North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 61

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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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61. Breaking Through and Moving Forward

“The earth is alive.”
“The earth is alive?”
Arko echoed the question.
“It’s the smell. North Sea soil smells parched. This one is damp.”
Serian inhaled lightly from her saddle, and grass blades pressed up between the horse’s hooves.
“We’ve crossed out of the Frontier.”
Arko replied curtly.
The white snow had thinned, and yellowed grass mixed in between the hooves.
“Still, it feels so desolate… I’m not sure we’ve truly left the Frontier. Yet this soil smell—I’m smelling it for the first time.”
“That would be it. The earth here is richer than North Sea soil.”
Garkan answered.
Aelak inhaled from his saddle. It was not the smell of parched earth. As Serian had said, the scent of soil rose up—Border soil, yet more fertile than the North Sea’s.
Gray eyes lingered on the eastern horizon.
“Tribe Leader, it’s the Central Plains.”
“Yes.”
The reply came short. Grass blades rustled.
Garkan shifted his posture in the saddle. His palm rested against his ribs for a moment, then fell away.
The collision with Ma Jeon during the fight… his body had taken too many impacts. The strain was bearing down on him now. Naturally, his pace was slower than usual.
“Brother, is something wrong?”
Harku finally opened his mouth.
Garkan answered without turning from the path ahead.
“The collision with the horse, that’s all… nothing serious.”
“Your face doesn’t say it’s nothing serious.”
“…Don’t ask further.”
“Even without you speaking, the saddle keeps tilting to one side.”
……
Serian brought her horse alongside Garkan’s.
Two fingers pressed against his ribs through the leather garment. Pale gray eyes fixed on a single point above his flank.
“We’ll examine it properly once we reach the village. If the bone is fractured, it will need time.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
……
“Brother, lie down. If Serian says to lie down, you should lie down.”
Serian withdrew her hand.
The first wife of the Aelak Tribe learns considerable scholarship and martial skill to become the Tribe Leader’s consort. Hunting, cooking, medicine—these are among the essential accomplishments every first wife must possess.
Her diagnosis was precise.
The barren expanse ended. A grassland appeared before them, and a black river flowed through its center.
Taikan pointed to a spot in the east.
“A village. Beside the Black River.”
“How long will it take?”
Garkan asked.
“Half a watch. I can see the earthen walls. Smaller than expected.”
Taikan replied.
The six of them turned their horses’ heads toward it in silence.

Heuk Ha Village.
The Black River flowed past the village toward the southeast.
A small settlement on the Frontier. A handful of earthen houses with thatched roofs stood in rows, and a single tavern and smithy occupied their ground.
There was only one well.
A few villagers watched the party arrive. The sight of five North Sea warriors in traditional dress mixed with a Fuku woman struck them as strange, even by Frontier standards.
Their gazes stiffened slightly. But none moved to block their passage.
A notice board stood at the village entrance.
The same image hung on the wall of the nearby tavern.
A Wanted Poster… Five hundred gold coins. Five portraits of North Sea warriors drawn in minute detail—their features, hair, and even their weapons rendered with precision.
“The resemblance is striking.”
Harku murmured low. No hint of laughter escaped his lips.
“It’s not a resemblance. It’s us.”
Garkan replied.
Aelak’s gaze fell not on the portrait itself, but on the text beside it. His grey eyes narrowed.
Serian guided her horse closer to the notice board.
Words in the Central Plains Language spilled from her lips.
“Issued by — Ha-seo Pyo-guk Chief Administrator Gwak Sam. Bounty reinforced per Murim Alliance Alert Order.”
She turned her head toward Aelak.
“It’s Gwak Sam. That man who falsely reported Mak Yi-seong’s defeat as a grave injury. Since the Murim Alliance strengthened the Alert Order, the bounty’s climbed to five hundred gold coins.”
“Ha-seo Pyo-guk still lives, then.”
Arko added briefly.
Taikan replied just as tersely.
“Five hundred coins — enough to bring men all the way to the Frontier.”
“There’s talk he changed the company flag. Gwak Sam must be bitter about something. I’d rather we didn’t have to fight the wrong people over this.”
Serian continued.
Arko added a short thought.
“Does a Chief Administrator here have the authority to change flags?”
“He shouldn’t. But he did it anyway. Abandoned the company colors and switched them out. Sounds like he means to take a swing at us.”
The group halted at the village entrance.
Serian asked carefully.
“Should we disguise ourselves? A hat, different clothes. The village is small. There are many eyes.”
“No. We’ve done nothing wrong. We came to kill a man who has.”
Aelak spoke coldly.
“If anyone comes, we face them head on.”
Garkan agreed.
Arko added one more thought.
“Once you begin to hide, there’s no end to shame. It doesn’t suit our nature. When have we ever feared steel?”
A brief silence fell.
Aelak opened his mouth. His answer was cold and sharp.
“Let’s go in.”
He straightened his shoulders in the saddle and gazed into the eastern village.
“We break through. We don’t sneak.”
“…Understood.”
Serian nodded.

