Chapter : 09
Ilhyang pretended not to notice Pyeong Sobyeok’s leering gaze at all.
With the innocent eyes unique to a child, he looked around before speaking.
“It was truly difficult to make my way through this harsh world at such a young age without anyone to take care of me. Still, now that I intend to begin a new life here, I hope you will help me greatly, Hero Pyeong.”
“Of course! Naturally! Just trust me, hahaha!”
Rustle—Rustle—
Pyeong Sobyeok led Ilhyang away from the sparsely populated main road and along a quiet path, continuing deeper into the rugged mountain terrain.
Ilhyang continued following closely behind him, pretending not to know anything, and spoke.
“The terrain is quite rugged. I suppose this is why wild animals keep trampling through the medicinal herb fields.”
“That’s right.”
Since they were at the foot of the mountain, the daylight quickly faded.
Likewise, Pyeong Sobyeok’s words gradually became shorter.
As he climbed the mountain, he kept looking around in every direction.
It was almost as though he were searching for the best place to eat prey he had already caught.
Then—
“This place will do perfectly.”
“Hmm? What do you mean? I don’t see any fields.”
Pyeong Sobyeok rubbed the sword sheath hanging from his waist and grinned.
“Seeing an innocent fellow like you makes me feel uneasy. So I thought I’d teach you a little about the harshness of the world from now on. That should be fine, right?”
Pyeong Sobyeok asked in a tone that made it clear he had never considered whether the other party would agree in the first place.
Only then did Ilhyang answer with a slightly frightened expression.
“What are you suddenly talking about, Hero Pyeong?”
“Haha! Have you ever eaten human flesh? Especially the flesh of children. It’s so tender and delicious.”
“……”
Seeing Ilhyang looking like a frightened baby sparrow, Pyeong Sobyeok decided that using a sword would be a little excessive.
So he pulled out a small dagger from his sleeve.
Shing—
The fading evening sunlight dripped across the dagger Pyeong Sobyeok had drawn, like drops of blood.
“Let’s start with one arm.”
Smacking his lips, Pyeong Sobyeok leisurely approached Ilhyang, who was slowly backing away.
Even then, Ilhyang continued looking around with the expression of a frightened fawn.
But at some point, his expression became blank.
Then he quietly curled up the corners of his mouth.
“Human flesh, huh? Our young master certainly has an elegant hobby.”
“Haha, oh my! You noticed far too late! Far, far too late! Even if you scream and struggle here, there’s no one who can help you!”
“Seems that way.”
But the same goes for you.
No one can help you either.
Swallowing those last words inwardly, Ilhyang stared quietly at Pyeong Sobyeok.
For some reason, Pyeong Sobyeok disliked those eyes that showed not the slightest bit of fear.
So he stopped teasing him and decided to finish what he had started.
“So shut your mouth and quietly give me one arm first—”
“Let’s start with one arm, just as you wish. I think the right arm would be good.”
“Oh? You’re being quite obedient—”
Puff—
Crack!
Pyeong Sobyeok’s words never reached the end.
From the darkness of the forest, something descended like an eagle and violently tore away his right arm as easily as pulling up a radish.
“Gah! What the—!”
Whoosh!
Blood shot high into the sky from his shoulder.
A man with a face as pale as wax was drenched in the blood.
“A-A Jiangshi? Why is a Jiangshi here? How—”
Even then, Pyeong Sobyeok still could not properly comprehend what had happened to him.
Watching his foolish expression,
Ilhyang, still wearing the mask of an innocent child, formed a sinister smile at the corner of his mouth.
Bright Moon Sword Song Gwangsik suppressed his presence as much as possible and silently watched the scene revealed beneath the glow of the setting sun.
‘Idiot. He actually poked a sleeping tiger.’
That man named Pyeong Sobyeok.
Song Gwangsik knew a little about him.
He had heard that the Pyeong Family had raised him with such excessive care as their heir that he had grown into an arrogant and spoiled bastard.
But he never imagined that he would go as far as eating human flesh.
In the end, he had finally met his match today.
