A Thousand Eyes and Ears
There’s a saying that something is as easy as eating cold rice porridge.
It hardly needs an explanation. It refers to something so simple, so effortless, that there isn’t the slightest difficulty in it.
Wiping out bandits was exactly like that.
There was no difference at all from eating cold rice porridge.
The mountain beside the one where Tangcheon and Wang Guchae had been hiding was where we headed next.
It wasn’t far. We’d already learned the bandits’ location from the ones who were still alive, so finding the place wasn’t difficult either.
We found them. And then we asked no questions.
There was no need for words. No negotiation, no reform, no lectures.
Bandits were nothing more than targets for extermination. Riffraff to be cleared out. Nothing more, nothing less.
It was enough to make even the way Moyong Jua and Paeng Jeon-ho had dealt with things seem almost gentle by comparison.
That was how ruthless Gukseon and Geumran were. Decisive.
Given their level and skill, they really didn’t need to be that harsh.
But they were. Gukseon and Geumran didn’t let their guard down for a single moment, and they swept the bandits away with almost excessive thoroughness.
"You can choke on even cold rice porridge if you’re careless."
On the way to the next bandit camp, after finishing off one more nest, Gukseon gave that answer when I asked her about it in confusion.
Her tone was as firm as the swing of her sword. It carried the air of someone who had no intention of letting her guard down—not ever.
Then, perhaps realizing she sounded a little stiff, Gukseon relaxed her expression just a bit when she looked at me and continued.
"Have you ever heard the saying that you don’t use an ox-slaughtering knife to kill a chicken?"
"Yes, Senior."
"I don’t agree with it. There’s no need to distinguish between a chicken-killing knife and an ox-killing knife. If it’s for the sake of a purpose, there’s no reason to be picky about the means. My methods are not excessive. They are certain."
As she said that, Gukseon looked almost like a girl who had once been burned by something hot.
Like someone who had touched a boiling pot once and, ever since, always wore thick cooking gloves.
That sort of feeling. Like she had learned an expensive lesson? Like she had resolved never to let her guard down again?
"They say you should hide three-tenths of your ability. But in a place where lives are on the line like this, that’s just a luxurious sentiment. What matters is showing all your strength and not losing even a hair of it."
"I’ll keep that in mind."
"If you set foot in the martial world, you ought to do exactly that. Women even more so."
After saying that, Gukseon fell silent.
For some reason, her expression looked bitter. Maybe even sad.
Was she talking about herself? No, that didn’t seem right.
Still, there was no doubt I needed to remember her words.
More than anything, I didn’t even have enough skill to hide.
At the moment, I was in a situation where I had to go all out just to keep myself in one piece.
Of course, I wasn’t weak enough to be helpless against bandits. Still, Gukseon was right. That was probably the proper way to do it.
So after we arrived at the next camp, I put even more care into cutting down the bandits.
Right now, building up my own strength came first.
I needed to settle exactly what I could do, and exactly how I should move from here on out.
Hanjunggeom fit Ice Soul Divine Art perfectly.
I could feel it myself. I had felt it when I made it, and even Baek Jin-ah had confirmed it for me. So there was no room for doubt.
The chill of Ice Soul Divine Art. I brought it forth and poured it into Hanjunggeom.
Then frost spread across the blade, white as snow, sharpening it further.
It was already a heavy sword. Once that cold edge was added, any weapon it struck—or any flesh it touched—would be split or torn apart on the spot.
Should I call this Ice Soul Divine Sword now? It had become a rather unusual sword, hadn’t it?
Thanks to the Yu Yu Mu Geuk Sword Technique, it was a defensive sword. But because of the Fragment Light Sword Technique, its counterattacks were lightning-fast.
And with the subtlety and effect added by Ice Soul Divine Art, there was no reason to doubt its performance.
It was more than enough that mere bandits had no hope of stopping it.
I cut down the bandits with that sword.
I severed their limbs and took their lives, but looking at it didn’t make me think it was horrific or cruel in the slightest.
Was I growing numb? Was that really all right?
Had I become someone who no longer hesitated to kill? Was I becoming a true martial artist?
But I didn’t dwell on that for long. And I didn’t think I would in the future either.
This wasn’t the twenty-first century where I’d lived before. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
It was absurd to come all the way to a place like this and start talking about how precious life was and how mercy mattered.
So I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t falter.
My outstretched blade sheared through a bandit’s club and his neck at the same time.
With one slicing sound, two things were cut apart together.
And before they even hit the ground, I was already moving toward the next bandit.
It took less time to kill the bandits than it did to move between them.
By the time we reached the third camp, it had been completely wiped out. The captives here, too, had all been rescued.
From Wang Guchae, Byeolmokchae, and now Handamchae, the places we had already cleared out, we gathered the women and men who’d been taken there together and brought them down the mountain.
They kept thanking us over and over.
But as I looked at the women among them, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them.
Would they really be able to live and be treated properly from now on?
It was obvious they’d spend their lives being scorned and mocked for this.
Still, there was nothing I could do about that.
That was probably part of what Gukseon meant.
