novelraw Chapter 120 : Chapter 120
Chapter 120 : Chapter 120
Chapter 120 - That it Would be the Day I Kill You
Over ten years ago.
This was before the Ghost Face Gang was even formed in the Changsha area.
Paang!
“Hap!”
Yeongyeong Martial Arts Hall, located in the Changsha area.
Children were shedding beads of sweat along with clear shouts.
Hwiik!
“Haap!”
About ten children, around the age of ten, were diligently moving their arms to the count.
Sweat was copiously beaded on all the children’s foreheads.
The sight of the small boys engrossed in training was always a heartwarming scene.
However, this Yeongyeong Martial Arts Hall had a rather different feel from an ordinary martial arts hall.
Hwiik!
Real swords.
In the hands of the small children, like tender fern shoots, were menacing real swords that did not suit them at all.
Usually, children of this age would train with wooden swords.
But in this place, only gleaming real swords emitted a threatening light.
“Haap!”
Another strange point was that most of the children who were training looked similar.
Pit!
“Euk…”
One child, who had mishandled his sword, sat down clutching his thigh.
It seemed he had cut himself with his own sword while performing a sequence of movements.
“………….”
One might have expected someone to help, but the remaining members just repeated their training with expressionless faces.
This too was a rather different sight from other martial arts halls.
“Stop. Five-minute break.”
Only after the stern-looking head instructor’s words fell did the children gasp for breath and collapse to the ground.
Their panting breaths and flushed cheeks made them look just like ordinary boys.
However, the hearts they harbored were far from ordinary.
‘I must catch the Captain’s eye.’
‘I have to become the best assassin among them.’
‘Fucking idiot. Stabbing himself with his own sword, what a joke.’
The Yeongyeong Martial Arts Hall was a martial arts hall independently run by the Green Killer Squad, an assassin group based in the Changsha area.
It was called a martial arts hall, but it was a building built in a deserted place without even a sign.
It didn’t even accept ordinary people.
Only the bloodline of the Green Killer Squad’s captain, Dancheong, could train here.
Then and now, Dancheong was an incredible lecher.
And as a result, countless half-siblings had been born.
Dancheong wanted to select talented assassins from among his own bloodline.
The reason the children were training with real swords, and the reason their appearances were all similar, was all for that reason.
“Eut…”
Even during the break, no one helped the injured child.
The head instructor had gone outside, and the children training here knew their situation all too well.
The one who created this Yeongyeong Martial Arts Hall.
The captain of the Green Killer Squad, Dancheong, no, their father, was not a very warm person to his children.
The moment a child was born, not only the child but also the mother would be treated coldly.
For them to be recognized for their value as children, there was nothing else but to become an outstanding assassin.
Then they could lead the Green Killer Squad alongside their father.
In conclusion, all the half-siblings here were competitors.
So, far from brotherly love, it was overflowing with envy and jealousy.
“Are you okay?”
However, there was one child who extended a hand in this bleak space.
He was a boy with white skin and particularly impressive slitted eyes among the similar-looking children.
“If you apply this, it will get better.”
“Th-thank you.”
The child who received the medicine thanked the boy with the slitted eyes.
It was just as a smile was about to spread on his lips.
“Danseol.”
“Ye-yes!”
At the head instructor’s call, Danseol’s face hardened.
“Follow me this way.”
“?”
The boy with the slitted eyes followed behind the head instructor with anxious eyes.
Could the kindness he had shown to his half-brother have been a problem?
Danseol moved his steps with a terrified face.
Whenever he felt this emotion, Danseol would think of someone in his heart.
‘I miss my mother.’
Unlike the other children who had to win the competition, Danseol’s wish was always just that.
It was called a martial arts hall, but this place was a prison, no, a space no different from hell.
He couldn’t go outside as he pleased, and had to repeat tedious sword training.
What allowed Danseol to endure was solely his mother.
If he could be recognized for his skills and get out of this place, he would be able to meet his mother.
That desire made Danseol the top prospect of the Yeongyeong Martial Arts Hall.
“Come this way.”
After walking down a long corridor, a secluded exit he had never seen before appeared.
When Danseol came out of the door, someone who looked very much like him was standing outside.
“Ah…!”
The captain of the Green Killer Squad.
It was his father, Dancheong.
“Y-your son greets his father…”
“You’re quite good with a sword, but I hear there’s one problem?”
It had been over a year since he had last seen him, but there was not even a common pleasantry.
An expressionless face and voice.
