The Green Forest (8)
The Green Forest (8)
"So, what did you do?"
A few days passed, and I found myself in the storehouse with Sannyeo. Spending a languid evening with her was no hardship. She tilted her head, a bowl of meat soup before her, and asked a question. I scooped up a generous chunk of meat with my spoon and said,
"I kept running my mouth to the chieftain. 'If you don't fight the deputy chieftain now, when will you ever fight and win? Even now, the deputy chieftain is probably secretly looking down on you. Don't you feel it too?'"
I looked at Sannyeo. She was sitting with her mouth open and her eyes shut.
"Ah...."
Since food seemed to interest her more than my story, I let out a hollow laugh and roughly shoved the spoon into her mouth.
"Awp."
The moment the spoon went in, she closed her mouth tightly like a hungry chick and licked it clean. The spoon, stripped of greasy meat soup, sparkled where the light slipped through the cracks of the storehouse.
"Is it good?"
"Yeah."
Her voice and movements were perfectly nonchalant. I laughed hollowly, and Sannyeo licked her lips and said,
"So, if you just do that, are all the preparations done?"
I shook my head.
"I advised the chieftain to increase the deputy chieftain's raiding expeditions. As long as the deputy chieftain stays inside the stronghold, he can consolidate his faction. I told him to rotate personnel from now on and send out expeditions with the deputy chieftain at the center. So lately, the deputy chieftain has been away from the barracks more often."
"That wasn't something you did without a reason, right? You've been sleeping with the deputy chieftain's wife all along. It's connected to that, isn't it?"
Sannyeo narrowed her eyes. She was more teasing than jealous. We'd never built up enough feelings to be jealous of each other in the first place. I shook my head.
"That's right. I approached that woman to set the board for certain. You've been here a while, so you've probably heard—I've mastered the Bedroom Arts. I'm more skilled than some wild boar who relies on brute force and crushes ignorantly."
"Where did you learn the Bedroom Arts? Your martial aura is quite orthodox and pure, but Bedroom Arts... did you learn them from an apostate monk?"
I shrugged. It wasn't unusual to be ignorant of a reclusive eccentric's identity, so Sannyeo didn't pry further. She nudged the soup bowl with her foot, and I scooped up another piece of meat. I shoved the spoon into Sannyeo's mouth and said,
"That bitch who drags every man in this stronghold into her bed... how much pure and noble love would she want? She'd rather just stake a claim and improve her lot. So while I was feeding all kinds of talk to the chieftain, I sweet-talked that bitch too."
"Mm... delicious. The seasoning is just right today."
Sannyeo chewed, a satisfied look on her face. I leaned against the tent wall and said,
"You're listening to me, right?"
Sannyeo nodded and wiped her mouth on the edge of her manacles.
"Of course. I'm listening."
I nodded.
"So whenever the deputy chieftain was away, I'd bang her at all hours and thoroughly tame her. And what did I say? Something like this: 'Aren't you sick of living your whole life as the deputy chieftain's wife? Now that you're at it, shouldn't you live a little prouder? I've got a good idea, so listen up.'"
"So what did that woman say to that?"
"At first she seemed to mull it over, but after I banged her a few more times she couldn't even do that. She asked me, 'So what are you going to do?'"
When I mimicked the woman's voice, Sannyeo tilted her head for a moment, then perfectly imitated my tone and said,
"So what are you going to do?"
I laughed in disbelief. Even as I giggled, she was smiling a bright smile. We quietly laughed for a long time in the deep blue darkness. Then I rubbed my face with my palm and said,
"So what we decided was, when the deputy chieftain came in, that bitch would whisper in his ear. She'd say that lately the chieftain's gaze on her had been strange. That since he kept sending the deputy chieftain on raids to get him out of the stronghold, it was obvious he was plotting something fishy. That she was scared, not knowing what might happen at this rate."
Sannyeo listened to my story and said,
"Interesting. So what happens now? What do you want out of this situation?"
I plopped down on the spot.
"Come to think of it, if I just ran away from here, how could I shake off those bastards on my own? I've barely reached the threshold of third-rate. These guys aren't opponents I can take lightly."
I picked up the axe from the floor. After a few raids, it had taken on a faint reddish tint. Sannyeo rolled her eyes as if searching for bloodstains etched into the blade, then looked back at me. I raised the axe and said,
"So... I'll make it so those bastards can't even think about chasing us—by making them fight each other."
Sannyeo tilted her head and said,
"Just because you made them suspect each other, you think they'll fight soon? They've been cowards sizing each other up all along. Isn't that a bit too optimistic?"
