Chapter 179 — Assassination
Youngwoo rushed toward Kim Baeksu, intending to end it quickly.
He spurred his horse and shot forward, but Kim Baeksu moved aside.
He went toward the rear, where his own soldiers were gathered.
He was using his own men as shields.
"Move!"
Youngwoo drove in, swinging the banner spear, and the men scattered in all directions.
Several blades came at him, but none reached him.
Using the advantage of the long weapon, he knocked them down one after another.
After he passed six or seven men, the ones behind began to slip away.
Kim Baeksu also turned tail and fled.
"Stop! Stop, you bastard!"
They rushed in when they saw a chance, and ran when the chance disappeared.
That was their specialty, their method, their killing skill.
Once Kim Baeksu fled, the men who had been surrounding Youngwoo lost their drive and scattered everywhere.
Youngwoo chased only Kim Baeksu's back.
The man was in such a hurry that the distance would not close.
He threw away his helmet, cast off his cloak, and fled like a madman.
After chasing him for about half a gak, Youngwoo stopped.
Kim Baeksu had entered the mass of armored infantry coming behind him.
Youngwoo turned his horse around.
This time, the enemy infantry chased him.
"Catch him!"
"Kill him!"
Youngwoo slowly withdrew, then began shooting arrows, and they quickly ran back.
He returned and caught his breath.
Once the man hid among the soldiers, there was no clear answer.
"It is me!"
When Youngwoo shouted, Cheolun, who had been waiting, sprang up.
"How was it?"
"He ran."
"And? Why did you come back in such a hurry?"
"Hundreds of armored infantry are coming."
"This is bad. Let us run."
Youngwoo smacked his lips.
"It would have been good to catch him…"
"How can we deal with hundreds?"
Youngwoo pointed at his own armor.
"Would this not be enough?"
It was Cheolbudo armor made in the Jin camp.
"It is useless. This is too much. A man must know when to step back."
"I am not a man of greatness."
"Let us withdraw. We must get out before they surround us."
He did not mean to risk his life and kill them all.
They had prepared traps, but those were meant for fighting cavalry.
They were of little use against armored infantry.
"We cannot win. This is pointless stubbornness."
Youngwoo hesitated.
There was still time before the armored infantry arrived.
"Fine. Let us go."
The two hurriedly gathered their belongings and left.
Cheolun had already packed the camp.
Even the dismantled tent had been loaded onto the packhorse.
As they left the ambush site, Youngwoo sighed.
"I do not mean to become a good person. I do not care about hearing praise from others either. I simply cannot stand a man like that anymore. Why must we live in a world where such bastards still thrive?"
Cheolun tried to soothe him.
"Most people are like that. People who are not are rare."
"So they kill people?"
"He did not kill him directly."
"If he did not kill him directly, does that make it fine?"
"That is not what I mean. I mean it is difficult to prove a direct causal connection."
As they moved slowly south along the road soaked in darkness, Youngwoo pulled the reins.
He pointed toward a small village where the lights looked warm and sheltered.
"That looks like the village we stopped at when we returned to Goryeo before."
"Yes. I think it was Jineup. No, Jeoneup. What was the name of that town?"
"Go there and wait."
"What?"
"If you stay at the inn from that time, I will come."
"What are you going to do?"
"I cannot leave like this."
Youngwoo shook off Cheolun's attempts to stop him and turned his horse around.
It took a long time to circle back through the night.
The others were also returning without result.
Groups of men could be seen on the official road, returning in twos and threes.
When Youngwoo passed them, they assumed he was on their side and paid no attention.
He overtook them.
He saw a few riders, but quickly passed them as well.
Near the ferry station, he tied his horse in a low hill and slipped quietly into the village where the ferry post stood.
He hid himself in the darkness cast by broad leaves and headed for the place the man would go.
There was no need to think.
If Kim Baeksu had returned, he would surely be sitting in the tavern.
When Youngwoo reached the place where he had sat with him during the day, sure enough, the man was drinking liquor by the bowl.
Youngwoo started to approach, then took out his bow.
The yellow lamplight looked peaceful.
If the darkness beneath the tree where he stood was savagery, then the lamplight was civilization.
He placed a short baby-arrow in the arrow tube and set it to the string.
Kim Baeksu's round, swollen head entered his sight.
Even then, the man was saying something about "using today's failure as a mirror" and going on and on.
No one else spoke.
Only he talked.
That was why he believed the world was his.
He drained a cup of liquor, cried "Kya-ha," and tossed the cup aside.
Even his drinking manners were rotten.
Who was supposed to pick up that cup, wash it, and check it?
Because it was not his work, he behaved however he pleased.
He was no different from a king.
Here, at the border ferry station, he was king.
He had privately mobilized soldiers and was now scolding his subordinates because they had achieved nothing.
To one side, about ten men were kneeling.
Even if they had committed a crime worthy of death, one would not treat them that way.
Die.
Tung.
Before he even realized it, Youngwoo released the bowstring.
The arrow flew through the darkness and struck the back of the man's head.
The head hit by the arrow seemed to topple slowly.
At times like this, one feels that time is relative.
A group of soldiers around him ran toward the direction from which the arrow had flown.
Youngwoo did not even blink as he checked whether the man lived or died.
He lay fallen on the ground and did not rise.
Youngwoo concentrated his mind, but because of the darkness, he could not confirm the exact point of impact.
He was probably dead.
"There!"
A sharp-eyed man spotted him and shouted.
Youngwoo turned and ran.
The men followed, but he quickly climbed the low hill, mounted his horse, and fled.
His master's words telling him to restrain himself suddenly came to mind.
Should he have restrained himself in this as well?
His master had told him to restrain everything.
His master must have doubted his nature to the end.
That mad temperament of going all the way once he believed he was right must have displeased him.
But what could he do?
Now he was a wandering swordsman of the rivers and lakes, with no telling what would happen or when.
He would go on somehow.
And he would live as he had always lived.
Once he fled on horseback, they could not follow him.