TL: FoodieMonster007
“Damn it…” Cheoldu cursed, clenching his teeth as he sared a thick ointnt over the wounds that marred his body.
It wasn’t the sting of the cuts that made him swear. Pain had been his companion since childhood, and scars were just another part of his existence. No, the reason why Cheoldu’s face warped into sothing monstrous was sothing else altogether.
“…Captain.”
“Shut up and keep breathing,” Cheoldu whispered gruffly, his expression stern as he replaced his subordinate Jangsam’s blood-soaked bandages.
Lying on the ground with a haggard expression, Jangsam smiled weakly. “Not that it matters. I’m going to die soon anyway. Might as well tease the Captain one last ti before I go.”
“You damned bastard…”
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Under any other circumstances, Cheoldu would have beaten Jangsam for daring to mouth off to him, the captain, but when he saw Jangsam’s pale, cracked lips, he found himself unable to lift a hand.
Lately, the Scarlet Tiger Gang had attacked them relentlessly, pushing harder and harder to take over the slums. For the Ironhead Sect, every day had beco a battle for survival, every mont a fight to stay alive. Today, Cheoldu had made it through, but his friends… not all of them were so lucky.
“Fufu, getting nursed by Captain…This Jangsam’s finally made it big.”
“You filthy dog. Once you’re better, you’ll be cleaning the latrines for three years straight.”
“Oof. That’s just one more reason for to die.”
Even on the brink of death, Jangsam cracked jokes. Cheoldu almost struck him for real this ti, but he clenched his fist and held back.
“Shit…”
Captain and subordinate, that’s what they called each other, but the truth was, they were more like brothers, friends who’d grown up together under the thumb of that old beggar king.
Jangsam’s dimming eyes lingered on Cheoldu. “Captain, rember when you killed that motherfucker of a Beggar King? I was so frickin’ happy that day. I thought we’d finally escaped this hell. I thought, damn, we can finally live like real humans, and strut around like we own the place. And for a few years, we did, didn’t we? Fufu.”
“……” Cheoldu said nothing, just stared silently at his friend, his face twisting with a pain that went beyond the physical.
Suddenly, Jangsam’s eyes cleared up and his voice steadied as he said, “But… as ti went on, I started feeling sorry for you, Captain. Every ti soone died by your hand, every ti we strutted around, breaking, killing, stomping on people, a certain question would creep into my head.”
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It was then that Cheoldu knew. Jangsam had reached the state that the murim commonly referred to as terminal lucidity—the last monts of clarity just before death.
Lifting his head to et Cheoldu’s gaze, Jangsam asked, “How are we any different from that Beggar King bastard?”
“…Fuck, now you’re starting to sound like a stuffy scholar,” Cheoldu scoffed, but the words hit ho. After all, he’d been asking himself the sa question for ages. “…Stop overthinking things. We’re uneducated, bottom-of-the-barrel trash. This is just the shitty hand we’ve been dealt in life.”
Jangsam nodded, but a bitter smile tugged at his lips. “All we wanted to live like humans. If we’d had the chance… maybe even we could… No, that’s just an excuse. I an, just look at Cheong Cheon hyung-nim…”
“At least that hyung-nim had a mother.”
“Fufu. True, true,” Jangsam chuckled weakly, but his eyes were starting to cloud over again. His voice, laced with regret, grew fainter.
“Cheoldu… Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe you can still live like a human. From now on… don’t commit any more sins…”
Jangsam’s voice trailed off as his head slumped to the side, the words he wanted to say left unfinished forever.
“…Rest in peace. I don’t want to hear you spewing nonsense anymore,” Cheoldu whispered, gently closing Jangsam’s eyes and covering his face with a cloth.
After that, he stood up and left the clinic, feeling no sadness, only a simring rage at the damn situation.
Outside, he surveyed the Ironhead Sect’s old manor, their base of operations.
“…Shit.”
His subordinates were scattered around, their faces weary and bodies wrapped in bandages. The air was thick with the sll of cheap ointnts, as expensive dicine used by real murim martial artists was beyond their reach.
“Captain.”
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“…Captain.”
“Captain…”
The faces that turned to him were exhausted, so as pale as death itself, blood seeping through their myriad bandages. Many familiar faces were already missing.
Seven in four days. No, now that Jangsam’s dead, it’s eight.
The Ironhead Sect had barely thirty mbers to begin with, and now nearly a third of them were gone.
Just then, Asam, the Head Administrator of the Ironhead Sect, approached. “Captain. We got a ssage from the Great Bear Gang.”
Cheoldu glanced briefly at Asam’s empty left sleeve. “What did they say?”
“The sa as always. That they’ll help us if we join them. They’re telling us to give up and kneel.”
“Bullshit.”
The Great Bear Gang was no different from the Scarlet Tiger Gang. If anything, the old freelancers in the Great Bear Gang were even more arrogant. Bowing to them ant becoming their slaves at best, only to be discarded later.
“They’re just as desperate as us, since the Scarlet Tiger Gang’s started going after them too.”
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Despite their formidable power, the Scarlet Tiger Gang had, until now, refrained from waging an all-out war. Instead, they were thodically eliminating their rivals one by one, using guerrilla tactics to slowly weaken them, all with the aim of forcing the Great Bear Gang and Ironhead Sect to surrender voluntarily.
Nevertheless, surrender was not an option for Cheoldu.
At this rate, we’re all dead. I need to find a way out.
Cheoldu thought hard, using his brain for sothing other than charging into battle for once.
In the end, his conclusion was simple.
Scratching his close-cropped hair, he commanded, “Gather everyone.”
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