Dokmaeuiseon - Chapter 32
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 32
“It’s a Gold Ingot. First time seeing one?”
“No, would I have asked if I didn’t know what a Gold Ingot was? Why are you giving me this instead of an answer?”
“The Physician gave it to me.”
“What?”
“I said the Physician gave it to me.”
When I asked him to accept me, why is he talking about a Gold Ingot?
And why is Gal Tae-gyeong holding it and smiling?
‘Wait, this fellow?’
Does he know how things are going and is smiling about it?
Right now I asked to be accepted as a retainer.
But he’s saying he was given money instead.
So looking at it differently.
“I couldn’t become a retainer?”
“Ahem…”
“But he hired me instead?”
“That’s what happened. For now, it’s for life.”
“Hah…”
Not a retainer, but hired.
Does he give out entire Gold Ingots for that?
A Gold Ingot is enough money to hire an Escort, isn’t it?
Of course, if one reaches a level beyond first-rate, the story might be a bit different.
“That seems excessive for a monthly wage.”
“I’m a Formation Master of my caliber, so I should receive a Gold Ingot. I also have to repair formations.”
“Did you demand your full price in the midst of all this?”
“What if I didn’t?”
“Good grief. That’s when you’re supposed to give a discount.”
“Should I have done that?”
“…Oh my goodness. These crazy people are perfectly matched in all the wrong ways!”
Anyway, it’s excessive.
And he actually accepted it.
Why did the Physician give it to him?
It’s also strange to hire someone when they asked to become a retainer.
Normally, when someone offers to become a retainer, you accept them first and see how it goes.
But in the midst of all this, the one being hired also properly negotiated his worth.
“…Such master, such subordinate.”
“What are you saying?”
“Never mind. Just forget it.”
One has an inexplicable charm.
A Physician who’s completely impossible to gauge.
The other has an amazingly kind nature, but a terribly stubborn personality – a Formation Master’s Combination.
‘I brought them together, but this is quite a unique Combination.’
Things seem to be taking an interesting turn.
But for Song In, who had only thought as far as Treatment.
He couldn’t gauge how this Combination would turn out in the future.
‘What exactly is this method…’
He couldn’t understand how things were working at all.
And in the midst of all this, what exactly did he plan to do by hiring this Formation Master?
He couldn’t gauge that either.
* * *
‘Everything has its use.’
Gal Tae-gyeong. His abilities are good.
However, Jung Myeong thought it was still too much to consider him his own person.
Unlike Old Man Jang, there were things that bothered him.
Still, his abilities weren’t lacking.
So what he proposed was employment.
But hiring someone of that caliber just to repair formations.
Wouldn’t that be a waste?
‘There’s no greater waste than that.’
While wandering as a Gangho Physician.
Jung Myeong had developed a miser’s mentality about money.
What about Treatment fees? He could say this.
He was doing it because it all benefited his own training.
Someone like him wouldn’t leave Gal Tae-gyeong idle.
He added one more task.
Formation lessons.
“I dislike it when half-baked people try to learn formations.”
“What?”
“But you’re fine, Physician. You’re not a half-baked person.”
“Oh my.”
“Hmm? Is there a problem?”
“…No.”
Right after starting the lesson.
Saying something like this right off the bat was quite irritating.
‘Now I’m starting to understand his way of speaking.’
What could he do.
Looking at him, he was just hurling insults without any real malice.
One whose words going out weren’t pleasant, and whose words coming in weren’t pleasant either.
Someone completely absorbed in his own world.
He wondered if such a person would really teach well.
But then again.
“Now, today I shall explain about the Five Elements that we discussed yesterday. For reference, I will try to apply it to the medical arts that you have learned, Physician, to make it easier to understand.”
‘…No, why is his teaching so orthodox again.’
“What we call the Five Elements starts by finding things that harmonize with each other, but actually it comes from their opposing properties…”
When it came to teaching.
Gal Tae-gyeong was surprisingly quite good at it.
