‘Ugh…’
At that time, Maki was trembling in fear. The situation where the blood and energy were suppressed and left unattended.
‘This guy’s mouth is so reckless. Just ridiculous!’
Thinking about how he had jabbered on about something, Maki wanted to slap his mouth with his palm. Such a monstrous expert talked nonsense to someone who treated him with utmost respect…!
Even if by chance the other bandits were released favorably, Maki knew he wouldn’t escape unscathed.
Thud. Thud.
In the midst of that, the sound of footsteps could be heard from outside.
Tap. Tap-tap!
As the feeling of blood flow returned, Maki regained freedom of movement. Startled, he looked up to find a woman in a veil with sharp eyes glaring down at him.
“I’ve sealed your energy and blood, so don’t act foolish.”
Maki nodded furiously. Given that he had spoken recklessly, it was vital to show as submissive an attitude as possible to survive.
Miss Yeo Il-ye, who had awakened the five bandits, led them back to Poison Doctor’s hut.
“Elder. I’ve brought them.”
“Oh, good.”
‘Ugh…!’
Maki’s legs gave way to sudden pressure. It wasn’t just Maki’s problem. Poison Doctor had raised his energy level to press down on the five bandits at once. The mere first-rate level bandits couldn’t withstand the pressure and collapsed.
“Tsk. Can’t even endure a moment of impatience without causing trouble…”
The bandits felt aggrieved by Poison Doctor’s muttering. After all, it was the one who had trapped them in the mountain for a whole month who was blaming their patience!
‘Isn’t it a long wait not having worked for a whole month?’
Feeling frustrated for not being able to express their grievances since their blood was sealed was unbearable. Of course, even if their blood hadn’t been sealed, they would never voice their complaints.
*Cough, cough!*
“No, you! Why did an injured person come outside?”
“Cough. You don’t need to worry about me.”
Maki’s eyes widened. The man who had thrown a field knife at him had turned into a seriously ill patient in just half a day. His face was pale, lips blue, and he was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages.
‘What on earth is this situation? Why has that person become critically ill?’
Maki instinctively felt something was off. The man who was strong enough to chase him, despite being at a second-rate level, suddenly became a critical patient in just one day?
However, Maki’s thoughts didn’t last long. Suddenly, a murderous intent surged from Poison Doctor.
“To think I would force an ill person to exert themselves and even get injured… I’d have no problem tearing you apart right now…”
The bandits trembled at Poison Doctor’s murderous aura. Nevertheless, a glimmer of hope shone on their faces. He said he’d tear them apart… but wouldn’t that come with something hopeful afterward?
“In such a poor place, I cannot treat a patient with severe symptoms properly, so I will leave within three days. There are two reasons I’m letting you live and returning you to the mountain. First, I want you to convey my words to the mountain so that not even a glimpse of bandits’ faces are seen before I leave.”
The bandits all nodded frantically. Poison Doctor is leaving in three days? Then there was no reason to act for three days.
“Secondly, I need some means to transport myself and the patient, so prepare a cart or wagon by my departure date.”
Since this condition was one that the mountain’s higher-ups could accept, the bandits nodded vigorously again.
Maki harbored suspicions about Ho Cheon-an’s condition, but right now, such doubts were unimportant.
*Cough, cough… Poison Doctor, I have one request.*
“Hmm? What is it?”
“It seems… there is an irredeemable evil, cough, that weighs on my mind.”
Maki’s face turned as pale as Ho Cheon-an’s.
“No, what do you mean?”
“I’m talking about the Author.”
With Ho Cheon-an’s feeble finger pointing, the eyes of Poison Doctor, Yeo Il-ye, Black Cat, and even the fellow bandits turned to Maki. Maki instinctively started shaking his head.
“When Miss appeared to help me and I threw everything I had into that field knife, do you know what the Author said after hurting his leg?”
Maki shook his head even more vigorously. Under the complete suppression of Poison Doctor’s aura, he couldn’t move his body at all.
“Since I injured my leg, he bellowed that he’d tear my thigh a hundred times to feed it to a dog.”
*Rustle.*
The fellow bandits quickly distanced themselves from Maki.
Even as Maki shook his head vigorously, the fellow bandits had indeed heard his shout, as it was so loud and powerful! Even the bandits who had rolled on the floor under the energy suppression from Black Cat had heard it.
Maki glanced at his companions for help, but they were already backing away, casting looks of disgust.
‘See, this is why you shouldn’t go too far.’
‘I knew that guy would cause trouble sooner or later.’
‘How can a person say such things?’
They sent Maki those kinds of glances, and his eyes almost seemed to burst into flames.
“Look at those eyes. He’s killed many people!”