That was what it meant to be a woman. You shouldn’t let that kind of situation happen in the first place.
Once a label stuck to you, it was nearly impossible to shake it off.
When I’d lived as a man, I’d dismissed things like that as someone else’s problem. But now that I was a woman myself, I could feel the seriousness of it with painful clarity.
"We’ll have to wait and bathe after everything’s done, Jade Rose. That’ll be better, won’t it?"
At Geumran’s words, Gukseon gave a single indifferent nod.
Well, now wasn’t the time for that anyway.
There were more bandits than the Murim Alliance had reported. It was serious.
So dealing with this first was the priority.
Having Gukseon and Geumran together was truly convenient.
Their presence was overwhelming. So much so that they hardly needed any introduction at all.
For one thing, everyone who recognized them treated them with great respect. Well, that was only natural.
On top of that, the Murim Alliance had already informed everyone that the two of them would be working together, so cooperation was excellent.
The closest major city to where we’d been dealing with the bandits was Yeokseong.
The Murim Alliance branch there received us courteously and provided all the information we needed.
"...So, at this point, we’ve confirmed more than ten separate bandit camps."
A man named Hwang Mok, the head of the Yeokseong branch, reported this to Gukseon and Geumran.
Over ten camps, even in this region at the western edge of the Daebyeol Mountain Range?
"Do you happen to know why they suddenly began acting so brazenly? Is there anything you’re aware of, Branch Chief?"
When I asked that, the branch chief answered with a slightly troubled expression.
"Even we haven’t figured that out yet. It’s a mystery to this branch as well."
"Has any damage been officially reported? It seems some of them even took hostages."
"Nothing has reached the branch. In fact, it was only after you told us that the bandits had taken hostages and demanded ransom that we learned about it."
Come to think of it, the report sent to the Alliance hadn’t gone into that much detail either. That meant the bandits were handling things with some degree of secrecy.
Not enough information had leaked to the outside world. In other words, they weren’t making a spectacle of it on too large a scale.
Anyway, we got our information on the camps.
Though, to call it information was generous—it was really just vague rumors heard from herb gatherers and woodcutters.
Something along the lines of, “We saw bandits gathering near such and such a place...”
After that, we rested at an inn in Yeokseong and gathered together in one room.
Gukseon still wore that impassive expression. Geumran, meanwhile, seemed to be thinking hard about something.
Watching them were Baek Jin-ah, Dang Yeong-young, Hong Si-yeon, and me.
"I still can’t make sense of why these people are doing this," Geumran finally said after a long silence, directing the words to Gukseon.
It was as if she’d neatly summarized the question all of us were carrying.
And that was exactly the problem.
Bandits had suddenly multiplied. Worse, they were doing things they’d never done before.
They looked like they had no idea what they were doing.
Bandits were supposed to live long and narrow lives, after all.
Sharp stones get chiseled down. And yet they were acting so recklessly that there had to be some reason for it.
"Why are you fretting over it so much? Why not catch one and ask him directly?"
"Because we got nothing out of the first three places."
The chieftains of Wang Guchae, Byeolmokchae, and Handamchae knew nothing.
All they knew was that they belonged to the Forest of Despair.
They were only moving according to orders.
And the contents of those orders were even more absurd.
Start bandit operations from this mountain. That was it.
And what they received in return amounted to almost nothing—one internal cultivation manual, one auxiliary martial technique, and a great club, the symbol of the Forest of Despair.
No matter how you looked at it, that wasn’t a grand reward.
And yet they had been overwhelmed with emotion simply because they had been allowed to call themselves members of the Forest of Despair, and they’d gone right on raiding with enthusiasm.
"If we keep clearing them out, won’t someone who knows more eventually show up?"
That was Gukseon’s logic in all its simplicity. And at the moment, there wasn’t really a better approach.
Ah. If I’d known this would happen, I should have studied the Zilpung Ganghorok guide a little more thoroughly.
There was definitely a quest in there involving bandits like these.
But who could have known? Sigh. Nothing to be done about it now.
And so, the next day came.
Based on the information we’d gotten from the branch chief, we set out to wipe out the known bandit groups.
And to guide us, one man stepped forward and took the lead.
Manmokcheonyi, Go Gyeongjin.
His martial arts didn’t look especially impressive, but as his epithet suggested, he possessed exceptional ability in a very particular field.
"Manmokcheonyi—does that mean he has ten thousand eyes and a thousand ears?"
"Hahaha. My fellow martial artists are too generous in calling me that. In truth, I only have two eyes and two ears."
We hadn’t spoken much yet, but he seemed like a cheerful sort of man. The kind who didn’t have a single wrinkle in his disposition.
Besides that, there was something unusual about him.
He wasn’t the least bit intimidated, even in front of Gukseon and Geumran.
Most importantly, he didn’t show the slightest hint of leering or awkwardness.
It felt a little odd for me to say this, but our group was, objectively speaking, rather easy on the eyes.
And yet he didn’t react to that at all, which was definitely something to be praised for.
Anyway, with Go Gyeongjin leading the way, we set off to keep clearing out the bandit camps.