Chapter 75: Daedong-gye [1] The very first thought that came to mind when he saw the man was, as expected, Who the hell is that?
No matter how hard he racked his brain, he could not remember.
"Dolseok, do you know who that bastard is?"
"No. The torchlight makes it a little hard to tell... but I've never seen his face before."
"Really? Then who the hell is he?"
If Kanghyeok had been a good person, it would have been a pointless thing to worry about.
He hardly had anyone who held a grudge against him.
The problem was that he was not.
Is he one of Dorikkae's people?
He shot a glance at Dorikkae just in case, but apparently not.
That bastard was aiming in their direction with the club Makbong had handed him.
Japanese pirates?
That did not seem likely either.
Surely those bastards would not come all the way to Hanyang to stir up trouble.
Not while dressed like Joseon people, at that.
Ah. Is it those guys?
Looking more carefully, there were a few faces mixed in that he recognized.
They were the ones who had received "treatment" at Kanghyeok's house not long ago.
"That bastard really doesn't know how to be grateful."
When Kanghyeok pointed at them, the man he had singled out foamed at the mouth.
Pointing at his noticeably thinner calf, he shouted, "Grateful? Grateful? You son of a bitch. I'm still limping because of you."
"Shut up. What's there to brag about in getting beaten by trash like that?"
"No, Hyungnim. That bastard over there is a real expert."
The man pointed at Makbong.
Apparently he did not even have Yeoni, dressed as a female physician, in his sights.
When in fact, she was the scariest one there.
"Shut up, you ugly bastard."
The man with the tiger-whisker beard shoved him far away.
The force sent him flying several meters before he finally crashed to the ground in a pathetic heap.
Even allowing for the fact that he had been half-crippled for a while, that was still an astonishing display of strength.
Makbong edged a little closer to Kanghyeok.
Sweat was dripping from the hand clutching the club.
"Young Master, he's no ordinary bastard."
"Yeah. I saw."
It was not just brute force in that shove.
There had been technique in it.
He was definitely an instructor of taekkyeon.
And one who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Makbong.
"There are more than six of them, damn it."
At Kanghyeok's muttering, Yeoni nodded.
"If you count the ones hiding in the back, there are eight in total."
In contrast, there were only six on their side.
And one of those was Yeoju.
In terms of fighting strength, that meant they were close to half.
But that was not necessarily how it would play out.
That one, and that one, and that one.
At least three of them were men Kanghyeok had personally injected.
Even now, they were probably not able to move properly.
They might even have PTSD.
They might piss themselves the moment they saw a syringe.
He had treated them rather mercilessly, to say the least.
"Dolseok, start drawing up the pufferfish poison for now."
"What? Ah. Yes."
After pouring out the syringes from the house-call bag into Dolseok's hands, Kanghyeok stepped forward.
The exceptional sharpness the tiger-whisker-bearded man had shown kept bothering him.
He might be someone important.
If so, it would not do to clash head-on without a thought.
He also needed to be ready to make a complete mess of things if it came to that.
"For a petty fight among brats, why did a big ox like you bother showing up?"
Kanghyeok spoke with an intentionally easygoing smile.
At that, Tiger Whiskers stepped forward as well, grinning back.
"You really are as good as they said. Daring to hold your head so high in front of your elders."
Seen from up close, he really was no ordinary man.
That on his chest is hair, right?
In all his life, Kanghyeok had never met a man with chest hair who was weak.
Some people might laugh and call it superstition, but in his experience, it was reliable enough.
"My name is Baek Kanghyeok. And who might you be?"
"I am Byeon Sungbok of Anak."
"Byeon Sungbok?"
"That's right. You must've heard the name at least once. Kneel on your own before you see something unpleasant."
The threat was fine and all, but Kanghyeok had never heard the name even once.
Never heard of him.
With that much swagger, shouldn't he have made some sort of name for himself in the coming war?
And yet the name was unbelievably unfamiliar.
There was a good chance he was weaker than he looked.
