Chapter 204
Chapter 204
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 204
Chapter Title: In a World Without the Unorthodox Factions
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“Yes!”
After hearing the details from the kid who nodded at my question, I was utterly flabbergasted.
“So, the Justice Sect dragged your father off to build their new manor as a laborer?”
“Not just my dad! They took every guy and uncle from the village!”
The kid’s words reminded me of when I first arrived in the county.
Come to think of it, among the murmuring crowd, the only men seemed to be traveling merchants from outside...
“No matter how they’re the only martial sect in the county, they mobilize the common folk like that? And the county office just lets it slide?”
“Uh, uh?”
The kid was at a loss for words at my question.
Being a child, she probably didn’t know much about the county office or such matters.
In that case, I needed to ask someone who would know.
As if our parting moments ago had been a joke, I stepped back into the kid’s house.
The kid’s mother blinked at me in confusion.
“Uh, what brings you back...?”
“Well, I wanted to explain the situation and ask a few things.”
“The situation...?”
“Mom!”
The kid, who had followed me back inside, ran to her blinking mother and hugged her tight.
“Eun-gon beat up all the bad guys! They’re all crawling on the ground!”
So it was Eun-gon, not... sigh, whatever.
“...What’s this about?”
I explained what had just happened to the bewildered woman.
The thugs had come here with some disciple of the Justice Sect’s leader, and I had smashed them.
“Y-Yes!?”
Gasping in shock after hearing the story, she rushed outside.
And there she saw them.
The thugs crawling on the ground and the sect disciple flung far away in the corner.
“Ah...!”
“Mom!”
The kid, startled to see her mother collapse as if her legs had given out, ran over.
Clutching her burrowing son, the middle-aged woman muttered in panic.
“What... what do we do... what should we do...!”
A reaction as if the world had ended.
I approached her cautiously and asked.
“Are you alright?”
In the gaze she lifted toward me, faint resentment flickered and subsided repeatedly.
Turning her head to hide her teeth, the middle-aged woman said softly.
“...I’m fine. But benefactor, you should leave this village quickly.”
A one-sided request to just leave right away.
It seemed the mess I had caused was a huge headache.
And with high probability, that sect disciple flung into the corner was the problem.
“I heard from your son. The Justice Sect took your husband. Are you afraid they might harm him?”
“...This doesn’t seem like something for a benefactor to get involved in. I worry you’ll get caught up in trouble, so please leave quickly.”
“But it seems too late for that already? Come on, tell me what’s going on.”
As I didn’t back down, the middle-aged woman’s voice rose.
“Please, just go without asking anything...!”
“Urk...!”
At that moment, accompanied by a groan, the sect disciple’s body twitched.
His eyelids trembled, then slowly opened.
His gaze immediately turned to us, and upon seeing the kid’s mother, his eyes widened.
“Ah...!”
At that reaction, the middle-aged woman’s face turned deathly pale.
Her fear-filled eyes and trembling hands shook violently.
Frowning at the ominous response, the sect disciple rose while spouting nonsense.
“You...! Did that wench put you up to targeting me and my junior brothers!?”
“...What nonsense is that?”
Tilting my head in confusion, the sect disciple glared at the middle-aged woman and spat through gritted teeth.
“You wench, forgetting our warning and scheming again.”
“N-No! This person is just...!”
“Shut up!”
Ignoring her desperate cry, a gruesome smile crept onto the sect disciple’s face.
“I won’t let your husband off. I’ll grab that bastard and chop his head off right...!”
“Hey.”
I stepped forward with footwork and reached the sect disciple in an instant.
Frightened by my sudden appearance right in front of his nose, he plastered himself against the wall.
“Y-You...! You think you can touch me and get away with it!? I’m Jang Han-su, direct disciple of the Justice Sect’s leader!”
“Justice Sect or direct disciple, what good is that once your head flies off?”
The sect disciple flinched at my indifferent words.
His face filled with fear, as if interpreting it as an intent to kill him right there.
The typical bully who preys on the weak and fears the strong.
I snorted briefly and smashed his jaw.
-Pow!
“Guh... uk!”
With that one blow, he rolled his eyes back and collapsed pathetically.
