Sipchilgyo was afraid.
The ones who had captured them were none other than the Faceless Guests, the very followers of the Wicked Little Demon.
If they were dragged away by these people, pain worse than death would be waiting for them.
Ordinary assassins hid poison pellets in their molars in case they were captured, but the assassins of Gaingyo did not.
It was the will of their leader, Cha Iran.
If you have the strength to bite down on poison, then grit your teeth and struggle to survive to the very end!
‘I shouldn’t have let my guard down.’
No. This was not a matter of carelessness. Even if she had not let her guard down, the result would have been the same. An assassin exposed in the open was no different from an ordinary martial artist. And on top of that, they had been ambushed.
‘How on earth did they find us?’
Was there a traitor? Even if someone wanted to betray them, they could not. They did not know where one another lived. And yet these people had recognized and come for them with precision.
It was then.
Piiiiii, boom boom boom!
The sound of firecrackers bursting came from somewhere not far away. They were firecrackers that made a distinctive sound.
Sipchilgyo and Ogyo exchanged glances. Those firecrackers just now were the signal used among Gaingyo’s assassins to announce an emergency.
That meant these Faceless Guests were also moving against them elsewhere.
A Faceless Guest stuck his head out the window and looked toward the direction from which the firecrackers had sounded.
‘How can they not even think to look at us once?’
If they were men, surely they would glance at least once. Were they truly people raised by the Demon Cult to feel no emotion whatsoever?
Of course, she did not know. If the Faceless Guests did look, just how persistently they would stare.
The carriage slowly reduced its speed.
No matter who they were targeting this time, the two assassins had only one wish.
‘Please, let them have heard the signal!’
Just as the carriage entered a deserted street on the outskirts.
Thud, thud.
The Faceless Guest in the driver’s seat seemed to strike the rear wall hard, and then the carriage picked up speed.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
They felt something fly in and embed itself in the carriage in quick succession.
Just as the Faceless Guest was about to open the curtain on the opposite window and look outside.
Swish!
A hidden weapon flew in through the window and shot out through the opposite one.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Again came the sound of hidden weapons embedding themselves in the carriage.
The carriage lurched as it was hastily turned. One wheel lifted, and it tilted to the side.
The Faceless Guest moved to the opposite side and drew up his internal energy.
The carriage, whose wheel had lifted, had just barely regained its balance when—
Bwaaaang!
A hidden weapon shaped like a short arrow pierced through the carriage wall and flew inside. It was no ordinary hidden weapon. It was powerful enough to penetrate the carriage wall. And the place where that hidden weapon flew was right where Sipchilgyo and Ogyo were sitting.
The Faceless Guest struck down at the hidden weapon flying toward them with his dagger and knocked it aside.
Clang.
The force of the incoming weapon was so powerful that his wrist hurt as if it would snap, but thanks to that, the hidden weapon changed direction.
The hidden weapon flew through the space behind the heads of the two seated women.
If the Faceless Guest had not knocked it away, both of them would have lost their lives.
At the same time.
Slash!
Another hidden weapon flew in and tore through the arm of the Faceless Guest, who had exposed himself at the window to shield them.
Blood sprayed from his arm, but there was no time to tend to the wound.
Another hidden weapon flew in.
Swaaaish!
A longer hidden weapon than before shot toward the place where the women were sitting. It was faster and stronger than the previous one.
The Faceless Guest grabbed the two women and pulled them to the seat where he had been.
Bwaaaang!
The hidden weapon pierced through the place where they had been sitting and flew on.
Outside, a merciless attack was being unleashed. Sipchilgyo and Ogyo knew who the woman attacking them was.
Palgyo, she was the most skilled in hidden weapons in all of Gaingyo.
Of all people, it had to be her.
Palgyo’s nature was selfish and ruthless. Even if she knew allies were riding in the carriage, she was the sort of person who would still launch an indiscriminate attack.
Clang! Clang!
The Faceless Guest knocked aside the hidden weapons that pierced through the carriage again. One of them was a weapon that would have struck the two women, and he blocked it despite the danger.
‘Why is he going this far to keep us alive?’
Sipchilgyo was inwardly puzzled. If one spoke of cruelty and ruthlessness, these Faceless Guests should have been worse, not better.
Hidden weapons poured in, but the carriage ran well. The Faceless Guest in the driver’s seat drove while knocking away the incoming weapons with finger wind so they would not hit him or the horses.
Both his skill at driving the horses and his skill at firing finger wind were superb.
After he struck the rear wall with a thump, thump to give a signal, he stopped the carriage beside a place with trees for cover.
The moment the carriage stopped!
The Faceless Guest opened the carriage door, threw the women outside, and then hurled himself out as well.
Papapapak!
Because the carriage had stopped, the hidden weapons flew in with even greater precision.
