Book 10: Chapter 18: Shock and Awe

A back alley in Luoyang.

“We have hidden the heads properly!”

The merchants' severed heads were stored in an abandoned warehouse that had been pre-arranged with the client.

With this, the request was excellently completed.

However, the most important task remained.

“This way! Hurry!”

The mercenary group, which had raided the Ganghwa Merchant Association and practically slaughtered them, hastened their withdrawal.

“Did you spend all the money I gave you until now on drinking?! Why are you so weak?! I told you to run your fucking ass off!”

After standing in the middle of the alley to direct the way, the mercenary leader began to run, following her subordinates from the rear.

“Leader…!”

Toward her, one of her subordinates approached and asked while running alongside her.

“Are you sure we can escape safely even after making this fucking mess?!”

Instead of answering, the mercenary leader looked up while running and shouted.

“These bastards…! What is there to look at that you're spectating?! Do you want your eyeballs gouged out?!”

A bloodthirsty voice.

“H-Hieek…!”

The residents looking down at them from the buildings along the alley hurriedly shut their windows.

“Leader! There are too many witnesses…!”

The subordinate expressed concern.

Basically, the residents of Luoyang were terribly indifferent to others' affairs, but it was a different story if a reward for reporting was offered.

They would report everything, even fabricating stories that didn't exist, to the investigators from the public security office.

“It's fine! Don't worry!”

The mercenary leader answered firmly, but in truth, even she had nothing that could be called certainty.

“Underground sewer entrance discovered!”

As soon as the subordinate's report was heard, she shouted.

“Crawl inside, everyone, right now!”

While the subordinates tightly bound the iron-grated entrance with chains they had prepared in advance to delay any possible pursuit.

She passed by her panting subordinates and headed toward the inner part of the waterway.

“Hooh…! You have arrived right on time!”

Standing there was a middle-aged man holding an oil lamp.

“Yeah, so…”

The mercenary leader forced down her ragged breath and spoke as if growling.

“Just as you bragged during the contract, it is true that you can smuggle our mercenary group out of Luoyang, right?”

“Of course!”

The middle-aged man cackled and spread his hands.

“Luoyang—no, the Central Plains' first and best group of escape experts! Just trust this Path of Life Merchant Group!”

It was none other than him.

The former representative of that very Path of Life Merchant Group, who had smuggled the righteous warriors of the Spring of Luoyang out in the early morning.

“Suspicious…”

The mercenary leader's deputy stepped forward while gripping his hilt.

“Are we escaping through the underground sewer? I heard that is impossible?”

“Oops, no, it is not!”

The middle-aged man, the former representative of the Path of Life Merchant Group, waved his hand.

As he waved his hand while holding the oil lamp, the shadows danced in confusion.

“Usually, the underground sewer is a terrible place, but now, even the lost 'hunting dogs' are roaming inside. If we enter now, ten out of ten will die!”

“Hunting dogs…?”

The mercenary group could never have imagined that those hunting dogs were the former Greedy Wolves of the Martial Alliance.

“We will temporarily pass through the 'shallow depth passageway' of the underground sewer and…”

He paused for a moment and then shouted with a meaningful smile.

“We will walk out through the city gates!”

“Walk out…?”

As everyone's gaze instantly turned suspicious, the former representative of the Path of Life Merchant Group beat his chest.

“Put aside your worries and just prepare to be surprised!”

He winked playfully.

“A previous customer said that our group's skill is like magic!”

* * *

The Luoyang Central Office, the annex building, also called the central public security office, was currently reminiscent of a shambles.

Public Security Annex.

“Incident occurred in Gahyo District! Requesting troop support!”

“Tell them we have no spare troops either!”

“Head! Don't take my head! Return it! You motherfuckers!”

A man, shirtless and drenched in blood all over, was showering curses at the government soldiers dragging him away.

Of course, he was not talking about his own head.

“The head is evidence! Seize it!”

At the constable's command, a soldier seized the leather pouch with a disgusted expression.

“These fucking bastards! Do you even know how much that head is worth?!”

Crimson blood was dripping from the leather pouch.

The head of a merchant, whom he had raided from some small merchant family and cut off, was inside that leather pouch.

“…Crazy bastard.”

The constable muttered curses as he watched the guy shouting at the top of his lungs in all directions even as he was being dragged away.

