Chapter 204
Chapter 204
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 204
>Chapter Title: One Day No Work, One Day No Eat (1)
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Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's Nanzhou Branch.
Dam Bin, who had returned to the manor alongside Il-mok, opened his mouth without hiding his pleased expression.
"That was truly an excellent judgment befitting the young master."
"...I just didn't want any unnecessary bloodshed."
He wasn't referring to the blood of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. Unless they were elites of the Hao Clan, the courtesans and low-rank warriors of the Nanzhou Branch were something he could cut down without a single casualty.
"I believe it was hardly unnecessary. Aren't the Hao Clan disciples all wicked scum, one and all?"
At Dam Bin's words, Il-mok shook his head.
"They're not like the Blood-Slaughter Room or the Nanzhou Assembly, are they?"
They were criminals, sure, but not utterly heinous villains. At best, a gathering of petty offenders.
That set them apart from the Beggar Clan.
While most Beggar Clan beggars were innocent and pitiful folk, these ones were criminals through and through.
Killing them just for slighting the Beggar Clan disciples felt off, but the Hao Clan were the type you had no reason not to kill if they slighted you.
That was why Il-mok had gone out of his way to warn the Red Flower Pavilion Master.
'I can't just kill everything I can kill.'
It wasn't qualms about murder.
Il-mok glanced down, peering at the sword bound at his waist.
'...There's this inexplicable sense of disconnect.'
It stemmed from his lack of hesitation toward himself when it came to killing.
If he went around killing indiscriminately just because he felt no reluctance, it seemed like he'd cross a line he shouldn't—an ominous foreboding lingered at the edge of his mind.
* * *
A few days passed since his meeting with the Red Flower Pavilion Master.
Whether the warning had been heeded or not, there were no reports of Hao Clan members sniffing around the brothels under the Maitreya Divine Church.
In the meantime, Dam Bin and Jin Ha-yeon continued training the new recruits from Silver Guard Hall, while Baek Cheon diligently tormented the trio of rookie actors.
Then, on the evening of the eighth day since the last gathering.
People began assembling once more at the site of that previous gathering.
Il-mok, watching from the same tree as before, let out a hollow chuckle.
'The numbers have grown, even without any proselytizing.'
The hymns and late-night snacks must have been a bit too effective.
The addictive quality of the hymns went without saying.
'And even the beggar bastards have multiplied.'
The number of beggars at the gathering site had at least quadrupled.
Moreover, all the new beggars were ones who hadn't cultivated any martial arts.
Naturally, the participants divided into three distinct groups.
Those from brothels and pleasure houses. Ordinary folk. And finally, the beggars.
At the first gathering, the beggars had mingled with the civilians, but now they were completely segregated.
It was due to the foul stench emanating from the beggars.
When their numbers were few, it was somewhat tolerable, but now that they'd swarmed in hordes, people started avoiding them.
The beggars naturally clustered together, and the mass of them gave off a putrid reek.
As a result, Il-mok's hygiene obsession was on the verge of erupting.
- Slaughter those filthy wretches!!
Last time, they'd been at a distance, and their numbers weren't overwhelming, so it had been just bearable.
But now, clustered in a mob, the smell reached him even from afar.
'Crazy bastards. No matter how you slice it, killing them just for being dirty is too much.'
Il-mok inwardly cursed the side effects of the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword, but he could endure it no longer.
Paht.
Il-mok, who had donned the Angry Four Heavenly Kings mask he'd brought just in case, leaped down from the tree and circulated his inner energy.
However, he still hadn't drawn his sword.
Thanks to the millennium ha-su-o, his vastly expanded inner energy flowed not through the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's technique.
Instead, it began resonating with the qi of the world around him.
"You bastards!"
"They're finally showing their true colors!"
The moment a few beggars belatedly sensed the majestic flow of qi and shouted in alarm.
Kwaaaa!!
A waterfall-like jet of water flew toward the clustered beggars.
The apparent leader, a middle-aged beggar, dodged it, but the rest were all struck, turning into drowned rats.
Their already ragged appearances grew even more wretched, and the Beggar Clan leader, who had urgently leaped aside thinking it was an ambush, wore a bizarre expression at the mere sight of the incoming water jet.
As the beggars floundered in the sudden chaos, Il-mok, who had unleashed the water, issued a command.
"Fetch the laundry soap left at the washing area and scrub them clean."
From the start, Il-mok's goal had been to wash them.
It was a decision born from the last shred of his rationality, holding back from murder.
The site being near the washing area, with abundant clean water, made it feasible. The boost from the millennium ha-su-o was just a bonus.
At Il-mok's order, several people dashed off to grab the soap and began forcibly washing the resisting beggars.
Amid this, Il-mok remained standing where he had sprayed the water, observing the scene.
He couldn't bring himself to wash them personally. Getting any closer might make him snap for real.
At that moment, the sole beggar who had evaded the water—the Beggar Clan leader—roared in fury.
"What is the meaning of this outrage!!"
