“This time, let’s grill some lamb. Cooking it with corn and sweet potatoes will enhance the flavor. Oh, and cactus fruit too.”

“Ohhhhh! We brought plenty, just in case!”

“And if we make a stew… or rather, soup with goat’s milk, it’ll double the desert’s unique flavor.”

“Just hearing about it makes my mouth water!”

After digging a pit, they placed large stones inside and lit a fire to heat them.

They would then pour water over the stones and steam the meat with the vapor—a technique called ‘pit cooking’.

Sometimes they’d place mugwort on the hot stones to impart its fragrance.

When Jin Cheonhee was young, the elders in his neighborhood occasionally prepared food this way, but nowadays places that cooked like this had become rare.

Jin Cheonhee planned to use cloth and leaves for the pit cooking.

Instead of pork or chicken, he intended to use well-seasoned lamb.

He would also wrap and add sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, corn, and various fruits bought from trading posts.

In modern times, they would use aluminum foil for wrapping, but this method produced better flavor.

The key is preventing the steam from escaping.

Another critical point was wrapping the food carefully to keep sand out.

He planned to use a slight trick—using fire energy to bake clay, similar to how he had preserved the core of the Ten Thousand Flower Bamboo.

Above all, layering the food, covering it, and having a campfire nearby would make for a great visual presentation.

Yes, pit cooking is perfect for the desert.

Thus, Professor Jin brought a traditional cooking method from South Korea’s Gangwon Province to a desert in another world.

The Chief Escort spoke with excitement:

“Oh, a caravan from the Western Tibet region cooked something similar once, and it was incredible.”

Though different from pit-cooking, he’d heard there was a similar camping dish in South America.

It seemed this world had something similar too.

Jin Cheonhee continued preparing the pit cooking and lit the firewood.

Whoosh!

The magic created by fire, geothermal heat, and steam.

“Ohhhhh!”

The desert night grew warm and cozy.

That’s when it happened.

“Chief, someone’s coming!”

Who could be coming at this hour when the sun had nearly set, and in this desert no less?

Sure enough, torches became visible in the distance.

“Bandits, bandits! Bandits are coming!”

Jin Cheonhee looked back and forth between the approaching torch-bearing group and the Gangwon-style pit cooking in progress.

These bastards dare to interrupt my cooking?

The aroma of underground lamb, potatoes and corn soaked in lamb broth, and sweet potatoes had already begun to waft from the bonfire.

All the escort agency warriors gripped their weapons tightly, preparing to fight the band of bandits.

Watching them, Jin Cheonhee shouted with calm fury:

“I’ll handle this and be right back!”

Prevention always takes precedence over treatment.

Since things had come to this, ending the conflict before anyone lost their life seemed like a physician’s duty.

Jin Cheonhee’s eyes shone with medical determination.

***

Blood-Wind Sand Faction[1].

That was the name of the bandit group.

This group, whose name meant “blood wind of the sand desert,” consisted of a mix of nomadic tribes from the Dadu Kingdom and Han Chinese.

It was a maddening cross-border collaboration for this era.

Even more maddening was that they raided back and forth between the Hua Empire and the Dadu Kingdom, causing headaches for officials.

If the Hua Empire led troops into the Dadu Kingdom, it would become a show of force.

Likewise, if the Dadu Kingdom led troops to attack, it would mean picking a fight with the Empire—a real headache all around.

Without modern global joint investigations, such a terrible hybrid had emerged in this era.

And the victims were people from both the Dadu Kingdom and the Hua Empire.

Amid this administrative vacuum created by jurisdictional tangles, Blood-Wind Sand Faction grew stronger by the day.

What’s more, they had mixed unique frontier martial arts from the Dadu Kingdom with imperial martial arts.

Of course, they focused on evil sect martial arts and techniques useful for banditry.

No wonder Blood-Wind Sand Faction had earned such a fearsome reputation that they couldn’t find worthy opponents in the vicinity.

Even more heinous was their practice of killing at least half of any caravan they attacked and selling the remaining half as slaves beyond the central lands.

No matter how much the Emperor had banned slavery, that only applied within the Empire.

Once sold to the frontier, the slaves could never be found.

Thus, the fifth raiding party of Blood-Wind Sand Faction had found their prey today.

“Chief! Judging by the shape of the tents and how the luggage is stacked, it looks like an escort agency.”

“How many?”

“It’s hard to tell in the dark, but from the number of torches, they seem fewer than a typical caravan.”

“Small fry? What a shame!”

Everyone burst into laughter at those words.

“Kill half, enslave half! Everything they own is ours!”

Blood-Wind Sand Faction’s Fifth Raiding Party.

Following the Chief’s orders, everyone spurred their horses simultaneously.

“Yaaa!”

***

“White-Robed Divine Dragon, this isn’t your fight! We’ll handle them!”

No, if we’re late, we won’t be able to eat this!

The food was continuing to cook, but his patience was running out.

