Chapter 98
The Yongcheok Stronghold was quite large.
A strong wooden palisade surrounded the stronghold built atop the rugged mountains, and inside the palisade, large and small log cabins stood in rows.
At a glance, it almost looked like a village. And in the center of the stronghold…
‘A pavilion?’
There was a pavilion that was no less than nine stories tall.
For whatever reason it had been built, the pavilion was not only tall but also large. Unlike the other log cabins, it even had tiled roofing, and there were carvings here and there, making it extraordinarily magnificent.
And if there was only one person who could live in such a magnificent pavilion, that person would obviously be…
Perhaps thinking the same thing as me, Zhuge Ye said,
“Could the chief be in there?”
“Probably.”
The chief of Yongcheok Stronghold.
That man should be in there.
And if the chief was there, there was a high chance that the beauty would be there as well. They said she was a woman the chief was crazy about. He probably had her staying in the best room in the stronghold, didn’t he?
‘Then I need to get in there……’
I frowned and looked around.
The problem was… there were more bandits than I had expected.
They really seemed to have been grinding their teeth in preparation.
Some were busily moving around, while others stood guard over certain areas. But all of them were holding weapons and were uniformly on high alert.
The reason they were acting like that was obviously…
“…It won’t be easy.”
“Whose fault do you think that is? You brought it upon yourself.”
It was probably because of me.
‘Damn, maybe I should’ve just come later?’
Truthfully, trying to enter while they were this heavily guarded was practically an act of suicide. The main reason I had remained safe until now was that I had attacked whenever everyone else was off guard.
But even so, I couldn’t just pass by a beauty who was a candidate for my future wife. Especially when they said she was getting married soon…
‘What should I do?’
As I rolled my eyes for a moment…
“Hey, you three over there!”
Someone suddenly shouted.
I turned my head toward the source of the voice. A bandit with fierce-looking eyes was staring at us. Seeing the bandit striding toward us, I greeted him in a friendly manner.
“Brother, did you call us?”
“What are you three doing standing around there? Can’t you see the other brothers are busy moving around? What group are you with that you’re slacking off?”
Apparently, he had mistaken our looking around for loafing around. I hurriedly waved both hands and said,
“No, no. We weren’t slacking off. We were just discussing something among ourselves. We’re on our way from the prison.”
“The prison?”
“To find out the families of those young masters.”
The bandit stroked his chin and went, ‘Hmm.’ I had been worried that he might know the bandit who had come into the stone prison, but fortunately, perhaps because there were so many of them, he didn’t seem to know the details.
“I heard you captured some guys like that…. So, did you find out?”
“Of course we did. Good grief, those bastards. They were so reluctant to talk that we had quite a hard time coaxing it out of them. They were so arrogant, claiming to be young masters from some great family. It made my blood boil.”
“A great family? Which clan?”
“Well, you see…”
I subtly lowered my voice.
“They said they were from the Zhuge Family and the Hebei Paeng Family.”
“What?”
The bandit looked genuinely surprised. He had apparently thought they were young masters from some moderately powerful family and never imagined those two families would come up.
“The Zhuge and Paeng Families? Aren’t they two of the Five Great Families? What are the sons of families like that doing here?”
“How would I know? Besides…”
At that moment, Zhuge Ye suddenly cut in.
“Besides, one of them is supposedly the youngest son of the Zhuge Family, while the other is the second son of the Hebei Paeng Family. Apparently, the youngest son of the Zhuge Family has six older sisters, so if anything were to happen to him, the entire family would be thrown into an uproar and…”
‘Why are you telling him all that?’
I quickly picked up where he left off.
“…and he was absolutely furious when he said it! He swore that he’d lead the martial artists of his family here and wipe out Yongcheok Stronghold and everything!”
“Heavens…”
“We were discussing whether we should inform the chief about this because it seemed dangerous if things really turned out that way. Do you think it would be all right if we went directly to the chief and reported it?”
I subtly sounded out the bandit. If I could use this as an excuse to safely enter the pavilion, it would be a huge success.
But the bandit shook his head.
“That won’t work. The chief isn’t letting anyone into the pavilion right now. We don’t know where or how Flower-Glutton might get in.”
So that wouldn’t work. Just as I was clicking my tongue, the bandit continued.
“Still, it would be good to pass the message along. Brother Jang should be coming later, so you could ask him to tell the chief. I don’t know if he’ll listen, though. The chief hardly meets anyone these days because he spends all day with that person.”
