Mercenary Black Mamba

This was the fate of those who lived by their blade.

In a world where everyone fought everyone else, there was no such thing as an eternally strong or an eternally weak.

Monk Dae-woo's decision to allow Mu Ssang to become a mercenary was the stroke of genius, in a way. Mu Ssang acquired unorthodox abilities after experiencing various epiphanies, while his five combined movements reached the realm where he no longer needed to get into a stance to activate it. On top of that, he was kitted out in top-tier items, too. The result of this battle wasn't because Gato and his fellow three ninjas were weak, but Mu Ssang happened to be far too powerful for them.

Mencius once said that out of the trio of 'heavenly luck', 'geographical advantage' and 'harmony', 'harmony' was the most important of them all. In reality, however, the 'heavenly luck' was the actual truth of the universe itself.

It was not for nothing that the idiom of 'nip it in the buds' had come about; Gato and his comrades were not blessed with heavenly luck, which resulted in them ending up as some lumps of bloody meat on the floor.

*

"Regret, my a*s! Floods are prevented through embankments, while Chinpiras is prevented through the use of your fists. As soon as I find my mother, I swear to hop across the ocean to your archipelago and grind you all like garlic with my Rakshasa. A bunch of dirty hypocrites!" Mu Ssang grumbled unhappily.

The world wouldn't function properly with only good guys running it. Bad people were also necessary. However, 'dirty' hypocrites were an exception. People like that were rather akin to rust - if dirty bastards somehow wormed their way into the others, it didn't matter whether they were good or bad, they would all end up corroding away.

Since ancient times, human history revolved around the game of Monopoly. You either conquered or got conquered by somebody else. You could also become a villain or a hero in the process.

But Japan is a rust-like existence. It doesn't know how to play well with others nor be gracious and accepting of others. It clings on like rust and endlessly gnaws away at their target. Not only that, it even tries to change the target's unique traits, too. That's why Japan was a dirty hypocrite.

*

'Well, this matter has gotten more serious, huh.'

Feeling troubled now, Mu Ssang began scratching the back of his head. Chomolungma's blade didn't have a speck of blood or human fat on it, but the rest of the office's interior was bathed in blood, starting from the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling.

The corner where the Yangahchis had evacuated to was relatively clean, while the area around the entrance where Mu Ssang had a fight against Higashi Honganji's pupils was too gruesome to behold.

He didn't want to spill blood if possible and that's why he went easy on the Yangahchis, but thanks to the ninjas, that plan went down the toilet in a spectacular fashion. Once the police take a gander at this place, surely the folks at the Headquarters of the National Police would lose their minds.

Mu Ssang felt at a loss about how to deal with the aftermaths.

'And what should I do with those punks?'

Yangahchis were acting like young chicks frightened by the shadow of a flying eagle, their heads buried and not even budging an inch from their spots. Would the acute PTSD sufferers be able to plant trees properly, though...?

'...Argh, I don't care anymore! I'm sure it'll work out somehow.'

Plans had to be made ahead of time, but there was no need to jump the gun and start worrying already. Most worries would be resolved with enough time, or remain as just that, worries.

*

"Nupchi!"

"..."

Mu Ssang's voice got louder. "Nupchi!"

"Yes? Ah, y-yes!" The stupefied Nupchi hurriedly dashed out from behind the pillar.

"Go and take off the Ray-Bans and masks of the crow-wannabes."

"Yessir!"

Nupchi's legs didn't want to stop shaking. The first ninja victim got the worst of it. His torso was crushed, his neck broken to the side while the face was squashed beyond recognition. On top of that, five throwing stars were piercing him, too.

Nupchi sneakily tucked away from the shurikens, though. These cool weapons couldn't be bought even with money, after all.

The second ninja victim's face was left intact, although his torso was still crushed gruesomely. It was a similar story for the ninja nailed to the wall. The old fart that died last, unfortunately, had his entire head split wide open. Which meant that only the second victim and the one on the wall had undamaged faces.

Nupchi's trembling hands reached out to take the masks and the sunglasses off. Both ninjas were in their mid-thirties with gaunt faces and crew-cut hairstyles.

Mu Ssang was getting somewhat worried here. If bastards of this level slipped into Korea in large numbers to take over the criminal underworld, then well, nothing would be as terribly inconvenient as that. Korea's public security would be rocked to the core in such a case.

