Our objective wasn’t to kill them, but to subdue them.
We needed someone alive who could tell us what this place really was.
That was why we had extinguished the lights.
The darker it was, the greater the advantage for a small, elite group like ours.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Tap tap tap!
We subdued them, then sealed their acupoints so they couldn’t resist.
Afterward, we pulled the cloth off the Night Pearl.
Flash!
The surroundings were suddenly flooded with light, and the men guarding the underground prison recoiled in agony, as though the abrupt brightness had damaged their eyes.
We had subdued ten men in total.
I ordered them all blindfolded except for one.
“Urgh!”
“Ugh!”
“W-who are you?”
“Do you really think you’ll get away with this?”
Thud!
Pow!
They couldn’t move a muscle, yet they still kept running their mouths.
The Escort Guards each slammed a fist into the prisoner they had subdued.
“Ghk!”
“Keugh!”
It was a sharp reminder of their current predicament.
Thanks to that, the area quickly fell silent.
“Cowardly dogs always bark the loudest. You don’t need to wonder who we are or why we’re doing this. Just answer my questions.”
I continued.
“What is this underground prison for?”
One of them answered my question.
“You think we’d just tell you…”
“I already know you won’t tell me willingly, and I know exactly what I need to do to make you talk.”
Shnk!
Escort Guard Yeo Eung-am raised his sword, drove it into the thigh of the one man who hadn’t been blindfolded, and twisted.
“Aaaaaaargh!”
At that agonized scream, the blindfolded men began to tremble.
Whenever someone lost their sight, their hearing and sense of smell naturally became more sensitive.
That meant they could hear the scream as steel sank into flesh and smell the blood that followed, leaving their imaginations to fill in the rest.
And the human imagination was often far more horrifying than reality.
I turned to look at the Life-Seizing Wanderer.
He wore a conflicted expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“Something… feels strange.”
“What does?”
“I was told you were unquestionably a good man, Brother, but what I’m seeing right now is…”
“Not very good?”
He flinched at my question, then nodded.
“Sometimes, even I think I’m acting like a demon. There are moments when I wonder whether I truly need to go this far.”
I gave a faint chuckle.
“But I’ve learned that there are times when you must act like a demon to save someone. If you insist on being kind to everyone, you may fail to save a single person – and even bring your own life to an early end.”
“Being a chivalrous hero… isn’t easy.”
I nodded.
“Good and evil have always been two sides of the same coin. To these men, I’m evil. But to the people imprisoned here, I’m probably good.”
“…”
I’d assumed a man who had earned so many epithets would understand the world better than most, but apparently not.
“So…”
I grinned as I looked over the subdued men.
“What I’m saying is, if you don’t answer nicely, you’ll find out exactly how far I’m willing to go.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Escort Guard Yeo Eung-am twisted his sword again.
“Aaaaaaargh!”
“So you’d better start talking while you still can. It’ll be better for your health. Our lord is a truly frightening man.”
After Escort Guard Yeo Eung-am spoke, I added something of my own.
“The first man to speak gets a painless death.”
“…”
“Not interested? Would you prefer to die screaming?”
That immediately drew a response.
“N-no! I-I’ll talk!”
“Me! I’ll tell you!”
I lightly tapped one of them.
“You. Go ahead.”
“Yes, sir!”
He hurriedly spoke.
“Th-this place is an underground prison.”
“I already know that. And I’m a rather impatient man, so I may decide to give someone else your chance…”
“Our superiors decided these people were interfering with their plans, so they ordered us to imprison them here.”
Interfering…
“That doesn’t make sense. If they were an obstacle, why not simply kill them instead of going through all this trouble…?”
My question was answered from elsewhere.
“Because killing us would be a waste.”
The voice was faint and weak, but it carried clearly enough.
I turned toward the source.
A young man sat inside one of the cells, watching us.
His clothes were ragged and badly frayed, yet his gaze remained lucid and keen.
“Are you, by any chance, the great hero known as the Handsome Young Hero?”
“That is what people call me. You know who I am.”
“I saw you at the Dragon-Phoenix Martial Gathering.”
“I see. Then who might you be, Young Lord?”
“My name is Yun Seong-jin, of the Jinso Yun Clan in Anhui.”
What? Yun Seong-jin of the Jinso Yun Clan?
I couldn’t help being startled. Even I had heard of him.
“Are you the Young Lord Yun who was said to have disappeared?”
There was a staggering reward of five hundred silver taels for information about him.
“Is that what people believe?”
“Yes. You’re known to have gone missing. How did you end up here?”
“Haah… When I regained consciousness, I was already in this place. From everything I’ve heard the people coming and going here say, I believe everyone imprisoned here interfered with their plans in some way, but was kept alive because they still had a use for us.”
