Chapter 70 :

The First Gate of the Hell Official Exam (4)

“This is proof that you are a guest of our Haomun. If you have this, we will be able to find you wherever you are.”

What Yeo Mimi held out was a small black plaque.

How were they supposed to find me with this?

“In the end, you cannot help but remain within our field of vision. But even if that were not the case, inside the black plaque is the undiluted Thousand-Li Tracking Fragrance unique to Haomun.”

So this faintly spreading scent must be the Thousand-Li Tracking Fragrance.

“Every morning, we will deliver newly organized information to you.”

“……Is that possible?”

Even an information organization clearly had limits.

Every morning, no less.

Moreover, how would they know how I would move and send someone every day?

“How truly strange. You know more about us than anyone else, yet on the other hand, it seems you know nothing about us.”

There had been no record of how Haomun’s “guest” received information.

Yeo Mimi was still looking at me as if she found me fascinating.

“We will do our best so that you may achieve what you desire. Our fate has already been placed atop yours.”

“……Please do not suddenly say such burdensome things. I asked you to join me, not to place your fate on mine.”

Yeo Mimi and Haeryeong smiled.

I shook my head, then opened my mouth.

“There is something I would like to ask first.”

“What is it?”

“Please spread rumors about me.”

“Rumors about you? Is the murim world not already full of rumors about you?”

“That is why I am asking. Please spread rumors that my martial arts are not all that outstanding.”

“Hmm…… Would that not be difficult? The rumor that you faced the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering must have already spread throughout the world.”

“The Dragon-Phoenix Gathering will not spread that rumor themselves. And people will need a little more time to believe whether that rumor is true, will they not?”

“Hmm……. So you want that rumor to spread a little late.”

“Yes. That is correct.”

“Understood. Do not worry about that. I will spread rumors so that the people under heaven think of you not as the Black Flame Dragon, but as an earthworm.”

“…….”

I did not like the nickname Black Flame Dragon, but that did not mean I wanted to be called an earthworm.

Caught in an ambivalence where I had no choice, I simply closed my mouth.

#

After sleeping alone at an inn overnight, I packed a simple snack and headed to Hwaun Mountain.

I had told them to hurry down if they did not want to stay on Hwaun Mountain all night, but there was no way that would be possible.

Even the Sojeong Unit, which had been placed in urgent situations, had needed fifteen days to become skilled in the Taeul Moving Circulation.

It would take at least three days just to leave Hwaun Mountain.

Naturally, I expected them to be unable to descend even halfway down Hwaun Mountain and to be sleeping in the forest.

“Ho…….”

But when I entered the entrance of Hwaun Mountain, the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers were moving at a fairly fast pace.

“They look about as fast as turtles now.”

If the Sojeong Unit members had seen this, they would have been shocked at the rapid achievement.

“Well, those guys had terribly trash-like aptitude.”

At last, Geumpyo reached in front of me.

“Heok, heok, heok. Senior brother…… You lied when you said we could go down before late at night, right?”

“Drink some water.”

Geumpyo, whose whole body was drenched in sweat as if he had been caught in the rain, emptied the waterskin I handed him in one go.

“Did you stay up all night?”

“Yes… Honestly… heok, tell… heok. Me… heok. Senior brother… heok, you using moving circulation… heok. That was a lie, right?”

I held out a steamed bun I had brought from the inn.

“Want a steamed bun?”

“Heok, heok, heok.”

Geumpyo, who had been glaring at me for not answering, snatched the steamed bun and ate it up as quickly as if a crab had hidden its eyes.

While Geumpyo filled his stomach a little and collapsed on the ground from exhaustion, Eunho arrived, and Dongryong arrived last.

“Heok… heok… heok… Eldest senior brother… liar….”

“Heok… heok… liar.”

The two brothers did not even have time to continue speaking properly and looked at me with eyes full of resentment.

“Do you want water first? Or steamed buns first?”

I handed them water and steamed buns.

*

Their walking speed was gradually becoming faster.

The boys who had moved at a turtle’s pace began walking at the speed of chicks, and then at the speed of a slow cow.

As the children’s speed gradually increased, I chose a mountain path instead of the main road.

Then the three brothers’ speed slowed again.

