Chapter 20 : Fifteen Years Later (5)

“Aigoo! There’s nothing wrong with our horses. They haven’t moved a muscle all night.”

A strange voice was heard from outside.

The woman observed the situation in the stable through a very small crack in the wood.

The wooden bed had sunk down, but there was a very small gap where she was lying.

She could observe the situation in the stable.

The stable boy was sitting in a corner, sharpening a chopper blade. He had placed the large chopper blade on a whetstone and was sharpening it.

There was no trace of him having treated the woman anywhere.

“Still, I have to take a look.”

“I can show you as many times as you want, but I checked this morning and there was nothing wrong.”

Creak!

The stable door opened and three strangers entered.

One seemed to be a strong man who worked at the stable, and the other two were disciples of the Living Sword Sect with swords in their hands.

“Ha! This place is always clean. It’s probably the cleanest stable in Dongseung.”

One of the Living Sword Sect disciples said, looking at the stable.

“That’s right. Hey! Ah Geol, what are you doing!”

The Living Sword Sect disciple greeted Ah Geol as if he knew him.

Ah Geol just nodded his head.

“That rascal is always arrogant. If I catch him one day, I’ll give him a good scolding.”

“Aigoo! Leave him be. That’s just his personality, isn’t it? Let’s check the horses first.”

The stable’s strong man said, rubbing his hands together.

The Living Sword Sect martial artists began to examine the horses in the stalls. They weren’t just looking casually. They examined each one carefully. From the front to the back… they also examined the black horse in the very back stall.

“It’s not here, is it?”

They said.

They didn’t recognize the black horse.

Well… yesterday’s black horse and today’s black horse were completely different. Last night, its eyes had sparkled, but today they were somehow hazy. It wasn’t the same horse.

“Why is this one here?”

A Living Sword Sect disciple said, pointing to the black horse.

“That’s right. Don’t you feed this one? Why is it so skinny? Is it sick or something?”

“It’s probably because its breed isn’t good. I feed it the same, but it never gains weight… It’s so skinny I can’t even sell it. I was thinking of getting rid of it soon anyway.”

“If you’re going to get rid of it, get rid of it quickly. Because of this one, the others look less dignified. The others are all sturdy, but how can only this one be like this. Look at the maggots on this one’s body. Aigoo!”

“Oh! You’re right? Hey! Aren’t you going to wash this one!”

The stable’s strong man shouted at the stable boy.

The stable boy didn’t even pretend to hear. He just silently sharpened the chopper blade on the whetstone without even turning his head.

“Aigoo! That son of a bitch, that one.”

The stable’s strong man sighed in frustration.

“Let’s go. If you pay attention to that one, you’ll just get tired. It’s been a while since you’ve been here, so how about a hot drink! What do you think?”

The strong man took the Living Sword Sect disciples and went outside.

‘Hoo!’

She held back the sigh that was about to come out.

She had been tense because the Living Sword Sect disciples had come… but it seemed to have been resolved surprisingly easily.

It was a stroke of luck that they hadn’t recognized the black horse.

‘But then, what is that person?’

She looked at the stable boy sharpening the chopper blade through the crack in the wood.

The black horse and the stable boy were the same. Sometimes they sparkled, and sometimes they were hazy. Just as yesterday’s black horse and today’s black horse were different, the stable boy from before and the stable boy now were completely different.

The stable boy now was really shabby. No one paid attention to him. He was just an ordinary stable worker who didn’t need any attention.

Who would look at that stable boy and think that he was someone who could sneak an assassin away from the hands of the Living Sword Sect disciples? Neither those who knew him well, nor those who were seeing him for the first time, would think so.

At that moment, the sound of murmuring was heard again from outside the stable. The sound of footsteps entering the stable also rang out.

“I told you, it’s pointless to look.”

“No. That one from before is bothering me. Alcohol is good, but we have to do our work. Does it make sense to let an assassin go?”

It was the Living Sword Sect disciples who had just been here.

“I can show you as many times as you want, but it’s just a waste of time. There are no empty stalls. If a horse was missing, I would have told you it was missing, why would I hide it?”

The stable’s strong man said.

They soon entered the stable.

“Bring that one out.”

A Living Sword Sect disciple said, pointing to the black horse.

“Bring it out?”

“Bring it out of the stall.”

“Yes. I understand.”

The stable’s strong man opened the door of the innermost stall with an annoyed expression.

“Aigoo! How can it be teeming with maggots! Hey! Aren’t you going to wash this one! I should just kick that one out. Hey! No matter how lazy you are, you should at least wash it! How can you leave it until it gets to this point!”

The strong man shouted at the stable boy and pulled the black horse out.

The two Living Sword Sect disciples began to examine the black horse carefully. They especially paid attention to the maggots stuck to the black horse’s body. They were extremely dirty maggots, but they looked at them carefully.

“This… isn’t a maggot, is it?”

“It’s a leech. A very small leech. Are there leeches this small? And green? Are there green leeches too?”

“It’s not green. It’s black… but it has a green stripe on its back.”

‘Green?’

She recalled the green water the stable boy had applied to her.

She was told that the things teeming on the black horse’s body were leeches. That they had a green stripe on their backs.

Could it be that what he had applied to her was leech juice?

She did not know of leeches with a green stripe. She didn’t even know that such leeches existed. Weren’t all the leeches that existed in the world black? When they sucked blood, they would be dyed the color of blood and turn a bright red.

‘Can leech juice be cool? It was very cool.’

