Chapter 6: Chapter 6

“…Excuse me? Can you hear my voice…?”

Stopping his attempt to mount Jojo’s saddle, Jang Geon walked toward the direction of the voice. Jojo snorted and slowly followed behind.

Walking while avoiding the corpses fallen here and there, Jang Geon soon discovered a man lying face-up toward the sky. His complexion was pale from losing a lot of blood.

Looking up at Jang Geon’s face beneath the bamboo hat as he stood with his back to the sun, he was trembling violently.

“…Hello?”

Jang Geon merely gave a silent nod. But that seemed to be a sufficient answer for the man, as he formed a faint smile.

“Excuse me, sorry for asking upon our first meeting, but please grant me just one favor. My son is hiding inside that wagon. I made a small space beneath the wagon floor.”

At his words, Jang Geon’s gaze shifted to the wagon. Perhaps because the wagon walls were quite thick, no sign of presence could be felt from here.

“…I am truly sorry, asking a savior who already defeated the bandits for such a thing, but could you save my son, my boy? He’s a boy who just turned ten… Alone, he will starve to death here. The child is smart, but he’s very fearful.”

“What about his mother?”

At the question from Jang Geon, who was gazing at the wagon, the dying man smiled bitterly.

“His mother departed this world long ago… Not long after giving birth to him. His mother’s family blamed it on the child… So I left all household possessions behind and came to this New Continent… I wanted to live a new life with my child…”

As his mind grew increasingly faint, the man babbled incoherently. Jang Geon turned his gaze from the wagon back to the man.

“I’m not good at babysitting. I like kids, but they say I’m no fun.”

“…Even so, I beg of you. Three days east of here, there is a town. A place called Cheongsan Valley. My child’s aunt lives there. Unlike the rest of his mother’s family, she was someone who loved our boy, and she’s learned martial arts and has great capability, so she will reward you well for delivering the child. So…”

“Are you not going together?”

The man looked up at Jang Geon with a moment of utter disbelief in his eyes.

“…That is… I have lost far too much blood right now… and there’s a hole in my belly… Of course, if I could go together, I would ask for nothing more…”

Jang Geon nodded and knelt down on one knee beside the man. Ignoring the man’s doubtful eyes, he inspected the wounded area. For a man with a hole in his belly, he spoke quite well, so it seemed he had avoided vital organs. Of course, he had still lost a lot of blood, and it was streaming out even now.

“Excuse me… By any chance, are you a physician?”

“Nope.”

The man’s face contorted strangely. It was an expression of being unable to understand Jang Geon’s actions. Could it be that he felt it too bothersome to grant the request of taking the child? The man felt a dismal feeling rising from inside his chest.

Seeing his expression, Jang Geon could guess what he was thinking. Snorting softly, he quickly extended his hand and sealed the acupoints around the wound. Though the blood already lost couldn’t be helped, this would stop the bleeding, and that would be sufficient.

“Do you have medicine and bandages?”

The man stared blankly at Jang Geon tapping his belly twice and the bleeding stopping, then answered in startled surprise:

“Ah, yes. Th-They should be in the wagon. …By the way, what did you just do? Could that be acupoint sealing? With your bare hands?”

Jang Geon rose to his feet with a silent smile. And walking toward the wagon, he thought to himself. A Martial World where bare-handed acupoint sealing was considered a marvelous skill.

In this land, acupoint sealing was an act where a skilled physician slowly found acupoints and drove thick needles into them. Moreover, taking a long time to learn and master, it was a technique used only by physicians with long experience. Martial artists who cultivated internal energy also knew acupoints well through their own bodies, but the act of sealing acupoints was spread like common sense as an act performed by physicians.

They simply couldn’t even conceive the idea of embedding their own internal energy into bare fingers to block an opponent’s acupoints or cause abnormal phenomena. Of course, that was also because martial artists’ heads were filled only with thoughts of using internal energy to tear and shatter the opponent’s flesh. The same went for others, so Jang Geon could never forget the doubtful look the physician master had sent him when he first learned acupoint sealing.

