Late at night, So-ho was facing a man at the headquarters of the Black Tiger Gang.
Across from So-ho, who had gone rigid with tension, sat the Boss of the Black Tiger Gang, Wi Mu-ryang, leisurely toying with a teacup.
“How are things going in Clear Mirror Town?”
“Smoothly. Today, too, I brought back pledges from two places.”
So-ho took two crumpled sheets of paper from inside his robe and presented them.
They were pledges from merchants agreeing to give up their gold-mine plots of land and buildings near Clear Mirror Lake.
Recently, the Black Tiger Gang had been systematically harassing the merchants to seize the key locations of Clear Mirror Town, extorting land for a pittance.
“If only they had handed them over obediently from the start. That way, no one has to see blood. Is that not better for everyone?”
“You are absolutely right, Boss.”
“I look forward to it. The day a grand drinking pavilion rises on that beautiful lake. The wine drunk there will surely taste exquisite.”
Wi Mu-ryang tossed the pledges down and raised the corners of his mouth.
But the question that followed froze So-ho's heart.
“By the way, I heard an amusing rumor this afternoon.”
“......?”
“That some laughable meddler butted in while you were working?”
So-ho swallowed dryly.
The fact that the Boss already knew about Cheon Su-rin sent a chill down the back of his neck.
“Some greenhorn was playing at being a petty chivalrous hero, so I gave him a fitting scolding and came back. He is the son of a small academy called the Heavenly Way Martial Arts Academy, and he seemed to know nothing of how the world works.”
So-ho reported it as though it were nothing worth mentioning.
But Wi Mu-ryang's gaze had already turned ice-cold.
“Strange. That is not what reached my ears.”
“......?”
“I heard you were so frightened you could not even draw your blade and ran away. That you were overpowered by the presence of that wet-behind-the-ears whelp and tucked your tail between your legs.”
“Th-that can't be! How could I ever, to some measly greenhorn......!”
But that was the truth.
Overwhelmed by the vicious killing intent that had struck him in an instant, he had sheathed his blade and withdrawn.
But admitting it here meant death.
In the world of the dark path, a hunting dog that fled after being overpowered was useless.
“Good. A subordinate of mine could never be such a coward.”
Wi Mu-ryang murmured in a low voice.
But So-ho's relief did not last even an instant.
“Then we must make an example of that insolent greenhorn, must we not? We should show him how wretched the price is for daring to stand in the Black Tiger Gang's way.”
“.......”
“The Heavenly Way Martial Arts Academy, you said? Let us take this opportunity to make the bastards of Clear Mirror Town go weak at the knees at the mere mention of our name. Do you understand what I mean?”
There was no mercy in Wi Mu-ryang's eyes.
So-ho realized it.
The killing intent he had faced from Cheon Su-rin that afternoon had been merely a warning, but the words this man before him spoke now were a death already decided.
“......I will do as you command.”
The Era of the Black Forest, where only the strong survived.
To survive, So-ho had to take up his blade once more.
***
Cheon Su-rin was eating lunch with the children.
There had been meat left over even after yesterday's meal, so he had made today's lunch with meat as well.
“Is it good?”
“Yes!”
“Were you guys sick of fish too?”
When Cheon Su-rin asked, the children silently exchanged glances.
Good kids.
Cheon Su-rin pushed his own portion toward the children too.
“Eat this too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you're still growing, so you need to eat plenty.”
“Thank you!”
The children smiled brightly and stuffed the meat into their mouths.
‘Yeah, eat up.’
Because starting tomorrow, it was fish again.
The meat he had received from the shopkeeper as thanks was just enough to last through today.
In effect, this was the last supper, but he did not bother telling the children that.
Cheon Su-rin subtly turned his head.
At the end of his gaze was an empty seat.
‘He's late today.’
Bong Du-chil had not come to the academy yet.
Usually he came earlier than anyone.
Especially since he would know that today's lunch was meat as well, he was the type to come even earlier, never late.
‘He'll be here soon.’
He had set aside the kid's portion separately.
