The Youngest Son of the Eunhae Merchant Group - Chapter 533

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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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The Youngest Son of the Eun Hae Trading Company Chapter 533

Chapter 533. Complacency is Forbidden (4)

I turned to my Guard Warriors with a question.
“Does anyone here believe we shouldn’t kill these pirates?”
They responded without hesitation.
“Of course not. I’m not so merciful as to spare the wicked.”
“These are the ones who slice open pregnant women’s bellies to divine the child’s sex. They must never be allowed to live.”
“They sever children’s wrists to use as talismans. What more needs to be said?”
I nodded in agreement.
“I see we share the same conviction.”
With that, I charged back into the fray, my blade cutting through flesh again and again.
My Guard Warriors matched my fervor, wielding their swords with equal intensity to bring down the pirates.
Though the pirates numbered considerably, this was never a battle we could lose.
We had three masters of the peak realm and one transcendent master.
Moreover, many of them were drunk.
Some, realizing they couldn’t match us, had already fled into hiding.
But we paid them no mind.
The captain was what mattered.
He attempted to use his subordinates as shields, but it proved futile.
As I drew near, the Soulscent Incense’s effect dispersed, causing his men to ignore his commands and scatter in panic.
I stepped before him and asked.
“How does it feel to be abandoned by your own men?”
“Damn it! What kind of sorcery have you employed?”
I let out a cold laugh and countered.
“Sorcery? That’s what you’ve been using. But now, that ends!”
Shwack!
One of his hands was severed by my blade.
The Blood Tide Gang earned its name because the captain’s weapon was a pair of iron hooks.
And those hooks were perpetually stained with blood.
But my attack had just rendered one of his iron hooks useless.
“Ahhhhh!”
He shrieked in agony and fled. Yet there was nowhere to run—we were confined within the ship.
I pursued him leisurely, inflicting wound after wound upon his body.
I could have ended him with a single stroke to the neck if I wished, but I deliberately refrained.
Those he had tormented with the Soulscent Incense deserved to see him suffer as they had.
Some might call this cruelty on my part, but true cruelty is something far different.
True cruelty is making innocent people shed tears of blood.
Because it doesn’t just destroy their lives—it shatters the lives of everyone around them.
And I’m not a particularly good or righteous person.
That’s why I can do things like this without hesitation.
After playing this deadly game of tag for about an hour,
both his arms disappeared.
Which meant he no longer had his iron claw weapon.
I’d learned this from my previous encounter with someone who wielded iron claws.
Disarm the iron claws first, and they become utterly helpless.
Eventually, his stamina exhausted, he collapsed.
“Gasp… gasp… P-please, stop!”
“Did you stop when others begged you like that?”
“…”
“I suppose this is what they mean by karmic retribution.”
That’s when it happened.
“Damn it! You bastard! Die!”
The Ship Captain attempted a kick toward me.
A sharp blade was affixed to the tip of his shoe.
“I expected as much.”
I casually dodged the kick and swung my blade, severing his leg as well.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
I gazed at him writhing in agony with cold indifference.
“D-damn it! Why are you going this far?! What did we do wrong?!”
“You made plenty of mistakes. So many I’d grow hoarse listing them all.”
I continued.
“And your greatest error was touching the medicinal wine that the Eun Hae Trading Company worked so hard to prepare. We were going to present it to the Dae-Wol Kingdom’s king.”
“…”
“Now it’s time to bring this to a close.”
Slash!
I raised my blade and swung the Eun Moo-geom toward his neck.
Scrape!
The Eun Moo-geom’s target wasn’t his neck, but the soul-binding incense hanging around it.
The soul-binding incense split in half,
and tumbled down.
The red glow of the fallen soul-binding incense faded away.
Crumble!
The soul-binding incense crumbled to powder and scattered into the sea breeze, vanishing.
Witnessing this, the Ship Captain let out a wail.
“No! My soul-binding incense! My treasure! Nooooo!”
It seemed he felt more wronged by the loss of the soul-binding incense than by the loss of his limbs.
Thus, the malevolent artifact that would one day fall into the hands of the Black Swordsman and cause countless tears of blood to flow from the eyes of many, driving them to their deaths, vanished from this world.
My first objective was accomplished.
Perhaps encountering the Soulbound Incense earlier than my memories suggested was Heaven’s will that I should destroy it.
“It’s time we withdrew.”
At my words, my Guard Warriors moved in unison to surround me.
“We simply depart now?”
“Yes.”
A considerable number of pirates remained alive, but it mattered not.
And Geumryeong had already slipped into my sleeve.
Our work was complete.
I spoke to the fallen Ship Captain.
“Then, we take our leave.”
And we leaped from the boat without hesitation.

