Chapter 393
Wishing for someone's absence is a terrible thing. Especially thinking that some being has completely vanished from this world would be an incredibly frightening thought.
Unless that person is an unforgivable villain that the world cannot tolerate.
Until yesterday, Jang-il had a certain conviction.
A conviction that at least half of those who knew Wei Yan-ho would think it would be better if Wei Yan-ho didn't exist in this world.
But now Jang-il could understand.
Surprisingly, those around Wei Yan-ho harbored quite favorable feelings toward him. Even those who had been terribly tormented by him or suffered horrible losses because of him still acknowledged Wei Yan-ho's necessity.
When you think about it, it's only natural.
Wei Yan-ho's martial prowess was as unparalleled as his laziness and terrible personality. It raised the question of whether anyone in the past had ever reached such a level of martial arts at his age.
Such a person's utility is limitless.
Setting aside the hopeful prospect of just how far that Wei Yan-ho could develop, wasn't there no end to the places where Wei Yan-ho's current power could be used?
'The problem is that it'll never be used properly!'
Jang-il cursed the heavens.
This shouldn't be happening.
He had known from the beginning that the martial world was unfair. Those born into prestigious families and those born into third-rate martial houses have their differences set from the moment of birth.
Someone who grew up eating various elixirs as baby food, gulping down various pills as side dishes, and learning the orthodox martial arts of prestigious schools cannot be defeated by someone from a third-rate martial house who rolled around on bare ground. This was an undeniable reality.
What corrects this unfair reality is effort.
No matter how excellent a martial art is, it's useless if you don't diligently learn it. No matter how terrible the martial art you've learned, if you make effort upon effort, someday even a sparrow might overtake a stork.
It doesn't make sense, but it also does make sense. Even if it seems theoretically impossible, the legendary 'dragon rising from a ditch' appears surprisingly often in the martial world.
But…
'Honestly, that bastard shouldn't be allowed to exist!'
Countless strongmen appear in the martial world.
Among them are inhumane bastards, money-crazed bastards, murderers, and all sorts of bastards anyway.
But if there's a strongman who really shouldn't appear in the martial world, it would undoubtedly be a lazy bum.
A strongman who doesn't make effort?
What the hell does that even mean?
It was like saying a horse without legs or a bird without wings. In the martial world, strongmen are always objects of admiration. But does it make sense for that object of admiration to be a lazy bum?
"Even Heaven is heartless."
Still, recently it seemed like he was making some effort, but he quickly reverted to the old Wei Yan-ho.
Just look at him now.
Look at that sight of him lying sprawled on the carriage roof, whistling!
I'm scared of who might see and learn from that appearance.
When the young talents who should become the future of the martial world see that sight and ask, 'That Wei Yan-ho became strong even while being so lazy, so why do we have to make effort?' what the hell should I answer?
You have to make effort because you're of a different breed from that bastard?
That bastard is special?
"How could that be an answer!"
Thwack!
The moment Jang-il let out a shout, a stone flew and hit his head.
"Aaaaah!"
Jang-il grabbed his head and rolled on the ground. Wei Yan-ho's sharp voice poured down on that sight.
"What are you making such a racket muttering about?"
Jang-il jumped up right there.
"Can't I even speak? Can't I speak! Is my mouth yours?"
"You're the one making noise, so why are you taking it out on others?"
"Can't I even shout? Can't I even shout!"
"Tsk."
Wei Yan-ho raised his body from the carriage roof.
"So what?"
"..."
"Want to have a fight?"
"..."
Jang-il quietly shut his mouth and returned to his place.
What could he do when that thug-like bastard comes at him like that? If it were another guy, he could try to handle it with logic, but that bastard was the type who would roughly argue and then kick first if he thought he couldn't win with words.
And he wasn't particularly confident about winning with words either.
Being pushed back in both strength and eloquence, Wei Yan-ho was truly like Jang-il's natural enemy.
"Hero Wei."
Still unable to give up his lingering attachment, Jang-il quietly sought out Wei Jeong-han. At least if it's Wei Jeong-han…
"What complaints do you have so many of?"
"..."
Ah, right.
That's what the Divine Beggar said. Like father, like son.
Come to think of it, those words were right. There's no way a bastard like Wei Yan-ho could come from normal parents.
"What are you looking at?"
"...No, sir."
Now Wei Jeong-han's way of speaking was becoming crooked, as if he had half-thrown away even his alias of 'Righteous Hero Sword.'
If someone who didn't know the situation saw this, they might misunderstand that his heart had grown heavy from his son being kidnapped by the Demonic Cult, which was making Jang-il's stomach churn even more.
Jang-il, who looked up once at the mercilessly heartless sky, opened his mouth.
"We should almost be arriving at the Heavenly Alliance, right?"
"Are you, as a Beggar's Sect member, asking me that?"
"...I'm sorry. My mind went a bit astray."
It was like a fisherman asking a farmer about waterways.
'Let's see… if we continue like this, will we arrive soon?'
Considering the long journey to Sichuan, they had arrived impossibly quickly, but it made sense.
The weakest person here right now was Jang-il. And even that weak Jang-il had the stamina to run for about ten days without eating or drinking.
If it weren't for that carriage, they would have already arrived and been patting their bellies.
"Do we really have to drag this carriage along?"
"Then do you want to carry him on your back?"
"Doesn't that bastard have feet?"
"He has them, but at least they're not for walking. Much less for running. I've been watching for nearly twenty years, so I know very well."
