Chapter 126. Five Dragons Fight for a Pearl (22)

Chapter 126. Five Dragons Fight for a Pearl (22)

Ra Mi, the beauty suffering from narcolepsy, was nowhere to be found.

‘Damn it!’

“Ma-Ra! Find her.”

“Okay.”

As Woo-Moon and the Wind Sword Squadron made themselves busy because of Ra Mi’s disappearance, Lee Chung ordered the diversionary force to move out, saying that they needed to go check out the rear force.

While Ma-Ra searched around, she came across a set of footprints running away and a small, lighter set following behind it. She followed the tracks with Woo-Moon, and they eventually ran into Ra Mi, sleeping by the side of a small lake in a forest a little away from the battlefield.

She seemed to have come all this way while chasing a fleeing gang member, as a corpse of one of the Black Bull Gang members lay at her feet.

‘Huh?’

Looking closely, there was a wound on the left side of Ra Mi’s waist. It wasn’t a minor wound, either, and blood flowed profusely down her leg.

Now that he was looking at her closely, Woo-Moon could see that her complexion was stark white.

He rushed over and tried to keep her from falling over. At that moment, Ra Mi opened her eyes and slashed out.

Shing!

Woo-Moon imbued his hand with aura and grabbed Ra Mi’s blade while wrapping his other hand around her shoulder.

“Ra Mi! Are you okay?”

“...Ah. Captain... I’m... cold...”

When he touched her, Woo-Moon immediately noticed that she was incredibly cold, likely because she had lost a lot of blood.

‘Did she not even notice she was injured or did she fall asleep before she could treat herself?’

“Woo-Moon, ointment.”

After receiving the golden wound ointment from Ma-Ra, Woo-Moon stopped the bleeding by pressing Ra Mi’s acupoints and applying the medication.

In the meantime, Ra Mi fell asleep again and instinctively tried to attack again, forcing Woo-Moon to grab both of her arms and pin her down, striking her acupoints to render her immobile.

He then picked her up on his back, and as he ran with her, he imbued her body with his qi to replenish her vitality.

‘If Ma-Ra hadn’t found her so quickly, she might have died from blood loss.’

Her injury definitely wasn’t fatal. Yet she had still ended up in such a severe condition because she had fallen asleep, leaving her unable to do even the bare minimum to treat her injuries.

For some reason, an indecipherable anger welled up in Woo-Moon’s heart. Eventually, he was unable to bear it.

“Damn it! Just what the hell are Ra Mi’s parents doing? To think they would send her to the Justice Coalition in this state, don’t they care that they’re putting her in danger?!”

However, it looked like Ra Mi was awake when he was shouting. From his back, she responded to his outrage in her characteristic languid voice.

“You want... me to sit... at home... and sleep quietly?”

Not knowing that she had been awake, Woo-Moon was so surprised that he couldn’t answer for a moment.

“What’s... different... between that... and dying? Dying after... only sleeping... for my entire... life... might as well... not live... at all.”

It hadn’t been that long since Woo-Moon had met Ra Mi.

Actually, it hadn’t even been five days since they’d met for the first time at the squadron’s quarters. During that time, they had hardly spent time together at all, let alone sit down together and have a good conversation.

However, when he heard her words, it was as if a hammer hit him hard in the temple, and his tears almost started falling.

He regretted what he said, feeling as though he had spoken too hastily.

“So, you’re the famous Song Woo-Moon, huh.”

The Fist Emperor scanned Woo-Moon and the other members of the Wind Sword Squadron assembled before him.

The members of the Wind Sword Squadron were unusually nervous as they stood before the Fist Emperor. Mu Bi, who specialized in fist techniques, was the most nervous of them all, so excited that his face turned red.

“Captain of the Wind Sword Squadron, Song Woo-Moon, greets the Fist Emperor.”

“Kekeke. Look how polite the Palm Emperor’s grandson is. Completely unlike that piece of... ah, sorry. I shouldn’t say such words in front of his grandson.”

