Chapter 117
Fortunately, the fight ended quickly.
Surprisingly… it was an overwhelming victory for the Inspection Team.
Honestly, with the way they were fighting so haphazardly, it wouldn’t have been strange if someone had gotten injured, but although they had gotten a little scruffy, they all looked perfectly fine on the outside.
Later, Daoist Woonhak even came over to thank me.
“Brother Dan, thank you for protecting the monk.”
“Huh?”
All I did was run my mouth, though?
“Normally, even if the monk hides somewhere, the enemies sometimes attack him, so I have to keep an eye on him as well. But this time, with Brother Dan here, I was at least able to fight with peace of mind.”
You didn’t look very at peace because of those three idiots.
“Thanks to you, we were able to finish the fight safely. I look forward to working with you from now on.”
Yet Daoist Woonhak’s smiling face looked genuinely relieved, as if someone had just taken a heavy burden off his shoulders, so all I could do was answer awkwardly.
“Ah, yeees…”
In any case, the Water-Mother Sect had fallen, and the situation was more or less wrapped up.
The Inspection Team quickly took care of the aftermath. In fact, they looked even more skilled at this than they did at fighting.
A few of them went inside the buildings to search for evidence, while the others stayed behind and interrogated the captured enemies. As expected, Paeng Mirang took charge of the interrogation. He had the sharpest tongue and the most intimidating face.
“If you wanna keep that worthless life of yours, tell me everything you know. Where is the Pleasure Sect? I’m asking if you know anything!”
“Wh-Why are you asking us about the Pleasure Sect…”
“Are you not gonna talk?!”
‘Wow, how is he somehow more of a demonic sect member than the actual unorthodox sects?’
I clicked my tongue while watching Paeng Mirang, who looked so intimidating that even the average thug wouldn’t dare show his face in front of him.
I really think this guy chose the wrong side.
“We really, truly don’t know anything! It’s been quite a while since we last saw those bastards, too. At some point, they started acting all high and mighty because they were doing well and began looking down on us… They’re practically our enemies. Those bastards even poached some of our members.”
“Poached them?”
“Y-Yes, yes. They said they’d let them make big money easily instead of earning this paltry change. Does that even make sense? It was obvious they’d lose their lives if things went wrong…”
‘Make big money, huh…’
Looks like they really are involved in some seriously shady business.
But they apparently knew nothing beyond that, and we couldn’t obtain any more information. No matter how much Paeng Mirang grilled them, all they could do was beg for forgiveness without being able to say anything useful.
The people who had gone inside the building were no different. In the end, we learned nothing here.
But this was only the beginning. Their original goal wasn’t to obtain information in the first place. It was to stir up the Pleasure Sect’s subordinate organizations and draw them out.
Daoist Woonhak spoke solemnly.
“Then, shall we move on to the next one?”
***
“Kill those bastards!”
Clang! Clang!
The Inspection Team’s journey continued for several long days. During that time, they raided another couple of sects.
Their chaotic fighting remained unchanged.
At first, I thought perhaps they simply weren’t used to fighting as a group, but after watching them, I realized that this was simply how they fought.
‘If that’s their way of doing things, I suppose I have to acknowledge it.’
I acknowledged it and decided to accept it.
And as I accepted it, I started wanting to join in too.
Honestly, constantly hiding behind a pillar was boring. Chatting with the monk was fine once or twice, but sitting still while watching everyone else run around made me restless. Eventually, at some point, I started jumping out into the middle of things.
And what I did was…
“Good job, good job! Whoever’s winning is on our side!”
“You bastard, whose side are you on?!”
The cheerleader!
No, honestly, defeating these guys was the Inspection Team’s job, wasn’t it? As a spectator, did I really need to waste my energy?
Still, I genuinely wanted the Inspection Team to win, so I cheered them on with all my heart.
“Whose side? Obviously our cool and beautiful big brothers and sisters’ side~.”
“Someone shut his mouth!”
“Hmph, who could possibly shut this great man’s mouth? No one can shut me u–gasp! Miss Tang! There’s an ugly bastard approaching from behind with a sword. Hurry and dodge to the side!”
“What are you talking abou–Eek!”
Just giving them some advice while I was at it.
As I said, an enemy really was charging at her from behind, and Tang Hi was startled and dodged the sword. I shouted, “Nice shot, boss!” while ducking my head at the same time.
Whoosh
A sword passed over my head.
I stepped half a pace diagonally, causing the spear thrusting toward my side to miss. Then, as I spun halfway around to evade it, the swords charging at me from both sides collided with each other.
