Chapter 244. A Silent and Holy Night

The reason we had raised a flag bearing the name Windcloud Escort Bureau was to teach a lesson to anyone who picked a fight with us, but I had forgotten that the Ghost Demon was sitting on the driver’s seat.

Most people took one look at the Ghost Demon’s face and either got scared or avoided us, so during the journey, we were the ones who would have had to start trouble.

But after finally leading a group of villains out in person for the peace and well-being of the orthodox path, the Murim Alliance, and the gangho, I could not do that.

This was not a journey to become public enemies of the murim, but a journey to catch one. It was a grand expedition to wash away, even if only slightly, the sins of past and present lives committed by the Four Great Villains, myself included.

What sins, specifically, had these men committed?

I did not really know.

In any case, three out of the four had been public enemies of the murim, so they must have had plenty of specific sins.

Then what sin had the Sword Demon committed? I did not know that either. Just from the atmosphere around him, he seemed like a man with many sins, so he was simply traveling with us.

To be honest, even if he had no sins, what was so enjoyable about a life spent coming out to the front yard of his residence every blessed day and swinging a wooden sword around? Only by being dragged around like this could he see the outside world, listen to his pathetic disciple grumble, endure the Ghost Demon’s hard-to-listen-to singing, and analyze my nonsense.

If the Sword Demon had a sin,

it was the sin of having become tied to me by fate.

Fortunately, the Sword Demon was not the type of person to voice complaints or dissatisfaction under any circumstances, so he was swept along with us as if he were there and not there at the same time.

On a journey, once the brief moment of heart-pounding excitement passes like an instant, it is bound to become dull and tedious. Strangely enough, we were rather good at enduring boredom, so we listened patiently to the Ghost Demon’s strange and tedious songs.

In other words, this journey was no different from a kind of self-discipline training.

* * *

We prepared to camp near Juksan, where we had arrived by carriage.

That was because we had not found a suitable inn to rest at even by sunset. After feeding the horses first, we gathered firewood, lit a campfire in front of the carriage, and sat around it. Tossing firewood into the crackling campfire, we burned time as well.

In no time, the familiar darkness settled around us.

For some reason, as though we had made a promise, none of us spoke for a long while. While the Ghost Demon was the first to sit cross-legged and circulate his qi, the three of us kept watch. After that, the Lust Demon began circulating his qi, and the Ghost Demon lay down facing the campfire and fell asleep first.

Without paying attention to whatever the villains were doing, I gazed at the campfire, then lay down and looked up at the stars in the night sky.

The clusters of stars were still varied.

Some were scattered, and some were gathered together. There were clusters that flowed like waves, and others that rotated like whirlpools. It looked as though the stars, which had been carefully looking down upon the world, were imitating us.

As I gazed at the countless shining stars, I had relatively peaceful yet utterly useless thoughts.

A short while later, a wolf’s howl sounded nearby, and the footsteps of an animal chasing and an animal being chased mixed together.

The Ghost Demon opened his eyes and spoke in an annoyed tone.

“Boar hunting again? Youngest, you go chase them off.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the Ghost Demon snored lightly. The Lust Demon, who had just finished circulating his qi and was about to sleep, muttered.

“……Even in his sleep, he’s being a pain in the ass.”

I also turned onto my side and watched the darkness where the animals were chasing and being chased. I saw several wolves appear with moonlight held in their eyes, wary of the campfire.

The Ghost Demon muttered again.

“Wolves? Something’s coming this way.”

He must have only been dozing, because he had grasped the whole situation.

The Sword Demon suddenly drew the Radiant Sword and began wiping the blade with a cloth. Then a gentle ghostly wail flowed out, like the sound of a musical instrument being played. The ghostly wail of the Radiant Sword I had heard before had sounded like dozens of people screaming all at once, but now it sounded as though a lone female ghost who knew how to sing lullabies was singing by herself.

The Lust Demon stared at the wolf pack, then, as if he had suddenly lost his mind, shot up into the air and ran toward them. As the startled wolves scattered, the Lust Demon’s laughter rang out from the darkness.

“If I catch you, I’m roasting and eating you. Why don’t you piss off?”

The Ghost Demon, awakened by the ghostly wail, finally got up and asked me.

“Third, have you ever eaten wolf meat?”

“No. Is it good?”

“No idea.”

A little while later, the Lust Demon unexpectedly dragged back a large boar that had been fleeing from the wolves and said to me as I lay there.

“Give me a knife.”

“What knife?”

“The one you always carry in your clothes.”

How did this bastard know?

I took out the Flash Dagger and tossed it to the Lust Demon. The Lust Demon moved off to one side and, while butchering the boar he had caught with the dagger, said to the Ghost Demon.

“Second, go get some more firewood. Stop sleeping all the damn time.”

“Insolent bastard.”

The Ghost Demon answered curtly, then moved off somewhere to get firewood.

I watched blankly with the Sword Demon as the Lust Demon hacked up the boar. A little while later, the Lust Demon roasted a large boar leg over the campfire and laughed for no reason.

