To Make a Short Bastard Rage, Just Call Him an Acorn (3)
Puck! Puck! Puck-puck-puck!
Two stones and three punches.
It was the same method Jin Yigang had used to take down the enormous demon.
Having wiped out five of the demonic warriors, Jin Yigang broke into a run, with Gung Yo and Je Chuyeong close behind.
"Where's the Pavilion Head's group right now?" Jin Yigang asked as he ran.
"Below the cliff on the left, halfway through the gorge."
"Can you find them?"
"Someone who's mastered concealment arts never loses their way."
"So you're saying you're not hopeless with directions?"
"That's not what I said."
"Then what?"
"I leave a trail so I don't get lost."
"By trail, you mean urine?"
"……"
"Apparently not?"
"Marking territory with urine is for beasts, you brat. No — that's not even a trail, that's a territory claim."
"What, humans can't use urine?"
"Every time you wanted to mark territory, you'd have to drop your pants and squat. You think that's easy?"
"I suppose it would be a bit more complicated for women."
Whoosh!
Suddenly Gung Yo darted ahead and spun her right hand in a swift arc.
Boom-boom!
This time, drumbeats rang out.
"Kraaagh!"
THWACK!
The heads of three masked men burst open all at once.
"Whoa."
Jin Yigang clicked his tongue.
The distance between the masked men and Gung Yo was a full jang. She had leapt across that entire gap with her sonic art and blown their heads apart.
"Play with two instruments at once and it's even more devastating," Gung Yo said, puffing up with pride.
"Do you have to be drinking to play?"
"Why would you ask that?"
"Your title is the Drunken Fairy, after all."
"Alcohol is for when I'm annihilating a crowd of enemies. When I'm picking them off one or two at a time, like now, there's no need to drink."
"Does the sonic art ever harm your allies?"
"As long as they don't stand in front of me, they're fine."
"So you can control the direction of the sound?"
"Yep."
"Where'd you get those gorgeous weapons, anyway?"
"They're relics."
"Your mother's?"
"Yeah."
This time Gung Yo took the lead, guiding the way. Jin Yigang and Je Chuyeong sprinted after her traces.
"Hah!"
Gung Yo suddenly dodged to the left. In that instant, Jin Yigang's slightly crouched upper body shot forward and his left fist cut short through the empty air.
Puck!
The demon warrior — his heart shredded to ribbons — froze in place, then crumpled to the ground.
"An apparition…?"
Jin Yigang looked at Gung Yo in bewilderment. She'd had plenty of time to attack it herself. And her martial art was sonic, wielded through a bell or a drum. Yet all she'd done was scramble out of the way.
"You said you can't see them, right?" Gung Yo asked.
"Can't see what?"
"Apparitions."
"Yeah."
Jin Yigang shook his head.
"What was it like when the apparition came at you?"
"I couldn't see the apparition, so I can't say for sure, but the real body lunged exactly where you dodged."
"So the real body hides behind the apparition?"
"Seems like it."
"Then if you struck at around the apparition's waist…"
"Don't bother trying to find out. There'll be no more fighting after this."
"Why?"
"Because the people who'll fight in our place have just gone in."
"Who are they?"
"The Blood Fiend Lord and the Eight Kings."
"I see."
"Then let's hurry."
"Got it."
Gung Yo promptly led them to where the others were waiting.
"There you are."
When Jin Yigang and Je Chuyeong arrived, Je Ha-yeong spoke with visible relief.
"Sorry for causing you worry," Je Chuyeong said.
"It's not as if you did it on purpose."
Taking her sister's hand, Je Ha-yeong turned to Jin Yigang — and offered her thanks.
"Thank you."
"I barely did anything. Honestly, it was rather fun."
"Fun?"
"That was my first time traveling alone with a woman, you see."
"…?"
"We even bathed together in a valley, and slept together, that sort of thing."
"Pfft!"
Je Ha-yeong burst out laughing.
She understood immediately what he meant by "bathing in a valley." There was no way they'd actually bathed in a valley swollen with rain — he clearly meant they'd used the floodwater to make their escape.
"Where is everyone else?" Jin Yigang asked.
"They've gone outside to fight the enemy."
"Have you located them all?"
"Not Elder O and Great Hero Mu."
"Then here's what we'll do. If you keep going along the cliff face, you'll come to a crack wide enough for one person to slip through. It's narrow at first, but go a little way in and it opens into a broad cave. Get inside there and wait."
"How far do we have to go?"
"Only about fifty jang."
"Understood."
Je Ha-yeong called in the fighters. Before long, Bukgung Hansang arrived at the group's position.
"Any idea where Daebo is?"
"Somewhere over there, probably," Bukgung Hansang said.
"You escort them and follow along."
Jin Yigang pointed at the Jicheon Physician Clan group.
"And you?"
"I'll go find them and bring them back."
"The way you talk, I get the feeling you're the strongest one here — am I imagining it?"
"I am the strongest."
"…"
"I'm scarier than any blind madman, that's for sure. Anyway, get moving."
Jin Yigang shoved Bukgung Hansang on the back.
"Fine, fine."