Dancheong looked Danseol’s body over once and then gestured with his chin to his subordinate.
“Unleash it.”
Soon, the subordinate released the leash he was holding.
“Oink!”
A pig, released from its leash, spun around in circles as if disoriented.
“Th-this is?”
Looking at the confused Danseol, Dancheong opened his mouth.
“It’s just so embarrassing. Does it make any sense that the son of the talented captain of the Green Killer Squad can’t even kill a single ant?”
“B-but…”
Even in Dancheong’s eyes, Danseol had talent.
Unlike his other children, he was proficient in using a flexible sword, and his head was also sharp.
However, there was one major problem: he had never once killed a living creature, something the other kids did just fine.
‘The other bastards are restless, saying they’ll even kill people, not just animals…’
That was the reason Danseol was ostracized despite his outstanding talent.
“Cut it.”
“…………!”
Seeing Danseol hesitate, Dancheong suddenly showed a benevolent smile.
“If you kill that, I will let you meet your mother.”
“!!!”
Danseol’s pupils behind his slitted eyes shook greatly.
Danseol was reluctant to do any kind of killing.
He was the type to be bitten by a mosquito and wake up at dawn, yet instead of killing it, he would open the door and let it out.
He hadn’t even tried to kill it yet, but his hands trembled before he even held the sword.
“Oink!”
Every time the pig squealed, his shoulders flinched.
It was truly an unwilling task.
‘But…’
Nothing in this world was greater than his desire to meet his mother.
Danseol gritted his teeth and drew his sword.
Chwang!
It was a skillful stroke unbecoming of a boy.
It was just that he had never cut a living creature with this real sword.
“Oink!”
The pig’s squeal changed greatly, as if it had noticed Danseol’s killing intent.
“………….”
The longing for his mother.
The compassion for the target he had to kill.
Danseol’s face changed from moment to moment with those two emotions.
Tremble.
Eventually, a spasm began to occur in his face.
After some time had passed.
A destination appeared for Danseol’s expressions, which had been repeating to a pitiful extent.
Jiiiik.
It was a horrifying smile that stretched wide to the sides as if it would tear.
‘He has shed a layer.’
It was just as Dancheong was thinking that, looking at his son’s expression.
Paak!
“Oin…………!”
It was a clean sword strike that was completed before the scream could even finish.
Dancheong’s gaze turned to Danseol’s slightly trembling shoulder.
However, what came out of his mouth was not comfort or praise, but just an order.
“From tomorrow, that one will be incorporated into the main unit.”
“Yes.”
“Let him see his mother today.”
Dancheong left those words and left the place without looking back.
***
He had committed murder.
Even in a situation where he didn’t have to step forward.
He had cut off the head of a young man who was several years older than him.
To get into Dancheong’s good graces.
Because only then could he send medicine to his mother.
“Danseol…”
Danseol’s mother, whom he had met after a long time, had lost all her former youthful beauty.
Her fine skin had become noticeably rough, and her face, which was like a single flower, had only the shadow of illness.
“You look like you’re having a hard time…”
Despite that, his mother only looked after Danseol’s well-being.
On the outside, he looked like a precious young master, but she could tell.
She didn’t know the exact reason, but that he was having a hard time.
“I don’t like it when you’re having a hard time either. So don’t overdo it.”
He couldn’t help but overdo it.
Because there was a condition that Dancheong had set for Danseol’s request to send medicine and food.
“Can you kill people?”
From that day on, a new hell unfolded for Danseol.
***
After leaving the Yeongyeong Martial Arts Hall and being incorporated into the Green Killer Squad, Danseol’s situation improved slightly.
He could now see his mother once a month, and he could also get various information from the fellow assassins he had become acquainted with.
What was questionable was that his mother’s condition worsened as time went by.
How could her condition worsen the more medicine he sent?
Only after his mother passed away did Danseol find out.
The fact that the food and medicine he had received from the Green Killer Squad so far had contained poison.
“Uwaaaaah!”
After finding out everything, Danseol wailed loudly for the first time.
To think that the killing he had to endure for his mother was actually hastening her death.
The most despairing fact was that there was nothing he could do even after figuring everything out.
He wanted to tear Dancheong to shreds right now, but his position was the captain of the Green Killer Squad.
Even if the sword he stabbed with reached his neck, it would just bounce back.
The only thing he could do right now was just to escape this hellish place.
“Today will be a historic day.”
One day.
Dancheong included Danseol in the Green Killer Squad’s expedition.
