Lawless Zone (3)

Seon-yeong was a lawless zone. Except for murder and arson, the Kunlun people became deaf and mute toward every act. It took no time at all for the people of the Cheongjeong Taoist School to become corrupt.

Neung Je-gang had a new set of night-travel clothes prepared and wore them for the first time in a while. In truth, this was something Je So-yeon had brought with her when she left Antang Mountain. Since she knew he preferred black night-travel clothes, she had deliberately packed them.

Bright lights were lit all over Seon-yeong. Neung Je-gang first returned to the bamboo grove behind the Governor-General Office. U Ha-pyeong was still nailed in place there.

After checking whether anything had changed in the surroundings, Neung Je-gang appeared before U Ha-pyeong. When someone approached, U Ha-pyeong brightened, but when he saw Neung Je-gang’s face, he frowned.

“Are you glad to see me?”

Of course, there was no answer.

Neung Je-gang released U Ha-pyeong’s mute point. Blocking sound waves with internal power had now become too easy for him.

“S-Secret Shadow!”

Even though his demon point had been pressed, he could still hear. U Ha-pyeong had clearly heard Neung Je-gang tell Court Lady Ha that he was Secret Shadow.

“Do you know me?”

“I do not.”

“You must know me. You also once came to Seon-yeong with Byeon Bong, didn’t you?”

“With the Territory Lord? Wh-when do you mean?”

“Why? You know, back then. On the day Dam Yeo-yeong became engaged. You came then, didn’t you?”

“Th-that is true. But why?”

U Ha-pyeong could not understand why Secret Shadow was bringing up the matter from back then.

“I was the son of that household at the time.”

“Huh!”

Only then did U Ha-pyeong understand why Neung Je-gang had asked about that time. And he regretted answering that he had. It had been so long ago that he had never imagined there would be future consequences because of what had happened then.

“Shall I tell you what happened to Byeon Bong?”

“The Territory Lord? Are you saying the Territory Lord was defeated by you?”

“First, Byeon Bong had his arms and legs cut off. Then his eyes and ears were removed, and his mute point was pressed so he could not speak. Ah, I left his tongue and teeth alone. He needs those to eat and live.”

“Y-you did not kill him?”

“That’s right. I didn’t kill him. I made him like that and let him live. If I killed him too easily, revenge wouldn’t be fun.”

“H-how could that be……!”

U Ha-pyeong looked at Neung Je-gang’s smiling face with horrified eyes. He had made a person like that and was smiling. Even they had never done something so cruel.

“You vicious……!”

“What should I do with you? Since you seem to be fond of women, I should first make you a eunuch, shouldn’t I?”

“Huk!”

For U Ha-pyeong, who found the joy of life in women, this was like a bolt from the blue.

“J-just kill me. Please kill me.”

He would rather die. After all, there were too many women in the world to live as a eunuch.

“After that, it would be best to cut off one arm and one leg from you too, wouldn’t it? That way, people will pity you and at least give you something to eat. Ah, I suppose it would be better to pluck out your eyeballs too. If you see people looking at you as though they pity you, you might want to die. Right?”

“……”

U Ha-pyeong no longer answered. He had finally entered a state of resignation. He instinctively felt that no matter what he begged for, Neung Je-gang would not listen.

“Still, I should leave your ears. You need to know what people say about you. That way, you can reflect on yourself. Right?”

“Uwaaaaaah! Kill me, kill me, please!”

U Ha-pyeong went mad. He imagined himself with only his ears and mouth left intact. He could not live like that.

But to him, who had fallen into despair, Neung Je-gang threw the bait called hope.

“If you answer my questions well……”

“W-will you spare me?”

The man who had asked to be killed immediately wanted to live once hope appeared.

“That might happen.”

“A-anything……”

U Ha-pyeong became ready to answer any question at all.

“Among the people of Kunlun Sect, whose death would cause the greatest shock?”

It was a completely unexpected question. He had thought Neung Je-gang would ask how many people there were, or who was staying where.

“M-most likely the Sect Leader……”

“More than if Deung Myeong died?”

“H-he has lost so much popularity……”

“Ho! Then does that mean Jeong Hoe-ja has not lost popularity?”

“In any case, the Sect Leader’s orders take priority over everything else, so they consider it natural to do whatever the Sect Leader tells them to do……”

“Do you know what martial art Deung Myeong mainly trained in?”

“I-I do not know that well……. Ah, I think I heard in passing that he had trained in the Formless Divine Art……”

“Formless Divine Art? Did Kunlun have something like that?”

“I do not know that well. I only heard it mentioned.”

“Good! Then where is Jeong Hoe-ja?”

Only now did the question he had been waiting for begin.

