Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Gwak-o glanced at Mang-ryo’s face, but quickly turned away when he saw him smiling.

“N-no, of course not. As you said, Elder, he must be alive.”

Mang-ryo laughed with satisfaction.

“Heh heh, you see? This friend, who knows that child better than anyone, says he’s alive.”

Mang-ryo patted Gwak-o’s shoulder.

“You’re truly a bright fellow. If you had spoken so wisely earlier, your face would still be intact. Tsk.”

Mang-ryo clicked his tongue as he spoke.

“How is it? Not painful? Are you applying the medicine properly?”

“Ha, haha. I’m fine, thanks to your concern, Elder.”

Gwak-o smiled with his disfigured face. Because of the hot stone Mang-ryo had used, half of his face was covered with severe scars. Of course, he had also lost an eye.

“Good, good. People need to experience hardship to grow. Look at me. Just look at me—when I lost one leg and couldn’t pull myself together, I ended up losing an eye too and becoming like this. Compared to that, you’re adapting very quickly. You’ll go far.”

Gwak-o’s face twisted with indescribable anger and despair.

Would he ever amount to anything in the future? Reduced to cleaning garbage, with his face in this condition…

But cowardly as he was, he could only continue smiling and saying, “Hehe.”

“Hehe. Th-thank you.”

“Well, we’re almost there now, aren’t we?”

The place Mang-ryo had come to was none other than the waste disposal site.

The very place where Gwak-o had thrown Jin Ja-gang away.

The cliff above the Mixed Spring Ground.

Several warriors from the Extreme Poison Sect, along with Gwak-o and Mang-ryo, stood in order at the cliff’s edge.

“Put it down.”

At Mang-ryo’s command, Gwak-o struggled to release the cart handle, and the warriors pulled out a young boy wearing shabby clothes from inside. The boy’s acupoints had been sealed, so he couldn’t move or speak. He could only roll his eyes anxiously.

“Stand him up.”

Mang-ryo released the acupoint that had sealed the boy’s mouth, allowing him to speak again. The boy immediately cried out to Gwak-o in a shrill voice:

“Brother! Save me, Brother!”

Gwak-o’s face hardened, and he turned his head away.

Mang-ryo grabbed Gwak-o’s face, forcing him to look directly at the boy.

“To become great, one must not be concerned with trivial matters. What happened to that boldness you showed when denouncing the tragedy of Hundred Flower Valley at the Martial Arts Alliance branch?”

The boy glared at Gwak-o with a face flushed red with anger and shouted:

“Traitor!”

Gwak-o could only hang his head again.

Mang-ryo chuckled as he approached the boy. He grabbed the boy, turned him to face the cliff, and gently stroked his head.

“Don’t worry. Someone who was thrown here before you survived. Did you tie what I told you to tie to his waist?”

“Yes, so p-please spare my life.”

“Spare your life?”

Mang-ryo’s hand, which had been stroking the boy’s head, tightened its grip.

Mang-ryo squeezed the boy’s head so hard that veins bulged on the boy’s forehead.

“Ugh! S-stop…”

“Why do these brats keep asking me to spare them? Do you think I’ll fall for it again? If you want to live, survive on your own!”

After shouting in the boy’s ear, Mang-ryo took an arrow from the quiver carried by a warrior beside him and stabbed it directly into the boy’s back.

“Aaaaargh!”

As the boy screamed, Mang-ryo ruthlessly pushed him over the edge.

The boy fell straight down into the Mixed Spring Ground below the cliff.

Mang-ryo watched the boy fall and muttered with a smile:

“If you survive, be sure to tell him that this old man is getting tired of waiting and is bored to death.”

***

***

Jin Ja-gang spent all his time outside of eating and sleeping concentrating on observing his internal body.

He wasn’t foolish enough to ignore the tremendous energy that had developed in his body.

Thanks to this, he could now clearly sense the energy that had settled in his dantian. After practicing a few times, he became proficient enough to move and extract the poisonous energy from his dantian at will.

Although he hadn’t yet decided how to use this power, Jin Ja-gang thought it might be time to leave.

