The Legend of Red Cloud - Chapter 16

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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 16. The Hunted, the Waiter, and the One at the Crossroads of Choice
Mo Yong Ji-eun ran with her breath catching in her throat, turning the question over in her mind.
Did she have any regrets about her choice?
She came from the Mo Yong Clan, the central faction of Gun Ma Rim, and had enjoyed more privileges than anyone else—yet she had betrayed the clan and Gun Ma Rim itself.
It wasn’t a decision tangled up in lofty ideals or touching circumstances.
It was a deeply personal, utterly selfish reason—the kind that deserved scorn and spittle for its sheer thoughtlessness, nothing more.
And yet……
‘I will never regret this!’
As she ran, Mo Yong Ji-eun’s eyes flashed with a fierce, sharp gleam.
She was searching for a way to escape the crisis she now faced.
Thoughtless she might be, but she was Mo Yong Ji-eun—hailed as a Millennium Talent from the Mo Yong Clan, one of the Three Great Wise Houses.
Many already predicted that before she even reached her late twenties, she would become the military strategist of Gun Ma Rim itself; her abilities were beyond question.
And so she had mobilized everything she possessed to seek a path to survival.
“This way!”
At Mo Yong Ji-eun’s signal, the Red Shadow Team, led by Bong Jin, wheeled about and bolted forward.
The change in direction came just two double hours after they had retraced their path back.
The route they now entered was overgrown with broadleaf trees so thickly that even the sky was barely visible—a place they had passed through half a day before.
With Mo Yong Ji-eun at their center, the Red Shadow Team ran through it desperately.
How long did they run like that?
The sound of water began to reach their ears, and soon they arrived at a small ravine.
Then, for reasons of her own, Mo Yong Ji-eun brought the Red Shadow Team to a halt.
“Let’s rest here for a moment.”
At her words, Bong Jin looked around and spoke with anxiety written across his face.
“It’s an easy place for them to spot us.”
“That’s exactly why we’re resting here.”
“What do you mean?”
Mo Yong Ji-eun answered Bong Jin, whose eyes had narrowed to slits at once.
“The Black Ghost operatives are skilled in martial arts, yes, but their real strength is in the Tracking Art.”
“Then wouldn’t this terrain be even more dangerous to linger in?”
“No. It’s precisely because of that we need to be here.”
“What are you thinking? Speak plainly so a man can understand.”
At Bong Jin’s insistence, Mo Yong Ji-eun elaborated.
“Being skilled in the Tracking Art means seeing several moves ahead. Would such experts think we’d flee into a place like this? Especially when I, who was once called a Sage Horse, am among your numbers?”
“But the traces we’ve left……”
“This is ground we’ve already crossed. Moreover, the broadleaf litter lies so thick that they can’t distinguish between the traces left half a day ago and those we’ve just made. The time gap between the trails is too short to tell them apart.”
“Even so……”
“In that state, which way will they search? The obvious one here? Or the other path where we changed direction, which also bears our marks? As you know, we’ve left traces there too.”
That was true.
When she had passed through this area the first time, Mo Yong Ji-eun had moved haphazardly, circling about and scattering traces in all directions.
At the time, everyone had thought she meant only to scatter her trail and sow confusion among any pursuers—but that she had already been accounting for this very situation was remarkable.
‘So this is what being a Sage Horse means……’
Mo Yong Ji-eun spoke to Bong Jin, who was regarding her with fresh respect.
“But we cannot stay long. Their exceptional skill will plant a deception in their minds, yes, but that deception won’t last forever.”
Foreseeing the perilous flight to come, Bong Jin nodded to his weary team members.
With permission from their leader, the Red Shadow Team members at last dropped to sit where they stood, their faces hollow with exhaustion.
For operatives whose main duties were infiltration and reconnaissance, the strain of this mission spoke to how high the tension had run.
Bong Jin settled himself on a suitable stone nearby, watching Mo Yong Ji-eun rest against a boulder.
He was every bit as worn as the rest.
The three commanders of the Black Ghost organization were roughly equal in skill.
But because Black Ghost, unlike other groups, lacked a single commander overseeing all of them, the competitive spirit between the commanders burned far more fiercely than in any arm of the Blood Ghost Organization.
Most of all, the Third Commander of Black Ghost burned with a rivalry far more intense than his two counterparts.
The source was nothing but a baseless inferiority complex stemming from the fact that he was the third commander, not first or second.
He felt it as if his ranking reflected his skill—that is, he was the weakest among the commanders.
So the Third Commander of Black Ghost had chosen a strategy not of pursuit but of ambush at a chokepoint.
Therefore, he had seized a narrow passage that anyone traveling from Sa Ja Guan to the Maeng Ui Dan Headquarters would be forced to cross, and there he waited with his subordinates.
One of his subordinates, the one who had served him longest, now approached the Third Commander of Black Ghost.
“Commander, sir.”
“What?”
“This area is the pre-arranged operational zone of the Secret Ghost.”
“So?”
“If we linger here much longer and end up clashing with them… wouldn’t that cause problems?”
“Those wretches wouldn’t dare create any trouble!”
“The others might not warrant concern, as you say, but Geum Mil has been deployed to this area as well.”
At his subordinate’s words, the image of that unlucky masked face—Geum Mil—flickered across the Third Commander of Black Ghost’s mind.
He merely commanded the Secret Ghost operatives, yet his raw skill was so formidable that even the Third Commander couldn’t claim with certainty he’d prevail against him.
Why else would orders have been issued to every Black Ghost operative except the commander himself to avoid confrontation with him at all costs?
Naturally, such orders had wounded the pride of the commanders who had to issue them, but the Jianghu was a place where pride alone could not keep one alive—so it was something they chose to ignore.
