Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 214

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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 214

A fortnight had passed since the new year dawned, yet the scent of firecrackers still lingered in the air above Haenyeong Port.
Those who had traveled back to their hometowns for the holidays were returning in steady streams, and the port was stirring back to life.
It bore no comparison to the lawless days when it had been ruled by water bandits and pirates.
Workers rushed about, unloading cargo from ships that had just arrived and loading goods onto vessels preparing to depart.
“Heave! How can this be so heavy?”
“Dried seafood, what else? When this reaches Beijing, it’ll fetch triple the price. Hehehehe…….”
“We ought to get five times the price if we make it all the way to Beijing. Eh? What’s that?”
Wang Ja-mang, who had been stacking cargo, fixed his gaze on a ship appearing in the distance. Vessels entering the harbor were as common as bees coming and going from a hive, but this one was different from the ordinary merchant vessel.
If the others were honeybees, what approached now was a wasp ten times their size.
The enormous ship, with its immense sails catching the harsh winter wind, drew rapidly closer.
“Is there even a berth in Haenyeong Port for a ship that large?”
“I’m not sure. Generally the water here is shallow, so we’d need to anchor farther out and transfer to a smaller boat. But what’s that symbol on the sail?”
“What symbol? Let me see……—a sword driven through a skull. What kind of abominable flag is that to be flying……. Ahhh!”
“What is it?”
“The Heukgoru Pirates!”
“What? Pirates?”
“Alert the Oseong Merchant Association at once! I’ll evacuate the people!”
“Yes, sir!”
As Yang Dong-hee took off running with his answer, Wang Ja-mang cried out.
“Pirates! Heukgoru Pirates! Run for your lives! Quickly!”
The Heukgoru Pirates, operating out of Shanghai, had earned a fearsome reputation among merchants who traveled the sea routes.
To encounter them on the water meant certain drowning; they showed no mercy, raiding even coastal villages with ruthless efficiency.
The imperial forces had attempted suppression several times, but the pirates’ vessels were twice as fast as official warships and superior in naval combat, so every expedition ended in retreat and losses.
The name Heukgoru was so notorious that the crowd gathered at the landing began scattering in panic.
The pirate ship was called the Gorumang, and its captain, Dong Bang-man, laughed at the sight of the fleeing people.
“Krahaha! Like an ant colony caught in a flood!”
“Captain! We should drop anchor here and transfer to the smaller boats!”
“Leave five men here and take the rest ashore! Krahaha!”
His laughter came easily—a response to the scale of Haenyeong Port and the abundance of goods piled along the docks.
Three years ago, when he’d passed through, Haenyeong Port had been a modest place. Even then, rival pirates had already staked their claim, so he’d had to move on.
But now, seeing it again, the transformation was remarkable—a hundred times more developed than before—and the pirates who’d held the territory were gone.
It was a golden opportunity for the Heukgoru Pirates.
Eighty pirates divided into seven smaller boats crossed into Haenyeong Port. Goods lay heaped everywhere, but not a soul was in sight.
“Cowards. Ten of you, start moving cargo. The rest, begin plundering!”
It was a common mistake to think pirates operated only at sea.
They frequently attacked coastal villages, and the Heukgoru Pirates actively enjoyed it. Their fearsome reputation had been built on such raids.
Compared to them, bandits who merely collected tolls on mountain roads were practically gentlemen.
Seventy pirates poured down Main Street toward the town.
Dong Bang-man had once been the Lord of the Namgwi Moon, a dark sect in Guangdong Province, before he’d killed the sect master and fled.
His affair with the sect master’s wife had been discovered, and escape seemed his only choice—but it had led him to this exhilarating life.
Beyond Main Street, he could see people gathering nervously in the town. They’d abandoned cargo at the landing in their rush to flee, yet they wouldn’t abandon their homes.
“Foolish wretches.”
These ignorant creatures didn’t even know that their own lives were the most precious thing in the world.
“Pardon us! This is the Oseong Merchant Association! Please clear the way!”
When a voice called out from behind the gathered crowd, the people immediately parted on both sides.
