Chapter 18 - Hunting, and More Hunting

The season had begun.

Hunting season.

Dong Bongsu began turning the tables on those searching for him, killing them instead.

As always, he proceeded with extreme caution, but things did not go entirely smoothly.

He knew perfectly well that he was still very weak. A head-on confrontation was dangerous, so he finished everything with a surprise attack whenever possible.

Applying the Inventory tricks he had used so often during the Suicide Plague, he would shake off the Black Faction members pursuing him, then secretly circle behind them and kill them. Sometimes he lured them somewhere secluded and set the place on fire. Whatever method he chose, he stayed several moves ahead of them.

When your body was weak, you could win with brains and patience.

One by one, members of the White Tiger Unit, one of Fengyang’s three major Unorthodox Factions, died that way.

By the time its leader, White Tiger, finally recognized the danger, more than half his men were already dead.

In the process, Dong Bongsu raised his level from 2 to 4. He also gained an unintended side benefit: a useful new mask called the Nameless Hero.

Thanks to that, dealing with the Unorthodox Factions became even easier. The authorities and townspeople had transformed his murderous spree into a series of heroic deeds. When acting as the Nameless Hero, he no longer needed to worry about prying eyes.

Even so, he continued killing as cautiously as possible. He knew better than anyone that a single moment’s mistake could lead to failure. No matter the moment or the circumstances, he could never afford to let his guard down.

A wolf pack never attacked a large animal head-on. It circled its prey, taking a bite whenever an opening appeared, wearing the animal down.

Sometimes a bite to the leg, sometimes to the rump, and sometimes to the testicles.

Eventually, the exhausted animal collapsed.

Dong Bongsu continued attacking the White Tiger Unit in much the same way, relying on lures, misdirection, ambushes, arson, disguises, and more. Only he had to be even more careful. He was alone, not a pack.

And so the White Tiger Unit slowly fell apart.

Even so, its most important member—White Tiger himself—remained alive and well. As Dong Bongsu continued fighting them, he realized that White Tiger was the White Tiger Unit. Until he eliminated its leader, the unit could still be considered intact.

From the moment he recognized that, he began torturing its Black Faction members instead of killing them immediately. He wanted to gather as much information about White Tiger as possible before they died. As a result, he learned a great deal about the man.

However.

Every last piece of information led to the same conclusion: White Tiger had no openings. Moreover, judging his martial prowess indirectly from his men’s statements, Dong Bongsu, who was only level 4, could not handle him even with a surprise attack.

To make matters worse, his subordinates’ repeated deaths had made White Tiger extremely reluctant to venture outside. He was now even harder to get at, and the White Tiger Unit’s den, which Dong Bongsu had finally located after so much effort, was becoming a fortress.

Even an ambush offered no guarantee of victory. With White Tiger holed up like that, killing him was impossible. Nor could Dong Bongsu simply enter the den.

Even under those circumstances, Dong Bongsu discovered one tiny opening.

Rare as it was, White Tiger did sometimes leave his den.

He carefully observed when White Tiger went out.

White Tiger left for only two reasons.

Collecting money and fucking his mistress. Those were the two.

Even then, he did not come out alone. He took dozens of Black Faction members with him.

In terms of martial prowess alone, the gulf between their forces was so vast that Dong Bongsu could do nothing more against White Tiger and his unit, not even if he died and came back to life.

Yet from White Tiger’s very first outing, Dong Bongsu had been smiling inwardly with satisfaction. At last, he had found a way to get him.

No matter how meticulous someone was, certain situations inevitably made them lower their guard. Dong Bongsu aimed for one of those primal moments of vulnerability—the best of them all.

Timing his move for a day when White Tiger would visit his mistress, he secretly slipped into her house. For someone who could remove posts using his Inventory, it was child’s play.

That was how he infiltrated the privy. Without the slightest hesitation, he submerged himself in the human excrement, holding nothing but a breathing tube made from bamboo leaves in his mouth.

The first few attempts failed because White Tiger did not come to the privy. The next few times, only his mistress came, spraying a mixture of semen, vaginal fluids, and urine. But Dong Bongsu was a patient man. Whenever White Tiger went out, he infiltrated the mistress’s house without missing a single day.

Eventually, he succeeded.

After a passionate bout of sex with his mistress, White Tiger came to relieve himself in comfort, releasing the essence of his climax along with his shit. Dong Bongsu drove a sword into his asshole. The blade pierced upward and out through his throat, sending the bastard to the Yellow Springs before he could even let out a proper scream.

Surely he had no regrets. He must have thoroughly enjoyed that final orgasm before he departed.

That brought Dong Bongsu to level 5 and earned him two new Skills:

Qinggong and the First Form of the Three Forces Sword Art, Sweep Away a Thousand Armies.

