Chapter 32: The Earnestness That Overcame Fear
From the carriage set up on one side of a mountain path where the sun had set and darkness had fallen…….
“Grrrrk, phoo.”
Amid the loud snoring that leaked out, three people, including Yul Han, were sitting around a campfire.
Cold Blade Blood, after glancing sidelong at Blood Wolf stretched long at his feet, spoke in a dumbfounded voice.
“How is that thing supposed to be the Blood Wolf that supposedly chews tigers alive? It’s just a mutt sprawled out sleeping next to its master.”
Despite Cold Blade Blood’s rebuke, Blood Wolf did not even twitch, merely dozing while rumbling softly.
At the sight, Yul Han smiled bitterly and stroked Blood Wolf’s head. It was meant as affection, but Blood Wolf jolted awake in surprise.
Even so, it did not leap up or anything of the sort. It only pressed its belly flatter to the ground and wagged its tail with an expression that seemed to say it was already dead.
As Yul Han smiled again and continued stroking it, Cold Blade Blood could clearly see it each time the hand passed over—Blood Wolf’s nape quivered and trembled.
Realizing it was trembling out of fear, Cold Blade Blood snickered. It was as if he were pleased that he was not the only one afraid of the Vice Cult Leader.
Flashing Light Blood, who had been looking at Cold Blade Blood with disbelief, shifted his gaze to the carriage and asked,
“Who do you think it is?”
“We’ll know when she wakes up.”
At Yul Han’s calm reply, Flashing Light Blood spoke worriedly.
“Won’t this cause trouble for no reason?”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Well, once you save someone from drowning, the world expects you to hand over a bundle in return……. What if she starts screaming that she lost something…….”
Cold Blade Blood picked up Flashing Light Blood’s words.
“I agree. Totally possible. Judging from how she was cursing earlier, I’m afraid she might demand we take responsibility. Shouldn’t we just dump her and go even now? Vice Cult Leader.”
“To treat someone in hardship like that goes against what is right.”
“Yes? What is right……?”
“Yes. What is right! And since it came up, let me say this as well. From now on, I would like you to speak properly. Calling a woman you just met things like ‘lunatic’ or ‘crazy bitch’—it is right not to say such things carelessly.”
At Yul Han’s words, Cold Blade Blood looked more shocked and more dumbfounded than when a drunken woman had hurled curses at him for no reason.
At that moment, Flashing Light Blood poked Cold Blade Blood in the side.
“Ow!”
Flashing Light Blood repeatedly shot sidelong glances at Cold Blade Blood, who was glaring at him fiercely.
After confirming that those glances were directed toward the Vice Cult Leader, Cold Blade Blood turned his eyes away and had to hastily draw in a breath.
“Gasp!”
It was because he had met head-on the Vice Cult Leader’s savage gaze, as if he might pounce at any moment and tear out his throat.
“I, I’m sorry!”
Cold Blade Blood bowed his head deeper than ever before, and with genuine sincerity. Only then did the murderous aura in Yul Han’s eyes finally subside.
“When you are corrected for a mistake, acknowledging it is righteousness, and fixing it is justice. Do not forget that.”
“Righteousness, justice. Ah! Yes, Vice Cult Leader.”
Honestly, he did not want to remember it, nor did he understand it. Justice, out of the blue. It was like banging on a shutter in one’s sleep.
That someone from the Bright Cult, the progenitor of the Demonic Path, would speak of ‘justice,’ something only Hundred Paths riffraff would prattle about, was absurd.
Even so, he had to survive.
Cold Blade Blood bowed his head dutifully and neatly concealed his thoughts.
Looking at him, Flashing Light Blood smiled bitterly and asked cautiously.
“Do you intend to take care of her to the end?”
“To the end?”
“I’m asking whether you intend to take her along.”
“To the Bright Cult?”
“Yes. She is pretty, after all. If you do decide that, I’ll prepare the necessary bit or rope.”
Though his tone differed slightly from Cold Blade Blood’s, Flashing Light Blood’s words were still nonsense, and once again Yul Han could only sigh with displeasure.
“Haa…….”