He was just running a little late. Until then, Cheon Su-rin did not think much of it.
.
.
.
In the end, Cheon Su-rin took the side dish bowl he had set aside for Bong Du-chil and headed to his house.
For him, a native of Clear Mirror Town, finding Bong Du-chil's house was nothing.
“Du-chil! Bong Du-chil!”
He called out the name loudly in front of the brushwood gate.
But all that came back was heavy silence.
Normally the kid would have come running out shouting ‘Hyung!’, yet not even the bark of a dog could be heard from the house.
‘No one's home? Did the whole family go out somewhere?’
Just as he was about to turn back, Cheon Su-rin's nose twitched.
A faint smell carried on the wind.
‘This is.......’
A sensation that pierced his mind.
It was the horrible stench that had hung over the red waves of Fallen Star Lake.
Cheon Su-rin leapt over the wall as if possessed.
The further he went into the yard, the thicker the smell grew.
His heart pounded ominously.
“......Is it here?”
Cheon Su-rin grabbed the door handle with a trembling hand.
Praying that it was a mistake, praying that it was a hallucination conjured by a ghost of his past life, he opened the door.
Creak—.
The moment the door opened, the bowl in Cheon Su-rin's hand fell to the floor.
“......!”
Inside the room, a middle-aged man and woman lay tangled together in a heap.
They were faces Cheon Su-rin knew well. Bong Du-chil's parents.
But their faces had stiffened, pale and lifeless, and the floor was already soaked with dark red blood.
There was no other word for it but gruesome.
The blood had spread across the floor, run up the walls, and splattered all the way to the ceiling.
At the center of that hellish scene, Bong Du-chil's parents lay as cold corpses.
The stench of blood poured in through the open door.
An ordinary boy would have retched or screamed and run away.
But Cheon Su-rin was strangely calm.
Though this was the first time in his life he had ever seen a corpse with his own eyes, his heart instead grew as still as a lake.
Cheon Su-rin stepped into the room without hesitation.
Far from frowning, he examined the bodies with an indifferent gaze.
“The chest and the great artery of the neck, cut in a single stroke.”
Though the bloodsoaked wounds were hard to make out with the naked eye, Cheon Su-rin identified the fatal wounds with only a moment's observation.
Was it because of his past life's memories?
Sensing the smell of blood from beyond the wall, keeping his composure even after witnessing the carnage, all of it was because the senses of his past life, which had crossed a sea of blood, had awakened.
‘They've been dead for at least three double-hours (six hours).’
The knowledge of Jeok Geon-ho, which he had not wanted to recall, swam freely through his head.
From the consistency of the blood congealing on the walls and the stiffness of the bodies alone, the exact time of death could be calculated.
The sword marks left on the bodies even told him who the culprits were.
A clean strike that pierced the vital points without the slightest error.
This was the handiwork of martial artists specialized in killing.
Also, judging from the subtle differences in the depth and angle of the sword wounds, there had been at least two attackers.
‘......Du-chil isn't here.’
He searched thoroughly, not only the main room but also the room across from it, but Bong Du-chil's body was nowhere to be seen.
Where on earth had the kid gone?
When Cheon Su-rin returned to the room where the carnage had taken place, an unfamiliar sheet of paper caught his eye.
A note placed oddly by the door.
Judging by its clean state, without a single drop of blood on it, someone had clearly left it there on purpose.
Cheon Su-rin unfolded the note expressionlessly.
“......!”
The moment he read the note, Cheon Su-rin's eyes went cold.
‘The Black Tiger Gang.’
It was the lot he had run into at the market yesterday.
This note had been an invitation aimed at him, Cheon Su-rin, from the very start.
Amid the misfortune, Bong Du-chil was fortunately alive.
The problem was that the bastards were holding the kid hostage.
The note was a map laced with a threat: ‘If you want the kid to live, come alone.’
The Black Tiger Gang had finally crossed the line.
Not content with extorting merchants, they had torn apart an ordinary family and even committed murder.
If he delayed any longer, it was as plain as fire that Bong Du-chil would follow his parents.
Grin—.