[Qinggong Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]

A martial art that makes the body lighter. Learning Qinggong allows you to jump higher and run faster.

Currently Applied Level: Lv.0 (The player can adjust this Skill’s level.)

Jumping Power Bonus: 0%

Movement Speed Bonus: 0%

True Qi Consumption per Second: 0 JP

[Three Forces Sword Art, First Form: Sweep Away a Thousand Armies Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]

An exceedingly common sword art in Murim. Even ordinary people without internal energy can learn it.

Sweep Away a Thousand Armies is an enhanced version of a sideways Slash.

All action bonuses for this Skill depend on the proficiency of related Skills and whether sword qi/sword force is being used.

Currently Applied Level: Lv.1 (The player can adjust this Skill’s level.)

Horizontal Slash Range Bonus: 1%

Horizontal Slash Attack Power Bonus: 1%

Horizontal Slash Execution Speed Bonus: 0%

True Qi Consumption per Use: 30 JP

Those were the two.

● ● ●

Qinggong and Sweep Away a Thousand Armies were the first two active Skills Dong Bongsu had received. With them, he could finally face Black Faction members head-on.

With White Tiger gone, Dong Bongsu intended to finish off the White Tiger Unit easily and begin hunting his next target.

The Red Wolf Gate and the Black Society remained. Which of the two Unorthodox Factions should he strike first?

He did not ponder it for long.

While the Black Society lay low after the White Tiger Unit’s destruction, the Red Wolf Gate stepped forward and aggressively tried to absorb its territory. They were taking advantage of the Nameless Hero’s elimination of the White Tiger Unit to expand their own power.

His next target was decided.

The Red Wolf Gate.

They had underestimated the Nameless Hero—no, Dong Bongsu—far too much. Either that, or they were simply too greedy.

Using his new Skills and the Inventory Divine Art, Dong Bongsu dealt with the Red Wolf Gate’s Black Faction members with relative ease. Unlike when he had fought the White Tiger Unit, he did not limit himself to ambushes. At times, he boldly attacked head-on.

Bi Gyuseo, the sect leader of the Red Wolf Gate, was bewildered. The Nameless Hero was far stronger and more aggressive than he had expected. He had thought there would be no major problem as long as he guarded against ambushes, but his calculations had been completely wrong.

It was inevitable. Dong Bongsu was evolving by the day. Leveling up was only part of it: his use of the Inventory was growing ever more adept, and his understanding and proficiency with his Skills were increasing exponentially.

The Red Wolf Gate’s power dwindled much faster than the White Tiger Unit’s had, and the more it diminished, the wilder Fengyang’s townspeople became. The faster he killed, and the more people he killed, the greater the Nameless Hero’s reputation for chivalry grew.

“Nameless Hero! Nameless Hero! Mysterious great hero! I’ll call your name too!”

By the time children had finally begun making up songs and playing hero games in imitation of the Nameless Hero, even Bi Gyuseo had been handed a ticket to the Yellow Springs by one of Dong Bongsu’s ambushes.

The Red Wolf Gate was wiped from the face of the earth, and for his efforts, Dong Bongsu earned enough experience to pass level 6 and approach level 7.

By then, he knew he had grown much stronger.

He also realized that the time to move on to the next stage was approaching.

The experience he could gain from Black Faction members had become severely limited, much like the amount he had earned killing ordinary people back at level 1.

It was still reasonably worthwhile, but he expected that by the time he finished clearing out the Black Society, the experience from killing them would be negligible.

Indeed, even after sweeping through Paradise Village, the Black Society’s base, today, he had gained little experience. He had already been close to level 7 before coming here, yet he had only barely reached it.

Even so, Dong Bongsu was satisfied with today’s results.

The “Inventory Divine Art,” which he had grown quite accustomed to by now, had once again proved highly effective. He had used it to dispatch enemies coming from behind, and also to store the abandoned houses’ beams in his Inventory after distracting the hidden enemies with deceptive tactics involving corpses.

He had also become much better at applying his new Skill, Sweep Away a Thousand Armies. Using a corpse as a shield, he had drawn his enemies into one place and slaughtered them en masse with the form. An ordinary Slash could never have produced that effect.

His Qinggong had now reached level 3, boosting his jumping power and movement speed by a full 100%. Since it consumed a great deal of JP—True Qi Points—he normally kept it switched off, activating it at whatever level he needed when the situation called for it.

How strong am I now?

The question suddenly occurred to Dong Bongsu. It was not something he could answer himself, but he could define it with one short, emphatic word.

“Quite.”

He was quite strong now.

Compared to when he had lived in Seoul, the difference was like that between a firefly’s glow and moonlight.

In that case...

Was it time to start killing martial artists?