Please Steal Me
The real escorts, arriving a beat too late, collided head-on with the black-clad assailants who had attacked the carriage. Yi Yeok, who had been watching the fight at his leisure, tilted his head.
They don't seem like ordinary bandits, do they?
There were too many of them, and their movements were too organized, for simple robbers or mountain raiders. Above all, their bloodlust was excessive.
Bandits want money. Murder is nothing more than a byproduct that happens along the way to getting it. But these men never so much as glanced at the carriage — they were fixated, fanatically, on one thing only: killing people.
A grudge, apparently.
Yi Yeok, hidden up in the tree, hunkered down even lower. Not for a moment did he consider getting involved in any of this.
Before long, the two sides were hopelessly entangled, blood splattered everywhere and corpses piling up. The carriage party had looked doomed at first, the victims of a surprise attack, but thanks to the desperate struggle of the Five-Blood Realm master driving the coach, a fragile balance held.
At last only the final black-clad man and the Five-Blood Realm master remained. The master was already a hideous wreck of tattered rags, propping himself up on one barely functional knee. Even with immediate treatment, he wasn't going to survive.
In the final moment, as the black-clad man slashed toward his chest, the master summoned his last strength and took the man's head clean off. With a wound across his chest deep enough to bare bone, the Five-Blood Realm master rasped out a few ragged breaths and then simply died where he knelt.
Idiot. He should have stabbed, not slashed.
When a blade pierces the body, the muscles seize rigid for an instant. A slash is different — in that fleeting moment, it leaves your enemy an opening to trade his life for yours.
After a while, the insect songs that had gone silent in terror at the midnight clamor slowly began again. Yi Yeok, now certain no one living remained, climbed down from the tree.
"Well, well — if I play this right, I can make back what I lost today."
Chortling to himself, Yi Yeok began rifling through the dead men's pockets.
A moment later, he let out a howl of fury.
"Damn it!"
Unable to contain himself, Yi Yeok kicked a jutting rock nearby and ended up collapsing to the ground, clutching his stomped-raw foot and rubbing it furiously.
"How is there not even ten nyang between all of you?!"
Fine — the black-clad assassins, whose real mission had been the ambush, could be forgiven. But not one of the carriage's escort had carried any proper money either. Just a handful of copper coins, barely worth the pocket they sat in. This wouldn't recover today's losses, let alone cover the tribute he owed to the Shadow Alliance.
As Yi Yeok snorted like an angry bull, his eyes landed on the wrecked carriage. His mind snapped awake. The whole reason he'd come this far in the first place was the hunch that something valuable might be inside.
Hope renewed, he strode toward the broken carriage — then, all at once, he frowned and backed away. Between his fingers, without his noticing, a vial of knockout oil had begun to gleam.
Only then did Yi Yeok spot the girl crouched beside the carriage, trembling like a leaf. Her clothes were soaked through with blood, though none of it seemed to be her own. Her face was white as blank paper. She looked to be around Yi Yeok's own age. She stared at him with eyes wide with terror.
Judging her to be no real threat, Yi Yeok ignored her entirely and started searching the wreckage. And then he let out his second roar of fury.
"Argh, damn it all!"
Nothing of any value inside the carriage either. The carriage itself was unmistakably built of fine, high-grade timber, but smashed to splinters as it was, it was worth exactly nothing.
In the end, it had been a wild goose chase.
"Miserable hell. Today really is the day nothing goes right."
Yi Yeok stole a glance at the girl, who was still trembling as she watched him.
She was clearly a precious daughter of a prosperous house, but as expected, she didn't seem to be carrying anything of value on her person. Maybe those black-clad bastards had planned to abduct her and demand a ransom — but that was a bandit's line of work, not the business of Yi Yeok, who was a thief.
So Yi Yeok spat a few choice curses at that 'damned old man,' turned on his heel, and began walking back the way he had come.
The girl stared blankly at his retreating back — then suddenly cried out.
"E-Excuse me... Excuse me! You... you noble young gentleman whose name I do not know!"
Yi Yeok stopped mid-step and turned back, wearing an expression mixed of bewilderment and irritation.
"You calling me?"
