Mistaken for a Fairy
ch19

[It Seems She Was a Diety]

Baek-ho stealthily followed the men of the Ilwol Merchant Guild. They had started much later, but his steps were so light, as if treading on air, that he caught up with the men in just a few strides.

With one step, the forest scenery changed in an instant, and with two steps, he arrived within a hundred paces of the men. Normally, a tiger of this size following them would have been easily detected. However, the men did not notice anything unusual and simply hurried on.

This was because Baek-ho did not exude even a trace of murderous intent. After all, killing intent was something one only harbored when hunting.

Moreover, the Invisibility Art, which allowed him to naturally blend into the shadows, also played a part, making it easy to deceive the men's eyes. Thus, Baek-ho followed them like a shadow, with his master on his back.

Yuheon had his own task. His eyes shone brightly in the darkness, reading the flow of the intricately woven formation. Each time his small claws stirred the air, the formation subtly twisted as if imbued with True Qi, and the arrangement of space was disrupted. This was a subtle adjustment of the formation to prevent the men from getting lost or to guide them in a specific direction.

'Odu, Machil, Yusam.'

Seo-yeon repeated the names of the fallen men. At the same time, a deep anguish about the ruthless Martial World swirled in her heart like dark clouds.

The image of her mother, a cold corpse without even closing her eyes, vividly surfaced, and the afterimage of the thatched house swept away by the Fire Demon flickered before her eyes.

“……”

Screams, blood, corpses, mother.

She never wanted to recall that tragedy again, so she tried not to get involved with the Martial World.

Then why did she step forward?

Because she was frustrated with the men who didn't even get angry at the injustice.

And because she saw herself reflected in those men, she was angry.

She felt disgusted, and she was also angry that the Martial World seemed determined not to let her go.

Even while thinking these things, she felt ridiculous for hoping that nothing would happen.

She was also frustrated by the situation where she couldn't run away because of a pointless sense of responsibility.

All sorts of indescribable emotions swirled and shook her inside.

Seo-yeon exhaled roughly, as if releasing suppressed breath.

"It's hard. It's too hard."

Being a good teacher is such a difficult and challenging thing.

As if noticing Seo-yeon's emotions, Baek-ho, who was carrying her, turned his head slightly. Baek-ho's big, clear eyes seemed to be asking if she was okay.

Seo-yeon smiled with a hollow expression and muttered.

"It's okay. It's okay."

Perhaps, she had been secretly expecting this to happen since she took Hwa-ryeon as her disciple. She just didn't expect the turmoil to come so quickly.

She regretted taking in a disciple for nothing, but at the same time, she also thought.

If I hadn't met Hwa-ryeon there, I would have lived and died in the mountains forever.

After catching her breath for a long time, Seo-yeon said quietly.

"Just a moment."

At her words, Baek-ho obediently stopped walking. Seo-yeon closed her eyes. She hoped not to encounter the martial artists from before, and at the same time, she mentally rehearsed how to deal with them if she did.

Soon, Seo-yeon's eyes became as calm as a deep lake. Her trembling shoulders settled firmly, and an aura that seemed to pierce the air flowed out faintly, creating an unapproachable atmosphere.

“……”

In a fight, momentum accounts for more than half. She thought that if she rode on the back of a huge Spiritual Creature and struck a plausible pose, the opponent might mistake her for a master.

Although it was not much different from a small animal puffing up its body to threaten the enemy, at least Seo-yeon had decided not to run away.

"Let's go."

Baek-ho, who had turned his head to watch his master, looked ahead again.

It would be invisible to ordinary people, but it was clearly visible to Baek-ho's eyes.

In his master's hand, a Sword Body that seemed to hold the moonlight was already shining faintly.

A dawn rain drizzled down. Who would welcome the rain falling on a mountain? Martial artists were no exception. However, among the many martial artists, there were those who enjoyed the rain, namely assassins.

Footsteps, signs of life, and short screams could all be hidden by the sound of the pouring rain.

Jangsan, the leader of the seventh squad of the Martial Alliance, quietly stared at the bonfire that had crackled and then died out. It had already been two hours, but there was no news from the squad members he had sent to the Shaolin Temple. Could they really be waiting in front of the inn until morning to pack food?

If they were bodyguards, they would have taken turns sleeping and watching. But how could they do that now? With the enemy camp right in front of them, they couldn't let their guard down for even a moment in the face of the threat that could come at any time.

Therefore, the Martial Alliance members waited silently in the rain without saying a word.

Jangsan sighed as he looked at his soaked body, and then suddenly met the eyes of the men walking out of the darkness. They were the very men who had passed by them a few hours ago.

Jangsan jumped up as if he had seen a ghost and stopped them.

"Where are you coming from?"

The men of the Ilwol Merchant Guild watched the sword hanging from Jangsan's waist and the Martial Alliance members who had surrounded them as if to encircle them, and kept their mouths shut.

"……We are porters belonging to the Ilwol Merchant Guild. We are on our way to deliver goods to the hideout that the customer ordered."

"I'm curious what those goods were."

"It wasn't anything special. Just lumps of clay about the size of a torso."

"……."

"We are ignorant people who don't know anything, but if I may say so out of concern, it didn't seem like they had hidden anything inside that clay-"

"That is not for you to judge."