“I see.”
Young Lord Yun calmly explained the situation.
In my previous life, he had never made it back.
“How many people are imprisoned here?”
“I don’t know the exact number, but there should be more than ten. That was roughly how many rice bowls they brought in on the meal cart.”
He had even kept track of the number of bowls on the cart. He was remarkably calm and strong-willed.
“Why were you imprisoned here, Young Lord Yun?”
“I don’t know that either.”
I turned toward the Unorthodox Sect men we had subdued.
They were trembling beneath their blindfolds.
I questioned the man in blue trousers whom I had selected earlier.
“So, where can I find your superiors?”
“Th-that’s…”
When I shook my head, Escort Guard Lee Pil drove his sword into the man’s shoulder and twisted.
“Aaaaaaargh!”
“Would anyone else care to answer?”
One of the Unorthodox Sect men hurriedly shouted.
“W-we belong to the Black Cat Sect! We only did what our Sect Leader ordered us to do!”
The Black Cat Sect…
We were in the very heart of Henan.
This was territory the Murim Alliance controlled with an iron grip.
And yet some organization calling itself the Black Cat Sect had supposedly done all this without any fear of the Murim Alliance?
Impossible.
This had to be happening with the Murim Alliance’s tacit approval – or under its direct orders.
“Freeing the prisoners should be our first priority.”
Young Lord Yun shook his head at my words.
“You can free us later. Even if we leave the underground prison now, we won’t be of any help.”
“Don’t tell me you were given Qi-Scattering Poison.”
“That’s correct.”
That explained it…
The Unorthodox Sect men guarding this place weren’t particularly skilled, yet there was a reason the prisoners had been unable to escape.
They had been prevented from using martial arts with Qi-Scattering Poison.
I had expected as much.
No matter how skilled a martial artist might be, without internal power, they were little different from an ordinary person who knew how to handle a weapon and had trained their body.
It would be a different story for someone trained in External Martial Arts, but there was no chance they would have imprisoned such a person here.
“Understood. In that case…”
I turned to the Unorthodox Sect men.
“Would anyone be willing to guide us to the Black Cat Sect?”
“…”
“No one? Then I suppose I’ll have to burn all of you alive…”
“I-I’ll guide you!”
Honestly, did I really have to threaten people every time before they would listen?
With that Unorthodox Sect warrior serving as our guide, I soon arrived at the Black Cat Sect.
“Hmm…”
“Heh heh heh. Well? Now do you see the might of our Black Cat Sect? You’re all dead men now.”
“…”
The Unorthodox Sect warrior beside me gave a vicious, smug laugh.
The Black Cat Sect was larger than I had expected, and it seemed to have a considerable number of martial artists.
“Just as you said, this place is large enough to throw its weight around.”
We had enough strength to defeat them, but not enough to guarantee that we would suffer no casualties.
How should I handle this…
Ah!
A smile slowly spread across my face, and the Life-Seizing Wanderer must have noticed because he spoke.
“Did you think of something good, Brother?”
I gave him a light smile.
“Life-Seizing Wanderer.”
“Yes?”
“Suppose someone secretly prepared a meal to eat without anyone knowing. Then another person comes along and tells him to throw it away because it’s spoiled, even though there’s nothing wrong with it. The man prepared it himself, but he’s in no position to admit that the food isn’t spoiled. In the end, he can’t eat a single bite and has to throw away a meal he spent both time and money preparing. That would be rather infuriating, wouldn’t it?”
“Merely irritating? Anyone would be furious. But why are you asking me that?”
It seemed that wasn’t enough for him to grasp my intentions.
Well, he didn’t know the Murim Alliance’s true face…
I didn’t give him a detailed explanation and instead turned around.
“Let’s just say I have my reasons. We should get moving.”
We immediately returned to the underground prison.
“From this moment onward, follow my instructions.”
“Yes.”
“We obey.”
Fortunately, there were brushes, ink, and paper there, so I wrote a letter and handed it to Escort Guard Yeo Eung-am.
“Deliver this to the Murim Alliance as quickly as possible. And…”
I gave him several additional instructions.
“Understood.”
“The rest of us will rescue the prisoners and gather them in one place.”
We released Young Lord Yun from his cell first.
Even without his internal power, he looked like the youngest prisoner, so he should still be able to help.
“What exactly are you planning?”
“I went to deal with the Black Cat Sect, but it turned out to be much larger than I expected. I’m calling for reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements?”
“Yes. But before they arrive, we need to get everyone out of here. That’s why we must hurry.”
As we learned the identities of those imprisoned inside, we couldn’t help being astonished.
Most of them were people of considerable renown.
One prisoner’s identity, in particular, left even me stunned.
