Cheonghwa Town - Chapter 58

The slave trader dodged the incoming axe by dropping to the floor, becoming completely invisible.

“Hogyeok! You want to play hide and seek with me?”

The axe was stuck in the inner wall of the bridge. As soon as Muwon’s hand left it, the pirates rushed towards him as if they had been waiting.

Muwon charged at them just as they did at him. Ducking under a swinging sword, he grabbed and pulled the axe out of the floor. The axe, which had been deeply embedded in the floor while attempting to cut the rope, came out with a loud crack, lifting the wooden deck. The pirates were all astonished by Muwon’s monstrous strength but blocked his way to the bridge.

Wielding the axe again, Muwon mercilessly cut down those who attacked him. However, he was not satisfied with the blunt axe, unlike his own weapons. He sliced through an opponent’s wrist holding a sword and snatched the weapon from him. The viking sword, quite heavy and with a broad blade, was not new to him, so he needed no time to get used to it.

Muwon, facing attackers from both directions, pierced the throat of the one on his right with the sword and pushed forward. He pinned the body with the viking sword beneath the bridge and then switched to a longsword the pirate was holding.

They attacked from all directions to capture one Tae Muwon, but they were chopped to pieces without discrimination. The only one who remained somewhat intact was a pirate who had been hiding in a corner, holding a weapon. Even he, after seeing the pieces of his mutilated comrades, threw up and lost the will to fight, discarding his weapon.

Blood that could not seep into the wooden deck formed puddles. Around Tae Muwon, only those who were groaning in pain and the dead who could not say anything remained as their bodies were cut into pieces.

Climbing up to the bridge, Muwon looked down at a square line on the floor. Casually wiping the blood splattered on his face with the back of his hand, he stabbed the sword into the golden interior. Crack! Crack! As he stabbed the wooden floor repeatedly, a man’s screams erupted. A square door opened upwards.

“I surrender! I surrender! Unconditional surrender!”

The slave trader Hogyeok, with a blade in his shoulder, raised both hands up as he looked up at Tae Muwon in terror.

He had definitely obtained information that Tae Muwon and Tae Cheonoh were not going to be on the Peira this day. And that was very recent, solid, and fresh information that he had received just a few hours ago.

“What made you so bold, Hogyeok?”

Muwon pulled out the axe he had thrown earlier and then yanked Hogyeok up by the hair. The long scar stretching from his mouth to his ear stretched tautly. It was a scar that Muwon had given him during his teenage years.

Muwon dragged Hogyeok out to the bridge and threw him down. A significant amount of Hogyeok’s scant hair was pulled out and scattered.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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“Pl- please, save us. Save us!”

As one person begged for their life, others rushed to plead as well. Muwon kicked open a section of the tattered deck with his foot, creating an escape for a few.

“Hogyeok, stay put.”

Muwon said, leaving Hogyeok behind as he spoke.

“Yes! Hogyeok stayed still!”

Hogyeok, who had been secretly reaching for the rope, now kneeled in an upright position. Only then did Muwon turn back to look down at him.

“Who is it?”

“Yes?”

Smack! Muwon kicked Hogyeok in the face, right where the scar was. Knocked to the side, Hogyeok, who had fallen to the side, got up like a crocodile and immediately fell to his knees again.

“There’s definitely a spy on my ship, right? Someone who overlapped both the escort mission for Hwang Ran and this voyage. Excluding the planet guys, the suspect list must be about thirty?”

Hogyeok shook his head in quick succession as though he was convulsing.

“No! There is no such thing as a spy!”

Muwon crouched in front of Hogyeok, who naturally lowered his gaze.

“Punk, why avoid my eyes?”

Hogyeok then looked up sharply at Muwon.

“Truly, there is none. I must have lost my mind as soon as I saw the Peira and got too cocky…”

“Hogyeok-ah!”

Muwon barked loudly, causing Hogyeok to fall backward. Muwon then ripped Hogyeok’s old shirt with his axe and gently pressed the blade against his belly, right where the liver was located. Despite trembling, Hogyeok continued to deny having planted any spies or anything of the sort to the very end.

Hogyeok, unlike Muwon, was not from the Kwon Clan but was originally from the 11th continent. His parents were accountants working under Muwon’s father, the prime minister of the 11th continent. Growing up in a wealthy household, Hogyeok had believed he would follow in his parents’ footsteps as long as the 11th continent remained stable.