Just in case, Kanghyeok turned and looked behind him.
"Have any of you heard of him?"
Everyone shook their heads except Makbong, who nodded.
"You know him?"
"Yes. I do."
"He famous?"
"In Anak... well, fairly famous."
"For what?"
"For this."
Makbong thrust his waist back and forth.
There was so much lewdness soaked into that one tiny gesture that it was deeply unpleasant to look at.
In any case, that meant there was no point bothering further.
He was not some important figure, just a nobody swaggering around like that.
That alone annoyed Kanghyeok.
"So he's a master of night work, is that it? Dolseok, are you ready?"
"Yes. But these syringes you handed out are too big."
"Yeah. If one of those hits, they won't even be able to breathe."
"Then isn't that just poison?"
"They attacked first, so what am I supposed to do?"
"Looks like those bastards are about to have funerals."
Dolseok handed out the 10 cc syringes filled full of pufferfish poison to everyone.
There were more than twenty altogether. If they stabbed well, that meant they could handle them with room to spare.
Kanghyeok pulled one out and swaggered forward.
The needle glinting in the moonlight looked chilling.
Several of them flinched reflexively.
All of them were men who had been stabbed by Kanghyeok at least once before.
"Byeon what was it? Never heard the name."
"You bastard, how dare you mock your elders?"
"Mock you? More like you don't seem to know who I am."
"Who you are doesn't matter. What matters is that you laid hands on us."
Byeon Sungbok slowly started walking toward him.
Sure enough, whether he was an expert or not, just his walk alone gave off a mountain-like pressure.
But Kanghyeok remembered having faced presences several times stronger than this.
He had even killed them.
Well, Yeoni had, but still.
"Yeon, what do you think of that bastard?"
"He's trained fairly well, but he's no match for me."
"Really? What about the rest?"
"The rest don't even look like people Young Master couldn't beat."
It was a strangely reassuring answer, but also a little irritating.
While Kanghyeok's side was finishing its calculations, Byeon Sungbok kept striding closer.
He did not seem afraid in the slightest.
"First, hand over the Pyeonsu you people took."
"Pyeonsu?"
"That's right, you bastards."
"Ah. That weasel-faced... We don't know anything about him either."
Kanghyeok spoke sincerely.
Because it was true. He genuinely did not know.
Ever since Yi Hangbok had taken him away, he did not even know whether the man was dead or alive.
He was merely stating the facts, but Byeon Sungbok flew into a rage.
Whether it was because of Kanghyeok's loose attitude or simply because he had a rotten temper, there was no way to tell.
"How dare you interfere with the business of Daedong-gye! Let's see how long you keep pretending. Boys!"
"Yes!"
At Byeon Sungbok's shout, even the men waiting in the rear started charging in.
A few were still limping, but Byeon Sungbok paid them no mind.
His sole focus was hurling himself at Kanghyeok with murderous intent.
Whoosh.
Even that, however, was not easy.
Yeoni flew at him like a hawk and drove a kick at him.
Its force was so sharp that Byeon Sungbok had to roll along the ground to evade it.
In that single exchange, the gap in their skill was obvious at a glance.
"You wicked bitch!"
"You talk too much."
Yeoni poured out attacks without pause.
All the time she had devoted herself to martial training after the masked Japanese pirate incident had not been wasted.
In an instant, wounds started opening all over Byeon Sungbok's body.
Good, that one's taken care of.
Now that he looked at it, the bastard had just been putting on airs.
With his mind much lighter, Kanghyeok swung his bag.
Thunk.
With a dull sound, one of the charging men went flying off into the distance.
Makbong and Dorikkae also started rampaging viciously with clubs in hand.
They were slightly fewer in number, but the quality was on a completely different level.
"These bastards."
The moment Dolseok pulled out a syringe and walked toward them, the ones who had experienced it before started fleeing in terror, practically pissing themselves.
It was trauma far too overwhelming to overcome in such a short time.
At this point, the one who was flustered was Byeon Sungbok.
