Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 158

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#Episode 158

“Would the Ga-ju of the Jegal Family take such a wager seriously?”
Of course the Jegal Family wouldn’t deploy their power over something like this.
“True, there’s a chance relations with the Daseong Merchant Association could become awkward, but in fact the Daseong Merchant Association and the Jegal Family have no real connection, do they?”
“What about the Huashan Faction, who put up the guarantee?”
Mo Yong Seol-yeong posed the question to Bok Cheol-bang.
“Would the Jegal Family come to collect money from the Huashan Faction over this?”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
Her inquiry shifted to Gam Il-cheon.
“If the Jegal Family did come, would the Daseong Merchant Association actually pay three million, one hundred thousand taels?”
“They might scrape together some silver, but not that much.”
“The Jegal Family can’t do anything about this situation, so what could a small estate in Hangju possibly accomplish?”
Yet Seo Do-myeong’s expression remained grave.
“Our elder, who serves as Vice-Chieftain of the Murim Alliance’s Pursuit Unit, once cautioned me not to underestimate Oseong Jang-won. He offered no other explanation, but there must be good reason for the master to speak in such terms.”
“Would the Daseong Merchant Association or the Huashan Faction really find themselves in difficulty? That doesn’t make sense. It’s just some estate in Hangju, after all.”
Eighteen-year-old Mo Yong Seol-yeong had always possessed a remarkable gift for seeing the world as simple.
“Since I made this wager, I’ll settle it myself. The rest of you needn’t concern yourselves.”
Listening to their discussion, it seemed the defaulted debt wouldn’t cause any real catastrophe.
Besides, nothing had been signed to paper. Geom U-bin had once said that a word carried more weight than a signature, but for a merchant, words were no more substantial than vanishing smoke.
A debt with no written proof was a debt that need never be repaid—that was the merchant’s fundamental creed.
‘I worried for nothing.’
While they were having this conversation, Geom U-bin and Jegal Hoon were crossing through the town streets.
“You think Gam Il-cheon will hand over the money without fuss?”
“Not a chance. Three million, one hundred thousand taels—that’s not money a second son could raise, even if his father were the Merchant Association’s chieftain.”
“But you made the wager? What would you have done if you’d lost?”
“I couldn’t lose that wager.”
“So what trick did you use?”
Geom U-bin picked up a small stone from the ground, no larger than a thumbnail, and set it on Jegal Hoon’s knee.
“Just by listening to the sound when it strikes the cup, you can tell what number came up.”
That wasn’t surprising to Jegal Hoon.
“And?”
“If your opponent has already chosen big or small, you just swap out the dice inside the cup.”
The explanation sounded simple enough. But how could you switch the dice without ever laying a hand on anything?
Geom U-bin reached toward the stone on Jegal Hoon’s knee. In that instant, the stone twitched and suddenly flipped over.
“Wait—you didn’t use the Void Seizing Technique?”
“That’s why I lifted the cup slowly. I needed time to flip the dice with a subtle motion.”
“You really used the Void Seizing Technique?”
Shocked beyond words, Jegal Hoon wanted to confirm it directly from him.
“Yes.”
“Yes? Just ‘yes’? You just deployed the Void Seizing Technique and you say it so casually? In the Jegal Family, only Father has achieved that stage, and he still can’t deploy it with any real fluency—yet you wield it freely!”
“It’s just moving small objects. That’s all it amounts to.”
“The fact that you can deploy the Void Seizing Technique is what matters! In all of Murim history, do you think there’s ever been a Martial Artist your age capable of deploying it? I swear there hasn’t been—and there never will be. I stake my reputation as a prodigy on that!”
Then Jegal Hoon froze.
“Wait. Your uncles and aunts are stronger masters than you, right?”
“Well… yes, they are.”
“Then just how strong are they?”
Jegal Hoon seized the wheel of the chair, forcing Geom U-bin to stop pushing.
“What is the real identity of those four people?”
“My uncles and my aunt.”
“U-bin…”
“That’s all I know. Sometimes ignorance is a mercy, after all.”
When Jegal Hoon released his grip on the wheel, Geom U-bin resumed pushing the chair.
“You’re not planning to forget about that money you wagered with Gam Il-cheon, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“But he won’t pay up. How are you planning to collect?”
