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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Vine
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He has a daughter. The leader will be leaving soon.
Two pieces of information were not enough. I headed back to the village with Sanyeo, taking advantage of the opportunity while they were busy dealing with the situation. Now that the Hongryun Sect had left, it was the perfect opportunity to investigate them through questioning people in the village.
“Seeing it like this, it’s a little welcoming.”
For me, who had been going back and forth between the village and the camp, a village with intact houses felt welcoming and beautiful. Sanyeo nodded at my feelings and said,
“I wonder what the accommodations are like?”
“I’ll only know once I see it.”
I said while pointing to an inn that proudly had a signboard at the village entrance. The inn had a signboard that said “Hongryun Inn” as if it was the only one here. Moreover, the Hongryun Sect’s insignia was also engraved next to the sign, and a man wearing the Hongryun Sect’s uniform was sitting inside, dozing off.
As soon as she saw the exterior of the building and the employee, Sanyeo’s face hardened for a moment before she quickly put on a casual expression and said,
“It’ll be better than sleeping outside. I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
I smiled and accepted her words. I didn’t want to have some petty battle of wills with her since we were now at the point of needing to investigate. When I simply accepted her words as they were, Sanyeo shrugged and said,
“Then, I’ll go do some investigating in another direction. Two is better than one.”
“What? You’re going to help me investigate?”
I was a little surprised because I didn’t expect any help from Sanyeo. I thought she would naturally say something like, ‘You have to investigate alone’ and just watch me from the side. She tilted her head after seeing that I was truly surprised, and asked,
“Oh my, we’re on the same boat. You’d be sad if I didn’t, wouldn’t you? Don’t you trust me?”
I shook my head and said,
“Of course, I trust you.”
“Okay then, I’ll go this way.”
Sanyeo hid her shackled hand inside her sleeve and pointed toward a secluded area in the village. I waved goodbye to her and then headed toward the main road. After quickly looking at the village, the signboards for the “Hongryun Inn” and “Hongryun General Store” were the first things that caught my eye.
And on one side of the main road, there were men who were skinny, tanned from the sun, and who were having a conversation while grumbling.
I slipped into the crowd of men who were having a conversation and carefully asked,
“Excuse me, can I ask you something? I’m wandering around because I’m interested in martial arts, and I can see that there are a lot of signs with the name ‘Hongryun Sect’ here. What kind of place is the Hongryun Sect?”
The men having a conversation all turned their heads at my words. They looked at each other, scanned my figure, and then mumbled before one of them opened his mouth as if a dam had burst.
“You’re curious about the Hongryun Sect? Oh my, don’t even get me started. Everyone’s going to the mountains right now, so I’ll tell you. They’re just a bunch of money-crazed devils. They’ve been taking exorbitant prices from every merchant, and the accommodations and restaurants are all messed up. Thanks to them, merchants are now going on a different route, so we’re the ones who are suffering.”
It seemed like the villagers hated the Hongryun Sect more than I had expected. I blinked at the sudden barrage of harsh words, and the other villagers also began to speak, fueled by the momentum.
“Even if we want to move, we have no means to. They’re squeezing us dry twice, with protection fees and taxes we have to pay the government, it’s like trying to get water from a rock. How can a guy who trains martial arts be so crazy about money?”
They continued to talk passionately, spewing out various curses and complaints, saying that the leader of the Hongryun Sect was crazy about money and that he should be fried and killed in a toilet. I regained my senses so that I wouldn’t get swept up in the excitement of these people.
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth in a tone that showed sympathy for them.
“Oh my, you must have been having a hard time with such a heartless man. Does that leader have no family? Do his children or family members treat people so coldly as well?”
One of the villagers shook his head and said,
“I’ve heard a rumor that the leader has a daughter, but we don’t know what she looks like since they never let her go outside. The rumor says that after his wife ran away, he cut the tendons in his daughter’s feet to make her a cripple so she wouldn’t run away. That’s just the kind of guy he is. Who would expect compassion from a man who is so cruel to his own family?”
I shouted with joy inwardly. If his daughter was being abused to that degree, it would be easy for her to fall for my words if I just tempted her a little. I lowered my head so that they wouldn’t see my lips twitching, and then wiped my mouth and said,
“So, does that mean that the Hongryun Sect controls the whole village? They’re a truly terrifying force.”
The man who had been the quietest nodded and said,
“The Hongryun Sect controls the whole village. I heard that the leader of the Hongryun Sect was entrusted by the government to manage the village and the surrounding areas, but I don’t know how that happened. They say that the government and the martial world should not interfere with each other, right?”
I shrugged at his words. I had some idea about how he had formed a connection with the government. The fact that he said he needed to leave his position for a while meant that he had a connection with someone at a higher level.
“Be careful. That leader is a really dark man.”
“We should also get going now. If those guys come back from the mountains, they’ll definitely be badgering people again.”