Harboring brief thoughts as he approached the wagon, Jang Geon confirmed the wide-open door and the corpse sprawling inside. Dragging the corpse out and laying it outside the wagon, he looked around the interior cluttered by the bandits, pulled out bandages, powdered medicine, and one intact upper garment, then returned to the man.

Gazing at the returning Jang Geon, the man spoke.

“…Come to think of it, I haven’t even heard my savior’s name. I am Yi Yun.”

“Jang Geon.”

Stripping off Yi Yun’s tattered clothes, Jang Geon sprinkled powdered medicine and wrapped bandages around him. Putting on the clothes he brought, Yi Yun staggered but tried hard to raise his body.

“I must go to my child, to Hwan-ie.”

Watching him, it felt like he would collapse right over, so while letting out a mild sigh, Jang Geon supported him. Staggering over to the wagon, Yi Yun lightly tapped the floor in a corner of the wagon with his fist.

“Hwan-ah, are you okay? Hwan-ah?”

A moment later, something clattered, and a portion of the floor slid open. Inside, a young boy checked Yi Yun’s appearance with tear-filled eyes, then threw himself into his arms.

“Aigoo, H-Hwan-ah! Your father’s gonna die! It hurts!”

Startled by Yi Yun’s groans of pain, the boy quickly backed off. Only then did the fella see his father’s bandages and ask with a terror-stricken face:

“Daddy, what is it? Why are you like this?”

“Ahem. I took a sword hit as well.”

“What? A sword hit? Daddy, are you okay?”

Only then did Yi Yun feel the reality that he was alive and seeing his son’s face again, smiling softly before collapsing onto his rear.

“Daddy!”

Startled, the boy quickly supported his father. Seeing his closed eyes, the fella was about to burst out crying. Disliking the child crying, Jang Geon quickly grabbed the fella’s shoulder.

“He just fainted briefly. Because his tension released.”

“H-Huh? He didn’t die?”

“He didn’t die.”

The boy stared at the fainted Yi Yun, then looked up at Jang Geon and asked in a cute tone:

“Mister, who are you?”

“Jang Geon.”

“If you say it like that, how am I supposed to know?”

Jang Geon was momentarily stunned by the fella’s cheeky words, then let out a snort. Was this what being smart meant?

“Is there luggage to pack?”

“…Luggage?”

“It seems we can’t take the wagon. Looks like the wheel is broken. I’ll bring over a horse for you and your father to ride, so pack up your luggage.”

Before the fella could even answer, Jang Geon turned his body around. Most of the bandits’ horses had fled far away when their masters died, but one dark horse remained. Seeing it circling around the dead bandit leader, it seemed to have been that man’s mount.

Pulling the reins of that horse, a thought suddenly crossed Jang Geon’s mind, and he approached the dead leader. He picked up one of the dead man’s large swords from the ground and attempted to sever the leader’s head. It was for the bounty.

However, he paused briefly, as the words of the child’s father from moments ago came to mind.

“…Three days. It’ll rot.”

Would there be a town on the way? Having a child along, carrying a severed head was also somewhat inappropriate.

Yet it was also true that he was short on money. Shaking his head slightly, Jang Geon struck down with the sword and severed the head. Then he wrapped the head tightly with the leader’s clothes and the clothes of nearby bandits. That way, the head’s volume nearly doubled.

Securing the head, Jang Geon rummaged through the leader’s body. Like the fella who only fleeced poor travelers, there was no money, but some rectangular copper token came out. Engraved on it were the words ‘3rd Unit Leader’ on one side, and ‘Gam Sundeok’ on the other.

“So you were Mr. Gam Sundeok.”

3rd Unit Leader. Perhaps there were a 1st Unit and 2nd Unit as well. They might come seeking revenge for their comrade. Jang Geon didn’t particularly mind. In fact, it was better if they came. Because if they were comrades of a guy like this, those fellas would be trash with bounties on them too.