At the middle-aged beggar Hong-gae's shout, Il-mok's forehead vein bulged as he retorted.
"Outrage my ass. I'm washing you because you're filthy!"
"Do you not know that this will starve them to death!!"
"......?"
Il-mok and the onlookers all wore puzzled expressions.
"That's right!"
"Please stop!"
"Aigoo, I'm dying!!"
Even the forcibly washed beggars wailed in agony.
Thanks to one forcibly washed beggar's sobbing explanation, Il-mok grasped the situation.
"How are we supposed to beg when we're this clean?"
On the verge of losing it to his obsession, Il-mok nearly let out an incredulous laugh despite himself.
'These bastards... turns out they weren't unable to wash—they just wouldn't.'
Now that he thought about it, with the river flowing right there, living unwashed made no sense.
They stayed caked in grime so people would pity them and give alms.
'Damn. Part of me wants to just kill them all.'
Their brazen attitude, the filth triggering his hygiene obsession, and their constant prying that grated on him.
Not a single redeeming quality.
- Yes! Kill them! If you carve a perfect sword path into those filthy carcasses, they'll die grateful for it!
Ironically, the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's side effects were fueling a reluctance toward murder.
Il-mok pondered briefly what to do with the wretched lot.
Then, a useful idea struck him.
Thanks to the words they'd let slip.
"You bastards! As the old saying goes, 'He who does not work, neither shall he eat!' You're lazier than livestock!"
At Il-mok's shout, the assembled crowd began murmuring.
"Was there an old saying like that...?"
"I've never heard it before..."
As they muttered in confusion, a middle-aged scholar in scholar's robes clicked his tongue and spoke.
"Tsk tsk. This is why people must study. It's a famous anecdote from Master Huaihai of the Tang era! He said, 'On any day I do not work, I shall not eat (One day no work, one day no eat)'! That's what he's referring to!"
At the middle-aged scholar's words, Il-mok inwardly sighed in relief.
'Damn. I figured this proverb didn't exist in the Central Plains.'
At least a similar anecdote existed—truly fortunate.
In the midst of this, thanks to Il-mok's rebuke and the scholar's explanation, the crowd's gazes refocused on the beggars.
Not with pity this time, but thick with disdain.
It was only natural.
Refusing even to wash for the sake of begging—from the perspective of people toiling daily at their livelihoods, nothing could be more infuriating.
"I can't believe I gave food to scum like them without knowing."
"Sigh. They're not beggars—they're con artists."
As the people's condemnations poured out, even the beggars, who usually cast aside their pride to live off alms, could only bow their heads in shame.
Unable to bear the humiliation, one beggar cried out in fury.
"You think we want to live like this!!"
The instant that beggar's shout rang out.
Hong-gae instinctively sensed something was going wrong.
Under the moonlight softly illuminating the world, though at some distance, Hong-gae's transcendent eyes could see it.
The man who had just turned the crowd's ire on the beggars. From the gap in the mask of the shaman who had unleashed the waterfall jet, the smile curling at his lips.
"Then why do you healthy bastards live like that?"
From the beginning, Il-mok had no intention of simply condemning and driving off the beggars.
"There's no work, so we live as beggars! No one will give us jobs!!"
At the furious beggar's shout, Il-mok concealed his smile and gravely asked.
Il-mok's plan to eliminate the beggars from Nanzhou without killing them.
"If we give you work and pay, will you stop begging?"
It was simple: give them jobs and wages.
A method Il-mok, with his past as a social welfare officer, had quickly conceived.
Don't give a man a fish—teach him to fish.
It was the most obvious and fundamental principle in welfare work.
The problem was how difficult it was to implement in reality.
'But with the Nanzhou Assembly's wealth, we have more than enough to pay for labor.'
Right now, it was entirely feasible.
Especially in a situation like this, with countless pitying-turned-disgusted gazes fixed on the beggars.
If any dared say, 'I don't want to work—I'd rather beg!' amid this, they'd just be raving lunatics, not beggars.
"Y-You'll give us work and wages?"
"I-Is that true, sir?"
As the beggars suddenly showered Il-mok with utmost respect and desperate gazes.
Hong-gae, belatedly snapping to his senses, bellowed.
"Don't fall for their sweet talk!! What makes you think you can trust the jobs they offer!!"
With inner energy laced into his shout, all eyes naturally turned to Hong-gae.
"I am Hong-gae, Fifth Finger of the Beggar Clan and head of Nanzhou Branch! In accordance with our founder's will, I will do anything to protect the beggars!"
Hong-gae went so far as to reveal his identity, issuing a declaration of war against the Maitreya Divine Church.
"What strange nonsense."
For some reason, the masked shaman merely cocked his head in puzzlement.
"Between giving work and wages to those who became beggars, versus letting them beg endlessly while only shielding them from beatings—which truly helps the beggars?"
The shaman's tone was calm.
"......"
But to that question Hong-gae had never even considered, he had not a single word in reply.