My Father Is the Number One Under Heaven - Chapter 5

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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 5. A man who teaches letters
“Oh my, this man. Are you all right?”
“…Ugh…”
The people of Sodam Village rushed to help the man lying on the ground, barely clinging to life.
His massive frame required many hands, but they came without hesitation.
When fear kept others back, he had stepped forward for the village—and this was the terrible price he paid.
In the eyes of the villagers, gratitude, guilt, and pity tangled together as they looked at him.
“Get him inside quickly. We must treat him.”
As the villagers nodded and began carrying him away, someone spoke up quietly.
“Village Chief.”
The Village Chief turned toward him.
The man who had spoken opened his mouth, his voice heavy with sorrow.
“Why did you accept their proposal? What are we to do now?”
His tone was plainly one of reproach.
His face showed he simply could not understand.
He was a man who had always followed the Village Chief’s will quietly, so his outburst startled everyone.
Soon the villagers tried to calm him.
“No, come now. Why speak like that?”
“That’s right. This man was nearly beaten to death—what choice did the Village Chief have?”
“I know, I know. I’m just frustrated. I’m asking how we’re meant to survive this.”
……
The mood had grown unbearably grim.
He turned to face the villagers, his voice thick with anguish.
“Even if we had some village savings this time, how could a small place like this possibly scrape together that much every month? We’ll all starve to death. Every last one of us.”
……
Everyone fell silent.
His words were desperately bleak, yet absolutely true.
What in heaven’s name were they to do?
Despair settled over them all like ash.
Yet standing here and brooding would yield no answers either.
The Village Chief, who had said nothing all this while, looked at his people with an exhausted face.
“For now, let us speak of this again later.”
“Village Chief……”
With that, the Village Chief trudged away.
His face had grown thin and careworn, as if he’d aged several years in mere moments.
The gentleness and composure he always carried had vanished without a trace.
Soon the remaining villagers drifted back to their own homes, one by one.
“Sigh.”
Peng Seo-yeon, who lingered last, exhaled quietly.
It had been a place of perfect peace.
Just moments before those warriors had descended upon it.
‘Mere second-rate martial artists. How could such men……’
Was the peace of Sodam Village so fragile a thing?
And what was to be done?
Would he have to step in directly next time?
Peng Seo-yeon shook his head.
If he did, he might expose himself.
Might leave a trace for the family he had fled.
With no answer in sight, no matter which way he turned, Peng Seo-yeon felt a dull ache blooming behind his eyes.
It was then.
Whoooosh—
The wind rose. A cool, gentle breeze.
The thick branches of the great Hackberry Tree that stood beyond the Village Entrance swayed lightly in the current.
“……?”
Yul, holding Peng Seo-yeon’s hand and eating candy without any idea what was happening, tilted her head.
“Father?”
He did not hear his daughter’s voice.
***
“Excellent. Splendid. Krhahaha.”
Far from Sodam Village, upon a certain mountainside.
Silver coins clinked in the money pouch as three martial artists strolled down the road, chuckling with satisfaction.
“Didn’t I tell you? Squeezing these backwater villages dry is the sweetest work there is.”
“You’re right. Should’ve done this from the start instead of chasing wealth and glory.”
In truth, the three belonged to a small sect faction that had been swept up in a sudden war between martial sects, crushed in defeat, and barely escaped with their lives.
The conflict had begun as a blood feud, and everyone in their sect had been slaughtered.
They had fled to this remote village simply to survive.
“But listen, eldest.”
“Mm?”
“Those villagers handed over their money pretty quick. Couldn’t we have squeezed them for more?”
“Fool, you don’t understand.”
The second man clicked his tongue with regret, but the eldest of the three shook his head.
“Even a cornered rat will bite a cat. If you want to milk a village like that for years, take just enough to keep them alive — nothing more. Push those peasants into a corner and they might decide to burn it all down with you. That’s how it works, isn’t it?”
“You’re right, eldest.”
“Yes, yes. There’s the wisdom of our leader. You always know best.”
“We’ve gone full bandits now, haven’t we? Why not set up shop for real?”
“What’s that? Ha-ha! Not a bad idea either. Hahahaha!”
Chuckle, chuckle.
Their confidence swelled.
Among swordsmen and martial artists, they’d been nothing — barely daring to breathe, eating scraps from other men’s tables. But here in this remote corner of the countryside, they were kings. Who could possibly stand against them?
“Oh, but eldest.”
“Mm?”
“I noticed there’s a rather pretty woman in that village.”
“Is that so?”
Curiosity flickered in the eldest’s eyes.
