Chapter 12
Chapter 12
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 12
Chapter Title: Ambush
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“Hyah!”
“Uwaaah-!”
Shouts rang out as swords thrust toward me from both sides.
I ignored the screaming bastard and took a single step back.
Two blades crossed in an X right before my eyes.
The first form of the Three Fundamentals Sword Technique, Mt. Tai Pressing Down—I brought my sword crashing heavily onto their crossing point.
-Clang!
“Urk!”
“Guh...!”
The impact jolted their swords from their hands.
I swiftly swung my blade twice, cutting them down in one breath.
“Gah!”
“Khk!”
That laid two more bodies atop the one still groaning.
In an instant, three of the five were dead.
The remaining two backed away hesitantly, their faces pale and eyes trembling with terror as they stared at me.
I approached them slowly, straight on.
“U, uwaaaah-!”
“Y-Ya!?”
One of them lost it and let out a beastly howl, swinging his sword wildly.
No form, no stance—just flailing like a child.
You think I’d let myself get hit by that?
I sliced off the wrist of his right hand gripping the sword.
Tendons severed, the blade fell from his grasp, but he kept flailing that arm, oblivious.
He finally stopped moving after my sword plunged into his chest.
“Grk...”
Stepping over the fourth man convulsing with bloody foam at his mouth, I approached the last one.
“Hoo... hoo...”
He clutched his sword in both hands, trembling violently, but his eyes still burned with defiance.
Sharp for a dog who’d slaughtered innocents.
Not that it mattered—he was still a dog.
I brushed past the fifth man.
Like those who’d surrounded me earlier, he clutched his throat and collapsed.
Glancing sidelong to confirm his death, I walked over and stood before the squad captain who’d been flapping his mouth nonstop.
“W-What the hell are you? Who are you!?”
The squad captain screamed like a banshee, his face twisted in terror.
What, asking for my identity now? You already know.
“The youngest son of this household. Forgotten already?”
“D-Don’t fuck with me! We’ve done our homework! The youngest son of this house is some idiot who’s only trained the Three Fundamentals Technique for ten years! Not a monster like you!”
A hollow laugh burst from me at the squad captain’s hysterical shout.
“True, I only trained the Three Fundamentals Technique for ten years—but if that idiot killed all of you, what does that make you lot? Retards... oh wait, you already were.”
These guys were no different from the rest.
Idiots who had no clue how to properly use their internal energy.
Each one had far more profound energy than me, yet they died pathetically because they didn’t know how to wield it.
And this squad captain would be no exception.
“Y-You bastard...! Uwaaaah-!”
Trembling with humiliation, the squad captain charged with a roar.
I shot forward like an arrow and slashed his side as I passed.
“Krhek...!”
The squad captain clutched his deeply gashed flank.
His left hand, desperately trying to staunch the blood, was soon soaked red.
“W-What... what technique is that? A sword so fast I couldn’t even see it—what the hell kind of art...!”
“Three Fundamentals Sword Technique, Lateral Sweep of a Thousand Armies.”
At my answer, the squad captain’s face, already twisted in pain, grew even more savage.
“That’s... Lateral Sweep of a Thousand Armies? Bullshit. How could some third-rate trash technique do this...”
Three Fundamentals Sword Technique.
Only three forms in total, and even those were the absolute basics: vertical slash, horizontal slash, thrust.
But precisely because it was the basics among basics—like a blank canvas—it could become anything.
The reason I moved and swung faster than the other idiots was because I’d infused the principles of fastsword into that basic technique.
Of course they’d spout nonsense; they didn’t even know that much.
The people in this bizarre martial world used internal energy solely to enhance their physical abilities.
No, calling it “using” internal energy wasn’t quite right.
They merely circulated it through their meridians.
Maybe that’s why.
This world had no concept of fastsword or heavysword.
I still vividly remembered how baffled my master looked when I casually asked about it, asking what nonsense that was.
“Believe it or not, doesn’t matter. You’re dying anyway.”
“W-Wait...! Wait!”
The squad captain desperately blocked my sword as I raised it again.
Curious what he had to say, I lowered my blade for a moment.
He let out a sigh of relief and continued.
“I-If you stop here, I’ll just leave.”
“...What?”
As I stared in disbelief, he began spilling words like a rapid-fire cannon.
“D-Do you know who I am?! I’m Lim Mu-hong, Captain of the Dark Heaven Squad—one of the fifteen squads of Tyrant Heaven Fortress! Kill me, and thousands of Tyrant Heaven Fortress warriors will turn Goon River County into a wasteland!”
“Th-Thousands...!”
Father muttered in a trembling voice at Lim Mu-hong’s bluff-filled threat.
But I just shrugged and raised my sword again.