“P-Please spare me, Young Hero.”
“Hmm. Now that things have turned out like this, is there really any reason to spare you? If I simply let you go, I feel like the back of my head would become terribly itchy.”
“Never! Absolutely not! I swear I will never tell anyone about what happened today for the rest of my life! Please, show me mercy!”
Thud, thud, thud—
Even while blood poured from his right arm,
Pyeong Sobyeok repeatedly slammed his head against the ground as he begged.
“Hmm. Chilho, go wipe off the blood first. The smell of blood is too strong.”
“……”
The Jiangshi with an expressionless face lowered its head and then disappeared like smoke.
Left alone with the little boy,
Pyeong Sobyeok still did not make any reckless move.
‘That just now was a Blood Jiangshi. Then that little brat must be a sorcerer from the Mansi Sect. There must be other Jiangshi nearby. Without a doubt.’
He had felt uneasy from the very beginning for some reason.
He could not sense the slightest trace of internal energy from that little brat.
And yet, the boy had subdued a Third-Rate Vagabond with his bare hands.
He should have realized that something was strange then and backed away.
But the sight of such high-quality flesh, something he had not seen in a long time—
His appetite had blinded him.
Of course, it was already far too late for regrets.
“Please spare me, Hero!”
Pyeong Sobyeok kept his head respectfully pressed against the ground.
He pleaded with tears in his eyes, desperately seeking the other party’s sympathy.
If only he could somehow escape from here.
If only he could get through this crisis!
He was confident that he would definitely take revenge.
He could endure a little humiliation.
Ilhyang could see Pyeong Sobyeok’s thoughts perfectly clearly, so he smiled faintly.
“You were simply unlucky. Just think of it that way.”
“……!”
Pyeong Sobyeok’s heart sank.
Wasn’t that exactly what he always said before eating the young children he captured?
“Of all places, you were unlucky enough to naturally lead yourself here.”
This was the automatic hunting area where Ilhyang had released his incomplete ghouls.
And unfortunately for Pyeong Sobyeok,
Ilhyang’s personality meant that he never left behind potential future problems.
“Hero! Please, just once! Give me another chance! If it’s money, I can give you as much as you want!”
Pyeong Sobyeok crawled across the ground and tried to grab Ilhyang by the hem of his pants.
But Ilhyang took a step back and shook his head.
“That won’t do. Did you give the people you ate a chance?”
“T-That…”
The cold, emotionless eyes of the little boy.
For the briefest moment when their eyes met,
Pyeong Sobyeok’s fear reached its peak.
And then—
Snap.
Ilhyang snapped his fingers.
The other Blood Jiangshi that had been blending into the darkness sprang out and brutally pressed Pyeong Sobyeok’s head into the ground.
“Guh! Guaaah!”
As Pyeong Sobyeok desperately struggled with his remaining arm and let out a pitiful scream,
Ilhyang moved one of the Blood Jiangshi to roughly cover Pyeong Sobyeok’s mouth and completely restrain his entire body.
Then he approached and whispered.
“I have a lot to ask you. Don’t exhaust yourself from the beginning. Understand?”
“……Mmmph! Mmph!”
Pyeong Sobyeok breathed heavily through his blocked mouth and desperately nodded.
In truth, the hand gripping the back of his neck was hard and cold as ice, making him feel as though he might lose consciousness at any moment.
He had never been this frightened in his entire life.
He was so terrified that he even involuntarily wet his pants a little.
‘Ten Blood Jiangshi! There are actually ten of them! He must be a master at least at the level of an Elder in the Mansi Sect!’
He was truly an astonishingly powerful Jiangshi sorcerer.
And the sinister scheme behind it was even more frightening.
‘He lured me all the way here with such an innocent expression!’
That was right.
He had fallen into a trap that had been meticulously designed from the very beginning.
Pyeong Sobyeok had long since erased from his mind the fact that he himself had walked all the way here.
‘Me…… I was actually this innocent? How frustrating and unfair!’
Pyeong Sobyeok did not think about any of the evil deeds he had committed.
