong-gae knew the disciple had nearly said "asshole" but switched it up, but he didn't scold him.
He just let out a light sigh.
'The doctrine sounds plausible enough, but they're dangerous.'
Past middle age and with decades as a beggar, Hong-gae had the experience to sense it.
Just because the overt goal is pure doesn't mean the hidden depths are.
Especially since some of the Central Plains' great orthodox sects were like that.
"The assembly's tonight, right? Location?"
* * *
That night.
Hong-gae directed the Beggar Clan disciples to scout the Maitreya Light Church assembly site.
He banned ordinary beggars from approaching and led only himself and the disciples.
In case problems arose—ordinary beggars might die pointless deaths.
Vigilant as if not missing even the tiniest detail, he spread his senses wide to gauge the mood for a moment.
Then some guy in an angry Four Heavenly Kings mask appeared, spouting bizarre sermons.
"Our Maitreya Light Church awaits the descent of Maitreya into this world in the future."
Followed by a young man stepping forward, face uncovered, and starting to sing.
'No way.'
At the sight of the singing youth, Hong-gae struggled to keep a straight face.
'That young and already at such a level!'
A face that looked just past twenty. Even calling him a later-generation talent felt iffy at that age, yet the youth's cultivation matched his own as a Five-Knot Beggar of the Beggar Clan.
'...On par with the Seven Dragons and Two Phoenixes.'
The nine most talked-about later-generation talents in the Central Plains lately sprang to mind.
As Hong-gae inwardly hid his shock upon realizing the Maitreya Light Church's power wasn't to be trifled with, the assembly's mood shifted.
One by one, people began singing along with him.
'What is this? Brainwashing?'
The song's overwhelming addictiveness heightened Hong-gae's wariness instead, so he turned to scan the surroundings.
And soon shut his eyes tight.
"Glo~ ry! Glory! Maitreya Light~ Church!!"
Because of the young beggars singing along more fervently than anyone.