"So it begins…"
The Green Forest had always been a headache, and before the regression, they remained a headache right up until the moment the Central Plains' martial world was shattered.
When the Heavenly Demon's offensive threw the Central Plains into chaos, they seized the opportunity to grow bolder, plundering places they normally wouldn't have dared to touch.
Not only the surviving named sects of the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance, but occasionally even the Imperial Court.
They plundered so thoroughly that people said if you converted all their wealth into gold, you could buy a small country.
With the Heavenly Demon attacking from the front and the Green Forest stripping them from behind, how could the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance possibly hold out?
In the end, the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance, which initially seemed to be holding its ground, collapsed, and the front lines began to retreat rapidly.
Before they knew it, half the Central Plains had been devoured, and the mood began to shift.
The Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance started chasing survival rather than justice, and Outer Murim powers like the Potala Palace and the South Man Beast Palace began quietly reaching out their hands…
The Green Forest's chief bandit, who had been rampaging without fear of heaven, finally got scared and fled alone across the sea with most of his wealth.
"It was a mess like no other."
Naturally, the Green Forest bandits left behind were thrown into chaos. Not only had most of the wealth they'd worked so hard to amass vanished, but they were overflowing with people who wanted to kill them for the sins they'd piled up.
Even if they reached out their hands now, the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance wouldn't take them in, and the Demonic Cult went without saying.
After all, it was a group gathered by those who had suffered injustice at the hands of martial artists—would they spare one of the most tyrannical groups in the martial world just because it bowed its head?
Even the Harmony Realm martial artists of the Black Alliance, who had ruled their own territory, had all died at the Heavenly Demon's hands in the end, so how could those who had roamed the martial world extorting lives and wealth from martial artists and commoners alike possibly survive?
Thus, the Green Forest naturally scattered.
Just as the Chief Staff Leader had done, some fled far from the Central Plains, while others—lifelong mountain dwellers that they were—hid away in remote valleys where few ever set foot…
Or they pretended to be wanderers and joined the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance, enjoying themselves while they could and fleeing the moment things turned against them, repeating this cycle over and over.
This was the path chosen by those whose faces and martial arts were unknown, but most of them were found out before long.
Those who were caught were either killed or sent to the front lines, where death was all but guaranteed.
One thing they all had in common was that, at least once during their interrogation, they met the Lord of the Black Alliance.
The Lord of the Black Alliance would ask about the locations of mountain strongholds that no longer held any meaning—but if the stronghold in question was connected to his own childhood, the prisoner usually died during the interrogation.
If not, they were sent to the most dangerous place, under the condition that their past crimes would be forgiven if they survived.
"There's not much of a difference."
Almost none of them survived until their crimes were forgiven.
Even if they were lucky and skilled enough to survive, they couldn't withstand the Demonic Cult's relentless attacks.
But that was just the era back then. Dying was a certainty; how you died was what mattered.
Still, they could only hope that being pardoned before death would earn them a slightly more comfortable hell than those who weren't.
Anyway, there was a reason I suddenly brought up these old stories after telling Tang Jincheon I'd go suppress the Green Forest.
The reason the Green Forest couldn't be uprooted was its unique cell structure, the mountain strongholds hidden here and there, and the decisiveness (?) to flee the moment things turned unfavorable.
But wasn't I in a position close to the Lord of the Black Alliance's right-hand man before the regression? I couldn't see all of his interrogations, but I witnessed quite a few of them.
Naturally, I'd managed to get a rough sense of where the mountain strongholds were located.
Of course, to the Green Forest bandits, a stronghold was a consumable item—something they could abandon and rebuild at any time.
That was why the long-surviving Green Forest bandits had built and abandoned countless strongholds, and knew the locations of just as many potential stronghold sites.
Back then, that information had been meaningless since the strongholds were already abandoned, but now that I'd returned to the past, it was different. I couldn't remember all of them, but if I focused on searching the ones I did remember, something was bound to come up.
I'd finished my calculations before bringing up the Green Forest subjugation to Tang Jincheon, and now it was time to bring it up to the person who would accompany me.
