Return of the Heavenly Sword

Chapter 20. Poison Human (1)

While the merchant leader and the head escort were terrified, Jin Yuseong recalled something and spoke.

“Where were you headed?”

The merchant leader, trembling in fear, cautiously answered the sudden question.

“W-we were planning to go to Huaihua, but……”

The merchant leader couldn't bring himself to spit out the unspoken words, ‘why do you ask?’

Fortunately, Jin Yuseong resolved his doubt.

“It would be difficult to go all the way to Huaihua, but it should be possible to go up to the vicinity of Suining, which is the halfway point. It will be difficult for you to move with so many injured, so would you like to travel together at least that far?”

At Jin Yuseong’s kind proposal, the merchant leader replied with a face pale as a sheet.

“W-we are fine. S-since the Young Master took care of all the bandits, wh-who would attack us? Ha. Hahaha.”

He acts fine now, but who knows when his eyes will glaze over again and he’ll kill us.

Such thoughts filled the merchant leader’s mind.

However, Jin Yuseong could not accept it.

“Wouldn't it be better to have at least one more hand to support the injured?”

Their faces turned deathly pale as they ended up accompanying the madness-filled boy.

Ignoring them, Jin Yuseong approached the escort whose thigh had been pierced.

“Please get on my back.”

“I-it’s alright, ch-chivalrous warrior. I-I cannot trouble you any further.”

A face that seemed to be begging for its life.

However, Jin Yuseong was firm.

“It’s fine. This is also training, so it’s no trouble at all.”

Of course. Training by carrying a person on my back.

Moreover, to prevent the patient on my back from getting shocked, wouldn’t I have to perform my movement arts even more exquisitely?

Unable to refuse any longer out of fear, the escort had to get on Jin Yuseong's back with a face like a Hopping vampire.

***

Jin Yuseong and the merchant group moved towards Suining.

Considering his destination, it could be said to be a slight detour.

Jin Yuseong’s current goal was to root out the Steel Sinew Sect in advance.

That Steel Sinew Sect was currently based in a place called Shaoyang, and they were the ones who would later expand their power and dominate the area.

Naturally, Jin Yuseong’s final destination was Shaoyang. And that place was about a five-day walk northeast from Jin Yuseong’s hometown.

On the other hand, Jin Yuseong had currently come in the opposite direction, to the southwest, to take care of the Ten-Thousand Year He Shou Wu and to deal with the Iron Dragon Sect in advance.

Naturally, retracing his steps was the shortest route, and Suining, where they had now arrived, was to the northwest.

But Jin Yuseong didn’t care.

‘I’ve already finished cleaning up that path, so I should clean up the other side as well.’

What would he do by going back to a place where the Black Path had disappeared?

That was Jin Yuseong’s thought.

Furthermore, the reason he had specifically chosen this detour was because there was a bastard who absolutely had to be cleaned up.

Like the Iron Dragon Sect, a master who would later belong to the Steel Sinew Sect. Green Valley Teacher.

Moreover, unlike the Iron Dragon Sect, Green Valley Teacher had no particular faction. He was just an old man who had claimed the position of an elder of the Steel Sinew Sect with his individual strength.

Excluding the Steel Sinew Sect's leader and the guy who would later be called the Vajra Dog, he was also the most outstanding master in the Steel Sinew Sect.

Right after parting with the merchant group in Suining.

“Hoo. Still, thanks to my increased internal energy, I should be able to save some time.”

Jin Yuseong was operating his internal energy to the maximum and moving his limbs ceaselessly.

Every time he pushed off the ground, his body shot forward like an arrow.

Before long, Jin Yuseong arrived at a small village.

The villagers' faces turned pale as they saw him entering the village.

“Hiiik.”

The blood that had splattered on him while killing the bandits still stained his entire body.

At the startled people's reaction, Jin Yuseong smiled kindly to calm them down and said.

“There is no need to be alarmed. It’s just blood that splattered while I was killing some bandits.”

The villagers' faces, which had been pale, turned deathly black.

The sight of him talking about killing people so casually was, by any measure, not normal.

“By any chance, are there any Murim factions or groups of ruffians in this area?”

