Chapter 16 - The Hero

"Did you kill Machil?"

Gi Daehyo repeated the question when Dong Bongsu gave no answer.

A glance to the side revealed Gi Manji looking startled by Gi Daehyo's unexpected question. An ordinary murderer would have betrayed himself with a change of expression that all but announced, I'm the killer.

Naturally, Dong Bongsu's expression remained unchanged.

Gi Daehyo quietly studied his dull eyes.

Those stupid, unfocused eyes darted every which way, perhaps out of sheer terror at his arrival. Even so, Gi Daehyo persisted in peering into them.

He glared as though he meant to gouge Dong Bongsu's eyes out. His gaze seemed to say:

You're the culprit. No, you have to be!

Gi Daehyo had spent his entire life working in law enforcement and intelligence, proudly considering himself better at it than the Beggar Sect, the Afternoon Gate, or the authorities. Today, he had spent the entire day visiting every site where the Suicide Plague had struck.

His findings...

Nothing.

His son, Gi Manji, had suggested that perhaps all this really was the work of a plague, but Gi Daehyo had categorically dismissed the possibility.

If it were a plague, shouldn't there be some trace of disease? Black spots, a foul, rotten stench—there wasn't a single sign of a plague, was there?

It could not be a plague.

Then, if it wasn't a plague...

Who was the culprit? Who must it be?

He had inspected every location, and every crime scene had been a sealed room, just like the one at the Bongyang Inn. No sign of an intruder, only a suicide victim left all alone. Something about it felt contrived. It was perfect—far too perfect. As though, if a god existed, that god had committed the murders.

He stared into Dong Bongsu's pupils once more. Again, that stupid gaze gave no indication of what he was looking at.

'No. The culprit couldn't have eyes like these.'

Gi Daehyo had come to see Dong Bongsu to check one final possibility.

Not only had he thoroughly inspected the scenes, he had also interviewed everyone who had occupied the rooms adjoining the sealed rooms where the suicide victims had been found. Everyone except Dong Bongsu.

Before coming here, Dong Bongsu had been his sole remaining suspect.

And now...

Even that last suspect was beyond suspicion.

"Phew. Let's go."

"Pardon? Oh, yes, Father."

Looking as though he had no idea what was going on, Gi Manji left the stable at Gi Daehyo's words.

Before leaving the stable, Gi Daehyo turned to look at Dong Bongsu one last time.

'No, it can't be him...'

Hands and feet that looked as though they would snap if stepped on. A chest that looked as though one wrong touch would shatter it. That was certainly not the body of someone who had practiced the Bone-Shrinking Art. No, he could not have been a hidden unorthodox expert in the first place.

A fellow with a body far weaker than the average local thug. That was Gi Daehyo's assessment of Dong Bongsu.

"Phew."

With one final sigh, Gi Daehyo departed.

He would probably have trouble falling asleep tonight. In contrast, Dong Bongsu—the "carrier of the Suicide Plague" and the very man who had slaughtered a whole gang of perfectly capable thugs—would sleep soundly under the same roof.

Dong Bongsu watched Gi Daehyo's back until he had left the stable entirely. Rich moonlight spilled through the open door, licking across Dong Bongsu's clear, uncanny eyes.

What a shame. Gi Daehyo should have seen those eyes.

Eyes that held an eerily luminous shadow even in the moonlight.

CREAK. CLICK.

Once again, the stable became a world of silent darkness.

Dong Bongsu's shadowed eyes could now hide their light within that pitch-black space.

He remained in that position for a while, mentally organizing the new rules he had been working on earlier. Then, as always, he lay down on his bed of straw.

"Looks like I'll be busier starting tomorrow."

He had plenty of new prey.

That night, beneath the bewitching glow of the moon,

the Suicide Plague vanished from Fengyang without a trace.

And starting tomorrow, a new wind of slaughter would sweep through Fengyang.

● ● ●

New Murim Online, Rule 4: When taking Items out of Inventory, Dong Bongsu can draw them out through any part of his body.

New Murim Online, Rule 5: Upon leveling up, his body emits white light, and all his wounds heal. At the same time, all his stats increase slightly.

New Murim Online, Rule 6: Skills use a proficiency system. In other words, the more he uses a Skill, the more proficient he becomes.

New Murim Online, Rule 7: The passive Skill Spirit Eye detects threats that come within a twenty-meter radius of Dong Bongsu and alerts him.

● ● ●

Not long after the Suicide Plague disappeared,

a rumor began circulating through Fengyang.

- A Nameless Hero has appeared and is executing Black Faction members!

Black Faction members were the people belonging to the Unorthodox Factions. Ordinary folk often called them something else: Stinking Trash.

They could glorify one another as heroes of the back alleys or guardians in the shadows all they liked. Trash was still trash.

According to the Black Faction members, breaking the law was their own way of surviving!

Spouting fine-sounding bullshit that not even a dog crazed by the summer heat would bark, these dregs of humanity held Fengyang's back alleys and marketplaces in their grip. That was what Black Faction members were.

To keep earning their living and putting food in their mouths, the people of the marketplace had no choice but to pay the Unorthodox Factions so-called protection money and carry on with their business. Resentment welled up inside them, threatening to spill from their lips at any moment, but what could they do?

Poverty was a sin. Weakness was a sin. Yet the greatest sin was having no choice but to endure it all and go on living.

But then...

One day, Black Faction members suddenly began dying. When the first one or two died, people assumed it was merely a power struggle among the Unorthodox Factions. But one became two, two became four, four became eight...