The group passed through the entrance and stepped into the village.
Six ruffians sat on a bench outside a tavern. They wore leather armor, and two curved blades and a spear caught the eye.
The man who appeared to be their leader watched the group approach.
His gaze drifted from the group to the notice board, then back. The corner of his mouth slowly rose.
The leader set down his cup and drew his curved blade.
The five others drinking beside him noticed and rose to follow.
The leader stepped forward.
“Exactly like the picture. The five-hundred-coin ones.”
His curved blade slid halfway from its sheath.
The weapons of the other five followed suit. Villagers who sensed the coming fight hurried away beneath the tavern eaves.
Aelak’s grey eyes shifted to the leader.
“Move aside, or die.”
The words only provoked him further.
“What did you say? You bastards!”
A cold snort rang out as his curved blade cleared the sheath.
“We’ll take a hundred coins each from you. Heh! Insane dogs. You know who we are?”
The leader’s feet scraped the earth as he closed the distance.
In an instant, his curved blade descended from above.
But Aelak’s saddle stood empty.
A shadow—grey and blurred like mist—passed beside the leader.
The Buk Myeong Blade flashed briefly from its sheath.
Single Strike.
The blade drew a line across the leader’s chest.
Before the leader’s curved blade touched earth, his body split in two—his final expression frozen in that cold, mirthless smirk.
Aelak was back in the saddle before his sigh had finished.
Single Strike Fatal.
Before the leader could even scream, five ruffians drew their weapons in unison.
These were Harku’s to handle. He vaulted from his horse.
“Might as well earn my keep!”
The Twin Crescent Blades spun in a blur. Swift—two bodies crumpled in identical poses.
“Third.”
Taikan drew a short dagger instead of his bow, driving it through the third ruffian’s throat.
Garkan unspooled the last length of his Ice Iron Chain from his wrist. The metal wrapped around the fourth ruffian’s legs. His fingers moved sluggish from the stabbing pain in his side, yet the chain’s song never faltered.
The fifth ruffian’s curved blade aimed for Garkan’s back.
“Move, now!” Harku shouted.
But it was someone else who did.
“You dare strike at his back?”
Arko launched forward with a flowing movement technique, his voice clipped.
Two poison darts struck the ruffian’s ribs and armpit, their tips blackened with oil. He stumbled forward two more paces before his knees buckled. Foam flecked his lips.
“Next.”
Aelak answered tersely.
The sixth ruffian saw the tide had turned against him and bolted at once. But Serian’s Ice Needle had already pierced his shoulder.
“Argh!”
He screamed and mounted his horse, galloping out of the village.
“Should we pursue?”
Taikan raised his bow.
“Let him go.”
Aelak’s reply was curt.
Five bodies lay in the dirt before the tavern.
In one corpse’s hand, alongside a curved blade, lay something else—a black bronze token inscribed with the characters “Cheong-wol.”
A mark none of them recognized.
Arko approached wordlessly and examined the black token.
“…It looks like some sect’s emblem. Cheong-wol. The Cheong-wol Sect? The Cheong-wol School?”
“I see.”
Aelak’s answer was spare.
He gazed toward the direction the fleeing ruffian had vanished. His gray eyes grew distant.
“Everyone’s exhausted, I’m sure… but now that we’ve entered the Central Plains, there won’t be a moment’s rest.”
Serian understood.
“…So there will be more coming.”
“Yes. How’s your body?”
Aelak looked toward Garkan.
“It’s fine.”
Garkan placed his hand briefly against his ribs, then withdrew it. His expression remained unchanged.

Inside the tavern’s eaves.
A villager’s cry had cut short—fear taking hold the moment they saw the group approaching the tavern.
Aelak dismounted.
He regarded the tavern without warmth. To these people, northerners were savages—the kind who drew steel at a careless word.
And he’d just killed five men before their eyes.
“We do not strike those who do not draw steel.”
At that, the trembling subsided.

They entered the tavern. There was no effort to reassure the people—if they wanted to see savages, let them. Aelak moved with crude indifference.
The owner trembled behind the counter.
“Six meals, three rooms, six horses. We’ll pay in silver.”
Serian spoke slowly in the Central Plains Language.
“Y-yes. Yes.”
“The horses go in the stable out back. Hire someone to clear away the bodies. They can take payment from the corpses’ belongings. You can manage that, yes?”
“Y-yes.”
The owner nodded mutely and followed. It was all he could do.

