Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 213

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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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#Chapter 213

The eventful days in Sae-oe and the Northern Ice Palace had come to an end at last.
And finally, they returned to their beloved home at Oseong Jang-won. The first to greet them were five dogs.
They bounded around the group, bumped against their bodies, and licked their hands with their tongues, delighting in their return.
Among them, Oseong-i tilted her head, gazing into the distance—a silent question: Why hadn’t Eun Bi-yeon come back?
“She’ll arrive in a few days.”
Geom U-bin’s words were picked up by Do Pyeong-su.
“Since she’s coming anyway, what’s the difference if she stays for months or years?”
But Eun Bi-yeon returned after just four days. Do Pyeong-su earned a sharp slap on the back for asking the pointless question of why she’d come so quickly.
Seo Seok-san asked Gal Ma-pyeong a question.
“Did you break off the engagement before you left?”
“No, sir.”
“It wasn’t a fake engagement?”
He only smiled wryly at this. “You already know everything, Master.”
“Your expression looks so gloomy—you’re already missing your fiancée, aren’t you? Why did you come back from the Northern Ice Palace instead of staying there?”
Gal Ma-pyeong bounced up indignantly.
“How could I stay at the Northern Ice Palace when my home is here? If anyone should move, it’s Yi-seol!”
“What a dutiful one!”
Through the burst of laughter that followed, Gong Seong-tak’s cry rang out as he came rushing over.
“Master Geom! You’re finally back! We have to spar—it’s been far too long!”
For someone who used to hate Martial Arts so much, Gong Seong-tak had somehow become a fanatic.
“Of course!”
Only when Gong Seong-tak appeared did it truly feel like they were home at Oseong Jang-won. Yeon Geum-hong exhaled slowly, pressing a chill deep into her lungs as she spoke.
“The new year will be here soon.”

***

A corpse tumbled over the ship’s railing and plunged into the sea. Dong Bang-man, wiping the blood from his blade onto his trousers, gazed out across the boundless ocean and spoke.
“Take the ship to Haenyeong Port! Let’s see how much treasure is piled up there!”

