Bandits of the Green Forest
In this world, where communications aren’t all that advanced, people often move faster than news does.
Right now, that was us.
We were moving faster than bandits could even pass word to one another.
Five bandit strongholds had already been smashed to pieces, and yet the others still didn’t know what had happened to them.
So the bandits at the sixth stronghold met us without the slightest clue, and the result was, naturally, utter annihilation.
Half a shichen.
That was how long it took to wipe out one stronghold.
That included the time spent grabbing the man who looked like the chief and interrogating him.
We’d done exactly that with the sixth stronghold’s chief, and I’d asked him this and that, but once again, nothing came of it.
They were clueless. Just a bunch of men who’d come here because someone told them to, and did nothing but banditry.
“So these men weren’t even proper Green Forest bandits?”
When I asked, Gokseon gave a small nod with the same blunt expression as ever, while Geumran beside her answered.
“That’s right. Only those who belong to the Seventy-Two Green Forest Strongholds can truly be called Green Forest bandits. They’re not all that different from these men, but they’ve at least learned something resembling martial arts.”
“Then those Seventy-Two Strongholds aren’t all in one place, I’m guessing?”
“Correct, Baek So-ryeon. The Seventy-Two Strongholds are spread all across the Central Plains. In fact, most people don’t even know where they are.”
At that, Manmokcheon, who’d been quietly butting in from the side, asked, “They’re that secretive?”
“Shouldn’t they be? That’s how a bandit stronghold ought to be, isn’t it? If everybody knew where it was, would it even remain a stronghold?”
Fair enough.
Come to think of it, the Seventy-Two Strongholds were basically the Green Forest’s middle management, so there was no way they could be compared to these little fry.
“Are there any places nearby that belong to the Seventy-Two Strongholds too?”
“Of course. There are three of them in the Daba Mountains alone.”
“Then shouldn’t we go there too?”
“We will, naturally. But that place has to be the last one we hit. And we’ll need to strike them all at once.”
“Why is that?”
“These ragtag bandit dens don’t talk to one another. If they do, it’s maybe once every ten or fifteen days. But the men belonging to the Seventy-Two Strongholds are constantly moving back and forth between each other. So if we don’t want our trail discovered, that’s how it has to be.”
“Ah. I see. Then when do we go there?”
“After we’ve cleared out four more strongholds.”
I nodded, and the others, including Gokseon and Geumran, all looked like they understood once they heard that.
Then we set off again as if nothing had happened.
There was no need to linger here.
Come to think of it, interrogating the chiefs of these places hadn’t been all that meaningful either.
So that was why Gokjeongjin had seemed so half-hearted during the questioning?
Anyway, the time spent moving from place to place was longer than the time spent wiping out the strongholds themselves.
We reached another bandit den while the sun was still at least a handspan above the western mountains.
We swept through the bandits quickly, and only then did we start back down the mountain.
By the time we reached another town nearby, the sun had already set, and we stayed the night at an inn once more.
By tomorrow, all these miscellaneous strongholds should be taken care of.
And then the day after that, we’d head for that place called the Seventy-Two Strongholds, right?
The next day, we were back racing across the mountains, and we finished off three more strongholds.
Honestly, even by this point, my mission was already over.
The original task given to me by the Murim Alliance only went as far as dealing with the strongholds scattered through the Daba Mountains.
But that didn’t mean I could stop here.
If a sewer backed up and filthy water was gushing everywhere, it’d be disgusting to just mop the floor and call it a day, wouldn’t it?
The backed-up sewer had to be fixed properly.
So it would never overflow again. So nothing troublesome would happen again.
“Wait a little longer. Someone will be here by noon. You’ve done such an impressive job with the young lady here that you’ve cleared out far faster than I expected.”
“Who else is coming?”
“If we’re going to strike simultaneously, don’t we need someone who knows the locations of the Seventy-Two Strongholds and is familiar with the terrain around here? I can’t exactly guide you to three places at once, can I? Haha.”
“Ah. I see.”
“So the young ladies should get ready as well. Please tell Senior Gokseon over there to split the people into three groups.”
He could’ve said it himself, but Gokjeongjin quietly asked me to pass it on.
Well, it was true that Gokseon was hard to speak to, and Geumran wasn’t much easier.
Just as I was talking with Gokjeongjin, Gokseon must have heard him, because she walked over here and spoke.
“There’s no need to split up. I will take one place. Geumran will take another. So all of you will follow Gok Dae-hyeop.”
“Ah. Will that be all right?”
After hearing the explanation, Gokjeongjin nodded as if that would do just fine.
Come to think of it, that probably was for the best.
If Gokseon and Geumran moved by themselves, it would actually be more of a hindrance for us to trail after them.
If they just moved on their own, then no matter how many of the Seventy-Two Green Forest Strongholds there were, it wouldn’t take them all that long to clean things up.
So the plan was settled, and we waited a while, taking a brief rest.
