Chapter 19. A Third-Rate Warrior Who Saves a Girl (6)
“Where in the world are you, So-so?”
Wangbu, the village where the people of the Wang Estate lived.
For three days already, the lights in this place had not gone out.
At the twenty branches spread across the nation, all work had been completely suspended, and only the collection of information about girls around Wang So-so’s age was being carried out. Beneath them, countless shops had also closed their doors to find Wang So-so, threatening the daily lives of the people.
“What does that mean!”
At the words of the dedicated physician who examined Wang So-so’s health just now, Wang Geum-san was greatly shocked.
“Did you not say she could last a week even if she left the Ice Pavilion (Wang So-so’s house)!”
The dedicated physician looked back at the people of the Medicine Pavilion behind him.
They merely lowered their heads in silence and sent the dedicated physician looks.
If he did not speak now, he might receive an even harsher beating later.
“That is……. Under ordinary circumstances, yes, but……”
“…….”
“With the Solar Body, there are times when the energy periodically surges to extreme yang. And right now happens to be exactly……”
The dedicated physician could not bring himself to continue.
He had seen countless patients die with his own eyes and had spoken to their guardians as well, but he had never once received a good response.
Moreover, the other party was Wang Geum-san, the master of the Wang Estate.
“Then…… how long can she endure?”
“…….”
At the guardian’s words, asking him to state the limit until her breath ran out, the dedicated physician merely moved his lips.
“I asked how long she can endure!!”
“……It is already too late……”
“Uuuugh!”
“M-master! Master! Bring needles quickly!”
Wang Geum-san collapsed.
Wang So-so, who had awakened, soon fainted again.
The cause clearly seemed to be the heat that had risen as if it would burn her whole body, but I had never heard of a simple cold having symptoms like this.
“Where was the medical text written by Medicine Immortal Gong Yak-chun?”
Medicine Immortal Gong Yak-chun, who was called Hua Tuo Reborn.
The lifelong medical text he had compiled by gathering the essence of his life, the Universal Cure Treatise, was classified as a confidential document in Mantongbu.
The reason?
I did not know either.
It was clearly a book that could save far more people if released to the world, but Mantongbu had never once considered doing so.
I searched thoroughly through the Universal Cure Treatise, and inside it, I found something concerning Wang So-so’s symptoms.
Only after going far past the section on illnesses and reaching the section on constitutions did I learn the cause of the symptoms.
“A Solar Body in a woman’s body. Of all times, in this situation.”
Even the Universal Cure Treatise only contained a diagnosis of the symptoms and a way to stabilize the energy.
“For now, I should stabilize her. If she stays like this, she will die……”
When I struck around twenty acupoints according to Gong Yak-chun’s medical text, Wang So-so’s heat slowly began to settle, and soon after, Wang So-so woke.
“Umm…… Wh-who are you!”
“I am Jin So-un of the Taeul Sect. Who are you, Miss?”
If I acted as if I knew her here, I could not avoid suspicion.
This was no one else, but Wang Geum-san’s only daughter.
Even if it were me, if the person who had come to save me said they had known I would be kidnapped, I would start by suspecting them.
“I-I am Wang So-so.”
“Hmm…… If you are Wang… So-so, perhaps……”
“……Yes. I am the daughter of the Wang Estate.”
“How did such a thing happen……”
“I don’t know either. Where is this?”
“A mountain near Lujiang. You were with some suspicious people.”
“Th-those people…… What happened to those people?”
“I dealt with them properly.”
“…….”
Unlike my expectation that she would panic, she soon regained her composure.
Was it because her father was Wang Geum-san, and she had received education that such things could happen?
“For now, it would be best to move. It seemed there were more of their group.”
“N-no!”
“Pardon?”
“I-I cannot move.”
I tilted my head.
“Wh-what day is it today?”
“Today should be the day of Gyemyo in the month of Sinsa.”
“Th-then it is the day the solar qi rises. Originally, I should be holding an Ice Pill in the Ice Pavilion.”
