“Ggggh……”
Ko Jeong, Leader of Autumn Breeze Fort, groaned as he lay collapsed.
He had completely lost consciousness, and his face had turned purple while his eyes and lips were badly swollen.
He had only just escaped death.
When Gal Dong-tak smiled and patted Ko Jeong’s body several times, Ko Jeong suddenly vomited a gush of black blood.
Then Gal Dong-tak took out a small wooden case from his bosom.
Inside it was a pill that gave off a pure fragrance.
He put that obvious elixir into Ko Jeong’s mouth and tapped his throat.
Gulp. Once he swallowed it, Ko Jeong’s complexion improved greatly.
“Qi Deviation? Hahaha.”
Gal Dong-tak snickered after hearing the bandits’ report.
“He’ll wake up in a few days. Until then, serve your fort leader well.”
Who would dare hesitate at his command.
The bandits answered loudly.
“Yes!!”
“Yees…….”
And Jang Man-chun’s face turned white as paper.
It seemed Gal Dong-tak had long since noticed that the claim of Qi Deviation was a blatant lie.
For some reason, he did not bother pointing out that it was false.
And not only that. He had saved Ko Jeong with ease.
The poison Jang Man-chun had hidden away was a deadly toxin.
He had never seen anyone fail to die on the spot after taking it.
Yet Gal Dong-tak had saved Ko Jeong with the use of internal qi and a single pill.
The world was vast. More vast than Jang Man-chun had imagined.
If Ko Jeong woke up, Jang Man-chun would surely be torn to pieces and killed.
But there was no one who would pity Jang Man-chun’s miserable situation.
There were only two people who likely knew the truth of what had happened.
The Green Forest Alliance Leader Gal Dong-tak, and the mysterious boy Cheongho.
And the two of them were sitting by a bonfire, tearing into meat.
It was meat and liquor Gal Dong-tak had ordered brought out anew.
Though the fort leader was lying beside them half dead, Gal Dong-tak told the other bandits to sit around as well and share the meat and liquor.
He said that since it was a happy day, should they not hold a feast.
“Uahahahaha!”
It was Gal Dong-tak who burst into booming laughter.
“Really? That really happened? With a dragon?”
With a dragon? What did that mean?
The bandits wondered what their leader was talking about.
The young Alliance Leader who had bound the crumbling Green Forest Alliance back together and restored it.
Just who was that insolent brat, for him to welcome him so warmly.
“Yeah, I’m heading to Azure Forest right now.”
“Hoh, that’s a long road. You’re going up through Sichuan and then heading to Hunan, right?”
“……Probably.”
And on top of that, Cheongho used casual speech with Gal Dong-tak.
He had even called him something as absurd as ‘Fatty,’ and no one in Kangho or Murim would have dared treat the Green Forest Alliance Leader that way.
“Euheuh. Good boy, very good boy.”
Yet rather than getting angry, Gal Dong-tak smiled fondly and vigorously ruffled Cheongho’s hair.
Cheongho frowned as if he disliked it.
Just what was Cheongho’s identity.
Even while eating, the bandits listened closely.
It was then that an unfamiliar title came from Gal Dong-tak’s mouth.
“Then I guess you haven’t met the instructor.”
“Yeah, I didn’t meet Yi-gang.”
“So you call him Yi-gang too. That’s interesting, hearing you say it.”
Yi-gang?
Was there someone Gal Dong-tak called ‘Instructor’?
The bandits with sharp instincts and decent knowledge gaped, wondering if that meant that person.
“I wonder if he’s at Azure Forest right now. These days he seems to be busy running around. Even I last saw him two years ago……”
“Really?”
“That’s right. For now, they say the instructor is staying at Azure Forest, so if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to see him.”
“Yeah.”
“You probably haven’t heard much about Instructor Yi-gang either, if you were living in that cave in Yunnan.”
Cheongho nodded.
Gal Dong-tak smiled.
There was no trace at all of the bulky, dull-looking appearance he had once had.
The Green Blood Demonic Art that the Green Forest Alliance Leader had practiced was a flawed martial art derived from the Great Blood Demon Art. After Yi-gang corrected and supplemented it, Gal Dong-tak’s body had recovered as well.
Gal Dong-tak was now a man well suited to the description broad-spirited.
“Do you know what Yi-gang is called in Kangho these days?”
“What?”
He spoke Yi-gang’s epithet.
“He’s called Heavenly Pillar.”
Baek Yi-gang, the Heavenly Pillar.