One of the Five Great Physicians of the Empire, the Red-Robed Hua Tuo (赤衣華陀), had been imprisoned here.
He was considered the greatest living authority on treating physical trauma.
It was said he always wore red so that blood splattered on his clothing wouldn’t be noticeable.
Even now, he was dressed in red.
Though after so much time, the color had faded badly.
He cupped his fists toward me.
“I cannot thank you enough for rescuing us.”
“There’s no need for thanks. More importantly, we must leave this place immediately.”
After saying that, I turned to Escort Guard Seo Wu.
“Have we rescued everyone imprisoned here?”
“Yes. We have.”
At that moment, the Red-Robed Hua Tuo spoke.
“There is one more. He is… Ah! A man with blue at the ends of his hair, just like that young man over there.”
“What?”
“W-what are you talking about? Someone with hair like mine?”
The Life-Seizing Wanderer asked with a stunned expression, and the Red-Robed Hua Tuo pointed in one direction.
“Over there. There is another underground cell.”
The moment he heard that, the Life-Seizing Wanderer bolted in that direction, and I followed immediately behind him.
There was indeed another cell there.
And this place was directly beneath the willow grove I had seen earlier.
Then this had to be where I’d heard the groaning.
Slash!
The Life-Seizing Wanderer instantly sliced through the bars and rushed inside.
He dropped to his knees before a man lying on the floor and cried out.
“Master! Master! Please wake up! It’s me, Gyeok! Gyeok is here!”
I approached them and quietly reached out to check the middle-aged man’s pulse.
Thank goodness.
He wasn’t dead. He had only lost consciousness.
Even so, he was terribly exhausted and in poor condition.
He looked as though he hadn’t had a proper meal in ages, and anyone locked in such a damp place for so long was bound to be in poor health.
The Red-Robed Hua Tuo spoke from behind me.
“He was already in critical condition when I first arrived here. I treated his external injuries, but under these circumstances, that was the best I could do.”
“Then you were the one treating everyone imprisoned here?”
“How could I simply stand by and watch people die? I begged the guards to allow it, then treated everyone I could under their supervision.”
“I see.”
In other words, the prisoners had survived this long because of the Red-Robed Hua Tuo’s treatment.
“That man wasn’t merely given Qi-Scattering Poison. He has been poisoned with something far more severe. I’ve held it at bay with acupuncture, but he won’t last much longer.”
Poison…
I had already suspected as much when my internal power reacted while I was checking his pulse.
I could neutralize most poisons.
But our first priority was getting out of this place.
It would become troublesome if the Black Cat Sect descended upon us in force.
“Get him on your back. We need to leave.”
“Understood, Brother.”
And just like that, we had unexpectedly found the Life-Seizing Wanderer’s master as well.
The Murim Alliance.
At dawn, a newly delivered letter rested in the Alliance Leader’s hand.
The Escort Guard who had brought it had stood before the main gate and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“An urgent dispatch from the Handsome Young Hero, hero of the Dragon-Phoenix Martial Gathering!”
The name Handsome Young Hero was quite famous throughout Luoyang.
Not only were the events of the Dragon-Phoenix Martial Gathering still widely discussed, but word of everything he had accomplished afterward had also spread among the people.
That was why the letter had been placed in the Alliance Leader’s hands without delay.
He unfolded it.
[I, Eun Seo-ho, Deputy Merchant Lord of the Eunhae Merchant Group and one who has received the Alliance Leader’s grace, bow my head to the floor as I submit this letter. While passing through Henan, I discovered and rescued several people who had been imprisoned inside a cave. During the rescue, I learned that an Unorthodox Sect known as the Black Cat Sect was involved…]
“Haah.”
The Alliance Leader let out a sigh and crumpled the letter in his hand.
The Black Cat Sect.
It was a place he knew very well.
After all, he was the one who had ordered them to construct an underground prison inside the cave and lock those people within it.
‘Those useless bastards!”
In truth, he wanted nothing more than to ignore the letter, but he couldn’t.
He himself had bestowed the epithet Handsome Young Hero upon Eun Seo-ho.
Ignoring a letter sent by such a man was out of the question.
More importantly, the final portion of the letter made it utterly impossible.
[Suspecting that this may be connected to traitors, I have also requested aid from the Imperial Palace.]
If the Imperial Palace discovered even a shred of evidence connecting this matter to him…
He squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip.
He had to erase the Black Cat Sect before that happened.
“Convene an emergency council! Immediately!”
–TL Notes–
Tired of seeing Ads? Then please support me on Patreon! Any tier of subscription will make it so you won’t get any ads!
If you want to support me or give me feedback, you can do it at patreon.com/InsanityTheGame
Join my Discord! https://discord.gg/BWaP3AHHpt