However, the 11th continent sank. Hogyeok managed to escape thanks to his parents’ sacrifice and wandered from continent to continent afterward. He couldn’t take his wealth, so all he had was a few pieces of jewelry. Since he had people he brought with him, it was easy to quickly burn through funds. Desperate, Hogyeok turned to making business – starting with selling the people he had escaped with. He chose to become a scoundrel who sold people rather than live a difficult life in poverty, Hogyeok arrogantly thrived in the human trafficking business until one day, he crossed paths with Tae Muwon.

Hogyeok had known Muwon since they were young. Despite Muwon’s tendency to display violent behaviors, they had a not-so-bad relationship as Hogyeok was much older. Hogyeok closely watched as Muwon gathered the Kwon Clan to form the Peira.

Seizing an opportunity when Muwon was off guard, Hogyeok attempted to sell off the entire Peira, which was much smaller at the time and seemed like a feasible plan. When Hogyeok expressed a desire to join the Peira, Muwon welcomed him in his own way. At Hogyeok’s welcome party, he drugged the alcohol intended for Peira and Muwon.

“Th- that day, you spared my life with mercy… how dare I target the Peira ship…”

As Muwon put a cigarette to his lips, Hogyeok quickly pulled out a lighter from his pocket and lit it for him.

“Let’s get the story straight. I was going to kill you, but you ran away. Would someone who did that crawl back to die on his own feet? Who’s behind this?”

Hogyeok clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. He knew very well about the Kwon Clan, which is why he had dissolved a near-lethal dose of sleeping pills in the alcohol they were supposed to drink. Everyone except Tae Muwon fell unconscious, leaving him to hold on and fight desperately against the human traffickers Hogyeok had called in. It was a one-versus-many battle, and Hogyeok had expected Tae Muwon to be quickly subdued, but in the end, the only one left standing was Tae Muwon.

Muwon had slashed Hogyeok’s face with a dagger, intending to skin his face. Hogyeok managed to escape by jumping out of the bar’s window during a moment when Muwon was catching his breath. He jumped out of a bar window five stories high and ran away like crazy. He only realized his leg was broken after he had managed to get on a ship.

Despite the pain from his once-broken leg, Hogyeok didn’t dare to stand up.

“He made a deal with the Hwang governor!”

Just then, a woman, barely helped up by others from below the deck, shouted. She was a middle-aged woman dressed in a black suit.

“You crazy bitch- ugh!”

Tae Muwon gripped Hogyeok’s face as if crushing it. The woman opened her mouth as Tae Muwon looked at her as if telling her to continue speaking.

“I’m a merchant of Hwang. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but we run a fairly large trading association called Yeonjeong. I set out to obtain ambergris after hearing that a sperm whale was caught, and the governor of Hwang connected me to this man. But then, he conspired with the governor and tried to sell us out!”

Just as she said, she seemed to be a fairly large merchant, as many of the men and women guarding her back seemed to be her subordinates. Hogyeok struggled strongly with his face caught in Tae Muwon’s grasp.

“There’s a botanical garden on the Peira, right? What he’s after is in the Peira’s garden, ack!”

Suddenly, the woman who raised her voice let out a muffled scream as a wooden branch pierced through her mouth. Following that, branches sprouted from the mouths of her subordinates behind her, some even piercing through their skulls. Flesh and viscera clung to the branches, dripping blood.

“Fuck, what’s this now.”

Tae Muwon pressed down on the branch trying to grow from Hogyeok’s mouth, causing Hogyeok’s face to grotesquely swell before sharp wooden branches burst forth in all directions.

Muwon took his hand off the already dead Hogyeok’s face and stood up.

***

“There’s a botanical garden on the Peira, right?”

Muwon looked up at the dome of the Peira. The reason for the infiltration of as many as three ships to the stern was precisely the dome. He felt a tingling sensation at the back of his head. He had anticipated that someone familiar was behind this and his intuition was spot on, yet there was something sinister and unforeseen lying at his feet that he couldn’t put a finger on.

As he slowly surveyed his surroundings, the sight was appalling. Among those who had been killed by him, there were people whose mouths spewed out tree branches, lying scattered around. It was like how a tree had grown through the Marine Building.

At that moment, a flash of intuition brushed the back of his neck. He smirked and muttered lowly, “Surrounded by ill-fate”.

Muwon narrowed his eyes slowly.

Cheongyeon, who had no connections, had survived unscathed without a single touch from these scoundrels. Moreover, every time he was in danger, it was the threatening parties who ended up dead. All signs pointed to one conclusion: Cheongyeon must possess some special ability.