novelraw Chapter 86 : Contracted Killing (1)
Chapter 86 : Contracted Killing (1)
“Ugh!”
Someone got on his back.
One arm choked his neck tightly, and the other arm covered his mouth. His two feet bound his body and hands at the same time.
“Ugh!”
The martial artist felt the urgency and struggled. At that time,
Swoosh!
The hand that had been wrapped around his neck was released. No, it had cut his neck with the dagger in its hand.
“Huk!”
The martial artist’s eyes widened.
His soul had already left his body and was running on the road to the afterlife.
The one who had killed the martial artist immediately looked around.
There was no one. No one had seen, and no one had been startled by the presence. Although there were at least ten people in front, no one had heard the presence.
Swoosh!
He moved the dead man and took the place where he had been hiding.
“All eight places have been cleared.”
The Eighth Elder said.
The martial artists around the pavilion had been handled by Ah Geol. But there were also martial artists on the second line. They were not as strong as the six bodyguards. They were just martial artists on guard.
The Drunken Flower Garden assassins eliminated them and took their positions.
With this, the pavilion, which was presumed to be the residence of the Ghost Gate Master, had completely fallen into the hands of the Drunken Flower Garden.
“First, we need to figure out the communication system.”
“We’re already on it. We’ve caught two, so we should know the details by tomorrow morning.”
The Eighth Elder said confidently.
The Drunken Flower Garden’s punishment hall was so harsh that it was said that it was better to die than to be dragged to the punishment hall.
But there was a place even more cruel than the punishment hall.
It was a place called the Submerged Prison, and it was a place made to torture people of the elder level or higher. It meant that it was a place for torturing elders, the sect master, or famous people in the martial world.
In the Submerged Prison, they did not use torture tools.
They would sit them in a chair, and tie their bodies tightly with iron ropes. And they would make them take a medicine called Submerged Leakage Fluid.
The Submerged Leakage Fluid would cut the nerves of the whole body one by one.
How could you describe the pain of your internal organs burning? The pain of your eyes popping out, the pain of your heart being squeezed tight, the pain of your whole body being pecked at with a dagger, all kinds of pain would rush in at once.
It was said that if you endured the Submerged Leakage Fluid once, you would become a fool, and if you endured it twice, you would become an idiot.
That was how great the shock to the head was.
Most people could not endure it even once. They were bound to answer the questions obediently.
The Eighth Elder was the warden of the Submerged Prison.
Mongseol trusted the Eighth Elder. By tomorrow morning, he would find out in detail how the Ghost Gate worked.
Mongseol said, “Please take care of it.”
Mongseol looked at the strange pavilion.
She thought that this was what the residence of the Ghost Gate Master, which the world did not know about, looked like.
The Drunken Flower Garden had entered the nest of another bird like a cuckoo.
They had invaded the main sect of the Ghost Gate, which was called one of the two major killing veins along with the Drunken Flower Garden, and had taken a position in the very center.
This was Mongseol’s plan.
The Ghost Gate should not know that its head had been changed. Yesterday or today, there was nothing wrong with the Ghost Gate.
Mongseol would give orders instead of the Ghost Gate Master. Then the Ghost Gate assassins would carry out the orders. They would still know that the Ghost Gate Master, Ma Guyeong, was giving the orders.
That was why she had asked him to kill Ma Guyeong without even the Ghost Gate disciples knowing.
How was this possible? Was there no one in the Ghost Gate who knew the master’s face? Even if they only knew that the master was a man, it would be discovered immediately, so wasn’t she thinking too lightly?
That’s right. There was no one in the Ghost Gate who knew the master’s face.
The Ghost Gate disciples did not know how old the master was, what his gender was, or what kind of martial arts he used.
The Ghost Gate was a thorough cell organization.
They only knew the person directly above them who gave them orders. Other than that, they knew nothing, and did not even try to know.
Because of this, she had been able to plan the head swap.
Also, from the entrance of the Nine-Bend Valley to the master’s pavilion, there were a whopping five hundred assassins.
These were not assassins who carried out killings. They were just house dogs that only monitored in the Nine-Bend Valley.
There was a separate assassin who gave the killing orders.
They were mixed in the world.
Unlike the Drunken Flower Garden, they did not take in disciples from a young age and teach them martial arts. They chose from among the martial artists. They selected those who were likely to become assassins from among the people of the world. And they recruited them.
It was good if such an assassin succeeded, and it was fine even if he failed.
Since assassins could be found anywhere, they could handle dozens of contracts in a day.
The Ghost Gate’s killing method was completely different from the Drunken Flower Garden’s.
But even in this way, they needed people who would work under the orders of the Ghost Gate professionally.
People who would recruit assassins, people who would manage funds, and also professional assassins who would manage and sometimes kill them.
Some of them were in the Nine-Bend Valley.
The people at the top of the food chain gathered in the Nine-Bend Valley and handled the work.
The top? That’s right. The top. There was also a top above the top, and they were hidden in the world.
The real heads were outside the Nine-Bend Valley.
The Ghost Gate assassins knew that the Ghost Gate could be attacked at any time. So they paid considerable attention to their safety. They tried not to reveal themselves as much as possible.
What Mongseol had occupied was a part of it, the master’s pavilion.
“I didn’t think of the Straw Sect Master. I didn’t know that even the sect master would be set up like this.”
Mongseol frowned as if she were in a difficult situation.
“Is everything cleared outside?”
“Did… you know?”
Mongseol’s eyes widened as if she were surprised.
“How could I not know when you’re showing it so obviously? You begged me to let you set up a place inside our Ghost Gate.”
“Oh my! It wasn’t a plea, was it?”
Mongseol smiled brightly.
Although anyone would think it was a crazy act, the deed was already done.
