The Reincarnated Hunter Sweeps Up All Fortunes - 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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Chapter 43
43
There was actually another reason Im Gang hadn’t killed those men.
Compensation for damages.
Killing them in a fit of rage would only entangle him in needless trouble, but the ruined gate, the collapsed wall, the psychological distress—someone had to pay for it all.
Dead men could pay nothing.
Better to let them live and squeeze out compensation for the damages—wasn’t that the cleanest solution?
Im Gang ordered Jjak-gwi to move the two unconscious martial artists to one corner of the courtyard.
“But… I’m wounded…”
“Want me to give you a matching arm to go with that missing ear?”
“I’ll move them right away!”
Moments later.
The perpetrators stirred awake. Unlike Jjak-gwi, who was intact except for his ear, the other three bore the marks of their beating—fractured bones, internal injuries, their conditions far from good.
Not that they were dying. Collecting compensation came first.
“You—pay for the gate.”
“Yes, understood.”
The martial artist who’d smashed through the gate first fumbled in his robe for his pouch. Blood-flecked coughs made the Silver Coins inside turn red.
“And the rest of you, pay up.”
“Pay for what?”
“Cough—”
“Y-yes!”
“The wall and courtyard cleaning too. You’ve made a mess with your blood.”
“…yes!”
“And emotional distress compensation.”
“Emotional…?”
“Do you have any idea how scared I was when that gate came crashing in? My heart nearly stopped. So you’re liable for that.”
“……?”
The three men stared at him as if hearing absolute nonsense. Im Gang, taking pity, flexed his fist meaningfully—at which point Jjak-gwi spoke up on their behalf.
“How… how much should we give you?”
“Hmm.”
Im Gang stroked his chin, calculating. Gate + wall + cleaning + emotional distress wasn’t a trivial sum.
“Hand over everything you’ve got.”
“Everything…?”
“Everything.”
“…”
The three scrambled through their belongings. The one with broken ribs struggled to move his arms, so Im Gang helped him—he had some conscience, after all.
Pooled together, they had just over ten Silver Coins, and with goods included, roughly twenty.
Im Gang pocketed it all with satisfaction. Legalized robbery, nothing more.
“Now get out of here.”
“…”
He’d meant to let them go now that he’d extracted compensation, but they didn’t move.
Puzzled, Im Gang looked closer—and Jjak-gwi hesitantly opened his mouth.
“Great Swordsman, please… please let us live…”
“Yeah, I’m letting you live. So go.”
“Please, please spare us…”
“…???”
Im Gang tilted his head in confusion.
“What are you talking about? I said I’m not killing you. Just leave.”
“If we go back like this, we’ll be dead… sob…!”
Jjak-gwi’s eyes streamed with tears as he pleaded.
The other two watched him with quivering expressions.
‘What’s wrong with these bastards?’
Im Gang sighed and asked them to explain.
“We’re not Heterodox Martial Artists from Hangzhou.”
“…Huh?”
“We’re Problem Solvers working in other regions.”
“Problem Solvers?”
Im Gang mulled the term over before asking his next question.
“Aren’t Problem Solvers just Ronin?”
In that instant.
The three men’s expressions changed in unison.
The trembling gave way to stern faces.
“Please don’t compare us to mere ronin!”
“That’s right! We are not in the same class as ronin!”
‘…What?’
Im Gang was so taken aback he couldn’t find words.
These bastards were really going to say that in front of—
“But I am a ronin.”
The three men’s expressions shifted again.
“Well…”
“Um…”
“Since a problem solver is even more contemptible, comparing ourselves to a ronin would be an insult to you, sir!”
Jjak-gwi was true to form—sharp perception and quick wit.
“So you’re problem solvers—and that means what, exactly?”
“Ah. That is… when a problem solver fails a contract, the end is almost always death. In essence, we’re the bargain-basement version of assassins, you might say. Which is why we’ll die if we go back like this.”
“Why would you die?”
“Because we’re problem solvers, sir.”
Im Gang stared blankly for a moment, then quickly sorted it out in his mind. A problem solver resolves commissions. They were supposed to resolve this one and failed—so they die to bear responsibility for the failure.
Struck by this profound realization, Im Gang clapped his palm with his fist.
Classic heterodox sect methods, through and through.
Remarkably consistent. Remarkably ruthless.
“So what do you want from me?”
“If you would just let us hide for a while…”
Im Gang smacked his forehead with his palm.
“No. I mean, literally—what exactly am I supposed to do?”
……
“It’s not my problem. Besides, you were trying to kill me in the first place.”
……
“And you want me to hide you, just so I can die alongside you?”
“You appear quite strong, friend…”
“Even if I’m good, I can’t beat him.”
As Im Gang shrugged and spoke, the three men’s expressions shifted once more.
“…Him, you mean?”
“Yeah. Him.”
The three men’s heads turned in jerky unison.
And then
they stopped.
On the roof of the house.
A man sat there, casually swaying.
“Hey there.”
The man waved and smiled.
* * *
The problem solvers barely managed to swallow the scream that nearly burst from their lips.
The man on the roof gazed down at Im Gang with keen, interested eyes.
Judging by his appearance, the man seemed to be in his mid-thirties. He wore black martial robes beneath a deep purple outer cloak, and a sword hung at his waist.
His hair was tied up neatly, and his face was handsome in a rakish sort of way.
On the surface, he might have seemed a touch off-putting, but hardly dangerous.
If not for the aura flowing around his body.
‘Peak First-Class.’