An epithet written with the characters for heaven and pillar.
“There was no one who did not see the pillar rising into the sky that day.”
Yi-gang saved the world by defeating the Evil Cult Leader.
There had been far too many witnesses for that fact to be buried.
Yi-gang was probably the most famous martial artist in the world, and the one most respected by all, whether orthodox or unorthodox.
That meant there was not a single bandit in the Autumn Breeze Fort who didn’t know the name Heavenly Pillar Baek Yi-gang.
“H-huhk.”
“Kehk.”
Sounds of sharp intakes of breath and startled coughing rose here and there.
They were flustered by the sudden name.
Then what relation did that boy, Cheongho, have to Heavenly Pillar Baek Yi-gang.
“So you are…… what should I call you? Yi-gang’s pet?”
‘A pet?’ Someone muttered in shock without meaning to.
Raising a person as a pet.
Did Baek Yi-gang also have the sort of hobby only Demon Cultists would have.
But when Cheongho shook his head.
“Sorry, sorry. That sounds a bit off. Son……?”
Cheongho shrugged.
“Right, that’s not what matters.”
Only then did the bandits realize that Cheongho was someone important.
Had Autumn Breeze Fort not tried to bully some brat who might have been Heavenly Pillar Yi-gang’s son, younger brother, disciple, or something along those lines.
There were even some who let out sighs of relief.
“Anyway, Instructor Yi-gang is doing absurdly well for himself. You can feel it just from the epithet, right? Mine is Mad Strength Tyrant Axe. It means I’m insanely strong and swing an axe with solid force. Do you know about epithets?”
“No, I don’t.”
Gal Dong-tak chattered away excitedly.
“Usually, once you’ve made a bit of a name for yourself, having a four-character epithet is the real style in Kangho. Like Flowing Cloud Swift Sword, or Divine Sword of Mount Hua, that sort of thing.”
“What’s style?”
“It means it sounds cool. In that sense, three-character epithets are no good. They don’t sound very strong. Needle-Faced Sword, Six-Gang Tyrant. Just hearing them takes the air out of you, right?”
Even Cheongho, who did not know much about it, thought that sounded true.
“Then is it better if it has a lot of characters?”
Would Cheongho get an epithet one day too.
If he became human and moved about in Murim, surely he would.
Then having more characters sounded good.
Azure-Eyed Unbeaten Sword, or World’s Greatest Swordsman1, things like that.
Five characters, or even six, might be even better.
“No, that’s actually the worst. It gets way too wordy.”
“……”
“Most epithets longer than five or six characters are like that. Things like World’s Greatest Sword and so on, show-off epithets like that. Most of them are childish names people made up for themselves, or names others coined to mock them.”
For some reason, Cheongho felt slightly called out.
“That’s enough idle talk. Where did you learn martial arts?”
Gal Dong-tak asked with a grin.
“Did Instructor teach you?”
“No. I didn’t learn any.”
“Yeah, I thought so…… wait, what?”
Gal Dong-tak’s eyes went wide.
“Your fists, kicks, and movement seemed like that…… but your internal energy? How are you doing that?”
As a master himself, that bothered Gal Dong-tak.
There was something strange about Cheongho’s movement.
It did not feel human at all. It almost seemed that was because he was not human to begin with, yet it still felt somewhat different.
Above all, Cheongho had clearly used internal energy.
“I didn’t learn any.”
“Wait.”
Gal Dong-tak grabbed Cheongho’s wrist and felt his pulse gate.
It was something no one trained in martial arts would ever permit.
But Cheongho only blinked as though he knew nothing.
‘It’s true.’
Gal Dong-tak’s mouth parted slightly.
There was no sign of accumulated internal energy in Cheongho’s dantian. But his blood vessels were the opposite.
‘Clean, sturdy, and his blood vessels have spring to them.’
It was the opposite of the severed meridians Yi-gang had once suffered from.
He likewise had not accumulated internal energy, but Cheongho’s blood vessels were beautiful enough to be called exquisite.
Was this the sort of blood vessel one gained after undergoing the legendary Body Transformation?
On top of that, his body held no turbidity at all, like someone who had never in their life eaten food touched by fire and had lived only on pine needles and rice flour.
“……Then where did you learn to use a blade and fists?”
“I just swung them.”
Even that strange bodily movement was merely instinct.
Gal Dong-tak reached a conclusion.
‘A heaven-sent prodigy.’
It was talent no human could possess.
