False Ghosts of Banwi Cave
Gwak Yeon and Cheon Gang stepped out of Jeowun-banjeom and set off into Hangzhou’s night streets, a world unto themselves.
Their footsteps echoed—thud, thud.
Cheon Gang suddenly turned his head and asked, “Oh, right! Shouldn’t we have brought Heoksijo along?”
“It said it would guard Iyeongak. Why force it?”
“We left the place empty the whole caravan trip, and now it suddenly wants to stay? That lazy bird is just making excuses so it can sleep.”
“Does it matter? The two of us are enough.”
“Hahaha! Well, true enough.”
“And it draws far too much attention.”
“Ah.”
Gwak Yeon nodded at Cheon Gang, who seemed to understand at last.
It was exactly as he said.
That Heoksijo…
The creature was larger than any crow and most falcons, a spiritual beast that could speak human language like a mynah bird. Far better to keep it high overhead scouting, or to commit it only when the range of an ambush was already set.
“While we fight, I’ll be watching how you use your martial arts. Think of this as a fine chance to pile up real combat experience.”
“Oh—yes, sir!”
Cheon Gang laughed heartily and glanced behind him. The tip of the iron staff strapped lengthwise across his back came into view. A fierce grin curved his mouth at the thought of crushing the bizarre thugs said to be swarming the city.
Gwak Yeon flicked a glance at him.
In truth, there was one more thing he had not said.
Unlike Heoksijo, which had at least some experience of him, Cheon Gang knew nothing of the powers Gwak Yeon possessed as a vampire. How far could he walk this great plan—to root out in this life the great evils he had missed in his previous one—alongside this man?
Someday… he may learn of these abilities.
This outing would let him test a few things: to thrash the counterfeit Hangzhou Ghosts overflowing the city, and to see the true measure of Cheon Gang, who was growing faster than expected.
They kept walking toward Hangzhou’s pleasure quarter, still thronged even at night.
Cheon Gang watched the drunks staggering about and asked, “…But where exactly are we going, Young Master?”
Towering wine houses stretched without end. Lanterns of red, blue, and yellow lined the streets. After they had passed several thoroughfares thick with the reek of liquor and rich cooking smells, and after they had brushed past pedestrians in every manner of dress, Gwak Yeon answered the question with casual indifference.
“I don’t really know either.”
“Sir?!”
“Come to think of it, Cheon Gang—you used to be a vagabond, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Then can you spot them? The kind of back alleys where black-path types waste their nights.”
“Actually… that’s why I asked.”
“Hm?”
“I’m starting to get the feel. The streets are growing quieter—perfect places for ruffians and street gangs to slip into after dark.”
Cheon Gang muttered, glancing around with a restless look. Tall pavilions still caught the eye, yet—
Thud, thud, thud—
The surroundings were darkening fast. The lanterns hung on every floor of open towers, the braziers in inn courtyards, the occasional lamp-posts along the street—all those lights were dwindling. And then a stranger landscape began to reveal itself.
Thud, thud—
Compared with the pleasure quarter, the multi-story buildings here were far more dilapidated, empty, or unfinished. At last even walls that had collapsed into rubble appeared—ruins rarely seen among the wine houses.
“Normally places like that… huh? They’ve even lit fires. Looks like someone’s actually there. See the shadows flickering up ahead?”
“Oh. So there are.”
He spoke lightly, but Gwak Yeon—once a vagabond himself in his previous life—already knew it well. And more than that: the place now coming into view was familiar even to the Gwak Yeon of this life.
Has that much time already passed?
Several months earlier, not long after he had woken in this body, he had first killed black-path thugs here and drunk their blood.
The Honcheon Sect leader… Ma… Gwan-wol, was it?
Yes. The black-path chief who had humiliated the original owner of this body, who had extorted nearby merchants including the cook at Jeowun-banjeom, and who had murdered thirty-nine people before Gwak Yeon killed him.
The conversation he had exchanged with that man while the cook fretted and a drunken Cheon Gang slept at the restaurant was still vivid.
—Is there a place nearby where you can kill someone and bury the body without being found?
—Yes.
The place the sneering bastard had led him to.
—I know spots where you can kill and bury people without a trace. Let’s go now.
That place had been Banwi Cave.
—We dump bodies here sometimes.
—How?
—See? A river runs right behind. Wrap them in those sacks stacked in the crates, tie them with that, weight them with stones, and drop them. Done.
—What if the bindings come loose?
