Even after the Great Ming Empire collapsed, there were still things left in the world.
Among them was the Green Forest Alliance, including the Thirty-Six Forts of the Green Forest.
In chaotic times, bands of thieves are bound to thrive.
At the time, the discipline of the government army had decayed as far as it could decay, so the bandit suppression they had not really done to begin with stopped altogether.
The beautiful Central Plains Murim custom called noninterference between officials and martial artists didn’t apply to the Green Forest Alliance, at least.
Some bandits even rejoiced, saying the age of the Green Forest had come.
But that was a naive thought.
The world ruled by the Evil Cult was different from before.
Things more frightening than people appeared at the foot of the mountains.
Yokai rampaged, and the villagers banded together and took up pickaxes.
Above all, many people became poor.
What was called the economy had collapsed.
When the economy collapses, the volume of trade decreases.
The Green Forest Alliance, whose protection money extorted from passing merchant caravans had made up more than ninety percent of its income, naturally became poor.
Even as recently as about five years ago, the Green Forest Alliance had been all but annihilated.
The bandits who still remained vividly remembered those days when they had been chewing grass to survive.
Fortunately, the Green Forest revived.
That was thanks to the efforts of the leadership, including the chief leader of the bandits.
When the Evil Cult vanished and Great Ming was restored, the ones who were probably happiest of all were none other than the Green Forest.
The Autumn Breeze Fort, which had once been a ‘member’ of the proud Thirty-Six Forts, revived as well.
True to its name, Autumn Breeze, the Autumn Breeze Fort had originally not been here but farther north.
Back in the days when everyone was starving, they had come down to the warmer south to catch wild animals and live off fruit from the trees.
The Autumn Breeze Fort had that painful history, but now things were different.
The current Fort Leader, Ko Jeong, was a Peak Realm master.
His ‘ferocity,’ that noble virtue of a bandit, was outright at the level of a Transcendent master.
He was an ambitious man, so he had constantly tried to make connections with the Green Forest Alliance’s main fort.
Now that a guest had quietly arrived from the main fort, it could be said that the Autumn Breeze Fort had reached the most important moment in its history.
At the crossroads of whether it would return to the Thirty-Six Forts or not!
Fort Leader Ko Jeong demanded that his men of the Autumn Breeze Fort show the stern bearing of the Green Forest bandits.
That meant they were to do roadside robbery well.
That was why Jang Man-chun and the bandits were guarding the road leading to Wang Family Village.
Even when a little brat showed up, they didn’t simply let him pass.
Because that was the attitude of a proper Green Forest bandit.
Who could have guessed that would be the greatest mistake of Jang Man-chun’s life.
The bandit flying through the air, spraying teeth, was Jang Man-chun’s senior.
Judging by his martial arts, he was a man who could have been treated as a first-rate master anywhere.
But a brat no bigger than a bean had sent that senior flying in a single move.
Jang Man-chun couldn’t tell whether it was some profound martial art. The brat just threw a punch, then kicked his senior in the stomach like lightning.
“Guhuk!”
Jang Man-chun’s senior flew up just as he was kicked.
Vomit burst from his mouth and made a rainbow.
So that was the rice ball he had eaten this morning.
That was what Jang Man-chun thought.
His mouth moved on its own.
“Get him!”
Get him my ass.
But the words had come out before he knew it.
If there was one thing the Autumn Breeze Fort’s bandits excelled at, it was organization.
They reflexively charged in with vicious-looking axes and clubs.
Among them, Jang Man-chun was one of the sharpest.
So rather than rushing in, he naturally stayed one step back and watched the fight.
That was the right choice.
“Aaaagh!”
Even for a master trained in martial arts, beating a sword with bare fists is extremely difficult.
When bare flesh and a weapon collide, it is obvious who loses out.
An oil-hardened club should have been more than enough to crack a man’s skull.
One of the bandits swung his club straight at Cheongho’s head.
Wajajak!
What broke was not a skull, but the wooden club.
What kind of person had a head that hard?
The bandit looked at his broken club, then instinctively tried to run.
Cheongho grabbed the hem of his clothes.
At the same time, he kicked the back of the man’s knee, and the bandit spun through the air.
“Kkwaek!”
If you landed headfirst on the ground, you might well scream like that.
Once one man had gone down that easily, the remaining two bought themselves a little time.
Those two were not carrying clubs.
One wielded an axe, and the other swung a ghost-head saber with a demon-face pommel.
From both sides at once!
For Jang Man-chun, whose martial arts were not that great, no way came to mind to evade attacks from both sides.
But Cheongho did it.
He sprang up from the ground and flattened his body.