‘I should go up soon. I’ll escape from here, build up my strength, and then come back.’

For now, that seemed like the most reasonable course of action. Of course, whether he could safely escape the Extreme Poison Sect’s territory was another matter.

When night fell, Jin Ja-gang went to the cave entrance again to get some fresh air.

He dipped his hand into the hot spring water.

It was intensely stimulating but no longer had the severe burning pain that felt like it would melt his skin. Even when he swished his hand around in the hot spring water, his hand remained intact. Even if his skin peeled off or was slightly damaged, it would heal completely within a day.

Swoosh.

The sound of rising steam could be heard, and as always, chunks of sulfur and sulfurous water from all directions began to fall into the hot spring with splashing sounds.

Jin Ja-gang examined the hot spring.

Sometimes sulfur would melt at the edge of the spring and hang down like icicles, and if the shape formed properly, he could use them to climb up at dawn.

Now that the hot spring water didn’t affect him much, he could also swim across. He just needed to wait for the icicle ladder to form at the edge.

However, things don’t always go according to plan.

Jin Ja-gang dozed off while watching the sulfur chunks falling into the hot spring from the cave entrance.

Splash!

Suddenly, a heavy object fell into the hot spring with a loud noise.

Jin Ja-gang woke up startled. He was even more shocked when he identified the fallen object.

It was a boy about Jin Ja-gang’s size. He was wearing shabby, tattered clothes, was covered with wounds all over, and even had an arrow stuck in his back.

Considering that this place was where all the waste from the Extreme Poison Sect was dumped, it wasn’t strange for a person to be thrown away here too.

But why had he been shot with an arrow? Perhaps he wasn’t thrown away but had been shot while trying to escape and had drifted here after falling?

All sorts of thoughts ran through Jin Ja-gang’s mind.

For a moment, he was conflicted about what to do. He couldn’t even tell if the boy was dead or alive. It was hard to believe he could be alive, but there was always a possibility.

As the boy began to sink slowly, Jin Ja-gang had no time for further deliberation.

Jin Ja-gang quickly descended into the hot spring using the cow bone as a ladder.

Having regained much of his strength, he could move with relative ease now.

Standing on the cow bone and gripping another part of it, Jin Ja-gang stretched out his arm. Since the pool wasn’t very wide, he was just barely able to reach the boy’s body.

‘Got him!’

Jin Ja-gang pulled the sinking boy toward himself.

The boy was emaciated and not very heavy, but what couldn’t handle the weight wasn’t Jin Ja-gang but the cow bone. The bone he was holding snapped with a crack.

“Ah!”

Splash.

Jin Ja-gang fell in too.

He had seen several chunks fall into the hot spring water before. Once they sank, they never came back up. After some time, they dissolved completely, leaving no trace behind.

He could let go of the boy and swim out by himself, but he couldn’t do that.

Jin Ja-gang gritted his teeth. With all his might, he drove the broken cow bone he was holding into the sulfur wall. Fortunately, the wall had softened slightly from melting, and the bone penetrated it.

While holding onto the broken bone stuck in the wall, he used his feet to step on another bone. With all his strength, he pulled the boy out and pushed him into the cave. Then he climbed up himself.

“Huff, huff.”

The hot spring water made his skin feel hot where it had touched. It wasn’t as painfully unbearable as before. His skin had definitely become stronger as new flesh had grown.

After catching his breath for a while, Jin Ja-gang examined the boy. Unlike Jin Ja-gang, the boy’s skin was completely red.

Looking at his face, Jin Ja-gang was surprised to find it was someone he knew.

“Yang Il!”

He was a friend of the same age who had lived with him in Hundred Flower Valley.

Jin Ja-gang put his ear to Yang Il’s nose and pressed hard on his heart several times. But Yang Il had been dead for some time. No matter how much Jin Ja-gang shook him, there was not the slightest movement.

Jin Ja-gang was deeply shocked and remained in a daze for a long time.

He could clearly remember how Yang Il used to laugh when they played together. But now he was facing his dead body, and tears kept flowing.

Jin Ja-gang sobbed for a while before gathering his strength. He searched Yang Il’s body to see if there was anything else to find.

