Chapter 116. Are We Cursed or Something (2)

There was no need to understand the thoughts of the mad Tang Clan kid, so I walked towards the bow of the ship.

In the meantime, the head escort of the Azure Stream Escort Agency gave an order to the boatmen and escorts.

“Bring the things we prepared!”

It seemed they had prepared to deal with those bastards from the Dragon King Fortress or whatever it was called.

I nodded, thinking ‘as expected,’ and watched for a moment. I found myself frowning.

The escorts and boatmen were moving boxes containing silver, silk, rice, and food towards the bow.

I asked a young escort who was standing next to me with a worried expression.

“Why are you taking those out?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to pay the toll to the Dragon King Fortress.”

“Why is that obvious?”

“Are you saying we should fight them then?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

The escort looked at me with a strange expression.

Seeing him spout such nonsense, it seemed he had eaten something bad and was not in his right mind.

“Excuse me. I think there’s a patient here.”

I turned my head and said so to the Tang Clan kid, and he shook his head.

“You’re the patient.”

“I’m all better.”

“It seems your head isn’t.”

“I don’t have a headache.”

“…It’s not him, my life is cursed.”

The madman was spouting nonsense again.

They say a monk can’t shave his own head; it seemed that bastard, despite being a physician, didn’t know how to take care of himself.

While I was observing the crazed Tang Clan kid, a strange shout was heard.

“How dare you commit piracy in front of us!”

I turned my head back towards the bow and saw five young men and women.

“Even if the heavens forgive your atrocities, I, Seomun Ak, will not!”

Three of the men among them were shouting boldly, and the two women were nodding their heads in satisfaction.

A faint memory came to mind.

They were not the ones who had boarded the ship with us from Yichang.

It was a journey of over a fortnight from Yichang to Poyang Lake in Jiangxi, so we hadn’t been on the boat the entire time.

Two days ago, our ship had briefly stopped in Hyeongju, and they were the ones who had newly boarded then.

When I had briefly glanced at their martial arts uniforms then, the characters for Seomun and Pyo had caught my eye.

The Seomoon Clan and the Pyo Clan.

Both were names I remembered hearing in my past life.

They were rather famous clans in Hubei, and among them, the Seomoon Clan was a place whose name was known to some extent in other regions as well.

Though not as much as the Sichuan Sword Clan, it was about the level of the Hoyeon Clan from my past life.

And it was also a place I had no particular interest in.

They weren’t hypocrites who engaged in shady dealings with the Black Market like the Hoyeon Clan.

They weren’t people I needed to seek out and kill, so there was no reason to pay them any mind.

The approaching pirates reacted to the shouts of the latter-generation disciples from the Seomoon Clan and Pyo Clan.

“Hehahaha. It seems the brats are dying to die.”

“Alright. Today, instead of a toll, we’ll just sink that ship!”

Was it because of the reaction of the Dragon King Fortress bastards?

The head escort of the Azure Stream Escort Agency, his face pale, approached the latter-generation disciples and shouted.

“What do you think you’re doing!!”

At the head escort’s shout, their expressions crumpled.

“What do you mean, what are we doing?”

“Why are you getting angry at us for helping?”

“This is helping!? We were just going to hand over the goods and pass by! But now we’re all going to die!!”

As the head escort screamed, the one who had identified himself as Seomun Ak replied boldly.

“Hahaha. Don’t worry about that. We will subdue all of them, so there will be no deaths!”

At that, the latter-generation disciples showed the same confident smiles.

Upon a closer look, Seomun Ak seemed to be the oldest among the young ones.

He looked to be in his mid-twenties.

Come to think of it, my current age was much younger than his.

As I observed him for a moment, a faint memory surfaced.

I had heard the name Seomun Ak before.

He was the man who would become the head of the Seomoon Clan in the future, and would later be called one of the Seven Swords North of the River.

And in my past life, I had a connection with Seomun Ak. A very faint connection, to the point where I couldn’t even recognize his face.

At that moment, arrows flew from the enemy ship, which had drawn closer.

Dozens of arrows embroidered the sky.

The latter-generation disciples, who had been acting so confidently, shouted and struck down the arrows.

“You cheap bastards!!”

“Using arrows instead of fighting fair and square!!”

I wondered if they were madmen.

As if he had a similar impression, the Tang Clan kid muttered again.

“Haa… We’re really cursed.”

But regardless of whether they were crazy, I had to put out the immediate fire first.

“You guys protect the people on the ship. I’ll be back after a quick visit to the pirates’ ship.”

“Senior Brother, I’ll go with you.”

“H-Hyung-ah. I-I’ll go too. Gwaaaack.”

