My Father Is the Number One Under Heaven - Chapter 43

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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 43. The World of the Small and Forgotten
Dan Hee-young, the mistress of the Habet Peng Family, sat taking tea with her daughter Peng Seo-yeon.
Yul, who had been running and playing just moments before, now lay fast asleep cradled in Peng Seo-yeon’s arms.
“…Are you worried?”
After sipping tea together for a while, Dan Hee-young asked her daughter, who kept slipping into an expression clouded with concern.
She thought she was hiding it well enough, but in front of one’s mother, such feelings were never easy to conceal.
The moment Peng Seo-yeon realized her heart had been seen through, she shook her head in denial.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You don’t need to hide such things from me.”
At Dan Hee-young’s words, Peng Seo-yeon let out a long sigh and nodded.
Before long, all the worry she had been harboring was plainly written across her face.
“Sigh… The truth is, I know this is what the Peng Family’s martial artists have always done, but he’s different from them, isn’t he?”
“That’s true. But still, the Baekrang Corps—as you well know—though they cause their share of trouble, they’re more righteous than anyone else. They’re superior martial artists too, and I’m sure they’ll support him well. So don’t worry so much.”
“…Yes.”
Peng Seo-yeon knew it too, and she tried to believe that Dan Hee-young was right.
But worry isn’t something one can simply dismiss just because someone says not to worry.
Bandit Subjugation.
It was dangerous work that would cause concern even for someone who had trained in Martial Arts for years.
It was nothing to take lightly.
Moreover, her husband had been, until very recently, a man who spent his days reading and teaching in a small mountain village.
How could she possibly…
Sigh.
The more she thought about it, the more sighs came.
Dan Hee-young took her daughter’s hand firmly.
In truth, Dan Hee-young herself had comforted her daughter with assurances that there was nothing to worry about and that all would be well, but even she was barely restraining the turmoil churning in her own chest.
Dan Hee-young had learned that Yeo Woon-hui had taken command of the Baekrang Corps only after he had departed on the Bandit Subjugation with them.
To handle her request in such a manner…
No wonder he had seemed unusually willing to grant her favor that day.
Really, now.
Even though he was her husband, Dan Hee-young sometimes found him utterly exasperating.
She had asked him to take on something simple—an administrative post of sorts—just a small, modest request. She genuinely wanted to ask her husband how in the world he had transformed that into the idea of taking command of the entire Baekrang Corps, to understand the flow of his thinking.
In any case, it was so absurd she could only laugh bitterly at the thought of it.
Of course she was angry.
But for now, she decided she would wait until her son-in-law returned safely from this task before venting her fury.
Once he came back safely—truly—she planned to scold him so thoroughly that he’d think people could breathe fire.
In the meantime, Peng Seo-yeon could only resent her father for so carelessly entrusting the Baekrang Corps to her husband.
She couldn’t fathom what he had been thinking.
And she felt certain she would never understand that decision, ever.
When she had first heard the news, she had rushed to him in distress, insisting this made no sense, that it was absolutely impossible, and pleading with him to retract the decision. Yet why her husband had then agreed so readily to follow through with it was equally baffling.
Her father and her husband.
These two men were giving Peng Seo-yeon a headache.
She thought that once her husband returned, she ought to suggest that he learn Martial Arts late though it might be.
No—not suggest. She would insist on it.
Of course, she knew perfectly well that expecting any great achievement was unrealistic.
Without exceptional talent, it would be difficult for anyone to reach the level of an ordinary martial artist.
Still, it was better than knowing nothing at all.
Hmm.
Peng Seo-yeon turned her head to gaze at the sky.
The weather was lovely.
Indifferent to the anxieties below.
In any case, what she wished for most right now was simply that he would return safely.
***
“Oh my! Thank you, thank you so much, warriors!”
“To think we won’t have to see those brutes any longer… We’re alive because of you. Thank you! Truly, thank you!”
“Sob… I don’t know how we could ever repay such a debt.”
“Are you not hungry? Do try some of these potatoes.”
“We have corn too!”
“I… I also…”
The village was in considerable commotion.
The atmosphere that had been so dark for so long had transformed completely.
Some wept openly, tears streaming down their cheeks, while others beamed with joy as they rushed toward the Baekrang Corps members, each carrying something in their hands.
The Baekrang members found themselves bewildered yet smiling in return.
Having just swept clean the bandit lair, the Baekrang Corps had returned to the village that had commissioned them.
The villagers, limping and barely supporting one another, stared at the returning Corps with vacant faces.
And when they heard the tale, the villagers gasped as one.
“You’ve destroyed the entire bandit lair? And Geuk-ak So-ma? That’s… what on earth…?”
Had someone else told such a story, these simple folk would have thought it boastful nonsense.
