Chapter 204 - You Be the Ones to Put Up With It

When Geom Mugeuk released the First Immortal’s mute point, money that had not existed suddenly materialized.

“I forgot. I have some money saved separately at Continent Bank.”

“How much?”

“About four hundred thousand taels.”

“You’ve saved quite a lot, haven’t you?”

The First Immortal also revealed Continent Bank’s passphrase. Go Wol made sure to write that down as well.

The eight hundred thousand taels in Immortal Debt funds, plus the four hundred thousand the First Immortal had saved separately. They had already secured a total of one million two hundred thousand taels. The Second Immortal began blinking furiously, his face angry.

Back to the Second Immortal.

“All this time, you only gave us fifty thousand taels, while you pocketed four hundred thousand yourself?”

Far from looking sorry, the First Immortal looked ready to argue back, but with his mute point suppressed, he could not say a word.

“The First Immortal has more assets. I know he bought gold and hid it away.”

The First Immortal could not hide his dismay. Apparently, he had intended to feign ignorance about the gold to the bitter end.

When the Second Immortal scored points with his gold, the First Immortal blinked irritably. A blinking war had begun between them.

The First Immortal’s turn again.

“I was going to mention the gold too. Give me the credit!”

“No. If you think that’s unfair, stop forgetting and keep better track. Otherwise, our second immortal might take credit for your assets again.”

The First Immortal gave up on his wealth entirely. As long as he survived, he could always make more money.

“I’ve bought some land.”

“How many pyeong?”

“Quite a lot.”

In fact, this had begun as a way to obtain information rather than wealth, but the two men had misunderstood the situation. From Geom Mugeuk’s perspective, it was a welcome mistake.

Meanwhile, the more of the First Immortal’s wealth came to light, the greater the Second Immortal’s sense of betrayal became.

“Brothers, you said? You son of a bitch! You were pocketing everything yourself.”

Actually, he thought skimming money was acceptable. What angered him was that the First Immortal had done it without telling him.

On his next turn, the First Immortal retorted.

“Don’t you realize you only made even those fifty thousand taels because of me? Without me, you’d have been stabbed to death in some gambling den by now. Hock, ptui!”

Their bond had been forged in loyalty, but when it collapsed, it happened in an instant.

In this fashion, the two men even disclosed all the assets belonging to the dead Third and Fourth Immortals. Their only thought was to win Geom Mugeuk’s favor somehow and survive. The Second Immortal also harbored a vengeful determination to kill the First Immortal.

When there were no more assets to reveal, Geom Mugeuk pressed their sleep points.

The two men, who had cursed each other whenever their turns came around, fell asleep.

Geom Mugeuk said to Go Wol,

“Tomorrow morning, take them around the banks first and recover every last bit of their assets.”

“Yes, understood.”

He intended to keep them alive until then. The First Immortal might have given them false bank passphrases.

Geom Mugeuk made a request of the Wind Heaven Cult Leader.

“Please help Strategist Go tomorrow.”

“Very well.”

The Wind Heaven Cult Leader nodded readily.

“I expected you to give me an earful for making money by squeezing even these villains dry.”

“Do you know how hard Go Wol and I work with that money you squeeze out of them?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t saying that to claim credit. I meant that those villains’ money is being put to good use.”

With this infusion of Immortal Debt funds, it looked as though they might be able to bring the construction of the intelligence network to a reasonably complete state.

“Go Wol told me all about those bastards. Why let them sleep? Hang them upside down!”

“Understood. I’ll start pulling out their fingernails when they wake up.”

Of course, he was joking. No matter how evil someone was, death was the end of it. That was Geom Mugeuk’s firm rule—not for their sake, but for his own.

After finishing his conversation with the Wind Heaven Cult Leader, Geom Mugeuk approached the Fist Demon. He was gazing up at the moon, as though unconcerned with what was happening over here.

Geom Mugeuk stood beside him and looked up at the moon as well.

“Do you know what I realized on this journey? I’ve lived a life too consumed by martial arts. I’ve spent my whole life training, my whole life fighting.”

Geom Mugeuk had once said something similar to Yi An: not to spend her entire life doing nothing but training. Now the Fist Demon was expressing that very regret.

“I realized just now that this is the first time I’ve ever looked at the moon for so long. Does that make any sense? To have lived my whole life without ever gazing at it for even the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.”

Geom Mugeuk’s gaze rested on the moon alongside his.

“Then start enjoying your life now.”

“I intend to.”

If he could keep that promise, if he could actually take a step back from martial arts... perhaps he really could bring down that cliff. Martial arts could only change when one’s life changed.

