Of the family?
"The family? Are you talking about our Danri Family?"
"Yes."
Gi Daehyo scratched his chin for a moment, lost in thought.
It was a habit of his whenever he was troubled.
A moment later.
"Where was the body found?"
He made a decision.
"On the eastern road, outside the city. In the tall grass."
"Let's go."
"What?"
The reason Gi Manji was surprised was that Gi Daehyo said he would go himself.
The Corps Leader of the Black Crow Corps did not usually step forward in matters like this.
It was customary for him to simply give orders from behind the scenes.
"For Father to go in person..."
"No. I must go and see for myself."
Gi Daehyo cut Gi Manji off and left the Black Crow Hall without delay.
Shhh.
Gi Daehyo executed his Movement Art, vanishing eastward as if disappearing into thin air.
That was the direction of the eastern road.
At the same time, Gi Daehyo was heading to the place where Machil's body had been found.
Dong Bongsu was spending his day as the stablehand So-sam, just as he always did.
He had already woken up early in the morning to clean up the horse dung and feed the horses.
The task he was about to do was the most important part of his daily routine.
Walking the blood-sweating horse.
There was only one blood-sweating horse in the Danri Family.
Its name was Yeoro.
It was the beloved horse of Danri Cheonwoo, the Danri Family Head.
With its magnificent white coat and mane fluttering in the wind, Yeoro was by far the most expensive horse in the Danri Family.
Because of that, it was the subject of special care from all the stablehands in the family.
If Yeoro were to get even a small scratch, the stablehands could pay for it with their lives.
In fact, there was a time when the stablehands were flogged as a group when a small boil appeared on Yeoro's skin.
However.
After Dong Bongsu---no, So-sam---was put in charge of Yeoro, such incidents never happened again.
Animals instinctively recognize the 'beasts' they should not provoke.
All the horses in the East Stable became very docile after So-sam was replaced by Dong Bongsu.
Before, they would sometimes cause trouble, but now such things never happened.
Even newly brought wild horses would only act up at first; the moment their eyes met with Dong Bongsu's, they became as gentle as lambs.
The people who saw this whispered amongst themselves.
"After So-sam got hurt, he lost his speech but gained Horse Essence!"
Sometimes, they even called him a Horse Demon.
So-sam could control horses that freely.
Because of this, the disdainful gazes directed at him decreased significantly.
As a perfectly natural result, taking care of Yeoro became So-sam's responsibility.
There were many stablehands in the Danri Family, but besides Danri Cheonwoo, So-sam was the only one who could perfectly control Yeoro.
From Dong Bongsu's perspective, there was no reason to refuse the task of taking charge of Yeoro.
After all, there were many benefits to be gained from being responsible for Yeoro.
After taking on the duty of caring for Yeoro, he had a lot more free time.
The number of people who picked fights with him for no reason decreased, and there were almost no people who pushed their work onto him.
Machil, the one who had tormented Dong Bongsu the most, had also already vanished into the fiery pits of hell.
Naturally, he had more time left over.
And... the number of people dying from the Suicide Plague in Soaring Sun also increased along with it.
Dong Bongsu took Yeoro out of the family estate and headed for the marketplace of Soaring Sun City.
He usually scouted for prey during his walks.
If possible, he would deal with them on the spot.
But there were also cases where it was difficult to deal with them immediately.
In such cases, he would observe the target, commit them to memory, and kill them later.
Yeoro was like a pair of wings to him, not just within the family estate, but outside as well.
When he went around with Yeoro, people would avoid him on their own.
Everyone in Soaring Sun knew well whose horse Yeoro was and what kind of being it was.
Borrowing the horse's prestige.
A term people came up with because Ma-byeon-sam was borrowing the horse's might to carry himself.
In truth, it was less about carrying himself and more about simply passing by, but it might have looked that way to other people.
In any case, Dong Bongsu was benefiting greatly from Yeoro.
Thanks to the horse, he could stroll through the marketplace without trouble and look for suitable prey.
However.
'It is useless now.'
Dong Bongsu realized the time had come to stop this kind of hunting.
He had recently killed 196 people, but his Experience Bar had only filled up by about a third.
At this rate, there was no telling when he would Level Up and become stronger.
From an efficiency standpoint, it was clear he had nearly reached the point of diminishing returns.
'There's a clear limit to gaining experience this way.'
Just as he was pondering this, Dong Bongsu was finally able to clearly confirm that there was a difference in the amount of experience points among humans.
The day before yesterday, he had killed a man nearby, and his Experience Bar had filled up by quite a lot.