Yang Il was wearing shabby clothes, but his abdomen was bulging. When Jin Ja-gang removed the upper garment, he saw that the stomach was tightly wrapped with cloth.

Jin Ja-gang unwrapped the cloth from the abdomen.

Thud.

Something like dried jerky fell out.

Looking at the cloth that had wrapped the jerky, he saw characters written on the inside. It wasn’t ink but writing in blood. The cloth wrapping the jerky was essentially a letter.

How desperate must he have been to write a letter in blood?

Jin Ja-gang suppressed his anger and read the letter.

“The survivors of our Hundred Flower Valley are being held captive by the Extreme Poison Sect, imprisoned in a certain location. If any heroes from the Martial Arts Alliance read this letter, please save us. Please, before it’s too late…”

Though crooked, it was Yang Il’s handwriting.

Below was even a simple map. The place where the survivors were supposedly imprisoned was a bit away from the main mountain of the Extreme Poison Sect, just beyond one peak from the Mixed Spring Ground where Jin Ja-gang was located.

Jin Ja-gang clenched the blood-written letter and swallowed his tears of anger. He was upset knowing that the place Yang Il had risked his life to escape to was none other than the Martial Arts Alliance.

“Yang Il, you were about to waste your efforts. I’ve already been there. That place isn’t as righteous as we thought…”

With Yang Il’s corpse in front of him, Jin Ja-gang couldn’t bring himself to finish by saying “it’s not the place we should go to.”

His emotions welled up.

“Aah…!”

Even at this moment, the surviving members of Hundred Flower Valley might be waiting for Yang Il, thinking only of the heroes of the Martial Arts Alliance. If Yang Il doesn’t return, they might try to escape again and head for the Martial Arts Alliance.

But even if they successfully escaped to the Martial Arts Alliance, it would be in vain. Since the Martial Arts Alliance was backing the Extreme Poison Sect, they were essentially on the same side.

Jin Ja-gang resented himself for knowing all this yet being unable to do anything immediately.

He couldn’t go rescue those who had been like family to him, nor could he warn them not to go there.

He had no power at all.

After feeling helpless for a while, Jin Ja-gang slammed his head hard on the ground in front of Yang Il’s body.

Thud!

Thud, thud!

When he raised his head again, there was a fierce, venomous light in Jin Ja-gang’s eyes that was difficult to recognize as belonging to a child.

“No, I can do it. I will do it! Yang Il, I won’t let your sacrifice be in vain!”

* * *

At dawn.

Jin Ja-gang stripped Yang Il’s clothes and wore them instead, then pushed Yang Il’s body into the hot spring.

For a while, he watched the body sink and prayed for his soul.

His escape plan had been modified.

Although he couldn’t get help from anyone, Jin Ja-gang decided to rescue the remaining survivors of Hundred Flower Valley with his own strength.

After waiting for some time, the morning finally came when the sulfur chunks falling into the hot spring decreased and began to harden.

Jin Ja-gang tucked the broken, sharp-edged cow bone into his waist and jumped into the hot spring. He swam to the sulfur chunk that was hardening like an icicle on the opposite side, and stood up on it.

His body felt a bit hot, but it was tolerable.

‘Finally…’

For the first time in over a month, he set foot on the ground above. Although it was ground made of sulfur.

He surveyed his surroundings. Thick smoke obscured his vision, making it difficult to discern his location. Smoke continuously rose from the ground, making his eyes sting.

However, finding the way wasn’t impossible. The ground, which was just beginning to harden, retained traces of the flow from the previous night. Like wave patterns left by the tide on a sandy beach, the direction of movement remained etched in wave-like patterns.

Jin Ja-gang decided to trace these ground patterns in reverse. But as soon as he took a step, he felt discomfort.

‘Ugh!’

The leg that Mang-ryo had broken multiple times hadn’t healed properly. Since it hadn’t received proper treatment, it had mended crookedly. He had no choice but to limp.

Jin Ja-gang was devastated but had to take comfort in the fact that at least he could walk.

☕ Support on Ko-Fi

Gwak-o glanced at Mang-ryo’s face, but quickly turned away when he saw him smiling.