* * *

Four mysterious warriors had torn through the vessel and vanished.
None could fathom why they had suddenly departed, though it proved fortunate for those who remained.
“Gahhhhh!”
Jeon Jung, still clinging to life, cried out to his subordinates.
“Bring me wine! Wine, damn it! Ugh!”
He screamed for his men to fetch alcohol, desperate to numb the agony.
“Captain. That Soulbound Incense… it’s truly gone?”
“Yes! That cursed bastard destroyed the Soulbound Incense!”
“Then we won’t be forced to serve through the Incense anymore?”
“….”
A chilling silence hung in the air.
Jeon Jung realized his grave error.
His strength had never been exceptional; his dominion over the Blood Tide Gang’s crew as captain owed much to the Soulbound Incense’s power.
But without it, his fate was sealed.
And worse still—both his arms and legs had been severed!
“Thwack!”
A fist slammed into his face.
A boot drove into his ribs.
“Hack! You bastards! What are you doing?!”
“We’ve endured quite enough from you.”
“So shut up and take your beating.”
“Hehehehe.”
The pirates paid no mind to collecting their fallen comrades’ corpses.
They were too busy mocking the captain who had lorded over them despite lacking the strength to do so.
Suppressed emotions erupted in a violent outburst.
Naturally, their dispositions were far from virtuous.
Amid endless mockery and brutality, Jeon Jung wanted to bite his tongue, yet even that was beyond his control.
The pirates had knocked out his teeth with their fists.
In that moment of ridicule, Jeon Jung suddenly realized—all of this was what he had inflicted upon the sailors of the ships he had captured.
He could almost hear Eun Seo-ho’s words echoing in his mind.

“When others begged you to stop, did you? Perhaps this is what they mean by karma.”

In the end, he simply squeezed his eyes shut.

Thwack-thwack-thwack!
In that instant, arrows embedded themselves into the pirate ship.
“What? What is this?”
The subordinates who had been venting their rage on Jeon Jung were startled by the sudden volley of arrows.
But their shock did not end there.
What followed were flaming arrows.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!
The burning arrows lodged themselves throughout the vessel, and fire began to spread across the deck.
“Damn it!”
“Fire! Fire!”
“Extinguish it!”
They rushed to douse the flames, but their efforts proved futile.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!
“Argh!”
“Scatter! Get away!”
The arrows that followed hindered their movements as they tried to fight the fire.
Eventually, the flames became uncontrollable, consuming the ship entirely.
Moreover, the liquor they had been drinking lay spilled across the deck, and the fire fed upon it, burning with even greater intensity.
The fact that all of it was high-proof spirits only accelerated the inferno.
Realizing the ship was lost, the pirates remembered one thing before attempting their escape.
“Wait—there are golden goblets in the Captain’s Quarters!”
“What!”
“We have to grab those!”
They hurried toward the Captain’s Quarters.
But the doorway was narrow, and as more kept pushing their way in, the cabin became hopelessly crowded.
Those who had entered first realized there was nothing left to take, yet they could not exit due to the constant press of bodies behind them.
Had they leapt into the sea immediately, they might have had some chance of survival, but greed hastened their doom.
Whoooosh!
The flames had already reached the Captain’s Quarters.
“Aaaaargh!”
“It burns! It burns!”
“Save us! Save us! Please!”
Jeon Jung could only laugh at his subordinates’ anguished cries.
I had wondered why those who attacked the boat earlier had vanished—now I understood why.
And the reason they hadn’t ended my life outright was….
‘They wanted me to suffer far greater pain.’
A bitter expression crossed my face.
Why had I touched the Eun Hae Trading Company’s goods?
Had I not, I could have lived out my days in comfort.
Whoosh!
The ship’s flames crept toward me, and the alcohol they had mockingly poured over my body ignited instantly, engulfing me in fire.
“Aaaaaargh!”
Unable to end my own life, I burned alive, lamenting my past choices.
But it was already too late.