"Bak Gi-chung!"

"..."

The way Bak Gi-chung was drooling away from his slack jaw indicated that he was not of a sane mind right now.

"It seems that he's daydreaming right now. Nupchi, drag his a*s over here."

"Yessir!"

Just as Nupchi was about to slap Bak Gi-Chung's face, the fatso leaning against the wall lost all strength in his legs and collapsed to the floor.

The lofty, untouchable inspectors from Japan got utterly wrecked in front of his eyes. Just who were they! They were top experts that could crush rocks by clenching their fists and cutting steel pipes apart with just a single stroke of their swords. The Korean gangsters busy boasting about being famous nationwide had nothing on these Japanese ninjas.

That's why Bak Gi-chung had no doubt that they would easily suppress that devil, and that why he just couldn't accept the reality of them getting utterly annihilated in less than one second.

"This... this has to be a nightmare! A f*cking nightmare! I, I can't accept this!" Bak Gi-chung began muttering to himself.

Smack-!

Nupchi stomped his foot down on the back of Bak Gi-Chung's head. "Hey, as*hole, who cares whether you accept it or not! How dare you run your mouth off and call my big bro whatever the f*ck you want! He's not a nightmare, but a good dream!"

'F*ck, maybe I did board the wrong ship?!' Bak Gi-chung began thinking that after listening to some punk saying the devil was a good dream. Even though he was clearly a nightmare!

By the way, who was this bastard busy hurting him right now?

"Urgh... H-hey, why are you hitting me?!" Bak Gi-chung complained in mumbled voice.

His eyes still lacked focus, indicating that his mind was still adrift somewhere.

"You dumb sh*t, my big bro is calling for you. You wanna become the next stuffed animal or something?"

"Stuffed... animal?"

Bak Gi-Chung's consciousness wandering around the riverside of Styx finally returned to reality. His head snapped to the side, his eyes fixing on the corpse nailed to the wall.

That was not an insect pinned to a box. No, that was one of the lofty inspectors, now impaled to the wall with a wakizashi. Did a person's body contain that much blood? Bak Gi-chung began tilting his head.

"...Heo-uhhrrrkkkk?!"

He jumped back up to his feet. All that blood pouring down the wall was now dyeing the floor crimson. He had been wondering why his clothes felt so wet and clingy, and as it turned out, he'd been wading in that pool of blood. His wandering mind returned home in an instant.

"Y-yes, I'm coming!" Bak Gi-chung dashed forward as if his previous injuries had never happened, then stood at attention before Mu Ssang.

"So, then. Who are these people?"

"The two bastards that died first were inspectors sent by Higashi Honganji, while the senile Jap was one of their elders, sir. As for the Jap pinned to the wall, I've never seen him before, but the two inspectors treated him as their superior."

Bak Gi-Chung's manner of speech had reverted back to how he used to be. The protectors of Pungguk now became 'bastards', while the elder dispatched from the main temple was called senile.

However, Mu Ssang didn't mind that. This fatso was simply very politician-like, that's all. Sucking up to different factions when needed was the nature of Yangahchi, after all.

"Are these four all the Japs in here?"

"Yessir! N-no, wait. No, it's not. An old monk as gaunt as a skeleton arrived this afternoon."

"An old monk as gaunt as a skeleton, you say? Was he also one-armed?" Mu Ssang's eyes flickered as he asked that question.

"I, I'm not sure, sir. He was wearing a large trench coat, you see... But he didn't seem to be one-armed."

"Okay. Did he have a huge scar around his throat?"

"I'm sorry. I couldn't get a good look, you see. When our gazes met, it was like I was looking at a scary specter, sir. My mind just wanted to abandon me. I was so scared that I couldn't even look back at him."

"...Mm!" Mu Ssang moaned quietly.

Choi Do-Shik's specialty was hypnotic arts. Normal people wouldn't be able to look at him straight on. Mu Ssang's instincts told him that the old monk had to be Choi Do-Shik. A missing limb could always be supplemented somehow, after all.

Chimeras were being mass-produced in Area 51, and even the DGSE succeeded in producing artificial muscles and stents. In terms of military cooperation, America's partner was not South Korea but Japan. For a long time now, the American government did its hardest to hinder South Korea from developing its own military technology all the while allowing the Japanese to pick and choose from the latest available tech.