Only around noon did the two men sent from Yeokseong Branch come to find Gokjeongjin, and he explained the arrangement to them.
Their faces went pale.
Then, with a very cautious air, they asked to be excused for a moment and went off to a corner, where they discussed something with grave expressions.
I knew exactly what they were doing. They were deciding which one of them would guide Gokseon.
And a little while later, the two men came back over here.
One of them looked distinctly blue in the face, while the other had a comparatively relieved expression.
I could pretty much tell which one of them was guiding Gokseon and which one was guiding Geumran.
If you told me to bet my entire fortune, I’d bet it without hesitation.
But wasn’t that a little too obvious?
If I could tell, then Gokseon must already know as well.
In that case, acting like that would only make things harder for themselves, wouldn’t it?
They really had no sense. Tsk.
In any case, the groups were decided.
Gokseon would take one place, Geumran another, and Baek Jin-ah, Dang Yeong-young, Hong Si-yeon, and I would take the third.
“They’re nothing but petty bandits, so you needn’t worry. Still, never let down your guard. A scratch on your body would be a greater matter than the heads of those bandit swine falling off.”
Utterly extreme, utterly biased words.
Even so, I understood what Gokseon was trying to say.
That was her own twisted way of worrying about us. She just wasn’t very good at expressing it.
“Do you really need to worry about those children? Don’t fret. If you’re that concerned, we can finish quickly and head over to the others.”
Geumran seemed to find Gokseon’s behavior amusing, and she smiled as she said that.
“That is my intention already.”
After saying that, Gokseon looked at the man assigned to guide her and said briefly, “What are you dawdling for? Let’s go.”
At that, the man with the funeral face started forward like a cow being dragged to the slaughterhouse.
And after hearing a couple more impatient prods to hurry up, he vanished from sight.
“Then be careful. I’ll be off as well.”
With that, Geumran also departed, leading one man ahead of her.
“We should get moving too. It’d be better to wrap things up neatly before those two arrive, wouldn’t it?”
And then Gokjeongjin said the same thing and went ahead, with us following after him.
The place we had to go was called Maseok Stronghold.
One of the Seventy-Two Green Forest Strongholds. I didn’t know its rank.
I’d heard that the chiefs of the Seventy-Two Strongholds gathered in one place once every two years to decide the ranking.
And that once the ranking was fixed, their status and support within the Green Forest changed completely according to it.
“Even officials and martial artists alike tend to look down on the Green Forest quite a bit. But in truth, it’s not like that. If they were truly so sloppy a place, could they have survived this long and kept their line going? In a single year, there are so many sects that close their doors you can’t count them. The fact that the Green Forest is still thriving despite all the illegal things it does means it has plenty of capability—and plenty of skill in getting by.”
“You can’t survive on capability and skill alone, though, can you? They must have some real fighting strength too, right?”
As we moved quickly along the mountain path, Gokjeongjin kept telling us this and that.
And I was the one mostly answering him.
Baek Jin-ah was quieter than I expected, Dang Yeong-young was surprisingly shy around strangers, and Hong Si-yeon was, how should I put it? A bit on the taciturn side.
“Fighting strength, is it? Honestly, if you count all the bandits in the Green Forest, there aren’t even five whose martial cultivation is particularly high. Just the chief leader and a few under him, that’s all.”
“Then is it safe to say there aren’t any especially formidable fighters in Maseok Stronghold either?”
“That’s likely. Still, don’t be careless. The strongholds we’ve dealt with so far are on a different level. Besides, among the Seventy-Two Strongholds, there are quite a few who could be called masters of external arts. Men born with extraordinary physical strength, or those who’ve trained external techniques in the crudest, most brutish way imaginable. You mustn’t underestimate such people recklessly. Things can change at any time and in any place, can’t they?”
Baek Jin-ah, Dang Yeong-young, and Hong Si-yeon didn’t seem to agree much with Gokjeongjin’s words.
Well, that was only natural. In this Murim world, where internal energy was king, external arts were inevitably looked down upon.
Even if you spent decades training external arts, one technique from a forceful palm strike could render all of it meaningless, so I supposed it made sense.
Besides, pure external training alone couldn’t block a sword wrapped in sword aura.
Even if Dang Yeong-young threw a Woomo Needles with her internal energy behind them, anyone relying solely on external arts would be helpless before them.
But I was different.
For one thing, I had mastered external arts to a high degree, so that much was only natural.
External arts might be inefficient, yes, but that didn’t make them some completely useless gimmick.
If they had been, they would’ve died out long ago and stopped being passed down at all.
Just like the Green Forest still existed.
External arts were still around because they clearly had their uses.
“We’re almost there. That place ahead is Maseok Stronghold.”
Anyway, while chatting like that, we’d nearly arrived at Maseok Stronghold.
And, amusingly enough, Maseok Stronghold wasn’t in the mountains at all.
What we reached was a place that could fairly be called a rather large village.
Big enough that calling it a small town wouldn’t be strange at all.