Chapter 830: A Moment to Savor (5)

Know the enemy and know yourself, and you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles—an extremely famous line.

Of course, it’s a simple principle, but how could knowing the enemy ever be easy?

Put another way, it meant that if the enemy knows you, then no matter how much you fight, you can’t ever corner them.

That was why one of the old pieces of advice passed around the martial world—hide thirty percent of your skill—existed to begin with: so they can’t know you.

Any proper organization would scrape together every method it could to get fanatical about information security.

And among an organization’s information-security measures, the easiest and most convenient method is to simply not give information to your members in the first place.

That was the method the Blood Cult used.

So—tsk. Qing smacks her lips as she recalls her frank little conversation with Dongjuk.

Yeah... that bastard didn’t know much.

Still, it wasn’t completely without profit.

...

......

.........

After listening to Dongjuk’s “voluntary testimony,” Qing’s impression was simple.

“Do it again from the beginning.”

“Pardon?”

“From the beginning. And if even one syllable is different, you’re done.”

Digging up information is hard.

Even after you dig it up, it’s hard to trust—so in a situation where you can’t cross-check, believing only one bastard’s words is the same kind of stupidity as being a drooling idiot.

But the human brain has limits. If you tell someone to start over from the beginning, it isn’t easy for him to remember the parts he made up.

“This piece of trash—why is it different from what you said earlier?”

“I... I don’t even know what I said earlier—”

“Oh, so you’re playing games? Your body’s still intact, so you’re getting greedy, huh? Confiscate an eyeball. You’ve got two, so one should be fine, right?”

“W-wait! AAAAAGH!!!”

“Alright. I’ll pretend what you said before never happened. From now on, be honest.”

Isn’t this the whole fun of squeezing information out of someone?

So. Again. And then one more time.

“The Blood Cult centers on the Great Votaries who directly hear the revered voice of the Blood Maitreya Vener—”

WHAM! Qing smashes Dongjuk across the head.

“What the hell is ‘Blood Maitreya Venerable,’ you idiot? It’s the Blood Demon. Blood Demon.”

“Y-yes, yes, Blood Demon. Under the Blood Demon...”

The Blood Demon, the Blood Cult’s master, commands terrifying experts under him. Inside the Blood Cult, they called them Great Votaries, and each one established a Branch Corps that fit their personal specialty.

Dongjuk belonged to the Sword Demon’s Branch Corps, the Revered Sword Squad, and the Blood Den, and his mission was to bring Blood-Sworn Warriors and protect their “compatriots” in Yunnan.

“Blood-Sworn Warriors?”

“That’s what we call warriors who still haven’t been taken into a Branch Corps.”

From the sound of it, it basically meant new recruits.

Depending on each person’s achievements and talent, the various Branch Corps would pick up Blood-Sworn Warriors.

The ones with no talent and no skill didn’t get taken by anyone—so they got yanked around here and there, assigned to guard duty or errands and menial work.

“So the Sword Demon is here?”

“No.”

“Then who’s here?”

“I know Poison Priests from the Poison Demon’s Blood Guard Brigade are here.”

“Then is the Poison Demon here?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are they plotting in Yunnan?”

“I don’t know.”

So what the hell do you know?

Who even is that bastard?

He’s the Sword Demon’s right-hand man’s son—the son of Jeong Mang, the Blood Den Great Lord.

...Right.

He’s not even the Sword Demon’s son. The son of an underling—his “trusted right-hand man”—was, if you were being honest, just small fry.

And in the first place, those “right-hand men” were always more numerous than the master thought. There was no guarantee this Jeong Mang was the only one claiming to be the Sword Demon’s right-hand man.

Anyway.

Jeong Ryujang had worse than no talent—he was a catastrophic klutz, with skill not even worthy of being called third-rate. But thanks to his father and brothers’ backing, he’d been sent out on missions that sounded impressive and padded his record, or so it went.

“But you said he has brothers? Ah—right, that bothered me. Their names... something like Jeong Station?”