Yet they had no choice but to believe.
Anyone who saw the Baekrang Corps would have felt the same.
The terrible wounds covering their bodies—wounds that testified to a fierce battle—and above all, the light in their eyes spoke of no boasting, no falsehood.
And now that they had seen Geuk-ak So-ma’s head with their own eyes, disbelief was impossible.
Yes.
Just as the Corps had said, the bandits that had threatened their village were gone—all of them.
That news had brought every villager out to offer their gratitude.
Their arms were laden with corn, potatoes, and all manner of food.
Of course, it was not from any surplus.
Only yesterday they had been debating whether their stores would last a week, or whether they would run short.
But now none of that mattered.
They had benefactors before them—ones whose kindness was so great they could never repay it, not in a lifetime.
In truth, the villagers had never imagined the Baekrang Corps would go to such lengths.
At best, they had expected the Corps to drive the bandits back somewhat, make a show of their efforts, take their payment, and leave.
There was good reason for such modest expectations.
The village had long suffered at the bandits’ hands and desperately needed help.
Yet whenever they sought aid, they were more often ignored, and when they managed to scrape together money to hire warriors, those men would come, pretend to act, collect their payment, and depart—while nothing changed.
The situation remained unchanged.
After this cycle repeated several times, any hope that things might improve had vanished entirely from the villagers’ hearts.
That was why, even as the Village Chief and a few others persisted in their efforts, pleading for aid far and wide and struggling as best they could, the entire village remained shrouded in darkness.
Because they could no longer afford to hope.
So when the Baekrang Corps first arrived, the villagers had shown no joy whatsoever.
They believed these newcomers would bring only disappointment and an unchanged reality.
They no longer wanted to harbor fragile hope only to be hurt by its collapse.
But then, impossibly, the Baekrang Corps proved to be utterly different from any they had encountered before.
They slew the bandits who had come again to demand tribute, and they even found the bandit lair itself, eliminating everyone within.
And in a feat that seemed beyond belief, they took the head of Geuk-ak So-ma, one of the Arch-Evil ones.
How could they not be grateful beyond measure?
Even people living in these remote mountains knew the name “Geuk-ak So-ma.”
Everyone knew how fearsome a master he was, how terrible a murderer.
When the villagers learned that such a demon lord had been stationed at the bandit lair, organizing the bandits, chills ran through their entire bodies.
Had the Baekrang Corps not severed the demon’s head that day, the villagers would surely have faced a ghastly slaughter at Geuk-ak So-ma’s hands in the not-distant future.
What if they had heeded those who said no one would help them, that even appealing to the Habet Peng Family would be futile, and had done nothing instead?
Their hearts had turned cold at the thought.
In the end, it was the Baekrang Corps that had prevented that worst moment from ever arriving.
The villagers had eyes to see.
When the Corps first arrived, they looked perfectly sound, yet they returned completely broken.
Their bodies were covered in cuts, scratches, and tears, their faces and frames matted with blood.
At a glance, one could see wounds grave enough to cause agony scattered across their frames.
And yet they smiled.
They told everyone to rest easy, for the bandits had been dealt with.
At this point, the villagers found themselves confused.
Why had these people gone to such lengths for their poor, humble village—a place with nothing of worth to offer in reward?
What could their purpose possibly be?
They did not know. No matter how they thought on it, they could not understand.
Yet their goodwill stirred something deep within the villagers’ hearts.
Once that realization took hold, they could not remain still.
They wanted to give everything—all the food they had hidden away in their homes, absolutely everything they possessed.
And then the Baekrang Corps went even further.
They distributed the rice and provisions from the bandit lair, along with all other goods, among not only this village but the neighboring ones as well.
They said it was only natural—that all these things had come from the villagers in the first place, and were simply being returned to their rightful owners.
But the villagers did not see it as natural at all.
That these people had rescued them from hellish circumstances at the cost of their own blood and returned even what had been stolen from them—no one could have asked for more, yet they had done it anyway.
Even if there had been one or two losses, it would have been beneath notice.
No one in the world would have blamed them for it.
If anything, they might have been criticized for the villagers’ greed running too deep.
Yet they returned everything as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
The words flowed ceaselessly from the villagers’ lips.
Because they came from the heart, they could not be easily stopped.
And so, smiles returned to the faces of those who had long wallowed in such despair that they had forgotten the very feelings of hope and joy.
And then,
“Heroes. True heroes, they are.”
The Village Chief spoke these words as he watched the Baekrang Corps turn away without so much as a hint of self-satisfaction, waving back to the villagers and departing on their own path.
All the villagers nodded at his words.
How could they deny it?
If a hero is one who saves the world, then they had saved the world of these small, forgotten people.
They were surely heroes to them.

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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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