Chapter 163: House of Slaughter (4)

The corner of Gu Chil’s mouth twisted slightly.

“…To think someone like you ranked higher than me—it’s enough to make me lament.”

“W-What did you say?”

“House of Slaughter isn’t a military unit. If you charge in like that, all it’ll do is increase the casualties.”

As Gu Chil sighed in front of him, a boy called Number Ninety-Five flared up in anger.

“What nonsense are you spouting, old man?!”

Twitch.

It must’ve hit a nerve, because a red vein popped in Gu Chil’s eye before anyone noticed.

“I’m still in my early thirties. I’m not old enough to be called an old man. Got it?!”

“W-What?”

Thwack!

That was the last thing Number Ninety-Five said before he lost consciousness.

“You’ve learned how to provoke people, I’ll give you that. But it would’ve been better if you had the skill to follow it up with a sneak attack.”

“…Senior, was that really provocation?”

Myeong-oh, who had been subduing trainees nearby, shouted in disbelief.

“Of course it was. I’m at a sensitive age, you know.”

“Well, you are bald, Senior, so I guess that’s—kyaak!”

Whack!

A throwing knife hurled by Gu Chil grazed Myeong-oh’s neck and embedded itself in the shoulder of a trainee behind him.

“Guhk!”

The boy, his vital point pierced in an instant, collapsed forward.

Gu Chil glared at Myeong-oh.

“I don’t grow my hair, Myeong-oh. Don’t get confused.”

His eyes made it clear there would be no further discussion.

“I-I’ll keep that in mind.”

Faced with the cold stare of a former Ghost Slayer, Myeong-oh quickly turned her head away.

Though the two of them chatted mid-battle as if it were nothing—

More than a hundred House of Slaughter trainees no longer dared to rush them.

“W-What the hell are those monsters?”

“T-They seem… stronger than the instructors…”

Throwing knives flew, arrows rained down, traps were triggered—

But every throwing knife returned straight back at them.

Hundreds of arrows didn’t even graze their targets, and traps were dismantled the instant they were sprung, as if someone had been waiting for it.

But looking at the situation, it was no mystery why.

The tactics they used, the weapons they wielded, the traps they set—

Gu Chil and Myeong-oh could execute all of them at a far superior level.

Still, that aside—

“They’ve got decent momentum, but that’s all they’ve got going for them.”

Myeong-oh nodded in agreement.

“The standard’s really dropped.”

It wasn’t just a matter of rose-colored memories.

Even compared to their own time, the combat ability of these young trainees was overwhelmingly subpar.

“What the hell are the current House of Slaughter instructors teaching them? If it’s like this, there’s no point in securing more instructors…”

Wasn’t one of the reasons they came to House of Slaughter in the first place to scout instructors for the Myungwang Unit?

“Judging by the quality of their killing intent, the training intensity itself doesn’t seem low…”

“It feels more like they’re just forcing them to the brink of death and picking out the survivors.”

Though she said it without much thought, Gu Chil’s expression twitched as he heard it.

“…You might actually be right.”

It felt less like they were training assassins, and more like they were breeding slave soldiers.

“Well, we’ve got the Young Master’s orders. Let’s just subdue them all first.”

Gu Chil’s eyes cooled with a deadly calm.

“At this level, it won’t take long.”

* * *

About an hour had passed.

All two hundred of House of Slaughter’s trainees were subdued by just the two of them, not a single one left standing.

“Well done.”

Gu Chil clicked his tongue lightly and let out a sigh.

“Still feels a bit like twisting a child’s wrist. Doesn’t sit right.”

“It’s not just a feeling—it really is like that.”

I glanced around at the kids sprawled on the ground.

“No matter how you look at it, they don’t seem like normal trainees.”

“……”

Too low-level.

Despite their systematized uniforms, suggesting they were formal trainees of House of Slaughter…

‘Even for trainees, they revealed emotions too easily, left openings without thought. They felt entirely untrained in the basics of assassination.’

How had things turned out this way?

Rather than a decline in House of Slaughter’s abilities, it was more likely that there was another plot at play.

‘Looks like we’ll be staying in House of Slaughter longer than expected.’

I looked toward the path leading further inward.

“Let’s go. It seems we still have more gates to cross.”

* * *

After that, my group and I were ambushed two more times.

The next attackers were called the Black Bugs—House of Slaughter’s so-called elite trainees.

And after we subdued the Black Bugs, what appeared to be House of Slaughter instructors blocked our path.

The deeper we went past the gates, the fewer the attackers.

But their skill level clearly aligned with House of Slaughter’s reputation as the nursery of the Hidden Shadow So Clan.

Thwack!

An instructor hiding in a pit below, ready to ambush, was pierced in the shoulder by a blast of earth-wind I had fired and went tumbling back.

He wasn’t the only one we took down this way.

“They’re definitely better.”

Starting from those called Black Bugs, they had the air of real assassins.

Most of the instructors could easily draw out Sword Qi, and we definitely had moments where the situation could’ve turned dangerous if we were careless.

Throwing weapons, poison fog, mechanical devices—

They made full use of their territorial advantages, and we had to face several crises.

If we’d brought anyone else instead of these two, it could’ve gone badly.

‘So why the hell were those first trainees such a mess?’

Before I could solve that question—

We arrived at the very heart of House of Slaughter.

“What an honor, to be greeted by such a crowd.”

Countless flags bearing the word House of Slaughter fluttered in the air.

Beneath them, more than a hundred people were looking down at us.

“They’re members of the Hidden Shadow So Clan. It seems there won’t be any more ambushes.”

