Chapter 36. Fierce Battle Aboard the Ship (1)
***
The lower chamber of the Ghost-Bearing Flagship.
Shk. Thud, crack.
The sound of flesh being sliced and bones being crushed wandered through the darkness.
Each time Dong Bong-su's hand moved, the corpse lost its original shape.
The number of corpses was seven.
Originally, he had planned to carve one "character" into each corpse's chest, but he was one body short.
So instead, he butchered the corpses into pieces and embedded bone fragments into the floor of the lower chamber to form letters.
The strength of the salt-cured cedar was greater than expected.
To precisely drive the bones into the floor of the lower chamber, Dong Bong-su had to stomp down with all his might.
Crack, thump.
He stepped hard on a rib just separated from a corpse, producing a loud sound.
As the bone shattered, it sank deep into the cedar floorboard.
That completed one stroke of a single character he intended to write.
Dong Bong-su continued the task.
Thud, crack. Crunch....
The chilling sound of bones being pulverized echoed endlessly throughout the lower chamber.
Just how had Dong Bong-su appeared here, and what exactly was he doing?
In fact, when Dong Bong-su had earlier been carried into the East Heaven Guest Hall by members of the Second Unit of the Heavenly Wind Squad, he had already perfectly grasped the surrounding geography and structure.
He waited for Tang Wu to visit his room and leave, then immediately began his "work."
Since it was night, all the experts staying at the Guest Hall of Heaven were asleep.
All the guards standing watch were on the land beyond Yun Bridge, not on the island where the East Heaven Guest Hall was located.
Of course, this too had already been fully confirmed earlier.
In such a situation, as long as one did not exit through the door facing Yun Bridge, there was no risk of being spotted by guards or guests who were still awake.
However, there was only one door.
Which way should one leave the room to evade the guards' eyes?
The answer was simple and clear.
All residential houses in this Anhui region were prefabricated buildings.
Bongyang was the same, and so was the Namgung Family.
The Guest Hall of Heaven, a building inside the Namgung Family compound, was no exception.
To Dong Bong-su, every direction of a prefabricated building was a "door."
This fact had already been proven during the Suicide Plague incident.
After discerning the movements of the guards through the gaps between panels, he took advantage of the moment when they moved chaotically toward the Ghost-Bearing Flagship.
He put one pillar from the back of his room into his inventory and slipped out through that opening.
That spot was a blind angle impossible to see no matter how much the guards beyond Yun Bridge tried.
Under normal circumstances, it was a place no one needed to pay attention to.
Because it was a cliff-like area directly connected to Chaohu.
For Dong Bong-su, that fact was a blessing. Places where people could hide easily, like water in darkness, were rare.
He immediately dove into Chaohu. Then, he secretly followed behind the guards moving toward the Ghost-Bearing Flagship.
A short while later.
As scheduled, seven members of the Third Unit of the Heavenly Wind Squad boarded the ship.
Seizing that moment, Dong Bong-su moved toward the foul-smelling scupper where he had buried his head during the night revelry.
Just as the ship craftsman had said earlier, there was still no plug in the scupper, and the hole remained open.
The scupper was small, but Dong Bong-su's body was small as well. He was not short, but Sosam's physique itself was slight. His narrow shoulders and hips, and his gaunt body, were sufficient to squeeze himself into the scupper.
In the process, leftover fecal residue, the stench of urine, and yellowish grime formed from dried waste smeared over his body here and there, but he did not care.
He hid himself in the ship's lower chamber through the scupper.
Thud.
Unaware that a monster named Dong Bong-su was hiding there, the Third Unit members who came to search descended into the lower chamber one by one.
And then—
In the darkness, all of them traded their experience points and lives to Dong Bong-su's Three Talents Sword Art.
The reason Dong Bong-su had risked danger to appear here in the dead of night was, of course, to break the current deadlock.
And the method he chose was an extremely "Dong Bong-su-like" one.
The characters he was carving with bones now were a kind of "warning message."
Crack, crunch-.
Dong Bong-su continued separating bones from the corpses and engraving the message.
Then, at some point after one shichen had passed.
"Unit leader. Something feels off… shouldn't we report this to the squad leader...?"
"Hey, you bastard. What are you going to report to the vice commander? That we sent only the unit members onto the ship, they didn't come back down, and we were too scared to check? Is that what you'll say? We should at least find out what's going on first before reporting, shouldn't we? Huh?"
Voices were heard.
Not just one, but several.
'Someone?'
He didn't even need to think deeply to know.
From the content of the conversation alone, and from deducing who would come here, it was obvious.
Those who had arrived were the remaining members of the same unit as the owners of the bones now turning into strokes and dots of letters.
Judging from the conversation, their unit leader had come as well.
'It took too long.'