Come to think of it, Gong Yak-chun’s medical text had things like that written in it.
For the Solar Body, solar qi periodically surges upward, allowing one to gain immense inner arts, did it not?
Is this not a complete cheat?
But from Wang So-so’s position right now, she was in a situation where she was anxious because she did not know when poison might spread throughout her body.
In many ways, this was becoming a headache.
“I am asking just in case, but you have the Solar Body, correct?”
Wang So-so hesitated for a moment over whether to answer, then spoke.
“Yes. That is correct.”
“Can you not move even briefly?”
“A little should be fine, but if I move violently, the solar qi will burn the acupoints throughout my whole body.”
A mountain beyond mountains.
I had heard earlier that the time for the other group to arrive was not far off.
‘What should I do…….’
Then I recalled the Secret Record of Ten Thousand Herbs, which had been classified together with the Universal Cure Treatise.
A rare treasure that produced outstanding medicinal effects and had no illness it could not treat, using common medicinal herbs and poisonous plants found rolling in the fields.
“Miss, this may sound a little strange in this situation, but if you could change your constitution, would you do it?”
“Pardon?”
If Medicine Immortal Gong Yak-chun existed in acupuncture, then in pharmacology there was the Divine Physician of Life and Death.
His name was Dang Won-ho.
Born to the Tang Clan about two hundred years ago, he was a strange chivalrous eccentric who, unlike most Tang Clan members who spent their lives researching within the family, came out into the Murim early and lived his life wandering.
There was no illness he could not cure with medicine, and no one he could not kill with poison, so the decision of life and death was said to rest in his hands. Thus, he was given the alias Divine Physician of Life and Death.
I did not know why the Secret Record of Ten Thousand Herbs was in the Murim Alliance rather than the Tang Clan, or why the Tang Clan did not know of its very existence.
But that was not what mattered right now.
Fortunately, in the Secret Record of Ten Thousand Herbs, there had been someone with the same worry as Wang So-so.
The supreme master, Plain Hand Jade Maiden, who had dominated the same era as the Divine Physician of Life and Death.
Born with a Great Yin Body, she reached the absolute realm of Ice Arts thanks to her constitution, but because of it, she could not become pregnant.
So Plain Hand Jade Maiden went to the Divine Physician of Life and Death and made the absurd request that he change her constitution, and the Divine Physician of Life and Death gladly accepted.
Thus, he found a way to change constitutions of extreme yang and extreme yin, but the drawback was……
“I will do it! I will!”
Before my explanation had even ended, Wang So-so brightened and nodded.
I thought that if she was Wang Geum-san’s child, she would still be wary because of education about swindlers.
But there was none of that at all.
“You are clearly someone different from the people who kidnapped me. I can distinguish between someone who cares for me and someone who means to harm me.”
So it was not that, but that the calculation had already ended in her head?
If Wang So-so survived, I looked forward to seeing how the merchant world of the Murim would change from now on.
“Please listen to the rest. Once this treatment is performed, you must take a specially manufactured pill every day for the rest of your life, and you can never return to your original constitution.”
Plain Hand Jade Maiden had eventually borne descendants as well, but she could no longer use Ice Arts.
“Moreover, because the medicine is poisonous, you must perform qi circulation and breathing every day, and because purity is more important than anything, once you learn it, you cannot learn any other inner arts heart method.”
The main ingredient of the pill that changed one’s constitution was poison.
Once poisoned, the poison that cooled the body began eating away at the solar qi.
And the residue of the poison remaining inside the body had to be neutralized with inner arts.
Because purity was more important than anything, one could not learn any other inner arts heart method.
If it was an inner arts heart method that was pure and also gathered a great deal of inner arts, the Wudang Sect or Shaolin’s advanced martial arts would exist, but what I could obtain right now was only the Taeul Sect’s Taeul Heart Method.
“I will do it!”