At this rate, it seemed Nam Geon would cross a different river instead of the Yangtze.

“Innocent people on the ship could get caught up in it, so protecting them comes first.”

“I understand, Senior Brother.”

“If you die here, you’ll become a water ghost, so be careful.”

“Gwaaaack.”

Leaving my comrades’ cheers behind, I used my movement technique.

After rushing to the bow in an instant.

“An ambush!?”

“Wh-Who is it!!”

Leaving the stupid shouts of the latter-generation disciples behind, I threw myself forward.

Fwoosh!

As I advanced across the air, a few arrows closed in in an instant.

After swinging the Restoring Name Sword to strike down the arrows, my body began to fall.

Unfortunately, it felt like I was a little short of reaching the enemy ship.

Did the Dragon King Fortress pirates notice this?

The bastards who were nocking arrows on their bows again on the ship let out blatant sneers.

They were nothing but idiots.

They should have shot the arrows a little faster in the time they were sneering. It wasn’t as if I had thrown myself forward without any thought.

The moment the surface of the Yangtze River drew near, I pushed out the inner energy sent to my Surging Fountain Acupoint with all my might.

As if shooting a palm wind.

Boom!!

The water surface exploded as if a rock had been thrown. At the same time, my body kicked off the water surface and shot up again.

“Fl-Flying on Water!?”

It seemed they were indeed idiots.

What I had just performed was not Flying on Water.

Proper Flying on Water wouldn’t create such a rough splash.

It was just a technique that came to mind while watching the flowing river for the past few days of traveling by boat.

To be precise, I got the inspiration from Hyeok Ilso’s Life and Death Blood Steps.

It was a half-baked, no, not even a quarter-baked technique.

The key to the Life and Death Blood Steps was the delicate control of pushing and pulling forces.

But what I had just done was simply releasing qi with all my might, like shooting a palm wind.

Conversely, because it was such a simple technique, I was able to perform it without any particular training.

After one more leap, bursting the river water, I closed in on their ship.

While I was falling towards their ship, the pirates, who had belatedly come to their senses, shot their bows.

A dozen arrows flew at me intensively.

Since I couldn’t even perform Flying on Water properly, stepping on air was naturally out of the question.

As it was difficult to dodge the arrows in mid-air, I swung the Restoring Name Sword and formed a sword screen.

It wasn’t the Moonlight Coiling Sword.

If I used the untrained Moonlight Coiling Sword now, my head would turn to mush again.

Of course, in a life-or-death crisis, I would have used it without a care, but it wasn’t particularly dangerous right now.

The arrows they shot were successively deflected by the sword screen.

Clang clang clang clang!

Soon after, my feet touched the pirates’ ship.

I immediately swung the Restoring Name Sword at the neck of the nearest pirate.

Slice.

***

“No way…”

The eldest son of the Pyo Clan, Pyo Daecheol, wore a dazed expression.

He wasn’t the only one. All his nearby companions had similar expressions.

“Flying on Water and a sword screen.”

It was truly an astonishing skill.

At the very least, they were skills that only someone at the level of their fathers, the heads of the Seomoon Clan or the Pyo Clan, could display.

But the most surprising thing was not the martial arts.

“Did you see his face when he passed by just now?”

To that question, Pyo Hayeon, the youngest of the group, answered.

“He definitely looked to be around my age.”

Her older brother, Pyo Daecheol, let out an involuntary groan.

“Heo…”

His younger sister, Pyo Hayeon’s age was a mere eighteen.

But a young man who looked to be her peer had just displayed a skill they wouldn’t even dare to attempt.

But the surprise was brief. Seomun Ak frowned.

“His skills are outstanding, but his methods seem excessive.”

Right after the young man who had just launched himself landed on the pirates’ ship.

A literal hellscape was unfolding there.

Even from a considerable distance, the splattering blood was clearly visible.

At that moment, the head escort and escorts of the Azure Stream Escort Agency shouted from the side.

“We have nothing to do with this!”

“Here!! We’ve prepared the toll!!”

Puzzled, the latter-generation disciples turned their heads and saw the pirates’ ship approaching.

The pirates also screamed back.

“Shut up!!”

“Let’s offer them as a sacrifice to the Dragon King!!!”

Soon after, dozens of arrows they shot flew in.

“Let’s protect the people here first!”

Seomun Ak, who had shouted thus, used his movement technique to move around the ship, striking down the incoming arrows.

His companions also helped strike down the arrows, but they were short-handed.

The enemies were continuously shooting arrows as they approached, and the number was too great for just five of them to block.