“Euhuhuhuhu.”

“…….”

When the Ghost Demon quickly returned and roughly made a firepit with firewood and stones, the Lust Demon skewered the remaining meat haphazardly on branches and set them over it.

As he turned the boar leg over and roasted it, the Lust Demon asked the Sword Demon.

“Master, don’t you have any salt?”

The Sword Demon took some jerky from his clothes and threw it to his disciple. The Lust Demon then cut the jerky thinly with the Flash Dagger and sprinkled it over the meat he was roasting as if scattering salt.

The sound of meat cooking was exceedingly peaceful.

A little while later, the Lust Demon handed a nicely browned boar leg to the Ghost Demon and said.

“Give it to Master.”

The Ghost Demon took the thick leg meat over and held it out. The Sword Demon accepted it and took a bite.

The Lust Demon asked.

“How is it, Master?”

The Sword Demon answered in the driest tone in the world.

“Edible.”

“Yes, sir.”

I expressed my condolences to the boar that had become meat.

“Poor boar bastard. Tried to avoid wolves and got caught by a shit-pants wolf instead.”

A little while later, the Ghost Demon held out some boar meat to me as well. I took it and tore into it, and combined with the salty taste of the jerky, it was decently edible.

I saw the Lust Demon eating a large boar hind leg and said.

“Hand over the leg.”

The Lust Demon answered while thoroughly gnawing on the boar hind leg.

“Eat what you’ve got. If I roasted meat and offered it up to a bastard who didn’t do a thing, you should be grateful.”

While roasting a front leg, the Ghost Demon asked me.

“Want to eat this, at least?”

I nodded.

“Give it.”

The Ghost Demon spat—ptoo, ptoo, ptoo—onto the front leg he had been roasting, then said to me.

“Eat what you’ve got.”

“Childish. So childish. You actually spat on it. Did you think I wouldn’t eat it if you spat on it?”

The Sword Demon, who had been tearing into a hefty hind leg with an expressionless face, looked at me.

A brief silence passed.

I asked the three of them,

“A boar should have had four legs, so why am I the only one eating this? Did a wolf tear one of the legs off, perhaps?”

“…….”

Being ignored by all of them at once felt rather refreshing.

“Amazing. I’m clearly with three people, yet I’m talking to myself.”

Just then, from quite some distance away, a wolf’s howl stretched out long before being abruptly cut off. While chewing our meat, we all turned our heads at the same time and stared into the darkness where the wolf’s cry had been forcibly severed. Faint as it was, we even heard the sound of the wolf’s head falling to the ground.

A moment later, a voice using ventriloquism sounded nearby.

“For what reason are the four of you loitering near Juksan and making such a racket?”

The three people who had so thoroughly ignored me all looked at me at the same time.

“…….”

I put a finger to my lips and listened closely. The voice, impossible to pinpoint because of the ventriloquism, continued.

“No matter how I look at it, the four of you seem closer to the unorthodox and heretical paths. What business do you have here? Are you merely travelers, or are you searching for someone? If we are searching for the same enemy, joining forces would not be a bad idea. Who are you trying to kill?”

Once again, the three looked at me.

I shook my head again.

The voice continued.

“I warn you: either leave Juksan quietly, or state your purpose. If you refuse to leave, I intend to gather my companions and kill you. If you were people sent by the Martial Alliance, I would have killed you immediately, but you do not appear to be from that side no matter how I look at it, so this is my final offer.”

I nodded.

If there was anyone who could look at the four of us and think we were experts belonging to the Martial Alliance, that bastard was insane. Though each of the four of us had a different air about us, we shared one thing in common: none of us looked like good men. Look at us this way or that, we looked like bad men, and even I looked like a wicked bastard.

Only then did I answer in a moderate voice.

“Is Juksan your family’s inner chamber? Why are you making a fuss telling us to get lost or not? How insolent.”

I threw out the words and waited for a response, but the surroundings remained quiet. A moment later, the same voice flowed out.

“Our eldest senior brother conveys this message. Leave Juksan before the sun rises. He has determined you to be a band of unorthodox heretics trying to take the Martial Alliance’s money.”

I was listening seriously when the Lust Demon came over and held out the boar’s last foreleg. I tore into the boar meat and, for a moment, forgot to reply. The juices were so incredible that I said to the three of them,

“Ah, the leg was the tasty part.”

“It really was.”

“Well roasted. Who knew that shitbag had a talent like this too?”

Only then did I start slightly and shout toward the darkness.

“……What did you say! What was that? Just now……? Did he leave?”

I asked the Ghost Demon,

“Did the ventriloquist leave?”

The Ghost Demon shook his head.

“How would I know when it’s ventriloquism? I don’t know. Just eat your damn meat.”

“What did he say at the end?”

“Don’t know. Since it’s ventriloquism, his pronunciation’s bad. He was going uh-buh-buh-buh, so I couldn’t tell.”

I muttered while tearing into the boar leg.