“Well, I’ll have to think about that as I go.”
“This isn’t just a problem between you and the Daseong Merchant Association, though. Since Bok Cheol-bang dragged the Huashan Faction into it, getting paid could turn out to be quite complicated.”
“It’s true that Gam Il-cheon owes me three hundred and ten thousand taels. The debt is clear, so we should resolve it through proper channels.”
Geom U-bin spoke of proper channels, but there were those who refused to accept such methods—and that’s where the conflict arose.
“Is there anything the Jegal Family might help with?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it myself.”

***

Those who had blocked Do Pyeong-su’s path had already flown far away, and all that remained were bandits standing at an awkward distance—neither encircling nor fleeing, just watching.
“What does he look like?”
Do Pyeong-sun answered Do Pyeong-su’s question.
“Six feet tall, with pale skin—unusual for a bandit. Thin eyes, a pointed nose, narrow lips.”
Scanning the area, Do Pyeong-su’s gaze locked with a man in his mid-forties.
The middle-aged man, whose appearance matched Do Pyeong-sun’s description, panicked the moment their eyes met and spun around to flee.
“The bastard’s making himself a nuisance.”
Do Pyeong-su started to chase him, then noticed a small stone beneath his feet and flicked it forward with his toe.
Though Do Pyeong-su kicked it lightly, the stone shot through the air three times faster than an arrow leaving the bowstring.
Crack!
Jong Dal-sang, the lair chieftain of Cheonwangcha, didn’t even cry out—his head shattered, and he dropped dead.
Since they were far from the place where Kang Chan-sik had vanished, he saw no reason to search for him.
“So once we eliminate this one location, the total chieftain should be at Cheonwangcha, right?”
Do Pyeong-su reached for Do Pyeong-sun’s collar, but Do Pyeong-sun quickly stepped back.
“Before that, there’s one more thing we need to settle here.”
“What’s that?”
Do Pyeong-sun surveyed the lair. Log cabins scattered about—it looked like any other bandit stronghold in Nok-rim.
“You said there was a man with large eyes and lips about a hand’s breadth thick…….”
Do Pyeong-sun pointed to a man in his early forties, his face peering out between two buildings.
“We need to take that one.”
“Who is he?”
“The vice-chieftain.”
“The vice-chieftain too?”
So far they’d visited three lairs and had only bothered with the chieftains—the vice-chieftains they’d killed if they got in the way, or left alone if they didn’t.
“Once you take him, I’ll explain why.”
As the vice-chieftain’s figure disappeared between the buildings, Do Pyeong-su launched himself off the ground. When he landed on a hut’s roof, the structure exploded as though dynamite had been detonated.
“Ahhh!”
A scream came first, then Do Pyeong-su and the vice-chieftain emerged through the billowing dust.
The vice-chieftain, seized by the neck, was hurled to the ground before Do Pyeong-sun.
“Please, I—I have no intention of avenging the chieftain, and I don’t care about guarding the warehouse. Just spare my life, I’m begging you.”
“The bandits of old had some backbone, some sense of honor. But nowadays, all these brigands care about is saving their own skin. Tsk, tsk, tsk…….”
As Do Pyeong-su clicked his tongue, Do Pyeong-sun picked up a blade that lay on the ground.
“Why? Do you have some personal vendetta against him?”
At Do Pyeong-su’s question, Do Pyeong-sun stared intently at the vice-chieftain Yang Jo-mang before speaking.
“No personal vendetta. But this creature committed an act I despise above all others.”
“What did he do?”
“He raped a nine-year-old girl.”
“No, that—that was ten years ago!”
Do Pyeong-sun’s voice was ice.
“Ten years or a hundred years—a crime doesn’t simply fade away with time.”
As Do Pyeong-sun brought his blade down toward Yang Jo-mang’s head, there was not a shred of hesitation in the motion. Clean, economical, precise—the work of someone who knew their craft.
Thud!
The blade split Yang Jo-mang’s skull from crown to bridge of nose. To cleave a head so cleanly with such an ordinary blade spoke to considerable skill.
“Have you trained in martial arts?”
“My father was a martial instructor in the village. I’ve learned only a few techniques from him.”
After they exchanged these words, Yang Jo-mang’s corpse finally collapsed.