"...I suppose you would."
At this level, there's nothing to say.
Of course, Jang-il also recognized that rather than making Wei Yan-ho walk on his own feet, loading him on even an ox cart would be a hundred times faster way to travel.
But what he absolutely couldn't understand was!
"Can't that bastard even ride a horse?"
"He went missing once while riding a horse before."
"..."
"Trying to put him on a horse again made me feel too sick to my stomach. Why? Got a complaint?"
"...No."
Come to think of it, he seemed to have heard such words from Wei San-ho. That if Wei Yan-ho hadn't at least been riding a horse, they wouldn't have lost him like that.
So he couldn't blame that part.
But Jang-il still had a secret weapon left.
"Then why the hell isn't that bastard going inside the carriage instead of lying on the roof like that?"
"It's probably cool."
"Ah, no..."
"Listen here, Fox-Dog."
"...Yes."
Wei Jeong-han clicked his tongue and said.
"When a person starts to dislike someone, they tend to dislike everything about that person."
"..."
"But do you know what happens if you nitpick every little thing like that?"
"Wh, what happens?"
"You become uglier."
"..."
Jang-il looked at the distant sky.
"Just think of it as a natural disaster. Does anyone curse at a typhoon for causing damage? They just think they had bad luck."
"I'm grateful for… your teaching."
Tearfully so.
If another father had spoken this way, Jang-il would have foamed at the mouth, but he had no choice but to acknowledge Wei Jeong-han's words. In a way, Wei Jeong-han was Wei Yan-ho's biggest victim.
Come to think of it, though they hadn't met long ago, it seemed like gray hairs had sprouted in the meantime.
"Hero Wei."
"What is it?"
"There won't be any trouble at the Heavenly Alliance, will there?"
"Trouble..."
Wei Jeong-han gave a faint smile.
"It would be nice if there's no trouble. That would be good. But when do human affairs ever go that way? I can only hope there won't be any trouble."
"..."
Jang-il blinked, feeling that Wei Jeong-han's words sounded meaningful somehow.
'It can't be, right?'
Wei Jeong-han's attitude, and his way of speaking, and his expression were subtly, very subtly different from usual, but… it couldn't be. He wouldn't be thinking of deliberately causing trouble, would he?
Wei Jeong-han was also someone who got fed up with the accidents Wei Yan-ho caused, so surely there couldn't be such a thing.
Even after being hit by 'surely not' that much, Jang-il still believed in 'surely not.' At this point it was almost the realm of religion, but Jang-il's faith was still solid.
And as always, people hurt the most when their faith is shattered.
"Is this Seongdu?"
"That's right."
"Have you been to Seongdu before?"
"Yeah."
"You've been there before?"
At Peng Dao-ji's surprised question, Jang-il twisted his face.
"Who the hell do you think I am?"
"A beggar."
"This bastard..."
Why does a beggar feel bad when called a beggar by someone?
Jang-il realized that his identity as a beggar had crumbled quite a bit.
"I'm the Fox-Dog. And the Fox-Dog must be well-versed in all information under Heaven. In my first year as Fox-Dog, I traveled all around the world. I also stopped by Seongdu in the process."
"So you just wandered around aimlessly."
"Information! Information!"
"Why are you getting angry?"
Jang-il beat his chest.
Being next to Wei Yan-ho seemed to make the others gradually see him as a pushover too. Of course, Jang-il was a hogu, but that's not the hogu he meant. Like a fox and dog… no, actually that hogu seems better. This is more of an insult. [TL/N: Hogu (호구) is a Korean slang term meaning a gullible or easily fooled person—basically, a "pushover" or "sucker."]
Anyway, he felt like these bastards were increasingly ignoring him.
"I'm someone who must know all sects under Heaven and all forces under Heaven."
"It's certainly fortunate that you have such information. You make a good guide."
"..."
Jang-il's shoulders drooped.
The words are right. What's the use of knowing that when all he does is guide Wei Yan-ho around?
Jang-il forcibly suppressed the moisture rising in his eyes. If the King Beggar had known Jang-il would end up like this, he wouldn't have told him to stick with Wei Yan-ho. More constructively…
'No, honestly, it probably would have been the same.'
Then he would have laughed while holding his belly.
Damn it.
"So how much further do we have to go to reach the Heavenly Alliance? Seongdu isn't a small city either."
"Well. If we've arrived, we've arrived, and if we haven't, we haven't."
"...What does that mean?"
Jang-il slyly turned his head to look at Peng Dao-ji with pitying eyes.
"If you want to grow bigger too, at least show some interest in the world's political situation."
"Just explain it to me. That's the only way I'll know."
"What kind of place is the Heavenly Alliance?"
"...Don't talk in riddles."
"Tsk tsk."
Jang-il clicked his tongue and continued speaking.
"The Heavenly Alliance isn't a place with a precise substance like the Righteous Martial Alliance. To be exact, it could be called the Sichuan Martial Alliance. Therefore, all places in Sichuan could be said to be the Heavenly Alliance."
"All places?"
The moment he understood the meaning of those words, Peng Dao-ji's face hardened.
The stalls and shops that had seemed ordinary until now began to look ominous. Seeing Peng Dao-ji, Jang-il chuckled.
"Be careful. We've already entered the belly of the Heavenly Alliance."
But there was someone who wasn't tense at those words.
"Where the hell is the Heavenly Alliance? What bullshit are you spouting?"
"..."
What are the ghosts doing, not taking Wei Yan-ho away!