Chapter 820: Our Wish Is Slaughter (11)

Qing imagined the scene beneath the hole.

What were they thinking down there?

In the middle of those horrific mountains of corpses—inside the horrific deaths they had created—were they putting their heads together and agonizing over who had to live?

It was ridiculous.

Between the hundreds of deaths they had killed, they were now picking out a fellow villager to “save”—how could the world be like this? Even if your conscience took a trip, could it be this absent?

Qing kept staring down into the hole for a long time.

And finally, from the opening that led down into the cavern, one head cautiously rose up.

It was the woman Qing had pointed at first—the one whose hair she had grabbed.

After her, heads rose one by one.

They looked around with anxious faces, then drifted toward the woman who had climbed up first, clamping their mouths shut and reading the room.

Two, three...

Twenty—women and still-not-fully-grown youths.

“Is that it? You’re the last one?”

“Y-yes. Yes......”

Qing swung her sword.

Sword-energy cut smoothly into hard rock, leaving a long horizontal scar—and the rope ladder that lay along the sword’s path vanished into the deep below.

“Hm. Twenty. You didn’t get too greedy. Well, at this level—”

That was when Jegal Ihyeon carefully spoke.

“Big sis. Th-then... are you really going to let them go?”

“Hm? Why?”

“They’re Blood Cult dregs. Even if you let them go now, they’ll just join the Blood Cult’s vile schemes again and lend their strength.”

He was saying: kill them all.

Tang Nanna’s eyes snapped up like axe blades, vicious and flaring.

“What? Are you telling us—huh?—to break a promise to my friend? You done talking?”

In truth, the “knight-errant” that the martial world talked about wasn’t some saint striving for the common good under Heaven.

A knight-errant’s job wasn’t helping the good and cutting down the wicked.

Knight-errants were a breed far from “justice.”

Because knight-errant wasn’t justice.

The value knight-errants worshiped wasn’t justice. It was faith—promise and loyalty.

In Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, it said of knight-errants—

Even if their actions run against justice, they always have faith in what they have said, and they are bold.

They absolutely keep what they have promised, and without considering their own danger, they help others in danger.

In other words: keeping your faith even if it means turning all of Heaven and earth into your enemy.

That was what the Central Plains called a knight-errant.

Among the people they’d met recently, the one most fitting the name was Tiger-Slaying Saber Ojeokhwan.

He had negotiated with Qing to save the drug peddler Taepyeongja, and wasn’t the content of that negotiation something the world would sneer at and laugh at?

Even knowing the world would laugh at him for his proposal, Tiger-Slaying Saber saved Taepyeongja’s life.

He threw away face—the thing martial artists treasured like life—and chose faith.

If Qing had changed her mind and drawn her sword to kill Taepyeongja no matter what, Tiger-Slaying Saber would have fought back even while knowing he would lose.

Qing knew that, too—so she negotiated with roughly an arm and a leg.

He really was a true knight-errant—living by faith and dying by faith.

And that, too, was the martial world’s honor.

So that was why Jegal Ihyeon was carefully bringing it up.

And it was the same reason Tang Nanna, who took Qing’s side unconditionally, was practically foaming at the mouth.

If Qing claimed to be a true knight-errant, then she had to escort the Blood Cult women and children she’d promised to spare to a safe place.

Even if that meant opposing the Blood Cult—opposing the entire Central Plains.

Still, Qing’s opinion had to be heard.

Qing watched Jegal Ihyeon and Tang Nanna’s standoff for a moment.

One notable detail: Peng Daesan had quietly taken position behind Tang Nanna.

A statement of support for Tang Nanna.

Jegal Ihyeon threw an urgent look at Seol Iri, but—

Of course, Seol Iri had no thoughts.

In the meantime, Qing turned her gaze to the Blood Cult “innocence” petitioners.

Some shrank in, shoulders curling. Some trembled in fear. Some forced strength into their eyes, not even trying to hide their resentment.

Those bastards will definitely become future trouble.

But... mm.

Qing made her decision.

