Chapter 18 – Bet (2)

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Jul 14, 2022

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“Kuak!”

Leader Oh, who was suffering, coughed blood and trembled as he collapsed.

Well, he was the one who ignored the warning, so this was bound to happen.
As of today, it felt like the eccentricities of the old man were unmistakable.

At the same time, it made me think.

‘This is what true strength is.’

It was difficult to even estimate the level of martial arts skills Hae Ack-chun had to take down a first-rate warrior like this.

Then what about the South Heavenly Swordsman who defeated this monster? It made me realize just how difficult the Murim actually was.

I needed to have strength.

-If you want to become as amazing as that old man, bleeding to death will not get you those results.

I knew you didn’t have to put it like that.

“Ugh, damn…”

Just then, the trainee Dohyun woke up.
He seemed to have come to his senses since I didn’t hit him with innate qi.

But as he just woke up, he couldn’t understand the situation.

“I was talking to you bastard…”

Pak!

Hae Ack-chun lifted him up by the nape.

“Uh?”

He was startled by the enormous savage-like man who lifted him up.
And it felt like a child being lifted.

“W-who?”

“Me? Hae Ack-cun.”

“Eik! E… elder!”

When he realized the situation, he felt shocked.

“Who are you? Did you follow him?”

The trainee looked at the prone figure of Leader Oh.
He wanted to answer, but he couldn’t say it out loud.

“T… that… I… i… I… with… le…le…leader….
Oh…”

And there was just one answer.

“Stuttering? Tch.
Well, and you are an upper-rank trainee?”

Pak!

“Ugh!”

The old man threw him away in annoyance.
No matter how softly he threw, the guy rolled on the ground and stumbled.

Tatata!

I heard the sound and looked at the twins coming back up.
However, seeing them skillfully descend, it felt like they had learned what Hae Ack-chun was teaching them well.

-They are getting things too easily.
Right?

Right.

Some got it by winning a bet, and some got it from luck like them.
Then Hae Ack-chun asked me.

“Why did these ones come up today?”

And I spoke the truth.

“They brought new talent to help you.”

“Is it that one? Ha!”

He arrogantly evaluated the trainee.
This was bad luck for him.
He only received training below, so he is bound to suffer here.

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-Yes.

Short Sword smiled, knowing that even if that guy was better, there is no way I would be replaced.
Hae Ack-chun approached me and asked.

“But why are these ones attacking you?”

It felt like he’s seen the situation since the upper-rank trainee fought with me.
Well, annoying things kept happening when Leader Oh was involved.

How do I explain this? At that time, Song Jwa-baek said,

“That’s because Leader Oh seems to be involved in a fight with Wonwhi.
It feels like there are bad feelings between them.”

Song Jwa-baek looked at me and winked.
Was he actually saying, ‘Thank me for talking on your behalf?’… Thank you.

“Who told you to answer?”

At Hae Ack-chun’s shout, Song Jwa-baek went silent.
Man, this old man is really crazy.

“Kulkul, a replacement guy? Once I get my hands on something, I need to finish the task with them.”

Anyway, I was curious to see how this old man would react to this.
It was expected that no one could go against him.
I didn’t want him to know things from another source.

So I told the truth.

“I killed two people under Leader Oh.”

“What?”

Hae Ack-chun’s eyes lit up.
Even Song Jwa-baek, who didn’t know this, becomes shocked.
Unlike them, who were caught running away, I had killed two people before being captured.

“Ha! Killed his subordinate?”

“At that time, they were wearing masks, so I had no idea.
He recklessly tried to catch me, and it was self-defense.”

In any case, it was self-defense.
Of course, I knew they were from the Blood Cult, but it was still a defense.
And I couldn’t have let myself be kidnapped.

-In the end, you were kidnapped.

‘I came on my own two feet.’

-Right, right, you did.

In any case, I killed two.
I looked at Hae Ack-chun’s eyes.

No matter how crazy he was, I thought he would take the side of Leader Oh as he was a high-ranking member of the cult.

However, this was unexpected.

“Kuahahaha! I see that we have such stupid people? Getting hit by a kid with no internal qi? Even if they die is less punishment.”

Hae Ack-chun seemed happy? It’ll only make things weird if I tried to understand a mad man.
The man laughed and said,

“It is only natural for people without power to die.
I.
Am.
Not that.”