“Jeong Sujang and Jeong Jijang. Great Lord—AAAAAGH—yes, Jeong Mang, that man—he received a fortune-telling that said it was good if his children’s names contained ‘water.’”

Su, Ji, Jang—yeah, all water.

It felt like I’d been sucker-punched.

“Th-then can I go now...?”

“Hm? Go where? That’s not what we agreed.”

“...Pardon?”

“I said I’d let you live. I never said I’d send you off with your body intact. And the number one thing I hate in this world is bad guys. Number two is traitors. You betrayed your own people just to save your skin? You’re dead.”

“No—our promise is differ—AAAAAGH!!!”

.........

......

...

Yeah. It was really fun.

Maybe I should do it again next time.

While I was starving for so long, I kept thinking, Just once. Just one good hit of it.

But the moment I got a taste, I started itching for more.

Humans really are that cheap.

Still—hm-hm. A little hum slips out on its own.

A song from my homeland, to the point I can’t even remember the title anymore. The Central Plains aren’t shockingly primitive, but the musical variety is just... too thin, you know?

Qing crosses Gaegu County like that.

In any city, out on the outskirts—near a stream where water runs—you’ll always find the iron workshops clustered together.

Before she knows it, the air all around is full of hammering.

BANG BANG BANG.

Qing perks her ears as she listens, then follows the cleanest, deepest, best-resonating sound of iron being struck.

The moment she steps into the workshop, heat surges up at her.

CLANG CLANG—when the blacksmith pounds his hammer, he shoots a wary look at the female swordswoman with the large sword on her back.

Qing holds out both palms and signals that he should just keep working for now.

And a little while later.

HSSSS—steam hisses as water boils. The blacksmith fishes out a sickle, wipes his sweat, and speaks to Qing.

“Sorry, but we don’t handle swords here. If you want swords, go to the third shop on the left—the Bang family’s workshop.”

“Oh, I’m not here for a sword. Do you happen to have a decent iron plate? The sound here is really good.”

There isn’t a blacksmith alive who gets offended at being told his hammering sounds good.

His expression softens and he asks again.

“Iron plate? What kind—steel or cast iron? And I’d need to know the size and thickness. What are you using it for?”

“Ah. I want to put it on my chest.”

“...Hm? O-on your—cough. There?”

“Uh. Like... this?”

Qing makes an awkward hand shape, sets it in front of her chest, and makes a motion like she’s groping a watermelon.

The blacksmith’s face fills with disbelief.

“You... you’re putting iron plate there?”

“Yes. It’s just unbelievably uncomfortable. Since I don’t have any muscle, it’s like paper—holes form right away. It’s heavy, it traps sweat, under clothes it puffs out so I only look bigger, and everyone keeps sneaking glances like they’re ‘not looking’—there’s basically no advantage at all.”

“...No, I... you’ve had it rough...?”

“Anyway, I want to brace it under my clothes.”

Qing does learn, when she has to.

How many times has she already suffered serious damage to her chest’s “shock absorber”?

Honestly, it can’t even be called a shock absorber.

Because it sticks out on its own, it catches blades that never should’ve reached her in the first place. When it shakes, it hurts, and the useless recoil creates a weird resistance even in her movement.

Of course, Qing’s physical durability already surpasses human limits, and after living for over half a decade like this, she’s already used to it.

Besides, even if she reinforces it with iron plate, the chest is a vital point. If someone is going to land a blade there on Qing in the first place, the attacker would have to be at least at the Transformation Realm—or one lucky person among a pack of peak monsters swarming like dogs.

And what use is iron plate against sword-energy? That was also why martial artists didn’t bother wearing armor.

Steel, iron—everything becomes paper in front of sword-energy. If you take it cleanly, you die anyway, so rather than burden yourself with useless weight, it’s better to wear martial clothing and endure with defensive technique.

Plus, if your body stays light, all the more reason not to strap on armor.

Overwhelming attack power isn’t something you “tank.” You beat it by knocking it aside, or dodging.

But this time is a little different.

Watching Tang Nanna taught her something: poison freaks’ fighting methods were basically just throwing poisoned things, weren’t they?