“Stop. A promise is a promise.”

“But, big sis—”

“If you promised, you have to keep it. Not because it’s some grand ‘chivalry’ or ‘faith’—it’s just that if you get used to breaking promises over things like this, later you won’t even treat promises like promises anymore.”

“Ghk.”

Jegal Ihyeon clamped his mouth shut.

Because it was one of the scummiest ways to win an argument.

Shoving moral orthodoxy at someone like a yardstick.

If someone was saying they’d keep their own promise, what could you even say to that?

The Blood Cult people looked visibly relieved.

“Alright. This way. If you try anything stupid, you know what happens, right? I’m trying to keep my promise—but if the other side breaks it first, then I become a person with no promises at all. So behave. You get what I’m saying, right? Time for us to part ways—line up in the order you came up. Single file. Move out, go.”

The Blood Cult people obediently followed Qing’s words.

“Come to think of it, miss, you’ve been first this whole time, huh? But if the vanguard has this little spirit, what are we going to do. Here—straighten your shoulders. Like this.”

Qing grabbed the hunched shoulders of the woman at the very front, spread them left and right, then kneaded her shoulders.

But being suddenly gentle wasn’t going to ease the woman’s tension.

If anything, her shoulders only stiffened harder with fear.

“Gosh, why are your shoulders so stiff? I guess I should soften them up for you.”

“Huh?”

In that instant, Qing clenched her fist.

Monstrous strength that could crush stone and mash iron squeezed down on the woman’s shoulder.

Qing’s fingers bored into the hard shoulder bone and punched in.

A sensation swelling across her palm.

Mashed flesh and shattered bone clumped together into a meat dough, squeezing out between her fingers—

Wow... ah...!

Qing bit down hard.

Wow. I got dizzy for a second. How long has it been since I got a proper hand-feel like this? I almost let a moan slip.

“KYYYYAAAH!!”

A sweet scream exploded right in front of her.

The woman rolled on the ground, both shoulders looking like a beast had bitten them out. Her arms—now just hanging, never to move again for the rest of her life—were shoved around unnaturally.

“Kyaaah! Kyaaah!” The Blood Cult women’s shrill screams spread like infection.

Someone fell backward on their ass and scrambled away with both feet.

And some youth spat a curse and charged—

Of course, the youth paid for his recklessness: a kick into the solar plexus, then he rolled on the ground, gagging out strangled, dying breaths.

A girl—maybe the youth’s friend, maybe his lover, the same age—ran to his side, grabbed his torso, and screamed at Qing.

“Why—why!? You promised you’d spare us!”

“I told you. I’m trying to keep my promise, but if the other side breaks it first, I’m the kind of person who gives no mercy.”

“W-what did we do...!?”

“What did you do? You dare try to smuggle out a Blood Cult cadre? You bastards—there’s a limit to how much you can treat people like idiots.”

Qing pointed at the woman still writhing, suffering from the pain of losing both shoulders.

The first woman Qing had chosen. The woman whose hair had been grabbed.

And among all the workers, the woman with the highest evil karma.

Not just “high”—a beast-bitch that rounded up to a thousand. How could that be some ordinary Blood Cult village wife?

The girl’s face went slack with shock.

She was still young, so she couldn’t manage her expression at all.

Then again, what “expression control” would a normal Blood Cult villager have, anyway.

“Big sis?”

Qing walked over, step by step, and stomped on the shoulderless woman’s head.

With her head pinned between the earth and Qing’s foot, the woman let out a beastlike scream that didn’t sound like a woman at all—

And even then, Qing’s beautiful, clear voice had a sharp beauty that drilled into the ear.

“Looks like this bitch is the one manufacturing corpse poison, right? It’s a material the Blood Cult values that much—why would they trust it to idiots who don’t know anything? At minimum, they’d keep one person stationed here to manage it. Right?”

Qing loosened the strength in her foot a little.

Pain could be suppressed with bigger pain. After getting squeezed to the edge of her skull shattering, it looked like the shoulder pain had become bearable.