Only then did Dong Bongsu discover that the difference in experience between people could be quite large.
The one man he killed last had more experience than the 195 people he had killed before.
His goal changed.
From simply killing people to eliminating stronger people.
Then, who were the stronger people?
There was no way to confirm it, but he already knew instinctively who the relatively stronger people were and where to find them.
Martial Artists.
Why wouldn't it be so? Even in games, a high-level elite mob gives tens, perhaps hundreds, or even thousands of times more experience than a rabbit in front of a village.
That's just common sense.
In a world where a system like Level Up applies.
'It ought to be that way.'
He was almost certain of it.
If he killed Martial Artists, he should be able to gain experience easily.
However, he had never sparred or crossed hands with a Martial Artist before.
He had only occasionally watched them train within the Danri Family estate.
Based on that experience, his judgment was, 'Even the weakest warrior in the Danri Family is too much for me right now.'
He needed more time to get stronger.
Or.
'There needs to be an intermediate step.'
No matter how much an ordinary person practices the high jump, they cannot leap to the second floor in a single bound.
There needs to be a staircase, a stepping stone, or a ladder.
That intermediate prey, something to bridge the gap between ordinary people and Martial Artists.
What could it be?
A person like that man he killed the day before yesterday.
Someone like that was perfect.
'What kind of man was he? Where would I have to go to meet more of them?'
Dong Bongsu strolled through the marketplace of Soaring Sun, his usual walking path, while lost in such thoughts.
As he was passing by an alley.
A gruff voice came from within.
"Hey, Ma-byeon-sam. Why are you just passing by? It's been a while, you should have a face-to-face chat when you see your big bro. You son of a bitch."
Dong Bongsu turned his head toward the alley.
There, five or six men were squatting in a slovenly manner.
The man at the very front staring at him looked particularly vicious, his sideburns bushily covering his lower jaw.
'Do Pal-du.'
Do Pal-du.
He was the leader of the Gang of Ruffians in this marketplace.
Commanding about twenty Ruffians, he was one of those lowlifes who lived by extorting the street vendors.
They hadn't been seen for a while because the officials' Constables had been crawling all over the alleys lately, but for some reason, they were now loitering in a conspicuous alley.
Their prey wasn't limited to the merchants of the marketplace.
Sometimes, servants or hired hands from great houses, like So-sam or Machil, also became targets.
The reason Do Pal-du didn't mess with them often was that he was afraid the great houses might find out.
All the more so since that great house was a Murim family, so he couldn't help but be reluctant.
But that was only when their stomachs weren't empty.
The Ruffians' eyes were gleaming.
Dong Bongsu could tell at a glance.
Just how hungry they were.
Then again, considering the recent atmosphere in Soaring Sun, it was only natural.
Those men couldn't hold onto money for more than a day.
They spent whatever they got on booze and women.
For people like them, these days, with the Suicide Plague rampant must have been a complete recession.
Should one say it was like they had taken a risk and come down from the mountains to raid a village today?
Even wolves come down to where people live during a severe drought, and even lions will hunt big game like elephants when cornered.
However.
They had chosen the wrong opponent.
Their prey today.
Was not So-sam, but Dong Bongsu.
It's just that they didn't know that fact.
Dong Bongsu let his mouth hang open and gave a foolish grin.
Maintaining that expression, he approached Do Pal-du.
Do Pal-du and the Ruffians took him and Yeoro and dragged him deep into a deserted part of the alley.
Do Pal-du seemed to have judged that as long as Yeoro wasn't harmed, he could do whatever he wanted with someone like So-sam.
Before following the Ruffians into the alley, Dong Bongsu surveyed his surroundings.
It was still early in the morning, so there weren't many people around.
A few merchants could be seen in the distance, but this place was a bit far from the main road of the marketplace, so no one was paying any attention to this alley.
The reason he was scanning his surroundings was simple.
If he eliminated all of 'these things' here, how should he handle the aftermath? Did he have to stage it as a suicide this time as well?
In principle, that's what he should do.
But given the nature of the location, it wasn't appropriate.
Making a dozen or so men commit suicide inside an alley was no easy task.
What if he fabricated it as a knife fight among themselves, or put the bodies in his Inventory and dumped them somewhere else? It wasn't bad.
But it was merely not bad; there wasn't much real benefit.
Even if he killed them all, the experience points would be minimal, and the disadvantage he would suffer by not killing them would only amount to getting hit a few times and losing a few coins.
The scale balanced between profit, disadvantage, and risk, wavering back and forth.