Chapter 62. The Cold Glint of a Well-Polished Sword (9)
Most of the people yelling numbers were dressed in fancy clothes.
In front of them stood naked, shackled men and women, most in their teens or early twenties.
Woo-Moon frowned.
“...It’s a slave market,” Si-Hyeon said from behind.
She glared at Go Mu-Dong with a chilly gaze.
“While having slaves isn’t illegal, isn’t it against the law to have this sort of slave market? Moreover, to have a market hidden away in such a secretive place it almost seems like it’s been set up to avoid the attention of officials. And here I thought that slave trading was still legal. But then...why would a legal market look like this? Wait a minute, could this market be one of those markets, the ones that only appear in rumors... where you sell kidnapped slaves?”
When he heard these words, Woo-Moon’s expression grew even worse.
“Hey, you. Is that true?”
Realizing he could no longer get away, Go Mu-Dong clung to Woo-Moon’s leg.
“P-please just overlook it this one time. I-I’ll give you all the money I have. No, I’ll just give you everything that I have! How does that sound?”
He knew that the way things were progressing, he would either die by Woo-Moon’s hand here or be taken to the government office and beheaded. Go Mu-Dong couldn’t accept either result. Of course, he knew that even if he were to survive by bribing Woo-Moon right now, he would have to flee anyway. Hye-Ryeong would never forgive him for letting a business she had invested in be ruined.
Woo-Moon ignored his pleas and looked down at the revolting scene beneath his feet. Even the things he saw at the first glance made his blood boil.
He roused his qi and unleashed an Azure Dragon’s Roar.
The Azure Dragon’s Roar was a Daoist sound technique comparable to the Buddhist technique Lion’s Roar. It was an upper-tier technique that shook a person's heart and blood and inflicted internal injuries through sound waves.
“YOU UGLY BASTARDS!”
Those who stood here and there, trying to buy slaves, stumbled to the ground, holding their ears in pain. What was surprising, however, was that none of the slaves felt anything. Woo-Moon’s extreme concentration allowed him to isolate them from the effects of the technique.
“If you don’t want to die here and now, get the hell out of here!” Woo-Moon shouted as Raging Wind flew toward the stone wall on the other side.
Rumble!
The entire underground chamber shook. As the people saw stone debris falling from the ceiling, they were terrified that it might collapse. However, what was more shocking was that the stone wall hit by Woo-Moon’s Raging Wind had exploded into pieces. It was clear that whoever was capable of using such powerful techniques was far beyond their ability to handle.
“Aaaah!!!”
Frightened, these wealthy and influential people from all over quickly fled through secret passages in three directions. As they ran, Woo-Moon used his movement technique and descended upon them. He kicked the back of a wealthy man and snatched a female slave from his guard, who was dragging her behind him.
“Leave behind every person you bought here!”
As Woo-Moon had an aversion to the term “slave,” he was reluctant to use even the word in any context.
Hearing his shout, the others ran away, leaving behind the slaves they had purchased at high prices. In the end, there was nothing more precious than their own lives.
Woo-Moon had ordered Go Mu-Dong to release all the slaves, as he planned to destroy the market, but as he went back to the main room, he changed his mind.
‘No, there’s a better method than this.’
There was a way to make even the rich people who had just fled bleed as well.
As he walked forward, Woo-Moon felt a strong energy aura from one side of the underground slave market.
‘Who is it?’
Woo-Moon’s figure flickered toward the place the feeling came from, while Si-Hyeon and Mu-Jae followed behind with Go Mu-Dong in tow.
On one of the sides of the prison where the slaves were held, a girl was tied up in a particularly large space that, unlike the other cages, had thick black iron bars.
She appeared to be in her late teens, and she was growling and glaring at Woo-Moon through the black hair that obscured her face. The glint in her eyes seemed almost animalistic.
The black chains that held her to the wall trembled as if they could break at any time; in the cage where she was held, there were also three corpses of people wearing the same outfits as the men dressed in black that had attacked Woo-Moon and his companions earlier. They were already rotting, and it seemed there had been quite some time since they’d died.
Woo-Moon coated his sword with sword qi and tried to cut through the iron bars.
Clang!
However, the black iron bars stood solid, as if Woo-Moon’s sword was made of wood. It was clear that whatever metal it was, it wasn’t ordinary. Seeing this, Woo-Moon called upon his sword aura.
Woosh!
A golden sword aura appeared on his blade, accompanied by mighty gusts of wind.