Bukgung Hansang left with the others in tow.
"Why aren't you going?" Jin Yigang asked, eyeing Gung Yo, who had stayed behind.
"I'm worried about you."
"Say things like that and a naive soul like me might actually believe it."
"You can believe it."
"Really?"
"That's what I said."
"Don't talk nonsense, you brat. Why are you staying?"
"What I'm worried about, strictly speaking, is what's inside your head — but since you and your head share a common fate, it amounts to worrying about you, doesn't it?"
"…"
"Aren't you going?"
"You wicked woman. Making a naive young man's heart race like that."
Shooting Gung Yo a sidelong glare, he set off.
"How do you plan to find them?" Gung Yo asked, falling in beside him.
Finding a person in a place shrouded entirely in mist was no easy feat. It might well turn into searching for a needle in a desert.
"Just do it the way your mother used to find you."
"And how did my mother find me?"
"Daebo-ya! Daebo-ya, come eat!"
Jin Yigang bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"…Pfft! Hohoho!"
Gung Yo erupted into laughter.
"Why are you trying to get in there?" Jin Yigang asked, glancing left and right.
"Where?"
"The Invincible Fist King Land."
"There's only one reason martial artists want to get in there."
"To get stronger, you mean?"
"Yeah."
"And why do they want to get stronger?"
"For a martial artist, growing stronger is instinct. It doesn't need a reason."
"Maybe so for everyone else — but you have a reason, don't you?"
"…"
Gung Yo stopped and looked at him. Then she asked, "What do you know about me?"
"All I know is that you're a person with no reason to become a Sword Immortal. And yet you came in with the Jicheon Physician Clan, and you took the medicine they handed out. That medicine — the kind that might very well kill you."
"And do you have a reason for becoming a Sword Immortal?"
"Yeah."
"What is it?"
"I told you — I'm awfully fond of medicine."
"What they hand out isn't medicine. It's poison."
"That's exactly why I came."
Jin Yigang said it as he walked on.
"That's why you came?"
She stared at his back.
"Daebo-ya!"
Jin Yigang shouted again.
"What?"
Mu Daebo's voice drifted back from a distance.
"If you don't come right now, I'm leaving you behind here."
"All right, coming."
THWACK!
Before long, a dull impact echoed from where Mu Daebo was — the sound of his fist burying itself in an enemy's torso.
Jin Yigang turned and walked back to Gung Yo.
"Mark your territory on me."
"Mark my… territory?"
Gung Yo stared at him, baffled.
"I'm going to go find the old man and the old woman."
"And you want me to wait here for Great Hero Mu?"
"Yeah."
"Fine."
Gung Yo drew something from her breast and rubbed it against the top of Jin Yigang's head.
"What is that?"
"Ten-Thousand-Li Fragrance."
"So I could smell it from ten thousand li away?"
"That part's an exaggeration."
"Then how far does it carry?"
"The scent lasts about a month, and if I'm within roughly ten li, she can follow it to me. That's on the condition the wind blows toward her."
"You'd need a special martial art to detect a scent like that, wouldn't you?"
"Obviously."
"I see."
"So from now on, you're mine?"
"What?"
"You just had your territory marked."
"…Territory's only real when it's marked with urine. I'm off."
Jin Yigang immediately sprinted forward. As he ran, he pricked up his ears. It seemed the Blood Fiend Lord had entered and begun to fight — the air was thick with the clash of weapons and scattered screams.
Once the Eight Kings come in too, it'll get even fiercer.
He dropped down where he stood and closed his eyes.
Finding sounds by ear? That's where I'm a devil.
It was an ability earned through hunting. In terrain swept by strong winds, he'd had to locate prey regardless — to distinguish the noise of the wind from the sound of a beast moving through it. After years of that, he could tell them apart nine times out of ten.
The old woman will be tricky since she uses concealment arts. And old man Nang, with that half-moon blade swinging on its chain…
Whee! Whee! Whee!
Found him.
Jin Yigang sprang up and ran.
Before long, he spotted Nang Baek whirling his blade. His opponents were Dokji and Hyeolsu. It looked as though a furious battle had just been fought — from a jang apart, the three of them were glaring each other down.
Nang Baek spun the Half-Blood Demon Saber in lazy circles.
"There you are."
As Jin Yigang approached, all three turned their eyes toward him.
"What are you doing here?" Nang Baek asked.
"Came to watch, that's all."
"…"
"Can I take that one?"
Jin Yigang asked, walking toward Dokji.
"What are you on about?" Nang Baek said.
"I just mean you can have the honor of finishing off that acorn over there."
"The acorn… pfft! Hah!"
Nang Baek roared with laughter.
He simply hadn't imagined there existed a soul bold enough to look at Hyeolsu of the Demonic Cult's Nine Demons and call him an acorn.
"Why, you little—!"
Fwoosh!
Hyeolsu kicked off the ground and shot toward Jin Yigang. His movement was so blindingly fast that even Nang Baek lost track of him.
"Look out!"
Nang Baek flung himself forward — but he was a beat too slow. In the blink of an eye, Hyeolsu stood face to face with Jin Yigang, right hand already shooting out.