At Gu Chil’s whisper, I nodded and climbed the stairs toward our target.

“……”

“……”

With countless eyes pinned on me, I stood face to face with a woman in blood-colored robes seated like a queen before a grand hall.

The woman was sitting with one elbow rested crookedly on the armrest of her chair.

She was, without a doubt, the one person in this House of Slaughter I needed to be most wary of.

I respectfully cupped my fist toward her.

“I greet the Master of House of Slaughter. I am Jin Yeomyung of the Demonic Heaven’s Jin Clan.”

Now then, how would she respond?

“Welcome.”

Unexpectedly, she relaxed her posture and greeted me warmly.

“I am Jeok Rua, Master of Assassins of the Hidden Shadow So Clan. Pleased to meet you.”

“It’s an honor to meet the second-in-command of the Hidden Shadow So Clan.”

“Hahaha! I appreciate the compliment.”

She stood up and patted me lightly on the shoulder.

And then… she spat out complete nonsense.

“Did you enjoy our little welcome? We tried to make it fun and exciting.”

“…Fun, you say?”

I almost failed to maintain my composure for a second.

Jeok Rua looked at me with a meaningful smile.

“Still, I’m surprised you didn’t kill a single one. That was meant to be a little something to help you blow off steam after all the stress from the Naming Hall.”

“……”

What the hell was this woman saying?

She was suggesting I kill those kids to blow off steam?

Suppressing the killing intent surging within me, I answered as calmly as I could.

“I appreciate your consideration, Master of Assassins… but I believe it’s improper to casually harm talents from another clan.”

“Kukuk, you actually saw those failures as talents?”

“……”

I said no more.

If this conversation went on any further, I had the feeling I might draw my sword and swing it by accident.

“Too bad you didn’t enjoy yourself.”

Jeok Rua seemed to revel in my reaction.

“Apologies, but the Clan Head is currently away due to personal matters. He’ll be arriving at House of Slaughter in two days.”

“Two days, huh…”

The Clan Head of one of the Six Great Demonic Clans is missing the appointment and will be gone for two days?

“I’d like for you to remain here and enjoy the hospitality of the main house until then.”

Was that really “hospitality” in the traditional sense?

Sensing the obvious undertone, I gave a faint smile.

“Wouldn’t dream of refusing. I’ll do so.”

“Hahaha, so bold and straightforward. Just as expected from the Demonic Jin Clan’s High Young Lord.”

Jeok Rua let out a hearty laugh and patted my shoulder again.

And at that moment—

Twitch.

In the blink of an eye, something foreign crept through my shoulder.

A strange, abnormal force—not ordinary internal energy, but sorcery.

‘Ha.’

So she was already playing tricks from our very first meeting?

I didn’t shake off the sorcery, instead choosing to let it in.

Did she think I hadn’t noticed?

Jeok Rua pulled her hand back from my shoulder with an eerie smile.

“Well then, I’ll be counting on you for the next two days.”

“I, too, look forward to our time together.”

Same bed, different dreams.

There was no phrase more fitting for this situation.

A half-day passed since that meeting with Jeok Rua.

I sat cross-legged inside the extravagant quarters House of Slaughter had prepared.

“This is a first for me…”

Tsss.

A writhing, murky-red energy seeped from my fingers.

Staring at this aura that felt almost like blood, I murmured,

“They said the Blood Sect handled a power like this, didn’t they?”

The Blood Sect.

A phantom faction whose traces no longer remained.

To be precise, the last official record of their activity dates back over two hundred years.

‘Well… officially, anyway.’

Normally, the Blood Sect was known as a notorious cult that committed heinous acts like human sacrifices…

‘But their true nature was that, along with the Mosan Sect, they were one of the only genuine sorcery sects in the Central Plains.’

Of course, the core of their identity as a heretical group that practiced human sacrifice and forbidden arts remained unchanged.

“Myeong-oh.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Myeong-oh revealed herself, having been hiding nearby with his Stealth Technique.

“What was your impression of Jeok Rua?”

“Hmm…”

She hesitated for a moment.

“I wouldn’t presume to judge someone at the level of an extreme master, but…”

“Doesn’t matter. Speak.”

“In terms of ability or personality… she just doesn’t fit with the Hidden Shadow So Clan.”

“…Thought so.”

If even Myeong-oh was saying that, then my intuition wasn’t wrong.

Her cruel words and callous demeanor were just smoke and mirrors.

I looked at the blood-red energy and smirked.

“This sticky, sludgy power… it’s fundamentally different from the aura the rest of the clan possesses.”

“It really is.”

From the children called larvae to the instructors—

Regardless of their age or rank, everyone in the Hidden Shadow So Clan carried within them a kind of sharp, pointed edge.

‘But that woman…’

She had no “blade” at all. She felt more like a dried bloodstain.

“They say people are inevitably influenced by their environment.”

Even those called supreme masters were no exception.

“Even an extreme-level martial artist, if left in a different environment for a long time, would find their mind and spirit affected.”

And that went double for a place as particular as the Hidden Shadow So Clan.

“She’s been in the Hidden Shadow Clan for twenty years, and yet there’s not a trace of environmental influence on her.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means her will is directed so strongly toward a single purpose that the environment cannot interfere. In most cases like this…”

I curled my lips into a cold smile.

“…It’s usually tied to revenge.”

Yes.

Just like me.

“Revenge? Against who?”

“No idea yet. That part’s still unclear.”

I gathered up the energy Jeok Rua had injected into me.

“Let’s hope Gu Chil, who got dragged off, brings back something useful.”

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