Chapter 105
“Wow, this actually works.”
I exclaimed as I landed on the ground.
Something similar had happened before.
It had been lower than this, but I once jumped down from a fairly tall pavilion. Thinking that I had to somehow bounce my way across, I had recklessly thrown planks into the air and stepped on them to make it across.
Taking what happened back then as a reference, I threw the silk on a whim, just in case. But who would have thought even this would actually work…
‘At this rate, if I just have white cloth and wind, I can go anywhere, can’t I?’
On top of that, the beauty’s help had been a huge factor.
At first, he had looked flustered when I recklessly jumped while carrying him, but he soon regained his composure and threw the silk at just the right moments whenever I leaped.
The silk was arranged neither too far nor too close.
He must have infused it with his inner power as well, because the silk didn’t get blown away by the wind and instead floated in the air, providing an appropriate foothold. Thanks to that, I was able to move forward by stepping on the silk much more easily.
‘He must have quite a lot of inner power.’
Someone this beautiful and this skilled should surely be famous, so I had no idea why I had never heard of him.
‘Even from his martial arts, I can’t get a sense of which sect he belongs to.’
Could he be a rising master? Just as I was lost in thought, I heard a tap, tap beside me.
The beauty, who had landed on the ground together with me, was straightening his clothes. I loitered around beside him, and when our eyes met, I confidently raised my thumb.
Of course, he ignored me.
‘Hmm, that attitude of ignoring me. Not bad.’
Just as I was grinning and about to say something to him…
“Captain! Flower-Glutton!”
A voice calling out to us came from far away.
I turned toward the sound and saw Taoist Woonhak running toward us. The Taoist reached us in an instant and hurriedly asked,
“Are either of you hurt? Are you both safe?”
“That sounds like you’d be disappointed if we were safe.”
“Pardon? No, no! Of course not! It’s fortunate that you’re safe…”
“Haha, I’m joking. As you can see, I’m fine. We jumped down before the gunpowder exploded, so neither of us was hurt.”
“Ah…”
Taoist Woonhak looked us over and soon nodded. But instead of leaving right away, he hesitated for a moment, as though he had something to say to me.
Eventually, the Taoist scratched his cheek and said,
“…That was incredible, Flower-Glutton.”
I wondered what he meant, then replied with a smile.
“You flatter me.”
We returned to where the others were gathered.
The situation was still bad.
Half of the pavilion had collapsed from the gunpowder and was burning. On top of that, the fire still hadn’t been brought under control, and if things went wrong, it looked like the flames might spread not only to the bandit stronghold but even to the mountain itself.
People rushed about desperately trying to put out the fire, regardless of whose side they were on. I rolled up my sleeves and helped by carrying water as well.
Fortunately, with so many people helping, the fire was barely brought under control. The situation seemed to be settling down somewhat.
At first, the bandits seemed rather rebellious, but once they heard that their leader was dead, they quickly surrendered and laid down their weapons.
I thought things would be settled like that, but…
“Untie me! I said untie me!”
There was just one thing.
The woman’s situation had yet to be resolved. Apparently she had woken up at some point, and although her pressure points had been sealed and she couldn’t move at all, she was still screaming furiously enough for the veins in her neck to bulge.
We immediately went over to her. As soon as the woman noticed us, she stopped screaming. Then she began glaring at us with fierce eyes.
More precisely…
She was glaring at me.
“Flower-Glutton, why did you save me?”
“Miss.”
“Why didn’t you just let me die? I tried to hurt you with poison! Why did you leave me alive after what I did? You should have killed me! You should have taken revenge on me immediately!”
“Miss, calm down…”
“Or, or are you after the same thing as Bang Chang-seung? Do you want to suppress me……and violate me? How much more do you people have to trample on me before you’re satisfied…!”
“No…”
“Kill me! If that’s what you’re going to do, then kill me! Please, please send me to where Awi is!”
Faced with the woman’s more violent reaction than I had expected, my expression hardened.
Yes, I had expected something like this.
From the moment she learned that her younger brother had died, she had lost the will to live. Even if I somehow managed to save her, she would probably try to kill herself again and again.
But that didn’t mean I could simply leave her like this. Even if she died, it wasn’t as though her younger brother would come back to life…
“Big Sis?”
Come back to life… Huh?
I blinked blankly.
Perhaps she had heard the voice as well, because the woman abruptly stopped moving.
A strange silence descended.
I slowly turned around. There was a little boy standing there.
