Chapter 66 - Eight Directions Armory

There, in three magnificent characters, was the name the man had written with a single flourish of the brush. The officer had no idea what the man had done before coming here, but anyone with calligraphy that fine surely had a story.

'But that's none of my concern anyway.'

To the owner of a hunting dog, only its teeth mattered. Whether the beast was a purebred was not worth considering.

The man's name was Kang Dalhui.

"Looks like Ear Ghost is going too."

Ear Ghost. A ghost of ears.

That was what the other vagabonds around him called him. It was the new nickname Kang Dalhui—no, Dong Bongsu—had acquired here.

Everyone else cut off ears to make money, but Dong Bongsu cut off so many that the act itself seemed to be his purpose. That was how he had earned the name.

"If Ear Ghost's going, this should be a little easier."

"You can say that again."

"Then let's sign up too."

With Ear Ghost joining the ear hunt, several dozen more vagabonds who had been hanging back enlisted as mercenaries. Watching them, the officer sneered inwardly.

'Idiots. Did Ear Ghost say he'd fight for you? Or die in your place?'

His derision was justified. Mercenary survival rates were actually low on ear hunts Ear Ghost took part in. Ear Ghost might survive, but countless other mercenaries died. Every officer taking down names knew that perfectly well. Only the mercenaries were ignorant of it.

Still, the officers silently recorded the additional names. More mercenaries meant more hunting dogs to die in their place, did it not? They had no reason whatsoever to take the dogs' name tags off the list themselves.

In the end, roughly fifteen hundred names filled the register. Thanks to Ear Ghost, they had recruited far more mercenaries than expected. Satisfied, the officers closed recruitment.

"We depart for Guishui two days from now, at the hour of the dragon. Assemble in front of the Datong General Administration by then."

Not a single vagabond was listening anymore, but the officers performed their duties to the last.

"That is all."

Their work done, the officers left the vagabond market one by one. The vagabonds who had secured employment also streamed out. Among them was Ear Ghost, Dong Bongsu. The others headed for Datong's taverns, courtesan houses, and brothels, boisterously chatting with acquaintances they had met here and there. He walked alone. No one approached him, nor did anyone offer a greeting.

Keeping a respectful distance—or should it be called a fearful distance?

Even battle fiends like these mercenaries feared something: death. Like anyone else, they were afraid to die. They took others' lives without mercy, yet found the thought of their own deaths utterly horrifying. And so, whether they knew it or not, they carried both the madness of death and their terror of it within them. Naturally, they gathered among themselves to vent those feelings.

But a few vagabonds were special. Whether that was the right word was debatable, but unusual men certainly existed among them.

There were those who enjoyed killing for its own sake, those who had been professional killers virtually from birth, and former Murim masters who had fled here after a moment's mistake or the practice of demonic arts made them public enemies.

These were men intimately acquainted with death. The other vagabonds did not associate closely with them, despite sharing the same profession. They could not. Their abilities were so different that even the work they did was different. Low-ranking vagabonds had to take whatever jobs came their way, whereas these men were hired individually by people in Murim or the authorities for more "high-class" work. While the low-ranking vagabonds were paid by the head or the ear, these men were paid by the job, and the sums were worlds apart.

Thus, even without any deliberate effort by the low-ranking vagabonds to avoid them, a distance naturally formed.

Ear Ghost, however, was different. Though already classified as top-tier in this vagabond market, he continued to work as a mercenary and join the ear hunts.

Next time. The next time. Yes, surely he'd sit the next one out. Surely...

And yet, once again, Ear Ghost had signed up for the ear hunt without fail.

All sorts of rumors circulated, but no one knew anything definite about him. After all, no one here was close to him.

Dong Bongsu trudged toward his wooden house in the vagabond settlement on the outskirts of Datong. Watching him leave, a newcomer who had remained quiet until then grumbled.

"Tch. Young little bastard, putting on such fucking airs. Maybe I should chase him down and slit his throat."

THWACK!

A veteran standing nearby overheard his muttering and cuffed him hard on the back of the head.

"You've lost your fucking mind."

"Are you crazy, you bastard? Who the hell are you to hit me? Huh?"

Unable to stomach the blow, the newcomer snapped back. Another veteran drew his sword.

"When someone who's lived longer gives you advice, you should fucking listen. There's always some little prick who has to make trouble."

SHING!

