Chapter 902: A Lucky Day (2)

When Qing swung her sword from horseback, the feel in her hand was definitely unique—something special.

If she had to compare it to anything, it wasn’t so much cutting as it was ripping something apart. In terms of pure feel, the one on the horse was a lot more raw, she guessed. Yeah. She liked it.

“Eek—s-save—! GHK!”

But why?

Qing sank into thought.

With the horse’s speed added on, and the inertia coming from those huge, distinctive arcs you get from up high, shouldn’t it cut more smoothly instead?

So why did it get rougher? Why did muscle and hide snag, bones crack and crumble, and that intoxicating destruction come roaring back as a violent recoil?

That brutal feedback rapping up through her grip—her wrist, her forearm, her elbow joint—wow. She couldn’t even put it into words.

“Split up! You—go that way, that way!”

“AAAAAH!”

“Waaah! Somebody save me!”

Moonlit Night, raised high, dropped straight down onto a bandit’s crown—like an axe head embedded in a log.

Normally, it would have split the spine and burst out his back, but instead it stopped around the neck bones and got stuck, wedged in.

In that instant, a spark flashed through Qing’s head.

Ah. Right. That’s what it is.

“W-why are you only chasing me—?!”

Moonlit Night drew another slanted path from low to high.

The trail carved by her Force Aura became a long, flat plane, stretching out like loosened silk, and at the far end of it the bandit met his death.

A blade that slipped in without a sound, smooth as anything.

Even after it passed through, the bandit took two more steps—only then did his upper body slide off and SPLAT onto the ground.

Mm. Yeah. That had to be it.

Whether it was a sword or a saber, the basics were the same: it was an act of slicing.

Think of that food, the radish—the one people like to bring up with that saying about how a real man draws his blade and ought to slice.

If you want to slice a radish, you have to move the knife edge—push it away or draw it toward you, either way.

But what if you just grabbed the knife and pressed down hard on the spine?

That isn’t “slicing” anymore. That’s chopping. Breaking it. Segmenting it.

Swordsmanship and saber techniques were ultimately arts designed to slice using an edge.

That was why you tempered forms and paired them with footwork—so you could slice more efficiently, more lethally.

But on horseback, you sat higher, and your movement got simpler. If you swung the same way as usual, it was no different from a full-force axe coming down.

So of course the feel in the hand would turn rough.

Martial arts made for mounted combat were probably techniques that contained a slicing method optimized to match a horse’s movement.

“Hhk... hhhh...!”

Did the people who created martial arts really design even that part so carefully?

Modifying martial arts wasn’t an easy thing either...

Thinking that, Qing tugged the reins.

Clever Lu Bu understood at once, and didn’t he slow to match the bandit’s speed as he ran ahead?

And so, after about half a two-hour watch—

“Hhk, hhhk, hhk—hhooh! Hhk, I can’t—can’t go anymore—just—hhk—kill me! I said kill me!”

The man who’d been running in front of Lu Bu finally collapsed with a THUD and gulped air.

Half a two-hour watch at a dead sprint—she supposed that counted as trying, but it looked like he’d hit his limit.

“Kill you. Sure. Request received.”

“Hh—no, wait—please—please, spare me—!”

“Spare you. That request is also received.”

“Hhk... you’ll... spare me?”

“I’ll count to five. If you get caught, you die. If you run, you live. Go. One, two—”

“God—! Hoo! Shit!”

The man sprang up and ran again.

But he didn’t have the same momentum as before.

If you wanted to keep running for a long time, you had to keep going—slower if you had to—without breaking rhythm. If you took even a short rest and let the tension out of your muscles, your body was already done. You couldn’t produce force anymore.

Still, he ran.

His desperate sprint looked like someone had a knife to his throat.

Which was, in fact, exactly what was happening, because Qing really was holding a sword and threatening him.

And in the end—

“GHK—uh—ugh—AAAGH...!”

The man suddenly crumpled and started rolling, clutching his calf, screaming.

A cramp from pushing past his limits—technically, his muscle had seized up—or maybe he’d even torn a tendon.

“Wow. Guess you don’t really want to live? Want me to count to five again? One, two, three...”