“In the Necromancer Cult’s camp.”

“Right, while you lot were causing trouble in the military camp, there were people who infiltrated the Martial Alliance. Where are they now?”

“The ones who attacked the Martial Alliance were all of them.”

“All of them? Just one person?”

“Wh-what……? There should have been dozens of them.”

“Are you joking? It seems you don’t want to live.”

“I-it is true. They really said dozens of them remained. They said all of them would attack. C-could they have run away……?”

“Run away?”

“Deung Myeong said it. He planned to send them to the Martial Alliance and make them die. He said they were no longer needed.”

“Was there internal conflict?”

“What internal conflict? Those bastards were originally expendable. They are the real Necromancer Cultists.”

“What?”

“I heard they were survivors of the Necromancer Cult that vanished in the past. Once the empire was established, they would no longer be needed, so it was time to discard them……”

“So after using them thoroughly, now they are throwing them away?”

“That is right.”

As the conversation grew longer, U Ha-pyeong seemed to have regained his composure.

“Tell me the residences of the important people you know.”

“As I said, the Sect Leader is in the Necromancer Cult camp. The Great Elder went to Tianshan……”

“Great Elder?”

“Great Elder Deung Gak. When we call him, we call him Great Elder or Mountain Lord.”

“If he is the Mountain Lord, does that mean he is the lord of Kunlun Mountain?”

“Well, only he would know which mountain it is. Deung Hyeon is in the Martial Alliance. I do not know exactly where. I also do not know who he has transformed into.”

“Is he not the Vice Alliance Leader?”

“The Tianshan Divine Sword is Deung Hyeon?”

The Vice Alliance Leader of the Martial Alliance had the sobriquet Tianshan Divine Sword. U Ha-pyeong’s eyes widened as if this was the first time he had ever heard of it.

“You didn’t know?”

“Of course I did not know. In fact, I have never seen him even once. At times, I even found it hard to believe he was a real person.”

“They hid him that much, even from their own side? Then those Deung clansmen never trusted you from the beginning.”

“D-does it become that? It does. If they truly trusted us, there would have been no need to hide him. Hehehe! I helped them my entire life, yet I was never even trusted?”

For a moment, U Ha-pyeong wore a blank, devastated expression. It was the moment his faith in the place he had belonged to all his life began to shake.

“At any rate, I do not know Deung Hyeon’s location. And the other elders of Kunlun……”

U Ha-pyeong told him all the places where the elder-level and higher masters he knew were staying. They had mostly chosen decent-looking buildings in Seon-yeong and made them their residences.

“I have told you everything now. If there is nothing else you want to know, kill me.”

Unexpectedly, U Ha-pyeong did not ask to be spared.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to live?”

“I knew you would not spare me even if I told you everything. If I met someone who killed my family, I would not let him live either. Did you really make Territory Lord Byeon Bong like that?”

“Yes, I made him like that and abandoned him in a village marketplace. If he meets good people, he can live like that at least. If he is unlucky, he may already be dead.”

“Hehehe! I knew it. Hehe! Poor man. He spent his whole life doing dark deeds, and in the end he was devoured by that darkness. Fine. Don’t make me like that. Just kill me cleanly, and I will have no regrets.”

U Ha-pyeong was dignity itself. How such a person had ended up joining a place like Jieun Territory, and had become someone who could not control himself around women, was hard to know.

“You ask me to kill you, then let us do this. I will destroy your brain in an instant, so you will die without even knowing pain.”

Srrk.

Neung Je-gang infused internal power into his finger. Then his hand moved toward U Ha-pyeong’s head. Just as that finger was about to touch U Ha-pyeong’s head,

“W-wait! I have something to say.”

“What is it?”

“Isn’t this too much? I answered everything you asked properly, so why are you insisting on killing me? Hm? You could just cripple my martial arts and spare me. I want to live.”

“Didn’t you tell me to kill you?”

“I-I thought if I said that, you would spare me. Haven’t you read old storybooks?”

That was what U Ha-pyeong had been aiming for from the start. He had a shallow idea that if he pretended to repent and asked to be killed, Neung Je-gang might spare him.

But he knew far too little about Neung Je-gang. Whether he answered well or not, Neung Je-gang had no intention of sparing him anyway. Had he ever promised to spare him? He had merely said it might happen. And now, because U Ha-pyeong had tried to deceive him, he had even less desire to spare him.

“Just die. You are annoying.”

Thud.

The moment his finger brushed U Ha-pyeong’s head, U Ha-pyeong sprayed blood from his seven orifices and slowly collapsed backward. A bleak wind blew, sending dry bamboo leaves fluttering down to pile over his fallen body. He would die like that and be reborn as nourishment for the bamboo.