Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 23

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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 23

Do Pyeong-su’s desperation was mirrored in the other two. They needed to harbor the intent to kill Hyeolpung Saja.
Only then would their murder of Kang Seo Samak be justified.
Of course, that rule wasn’t Hyeolpung Saja’s doing.
Hyeolpung Saja are people who can pluck out your eyes with nothing more than a sideways glance. But everything changed the moment they took Geom U-bin as their teacher.
The hearts they had harbored shifted, and the rules by which they’d lived were rewritten. Killing someone who posed no threat, who carried no intent to kill, was no longer permitted.
That was their promise to Geom U-bin.
So Hyeolpung Saja had employed threats and inducements to extract from Kang Seo Samak a confession that they harbored murderous intent, while Kang Seo Samak held firm to their claims of innocence with stubborn resolve.
After a solid quarter hour of argument, Yeon Geum-hong’s voice dropped to a growl.
“I’m going to haul in that prostitute Se-hwa who supposedly placed the contract. If her words contradict yours, your suffering won’t end with just today.”
Kang Seo Samak didn’t yield to that threat either.
A premonition crawled down my spine like ice water.
“I’ll go fetch this Se-hwa woman. You two keep close watch on these four.”
Yeon Geum-hong sent a message via Telepathic Communication to Kang Seo Samak, who lay pressed flat to the ground, then left the place.
Once Yeon Geum-hong was out of sight, Do Pyeong-su got to his feet.
“Suddenly I need to relieve myself. I can’t embarrass myself by doing it near the kids, so I’ll have to go off into the distance for a bit.”
Do Pyeong-su jabbed Jang Man-dok in the ribs and tilted his head. Only then did Jang Man-dok catch on to his meaning and jump up to follow.
Once the two of them vanished into the forest, Kang Seo Samak’s mind churned frantically.
―They’ve really gone far, haven’t they?
―Should we escape?
―This is our chance.
―Didn’t you hear the message Minachal sent us as she left?
O Tong-su’s words shattered Kang Seo Samak’s resolve to flee.
―She said she was going to relieve herself, obviously. If you think that’s your chance and you run, you die.
I couldn’t help but believe those words—almost a prophecy.
A quarter hour later, Do Pyeong-su returned and roared at Kang Seo Samak.
“We were gone that long and you didn’t run? You cowardly bastards! You’re useless—I ought to castrate every last one of you!”
“That is… Minachal said that you two would be going to relieve yourselves… and that if we fled at that moment, we would die…”
Minachal. It was an epithet for Yeon Geum-hong I hadn’t heard in a long time.
“Anyway, that old harridan loves stirring up chaos—there’s nothing to it. When three can’t eat, let two eat instead. What a friend she is, that heartless old crone.”
The heartless old crone returned half a quarter hour later with Se-hwa tucked under her arm. Se-hwa thrashed on the ground, letting out sharp yelps, but no one paid attention.
“You don’t look pleased.”
At Do Pyeong-su’s question, Yeon Geum-hong glared at Kang Seo Samak and Se-hwa as she spoke.
“Those bastards have their stories straight.”
“Then we can’t… kill them?”
“We can’t break a promise made to our teacher.”
“This… do you know how long it’s been since we had a chance like this? I’ve been having nightmares from the withdrawal lately!”
“That’s because you’ve committed so many sins.”
“What do we do? Are we really supposed to just let them live?”
Hope flickered across the faces of the four cowering figures.
“If we let them live? Those bastards will skip off happily and spread the word all over town that Hyeolpung Saja are in Hangju.”
“We absolutely wouldn’t—”
“Shut your mouths!”
After Yeon Geum-hong’s ringing shout, Do Pyeong-su’s voice followed.
“We don’t much care, but our teacher could be endangered because of us. Should we just kill them?”
Murder and Elimination would certainly be the cleanest solution.
But the problem of deceiving Geom U-bin remained.
If Geom U-bin discovered that we’d killed the four to protect him, he would surely torment himself with unbearable guilt.
And he would drive himself harder than ever.
That could never be allowed to happen.
“Is there anything besides Murder and Elimination?”
When difficult problems arose, it was always Yeon Geum-hong and Seo Seok-san who came up with good ideas.
Since Seo Seok-san wasn’t here, Do Pyeong-su and Jang Man-dok could only stare at Yeon Geum-hong.
Yeon Geum-hong’s face grew serious as she wrestled with the problem.
“Damn it. I don’t know. I’ve never had to choose anything besides killing before.”
As the silence stretched on, O Tong-su cautiously lifted his head.
“Um… there…”
“Shut it!”
Yeon Geum-hong barked out the words, pressing O Tong-su’s face back down into the dirt. “Let’s take this one step at a time. The real problem is that we can’t carry out Murder and Elimination.”
“That’s right. If the senior learned about it, we’d be finished.”
“This whole mess is because you blabbed about our identities!”
“How was I supposed to know we’d have to keep them alive?”
“We could always cut out their tongues so they can’t talk anywhere.”
The faces of four men drained white at Yeon Geum-hong’s words.
“If you cut out their tongues, they still have hands to write with.”
“Then we cut off the hands too.”
“I can stick a brush between my toes, you know. Sure, I won’t be able to write many characters, but some.”
“Chop the feet off then.”
With just a few words from them, the tongues and limbs of Kang Seo Samak and Se-hwa were severed. To live without tongue or limbs is no life at all.
“We swear we will never speak of Bloodwind Four Lions being in Hangju!”
Yeon Geum-hong’s voice, when she spoke to their pleas, was like ice.
“The most untrustworthy thing in this world is the human tongue—three inches long.”
Consumed by terror, Kang Seo Samak trembled helplessly, and Se-hwa, shaking alongside them, finally snapped under the weight of her fear.
“Damn it! I can write with a brush shoved up my ass! Just try plugging that hole!”

