Chapter 18. Hunting, and more hunting
The season had commenced.
The hunting season.
Dong Bong-su began hunting down those who were searching for him, killing them in reverse.
As always, he proceeded with extreme caution in everything he did, but the process was not entirely smooth.
Dong Bong-su was fully aware that he was still very weak. A frontal confrontation was dangerous, so whenever possible, he ended everything through ambushes.
He used an application of inventory techniques, a method he had used extensively during the Suicide Plague, to shake off pursuing black-clad operatives, then secretly struck from behind to kill them. At times, he lured them into secluded places and set them on fire. No matter the method, Dong Bong-su always stayed several moves ahead of the black operatives.
If the body is weak, you fight with the brain and patience.
In this manner, members of the White Tiger Group, one of the three major black factions of Bongyang, began to die off one by one.
By the time White Tiger, the leader of the White Tiger Group, finally sensed danger, more than half of his group's members were already dead.
In the process, Dong Bong-su managed to raise his level from 2 to 4. Moreover, he obtained an unintended side benefit: a rather useful new mask called the Nameless Martial Hero.
Thanks to this, he was able to deal with the black factions even more easily. Officials and citizens disguised his killing spree as heroic deeds. As a result, when acting as the Nameless Martial Hero, he no longer needed to worry about the eyes of others.
Even so, he continued killing with the utmost caution. More than anyone, he knew that a single moment of mistake could lead to failure. At any moment, in any situation, letting one's guard down was absolutely forbidden.
A wolf pack never attacks a large animal head-on. It circles around, waiting, and once it finds an opening, it bites piece by piece, exhausting its prey.
Sometimes a bite to the leg, sometimes a bite to the haunch, and sometimes a bite to the testicles.
Eventually, the exhausted animal collapses.
Dong Bong-su continued attacking the White Tiger Group by relying on luring, guiding, ambushes, arson, and disguises in that very way. Even more carefully. He was alone, not a legion.
Thus, the White Tiger Group slowly began to fall apart.
Even so, the most important figure—the leader White Tiger—remained unharmed. As Dong Bong-su continued fighting them, he realized that White Tiger was the White Tiger Group itself. Unless he eliminated him, the White Tiger Group could not truly be considered destroyed.
From the moment he recognized that fact, Dong Bong-su began torturing the group's black operatives instead of killing them immediately. It was to gather as much information as possible about White Tiger before killing them. As a result, he obtained a great deal of information about White Tiger.
However.
All of that information led to the same conclusion: White Tiger was a man without any openings. Moreover, judging indirectly from the black operatives' testimonies, White Tiger's martial power was far beyond what Dong Bong-su—still only level 4—could handle, even with an ambush.
To make matters worse, due to the repeated deaths of his subordinates, White Tiger became extremely reluctant to go out. Capturing him became even more difficult, and the White Tiger Group's hideout, which Dong Bong-su had barely managed to identify, was turning into a kind of fortress.
Even with an ambush, it would be uncertain whether he could win, and with White Tiger holed up like that, there was absolutely no way to kill him. But entering the hideout was also impossible.
Even in such a situation.
Dong Bong-su discovered a single, very small opening in White Tiger. Rarely, but White Tiger did come out of the hideout.
He carefully observed the timing of White Tiger's outings.
White Tiger only went out for exactly two reasons.
To collect protection fees and to visit courtesans. Only those two things.
Even then, White Tiger never went out alone; he always brought dozens of black operatives with him.
Judging purely by martial arts level, the gap in power was so vast that Dong Bong-su could do nothing to White Tiger and the White Tiger Group, no matter how many times he died and came back to life.
But from White Tiger's very first outing, Dong Bong-su had been wearing a triumphant smile inwardly. He had finally found a way to catch White Tiger.
No matter how thorough a person is, there are situations where they inevitably let their guard down. Dong Bong-su aimed for that primitive moment of carelessness—among them, the best possible moment.
He secretly slipped into the house where White Tiger's concubine lived, timing it for the day White Tiger would come to visit her. For Dong Bong-su, who could remove pillars using the inventory, it was child's play.
Thus, he infiltrated the latrine. There, without any hesitation, he put a bamboo-leaf breathing tube in his mouth and hid himself inside the human waste.
The first few times, White Tiger did not come to the latrine, resulting in failure. The next few times, only White Tiger's concubine came, splashing down fluids mixed with semen, vaginal fluids, and urine. But Dong Bong-su was a man of great patience. Without missing a single day, he infiltrated the concubine's house in accordance with White Tiger's outings.
Finally,
After finishing a heated session of intercourse with his concubine, White Tiger came to relieve himself, his heart at ease, seeking the ultimate purification and release. At that moment, Dong Bong-su succeeded in plunging his sword into White Tiger's rear opening. The blade pierced upward from below and burst out through his throat, and the bastard departed for the Sanzu River without even managing a proper scream.
He must have had no regrets. He surely left after fully experiencing his final orgasm.