At Jin Yuseong’s question, one of the completely frozen villagers pointed somewhere with his finger.

“I-if you go that way, th-there is a place called the Red Cloud Gang.”

“H-have those people ever committed acts like taking valuables or kidnapping women?”

The terrified people answered his question honestly.

They were afraid, but they were also villagers who had a lot of grievances against the Red Cloud Gang.

“Thank you.”

After finishing the questions, Jin Yuseong bowed with clasped hands like a polite boy and headed towards the place where the Red Cloud Gang was said to be.

Before long, shouts and screams erupted from the direction of the Red Cloud Gang, and then they soon subsided.

The villagers, feeling an inexplicable sense of foreboding at the eerie silence, slowly gathered at the Red Cloud Gang’s manor.

“Hiiik.”

At the sight of the boy coming out covered in blood, they let out a scream without realizing it.

If the blood they had seen before was blood that had already dried and hardened, turning black, now there was fresh red blood splattered everywhere.

At that moment, the boy smiled as if it was a good thing and said.

“Ah. If by any chance someone asks who killed these guys, please tell them that the Young Master Ghost Sword did it.”

The village residents, while frozen, nodded their heads vigorously.

The boy, who responded with another smile, left the village just like that.

Jin Yuseong, who had come like the wind and left like the wind, once again performed his movement arts and ran off.

But that was also for a brief moment.

As his internal energy ran out from continuous movement arts training and battles, his speed naturally slowed down.

“Sss. Hoo.”

Jin Yuseong operated the Jade Cloud Divine Art and began to fill his empty Dantian.

The Jade Cloud Divine Art already had a slow absorption speed. Before, his Dantian was small, so it filled up quickly, but now, it would inevitably take a long time to refill his Dantian.

Jin Yuseong didn’t care.

It felt like his external energy training was being delayed because he was running on the power of internal energy.

For a long while, he ran by moving his limbs purely with the strength of his body instead of internal energy.

Then, when his Dantian was filled to some extent, he repeated the process of training in movement arts and swordsmanship simultaneously.

It was only in the evening that he was able to arrive at another village.

The villagers’ reactions were more or less the same as in the previous place.

The difference was that there were no Black Path groups here.

He needed food, and he had to sleep to go on a long journey, so Jin Yuseong decided to stay there for one night.

The next day, early in the morning.

Jin Yuseong, who had finished bathing and was now in a neat appearance, woke up from his sleep.

Jin Yuseong, who had warmed up his body by lightly performing energy circulation, took out a Hornet Stinger from his pouch.

“I have to build up some resistance.”

The person he was going to find now was someone who had learned poison arts, so building up even a little resistance in advance would be helpful.

Stab.

Jin Yuseong boldly stabbed the Hornet Stinger into various parts of his body.

Each time, a terrible pain as if being seared by fire struck his mind, but it could not stop Jin Yuseong’s movements.

“Hehehe. The more it hurts, the stronger you get.”

In other words, it meant he could get stronger quickly, so it was truly delightful. As long as he didn’t die.

As his whole body throbbed like crazy and he felt his mind become slightly dazed, Jin Yuseong stood up with a satisfied expression.

Jin Yuseong, who momentarily lost his footing and staggered, immediately slapped his own cheek.

Smack.

“Get a grip.”

At the hot feeling on his cheek, his dazed mind seemed to return a little.

Jin Yuseong left the inn where he had stayed overnight and set off on his journey again.

Was it because he had felt a life-threatening crisis due to the poison of the Tiger Head Inch Hornet? Or was it because he had recovered some of his mental strength after waking up from sleep?

Smack.

As he continuously slapped his cheek and focused his mind, countless trajectories were embroidered in the air.

“Hehehe.”

While his mind was slightly dazed due to the poison, seeing the trajectories in the air made a slightly slurred laugh come out, unlike usual.

“Haat!”

Early in the morning.

Jin Yuseong left the village, performing movement arts and swinging his sword along the trajectories visible in the air.