—Deep water, fast current. They’ll be far gone before they ever surface.
—What about being found at the river mouth?
—It flows out to the sea. You’ll never find them.
—Ah.
Gwak Yeon approached, recalling that exchange. Yet even before he spread his vampire senses, the place already felt different from then.
…They’ve laid fires everywhere.
Shadows wavered in the pitch-black night. Guests had already arrived. When he had followed the Honcheon Sect men, the place had been so dark they needed torches before the scene became clear. Now many times more lights burned steadily, illuminating the ground ahead. Obscenities mixed with drunken singing reached his ears.
Confirming it, Gwak Yeon looked at Cheon Gang and nodded.
“…Young Master.”
“…Get ready.”
Cheon Gang grinned and unstrapped the iron staff from his back. Together they rounded the alley.
The vista of Banwi Cave opened at once. As before, ruined high towers ringed a wide clearing—yet something had changed.
Whoosh!
Among the fires blazing atop jars set all around, thugs sat drinking, complete with chairs and leather mats spread out.
As I thought.
In only a few months the black-path had swollen enough to turn this gloomy dump into a hangout for gangs.
“You hear? That crazy bastard pretended to be the Hangzhou Ghost again and killed the old woman at that inn last week.”
“You dumb bitch, you killed that woman yesterday yourself.”
“I had a solid reason, you fuck.”
“Whatever.”
“The bitch said she’d work like a slave if I spared her, so I did—and then she kept acting like she was still a person. I hate people who break promises more than anything in the world.”
“Puhah! This guy’s a real piece of—eh?!”
The snickering black-path men looked their way. At the entrance to their private den, framed between hanging hides, stood Gwak Yeon and Cheon Gang, blank-faced.
“Who the hell are you?”
“We seem to have taken a wrong turn.”
“…What?!”
Eyes raked over them at once—predatory, gleaming like beasts that had spotted prey. They noted the sword at Gwak Yeon’s waist and the iron staff in Cheon Gang’s hands. Rising while sucking sauce from their fingers, they drew blue-edged blades and axes.
“You don’t take wrong turns around here. Lately plenty of idiots who do that end up dead with a knife in them—right here in Hangzhou.”
“You son of a—”
Halt.
Gwak Yeon stopped Cheon Gang, who had already raised his staff at the insult to his master. The black-path pack sneered at the sight.
“Hey hey hey! That one’s pissed, isn’t he?”
“Putting on airs, the fucker.”
“Oh, a young master? Then the ransom should be nice and fat, right?”
Whether joking or serious, the words hung in the air. Gwak Yeon gave Cheon Gang a quick glance, then bowed politely.
“My apologies. We truly did lose our way.”
“What?”
“We have no wish to waste your time. We’ll be on our way.”
“Hold it, hold it.”
One of them caught Gwak Yeon’s arm as he turned with theatrical politeness. Looking back, he saw a massive black-clad man with a broad back speak as if nothing were amiss.
“Before you go, take a cut from my blade.”
“Pardon?”
“Heard of the Hangzhou Ghost? That’s me.”
“The Hangzhou Ghost… you say?”
“Yeah. I’ve killed dozens of black-path scum and tossed them in the river back there. Hangzhou’s cleaner thanks to me—trash like you should be grateful.”
“But why the blade…?!”
“Gotta practice cutting live ones if I’m gonna slice black-path dogs better, right?”
“We… haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Just die already, you fucks—!”
The huge man in black split his mouth in a ghostly grin and lunged, axe raised. Fresh blood still stained the edge—someone had already died by it today, and he meant to paint it anew. That was the last thing he ever did.
Crack—!
Gwak Yeon’s right hand moved almost as an afterthought; the sword that had been sheathed was suddenly buried in the man’s chest. When Gwak Yeon drew it free, the giant blinked once, still clutching his axe, then crumpled.
The laughter drained from the faces of the black-path men behind him.
“…!”
“…!”
“…!”
The first attacker’s bulk had hidden how Gwak Yeon killed him. Gwak Yeon paid them no mind. He looked at Cheon Gang and murmured evenly,
“…Get the feel of it?”
“Ah—so you confirmed it, then.”
“We need a pretext, don’t we? We’ve come to clean out insects that kill people for no reason.”
“Hahaha! True enough.”
Whether they still failed to grasp the situation, or believed their numbers were enough, or both—
“Get those bastards!”
“Burn them alive!”
“Kill them!”
Howling with murderous intent, the black-path men charged Gwak Yeon and Cheon Gang.