However, his swearing was not directed solely at him.

“Release this hand while I'm speaking nicely!”

“Do you want your skull crushed?! Bring it on, you motherfuckers!”

On one side, mercenaries captured at the scene were holding up furniture and confronting the soldiers.

“Emergency patient occurred!”

On the other side, a contractor beat another contractor to death with a chair.

“*Spit*” she spat on the corpse and threw the blood-stained chair.

“Motherfucker… That's the price for hitting on the head I targeted first.”

Soon, she was beaten thoroughly by the soldiers who rushed at her.

“It's going crazy.”

It seemed that people who had grudges against each other in normal times had gotten into a fight.

“…Senior.”

The junior constable approached him.

“I don't even know how many incidents this makes already. Now, even if a report comes in, there are no troops to deploy.”

The junior constable shook his head.

“There's no time to even smoke a pipe of tobacco. I'm dying.”

Although it was not even lunchtime yet, he already wore an expression of being completely drained of energy.

“Dealing with an assassin belonging to an assassination group isn't easy, is it?”

The rest of the assassination group had all fled the scene.

They had barely arrested only one assassin who had unfortunately suffered injuries and was abandoned by the group.

“Those guys are real hard cases.”

The senior constable giggled as he pulled out a tobacco pipe and put it to his lips.

“Sigh. Don't even talk about it.”

The junior constable bit the tobacco the senior held out and shook his head.

“No matter what we do, they don't budge, as if their mouths are sewn shut. At first, I thought they had no tongue and forcibly opened their mouth, you know?”

Only hidden weapons concealed inside the mouth were discovered.

“So, these decapitation cases occurring consecutively are still shrouded in mystery.”

“Because none of the arrested guys open their mouths properly.”

The junior constable sighed.

“Besides, without exception, they are guys who move solely for money in the first place. They probably don't even know the reason.”

The senior constable used the lamp lighting the office to light his tobacco and blew out smoke as if sighing.

“In this insane situation, the whole of Luoyang is trembling in fear.”

Lest others hear.

His voice was low.

“They say that pedestrians are rapidly decreasing on the busy streets of Luoyang, which didn't budge even during the war of the influential families representing the successors of the Luoyang Sword Family.”

“…I heard stories that merchants are competing to hire mercenaries or rogue warriors.”

Ordinarily, if incidents of this scale occurred consecutively, they would have completely blockaded Luoyang and then some.

The high-ranking officials watching the Luoyang Sword Family's reactions were keeping them waiting excessively.

They said it was due to some political issue regarding the matters spanning from last night to early morning, but there was no way mere constables could know the inside story.

“The Deputy Governor of Luoyang must be cursing the vanished Governor a lot by now.”

The senior constable wore a bitter smile.

“Probably, before cursing, he is envying the Governor who is not in his seat.”

The moment the junior constable took a long drag to light his tobacco with the one the senior handed him.

“Please help me!”

At the entrance, an old man in luxurious silk clothes shouted.

How urgently he had run, he was even in his stocking feet.

“The Eldest Young Master…!”

The Eldest Young Master? What Eldest Young Master?

The surrounding gazes focused on him.

Shaking his hands trembling, the old man shouted once more.

“The Eldest Young Master of the Sword Family is targeting my neck!”

At those words the tobacco, from which he couldn't even take a single puff, fell from the junior constable's mouth and rolled on the floor.

* * *

“I will answer any questions. But before that, please guarantee my personal protection.”

“You are practically receiving personal protection right now, so speak with peace of mind.”

The senior constable, who sat the old man in silk clothes before him, asked him.

“The Eldest Young Master of the Sword Family, you say.”

Scratching his head, he first verified the story he had just heard.

“Are you talking about the Eldest Young Master of 'that Luoyang Sword Family'?”

His voice was sufficiently low and small.

Whether the Luoyang Sword Family or the Eldest Young Master.

They were names that had absolutely nothing good about being heard by someone.

“Yes.”

Looking around restlessly with bloodshot eyes, the old man in silk clothes answered.

“I mean 'that Eldest Young Master' of the Luoyang Sword Family.”

At that answer, his mind became complicated.

“That's strange…”

The junior constable crossed his arms at the side, frowning.

“That Eldest…”

Observing the surrounding reactions, he changed his expression.