***

For several days, I combined training and travel, exterminating the Black Path in every village I visited and then spitting out the childish alias of Young Master Ghost Sword with my own mouth, and built up my poison resistance with Hornet Stingers when I woke up in the morning and before I went to bed.

By the time I had used up all the stingers of the Tiger Head Inch Hornet, I was able to reach my destination.

A small village with the unique name of Yuran. A place located about halfway from Suining to Shaoyang.

The bastard’s residence was near this village.

There was just one problem: I didn’t know the exact location.

I had only heard about him through rumors. It was because I had never directly confronted him before my regression.

Around sunset, I entered the village with a leisurely gait and scanned my surroundings.

It was a friendly place with a peaceful atmosphere, where the residents were each doing their own work.

While I was looking around for someone to ask about Green Valley Teacher, an old man approached me.

The old man opened his mouth with a kind-looking smile.

“Seeing a face I haven’t seen before, you must be from out of town. Hohoho. This old man is the village chief of this Yuran village. Feel free to call me Elder Chu.”

“My family name is Jin, and my given name is Yuseong. I was just passing by and stopped by for some business.”

“Hohoho. What business brings you to this small village?”

“I came looking for a person called Green Valley Teacher. Have you by any chance heard of him?”

Elder Chu frowned and seemed to ponder for a moment, then shook his head.

“I’ve lived in this village the longest, but seeing as I’ve never heard that name, I doubt others would know either.”

After saying that, the old man slyly shifted his gaze, pointed to the sky with his hand, and said.

“It seems it will be difficult to find that person named Green Valley Teacher, but since it’s getting late, why don’t you stay here for one night and leave?”

“It’s fine. If you don’t know Green Valley Teacher, I think I will be on my way.”

“That’s a dangerous thought. It takes at least half a day to get to the next village from here, but if you leave now, it will get dark soon. What will you do if you encounter a wild beast at night?”

Wild beasts were no match for me, but it seemed there was no need to refuse the old man’s kindness.

“Then is there an inn here where I can stay for a night?”

“Hoho. Where would an inn be in a small village like this? As the village chief, I cannot treat a guest poorly, so I will let you stay at my house for a night.”

“Thank you, elder.”

After walking through the village following the old man for a while, we arrived at a small manor.

“Please wait a moment.”

The elder guided me to a room and then went somewhere.

And after a while.

Elder Chu and an old woman who appeared to be his wife came in with food on a tray.

“Please have some of this.”

“Thank you, elder.”

Normally, it was an offer I would have refused, but I gladly accepted and picked up my spoon.

After taking a spoonful of rice, putting it in my mouth, and chewing it, I took a sip of the soup.

It was a soup with a very familiar scent.

A chuckle escaped me on its own.

“As expected.”

After picking up the chopsticks, I reached out my hand towards the seasoned vegetables.

Just before picking up the vegetables, I suddenly threw the chopsticks towards the two elders’ Paralysis Points.

Thwack.

“Keok……”

The two elders let out a choked groan at the sudden attack.

While they were flustered, I quickly launched myself and pressed several more of the old couple's acupoints to subdue them.

After being completely subdued, Elder Chu shouted with an expression that said he was dying of injustice.

“W-what is this, all of a sudden!?”

It was Elder Chu, who could still move his mouth because I had not struck his mute point.

Well, I had deliberately left his mute point alone.

“As soon as I drank the soup, the face of a bad friend came to mind, so how could I endure this feeling?”

The familiar scent.

It was one of the poison smells I had often smelled at the Poison Immortal's residence.

“B-bad friend? Wh-what is that……?”

“It seems you’ve been bringing people to Green Valley Worm like this. Am I right?”

I cut off my words in the middle and fell into thought for a moment.

Following that, a usable title came to mind, and I smiled brightly and asked the two old couple who had collapsed on the floor.

“Hmm. It seems you’ve been offering people to the Green Valley Worm like this. Am I not right?”

The old couple’s pupils momentarily wavered, but the two of them pretended not to know until the end.

“W-what strange things have you been saying since earlier?”

“Let’s cut the act. I know that you are poisoned too. No, judging from the circumstances, is it the whole village?”

As if my prediction was correct, the two elders' eyes widened like saucers.