"Seol Ri-hyang. Would you come out with me for a while?"
"Huh? I'm a bit busy today… We can be back before sunset, right? Then it's fine."
"It'll probably take about a month or two."
"…?"
Seol Ri-hyang tilted her head as if she couldn't understand what she had just heard.
Half a beat late, her eyes flew wide open, and she absorbed the ice cube she had been rolling in her hand as she sprang to her feet.
It seemed it wasn't real ice after all, but a lump of cold energy formed from internal energy.
"You—do you even know what you're saying right now?! Did you get permission from Sister Tang?!"
"Of course. She gave it willingly."
"…Huh? No matter how I think about it, this is… Ah, is that it? It's been a few days since you returned to the Tang Clan, so something must have happened in that time without me knowing? Mm-hm. I'm starting to understand now."
"Naturally. The Green Forest are outlaws that even the Imperial Court tries to hunt down and exterminate, let alone martial artists. Of course she'd support someone volunteering to subjugate them."
"…"
I keep my mouth firmly shut and glare back with eyes like hatchets. Not rabbits — hatchets.
Unlike Tang So-wol, who is scarier when she smiles silently than when she glares, or Seomun Hwa-rin, whose fiercest frown only makes her look like a cute little animal.
Seol Ri-hyang, on the other hand, looks quite sharp when she frowns. Sometimes enough to remind me of the Ghost Sound Witch from before my regression. If a faint-hearted person saw that face, they'd probably take an involuntary step back.
But I know. That expression just means she's waiting for me to explain myself in detail.
"Didn't I tell you before? Using our cooperation with the Black Alliance on the Green Forest subjugation as a stepping stone, we will ultimately achieve the Righteous-Unorthodox Alliance."
"Is that so?"
"To do that, this cooperation must succeed spectacularly. It has to look like the Orthodox and Unorthodox Sects, by joining hands, accomplished what they never could before."
"…For example, the Green Forest subjugation?"
"Exactly."
Seol Ri-hyang now understood without needing every detail explained. As he nodded with a sense of pride, all that came back was a voice of disbelief.
"Come on, the Green Forest isn't some wild ginseng on a back mountain. You think you can just uproot it whenever you feel like it?"
"A reasonable opinion. That's how most would think. And it's actually true. But."
"But?"
"Chasing down a bunch of bandits—when has a Harmony Realm martial artist ever moved personally?"
"…Huh?"
"Those who look stronger than you run away at the mere sight of a shadow, so those who end up fighting ordinary Green Forest bandits are at best Peak Realm martial artists."
"Well, that's true."
"If it were me, I could sense them before they even noticed us, and even if I was late, I could chase down and catch those who fled."
"I suppose that's so…?"
"Now do you understand? What's impossible for others is possible for me."
"…"
Because of the seal, I couldn't reveal the source of my certainty. So I tried to cover it with confidence.
But somehow, Seol Ri-hyang's expression twisted into something strange.
"What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Hmm. It's nothing. I just realized anew that you're great in every way, Cheon Hwi, except for those times when you're insufferable."
"…"
This time, I was the one to fall silent, and only then did Seol Ri-hyang continue with a giggle.
"Anyway, I get what you mean. The schedule being so sudden is a bit much, but… honestly, my busy work is just martial arts training anyway. And if I follow you, Cheon Hwi, I'm sure I'll get my fill of real combat."
"Right. In fact, that was part of the reason I called you."
"Right? But what about Tang unni and Seomun unni? Are they coming along this time too?"
"No. Tang So-wol will be staying at the Tang Clan for a while to receive direct instruction from her father-in-law. However, Seomun Senior Hwa-rin will be coming with us."
"Right. Tang unni was about due for it, anyway."
Tang So-wol had absorbed the Poison Demon's poison, and apart from her actual martial level, the poison energy she carried within her body was close to the Harmony Realm.
Until now, she had been adapting to the suddenly strengthened poison energy and learning to handle it with skill, so it was about time she looked toward the next step.
That wasn't to say she was already eyeing the Harmony Realm itself. It was about her achievements in the poison art.