In that instant, a strange smile spread across Cheon Su-rin's lips.
His precious younger brother's parents were dead, and his brother's life hung by a thread.
He should have been grieving or furious, yet the corners of his mouth rose uncontrollably.
The moment he became aware of the eerie smile on his own face, Cheon Su-rin was struck with spine-chilling horror.
“......Why am I smiling?”
This was not Cheon Su-rin's emotion.
It was the thrill of a predator that had found its prey, the instinct of a monster aroused by the scent of blood.
Cheon Su-rin forcibly wiped the smile away and left the room with a hardened expression.
On his way to the destination written on the note, Cheon Su-rin suddenly stopped.
He glanced down at the light wooden sword at his waist.
The other one, the one he had shoved into a corner of his room because it was heavy, because he wanted to avoid killing.
But swinging a wooden sword at those bastards now was an absurd luxury.
Cheon Su-rin turned around and headed for the academy.
Now he had to admit it.
That the time had come to take that heavy thing in hand once more.
***
A damp, gloomy cave nestled halfway up a wooded hill.
So-ho was waiting there with his underlings for someone.
Like a martial artist on the eve of a decisive battle, he was grinding his straight blade on a cold whetstone, drawing out a chilling metallic sound.
“Squad Leader, is that greenhorn really going to walk in here on his own two feet?”
At his underling's uneasy question, So-ho kept honing the edge without stopping.
“He'll come. Isn't he the type so full of chivalry that he butts into other people's business without sparing himself? If he does that for complete strangers, he'll come for his own little brother even if you tell him not to.”
So-ho's gaze turned to a corner of the cave.
There lay Bong Du-chil, collapsed with his arms and legs bound.
Fortunately he was still breathing, but he had lost consciousness, perhaps from the rough beating.
“I don't get it. Do we really need to blow this up and go through all the trouble of taking a hostage just to catch one backwater academy brat?”
At his underling's grumbling, So-ho suddenly beckoned.
Instead of an answer, it was a silent signal to come closer.
The moment the underling came right up to him without suspicion,
SLASH—!
The straight blade that had been gliding across the whetstone cut through the air like lightning.
Unable even to scream, the underling clutched his throat and sank to the ground.
Dark red blood burst out between his fingers like a fountain.
“......!”
The surrounding gang members drew back in shock.
So-ho calmly looked down at the bloodied blade and spoke.
“So it was you. The rat bastard who badmouthed me to the Boss.”
This guy was the one who had told Wi Mu-ryang the rumor that So-ho had been overpowered by Cheon Su-rin's presence and ran away without even drawing his blade.
So-ho had never intended to let him live from the start.
“Guess you were after my position, but if you wanted to survive in a pack of dark path wolves, you should've been strong, or at least quick on the uptake.”
So-ho slashed the fallen underling's chest diagonally once more, deeply.
The mangled body twitched convulsively, then toppled over.
So-ho wiped the blood splattered on his face with his sleeve and coldly looked around.
“Anyone else want my position? If so, step up now. Beat me here and I'll hand over the squad leader position.”
The cave fell as silent as a dead mouse.
Having asserted his dominance, So-ho raised the corners of his mouth in satisfaction.
Just then, Bong Du-chil, who had been lying on the ground, let out a groan and regained consciousness.
“You awake, runt?”
“......I'll kill you!”
Bong Du-chil tried to lunge with his bound body, but So-ho's heavy kick struck him in the stomach.
“Revenge takes strength too. A weakling like you just takes it and seethes. That's the natural order.”
“Hyung...... Su-rin hyung won't let you get away with this!”
“Hahahaha! Yeah, I'm waiting for him anyway. You're nothing but blood-reeking bait to lure him in.”
At the malice in his expression and tone, Bong Du-chil's pupils trembled.
These people were dangerous. They were real devils who did not hesitate to kill.
“He's here.”
So-ho turned his head.
Regular footsteps echoed from the darkened mouth of the cave.
Soon, a figure appeared.
There was an unusual seriousness in the eyes of Cheon Su-rin as he stepped out of the darkness.