Unrivaled Spear Demon
Chapter 9 - Act of Retribution (4)
A word without wings can travel a thousand li in a single night.
The rumor that an unidentified master had appeared the previous night and annihilated the warriors of the Black Way Guild spread like wildfire throughout Anhui.
Hojeong Gate was also abuzz with the news.
“Wow, for real. A girl I know used to work as a servant at the Black Way Guild, you know? She says all the rumors are true!”
Udongwon, a stable hand at Hojeong Gate, was passionately recounting the tale to the other boys.
“All the servants who survived the night at the Black Way Guild gave the same testimony. And that’s not all! People who owed huge debts to the guild said so too. Their debt ledgers all vanished overnight!”
“Wow. All the people who’ve been suffering under the Black Way Guild’s tyranny must feel so relieved.”
“I know, right? To be honest, even our Hojeong Gate had headaches because of those Black Way Guild bastards from time to time.”
“Huh? Hojeong Gate too?”
“Yeah~ I heard some of the moneylenders Hojeong Gate borrowed from sold the debt to the Black Way Guild. So, you know, they’d come by sometimes, causing a ruckus and demanding ridiculous interest payments. But now that all of that is void, it’s a huge boon for Hojeong Gate too!”
“Kyah! what kind of hero could have accomplished such a magnificent feat? Truly a hero of Anhui, a hero!”
Udongwon and the other stable hands chattered back and forth, discussing the events of the previous night.
Just then, Udongwon, who had been spitting as he spoke, suddenly shot a fierce glare.
“Hey, newbie! Did you finish cleaning up the horse dung!?”
The target of his shout was none other than Chui.
“…”
Chui, who had entered the stables, silently began to portion out the fodder.
In truth, he had not yet revealed the gold plaque that Head Escort Ju Yehwa had given him.
If he were to stay at Hojeong Gate with the status of a master, the series of events at the Black Way Guild might be linked to Hojeong Gate.
‘Until I’ve settled things with the Jo family, there’s no need to draw unnecessary attention.’
It was at that moment.
Thwack!
A hand struck the back of Chui’s head.
Udongwon. He seemed to find fault with Chui’s every move and was constantly picking fights.
“Look at this bastard, with that sour look on his face just because he had to clean up some horse dung. You gonna wipe that look off your face or what?”
“…”
“When someone picks up a homeless beggar like you, gives you food and a place to sleep, you should be working with a ‘Thank you~’ on your lips. What’s this attitude? Huh!? You’re only able to work here thanks to the Hojeong Gate Master! You should work with a grateful heart! Don’t pull a long face just because you did a little hard work!”
Udongwon preened as he berated Chui.
Occasionally, you had to grab a weak one like this and yell at them to maintain discipline in the stables.
“Isn’t the work hard because you all push it onto the children who arrive later?”
Udongwon was momentarily stunned by Chui’s subsequent remark.
“What did you just say? Are you… are you crazy? Do you really want to die?”
The stable boys approached, their faces menacing.
Watching them, Chui was reminded of a memory from long ago.
He remembered when he had first transferred to a military unit on the frontier as a new recruit.
Those days when he was bullied by the senior soldiers for being weak and taciturn.
Days when it was normal to wake up and find all his belongings gone, to be beaten every night.
‘He helped me so much back then.’
Chui recalled the image of Ho Yeyang, with whom he had become a sworn brother.
His face and body were stained with burns, the metallic sound that came from his burnt larynx.
…At that very moment.
“You boys!”
A voice like jade, completely out of place in a stable, rang out.
Udongwon and the other stable boys froze stiff as if they’d been struck by lightning.
“…”
Chui turned his head toward the voice.
He saw a woman standing outside the stables.
Ho Yeyang.
She stood there, jaw-droppingly beautiful, completely different from the person in Chui's memory.
“Why are you bullying the new boy? You shouldn’t do that. I respect the culture you have among yourselves, but you still need to be considerate of someone who’s just arrived.”
At Ho Yeyang’s scolding, Udongwon stammered.
“Th-that’s not it, miss. This fellow keeps speaking informally to me… even though it’s obvious I’m older. Hehe~”
“He’s still just a child. He might not be used to the etiquette of honorifics, so you all should teach him.”
