novelraw Chapter 112 : Chapter 112
Chapter 112 : Chapter 112
Chapter 112 - A Pretty Well-Sharpened Sword
“We will strike the Ghost Face Gang tomorrow.”
At Biyoung’s words, Solbo asked with wide eyes.
“Tomorrow? Isn’t the day we’re supposed to meet the day after tomorrow?”
“That’s right.”
“Then why tomorrow?”
At that, Biyoung giggled.
“Senior Brother. Do we really have to keep our promise with the Ghost Face Gang?”
“Huh? That’s…”
Uh…
No, it’s not.
If they were acquaintances, it would be right to keep the promise, but the Ghost Face Gang was far from being an acquaintance; they were like sworn enemies.
They were bastards who should be rewarded every time they were backstabbed.
“The reason I set the appointment time generously was to give those guys time.”
“What time?”
“Time to gather all their forces.”
“……!”
“Their business establishments have been hit here and there, but far from catching us, they haven’t even found a clue. They must be furious, so they’ll gather all available forces. At that time…”
Biyoung’s two eyes shone brightly.
“We’ll annihilate them all at once.”
Eung Gajin, who had been listening silently, opened his mouth.
“Assuming that’s the basic framework, how do you plan to start the battle?”
“They are likely to gather at the Jangil Escort Agency. It’s the Ghost Face Gang’s main base, and since they have to accommodate over a hundred people, there’s no other suitable place.”
At the number of one hundred, Solbo’s face turned pale.
They were members of the Green Killer Squad, first-class assassins on a different level from the ruffians in the streets.
No matter how elite the swordsmen gathered here were, if they were pushed by numbers, it would be difficult to avoid a tough fight.
“Senior Brother Solbo will provoke the Green Killer Squad and lure them outside. A so-called assassin hunt. Senior Brother Danseol and I will eliminate the lured assassins one by one.”
The colleagues’ gazes turned to Danseol’s wrist.
They were worried if the hand he had injured last time was okay.
But Danseol just shrugged his shoulders once, with no change in his expression.
“The problem is Dancheong and the Ghost Face Four Shadows. While the three of us are cleaning up the Green Killer Squad, the four people here must each take on one of the Ghost Face Four Shadows.”
Biyoung’s gaze turned sequentially to Gwangyo, Eung Gajin, Jeong-i, and Uma.
“According to the information provided by the Beggars' Union’s Heavenly Vision Network, Dancheong rarely makes the first move. Since he’s also an assassin by origin, he might be reluctant to reveal his techniques, or it could just be his nature. Above all, he is very suspicious. If we blatantly lure the assassins outside, there’s a high chance he’ll be even more cautious. In any case, he won’t move recklessly.”
“In short, you want us to buy time.”
“That’s right. You have to face them until we wipe out the Green Killer Squad and return.”
Biyoung’s face as he explained the situation was more serious than ever.
“The Ghost Face Four Shadows are skilled fighters. They will be fundamentally different from the guys you Senior Brothers have faced so far. If you lose focus, you could get hurt or even die.”
Coming from none other than Biyoung, the expression ‘skilled fighters’ made some of the senior brothers gulp.
Although they had gained significant combat experience and grown explosively over the past six months, they couldn’t help but feel tense.
The Ghost Face Four Shadows were strong.
Since the Ghost Face Gang was an assassin group, there weren’t many rumors, but the number of Jianghu people who got into a dispute with them and were found dead a few days later was countless.
“How do they compare to that guy named Jeongmin we fought before?”
Uma, with a face that couldn’t hide his tension, asked Biyoung.
The First Line Leader Jeongmin, the top master of the Syndicate of Ten Thousand Eyes.
Although it was an information organization in the small region of Yiliang County, his skills were on the level of a third-generation disciple of the Orthodox Factions.
Biyoung had watched the entire process on-site when Jeongmin and Uma fought.
So it was possible for him to make an objective assessment.
“Even dozens of guys like Jeongmin wouldn’t be a match.”
