ADLK 07

After they crossed several mountainsides, the village was out of sight.

Trees stood thick.

Insects chittered loudly.

Limping along, Noh-sam looked ahead. Gyo-ha was walking on his hands.

His clothes and bundle were hooked over his legs so they wouldn’t get wet.

At first it had scared him half to death, but now he was getting used to it.

Thanks to it, their pace more or less matched.

“Young master.”

Noh-sam called softly.

He’d switched from ‘young hero’ to ‘young master’. That was because it fit better now that they were traveling together.

“Yes?”

At Noh-sam’s call, the head below turned back.

The sight was so odd that Noh-sam swallowed involuntarily.

He thought he’d gotten used to the view from behind, but not the front.

The sunny smile made it even scarier.

“W-where exactly are we headed?”

He realized he’d followed without even asking the destination.

At the question, Gyo-ha hmphed and straightened up.

Sweat pattered off him like raindrops.

Catching the falling bundle and clothes, he flashed Noh-sam a grin.

“We’re going to find junior brothers!”

“…Your junior brother? Where is he?”

If one learned martial arts, to belong to a sect was expected. Having junior brothers was only natural.

At that, Gyo-ha shook his head.

“No idea. We’re going to look now.”

“Huh?”

Noh-sam stared, bewildered.

It felt like the conversation just wouldn’t connect.

Gyo-ha, eyeing him curiously, let out a little ah!

“Ah—not someone who is already a junior brother. We’re recruiting people who’ll become my junior brothers!”

“…So you’re not taking on disciples of your own?”

“Come on, disciples at my age?”

Gyo-ha laughed, pleased with his own joke.

But Noh-sam couldn’t laugh.

‘Recruiting fellow junior brothers? As the senior brother?’

He’d never heard of such a thing. Then he looked at Gyo-ha’s beaming face and let it go.

It wasn’t his place to meddle.

“So how do you plan to find these junior brothers?”

Gyo-ha propped his chin on a finger.

“I’m not sure.”

At that guileless smile, Noh-sam sighed.

He worried about following him like this.

But plan or no plan, he did have standards.

In that moment, Gyo-ha’s eyes changed.

Noh-sam felt as if a chill had blown down the mountain.

“First we fight. See if they’re fit to be my junior brothers.”

With that feral grin, he looked less a simple youth than a beast.

Noh-sam nearly stepped back without thinking, then shook it off.

When he looked again, Gyo-ha was all smiles as usual.

Swallowing, Noh-sam changed the subject.

“By the way, why did you refuse the money from the village?”

He’d even turned down what Noh-sam’s mother tried to give her son.

Travel took money. Even in backwater villages, you needed money to trade.

And the money had been earned thanks to Gyo-ha anyway.

At the question, Gyo-ha pursed his lips, hmm.

“The villagers are struggling too, I can’t take it. I may not look it, but I’m a Taoist disciple!”

He raised his arm and flexed, muscle rippling.

It bulged through the robe all the same.

Noh-sam had no idea what muscle had to do with Taoism, but he nodded anyway.

The mood required it.

“Besides, money’s easy to get. Hee-hee.”

“…How?”

If you had force, there were many ways to make money.

But most weren’t good ways, and Gyo-ha didn’t seem the type.

“Ah, here they come!”

At his shout, Noh-sam turned.

And understood at once.

“Ah…”

“Come along now!”

Men in leather with weapons were coming down the slope.

“Hand over everything and we’ll spare your lives!”

“Be grateful for your elders’ mercy.”

They snickered among themselves.

Only Noh-sam, seeing his former colleagues, managed an awkward smile.

Koong.

A crudely built hut collapsed.

Dust billowed up. Within it, a bare-chested Gyo-ha was grinning.

“Indeed, Master has never been wrong.”

Nothing in the world was useless.

He smiled at the fattened coin pouch.

His master had said he had funded his travels the same way with bandit contributions.

“The key is, don’t overdo it. Like I told you, they have their role. If they disappear, others just take their place. So give them a reasonable beating and let them go. Then next time you pass, they’ll fund your trip again.”

“Whoa!”

Yun Heo had said it with calm decorum while Gyo-ha’s eyes shone.

“And if new ones show up, finding them becomes work too.”

He’d looked at Gyo-ha, sounding annoyed.

“Of course that’s only for ordinary bandits. Some traffic in people. Those, you uproot.”

Yun Heo’s words had been cold.

Only by keeping basic human decency are you human.

Those who don’t are no different from beasts.

He had said that often.

“When you face beasts, you become a beast.”

Remembering it, Gyo-ha nodded.

He thought the same.

Shaking off his thoughts, he waved beyond the entrance.

Noh-sam poked his head out of the brush.

“Good work, young master.”

Gyo-ha handed over the money pouch, and Noh-sam tucked it away like he’d done it before.

Because it wasn’t the first time.

“This should last us a while.”

“Are there usually this many bandits?”

“It’s a hard world to live in.“

Noh-sam said bitterly.