“N-no, of course not. As you said, Elder, he must be alive.”

Mang-ryo laughed with satisfaction.

“Heh heh, you see? This friend, who knows that child better than anyone, says he’s alive.”

Mang-ryo patted Gwak-o’s shoulder.

“You’re truly a bright fellow. If you had spoken so wisely earlier, your face would still be intact. Tsk.”

Mang-ryo clicked his tongue as he spoke.

“How is it? Not painful? Are you applying the medicine properly?”

“Ha, haha. I’m fine, thanks to your concern, Elder.”

Gwak-o smiled with his disfigured face. Because of the hot stone Mang-ryo had used, half of his face was covered with severe scars. Of course, he had also lost an eye.

“Good, good. People need to experience hardship to grow. Look at me. Just look at me—when I lost one leg and couldn’t pull myself together, I ended up losing an eye too and becoming like this. Compared to that, you’re adapting very quickly. You’ll go far.”

Gwak-o’s face twisted with indescribable anger and despair.

Would he ever amount to anything in the future? Reduced to cleaning garbage, with his face in this condition…

But cowardly as he was, he could only continue smiling and saying, “Hehe.”

“Hehe. Th-thank you.”

“Well, we’re almost there now, aren’t we?”

The place Mang-ryo had come to was none other than the waste disposal site.

The very place where Gwak-o had thrown Jin Ja-gang away.

The cliff above the Mixed Spring Ground.

Several warriors from the Extreme Poison Sect, along with Gwak-o and Mang-ryo, stood in order at the cliff’s edge.

“Put it down.”

At Mang-ryo’s command, Gwak-o struggled to release the cart handle, and the warriors pulled out a young boy wearing shabby clothes from inside. The boy’s acupoints had been sealed, so he couldn’t move or speak. He could only roll his eyes anxiously.

“Stand him up.”

Mang-ryo released the acupoint that had sealed the boy’s mouth, allowing him to speak again. The boy immediately cried out to Gwak-o in a shrill voice:

“Brother! Save me, Brother!”

Gwak-o’s face hardened, and he turned his head away.

Mang-ryo grabbed Gwak-o’s face, forcing him to look directly at the boy.

“To become great, one must not be concerned with trivial matters. What happened to that boldness you showed when denouncing the tragedy of Hundred Flower Valley at the Martial Arts Alliance branch?”

The boy glared at Gwak-o with a face flushed red with anger and shouted:

“Traitor!”

Gwak-o could only hang his head again.

Mang-ryo chuckled as he approached the boy. He grabbed the boy, turned him to face the cliff, and gently stroked his head.

“Don’t worry. Someone who was thrown here before you survived. Did you tie what I told you to tie to his waist?”

“Yes, so p-please spare my life.”

“Spare your life?”

Mang-ryo’s hand, which had been stroking the boy’s head, tightened its grip.

Mang-ryo squeezed the boy’s head so hard that veins bulged on the boy’s forehead.

“Ugh! S-stop…”

“Why do these brats keep asking me to spare them? Do you think I’ll fall for it again? If you want to live, survive on your own!”

After shouting in the boy’s ear, Mang-ryo took an arrow from the quiver carried by a warrior beside him and stabbed it directly into the boy’s back.

“Aaaaargh!”

As the boy screamed, Mang-ryo ruthlessly pushed him over the edge.

The boy fell straight down into the Mixed Spring Ground below the cliff.

Mang-ryo watched the boy fall and muttered with a smile:

“If you survive, be sure to tell him that this old man is getting tired of waiting and is bored to death.”

***

***

Jin Ja-gang spent all his time outside of eating and sleeping concentrating on observing his internal body.

He wasn’t foolish enough to ignore the tremendous energy that had developed in his body.

Thanks to this, he could now clearly sense the energy that had settled in his dantian. After practicing a few times, he became proficient enough to move and extract the poisonous energy from his dantian at will.

Although he hadn’t yet decided how to use this power, Jin Ja-gang thought it might be time to leave.

‘I should go up soon. I’ll escape from here, build up my strength, and then come back.’