“…So they’re that strong.”
The winner of that fight was Uma, but looking at his condition, it was hard to tell who had won.
In terms of wounds received, Uma had more, so their skills could be said to be evenly matched.
But to hear that even dozens of Jeongmins couldn’t handle one of the Ghost Face Four Shadows.
It was a natural reaction for Uma’s expression to darken.
“Whoa, whoa. Don’t scrunch up your face like that, Senior Brother Uma. You have to consider our perspective too.”
“Are you joking right now?”
“You’re not the same Senior Brother Uma who fought the First Line Leader, are you? Think about what happened over the past six months.”
“The past six months…”
Gooooooh.
At those words, a fiery aura bloomed on the faces of not only Uma but the other senior brothers as well.
‘What’s this? Why are they all suddenly like this?’
The momentum was so menacing that even the Mad and Aberrant Man, Gwangyo, flinched and took a step back.
“Right… For the past six months, we went through fucking dog-like hell.”
“There’s also the nice expression ‘training’.”
“Screw off.”
“Hehe.”
Biyoung reminded the tense rising talents of their training in the past, and the result was a great success.
The anxiety of having to face the Ghost Face Four Shadows vanished as if washed away, and a strong obsession to be compensated for their past efforts was burning brightly.
‘If my skills haven’t improved after all that hellish suffering, I should just bite my tongue and die…!’
‘Ghost Face Four Shadows or whatever, they’ll die just the same if I stab them with a knife…!!’
‘If I can’t win, I think I’d be disappointed in my own way.’
‘Buy time? I don’t need a goal like that. I’ll just take his head and throw it at that bastard.’
Gwangyo, who had been observing the expressions of the Diancang Sect’s rising talents, eventually gave a bitter smile.
At this rate, it was difficult to tell who had the ghost face.
“If you’re not confident, say so now. We can just modify the strategy…”
“There’s no need for that.”
Eung Gajin cut Biyoung off firmly.
“Isn’t this a tactic you’ve pondered for a long time? There’s no better way to annihilate the Ghost Face Gang at once, is there?”
“Probably.”
“Then we’ll do it that way. I’ll buy time until you come back, even if I have to hang on by the seat of my pants.”
“Good.”
Biyoung, who nodded once, gave a challenging smile.
“You should all get a good night’s sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be a historic day.”
***
“Are you sleeping?”
Staring at the pitch-black ceiling, Uma asked the man next to him.
“No.”
Eung Gajin, sitting next to him, answered with an indifferent voice.
“He has some thick skin. I don’t know how he can so easily say to get a good night’s sleep.”
“When has he ever been one to think before speaking?”
“True.”
The two men each gave a bitter smile.
“My whole body is trembling, so I can’t sleep. I don’t know what this feeling is.”
“It’s probably ambiguous because it’s not just one emotion.”
“Is it the same for you, Senior Brother?”
“How would I be any different?”
Eung Gajin let out a soft sigh and closed his eyes.
Ten years.
It was a sword he had been sharpening for a whole ten years.
He had lost his entire family in the Ghost Face Gang’s attack and was driven out of his home.
In a foreign land with no prior connections, he started with begging, went through all sorts of hardships, and ate more food discarded by others than his own.
The time to repay that had come, so it would be stranger if he could sleep soundly.
“They’re all shitty memories, but there are a few that are particularly memorable.”
“What are they?”
“I remember how Senior Sister Jeong, who was always calm and kind, cried her eyes out all day like an unceasing spring, and I remember Solbo, exhausted from hunger, eating poisonous herbs and having a seizure.”
“I really thought Solbo was going to die then.”
A slightly wet voice reached the ears of the chuckling Eung Gajin.
“I also remember you, Senior Brother, fighting the escorts with your bare fists, asking them to let you work at the escort agency. You fought with grown men twice your size and twice your age, becoming covered in blood. And yet, you didn’t use our sect’s martial arts so that they wouldn’t figure out you were a survivor of the Diancang Sect.”