***

The new year had dawned.
After the residents of Oseong Jang-won had entertained their guests, they ventured out to see the city. When Geom U-bin suggested they go together for the first time in a while, the Hyeolpung Saja readily followed along.
Geom U-bin and the Hyeolpung Saja were walking through the streets, now thick with the smell of gunpowder from firecrackers.
“It’s tiresome when people recognize us and greet us. What if we covered our faces?”
Not wanting her time with Geom U-bin to be interrupted, Yeon Geum-hong made this suggestion.
They decided masks would be too much trouble; instead, they’d use scarves to cover naturally up to below the eyes. But it proved useless.
“Oh my! The Hangju Seonin have come out! We wish you good health this year!”
“I apologize for not calling on you. Please do stop by our shop on your way back!”
Merchants passing by or running their stalls rushed over one after another to greet them.
Finally, Seo Seok-san grabbed one of the merchants and asked a question.
“We covered our entire faces—how did you know it was us?”
The merchant’s gaze lingered, almost by accident, on Seo Seok-san’s bare head. Seo Seok-san’s own hand, moving without his knowledge, rose to touch his bald scalp.
“Ah!”
“This is all because of you! You should have worn a hat!”
“You didn’t think of it either! And besides, there’s more than one bald man in Hangju—how could you recognize us just from this?”
“Your hair is so sparse and patchy, we can tell it’s you instantly!”
The merchant hurried to separate Seo Seok-san and Yeon Geum-hong, who both looked ready to throw a punch.
“It’s not because of Master Geom’s head, sir. No matter how much you cover your faces, how could we fail to recognize the Hangju Seonin?”
Do Pyeong-su asked him a question.
“You just saw us and knew?”
“Yes. It’s the atmosphere of the five of you, I suppose. Somehow, you’re simply different, and we can recognize you at once. And since the five of you travel together, anyone who fails to recognize you would have to be blind or not from Hangju.”
“See! It’s not because of me!”
“Either way, you’re the most obvious!”
They bickered as they walked, accepting greetings from passersby before resuming their complaints, crossing through the heart of town.
There was at least one benefit to arguing like this—it helped digestion.
“Let’s get something to eat.”
Being the new year, most of the restaurants scattered throughout the street were shuttered.
“Even dog dung disappears when you need it for medicine,” Do Pyeong-su grumbled, pointing ahead.
Do Pyeong-su, still complaining, gestured toward one spot.
“There seems to be something entertaining over there, doesn’t it?”
It was a fairly spacious clearing, packed with people.
“Let’s check it out.”
“But what about food?”
“We can eat slowly anyway. Since we’re out in town, sightseeing comes first, doesn’t it?”
A stage had been erected before the crowd, and loud, clanging music filled the air.
“It’s Peking Opera!”
She’d heard much about it, but this was her first time actually watching one.
Actors in masks that shifted constantly, wielding false weapons, reciting their lines in bizarre voices—the Peking Opera quickly drew Geom U-bin in.
But something about the story seemed off.
“Ahhh! Help me! The Bloodwind Four Lions!”
A woman trembled onstage while four figures stood before her.
The masks they wore were unmistakably demonic.
Their faces were painted red with long tusks jutting out, their hair trailing wildly.
“That’s supposed to be me?”
Yeon Geum-hong recognized it instantly—not from likeness, but because she was the only woman among the demons in makeup.
The face kept changing, though none of them looked remotely human.
Several heroes rushed to save the woman, but all were thrown to the ground.
“I’ll feast on your liver!”
As the actor’s line cut through the wailing pipes, Do Pyeong-su lurched toward the stage.
“We’re not even nine-tailed foxes, and—”
Geom U-bin quickly stopped him in alarm.
“It’s only a performance, after all.”
“But even so, we never once tormented common folk. Making us out to be cannibals is too much, isn’t it?”
Just then, the crowd suddenly roared.
Five figures burst from behind a black curtain.
“Whoa! The Hangju Seonin!”
“Huh?”
The masks were the same, but the feeling was entirely different.
They captured the Bloodwind Four Lions’ visage well while radiating an almost celestial air. Even Geom U-bin, dressed in flowing robes, was portrayed with dignity.
“You vile demons! How dare you torment innocent people!”
Watching the Hangju Seonin scold the Bloodwind Four Lions felt strangely surreal—as if they were watching themselves reprimand themselves.
“Who are you?”
“We are the Hangju Seonin, protectors of the people!”
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
As tense music swelled, the actors exchanged a few more lines before breaking into combat.
Naturally, the Hangju Seonin overpowered the Bloodwind Four Lions and rescued the woman.
The crowd erupted in cheers, delighting in the Hangju Seonin’s triumph.
Throughout the performance, her mood remained strange, and as they turned to leave, her mind churned with thoughts.
“Are we deceiving the people, then?” Do Pyeong-su asked quietly.
If even Do Pyeong-su harbored such doubts, the other three needn’t be mentioned.
“If it were deception, we’d gain something from it, wouldn’t we?”
They regularly gave away their own funds to help people, so materially, they were at a loss.
“I was fighting myself out there. Was it my past self against my present self?”
Yeon Geum-hong, hearing Do Pyeong-su’s words, shook her head.
“No. The Bloodwind Four Lions aren’t my past—they’re still who I am now. I haven’t abandoned it; I’ve simply stopped making it visible.”
Seo Seok-san picked up on Yeon Geum-hong’s words.
“I’ve never been ashamed of the name ‘Heavenly Sound Ghost,’ and I never will be.”
“I know. I also love that we are the Bloodwind Four Lions.”
“But you prefer the Hangju Seonin, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
At Geom U-bin’s blunt answer, the Bloodwind Four Lions showed a disappointed expression.