He only felt wronged by the suffering that was about to befall him.
He was so aggrieved and furious that tears poured from his eyes.
‘Am I going to become a Jiangshi like them soon, unable to live or die, and be dragged around like a slave? Oh, heavens.’
All kinds of thoughts flashed through Pyeong Sobyeok’s mind like a revolving lantern.
‘Ah…… Father. I should have listened to Father from the beginning! This unfilial son is going to die like this!’
His father had told him that he could buy as many children as he wanted through the proper channels.
So why had he foolishly decided to enjoy himself on his own and ended up in this situation?
How bitterly unfair.
Pyeong Sobyeok’s mind was boiling chaotically like a furnace.
Then—
“Wait a moment. I need to organize the questions in my head first.”
“……!”
In truth, Ilhyang did not care in the slightest what Pyeong Sobyeok was thinking.
There were simply too many things he wanted to know about this world, and deciding the order in which to ask them was more important.
‘First, I’ll start with the Mansi Sect, the necromancer group……’
He also needed to ask about the Thousand Blood Sect, which had attacked the Mansi Sect.
More fundamentally, there were simply too many things he needed to learn about this world.
‘If I have to find out all of this one thing at a time, it’ll take far too much money and time.’
He needed someone he could question appropriately without arousing any suspicion.
And as luck would have it, Pyeong Sobyeok had approached him on his own with ulterior motives, so Ilhyang had simply followed along while pretending not to know anything.
“From now on, I’m going to ask you questions one by one. If you make a loud noise, I’ll kill you. Understand?”
Pyeong Sobyeok frantically nodded his head.
Ilhyang smiled in satisfaction and ordered the Blood Jiangshi to remove its hand from Pyeong Sobyeok’s mouth.
“Do you know about the Mansi Sect?”
The night was long.
And since this request was originally renewed in ten-day intervals,
there was plenty of time.
Thus, Ilhyang slowly began learning about the knowledge of this world, one thing at a time.
Ten days later, a small trace of admiration crossed the face of Mak Chung at the reception desk when Ilhyang casually returned to the branch.
“I’ve completed the request.”
Looking at the boy whose expression had barely changed from ten days ago,
Mak Chung could not hide his surprise inwardly.
‘Could it be that he actually received the completion stamp from the young master of the Pyeong Family?’
Once a request was accepted,
the person undertaking it could not file a complaint even if something unpleasant happened during the process.
Pyeong Sobyeok had exploited this system to secretly dispose of people while satisfying his urges to kill and eat human flesh.
In fact, he was quite a famous murderer in this area.
‘Pyeong Sobyeok was at least a First-Class expert. Was this little brat actually skilled enough to deal with someone like him?’
Whether it was his own personal ability,
or whether he had a powerful background supporting him,
it did not matter.
Whatever the case, this little brat clearly possessed some kind of hidden trump card.
After all, he had returned with the request completion stamp.
Of course, for some reason, Pyeong Sobyeok, who had left together with him, had not appeared.
But that was none of Mak Chung’s concern.
‘It’s not like we’re the government office.’
From the Vagabond Association’s perspective, all they needed was confirmation that the request that had been left unattended for the past month had been completed.
“Then, after deducting the commission fee, I’ll give you the payment for the request.”
Mak Chung handed Ilhyang half of the payment Pyeong Sobyeok had deposited.
Ilhyang received the 25 silver coins and immediately held them out again.
“I’d like to place a request.”
A Vagabond could accept requests, but they could also place requests.
Looking at the money that had just been returned to him, Mak Chung answered with a friendly expression.
“What kind of request would you like to make?”
“I want to find a writing teacher.”
“A writing teacher……?”
“I heard that this amount should be enough to find a reasonably good writing teacher. I only need someone capable of teaching me basic sentences and words.”
To be honest, Ilhyang had considered learning from Pyeong Sobyeok.
But the man had been far too terrified.
Aside from that, his teaching ability was terrible.
So he decided to find a professional teacher instead.
He needed to learn the writing system of this world as quickly as possible.
