Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 4 - Opportunity (3)

Chapter 4 – Opportunity (3)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Mok Gyeong-un lay dead with his neck snapped.

The intruder was stunned for a brief moment.

But it did not last long.

“You bastard!”

-In a flash, rage surged to the top of his head.

He lunged at the boy, seized him by the throat, and slammed him into the wall.

-Bang.

It was absurd.

Even if Mok Gyeong-un was merely a mediocre third-rate martial artist, he was still a martial artist.

This one was an ordinary civilian.

Even if he was a condemned prisoner, the difference between one who had learned martial arts and one who had not was absolute.

Yet even if it had been a sudden surprise,

did it make sense for Mok Gyeong-un’s neck to be snapped in an instant?

While the intruder stood there dumbfounded, the boy said to him with an expressionless face,

“Even if you spread sleeping incense, you should not make a commotion.”

“What? And you’re saying that now…!?”

The intruder furrowed his brow.

He was gripping the boy by the throat, yet there was not the slightest sign that he was in pain.

Rather, he was speaking just fine.

‘Come to think of it, why is this bastard’s neck…’

The muscles in his neck were highly developed, as if he had trained external arts.

At this level, it seemed one would need to pour internal power into the grip to break it properly.

‘Did he train external arts? No. If that were the case, he would need at least some internal power.’

Even external arts required internal circulation as a foundation.

Yet this boy truly had no internal power.

He was clearly not a simple person.

The intruder’s thoughts grew tangled, but this was not what mattered most now.

“You mad bastard. The Young Master gave you a chance, and yet you turned around and…”

“Have I misunderstood the purpose of a stand-in?”

“What?”

“A stand-in is someone who takes on danger in place of the real one. Of course, for me it was a chance to extend my life by three days or so, but if you went so far as to smuggle out a condemned prisoner for the role, then does that not also mean you could discard me at any moment once I have served my use?”

“…”

The boy spoke calmly.

At those words, the intruder was momentarily speechless.

This one was smarter than expected.

If he were an ordinary civilian and an ordinary condemned prisoner, he would have been too busy trying to survive this moment.

‘No, from the start, how could he even do something like this?’

Yet not only had he grasped the situation in an instant, he had gambled on it.

Even though he might die immediately.

‘What kind of monster is this…’

Then the boy said,

“May I ask you something?”

“This bastard still has no grasp of the situ…”

“You said you were a guard, but for someone whose master has just died, you are remarkably calm.”

“You little…”

“If you still have this much reason left when you should want to kill me, it does not seem like you had much affection for your master.”

“Ha!”

At those words, the intruder was dumbfounded.

The boy was reading his state of mind to a disturbing degree.

Just as the boy said, the intruder did not hold great affection for this Young Master.

He was little better than a wastrel.

He was only shocked and angry at this sudden turn of events.

But that did not mean he was so upset that he would kill the boy here and flee the prison without thought.

‘This is a spectacle.’

That he should be led around by some mere condemned brat.

As the boy had said, under the circumstances, killing him would be the natural thing.

But with the Young Master dead, if he lost this one too, Yeon Mok Sword Manor would try to demand his life in payment for the failure.

‘Damn it, this has gone completely wrong.’

His plan to make the Third Young Master the manor lord

and spend a peaceful old age as the steward of Yeon Mok Sword Manor

was now threatening to collapse.

Because of this damned condemned brat, all the investment he had made up to now seemed to be going to waste.

Then the boy said to the dismayed intruder,

“How about changing carriages instead?”

-“Changing carriages?”

“Would it not be easier if you thought of the one lying there on the floor as the condemned prisoner who was going to be executed the day after tomorrow?”

The boy spoke as if it were nothing.

Looking at him, the intruder was dumbfounded.

Yet for some reason chills ran down his spine.

This damned condemned prisoner was basically saying that he himself would become Mok Gyeong-un.

The intruder tightened the hand gripping his throat.

Only now did the boy let out a somewhat pained sound.

The intruder glared at him and said,

“You damned condemned bastard. Did you kill the Young Master for that from the very beginning?”

At that, the boy gave a faint laugh and said,

“Is there… any other reason?”

‘!?’

At those words, the intruder swallowed hard.

What kind of creature was this?

The way he thought

was completely different from that of ordinary people.

His cunning was no joke.

-No, perhaps that was why he had ended up here as a condemned prisoner in the first place.

‘This one is dangerous.’

Whether Yeon Mok Sword Manor would demand responsibility or not,

the thought came to him that perhaps it would be better to kill the boy now.

His instincts warned him strongly.

Regardless of martial arts or age, nothing good would come from becoming entangled with this boy.

He tightened his grip harder.

The boy gasped.

-At this point, even a brute should not be able to endure.

“Do not be ridiculous. It would be better if you just died here.”

Kill him.

-Even if it meant starting all over again.

At that moment, the boy suddenly grabbed the intruder’s wrist.

Smack.

“It is useless. I do not know whether you killed the Young Master by luck through a sneak attack, but I am different.”

The intruder tried to lightly knock away the hand

with his other hand, filled with internal power,

but the boy endured it.

It felt as though he had struck an old tree trunk.

There was spring in the wrist, and the muscles were astonishingly hard.

Then, with quick fingers, the intruder tore away the sleeve of the prison garment around the boy’s wrist.

His eyes shook.

The densely packed form of the muscles

came clearly into view.

They were developed as though he had trained nothing but external arts for over ten years.

Only now was the secret solved.

‘… No wonder the Young Master was caught.’

It had not simply been luck

from a surprise attack.

Looking at the density of those muscles,

it seemed difficult to injure him without considerable power.

