The Ambush
The next day.
Cheon Hyeong-jin, Flashing Flower Sword, had been exactly right.
We hadn’t even been out of the city for long when we ran into them.
Four men, dressed in black travel clothes, swords at their waists, carrying all sorts of traps and nets.
They didn’t look like hunters.
Or rather… maybe they did?
If you were willing to call human hunters hunters, that was.
And unfortunately, it seemed they had no particular enthusiasm for staying alive.
The four men clearly hadn’t recognized Gyeokseon, which explained the greasy, insinuating looks on their faces.
Honestly, I didn’t get it.
Even if Gyeokseon looked incredibly young for her age, how could they see two women traveling alone and not think anything was off?
That made no sense.
And if they made their living by the sword, shouldn’t they at least know who not to mess with?
Shouldn’t they have been suspicious?
Hadn’t they ever heard the Murim saying about watching out for women, old people, and children?
In any case, as the men approached us, Gyeokseon clicked her tongue softly.
That reminded me of what Cheon Hyeong-jin had said yesterday.
He told me to bring extra travel clothes, didn’t he? Said I’d be drenched in blood?
So I’d packed them when we left this morning, but… who would’ve thought something like that would happen the moment we stepped out of the city?
“Ahem! You there! This road ahead is dangerous! It’s no place for two women to be wandering about! Unless you’ve got urgent business, you’d best turn back!”
The man in front wore a friendly smile as he called out and walked toward us.
No, if you’re going to do that, at least hide that sleazy expression a little better.
As expected, they were missing brains in every possible way. This was the best they could come up with?
Gyeokseon frowned as though they weren’t even worth dealing with, so I stepped in and stopped them.
Life was precious, after all.
I didn’t know what sort of people they were, but they hadn’t actually done anything yet.
If they backed off now, maybe even Gyeokseon would hold her temper. I wasn’t sure, but maybe.
“Thank you for your concern. We’ll handle our own affairs, so you’d better continue on your way.”
When I said that, the man in front put on an injured expression and replied, “Now that’s hurtful. We meant well, didn’t we? No need to be rude when we were only worried about you.”
He flashed a broad, easy smile, and the three men behind him made a point of looking like they weren’t suspicious at all.
Did they even realize that made them look even more suspicious? If someone’s being too kind in a place like this, you should obviously be wary.
“I’ve heard enough, so I’m being merciful by speaking to you directly. Do not come any closer. Continue on your way.”
Gyeokseon’s voice was cold. Somehow, it sounded even colder than the Ice Soul Divine Art I had.
The men flinched instinctively when they heard her.
Right. If you can still act normal after hearing that, you either need real skill… or you’re unbelievably stupid.
“Oh my, now I’m scared stiff! All right, all right! We’re leaving! Honestly, we even tried to be considerate, and this is how we’re treated—”
As he muttered that, the man twisted his body as if turning to leave, then suddenly whipped around and thrust his hand toward Gyeokseon.
And in that instant, a great many things happened in the blink of an eye.
I couldn’t see clearly because my eyesight wasn’t all that great, but I did see Gyeokseon’s sword leave its scabbard first.
A cloud of white powder burst from the man’s hand, and Gyeokseon swept her blade through it, scattering the powder with a gust of sword wind.
At the same time, the man’s wrist flew off, and one of the men behind him, who’d gasped in shock, had an arm severed clean below the shoulder.
Hold your breath!
Gyeokseon’s voice rang directly in my mind. Then came her sword path. The remaining two men also had their arms cut down in a flash.
“Aaaagh!”
“Argh!”
“My arm!”
“Aaaah! Gah!”
The blade had been so fast the four men were screaming almost at the same time.
I heard the warning through telepathy and hurriedly held my breath, stepping back, but I could feel a faint dizziness creeping over me.
Wait… did I breathe some of it in? This… is that okay?
* * *
In an instant, Gyeokseon had severed the wrists and arms of the four men and pointed her sword at the one in front, sending him a stern telepathic rebuke.
Tell me what you just scattered! And hand over the antidote, now!
“Ack! O-okay! Spare my life! Please, spare my life!”
The man whose wrist had been cut off cried out in a panic and fumbled at the pouch tied to his waist with his remaining hand.
Gyeokseon watched him with icy eyes, then glanced toward Harin.
But that was only a stall.
While the man in front searched his pouch, one of the others—who had been screaming that he was going to die after losing an arm—hurled a net with the strength of a single remaining limb.
It wasn’t a net for catching animals, but a specially made one with iron wire woven into it to restrain martial artists.
Another man flung some kind of unknown liquid, and a third sent flying a throwing knife.
It was a practiced pincer attack, the sort that clearly hadn’t been pulled off just once or twice.
Unfortunately for them, the person standing before them was Gyeokseon.
The moment the net flew out, her sword flashed again, taking the head off the man searching the pouch.
The blade swept up in the same motion, slicing the net clean in half, and she still managed to dodge the liquid and the throwing knife.
Gyeokseon spun her body once more.
Her sword then cut across the throats of the three men behind him with perfect precision.