-In a way, it is the same, but he speaks coldly.

Short Sword clicked their tongue.
But from my point of view, I could understand it.

‘This is the essence of the Blood Cult.’

The Blood Cult was indeed a cult and not a sect.
The reason why the Murim Alliance had come after it was because of this.
But the Unorthodox Faction was colder in this regard.

In that sense, Hae Ack-chun could be called a genuine Unorthodox Faction member.

“Euk!”

Hae Ack-chun slapped me on the back.

“I wanted to know how you’d deal with it, but you man have some guts.
Kulkul.”

It was shocking.
The first compliment this man had given me.

I had a strange feeling when this old man said such things.
But it ended there.

“So bothersome.
Go down.”

Hae Ack-chun had a stiff expression and spoke to both Leader Oh and the trainee.
I didn’t bring them here, nor do we get along.
How did he expect me to take them down?

-Just push them down the cliff.
Then they will go down.

‘… A genius.’

But the reality was that it could not be done.
I glanced at Song Jwa-baek, who looked at me to help me.

“Uh?”

Song Jwa-baek averted his face and looked down as he bit his lip.

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Annoying.
I was going through hardships, and he wasn’t even responding.
Seeing how they enjoyed my misfortune, they also seemed to be learning the cult’s way of life.

Song Jwa-baek glared at me as I said.

“You learned to climb the cliff with footwork.”

Hearing the praise coming down from my lips, I saw his expression change.

“Hmm.
Who is better than you?”

“Right.
I acknowledge it.
So I will listen.”

“What?”

I carried Dohyun on my back, and Song Jwa-baek’s face went stiff.

Just in case things happened, I wrapped the man around me before hearing Hae Ack-chun’s voice.

“It will be quite annoying if you get bitten by that dog.
And he is at an advantage if he is tied and bites you.”

“Uh?”

“You won’t get such an opportunity ever again, okay?”

When I looked back, he was smiling.

‘Opportunity….’

Just the thought felt heavy for both Song Jwa-baek, who had Leader Oh on him, and me.

“Aren’t you coming down? Brat.”

Obviously, he learned footwork from Hae Ack-chun, so he was fast.

I, too, learned a couple things from the South Heavenly Swordsman, but I was not confident enough to climb a cliff like he was doing.
As I had to hide my skills, I went down slowly.

“Hahaha, you are slow.”

As soon as I arrived at the bottom, Song Jwa-baek laughed while looking at me.

Right, laugh now.
Because I will learn footwork in the future.

“I think we should put them down.”

Tak!

I loosened the strap that wraps around my body and lowered Dohyun.

And when I looked at Song Jwa-baek, he was holding onto the right leg of Leader Oh, who he put on the floor.
It looked like he was going to break his leg.

“What are you doing?”

Song Jwa-baek smiled.

“To help you.”

“What?”

“Did you forget what the crazy old man said? That there will be no other opportunity.
You said it too.
He wanted to show the anger off.
You must too.”

The former was not the purpose.
The latter is.
It had accumulated too much within me.

“He will not recover until his leg heals.”

It was meant to be bait.
And I shook my head.

“Yah.
We have the blood parasite, so if we want to survive, we need to act like them.
If you don’t have a poisoned heart, it is done.”

-He, too, changed a lot.

As Short Sword said, Song Jwa-baek had gone through a hard time, but his attitude had also changed.

“If you cannot do it, I will.”

Tatatak!

Song Jwa-baek touched Leader Oh’s blood vessels.
He’s learned a lot.

It seems that the reason for touching it was to prevent breaking it too severely.
I said to him,

“Yah.”

“If you are too weak to do it, I will.”

“No, I think you misunderstood something.”

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“What?”

“You think that crazy old man wanted us to break his leg?”

‘…?!’

His expression went stiff at my words as realization dawned on him.

“No… to kill him?”

“Right.”

It wasn’t enough to cripple one leg.
I was a spy in my previous life, after all.

A person with such an obsession didn’t change with a bit of punishment.
Perhaps if the legs were crippled, he would just be angrier and try to kill me.

“Kill?”

He didn’t know this, so he was confused.
It felt like killing is too tough for Song Jwa-baek.
It was less troublesome, and I told him myself.

