The Mad Dog Inspector of the Martial Alliance

Chapter 113 : Extermination (2)

I will treat you not as a genius of the world, but as a treasure of the world.

The meaning of the statement was clear. Jang So-gil, who had read Gumen Long's intention, broke out in a cold sweat.

'To treat me not as a person but as a treasure means that he will never let me go free again.'

There is no fool who would just leave a treasure outside. They would prepare a sturdy safe and hide it as securely as possible.

If there was an unavoidable reason to take it outside, they would of course provide an escort worthy of the treasure's value.

It was a natural thing to do to protect and guard a treasure.

"I will select five people from each battalion of the Martial Alliance to form an escort team of dozens. Then no one will be able to touch you. No one."

Gumen Long said coldly. His tone overflowed with the unique poison and annoyance of a powerful person who had almost had what was his taken away.

I understand his intention. There was also a grateful part in that he was showing his sincerity in his own way.

But it was not a happy thing at all.

If it were like that, Jang So-gil would truly become a tool that simply functioned as an inspector of the Martial Alliance.

"I will say it again. Three months. It is three months. Settle the matter in a way that I can accept, in the way of an orthodox martial artist."

"The way of an orthodox martial artist..."

"Then I will see you in three months."

At the Alliance Leader's order to leave, Jang So-gil quietly left the room.

* * *

Yang Gwan, who had slurped down the knife-cut noodles and put down his bowl on the table, asked.

"To provide an escort team of dozens. Isn't that a good thing?"

"For safety, it is a good thing, but the rest is all bad."

"Why is that?"

"Once I start receiving protection, there is no way for me to get out."

"But you don't have any intention of leaving the Martial Alliance, do you?"

"That doesn't mean I intend to be tied down for the rest of my life. Those are called escort troops, but in fact, they are shackles that bind me. Because they will not follow my orders other than to escort me."

"Uh, the escort guards don't listen to the master's orders?"

"A treasure is not the master of the escort guards, is it? The master of those guys is not the precious treasure that is the object to be protected, but the owner of that treasure. I'm sure they'll listen to the words of an object."

The escort guards would listen to the orders of the treasure's owner rather than the orders of the treasure. It meant that Gumen Long's words came before Jang So-gil's words.

Jang So-gil crossed his arms and closed his eyes.

Things had gotten strange. He had never dreamed that Gumen Long would show such a sharp reaction.

But what had happened? When he thought about it carefully, it was not a very strange thing.

'He must have been quite displeased from the time the emperor had his eyes on me.'

The emperor had tried to take Jang So-gil away as an inspector of the Jinyiwei, not the Martial Alliance.

Even if he was the Martial Alliance Leader, Gumen Long was not in a higher position than the emperor. So he had no choice but to bow his body and enter at the emperor's command.

The emperor's greed had been passed over by Jang So-gil's wit, but the fact that it had been passed over in that way had likely hurt his pride.

No, beyond nine out of ten, it was ten out of ten. The man named Gumen Long that Jang So-gil had seen was that kind of man.

The fact that he could do nothing had created a crack in his patience.

'In that situation, the Four Black Alliance had poked at the crack, so his patience had collapsed in one go.'

From the perspective of the Four Black Alliance, it could only be said that the situation was really bad.

They must have thought of the Martial Alliance Leader Gumen Long as a lazy lion who was just yawning idly, cooped up in Luoyang after the Great War against the Demonic Cult.

Of all things, they had touched the nose hair of that lion, not knowing that he was in an unpleasant state with a large thorn stuck between his claws, so they would have to prepare to be torn to shreds.

"Tsk. It can't be helped. As the Alliance Leader-nim said, I have to somehow dismantle the Four Black Alliance within three months."

I understand Gumen Long's heart of cherishing Jang So-gil. But it would be troublesome if that heart changed from cherishing a genius to cherishing a treasure.

For the sake of the future, for the sake of revenge against the Sichuan Tang Clan, he could not let it be like that.

"Do you have any plan?"

"There is a plan. It's not an easy task, but it's not very difficult either."

"What? It's not difficult? The opponent is the Four Black Alliance, though?"

"The Four Black Alliance is, after all, an alliance of the Black Way. All their money is rotten money, so there's no need to investigate their funding sources; it's a lump of stench. If we attack from there, cut off their money supply, slowly dry them up, and instigate internal strife, we can barely make it in three months."

Since the Black Way was more sensitive to money than to face, they would react quickly to matters that were directly profitable or disadvantageous. If their funding was cut off and they became desperate for money, they would surely turn their blades on each other.

