Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 99

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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 099

Astonishment flickered across Gong Seong-tak’s face, too vivid to hide.
“Truly remarkable! How can someone your age possess such martial prowess?”
“I’ve had excellent teachers.”
“Ha! So I’m sparring with the greatest Murim master of the future! Excellent! From now on, I’ll give this everything I have—steel yourself!”
After those words, Gong Seong-tak’s onslaught transformed entirely. The destructive force intensified, the speed sharpened, and the overwhelming pressure deepened.
Even Jang Man-dok gasped aloud—Gong Seong-tak’s Jincheonraeigak was terrifying.
Geom U-bin, who had been trading blows skillfully, was driven backward and eventually took a strike to the shoulder before rolling across the ground.
Startled, Jang Man-dok rushed over to check on him, but Geom U-bin sprang to his feet at once.
“Jang, I’m fine. My Cheolhyeol-gong has surpassed the eighth stage. I can easily withstand this much.”
The words were brave enough, but the sharp, tingling pain in his shoulder refused to fade. He wanted to continue sparring, but that was mere hunger—his own desire, nothing more.
Geom U-bin bowed respectfully toward Gong Seong-tak.
“Thank you for the instruction.”
Gong Seong-tak returned the gesture with a fist salute.
“Extraordinary. Within three years, I believe you’ll surpass me.”
“I still have far to go.”
“Until today, I never understood why Murim martial artists grow so obsessed with their art. But watching you, I’m beginning to feel it myself. Let’s spar often.”
When Jang Man-dok’s expression turned fierce, Gong Seong-tak hastily said, “I’ll be careful,” and bolted toward the smithy.
“Phew! I’m still not strong enough yet.”
Jang Man-dok leaned in close to Geom U-bin’s face.
“Yes, you’re greedy. But you have to grow stronger quickly—so the others won’t worry. Yes, I know. I love you too.”
As Geom U-bin embraced him, happiness bloomed across Jang Man-dok’s features.

***

“Right about now, Man-dok is probably sharing a good moment alone with Hang Ju-sa-ung, isn’t he?”
At Yeon Geum-hong’s words, with Guryong Mountain looming before them, Seo Seok-san’s determination kindled.
“Let’s find the Biwhagok Needle quickly and get back before that sneaking wretch grows any closer to Hang Ju-sa-ung.”
Guryong Mountain had an unusual form—one mountain with nine distinct peaks.
The peaks were sheer, the valleys deep, and the terrain treacherous; even hunters and herb-gatherers rarely ventured there.
“There are a few farming villages around the perimeter. Let’s circle through and ask about Biwhagok while we’re at it.”
But two hours later, the three returned empty-handed. Among the people in the eight farming villages surrounding the mountain, not a single soul had even heard the name Biwhagok.
“So we’re left with searching the entire mountain.”
“If Biwhagok is really there according to the Mantong Association’s information, it won’t have an ordinary structure. If it did, someone would have spotted it by now.”
“Then it could be hidden deep in a ravine? Or underground?”
“Those are the most likely possibilities. I’d lean toward underground.”
At Do Pyeong-su’s words, the other two looked at him questioningly.
“They’re a sinister lot, after all.”
Though the logic seemed tenuous, they decided to begin their search with the subterranean possibility in mind.
With the forest so thick, a superficial search would make finding any underground facility impossible.
“If you want to drain a reservoir, the surest way is to block the water and pump it out.”
Remarkably, this time they heeded Do Pyeong-su’s counsel. So they began pulling trees from the most remote sections, those least touched by human feet.
Better to search thoroughly from the start than to wander about haphazardly and waste time.
Even the mightiest trees were uprooted with a single exertion of force, and smaller growth scattered skyward with merely a gesture of the hand.
The trees of Guryong Mountain vanished noticeably fast.
The farming families on the lower slopes were most startled by the mountain’s transformation. Since their settlements lay below, their actual lives remained unchanged.
Yet the mountain’s visibly shifting appearance, different each time they woke, filled them with dread.
“What in the world is happening to that mountain? Does anyone know?”
“The shaman in the village down there says the Mountain Spirit has taken offense at something?”
“The Mountain Spirit? Why would it?”
“Who knows. She’s collecting money for a ritual just to be safe, or so it seemed.”
The village women gossiped as they tended their fields, and as always, they readily embraced the supernatural to explain the inexplicable.
So-ju-daek, whose belly had grown swollen with pregnancy, was one of those who easily accepted such beliefs.
She had come from Soju and earned the name So-ju-daek; she had borne four daughters in succession, two of them twins.
Her in-laws, ardent believers in preference for sons, had made their intention clear—subtly at times, brutally at others—that if she failed to give them a son this time, they would cast her out to her natal family, leaving her anxious and afraid.
But a being had appeared—a mountain spirit—capable of accomplishing what no ordinary human could.
She could not simply stand by and watch the only lifeline within her grasp slip away. The moment dawn broke, So-ju-daek abandoned her field work and climbed toward Guryong Mountain’s summit with desperate haste.
As the peak drew near, a thunderous sound—Boom! Boom!—echoed through the air.
The sheer volume alone was terrifying, but when a massive tree crashed to the ground and the tremors rippled through her body, her fear deepened still further.
Yet the chance to meet a mountain spirit would not come twice more in a lifetime.
So-ju-daek pushed back her mounting dread with every fiber of her being and pressed through the forest. And at last, she found traces of the mountain spirit.
There was no avoiding what lay before her now.
Uprooted trees lay heaped in places like hillocks, and the earth itself had been torn apart as though a massive earthwork were underway.
So-ju-daek climbed that treacherous path driven by a single will: to bear a son.
Crash!
A tremendous tree fell no more than ten paces away.
So-ju-daek started in terror and let out a sharp, involuntary cry.
A moment later, a figure materialized before her like a specter.
The broad-eyed man with his rough beard bore little resemblance to any mountain spirit she had imagined. Yet there was no other being in the world who could stand here so unharmed save a spirit of the mountains.
So-ju-daek dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground.
“Divine spirit! Please take pity on this wretched, ignorant woman!”
Do Pyeong-su, whom So-ju-daek believed to be the mountain spirit, merely stared down at her blankly.
‘Why should I pity her?’
In another time, he might have debated whether to kill her for the inconvenience, but now he simply wished to settle whatever business she had and see her gone.
“I came here to marry into this village at nineteen, and I have lived here ten years!”
So-ju-daek recounted the life she had lived, rambling on without end. The time it took to speak of ten years was not so long after all.
There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the life of a fire-field farmer.
“If I do not bear a son this time, I shall be cast out! I beg you, divine spirit, have mercy on this base creature and grant me but one son!”
So-ju-daek was beseeching Do Pyeong-su to perform a feat utterly beyond his power.
It seemed she would not leave readily unless he granted her wish.
“Very well. The child you bear this time shall be a son.”
So-ju-daek lifted her head, her face alight as though she had gained the whole world.
“Is that truly so?”
“Have you ever known me to lie?”
As she could not have, So-ju-daek bowed her head again and again.
“Thank you! Thank you ever so much, divine spirit!”
“Now that your business is settled, go. I have work to attend to.”
So-ju-daek descended the mountain after thanking him roughly ten more times.
“What are you doing?”
Yeon Geum-hong, who had been listening from out of sight, asked, and Do Pyeong-su gave a shrug.
“Either way, it’ll be a son or a daughter. Surely that woman won’t birth a dog.”
“So you mimicked a mountain spirit for that reason?”
“You always say to speak true even with a crooked mouth—I didn’t mimic anything. She simply chose to believe. I gained nothing from it, so it’s not fraud.”
There was truth in what he said.
Though lately Do Pyeong-su seemed to be growing rather clever, and that troubled her somewhat.
Seo Seok-san, who had stripped an entire face of the mountain bare, approached where they stood.
“This peak doesn’t seem to be the one.”
Only innocent creatures had lost their homes.
“Then we move to the next peak.”
Whether or not they did, the three of them had never harbored any thought of giving up.