“……So if you learn the Taeul Heart Method now, other advanced martial arts……”
“I don’t want to become a murim person. What I want is to see flowers bloom in spring, fan myself in the heat of summer, and go boating with my family in autumn. I want to embrace my beloved family whenever I want, and I want to hold the hand of the man I adore and talk with him. I want to have children too, and I want to watch myself slowly grow old. What I wish for goes only that far.”
The desperate feelings of Wang So-so, who possessed everything in the world but could not possess what everyone else could enjoy, pierced me one by one.
“I understand.”
“Are you truly going to do it for me! I will be sure to tell Father……”
“Let us talk about that after we return home first. The pursuers are almost here.”
I carried Wang So-so on my back as carefully as possible and ran slowly, putting even a little distance between us and the hiding place.
“What do you mean?”
“That is, in the final carrier pigeon letter, it said Wang So-so’s condition was strange……”
The brow of Secret Bow Unit Captain Bang I-nam, who was listening to the report, furrowed deeply.
“I told them over and over. They dared disobey my words and touch that child?”
It was obvious without seeing it.
Bastards faithful to instinct rather than reason.
It was probably because of such impulsive behavior that they were doing this kind of work despite being from the Namgung Clan, but even so, it had been Namgung Sang-won’s order.
Whose order did they think it was, to disobey and do such a thing?
“No! I spoke thoroughly about that part. They merely say she seemed to have some chronic illness from the beginning. They also say that the temperature of the room when they went to kidnap her was strangely low.”
“The temperature was low?”
Thinking about it, it was strange.
Even if she was a girl, what was the Wang Estate so afraid of that they kept her hidden tightly inside the house?
Perhaps their words were right, and because of that, unease swirled that the matter might become even more twisted.
“So, they are waiting at the hideout now?”
“Yes. It was a request for us to come together with a physician.”
“Fools! If a physician goes with us, a witness remains.”
This matter had to be known to no one but those inside.
Among the Azure Sky Merchant Guild as well, only those who had sworn loyalty to Namgung Sang-won.
Aside from them, no one was to know of this matter.
Because the day this was discovered, the problem would not end with Namgung Sang-won’s and their own lives flying away.
“Th-then what should we do?”
“For now, we simply go. If it truly cannot be helped, he said to kill them to silence them.”
Keeping her alive and using her as a hostage would be best, but if that was impossible, they had to kill her cleanly.
At the very least, considering Wang Geum-san, who treasured Wang So-so dearly, that alone would be enough to shake the opponent.
But Bang I-nam’s optimism did not last long.
“Wh-what happened here!”
“Look around! Survivors! Search for survivors!”
“There are none. All of them have stopped breathing.”
“Wang So-so is nowhere to be seen either.”
“…….”
Bang I-nam’s head began to tangle in confusion.
The matter had gone awry.
It was not simply that the kidnapping had gone wrong.
The great plan of his superior Namgung Sang-won and the entire collateral line of the Namgung Clan had all gone awry.
“H-here are traces. There is only one set of footprints, but judging by the depth, it seems he carried Wang So-so away.”
Bang I-nam’s head, which had been burning in confusion, cooled coldly.
“You two, deal with the bodies. The rest, follow me. Unless you are certain you can kill them, you must never use the Namgung sword.”
The anger of the warriors who had lost their comrades was no less than Namgung Sang-won’s.
They were clearly pouring their resentment toward someone who had interfered with their work and killed their comrades.
The warriors of the Secret Bow Unit followed the guide into the forest.
The mountain forest was filled with darkness where even moonlight did not shine, and since they too had to carry out a covert matter, they could not carry things like torches.
At that moment.
“Khh.”
With the sound of blood foam bursting out, the first casualty appeared.
“It is him!”
“Where is he?”
“How many are there!”
“Kuhhheuk.”
Although they had learned excellent martial arts from the Namgung Clan, responding in a forest where darkness had fallen was not easy for those who had not received training in stealth and assassination.
Soon, another scream rang out, and an urgent bell sounded in Bang I-nam’s head.
This would not do.