[Your understanding of Formations increases.]
And so.
Between the formation master with his crude manner of speech and Jung Myeong who absorbed everything he saw.
In their peculiar atmosphere, affection and formation lessons were being exchanged.
Time passed quickly.
The three months that Jung Myeong had initially promised to Baekyang Escort Agency were gradually approaching.
* * *
The past three months.
The Donghwa Guild Leader had gone back and forth between heaven and hell.
When he captured the Yeomsan Guild Leader, he tasted such ecstasy that fireworks seemed to explode in his head.
When the Salt Merchants brought in Black Point and pushed him into a defensive position, he glimpsed death.
What do you know.
When he called the Golden Tiger Gang to survive, they turned out to be not wolves but hyenas.
Hyenas that would devour even the one who summoned them!
Thinking himself a lone remaining wolf, he had to make a gamble.
The kidnapping of the Yeomsan Merchant Leader!
It succeeded dramatically. If he hadn’t taken advantage of the moment when the Golden Tiger Gang moved and all attention was focused there, it would never have succeeded.
Thus what came next was important.
Taking the Salt Merchants’ leader to the Donghwa Guild like this.
‘That won’t do.’
That would be something only an amateur would do.
He hid his body.
He concealed his identity. With the merchant leader tied up beside him.
“Stop it! Stop!”
“Shut up and stay still. If things go wrong, I’ll take your head first.”
“Hiiiek!”
“It’s you die and I die. No, if I die, you die too.”
Acting like the scoundrel he used to be in his youth, shaking off all pursuit.
With a sword pressed to the throat of the Salt Merchants’ merchant leader.
The place he entered was an unexpected location beyond imagination.
“We’re not on terms to meet like this, are we?”
“Gyeom Gwang-ja.”
It was Black Point itself.
He had walked into the tiger’s den with his own feet.
“Hah. Madman, you say.”
“What else but a madman? Should I call you Gyeom the Gentleman?”
The word ‘madman’ suited the guild leader more than Gyeom Gwang-ja.
The eyes of the one who had sought out Gyeom Gwang-ja were gleaming.
“Are you trying to provoke me by saying such things so openly?”
“Provocation? What you bastards did would be provocation.”
“Hehe.”
The guild leader’s eyes were prepared for immediate death.
‘He came prepared to die if things go wrong. Tsk.’
At this, the Black Point leader felt things going awry.
The situation wasn’t favorable.
“Stop moving the kids around, will you?”
“Hiiiek…!”
“Oh my. Oh my. I didn’t order that.”
“Bullshit. Should I kill him?”
“Hiik!”
“Go easy. Haven’t you dropped the habits from your scoundrel days yet?”
“Drop them? If I drop them, I die. Hehehe…”
“Hehe.”
To reverse the situation.
He had secretly moved his men.
But he had been caught long ago.
The guild leader had become the lone wolf who once roamed Hangzhou in his youth.
The various events of the recent great war had clearly tempered him.
“Everyone, fall back.”
“Yes!”
In the end, Gyeom Gwang-ja had no choice but to withdraw his subordinates too.
However, that didn’t mean the standoff had collapsed.
“Hiiiik! Let go of me now!”
“Shut up!”
“…Kkeuk… B-blood, blood!”
“Hehe.”
A sword was pressed against the Merchant Leader’s neck.
Blood trickled down from his neck where the blade’s tip had pierced.
Gyeom Gwang-ja, who faced him, could only lick his lips and watch quietly.
There was no other choice.
In the midst of this strange standoff.
The Guild Leader was the first to make a move.
“Let’s negotiate.”
“Negotiate?”
“Yes. Negotiate.”
A sudden proposal for negotiation.
At this, Gyeom Gwang-ja tilted his head.
“What do you have to offer? Other than this fool’s head.”
“Hiik! I-I’m not a fool… sir.”
“This guy is just an invitation at best.”
“You know well.”
“I already know that something like this won’t be enough for negotiation.”