If they retreated here, the Drunken Flower Garden would make an enemy of the Ghost Gate. They had to somehow stay inside and take control of the Ghost Gate.
Ah Geol pointed to the martial artist who had been acupunctured.
“I saved him just in case, so if there’s anything to find out, find it out. Although I don’t think there’s much to find out.”
Mongseol approached the man and flipped his eyelids. She also opened his mouth and examined his tongue, and looked at his fingernails.
“He’s addicted to drugs. They probably can’t live without drugs. I can find out a few things. But, why did you do it?”
“…?”
“I looked at the dead people on the way. The blade you used to kill the Third Lord wasn’t the same, was it? Why did you change the blade?”
“Do you recognize that now?”
“What’s this? It seems my dear tends to ignore his fiancée too much. Even though I’m the Drunken Flower Garden Master, can’t I even recognize that the blade has changed?”
“It’s not that the blade has changed, I’m in the process of refining it.”
Mongseol nodded.
She was also in the process of refining the Nihwan Single Sword. So she understood what Ah Geol was saying.
“What are you going to do now?”
“First, I’ll turn this place into an iron fortress… and I’ll have to find out about the enemy, right? Through the Ghost Gate.”
“Hmph!”
Ah Geol laughed.
“That laugh again. Why do you keep laughing like that, it’s annoying?”
“Is it annoying if I laugh like this?”
“A laugh whose meaning I can’t understand is annoying no matter how you laugh.”
“I’ve thought about this. What would you be like if you hadn’t become the garden master? I think you would still be a thoughtless assassin, right? Just a thoughtless person talking to the garden master and the elders.”
“Is that why you laughed?”
“Now, the position of the Drunken Flower Garden Master suits you perfectly.”
“Alright. I’ll let it slide. If you laughed with that intention, then laugh.”
Mongseol also smiled brightly.
* * *
The Submerged Leakage Fluid was something that no human could withstand.
Since it was a fatal poison that touched the nerves, you would taste hell as soon as you took it.
“All communication is done through message tubes. The seal stamped on the message tube changes depending on the date, and they have a meeting on the first day of each month to inform them of the place where the seal is stamped. Even at that time, the sect master did not show up, and a representative attended. You can settle in comfortably.”
The Eighth Elder said confidently.
“Where is the real sect master?”
“I didn’t know. He contacts me occasionally, and it seems he uses both a person and a carrier pigeon. I also questioned that part, but there is no way to contact him from this side before he contacts us.”
“Hmm!”
Mongseol groaned.
She had thought that if she just defeated the Ghost Gate Master, she could easily take over, but it had unexpectedly become complicated.
‘Was the Ghost Gate Master such a cautious person? He abandoned the main sect and moved elsewhere?’
Mongseol gave up on the thought of Ma Guyeong and set out to take control of the Ghost Gate.
“Even if we don’t know about other places, we have to firmly grasp the Ghost Gate in the Nine-Bend Valley. Find out what’s here, what they do, and how much authority they have. Ah! And bring Dongseok from outside. In a way that everyone acknowledges.”
A message tube was sent down.
It was an order to capture a person named Dongseok from Yeochon.
This order was handled in the Ghost Gate’s way. He wrote the order, and stamped the seal corresponding to the twenty-first day.
The message tube was delivered to the First Valley.
Exactly half a quarter of an hour after the message tube was delivered, two people left the First Valley. And after about half a day, they returned with the unconscious Dongseok slung over their shoulders.
The order had gone through.
Dongseok was taken to the Yama Hall without any restraint.
Since the order to capture Dongseok was a direct order from the Yama Hall, they did not touch Dongseok.
Mongseol looked at Dongseok and said with a bitter smile, “I couldn’t catch Ma Guyeong.”
“A promise is a promise. When will you catch him?”
“I can’t promise a deadline. But I will definitely catch him.”
“You didn’t bring me here to say that… why did you bring me here?”
“Touch this place.”
“…?”
“Set up a trap in the Nine-Bend Valley. It would be even better if you made a mechanism. But, you have to proceed with the work in secret. If you use many people, the secret will be leaked, so work with the minimum number of people.”
“Will you kill everyone when the work is done? Like Ma Guyeeong?”
“Do I look like that to you?”
“You can’t know what’s in a person’s stomach. Hey, you. If you promise, I’ll do the work.”
Dongseok said, looking at Ah Geol.
“Hmph! It seems you can see my stomach.”
“What’s the point of looking at your stomach? It’s probably full of shit anyway. It’s not your stomach, it’s your appearance that I see. You’re the same kind as us. Have you ever received a food table with the legs bending? You probably haven’t, right? Let alone a food table, have you even eaten beef properly?”
“Pfft!”
Ah Geol smirked.
When he was with Grandpa, he had always avoided people. Even if there was a person who approached him, he had deliberately maintained a certain distance.
But people… there were many interesting people.
The person named Dongseok was also interesting. The same kind? Were a carpenter and a blade man the same kind? No. It meant that they were the same in that they had rolled around in a lowly place. Was that also considered a kind?
Ah Geol said, “I promise. I won’t kill them even after the construction is finished.”
As soon as Ah Geol had made the promise, Mongseol said, “I’ll create a new position. The Ghost Gate’s carpenter. You’ll be the head carpenter there. As long as I’m here, I’ll be with you. When I step down from here, we’ll step down together.”
Dongseok looked at Ah Geol again.
Ah Geol nodded.
“Hmph! Why am I not trustworthy? Is it better to nod once than for me to say ten words?”
Mongseol frowned as if she were in a bad mood.
Dongseok chuckled and said, “Because the garden master is not the same kind as us. Guys like us have the smell of the gutter ingrained in our bodies, so we can find each other even with our eyes closed. You can’t hide it no matter what. Kikikik!”
(End of Chapter)