Chapter 497
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 497
Chapter Title: Have You... Ever Starved?
"A bowl of porridge, please."
Ha Mu-baek handed two nyang of coins to the innkeeper.
Even one nyang would have been more than enough to buy a generous serving of rice cakes, let alone porridge.
With the generous payment, the innkeeper quickly prepared a hearty portion of warm porridge.
Ha Mu-baek took the bowl and headed back to the shack.
The children were still wide awake, clutching their empty stomachs.
Ha Mu-baek sat down and set the bowl he'd brought in front of them.
He ladled some into small bowls he'd brought separately and placed them before the kids.
"There's plenty, so eat slowly. You've been starving for so long that wolfing it down could make you sick."
The boy, who had lunged at the sudden food in a frenzy, froze at Ha Mu-baek's words.
Under his sister's restraint, he just swallowed hard, his mouth watering.
The girl scooped a proper amount of porridge onto a wooden spoon, blew on it gently to cool it down.
Then she fed it to her little brother.
"Slowly. Chew it well."
It was porridge with nothing to chew, but she seemed worried he'd eat too fast anyway.
Ha Mu-baek watched them quietly.
The girl fed her brother like that, nice and slow.
It looked like she was afraid he'd scarf it down and get sick if she let him feed himself.
Only after he'd eaten a fair amount did she hand him the spoon.
"Eat slowly."
As she picked up her own bowl with that admonition, the porridge had already cooled.
She ate it with relish, as if lukewarm was better than hot.
Ha Mu-baek just observed silently.
Some time passed like that.
"That's enough for now. Stuffing yourself after starving can make you ill. You can have the rest tomorrow morning."
Ha Mu-baek spoke up as the boy reached to ladle more from the big bowl into his small one.
The boy eyed the still-plentiful porridge with obvious regret dripping from his gaze.
But perhaps his belly was full enough now?
He didn't put up a fuss.
The girl, having finished her bowl, stood and bowed deeply to Ha Mu-baek.
"Thank you... so much."
She knew full well that gratitude came before all her burning questions.
How he'd found their home, how he'd unlocked the rickety shack's door, why he was showing them such kindness.
She had a head full of questions.
But thanking him for his help came first.
The boy followed his sister's lead and bowed as well.
"I was passing by and heard the boy's voice. I just wanted to check on your situation. Sorry for barging in without permission."
Ha Mu-baek spoke calmly, as if he knew exactly what doubts she had.
"I'm Jo Hyang-a. This is my little brother, Jo Hu-pyo."
Her brother's whiny complaints about hunger hadn't been loud enough for a passerby to hear.
It had been feeble whimpering that wouldn't carry outside the shack.
No matter how shabby it was.
Yet he'd heard it, so he was no ordinary man.
Jo Hyang-a introduced herself and her brother with even greater caution.
"Your parents left home three days ago?"
Jo Hyang-a and Jo Hu-pyo nodded at Ha Mu-baek's question.
"Do you know where they went?"
"Yes."
Jo Hyang-a's quiet reply.
"They left nothing at all for you to eat?"
Ha Mu-baek confirmed step by step.
Jo Hyang-a shook her head.
"No. They left a little food and told us to make it last."
"It was only enough for one meal, and then it was gone!"
Jo Hu-pyo chimed in like a tattletale after his sister's words.
The still-young Hu-pyo seemed eager to vent his hunger woes to someone.
"They said we're little, so we don't need much... and to ration it until they came back."
Ha Mu-baek barely suppressed a frown at Jo Hyang-a's words.
He didn't want to scare the kids by making a face.
"And the place they went was the village outskirts shrine, right?"
Jo Hyang-a's eyes went wide at Ha Mu-baek's question.
She looked shocked that this stranger knew the place.
"Do your parents always leave you home alone like this?"
Ha Mu-baek asked again.
Jo Hyang-a shook her head.
"They got paid for some work and said they had to offer tribute to Guanyin so the new world would come even a little sooner..."
"Every time?"
Jo Hyang-a fell silent at Ha Mu-baek's follow-up.
He didn't need to hear it to know the answer.
"I see. Thanks for telling me what I wanted to know. You must be tired—go to sleep. Have some porridge in the morning."
Ha Mu-baek patted Jo Hyang-a's head.
Jo Hu-pyo, his hunger sated, was already nodding off.
"Thank you so much."
Jo Hyang-a bowed deeply once more.
"No need. I'm the one who should apologize for showing up out of nowhere and grilling you with questions."
With that, Ha Mu-baek left the shack.
Sensing the presences around, he noted this wasn't the only home with kids left alone.
Nearly half the houses had only children sleeping inside.
Kids like Jo Hyang-a and Jo Hu-pyo were everywhere.
Hu-pyo must have been the one who couldn't hold back his hunger-whines loudest, catching Ha Mu-baek's ear.
Thud. Thud.
Ha Mu-baek's footsteps dug deep into the earth.
He was heading back to the village outskirts.
His destination was, naturally, the shrine.
How could something like this even happen?
No matter how deep into religion they'd fallen, abandoning their own children to spend three days at the shrine?
Prioritizing offerings to that damned Mercy Guanyin Cult over feeding their kids?
"Fucking bastards."
Ha Mu-baek muttered under his breath.
The shrine came into view.