“Hurry up. At this rate, the Martial Academy regular examination will be over.”

“Haa… haa… Then, would it not be better to take the main road? We were finally getting used to just walking.”

A mountain path was different from a main road.

One had to use hands and feet at the same time, and movement was constantly restricted.

Trying to perform moving circulation in the middle of all that must have been truly maddening.

The climb that began before sunrise had not progressed even ten li by the time the sun had risen high in the sky.

“If you do not reach the mountain peak, you will also skip lunch.”

“……!”

“……!”

“……!”

Killing intent appeared in the eyes of the three brothers from the millhouse.

“Oh, you have already learned to emit killing intent even though I have not taught you? As expected, the grace of this eldest senior brother is as high as the sky and as wide as the sea.”

The three brothers seemed to have many things they wanted to say, but they tightly closed their mouths.

Was it because of that?

The speed of the three brothers gradually began to increase.

Piiiiii—

At that moment, a black bird glided through the sky and cried out.

Its voice seemed to spread so far that the birds and beasts in the forest rose up all at once, and the squirrels that had been watching us curiously quickly hid in their shelters.

“What is that?”

When I looked at the sky through the trees, a large hawk was flying as if ruling the heavens.

The hawk, which had been moving across the sky like that, suddenly began to dive toward me.

“Ho? Does it hunt people too?”

At my words, the three brothers flinched and looked up at the sky.

They had seen a hawk with wings larger than a person’s arm length falling at high speed.

“Senior brother, I think it is coming this way?”

“It really is. That… that thing… Senior brother!”

“Tsk! Moving circulation!”

When I faintly released killing intent toward the boys who were about to stop the moving circulation and run away, they froze stiff like beasts startled by a predator’s gaze.

And the moment they could neither run nor dodge and closed their eyes tightly at the same time.

The large hawk suddenly spread its wings, slowed down, and slowly approached me.

“What is this?”

It seemed to want my shoulder, so when I offered my shoulder, the hawk perched neatly on it.

The three brothers blinked their eyes as if they found the scene fascinating, and I discovered a small bamboo tube attached to the hawk’s ankle.

“Huh, they do not use messenger pigeons, but messenger hawks? Wait…….”

The hawk, seeing me for the first time, rubbed its feathers against my head, then pecked lightly at my chest.

It was where the Silver Wang Plaque I had received from Wang Geumsan and the black plaque I had received from Haomun were.

“Amazing. Did they train even the messenger hawk with the Thousand-Li Tracking Fragrance?”

When I took out the black plaque and stroked the hawk, the hawk acted affectionately as if meeting its master.

Then I immediately took out the materials Haomun had sent from the tube on its ankle and began skimming through them.

“Senior brother, what on earth is going on?”

“It seems someone who agreed to give me information sent it.”

When Geumpyo approached the hawk in fascination, the hawk’s gaze turned fierce, and it screeched.

“……It is extremely fierce.”

“Unlike messenger pigeons, messenger hawks do not have their wild instincts erased. Because of that, training them is difficult, but they also have the advantage of being less likely to be hunted. Do not touch it carelessly. It appears to be an iron hawk, and it could cut off a human finger in no time.”

At my words, Geumpyo withdrew his hand with a pale expression.

“Hmm…….”

After reading all the materials, I took out brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, wrote down a few additional pieces of information I needed, and placed them into the bamboo tube attached to the iron hawk’s ankle.

Then the bird, as if it knew what it had to do, began to fly up again.

“What was it?”

Eunho looked curious about what information I had received.

“It was brief information about the current situation. It says that among the mountain strongholds designated by the Murim Alliance, two thousand four hundred have already disappeared.”

“Already?”

Considering only three days had passed since the regular examination began, it was an extremely fast pace.

“Is this not an unfortunate incident caused by you boys not learning the moving circulation quickly? If I fail the Martial Academy exam because of you, will you take responsibility?”

Geumpyo and Eunho looked at me with eyes that had lost all sense of speech.

At least Dongryong’s eyes still had venom in them.

I thought I heard something like “I will kill you……,” but I assumed he was saying it to our competitors.

Surely kind Dongryong, who had waited several days just to share one piece of rice cake with me, would not dare say he would kill his eldest senior brother.

“Guildmaster! Young Master Cheolyeong’s condition is strange!”

