***
‘That is really our magistrate......?’
Chun-hyang muttered blankly to herself.
The rumor that a new Magistrate of Namwon Protectorate would be taking office after the post had been vacant for three years had been enough to stir not only Namwon, but the entire surrounding region, for months.
Unlike the former magistrate, who had earned a reputation as a reasonably good official, the newly appointed magistrate was said to be a notorious corrupt official whose name was known throughout all Eight Provinces.
It was only natural that he squeezed commoners dry to fill his own pockets. On top of that, it was said he held banquets with the wealth he scraped together nearly every other day and spent extravagantly as a matter of course. Whether gisaeng, slave, noble young lady, or even the wife of a subordinate, he made passes at every woman in skirts regardless of high or low status, so wherever he took office, the wails of women never ceased.
No wonder the first thing he had done on the day of his appointment, after putting off every New Arrival Briefing, had been a gisaeng inspection.
As if that were not enough, had he not dragged out even her, though she was not on the gisaeng registry, made her kneel in the East Hall courtyard, and ordered her to attend his bedchamber?
‘He was definitely a human-garbage lecher......’
The sticky gaze with which he had looked her up and down as she was dragged out without warning and forced to kneel on the dirt was still vivid.
If she could have, she would have stabbed out the two eyes looking at her then and there, and only endured it by clutching the innocent dirt.
That was how it had been.
‘......He is different.’
He was different.
The shell was certainly that of the human-garbage filthy bastard, yet he felt like a completely different person, as if someone had swapped out his soul and spirit entirely.
SSSSSS—
SHRAK-KRAK-KRAK!
The hems of his dopo robes fluttered before her eyes, and from the hand of the magistrate who leaped upward, a flash of light burst out. That light dug under the neck of the Chief, whose size easily surpassed a person’s height.
“GROOOOOOOOOAR—!!!!!!”
The Chief’s roar shook the earth.
Feeling her insides churn without realizing it, Chun-hyang staggered two or three steps backward.
At that moment, the Dire Species remaining nearby saw the opening and lunged toward her.
‘......No, it is too late.’
She tried to draw up her strength, but the grotesque eye of a Dire Species was already right before her nose. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the terrible pain that was about to come, when someone grabbed her wrist.
“!!!!”
Startled, she opened her eyes, and a smooth jawline entered her vision. Before she could even realize whose it was, a cool energy spread through her wrist and throughout her whole body.
“Focus on the energy.”
It was the magistrate’s voice.
At the weight in it, which she dared not defy, Chun-hyang did not shake off the wrist he had seized. Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated her mind on the energy inside her body as he instructed. Once she gathered the energy whirling within her body like a vortex into one, what she had to do became clear, even though no one had told her.
Chun-hyang opened her eyes wide.
And in that instant.
Rain fell.
A rain of death that no one could predict.
Rain of Stealthy Slaughter.
***
THUD—!
THUD!
“Haaah, hah. Hah.”
Chun-hyang’s shoulders heaved as she drew ragged breaths.
Around her, the corpses of six Dire Species that had lost their heads were rolling across the ground. A few lower-grade species that had luckily survived had completely lost their will to fight and fled.
‘To take down six in her first fight. She’s a complete monster.’
I muttered inwardly as I recalled the Rain of Stealthy Slaughter Chun-hyang had just executed.
Even if the targets were lower-grade monsters—no, lower-grade Dire Species. It was hard to believe that this was the power of a finishing move performed by someone who was only at First Bloom...... and on top of that, a little blood-clot who had only just Awakened.
‘I’ve never had a rookie absorb things this well.’
I had trained quite a few little blood-clots over the years, but it was rare to find one who understood this perfectly. Even in cases where they came in after completing all their basic training, most of them spent their first few real battles doing nothing but fumbling around in a daze. Even those who seemed fairly talented usually needed two or three real battles just to understand what I meant when I spoke.
But the one before my eyes had grasped at once what it meant to control energy and what she had to do with that controlled energy, simply because I had poured mana into her once.
Is this the protagonist buff I’ve only heard about?
As if Chun-hyang Awakening was not enough, her ability was in the top 0.01 percent!
What else could this be if not astonishing?
‘Don’t tell me that bastard Mong-ryong knew even this.’
If I had let someone with an ability like this die, even I might have pierced my heart......
No, that was not it.
No matter what, that bastard bearing a grudge against me was completely crossing the line.
“That just now—”
As I came to my senses and was about to speak, Chun-hyang spoke first, cutting in shortly.
“Thank you.”
“What?”
No, wait.
Did she just thank me?
The same girl who had been looking at me like I was a sea cucumber, a sea anemone, and dog shit just a moment ago?
When I asked back with a dazed face at the utterly unexpected words, Chun-hyang immediately twisted her face and snapped her head away, spitting the words like a jab.
“Are your earholes blocked? I said thank you for teaching me.”
Contrary to her chilly words, her face, which had been frozen as if covered in cold frost all along, was faintly flushed, whether from the aftermath of excitement or some other reason.
......What is this?
She’s cute.
Just as the corners of my mouth loosened on their own and I was about to say something, I stopped at the strange sensation I felt in my chest.