I shook my head. Then I smiled and leaned back. The old, unmaintained weapons shed dust and the smell of metal every time I moved. This foul smell I encountered every time I entered this tent had recently started to feel almost cozy.
I said,
"Anyway, I knocked a woman over with my Bedroom Arts this time, didn't I."
Sannyeo nodded.
"That's right."
I moved my fingers in the air as I spoke. Pressing my middle and ring fingers together habitually, the gesture automatically turned lewd.
"Would it work on martial arts masters too? If I could talk my way into bed with them, that is."
Sannyeo shook her head at my question.
"You can't forcibly conquer a martial artist who has cultivated both mind and body with just Bedroom Arts like that. They say that in sharing the pleasure of clouds and rain, not only the bodies but also the hearts of man and woman must be in harmony. Those sinister techniques you're talking about belong to the realm of lustful arts. Bedroom Arts and lustful arts are different."
I tried to recall if there was anything like that in the secret manual I had read. In the manual I had memorized by heart, there definitely wasn't anything like 'how to brainwash and control a martial artist' or 'how to turn a martial artist into a pervert with just a finger.'
"That's true."
Sannyeo laughed as I gave up so easily, and said,
"But it's not completely impossible either. I don't know exactly what kind of Bedroom Arts you're using, but if you can suppress your opponent's inner energy—if you can break through the protective qi they unconsciously cast over their body with your own inner energy and stimulate them—then even if you can't fully conquer them, you could give them pleasure beyond imagination. Whether they'd pant after that pleasure and come to desire you would depend on their disposition."
"So, simply put, I need to get stronger?"
It meant the higher my martial arts level rose, the more women I could approach and violate.
Sannyeo nodded, blinking, and said,
"Don't stare at me so intently while saying that."
I raised the corners of my mouth and avoided an answer.
Because it was a topic that would only make me look weirder the more we talked about it.
Instead, I looked outside through a gap in the tent. In the distance, from the edge of the forest, torches were flickering like fireflies and coming in a line. I grabbed hold of the bars of Sannyeo's cage and said,
"The deputy chieftain will be back soon."
Sannyeo looked bewildered when I unlocked the half-broken lock by hand and opened the door.
"You're saying he'll fight right away when he returns?"
"That's right."
I opened the barred door and took hold of Sannyeo's manacles. She didn't resist even when I grabbed them and pulled. She moved silently with my guidance, like a traveler being led.
Rather than going out with her, I hunched down in a corner of the tent and pried open a gap. I could see the deputy chieftain brushing his hair back and entering his own tent.
Both the deputy chieftain and the chieftain were such cowards that they would only fight if the stage was set for them.
Since their skills were roughly equal, if I simply waited for them to fight, they'd probably never do it.
So I set the stage. I slandered the deputy chieftain to the chieftain, saying the deputy chieftain was always looking for an excuse to push him out. I made him suspicious, and the deputy chieftain's wife slandered that the chieftain was trying to eliminate the deputy chieftain.
After patiently repeating this process until the anxiety reached its peak,
all I had to do was fire the signal flare.
Faintly, a woman's voice came from the tent.
"Darling... I can't live like this. The chieftain... the chieftain told me to come to his bedchamber tonight, can you believe it?"
The signal flare was the deputy chieftain's wife.
Earlier today, before coming to Sannyeo's tent, I had given the wife instructions. When the deputy chieftain arrived, she was to burst into tears and say the chieftain had molested her. That she couldn't live like this, and that he had to do something about the chieftain quickly.
She was the stronghold slut that everyone but the deputy chieftain knew about, but the deputy chieftain, unaware of that fact, cherished her.
In the deputy chieftain's heart, the demon of suspicion—that the chieftain was trying to eliminate him right now—was spreading.
On top of having just returned from a raid with accumulated fatigue and stress, the fact that his wife had been molested paralyzed his reason.
A few words were exchanged, and the deputy chieftain's howl rang through the air.
"Uwaaaaaah!"
The tent was torn aside, and the deputy chieftain ran to the chieftain's tent with his weapon in hand.
"Come on out, you beast! I'm settling this with you today!"
The chieftain, too, was incapable of rational judgment.
Because he had thought the deputy chieftain would target him at any moment.
Because he thought he'd come at him with a sword using some fucked-up excuse.
So the chieftain, too, couldn't conceive of persuading him through dialogue.
"Yeah! I was just thinking I needed to teach you a lesson anyway."
The two faced each other, and we sat in the tent and watched the scene unfold.
"Other people's fights sure are entertaining."