It was... a strange situation.

It would be odd for Woo-Moon to respond with “it’s fine,” but at the same time, it would be equally as strange for him to get angry. It wasn’t as if Woo-Moon was insulted, as he knew that his grandfather and the Fist Emperor were close friends.

Thus, he just shrugged and smiled in response.

“I’ve already heard about your success in the battles against the hidden forces of the Black Bull Gang. The fact that you could deal with four of the Ten Demon Generals and not only get out of that alive but actually end them, is really impressive. I’ll be honest with you: at your age, I really don’t think I could’ve done the same, kekeke.”

“The squadron members’ aid was essential to our victory. Moreover, I had the help of my companion Lee Ma-Ra, who always stayed by my side.”[1]

The Fist Emperor’s gaze turned to Ma-Ra.

“Ah, I heard about you from the Sword Emperor. I wondered what the little girl who inherited the assassination arts of the Death God would be like, but I could never have imagined that she would be so beautiful. Hahaha.”

Truthfully, the other Justice Coalition members didn’t have a good impression of Ma-Ra.

The members of the Baek Family and other young talents thought she was nothing more than a branch family member or something like that. They could never see her in a bad light; all they knew about her was that she was beautiful and she disappeared a lot. However, the mid-level and expert figures of the Justice Coalition saw beyond her exterior and recognized her as the assassin she was. And just as the Hegemon Emperor had pointed out... they did not like that.

As a result, Woo-Moon had beaten up no small number of people who dared spout nonsense about her.

But, as expected, the Fist and Sword Emperors were different. They couldn’t care less what Ma-Ra’s job was or what her background was; what they cared about was her allegiance, her actions, and her potential.

As Ma-Ra just stood there with her usual blank expression, the Fist Emperor continued to speak.

“I called you here for a reason. You’ve all done a great job and must be rewarded appropriately. As of today, the Wind Sword Squadron has been promoted one rank and is now the Wind Sword Battalion. Moreover, you will all be granted appropriate rewards in the future.”

After finishing what he had to say, the Fist Emperor asked Woo-Moon for his captain identity plaque. Taking it in his hand, the Fist Emperor imbued his finger with aura and directly changed the character on the plaque.

“This is bestowed in the name of the Fist Emperor, Commander of the First Army of the Justice Coalition.”[2]

Originally, doing something like this was difficult.

The Wind Sword Squadron was a unit belonging to one of the Justice Coalition’s battalions, the Five Swords of Heavenly Justice. However, the Fist Emperor simply pushed ahead with their promotion, saying that it would be ridiculous to leave the people who slayed four of the Ten Demon Generals just by themselves as mere squadron members.

Of course, since he was the Fist Emperor, even if he wanted to promote a chicken, no one could really object, much less now that there was solid reason to do so.

With this, the Wind Sword Squadron officially separated from the Five Swords of Heavenly Justice, becoming a battalion on paper.

To the Fist Emperor’s surprise, Woo-Moon and his subordinates were reacting very differently from he had expected.

‘These little brats couldn’t care less, huh.’

However, that made him like them even more. As a true-blue martial artist, he naturally liked how none of them cared about fame or profit in spite of their young age.

He burst into laughter as he carefully examined the face of each member of the Wind Sword Battalion and stored them in his memory.

“Hahaha, good, good!” he laughed as he patted Woo-Moon on the back.

Thwack! Thwack!!

‘Agh!!! It hurts!!! It hurts, you barbaric old man!’

1. Yes, Ma-Ra just randomly acquired a family name. Yes, it's a generic Korean family name. ☜

2. In the previous chapters, it was stated that Seong Woo-Seok was the commander and Ho Mu-Bok his adjutant, and the Fist Emperor became commander of the third army. It appears that the Fist Emperor is the commander of the first army, while Ho Mu-Bok commands the third. ☜