It wasn’t unusual to see someone sweeping the courtyard, but it was the first time that someone wasn’t one of the disciples.
“Who are you?”
A bearded man in his fifties looked back at Geom U-bin with a vacant stare.
Just then, the familiar voice of Do Pyeong-su cut through.
“Look at that stiff back. Want me to break a couple of vertebrae and loosen it up for you?”
In an instant, a servile grin spread across the man’s face and his spine bent at a right angle.
“Master! Did you cough? Hehe!”
“Master? Disciple Do, who is this?”
“We hired some day laborers to help with the extra work at the brewery.”
Just then, someone came scurrying over and thrust a bowl of water at Geom U-bin.
“Ho ho ho! Master, a bowl of water after a cough is the path to good health. Drink it right down!”
Geom U-bin drank the water she offered without thinking.
“Get away from him—you reek of fish oil.”
At Yeon Geum-hong’s words, the woman startled and quickly retreated. The situation left Geom U-bin bewildered.
The sudden appearance of these laborers, and the cold way Bloodwind Four Lions treated them, was strange.
“Miss Yeon. Are those people really just hired workers?”
“There was no other choice.”
That was true.
Bloodwind Four Lions possessed dozens, hundreds of skills, but had none for stopping the human body’s waste hole. So there was only one method left to choose.
To keep them in sight and under watch.
It was the only option short of killing them. Not that she hadn’t thought of other things.
To work them hard, to make them attempt escape. Then it would be justified to catch them and end them.
Revealing Bloodwind Four Lions’ whereabouts would put them in danger—which breaks no oath to Geom U-bin.
She’d even made them sign an oath that if they fled or disclosed Bloodwind Four Lions’ identity, they would accept death.
And she’d added very small-printed special clauses.
―The moment Bloodwind Four Lions’ identity is exposed, Kang Seo Samak and Se-hwa die.
Even if those four never say a word, the clause takes effect. It might seem unfair, but in Murim, weakness is sin.
Yeon Geum-hong told Geom U-bin the whole story of Kang Seo Samak and the others. After hearing it, Geom U-bin scratched his head with an uncomfortable expression.
“All the same, you did well not killing them. If you’d killed them without intent to kill, I’d have been disappointed in you disciples.”
“We only ever follow the senior’s will.”
Of course, she never mentioned the hidden schemes at work.
Crack!
Go Seo-bang clutched his head and collapsed under a blinding migraine.
“You bastard! We’re running short on firewood! You should’ve stocked it before it ran out!”
The mighty Kang Seo Samak was getting beaten over the head for firewood. But his assailant was the Heavenly Sound Demon. Beating his skull or anywhere else made no difference to such a creature.
“I… I’ll go get some right now!”