The Merchant Leader’s head wouldn’t make for a deal.
They both already knew that.
What cards did the Guild Leader have left?
“Then? What are you going to give?”
“Geumho Guild.”
The Guild Leader put his own position on the table as a card.
The question was feasibility.
“Can you deliver?”
“Don’t be hasty. First, I’ll hand over Soemyeol-gun.”
“Hooo…”
“This is possible.”
“Putting Soemyeol-ma on the scales. That’s interesting, isn’t it?”
“You’d find it interesting. After all, what you want isn’t small fry like me, but someone at Geumho Guild’s level. So an elder-level like Soemyeol-ma would be more than enough.”
“Quick-witted too.”
“What choice do I have to survive? Even a thick skull has to turn.”
It seemed his head was working.
Enough to calculate the possibilities.
‘The success rate would be about seventy percent.’
If Gyeom Gwang-ja saw it as seventy percent.
It was a profitable deal.
In fact, even a gamble with fifty percent odds would have been considered a decent hand.
Fifty percent was a good proposal for an Evil Sect martial artist.
What was interesting was that it was proposed by him, the Guild Leader of Donghwa Guild.
That stimulated Gyeom Gwang-ja’s curiosity. Just like when he saw Jung Myeong.
“I see. Did an unexpected situation trigger some kind of awakening?”
“What awakening? It’s desperation. Don’t you want to catch a big fish?”
“Hmm… Soemyeol-gun alone is rather small.”
“I’ll throw in his disciples too. And this Salt Merchant’s leader while we’re at it. How about that?”
“Hiik…! Wh-what…!”
Fortunately, the Guild Leader satisfied his curiosity. About half of it.
‘Not as much as back then.’
He couldn’t satisfy it as much as Jung Myeong had.
However, it wasn’t bad in itself.
There weren’t many who could satisfy his curiosity in the first place.
“One big fish with some small fry. It would fill the belly, hmm… it is quite tempting.”
“It should be tempting.”
“What if it’s not?”
“If you’ve dragged out a conflict that should have taken a week into three months, haven’t you seen enough?”
“Seen enough. Is that so?”
“Hah. Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter. Your side must have overextended too. It should be tempting.”
“You saw through that far.”
“I already told you. I came here to survive.”
His follow-up wasn’t bad either.
The Guild Leader was right.
Evil Sect conflicts last a week at most.
Sometimes they don’t even mobilize the lower-ranking members, settling things at the top level.
Out of consideration for those below?
As if that would happen.
It’s because of money.
Even missing tribute for one day causes huge losses.
Just a week is enough to make guilds or sects stagger.
Unlike Orthodox Sects that accumulate wealth.
They live day by day, earning today to eat today.
Why don’t they save?
Why would they save?
If they saved it and got stabbed in the back by a subordinate blinded by money, it would all be for nothing.
So Evil Sect conflicts usually don’t last long.
The one who forcibly dragged this out was Gyeom Gwang-ja right before his eyes.
The Guild Leader had suffered great losses.
And Gyeom Gwang-ja wouldn’t be without losses either.
The Guild Leader had struck at that point.
“Kekekek. Kek… Interesting. How interesting. Things I never expected always seem to happen.”
“Your answer?”
“Good.”
It worked.
The Hangzhou Yeomsan Merchant Leader and Soemyeol-gun.
Black Point had given Donghwa Guild the heads of both.
At that moment.
“You, you bastards… Divine punishment… Keurk…!”
“Divine punishment, my ass.”
Kwajuk-
The Yeomsan Merchant Leader’s fate was decided.
The merchant leader’s neck was severed.
Kuwoong.
The merchant leader’s headless body collapsed to the floor.
Gyeom Gwang-ja’s subordinates who were watching simply moved naturally to clean it up.
Gyeom Gwang-ja glanced down at him.
“I was planning to make good use of him. What a waste.”
“A waste, indeed.”
Though he spoke of regret.
His tone seemed bored.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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