“AAAGH!”

But counting or anything else, it looked like he couldn’t hear a thing anymore—between the pain, his heart pounding like it would burst, lungs squeezed dry, and the entire body demanding air with a savage ache.

“...Four. Five.”

Mm. Can’t be helped.

She’d promised: if he got caught, she’d kill him. Ah. Really, she couldn’t help it. For the sake of the world, she had no choice but to go through the trouble of disposing of one more useless beast.

Because a promise was a promise.

Seomun Cheong, the hero—promises had to be kept.

And a little while later—

Qing stretched long and slow.

Behind her face veil was the freshest smile she’d worn in ages.

“Aaah, refreshing. Seriously, from the morning on, why are bandit packs clinging to me? Is today one of those days? I feel like I’m coming down with something.”

This was the charm of traveling alone.

If she traveled with friends, they tended to move as a group, and the trash usually couldn’t bring themselves to jump them.

*****

When it was your day, everything worked.

Qing’s luck didn’t stop at the pack of human-reject bandits she ran into in the morning.

She got lucky again.

She’d done a good deed in a good mood from early morning, and now she was a little hungry.

She pulled out beef jerky and started chewing—yum, yum—and then, out of nowhere, an inn appeared by the roadside like it had been waiting for her.

Of course, it wasn’t strange.

On roads where lots of people traveled, inns often set up shop. In this primitive society that still hadn’t conquered darkness, it was better to sleep comfortably under a roof—even if it was overpriced for the state of the rooms—than to camp out at night with danger lurking.

Still, an inn showing up like a ghost right when she was hungry was genuinely delightful.

Places like this tended to be pricey, sure, but Qing’s money pouch was heavy. She had room to breathe.

“Waiter, bring me your best stuff—whatever comes out fast. Make it generous. About three dishes.”

“Yes! Please wait a moment!”

And the food was even good!

The sliced meat was a bit tough—maybe it was made from dried meat—but it was hot and spicy, and the seasoning went so well with it she couldn’t help ordering a bowl of white rice.

The steamed freshwater fish, whatever it was, couldn’t be called perfectly clean of any fishy smell, but the fiery spicy sauce covered it enough that it didn’t bother her.

The spicy meat dumplings were a delicacy she hadn’t even found in Sichuan, and the noodles were hot and spicy too—this broth that made her think of home, the kind that was hard to come by in the Central Plains, the kind that made a KHHH— scrape rise in your throat all on its own.

Even the stir-fried bok choy with egg wasn’t as fresh as it could’ve been—wilted a little—but it clung to her tongue with a sharp, spicy bite that made it impossible to stop eating.

Really, spicy food was kind of a cheat.

When the ingredients themselves were low-grade, when the cook wasn’t particularly skilled, there was no method as effective as spice for hiding what the flavor lacked.

Given the location, it was an out-of-the-way inn that couldn’t keep ingredients fresh.

You could call it the cook’s brilliant ingenuity for overcoming that—

...My ass.

How much poison did these bastards dump in here?

Sure, it tasted good, but still.

Probably something in the numbing-paralysis family? Or a sleeping drug?

And, as expected, she could feel them watching—glances sliding over from the kitchen.

To meet their expectations, Qing slammed her forehead onto the table with a THUD.

“Heh-heh... it’s finally kicking in, huh? Thought maybe this time it didn’t take. That horse didn’t look like a normal horse, so we figured you’d try to avoid trouble and pass us by.”

“There’ll be trouble, sure. So we sell the horse and get out of this area. But damn, she’s a nasty one—just in case, we dumped in every last bit of poison we had, and she still went and ate it all...”

“Maybe she’s a martial master?”

“Martial master, my ass. She ate that much arsenic—she’d die even if she was the best under heaven. Hurry up, bury her and move.”

“Before that, let’s see the bitch’s face. Never know.”

Mm. Yeah. Naturally.

There was a reason the waiter fell under the so-called Low Five—the five lowest trades in the Central Plains.

It was the kind of job where you could switch careers at any time into a trafficker, a robber, a rapist—anything.

And in a remote inn like this, who would ever know what happened?

With her head planted on the table, Qing’s limp arm suddenly shot out and clamped down on the waiter’s throat.