Si-Hyeon and Mu-Jae were greatly impressed by the aura, while Go Mu-Dong’s jaw dropped.
Zing!
This time, the iron bars were cut like tofu.
Go Mu-Dong, surprised by Woo-Moon’s golden sword, finally came to his senses.
“N-No! You can’t let that bitch go free. That bitch is a demon, a beast! She’ll kill us all!!”
Go Mu-Dong looked fearfully at the girl, who had been his biggest problem in a while. She almost didn’t seem human anymore. The fact that she didn’t speak and her animalistic gaze were one thing, but the bigger issue was that she attacked anyone who came even close to her.
Because of that, two of the subordinates that he had sent to feed her and one idiot who had come in secretly to satisfy his lust all lost their lives.
Ignoring Go Mu-Dong’s words, Woo-Moon walked forward.
“Grrrr!”
The girl let out a growl and tried to rush at Woo-Moon. However, she was unable to get very far due to the sturdy black chains that bound her.
Growl!!
Eun-Ah, stimulated by the girl’s actions, cried fiercely from within Woo-Moon’s robes, baring her fangs at the girl.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, calm down. I’ll handle it,” Woo-Moon said. He stroked Eun-Ah a few times, until she quieted down.
He put her down to the ground. “Go to Si-Hyeon and protect her.”
Mew!
Eun-Ah jumped up and went to Si-Hyeon’s side.
In the meantime, Woo-Moon looked at the girl with pity in his eyes.
“You’ve fallen into qi deviation, haven’t you? This could have been really bad if we hadn’t found you.”
With these words, Woo-Moon’s sword drew a ray of light in the air, and all of the chains binding the girl's limbs snapped off instantly.
“Growl!!!”
The moment the chains were released, the girl moved quickly, suddenly disappearing into the darkness.
Si-Hyeon shouted in surprise, “S-she just disappeared! Be careful, senior brother!”
Woo-Moon calmly sheathed his sword and said, “Oh, it looks like you’ve learned the martial arts of a Death Gate.”
A Death Gate was the general term for a sect of assassins, killers, and hitmen.
They generally used swords and killed in a single blow, and placed utmost importance on the arts of concealment.
Woo-Moon consciously circulated the energy of the Forbidden Divine Art and spread it throughout his body. Although the girl was young, the level of her assassination skills seemed to be extremely high, and it was only by using his Forbidden Divine Art that he was able to feel her presence.
‘She’s behind me!’
He quickly spun around and swung his scabbard. Just in time—the girl appeared out of nowhere and tried to wrap the long chain still shackled to her wrist around Woo-Moon’s neck!
However, the expected sound of a sword and chain colliding didn’t follow, as the girl had sensed Woo-Moon’s movements in advance using her animalistic sixth sense. She quickly withdrew into the darkness again.
‘If she’s at this level, she’s harder to deal with than that Saber Demon we met earlier.’
Considering the Saber Demon had been at the Peak level, it was easy to guess how outstanding the skills of the young girl were.
Woo-Moon concentrated his qi once again and sensed around for the girl’s attack.
‘I won’t miss it this time!’
Thwack!
Twisting his waist, he dodged the chain flying at him and struck the girl on the nape of her neck.
“Ugh!”
The girl let out a groan and fainted on the spot.
Woo-Moon quickly used both hands to forcefully push his qi throughout her meridians, immediately starting to stabilize her and solve the problem with her qi deviation.
“Whew.”
It was only after consuming half of his qi that he was able to expel the girl’s qi deviation completely.
“Heup!”
Woo-Moon hefted the girl onto his back. Although her qi deviation had been resolved, she still had internal injuries, and Woo-Moon knew that she needed more treatment. He wasn’t really in the mood to deal with random people, but since he’d started this, he would see it through to the end.
He failed to notice the expression on Si-Hyeon’s face when he put the girl on his back.
Not long after that, Si-Hyeong succeeded in getting a good price for selling the Luminous Night Pearl from Go Mu-Dong. As an added bonus, she also succeeded in acquiring every bit of the manager’s personal fortune, down to the last coin.
When she had said that she would inform the headquarters of the Golden Dragon Bank that he had secretly opened an illegal slave market, he had been left with no choice but to collect even money that he didn’t have and give it to her. If the Golden Dragon Bank headquarters ever found out that he was secretly doing this, then forget about his position and wealth, he knew he would have to give up even his life to compensate.
Thanks to this, Si-Hyeon was able to secure more funds in one day of work than the entire Leebi Merchant Guild had even in its heyday.