The men gave me some words of encouragement and caution and then each quietly disappeared in different directions. I stretched my body and pretended to roam around the area before finding Sanyeo, who was reaching her hand toward the inn at the corner of the alley. I moved with her toward the inn.
******
“The room is even dirtier than I thought.”
After learning about the Hongryun Sect’s information, we had come to the village and booked a room. The money I had stolen from the robber camp was enough for us to get a spacious room, but it seemed like this small village didn’t have any nice accommodations.
As soon as she entered the room, Sanyeo frowned and complained. I swirled the dust in the air with my palm and said to Sanyeo,
“Why are you being so picky when you lived in a cage until recently? P-i-c-k-y.”
Sanyeo widened her eyes and said to me,
“Oh my, so that’s why I want to be treated more generously. It’s not like I wanted to live a life of poverty, why are you berating me for being poor in the accommodation? You’re so stingy, huh?”
What was a woman who had been trapped in a cage even saying? That woman, who couldn’t even manage to stand up to the leader who was only near the second-rate level, just kept spouting out things that she didn’t mean, so it was hard to know what her true intentions were.
I used my hand to create wind to drive the dust outside, and then sat down on a spot on the floor that looked somewhat clean and leaned my body against the bed. When I was looking at the ceiling, Sanyeo threw her body on the bed. It wasn’t a fluffy bed, so a dull sound arose.
Sanyeo frowned because the bed was stiff and crawled around on her back as if she was doing training exercises. And then, she stretched out her head until she reached a spot where she could make eye contact with me and dropped her head so that she was looking at me upside down.
“From what I heard, the leader here is not from this village, and he suddenly appeared here two years ago and built a sect here. It seems like the building was originally the house of a wealthy man who lived in this village.”
Sanyeo listed the information that she had heard while she was still like that. I nodded because it was information I didn’t know.
“It’s odd that a second-rate guy would think about building a sect. That must mean that he has someone backing him, right?”
A second-rate guy was stronger than me, but on the other hand, that also meant that a person who is just stronger than a guy like me was at the second-rate level. There was definitely a motive behind spending money like that. There’s no way a second-rate guy would just ‘randomly’ spend a lot of money and create a sect without a purpose.
“You’re smart.”
Sanyeo said that in a tone as if a tutor was praising a child. When I chuckled at her absurd words, she stared nonchalantly at the air and continued to speak.
“And, that leader is a bastard who brings people to train and then just uses them without pay, you know? Most of the people who were rushing out earlier were people who were weak in inner energy and didn’t have any basics down either. From what I heard from the inn’s employee, only two people that the leader uses as his right-hand men were at the third-rate level. The rest were not even at that level.”
“He’s an extreme bastard. It’ll be easy to steal from a guy like that.”
I was happy that the leader was a bad guy. It would be complicated to take down a sect if they were good, but because the leader had built a bad reputation in the village, and he had only been using people after building the sect, his forces were weak.
The scale of the sect was quite large, but it was at a level that could be destroyed in an instant if the leader was taken down.
“What are we going to do now?”
I looked straight at her. Sanyeo was waiting for my answer. She blinked, and her black hair dangled down from the bed and swayed like a curtain.
“They said he has a daughter. And the leader will be leaving again soon.”
I had obtained enough of the information that I needed. The leader had a daughter, and the daughter was not being treated well at home. Moreover, the leader was planning on leaving his position for a while. The people under him were weak except for the leader.
All of the villagers hated the Hongryun Sect.
“So?”
“I’ll win over his daughter. And make her mine.”
After hearing my words, Sanyeo closed her eyes tightly and nodded, and then made a sound by striking her fingers together.
Tap
Tap
Tap
The lighthearted rhythm rang in the room.
“And then?”
“And then I’ll make her mine and then hide in the house, and when he comes back, I’ll kill him.”
I mimicked swinging my ax in the air. When I said that I would kill him, Sanyeo tilted her head and asked,
“The opponent is higher level than you, right? You can’t win with your current skills.”
“He’ll do his breathing exercises at home. The daughter should know where he does his breathing exercises. Listen up. When the leader is not there, I’ll hide in the place where he does his breathing exercises. If I wait there with some dry food, he’ll come back, right? One of the things I learned in the past two years was how to hide my presence and scale walls. Even if I’m only third-rate, I’m more skilled than similar people in this area. I’ll hide and when he comes home and assumes his pose for breathing exercises, I’ll split his head into two.”
It was quite a perfect plan. Sanyeo nodded and said,
“That’s a great plan. So, when are you going to execute it?”
I extended my finger. I slowly extended my finger towards Sanyeo’s cheek. Sanyeo looked blankly at my finger as if she was a sculpture before tilting her head and evading it. I waved my finger that was piercing the air and said,
“As soon as that leader leaves.”