“How much help would the martial arts I had learned back then have been?”
Eung Gajin spoke as if it were nothing, but the situation at that time, as Uma remembered it, was a sight that couldn’t be watched without tears.
It was a desperate situation where if Eung Gajin couldn’t work at the escort agency, many people from the Diancang Sect wouldn’t be able to eat dinner.
Eung Gajin forced his swollen cheeks to move and bit off a grown man’s ear, and was chosen by a steward who had been watching from afar.
“Everyone was busy eating, but you, Senior Brother Eung, who went through all that trouble, didn’t eat anything. Do you remember what you said when Senior Sister Jeong asked why you weren’t eating?”
“I wonder.”
“You said you were full from taking medicine. Does that make any sense? I mean, would you be full just from eating a few of those damn pills? I felt so shitty back then.”
“People usually use the word ‘sad’.”
“Yes. I was sad. As I gathered the crumbs back then, I swore to myself. That I would definitely get revenge. That I would find the bastards who did this to us and pay them back.”
And finally, that moment had come.
Whether it was the rising talents or the adults on Diancang Mountain, they were all likely unable to sleep through the night.
The time had finally come to wield the sword that had been sharpened for ten years.
And it was a pretty well-sharpened sword at that.
“Sometimes when I look at that guy, I think he might be the incarnation of the Diancang Sect.”
“Is there such a foul-tempered god?”
“It’s because he’s always by our side, but he’s a guy who can’t be explained by common sense, isn’t he? He mastered all of the Diancang Sect’s swordsmanship at such a young age, and no one knows where he came from.”
“Haha. Your words have a point.”
Eung Gajin said so and turned over.
It was now time to force himself to sleep.
He hadn’t mentioned it directly, but there was no need to mention that guy’s name.
Because it was a story that both you and I knew.
“If what you say is true, I wonder how that guy is feeling right now.”
Forcibly pulling the edge of the distant dream world, Eung Gajin muttered to himself.
***
“Because you’re all going to die here today.”
The man with a handsome smile.
His martial uniform was that of the Green Killer Squad, but now, no one considered him a member of the Ghost Face Gang.
Because there was no assassin in the Green Killer Squad who would throw off their mask on their own.
If he wasn’t a member of the Ghost Face Gang in this place, there was only one possibility left.
An uninvited guest.
And probably…
“Did you come from the Diancang Sect?”
He should have been caught off guard, but Dancheong’s voice was incredibly gentle.
A glimpse of his arrogant confidence that it wouldn’t be a problem no matter where or when he met them could be seen.
“That’s right, you shameless bastards who are trying to launder your dirty past and make a name for yourselves in the light now.”
“!”
Launder.
That was a word that was like a reverse scale to the Ghost Face Gang.
And for a good reason, as their essence was their past of making a living through contract killings in the borderlands.
“You seem to be mistaken about something, but opening a tavern and setting up an escort agency won’t clean your blood-stained hands. Unless you cut off all your wrists.”
Seueuk.
Biyoung drew the sword he had at his waist.
The hawk’s wings adorning the area near the hilt flickered in the light of the torch.
“So, I came today to cut off all of your hands.”
“How could you be so…”
From beyond the white mask that Dancheong was wearing, a voice full of laughter could be heard.
“Every single word just turns one’s stomach inside out.”
Dancheong’s hand moved once as if dusting something off.
“Bring him to me alive and make him kneel before me.”
As soon as Dancheong’s order fell, all the members of the Green Killer Squad moved their bodies.
Swish-swish-swish-swish.
Even as that many figures moved, the fact that there was no particular sound came as quite a rare sight even for Biyoung, who had been through all sorts of things.
“Heh… I’ve seen all sorts of things in my life.”
After spitting out words that didn’t quite match his age, Biyoung’s shoulder shook once.
Pababat!
Diancang Sect and Ghost Face Gang.
The bell signaling the end of a ten-year-long ill-fated relationship began to toll silently.