* * *

I watched the Blood Tide Gang’s ship burn fiercely.
After leaping from that vessel, we climbed aboard the boat the Guard Warriors had prepared and stationed below.
The moment we reached the shore, the Commander of the Archery Unit waiting there approached me.
“We have been waiting.”
“If you’ve been waiting here, that means you could attack that ship from this distance?”
“Of course.”
“This is your first real combat. Are you nervous?”
“I am not nervous.”
“Then, I ask for your assistance.”
He immediately issued orders to the Archery Unit, and they divided into three formations to release their arrows.
Arrows carrying oil vessels.
Arrows set ablaze.
Arrows to hinder those attempting to extinguish the flames.
And that was the result.
Thus, the Blood Tide Gang was annihilated.
So why would they dare touch the Eun Hae Trading Company’s merchandise?
.
.
.
Only after confirming the Blood Tide Gang’s ship had completely sunk and that no survivors remained did I return to the inn.
“Seo-ho!”
Eun Jung-ho came rushing out.
“What in the world happened? The gold cups in the warehouse disappeared, and you mobilized the Silver Wind Archery Unit!”
“Ah… that?”
I let out a dry laugh.
“Those who touched the small wine vessel turned out to be pirates called the Blood Tide Gang. So I sank them.”
“What?”
To be precise, I killed most of them directly or burned them to death.
The reason I didn’t mention this to Eun Jung-ho was not out of disrespect, but because it was obvious he would worry.
“Since I’ve recovered the items they stole, we just need to go to the Namgyeong Regional Command together.”

A short while later.
I dressed the physician’s wounds and headed to the Namgyeong Regional Command with Eun Jung-ho.
“We wish to see the Gaksaoerang Chief.”
At my request, the Gaksaoerang Chief’s attendant went inside briefly, then returned and spoke.
“He says you may enter.”
I headed to the Gaksaoerang Chief’s quarters with my brother.
“Eun Jung-ho and Eun Seo-ho have arrived.”
“Come in.”
The door opened and we stepped inside.
“We pay our respects, Chief.”
“This story seems like it will be long. Please, sit comfortably.”
“Thank you.”
We bowed respectfully and took our seats, and the Gaksaoerang Chief also sat down and spoke to us.
“I heard that the gift meant for the King of the Dae-Wol Kingdom was stolen.”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“So you’re thinking of substituting it with gold cups you purchased separately? Don’t you realize that the meaning would be diminished no matter what? Even the Empire would…”
He poured out his concerns with a worried expression.
“Forgive me for interrupting, but that matter has already been resolved.”
“What?”
“Our plan to prepare gold cups as a replacement for the stolen small wine vessel was, in a sense, a smokescreen.”
“A smokescreen?”
He tilted his head in confusion.
“I discovered that pirates called the Blood Tide Gang, who operate in this region, were the ones who stole it. So I went there myself and recovered everything.”
“Wait, hold on!”
He raised his hand to stop me and asked.
“The Blood Tide Gang, you say? Aren’t they a notoriously infamous pirate crew in this area?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“How on earth did you recover it?”
I explained to him everything that had transpired.
“…And so, I sank them all.”
As my words ended, the Gaksaoerang Chief’s mouth fell open in astonishment.
“Is… is that true?”
“Yes.”
I continued speaking.
“They nearly ruined the efforts our Eun Hae Trading Company had invested. Moreover, they are parasites consuming this Empire and pose a threat to trade itself. I deemed the risk too great to ignore and took decisive action.”
“….”
He fell silent for a moment, as if at a loss for words, then cleared his throat.
“Ahem, well, fortunately it worked out. You’ve done well.”
“Not at all. I merely did what was necessary.”
I bowed respectfully and continued.
“There is one thing I must ask of you.”
“What is it?”
“I would appreciate it if you could spread word of this achievement, exaggerating it as much as possible.”
This would serve as a warning to other pirates.
.
.
.
Eun Jung-ho and I returned to the inn.
And I had to endure quite the lecture from him.
“What were you thinking, being so reckless!”
“But there was no other choice.”
“I know that, but… sigh.”
Eun Jung-ho sighed deeply, then smiled and spoke.
“You did well.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You’d be disappointed if I said otherwise, wouldn’t you?”
“I would have been very disappointed.”
At my words, Eun Jung-ho gently patted my head.
“I won’t scold you for being so reckless, but please don’t get hurt.”
“Don’t worry.”
“And thank you. Because of you, our Eun Hae Trading Company won’t bear the responsibility.”
Responsibility.
Yes, it was precisely because of that responsibility that I stepped forward myself.
Now I should return to my guest room.
I need to give Geumryeong the golden goblet I promised her.
Since Geumryeong collected not only the small wine jug and golden goblet but all the gold and silver treasures that were originally on the pirate ship and everything valuable, I don’t regret it at all.
Geumryeong will be absolutely delighted.

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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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