Jangsan scanned the men with sharp eyes. There were no traces of martial arts training, but you never knew. The Hao Gate and the Blood Sect were the same, most of their subordinates were people who had not learned martial arts.

Jangsan waved his right hand, and the squad members standing next to him stepped forward as if they had been waiting. Their purpose was clear: to search their bodies first.

"Cooperate."

"Yes."

The men knelt down without hesitation. They were still afraid, but in their hearts, they were relieved in some way.

If these were martial artists from the Evil Alliance, they would have thrown a punch as soon as they said a word, and if they were from the Blood Sect, they would have been killed before they could even speak. Judging by the fact that they were observing the minimum courtesy, it was clear that these were righteous martial artists.

"There's nothing."

"Check their mouths too."

He said that because there were cases where they tied wires to their molars and hung poison pills.

"There's nothing."

Jangsan frowned. Then how on earth did these guys get through the formation? Was it a formation that only ordinary people who had not learned martial arts could pass through?

Since they could have engraved a formation on their skin that acted as a key, Jangsan said again.

"Take off their clothes and check if they have any tattoos or patterns."

"Do we take off their underwear too?"

"……Take off as much as you need to."

But nothing came out. Jangsan sat the men down, had them put their clothes back on, and then asked them what had happened.

The men answered obediently. A customer of the Merchant Guild had bought lumps of clay to use for carving, and all they had done was carry them. In the process, they had been given water and fruit to eat.

Just in case, he cut open the fruits, but there was nothing inside.

At this point, Jangsan realized that these guys really didn't know anything.

"Squad leader?"

At the question from the squad member next to him, Jangsan's frown deepened even further.

Usually, the best course of action in this case was to lock them up in jail. Even if they were ordinary people who didn't know anything, it was necessary to keep an eye on them for a few days.

This was because their stomachs could be filled with the Blood Gu of the Blood Sect, or they could be possessed by a ghost controlled by the Corpse Blood Squad Leader of the Blood Sect.

It might seem excessive, but Jangsan had experienced all of these things directly in the Martial World, so he couldn't ignore them.

Jangsan thought that this was also the reason why Baekdo had become so rigid. Since Heukdo did not care about the means and methods, Baekdo had no choice but to become endlessly rigid in order to counter them.

But now there was no suitable jail, so Jangsan's worries naturally deepened.

'Should I send them back? What if something happens? These guys may seem innocent, but you never know what the higher-ups are planning.'

Jangsan was just as rigid.

As his worries deepened and the men who were kneeling felt cold from being soaked in the rain,

One of the squad members suddenly groped Jangsan's shoulder.

"What is it now."

"Th, there……."

Jangsan's gaze turned to the direction the squad member was pointing.

"……."

There was an unbelievably huge tiger.

The tiger stood faintly in the darkness and rain like a shadow. Jangsan gasped involuntarily. Cold sweat flowed down his spine instead of cold rainwater.

When he met the flashing blue eyes that seemed to strike like lightning, he even had the illusion that his heart was being squeezed.

When a cold wind blew around them, the squad members swallowed hard in unison.

They felt fear at the fact that no one had noticed that a tiger of that size had come so close, and they were bewildered because the tiger seemed to grow in size with each flicker of shadows and lightning.

From the moment they realized that someone was sitting on top of that tiger and exuding an unapproachable aura, they could no longer maintain their composure.

One of the squad members, unable to bear it, let out a groan. He was the man who had laughed heartily and wielded his sword when fighting the Evil Alliance just a while ago.

Jangsan could not rebuke that squad member. He himself was gathering all of his Inner Energy to hold on to his sanity.

They say that prey's bodies freeze up automatically when they meet a predator, and that was exactly the situation of the seventh squad of the Martial Alliance. They couldn't move a finger.

'……Who the hell is it?'

At least Jangsan's mind was working. He was the strongest and had the most experience. But even he couldn't do anything until Baek-ho passed by him. His body was crushed and frozen by fear.

Baek-ho passed by the Martial Alliance members and arrived in front of the Ilwol Merchant Guild men who were kneeling. The men were trembling with fear and had buried their faces in the mud.

Baek-ho gently bit their necks and lifted them up. The men screamed, but fortunately, they did not faint.

Then, one of the men barely raised his head. It was the man who had introduced himself as Odu earlier. Soon, a woman sitting in a dignified posture on Baek-ho came into his view. Even though she was wearing a bamboo hat and covering her face with a veil, Odu seemed to know who it was, so he said involuntarily.

"Customer?"

Instead of answering, Seo-yeon looked at Odu and just nodded. Odu thought as he watched Seo-yeon's back gradually moving away from him.

'What kind of atmosphere is this…….'

It was hard to imagine that she was the same woman who had shared fruit with them earlier. When he thought about it carefully, it was strange in itself that a woman was living alone with a young child in the deep mountains where there was nothing.

Odu looked back and forth between the stiff martial artists, Baek-ho with a divine atmosphere, and Seo-yeon riding on it, and then nodded and came to a conclusion.

'I guess she was a deity.'

Soon, the Ilwol Merchant Guild men, including Odu, all rolled their eyes and fainted.