“You want to help me? Kill him.”

“What? Ki-kill him?”

“Are you feeling weak?”

Song Jwa-baek frowned and couldn’t answer.
I think this was enough.

He had never had blood on his hands.
But I was different.
To be honest, I had a lot of blood on my hands as I did everything dirty to survive.

“Move.
If you cannot do it, I will do it.”

I returned the words straight to him.

Hae Ack-chun had planted the idea, and it’s probably the right choice to kill him.
Then I heard…

“What did you say?”

“Uh?”

Shit! He didn’t seal the blood points correctly, so Leader Oh was waking up.

“Damn it!

Song Jwa-baek hurriedly tried to break the leg, but the opponent was a first-rate warrior.

Leader Oh kicked Song Jwa-baek in the ribs.

Puck!

“Kuak!”

It must have been very painful to be hit, but Song Jwa-baek endured it and twisted the leg in the opposite direction.

Clench!

“Ouch! You bastard!”

Leader Oh became angry and hit him in the chest again.
Song Jwa-baek’s body bounced back almost ten feet this time!

Tatak!

I ran behind and tried to stab Leader Oh in the head with my short sword.

And Leader Oh rolled to the left.

The lazy donkey roll.
Surviving was more important than the pride of a first-rate warrior.

Phat!

He threw the dagger in his right hand, and I caught it with my left.

-Right! That is it!

This was the trick I learned from Short Sword.
A dagger technique that used both hands freely, and although I only learned it recently, it was successful in practice.

Holding the dagger with my left hand, I tried to stab him again.

“Kuak! You!”

Pak!

He grabbed the dagger with both hands.
Man, he was skilled.

Although this was not a favorable situation, he responded well.

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Tak!

To kill him, I did the best I could as he spoke in a sneering voice.

“Do you think a bastard with no internal qi like you can stab me?”

He wasn’t wrong.
His qi was so much greater that I couldn’t handle it.

He was even trying to turn the short sword’s blade towards me.

‘Tch.
You are nothing.’

There was no way my strength could be hidden.
I began to use the Xing Ming cultivation, and as I did, the blade stopped turning towards me.

Leader Oh was shocked when I could stop him.

“W-who are you?”

He was surprised, but I was having a hard time too.
It was difficult to withstand his strength.

“Uhhh.”

And with his life at stake, he held onto the short sword.
It felt like my stomach was doing rounds at this moment.

It was then.

“Ahhhhhh!”

Song Jwa-baek, who ran in like a bull, smashed the head of Leader Oh with a kick loaded with internal qi.

Crash!

“Kuak!”

As his head was being crushed, he lost the strength in his hands.

“Kuak!”

The short sword pierced Leader Oh’s chest.
The guy opened his mouth in shock.
The kick also damaged him enough to the point where blood dripped down his face.

The top of Leader Oh’s head looked quite wounded.

“Kuak!”

Song Jwa-baek held on to his hurt side.

“Fuck…..”

I was exhausted too, so I tried to get back up.
Now we have to deal with the corpse.
I looked at Song Jwa-baek and said,

“It has to be your first kill, huh?”

It had to be his first murder because I could see it from his kick.

“Don’t act up.
Bastard.
You owe me your life.”

I smiled bitterly and nodded.
As he said, if the fight lasted a little longer, it would not have ended well for me.
A first-rate warrior.
A position that was not given to just anyone.
As I was trying to catch my breath, Song Jwa-baek said.

“What about our fight later?”

It’s like he didn’t understand it till now.
Or, it could be that he didn’t think of saying it out loud.

“It is unfortunate, but I will win.
That is how I can become a disciple of that crazy old man.”

Hae Ack-chun made a suggestion to me.
He would abandon me if I failed and teach me if I did well.
And seeing Song Jwa-baek, they too seemed to be getting something out of this.

“Are you sure?”

“It is natural.
You think you can even grab my hair if you and I are together?”

Confidence.

Did he not see things after he got beaten? He didn’t understand my skills at all.

Right, and I told him.

“Should we make a bet?”

“Bet?”

He frowned, and I smiled as I looked at him and said.

“The one who loses is the servant to the one who wins.
What about it?”

The notorious Black and White Twin swords will become my subordinates.

And I am already craving it.