“Aw, he’s just a drifter who’ll be gone after working for a little while anyway.”
“Even so. They say even brushing sleeves is a bond of fate. You must learn to cherish your connections. You never know what life will bring. You might meet again in a distant land, miles and miles away, and become like family.”
At the gentle rebuke from Ho Yeyang, who wasn’t much older than them, the stable boys each scratched their heads.
‘What are the chances of meeting a drifter who’s only here for a short while again?’
‘In the first place, I’ll never be leaving for some distant land.’
‘And even if we did meet there, there’s no way I’d think of him as family.’
Their thoughts were plain to see on their faces.
Regardless, Ho Yeyang beckoned to Chui.
“Hey, are you the new boy?”
“…”
Chui stood still, gazing at Ho Yeyang.
Her face and voice were completely different from his memory… but he knew nonetheless.
Her eyes were the same.
A clear and upright spirit.
The Ho Yeyang before him was undoubtedly the same Ho Yeyang he had known.
“From now on, if anyone bothers you, come straight to me.”
She was just like his sworn brother, who had always taken him under his wing when he was being ostracized by the senior soldiers as a low-ranking grunt.
Seeing the image of his brother superimposed before him, Chui opened his mouth.
“You too.”
“…?”
Ho Yeyang, who had been about to turn away, paused.
Her eyes, large as lakes, took in Chui’s form.
Chui spoke to Ho Yeyang, who was facing him.
“From now on, if anyone bothers you, come straight to me.”
The stable boys’ eyes grew so wide they looked like they would pop out of their heads.
Their expressions screamed, ‘That crazy bastard, how dare he, not knowing his place!?’
But Ho Yeyang herself simply blinked her large eyes, saying nothing.
And then…
The corners of her eyes curved into a gentle arc.
“Okay. I will.”
With a bright smile, Ho Yeyang left the stables.
* * *
A moonless night.
Chui silently scaled the walls of Hojeong Gate.
Retrieving the weapons he had hidden in the bushes in a secluded spot, Chui immediately headed for the Jo family estate.
A spear the color of ink.
And two awls, a hammer, cheoljillyeo, a pot of poison, and various other items.
Flick
In the blink of an eye, Chui was over the Jo family’s wall.
The security was quite tight.
Perhaps because of the news that the Black Way Guild had been annihilated, the sentries were particularly on edge.
Chui quietly drew an awl.
He passed through the undergrowth at the base of the wall and stepped on a sentry’s shadow.
“Who’s there?”
The moment the sentry, sensing a presence, turned his head.
Pshuk!
The awl in Chui’s hand plunged into the sentry’s temple.
It was neither too long nor too short, just enough to pierce the man’s skull, graze the brain, and be withdrawn smoothly.
Gurgle, gurgle…
Blood and brain matter spurted from the small hole in his temple.
Chui dragged the corpse into the bushes, stripped off the Jo family uniform, and put it on.
Soon, a path leading to the inner garden appeared.
A few servants were moving about, holding lanterns.
Chui walked past them with a nonchalant expression.
Behind a wooden pillar, another Jo family warrior was visible.
He was very tall, his head at a height Chui’s hand could not easily reach.
Chui flicked his fingers, sending a spike flying.
Thunk
The warrior, stepping on the cheoljillyeo that had fallen to the ground, let out a small cry of “Agh” and bent over.
The moment he lowered his head to see what had pierced his sole.
Whoosh
Chui pulled out an iron hammer with a thin handle and a thick head and smashed the back of the warrior’s head.
CRUNCH!
He died instantly, without a chance to even scream.
Drag, drag, drag…
Hiding the body in the shadows behind a building, Chui leaped onto the roof.
‘Let’s see. According to the map, the master’s bedroom is…’
In the distance, he saw a building with its lights on.
It was a five-story pavilion to the southwest.
Several sentries stood guard in front of it.
One of them glanced around before pulling something from his pocket and started eating.
A rice ball.
He was probably sneaking a late-night snack.
Chui threw a strand of silken thread to the roof of the opposite building.
Zing
Once the silken thread, tied to a metal spike, was securely fastened to the opposite roof, Chui took out a pot of poison from his robes.
Slosh
A single drop of black poison trickled down the silken thread.
It soon reached the center of the long, taut thread, and.
…Plink!
It fell.