Gyo-ha tilted his head, as if he didn’t quite get it.

At that innocent look, Noh-sam’s expression softened.

“Come on. A little farther from here there’s a village.”

“Ooh!”

They wouldn’t be sleeping outdoors today.

Gyo-ha’s eyes sparkled.

They left the bandit stronghold behind and set off.

Gyo-ha didn’t beat every bandit he saw.

There were two kinds of bandits.

Knives or axes, swords or spears.

Those properly armed.

They were bandits by choice.

And then the others.

“W-we cleared this path. P-pay the toll if you want to pass.”

Men holding farm tools like sickles and hoes.

At the sight of ‘bandits’ appearing again, Noh-sam glanced at Gyo-ha.

As they said, trees had been cut to make a passable way.

Gyo-ha nodded, and Noh-sam took out some coins and tossed them over.

At the easy payment, confusion crossed their faces.

Just by looking at them one could tell they were new to being bandits.

Even after taking the money, they lingered.

They’d seen how fat the pouch had been.

Sensing their thoughts, Noh-sam spoke.

“Don’t get greedy and end up getting hurt. Move along.”

Beside him, Gyo-ha gave a nearby tree a light tap.

Koong, and down it went.

At the sight, they scattered in a panic.

Once they were gone, Noh-sam asked:

“Was it necessary to pay them?”

This wasn’t the first time.

The money they had made off bandits kept leaking back to bandits.

Gyo-ha scratched his cheek.

“They might not be doing it because they want to.”

He’d heard many turned to becoming bandits after losing their homes.

“If they’re bandits but still carry farm tools instead of blades, it’s a sign they miss their old lives.”

There was no need to ask who had said that.

“Mm… or maybe they just can’t afford weapons?”

“Oh!”

Gyo-ha’s eyes lit at that.

Worried he’d said the wrong thing, Noh-sam asked carefully,

“……Why, what is it?”

“No—it’s just, I said the same thing to my master.”

His lip twitched, remembering.

“Know what he said?”

When Noh-sam shook his head, Gyo-ha cleared his throat and, putting on an oddly solemn face, said:

“Life’s tiring enough without doubting what you haven’t even had to suffer yourself. If you can’t trust people that far, isn’t that too sad a world?”

He was imitating Yun Heo.

Noh-sam was quietly impressed. He’d had trouble believing the boy was truly of a Taoist order, but now he saw him differently.

But Gyo-ha wasn’t done.

“Besides, there’s already a heap of trash right in front of you to take out. That’ll keep you busy.”

“….…”

Noh-sam withdrew his admiration.

‘…He meant tiring physically, not mentally?’

He sighed at Gyo-ha’s smirking face.

He grew curious what this master looked like.

But he didn’t want to meet him.

From what he’d heard, the man was anything but ordinary.

He’d supposedly once bound Gyo-ha’s arms and tossed him to wolves.

Noh-sam shivered.

‘So much for “Taoist order.”’

No Taoist disciple would do that.

Whether he knew Noh-sam’s thoughts or not, Gyo-ha stretched.

“Still, bandits really aren’t fun.”

He couldn’t cut loose. One lapse and they might die.

At first the unfamiliar foes had been interesting, but now even that had worn off.

“Bear with it a little longer. At this pace, we’ll reach Mudo in as little as four days, five at worst.”

At ‘Mudo,’ Gyo-ha’s eyes lit up.

“The, uh, wanderers, right?”

Noh-sam nodded.

They were wandering freelancers who took paid commissions.

Mercenaries, in a sense.

“Among those wanderers, there were also those who were called masters.”

Most were drifters, or people who’d left their sects for reasons of their own.

They fit exactly what Gyo-ha wanted.

He licked his lips, already eager.

“Uncle, hurry!”

Gyo-ha quickened his pace. Watching him pull ahead, Noh-sam sighed.

They planned to stay in a village tonight, so hurrying wouldn’t help.

But that thought probably wasn’t in Gyo-ha’s head.

This had happened more than once.

He’d come back on his own. He just couldn’t contain his excess energy.

Still, Noh-sam sighed for another reason.

‘…I hear it from village kids all the time.’

But being called “uncle” by Gyo-ha was something he couldn’t get used to.

Then a shout came.

“Uncle! I caught a deer! A deer!”

Far off, Gyo-ha came running, hefting a deer as big as himself.

The deer was even alive.

No, there was not even a scratch on it. It was a wonder how he’d caught it.

The startled deer flailed but couldn’t escape his grip.

Since Noh-sam had cooked for him, he’d been hunting like that.

‘That isn’t hunting, it’s kidnapping.’

Noh-sam gave a hollow laugh, then asked as Gyo-ha ran up.

“…Wouldn’t it be better to eat a proper meal in the village?”

“Huh?”

It was only about two hours to the village.

Gyo-ha blinked at that.

“We can eat this and then eat there too, can’t we?”

Gyo-ha looked at the deer with a look that said it’d be a shame to let it go.