* * *

The next day, Go Wol and the Wind Heaven Cult Leader took the First and Second Immortals around the banks. The passphrases they had provided were correct. They recovered not only the money but also the gold held in safekeeping, and liquidated and collected their other assets as well.

The First Immortal had amassed this enormous wealth in just a few years. That also meant there had been all the more victims.

The First and Second Immortals said anything they could think of to win Go Wol’s favor, but he did not respond to a single word. It was the Wind Heaven Cult Leader who spoke to them instead.

Of course, he chose only things they did not want to hear, such as saying they would go to the most agonizing of all hells, or that he had placed a bet on which of them would survive. They pretended not to hear him either.

Once most of their assets had been dealt with, Geom Mugeuk sat the two men down before him again.

“Now, shall we talk about your financier?”

The First Immortal believed this answer would determine whether he lived or died.

‘I can’t tell him everything! But I can’t look as though I’m hiding anything either!’

That was the key. The problem was that he knew very little about the financier.

‘How can I dress this up so I survive?’

The First Immortal glanced at the Second Immortal beside him. Still, that bastard knew nothing about this, so he had to score decisive points here.

‘I can survive. I’ve handed over far more wealth, and if I provide information about the financier too, I’ll be the one who lives!’

After taking a deep breath, the First Immortal spoke.

“I’ve only seen the financier once.”

“When?”

“When I first joined hands with him.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“No. A curtain hung between us, so I couldn’t see his face. But there was one thing I could tell for certain. Judging by his voice, he was a man who sounded fairly old.”

“So now we have to search for a man who sounds fairly old. I wonder how many of those there are in the world.”

Flustered by Geom Mugeuk’s mockery, the First Immortal hastily added,

“The men Lord Fist Demon killed yesterday were the Eight Ghost Swords. They wouldn’t act for money alone, so the financier isn’t merely a wealthy man. He must be the head of a major sect or someone with great power.”

At that moment, the Second Immortal began blinking.

The First Immortal quickly said,

“There’s no need to release his mute point. He knows nothing about the financier.”

“That’s what he says. What should I do? Do you have better information?”

At Geom Mugeuk’s question, the Second Immortal blinked even faster.

Geom Mugeuk suppressed the First Immortal’s mute point and released the Second Immortal’s again.

What came out of the Second Immortal’s mouth exceeded his expectations.

“I’ve actually spoken to that man myself. With no curtain between us.”

The muted First Immortal blinked and groaned as he tried to speak. It was a vehement signal that every word was a lie.

“Tell me in detail.”

“It was the very day the First Immortal met him. I was waiting for the First Immortal on the driver’s seat of our carriage, which was parked in the manor courtyard. A little while later, the financier came out first. But as he climbed into his carriage, I saw him dip his head toward the driver. It was unmistakably a gesture of respect.”

The First Immortal struggled and groaned so much that his mute point was released too.

“He’s lying! Why would the financier bow to a driver?”

“It’s true. I saw it clearly.”

With both men able to speak at once, things grew noisy.

“He made it up. If that had happened, he would have told me then. Why didn’t you?”

“What was I supposed to say? That you’d been fooled by an underling like a moron? That the driver seemed to be the real financier? What would you have done then? You’d have told me to stop talking shit and beaten me up. Wouldn’t you?”

The First Immortal could offer no rebuttal. That was indeed what he would have done.

“You bastard! Who do you think you’re fooling? Do you want to survive by being such a coward?”

“A coward? Where did that come from? Your own filthy mind, wasn’t it?”

I gestured for the First Immortal to be quiet, then spoke to the Second Immortal.

“Go on.”

“I even chatted with the driver while I waited. He was an ordinary man. He had a round, friendly-looking face, and—oh! He had a tattoo on his chest. I happened to see it when he bent over.”

“What kind of tattoo?”

“A golden pig. It was so strange to see a pig tattooed on someone’s body that I still remember that tattoo vividly!”

Perhaps sensing that the Second Immortal was providing important information, the First Immortal intervened.

“This bastard specializes in lying. Don’t believe him. He’ll spout any bullshit to survive...”

THWACK!

The First Immortal vanished from in front of the Second. His face shattered by my blow, he tumbled far away as a corpse.

Startled, the Second Immortal looked at me. His shock soon turned to joy.

“So I survived!”

He was so delighted he looked ready to soar.

“He was the worse bastard, after all. It’s only right that you die after him.”

The Second Immortal flinched. Die after him—surely that meant later, after he had grown old? But it did not. Geom Mugeuk’s eyes as he looked at him were utterly cold.

“Please spare me!”

“From the start, all four of you had done things you couldn’t survive. Be satisfied that I’m giving you an easy death.”

“Keep your promise, you son of a bitch! Who the hell are you? Who are you to...”