‘Oh, really?’
“Heheh, the chief really cherishes her. Even now, the two of them must be spending some sweet time together in the room on the top floor, right?”
“What are you talking about? The chief personally goes to her room, so they should be on the floor below the top floor. Ugh, what good is spending sweet time together? We’re suffering out here like this…”
“Ahhh, right, right. I sometimes forget…”
‘The beauty’s room is on the floor right below the top floor.’
I had almost gone the wrong way and wasted my time. Secretly relieved, I continued chatting with the bandit.
Fortunately, the bandit was quite talkative, and I mostly just went along with whatever he said. Even when I walked through the stronghold with him, no one around us seemed particularly suspicious. I naturally led the bandit toward a dead end and asked one last question.
“Brother, I just remembered something else. Let me ask you one more thing. Do you happen to know where our food storage was?”
“The food storage? Of course, it’s that large building over there… Wait, why are you asking about this? You’ve been asking things like this ever since…”
“Why am I asking?”
I came to a stop. By then, there were only the four of us around.
“Because I don’t know.”
Thud-!
“Guh…!”
I immediately drove my fist into the bandit’s abdomen. Infusing my fist with internal energy, I knocked him unconscious on the spot as he vomited blood.
Just in case, I also sealed his acupoints. A strained voice came from beside me.
“I’ve thought this for a while, but Brother Dan seems to solve everything with his fists. Couldn’t you just quietly seal his acupoints from behind?”
“Hah, you young master from a wealthy family really don’t understand the appeal. With a big guy like that, you have to hit him with your fist to get that satisfying impact.”
“You have terrible tastes.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. More importantly, you heard him earlier, right? The chief is with the beauty, and she’s in the room right below the top floor? It’s a little troublesome that I’ll have to deal with the chief too if I want to see the beauty, but…”
“Yes, that is true.”
Zhuge Ye spoke with a troubled expression.
“We only know the location of the room. We still have no way to get into the pavilion. The chief is spending all day with his wife…”
“The woman who’s going to be his wife!”
“…Yes, the woman who’s going to be his wife. He said he doesn’t even meet other people much because he spends all day with her. It would have been nice if we could have gotten inside simply by delivering the message earlier…”
“Forget about things we can’t help. There’s another way.”
“Yes? What way?”
I silently grinned.
Zhuge Ye and Paeng Ga, seeing that expression, instead looked uneasy. I hid the bandit in some secluded bushes and continued.
“Now, a question. What is dangerous if it catches onto a tree?”
“If it catches onto a tree? Fire…?”
“Then what happens if the food storage disappears?”
“There’d be chaos, wouldn’t there?”
“Exactly. Let’s go.”
“Yes?”
I declared confidently,
“We’re going to set a fire.”
***
“Fire! The food storage is on fire!”
“Damn it, where did the fire start?! Hurry, bring water!”
“Bring more people! At this rate, everything will burn down!”
After happily making our way to the food storage… I immediately used a fire starter to set it ablaze.
Fortunately, most of the bandit forces were concentrated around the palisade and pavilion in preparation for Flower-Glutton’s intrusion. So setting the fire was quite easy.
Once the flames had grown to a certain extent, I shouted, ‘There’s a fire!’ and drew everyone’s attention.
Naturally, the stronghold descended into chaos.
The bandits came running one after another, carrying buckets of water and pouring them onto the flames. However, since I had conveniently set fire to the surrounding buildings as well, the flames were not easily brought under control.
I slipped through the chaotic mass of moving bandits, snickering to myself.
‘Yeah, work hard putting out the fire. In the meantime, I’m going to see the beauty.’
I happily headed toward the pavilion.
However, before long, I was plunged into despair.
The pavilion, the forces guarding the pavilion…
‘Not a single one of them has left!’
Guys, isn’t your food storage important? Huh? Can’t you see your brothers over there carrying water until their arms are about to fall off? You should go help them too!
But they seemed to consider guarding the pavilion more important, standing firmly in place.
They looked so resolute that it seemed they wouldn’t budge even if an army marched right in front of them.
‘What do I do? What do I do?’
Should I set fire to another place? Or should I create a distraction in some other way? What method could I…
Just as I was gnawing at my lip…
“It’s the Murim Alliance! The Murim Alliance has invaded!”
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