***

Biwhagok was an organization of great antiquity, unbroken for two hundred and fifty years. Yet it was not classified among the Murim sects.
This was because it had undertaken no significant action against the Murim.
Nor were they merchants or a physician’s collective; from the beginning, they were far from ordinary.
The truth was that Biwhagok’s origins lay simply in the gathering of those who feared death—much as the First Emperor had sought the elixir of immortality, so too had these people convened to craft the elixir of eternal youth.
The world held such people in greater numbers than one might expect, and as time accumulated, their numbers had swollen to three hundred souls.
Most sustained themselves through their own labor, and whatever they could not meet through self-sufficiency, they obtained by selling the miraculous medicinal liquors they developed through their research.
As these remedies were extraordinary, the name Biwhagok became known to the world quite without intention, and having once weathered great upheaval because of it, Biwhagok established its nest here in Guryong Mountain, where human contact was scarcest, one hundred and fifty years ago.
Days spent entirely in research—peaceful, unhurried days.
With no desires beyond immortality, even their harsh wild existence brought contentment.
Their only two concerns were the failure to create the elixir of eternal youth and the fear that someone might come to steal their secrets.
The cave nestled deep within Guryong Mountain was therefore an incomparable sanctuary for them.
Yet three people who had arrived suddenly were on the verge of shattering that peace into a thousand fragments.
“Are you certain they’re searching for us?”
Jang Man-dok, an elder of Biwhagok, answered the question posed by Hwang So-san, the valley’s leader.
“Our intelligence team visited four settlements of slash-and-burn farmers, and they report that those people were asking questions about Biwhagok.”
Hwang So-san stroked his white beard absently, then heaved a sigh.
“Alas! A hundred and fifty years of peace, and now it hangs by a thread.”
“Judging by their momentum, they won’t give up until they find us. What should we do?”
Hwang So-san had no clever solution to offer.
“We’ll have to relocate.”
“What? Abandon this wonderful place?”
The cavern, a blend of natural formation and deliberate improvement, even had openings that let in sunlight and fresh air—a sanctuary crafted by fortune itself.
“Regrettable as it is, it’s better than falling into the hands of those wicked Murim people outside, wouldn’t you say?”
“Then I’ll begin withdrawing the disciples stationed at Seungryong Peak first. That’s the closest position they hold.”

***

While uprooting a tree, Seo Seok-san discovered a cavern hidden behind it. The entrance had been so well concealed by undergrowth that he never would have found it without tearing up that tree.
Fresh signs of human passage were plainly visible at the cave mouth.
Seo Seok-san called out to Yeon Geum-hong and Do Pyeong-su, then ventured inside.
Wooden dishes lay scattered about, along with clothes and shoes.
“They fled in haste,” Do Pyeong-su observed, surveying the space. Yeon Geum-hong picked up a child’s garment from the floor.
“There were infants here too. How many members did you say Biwhagok has?”
“According to what the fly reported, somewhere between one and five hundred.”
With so little known, the numbers varied wildly.
“From what I see here, this place housed perhaps thirty to fifty people at most. That means they had other dwellings elsewhere.”
Yeon Geum-hong picked up on Seo Seok-san’s observation.
“And here’s what matters: they fled without us knowing. We failed to capture those who were here, which means we could easily miss the others. If we don’t find Biwhagok this time, we’re finished.”
Truly finished. Without the Biwhagok Needle, there was no path forward for Geom U-bin’s affliction.

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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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