FVN Chapter 358 : Intelligence (3)
Chapter 358 : Intelligence (3)
Dokgo Ryong was living his best life, spending his days enjoying some peaceful, idyllic massacres. He was targeting those bastards who had crossed over from the Central Plains, snooping around the northern nomad camps while disguised as merchants. Even with rumors of bandits running rampant, these guys had the nerve to keep pushing toward the Western Regions anyway.
Word of their movements was passed along by the nomads who had converted to the Maitreya Luminous Cult, and Dokgo Ryong would dress up as a bandit and slaughter them all. Well, "disguise" was a bit of a stretch, really. He was really just having a blast, slaughtering the Martial Alliance's spies with a smile on his face.
No survivors meant no evidence tying any of it back to the Demonic Cult. And if there were no witnesses and no evidence, it still counts as a perfect assassination no matter how loudly you fight.
"All done, Grandfather."
"Tch. I'd rather the Alliance Leader himself showed up for once. Every last one of these bastards is so damn weak, I can barely feel anything when I hit them."
"My thoughts exactly."
Dokgo Ryong and Dokgo Pae exchanged their completely unhinged commentary while everyone standing nearby slowly shook their heads.
Just then, Dokgo Ryong suddenly turned and fixed his gaze on the horizon. A sizeable group was approaching in the distance.
Dokgo Ryong squinted at them for a second before his face completely deflated with disappointment. It was just the Heavenly Light Merchant Guild, the ones who shuttled back and forth between the Central Plains and the Western Regions.
As the group drew closer, one rider broke off and rode toward them.
"I greet the Head of the Dokgo Family."
"It's been a while, Sixth Young Master. No, I suppose I ought to call you the Deputy Hall Master of the Missionary Hall now."
Jong-ri Chu, who had been assigned by Il-mok to handle the routes between the Central Plains and the Western Regions, exchanged brief pleasantries with Dokgo Ryong.
"You must be exhausted handling such a troublesome job."
Jong-ri Chu glanced over the bodies scattered across the ground as he said that, and Dokgo Ryong flashed a grin that showed his back teeth.
"Keeps me busy with fighting every day, so it's not bad at all. Hehehe. But what about you, Deputy Hall Master? Going back and forth to the Western Regions sounds like its own kind of hassle."
"Hahaha. I'm learning a great deal out here. Oh, and you agree, don't you? Hahaha."
Jong-ri Chu had suddenly started talking to someone using informal speech, though Dokgo Ryong didn't pay it much mind, since Jong-ri Chu's gaze had already drifted past him to somewhere off to the side. To a spot where no one was standing. He was even muttering in some strange language that nobody around could understand.
‘The side effect of the Mad Soul Sword Art is really something else. Anyone looking at this man would think he's lost his mind.’
Not that Dokgo Ryong spent even a second caring about how other people saw things.
With the brief exchange out of the way, Jong-ri Chu and the Heavenly Light Merchant Guild passed through Dokgo Ryong's bandit group and continued westward.
Their journey continued even after they entered Xinjiang and made a pit stop at the Cult's headquarters, eventually leading them straight into the territory of the Muslims.
Time flowed on until the distant city walls of Merv finally came into view.
Jong-ri Chu murmured to himself, "I hope I can find some interesting books again this time."
Ohalak riding to Jong-ri Chu's left answered in English.
"Don't make it too obvious, sir. Those greedy merchants, the moment they see you showing interest, they'll jack the price up several times over."
Then James added in the language of the Muslim people.
"Even so, for the future of the great Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, we must acquire those books."
To which Jong-ri Chu replied in the nomadic tongue.
"You're both right. We'll be as discreet as possible while making sure we get every book we need."
As the three of them enthusiastically chattered away in their own little world, the rest of the Heavenly Light Merchant Guild's party pointedly looked away with blank expressions. Listening to those three switch between multiple languages mid-conversation was enough to make anyone's head spin. For those who practiced Demonic Arts, it was practically a one-way ticket to Qi Deviation.
