Chapter 885: The Plague Wretch Is Hiding Its Strength (4)

There was no longer any peaceful Geonpyeong.

A storm was ripping through Geonpyeong now.

“Over there! Catch her!”

“No—how is a beggar bitch that fast?!”

“She runs on all fours, so she’s obviously faster than two legs!”

“W-what?! Is she a genius?!”

Geonpyeong’s residents—Geonpyeong’s people—clutching clubs, all ran shoulder to shoulder in a roaring swarm, screaming to catch that bastard—no, that bitch.

On the other side, a single beast—one that had truly become a dangerous beast right now—the Plague Wretch was sprinting, galloping away down the street on all fours, bounding in long, springy hops.

“Drive her in—right side, to the right!”

“Right! Hurry!”

As she ran, Qing’s eyebrows twitched faintly.

What? Drive me to the right?

I can hear you, you know? I have ears. I know how to listen.

Of course, in this body—meaning, in the current setup—the Plague Wretch went out into the murim, learned some bizarre kind of martial art, a “become-a-beast” martial art, and ended up turning into a real beast.

That was the story.

But still.

“WAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAAH!!”

“KIIIYOOOOT!! KIIIYOOOOT!”

No—why are you screaming?

What are you doing, herding an actual animal?

Do you think I’m a real animal?

At this point, it was... kind of making her curious.

What did they set up on the right?

Well. She couldn’t exactly ignore their sincerity.

Besides, the gap between Qing and the people of Geonpyeong was painfully obvious.

If Qing was a full-grown tiger in its prime, then the people of Geonpyeong were about as threatening as three-year-old toddlers who’d only just started toddling around.

In practice, even if Qing just lay down and let them beat her, with her superhuman body and protective energy layered on top, she could simply keep getting hit until the Geonpyeong people exhausted themselves and collapsed.

Like how a three-year-old can punch a tiger with all their might and still do nothing.

Qing pretended to be driven in and darted into the right-side alley at full speed.

And what she saw up ahead—

No, what is that?

A serving plate set neatly on the ground.

On it, a whole roasted duck.

And men on the walls to either side, holding nets, trying to hold their breath and hide.

No, seriously, what—

You’re actually hunting an animal.

Qing let out a deep, private sigh.

Ah. Honestly. Me.

Youngest-ever at the Transformation Realm, then Transcendent Transformation Realm—an upright medical professional, an architecture expert—and now I’m also a perfect beast, and this body’s acting is apparently unbeatable too?

I’m so talented I end up seeing sights like this.

In truth, what Qing was doing right now was just play.

She was screwing around.

If someone who knew Qing saw her, they’d be unable to hold back a long sigh, thinking, So she sent her friends ahead and peeled them off so she could come alone and do this, huh.

And that was exactly what happened.

If it were Heema, Qing could do anything and Heema would still approve with that gentle, stupid, somehow lewd—but affectionate—smile.

Heema was family who would wrap her up warmly and go, “Wow, my little sister became a dog?” even if Qing didn’t just do dog-like things but literally became a dog.

But for everyone else?

This was not a sight she could ever show them.

And knowing that—and doing it anyway—was proof she was just hopelessly rotten.

Anyway, Qing lived up to expectations.

She lunged at the food, grabbed it with both hands, and tore into it with a huge bite, ripping it apart like a wild animal.

“Now!” “Now!”

The men shouted that this was the moment.

At the shout, Qing flinched like she was startled, jerking her head up—and then she bolted again on all fours.

A huge net dropped down, landing just behind her by a hair’s breadth—of course, it was also part of Qing’s staging, since the Awakening Divine Art let her sense in all directions.

“AAAH!” “You should’ve thrown it faster!” “Damn it!”

Geonpyeong’s people cried out in frustration.

But only for a moment.

One of them—a man with a vicious face, a scar running from beside his left eye down his cheek to his jaw—issued calm orders.

“I planned for this. I had them mix poison into the food! She’ll be vomiting and collapsing any minute. Chase!”

“Ah! As expected of Instructor Kang!”

“Geonpyeong’s Number One, indeed!”

The men surged forward again, newly energized.

Because she’d eaten poison, she wouldn’t get far.

“Chase her! Hk—huhk—chase—chase!”

“Don’t—HUH—HUH—HUH—HUH—hit—me—HUHK!”

Not get far......

Your poison has been replaced with spicy flavor.

“Huhh, huhh, huhh... HUH... huhh, huh...”