Not knowing that Danseol had figured out the composition of the medicine, he had sent him on an expedition to dilute the grief of his mother’s death.
The place they arrived at was Diancang Mountain.
“Although it’s a sect with only idiots left, avoid actual combat. Your role is to cut the necks of those who haven’t breathed their last.”
The vice-captain of the Green Killer Squad.
Yi Cheon-yu, who would later become the first of the Ghost Face Four Shadows, warned Danseol.
“Yes.”
Danseol felt it instinctively.
That if not today, there would be no way to escape the Green Killer Squad.
“Kuaaaaaaaargh!”
Blood and flesh splattered, and flames soared from the pavilions.
A one-sided massacre.
It felt as if a picture of hell that he had only imagined was unfolding before his eyes.
‘Now!’
Everyone was filled with the ecstasy of killing.
It was a time when even Yi Cheon-yu, who had always maintained his composure, was enjoying the pleasure of killing after meeting the Sect Leader.
Pabak!
Danseol ran with all his might.
While tearing the Green Killer Squad clothes he was wearing to shreds.
As if to shake off the mental scars he had suffered so far, Danseol threw off his martial uniform with a tear-streaked face.
“Huff… huff…”
Only when he was out of breath did Danseol stop walking.
Although he was still a boy, he had been trained as an assassin, so his body technique was skilled for his age.
He had already come down to the halfway point of Diancang Mountain.
“It’s cold…”
Danseol, who had been separated from the group.
After a wave of emotion subsided, different sensations began to find him.
He had thrown off his top in the middle of the night, so a chill ran through his body, and the thought that he was truly alone now made him feel scared.
Far from finding a way to survive in the future, he couldn’t even solve his immediate hunger.
But.
He had no intention of ever going back there.
If the moment came when he returned to the Green Killer Squad, that day would be…
“The day I kill Dancheong.”
It was when the boy, who had shouldered too much for his age, was muttering such words to himself.
“Hey, let’s go that way…!”
A hushed voice stimulated Danseol’s ears.
After a brief moment of surprise where he flattened himself on the ground, Danseol peeked his head in the direction of the sound.
‘Those people are…?’
Looking at their martial uniforms, they seemed to be people from the Diancang Sect who had been massacred.
The quick-witted Danseol realized that they were the remnants who had escaped from the sect.
“We don’t have much time. Let’s go down the mountain and find the bereaved families of our respective sects and meet at the entrance of Yiliang County!”
The entrance of Yiliang County.
It was the place where the Green Killer Squad had gathered before attacking Diancang Mountain.
“…………!”
A thought came to Danseol’s mind.
He ran to the tavern they had attacked on the way and stripped the clothes off a corpse.
It was quite large, but that wasn’t a problem.
He could just say he grabbed whatever he could in his confusion and ran away.
And sorry to say this, but.
The most confused people at this moment would be the survivors of the Diancang Sect.
“My name is Danseol, and I’ve been working at the Jeomwol Inn on Diancang Mountain since last week…”
Whether it was misfortune or fortune, no one remembered a small inn on Diancang Mountain.
There were not many survivors left, and given the situation, it was not a time to be meticulous about details.
Survival.
The first priority was to leave this place with the remaining people and survive.
From an assassin of the Green Killer Squad to a survivor of the Diancang Sect.
It was the point when Danseol’s tragic identity had changed drastically.
And,
Over ten years had passed.
***
“Did you know?”
Judging from that blatant gaze, he must be talking about the poison in his mother’s medicine.
“Yes.”
“As expected of my son.”
Surprisingly, Dancheong praised his son.
“If it were any ordinary bastard, their eyes would have flipped and they would have charged in like a wild boar, but you’re saying you endured and waited until the opportunity came? All that long time, hiding in the enemy’s group.”
“………….”
At the words ‘enemy’s group’, Danseol’s face hardened.
At this point where everything had been revealed, it was the word that stirred Danseol’s heart the most.
Eung Gajin and Uma, who had barely regained consciousness, were listening to the two men’s conversation with desolate faces.
But Danseol could not bear to turn his back and look at the rising talents.
‘I probably won’t be forgiven for anything.’
Death?
If he could be forgiven through death, he would prefer that.
Because he could give up his own life at any time if he could kill the man before him.
Danseol’s slitted eyes turned to Dancheong.
“I made a vow when I left this place.”
“What was it?”
“That the day I return here…”
Pseuseuseu.
Danseol’s flexible sword shone more brightly than ever before.
“Would be the day I kill you.”