That is, for an instant he took a posture as though he were lying face down in midair.
The axe passed above him, and the ghost-head saber sliced past below.
There was no way the bandits’ axe art or saber art was anything proper.
When the attack they had been certain would hit missed, they lost their balance.
Cheongho’s right foot blurred as he landed on the ground.
Peok!
The eyes of the bandit wielding the ghost-head saber rolled white.
Something in his kicked crotch seemed to have shattered.
Stunned out of his wits, he let go of the ghost-head saber in midair, and Cheongho snatched it out of the air.
Sgeong-
What got cut was the wrist of the man holding the axe.
His hand, still clutching the axe, spun through the air.
“Gaaaah!”
Cheongho was splashed with blood.
The bandits were dealt with in an instant.
The whole disaster had unfolded in barely enough time for a few breaths.
A cold silence.
The clothes Cheongho had painstakingly washed in Wang Family Village were dirty again. It could not be helped that he frowned.
The instant Cheongho’s face creased, Jang Man-chun reacted.
“I-I failed to recognize an honored person!”
He dropped to his knees and slammed his forehead into the ground.
It was a quick response.
“I failed to realize from your deep set eyes that you were no ordinary person. Our Green Forest brothers should of course have treated an honored guest properly, but those idiots!”
Other than the senior who had been punched in the face first and knocked out cold, they were all Jang Man-chun’s juniors.
Fortunately, they had enough sense not to protest and ask what the hell he was talking about.
One was clutching his crotch and bawling, while another had gone pale white and was only trying to stop the bleeding from his wrist.
Jang Man-chun glanced up at Cheongho and saw him swing the ghost-head saber without hesitation.
“Hyeeeek!”
Chaeng!
Fortunately, Jang Man-chun’s neck didn’t go flying.
Cheongho slammed the ghost-head saber into the ground.
The demon-head ornament at the end of the blade snapped off.
The ghost-head saber became, for Cheongho, an ordinary saber of suitable length.
As if he liked it, he examined the saber, then took its original owner’s sheath and belted it at his waist.
This brat was worse than a bandit.
Having made that judgment, Jang Man-chun desperately worked his mouth.
“Our Autumn Breeze Fort is, by tradition, a fort that places the highest importance on the spirit of heroes of the mountains, and values receiving honored guests even above business.”
If you rattled words off fast enough, the other person was bound to be stunned.
“Our Fort Leader, Ko Jeong the Autumn Wind Blade, great hero that he is, has always enjoyed hosting honored guests who pass near the stronghold, treating them to food, and building ties……”
There was no such tradition. Ko Jeong had caught cocky martial artists and boiled them alive before, if anything.
But damn it, if the fort’s real masters were here, they could easily kill a brat like that.
“It is only because the discerning officers of our fort are presently occupied with duties inside the fort that lowly rabble like us committed the mistake of failing to recognize such an honored guest. So please……”
He dulled the boy’s wits with flattery.
“If you would grant us a chance, we will attend to you with a renewed mindset. We could escort you on your way, of course, but if you wish, we can offer you fine liquor and fine meat with our Fort Leader, a Peak Realm master, and form a friendship……”
We may be foot soldiers, but our chief is a Peak Realm master, so just back off.
That was the meaning buried in his words.
Jang Man-chun kept his face pressed to the ground and waited for an answer.
“Okay. Got it.”
“We once again apologize for our offense. Please be on your……”
Jang Man-chun flinched and raised his head.
For a moment, he couldn’t understand Cheongho’s answer.
“In that case……?”
Cheongho was frowning as he looked over the jerky hanging from his shoulder.
It was the food he had received from Wang Family Village.
It was soaked through with the blood the bandits had spilled.
And Cheongho had decided not to eat raw blood.
“You said you’d give me meat, didn’t you?”
Cheongho draped his jerky over the bandit whose crotch had been shattered.
Then he asked the dumbfounded Jang Man-chun.
“Let’s go.”
“……Yes.”
Jang Man-chun nodded without realizing it.
One must not judge what is not human through human eyes.
Jang Man-chun, whose martial arts were not all that impressive yet who had survived a long time in the Autumn Breeze Fort, was extremely crafty.
Because he was perceptive and quick-witted, he was often able to predict other people’s thoughts and actions.
But there was no way he could know that the boy walking beside him was actually a fox yokai.
He had not imagined the brat would take the offer of meat and liquor at face value and actually come all the way to the bandits’ hideout.
That little brat could not possibly be a Peak Realm master yet, but even if he were, entering the fort would be madness.
With the Fort Leader there too, would he not just end up surrounded and killed?
‘T-this crazy bastard.’