Getting beaten like a dog on Boknal by Yeoni, whom he had not even considered a threat, was humiliating enough.
Who would have imagined the other underlings would also get smashed without even putting up a fight?
"Damn this."
No matter how hard he tried to break free, Yeoni's swift feet had no intention of letting him go.
Then Yeoju entered his sight.
While everyone else was busy fighting, she alone was standing apart.
"Get lost, you filthy bitch!"
With a shout, he charged straight for Yeoju.
The move was so sudden that even Yeoni lost track of him.
"Ah, ah! Milady!"
"You bastard!"
Dolseok tried belatedly to grab Byeon Sungbok, but it was useless.
Even if he was worse than Yeoni, he was far above Dolseok.
"Ugh!"
Instead, he got kicked backward and had to stagger away.
In that moment, Byeon Sungbok managed to seize Yeoju as a hostage.
"Everybody stop, you bastards."
With a vicious hand, he grabbed the back of Yeoju's neck.
Her pale, slender throat looked as if it might snap at any moment.
Kanghyeok, who had been gleefully swinging his bag, and even Makbong, who had been grinding his opponent underfoot, had no choice but to stop.
"Wow, look at that cowardly bastard."
"Exactly. Going on about Daedong-gye this and Daedong-gye that, but the way he acts is no different from street rabble."
Kanghyeok and Makbong grumbled with displeased faces.
But that was as far as they could go. They could not rush him.
It would be too much of a waste to lose Yeoju like this.
The rest of them are half-crippled anyway.
The able-bodied ones had already run off long ago.
The ones left were all sprawled on the ground groaning.
So there was no one left who could harm anyone in Kanghyeok's group except Byeon Sungbok.
Still holding the bag, Kanghyeok slowly approached him.
Yeoni, Makbong, Dolseok, and Dorikkae did the same.
"I-if you come closer, this woman dies."
As if to prove it, Byeon Sungbok's threatening voice was shaking violently.
Apparently the thought had finally occurred to him that he might die here if things went wrong.
But the threat was not completely useless.
Damn it.
In Korea, it might have been the sort of threat one could laugh off.
But unfortunately, this was Joseon.
This was an age where bands of thieves truly ran wild, and people really did die horrific deaths at the hands of Japanese pirates nearby.
And the man in front of them, Byeon Sungbok, looked mad enough.
Just then, Yeoju's hand twitched.
Something glinted faintly in the moonlight.
It was unmistakably a syringe.
That's right. Yeoju got one too.
No matter how strong a man was, the weapon in her hand was enough to disable him in a single strike.
If Kanghyeok could only divert his attention properly, it might be possible.
"Hold on. Calm down."
Kanghyeok slowly lowered the house-call bag.
At even that tiny movement, Byeon Sungbok flinched backward.
Apparently he was the type whose nerve shrank to the size of a bean the moment things turned against him.
"Didn't I tell you not to come closer? Do you really want to watch her die?"
Seeing him now, Kanghyeok doubted he would actually kill her.
Men who kept repeating the same threat over and over were rarely the kind who truly carried it out.
Even so, hearing him say die, die, die over and over felt filthy.
Was it because he was saying it about Yeoju of all people?
Kanghyeok slowly shook his head, then looked down at Byeon Sungbok.
His face, lit by the torchlight, was simmering with anger.
"You keep saying you'll kill her, kill her, but if Yeoju dies, I'll make sure you'll be unable to die no matter how much you want to."
He was not just saying it.
A great physician was not merely skilled at healing people.
He could ruin them just as well.
Byeon Sungbok's mouth drooped open at Kanghyeok's words.
"What?"
His voice trembled badly too.
"What, did you stuff shit in your ears? I'm saying you're dead. For real."
"No, no. What did you say this woman's name was?"
"Yeoju. If she dies, then you really are—"
"Your name is Yeoju?"
When Byeon Sungbok turned to Yeoju in disbelief, his face held, for some reason, a mixture of joy and longing.
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