No. 471 Daeeung Escort Mission (3)
The core rule of the No. 471 Daeeung Escort Mission came down to a single word: [Escort]. Whether the cargo could be carried safely to its destination without being seized by the enemy — that alone decided success or failure.
But of course, that was only the most basic of basics, and a true veteran always aimed higher. To claim the bonus rewards, you had to mind the other factors as well.
What the dungeon judged second in importance only to the cargo was— 'the people.'
The escort leader, the escorts, the porters — everyone traveling with the caravan. How many of them you brought to the destination alive was what determined the additional reward.
And it went without saying that the stronger each individual, the better their odds of survival. That was why the Daeeung Escort Bureau had raised such a fuss about handpicking only its most capable fighters — and the fruit of that effort was on full display now.
— Shrrk!
Eoguri's enormous saber swept through the air at staggering speed.
The black-clad man bearing down on him failed to react to a speed far beyond anything he had braced for, and was cut clean in half.
Jwidori, for his part, drove his twin blades at another black-clad man without a moment's respite, hammering him back until both swords at last plunged into his chest.
But the enemies they faced now were no rabble of ronin loitering around the bureau. These were highly trained elites, and their killing intent was nothing so light as a friendly spar.
Even with his chest run through, the black-clad man clamped down on Jwidori's arm in a sudden vise grip.
In his eyes burned a venomous resolve: if he was to die, he would at least drag his killer along as company.
"Blast it...!"
As Jwidori strained to wrench his arm free, a second black-clad man lunged, sword driving for his throat—
— Whump!
—and the next instant, he took my outstretched palm full in the face and went sprawling backward.
I had struck him as if throwing a proper palm technique, quietly lacing the blow with Wind Force.
In that opening, Jwidori tore his arm loose and crossed his short blades, opening the man's throat in a single stroke.
"Much obliged, Kim A-woo. Didn't know you had training in the palm arts?"
"A few techniques picked up from my family's old martial manuals, nothing more. As you saw, the power is hardly worth mentioning."
"Bah, don't undersell it. That strike saved my hide."
— Shrrk!
That was Jwidori's way of giving thanks — cutting down the next black-clad man in line. This time, though, he took care to keep his arm well out of grabbing range.
'This side is more or less stabilized now.'
Our trio had hardened into a solid defensive line of its own, which meant that from here on, my attention belonged to everyone else.
Just as I had during the chaotic mock battles at the bureau, I began casting magic on the sly.
A sweep of the battlefield showed the Mantis ronin driven onto the back foot, his life hanging by a thread.
I cast Point Explosion his way.
— Whump!
Compressed mana detonated against the belly of the black-clad man mid-strike. The fellow showed no sign of pain whatsoever, but not even he could keep his stance from buckling for a heartbeat under the blast.
"...!"
The Mantis ronin's eyes caught that sliver of an opening and flashed — and a breath later, the black-clad man's head went flying.
I was already marking my next target and unleashing Wind Force.
— Whoooosh—
The wind, heavy with physical force, staggered the man for an instant — long enough to make him fine pickings for another ronin's blade.
In this fashion I slipped Wind Force, Twister, and Point Explosion in here and there under everyone's nose, all the while surveying the rest of the field.
'Now then, what's Go Hyeon-woo up to?'
— Shrrak-krak-krak!
The ground anywhere near Go Hyeon-woo was strewn with the shredded remains of black-clad men.
So much so that even those fearless killers gave him a wide berth, unwilling to close the distance with him.
And to top it all off, he was already driving back the black-clad man who appeared to be their commander, pressing him with overwhelming force.
Before long, his iron sword trailed a gleam of gray light — and from the body of the commander, frozen stock-still where he stood, the head slid soundlessly to the ground.
— Shriee—!
At once, a sharp whistle blast rang out from somewhere unseen.
Just as they had when surging to the attack, the black-clad men withdrew in flawless unison, gathering up the corpses in the space of a breath before vanishing from the field.
The caravan grounds stood swept bare, as if the ambush had never happened at all. Only the blood spattered across the ground bore witness that none of it had been a dream.
Escort Leader Jo's bellow jolted the dumbstruck onlookers back to their senses.
"No time to stand around gaping! Clean up fast, and we move out immediately!"
At that, the escorts and porters began to bustle into motion.
Escort Leader Kang, meanwhile, looked upon Go Hyeon-woo and let out a sigh of pure admiration.
"You know, you're an even finer master than I took you for."
"You praise me far too highly, sir."
"Not at all. It seems you were showing restraint when we crossed blades back at the bureau."
Had he shown his true skill, the bout would have been settled within a few exchanges at most — so Kang insisted, heaping praise on the young swordsman to his heart's content.
Go Hyeon-woo managed an awkward smile and nudged the conversation in another direction.
"Fortune seems to have favored us — the damage was light."
"So it was. Fewer wounded than a fight that ugly had any right to leave behind."
Escort Leader Kang nodded along in agreement.
Not a single one of their own dead, and the wounded numbered barely a handful. The black-clad men, by contrast, had hauled off every last one of their corpses, making their losses impossible to tally — but even at a glance, those losses had to have been steep.
It was a victory one could rightly call a rout. 'Well, they were elites, culled from the best of the best.'
Ronin as a rule ran a shade weaker than martial artists schooled systematically within a sect. But cull only the strongest from among men whose ferocity more than covered the gap, and every last one of them could hold his own in a fight.