Yet this idiot had stupidly followed Jang Man-chun all the way into the fort.
If Jang Man-chun shouted, ‘Let’s kill this little bastard!’ and gathered the bandits, the brat would surely die.
So did Jang Man-chun have Cheongho surrounded and killed?
No, he couldn’t do that.
“Hey, Brother Man-chun. What’s that beside you?”
One of the bandits inside the stronghold asked that in a lazy tone.
Jang Man-chun put a finger to his lips and passed by, saying, “Shh.”
The bandit looked baffled.
That was right.
Jang Man-chun himself couldn’t call out to his bandit comrades to kill the intruder.
Because only after entering the stronghold with Cheongho did he realize it.
Would that savage bastard of a Fort Leader let Jang Man-chun off?
At a time when some important person from the main fort was there being entertained, he had brought in a young chivalrous warrior who had crippled three of his subordinates.
And even brought him inside the fort?
The Fort Leader would tear Jang Man-chun to pieces for sure.
Saying he had crushed his face in front of a guest from the main stronghold.
‘Fuck, I should’ve told the sentries and had him stopped out front.’
If he had dealt with it somehow outside the stronghold, he might have gotten away with it.
Regret is always too late, no matter how early it comes.
Jang Man-chun had politely escorted a tiger straight into the fort.
In that case, if he wanted to live, he had to send that tiger away again without anyone noticing.
“I’m hungry.”
“Oh my, you must be quite hungry.”
Without any sense of the situation, Cheongho simply said he was hungry.
Jang Man-chun rubbed his hands servilely as he thought of a way to survive.
“In that case……”
A secret scheme suddenly came to mind.
It felt as if sparks had flown inside his head.
“Shall we have a meal first?”
If Cheongho stubbornly insisted on meeting the Fort Leader, it would be impossible, but…….
“Okay.”
In truth, Cheongho had no desire to meet the bandit leader.
He had only followed along because they said they would give him meat, just like in Wang Family Village.
At that naivety, Jang Man-chun rejoiced inwardly.
He stopped wandering in circles through the stronghold and led him somewhere the bandits’ eyes did not reach much.
It was a place with few people around, where they did not need to worry about attracting attention.
Jang Man-chun brought firewood from somewhere and skillfully started a fire.
When he blew on the kindling, a bonfire was soon burning.
“Please wait just a moment!”
“Mm.”
Cheongho squatted in front of the fire as though he had not a single worry.
Leaving Cheongho behind, Jang Man-chun ran.
Did he go to summon bandits and aim for the back of Cheongho’s head?
He could have done that, but Jang Man-chun, having thought of a brilliant superior plan, did not.
He had to get rid of that crazy brat without causing a disturbance and, above all, without the Fort Leader finding out.
And Jang Man-chun had a means to do just that.
It was hidden in the sole of Jang Man-chun’s shoe.
He took off the leather shoe and forcibly tore off the sole, revealing a roll of yellow paper hidden inside.
Wrapped three times over in oiled paper, what lay inside was white powder.
‘Viperbird poison…….’
Whether it was truly viperbird poison or not, it was a rare treasure Jang Man-chun had obtained over ten years of banditry.
They had found it while looting, and the deputy fort leader at the time, who had done nothing more than smell the viperbird poison, died.
Considering that the deputy leader had reached the Peak Realm just a few months before, the poison powder had to be a supreme poison more valuable than its weight in gold.
So he had named it viperbird poison and kept it hidden away carefully.
He had used it three times and escaped mortal danger each time.
There was only enough left for perhaps one more use, but Jang Man-chun did not get greedy and used all of it.
As for how he used it.
“Hey, hand over some meat.”
“Ah, damn it, Brother Jang, what are you doing!”
“I’ll pay you back later, you bastard!”
He snatched it away from some fellows who had caught a deer somewhere and were roasting it.
He all but stole a large skewer of meat, then sprinkled viperbird poison over it along with salt.
This was enough to kill not just a Peak Realm master but even a Transcendent master.
No matter how unusual that brat was, he was surely done for.
Jang Man-chun controlled his expression.
It was when he returned to Cheongho with a bright smile.
“Sorry to keep you wai……”
Cheongho was not alone.
Jang Man-chun froze stiff with the meat still in his hands.
The one who turned to look at him waved as if pleased to see him.
Why was that man here?
“Man-chun, what are you doing standing there? Come sit.”
“L-leader!”
The Fort Leader smiled and told him to sit.
Only the corners of his mouth were raised. His eyes were not smiling at all.
Jang Man-chun recognized it as the smile the Fort Leader wore right before exploding.
Cold sweat ran down his back.