“Hah.”
A laugh escaped me at his pitiful sight.
Even if the earlier hit was a surprise, this time he had time to react. At least enough to deploy protective arts, yet he went down so anticlimactically?
Staring at him in disbelief that such a guy had posed as a martial artist, I belatedly understood.
The moment he regained consciousness, instead of grabbing his dropped sword, he resorted to threats using his sect.
He only knew how to crush the weak with force; he’d never faced real combat.
I dragged the unconscious guy by the collar back to the hat woman.
Of course, I didn’t forget to stomp on each of the still-crawling thugs.
“Kek-!”
Ignoring the thug making weird noises under my foot, I stood before the woman.
The kid looked up at me with sparkling eyes, while her mother stared in dazed surprise at this turn of events.
“Now, I think it’s time to hear the real story.”
“...Yes.”
Seeing me and the sect disciple I had dragged back, the kid’s mother nodded blankly.
*
“...It was three months ago. The Justice Sect disciples came and notified us to participate in building their manor.”
After tossing the eyesore thugs far away and dumping the sect disciple in the yard tied with acupoint strikes, we returned inside, and the kid’s mother began her story with a sigh.
“At first, everyone welcomed it. Being the Justice Sect and all, some were excited, thinking the pay would be huge.”
But that illusion didn’t last long.
In front of everyone gathered, the Justice Sect bastards brazenly declared they’d work us for free.
The people, dumbfounded, naturally turned to leave.
What should have ended as a simple village farce escalated to the worst when the Justice Sect disciples returned the next day.
“They drew their swords and dragged off every carpenter, stonemason, and able-bodied man.”
Those taken away had no choice but to work, crying bitter tears.
With razor-sharp swords at their throats, they couldn’t dream of protesting for proper pay.
“But my husband didn’t just stand by.”
The woman’s husband, Go-san, leader of the stonemasons in Goseong County, secretly slipped out of the work site and directly reported the Justice Sect’s outrage to the county office.
“...And nothing changed?”
“It got worse. The county office ignored the report, and instead, the Justice Sect leader’s disciple brought his senior brothers to our house.”
The woman glared venomously at the unconscious sect disciple visible through the open door.
“That bastard dragged our family into the yard and had his senior brothers beat my husband one-sidedly.”
Her husband, stout like a stonemason, was still just a commoner.
Helpless against multiple trained martial artists.
“All I could do was cover the child’s eyes and ears.”
Recalling that sorrow, the woman finally shed tears.
The kid, who had been poking the sect disciple in the yard with a stick he’d picked up somewhere, ran over in alarm.
“Mom, why are you crying? Don’t cry.”
The kid started to whimper at his mother’s tears.
Watching the crying mother and child for a moment, I stepped outside.
Then approached the sect disciple, released his acupoints, and kicked him hard.
-Pow!
“Gahuk...!”
The sect disciple, waking with a pained groan, saw me looming over him and shrieked ‘Hiiik~!?’ while scrambling back.
But only for a moment.
Soon blocked by the wall, he could retreat no further and ended up trapped between me and it.
“W-What...! What the hell do you want!?”
“Shut up, punk.”
I kicked the side of the guy raising his voice in terror.
“Eurk!”
Squatting before him as he clutched his side and groaned, I spoke.
“From now on, answer my questions without a shred of lie. Got it?”
“Ugh, what the...?”
-Shing
“Got it?”
As I slightly drew my sword and lowered my voice, he paled in fright and nodded frantically.
“Alright, then spill everything about the new manor construction, no detail omitted.”
“Y-Yes...!”
The trembling sect disciple’s stammered account matched almost exactly what the kid’s mother had said.
“...You say it so boldly? Usually, if you have something to hide, you’d sugarcoat it a bit.”
“W-Why wouldn’t I be bold? Our Justice Sect has protected Goseong County for decades. We have every right to demand this. That’s why the county office didn’t step in.”
I thought I was going mad at the bullshit spewing from the sect disciple’s mouth.
But looking at his face, the bastard seemed to genuinely believe it.
That made it even more absurd, but I decided to verify the facts first.
“This claim that the Justice Sect protected Goseong County—is that true?”