“Thank you.”
The first figure to emerge from among the people was Yang Dae-gong.
He had once been a bandit until Geom U-bin had called upon him to take charge of Haenyeong and Haenyeong Port, and he had been living quite contentedly in the position.
He needed not threaten anyone; indeed, he was being praised instead. He had found work perfectly suited to his temperament.
“Why do these bastards have to throw a wrench into my life now?”
Watching the pirates advance with menacing speed, Yang Dae-gong showed no sign of fear.
“Branch Leader.”
He was addressed by that title because he now oversaw the Oseong Merchant Association’s branch office as well.
The one who had called to Yang Dae-gong was a portly merchant dressed in fine silk.
“Do I truly not need to flee?”
“Flee? You’re under the protection of Oseong Jang-won. If anyone should flee, it’s those vicious pirates.”
“But…….”
The merchant glanced around at the gathered crowd.
Among the three hundred or so people standing anxiously, fewer than thirty could actually fight.
Most of those belonged to the Oseong Merchant Association; the rest were just residents and merchants.
Yang Dae-gong patted the merchant’s shoulder reassuringly.
“Don’t worry. You boys—why are you hiding over there? Come on out.”
At Yang Dae-gong’s call, several men who had been mingling with the crowd shuffled forward hesitantly.
Their faces were obscured below the eyes by masks, but from what was visible and their slight frames, they appeared to be no more than seventeen or eighteen years old.
Yet every one of them carried a sword across his back.
“We’ll need you to deal with these bastards. Can you handle it?”
One of the five youths spoke up.
“Kill them? But the Master told us not to take lives carelessly…….”
“Heukgoru Pirates? You can kill them ten times over and it won’t matter. I’ll take responsibility with the Master—no scolding for you.”
Below the mask, a small throat bobbed up and down.
“Then we’ll be going.”
The five youths bowed to Yang Dae-gong and advanced toward the pirates.
“What are those brats?”
Despite their masked faces, it was obvious they were mere children.
Five sword-bearing children were walking straight toward his seventy men without a shred of fear.
“Cowards. Too spineless to fight us yourselves, so you send your brats?”
The youths drew their blades as they approached.
Their faces were hidden, but the way they advanced without hesitation suggested they knew no fear.
“That’s the way with puppies—they don’t know tigers are dangerous.”
Dong Bang-man roared at his men.
“Come on! Crush them in one wave and loot whatever you want!”
“Hyah!”
Dong Bang-man’s men surged forward toward the five youths. Then they simply fell.
The men should have crushed those five and swept past them, but it was the men who crumpled instead.
No one could even see what swordsmanship the youths were employing. To Dong Bang-man’s eye, they moved too fast to follow.
The five youths formed a line across the Main Street, not allowing a single one of his men through.
Some poor wretch had already lost his head to one youth, only to be cut in half at the waist by another—a man who died twice over.
All seventy of Dong Bang-man’s men became corpses. Dong Bang-man himself didn’t last much longer than they did.
“What manner of mon, monsters…….”
He lived only long enough to cough out those final words—if they could even be called a dying testament.
The youths who had killed seventy men drew cloth from their pockets and meticulously wiped the blood from their blades.
Once their swords were spotless, they returned to Yang Dae-gong.
At first, everyone had been afraid.
Five youths so young and small hardly seemed trustworthy.
Yet it had taken them barely a quarter hour to slaughter seventy ferocious pirates.
So when the youths approached, the crowd instinctively retreated.
Before their incomprehensible strength, which had just killed seventy men, the crowd recoiled in fear.
Watching the people, Yang Dae-gong wore a bitter smile.
‘I saved their lives, and they haven’t even the courtesy to offer thanks.’
Beneath those masks, the youths likely wore expressions much like his own.
But contrary to Yang Dae-gong’s assumption, the youths seemed unbothered. The fearful, distant gazes of others—this was all familiar to them.
“Ah, some of you are hurt. Hurt.”
So saying, an old woman emerged from among the crowd, her spine bent with age.
Gwak Jeom-mae, who roasted and sold corn from a street stall, was an elderly widow who had lost her entire family to plague and lived alone.