The Faceless Guest who got out of the carriage first checked the driver’s seat. Perhaps he had thrown himself somewhere, but his companion who had been driving the horses was nowhere to be seen.
Ting! Whoosh!
Just as a hidden weapon that had struck the wall and bounced off flew toward Sipchilgyo’s face.
Swish.
The Faceless Guest sent out a finger wind and knocked the hidden weapon away. He was faithfully keeping Geom Mugeuk’s joke that they must not strike the face.
Just as he was about to hide the two women behind a tree.
Swaaaaaaaaaa!
Hidden weapons poured down on them like rain.
Clang clang clang clang clang clang!
The Faceless Guest could have thrown himself away and dodged alone, but he blocked in front of Sipchilgyo and Ogyo and struck the weapons down.
Blood splattered across his white mask, but the Faceless Guest did not dodge.
Sipchilgyo and Ogyo silently stared at his back as he stayed in place until the very end, trying to protect them. It was truly a situation where they did not know whom they should be cheering for.
‘He can’t block it! It’s impossible!’
What Palgyo was unleashing now was no ordinary hidden weapon technique. It was a Golden Dragon hidden weapon of the Murim Alliance, the Annihilating Downpour, which she was said to use only in the most urgent moments.
Blood sprayed from the Faceless Guest’s shoulder and waist. Even if his arms and legs were injured, he somehow avoided his vital points and blocked them.
Clang!
With one final clear ring, the Faceless Guest let his arm drop.
He breathed roughly. He was too exhausted to block any more hidden weapons. Even a single dagger flying in would be the end of him.
But no more hidden weapons came.
When the Faceless Guest raised his head, he saw the Faceless Guest from the driver’s seat standing on a distant rooftop across the way, looking toward him.
Beside him, a woman lay collapsed.
While he had been blocking the hidden weapons, his companion had succeeded in subduing her.
A short while later, three assassins sat side by side in the tattered carriage.
Sipchilgyo, Ogyo, and Palgyo as well.
Only then did the Faceless Guest properly treat his injuries.
Though none were critical wounds, several were torn quite deeply. With an indifferent expression, he pressed his acupoints to stop the bleeding, applied wound medicine, and wrapped them in bandages.
“Ugh.”
Seeing the Faceless Guest’s eyes twist in pain, Sipchilgyo felt strangely unfamiliar with the thought that this man, too, felt pain.
There was a great deal of blood on his mask. Most of it was blood he had shed to protect her.
This time, Sipchilgyo thought that Faceless Guest would surely not endure it. After all, Palgyo had nearly killed him by using the Golden Dragon hidden weapons in succession. Even if he did not kill her, Sipchilgyo thought he would beat her half to death.
But the Faceless Guest did not even hurl a single common curse. He simply looked out the window.
‘What on earth is he thinking?’
Sipchilgyo also silently looked at the scenery flowing past through the holes in the broken carriage.
* * *
The women arrived at the reception hall.
The women gathered today to receive their seating assignments were those who had advanced to the main round but had failed to make the final seven.
Those who knew one another exchanged greetings and chatted.
“To think I’d come here again.”
“I thought I’d never be able to come back.”
This was the very reception hall where they had waited during the main round of the competition.
“We were sitting here, weren’t we?”
“Back then, I thought I would make it to the finals.”
Laughter broke out here and there. The atmosphere was good. There was a strange sense of camaraderie that came from having fallen short together.
Once all the women had entered the reception hall, a warrior wearing a bamboo hat pulled low followed them in and closed the door.
Chief Jo was waiting in the reception hall.
“The reason I have gathered all of you today is to arrange the seating for the final stage.”
One side of the reception hall had been decorated like a stage, with chairs arranged behind it for them to sit in.
“Please make sure you clearly confirm where your seat is today so that there are no mistakes on the day itself. Now, I will begin assigning seats.”
Chief Jo called out each person’s name and assigned them a seat. For some reason, he seemed more tense and rigid than usual, but everyone was busy confirming their own seats and did not pay attention to that.
“Now, come forward and sit where the numbers are written. On the day itself, the chairs will not have numbers on them, so you must not get confused.”
In that way, one by one, he had them sit.
All the women’s seats were decided, and they sat there looking at the stage.
The stage had been made only as a mock-up for seating arrangements, but their regret was real.
A sigh escaped someone’s lips. Everyone knew it was a sigh filled with regret—perhaps that stage could have been hers. After all, they were all letting out the same sigh in their hearts.
At that moment, a shrill voice rang out. The words were hard to believe even after hearing them.
“You stupid bitch, why are you sighing? You got eliminated because you’re ugly.”
Everyone’s gaze turned toward the woman who had hurled the insult. She was even sitting beside the woman who had sighed. At her words, the woman who had sighed widened her eyes in shock.