COUGH—
At the sudden sound of coughing, I saw Chun-hyang look this way, her eyes going wide as lanterns. At the same time, something hot and fishy surged up my throat.
“!!!!!”
Red seeped through the fingers covering my mouth.
......Blood?
As I stared blankly down at my dark-red-stained palm, my vision blurred, and over it appeared the sight of the eighth blossom of the Mindscape Flowers, which had been withering black, suddenly blooming cleanly again.
The Mindscape Flower is reviving......?
As I frowned in confusion, I heard a familiar voice.
“See here, are you all right?”
When I turned my head and looked, a single flower bud that had just begun to bloom glittered freshly above Chun-hyang’s head.
‘Ah, so that was it.’
Realization shook my head like a lightning bolt.
The reason I had just coughed blood was not because I had been injured.
It was the opposite.
‘To revive the withering Mindscape Flowers, I have to win her heart.’
There was no doubt.
The moment Chun-hyang’s heart tilted toward me, the withering Mindscape Flower revived.
No wonder my chest, which had felt tight all this time, felt as if it had opened cleanly.
I spoke to Chun-hyang, who was quietly watching my condition.
“I am fine, so there is nothing to worry about.”
“Do I look like I do not need to worry? Even if you are going to die, I would appreciate it if you died after we got out first.”
At the answer that came back immediately, cold enough to make a chill wind blow, I burst into laughter before I knew it.
“Hahaha. Goodness, I am sorry about that.”
Good grief.
Win Chun-hyang’s heart?
Closing a million Dire Gates looked more possible.
As if the atmosphere that had briefly softened had been a lie, Chun-hyang looked at me with eyes full of wariness. Swallowing the sigh that threatened to spill out at her face, I rose to my feet for now.
“The Life Gate will open soon, so before that, let us gather what is urgent.”
“Gather? What do you mean?”
No, where did the genius who understood a hundred things after I taught her one just a moment ago go? Why was there such a dazed little blood-clot here......
I let out a short sigh toward Chun-hyang, who was looking up at me with an expression that said she had no idea what I meant.
“I mean the Mana Crystals. Take out your blade and start by digging out the Mana Crystals from the ones you cut down.”
“......Are you telling me to dig Mana Crystals out of those things right now?”
Chun-hyang frowned and asked back as if she had heard wrong.
Seeing Chun-hyang look over the corpses of Dire Species scattered around us as if the thought did not appeal to her made a hollow laugh burst out of me.
No, this girl had been dancing with a blade among them without a care just a moment ago. Why pretend to be a demure young lady now?
Instead of answering further, I pointed to the corpse of a Dire Species sprawled nearby.
“You cut here. Below the left side of the sternum. In human terms, it is where the heart would be.”
SQUELCH—
When I thrust Sword Amid the Battlefield in and split the chest open, black blood burst out, and I saw Chun-hyang flinch, frown, and step backward.
Ignoring that, I rummaged inside and pulled out what I had been looking for.
“......That is.”
“That is right. This is a Mana Crystal.”
Sparkling inside my hand, which was stained black with the Dire Species’ blood, was a Mana Crystal about the size of a baby’s fist.
Since it came from a lower-grade species, it could not be called especially rare. Even so, a single lower-grade Mana Crystal was valuable enough for a commoner’s entire family to live half a year without working.
Chun-hyang’s eyes shone.
“Remember this. Taking as much as you have cut is the trade etiquette of this field. Only petty thugs try to take more than their share, understand?”
“Petty...... what? Do you mean petty officials?”
“Never mind. There is barely enough time to do all the ones over there too, so work diligently.”
“Then what about you, my lord?”
Chun-hyang glanced over the corpses rolling on the ground and asked shortly. No matter how generously one looked at it, I had cut down more than she had, so it seemed she felt self-conscious about it.
Of course, of course.
After all, honesty is an essential virtue that a protagonist ought to possess.
With a proud feeling, I nodded inwardly and pointed over my shoulder with my chin.
“I will take that.”
Over there lay a corpse as huge as a house, incomparable to the lower-grade Dire Species.
It was the Chief’s corpse.
Only then did Chun-hyang nod as if she understood and turn away.
After confirming that Chun-hyang had begun putting Mana Crystals into a cloth she had made by tearing the hem of her skirt, I turned toward the Chief’s corpse.
I had a mountain of work to do too.
***
“So. You are saying our magistrate is inside there right now?”
Woo Hoe-jung, Commander of the Special Military Unit of Namwon Protectorate, gestured toward the Dire Gate with his chin as he spoke.
‘I do not like this bastard.’
Jeong Yu-bong glared Woo Hoe-jung up and down, certain that the man was probably thinking the same thing, and answered curtly.
“Ah, I said yes.”
As that damned lord of his had instructed, he had sent word to the government office, but only the useless bastards from the six offices had reluctantly crawled over.
The Special Military Unit, which should have been responsible for the Dire Gate in the first place, arrived only when the darkness that had settled began to lift. Even then, judging from the look of them, it was clear they had not come because they had heard his message, but had shown up after drinking lavishly somewhere else when it was about time for the Dire Gate to close.