Maki quickly tried to feign innocence. In a desperate attempt to squeeze out tears that would make him look wronged, he was filled with tragic thoughts.
“I heard it clearly as well.”
With Yeo Il-ye’s additional testimony, despair washed over Maki.
“Yes, hearing what you both said, he truly is a wicked guy. So what should be done?”
“If we send such a person back to the mountain, how many more innocent lives will be sacrificed? Cough, anyway, we need someone to help with the tidying up, so how about we take him along and attempt to rehabilitate him?”
Maki shivered. It felt like, if anything, he sensed a determination in Ho Cheon-an’s gaze akin to that of a Poison Snake. Surely, he must have been harboring resentment against the idea of using his thigh as a field knife.
‘You bastards, save me!’
The fellow bandits also seemed to switch expressions slightly, feeling some rejection. No matter what, they had shared a table, and it didn’t feel right to just leave him like this…
“By the way, among the mountain’s companions, there are plenty of torture experts. Perhaps they also wouldn’t let him go so easily…”
The bandits shot Maki murderous glares.
*Cough, cough. It seems the relationship isn’t too good, so they’re probably not torture experts either.*
“Ah, I see. Hearing you, I think it might be better to send only one of them alive.”
Swish.
Yeo Il-ye drew her sword and spoke.
“Shall we just cut the rest down?”
“No, blood can bring misfortune while treating the patient. Let these four go and use this one as a laborer for a while to observe the situation.”
The four bandits, who had gone back and forth between heaven and hell multiple times in a day, were freed from their blood.
“Thank you, thank you! Poison Doctor! I will never forget this kindness!”
“I will wash my hands and live honestly from now on!”
“I will pass on Poison Doctor’s kindness to my descendants!”
“Dogs don’t just stop shitting! Convey my demands properly to the mountain! And… none of you are torture experts, are you?”
The bandits straightened their expressions.
“Maki is the most infamous and wicked guy in our mountain!”
“Damn, how can you say such a thing? Even bandits have their morals. Does one use a person’s body for a field knife?”
“I couldn’t speak earlier because my blood was sealed! While I was collapsed, I surely clearly heard what that guy said!”
“Is that true?! What a vile thing! You do not qualify as a bandit of the Gae Wang Chae!”
“Get lost!”
At Poison Doctor’s shout, the bandits took off in a hurry.
“I will convey Poison Doctor’s demands with my life!”
“Poison Doctor, do not worry!”
Maki looked desperately at his fellow bandits, but they ran off without looking back.
“Where… okay. Looks like it’s just you left.”
Maki lowered his head in thought. Since it had come to this, there was no choice. Might as well be on the lookout for opportunities. Surely, there would be a chance to escape someday. Until then, he would have to show obedient behavior to create an opening.
While Maki was thinking this, the blood seal was lifted.
“Elder! Please kill me!”
“Haha. I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”
“Great Hero! I’m sorry! I must have lost my mind out of pain back then! I have been reflecting deeply!”
Poison Doctor chuckled.
‘Well, he’s got quite a clever head on his shoulders.’
Watching Maki, who was weeping and clinging to Ho Cheon-an’s pants, Poison Doctor’s admiration for Ho Cheon-an grew.
Martial artists tend to try to solve everything with martial arts.
There’s a saying that to a person holding a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If a joint doesn’t fit, one usually removes it to insert it correctly, but what if you have a hammer in your hand? Most would choose to forcibly hammer the joint in.
The joint might break from the impact, but most would just smash it.
Martial artists, who have trained their martial arts all their lives and have grown accustomed to solving problems only with martial arts, would usually just pull out a sword first.
‘Rather than using one’s head, this approach is refreshingly unique.’
It wasn’t for nothing that Feng Ying Hall Master wrote such things in the letters.
While having a clever head for plotting strategies is nice, what truly impressed Poison Doctor was the astonishingly unconventional imagination. In all his eighty years, he had never met someone with such ideas.
“Is that so? Are you truly reflecting?”
“Of course, of course, Great Hero! Oh! Great Hero! There’s a vixen-like wife waiting for me in the mountain. If I leave for a few days, it won’t be just one or two bandits trying to get to her! Please understand my situation, Great Hero!”
“That’s quite noisy.”
Poison Doctor once again touched Maki’s blood seal.
“Since you wanted to rehabilitate this bandit, you are responsible too, don’t you agree?”
“Cough, of course. Elder.”
“Good. Give me your finger.”
Maki looked at Poison Doctor’s hand with a face full of anxiety. In that hand was a pest crawling around madly. With a red shell and purple spots, it looked hazardous!
‘What does he want to do with that bug?!’
Various horror stories surged through Maki’s mind—the terrible rumors about the poisonous creatures that spirit doctors used! The kind that tunneled into the brain and controlled a person’s intellect, or the kind that, over time, would wake up in the stomach and eat the organs…
Or that the ones put inside a person devoured all their energy and eventually burst out through their belly!