Gwak Jeom-mae approached the leftmost of the five youths clustered together.
“Come now, let me see your arm.”
A gash was visible on the youth’s forearm.
During the fight, a pirate’s broken blade had grazed past him.
“No, it’s fine.”
A wound of this magnitude would heal on its own given time.
“Fine, nothing. If it bleeds, it needs tending.”
The youths’ clothes were so thin and threadbare that Gwak Jeom-mae’s grip threatened to tear them.
“Wearing rags like this in the cold. Tsk, tsk, tsk…….”
“I’m not cold.”
“Not cold at all! Look at the mist pouring from our mouths.”
Gwak Jeom-mae called out in a sharp, clear voice to the gathered crowd.
“Does anyone have Wound Medicine?”
Yang Do-gu, who ran a butcher shop, came hurrying over.
“I have some here. And bandages too.”
Gwak Jeom-mae applied the medicine to the wound on the boy’s forearm and wrapped it carefully with bandage.
Just then, a low rumble came from the boy’s stomach.
“Hungry, are we?”
“It’s all right.”
“You’ve gotten good at saying that. Wait here a moment. I’ve got some corn left over.”
Since the sun had hours yet before setting, it wasn’t leftover corn at all—it was corn meant to be sold.
As Gwak Jeom-mae disappeared into the crowd, Yang Dae-gong shouted to those working at the Oseong Merchant Association branch.
“What are you all standing around for? Get that hideous corpse cleared away!”
As the people rushed off, the young ones moved as well.
“We’ll finish dealing with the pirates and be right back.”
“Good. You must be starving—be quick about it.”
And quick they were.
The boys deployed their Lightness Skill against the pirates ransacking the cargo, cut them down, then used the Wall Climbing Technique to scale the pirate vessel and finish the job cleanly.
In the meantime, Gwak Jeom-mae had brought a basket of corn.
“Thank you for the food!”
As the boys ate the corn, other dishes began appearing. The people no longer feared them.
“I never knew we had young ones like you here in Haenyeong Port! It’s so reassuring!”
When someone said this, the boys scratched the backs of their heads sheepishly.
“We’re just doing what our Master tells us to do.”
“Your Master? You mean the one from Oseong Jang-won?”
“Yes, he’s in the middle of treating our illness too.”
Gwak Jeom-mae asked.
“Illness?”
“Our faces are… not pleasant to look at.”
“Now that you mention it, there does seem to be a scab or something on that forehead. Let me see. I’m something of an expert when it comes to plague and diseases like this.”
“It’s not plague. And it really is quite unsightly.”
“I’m an old woman who’s seen everything worth seeing and things best left unseen.”
Gwak Jeom-mae removed the mask from the girl who was pushing corn underneath it.
It was worth hiding.
Her cheeks, jaw, and the sides of her neck were covered thickly with what looked like red scabs.
Anyone seeing her would stop in their tracks with shock, turn away for fear of contagion.
“It’s not contagious. It’s a condition that comes from the Martial Arts we’re training in.”
Gwak Jeom-mae stopped the girl’s hand as she reached to replace her mask.
“You’re beautiful. A man’s face needs to have some character like this.”
“I’m… actually a girl.”
“Ah? No wonder the features are so fine. Ho ho ho!”
With laughter to smooth over her mistake, Gwak Jeom-mae stroked the girl’s face gently.
“Nothing to be ashamed of. You’ll learn as you live that scars earned along the way don’t matter. What matters is what’s in here.”
Another boy spoke up.
“Our Master said that in just a few months, this face will look as normal as anyone else’s.”
“Is that so? When you’re healed, I imagine you’ll break a few hearts. And what about you—are you a girl too?”
“No!”
Laughter burst forth from those around them. The hearts of the boys and girls swelled a little bigger.
They had spent their whole lives hiding from people.
They never thought there would come a day when they’d stand among others like this, laughing together.
When the five youths had finished eating, Yang Dae-gong spoke.
“Let’s head back to the branch. It’s almost time for the Master to arrive.”

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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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