Trying to make the warning stronger had caused him to waste too much time.
He still hadn't carved all eight characters he had planned.
The characters completed so far numbered only four.
Creak, creak.
The upper deck directly above him swayed. They must have already boarded the ship and be walking across the deck.
Now there was no time left—not to mention the originally planned "bone script," but not even to carve the remaining four characters with a sword.
In truth, even four characters were enough to convey half the message.
But the remaining four were far more important.
Should he retreat now, or finish carving all four remaining characters before retreating?
If he chose the latter, he would have to kill all the interferers.
He had already confirmed that the combat power of the guards was significantly inferior to his.
However, the leader's abilities were still unknown.
Judging from the fact that his piercing vision was quiet, he could only confirm that the difference between himself and the guard unit leader did not exceed level 10.
Creak, creak.
"It's too quiet, leader. Something's definitely wrong."
Disorderly footsteps were heard again, along with the voice of someone presumed to be a unit member.
They were much closer than before.
They had probably reached the area near the wall tower by now.
Since the stairs leading to the lower chamber were right beneath the wall tower, they would soon descend.
The moment of decision had arrived.
Dong Bong-su's eyes gleamed in the darkness.
He made his judgment in an instant.
The moment he finished deciding, his body was already moving on instinct.
"I can tell just by looking, you bastard!"
While the leader snapped irritably at the subordinate's urging, Dong Bong-su was already escaping through the scupper he had used to infiltrate the ship.
Had he chosen the former—retreat?
The moment Dong Bong-su slipped out through the scupper, four shadows descended to the spot where he had just been standing.
The light from the fire-torches they held soon brightly illuminated the inside of the lower chamber.
"Gasp!"
"...!"
"T-this!"
Their reactions varied, but the emotion they expressed was the same.
Shock.
The feeling one experiences when suddenly startled by an unexpected event.
The lower chamber reeked of blood, and human corpses were torn apart like rags and scattered everywhere—who wouldn't be shocked?
And if those corpses were their comrades... no further explanation was needed.
"D-damn it… everyone out! Leave the ship immediately!"
The leader, Go San-gong, shouted.
The unit member at the very back was already climbing onto the deck before his words even finished.
Crash, bang!
For them, confirming the enemy's presence was no longer important.
That was how horrifying the scene in the lower chamber was.
What they needed to do now was go inform the leader of the Heavenly Wind Squad of this incident.
As their noisy footsteps rang out, the ship swayed slightly.
Since Go San-gong had led the way when descending into the lower chamber, he now lagged behind at the rear.
While following his subordinates toward the deck, he kept guarding his rear.
There was always the possibility that the one who committed such atrocities was still on board.
However, whether that cruel intruder had already left the ship, he did not reveal himself despite their noise.
And just as Go San-gong finally relaxed somewhat and turned his gaze toward the deck—
"Gah! Aaaah!"
The foremost subordinate stepped onto the deck.
No—more precisely, he tried to step onto the deck, but instead planted his foot into empty air and fell straight down toward Chaohu.
"The deck… it's gone!?"
Because the deck that should have been there had suddenly disappeared, the leading member of the Third Unit lost his footing and fell into Chaohu.
Thud, crunch.
Immediately after, a heavy sound of a sword piercing flesh and the dull grinding noise of bones echoed out.
That was his end.
The one who killed him was, of course—Dong Bong-su.
He had not retreated. He chose the latter. He decided to finish what he had started.
After slipping out through the scupper, he hid beneath the deck that connected the mooring and the ship, waiting for the guards to disembark.
As expected, one of the enemies stepped onto the deck, and Dong Bong-su ambushed him by instantly putting the deck into his inventory.
With one ship's stair that should have been stepped on gone, the enemy could only lose his footing.
Thud.
As the enemy fell headfirst upside down, Dong Bong-su plunged a blade straight into his mouth.
Such an act was, to him, a perfectly natural "guest reception service."
'One.'
The number of people on the deck was four.
Having killed one, now...
Three remained.
"W-what!? "
He heard them cry out in alarm.
They could no longer come this way.
They would mistake that an enemy—or enemies—were waiting for them outside the mooring.
Because of that, they would not be able to disembark easily anymore.
Even though they had fire-torches, it was already past midnight.
In this darkness, with an enemy waiting below the mooring, no one would be foolish enough to go down.
The enemies were now in complete chaos. It was time to bring matters to a decision.
Dong Bong-su quickly moved along the edge he was currently clinging to and returned to the scupper.
Without a moment's delay, he entered the lower chamber again.
The sharp scent of blood released by the corpses that had half-transformed into letters assaulted his nose.
Soon, that blood-scent would grow even stronger.
Dong Bong-su immediately moved toward the side where the wall tower stairs were located.