Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 249

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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 249

At Gwan Ho-un’s words, Moon So-je’s face went blank.
“You’re talking about that Shintu—the one who could steal the Empress’s own undergarments if he set his mind to it?”
“That’s the one.”
“But if Shintu has the Cheon-gwang-an, then finding it would be the same as finding nothing at all, wouldn’t it? He’s so elusive—no one even knows his real face, let alone his name. How do you propose to find him?”
“That’s something we’ll manage on our end.”
Moon So-je’s expression hardened at Gwan Ho-un’s icy tone.
“In that ‘we’ you just mentioned—there’s no place for the Huashan Faction, is there?”
“It would be best if the Huashan Faction exercised restraint for the time being.”
“Restraint? After all the blood Huashan has spilled, you want to abandon us now?”
“Abandon is hardly the word. It’s simply that the Huashan Faction’s current position is… precarious, wouldn’t you say? Your attempt on those two Shaolin disciples didn’t succeed, after all.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions about failure so hastily. We still don’t know the full outcome.”
“If they haven’t returned by now, you have to call it what it is—failure.”
Moon So-je had nothing left to say. If the disciples had succeeded, they would have come back already.
“Even if the disciples did fail, there’s no reason their identities would be exposed.”
“That remains to be seen. In any case, the Huashan Faction will maintain restraint for now. The matter of the Palgak-gyeong is something we’ll handle ourselves.”
Byeok Sang-do and Gwan Ho-un took Moon So-je’s silence as consent. But Moon So-je had no intention of backing away from this.
The way things were unfolding, even if they obtained Hwa-ryong Seonin’s martial arts, there would be nothing left for him.
‘I’ll steal the Palgak-gyeong first, by heaven.’

***

Geom U-bin bolted upright from his bed.
“Wait—what’s today’s date?”
As Geom U-bin counted the days, he released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He wasn’t late. In fact, he still had close to ten days’ margin.
But urgency drove him, and he slipped quickly out of the inn.
He needed to send a carrier pigeon to the Oseong Jang-won. If his message arrived even a day late, Hyeolpung Saja would undoubtedly emerge into the Murim.
With the Palgak-gyeong affair as well, if the masters came out, it could unleash true bloodwind across the entire Murim.
“The masters absolutely cannot enter the Murim.”
Geom U-bin hurried toward the Oseong Merchant Association Branch.

***

Damp with night dew, Geom U-bin arrived at the Oseong Merchant Association Branch and quietly vaulted over the wall.
He couldn’t simply walk in using the identity of Jang Seo-yeon, and since carrier pigeons only flew between the places where they’d been trained, he couldn’t just release any bird at random.
The Oseong Merchant Association’s main headquarters in Hangju and its branches across the region each kept hundreds of carrier pigeons.
The organization had long understood that swift information exchange was vital to their commercial success.
Geom U-bin halted before the pigeon loft that housed the largest number of birds.
A sign helpfully painted above the enclosure read “Oseong Jang-won,” making it easy to find.
At this hour, the pigeons all slept. Geom U-bin moved so discreetly that even a wary bird wouldn’t have stirred.
He wrote a brief message in charcoal first—nothing elaborate, just that things were proceeding smoothly and there was nothing to worry about.
The pigeon with the black-flecked feathers startled awake the moment Geom U-bin’s hand closed around it.
“Shh. Sorry for waking you early.”
After rolling the letter tightly and securing it in the small tube attached to the bird’s leg, Geom U-bin released it high into the sky.
“Don’t forget to send word to the masters. Never forget.”