Clang!
“Fuck!”
‘Who are you talking to?’
Under normal circumstances, I would have killed him with a single palm strike out of sheer irritation, but I was in a good mood today, so I magnanimously forgave him.
Instead, I let out a pitiful scream.
“Mommy! Brothers and sisters! Some hairy old man is trying to hurt this adorable Yeonjeong! Please come save me!”
One of the bandits finally shouted in frustration.
“What the hell is that crazy bastard?!”
“We don’t know either!”
Amusingly, the answer came from the Inspection Team.
What do you mean, you don’t know? I’m the Flower-Glutton following you around. But instead of bothering to answer, I burst out laughing loudly.
I ran all over the battlefield. I chatted noisily beside people who were fighting, clapped my hands, and generally made a ruckus.
Naturally, with me causing such a disturbance, the bandits’ concentration became disrupted. Whenever they were distracted, the Inspection Team would ghostlike slip in and take them down.
‘Me helping them here and there. I’m looking damn cool.’
Even Daoist Woonhak spared no praise for me.
“Brother Dan! If you aren’t going to help, could you please just stay hidden?! And I told you to protect the monk! My heart isn’t going to survive this!”
“Come on, I’m keeping an eye on him from time to time too, so don’t worry. If you’re really worried, should I tuck the monk under my arm and cheer together with him?”
“Brother Dan!”
“Jeez, fine. I’ll bring hi–”
I stopped mid-joke. Something caught my eye in the distance.
More precisely, behind Liyeon, who was fighting, I saw the fingers of a fallen man twitch.
Liyeon seemed too occupied dealing with the two people in front of him to notice, and in the meantime, those fingers were unmistakably reaching toward a sword lying on the ground.
I immediately kicked off the ground and ran.
The bandit’s fingertips happened to reach the sword hilt. Just as the man, who had been pretending to be unconscious, suddenly sprang up like lightning to launch a surprise attack–
Thud!
My foot struck him in the abdomen.
With internal energy behind the blow, the bandit’s body flew through the air and slammed into the wall. He twitched once before losing consciousness completely.
At that moment, Liyeon seemed to have dealt with the enemy in front of him as well and turned toward me.
I looked at his bandage-covered eye and winked.
“Dark Knight☆.”
Liyeon snorted.
“Pointless.”
Then he coldly turned away.
His cold response might have disappointed me, but I didn’t care in the slightest.
If anything, my heart was pounding harder than ever.
‘Yes, this is it.’
A beauty needs to have this kind of aloof charm!
I happily moved my feet while savoring the contempt I hadn’t tasted in a long time.
Should I ask him to tell me to fuck off sometime later?
How long did I happily play around like that?
The fight soon entered a lull.
It was more chaotic than last time, but it ended much faster.
Next came, as expected, the Inspection Team’s interrogation. They captured those who were relatively unharmed and began questioning them.
The questions were similar to those of the past few days, and similar answers followed.
“Answer properly! I said answer properly!”
“We don’t know! We really don’t know…!”
Perhaps even Paeng Mirang was growing frustrated with the same situation repeating itself every time, because his tone became increasingly harsh. But no matter how many bandits they captured, nothing came out of them.
I stood in the corner watching them and thought,
‘It should be about time for them to show up.’
Honestly, after stirring things up this much, the Pleasure Sect should have heard about us long ago.
The fact that they still hadn’t shown themselves meant one of two things. Either these subordinate organizations were disposable and not worth protecting, or they were still watching us and feeling us out.
‘Could they be feeling us out?’
I was looking around while making various guesses when…
“Th-There…!”
Suddenly, someone raised his hand.
The gaze of everyone in the Inspection Team, myself included, fixed on the man.
He had a pale complexion and dark circles under his eyes, and for some reason, he was trembling particularly hard, as though he were anxious.
The man slowly opened his lips.
“Actually, two days ago, I…”
At that moment–
Swish.
My eyes widened at the sound of wind being sliced through.
There wasn’t even time to block it.
“Ghk.”
A throwing dagger pierced through the man’s neck.
He froze with his mouth still open. Blood bubbles leaked from his open mouth, and after making a choking, gurgling sound, he soon collapsed onto the floor.
Thud.
I looked toward the direction the throwing dagger had come from. Before I knew it, three people were standing on the roof.
Each carried a peculiar weapon and wore black masks. Sensing that there was something ominous about them, I bared my teeth in a grin.
“Finally decided to show yourselves.”
They were experts from the Pleasure Sect.
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