-In terms of the body alone, he had already surpassed what an ordinary third-rate martial artist could handle.

‘If this bastard had properly learned martial arts…’

He might have become a martial expert of considerable level.

But to properly cultivate internal power,

one had to begin no later than between five and ten years of age.

If it started too late, impurities would accumulate in the meridians and the circulation of internal power would slow.

Then pain shot through the wrist gripping the boy’s throat.

The boy was applying strength and trying to pry the hand loose.

‘What kind of strength is this bastard using?’

The intruder was already using seven-star power.

Yet the boy was trying to shake him off through sheer force.

To call him monstrously strong would not be an exaggeration.

If he let his guard down, the hand might truly be torn away.

‘This won’t do.’

The intruder immediately used a grappling method.

He released the hand from the boy’s throat, seized the wrist instead, and twisted the joint so that the arm bent around toward his back.

The whole thing happened so fast

-that the boy’s wrist was twisted before he could properly react.

‘How did he do that?’

Was this too a kind of martial art?

If so, it was wondrous.

He had used the boy’s own strength against him and twisted the wrist.

But thanks to that, the hand that had been gripping his throat was gone, so it became easier to breathe and he was able to speak.

Then the intruder drew something from his waist.

It was a dagger.

It seemed he intended to stab him with it.

At that, the boy said,

“Is there really any need to kill me?”

“What?”

“If I will die without the antidote, then do I not have no choice but to obey what you say?”

At those words, the intruder paused with the dagger midway.

The situation was so absurd that he had forgotten for a moment,

but the boy had indeed taken the poison pellet he brought.

And remembering that only made it more absurd.

Poison already in his body, and yet he had done something this insane.

‘So he is thinking that now the Young Master is dead, he is the only possible replacement?’

His cunning had gone too far.

Then the boy said,

“I have no interest in Yeon Mok Sword Manor or in being the Third Young Master.”

“No interest? Then why would you pull a stunt like this…”

“I simply have a reason to stay alive longer.”

“Stay alive longer?”

What exactly was he saying?

As the intruder stood puzzled, the boy continued in a meaningful tone,

“Since you are the one with the antidote, can you not use me however you wish, like a puppet?”

At those words, the intruder paused.

Until now,

he had only thought that his plan for retirement had been destroyed.

That was because, unlike the past, what he wanted now was a peaceful life.

To go somewhere else and invest that much time again had grown tiring.

How much investigation and time had he spent in order to find the place he thought most ideal?

‘Use him however I wish…’

He fell into thought.

The words were tempting, but he was no fool.

He had experienced only a little of the boy.

Yet already he was dangerous beyond measure.

He was too cunning to control easily.

Still, if he was this obsessed with living,

then for the time being, at least because of the poison pellet,

he would not dare oppose him.

‘… Should I use this as a chance to change lines?’

There had only ever been one reason to seek out a stand-in in the first place.

It was to save the Young Master’s life.

But the Young Master was already dead.

In that case, using this boy and changing allegiances might be a good way out.

Even if he managed to put the boy in a position of power and control him from behind, it would likely only become a headache over time.

-‘Right. I will use him and discard him.’

After a brief moment of thought, the intruder made his decision.

He would use the boy only until he could safely switch his line of allegiance.

The intruder warned him,

“If you show even the slightest foolish intention, I will kill you. If you disobey my orders, I will kill you.”

“Understood.”

The boy answered without a moment of hesitation.

“If you do not take the neutralizing medicine within twelve hours, the poison will spread to your five viscera and six bowels, so remember that well.”

The intruder finally released the arm he had twisted.

Then he said to the boy, who was rising to his feet,

“From this hour on, you are Mok Gyeong-un.”

“Understood. Should I call you Guard Gam?”

“Yes.”

“In front of others,

I may speak informally, I assume?”

-“… Yes.”

He had no desire to be spoken down to by the boy, but there was no harm in making things clear.

Then the boy, now Mok Gyeong-un, walked over to the body of the real Mok Gyeong-un.

Then he began to strip off his clothes.

Guard Gam watched with displeasure.

Without even being told,

he was already changing clothes with the real one.

He truly was cunning to the bone.

The only pitiful one was the dead real Mok Gyeong-un.

As Mok Gyeong-un removed the upper part of his prison garment,

Guard Gam’s eyes narrowed.

Inside, the boy’s upper body was covered in highly developed, dense muscles.

His chest and abdomen were wrapped in bloodstained bandages.

Yet even through that, the shape of the muscles stood out clearly.

That alone was enough to show their density.

‘And this is a body that never trained external arts?’

It had been surprising before, but seeing it now made it even more shocking.

As Guard Gam stared fixedly at his upper body, his eyes narrowed further.

‘He looks like he recently suffered serious wounds severe enough to be bandaged like that.

Then why does he look perfectly fine on the outside?’

That was the question.

If the injuries were old, it would be one thing.

But they looked recent.

Yet Mok Gyeong-un’s complexion and movements seemed perfectly ordinary.

‘What in the world is this brat?’

He grew curious about what exactly this one had done to end up in prison as a condemned man.

It seemed he would have to meet his contact in the government office again.

Then Mok Gyeong-un, now dressed in the dead boy’s clothes, turned and said,

“May I borrow the dagger?”

“The dagger… for what?”

Pointing toward the head of the real Mok Gyeong-un’s corpse,

he answered as if it were nothing,

“The Young Master’s body is slighter than mine, so I think we should leave only the head and take the torso.”

“…”

There was certainly logic to what he said,

but this one was still deeply unsettling.

It seemed changing lines quickly would be the best course.

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