All of it truly was their great fortune.
‘Good! With this, it’ll be much easier to rebuild the Leebi Guild!’
As Woo-Moon’s contribution had been truly invaluable, Si-Hyeon decided to give him half of the shares in the newly created Leebi Guild.
Sometime later, after parting ways with Si-Hyeon and Mu-Jae, Woo-Moon climbed up a building and jumped from roof to roof until he returned to the Iron Sword Baek Family.
“Huh? Who is that child?”
Dae-Woong and Jin-Jin were surprised when Woo-Moon showed up again, this time carrying a beggar girl.
“Ah, well, you see...”
Woo-Moon slowly began to explain everything that had happened around him. When he told them that the girl was a child who had been in an illegal slave market, Dae-Woong and Jin-Jin looked down at the girl with pitiful eyes.
“By the way, I have something urgent to do right now, so I’d like to ask you to take care of this child.”
“Do you think we’re some kind of free babysitters?” Dae-Woong rolled his eyes.
His wife completely ignored him. “Alright, don’t worry. Go and handle your business.”
“Yes, <other.”
Woo-Moon used his movement technique once again and left the Baek Estate, running like that wind to the inn where Jeong I-Moon had gone to sleep earlier.
Knock, knock.
He knocked on the door of Jeong I-Moon’s room but heard no answer.
Hrrrrrk...Hrrrrrrk....
All he could hear was snoring, so loud that it felt as if the entire inn was going to fall apart.
“Do you know that customer? Please, I’m begging you to do something. He’s snoring so loud it’s going to drive out all my customers!”
The owner of the inn sounded like he was dying.
“Ahem...”
Feeling embarrassed, Woo-Moon knocked on the door again. This time, too, Jeong Yi-Moon didn’t wake up.
“I hope you’re not intentionally ignoring me. I’m coming in!”
After saying that, Woo-Moon went inside. Jeong I-Moon was sprawled across the bed, wearing nothing but his inner robes. His sleeping habits seemed similar to Woo-Moon’s, as Woo-Moon also only wore his inner robes while sleeping.
“Please wake up. I have something to tell you.”
In an instant, the snoring stopped, and Jeong I-Moon opened only one of his eyes, speaking in an annoyed tone.
“If it’s something trivial, prepare to be beaten to dust.”
“You hate slavery, right?”
It was widely known that the Blade Martial Emperor had appealed to the Emperor several times regarding the abolishment of slavery.
“What about it?”
“Today, I discovered an illegal slave market in Hefei.”
Jeong I-Moon’s eyes opened wide, his sleepiness instantly gone. With a vigor completely incompatible with someone who had just been woken up, he grabbed his broken saber and shouted, “Let’s go!”
Not wasting a moment, he headed straight to the Hefei City Government Office.
“Who are you?! Identify yourself!” shouted the official guarding the main gate of the government office when he saw Jeong I-Moon’s magistrate’s attire. From the sneer on his face, he clearly thought it was funny that Jeong I-Moon was still a magistrate at his age.[1]
“Get out of the way! I am Jeong I-Moon!” he said, lightly swinging both of his hands and causing the two officers to fly through the air and fall to either side of the gate.
“Ugh!”
Normally, he wouldn't act this recklessly, but he couldn’t help it because he was simply too anxious To think that the kind of slave market that he hated to the core, an illegal slave market that found its wares through kidnapping, had appeared right here!
“Hefei Prefect! Where is the Hefei Prefect?!!!”
Jeong I-Moon’s booming voice shook the entire Hefei City Government Office. Then, the Hefei Prefect, who had come to the office to do “official work” and had just gotten comfortable on his desk to enjoy his afternoon nap, was startled awake, thinking that some kind of inspector had come. He hastily put on his clothes and went out.
“Huh? What is this? Is that idiot over there a magistrate? How dares he bother me?!”
It was preposterous. How could some lowly magistrate, someone five entire ranks below him, dare to think he could call the Hefei Prefect, the owner of these lands, as if he was the emperor himself?!
“Catch that bastard right now and beat some sense...”
Right as he was about to finish his order, he finally caught sight of Jeong I-Moon proudly lifting his broken saber in the air.
Specifically, a broken saber with a lion engraved on it.
1. In Imperial China, and to a lesser extent, Korea, a magistrate was the lowest official of the court. Jeong I-Moon’s position is weird—he is technically a lowest-tier magistrate, but at the same time, he’s the emperor’s direct subordinate and has absolute authority. ☜