For now, that seemed like the most reasonable course of action. Of course, whether he could safely escape the Extreme Poison Sect’s territory was another matter.

When night fell, Jin Ja-gang went to the cave entrance again to get some fresh air.

He dipped his hand into the hot spring water.

It was intensely stimulating but no longer had the severe burning pain that felt like it would melt his skin. Even when he swished his hand around in the hot spring water, his hand remained intact. Even if his skin peeled off or was slightly damaged, it would heal completely within a day.

Swoosh.

The sound of rising steam could be heard, and as always, chunks of sulfur and sulfurous water from all directions began to fall into the hot spring with splashing sounds.

Jin Ja-gang examined the hot spring.

Sometimes sulfur would melt at the edge of the spring and hang down like icicles, and if the shape formed properly, he could use them to climb up at dawn.

Now that the hot spring water didn’t affect him much, he could also swim across. He just needed to wait for the icicle ladder to form at the edge.

However, things don’t always go according to plan.

Jin Ja-gang dozed off while watching the sulfur chunks falling into the hot spring from the cave entrance.

Splash!

Suddenly, a heavy object fell into the hot spring with a loud noise.

Jin Ja-gang woke up startled. He was even more shocked when he identified the fallen object.

It was a boy about Jin Ja-gang’s size. He was wearing shabby, tattered clothes, was covered with wounds all over, and even had an arrow stuck in his back.

Considering that this place was where all the waste from the Extreme Poison Sect was dumped, it wasn’t strange for a person to be thrown away here too.

But why had he been shot with an arrow? Perhaps he wasn’t thrown away but had been shot while trying to escape and had drifted here after falling?

All sorts of thoughts ran through Jin Ja-gang’s mind.

For a moment, he was conflicted about what to do. He couldn’t even tell if the boy was dead or alive. It was hard to believe he could be alive, but there was always a possibility.

As the boy began to sink slowly, Jin Ja-gang had no time for further deliberation.

Jin Ja-gang quickly descended into the hot spring using the cow bone as a ladder.

Having regained much of his strength, he could move with relative ease now.

Standing on the cow bone and gripping another part of it, Jin Ja-gang stretched out his arm. Since the pool wasn’t very wide, he was just barely able to reach the boy’s body.

‘Got him!’

Jin Ja-gang pulled the sinking boy toward himself.

The boy was emaciated and not very heavy, but what couldn’t handle the weight wasn’t Jin Ja-gang but the cow bone. The bone he was holding snapped with a crack.

“Ah!”

Splash.

Jin Ja-gang fell in too.

He had seen several chunks fall into the hot spring water before. Once they sank, they never came back up. After some time, they dissolved completely, leaving no trace behind.

He could let go of the boy and swim out by himself, but he couldn’t do that.

Jin Ja-gang gritted his teeth. With all his might, he drove the broken cow bone he was holding into the sulfur wall. Fortunately, the wall had softened slightly from melting, and the bone penetrated it.

While holding onto the broken bone stuck in the wall, he used his feet to step on another bone. With all his strength, he pulled the boy out and pushed him into the cave. Then he climbed up himself.

“Huff, huff.”

The hot spring water made his skin feel hot where it had touched. It wasn’t as painfully unbearable as before. His skin had definitely become stronger as new flesh had grown.

After catching his breath for a while, Jin Ja-gang examined the boy. Unlike Jin Ja-gang, the boy’s skin was completely red.

Looking at his face, Jin Ja-gang was surprised to find it was someone he knew.

“Yang Il!”

He was a friend of the same age who had lived with him in Hundred Flower Valley.

Jin Ja-gang put his ear to Yang Il’s nose and pressed hard on his heart several times. But Yang Il had been dead for some time. No matter how much Jin Ja-gang shook him, there was not the slightest movement.

Jin Ja-gang was deeply shocked and remained in a daze for a long time.

He could clearly remember how Yang Il used to laugh when they played together. But now he was facing his dead body, and tears kept flowing.

Jin Ja-gang sobbed for a while before gathering his strength. He searched Yang Il’s body to see if there was anything else to find.