Besides, hadn't she said she wanted to research a poison that could scatter even Demonic Qi so that it would work against the Heavenly Demon?
The Heavenly Demon's martial art was the Force Qi Skill, so it wasn't simply a matter of dispersing Demonic Qi—it was practically the same as saying she would create a poison that gnawed at the Demonic Qi-forged Aura… the Heavenly Demon's Intent that bent vast swaths of space.
…Realistically speaking, it would be impossible with mere poison alone.
That was only possible after the Tang So-wol of before the regression had completed the heart poison and come to be called the Poison Lady.
But no matter how grand the undertaking, doesn't it always begin with one step at a time?
Tang So-wol was now preparing to take that very step.
"Then let's settle it—this time, the three of us will move together: me, you Cheon Hwi, and Sister Seomun."
"What are you talking about? The three of us will be the core, but we won't be the only ones."
"Surely not…"
Seol Ri-hyang, her mouth hanging wide open, cried out in a half-turned voice.
"There's another woman you've been hiding somewhere?! So you're planning to call her over when Sister Tang isn't around?!"
"I don't know what kind of thinking leads you to that conclusion, but it's not that at all. Among the Tang Clan's warriors, there are those with talent who need real combat experience, and from the Black Alliance, those who grew close to you, Seol Ri-hyang—if they come seeking us, we plan to accept them as well."
"Even them?"
As I muttered that, Seol Ri-hyang, who had been lost in thought for a moment, let out a deep sigh and spoke.
"I don't understand what you're trying to do, Cheon Hwi."
"It's nothing much. I just intend to subjugate the Green Forest as loudly but as thoroughly as possible. Naturally, this will show that when the orthodox and unorthodox join hands, more can be accomplished than one might think."
"Even if that's possible, I'm a bit worried about the aftermath. The unorthodox sects are still problematic, even if they're better than before. I'm worried that you'll be pointed at by the world because of this. You only just earned a proper alias like the White Moon Sword Lord not too long ago."
I could understand Seol Ri-hyang's words. With the Black Alliance's formation, conflicts among the orthodox sects had decreased, and the unorthodox side had also begun settling in one region and upholding justice in earnest.
But still, the unorthodox were the unorthodox. Especially those of similar age or older than the Lord of the Black Alliance.
In other words, the elderly elders who held most of the real power in the orthodox martial world still carried memories of the days when they opposed the unorthodox sects.
But what kind of problem was that, really?
"I don't listen to those weaker than me."
"Wow. This is clearly the Tang Clan, but it feels an awful lot like the Black Alliance."
At my words, Seol Ri-hyang's eyes sparkled as she feigned an innocent voice and asked.
"Hey, hey. What about Sister Tang, then?"
"…Tang So-wol gets an exception."
"What about me?"
"You're not an exception. You're coming along to hunt the Green Forest, so go change your clothes. I've already had a servant pack your things."
"Heh. Is that so?"
Seol Ri-hyang, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth, suddenly began to untie the knot of the belt that held her martial robes in place.
"What are you doing all of a sudden…"
"You told me to go change, Cheon Hwi. I'm weaker than you, so I should listen, right? I'll change quickly, so you keep both eyes wide open right there and see just how fast I can do it."
"…"
For a moment, all sorts of thoughts flooded my mind. After a long and complicated deliberation, my conclusion was to hastily flee the room.
Swish.
Whether she had truly undone her belt or not, the sound of cloth brushing against cloth came from behind me. At the same time, I heard a scoff as if she found the whole situation ridiculous.
"Hmph. What a coward."
…It's not that I'm a coward, it's that Seol Ri-hyang has no sense of fear at all.
***
It didn't take long to prove that my thoughts were correct.
Watching the backs of the bandits fleeing in a panic, Seol Ri-hyang shouted in disbelief.
"Seriously, who runs away just because one person got taken down!"
"You said it looked doable, so we smashed through the fortress gate, and then you froze the chief into an ice block just because he was the most noticeable—wouldn't it be stranger if they didn't run?"
"…That guy was the chief?"
Seol Ri-hyang gave an awkward smile in front of the block of ice frozen solid.