Poison Doctor pricked Ho Cheon-an’s finger, letting a drop of blood fall on the pest.
The pest writhed fiercely with the acquired blood. In Maki’s eyes, that writhing was nothing short of the cries of a demon from hell.
*Tap!*
As Poison Doctor grasped the blood seal, Maki’s mouth opened involuntarily. He desperately tried to move his eyes to say something to Poison Doctor, but the latter casually opened his mouth.
“Hahaha. This thing is obviously very dangerous. It’s called Blood-Extreme Brain-Crusher, and unless you feed it a calming pill every six hours, it’ll be a menace eating away at the brain inside you. It’ll devour all body organs in a straight line, and you can expect suffering as extreme as the eight levels of Buddhist hell.”
He was saying they were going to shove such a terrifying thing into a person’s mouth! Maki’s eyes nearly rolled back in shock, and he wanted to pass out, but reality wouldn’t allow it.
Poison Doctor gathered the pest in his mouth and activated the blood seal again, swallowing the creature whole. Maki wanted to retch immediately, but he had long lost his physical freedom.
Poison Doctor handed a sack to Ho Cheon-an right before Maki’s eyes.
“Blood-Extreme Brain-Crusher can live inside a person’s body for about a year. Until then, the only way to calm it is with antidotes made from your fresh blood. You can use an antidote on the market, but you must use the antidote made with blood drawn that same day.”
Maki looked at Ho Cheon-an, who was limply accepting the sack, with vacant eyes. In the end, even if he tried to escape, it meant that he’d die experiencing extreme pain the next day.
Waiting for the return of Mo Yeobu wasn’t a bad choice, but with just a little more dramatics, the summoning could happen even faster.
Maki planned this out so that Mo Yeobu would have no choice but to return.
Poison Doctor was, after all, a physician. The action of leaving the mountain to treat a patient with serious symptoms was quite convincing. Since all the people in the mountain knew this, Mo Yeobu wouldn’t be able to resist coming back.
Considering that Maki, the Sect Leader, was running away in fear, it was clear that the mountain bandits weren’t going to view him kindly. Anyway, Poison Doctor had officially stated he was leaving in three days, so safety was guaranteed.
While Maki himself didn’t know where he was, the moment he heard the news, he would have no choice but to rush back as fast as possible.
To create this situation, a patient with severe symptoms was necessary, and the perfect fit for that role was none other than me. However, the one who knew very well that I wasn’t actually sick and had just been running around the mountain until yesterday was Maki, the bandit.
The other bandits would think that I was in good health, just overexerting myself a bit. But for Maki, who had been running around the mountain with me, it was only natural to harbor suspicions about my sudden transformation into a critical patient.
Thus, it was impossible to send Maki back to the mountain.
There was a perfect excuse to keep him around, and that was Maki’s reckless comment about using my leg!
‘What? Use my leg as a field knife?’
Even the bandits were horrified, ready to cut off ties with him! Talk about poetic justice! Maki’s field knife comment was the perfect excuse to leave him behind.
Well… in truth, Maki’s comment had long been erased from my memory. With the analysis of the cause of the grabbed blood and the rise in my realm to first-rate level and Yeo Il-ye’s issue…
With major events popping up, I simply had no room left in my head to dwell on such trivial grievances by some nobody.
Yet justice lives and breathes.
The chance for such a natural revenge didn’t need any further embellishments; true justice was alive, and that was all the words necessary to describe it.
Blood-Extreme Brain-Crusher.
What convenient pest is there like Blood-Extreme Brain-Crusher? No, even if there were similar effects, such a common pest couldn’t possibly be of use against an average low-tier bandit.
I merely asked Poison Doctor to catch me a bug and color it dangerously. Blood? Antidote? Just a mechanism to keep Maki under control.
But if that wildly writhing, hazardous-colored bug was introduced dramatically as something grand like ‘Blood-Extreme Brain-Crusher’ and then stuffed into his throat with the claim that he would die in agony if he didn’t take the antidote every twelve hours? Who would dare to cut loose?
If not, he would have to serve me faithfully for a year. Considering the price for wanting to slice other people’s legs, it was a downright cheap price to pay.
Let’s face it; this was also a valuable opportunity for Maki to correct his nature of wanting to slice other people’s legs. By undergoing laborious life as a slave for a year, or rather, through the process of rehabilitative labor, he’d surely come to truly regret his actions and could live a proper life.
Perhaps I should ask for some payment when I release him.
“Let’s have a good time for the next year. Hahahahahaha!”
Looking at Maki’s lifeless eyes, I burst out laughing.