Damned filthy bastards.
Just as Jeong Yu-bong swallowed the stream of curses circling in his mouth, Woo Hoe-jung tossed out his words.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“What did you say?”
“Did you not clearly say it just now, Clerk? The magistrate went in on his own two feet.”
“That is right.”
“He crawled into a death trap on his own two feet. What do you expect me to do about it?”
Woo Hoe-jung looked around at his subordinates standing behind him as if to ask if he was not right, and snickered.
No, look at this damned bastard.
No matter what, his superior was inside the Dire Gate right now, yet instead of thinking of saving him, he was sitting there laughing?
Jeong Yu-bong twisted his face, then suddenly found it absurd. Until that very morning, he himself might have been snickering like them and even bowing toward the Dire Gate while praying that his lord would be reborn in paradise this time.
But what about now?
If he could, he wanted to go in this instant, grab that lord of his by the scruff of the neck, and drag him outside.
‘......He changed.’
He had definitely been a hopeless, human-garbage filthy bastard......
But the one who had crossed that Dire Gate on his own two feet felt like an entirely different person, despite wearing only the filthy bastard’s shell.
Could he simply be pretending?
Jeong Yu-bong shook his head inwardly.
‘Absolutely absurd. He had lived perfectly well as a wastrel until now, so what would he find lacking that he would only now pretend to have come to his senses?’
They said people did not change so easily, but something had clearly happened there.
He was someone who had spent his entire life rolling around under that human garbage. Others might not know, but his own intuition was certain.
“So, the Lord Magistrate has personally crossed into the Dire Gate, and you, a Special Military Officer, intend to idle around here. Is that it?”
Jeong Yu-bong asked with a frown.
Whether he was human garbage or a shell with a goblin sitting inside it, the difference between having Byeon Hak-do and not having him was as great as heaven and earth. No, to put it bluntly, there had to at least be a piece of his corpse so they could take it back to the main family and receive money, did there not?
Woo Hoe-jung, who had no way of knowing Jeong Yu-bong’s thoughts, clicked his tongue as if annoyed and answered.
“Idle? That is unpleasant to hear.”
“What, shall I use other words then? Dereliction of duty, negligence, abandonment of responsibility. What else was there? Ah, do you understand those? Shall I make it easier for you?”
Jeong Yu-bong’s mouth, already prone to babbling even on ordinary days, began flapping beyond control as if it had caught a favorable wind, perhaps because he was furious. At that, Woo Hoe-jung’s face hardened.
“Ha. They say when the tiger is absent, the fox plays master. You do nothing more than attend to books, yet now you dare insult a Special Military Officer personally appointed by His Majesty?”
At Woo Hoe-jung’s words, Jeong Yu-bong’s face stiffened.
Wow, he really scratches where it hurts.
If not for my birth, I would have passed first in the state examination more than fifteen times over.
He glared at the other man for poking his sore spot and struck back.
“I am saying this because I see with these two eyes that an official personally appointed by His Majesty is not fulfilling his responsibilities, and as one who reads books, I cannot simply pass it by.”
“If you do not shut up soon, I will show you what kind of world lies beyond there.”
“A man who has risen to the office of Special Military Officer does not care for the people and instead oppresses His Majesty’s subjects. These are indeed the end times. Judging by the way you speak, one could believe you were not a Special Military Officer but a ruffian. Is that not so?”
As Jeong Yu-bong looked around and spoke, the villagers who had been holding their breath and watching the quarrel between Woo Hoe-jung and himself all hurriedly turned their heads away, avoiding his gaze.
“It seems it is not so?”
Woo Hoe-jung looked back at his subordinates and snickered. Then he took one step closer to Jeong Yu-bong and seized him by the collar.
“Keugh— C-can you not let go?”
“Where did all that vigor from earlier go? This is why desk-bound scholars are hopeless.”
Woo Hoe-jung looked Jeong Yu-bong up and down contemptuously as the man choked and gasped, his collar twisted in his grip, then gave a sneer.
“I will send you to that lord you are waiting for, so why don’t you—”
“Huhhhhh?”
Before Woo Hoe-jung could even finish speaking, the people suddenly began to stir. When he turned his head toward where their gazes had fallen, he saw the eerie red color distinctive to the Dire Gate wavering in the air slowly fading away.
“A Life Gate, it is a Life Gate! The Life Gate is opening!!”
“That cannot be! It is not a Dire Gate, but a Life Gate!?”
“Look at that color! It is definitely a Life Gate!!”
Woo Hoe-jung unconsciously loosened the hand gripping Jeong Yu-bong’s collar. He heard Jeong Yu-bong, who had fallen to the ground coughing, spit out some kind of curse, but this was not the time to care about that.
The Dire Gate turning into a Life Gate meant someone had taken down the Chief inside the Gate.
“Do not tell me......”
The moment Woo Hoe-jung muttered, something pushed its head out through the now completely white-faded Gate.
“!!!!!!!!”
“Hiiiiik!!!!”
“Aaaagh!!!! A Dire Species!!! It is a Dire Species!!!!!”
The screams of people scattering in terror rang out in all directions.