No, it was only possible because he wasn’t human to begin with.
Inhuman reflexes, perfect blood vessels, and middle and upper dantian wide open.
Whatever martial art he learned, he would eventually be spoken of as the best under heaven.
Because Gal Dong-tak had already reached a high realm himself, he could see that clearly.
Gal Dong-tak thought for a long while before speaking.
“How about trying to learn my martial art?”
“Your martial art?”
“Yeah. The Green Blood Demonic Art.”
It was a statement that made every bandit around them gasp in shock.
Some actually sprang to their feet or cried out in disbelief.
The Green Blood Demonic Art was the strongest martial art of the Green Forest Alliance, and a supreme divine art passed down only to the Alliance Leader.
Even the Alliance Leader’s closest aides received only fragments of the Green Blood Demonic Art.
And he was offering to pass it on to Cheongho.
Smiling, Gal Dong-tak circulated the Green Blood Demonic Art.
His hair lifted on its own and his face flushed red.
“Originally, the Green Blood Demonic Art was an incomplete martial art with severe side effects. Instructor Yi-gang corrected and supplemented it.”
A haze-like aura flowed from Gal Dong-tak.
The origin of the Green Blood Demonic Art was the Demon Cult’s Great Blood Demon Art.
Yi-gang and the Heavenly Demon had once corrected the flaws in the Green Blood Demonic Art.
“I received instruction from Instructor Yi-gang, and you too were raised by Instructor Yi-gang. Aren’t we fellow disciples under one master?”
Gal Dong-tak was no longer dull-witted.
But even though his mind had become sharper, that good-hearted nature of his had not vanished.
This boy named Cheongho felt to him like a kid brother to him.
“I don’t want to.”
But who could have expected such a flat refusal.
Gal Dong-tak’s lifted hair slowly settled back down.
“……Why?”
“You look like a monster.”
A bright red face and blazing hair.
As Cheongho put it, it looked like a monster, or a yokai.
“I want to become human.”
What was left unsaid after that was probably, ‘So I don’t want to learn the Green Blood Demonic Art.’
Cheongho’s words and conduct must have looked absurdly foolish to the other bandits.
“Uahahahaha!”
Gal Dong-tak laughed heartily.
“So that’s why you’re heading to Azure Forest.”
“Yeah.”
“Good, then I’ll help you!”
Gal Dong-tak declared boldly.
As the Green Forest Alliance Leader, Gal Dong-tak was burdened with endless public and private duties.
It was truly regrettable, but he could not escort Cheongho to Azure Forest himself.
That was a stroke of luck for Jang Man-chun.
“I-I will safely attend the young master all the way to Azure Forest!”
“Oh, you?”
“My name is Jang Man-chun!”
Jang Man-chun immediately volunteered to go along and help Cheongho.
He stepped forward while all the other bandits merely rolled their eyes and hesitated.
“Good. It is reassuring when a fellow brother steps up and offers to help.”
Gal Dong-tak draped an arm around Jang Man-chun’s shoulders.
“I like people who have the will to survive.”
“……”
Jang Man-chun swallowed hard.
As expected, the Alliance Leader had noticed that he was the one who had poisoned the fort leader.
“I’ll see you again. Come to the main fort when this is over.”
“I-I will devote my very life!”
It was the moment Jang Man-chun’s lifespan was extended.
“And this.”
What Gal Dong-tak took from his clothes was a jade-tinted token.
On the jade token, which was about the width of two fingers together, were written the words ‘Way of the Green Forest.’
“I-isn’t that the Green Jade Token!”
Jang Man-chun recognized it.
Gal Dong-tak handed the Green Jade Token to Cheongho.
“Anywhere, if you show this to one of the brothers of the Green Forest, they’ll help you in every way they can.”
“In every way?”
“It means they’ll do anything for you.”
Literally anything.
The Green Jade Token was the Alliance Leader’s insignia, and all Green Forest bandits were required to respect its authority.
“Thanks.”
Cheongho tucked the Green Jade Token into his clothes.
“So you’re leaving right away.”
“Yeah. I don’t have time.”
To Jang Man-chun’s delight, Cheongho set out immediately.
“Go well!”
With the Green Jade Token in hand.
One bandit, and one yokai who wanted to become human.
The two of them headed for Sichuan.
And there was another party passing through Sichuan on their way to Azure Forest in Hunan.
It was Princess Sang-ye and her escort, So-ryu.
TL/N: Korean for World is Heaven Earth, hence 4 characters ↩️