The odds were that Naicho (the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office), which was in an uneasy three-legged race with the CIA, could have received the latest biomechanical technology from the Americans.

Higashi Honganji was in cahoots with the Japanese government. As such, it was highly likely that Choi Do-Shik got himself a new artificial arm.

The corners of Mu Ssang's lips curled up slightly. In the past, just thinking about that name alone made his heartbeat weaker and his mind waver. But now? He felt nothing. Actually, he was feeling rather pleased by this development. The battle instinct deeply ingrained in the Epidium's DNA began boiling up.

*

"Where did that old monk go, then?"

"H-he left along with a guide as soon as arriving."

"Did he say anything before leaving?"

Bak Gi-chung desperately racked his brain. Failing to answer quickly would result in either getting impaled to the wall or his entire body getting smashed to bits. The gruesome state of the corpses didn't want to leave his mind even now.

"W-when he was chatting to the ninja elder, I overheard them talking about the... Yamanashi Collection."

"...Kekeke!" Mu Ssang began cackling loudly.

Now he figured out why Choi Do-Shik and Gato's group had slipped inside Korea - to find the Yamanashi Collection that used to be stored in In Ae Won's basement.

Choi Do-Shik was an expert in sorcery techniques, so him going out to 'confirm' made sense. However, there was nothing inside In Ae Won basement now except for a special formation installed by Sun Woo Bang Na mother and daughter duo. Mu Ssang could already imagine Choi Do-Shik's enraged face after getting played for fools.

'An eye for an eye, Choi Do-Shik. And I'll make sure it's a hundred times worse!'

Mu Ssang's eyes burned in cold light. He was now thinking of chasing after that bastard as soon as he was finished with all the trash in here.

*

"Is there a punk named Jang Yeong-pal among you?"

"Y-yes, it's him over there." Bak Gi-chung immediately pointed at the ma with mismatched ears.

His opponent was a devil. Who knows what will happen to him if he dares to hesitate or take his sweet time?

"Oh-oh? Isn't he the one chucking around tomahawks earlier?" Mu Ssang grinned slyly. Wasn't that guy pretty handy with his little axes back then?

"Uwaaahk?! D-don't kill me!" Jang Yeong-pal shot up to his feet and made a beeline toward the exit.

Even if he was destined to die today, he didn't want to suffer the fate of his head splitting in half and his chest ending up like an apple inside a food blender. His broken jaw clattered and his broken arm dangled limply, but the pure terror still enabled his feet to move like a free man.

"What a weird bastard he is!" Mu Ssang muttered with a cocked eyebrow, then he shifted his gaze over to Nupchi.

"Yessir, I'll go catch him."

Nupchi picked up Jang Yeong-pal's discarded tomahawk.

Swish-!

The ax flew in a straight line and stabbed into Jang Yeong-pal's shoulder. Whether that was luck or the result of his skill, Nupchi managed to do something notable today.

"Kuwaaahk!"

Jang Yeong-pal about to grab the exit's handle thrashed around in pain. Nupchi rushed in and grabbed the bleeding man by his throat before slamming him mercilessly on the floor.

"Run all you want, you're still just a mere flea." Nupchi began dragging the now-limp Jang Yeong-pal.

'Did that idiot take steroids or something?'

Mu Ssang tilted his head in confusion. Sure, Nupchi had always been a muscle-for-brain, but for some reason, he had also gotten much braver and all fired-up today.

And so, this was how the legend of Nupchi had begun - the one who united Korea's underworld in the future and established the Novatopia workforce dispatch center.

*

"Hey, you're Jang Yeong-pal, aren't you?" Mu Ssang asked while using the tip of his foot to flip over the collapsed Yangahchi.

"..."

"Why are all these punks too lazy to answer, I wonder?"

Mu Ssang slowly stepped on Jang Yeong-pal's knee joint. The core of Pungguk Capital was its 'special business operations team. The official money lending side of their business was nothing but a window dressing. This punk on the floor was the leader of that special operations team, so that made him the real number one around here, the most vicious one of the lot.

"Y-yes, I am. Sniffle-!"

"Hey, as*hole. Don't tell me that you never prepared yourself to shed some tears of blood when you started terrorizing your victims?"

"P-please forgive me this one time. I, I promise to live my life straight and narrow from now on. I'll never do anything like this ever again." The sobbing Jang Yeong-pal desperately clung onto Mu Ssang's leg.