“D-Don’t you get it!? Kill me, and Tyrant Heaven Fortress will come for you!”
“Who knows? Would the whole fortress really charge in to avenge some rats sneaking around at night? Hard to buy it.”
“I-It’s not a lie! Tyrant Heaven Fortress will definitely... why do you keep coming closer!?”
I kept advancing; Lim Mu-hong kept retreating.
That game of tag ended quickly when his back hit the wall.
With nowhere left to run, Lim Mu-hong’s eyes shook like there was an earthquake as he watched me approach.
“I-If you kill me...”
“Ah, shut up. Tyrant Heaven Fortress warrior or imperial kin, you’re dying here today.”
At my mention of imperial kin, despair washed over Lim Mu-hong’s face—he knew he couldn’t escape death.
*
“Why... why aren’t you afraid of Tyrant Heaven Fortress? Or the imperial house behind it?”
Mu-hong trembled violently before the young man standing like the grim reaper.
*How did it come to this?*
It hadn’t been a difficult mission.
Just kill the previous fortress lord’s daughter—who’d luckily escaped and hidden for over ten years—and everyone around her.
Once the ringleader daughter was dead, the rest would scatter on their own, and the fortress lord himself had promised a huge reward for success.
On top of that, backup from Grand Hero Cheonchu, one of Tyrant Heaven Fortress’s top experts.
Easy job, massive payout.
No one but an idiot would turn it down.
That’s how they’d come to Goon River County.
Seeing it was just a backwater village full of martial arts illiterates bolstered their confidence.
The platoon leader and Grand Hero Cheonchu felt the same—they’d wrapped up basic recon and decided to strike tonight.
Grand Hero Cheonchu and the platoon leader took the martial hall where the fortress lord’s daughter was hiding.
Meanwhile, Mu-hong’s squad was tasked with framing this rural landlord clan, the Goon family manor, as demonic cult puppets and wiping them out.
All because the family’s youngest son had been visiting that martial hall for ten years.
*Tsk tsk. The whole house crumbles because of one foolhardy youngest son obsessed with martial arts.*
He’d clicked his tongue but moved without hesitation on orders.
Sweeping a manor full of clueless country bumpkins was simple and routine for them.
Just a moment ago, he’d been snickering with his men, suggesting they have some fun with the pretty daughter before killing her.
In that single moment, the easy mission flipped into a nightmare.
All his men were dead; he was the only one left.
And this monster who’d massacred them had no intention of sparing him either.
“......”
Even Mu-hong’s bark about Tyrant Heaven Fortress and the imperial house earned only a cold, silent stare.
Reason paralyzed by fear, Mu-hong spewed whatever came to mind.
“W-Why! Why are you trying to kill me!? I said I’d pretend none of this happened!?”
Of course, it couldn’t truly be undone.
Just desperate bullshit to escape the moment.
But oddly, the monster reacted to that.
“...Why I’m trying to kill you?”
Eyes sunken with contempt and rage, as if asking if he really didn’t know.
Humiliated by the glare from this mere twenty-something punk, Mu-hong still nodded frantically, clinging to a sliver of hope.
“Y-Yeah...! Killing me gains you nothing. J-Just let me go now, and I swear I’ll never come back...!”
A lie.
If he survived this, he planned to rush straight to the platoon leader for help.
*Grand Hero Cheonchu can handle even this monster!*
A delusion possible only because he didn’t know the platoon leader had already died by Ja-seong’s hand.
Mu-hong fanned the spark of hope as Ja-seong fell silent.
Then Ja-seong raised his left hand and pointed somewhere.
Mu-hong’s gaze reflexively followed.
At the end were the manor servants he’d killed as examples.
*What’s that got to do with anything?*
Mu-hong couldn’t grasp why Ja-seong was suddenly pointing at the dead servants.
Seeing his bewildered eyes, Ja-seong let out a short scoff and spoke.
“My nanny raised me on her back since I was little. Uncle Kang always checked my bedding. Brother Jin-il and I used to sneak into the kitchen together to steal rice cakes, and Granny Dal always slipped me snacks whenever she saw me.”
“W-What... what are you...?”
Mu-hong still didn’t get it.
Ja-seong, as if not expecting him to, gave the answer straight away.
“Those people were my family.”
“...!”
“You’re the dog who killed my family. Would you let him live?”
“...That!”
-CRUNCH!
Mu-hong couldn’t speak anymore.
Ja-seong’s thrust sword had rammed into his mouth.
Mu-hong died with eyes rolled back.
Ja-seong looked down at his face, pulled out the sword, and murmured softly.
“At least, I wouldn’t.”
And so the sudden enemy raid ended, leaving irreparable damage in its wake.