Plus, someone was bound to get seriously injured fighting the bandits… the thought of performing emergency treatment before eating made him feel uneasy.

The Korean inside him decided not to endure it.

“No, no, I’ll do it.”

“That’s not—huh?”

Before the Chief Escort could finish speaking, Jin Cheonhee’s afterimage scattered and disappeared.

Woof!

Hwanggu and Noe-jin’s fur stood more on end than usual.

The fury at having mealtime interrupted moved the two spirit beasts.

Jin Cheonhee stood before the band of bandits.

The bandits were in the middle of the desert.

When the martial artist running toward them stopped, they laughed.

“#@%#$^&~!!”

Though Jin Cheonhee couldn’t understand what they were saying since they weren’t from the Central Plains, he could guess from their expressions.

They were probably saying things like “you’ve got guts” or “how pathetic.”

Sure enough, the bandits circled around Jin Cheonhee, surrounding him.

“@#!#$!!”

The sound of horse hooves striking sand was deafening.

It seems fame doesn’t help once you enter the frontier.

He couldn’t understand why His Imperial Highness Eun wanted to have his regular checkup all the way out here.

Just then, a whip flew toward Jin Cheonhee’s neck.

It was a technique commonly used by bandits in this region—wrapping the whip around an enemy’s neck and dragging them with a horse.

Even someone with strong physical conditioning would have their neck broken before reaching 100 meters, and would lose the lower half of their body after being dragged 300 meters.

“Be careful, great hero!”

Whish!

Even as the whip approached his Adam’s apple, Jin Cheonhee didn’t move.

A sinister smile crossed the bandit’s lips.

At that moment.

Snap!

Jin Cheonhee caught the whip.

Though the whip wrapped around his arm several times, strangely, not a single wound appeared.

While letting the whip wrap around his arm, Jin Cheonhee thought:

Is he manipulating energy? It feels different from Central Plains martial arts.

Not that it mattered.

Jin Cheonhee yanked the whip.

Bang!

In that instant, the bandit holding the whip was hurled into the air.

Simultaneously, Jin Cheonhee grabbed the bandit’s shoulder and twisted it in a direction it shouldn’t go.

Crack!

“Aaaaargh!”

Along with the scream, Jin Cheonhee said:

“Let’s eat, you damn bandits! Hwanggu, Noe-jin. Tear them apart!”

Awoooo!

When Hwanggu let out a long howl like a wolf, the horses immediately became agitated and reared up.

They couldn’t handle the killing intent of the spirit beast.

At the same time, lightning struck the desert sky.

Crash!

Two bandits were electrocuted in that single strike.

The one who appeared to be the leader hurriedly babbled in an unintelligible language, but regardless, Jin Cheonhee’s kick twisted his jaw.

“Kuhughk!”

Bam bam bam bam!

Around thirty of them.

Numbers no longer mattered.

An overwhelmingly powerful force was sweeping through like a storm.

It wasn’t a force that mere bandits could handle.

Even the escort agents who had rushed to help the White-Robed Divine Dragon stood watching in a daze.

“Wow…”

There’s a Korean saying that even a dog won’t bother someone while they’re eating.

Jin Cheonhee couldn’t forgive the bandits who had attacked at this particular moment.

At the same time, one part of his mind maintained the cold calculation that he needed to beat them quickly and return to save the meat.

“…A-amazing… White-Robed Divine Dragon…”

“So his reputation wasn’t exaggerated.”

“I was half-doubtful that a physician could be so strong…”

Their praise didn’t reach Jin Cheonhee’s ears.

My pit-roasted meat!

His only thought was to finish them quickly and get back.

***

Bandit Yamta couldn’t comprehend the scene before him.

The raiding party’s target had clearly been a small caravan with just a few tents.

Though small, the quality of the tents and the way the luggage was arranged gave off the scent of money.

As they charged to raid that caravan, a handsome young man stood in the middle of the desert.

Even though the moonlight was dim, his face was clearly visible—fair-skinned with refined features.

With gentle eyes and softly upturned lips, the handsome youth had a warm impression.

Seeing him, the Chief said:

“Take that one as a slave without fail. We’ll sell him for a high price to the nobility.”

The young man in pale blue martial attire didn’t seem to understand these words, but appeared to sense they weren’t pleasant.

Beside him stood a wolf the size of a bull.

Though its fur color was strange for a wolf, its size suggested it was indeed one.

Could he be from the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace[2]?

That might make things a bit troublesome… but the Chief wasn’t one to care about such things.

The Chief’s right-hand man snickered and playfully threw his whip at the young man.

The moment the whip wrapped around the youth’s neck, he caught it with his arm instead, then hurled the person.

Bang!

“A person… flying?”

Then lightning struck the sky. When the wolf howled deeply, all the horses reared up at once.

“Aaaagh!”

“C-catch him!”

In the midst of the chaos, the youth sent people flying into the sky with a peaceful expression.