He truly desires to leave this line of work for good after realizing that a small fry like him could disappear from this world in an instant. He lost all desire to remain after witnessing a devil's rampage today.

"How old are you?"

"I'm forty-two."

"You've been stealing until you're forty-two years old, so you really think you can change overnight? Do you know what's the biggest dereliction of duty for the politicians? Coming up with a too-forgiving penal code, that's what. Do you think it's normal for serious convicts that should serve life in prison to walk around on the street in broad daylight?"

Mu Ssang strengthened his foot just a bit more.

Crunch-

"Kuwaaaahk!"

A wretched scream rang out from Jang Yeong-pal. But Mu Ssang didn't even bat an eyelid. A predator-like bastard relying on his brute strength to live on needed to get his wings clipped for good to prevent him from hurting and threatening more innocent people in the future. With Jang Yeong-pal's knee joint shattered like this, not even the top-tier modern medical technology would be able to make him walk properly ever again.

*

"Hiiiiieeeek?!"

Yangahchis desperately avoided meeting Mu Ssang's glare when he began scanning them. It was quite a sight to see all these gangsters paling in fright.

"Did you have fun spectating today, then? I shall give you a chance to turn over a new leaf. Choose between these two options. One, you..."

Mu Ssang suddenly stopped talking. That's because he noticed bright headlights outside the window. A taxi then came to a stop afterward.

Vroooom-

A short while later, that taxi drove away. He didn't stop talking because of the arrival of the bus and a taxi. He had to stop because of the passenger getting off the taxi.

Nupchi cautiously asked. "Big bro, should I tell the bus driver to be on standby?"

"No, wait here for a sec."

That passenger spelled trouble, big time. An aura as dark and shady as Paris's sewers and as evil as the Voodoo cult's priest could barely be sensed coming from that man. His faint brainwaves flickering on the edge of cutting out were similar to a critical patient on a deathbed. Of course, no critical patient would come to visit a lonely building on the Geumho River's riverside in the middle of the night.

Which could only mean that that man knew how to control his brainwaves just like Mu Ssang.

'...Dammit!'

For a moment there, the brainwaves of the taxi's passenger and the bus driver seemed to overlap... only for the 'normal' brainwaves among the two to simply disappear.

Even if you mastered the sport-modified version of martial arts for a century, you could never take a person's life in a single moment without any trace whatsoever. A man who could control his brainwaves, a man who could disinterestedly end another human being's life in a blink...

After putting those two clues together, the identity of the taxi's passenger became abundantly clear.

Choi Do-Shik was a psychopath that treated humans like dogs or cows... No, as ants or cockroaches. No one felt guilty for stepping on ants, after all. It seemed that that bastard's habit of casually killing people hadn't changed at all.

The reason for Choi Do-Shik's obsession with wealth was due to his ambition to rebuild the Pure White Cult. That's why he was also training the red faces, too. That bastard must be royally irritated after locating the destroyed Yin-Yang formation and the treasure storage with nothing but dust inside. That bus driver was terribly unlucky for running into a seething predator who had lost his prey.

*

Mu Ssang muttered to himself. "A reunion after eight long years is it!"

"Sorry? What do you mean, big bro?"

"Nupchi, go inside the bathroom. Until I say you can come out, never step outside. Don't even breathe too loudly, okay?"

"Yessir, big bro!"

The quick-witted Nupchi didn't even ask why. He rapidly snatched up the travel bag and the Boston bag, then disappeared into the bathroom on the double. One of Nupchi's good points was that no matter how urgent the situation was, he made sure to take things that needed to be taken. There was a good reason why a survivor could keep surviving in this line of work.

"I shall make sure to kill you this time!"

Mu Ssang's nerves sharpened up like a blade. Tension stiffened his limbs. He began circulating the resonance wave.

Shwa-ahhhhaaarghh-

Tens of billions of white solids generated in his brain and spine, the Epidium biuret, were released into his blood vessels. Every single one of his cells began waking up from their slumber.

*

Creak-

The old monk opened the thick fire door, then opened the even thicker soundproof door beyond it. His figure, clad in a trench coat and a fedora deeply pressed down on his head, seemed to glide smoothly into the office. That fashion sense seemed utterly incompatible with the second half of August when the late Summer heat hadn't eased up yet.