In that moment, someone stepped forward and stood in front of Jin Cheonhee. It was an auntie. She was holding a single wooden spear.

“This man saved my husband and my child! I will protect him!”

The tip of her spear trembled. These were hands that had never killed a person. Her stance didn’t even seem to be a proper form; it looked as if she had never learned martial arts in the first place.

“Aru! Are you in your right mind!”

“You’re going to believe an outsider’s words!?”

“I’d sooner believe in dog shit than the Five Poisons Sect!”

“That’s going too far!”

At the crowd’s anger, the auntie’s hands trembled even more. It felt as if she would die right there from fear. Just then, an old man who looked like a hunter also stepped forward. “No, you crazy bastards! What do you hope to gain by killing our own! I will absolutely not do such a thing!”

“Old man!”

“Let’s be honest! After killing our own Snake Clan people, do you think the food will go down our throats?! I can’t sleep like that. I’d rather die; I can’t live like that!”

“You traitors!”

“You are the traitors!”

Jin Cheonhee stared blankly at the situation.

‘Why are they helping me?’

What they said was right. No matter how powerful he was, he couldn’t stay here for a thousand years. In the end, as is the case with most things, power would return to its original state. If they didn’t like it, they would have to prepare for a great war between the factions and shed even more blood.

‘Why are they resisting?’

He knew how sweet a secure misery could be. He saw their choice. In that moment, he saw the tilted ground return a little to its original state.

‘Why, oh why, do I save people?’

He couldn’t find the answer. But the ringing in his ears, like the clashing of steel, subsided.

Finally, the one who had been leading the incitement swung his farming tool down at the auntie. The auntie, unable to stab her opponent with her spear, simply hugged the baby sling and reflexively turned her back.

Kaang!

The blade of the farming tool suddenly flew into the air. Jin Cheonhee’s qi bullet had shattered it.

In that instant, a figure charged from within the crowd. It was clear he had learned internal energy. He was aiming his hand precisely at Jin Cheonhee, and from his coiling arm, Jin Cheonhee found the traces of Heavenly Commander Yeo.

‘So Heavenly Commander Yeo really was from the Snake Clan.’

There were bound to be martial artists within the Snake Clan, and among them, someone else must have chosen a secure discrimination. Freedom was an unknowable gamble. How long can a human being fight? On the other hand, to submit to domination meant that tomorrow would unfold no differently from today.

The Snake Clan martial artist threw hundreds of throwing stars. It was a matter of creating a sword wind to strike them down.

Why? His hand wouldn’t move. The world turned upside down.

‘Of all the times for it to get worse…’

In that instant, Jin Cheonhee’s perception flickered out again. Whether it was because the patience he had been holding on to by a thread had finally snapped, or if some other problem was the cause, he couldn’t know, but one thing was certain.

‘Ah, a functional problem has occurred that makes combat difficult.’

He had overworked himself quite a bit. If he were a machine, it would be like being abused in the desert for several days. A creaking body that didn’t move properly deserved to die. Death approached.

Among them, there were five hidden weapons he had to strike down. Even in that situation, he had calmly read the trajectory, but in his distorted vision, his arm would not move. Only the accelerated Profound Origin Heaven and Earth Divine Technique illuminated the world in slow motion.

In that moment, Jin Cheonhee saw it. The old man was running to shield him. There could have been no calculation. This man seemed to have learned a little martial arts, but in this situation, he didn’t seem to know where or how to block. It was a run whose sole purpose was to push the doctor before him out of the way.

Amidst that desperate bullheadedness, Jin Cheonhee realized.

‘You hate a tomorrow that is the same as yesterday.’

Ironically, this man’s movements also resembled Heavenly Commander Yeo’s. It was the martial art of the Snake Clan. If, among people who want a tomorrow that is the same as yesterday, there is one who wants a tomorrow that is different from yesterday…

‘Then move. Let’s move.’

This resistance, too, must have meaning.

Kaang!

He drew his Ice Clarity Sword and swung it wildly. The sword wind, with no power distribution whatsoever, tangled up, neither elegant, nor noble, nor mystical. It was a messy counterattack, unbecoming of a master of the Transformation Realm. The old man’s body was pushed back by the sword wind and rolled away.

Amidst it, Jin Cheonhee struck down the hidden weapons, but two of them ended up lodging in his arm.

“Heok…”

As expected, the poison was similar to Heavenly Commander Yeo’s. Jin Cheonhee immediately circulated his internal energy to block the rapidly spreading poison.

‘I won’t be able to use this arm for a while.’

The poison could be detoxified. In that moment, Sama Hyeon’s hand covered the Snake Clan member’s vision. In a strange movement where it seemed as if the enemy had voluntarily thrust his head into Sama Hyeon’s hand, he did not hesitate.

Udeudeuk—

“Kuaaaaaaaargh–!”

With his abilities, it would have been more than possible for Sama Hyeon to just knock him out. But he deliberately inflicted the maximum pain a human can feel and tore off his facial skin. At the mercilessness of his handiwork, the divided Snake Clan members froze.

[I’m not sparing that one, brother. I’m going to kill him, so don’t treat him~ Got it? Your hands will get dirty~]

Udeudeuk—

He completely crushed his skull and squeezed out the leaking brain matter. The man’s blood splattered everywhere. There was no need to be this cruel. But the reason he deliberately did so was because that was the way of the Unorthodox Faction.

Sama Hyeon imbued his voice with internal energy and shouted. “I am Sama Hyeon, the Head of the Silver Hall of the Golden Blood Chamber–!”