How long had the fight lasted?
Tap, tap.
To Gwak Yeon it did not even rise to the level of play. He drifted lightly from spot to spot, dodging murderous blades by a hair’s breadth.
“Got—got him! I—shit!!”
“Fuck! Just kill him already! All this bastard does is run!”
“You dodged that? Rat-like bitch!”
“Eh?! I killed—fuck!”
He slipped past knives and axes from every direction by the thickness of paper, all the while surveying Banwi Cave after so long.
It really has been a while.
He remembered the first time he came here. Ma Gwan-wol of the Honcheon Sect. Merely using the confession ability on the man for too long had left him drained and nauseated—his blood pouch had run short of spare blood.
Where I drank that bastard’s blood… over there? Hard to tell.
Jars of fire now blazed atop the spot where he had pressed his palm to the dying Ma Gwan-wol and absorbed the blood. It had been the first time he drank human blood rather than a wolf’s, yet even now he felt no guilt. The man who slaughtered commoners for no reason, who valued human life less than a fly’s, had been garbage—just like these ones.
Crunch!
“…Ghk!”
“Fuck! Why’d you take that, idiot!”
“Hack this bastard’s limbs off!”
He cut one man’s chest as if by accident while dodging; the others attacked in a frenzy, eyes blazing, determined to sever any part of him they could reach.
A bit stronger than last time, maybe.
They seemed slightly tougher than the Honcheon Sect men he had killed before. He wondered how Cheon Gang would handle them. After weaving through the storm of attacks he leapt back to open space and looked across the clearing.
And there he was.
“Hyaaah!”
Cheon Gang was dismantling the pack that had rushed him. The way he swung the staff was far more fluid than last time.
Whoosh—!
He spun his hands as if wiping a wall with a cloth; the upper end of the iron staff crushed the shoulder of a man thrusting a sword from the left. At the same moment the lower end struck the vital point of another charging from the right.
“Urya!”
Cheon Gang dropped low to avoid an axe from behind, then drove his foot forward and kicked the charging man’s gut. Gripping the staff with both arms he smashed the faces of two more who had raised blades from opposite sides in quick succession.
Crack-crack!
He advanced without pause, staff whirling. Strange impact sounds rose from the skulls, shoulders, and neck bones of men already fallen or staggering.
“Guhhk!”
“Khak!”
“Hup!”
“Gyaaah!”
Some died instantly, yet that was not the end. The staff, spinning faster and faster, now swept toward the black-path men still surrounding Gwak Yeon.
“Hiiiek!”
“Not bad.”
“This—ghhk!”
By then Gwak Yeon had finished his rough assessment. He began to swing his sword lightly through the blind spots of the men around him.
Crunch, slice, crack—
A series of cold sounds, and the matter was already finished.
Thud.
In the sudden sea of blood, only one black-path man remained alive.
Clatter.
He flung his weapon down and pressed himself flat to the ground.
“…S-s-s-spare me!”
Cheon Gang’s staff, already swinging to crush the man’s skull, was gently checked by Gwak Yeon.
“Young… Master?”
“We need information.”
“Ah—right! S-sorry.”
“Watch and learn.”
“Yes, sir!”
Gwak Yeon nodded at the still-panting Cheon Gang, then turned to the man flattened on the ground.
And—
“You.”
“H-hiiiek! P-p-please—”
“Shh.”
“Hup!”
“From now on you answer only what I ask. Can you do that?”
“Y-yes! I-I can!”
He was about to get to the point when a sudden curiosity struck him.
“By the way—do you not even know the Seoho Gwak Family?”
“I-I-I’ve… heard of them!”
The black-path man stared at Gwak Yeon with terror-stricken eyes. No need to use any ability.
As expected.
This one, too, was a black-path outsider who had drifted in. For men who claimed to be Hangzhou Ghosts themselves not to recognize Gwak Yeon—second young master of the Seoho Gwak Family—made no sense otherwise.
Gwak Yeon sighed and asked again.
“You lot don’t seem to have much structure. Who’s above you?”
“Th-there’s a boss!”
“So who is it?”
“Th-th-that one over—n-no, that bastard!”
“…Damn it.”
He looked. It was the fourth man Cheon Gang had killed. For the Cheon Gang of today, black-path trash of this level was not even a proper test.
“So then.”
Gwak Yeon took the first step toward rooting out every counterfeit Hangzhou Ghost in this underworld.
“Besides you… where else can I find the other Hangzhou Ghosts?”