He paused, scanning the surroundings.
He just couldn't make sense of it.
He'd suspected sorcery at first, but there were no signs.
What the hell were they up to?
Ha Mu-baek activated his Infinite Bright Wheel Eye to probe the area.
The flow of qi visible to his eyes.
It wasn't normal, but nothing special stood out.
He tilted his head, observing intently for a long while.
He wanted to uncover the cause of this madness in the village.
After studying the qi flow for some time.
A pattern emerged.
He didn't know what it meant, but he recognized that such a pattern dictating the qi flow meant one thing.
'A formation.'
A formation enveloped the shrine.
Confirming that, Ha Mu-baek slipped inside.
The cult's emissary stood before the altar, deep in fervent preaching.
Villagers knelt, gazing at him, hanging on his every word.
Ha Mu-baek watched it all with his Infinite Bright Wheel Eye still active.
The emissary's sermon rang clear in Ha Mu-baek's ears too.
Even he, there to investigate, found himself listening intently before he knew it.
Realizing the shift, Ha Mu-baek snapped his mind back to focus.
How had he gotten so absorbed without thinking?
Not sorcery, at least.
Sorcery required the caster to clearly target and designate the subject, but the emissary didn't even know Ha Mu-baek was there.
The formation's qi was too faint for that either.
Ha Mu-baek reviewed the emissary's sermon again.
The strange rhythm, emphasis, variations.
And the repetitions.
Those words carried power.
'Suggestion? Or hypnosis?'
The thought struck just as he noticed the formation's qi subtly spreading from the altar.
'Brainwashing. The formation's qi combining with the suggestive sermon.'
Ha Mu-baek had a rough idea of the mechanism.
He frowned.
He knew the cause now, but not how to break the brainwashing.
Deep-seated desires likely fueled their susceptibility too.
In this despair-filled reality, the wish for it all to collapse and vanish.
"And a mask..."
Something he'd missed last time, when he'd only grasped the big picture before leaving.
The emissary's face.
It wasn't his real one.
A finely crafted mask hid his true features, presenting a false face.
"With this, we conclude the three-day prayer. The next session starts in four days. Prepare your devotion to Guanyin by then."
The sermon ended, signaling the gathering's close, and the villagers rose and dispersed.
Dawn was breaking.
Once they were all gone.
The emissary opened a small box.
It held a modest but decent sum of money.
"Hmm. Have we squeezed this village dry? It's small, so no more to get... Tch. Dust to mountains, my ass—this is just dust. Better to craft doctrines that hook the rich..."
Ha Mu-baek appeared behind the muttering emissary.
"You seem to know a thing or two."
Grip.
Ha Mu-baek seized the emissary's throat.
"Gahk! Wh-who...?"
The emissary jolted in shock.
But he couldn't budge.
Ha Mu-baek had him completely pinned.
"Where does this money go?"
Ha Mu-baek asked in a calm voice.
"I... don't know."
The emissary stammered in a trembling voice.
He could only hear his captor's voice, not see him, which terrified him more.
Ha Mu-baek smirked at the answer.
He'd expected it.
"The Jegal Clan told you to say that, huh."
"......"
The emissary clamped his mouth shut.
But his slight tremor spoke for him.
"What's the purpose of the formation here?"
The emissary kept silent to the next question too.
"The words and rhythm you repeat endlessly in your sermons—what's their aim?"
"......"
As expected, no answer.
But he couldn't hide the quiver in his body.
"Fine. What's your position in Yungzhong Mountain?"
No reply came.
Ha Mu-baek smirked.
The man's dantian was answering for him.
As he desperately tried every trick to break free, Ha Mu-baek read the movement of qi in his dantian.
He'd deliberately avoided sealing the meridian points.
Just gripping the throat and suppressing with overwhelming force.
When the man went all-out with his qi in desperation, tracing its origin was easy.
No one could hide their core clan's signature technique in full exertion.
The flow of qi visible in Ha Mu-baek's eyes.
"Minor Celestial Profound Origin Art. Jegal Clan it is. They send clan disciples to easy, safe jobs and disposable pawns to the dangerous ones?"
The emissary's body went rigid at Ha Mu-baek's mutter.
He was stunned.
How had he read his martial art's origin?
He'd done nothing but struggle, channeling qi to escape the restraint.
Whoosh.
Thud.
Ha Mu-baek hurled the emissary, who crashed to the floor and scrambled up.
"Y-you... bastard..."
Only now seeing Ha Mu-baek's face, he was too shocked to speak properly.
His expression screamed: Why was that monster here?
Ha Mu-baek smirked at the reaction.
Recognizing his face meant this guy had some standing in the Jegal Clan.
Plenty in the Jegal Clan knew Ha Mu-baek's face now.
Thanks to the battle at Yungzhong Mountain during the last Martial Conference.
Jegal Myeong hadn't been there, so he hadn't recognized him properly, but others had.
"Have you... ever starved?"
The question slipped from Ha Mu-baek's lips.
To the emissary, it was utterly out of left field.
All questions about the cult so far, then suddenly this?
"Yeah. Lived a life of luxury, I see."
Ha Mu-baek's face hardened coldly as he stepped forward.
"T-this...!"
The emissary kicked off the ground in panic.
It was obvious he couldn't face the monster approaching him.
Flight was his only option.