At Yul Han’s sigh, Flashing Light Blood lowered his head weakly in fluster, while Cold Blade Blood curled his lips into a grin as if to say he knew it would turn out this way.
Thus, on the uncommunicative mountain path, the night grew deeper.
Only long after the sun had risen did the woman finally rise from the carriage, looking disheveled.
After standing up, she looked around for quite some time, and then—
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
At the sudden scream, the three men, including Yul Han, rushed over.
“W-What is it! What’s going on!”
At Yul Han’s startled question, the woman who had screamed saw Yul Han and the others and screamed again.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
As the three men stared blankly, not understanding what was going on, the woman screamed for quite a while, and then—
“She’s crying. That really was a crazy bitch…….”
Cold Blade Blood’s mouth snapped shut mid-sentence as he felt a sharp gaze and turned his head.
It was because he had met Yul Han’s fierce eyes head-on.
With a displeased look that sealed Cold Blade Blood’s mouth, Yul Han asked the woman,
“Miss. Why are you crying?”
“Bad man! Bad man! Baaad maaaan!”
Cold Blade Blood, Flashing Light Blood, and the woman who shouted “Bad man” at Yul Han at the end all had tears welling at the corners of their eyes.
“I don’t know what on earth you were thinking, but we have never done anything that would deserve to be called that by you, miss.”
“Never did! Don’t make me laugh! Then why was I inside a carriage when I was alone on a mountain path? Yeah, I get it, I must’ve been pretty. I know! But this isn’t right, is it? What were you planning to do? Were you going to just jump me? Or sell me? Is that why you got me drunk!”
“Um, miss. You drank the alcohol yourself—”
“Bad men! Stop lying and answer straight. What are you guys? Human traffickers? Or kidnappers? Is it because I looked like I had some money? Or—do you happen to know my father? Is that why you’re doing this? What, did you get screwed over by him? Did he ruin your shop and destroy your family or something, so this is revenge?”
After staring for a long while at the woman who continued pouring out utterly incomprehensible stories one-sidedly, Yul Han shook his head and muttered softly.
“Crazy bitch…….”
While Flashing Light Blood desperately held back Cold Blade Blood, who insisted they should beat her first and think later, Yul Han went through countless rounds of persuasion.
In the end, he succeeded in making the woman understand that they had no intention of doing anything to her, and that nothing at all had happened the previous night.
Of course, the result was not exactly beautiful.
“You guys are eunuchs, right?”
At the woman’s question, Yul Han could not close his gaping mouth, and Flashing Light Blood had to break into a cold sweat stopping Cold Blade Blood from drawing his blade.
After yet another bout of commotion passed on the mountain path, Yul Han and the woman spoke again.
“So you’re saying you ran away from your father because he was trying to force you into a marriage?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Damn it. Why the hell should I marry that old bastard? No matter how important business is, how can you sell off your only daughter like that? Damn it. I’ll never accept that. I won’t. I can’t. Damn it. I’d rather die!”
“Miss. Please watch your language.”
“What, why? I can’t even speak my mind with my own mouth?”
At the woman’s shrill, curse-laced ranting, Yul Han wore a dazed expression.
Of course, to an outsider, it might have looked like the expression of someone debating whether to kill her or not.
And yet, even while facing Yul Han’s murderous gaze and expression, the woman did not flinch in the slightest.
Finding that strange, Cold Blade Blood stared blankly and muttered,
“I’m telling you, she definitely boiled and ate a tiger’s liver as a drinking snack yesterday. Otherwise, there’s no way she wouldn’t even twitch when my knees are practically knocking like this. Yeah.”
Flashing Light Blood nodded, as if he agreed completely.
One way or another, the reason the woman had been alone in the mountains was now explained.
The problem was—
“Why do you say you won’t go back?”
“Have you not been listening to a word I said? Are your ears blocked? I said I’m being forced into marriage. I hate that!”
“But that doesn’t mean you can just hold out like this in the mountains.”
“I can just follow wherever you guys go.”
At the woman’s brazen reply, Yul Han asked with a dumbfounded expression,
“Do you even know where we’re going?”
“I don’t.”
“And yet you still want to come along? Aren’t you afraid that something like what you feared might actually happen?”