As the Third Commander recalled Geum Mil, the man who had created this situation, his eyes narrowed with displeasure.
The problem wasn’t merely his foul mood; it was that if Geum Mil truly intervened, the situation could indeed become tangled, just as his subordinate suggested.
After all, this stretch of road where they lay in ambush had been clearly designated as the operational territory of the Secret Ghost in this assignment.
Still, he had no intention of relocating the ambush site based on his subordinate’s words.
There was simply no better position for an ambush, and besides, he didn’t want to give his men the impression that he feared Geum Mil.
Even if real trouble came of it.
“Forget about it. We’ll be the ones to capture her, no matter what.”
Yes, once she was caught, whose operational territory it was wouldn’t matter one bit.
So he would hold his ground.
By capturing her—the traitor—he would prove that he was the most formidable of all the Black Ghost commanders.
The subordinate, sensing the commander’s resolve, quietly withdrew with his lingering doubts unresolved.
As his subordinate fell back, the Third Commander of Black Ghost fixed his gaze on the forest ahead, toward the northwest.
The woman he waited for would surely emerge from that direction—where the Blood Ghost Organization’s encampment lay.
***
Hui Jun approached Yi Song, who was walking in pensive silence.
“We need to rest soon.”
“Why?”
At Yi Song’s question, Hui Jun glanced back toward Cheol Ja-ryong, who was being carried on Paeng Gyeong’s back, before answering.
“His condition is deteriorating rapidly.”
“Nothing was said about that being a possibility.”
“It seems he consumed an Elixir Pill from the Spirit Medicine line and then practiced Internal Energy Technique…”
“Spirit Medicine? Where would Spirit Medicine come from?”
“That is…”
Rather than answer, Hui Jun turned his gaze sideways, and following the direction of his eyes, Yi Song looked at the recruits and shook his head.
Since they hadn’t provided the Spirit Medicine themselves, one of these new arrivals had to be the source.
It would have been a matter to investigate and settle accounts over, but doing so now wouldn’t change anything.
So he wouldn’t waste time on such matters.
“A side effect, then?”
“It appears to have been an incompatible medicine.”
There was no way Hui Jun would fail to distinguish something so fundamental.
It meant someone had given him the medicine without consulting Hui Jun first, yet Yi Song found himself unable to harbor resentment.
After all, whoever had offered up something as precious as Spirit Medicine had done so with the intention of helping, in their own way.
So Yi Song asked something else instead.
“Can he recover if he rests?”
“If you grant him one Double Hour, I believe I can prevent the acute deterioration.”
At that answer, Yi Song led Hui Jun to Ryu, moving several paces ahead with Dong Pil, who had been advancing about five steps ahead of the group.
“We have a problem.”
Ryu shook his head at those words.
“We can’t stop.”
Realizing that Ryu had overheard his conversation with Hui Jun, Yi Song pressed the matter with concern.
“The mission is important, yes, but shouldn’t we keep the man alive? So just one Double Hour…”
Yi Song’s words were cut short by Ryu raising a single finger to his lips.
And nearly simultaneously with that gesture, Dong Pil’s hand signal brought all movement of the remaining Red Assassin Unit members to a halt.
In that moment, Dong Pil quietly extended two fingers of his left hand toward Ryu, who was watching him.
In the Hand Signal System of the Red Assassin Unit, each right-hand finger represented one enemy, while each left-hand finger represented five.
So Dong Pil was now signaling that there were ten enemies ahead.
Ryu nodded at the signal and quietly drew his Hidden Blade.
Recognizing what that action meant, Dong Pil calmly settled down the excited posture that had begun to take hold.
When Ryu personally advanced, it meant the enemies ahead were too formidable to be entrusted to others.
Understanding the situation just as Dong Pil did, the other members waited calmly as Ryu quietly slipped into the forest ahead.
How much time had passed since Ryu disappeared from sight—perhaps half a Double Hour?
At the sound of a clear bird call, Dong Pil and the rest of the Red Assassin Unit left their position and moved toward the direction from which the call had come.
When they arrived, Ryu was already there with his Hidden Blade sheathed, and about a dozen corpses lay scattered across the ground in various positions.
“These are Black Ghost!”
Dong Pil had spotted it on the corpses sprawled across the ground—a faint blue demon sigil on the chest of their dark robes, barely visible unless one looked closely.
At Dong Pil’s alarm, the others hurried to examine the bodies.
“Hmm…… They really are Black Ghost.”
The grim voice came from Jwa Ryang.
Yi Song, his expression equally dark, studied a corpse carefully before speaking.
“Below the demon sigil—that character marking them as Black Ghost Unit One, it seems.”
At Yi Song’s confirmation, Dong Pil grumbled.
“Who exactly is this man who went missing while trying to defect? What could he be that they’d commit Secret Ghost and now Black Ghost? Could he possibly be some lover of that Blood Ghost Organization leader with his sordid tastes?”
Yi Song sent Dong Pil a disapproving glance at his flippant remark, then turned his gaze toward Ryu.
“If Black Ghost has been deployed, this is truly a dangerous situation. Won’t it be difficult to take them with us any further?”
As he spoke, Yi Song looked toward Cheol Ja-ryong, whom Hui Jun was observing with evident concern.
Following Yi Song’s gaze, Ryu looked at Cheol Ja-ryong and answered.
“That’s why we can’t let them go alone.”
“We should all return together.”
Before Ryu could respond to Yi Song’s words, Dong Pil cut in abruptly.
“What about the matter of disobedience to orders?”
“We have the Right of Refusal. Though it can only be used once…… What else can we do? We have to save the man’s life first.”
At Yi Song’s words, Ryu’s voice came forth.

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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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