Directly below was the rice ball the sentry was eating.
Ssssss…
The moment the poison landed on the rice ball, it seeped between the white grains of rice.
Though it was black, it wasn’t particularly noticeable in the darkness.
“Kuhk!?”
The sentry eating the rice ball clutched his throat and coughed.
Then, he simply collapsed.
Warriors who had been patrolling in the distance came running.
“What is it? What happened!”
“P-poison!? It’s poison! He’s been poisoned!”
“To the kitchen! Seize the servants first!”
“Close the estate gates! Don’t let anyone out!”
Chaos erupted within.
The Jo family warriors scattered in a rush to round up the innocent kitchen servants.
Watching this, Chui rose to his feet.
“That’s enough playing around.”
He leaped from roof to roof.
Leap- Thunk!
As he jumped, he extended his spear and embedded it in the wall.
In an instant, Chui reached the fourth floor.
…CRASH!
He smashed through a window and entered. Three warriors were inside.
“Wh-who are…!?”
“An assas-…!”
“Intruder-…!”
All three opened their mouths, but no sound came out.
Chui’s spear had moved with the speed of lightning.
…Thwack-thwack-thwack!
A single straight scar was left on the Adam's apples of the three warriors, but the backs of their necks were untouched.
It was the mark of a spearhead that had sliced through the skin, stopping just short of piercing through, severing only the throat before being withdrawn.
Chui pulled his spear back.
There was no need to pierce all the way through, as that would delay its retrieval.
He only needed to stab deep enough to kill. That was all.
As he crossed the blood-soaked floor, he heard signs of life from the direction of the stairs.
“Who’s there?”
The guard on the fifth floor frowned upon seeing Chui.
“Are you on fourth-floor duty? Why have you come all the way up here?”
“…”
“Wait. I haven’t seen your face before. Who are you? Why are you holding a spear instead of a sword…?”
Chui was dressed in the uniform of the Jo family, his pretty, girlish face unstained by a single drop of blood.
Perhaps that was why the guard did not immediately identify him as an intruder.
…And that became the cause of his death.
Fwoom!
Kicking off the stairs, Chui shot forward and thrust his spear.
The crimson energy of the Unrestrained Demon Art coiled around the black spear, drawing a straight, blood-red trajectory.
Crunch!
The guard’s heart was pierced through, pinning him to the wall.
With the same momentum, Chui sent the guard’s body flying and leaped up to the fifth floor.
“What the?”
“Huk! An intruder!”
“An assassin is here!”
The three guards on the fifth floor reacted instantly to Chui’s appearance.
But Chui’s reaction was faster.
Having memorized the building’s layout, he kicked straight through the first partition wall he came across, shattering it.
Two other guards, who had been preparing an ambush inside, were startled.
In the heat of battle, a moment’s hesitation is death.
Crack- Schlick!
With two flicks of his spear, Chui separated two heads from their bodies and sent them flying into the air.
Two of the three guards in the hallway drew their swords and charged, but.
“Aargh! On the floor…!”
“Aack! My foot!”
They stepped on the metal spikes and collapsed helplessly.
Stab- Squish!
Chui plunged his spear into the backs of the two fallen guards.
The last man kicked off the wall, leaped into the air, and swung his sword.
Crack!
A hammer thrown by Chui struck him in the forehead, and his brains spilled out in mid-air as he died.
Drip-drip-drip-drip-drip-
A shower of blood rained down inside the building.
Chui kicked aside the pieces of flesh that littered the floor.
Just then.
“How noisy.”
A low voice came from within.
Chui stopped in his tracks.
The voice, imbued with a powerful inner energy, resonated from the space beyond the wall.
It was an aura that couldn’t even be compared to the likes of Guyangpo from the Black Way Guild.
“Even an uninvited guest should have a shred of decency. What is all this commotion at this hour?”
Presently, an old man walked out into the corridor.
White hair, full eyebrows, a tall stature, a dark complexion, and piercing eyes.
A Geomho, with a longsword twice the length of a normal one at his waist, stood facing Chui.
Chui tilted his head and asked.
“Jo Yang-ja. Right?”
“Such a curt child.”
The head of the Jo family, Jo Yang-ja.
He was the very man who had cast Ho Yeyang’s life into the abyss.
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