It was different from a sect bound by history, tradition, and martial arts, or a noble family bound by a single bloodline. The ties of the Black Way were thin and slender, so if you just cut off the money supply, they would break helplessly.

Yang Gwan, hearing the story, his face brightened.

"Then it was nothing special!"

"But that's, it's not nothing special either."

"What? Why again?"

"Isn't it the Alliance Leader-nim who entrusted this task?"

Gumen Long had been dissatisfied that Jang So-gil had not torn through the pursuit net of the ronin unit and had not gone straight to Luoyang.

Was the problem that he had not broken through head-on, honorably, like a martial artist, like a representative of the Martial Alliance?

"I wonder if a person like that would be satisfied even if I destroyed the Four Black Alliance using various means, especially after he even mentioned that I should solve the matter in the way of an orthodox martial artist."

"Ah... I understand that too. Since it's not a martial artist-like method, he'll hate it very much."

"No, then are you telling me to fight the Four Black Alliance head-on and kill them all now, what!"

He couldn't use the Byeokryeoktan either. At this time when the world regarded the matter of the Seomun Clan as the work of Byeokryeokja, it was too unnatural for Jang So-gil to use a Byeokryeoktan again in a matter related to himself.

Being questioned about his relationship with Byeokryeokja or the truth of the Seomun Clan incident being revealed was the thing Jang So-gil had to avoid the most.

"I can't use the Byeokryeoktan, I can't use the business world, and I can't use schemes. Isn't this the same as telling me to go and die?"

"I suppose so..."

The Four Black Alliance was the Martial Alliance of the Black Way martial world. But unlike the Martial Alliance, the Four Black Alliance allowed anyone from the Black Way to join without any conditions. Besides, since they sometimes forced small and medium-sized sects to join in order to extort protection money, if you were a person of the Black Way, you were generally listed in the Four Black Alliance.

Since they managed so many sand-like martial artists of the Black Way, there were many tremendous masters among the executives such as the leader and vice-leader of the Four Black Alliance. Since they were the ones who stood at the very top of the Black Way martial world, which was dominated by the logic of power, it was a matter of course.

"If you're talking about a master in the Four Black Alliance, you can probably name the leader, the Black Killing Hegemon King, Ha Hu-yeong, first."

Black Killing Hegemon King.

Jang So-gil let out a wry smile at the nickname with a tremendous feel.

"It's not for me to say, with the nickname 'Ghost King', but it's a needlessly heavy nickname."

"Their nicknames are originally a bit like that."

"So that fellow, is he stronger than Man Bakja?"

"He probably is. I heard that the vice-leader, the 'Traceless Kill', Jang Ui, is a master similar to Man Bakja-nim."

"I'm going crazy."

One was comparable to a master who was said to be within the top five in the Beggars' Sect. One surpassed him.

That wasn't all. Yang Gwan continued to list famous masters of the Black Way. When the names exceeded forty, Jang So-gil cut him off.

"It's getting more and more spectacular. How can you win against such things head-on?"

"To be honest, I think a frontal confrontation is a suicidal act. Wouldn't it be right to win with Young Master So's deep schemes as usual?"

"But then the Alliance Leader-nim will make a fuss again, won't he?"

Jang So-gil roughly scratched his head. Since leaving Sichuan and throwing himself into the Martial Alliance, this was the first time he had faced such a dilemma.

A method of an orthodox martial artist that even the Alliance Leader of the Martial Alliance could accept. But since he had to do an orthodox-like thing, excluding all the means he usually used, no suitable plan came to mind no matter how much he racked his brain.

A long sigh burst out of Jang So-gil's mouth, who had been worrying for a long time.

"I can't think of anything other than something very fundamental."

The fundamental solution of a martial artist, martial power.

Solve it head-on with overwhelming martial power.

Although it was a type of solution that he had usually ignored and despised as simple and foolish, since it was said to be the way of the orthodox sect, that was the only method that came to Jang So-gil's mind.

"If I could beat the Four Black Alliance by training for three months, I would have become the number one in the world a long, long time ago."

"That's what I'm saying."

Jang So-gil's martial arts development speed was certainly absurd. Because he had caught up with Yang Gwan, who was said to be among the top ten of the rising stars of the martial world, in less than a year.

But even so, to tell him to catch the leader of the Four Black Alliance in a frontal confrontation within the next three months was like telling him to blow away a mountain with an egg.

He might be able to break a rock with an egg, but a mountain was absolutely impossible.

The two, with their mouths shut, were lost in thought.

The knife-cut noodles had become completely soggy while their heads were complicated with many thoughts.

Jang So-gil, letting out a groan, picked up his chopsticks.

