Chapter 37 - Fierce Battle Aboard Ship (2)

In truth, four characters alone could convey half the message. But the four that followed were far more important.

Should he withdraw now, or finish writing the remaining four before leaving? Choosing the latter meant eliminating everyone who stood in his way. He had already confirmed that the guard squad's members were vastly inferior to him in combat. Their leader's abilities, however, remained unknown. Spirit Eye's silence told him only that the level difference between them was less than ten.

"It's too quiet, Squad Leader. Something is definitely wrong."

Footsteps sounded again, accompanied by the voice of someone he presumed was a squad member. They were considerably closer than before. They had probably reached the towerlike cabin. With the stairs to the hold directly beneath it, they would soon be coming down.

The moment of decision had come.

Dong Bongsu's eyes glittered in the darkness. His decision was instantaneous. By the time he had settled on his course, he was already moving.

"I can see that myself, you little shit!"

While the squad leader snapped at his subordinate's pestering, Dong Bongsu was already slipping out through the oar port he had used to enter the ship.

Had he chosen the first option—flight?

Just as Dong Bongsu slipped through the oar port, four shadowy figures descended to the spot where he had stood moments earlier. The fire sticks they carried soon illuminated the hold.

"Gasp!"

"Wh-what is this!"

Their reactions varied, but the emotion they expressed was the same.

Horror.

The feeling that seizes a person when something unexpected shocks them to the core.

The hold reeked of blood, and human bodies lay scattered everywhere, torn apart like scraps of rag. Who wouldn't be horrified?

And when those bodies belonged to their comrades... surely nothing more needed to be said.

"F... fuck... Everyone out! Get off the ship, now!"

Squad Leader Gosangong shouted, but the man at the rear was already heading up to the deck before the words left his mouth.

CLATTER, THUD, THUD!

Whether they had identified the enemy no longer mattered. That was how appalling the scene in the hold had been. All that remained was to report this to the commander of the Cheonpung Unit.

The ship rocked slightly beneath their pounding footsteps.

Gosangong had led the way down into the hold, leaving him at the very back now.

Even as he followed his men toward the gangway, he kept watching behind him. Whoever had committed that atrocity might still be in the hold. Yet the vicious intruder failed to appear despite all their noise. Perhaps he had already left the ship.

Just as Gosangong relaxed somewhat and turned toward the gangway—

"Huh? Aaaagh!"

The man in front stepped onto the gangway. No, more precisely, he tried to step onto it, planted his foot on empty air, and plunged straight toward Soho Lake.

"The gangway... disappeared!?"

The gangway had suddenly vanished from where it should have been, causing the Third Squad member in front to miss his footing and fall toward the lake.

THUNK. CRUNCH.

Then came the heavy sound of a sword sinking into flesh, followed by the dull grinding of bone.

That was the end of him.

The one who killed him was none other than Dong Bongsu.

Dong Bongsu had not fled at all. He had chosen the latter option: to finish what he had started. After slipping through the oar port, he had hidden directly beneath the gangway connecting the ship to the dock and waited for the guards to leave the vessel.

As expected, one of his enemies stepped onto the gangway, and he abruptly stored it in Inventory. Then he drove his blade into the mouth of the enemy who lost his footing and fell headfirst. To him, this was a perfectly natural 'guest reception service.'

'One.'

Four men in all had come up onto the deck. With one taken care of, three remained.

"Wh-what the hell!?"

He heard their startled cries. They would not come this way now. They would mistakenly believe an enemy—or enemies—was waiting for them beyond the dock. That would make it difficult for them to leave the ship.

Even with their fire sticks, it was the dead of night, past midnight. No fool would disembark with an enemy waiting beneath the dock in this darkness.

They were utterly confused now. It was time to finish this.

Dong Bongsu quickly worked his way along the edge he was hanging from and returned to the oar port. Without a moment's delay, he entered the hold. The sharp scent of blood from the bodies only partly transformed into writing stung his nose.

Soon, that scent would grow stronger still.

He immediately headed toward the cabin stairs. Just before he reached them, a shadow, backlit by the moon, stretched deep into the hold.

'Is someone coming down?'

Dong Bongsu immediately withdrew into the partitioned compartment inside the stern. It was easy to hide in its darkness, and the partition kept him from being seen. If an enemy came this way, he could simply escape through the oar port again.