Once they arrived at Merv, they sold off the various goods they'd brought from the Central Plains and made an enormous profit. With that money, they bought up goods to bring back to sell in the Central Plains, and they also bought slaves and books.
The slaves would be sent to the Missionary Hall, where they'd be freed from their chains and reborn as equal believers of the Divine Cult. The books, on the other hand, were purely for study.
Just as Jong-ri Chu had told Dokgo Ryong, he was learning a great deal with every trip he made between the Western Regions and the Central Plains.
Among all the subjects he'd recently taken a keen interest in was arithmetic, or as it was otherwise known, mathematics.
"Just as I thought, if we truly wish to help the masses, we need wealth. And to distribute that wealth efficiently and without a drop of waste, mastering arithmetic is a must."
James and Ohalak both nodded in agreement.
"We feel the same way, sir. We should add the Muslim numerals to the curriculum at the Grand Teaching Pavilion as soon as possible."
"Exactly. Expressing arithmetic that was previously written in Chinese characters using Muslim numerals makes it far more concise, so children would be able to start learning mathematics at a much younger age."
Muslim numerals, that is, Arabic numerals, were already proving incredibly useful in trade.
Having grown accustomed to Arabic numerals and picked up Arabic through their Western travels, the three of them had started reading Muslim texts and had recently been working their way through various mathematics books. On top of that, since all three were incredible polyglots, they were buying up books in a dozen different languages, and since the Muslims traded with the Western world, texts in Western languages were also in circulation among them.
Beyond that, Jong-ri Chu's horizons had been broadening in every direction with each trip to the Western Regions. He occasionally had to fight off raiders blinded by greed for their goods, and the experience of facing their martial arts had pushed his own skills forward as well.
"I heard a massive war broke out somewhere far off in the West recently. Apparently, some western lord made a killing trading with those Christian folks and decided to spark a rebellion."
He was even able to gather information about the world beyond the frontier.
***
"I hear a war has broken out in the west."
Jong-ri Chu had returned after three months and was already preparing for the next trade run. Il-mok gave a wry smile at the news.
"The matters in the Central Plains are more pressing right now, so we'll have to keep a watch on it for the time being, Sixth Brother. But just in case, I'd appreciate it if you could check in on it every time you make a trip."
It might not matter much to the Central Plains, but from the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's perspective, the flow of events in the Western Regions was a pretty big deal.
Not only was there the risk of disruptions to the trade routes, but Xinjiang, where the Divine Cult's main headquarters was located, shared a direct border with the Muslims’ territory. If their luck took a nosedive, they risked facing the worst-case scenario of being squeezed by crises on both sides at once.
"I'll do that. Oh, by the way, I've taken quite a liking to arithmetic lately. What do you think, youngest? I'm thinking about adding it to the Demon-Teaching Pavilion's curriculum."
"...Arithmetic, you said?"
Il-mok's reaction was a little hard to read, but Jong-ri Chu opened up the mathematics text he'd been studying and started rambling away.
"In particular, these four arithmetic operation symbols I came across in a recent book are really quite handy."
"Hahaha... Arithmetic is certainly useful, so adding it to the education program would greatly benefit the Divine Cult's development."
Il-mok laughed somewhat awkwardly as he said that. Jong-ri Chu left in high spirits, and Il-mok stared at the empty space his Sixth Brother had just vacated with a grim smile.
"Sixth Brother, you've brought back something truly terrible."
Il-mok and math had never exactly been on good terms.
He took a brief moment of silence to pray. It was a moment of silence dedicated to the children of the Cult who were about to be plunged straight into numerical hells.
Even so, he didn't have the slightest intention of stopping that impending hell. Because, regardless of his personal hatred for the subject, he genuinely hoped they'd discover some kids with a knack for math.
‘If mathematics advances, technology advances too. Can't be a bad thing.’
Since he was already an adult, he himself wouldn't have to sit through any lessons, so it didn't really matter to him anyway.
