I woke up to the sound of a bell, still clutching my axe as I slept. I must’ve slept for about two hours, but the fatigue had mostly lifted. Without even wiping the sleep from my eyes, I stepped out of the barracks and saw the laborers moving somewhere in a line.

Sometimes I wake up and feel like the swelling in my face hasn’t gone down. This was one of those times.

My face was swollen like hell.

“......”

I walked with half-lidded eyes, blending in with the ghostly procession of laborers. The ones ahead of me picked up wooden bowls and chopsticks, so I followed suit. The state of the bowl snapped me out of my daze a little.

I may not be good at cooking, but I always kept my bowls clean. This one, though—was it meant for holding food or shoveling sand? Hard to tell.

Still, I was hungry, so I quietly lined up.

Were we being served food?

When it was my turn, a man dressed in rags like mine ladled some thin gruel and three dumplings into my bowl. Fully awake now, I stared back and forth between the bland porridge and the man dishing it out.

“......”

The man gave me a sour look and said,

“Move along. Next.” 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

So this was breakfast. I followed the line forward and saw laborers sitting here and there, eating. I stood there for a moment, bowl in hand, just observing them. I was honestly at a loss for words.

‘You expect people to work after eating this?’

It finally dawned on me that the people working here weren’t official members of the trading group. They were hired by the group—cheap labor. If they’d been formally affiliated, they wouldn’t be eating slop like this. These were the bottom of the bottom.

I sat a little apart from the others and muttered,

“They’re actually feeding us this crap?”

Even though I said it quietly, nearby laborers turned to look at me while chewing. The last bits of sleep vanished, and my appetite went with them. I set the bowl down beside me. Then a man holding a bowl in one hand approached and asked,

“...You not gonna eat that?”

I didn’t want to toss it, so I handed it over. Right in front of me, he dumped everything I’d been given into his own bowl and walked back to his seat.

I silently looked around at those eating.

I made eye contact with a man nearby and asked,

“Why’s the food like this?”

The man replied,

“Why you acting surprised? You just got here?”

I nodded.

“Even the bridge beggars eat better than this.”

A man wearing slightly different clothes passed by, turned, and surveyed the laborers eating. Then he said,

“Who was talking ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ just now?”

As his gaze swept across them, every laborer lowered their head and ate silently. Then his eyes met mine, the only one not looking down. His gaze flicked to my bowl, then back to my face.

“Got a problem with the food? You’re being fed, paid, and given a place to sleep. Still not good enough for you? Get up.”

Still holding my axe, I stood up.

The man jerked his head and said,

“Follow me.”

“Why?”

“If you’ve got complaints, talk to the unit leader. Don’t just mumble to yourself. Didn’t we say it before? Speak up when you’ve got something to say.”

I followed the man somewhere. At the entrance to a fairly large barracks, he called out inside.

“Chief Tak.”

A voice answered from within.

“What?”

“Brought someone who seems to have a problem with the food.”

“Send him in.”

The man turned to me and held out his hand.

“The axe.”

I handed him the axe, and he used his other hand to open the barracks flap. I stepped inside. The barracks were big enough for thirty people to sleep in, and even had a table. The man inside must have just woken up too—he looked disheveled as he ate.

The table had real rice, soup, meat, vegetables, assorted side dishes, and even fruit.

The man, apparently Chief Tak, picked up some food with his chopsticks and asked me,

“Who hired you?”

I looked at him and replied,

“Jungcheon Trading Group.”

Chief Tak nodded and said,

“You must’ve heard the situation. The folks who hired you had their reasons—they said they couldn’t procure food from Baek Eung-ji. But they promised to pay handsomely instead. You’ve got a problem now with the food?”

I walked up to the table and answered,

“If food can’t be procured, then what’s all this?”

Chief Tak chuckled and said,

“You expect me to eat the same as you guys?”