Until, at last,

of the Three-Colored Unorthodox Factions that dominated Fengyang's back alleys, the White Tiger Unit and the Red Wolf Gate were wiped out. Now only the Black Society remained.

People readily called him a hero. They praised him as a true champion who upheld justice out of sight.

Rumor bred rumor and spread far and wide, until people were even saying that the Nameless Hero had put an end to the Suicide Plague.

Before long, every righteous deed performed within Fengyang's walls was being credited to him.

Whether the rumors were true no longer mattered. In the hearts of Fengyang's people, he had already become the perfect champion of justice.

People remained curious about him, but no one knew his true identity. No one had so much as glimpsed his shadow.

And so, they called him...

the Nameless Hero.

● ● ●

Tonight, too, the Nameless Hero ventured into the streets to uphold justice.

He headed for Paradise Village, Fengyang's last remaining hotbed of crime. Located at the city's northern edge, it was a cluster of derelict houses on the verge of collapse, packed together like an ants' nest. Calling it a village was generous. It was a breeding ground for every sort of wickedness and, in practice, one of the Black Society's key dens.

It was so frightening a place that even in daylight, few but the Black Society's members ventured there. What more needed to be said about a night like this?

A bleak atmosphere weighed over the entire village.

Was it his imagination?

The air felt suffocatingly dense, and somehow the place seemed even grimmer than usual.

The Nameless Hero slipped stealthily into that sinister Paradise Village.

Then, at one point—

"Urgh!"

A short scream rang through Paradise Village, announcing the start of his righteous deeds.

"He's here! Attack! Get him! Kill him!"

As though they had been waiting for that very moment, dark figures appeared all over Paradise Village at once, raising an uproar. They were Black Society members. They had been waiting for the Nameless Hero to appear.

Now that he was here, they had to do everything in their power to kill him, if only to save their own lives.

"Aaargh!"

"Kill him!"

"You son of a bitch! Die!"

True to their kind, the Black Faction members hurled every imaginable curse as they charged like lightning toward the source of the first scream.

There stood a slender masked figure, certainly dressed differently from them. Presumably, he was the Nameless Hero.

As though he had anticipated their arrival, the Nameless Hero charged straight at them the moment they appeared.

SWISH! SLASH! THUNK!

Slashing, cutting, stabbing.

A few economical movements sent a dozen or so Black Society members to the ground in sprays of blood. The corpses lying beneath the moonlight soon grew cold.

The Nameless Hero did not stop there. He kept running forward, slaughtering every Black Faction member in his path. Behind him, the remaining scores gave chase, brandishing straight swords, sabers, and spears.

"Die!"

THUNK.

The tall man at the head of the pursuit thrust his spear at the Nameless Hero's back. A faint sound of escaping air followed. Had he pierced the Nameless Hero's heart?

"... Huh?"

No.

That had been nothing more than wishful thinking. The one who died was the spearman himself. His eyes held a look of utter incomprehension.

"Grrrgh..."

A low groan escaped his mouth, but he could not finish it. The sword buried deep inside his mouth was slicing through his uvula.

Just before departing for the afterlife, a thought occurred to him.

'How did a sword come out of the back of his—'

But even that stray thought could not reach its end. The sword lodged in his throat split his brain in half as well.

His comrades were still some distance away and had not seen how he died. That was their fatal mistake. Had they witnessed it, they might have realized that their opponent attacked not by normal means, but through bizarre, unconventional tricks.

THUD.

The remaining Black Faction members leaped over the tall man's head as his corpse fell to the ground and hurled themselves at the Nameless Hero.

"Aaaaaaargh!"

Did they think that if they shouted loudly enough, their opponent would obligingly let them hit him? They rushed the Nameless Hero, yelling like madmen.

SWISH! SLASH! THUNK!

The same crisp sounds the Nameless Hero's sword had made earlier rang out. The difference was that this time, they came from the Black Faction members' weapons, not his.

"W-we did it! We got the Nameless Hero!"

They were elated.

They had unmistakably felt their weapons connect, and a masked figure stood before them. The weapons they had swung and thrust were embedded all over his body. Blood gushed from him like a waterfall. No one could survive that much blood loss.

"D-did we kill him?!"

One of them voiced the question. Most of the others agreed. But one sharp-eyed man noticed something amiss.

"N-no! Th-there's a Black Society mark on his shoulder!"

The others turned their attention to the masked man's shoulder.

Sure enough, a black snake tattoo was visible through his torn sleeve. It was the initiation tattoo given to those joining the Black Society.

Which meant—

"F-fuck!"

Curses burst from their mouths all at once. And that became their collective last testament.

SWISH.

A gleaming blade swept swiftly across all their necks.

THUMP.

A hairline split suddenly appeared beneath the neck of the corpse they had mistaken for the Nameless Hero. The gap slowly widened. At last, the masked man's head left his neck and set off on a journey to the ground.

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD...

At the same time, every Black Faction member's head fell to the ground in exactly the same fashion.

Their necks had been severed so swiftly that they were still alive after hitting the ground. Their eyes were still trembling.

RUMBLE...

The head of the masked man they had mistaken for the Nameless Hero rolled into their midst. His mask had already come off, perhaps from the impact of hitting the ground.

With his tongue poking out, the head stared at them as though mocking them all. Even with their heads severed, the Black Faction members recognized his face.

It was a face they knew well.

He was none other than their leader, Gang Hae, who had been guarding the entrance to Paradise Village—the first man to scream.

How...

Every one of them died with that unanswered question buried in his heart.

Having hosted a neighborhood meeting of severed heads, the Nameless Hero quietly moved on to his next target.