And most hidden weapons were small and light. Even if they carried decent force, it wasn’t easy for them to punch through steel plate.

Sure—fine—even if they did pierce Qing’s absurd chest fat, they still wouldn’t be able to pierce the superhuman pectoral muscle layer behind it, let alone the muscle that automatically reacts as a defensive technique.

But it still hurts like hell.

If the depth is “just right,” maybe. But if a hidden weapon sinks all the way in, pulling it out is pure agony...

And thus Qing’s genius idea.

A steel chest brace!

Underwear culture in the Central Plains was basically just “cover it so it doesn’t chafe or pop out,” so this could only be called an idea that transcended the era.

The blacksmith, however, is horrified.

“Th-then how... should I make you two steel scoops or something?”

“Uh, wait. No—then the shock would keep hitting my solar plexus. Just a long iron plate—about this high and this wide. That should work. I can fold it and adjust it myself.”

“That... that’s not—no, haaa...”

The blacksmith stops thinking!

Thinking any more would just make him embarrassed, and among martial artists, were there only one or two weirdos?

“Do you need it right away? If it’s just a steel plate, it’ll take half a two-hour watch. I’ll flatten one out for you quick.”

“Ah, yes. Please.”

And like that, Qing obtained a steel plate!

She even rented a room at the inn and spent a long while working the plate, shaping it, pressing it against her ribcage again and again.

Finally, she got a result she could be fairly satisfied with.

First, compress the fat layer with plain cloth.

Then lay the gently curved steel plate over it.

Then wrap it again with plain cloth to fix it in place.

Done.

She puts on her martial clothes—doesn’t look all that unnatural.

The inside of the plate presses hard enough that her skin sticks unpleasantly and the comfort is absolute trash...

But it’s better than pain.

In truth, it’s all just insurance.

Because Qing isn’t going there to storm the Five Poison Sect.

If it were only the Five Poison Sect, maybe. But the Blood Cult is tangled up in it—how could she know whether it’s only those poison freaks, or whether other Blood Cult human garbage are mixed in?

She already told her friends.

If they realize their tricks through the strange plague have been exposed, they’ll try to run or hide. She wants to go first, watch their movement, and mark their trail.

Jegal Ihyeon is heading to the Diancang Sect, so support will arrive before long. And when it’s time to wipe them out, at least one person has to scout the Five Poison Sect’s situation first.

Of course, if she watches and it’s nothing but pure poison freaks—and they look easy—then she might not need to wait for support before flipping the whole place upside down.

But in principle, she’s just scouting—watching the enemy.

...Even if, yes, there’s also a black little ulterior motive of sending her friends somewhere safe.

From the Diancang Sect’s standpoint, Jegal Ihyeon’s martial strength is weak, and he’s also a powerful successor from one of the Five Great Families—well, not the eldest son, but anyway, a major heir. They won’t want him hurt, so they’ll keep him out of battle.

And Heema has to take care of Jayeo, so she’ll stay with the Diancang Sect.

The guys who went to help the Lord Physician can just sit quietly there too—watching medicine development or doing errands, isn’t that fine?

...Sorry to the Diancang Sect’s martial artists, though.

But hey. This body—the transcendent, Transformation-Realm Heavenly Flower Sword—will fight alongside you, and in the first place, this is your territory.

If anything, you should be thanking me—so there’s no reason for me to feel sorry, right? Right.

Anyway, if she wants to erase even a little of that guilt, she has to scout as thoroughly as possible and gather ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) information.

To do that, first—

She has to hide her position.

But she let Jeong Ryujang and that lackey live and sent them off, so the road will definitely be crawling with Blood Cult bastards, right?

Then... it’s time for cross-country movement.

She’ll ride the main road to near the border, then cut straight west and move over the mountains.

The brutish straight-line march she showed back on the Guangxi Expedition.

Still, the Blood Cult martial artists might feel wronged.

They received the mission: lure out Supreme Thief Overlord—the rice-eater—Elder Bandit Lotus.

How could they possibly predict that Elder Bandit Lotus would decide to pass through a primeval forest where there aren’t even roads—and not even a single small village?