She watched the Living Sword Sect disciples through the crack in the wood. It bothered her that they had come back. It was also unsettling that they were observing the black horse carefully. It felt like yesterday’s events would be discovered.

The Living Sword Sect disciples were not looking at the leeches. They were examining the sword marks engraved on the black horse’s body.

A Living Sword Sect disciple looked at the other Living Sword Sect disciple.

The Living Sword Sect disciple who received the gaze nodded his head.

Something about the atmosphere was unusual. The laughter disappeared and vigilance raised its head.

Shing! Shing!

The martial artists drew their swords. And they glared at the stable boy in a corner and said, “Ah Geol, speak straight. This horse… where was it last night? It went outside and came back, didn’t it?”

“It’s better to tell the truth. Where is the assassin? We know she was riding this horse.”

A chilling killing intent emanated from the long swords they were holding.

The stable’s strong man turned pale at the sudden change in atmosphere and trembled. No, he took a step back and watched the situation with bated breath, in case the trouble would spread to him.

Swish! Swoosh!

The stable boy, Ah Geol, just sharpened the chopper blade as if he hadn’t heard their interrogation.

“Ah Geol!”

A Living Sword Sect swordsman shouted. In that instant,

Shwaeeek! Peok!

The stable… was split in half.

What? What!

Wind! It was a wind that made you just blink your eyes.

The gale did not blow at a specific target. It split the entire stable in half.

The woman’s eyes widened at the unrealistic sight. As if a drawing of a stable had been torn straight with a sharp blade, the scenery was split in an instant.

“Kuk!”

One of the Living Sword Sect disciples let out a groan and collapsed.

Blood pooled where he had fallen. Red blood flowed out like a spring.

“Oh!”

The other martial artist was so surprised that he raised his sword. At that moment,

Shwaeeek! Peok!

A gust of wind rose again. It split the Living Sword Sect disciple without mercy.

The Living Sword Sect swordsman collapsed without even being able to use his hand once.

The chopper blade that had been used to cut straw had cut a person.

‘What is this…?’

The woman just blinked her eyes.

The illusion of the stable being split in half!

She had not seen the stable boy, Ah Geol, move. She could not even see how the chopper moved.

But the stall was also cut. The horse was also cut. The manger… wherever the chopper blade touched, it was split without fail.

But it wasn’t true.

When she came to her senses, the stable was still there. The stall, the horse, the manger that she had thought were cut were still there. The only thing that had fallen was the person… the rest was not cut.

‘A, a master! He’s a master!’

She had never seen such a martial art.

Because Ah Geol had used a chopper, she couldn’t even tell if it was a blade art or a sword art. It was definitely a martial art that used a cutting technique, but the weapon used could not be identified.

Anyway, it was a very powerful martial art.

If Ah Geol had attacked her like this, how would she have blocked it? She probably wouldn’t have been able to block it. No martial art she knew was stronger or faster than this.

Gulp!

She swallowed her dry saliva.

Creak!

The board that had covered her was removed.

She looked at the stable boy, Ah Geol, with wide eyes.

“I have to go. I’m going to move you like this, is that okay?”

“Wha, who… are you?”

She was quite surprised. She was so surprised that she even stuttered.

Ah Geol was a master. He was not just a stable boy.

“You shouldn’t move your body yet. So I’ll just cover you with a blanket. I’ll choose a road with no people.”

Ah Geol did not answer her question and only said what he had to say. And she understood what Ah Geol was saying.

“Are you… going to move me… in this state? Without even dressing me?”

“Just endure it for two days. The wounds will heal in two days. I thought I had bought that much time, but things have become urgent.”

“Haa!”

She let out a deep sigh.

If you thought about it, it wasn’t the stable boy’s fault. She had entered the Living Sword Sect and killed Kang Jo. She was the one who had fought with the Living Sword Sect disciples, and she was the one who had been hit by the Living Sword Sect disciples’ swords.

The stable boy had given her a horse and treated her.

Whether he dressed her or not was not his fault. And he was even being chased because of her.

She should be sorry to the stable boy.

“If possible, try not to be seen by people… please.”

She said, turning her head to the side. She couldn’t bear to meet Ah Geol’s eyes.

Ah Geol put the horse tack on the black horse.

The black horse’s wounds were very deep. The leeches with the green stripe were teeming on it.

He placed the horse tack on top of that.

He was thinking of riding the horse.

Then how was she going to be moved? Surely he wasn’t going to put her on a horse without even dressing her?

She was soon relieved.

Ah Geol rolled two cart wheels from a corner of the stable.

He inserted the cart wheels on the left and right of the bed and fastened the latches tightly. Then the bed was immediately transformed into a cart.

He tied one side of the cart to the bed, and the other side to the black horse.

She finally understood what he meant by moving her in this state.

‘He must have prepared this for a long time. He was well prepared to be able to move the cart at any time. If he didn’t need the cart, he could just ride the horse.’

She was an assassin. Investigation, preparation, inspection, execution… she knew the process of preparing and carrying out a task better than anyone. If even one of them went wrong, her life would be in danger, so she would check every process meticulously two or three times.

Ah Geol seemed to have prepared much more meticulously than an assassin would.

‘Wherever we go, we’ll be safe for a while.’

She instinctively felt that she was safe.

Since she had cut down a Living Sword Sect swordsman, she would soon be caught up in a bloody storm, but she would be safe for a few days.

Ah Geol checked the blanket covering her body.

He fastened the four corners of the blanket tightly to the bed. So that it wouldn’t fall off even if the cart shook violently.

She said, “Thank you for saving me.”

(End of Chapter)