Pocketing the copper token and hanging the head on Jojo’s saddle, Jang Geon led the horse over to the wagon. There he saw the child holding a luggage bundle with a thoroughly stiffened expression. He had evidently seen the dead people fallen nearby. Having regained consciousness and stood up, Yi Yun was stroking the boy’s head beside him.

Handing over the reins, Jang Geon spoke.

“Let’s go.”

“…Going? Are you going to escort us?”

“You said you’d pay money. Was the capable aunt in Cheongsan Valley a lie?”

Yi Yun looked at Jang Geon with a somewhat blank face. Though he couldn’t tell what was what, this indifferent yet extraordinarily skilled swordsman at least didn’t seem like an evil person. Just considering his defeating the bandits and wrapping his wounds, he could have demanded property right then, but he did not.

“…No. Hwan’s aunt had good capabilities, so she must have accumulated plenty of property. I also have money I invested there in the past.”

“Then let’s go. I don’t want to stay in this field of corpses any longer.”

Watching Jang Geon mount his horse, Yi Yun hesitated briefly. If possible, he wanted to bury these people. Even if they were just people he traveled with briefly because their journeys overlapped, they were good people. But his body was injured and Yi Hwan was still a child, so the only person to dig graves was Jang Geon.

“Daddy.”

Just then, Yi Hwan tugged at his father’s collar. Surprised, Yi Yun lowered his head to meet his son’s face, gazed into those clear eyes for a moment, and ultimately nodded. Mounting Yi Hwan onto the horse first, he climbed up behind and held the boy. His hand holding the reins trembled slightly.

“Yes, let’s go. Let’s hurry.”

Orienting themselves by the sky, they quickly galloped their horses away from the place. The child kept trying to look back, but Yi Yun stopped him.

Now the wind and rain, and the beasts of the field, would erase them. Jang Geon could not know whether they would become ghosts harboring grudges wandering the Nine Heavens, or go to a peaceful heaven, or reincarnate like him. But if possible, he hoped they went to a place where they could forget the pain and hardship of life. That brief thought was the entirety of the condolence he could offer in this wilderness.

Jang Geon and the father-son pair, Yi Yun and Yi Hwan, could not ride for long despite galloping vigorously at first. It was because Yi Yun struggled. It was only natural. A commoner who had a hole in his belly and was bleeding profusely riding a horse was a grand feat in itself.

Ultimately, before the sun even stained the sunset, they had to stop their horses and set up a small campsite. After finishing dinner with simple dry rations, they spread out blankets and lay down. Jang Geon wanted to play a light prank on Yi Hwan, but gave up upon seeing the boy’s gloomy face.

Instead, looking at Yi Yun who seemed uncomfortable from the abdominal wound, he asked:

“Is there a town before reaching that place called Cheongsan Valley?”

“Ah, yes. There is one. A lakeside village called Namjak Bay. It’s a small place. They say there isn’t even a single inn. It was originally a place our group intended to stop by.”

“When will we arrive there?”

Yi Yun let out a soft sigh.

“Well. Originally, if traveling only on horseback, we should arrive before noon tomorrow…”

Jang Geon nodded. Then no matter how delayed by Yi Yun’s condition, they could arrive by evening at the latest. And even if there was no inn there, they would be able to procure emergency medicine at least. When Jang Geon inspected him, it wasn’t very dangerous, but he was a quack who had learned medicine just to master acupoint sealing. He couldn’t know all health conditions just by looking at the circulation of Qi.

If he went through the trouble of bringing him along only for him to suddenly collapse and die a few days later, he would have nothing to say to the child. Jang Geon decided to set the itinerary like that. Yi Yun and Yi Hwan had no reason to object.

* * *

Under the blazing sunlight, the fallen corpses were rotting rapidly. A few birds of prey had already landed cunningly and plucked out the corpses’ eyeballs.