"For now, it would be better to just take care of the piled-up work until Brother Hui comes out."

"What's the most urgent matter right now?"

"The matter concerning the Namgung Clan and Namgung Yeohwa is something that will only give me a headache if I think about it. Since it's not an urgent matter right now, let's put it off for now."

"Then as expected, it's them."

There were shameless bastards.

Those who did not pay the money they had to pay, and who rather tried to kill Jang So-gil with that money.

It was the merchant alliance.

"It would be better to trample those guys to pieces first."

"I was waiting for those words."

'Hoo-uk', exhaling through his nose, Yang Gwan trembled. It was the excitement of a martial artist.

Jang So-gil started moving right away from that day.

It was the moment a disaster befell the merchant alliance.

* * *

The resistance of the merchant alliance was weak.

Originally, the martial power of merchants was insignificant. Instead, since they had money, they wielded martial power with financial power.

But the current merchant alliance did not have that kind of money. Because they had spent a huge amount of money to put up a bounty, their cash had dried up.

Besides, the Seomun Clan, which had been their backer, had almost reached extermination as a martial arts family. The manor had become a pile of ashes, and all the martial artists had their dantians destroyed and had lost their martial arts.

But even if a rich man goes bankrupt, he can last for three years. The wide connections, the many cooperators, the various business rights they still had. Although they were finished as a martial arts family, the power of a prestigious noble family still remained.

So the merchant alliance once again requested the protection of the Seomun Clan.

But the Seomun Clan ignored their request. Because all the energy of the Seomun Clan was now directed towards Byeokryeokja.

The face of a martial arts family! The face of a prestigious noble family!

If they sent back the enemy who had attacked them alive, they would not be able to live with their faces held high in the whole martial world.

The Seomun Clan had to kill Byeokryeokja, if only to prove that they were still strong.

But even that was not an easy situation. It was difficult to find Byeokryeokja, who roamed the world alone, and even if they succeeded in a difficult pursuit, a Byeokryeoktan would explode without fail at that moment.

In the end, it was just that the number of second and third victims would increase.

In the midst of that, Jang So-gil's collection continued calmly. In a day, at least three merchant guilds went bankrupt.

Due to the depletion of cash, they could not even pay the overdue taxes, let alone the fines.

Originally, it was a crack that could have been blocked with just a hoe. But they had repeated the foolish choice of making the crack bigger, and now, even with a spade, it was not enough, and the dam would collapse even if they blocked it with their bodies.

"He, hehehehe..."

Jagwang, drooling from the corner of his mouth as if he had lost his mind, knelt down. He was the one who had proposed the plan to put Jang So-gil's head on the line to the Four Black Alliance as the brain of the merchant alliance.

He had never failed in a gamble in his life and had been on a winning streak, but his luck had run out. As Jang So-gil's demonic hand approached, the other merchants of the merchant alliance quickly sold him out.

The betrayal of the people he had thought of as comrades was painful. The downfall of the ever-victorious Jagwang was instantaneous.

Jang So-gil, directly questioning him on various crimes, tore his escort agency to shreds.

"If you look at the tax law, there is a word called 'miscellaneous taxes'. It is a word that has been abbreviated because it is too complicated and difficult. In reality, the number of detailed tax items included is a whopping eighty-four, so there are countless cases where even an official who could be called an expert does not know properly. But I know all those tax items. Do you know what this means?"

"Hehe, hehehe."

Jagwang was just laughing like a fool, as if he couldn't hear Jang So-gil's story. It seemed he had completely lost his mind.

Jang So-gil clicked his tongue and tapped his own neck with the golden plaque.

"It means that I will collect all the miscellaneous taxes one by one, in detail and meticulously, so that you cannot escape. It seems you can't understand because you've already lost your mind, but I hope you come to your senses before you go to the underworld. So that you will know in detail what you have done wrong."

"Hehehe..."

"Take him away."

Jagwang would now suffer a great deal. Perhaps it would be better to die quickly. Since the Alliance Leader's anger had reached its peak, the martial artists and Confucian scholars under him were also in a state of having harbored poison.

Fortunately, there was good news for Jagwang. Since Jang So-gil had wielded the blade of the tax law without forgiveness even to those who had tried to wash their hands and cut their tails by denouncing Jagwang, his path would not be lonely.

Jang So-gil did not stop. The number of those who were taken away in a line exceeded dozens.

And so, when the collected amount had well exceeded six thousand taels.

Sima Hui, who had entered closed-door training with a copy of the Zixia Divine Art, opened the door and came out.

It was around the time a month had passed since he had said that five days would be enough.

(End of Chapter)