“Once you cross that mountain, there are plenty of sturdy trees. Head that way. I want you back within a quarter hour.”
“A quarter hour? But that’s so far, isn’t it?”
“That’s why you’d better move fast. Take someone to help. You can go as far as you need. But if you’re late, you die. So if it looks like you won’t make it, run. Hehehehe…….”
Kang Seo Samak shouldered the A-frame carrier and bolted away at full speed.
Three figures emerged from their hiding spots and gathered around Seo Seok-san.
“Think he’ll run?”
Do Pyeong-su’s question drew a doubtful expression from Yeon Geum-hong.
“Hard to say. Reason doesn’t always govern emotion.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“We’re frightening enough that they might be too terrified to even attempt escape.”
“Want to make a wager?”
“What kind of wager?”
“The winner gets a taste of combat experience.”
Yeon Geum-hong bristled.
“Do I look like a fool? If they don’t run, I can’t sample their skills even if I win!”
“Tch! You’ve got long hair but short thinking. This isn’t the only day we have, is it? Those wretches are bound to flee eventually. Aren’t they?”
A cruel smile crossed Yeon Geum-hong’s lips as well.
“Right. If we don’t let those bastards escape, we’re not the Bloodwind Four Lions. Hehehehe!”
He returned.
Yeon Geum-hong offered praise by stroking his cheek, but Kang Seo Samak couldn’t escape Do Pyeong-su’s thunderous warning.
“If I catch you using internal power, I’ll shatter your dantian. Remember that.”
So Kang Seo Samak had to reduce an enormous pile of logs to firewood using only the strength of his body.
With a quarter-hour time limit imposed, he had no time even to catch his breath.
‘I should have just run.’
He vowed each time that he would flee next, but in the end, none of them ever did. The snare of a name—the Bloodwind Four Lions—was so terrible it bound even their freedom of will.
It was not only Kang Seo Samak who was subjected to torment that transcended human limits.
“Wrong. That’s what you call musical performance? You were supposedly the finest courtesan in Gangseо Province? Ha! With that kind of playing? Again.”
Her fingers had stiffened and the tips bled from splitting open. Yet Seo Seok-san gave Se-hwa no respite from playing.
Three hours without even visiting the privy, only playing, her fingers screaming in agony and her entire body contorting in response.
“I, I need to use the privy…….”
“Just go ahead. Hmph! But don’t stop playing. Want me to make you a cripple?”
Seo Seok-san looked perfectly capable of doing exactly that.
So she couldn’t even think of rising defiantly to her feet.
Through her botched playing came Seo Seok-san’s low voice.
“If you can’t take it, run away.”
So Gi-cheon’s fist drove into the boy’s belly.
Oof!
As the boy crumpled with the impact, another lunged in with a punch aimed at So Gi-cheon’s face.
“You damned beggar!”
So Gi-cheon twisted his upper body lightly to slip the punch and kicked the boy’s shin with a snap.
The boy toppled forward and collapsed again as he tried to stand, clutching at his injured shin.
As the fallen boys lay sprawled, So Gi-cheon’s voice fell upon them.
“I don’t mind the abuse. I don’t mind the contempt. Beggars are meant to be treated that way, after all. But don’t break the gourd bowl. You did it twice already.”
These boys were the same ones from the martial arts school who had beaten So Gi-cheon and smashed his bowl a year before.
Though the boys had grown taller and stronger in the interim, So Gi-cheon’s growth far outpaced theirs.
Noh Dae-sul visited occasionally as promised to teach him martial arts, and So Gi-cheon devoted every hour outside of begging to training.
The gap between one who merely seeks physical conditioning and one who stakes his life was inevitably stark.
“The beggar’s gone mad wanting to die. How dare you lay hands on disciples of our martial arts school!”
At the voice that rang out, So Gi-cheon turned his head.
The man in his mid-thirties with the outer corners of his eyes raised sharply and a disproportionately large nose was Yi Pil-ryong.
Director of the Hangju Martial Arts School, a man whom even Hangju’s underworld wouldn’t dare cross carelessly. He was strong enough, and his nature so cruel, that even the criminal underworld deferred to him.
“These men broke my bowl first!”
“Is that so? My disciples made a mistake. They should have crushed your skull instead of breaking your bowl.”
“M, master…….”
“To let my school’s name be tarnished by a begging wretch like you—brace yourself. And…….”
Yi Pil-ryong’s gaze turned toward So Gi-cheon.
“From today on, I’ll make your begging life truly flourish. If a cripple begs with broken limbs, he’ll eat his fill every day.”
As Yi Pil-ryong clenched his fist, his knuckles cracked audibly.
Just then, a weary voice sounded from behind.
“Interfering in children’s squabbles—do you truly not know what shame is?”
The onlookers who had been watching from the sidelines gasped as one.
“So Ju-seon!”

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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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