Garkan lay on his side on the bed, his hand resting on his ribs.
“Roll further onto your side.”
“This is enough.”
“No. More.”
Serian untied her herb pouch. Her fingers pressed lightly above his ribs.
Garkan flinched.
“Here?”
“…Yes.”
“And below?”
“…That’s fine.”
“The blow you took to your shoulder—it’s traveled down to your ribs. It must hurt considerably.”
Garkan didn’t answer. The scent of herbs drifted slowly through the room.
“…Tell me if it hurts. Don’t bear it in silence. I need to know exactly where the pain is.”
“I’m used to pain.”
His voice was low. For the Aelak Tribe, wounds of this severity were something one simply didn’t show.
“Don’t move tonight. Recovery takes time.”
“It’s fine.”
“It seems like I’m looking after you, Garkan.”
“……?”
“Today too—Aelak drew his blade. To cut down mere ruffians. Shouldn’t that be something you handle yourself? That’s what I’ve heard the Aelak Tribe does. Get well quickly so you can care for him instead…”
“……”
“Nothing to say? Is that agreement?”
“…I’ll do that.”
Serian’s voice was soft, but its edge was firm.

At the meal table, the party gathered on the tavern’s lower floor.
Their weapons were set apart on a nearby chair, hilts hanging down beside the table. Harku dipped dry bread into his soup.
“The bread’s salty. But it tastes good.”
“This village’s river is black, but the water tastes different.”
Arko lifted his cup in acknowledgment.
“There are minerals in the riverbed. That’s why the soil smells so strong too.”
Serian added her thought.
Taikan ate in silence. He rested the short dagger’s hilt not on the table but on the floor beside his chair.
“Garkan’s rice porridge.”
Serian set aside a bowl of rice porridge for Garkan.
The meal ended. Harku looked at the empty bowls and opened his mouth. This wasn’t his usual giggle. The sound was low and dry.
“With a wanted poster out, there’ll be plenty of vultures circling. Plenty of fools with no skill who’ve gone mad for money. At this rate, we’ll have to cut our way through.”
“That’s how it has to be, then?”
Garkan asked from his bed.
Aelak only nodded.
“As long as there’s a road to the Central Plains, cutting a path creates one.”
Arko added his voice.
“Though there will be moments when we’re truly blocked. The Central Plains won’t be gentle with us.”
Taikan spoke briefly.
“Then we carve a path through the blockade. That becomes the road.”
Serian set Garkan’s porridge on the table and sat beside him.
“When a path opens, we simply keep walking.”
“We go.”
Aelak answered.
From the moment they left the North Sea… such a journey was something he’d already resolved to face.

* * *

Outside the tavern, at the village’s edge.
A black river flowed through the darkness.
The sixth ruffian, who had fled through the grass, limped eastward.
An Ice Needle was still embedded in his shoulder.
Beyond the grassland, eight men sat around a campfire. One of them saw his shoulder. His eyes widened in shock.
“Where are you coming from, looking like that?”
“Heuk Ha Village.”
“Heuk Ha Village?”
“I found a man with five hundred gold coins on his head. But we ended up on the losing side instead. Five of us died. There were six of them—five men and one woman.”
“Five of you died?”
“Five of them.”
“…You look worn out yourself, though.”
“I’ve only just barely managed to stay alive.”
Eight men reached for their weapons. One of them stood.
“Hesitating over some barbarian whelps. There’s a proper way to deal with their kind—we kill them. Let’s move now. By dawn tomorrow, we’ll have their heads.”
A scarred vagrant limped over and sat beside them.

* * *

A guest room in the tavern. The window.
Aelak stood by the window. Garkan, who had been lying down, sat up.
“…You can rest if you need to.”
“I’m fine. I’ve recovered.”
“Five hundred gold coins. Money is plentiful in the Central Plains, it seems.”
“…Yes.”
“That much will draw plenty of people.”
“Yes.”
“Get some sleep. We’ll be fighting soon enough.”
Aelak turned and left the room.
“You need to rest, Tribe Leader. We’ll be fine. We’ve arranged to take turns resting.”
“I’m sleeping too.”
“…Yes.”
“You sleep as well.”
“…Yes, Tribe Leader.”
“I said sleep.”
“Ah—I can’t do that. Something’s wrong with my body… I find it far easier to rest moving about near you than to rest alone.”
“…Do as you please.”
Just as Aelak was about to leave, he returned to the window.
He knew Garkan would not sleep.
“Fighting will start at dawn tomorrow. If you won’t sleep, cultivate your Inner Energy.”
Aelak’s expression had turned cold.

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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
—————