***

Im Su-yeong leaned her back against a tree, breathing hard. The fact that she supposedly possessed the Palgak-gyeong had become accepted as truth, and now hundreds—perhaps thousands—of Murim martial artists hunted her.
“Damn it. No gain, just the pain of a false rumor.”
No one would believe she didn’t have the Palgak-gyeong. And with no way to prove it, flight had become her only choice.
But even that was growing harder. She’d thought that fleeing deep into the mountains would help, but the pursuers closing in from all sides never let her out of their grasp.
Though they fought over the Palgak-gyeong among themselves, they’d united as one force against her.
‘Where can I even go?’
The hopelessness of it all pressed down on her—a suffocating silence she’d never known before, the terrible weight of a life without escape.
Of course, she had no intention of giving up on life. There was wisdom in the old saying that even when the sky falls, there’s a hole through which one can escape.
“There has to be a way.”
Im Su-yeong gnawed at her thumbnail, thinking hard. Even now, at this very moment, she needed to find a way through the tightening noose closing around her.
“My martial arts aren’t enough. My lightness skill is excellent, but not enough to pierce through this encirclement. And what else do I have? What I possess… what I possess…”
Then it struck her—she was clinging desperately to what she owned.
Everything stemmed from the misunderstanding that she possessed the Palgak-gyeong when she didn’t have it at all.
So if she could only prove that she didn’t have the Palgak-gyeong, they would stop pursuing her.
One by one, then two by two, Im Su-yeong sensed people appearing in her field of vision.
With ten visible at the edge of her sight, there were likely three to five times as many hidden.
Im Su-yeong walked heavily toward a rock and climbed atop it.
“Listen well, you fools! I’m telling you again—I don’t have the Palgak-gyeong!”
Everyone was hidden, listening to her words, when suddenly someone burst from the forest.
It was Jang Seo-bong, the very one who had attacked her first. Those who lacked confidence to hold the Palgak-gyeong even if they obtained it remained in hiding, but Jang Seo-bong’s appearance meant he had faith in himself.
“So the renowned Cheon Byeon Nanhwa begs for her life like this? Why not simply surrender the Palgak-gyeong cleanly?”
“If I had the Palgak-gyeong, I would have abandoned it long ago. No treasure is worth more than one’s life.”
“If you know that, why do you persist?”
“Because I don’t have it!”
Im Su-yeong stripped off her outer robe as she spoke.
“Let me show you I don’t have it.”
She removed not only her robe but her upper garments and trousers as well, until only her underclothes remained—then she hurled even those into the air.
In an instant, Im Su-yeong stood completely naked, spreading both arms and turning a full circle in place.
“Look—where does it seem like I could be hiding the Palgak-gyeong?”
It was an extremely shameful sight, yet neither Im Su-yeong nor the watching Jang Seo-bong showed any sign of discomfort.
“You may not be carrying it, but you’ve hidden it somewhere.”
“I was being chased without time to hide anything!”
“Hiding the Palgak-gyeong takes barely a breath’s time. Why should I believe that?”
“Damn it! How else can I prove it to you? I’ve stripped completely naked!”
“If one could gain the Palgak-gyeong along with his life, he’d strip a hundred times without hesitation. If I took off my own clothes here, would you then tell me where you’ve hidden the Palgak-gyeong?”
She’d thought proving her innocence would be simple, but words meant nothing. And Jang Seo-bong would not be the only one unmoved.
Those hiding in the forest showed no sign of leaving either—not merely to glimpse her bare form, but because they remained unconvinced.
‘There’s nothing I can do.’
She sank into a true abyss of despair.
“Damn it all, what good is that Palgak-gyeong anyway…”
Im Su-yeong’s voice trembled with tears as she muttered, when suddenly a scream pierced the air.
What began as one cry erupted almost simultaneously from all directions—clearly from those pursuing her.
Both Im Su-yeong and Jang Seo-bong spun around in shock. Dozens of screams that had poured out for a long moment vanished as suddenly as they’d begun.
The silence that followed didn’t last long. From all directions, figures in black garments and matching black masks emerged one by one.
Jang Seo-bong was far more startled than Im Su-yeong, whose death was already assured.
“Who… who are you lot?”
That so many had been slain in an instant proved these newcomers were no ordinary folk.
In their exposed eyes lay no readable emotion. With their numbers and the martial prowess it took to kill so many in one stroke, Jang Seo-bong could not stand against them alone.
His own life mattered far more than the Palgak-gyeong. So Jang Seo-bong raised both hands to shoulder height and stepped backward.
“I surrender the Palgak-gyeong. Please, settle it among yourselves…”
He never finished. With a wet thud, a blade pierced through Jang Seo-bong’s chest and emerged from the other side.
“Damn… should’ve at least put up a fight…”
As the masked figure withdrew the sword, Jang Seo-bong crumpled like a bundle of straw. There were roughly thirty of them.
The chill they emanated sent goosebumps across Im Su-yeong’s skin.
“I… I really don’t have the Palgak-gyeong.”
Her voice shook involuntarily, pressed down by the wickedness pouring from them.
One of them, whose face bore many wrinkles suggesting considerable age, spoke.
“Where is the Palgak-gyeong hidden?”
“It’s not hidden—I really don’t have it!”
She’d said this so many times she felt she could recite it in her sleep.
“Then where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I… I don’t understand it either. I dozed off briefly on the mountainside, and it vanished without a trace.”
“You claim to have the Palgak-gyeong and yet napped on the mountain? Your lies grow ever more brazen.”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s the truth. I’ve thought it over carefully, and perhaps the original owner—a man named Jang Seo-yeon—took it back. It all felt too easy, you see. He framed me. Isn’t he a clever one?”
His eyes crinkled downward in what seemed like a smile. If one removed that mask, she imagined a kindly grandfather’s face beneath it.
“That may be. But I still can’t shake the suspicion that you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not! Look!”
He felt nothing watching her naked, arms spread wide. It had been a day of humiliation—his very life hanging by a thread, and now his pride in tatters as well.
“The method of finding out is simple enough.”
“How?”
“Do you know what weakens a person most?”
“L-lust?”
“Pain.”
The old man nodded, and one of the masked ones stepped forward. In his hand he carried a small blade honed so keenly that it looked as though merely bringing it near something would slice it to pieces.
“Y-you’re going to torture me? I’m telling you the truth!”
“We’ll know for certain within a quarter hour.”
The eyes behind the mask drooped downward once more.