“If it is that person, although the surroundings are quite noisy these days, is he not basically reputed to be fair and honorable?”

It was hard to think that such a person would manipulate this kind of madman-like act from behind.

“…We also thought it was like that.”

The old man in silk clothes sighed and raised his trembling hands to cup his face.

“But he wasn't. He was a complete madman.”

“On earth…”

The senior constable spoke with an expression showing he did not understand.

“What on earth happened? Why is that Eldest Young Master targeting people's necks?”

“It is all because we were arrogant. We were too arrogant.”

The old man bit his nails while his legs trembled.

“We ended up touching the dragon's reverse scale. It was practically equivalent to suicide…!”

It was incomprehensible.

“Please speak a bit more precisely.”

He was the first secured witness.

Moreover, if the Eldest Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family was involved, it was absolutely no ordinary matter.

Well, in truth it was already no ordinary matter in the situation where Luoyang fell into a vortex of chaos and was becoming a bloodbath.

“What did the people currently being hunted do to that Eldest Young Master?”

The old man's focus wavered anxiously, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“It was not something done to that madman Eldest Young Master.”

The figures of the constables reflected in his eyes also wavered anxiously.

“It was targeting the merchant groups of his younger sisters and allies, the Third and Fourth Young Ladies.”

“The Third and Fourth Young Ladies' merchant groups? The Sword Family's Third and Fourth Young Ladies?”

“Yes. As for how that matter started…”

The old man talked incoherently, but he barely succeeded in explaining to the constables the reason this current situation came about.

“Inflicting retaliation of this level for hostile business activities?”

However, convincing them was impossible.

The junior constable shook his head.

“This makes absolutely no sense logically—” the old man in silk clothes shrieked.

“That is why I said he is a madman, didn't I? climatic

“According to those words…”

The senior constable spoke while touching his forehead.

“The mercenary groups, assassination groups, professional contractors, and day-labor hitmen carrying out raids in this chaotic mess…”

His brow furrowed deeply.

“Are you saying they are all incited by the Eldest Young Master?”

“Of course not!”

The junior constable expressed his dissatisfaction.

“You said earlier it was that person's doing, so what on earth is it then?”

“Oh, Buddha…!”

As the constables could not keep up, the old man beat his chest as if frustrated.

“Do you think that devil-like madman Eldest Young Master would dirty his own hands?! Naturally, there are others who will dirty their hands in his stead!”

“If others, whom are you talking about?”

The old man shrieked, "Aaack!"

“I don't know that either!”

The old man's eyes, which had been red and bloodshot, were turning even redder.

“It could be a specific group, or it could be certain families. Or perhaps influential figures…!”

It was an incident of a scale that mere constables could hardly dare to imagine. "……."

The junior constable put his hands behind his back and sighed, and the senior constable, with the tobacco in his mouth, pulled the writing tools buried among the documents.

“…I understand the situation. Then, let us first write a proper report.”

The old man jumped up from his seat.

“Do you think this situation will somehow be resolved by writing some report right now?!”

Now, the old man's eyes were so bloodshot they looked as if they would pop out, and even his face flushed red.

“The opponent is that Eldest Young Master! I mean you guys can't even take any measures!”

The old man repeatedly struck the desk.

“So don't do useless things in vain, and just give proper protection to my person…”

The old man swayed for a moment.

“Proper protection…”

The constables' eyes widened.

“Uh, uh? Elder?”

The moment the junior constable was about to approach him, the senior constable, sensing something strange, grabbed his shoulder.

“Cough…!”

The old man, whose face had also turned completely red, vomited a bowl of blood on the spot.

It was dark, dead blood.

“No, what is this…?”

The old man's legs gave out, and he buried his head in the dead blood he had vomited.

“In the end, was it impossible to escape from the angered dragon…”

That was the old man's last words.

Black blood gushed continuously from the mouth of the old man, who collapsed and died on the spot.

“…Poison!”

The junior constable gasped in horror and covered his face.

“His complexion was strange from the beginning.”

The senior constable stepped back and grit his teeth.

“…Did he already enter in a poisoned state?”

Just then, a soldier hurriedly rushed into the entrance and shouted.

“Incident occurred in Tanryung District! A large-scale clash broke out between the escort mercenary group hired by the merchant group and an unidentified armed force!”

The senior constable threw his tobacco on the floor.

“Fuck, what a shitty day.”