The cold blade was already at the newcomer's throat. Only then did he shut his mouth.

"Now, listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. I don't want to taste the red broth coming out of that filthy neck of yours, still stinking of mother's milk. Understand?"

"I said, do you understand, you little greenhorn shit?"

The newcomer had no choice but to nod, knowing even that would scratch his throat. If he did not, he felt the man really would cut it open.

As a thin trickle of blood began to escape his neck, the veteran started telling him about Ear Ghost.

"It must've been about a year ago. That's when this scrawny, shabby little bastard showed up looking like a beggar..."

A boy. Or perhaps a young man who had just turned twenty.

Shabby as he was, being a boy alone made him rare prey in Datong. There might have been plenty of courtesans in the city, but most were past their prime: old prostitutes, or women whose bodies were so worn out that they could no longer stir a man's lust. With little choice, the vagabonds used them instead of their own hands to satisfy their urges, but sometimes they were worse than a hand.

Here, a young boy's firm backside was worth more than an old prostitute's sagging breasts.

On the day Dong Bongsu arrived, five or six ravenous vagabonds dragged him into an alley. Another dozen or so waited outside, licking their lips for their turn.

"Heh heh heh..."

Twisted lust overflowed through the low-ranking vagabonds' settlement tucked into a corner of Datong.

That mood shattered in less than a quarter of an hour.

TAP, TAP.

Light footsteps. They did not belong to any of the hulking vagabonds. Soon their owner emerged from the alley.

The vagabonds, their cocks straining, were startled. It was not simply because Dong Bongsu had come out first.

Blood streamed between the fingers of his tightly clenched right hand. It gathered and fell to the filthy ground of the settlement with the sound of dripping rain.

The blood was not his. It belonged to the owners of the lumps of flesh in his hand. Perhaps he had gripped them too tightly; the pieces were crushed mercilessly together. Yet every vagabond recognized what they were.

Noses. They were noses. No one needed to ask whose.

Dong Bongsu spread his fingers, sticky with mucus and blood, then clenched them again. Red liquid spattered in every direction.

Then he calmly approached one of the vagabonds waiting for his turn and spoke.

"I heard these are worth money here. Where do I go to exchange them for silver?"

His voice was low and composed. No, it would be more accurate to say it was difficult to tell whether it was or not.

Confronted with Dong Bongsu's utter composure, the vagabond unconsciously lifted the hand holding his cock and pointed toward the vagabond market, where the ear brokers gathered. His member had already retreated downward, as befitted something so lowly.

"Thank you."

Offering that meaningless thanks, Dong Bongsu disappeared toward the vagabond market. Dozens more vagabonds were there, but not one told him he had cut off the wrong thing by taking noses.

Half a double-hour later, Dong Bongsu returned to the settlement. As though nothing had happened, he entered the alley, cut the ears off the noseless vagabonds, and went back to the market. Until then, no one had touched the newly dead men's ears.

With the money he earned that day, Dong Bongsu bought an empty wooden house in the settlement. That was his first day in Datong, and the beginning of the name Ear Ghost.

The Datong General Administration.

Here, too, a report about Ear Ghost was being delivered.

"Seventy-two ears collected on the Dongsheng expedition. Eighty-eight collected at Baotou. At Yijin..."

"Enough. Who said I wanted to hear every last detail? Give me a summary."

Lee Jasong irritably interrupted his adjutant. He was already in a foul mood after being all but driven to this harsh backwater. Listening to the history of some paltry candidate for mercenary captain, item by painstaking item, could hardly improve it. Yet he could not simply refuse to listen. If this expedition to Guishui failed, he would have nothing left. He would never get another chance to fail, even if he wanted one. A failure that cost a man his head was, for anyone, his last.

He had emptied his private coffers to hire these mercenaries and prevent that outcome. Formally, he would place one of his adjutants in charge, but mercenaries were an unruly lot by nature. He therefore needed to choose a leader from among them to command them in practice. Having once led mercenaries on a southern expedition, Lee Jasong knew something of how they worked. Of course, his circumstances then and now were worlds apart.

"Yes, sir! Understood!"

After answering vigorously, the adjutant began adding up the figures in the expedition register. But like military officers in general, he was hopeless at arithmetic.

After waiting a long while, Lee Jasong finally lost patience, snatched the register from his adjutant, and examined Kang Dalhui's records himself. Originally a civil official, he made sense of the figures far more readily than his adjutant.