Two people arrived there riding horses. Both wore wide bamboo hats and grey windproof coats. Slowly looking around the area, they soon dismounted and inspected the condition of the corpses.

One person crouched down to examine a corpse. Strapped to her back was a sword that was not long, but possessed a blade width half a span broad.

“Time of death was yesterday afternoon. They all died at similar times.”

It was a slightly low female voice. Despite the brief words, the woman’s composure and strictness seemed to show through.

“These corpses, they’re those fellas, right? The Red Sand Bandits. Seems they fought among themselves while plundering the wagon.”

Standing behind her holding the horses’ reins, the person appeared to be a man. Lifting his bamboo hat slightly to check the surroundings, he spoke.

“Looking roughly at the numbers, they’re all dead.”

“Not all. When plundering, those fellas divide themselves into three groups and gather in one place later to split the looted goods. These fellas are just one of them.”

“Well, still, it’s a relief the numbers decreased. I thought it made no sense for the two of us to handle all of those fellas this time.”

Crossing her hands, the woman looked around and scolded the man.

“We have to earn the cost of the spiritual elixir we took from the Alliance. If they ask you to return all that in money, can you pay it?”

“…That’s not it, though.”

Smiling faintly at the man’s crestfallen answer, the woman soon hardened her face and stood up.

“This is interesting.”

“Why?”

“It seems the people in the wagon couldn’t offer much resistance.”

“Huh? Then what is it?”

“Someone else intervened later. Someone different from the people of the wagon.”

“Someone different?”

“One person.”

Walking slowly, the woman took in each dead Red Sand Bandit corpse one by one. And finally, her eyes stopped on the headless corpse fallen forward.

“This guy was quite skilled. Perhaps he might be one of the three Unit Leaders of the Red Sand Bandits.”

“…Senior, how on earth do you tell such things just by looking at corpses? I can’t tell even if I look.”

“Do some studying. Don’t just go to taverns every day.”

At the consecutive scoldings, the man wore a sullen expression. But the woman seemed to have no capacity to mind his expression. Moving rapidly around the scene, she muttered:

“…Exchanged one strike. The opponent is a master as well. The rest of the bandits died without even offering proper resistance to that master… The people of the wagon targeted by the bandits were mostly commoners… But one person survived. No, two. One child. One… father, perhaps? They departed on horseback together with the master. But it seems there’s an injury on the father’s side.”

The man clicked his tongue in admiration.

“Senior, really, inspecting scene conditions, it feels like you’re better than the Team Captain. Can’t you just be the Patrol Team Captain? What is that guy good at besides flattering the higher-ups?”

Just then, the woman suddenly crouched back down and inspected the ground. The man quickly approached and asked,

“Why? Is there something else?”

Examining the ground for a moment, the woman removed her bamboo hat and looked toward the east.

“…There was a prior guest. A small group entered this scene and inspected the situation. Likely the other two Unit Leaders of the Red Sand Bandits. The time… was during this morning.”

Revealed as she removed her bamboo hat, the woman’s face was quite beautiful. Thanks to thick eyebrows and distinct features, she bore a strong impression, but that rather added a charm of its own.

However, her face was covered with scars. A large scar diagonally crossing her face from her left forehead to her right cheek, and not small scars below her lips and on her left cheek. It was a face from which someone seeing her for the first time could hardly take their eyes off.

“This morning? That wasn’t long ago?”

“Indeed. So we must give chase quickly.”

Putting her bamboo hat back on as she stood up, the woman took the horse reins from the man, mounted, and immediately galloped her horse. Both rapidly disappeared toward the east. Thanks to the windproof coats fluttering in the wind, their martial robes were faintly exposed, showing large, clear characters reading ‘Martial World ‘ on their left shoulders and chests.

A moment later, in the place where those uninvited guests disappeared, black crows and birds descended once more. They resumed the feast that had been abruptly interrupted by the strangers.