“Why is a bandit playing at being a knight-errant?”
“Even if we’re bandits, there are things we must uphold. Regardless of anything else, you don’t lay hands on children.”
“I’m starting to like this fellow.”
“Does that mean you won’t kill me?”
“Heh, heh, heh…… Perhaps I’ll even help you rise in the world.”
Do Pyeong-su grabbed Do Pyeong-sun by the scruff of the neck and hurled him forward. At first the boy had shrieked, but by now he’d grown accustomed to it—resigned himself to the sensation of being thrown, trusting himself entirely to Do Pyeong-su’s hands.
At Goryongcha, which they reached next, Do Pyeong-su dealt with fifty bandits while barely pausing to tie back his scattered hair, and the lair chieftain Wang Tae-san fell. Dead.
Moving faster than the swiftest bird in the world—that Lightness Technique—running for one double hour without pause, then fighting without rest, then running again at that same impossible speed: Do Pyeong-su had long stopped looking like a man at all.
When Do Pyeong-su and Do Pyeong-sun arrived at Cheonwangcha, where the total chieftain held court, the situation was already resolved.
Despite their speed, three others had arrived first and swept the place clean.
“Why so late? Don’t dare blame it on dragging this one along.”
Seo Seok-san’s rebuke made Do Pyeong-su ask:
“That’s what I want to know—how’d you three get here so fast?”
Seo Seok-san was about to answer, but Do Pyeong-su read the truth first in Jang Man-dok’s expression.
“Wait. Two lairs in between were empty—no chieftain, half the bandits already gone? Because the Selection Battle to choose the new total chieftain of Nok-rim Chilsipyicha is happening here in a few days, and the lairs that departed early to participate were just… abandoned?”
Do Pyeong-su looked at Seo Seok-san.
“We only swept the empty ones, didn’t we?”
“So the ones you found all had their chieftains intact?”
“Of course they did!”
“Well, whatever. At least it made the work go faster.”
“And the total chieftain?”
Where Seo Seok-san had gestured with his chin, a man in his early fifties hung suspended from a massive wooden stake. Upside down.
“We decided to leave him like that until Kang Chan-sik arrives.”
“How do you plan to find him?”
“We sent carrier pigeons through all of Nok-rim Chilsipyicha. By now the entire Bandit Path is hunting for Kang Chan-sik. Whether they find him alive or dead, that one dies either way.”
Do Pyeong-su asked quietly:
“What if they find Kang Chan-sik alive?”
“He still dies. Why ask such obvious things?”
Do Pyeong-su walked over and grabbed Do Pyeong-sun by the scruff of the neck again, hauling him along. The boy dangled motionless, limp as a docile puppy caught by the nape.
“What about this one?”
“Did your tastes shift to boys? Or have we simply been blind all these years?”
Yeon Geum-hong nodded with an expression of sudden understanding.
“Ah—so that’s why not a single woman has been seen anywhere near Pyeong-su all this time.”
“What nonsense are you spouting! I’m asking if he’d make a decent total chieftain for Nok-rim!”
The one most shocked was Do Pyeong-sun, still dangling by his scruff.
“Me? The total chieftain of Nok-rim?”
“Yes. From a lowly foot soldier watching livestock to the supreme leader of bandits across Zhongyuan—vertical ascension.”
Do Pyeong-su had expected delight, but Do Pyeong-sun shook his head stubbornly.
“I refuse.”
“Why refuse?”
“I intend to live long and quietly as a nobody. Look at today alone—the chieftains of Nok-rim held funerals for their own. Why would I sit in such a dangerous seat?”
“If you never wanted to be a leader, why did you become a bandit in the first place?”
“I happened to crack some man’s skull, and circumstances left me no choice—”
“The one who assaulted a child?”
“No. A corrupt official draining blood from the common people.”
Do Pyeong-su let out a hollow laugh.
“You should have become a knight-errant, not a bandit.”
“A knight-errant? That’s not for the likes of me. I simply fell into it by chance. I just want to live long and quietly. I have no desire to become a total chieftain.”
“Pyeong-sun.”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you have a choice in this matter?”
“I… don’t?”
“No.”
“I see.”
Do Pyeong-sun seemed about to submit meekly—then his rebuttal came.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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