Even so, there were patches here and there where men found themselves outmatched against the black-clad ranks — gaps I quietly plastered over with a well-timed spell.
Naturally, no one but Go Hyeon-woo had the eyes to catch any of it.
Escort Leader Jo, for one, swelled with pride, convinced his prediction had proven out.
"What did I tell you? Our strength is more than ample."
"Hm... so it certainly is."
"After such a show of force, they won't dare try anything for a good long while. Onward through the passes, I say."
And yet...
Contrary to all expectation, the black-clad men regathered their strength in no time and came hunting after us.
Battle broke out once more. Everyone clicked their tongues at the enemy's organization and sheer relentlessness, but they quickly stoked their fighting spirit and stood to meet them.
The mettle that had carried them through the last ambush had not simply evaporated, and this time, too, they smashed the attackers aside without great difficulty.
The newly emerged black-clad commander likewise took Go Hyeon-woo's Clear Stream head-on and burst apart into scattered fragments.
— Shriee—!
And as if they had been waiting for precisely that moment, the whistle sounded, and the enemy withdrew as swiftly as they had come.
While the escorts busied themselves tidying the grounds, Eoguri scrunched his woeful face into something even more woeful than usual.
"Something's odd here..."
"What is?"
At Jwidori's question, Eoguri jerked his chin toward Go Hyeon-woo.
"Not that I mean to slight the young fella's skill, but for men said to be their leaders — didn't they go down far too easy?"
"Now that you mention it, so they did. Feels like they're bein' spent like disposable fodder, at that."
If the two black-clad men had truly occupied key posts in their organization, no one would have flung them out so carelessly — once, let alone twice.
Which meant—
"They serve as a rallying point, but they're no true commanders."
"My read is much the same. But then..."
"Wouldn't they rank a good deal further down — squad captains, more like?"
"Probably so."
Somewhere along the way, the ronin standing nearby had gone quiet, listening in on the two men with stiffening faces.
That the black-clad men felled just now were not 'commanders' but mere 'squad captains' was a matter of the gravest consequence. It meant the size of the force they faced was many times larger than it had appeared.
And right then—
"What in the—!"
At someone's shout, every head snapped around at once.
The crowd converged on the spot to find a ronin staring down at a severed forearm sprawled on the ground.
It was one of the remains left scattered in the wake of Go Hyeon-woo's sword aura — evidently a piece the black-clad men had failed to clear away in time.
A severed arm, in itself, was nothing worth a second glance to men who lived by the blade. But the ronin had cried out in genuine alarm, and there had to be a reason for that — so everyone bent in for a closer look.
"...!"
And one after another, they could only gape.
Branded into the flesh of the forearm like a scorch mark ran a name out of legend.
"The Yeomwang Squad...!"
The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult — shattered and scattered after its defeat in the Righteous-Demonic War of old. The Yeomwang Squad, once one of that Demonic Cult's armed companies, had surfaced here in these remote mountains.
And with that, everything fell into place: why the black-clad men had been drilled to such a ferocious standard, and how they had managed to drive even ronin with reputations as masters to the brink.
"...!"
"...!"
For a long while, a heavy silence pressed down upon the caravan grounds.
Then Jwidori abruptly lifted his head from the severed arm and trudged off toward one spot. His footsteps were aimed at the wagons bearing the cargo.
The other ronin caught his meaning at once and fell in behind him. They wanted to see for themselves — what in the world that cargo was, that the Demonic Cult would hunt it with such obsession.
But before they could reach the wagons, Escort Leader Kang and the escorts moved to bar their path.
"Halt."
"Let us have a look at the cargo."
"That cannot be allowed."
"We too are staking our lives to guard the thing. I'd say that buys us the right to know this much."
Yet Escort Leader Kang shook his head, firm as stone.
"Your argument is a fair one. Even so, this I cannot share, and I must ask your understanding on the matter."
"Then at least give it to us straight — why not?"
"..."
Escort Leader Kang's face hardened, his mouth sealed shut for a long moment. He seemed to weigh something in that silence — then, with the air of a man out of options, he answered with a sigh.
"...Goddamn it all."
"We've gone and stepped in it deep, haven't we."
The ronin spat their curses. Only now did they understand why the bureau had hired droves of nameless ronin as temporary escorts instead of masters from other sects — and why the promised pay for a successful run had been large enough to make a man's eyes pop out.
Escort Leader Kang went on in a level tone.
"Hear me out. What matters is not what the cargo is. What matters is this: whether you ever lay eyes on its contents or not, the Demonic Cult means to kill every one of us all the same."
"...!"
"So for now, set your curiosity aside. This is the hour to join hands."
For the ronin, there was no other choice to be made.
Jwidori glowered at Escort Leader Kang for a good long while, then finally nodded, if reluctantly.
"...Very well."
"I apologize for deliberately keeping the details from you. But on the matter of your pay, there is not one grain of falsehood."
Escort Leader Kang declared it with the force of a vow. So long as the caravan arrived at its destination safe and sound, every coin of the promised reward would be paid down to the last piece of copper — and Chief Jang of the Daeeung Escort Bureau had staked his own name upon that promise.
Just then, a ronin keeping watch on the rear let out a shout.
"Here they come again!"
From far off, the black-clad men closed in like a shadow spreading over the land. The Yeomwang Squad had regathered its strength yet again and was coming on the attack.
One after another, everyone tightened their grip on their weapons and braced for battle.
But their faces were darker, and heavier, than before.
[154] The Support Hogs It All