CHAPTER~24
“Phew, Daegil.”
Woo-hee spoke in a calm, confident tone.
“I’ll have you know that by next New Year’s Festival, I’ll be the unrivaled genius who shakes the entire Central Plains—the heavenly prodigy fallen from the sky, the martial genius risen from the earth, the ghostly talent who could even split the seas! Things like being cautious or timid—those are for other people to do in front of me, not for me to do!”
Daegil gave her a look that was halfway between pity and disbelief, as if wondering if something was wrong with her head.
Wait, no—she was serious!
Woo-hee doubled down, insisting on her greatness with fire in her eyes.
“No, seriously! I beat all of you at once! Didn’t I? That means I’m strong—super strong!”
“Yeah, I know, you’re really strong. We were all hanging on you, but you still jumped around like nothing.”
“It’s not just strength! My martial arts are amazing too! I can use sword energy! Sword aura! And even make a sword barrier like this, look! At this level, becoming the greatest villain in the world is child’s play!”
“Alright, alright, I get it. You’re super, super strong. Next time you come, I’ll let you be the world’s number one villain again. With a sword, even.”
“…….”
Oh, for heaven’s sake!
No wonder adults always complained about trying to have serious conversations with kids.
Woo-hee could only feel wronged.
“By the way, Daegil,” she asked after a while, “why are there so many beggars in this village? Is it always like this, or is it just here?”
“Is this your first time in Namyu Village?”
“Uh-huh. First time anywhere, really.”
Since little Sogil’s short legs made their pace slow, Woo-hee had plenty of time to take in the village sights. And the more she looked, the more she noticed—there were a lot of beggars.
“Our village has more because the Beggars’ Sect headquarters is just a little down south.”
“What? You mean this is the royal beggar den?!”
“…….”
Daegil’s eyes went wide.
Well, technically she wasn’t wrong—the Beggars’ Sect was the beggars’ martial clan, and their main base was here—but calling it a royal beggar den out loud, in front of their gate, took guts. Or madness.
“What the heck? That doesn’t make sense. I got kicked out of an inn because they thought I was a beggar! Shouldn’t that guy have been begging for mercy if this is a beggar stronghold? Was that innkeeper out of his mind?”
Woo-hee cursed Yoon Chang-sam with complete sincerity.
But Daegil quickly cleared up her confusion.
“Well, since there are so many beggars around here, the shopkeepers kind of got tired of them. So they’re… not so kind anymore.”
“What? That’s dumb. Shouldn’t people be nicer near a beggar sect? I mean, they’re still a martial clan, right? Aren’t they afraid of the beggar boss? Is he weak or something?”
“……No, it’s just… as long as the merchants don’t cross any real lines—like actually beating or killing a beggar—the sect doesn’t care.”
As expected from a merchant’s daughter, Daegil knew quite a lot.
Still, Woo-hee wasn’t satisfied.
“So they’re a so-called righteous sect, but they don’t even care about their own? What a bunch of hypocrites! No wonder random innkeepers feel bold enough to smash beggars’ bowls!”
By now, Daegil looked dizzy from hearing so many unfamiliar words.
“Maybe… maybe the innkeeper just thought you looked like a beggar?”
She hit the bull’s-eye without even being there.
“Usually, the guys at inns don’t mess with anyone carrying a sword. So maybe you looked really scruffy—and broke, too?”
Woo-hee froze.
“And also, down south there’s the Peng family, up north the Murong clan, and in between is the Beggars’ Sect. If the innkeeper starts trouble with someone carrying a sword, they could be dead the next day.”
Ah. So that’s why that fool Yoon Chang-sam had guts the size of mountains.
Woo-hee sighed and munched on the rest of her candy.
“Hey, um, Woo-hee,” Daegil said cautiously. “If you promise not to get mad, can I ask something?”
Woo-hee tilted her head, curious. “Sure, I promise.”
She genuinely liked Daegil—so polite and easy to talk to, unlike Yeong-ho, who managed to insult her ten times for every lesson he gave.
Besides, she was curious what a normal village girl would want to know about her.
“Then… why is your hair white? You’re not even an adult yet.”
Ah. The hair.
“Well,” Woo-hee said flatly, “when I was little, I was greedy. I stole a super-powerful elixir to eat, but something went wrong and—bam! White hair forever.”
Daegil’s eyes softened with pity, like she was staring at the saddest fool alive.
“Oh… I see…”
In the martial world, it wasn’t rare to hear about idiots who ate strange herbs chasing power and ended up crippled or dead. Woo-hee’s tale sounded entirely plausible.
“Then what about your eyes? Did that happen because of the elixir too?”
“My eyes? What about them?”
“You didn’t know? Your eyes are… really pretty. Like a lake. I’ve never seen anyone with lake-colored eyes before.”
Woo-hee blinked, genuinely taken aback. Lake-colored eyes? The only lakes she’d ever seen were frozen solid.
Still, her eyes—those clear violet hues with threads of red and blue—were nothing an ordinary lake could capture.
“Sure, yeah,” she said with a shrug. “My hair, my eyes, my crazy strength—it’s all because I ate too many elixirs when I was a kid.”
“Too many?! So not just once? You didn’t learn your lesson the first time? You lost your hair color and your eye color, and you still didn’t reflect on your actions? Don’t you know you can’t grow as a person without reflection?”
“…….”
The eleven-year-old’s scolding gaze felt sharper than any sword.
And the fifteen-year-old prodigy Woo-hee suddenly felt… small.
To be fair, she had been force-fed dozens of elixirs as a child by her master-grandfather. And her white hair and violet eyes? Totally natural.
But she couldn’t exactly tell a random kid, “Oh, that’s just because I inherited the North Sea Grandmaster’s frozen inner energy.”
It wasn’t that she was ashamed of being from the Ice Palace.
She just didn’t want the Palace’s name dragged through the mud because she spent her day playing villain games with village kids.
If people found out, she wouldn’t be the world’s greatest villain—she’d be the world’s biggest brat.
And that thought alone made Woo-hee frown deeply.
Maybe she should dye her hair…? She was starting to think that walking around with snowy white hair might make her too recognizable, especially if any unpleasant rumors started circulating.
Anyway, by the end of the day, Woo-hee had finished her grand “training” as a future villain by eating her way through the village with Daegil and Sogil, making sure the siblings got home safely before heading back to her inn.
It had been a fun, happy day.
…Whether it was a step toward becoming the greatest villain in the Central Plains, though—that was another question entirely.