The risk?

Zero, of course.

He peeked out to observe the enemy's movements. If all three came into the hold, he clearly could not handle them at once. In that case, he would have to change his plan.

Only one enemy had descended. They had split up. The other two were probably near the dock, shining their fire sticks here and there. Either that, or they were milling about on the upper deck.

It made no difference.

While being carried inside earlier, Dong Bongsu had noticed that the squad leader and his men wore different colors. The men wore green; the leader wore blue.

This man wore green. A squad member. Besides, he was distracted by the bone fragments Dong Bongsu had embedded in the hold's floor. There was no reason to hesitate.

Dong Bongsu took a dagger from Inventory and crept through the darkness of the partitioned compartment.

WHIZZ.

A faint, thin whistle of parting air sounded through the hold.

The dagger struck squarely into the side of the guard's head.

He died on the spot, without so much as a final scream. Quietly but swiftly, Dong Bongsu approached the falling man and placed him in Inventory, preventing the noise his body would have made when it hit the floor.

'Two.'

Two dead. Two remained.

Dong Bongsu went to the cabin stairs and hurled the man he had just killed onto the deck.

THUD.

The body struck the deck with a slight tremor and a noise.

"S-Squad Leader! Over there!"

The voice of the last remaining rank-and-file member of the Cheonpung Unit's Third Squad reached Dong Bongsu's ears.

As expected, the two survivors were near the bow, where the gangway had been.

Dong Bongsu moved at once.

He went out through the oar port again. This time, instead of heading toward the gangway, he wedged his fingers into the narrow seams between the hull's fir planks and climbed straight up toward the deck. The oar port was at the stern, ten meters from the towerlike cabin and more than twenty meters from the bow.

With the tall cabin's shadow behind him, he gained the stern deck completely unseen. A bench—the long seat commonly found on pleasure boats—stood there, making it easy for him to hide.

He remained concealed in the darkness while his enemies still wandered the deck carrying their fire sticks. Gosangong and his subordinate had moved from the bow toward the cabin amidships and were examining the man Dong Bongsu had just killed.

They never dreamed he was watching them from the stern. Dong Bongsu drew more daggers. Two this time.

Without the slightest hesitation, he hurled them at the backs of his enemies' heads. His passive Throw Skill had already reached level eight, giving him an action bonus of a full forty percent.

WHOOOSH!

Though he had never learned any throwing-blade techniques, his daggers flew with extraordinary speed.

THUNK.

CLANG!

Two different sounds rang out at once.

The unguarded squad member died instantly as a dagger buried itself in the back of his head. Gosangong, however, heard the air tearing and blocked his dagger with the sword-drawing technique he had honed for ten years in the Namgung Clan. It had been a hairbreadth escape, a triumph of instinct.

"There you are?"

Gosangong looked toward the stern where Dong Bongsu was hiding as he spoke. But he did not rashly approach. On the contrary, he backed away. He believed Dong Bongsu was not the only enemy.

Anyone would probably have thought the same. Who would imagine that a single person had been moving through the oar port, appearing and disappearing like a ghost?

'Three.'

Three of the four were dead. Only one enemy remained. The problem was that he was the guard squad's leader. Frankly, when Dong Bongsu had thrown those daggers, he had expected to kill Gosangong. Yet the man had blocked his attack so easily that it seemed to mock that expectation.

Could he win?

A meaningless question. He had already committed himself. He had to win, no matter what.

Dong Bongsu drew his Beginner's Sword.

As he cautiously approached Gosangong, he thought:

'His level is higher than mine. I can't beat him in a normal fight. If I'm going to make certain I win, I need a method or strategy that will let me do it.'

Then what method and strategy did he need?

In the end, it came down to one thing.

'Make the fullest possible use of the techniques I have.'

He, Dong Bongsu, had Skills. He needed to employ those Skills and every other technique at his disposal at the right moment, in the right way, to overcome his enemy.

As he walked, he began reviewing every technique he possessed.

First, his current active Skills were:

[Three Forces Sword Art, First and Second Forms], [Qinggong], [Qi Circulation]

Those three.

The others—Spirit Eye, Slash, Thrust, Throw, Block, and so forth—were passives that remained constantly in effect.

Beyond those, he had the Inventory Divine Art. In practice, it was both the finest survival technique and the finest offensive Skill in his entire arsenal.