At the familiar voice and name that suddenly reached my ears, we all turned our gazes at the same time toward the main road below the mountain.

There was a merchant procession led by about a hundred wandering warriors, and at the front was Gye Yeonseok.

At someone’s call, Gye Yeonseok was moving toward the back alone, and beside him was Gye Yeonseung, who had once been the hall master of our Busaeng Hall.

“Are they going out on a trading trip?”

Since the Gyeryong Merchant Guild did not have its own escort agency and only had the final distribution rights for goods, they did not conduct escorted transports either.

Moreover, the procession had only three cargo wagons.

The place Gye Yeonseok and Gye Yeonseung moved toward was an iron carriage between the cargo wagons.

When Gye Yeonseok knocked on the window, the one who came out was Gye Cheolyeong, whose face was twisted in an unnatural direction.

“Huh…….”

“Hul…….”

“How…….”

Since they had still spent nearly five years together, the three brothers immediately recognized Gye Cheolyeong, who had turned into a grotesque figure.

“Aeu, aeu. Aah.”

Gye Cheolyeong could not even speak properly.

“Endure just a little longer. Once we cross this mountain, there is a village, so we will rest there for a bit before going.”

“Awu, awu. Awu.”

Saliva dripped down between his twisted lips.

Gye Yeonseok wiped the saliva from Gye Cheolyeong’s mouth.

“Do not worry about anything. You will definitely, definitely enter the Martial Academy.”

When Gye Yeonseok returned to the front and led the group, the procession began moving.

A long while after they passed.

The Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers stood frozen for a long time, stunned.

In truth, I was not much different.

The sight of Gye Yeonseok taking his ruined son to sit the Martial Academy regular examination was practically a projection of his chilling desire.

It even made goosebumps rise on my skin without me realizing it.

“……Does he have to take the exam even going that far?”

For the first time, Geumpyo looked as if he truly felt what kind of exam he was taking.

“It has long been since the hierarchy of the murim world was established by the logic of power centered around the Murim Alliance. Gye Yeonseok wants more wealth and power, so his desire to put his only child into the Martial Academy is natural.”

“But in that state…… can he take the exam? No, even if he does take the exam, can he attend the academy?”

Ridiculously enough, the Murim Alliance strictly limited assistants, but placed no particular restriction on the examinee himself.

Living after entering the academy would be a later matter, but if one entered the academy, one could receive the Murim Alliance’s medical support for free.

Even if his martial arts could not be restored, if he completed the academy curriculum well, he might be able to obtain at least one position in the Murim Alliance.

In that sense, Gye Yeonseok’s choice might not have been wrong.

“This is not the time to worry about them. Did you not see the faces of the people forming the procession?”

“……What do you mean?”

“The people standing with Gye Yeonseok at the front of the procession were Yeon Chuak of the Hell Department, Han Geumtak, the Windless Demon Rod, and Dam Cheolgak, the Three-Handed Ghost Ape. Those three are counted among the special-grade wandering warriors.”

“……Han Geumtak, the Windless Demon Rod…… Is he not from the dark faction?”

His technique of piercing a person’s nose skin with a strange fishing rod and spinning them round and round in the air until they died was a secret technique feared even by people of the dark faction.

“He merely worked in the dark faction as a wandering warrior. If paid, he is someone who can turn to the righteous faction at any time.”

“Senior brother, I heard that experts above first-rate are definitely not allowed to participate as assistants.”

“That is the problem. Since they are wandering warriors, their abilities have not been accurately recorded, and because the Murim Alliance views those without affiliation as one level lower, they may very well judge them as first-rate experts.”

“Such absurdity…….”

“So hurry and walk properly. The competition is already becoming difficult, and on top of that, the pace is getting slower because of you boys, is it not?”

I pressed the three brothers, but this time, the children’s eyes did not easily die down.

Rather, they seemed filled with heat.

And the speed of the three brothers gradually began to increase.

#

Prepared for the possibility of running into Gye Yeonseok’s procession, we passed through two villages without stopping, and our speed rose to the level of ordinary people crossing a mountain.

Seeing the three brothers gradually adapt to moving circulation, I descended back to the main road.

“We can go by the mountain path now.”

“Of course. We are confident!”