“Ghk... how...?”

Because for a “cooking wife,” her evil karma was way too high.

Looking at that evil karma, she was obviously a beast-bitch who’d committed truly horrific evil over and over.

And if someone had built up that kind of evil karma in this mine, it meant she was probably the core of this scheme.

So Qing had pretended to “pick at random”—what shall we choose—and picked her first.

And that old man’s scheme?

From the beginning, promise or not, it had been a con—something he’d pulled to save this one woman.

Of course, he might not have been entirely without the intent to save the other women and youths on the side.

But in the end, what mattered was this woman.

“You were looking at people with huge gaps between your eyes. You Blood Cult human-trash bastards—what? ‘Spare the women and children’? Even dogs wouldn’t believe that. Blood Cult bastards don’t know other people’s lives are precious, and they don’t know their own lives are precious, either. Obviously, he was trying to save the one bastard who’s absolutely necessary for whatever ‘great plan’ you’ve got.”

Qing had realized it from the evil karma—and now she spat out other excuses naturally.

“Ah, I see! As expected of you, big sis! You subdued her by letting her guard down, in case she was dangerous!”

Qing’s posture turned smug.

So Jegal really did recognize her, huh?

This is what a master’s dignity looks like.

With you leeches refusing to peel off, what can I do—I have to proceed as safely as possible.

She didn’t look dangerous in martial arts, but if she was the one who manufactured corpse poison, she might use poison.

My fragile friends can’t drink poison like water like I can.

Still... emotionally, you guys help a little, I guess.

And besides, if we keep traveling together, someday you might be a little useful?

They say even dog shit can be used as medicine—so you low-level scrubs might help once in a while.

Mm. You might. Right?

“You even made those Blood Cult people crawl into their own grave themselves! As expected—when it comes to dirty tricks like this, you’re sharper than anyone! I believed in you!”

Qing, who had been holding her chin high, froze.

Huh? That’s not praise.

Something about my treatment is getting more and more persecuted, isn’t it?

Sure, I can be as dirty as I want to villains like these, but this Jegal bastard keeps trying to eat me alive.

Do I need to tighten discipline once, hard?

Qing flicked her hand.

CLANG—

With the deep bell-sound of a great temple bell, the woman’s two legs snapped clean and bent in free directions.

“Aaagh!” Another scream spilled out, and Qing grabbed her by the hair under her foot, lifting her head—

Then whispered into her ear.

“Everything that happens from now on is your fault. Don’t even think about running away half-assed—if you were going to do it, you should’ve fought back instead. Then maybe one or two could’ve escaped.”

It was a provocation meant to rile her up, but—

Thinking about it, it probably would’ve ended up like this anyway.

“Y-you—wait...!”

Qing tossed the woman’s head away.

As the woman—arms and legs all ruined—collapsed, Qing drew her sword.

Because, you know, there’s that question.

Are the citizens of a war-criminal nation innocent?

Even if they didn’t know the reality of war because of intense control and propaganda, and even if they accepted that lie as truth—are the ones who cheered for war and worked hard to support it really innocent?

And weren’t these Blood Cult people the kind who’d been injected with hatred of the Central Plains from their oldest memories?

They could be pitiful.

But they weren’t innocent.

But—

Qing clenched the sword’s hilt hard.

Honestly, “innocent or not” was just an excuse.

It was more like...

There’s always priorities, right?

My friends. Our Half-Sword Twin-Blade Society idiots. Our Priestess Order family. Our Martial Alliance. Our Righteous Sect.

In other words—us.

We come first.

The Blood Cult were bastards who dreamed of the Central Plains’ ruin, and my precious people belonged to the Central Plains.

No reason beyond that was needed.

Still. Still—if there was one comforting thing—

It was that these Blood Cult bastards truly deserved to die. Bastards you could kill without hesitation.

Thank God. They’re bastards you’re allowed to kill.

Like Jegal said—if I kill you, my “us,” my people, will understand me and cheer for me.

Qing curled her lips into a twisted grin.