Only then did Noh Hong-geuk get to the point.
"From what I hear, the reports on you from that last battle are rather glowing."
He glanced at the Fujian Branch Head, who stood at his side like a borrowed sack of barley, and went on.
"They say you turned the tide of a stalled battlefield on your own and earned quite a merit. So, what would a brat like you do now?"
Look at that. Respect had appeared.
And so.
I answered it with respect of my own.
"Wouldn't it be enough for you, Venerable Elder, to take the lead and smash everything in the way? If Old Tyrant Roar decides to walk, how could a mere Blood Night Gang hope to stop him?"
The officers' eyes went round at my change of stance. This old geezer was crazy about testing people and grading them. The battle for Ghost Spirit Island was as good as a proving ground for the Fujian Branch Head and the other officers.
"Using an ox-cleaver to butcher a chicken. That moldy old idea is the limit of what you've got."
Put simply, he meant he would never set foot in the fighting himself.
It had been the same in my past life.
On the day the months-long war between the Pitch-Black League and the Blood Night Gang finally ended.
—"Pathetic bastards, the lot of you."
Because with just that curt remark, Noh Hong-geuk had quietly collected the Blood Night Gang Leader's head and gone home.
No, not quite.
That was the story told outside, but in truth the head was not all Noh Hong-geuk had taken.
"Then is the limit of the Pitch-Black League's Fujian Branch to flounder on the battlefield and ask a lowly wanderer how to break the deadlock?"
The officers' resentful glares poured onto me.
Pretending not to notice their looks, I went straight to the conclusion.
"In that case, leave it to me."
"To you?"
"I can settle it in a day."
"A day?"
"Now that I say it, even a day seems long."
"Then?"
"I'll finish it before dawn."
One of the officers asked, sounding incredulous.
"If that were possible, would we be sitting here like this? Do you even know where the Blood Night Gang's main base is?"
The fighting on Ghost Spirit Island had dragged on for six whole months, and not simply because the terrain was against us.
We couldn't find the bastards' main base.
No matter how much we searched every corner of Ghost Spirit Island and turned it upside down, wasn't it simply nowhere to be found?
In the end, it was only after half a year of all but razing Ghost Spirit Island that we were able to settle things.
But now that I remembered Ghost Spirit Island and where the Blood Night Gang's main base was, things were quite different.
"You've all been fighting this war without even knowing where the enemy's main base is?"
When I asked back in a sly tone, Noh Hong-geuk questioned me, puzzled.
"The Blood Night Gang's main base is a mystery even to me, and you really know where it is?"
Suspicious glances crisscrossed all around. Everyone seemed to suspect that some lunatic was just saying whatever came to mind to win the favor of Old Tyrant Roar, Noh Hong-geuk.
"Fujian."
At Old Tyrant Roar's call, the Fujian Branch Head answered respectfully.
"Yes, Elder."
The way they treated each other showed this was not their first meeting. Noh Hong-geuk spoke in a voice without the slightest rise or fall.
"You're the one in charge. You decide."
"Yes, Elder."
"Will you put your trust in that wanderer?"
Every officer's eyes, the Fujian Branch Head's included, poured onto me at once.
"Or will you do things your own way?"
He thought for a moment, then answered.
"If you permit it, Elder, I'd like to trust that man."
"Why?"
"I took him for a bastard dying to die, but I don't think that's it."
To put exactly what Gu Ja-gyeong had shown on the last battlefield into words......
"He's a man dying to kill."
The officers spoke up, their voices thick with worry and unease.
"Now that I see him, it's not just his skill. That bastard's got no ordinary tongue either!"
"Yes, that's right! Come to think of it, we don't know a single thing about him."
"We don't even know his true origins, do we? What if he's a Blood Night Gang spy?"
Worry piled on worry.
"What will you do if that bastard turns out to be a Blood Night Gang spy?"
"What if what he showed us in the last battle was only to fool us?"
"What if it's a trick to lead everyone here into their graves?"
The Fujian Branch Head answered them.
"Well......"
It was a crisp answer.
"Then the one who got fooled is the moron."
I let out a snort of laughter at that.
I liked this guy.
You're going to get ahead today, thanks to me.
"Fujian, you goddamn bastard."
Noh Hong-geuk scowled hard. Seeing how easily the curse popped out, he must have been quite fond of the Branch Head.
"I thought you'd cooled off by now, but you're still running pretty hot. Look in a bronze mirror! Look at the state of you in that mirror. Middle-aged, you're middle-aged! And you still can't rein in that heart of yours and get played by a glib tongue?"
WHACK!
And then, out of nowhere, didn't he smack the Fujian Branch Head across the back of the head?
As the flustered Branch Head clutched the back of his head, Noh Hong-geuk went on.
"Mind the back of your head."
At that age, you often end up saying to others the things you mean to say to yourself.
"Tsk, tsk. Keep a bastard like that close, and you're just asking to be hit from behind......"
Then he looked at me and spoke.
"You said a day."
"Yes, that's right."
"I'll come back tomorrow."
He added more.
"If you really finish it in a day, I'll write the League Leader a letter of recommendation for you myself."
"Keep your promise."
"You're the one who'd better keep his promise. If this promise gets broken......"
If this promise fell through, it could very well mean annihilation.
"You die."
I answered briefly.
"Yes. You needn't worry."
And then I added a word of my own.
"As for being ready to die, I've done that more times than I can count."
Counting from my past life, it had to be thousands of times at the very least.
Noh Hong-geuk looked into me.
For a long time, as if determined to see straight through to whether it was true.
"......"
Did it look true to him?
Noh Hong-geuk turned around......
And left without a word.
Thump, thump......
The Fujian Branch Head didn't open his mouth until Noh Hong-geuk was completely out of sight.