“Not just me—everyone does.”
“But we haven’t changed. Whether as the Bloodwind Four Lions or now.”
“You really haven’t changed? I feel like you’ve changed quite a bit.”
“Of course I don’t kill people as easily as I did before. Though back then, I did try to only kill those who truly deserved it.”
Seo Seok-san, who had spoken, posed the question to the three others.
“Is that true? Were all the people we killed ones who actually deserved to die?”
Yeon Geum-hong answered with something like a sigh.
“That depends on how you look at it, but there are quite a few we wouldn’t have killed if we were like we are now.”
“Then you have changed.”
They were making their way back to Oseong Jang-won without even thinking about eating. It was probably the first time they’d walked all the way to Oseong Jang-won without using their Lightness Skill, each step deliberate and measured.
If someone asked what had changed them, the answer would have come easily.
The Bloodwind Four Lions watched Geom U-bin walking in their midst as if keeping a promise.
“Why… are you like that?”
“Because of you, older brother.”
“What am I?”
“That’s why we’ve changed like this.”
“From the Bloodwind Four Lions to… Hangju Seonin?”
“Whenever we’re about to kill someone or when we have to do something, we always think of you first. What would the older brother do? That’s what we think before anything else.”
“If it weren’t for that, Hang Ju-sa-byeon would’ve already become beast food and turned to dung.”
“Well, dung is dung, but it’s a completely different kind of dung.”
“Anyway, I’m so grateful we didn’t kill them back then. What would we have done without those people? It would’ve been so much more troublesome for us, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s right. If Gwak Bong had been around when we were still the Bloodwind Four Lions, we’d have crushed her skull in one go.”
“And the Sang Nam-jae couple wouldn’t have helped us. Then they wouldn’t have come to Oseong Jang-won in the first place, would they?”
“And we would’ve never seen the cute Ji-u! Heh heh heh!”
“Thanks to all this, Gong Seong-tak got the smithy of his dreams, and that brat became a Provincial Governor. We’d never have tasted Jeon Mi-ryeo’s delicious cooking either.”
All those changes had only been possible because they were Hangju Seonin, not the Bloodwind Four Lions.
Their thoughts shifted to: “What would we be like now if we’d never met Geom U-bin and were still the Bloodwind Four Lions?”
At the end of that stream of memory lay the question: “How did we even live back then?”
A world without Geom U-bin and the people of Oseong Jang-won was unimaginable, the most terrible reality possible.
Yeon Geum-hong gently placed her arm around Geom U-bin’s shoulder as they walked beside him.
“Older brother, thank you for appearing before us.”
“No, I should be thanking you. For recognizing someone as young as me as your older brother.”
“In this world, there is no one but you who could be the older brother of the Bloodwind Four Lions.”
“That’s why I’m saying…”
Geom U-bin opened his mouth with considerable gravity.
“As your older brother, I want to make an important decision.”
“What decision?”
All four asked at once. After a moment’s thought, Geom U-bin answered.
“This time, while we were searching for my master’s disappearance and traveling through Sae-oe and the Northern Ice Palace, I learned certain facts. I’ve been thinking about how to deal with them.”
“If those bastards show up, we just wipe them out.”
At Do Pyeong-su’s words, Geom U-bin let a smile cross his lips.
“Of course waiting could be an option, but I think it’s better to prepare beforehand.”
“Prepare?”
“After hearing that the Demonic Cult might be behind all this, that’s what I started thinking about.”
The Demonic Cult was a presence that weighed heavily even on the Bloodwind Four Lions.
“If they’re allowed to sweep through Murim, innocent people will be hurt. We haven’t experienced it ourselves, but the Demonic Cult of the past proved that. I don’t want to see innocent people suffering the way they did back then.”
Seo Seok-san spoke to the other three.
“I told you before, didn’t I? That I see the bearing of a great knight-errant in the older brother.”
“Hmph! Though I thought you said you saw the qualities of the greatest musician in the land, didn’t you?”
“I see both. Both of them!”
“No, I don’t really intend to become a knight-errant. It wasn’t my plan, but regardless, there are many people now under Oseong Jang-won. Preparing beforehand is also a way to protect them.”
“So you’ve decided to formally go to war against the forces that include this ‘Sam Gongja’?”
“Yes. What do you think, senior disciples?”
Do Pyeong-su answered.
“What does our opinion matter? If the older brother says we do it, then we do it.”
“No, I really do want to know what’s in your hearts. If we’re going to fight, I hope you’ll join this struggle willingly, not because you’re forced to do it for my sake.”
He’d given them time to consider, but the answer from the Bloodwind Four Lions came immediately.
“Of course we have to fight.”
The three spoke, and Jang Man-dok made his assent clear with his expression.
“Because as Hangju Seonin, you want to help people?”
“Whether we’re the Bloodwind Four Lions or Hangju Seonin, the name doesn’t matter. Such things are just the shell. If the older brother is fighting, then of course we must fight alongside him.”
With Do Pyeong-su speaking this way, and even Seo Seok-san saying the same, Geom U-bin had nothing more to say.
Yet that’s not frustrating, nor is it a flaw. Perhaps it’s only natural.
Just as the Bloodwind Four Lions were, Geom U-bin would also gladly meet any fight those four brought to him, whoever the opponent might be.
“Then let’s fight those villains who might be from our Demonic Cult!”
“Bad men taking down bad men! Of course, you’re not one of the bad men, brother! Hahahaha!”

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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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