THWACK!

The Second Immortal flew all the way to where the First Immortal lay and died.

Geom Mugeuk had not hesitated in the slightest to eliminate them. He had no desire to see them reform, nor did he reveal his identity to grant their deaths the grand significance of having been killed by the Demonic Cult’s Second Young Master.

When he turned around, the Fist Demon was walking toward him.

“Weren’t you planning to dig up the people behind them too?”

“I was.”

“Then is it all right to kill them both?”

“I found out who’s behind them.”

A round build, a golden pig tattoo on his chest. He was someone I knew well before my regression. Sometimes a carriage driver, sometimes a construction laborer, sometimes a tavern waiter. He enjoyed hiding his identity. And he was also an extraordinarily greedy man.

“To kill him, I’ll need Father’s permission.”

The Fist Demon was startled by Geom Mugeuk’s words.

“Who on earth is he?”

A name left Geom Mugeuk’s lips.

“Ji Saeng.”

The Fist Demon immediately thought of someone.

“Surely not? That Golden Pig from the Unorthodox Alliance?”

“Yes. That’s the man.”

“He’s behind all this?”

The Fist Demon’s expression hardened. Not because their opponent was Ji Saeng. Not because he belonged to the Unorthodox Alliance. It was because Ji Saeng was one particular man’s loyal servant.

The man most favored by the leader of the Unorthodox Alliance, and commander of its most elite organization, the Ultimate Corps, which answered only to the alliance leader.

Yelü Han, the Unorthodox Alliance’s second-in-command.

Ji Saeng was one of Yelü Han’s four most valued henchmen. When those subordinates swore their loyalty, each had a tattoo etched onto his chest. Ji Saeng had reportedly chosen a golden pig and sworn to bring in an inexhaustible stream of money for the rest of his life.

“That money ultimately went to Yelü Han.”

Geom Mugeuk felt that fate had guided him here. It was not merely because of this incident.

Yelü Han.

He was the sworn enemy of someone who also shared a deep bond with Geom Mugeuk: the Demon Physician.

When the Demon Physician performed the New Eye Procedure and asked him to kill someone one day, that person was Yelü Han. Although the physician had not yet named him directly, Geom Mugeuk already knew.

Yelü Han had slaughtered the Demon Physician’s family before his eyes. Ever since that day, the physician had lived solely to kill Yelü Han. When Geom Mugeuk heard his request, he had resolved to act once he was strong enough. Now he felt the time had come.

The Fist Demon noticed that I had no intention of giving up.

“Yelü Han is out of the question!”

“Why?”

“If you mishandle this, you could start a war.”

“There won’t be a war. There will be an uproar and plenty of chaos, though.”

“You’re serious.”

In the past, the Demon Physician had asked Father to kill him, but Father had refused.

Enjoying the absolute trust of the Unorthodox Alliance’s leader, Yelü Han was far more than merely an evil man from the unorthodox factions.

“I considered whoever was behind this to be the worst of them all. He hid in the shadows and used lackeys like the First Immortal to suck young people dry until they died. In a few days, Ji Saeng will probably receive a report that the Immortals are all dead. Then he’ll create more Immortals and repeat the same thing. Even if Ji Saeng dies, another Ji Saeng will take his place.”

These were precisely the sort of men Geom Mugeuk considered absolute evil.

An evil that even the orthodox factions could not touch, and that ordinary people could not even approach.

Father had once asked what the Demonic Path meant to him. He had answered:

[“I believe it is our Cult’s unique conviction to crush absolute evil.”]

To him, the Demonic Path meant destroying the great evils that even the orthodox factions were powerless against. Those evils should tremble at the words “Demonic Cult.” That was the Divine Cult of the Heavenly Demon he wanted to build.

“Ordinary people would have to back down and accept that nothing could be done. They’d have to put up with it. But we’re not ordinary people, are we? We don’t have to put up with it, do we? The reason I trained and worked myself half to death was so I wouldn’t have to at times like this. Why should we put up with it? They should be the ones to put up with it. Stop tormenting people and cut out their fucking bullshit.”

The Fist Demon stared at Geom Mugeuk in silence. Geom Mugeuk silently returned his gaze.

Given his temperament, the Fist Demon was the person most likely to be swayed by this argument. Given his relationship with Father, he was also the least likely.

At last, the Fist Demon broke the long silence and announced the end of their journey.

“Let’s return to the Cult. This little slacking-off trip ends here.”

The journey that had begun so abruptly came to an equally abrupt end. But it was too soon to be disappointed. Turning his broad back toward him, the Fist Demon added something wholly unexpected.

“To get the cult leader’s permission, all the Demon Supremes will have to step forward.”