“Afraid? At worst, you’d sell me to some brothel for a few coins, or kill me and dump my body in the mountains. That’s about it, right? Are you planning to do that?”
The moment the woman finished speaking, Cold Blade Blood’s shout exploded.
“Hey! Before we have a serious conversation, let me hit you a bit! That’ll knock some sense back into you!”
As Flashing Light Blood restrained the flailing Cold Blade Blood once again, Yul Han asked,
“Even knowing those risks, you still intend to come with us?”
“That’s what I said.”
Yul Han stared quietly for a moment at the woman, who answered indifferently and met his gaze head-on, then nodded.
“Very well. Let’s do that.”
At those words, silence instantly fell over the area.
The woman froze in place, and so did Cold Blade Blood and Flashing Light Blood, all too shocked to move.
After sweeping a glance over them, Yul Han stood and said,
“We’ve been delayed. Let’s hurry and move.”
As if that were a signal, the frozen scene came back to life and began moving again.
Being shocked was one thing, but once the Vice Cult Leader had given the order to move, they could not afford to hesitate.
While Cold Blade Blood and Flashing Light Blood moved busily, the woman watched Yul Han extinguish the campfire and cover it with soil, her eyes full of unease.
But only for a moment—when Yul Han looked back at her, she smiled brightly, as if she had never been anxious at all.
Yul Han gazed quietly at the woman, then moved again to help Cold Blade Blood and Flashing Light Blood clean up the surroundings.
And shortly after, preparations for the carriage’s departure were complete.
Watching the woman climb aboard first as if it were her own carriage, Flashing Light Blood approached Yul Han.
“Do you really intend to take her with us?”
“I believe I do.”
“It doesn’t seem like you intend to use her as a plaything, so why…… is that?”
“Blood is flowing from her hand. She clenched it so tightly in fear that her nails dug in.”
Hearing about something he himself had failed to notice, Flashing Light Blood looked startled, and Yul Han continued,
“And yet she still insisted on following us. That means she is that desperate. Turning away someone who desperately asks for help is not chivalry.”
Leaving only those words behind, Yul Han climbed onto the carriage with Blood Wolf. Flashing Light Blood could only stare blankly after him.
Having overheard their conversation, Cold Blade Blood thought,
‘The Vice Cult Leader’s caught whatever that crazy bitch has. As if justice wasn’t enough, now it’s chivalry. Damn it.’
Carrying Cold Blade Blood’s grumbling along with it, the carriage once again began racing down the mountain path.
Temple of the Mad Gale.
The master of the Qaidam Basin in central Cheonghae, and the leading seat of the Cheonghae Nine Demonic Sects—nine major demonic sects of Cheonghae.
Naturally, it was also one of the Eighteen Demonic Sects under the Bright Cult. Though it served the Bright Cult as the progenitor of the Demonic Path, the Temple of the Mad Gale was, without question, the hegemon of Cheonghae.
At least within Cheonghae, their word was the law.
From that Temple of the Mad Gale, dozens of men with vicious faces rushed out. They were setting off to search after hearing news that the young lord’s bride-to-be had gone missing.
The one commanding these experts of the Temple of the Mad Gale was the Vice Temple Lord, Snake Sword Gye-pil.
“Why the hell do I have to go looking for some woman who ran off!”
Gye-pil grumbled as he ran, and a man with an equally sharp-looking face approached his side.
“Where should we set our search area?”
“The escort hall where she was staying has already been combed inside out by the Golden Flower Hall’s warriors, so sweep the surrounding area. Take a few men and search the eastern side of the escort hall. I’ll search the west.”
“Then do we leave the north and south empty?”
“If the woman had any sense left, she wouldn’t have gone north, where the Northern Demonic Forest is, or south, where the Republican Prison is. Those places are crawling with lunatics obsessed with sex.”
Thinking Gye-pil’s words made sense, the subordinate immediately bowed his head, then split off from the group with over ten men.
Most likely, he would follow Gye-pil’s orders and continue the search through the eastern area of the escort hall.
Turning his gaze away from the subordinate disappearing into the distance, Gye-pil muttered again,
“Damn woman!”
Gye-pil was still deeply displeased at having to go out searching for a woman who had run away.