“C-can’t... HUH... anymore...”

“UWEHHEEEK...!”

One by one, the people of Geonpyeong collapsed, and after sprinting too hard, the side effects were everywhere—stomach acid erupting in bursts across the street.

Meanwhile, the Plague Wretch—having banked her first win—pranced away with deliberate ease, light as a feather.

Plague Wretch Extermination Operation, Day One.

Failure.

*****

Geonpyeong was a basin surrounded by mountains—or more precisely, the mountains encircled it like a liquor bottle, leaving a narrow mouth open to the north.

If you followed that narrow northern mouth upward, a broad plain appeared, and the farther north you went, the worse the land became—the vegetation thinned, and the grass grew shorter and shorter.

The land of the Mongol barbarians.

And the Mongol barbarians called this place by this name.

Jaruk Plain.

Somewhere on Jaruk Plain, roughly thirty round tents stood clustered together.

These were the Mongol barbarians’ tent-homes—their gers.

And at the center stood a single enormous ger that dwarfed all the others.

In pretty much every civilized sphere, the size of a house announced the owner’s status—so this great ger was the privilege and the sign of a great warrior who commanded an entire tribe.

And the great ger on Jaruk Plain belonged to Pateuk Tribe’s great warrior: Nainporeukdeok.

In front of that ger, a boy warrior shouted in a booming voice.

“Great warrior! The khan’s messenger has arrived!”

“Khan” was originally a title for the ruler of all Mongol clans—the Mongol emperor.

But in the past, to honor the great Mongol Empire—the greatest empire in human history, the strongest conqueror that once subdued the whole world except the New World—they called that ruler the Khan of Khans, the Great Khan.

After that, “khan” was downgraded into the ruler of a great tribe.

After the empire split apart, the Mongol barbarians also fractured into tribes—and now, it had been more than four hundred years of tribes fighting tribes, beating each other bloody among themselves.

So even if someone was a khan, they were only one khan among countless khans—not necessarily some towering power.

Even a khan couldn’t slight a great warrior who led a tribe—what if that warrior just went to another khan?

So these days, khans treated great warriors with respect, but it was rare for great warriors to serve khans as some lofty superior...

And yet.

Nainporeukdeok sprawled flat on his belly in front of the central fire pit, lying straight as a line.

It was a posture of utmost reverence.

“I greet the khan’s messenger!”

As if it were only natural, the khan’s messenger planted their ass down in the seat of honor directly facing the entrance.

By Mongol custom, it was outrageously rude—but Nainporeukdeok didn’t mind. He rose and took a seat on the left.

Then silence.

For about half a moment, neither spoke, so of course the ger was simply quiet.

Then the khan’s messenger opened their mouth.

“The khan commands this. Slaughter the flock, and prepare the hen hunt!”

Nainporeukdeok’s face lit up.

“Ah—finally!”

And then, silence again.

When another half a moment of silence had passed, the khan’s messenger abruptly stood.

They walked out with steady steps—

“HYA!”

The sound of a Mongol barbarian launching a horse.

The rapid clop-clop of hooves growing more distant.

And that was it.

If Qing had seen it, she would’ve been unable to hide her bafflement.

And honestly, any Central Plains person would’ve been the same.

They came all this way, received a bow.

Sat there forever, putting on weight.

Dropped one line—slaughter sheep and get ready to hunt hens.

Then put on weight again, all stern and serious...

And suddenly went home.

But this was exactly what the Mongol barbarians called men’s conversation.

The manly attitude that serious men were supposed to maintain.

Yes.

The true path of a man was this difficult.

And that was why it was worth challenging.

*****

Plague Wretch Extermination Operation, Day Two.

Failure.

Plague Wretch Extermination Operation, Day Three.

Failure.

Qing was disappointed.

Honestly, she’d known from the start that Geonpyeong didn’t have any real martial artists to speak of.

Wasn’t that one reason she’d spent her first year living as a beggar?

If Qing had seen, early on, the shocking sight of real martial artists—light bursting from blades like some kind of beam sword, people flying around—

Wouldn’t she have quit beggar life and run out of Geonpyeong to learn martial arts long ago?

But Geonpyeong, in reality, was closer to a medieval Central Plains version of her hometown.

Which was also why, even after she’d come out into the murim in her second year, she’d still been clueless—stuck in “I don’t know murim” mode.

Still, half a decade had passed.

She wondered if something had changed—

But aside from the guy with the big scar across his face, it was all the same.