Losing Wang So-so was a problem, but it was an even greater problem if they died here!
“Flints! Use your flints!”
At Bang I-nam’s shout, the warriors quickly took flints from their robes and struck them with click, click sounds, creating light.
And at that moment.
SWISH!
Along with the sound of a sword blade cutting through the wind, another warrior collapsed.
“Captain! If we keep going like this, we will be annihilated.”
“Light the fire! And unfold the Firmament.”
“Kuhheuk!”
While they lit the fire, another warrior lost his life, and only when there were finally five people remaining did light appear crossing through the forest.
“Come out! Show yourself! If you do not show yourself, I will go kill Wang So-so at once.”
Namgung Sang-won was skeptical over whether the bastard would really come out at this shout, but.
“I used to think you bastards were not good people. But I did not know you were this bad.”
His face was covered with a mask, his clothes were an old martial arts uniform, and his sword was a blue steel sword that could be bought at any forge, one that could not identify any faction.
“Reveal your identity.”
“Identity? Is it not more convenient for both sides to be wearing masks like this? And I already know you.”
“……If you do not reveal it, I will force you to reveal it.”
“How many of us do you think there are?”
“No matter how many there are, we will not lose.”
“Why? Because you are the great Namgung Clan?”
“!!!!”
“Ah! To be precise, you belong to the Azure Sky Merchant Guild of the Namgung Clan, right? Namgung Sang-won’s secret lackeys.”
“!!!!”
“!!!!”
The warriors of the Secret Bow Unit were so shocked that, without even reading the mood, they turned their heads and all looked at him.
At that sight, Bang I-nam’s expression completely crumpled.
This was no different from admitting it outright.
“There is no need for more words. Strike!”
No sooner had Namgung Sang-won’s shout fallen than the warriors unfolded the Boundless Firmament Sword Art.
Since their identities had already been discovered, removing the enemy as quickly as possible with their finest sword art was the way to conclude matters swiftly.
But.
“Kuhheuk.”
“Kheok.”
Two warriors were struck down before they knew it, and the remaining two people’s swords did not feel that sharp either.
‘This cannot be!! The sword art of the great Namgung Clan!’
The swords of the Secret Bow Unit warriors could not reach the uninvited guest, nor even come close to him, and the bastards were having great difficulty even gripping their swords.
As if they had no strength at all.
It was a sight that could not possibly be seen as the elites of the Azure Sky Merchant Guild.
“Kheok!”
“Kak!”
Thus, those who had been precarious eventually died, and the uninvited guest slowly approached Bang I-nam.
“Y-you bastard! What is your identity!”
“My identity?”
“Y-you must be! Wudang, or, yes! Mount Hua! You are a bastard from the Mount Hua Sect!”
“Mount Hua…… I do have a bit of a connection with them.”
“Do you think you can interfere with the Namgung Clan’s affairs and remain unharmed, even if you are from Mount Hua?”
“I did not say I was from Mount Hua.”
SWISH.
Along with a dizzying sensation, a cold feeling passed across his neck.
Bang I-nam desperately turned his head.
“Oh……”
“Y-you damned bastard.”
“What a shame. It would have been better if I had met Namgung Sang-won today. No, wait. Since the collateral line’s rebellion has not begun yet, would it actually be a bit awkward if I met him now?”
“You bastard, just what……”
Blood flowed from the nape of his neck.
As Bang I-nam’s mind reeled, he corrected his stance and began unfolding the Boundless Firmament Sword Art at the level of the Twelfth Star.
“!!!!”
But his techniques could not continue for even three forms.
Some unknown, unprecedented force cut off his techniques again and again and made his inner qi tangle wildly.
“Did you not learn anything even after seeing your subordinates die just now?”
“……H-how could the invincible Boundless Firmament Sword Art……”
“The Boundless Firmament Sword Art is not invincible.”
Bang I-nam collapsed powerlessly.
As he died, he could not see the expression of the black-masked man, but for some reason, he thought that perhaps the uninvited guest was smiling chillingly.