“What did you just say?”
“Are you deaf too? You were acting so high and mighty from the preliminaries. Serves you right.”
Slap!
The woman who had sighed slapped her across the face without mercy.
“You bitch, you hit me?”
The two women grabbed each other by the hair and began fighting.
Of course, it was a situation that should have been stopped, but another woman watching them shouted.
“Kill her!”
What was this now? The women’s gazes turned toward the one who had shouted to kill her. As if it had not been a joke or idle remark, she shouted again in a sharp tone for her to kill her.
The woman who had insulted her, the woman who had immediately slapped her, and the woman who was watching them and shouting for someone to be killed—all of them were abnormal.
Even three abnormal women appearing would have been a lot, but another emerged.
“How low-class. No wonder pathetic bitches like you got eliminated. I can’t stand being with you.”
At another woman’s words, a woman in the row behind her struck her hard on the head.
“You bitch, you’re the most pathetic one here!”
This time, two women clung to each other and began fighting.
Chief Jo ran over in shock.
“Stop! What is wrong with all of you?”
He tried to stop them, but the excited women could see nothing else.
The fight spread in an instant. It was not as though someone had incited them into fighting. Nor were they split into two sides.
They simply fought with the person beside them, and with those toward whom they had accumulated resentment during the earlier rounds. Some even fought with people they had never exchanged a single word with.
Shouts and curses erupted from every direction. As if they had all been waiting for this very moment, everyone screamed and hurled abuse at their opponents.
They swung fists, scratched, and tore clothes. They grabbed hair and dragged one another around.
There were women who bit others, and women who sat down and burst into tears.
There were women who cursed their parents while lamenting their lot in life, and women who screamed that they were the greatest beauty under heaven. Truly, they were dragging out and saying everything they had hidden away and never been able to say.
Chief Jo’s mouth fell open at the sight that unfolded in an instant. He had truly never seen anything like it in his life.
No matter how much resentment they had over being eliminated before the finals, could people really become like this?
It was impossible to believe these were the same elegant and beautiful women he had seen when they entered this place. It was as though they had suddenly been struck by madness and gone collectively insane.
Of course, there were also women standing perfectly fine and watching the scene. So it was not a contagious illness.
In any case, he could not simply leave this pandemonium be.
“Stop! Stop this at once!”
Chief Jo’s shout rang out.
As if it were a lie, the noisy space began to grow quiet.
Even Chief Jo, who had shouted, was startled.
Everyone had suddenly stopped fighting cold.
The hands grabbing collars let go, and the hands tugging hair released their grip.
The women looked around in bewilderment. They straightened their torn clothes, fixed their disheveled hair, and wiped away nosebleeds.
They did not look like people who had been fighting like madwomen moments ago.
Rather, their expressions said this:
What did I just do? Was that really something worth fighting over to this extent?
Everyone looked embarrassed.
“What in the world are you doing?”
At Chief Jo’s rebuke, the women who had fought finally lowered their heads.
“We’re sorry.”
Some women bowed their heads and apologized, while others, ashamed, hid behind people. Some even apologized to the very opponents they had been spitting at and cursing moments before.
At that moment, the warrior in the bamboo hat who had been standing by the entrance walked forward.
The women were suddenly frightened. They had caused a disturbance and even fought before an important stage. Sinhwabang could punish them or spread rumors about them.
The bamboo-hatted warrior raised his hand and pointed at the women. He herded the women he pointed out to one side. They were all women who had become excited and fought just moments ago.
Not only that, he also pointed out several among the women who had not fought and had merely watched.
After separating the women in that way, the bamboo-hatted warrior said to Chief Jo,
“Take them out.”
Even as they left, the women were puzzled. Normally, should he not send back the women who had not fought and keep the ones who had fought to scold them?
Yet he had sent out all the women who had fought.
Ah, of course, there were also a few women who had not fought among them. No one could tell what standard he was using to send them out.
Without a word of complaint, Chief Jo took them outside.
Now, only twenty women remained there.
The remaining women looked at one another with grave expressions.
Naturally so, because the people who should not have been left together in a place like this remained.
They were none other than the assassins of Gaingyo.
The highest-ranking among them was Samgyo. She could not understand this situation. Among so many women, in the midst of that pandemonium—
‘How on earth did he leave only us behind?’
Samgyo and the other assassins turned their gazes toward the bamboo-hatted warrior.
The bamboo-hatted warrior walked forward.
He set upright a chair that had fallen during the fight and sat down on it.
When he slowly removed his bamboo hat, the Wicked Little Demon appeared, wearing a face veil.
“You all know your seats, don’t you?”
The Wicked Little Demon’s low voice echoed through the hall filled with assassins.
“For now, sit down.”