All of it happened in less than a breath.
In the time it takes to blink.
After beheading the four men, Gyeokseon sheathed her sword and hurriedly caught Harin as she started to collapse.
She checked Harin’s pulse at once. For now, it didn’t seem life-threatening, which made her breathe a little easier.
But since she didn’t know exactly what Harin had inhaled, she couldn’t relax completely.
So Gyeokseon searched the dead man’s pouch.
As if that would reveal anything useful. And even if it did, she wouldn’t know what it was.
So for the moment, she simply took the pouch with her.
Then, with an expression that suggested she was touching something filthy, she quickly searched the dead man’s body.
After confirming there was nothing else on him, Gyeokseon lifted Harin in her arms and sprang away to a place farther off.
After all, they couldn’t just stay where corpses were lying around.
When they reached a spot where a small brook flowed, Gyeokseon laid Harin down on a flat rock.
She checked again to make sure Harin was breathing properly, then placed a hand over her dantian and carefully sent in true qi to examine the inside.
Dispersed internal energy. Feeling it, Gyeokseon concluded it was probably some sort of qi-disrupting poison.
Well, they hadn’t had any reason to kill her.
What those men had wanted was a living woman, not a corpse.
Still, Gyeokseon couldn’t quite shake her unease.
It might have been another kind of poison entirely.
Those sorts of filth often poisoned their victims first, then forced them into disgusting acts under the pretense of offering an antidote.
But aside from the qi-disrupting poison, there didn’t seem to be anything else of note.
Harin’s cheeks were a little flushed, so there was a chance some aphrodisiac or sex drug had been mixed in, but since she hadn’t directly inhaled much of it, and it would wear off on its own if left alone, Gyeokseon decided there was no need to worry too much.
Only after confirming that Harin’s breathing had settled into a steady rhythm did Gyeokseon finally allow herself to relax a little.
But when she saw how Harin was lying there, she thought the posture looked terribly uncomfortable.
At first she considered bundling up the pack and propping it under Harin’s neck, but decided that wasn’t much better, either. So she moved the pack aside altogether and sat down next to her, lifting Harin’s head onto her lap.
That was better.
Thinking that, Gyeokseon looked down slowly at Harin’s face.
It was beautiful enough to make even a woman stare.
Her eyes were closed, so those blue irises couldn’t be seen, but her white jade skin and snow-white hair were impossible to ignore.
Hair like silver threads.
If you embroidered with this child’s hair, how many people would fight over it?
At that absurd thought, Gyeokseon let out a snort of laughter and lifted her gaze toward the distance.
Then she unfurled her senses to check the surroundings and confirmed that no one was nearby.
Well then. It should be fine to stay like this a little longer.
That thought made Gyeokseon’s smile deepen.
If anyone who knew Gyeokseon well had seen that smile, they would have had one of two reactions.
Either they’d refuse to believe their eyes and slap themselves awake, thinking it had all been a dream… or they’d turn and run for their lives without looking back.
Gyeokseon’s guess had been right.
What that man had scattered was a powder mixed with qi-disrupting poison, a marriage-seeking drug, and an aphrodisiac.
For a woman, it was a hundred-percent reliable trick.
Unfortunately for them, their target had been Gyeokseon, so they’d failed before they even began and paid for it with their lives.
Meanwhile, Harin, who had inhaled only a very small amount of the powder, was not unconscious.
She felt like she was flailing around in a dazed haze.
Strangely, she felt good. Her whole body was getting ticklish, almost pleasantly so.
Since her body had become female, the aphrodisiac’s effects were now circulating through her system.
But because it was only a tiny amount, that was all it amounted to.
More like she was having a happy dream? A light, fluttery, pleasant tingling? Something like that.
When Harin was held in a warm embrace and then laid on the cold ground, she’d felt disappointed.
But when something warm and soft once again supported her head, the good feeling came back at once.
An oddly comfortable, gentle sensation.
There was even a faint scent. Warm and cozy, yet somehow a little weighty as well.
It was the smell of the musk powder from the fragrance pouch Gyeokseon always carried.
Harin didn’t know that, though.
Without realizing it, she groped around with her hand, and Gyeokseon froze in shock at the touch.
She couldn’t even bring herself to say stop, so she could only stare wide-eyed at Harin, who was still asleep.
Meanwhile, unaware of any of that, Harin kept feeling around Gyeokseon’s thigh.
And Gyeokseon thought the touch felt strangely lewd.
How was it that the little girl’s hands moved like that? It was enough to make her wonder.
Then Harin’s hand slid inward along her thigh.
The soft flesh on the inner thigh, a place that usually never felt another person’s touch.
At that contact, Gyeokseon became so completely stiff she couldn’t do anything at all.
The silence was suffocating. Even breathing felt cautious.
But still, she was a woman who couldn’t even say stop.
After a long while, Harin shook off the drug’s haze and slowly opened her eyes.
What she found was that she was lying with her head on Gyeokseon’s lap, while Gyeokseon herself sat perfectly still, her face bright red.