“What is the point of training that is not difficult? Now let us go while using footwork.”

“…….”

“…….”

“If you use footwork while using moving circulation, there are more than one or two advantages. Especially since Taeul Eight Myriad Divine Steps is an unparalleled footwork with the characteristics of a movement technique as well. Once you learn this, you will be able to escape from an enemy’s grasp and run without rest as much as you like.”

“……Senior brother, we have been sleeping outside for a week now and have not even washed. Could we not go a little normally today?”

“Is that so? It cannot be helped. Let us go and rest at a suitable inn.”

The mouths of the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers stretched wide to their ears.

“And let us return to the Taeul Sect. As the eldest senior brother, I cannot put you in danger, so if you do not want to train, we have no choice but to all return together. Oh dear, if Saryeon has to take responsibility for all of us, it will be so very hard.”

The lips of the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers trembled.

“…….”

“…….”

Among them, the youngest, Dongryong, could not hold back and spoke.

“Eldest senior brother!”

“What is it?”

“Is this how I step with the Taeul Eight Myriad Divine Steps?”

Dongryong asked as he stepped on the ground, and Geumpyo and Eunho trembled even to their eyes as if shuddering at the sense of betrayal.

“No. I will teach you again. Well then, Dongryong seems to be saying he will keep going. Geumpyo and Eunho, will you return?”

“……Of course we will go with you.”

“Yes! And I like sleeping outside!”

I spoke to the three brothers, who were muttering something as they stepped along the footprints I had made.

“Once you can freely perform Taeul Eight Myriad Divine Steps, I will get you the best inn in the next village.”

“What?”

“Really?”

“Senior brother, you have no money.”

Geumpyo, Eunho, and Dongryong spoke in order, and I showed them the money pouch full of gold coins that I had received from Wang Geumsan before.

“Who says I have no money?”

Clink, clink.

The children’s gazes turned sharp again when they saw the yellow gold.

‘This is what they call the carrot-and-stick method.’

The children’s desire to eat fine food at a good inn and relieve their bodily fatigue with hot water was intense, so before even three days had passed, they reached a level where they could perform Taeul Eight Myriad Divine Steps while using moving circulation.

It was already the tenth day.

The children, who could no longer be distinguished as Beggar Gang disciples or Taeul Sect disciples due to consecutive days of sleeping outside.

Should I at least be glad they were wearing black martial uniforms like me?

“Senior brother! Senior brother! I found out. They say the inn with the best value in this village is that place!”

As soon as we arrived at Mount Huang, Eunho, who had asked the people around and found the inn with the best value, pointed to Silver Palace Inn.

“That place is classified as a high-class inn, and they say it costs one silver nyang per night.”

I pointed to the new-style building beside Silver Palace Inn and asked.

“Is that not an inn too?”

“It is called Golden Palace Inn, but they say you must pay as much as five silver nyang there.”

“Is that so? Then let us go there.”

“What?”

“Did I not promise? That I would get you the best inn in this village.”

“B-But senior brother. For four people, that is twenty silver nyang.”

Eunho’s voice trembled as he spoke.

“Every time your training produces results, you will continue to enjoy such luxury. So for now, only think about relieving your fatigue and training hard again.”

After saying that, I headed toward Golden Palace Inn, and the three hesitant people toddled after me.

“Welcome!”

When I entered, a waiter who had approached with a bright smile slowly began to grimace upon seeing the state of the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers.

I quickly took out one gold coin and handed it over.

“The boys are in terrible shape after sleeping outside for several weeks. Please prepare rooms, bathwater, food, and new martial uniforms.”

The waiter’s face, which had been about to contort, bloomed brightly again.

“We will serve you kindly. Would you like to eat first?”

“Please.”

“This way.”

Just as I was about to move according to the waiter’s guidance.

Eunho grabbed the hem of my clothes and said.

“Eldest senior brother, over there…….”

The place Eunho’s finger pointed to was the railing on the second floor of the inn.

“…….”

There, Gye Yeonseok, whose eyes were bloodshot red, and Gye Cheolyeong, whose face was twisted in a bizarre direction, were looking this way.

“Taeul Sect…….”

It felt as if I could hear Gye Yeonseok grinding his teeth from the second floor all the way down here.