"Where?"
He seemed a little desperate, as if he felt there was no more time to waste on Ghost Spirit Island.
"What's so urgent that you go straight to business? That old geezer wore me out, and you can't even give me time for a drink of water, let alone a moment's rest."
He asked again.
"Do you really know where it is?"
I nodded.
"What you need, Branch Head, is solid information on where the Blood Night Gang's main base is?"
"You have to ask?"
"Then I'd like to ask whether you've also thought about why you need that information."
"Well, obviously......"
I snapped my fingers once with a 'Snap!' and said.
"What you seem to need right now, Branch Head, isn't the exact location of the Blood Night Gang's main base. It's the peace of mind that information would bring."
Having picked up a knack for dealing with a lunatic overnight, he answered.
"Yes, you're right about everything."
Then he asked.
"So where on earth is it?"
I answered with a question.
"Got a map of Ghost Spirit Island, by any chance?"
Someone pulled a scroll from inside his robe and spread it wide. It was a map that recorded, however crudely, the terrain of Ghost Spirit Island.
"Here."
Everyone who saw the spot I pointed to with my index finger looked utterly stunned.
"The cliff behind the Valley of Ruin?"
Instead of answering, I looked around.
"Now, whoever wants to hear the rest, go fetch me a cup of water. I'm so thirsty I just can't say another word."
With that, I plopped down on the chair Noh Hong-geuk had been occupying until a moment ago.
'That damned bastard!'
Eyeballs flashed on every side, but I just picked at my ear.
When I blew, whoo, a scab of blood fell away. The blood I had shed from Noh Hong-geuk's sound arts had already dried. After talking for so long, who could blame my throat for getting dry?
"What are you doing? Go get water!"
The officer who looked lowest in rank ran off, as if shoved, to fetch water. I didn't drink right away and studied the surface of the water he had brought.
"Why aren't you drinking?"
I narrowed my brows and muttered, "Wait, wait."
Look at this rotten bastard. I threw the gourd dipper full of water, and it broke in two.
"Would you look at this goddamn bastard."
"What? Did he poison it?"
"Not poison, but he spat in it."
One of the officers kicked the officer who had fetched the water in the backside.
"Fuck! Go get it again!"
The guy who had taken a kick for nothing brought water back in another gourd. I had decided that if he had spat in it again, I would take his head, but he was a lucky bastard.
"Good water."
Then I smacked the officer who had brought the water over the head with the empty gourd.
BONK!
The gourd went bonk and split in two, and the guy went ugh and toppled over.
Paying it no mind, I went on explaining the operation we would carry out tonight.
"There are two reasons no one could find the Blood Night Gang's main base, even though it sits right beyond the cliff. The first is Ghost Spirit Island's fog......"
Every eye was fixed on me.
"The second is a 'formation.'"
The officers gasped at what came next.
In my past life, it was something we learned only after turning Ghost Spirit Island upside down for half a year.
A 'formation.'
And not just any formation, but one touched by the hand of Myriad Forms, one of the Three Great Eccentrics Under Heaven.
Ghost Spirit Island was already blanketed in thick fog, and on top of that a highly refined formation had been laid over it, which was why no one could find the main base.
"You know how to handle formations?"
I gave a light shrug.
"Roughly."
In truth, as long as a formation wasn't too sophisticated, I handled them quite well.
And.
When the goal was to destroy one rather than work it, even a sophisticated formation was no problem.
"We have to reach the formation core."
"And where is that?"
"You call that a question?"
I jerked my chin upward.
"It'll be hidden away up there, of course."
"The cliffs of the Valley of Ruin!"
"First, we pick out only the very best."
I went on explaining.
"We split our forces into an infiltration team and a main force. While I and the esteemed gentlemen here climb the Valley of Ruin's steep cliff and break the formation, the rest, the main force, waits near their main base."
The Fujian Branch Head immediately questioned that.
"Climb the cliff behind the Valley of Ruin?"
I snorted at that.
"You don't have the guts to climb one measly cliff, but you want to climb the ladder?"
The Fujian Branch Head raised his head.
Even from where they stood, the Valley of Ruin was visible far off behind the milky fog.
It would be a hard cliff to climb even without the thick fog.
The fog would make the climb twice as hard, so it would take longer, too.
And if the bastards noticed them partway up?
'Then the infiltration team is wiped out, for starters.'
The Fujian Branch Head sank deeper into thought.
But would they, though?
He decided to look at it from the other side.
'How would they notice?'
Who in their right mind would think of sending men up the Valley of Ruin's cliff one after another, with fog lying thick and a single wrong step sure to mean falling and croaking?
Only that lunatic would come up with an idea like that.
Besides, thanks to that remarkable formation, the enemy was surely certain that no one could ever guess where their camp was.
And even if they learned it had been found, they could never in the least imagine a raid coming up that steep cliff by this route.
The Fujian Branch Head thought.
Sometimes knowledge and common sense are exactly what trip you up.
Tonight, every last one of those bastards would die.
Not by the sword, but stabbed and cut down by their own vaunted knowledge and common sense.
"A minute ago you wouldn't give me a sip of water, you were in such a hurry. What are you hesitating for now?"
Pressed by Gu Ja-gyeong, the Fujian Branch Head, who had been chewing on his lower lip, nodded as if he had made up his mind.
"All right, let's climb!"
Everyone just looked up at the distant cliff with grim faces.
—We're really climbing that?
To lighten the mood, Gu Ja-gyeong said something half in jest and half in earnest.
"Some of us are going to fall off that thing and croak on the way up. But even if you fall and croak, how about we all swear never to make a sound?"
Maybe my joke wasn't funny, because not a single person laughed easily.