This shout was not just for the people in the village, but loud enough for the members of the Five Poisons Sect outside the village to hear as well. “Your Five Poisons Sect borrowed fifty thousand gold coins as principal from us, and it has already been eight years! I let it slide, seeing you as comrades of the same Unorthodox Alliance! But now I can’t let it slide anymore–! I will begin the debt collection!”

***

Huh?

Everyone was dumbstruck by the completely unexpected words. Weren’t they all just at odds, caught between a tomorrow that was the same as yesterday and a future that was a gamble? In that situation where they had to choose whether to be dominated or to fight with their lives on the line, they had all been preparing to stab each other.

In that moment, shattering the solemn atmosphere, the Head of the Silver Hall had suddenly started spouting crazy nonsense.

The Insect Poison Hall Head shouted in bewilderment, “What are you talking about! This is a place to condemn the rude actions your White Dragon Medical Pavilion has committed in the territory of our sect! Why are you talking about our sect’s debt!”

From beside him, an elder shouted, “He has never once been late with the interest payments, Golden Blood Chamber–!”

“If you don’t like it! Shout it at the authorities–! Let’s all go to the authorities together and reveal this fact!”

“He’s a madman! A madman has taken the seat of the Head of the Silver Hall!”

Everyone watching this spectacle was losing their minds. Dripping with the enemy’s blood and brains, Sama Hyeon continued. “The contract clearly stated that the principal of the loan was to be repaid within three years, right? But you didn’t repay it! And you didn’t make an additional contract to extend the grace period!”

“That was the affair of the previous leader of the Five Poisons Sect!”

“A failure to hand over duties is none of our business, Customerrrrr–!”

I see. The reason Sama Hyeon had followed Jin Cheonhee all the way to the Five Poisons Sect was to conclude a supplementary contract. The reason he hadn’t brought it up was because he had found the way the Five Poisons Sect was treating his brother offensive. Jin Cheonhee realized it belatedly.

Sama Hyeon said, “There’s no way this many lumps of human flesh would move with one heart and one mind anyway. Each will think their own justice is the most right, and there will be no answer~ Yep, yep. That’s people for you. That’s the future~”

Heeup, Sama Hyeon took a deep breath and shouted. “The money I’ll get from you, our Five Poisons Sect customer, I’ll shoot it at you, Snake Clan! With fifty thousand gold coins, one household, one inn, let’s goooo!”

“What?” One of the Snake Clan villagers was so surprised he dropped his farming tool.

“If you want to leave this shitty village and open an inn, I’ll set you up. If you want to open an inn here, I’ll let you do it.”

At those words, the Insect Poison Hall Head shouted, “Don’t be fooled! The Golden King, who is mad for money, would never approve of this–!”

Sama Hyeon said, “Right. I’m not giving you that money for free. That’s something that even I can’t do recklessly. But there is one thing that’s possible. With my authority.”

At this point, even Jin Cheonhee was genuinely curious. “What is it, Hyeon-ah?”

Sama Hyeon gathered qi in his solar plexus and shouted three syllables with all his might. “Interest-free–!”

Interest-free, interest-free, interest-free, interest-free. Sama Hyeon’s voice echoed throughout the mountains.

That was right. The Head of the Silver Hall of the Golden Blood Chamber, covered in blood and brains, was saying he would give the Snake Clan an interest-free loan for the cost of one inn per household. Everyone was flabbergasted by this unheard-of spectacle in the martial world.

Just then, the chief’s son suddenly prostrated himself with his five limbs on the ground at Sama Hyeon’s feet. “I receive your command, Lord Silver Hall Head!”

This bastard had definitely been on the opposing side. His calculations were fast. Sama Hyeon decided to accept this disloyal but quick-calculating son of a bitch. “Very well. Thank my brother, not me.”

“Thank you, Little Divine Physician!”

With that as a start, the martial artists and villagers of the Snake Clan all began to drop what they were holding.

Cheol-geong, deol-geureok—

That was right. No matter what one tried to do, in the end, a human being wants to give their family the best. Whether that was a familiar misfortune or a hell worse than death, it was the same. And Sama Hyeon had promised them that. That whether they left or stayed, he would let them earn money.

Even the moles who had mixed in with the villagers began to express their gratitude to Jin Cheonhee. A few of the Snake Clan assassins who had been preparing to stab Jin Cheonhee in the back crawled out from the ground. Conversely, the Snake Clan assassins who had been in hiding to protect the patients from the village martial artists also came down from the trees.

“Is it really possible for one household to have one inn?”

Jin Cheonhee… had to adapt… to this situation. “…He says it’s interest-free. Please, get up for now.”

Sama Hyeon said, “Let’s go, my brothers! If we just take care of those Five Poisons Sect bastards, a bright future and a clean workplace will open up! This is all thanks to my brother’s grace.”

“Little Divine Physician, Little Divine Physician, Little Divine Physician–!”

“Praise the virtues of the White-Robed Divine Dragon!”

Amidst the madness, Sama Hyeon said to Jin Cheonhee with a warm gaze, “Hahaha, isn’t this the will of the people? Brother.”

Sama Hyeon stepped over the corpse he had just crushed and approached him. With every step he took, bloody footprints followed, but no one paid any mind. The slaves who had naturally been expected to be on their side had gone under Jin Cheonhee, and the Insect Poison Hall Head’s face turned crimson. The faces of the Five Poisons Sect disciples also began to grow fiercer. Their dignity had been thrown into the gutter, and instead of being divided, the Snake Clan wanted to break free from their domination.

If it came to this, even if they won, they would have to execute all the Snake Clan villagers as an example. But if they did that, their production would surely fall, and that alone would be a great loss for the Five Poisons Sect.