While striking down arrows from the right side of the ship, the arrows flying towards the left side caught Seomun Ak’s eye.

The moment Seomun Ak gritted his teeth and was about to throw himself forward, a strange sight entered his eyes.

“I-I’ll protect them!”

A man with a huge build threw himself towards the arrows.

He wasn’t swinging a weapon, nor was he holding a shield.

He literally threw his body.

And the arrows that met the man’s body were deflected away futilely.

At first, he thought he might be wearing armor under his clothes.

But.

Ting! Ting!

That man was striking down arrows with his whole body, his arms and legs.

“Blade and Sword Immunity?”

The moment Seomun Yeong, the second child and eldest daughter of the Seomoon Clan, muttered from the side.

The man who had been striking down arrows with his whole body suddenly bent his waist.

“Gwaaaaeeeek.”

Two people, a man and a woman, approached the man who was in the middle of vomiting.

A girl who looked much younger than Pyo Hayeon, the youngest of the group, and a man who looked to be around the same age as the young man who had launched himself earlier.

“Brother, you should rest a bit this time.”

“I-I’m fine. Th-The arrows don’t hurt.”

“Your skin is fine, but at this rate, your stomach and throat will get hurt. You might not be able to eat the food Young Master Nam likes anymore.”

“Hing…”

The man with the huge build made a crying face.

It might not have suited his build, but it was a strangely natural sight.

A somehow relaxed atmosphere despite the urgent situation.

While he was staring blankly at the scene for a moment, the shouts of the pirates were heard.

“Charge!!”

“Don’t leave a single one alive!!”

The bastards who had closed the distance were using their movement techniques and throwing themselves towards this ship.

Seomun Ak, who had hastily come to his senses, shouted to his companions.

“Let’s subdue the pirates!”

Seomun Ak swung his sword at the pirates.

A clean strike from a man who had learned an orthodox martial art.

But strangely, those who were cut by his sword did not die instantly.

Seomun Ak would always subdue the pirates by stabbing their arms or legs.

This was the same for his companions.

Slice.

“Kuaaaaargh!

Right after cutting another pirate’s arm, Seomun Ak frowned deeply.

Squish!

The head of a pirate literally exploded from the iron fist swung by the man who had been vomiting a moment ago.

It was too cruel a method.

It wasn’t just that man.

The girl, who looked to be in her mid-teens, moved lightly here and there like a butterfly and swung her sword.

But the result was not light at all.

“Keok…”

A pirate with his neck pierced grabbed his neck from which a fountain of blood was gushing and rolled on the deck.

A man with his heart pierced collapsed with a choked death rattle.

Every time the girl swung her sword once, a corpse was created on the ship.

A chillingly concise method.

‘Could she be an assassin?’

It was the kind of movement he had heard from his father that only professionally trained assassins could display.

The girl who had been moving like a butterfly turned her head.

At first, he thought she was looking at him, but she wasn’t.

Her gaze was directed to his side.

He unknowingly turned his head to follow her gaze.

Thud.

A young man was landing there. A young man covered in blood.

It was the young man who had used Flying on Water to launch himself onto the pirates’ ship a while ago.

Soon after, a hellscape unfolded.

Slice!

Slice!

Slice!

Cutting sounds flew about ceaselessly.

The pirates near that young man collapsed to the ground in an instant.

Blood flowed all over the deck.

Pyo Daecheol and Seomun Ho, the third son of the Seomoon Clan, swallowed dryly.

“Gulp.”

Pyo Hayeon, the youngest, bent her waist and started to vomit.

“Ugh.”

The pirates were just as surprised by the man’s skill.

“R-Run away!!”

The surviving pirates screamed and threw themselves towards the Yangtze River.

That man chased the fleeing bastards and swung his sword repeatedly.

Slice!

Slice!

Seomun Ak, who had been staring blankly at the scene, hastily threw himself forward.

Slice!

After another pirate died, Seomun Ak, who had barely caught up to the young man, blocked his path.

“Stop!!”

Jin Yuseong looked at Seomun Ak with a puzzled expression.

“The fight is already over! Meaningless slaughter is also an evil act!”

At Seomun Ak’s shout, Jin Yuseong let out a hollow laugh.

It wasn’t because of the crazy nonsense.

From intervening without looking at the situation before, to his naive attitude and way of speaking.

For some reason, Jin Yuseong was reminded of Yeongcheon.

As he was having that thought, Seomun Ak’s companions also joined them.

“We cannot stand by and watch any more killing!”

A bold shout.

Jin Yuseong felt his head spin.

‘Not one Yeongcheon, but five.’

As Dang Sopyeong had said, it seemed they were cursed.

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