Having reached the First-Class level, Im Gang’s Ki Sense had developed dramatically—he saw what was there to see, knew what there was to know. Through that heightened perception, he recognized that the man’s realm was Peak First-Class, the pinnacle of the First-Class tier.
Of course, if he’d been an Absolute Master wielding overwhelming power like Pyeol Yeol Ma-gun, Im Gang wouldn’t have been able to gauge him at all.
“Huh—you picked up on my presence? Impressive.”
The man opened his mouth with a broad grin.
His voice, contrary to his rakish appearance, was surprisingly bright and easy.
“Just as expected of Hangzhou’s most famous ronin. This is exactly why I can’t leave Hangzhou. Every time I step away to handle something else and come back, interesting characters drop out of the sky like this.”
“You honor me. I am Im Gang, a ronin who goes by the name the Shadowless Blameless Blade.”
Im Gang offered a respectful two-handed bow toward the man, who lounged with casual ease. As anyone who’d met someone like Ho Muk would know, there’s no high-ranking figure who dislikes propriety.
And even if they weren’t high-ranking,
the strong are always treated as such.
“Shadowless Blameless Blade—hey there. I’m Cho Pae, deputy head of the Bisenmun of the Hangzhou Three Factions.”
The man Cho Pae smiled, seeming satisfied with Im Gang’s greeting.
‘The Vice-Master of Bisenmun!’
The moment Im Gang realized Cho Pae’s identity, a chill ran down his spine. If he was the Vice-Master of Bisenmun, one of the Hangzhou Three Factions, he couldn’t be dismissed as merely Peak First-Class.
Just as martial artists looked down on ronin, ronin tended to look down on martial artists.
The reason lay in the difference of real combat experience—heterodox martial artists rarely found themselves in life-or-death struggles before reaching First-Class rank.
Most of them simply toyed with weaker opponents until they died.
The war between the Red Willow Faction and the Black Sword Pavilion was the kind of thing that almost never happened.
So when some fool jumped high and swung a blade around, it was a rarity.
Having only ever played with the weak, they accumulated hollow experience.
‘On top of that, the Explosive Flame Demon and this current affair—things that might happen once every few years if at all—they’re remarkable……’
Those who survived experiencing all of it could become high-ranking executives of the Hangzhou Three Factions.
In other words.
Cho Pae was a genuine Peak First-Class with abundant real combat experience.
“…I pay my respects to the Purple Cloud Sword.”
“Ha ha. You don’t need to be so deferential. Oh, right. I almost forgot—I’m also the representative of the client who hired those problem solvers over there.”
Whoosh.
Lucky he hadn’t been killed.
Even as Im Gang thought this to himself, he found Cho Pae’s unusually cordial manner suspicious.
“So… where is this thing those men were trying to handle?”
“…Over there.”
Im Gang pointed with his finger at the heterodox martial artist trembling with a sickly pallor.
Cho Pae glanced in that direction once, then let out a whistle.
“Oh. I didn’t think he’d still be alive.”
…….
Im Gang kept his mouth shut.
He couldn’t gauge where this situation would go. Though Cho Pae seemed in good spirits, if the Vice-Master of the Hangzhou Three Factions was personally involved, he couldn’t even begin to fathom how important this commission must be.
He could attack at any moment.
‘As long as it’s not a direct confrontation……’
While Im Gang was calculating this in his head.
“I’m sorry, Shadowless Swordsman. I never meant to cause you trouble.”
…What?
“So shall we call this whole affair off? I’ll pay the price for the trouble I’ve caused.”
“…Excuse me?”
At Cho Pae’s straightforward apology, something dumb escaped Im Gang’s lips.
He didn’t understand.
Why? There was something… something else here. There had to be something, but……
‘Don’t ask.’
Im Gang reached a decision quickly.
The moment he asked, he’d become entangled more deeply in this affair. He couldn’t deny he was already involved, but he had no intention whatsoever of sinking deeper.
Rule Number Seven: curiosity kills the ronin.
The right answer was simply to accept with gratitude and end this as fast as possible.
“…Thank you for showing such forbearance.”
“Come on. Why like that between us? I said you don’t need to be so deferential.”
Cho Pae waved a hand with a somewhat awkward smile.
‘Ugh……’
There was something he didn’t understand, and the not-knowing made his head ache. Meanwhile, the pleading gazes of the problem solvers wore him down.
Well… they must want to live too. They’d come after his life just moments before, but looking at them now, he felt a pang of pity.
It absolutely wasn’t because he wanted to extract compensation for damages.
Im Gang hesitated for a moment, then opened his mouth.
“…May I ask what you intend to do with those men?”
Cho Pae cast a quick glance at the problem solvers. All three trembled simultaneously.
“Originally, I was planning to kill them.”
…….
“But out of respect for the Shadowless Swordsman, I’ll spare them.”
……!
Relief washed across the faces of the problem solvers.
“That way the picture looks cleanest, doesn’t it? A picture where I kill men you’ve saved is a bit ugly.”
Cho Pae shrugged.
Im Gang pressed his palms together and bowed again.
“Thank you.”
“Never mind. Ah, right.”
Cho Pae pointed at the unconscious Heterodox Martial Artist with one finger.
“I’ll take that one.”
“…Yes.”
Before Im Gang could finish his reply, members of the Bisenmun entered from outside the door and dragged the Heterodox Martial Artist away.
“See you next time.”
Cho Pae waved his hand and disappeared.
“…Phew.”
Im Gang exhaled deeply. As the tension drained away, his shoulders sagged slightly.
He couldn’t believe how suddenly this had all descended upon him.
“The sky is so cruelly clear…….”
Snow should have fallen by now. He couldn’t fathom why it hadn’t.

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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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