After spending a moment thinking about the children who would suffer in the future, Il-mok let out a quiet sigh. "Haah. This is hardly the time to be worrying about the future."
Months had already passed and there was still nothing new, not from the Blood Cult's side, nor from the Imperial Family that he had already sent word to through the main headquarters. The one silver lining was that there didn't seem to be any sign that the Martial Alliance had caught wind of anything either.
Thanks to that, the Central Plains had an air of calm about it, at least on the surface.
Behind the scenes, however, the various factions were completely tangled up in a massive web of conflicts. The whole situation was basically a giant powder keg just begging for a single spark to nuke the landscape to oblivion.
'I really need the Dark Shadow Pavilion to dig something up soon.'
Il-mok kept the frustration buried inside and thought of a particular person.
Seo Wan-pyeong, the Vice Pavilion Lord of the Dark Shadow Pavilion.
And then, several more months went by.
On one particular night, Il-mok was alone in his quarters getting ready for bed when he snapped upright and drew the Ascension Sword.
"Who's there?"
He'd sensed someone slipping into his quarters under the cover of darkness. It was a surprisingly nostalgic feeling. After all, back when he had first joined the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, he'd been subjected to this exact scenario multiple times thanks to his Third Brother's antics. On top of that, the mysterious figure dressed in black who had melted out of the shadows was radiating a very familiar energy.
"...Third Brother?"
Il-mok finally recognized who it was.
The reason it took him a moment was simple. The concealment technique felt slightly off for someone like Seo Wan-pyeong, who was already approaching Transcendence. And more than that, there was a faint smell of blood drifting off the man he'd taken for an assassin.
"Brother!!"
Il-mok snapped out of his daze and rushed over.
"...Sorry, I'm late, youngest."
The figure in black spoke in a familiar voice. I
t was really Seo Wan-pyeong, just as Il-mok had suspected.
Getting a closer look in the dim light, Il-mok realized Seo Wan-pyeong's body was covered in gruesome wounds. Perhaps to prevent leaving traces from his blood, he had merely sealed his acupoints to staunch the bleeding and wrapped his wounds with black cloth to stop the hemorrhage before hurrying to Il-mok’s place.
Drawn by Il-mok's shout, Hyeokryeon Seon-ah and the Maitreya Luminous Cult's warriors patrolling the perimeter immediately burst into the room.
"Get a physician, now!"
The warriors spun on their heels and sprinted off to grab the medical team.
With the order given, Il-mok turned back to look at Seo Wan-pyeong, only to find him slumped over with his eyes completely shut.
He wasn't dead, thankfully.
He'd seen Il-mok and felt safe. The moment the tension left him, he passed out on the spot.
The moment he laid eyes on Il-mok and knew he was safe, all the adrenaline in his system left him and caused him to instantly pass out.
Shortly after, physicians summoned by the warriors filed into Il-mok's quarters and began examining Seo Wan-pyeong.
"Overexertion, severe sleep deprivation, and excessive blood loss are the primary causes. On top of that, there is minor internal damage, and he's clearly been failing to eat properly, because his vital energy has also deteriorated significantly."
"Is his life in danger?"
"Not immediately, but if a few more days had passed, it would have been quite serious."
Il-mok let out a quiet sigh at the physician's assessment. Simply put, the doctor's words meant his brother wasn't going to drop dead anytime soon.
The medical team worked tirelessly from that night all the way through to the early morning to tend Seo Wan-pyeong. They disinfected and dressed his wounds to prevent infection, and slowly trickled herbal medicine into his mouth as he slept to help restore his strength.
Whether it was due to their devoted care or simply because he'd finally gotten some of the sleep he'd been missing, Seo Wan-pyeong's eyes opened by the following evening.
When he came to, his face twisted into a deep scowl.
Not from the pain.
He was just incredibly frustrated at himself for fainting before he could even deliver the crucial intel he had bled to secure. But he knew this wasn't the time to sit around throwing a pity party.
"Bring the youngest here, right now!”
He had critical information that he needed to hand over to their youngest brother immediately.