“Ghk.”

“Man. Today really is one of those days, huh?”

Qing’s mouth split wide into a grin.

From the morning, she’d gotten a satisfying taste of violence, then eaten a lunch she hadn’t even expected to be good—

And the second she finished, another workout dropped right into her lap.

Unbelievable.

*****

Qing’s luck didn’t end there.

An hour into the road again after chopping up those beasts—inn staff and bandits all in one—and putting them on display, an arrow thudded into the ground in front of her and blocked the path.

A classic bandit trick.

Wow. Three rounds in a day.

Morning meal, then slaughter. Lunch meal, then post-meal slaughter. And now—more slaughter.

And that wasn’t even all.

By dusk, she reached Musun County, took a room at an inn, and was waiting with a table full of dishes she’d ordered.

“That black horse—are you its owner?”

“And?”

“I’m Lee Taeryeong.”

A rule of the martial world:

If someone proudly declares their name in a crowded place, count to three in your head.

One, two—

“Lee Taeryeong!” “The Baeksan Twin Slayers!” “Oh my god!”

The Baeksan Twin Slayers.

By the strict naming logic of the martial world, a quick breakdown went like this:

Baeksan—of Baeksan.

Twin—two who move together.

Slayers—killers.

Just hearing it, you could tell it was the kind of epithet a demonic master wore like a badge.

And if their epithet carried the stink of “bad guy” this openly, it meant one thing:

You could kill that bastard without asking a single question.

“If one without strength holds a treasure, it becomes disaster. This elder is offering to help you out of special kindness.”

Qing’s mouth fell open.

What is this?

Is it my birthday or something?

Why is it so intense? A lucky day? There’s not even anyone to buy me soup.

And a little while later—

The demonic master known throughout Baeksan as the Baeksan Twin Slayers no longer existed in this world.

Maybe because she’d warmed up properly before dinner, the evening meal went down like heaven—smooth, easy, perfect.

So she thought this special day was finally wrapping up.

But then—

She stepped out to buy snacks to eat in the mountains, and a sly hand crept toward her money pouch.

Qing snapped her wrist around and caught that hand tight, then turned her head to check the face.

She checked the face because pickpockets were often minors, and she tended to let kids off.

And above the head was a number only Qing could see.

Old enough to be old.

Evil karma: confirmed. Human rejection beast: qualified.

So—

CRACK.

A bone breaking.

“AAAGH!”

Then—

GRRRK.

Bone grinding.

“Ghhrrk...!”

The pickpocket foamed at the mouth and collapsed.

Looks like they couldn’t endure the pain of having their bones crushed while still alive. How weak.

Leaving the pickpocket behind, Qing wandered the market humming, light as air.

What is today? This is fun all day long.

Do you get rewarded for living nicely?

Seriously—if every day could be like today.

Come to think of it, maybe Lu Bu was a real lucky charm.

Aside from one pickpocket, weren’t all those evil people—no, evil beasts—basically delivered by Lu Bu?

Qing’s steps stayed impossibly buoyant.

*****

Musun County, the Yobin Inn.

The Yobin Pagoda Moyong Juhee said she wanted to go see was Musun County’s famous sight.

And with the strict laws of commerce in the Central Plains—if you wanted to use the name of a local landmark for your business, you needed the qualifications to back it up.

Meaning: the name “Yobin Inn” alone practically announced that it held the status of the best inn in Musun.

And Qing was, as always, the textbook specimen of an evil capitalist class—money rotting in her pockets—who took the best inn in the region, and then took the best room inside it.

So it was only natural she’d booked a room at the Yobin Inn.

And there was someone else staying at the Yobin Inn, too.

“Sword Demon? Up until now, I was confident that, in sheer quantity of food, no one under heaven could match me. But it seems the world is vast indeed.”

“Do you have a hungry ghost in your gut? Where does it even go—hell. Seriously.”

The Plunderer Demon couldn’t tear their eyes away from Qing’s meal.

Because in this primitive ancient Central Plains, a phenomenon far too advanced for the era—what you might call a live eating spectacle—was, to a bored primitive drowning in tedium, an event of overwhelming intensity.