***

“Retch!”
Sounds of retching echoed from all directions. Though the group had been on the Uninhabited Island for barely twenty days, they had been reduced to half their number.
Do Pyeong-su, watching the sight, clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
“Kids these days are too soft in the body.”
“That’s right. Back when we trained, if it was only this much we’d be dozing off. These ones are the most useful of the lot, though.”
Unlike the trainees scattered throughout the forest, the members of the Oseong Chungin-dae weren’t even sitting—they leaned against the trees as though taking their ease.
Their faces glistened with sweat and were flushed, but they showed little sign of strain.
Though they held the rank of instructor and group leader, their training was no lighter than the others’.
If anything, having to train themselves while also putting the trainees through their paces must have doubled the burden.
“Man-dok’s done a decent job raising these brats. In that case, maybe we ought to work them over a bit harder?”
Do Pyeong-su’s voice was loud enough that the Oseong Chungin-dae members resting nearby heard it clearly.
The shoulders of the Oseong Chungin-dae stiffened slightly, and Su Jang-san, who had been watching their faces, suddenly collapsed.
“Jang-san, what’s wrong all of a sudden?”
At San Geum-dok’s question, Su Jang-san gestured urgently with his eyes. Catching on too late, San Geum-dok also let out a weak groan and crumpled to the ground, and the remaining three fell forward.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk… your acting’s so clumsy. Though it looks like some of them are missing?”
It wasn’t a question directed at anyone in particular, but Man Seok-pyeong, lying on the ground, answered anyway.
“They collapsed during training and are resting in their quarters.”
“Collapsed?”
“Yes. Four of them passed out.”
“Clumsy actors can’t even catch clumsy acting.”
Seo Seok-san made his way toward the quarters with shuffling steps, and the Oseong Chungin-dae members followed meekly behind.
“Bring them out.”
The Oseong Chungin-dae members emerged from the quarters carrying four bodies on their backs. Draped limply over their shoulders, the trainees looked every bit like corpses.
Looking at them, Seo Seok-san spoke.
“Trainees who can’t keep up with the regimen are useless.”
Do Yeon-seo, carrying one of the unconscious trainees, asked carefully.
“What do you intend to do with them?”
“Throw them into the sea.”
“P-pardon?”

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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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