Thus, Dong Bong-su became level 5 and acquired two new skills.
Lightness Skill and Three Talents Sword Art, First Form: Sweeping the Thousand Armies.
[Lightness Skill Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]
A martial art that lightens the body. By learning Lightness Skill, one can jump higher and run faster.
Current applied level: Lv.0 (the player can adjust the level of this skill.)
Jump bonus: 0%
Movement bonus: 0%
True energy consumption per second: 0 JP
[Three Talents Sword Art First Form: Sweeping the Thousand Armies Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]
A very common sword art in the martial world. Even ordinary people without internal energy can learn it.
Sweeping the Thousand Armies is an enhanced version of a horizontal slash.
All action bonuses of this skill are related to the proficiency of related skills and whether sword energy or sword force is being manifested.
Current applied level: Lv.1 (the player can adjust the level of this skill.)
Horizontal Slash range bonus: 1%
Horizontal Slash attack power bonus: 1%
Horizontal Slash casting speed bonus: 0%
True energy consumption per use: 30 JP
Those were the two.
***
Lightness Skill and Sweeping the Thousand Armies—these two skills were the first active skills given to Dong Bong-su. By obtaining them, he was finally able to engage black operatives in frontal battles.
Dong Bong-su planned to easily wrap up the White Tiger Group, now that White Tiger was gone, and then commence hunting his next target.
The remaining Red Wolf Sect and the Black Snake Association. Which black faction should he strike first?
The deliberation did not last long.
While the Black Snake Association laid low after the destruction of the White Tiger Group, the Red Wolf Sect boldly stepped forward, attempting to absorb the White Tiger Group's territory. They tried to expand their power by exploiting the fact that the Nameless Martial Hero had eliminated the White Tiger Group.
The next target was decided.
The Red Wolf Sect.
They underestimated the Nameless Martial Hero—no, Dong Bong-su—far too much. Either that, or their greed was simply excessive.
Using his newly acquired skills and the inventory divine art, Dong Bong-su dealt with the Red Wolf Sect's black operatives relatively easily. Unlike when he faced the White Tiger Group, he sometimes boldly attempted frontal breakthroughs, not relying solely on ambushes.
The sect leader of the Red Wolf Sect, Bigwi Seo, panicked. The Nameless Martial Hero was far stronger and more aggressive than he had expected. He thought that as long as he was careful of ambushes, there would be no major problem—but it was a complete miscalculation.
It was only natural. Dong Bong-su was evolving day by day. Not only was he leveling up rapidly, but his mastery of inventory usage was steadily improving, and his understanding and proficiency with skills were increasing exponentially.
The Red Wolf Sect's forces shrank much faster than those of the White Tiger Group. As they did, the citizens of Bongyang went into a frenzy. The faster and more numerous the killings, the higher the Nameless Martial Hero's reputation soared.
"Nameless Martial Hero! Nameless Martial Hero! The mysterious great hero! Let me try shouting it too!"
By the time children began playing hero games and singing songs imitating the Nameless Martial Hero.
At last, even Bigwi-seo purchased a one-way ticket to the Sanzu River from Dong Bong-su's ambush.
The Red Wolf Sect was erased from the world, and as a reward for this achievement, Dong Bong-su gained enough experience to surpass level 6 and nearly reach level 7.
Around this time, he was keenly aware that he had grown much stronger.
He also realized that the time was approaching to move on to the next stage.
The experience he could gain from black operatives had become extremely limited—about the same amount he used to gain from killing ordinary people back when he was level 1.
For now, it was still somewhat usable, but he anticipated that by the time he finished off the Black Snake Association entirely, the experience gained from killing them would be negligible.
Indeed, even after thoroughly sweeping Nakwon Village, the stronghold of the Black Snake Association, his experience barely increased. Before coming here, he had already been close to level 7, yet he had only just managed to reach level 7.
Even so, Dong Bong-su was satisfied with today's results.
The 'inventory divine art,' which he had grown very accustomed to, once again demonstrated tremendous effectiveness. It was used to execute enemies approaching from behind, and it was also used when he distracted hidden enemies using deception tactics involving corpses, then stored the beams of abandoned houses into the inventory.
His ability to apply the newly acquired skill Sweeping the Thousand Armies had also increased significantly. After gathering enemies into one place using corpse shields, he wiped them out in one sweep with Sweeping the Thousand Armies. Had it been an ordinary slash, such an effect would not have been possible.
Lightness Skill had now reached level 3, increasing jump power and movement speed by a full 100%. Due to its high JP consumption, he usually kept it turned off, activating and adjusting it only as much as needed when required.
Just how strong am I now?
Dong Bong-su suddenly asked himself that question. It wasn't something he could answer objectively, but he could define it with one short, blunt word.
"Quite."
He was now quite strong.
Compared to when he had existed in Seoul, the difference was like that between a firefly and moonlight.
In that case...
Was it finally time to start killing martial artists?