“This is driving me crazy. This tastes like you wouldn’t notice even if two people were eating and one of them got hit by a hidden weapon. You know, like a steel needle. Whoosh! Thunk! Gah! The guy beside you collapses, and you just keep eating the damn meat. That’s the kind of taste I’m talking about.”

The Lust Demon replied,

“Instead of that, let’s just go down toward the market and buy a whole bunch of meat, firewood, salt, and stuff like that, then eat. Bring plenty of vegetables too. Master, what do you think?”

The Sword Demon, who had been meticulously scraping the meat stuck to the boar’s leg bone, answered briefly.

“Sounds good.”

The Ghost Demon snapped his fingers.

“Buy some liquor too.”

The Lust Demon nodded.

“I forgot the liquor. Wow, grilling meat here while watching the stars, then having a drink—now that’s what we should do. If there’s a lakeside somewhere, it’d be perfect. I’ll have to look around tomorrow.”

The Ghost Demon said to me,

“Third, give us some money.”

Perhaps because they were villains, every one of them was financially incompetent. In truth, I had also been financially incompetent in my past life, so I was rather understanding about such things.

“If you ask, I should give it to you.”

At that moment, the voice of the ventriloquist, whom I’d thought had left, was heard.

“……Is that your answer?”

I whipped my head around, stared into the darkness, and answered.

“What? You didn’t leave? Where the hell is this bastard mumbling from?”

“…….”

I turned to face the darkness, then picked up a bone and hurled it with all my strength.

“Eat this and get lost. Please!”

The bone fell somewhere, rolled, and came to a stop. I drew in a breath and then let out a long stream of words.

“……No, why did you even learn ventriloquism? In the time it took you to learn ventriloquism, you could’ve done one more session of qi circulation and breathing. If you’re going to attack, come now. If not, get lost. Are you going to chatter with ventriloquism all night? Hurry up and bring your friends. Bring your eldest senior brother too. We need to eat and sleep now, so why do you keep going uh-buh-buh-buh with ventriloquism in the middle of the night? If you were confident in your martial arts, you wouldn’t have learned ventriloquism. You learned ventriloquism because you weren’t confident in your martial arts, didn’t you? Are you a rat? If you’re a man of the jianghu, train hard like one. Why did you learn ventriloquism like some rat and go uh-buh-buh in the darkness? Am I wrong? Did your eldest senior brother teach you like this? ‘You have no talent in martial arts, so learn ventriloquism first, and there will come a time when it proves useful.’ Is that what he said? Was tonight that time? No, wait. Your master must have taught you ventriloquism. No, what kind of idiot teaches his disciple ventriloquism? ‘In truth, our sect is not a sect that competes with martial arts. We are a sect that settles matters with our mouths. First, you must learn ventriloquism so your opponent cannot determine your position in the darkness.’ Is that what he said? Are you some mysterious faction of rats in the dark? What the hell are you?”

I continued while tearing meat from the hind leg.

“What does it have to do with you whether we’re unorthodox heretics or the Martial Alliance? Are you the owners of Juksan? Did you plant the trees? Are you bandits? Is the boar your private property? You reveal your identities first. What strange bastards. Are you hiding to the very end, enduring my words with all the patience in your soul while listening? Damn bastards, you’re not normal.”

The Lust Demon sighed.

“My ears are going to bleed.”

I looked at the Lust Demon and said,

“Wow, now that I think about it. What if that guy’s master learned ventriloquism that can make his voice resound throughout all of Juksan? Then we’re screwed for sleep. Just as we’re about to fall asleep, he’ll wake us all up with ventriloquism. ‘Awaken, living creatures of Juksan. A new morning has dawned.’”

The Lust Demon dug a finger into his ear.

“Ah, stop already. I feel like blood’s going to come out of my ears. I’m sorry. I’ll apologize for him. I’m sorry he learned ventriloquism. Stop. Just eat some damn meat.”

The Sword Demon, who had finished off the hind leg first, lay down on the ground, and the Lust Demon asked,

“Master, are you going to sleep?”

The Sword Demon answered while lying at an angle.

“I’m sleeping.”

“Yes, sir.”

With his eyes closed, the Sword Demon said to me,

“Third, you should sleep too. Listening to you is making me dizzy.”

I answered while eating the meat.

“Eat, then sleep.”

Once I sealed my mouth, all of Juksan grew quiet again. I whispered to the Ghost Demon.

“The ventriloquist—gone?”

The Ghost Demon answered in a whisper as well.

“How should I know, you bastard? I don’t know, but he probably left coughing up blood.”

“Then that’s a relief.”

The Sword Demon suddenly let out an ahem and rolled over. The Lust Demon must have been tired too, for he lay down and closed his eyes.

The Ghost Demon also abruptly closed his eyes, then crossed his legs and muttered.

“My mind is hazy.”

Thus, left alone again in the dead of night, I spoke to the villains.

“Sleep… good night.”

Those I could talk to had disappeared, but it was a quiet and holy night.

That was enough.