“You scoundrel, you’ve already got an eye on that too?”
“Well, I do have good taste in these matters, don’t I? Hehehehe.”
The youngest warrior continued with glee.
“Looks to be someone’s mother, though that hardly matters. Hehehehe. If they fall short on payment sometime, we’ll just bring the woman along instead, eh? What do you think, eldest?”
“Not a bad thought.”
A sinister smile spread among the three.
It was then.
“Interesting conversation you’re having there.”
“Mm?”
A man stepped into their path — a scholar by all appearances.
Fine-featured, lean of build.
“Who the hell are you?”
The youngest warrior blazed with savage authority, affronted that a mere scholar would dare block his way.
Yet strangely, the man showed no fear at all — merely smiled with an easy grace.
“Listen well to what I’m about to say.”
“What?”
“I’m offering you a chance.”
Yeo Un-hwi looked each man in the eye as he spoke, his voice steady and measured.
“Take that money pouch and return to the village at once. Give back every coin you’ve stolen and bow in apology. Then swear you’ll never show your faces in these parts again.”
“What? Have you lost your mind? Do you know who we are?”
Shing.
As the youngest warrior reached for his blade, bristling at the scholar’s audacity, his hand froze.
“Wait.”
The eldest of the three held up a restraining hand.
He studied Yeo Un-hwi carefully, as if sensing something.
“Why are you stopping me, eldest?”
The youngest looked bewildered, but his leader spoke with caution.
“What sort of man are you? A martial artist, perhaps?”
There was something unsettling about the way this scholar stood before them, utterly unafraid despite their weapons.
And the confidence with which he issued his warning? Surely he must be—
But then.
“I am,”
came Yeo Un-hwi’s reply, which defied expectation.
“a teacher of letters in these villages.”
“…Letters?”
“An ordinary villager, too, living in that very Sodam Village you just plundered — and the husband of the woman you were just admiring.”
“Ha…….”
The eldest brother’s face went slack with disbelief.
In that moment, shame flooded through him for having tensed at all.
His hand tightened involuntarily around the hilt of his sword.
“So what you’re saying is, he’s no martial artist, nothing at all — just some scholar who teaches books — and he dares stand before us spouting such nonsense. Right now?”
The eldest brother’s face contorted into something savage.
He fixed Yeo Un-hwi with eyes glinting with murderous intent.
“Madman. I was in such a fine mood I’d decided against spilling blood today, but it seems I have no choice. You lot.”
“Yes, elder brother.”
“Beat that gutless wretch to death. Make it as agonizing as possible. Then string him up at the village entrance. We need to send a message — no one else gets any ideas about defying us.”
The two younger fighters nodded and advanced on Yeo Un-hwi without hesitation.
And just as the second one reached out to grab him by the hair,
“I said, do it again.”
Thud.
“…What?”
Something fell to the ground with a dull sound.
It was the second fighter’s hand. Or rather, an entire arm.
Splurt.
Blood erupted from the stump a heartbeat later,
“…Ag—aaahhhhh!”
The second fighter, whose face had been frozen in confusion, let out a scream that seemed to tear from the depths of his being.
“How tiresome.”
Thud.
Splurt.
The second fighter’s head struck the ground.
The blood spray came after — but only just.
It happened in that fraction of an instant before anyone could even process what was occurring.
“Hhhhyeek!”
The youngest fighter standing nearest stumbled backward without thinking, his legs giving way beneath him as he crashed to the ground.
Yeo Un-hwi looked down at him with eyes of frozen steel, then turned toward the eldest brother.
“Take that money and leave. Do as I’ve told you — it would be wise.”
Somewhere in those words, Yeo Un-hwi’s voice had shifted entirely. He sounded like a different person altogether.
“Hhhhyeek! S-save me!”
The moment Yeo Un-hwi’s gaze left him, the youngest fighter scrambled to his feet and bolted, screaming like a madman.
Driven by nothing but the primal need to survive.
But it was a foolish choice.
Yeo Un-hwi’s eyes followed him slowly across his back.
And then,
“I never gave you permission to leave.”
Thud.
Splurt.
The youngest fighter’s head fell to the ground far behind his fleeing body.
As casually as brushing dust from a sleeve.
That terrible ease made every hair on the observer’s skin stand on end.
“So. One remains.”
Yeo Un-hwi’s gaze settled on the sole survivor.
“What will you do?”
The man who had been the eldest brother mere moments ago now stood with the hollow, vacant expression of someone whose soul had been hollowed out.
Most of all — those eyes.
They were eyes he had never seen in all his years of living; eyes that seemed to contain a bottomless abyss itself.

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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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