And even the scar guy was only second-rate.

This is Geonpyeong’s average?

She literally wanted to die of boredom.

You could ask how she could say that when she was clearly playing with real enthusiasm.

But... yeah. Somehow, she wanted to do this.

After how long she’d been oppressed, wasn’t this level of payback practically merciful?

Qing didn’t know it, but the pettier Geonpyeong was, the more some heavy lump inside her was melting away.

Because the answer to an old unhappiness—some kind of nightmare carved into you so it can’t be forgotten—could be facing the truth that it was, in fact, nothing at all.

Plague Wretch Extermination Operation, Day Four.

Failure.

Qing’s movements gradually became more concise.

Muscles she didn’t normally use were training fast, and she was getting used to motions she didn’t normally perform.

This shameless spectacle—running on all fours without using internal energy—was settling into her body.

If you were a low-level nobody, you might ask what meaning there was in getting used to something so pathetic you could barely stand to watch it.

But masters saw it differently.

If these movements became natural, it meant she could perfectly control her body even while performing them.

It was a move the enemy couldn’t predict—couldn’t even conceive.

And in the murim, there was another name for such a move.

A life-saving ultimate move!

Even besides that, martial arts weren’t originally designed to fight opponents with a huge height difference.

The practicality of four-legged movement had been acknowledged since ancient times.

It was just ugly, hard to use with any dignity.

There were even masters of Ground-Crawling Fist.

Martial arts that ran on all fours, crawled, fought plastered to the earth—those were called Ground-Crawling Fist.

And masters of Ground-Crawling Fist even made a claim like this.

‘Ground-Crawling Fist was so threatening and lethal that there was no way to stop it—so the Central Plains murim banned everyone from using it, under the name of dignity!’

Of course, that was what the Ground-Crawling Fist people claimed.

It was like how fist-style people said things like “strong even without weapons,” “the body’s natural potential,” “it’s not because we can’t afford weapons,” and other arguments that nobody bought.

But.

The scarred man—so-called Geonpyeong’s Number One, Instructor Kang—was not a master.

So when he watched Qing, all he saw was a beggar bitch as nimble as a beast—no, even more nimble than a beast—

And at the same time, he ground his teeth.

Of course he ground his teeth.

He had a martial artist’s pride.

How could he be wasting days like this, unable to catch a single insane beggar woman?

But Instructor Kang had someone behind him.

Lord Jang.

And in a remote backwater like this—without even an administrative seat of government—the authority of a local power was beyond imagination.

Plague Wretch Extermination Operation, Day Five.

Qing couldn’t believe it.

No, what—are you seriously going this far?

Just as she was getting to the point of being sick of it—

No. Not sick of it. Still electrifying. Still fun, the whole way through—

She turned into an alley.

And it wasn’t even a narrow alley.

This road was wide enough for ten grown adults, arm-in-arm, to pass comfortably—

And yet they had built a tall wall across it.

Of course the wall was sloppy, obviously rushed.

But Qing had never seen them building it.

If Qing hadn’t seen it, that meant she’d been asleep.

And lately she’d been sleeping like a rock—

Steal food at sunrise, play tag, steal food again, run on all fours all day without using internal energy—how could she not sleep like a rock?

Even if, while sleeping, she was basically passed out.

So.

They built all this in a single night?

To catch just me?

Even Qing couldn’t help admiring that level of passion.

Of course, could passion alone make this happen?

Geonpyeong’s owner—Lord Jang—had breathed on it and made it real.

A one-night miracle.

A miracle performed.

While Qing was admiring it, a harsh, sneering laugh came from behind.

“Khhk. So you finally got your tail caught.”

Finally. At last. Now, only now—

Geonpyeong’s people packed the wide alley and advanced step by step.

Qing went, hmm.

Looks like tag ends here.

Still—if they’d gone so far as to build a city wall across an alley in a single night, then out of respect for their sincerity, wasn’t it polite to get caught?

So. Tag ends here!

But then.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

For something petty—something petty.

In her first year, she couldn’t remember a single time she ate even one meal in peace.

And she’d repaid the grudge of those miserable meals the same way.

So that part was settled.

Then, back in beggar days, she couldn’t remember wandering around comfortably either—always hiding, always running, always exhausted.

And she’d repaid that grudge too—

With endless extreme tag that made people puke.

But.

During those miserable beggar days...

I got beaten up a lot, didn’t I?

Then?

It was time to repay that grudge.