A child who looked about five or six years old…
“Big Sis!”
He was running toward the woman.
The woman still couldn’t move her body, so all she could do was stare wide-eyed. The boy alone grabbed hold of the woman lying on the ground and burst into loud sobs.
The woman looked bewildered, as though she couldn’t believe what was happening, and asked again,
“A-Awi? Is that you, Awi? Are you really Awi?”
“Big Sis, Big Sis! I, I missed you… Waaah!”
“Awi, Awi? Awi is right in front of me? That’s impossible. Could it be that I’m already dead? Awi, why is he in front of me…?”
Just as tears began welling up in the woman’s eyes…
“Oh, goodness, child!”
A man came running from far away.
He was a young bandit, probably in his twenties. He hurriedly ran up to the child, panting heavily as he immediately began scolding him.
“How could you just come outside on your own?! I told you there are lots of bad grown-ups outside, so you have to stay put, didn’t I? Please, just listen…”
Then he abruptly stopped speaking. Everyone around him was staring at the bandit.
Apparently realizing what was going on, the bandit hurriedly looked around.
He looked at the martial artists of the Murim Alliance, then at us, and then at the others in turn. And finally, when he saw the woman being hugged by the child…
“…Haha.”
The bandit gave an awkward laugh and scratched his head.
“I’m glad you got to meet your sister…”
***
Later, the bandit confessed everything to us.
He said that he had been the one taking care of the child from the very beginning.
Bang Chang-seung had deliberately separated the woman and the child and had never gone to see the child even once. Then, one day, he heard the child crying outside, became annoyed, and ordered him to be abandoned in the mountains.
The bandit was shocked by those words. He had already grown attached to the child after taking care of him for some time, so he thought there was no way he could throw the child away with his own hands.
After much deliberation, the bandit eventually decided not to obey the order. He pretended to abandon the child in the forest, then put him back into the basket and brought him to the stronghold. He hid him in a warehouse that people rarely visited and secretly took care of him.
Then chaos broke out in the stronghold. They said fires had broken out everywhere and that enemies had invaded. To make matters worse, the Murim Alliance had stormed in as well, so the bandit had to move around frantically.
He ended up failing to check on the warehouse where the child was staying. When he later remembered the child and went to the warehouse, the child was gone.
The bandit shook his head and continued speaking.
“Goodness, you have no idea how frightened I was. If he had just stayed put, I would’ve taken him to his sister myself, but he couldn’t wait and ran out on his own. What would he have done if he’d gotten hurt…”
“So that’s what happened…”
The woman couldn’t bring herself to continue speaking.
The beauty released the pressure points sealing her movements, and the woman sat on the floor holding the child.
The woman soon stood up and gave the bandit a deep bow.
“Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks to you, Awi was able to stay alive. I don’t know how I could ever repay this kindness…”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing. I only did what anyone should have done…”
The bandit waved his hands several times and helped the woman back up as she repeatedly bowed. Then, seeing the woman’s beautiful face, his own face reddened.
The woman thanked the bandit once more before turning around.
Then she began walking toward me.
I simply watched her approach. When she reached me, the woman knelt down and bowed just as she had done to the bandit.
“Thank you for saving my life, Great Hero. If it weren’t for you, I would never have been able to see Awi again. And…”
“……”
“I am truly sorry.”
The woman lowered her head and continued.
“I misunderstood you, Great Hero. When I heard that Flower-Glutton was after me, I thought you also harbored lecherous intentions. That was why I ended up being so rude to you.”
“It’s all right. Wasn’t it because the chieftain threatened you?”
“No. At the time, I thought Awi was dead. I could have refused and taken my own life. But I obeyed the chieftain’s orders solely because I wanted revenge.”
“……”
“I thought that even if Flower-Glutton defeated the chieftain, I would end up in the same situation anyway… So I decided to make the two of you die together. Even if the chieftain won, he would be weakened, so I intended to ambush and kill him then.”
“That was reckless. You could have been killed by the chieftain.”
“I didn’t care. Rather, I thought that if I gave my life and went to the afterlife together with him, there could be no better outcome. But when I saw Awi alive and well…”
The woman paused for a moment and looked at Awi again. Her eyes were red and seemed ready to spill tears, but she held them back and looked up at me once more.
“After receiving such an enormous kindness from you, I put your life in danger. I know that what I did is a grave sin that cannot be forgiven with words alone.”
“……”
“So for this sin…”
The woman spoke calmly.
“I will atone with my life.”
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