Perhaps she had lived her entire life as a hothouse flower, but the girl seemed utterly overwhelmed by the thuggish aura Yi Yeok gave off. And yet he was the only person in this situation who could possibly help her.
"Um... p-please, help me."
"No."
Yi Yeok turned straight back around and walked off. At that absurdly short, clean answer, the girl took a few beats too long to recover her senses.
"Please... young master, I beg you with all my heart!"
Yi Yeok didn't even pretend to listen.
He was a thief. He didn't kill or kidnap without cause — but he had even less reason to help anyone. Yi Yeok's back grew smaller and smaller in the distance.
The girl shouted, desperate now.
"M-Money! I have money!"
Yi Yeok stopped. And he turned back at several dozen times the speed he'd been leaving.
By the time the girl came to her senses, Yi Yeok was standing right in front of her, his face glowing with delight, so close their foreheads nearly touched.
"How much do you have?"
The girl spoke in a rush.
"How much do you need?"
"All of it. Whatever you've got."
Straining to suppress her fear and trembling, the girl answered.
"Five hundred..."
At the sight of Yi Yeok's face crumpling in disgust, the girl panicked and stammered out a correction.
"No, a thousand... no no, I'll give you ten thousand nyang in silver! Just take me to Jinseong. Only as far as Jinseong."
"Take me to Jinseong... and then you'll pay me..."
Yi Yeok stroked his chin, sinking into thought.
"So you're telling me you don't have the money right now?"
The girl felt her heart plummet.
"The moment we reach Jinseong, I'll pay you everything at once!"
"Oh, really. And how am I supposed to believe that? See, me — I just killed a client of mine. Why? Because he wouldn't pay. That bastard swore up and down too, mind you — said the moment I delivered the goods, he'd pay me without a second's delay. So I trusted him, and I dutifully carried out the job. And then, what do you know — I got played. The man never had any intention of giving me a single coin from the start. Can you even imagine how deeply wounded I was? So I made a vow. Never again would I trust another soul. No matter how grand their promises, anyone who offers nothing but 'words' would never be trusted by me again!"
Halfway through Yi Yeok's grand lecture, the girl suddenly caught his meaning. She hurriedly pulled a jade tablet from her sash and thrust it out.
"Take this as a down payment. It's certainly worth a great deal."
Yi Yeok's eyes went wide.
"Oho, if it isn't the Radiant Spirit Jade? That's got to be worth a thousand nyang in silver. Rich men's daughters really are a different breed."
"Then will you take me to Jinseong now?"
"No."
Yi Yeok shook his head firmly.
"I'm a thief, not a hired bodyguard. Though — seeing as I've taken a deposit, I suppose I could steal one thing for you. So, what do you need?"
For the first time, the girl felt anger overtake her fear of this shameless man. She glared at him as sharply as she possibly could, but Yi Yeok only gave a dismissive snort.
But when the girl opened her mouth, Yi Yeok could no longer laugh at all.
"Then steal me."
"...What?"
"Steal me. Take me — steal me away and bring me to Jinseong. If you deliver me there safe and without a scratch, you'll get the Radiant Spirit Jade you just took, plus a promised ten thousand nyang in silver."
Yi Yeok's head began to ache.
He had stolen every kind of thing imaginable, but this was a first. A person?
"No — no. Don't mess around with me."
"Why would you see it that way?"
"Stealing is all well and good, but when the thing being stolen is a person, that's called kidnapping."
"Even when I'm the one asking for it?"
"Then it becomes an escort job. Neither one is the business of a thief like me."
"Please... I'm begging you! My request is no different from what you normally do. It's only that the thing being stolen happens to be a person!"
Yi Yeok, who had been about to fire back some retort, shut his mouth.
When you really broke it down, you could call it a theft. Thanks to that damned old man last night, he was short on ready money as it was. And while he was still mulling it over — if he really did go see his grandmother, he couldn't exactly show up to her eightieth birthday empty-handed.
Sensing his hesitation, the girl quickly added sweetener to the deal.
"If you complete my request as fast as you possibly can, I'll add another ten thousand nyang on top of the standard fee. Twenty thousand nyang in silver, total. How does that sound?"
Yi Yeok's doubts evaporated like morning dew.
"Miss, this way, please!"