Yang Il was wearing shabby clothes, but his abdomen was bulging. When Jin Ja-gang removed the upper garment, he saw that the stomach was tightly wrapped with cloth.

Jin Ja-gang unwrapped the cloth from the abdomen.

Thud.

Something like dried jerky fell out.

Looking at the cloth that had wrapped the jerky, he saw characters written on the inside. It wasn’t ink but writing in blood. The cloth wrapping the jerky was essentially a letter.

How desperate must he have been to write a letter in blood?

Jin Ja-gang suppressed his anger and read the letter.

“The survivors of our Hundred Flower Valley are being held captive by the Extreme Poison Sect, imprisoned in a certain location. If any heroes from the Martial Arts Alliance read this letter, please save us. Please, before it’s too late…”

Though crooked, it was Yang Il’s handwriting.

Below was even a simple map. The place where the survivors were supposedly imprisoned was a bit away from the main mountain of the Extreme Poison Sect, just beyond one peak from the Mixed Spring Ground where Jin Ja-gang was located.

Jin Ja-gang clenched the blood-written letter and swallowed his tears of anger. He was upset knowing that the place Yang Il had risked his life to escape to was none other than the Martial Arts Alliance.

“Yang Il, you were about to waste your efforts. I’ve already been there. That place isn’t as righteous as we thought…”

With Yang Il’s corpse in front of him, Jin Ja-gang couldn’t bring himself to finish by saying “it’s not the place we should go to.”

His emotions welled up.

“Aah…!”

Even at this moment, the surviving members of Hundred Flower Valley might be waiting for Yang Il, thinking only of the heroes of the Martial Arts Alliance. If Yang Il doesn’t return, they might try to escape again and head for the Martial Arts Alliance.

But even if they successfully escaped to the Martial Arts Alliance, it would be in vain. Since the Martial Arts Alliance was backing the Extreme Poison Sect, they were essentially on the same side.

Jin Ja-gang resented himself for knowing all this yet being unable to do anything immediately.

He couldn’t go rescue those who had been like family to him, nor could he warn them not to go there.

He had no power at all.

After feeling helpless for a while, Jin Ja-gang slammed his head hard on the ground in front of Yang Il’s body.

Thud!

Thud, thud!

When he raised his head again, there was a fierce, venomous light in Jin Ja-gang’s eyes that was difficult to recognize as belonging to a child.

“No, I can do it. I will do it! Yang Il, I won’t let your sacrifice be in vain!”

* * *

At dawn.

Jin Ja-gang stripped Yang Il’s clothes and wore them instead, then pushed Yang Il’s body into the hot spring.

For a while, he watched the body sink and prayed for his soul.

His escape plan had been modified.

Although he couldn’t get help from anyone, Jin Ja-gang decided to rescue the remaining survivors of Hundred Flower Valley with his own strength.

After waiting for some time, the morning finally came when the sulfur chunks falling into the hot spring decreased and began to harden.

Jin Ja-gang tucked the broken, sharp-edged cow bone into his waist and jumped into the hot spring. He swam to the sulfur chunk that was hardening like an icicle on the opposite side, and stood up on it.

His body felt a bit hot, but it was tolerable.

‘Finally…’

For the first time in over a month, he set foot on the ground above. Although it was ground made of sulfur.

He surveyed his surroundings. Thick smoke obscured his vision, making it difficult to discern his location. Smoke continuously rose from the ground, making his eyes sting.

However, finding the way wasn’t impossible. The ground, which was just beginning to harden, retained traces of the flow from the previous night. Like wave patterns left by the tide on a sandy beach, the direction of movement remained etched in wave-like patterns.

Jin Ja-gang decided to trace these ground patterns in reverse. But as soon as he took a step, he felt discomfort.

‘Ugh!’

The leg that Mang-ryo had broken multiple times hadn’t healed properly. Since it hadn’t received proper treatment, it had mended crookedly. He had no choice but to limp.

Jin Ja-gang was devastated but had to take comfort in the fact that at least he could walk.

☕ Support on Ko-Fi

☕ Support on Ko-Fi

☕ Support on Ko-Fi