I stepped closer and looked down at him. Chief Tak set down his chopsticks, wiped his mouth, and grabbed the dagger beside him.

“Young man, if you don’t want to work, you can leave. If you don’t like the food, you can leave. You were warned. Leave quietly. Who told you to yap in front of the others?”

This lunatic stood up mid-meal.

All I said was that the food sucked, and now he was trying to threaten me with a knife. He walked around the long table, brandishing his dagger at me.

I snatched the dagger and struck Chief Tak’s chest with the index and middle fingers of my left hand. I infused him with cold-type internal energy, then clamped my hand over his mouth.

“Shh.”

With his own dagger at his throat, I tried threatening him a bit.

“If you make a sound, I’ll shove this down your throat. Your voice pisses me off.”

Outside, the man who brought me in called out,

“...Chief Tak?”

I walked toward the entrance and said,

“Come in.”

As the man pushed the flap open and entered, I slapped him hard. Thwack! He dropped like a rock, knocked out. I grabbed the trembling Chief Tak and stood him up like a statue in front of the table, then sat down in the seat of honor.

Pulling out a clean pair of chopsticks from the holder, I started eating brunch while looking at Chief Tak. His face had turned ghostly pale, and he stood there rigid, trembling all over.

Not exactly a sight to accompany a meal.

But I was hungry, so it didn’t bother me. A proper trading group should at least provide this much. Looking at him, he didn’t seem like a demonic sect member—just a labor foreman from the trading group.

I doubted these people were going to pay the workers properly.

In fact, everyone here could’ve ended up dead by my hand the moment I arrived. They were construction laborers now, but their chances of being disposable blades were still high.

While eating, I said to Chief Tak,

“...How should I kill you? Once I finish this meal, you’re dead. The time you have left to breathe is the length of my lunch. What do you think, Chief Tak?”

His jaw clattered violently as he tried to mutter something, drooling all over.

I frowned mid-bite.

“What’re you saying? Whrrbl... What?”

After finishing most of the meal, I propped my feet up on the table and started peeling fruit. As I munched on it, I said to Chief Tak,

“You know, I get this urge to beat you to death every time I look at you. Must be demonic deviation, huh?”

“......”

Come to think of it, I probably shaved my head and entered a temple after enlightenment, only to become a defrocked monk because I wanted to drink—or maybe I yanked my fellow monk’s hair during a fight. I suddenly understood a Buddhist secret: monks shave their heads to avoid grabbing each other’s hair during fights. Or maybe not.

While eating fruit, I glanced toward the back and saw something covered by cloth. I walked over, lifted the cloth, and found a chest. Inside, it was packed with standard iron coins tied in bundles.

“Jackpot. I’ve got money luck this year. Probably next year too. Problem is, it feels like I’ll only have money luck. Damn...”

I mumbled, then looked at another cloth on the floor beside the chest.

Why would a cloth be just lying on the ground? Whether I’d gone through deviation or not, I was too twisted to ignore something like that. I stepped on the edge and pulled it—revealing a small jar sealed and buried in the ground.

I stared at the jar, then looked up and glared at Chief Tak. His eyes also flicked toward the jar and started trembling violently.

“......”

I didn’t curse him out. Instead, I pulled the jar out and set it on the table, then broke the seal. Inside was a faint gray powder. It looked like ash—possibly something that had been burned.

Honestly, I had no idea what it was.

With the purest intentions, I scooped some into a cup. It looked like choking powder, so I added water from the kettle. I swirled the cup around and walked toward Chief Tak.

“...What is this?”

Chief Tak’s jaw was shaking uncontrollably.

“I... I was just following orders...”

“You don’t know what it is?”

“Y-Yes...”

I grabbed his jaw and made eye contact.

“Chief Tak, do I look like a fool to you? Really? Is it the shabby clothes? Do I look like a dumb lumberjack from the backwoods? Say something before I change my mind. Who’s supposed to take this?”

Since he didn’t answer, I figured it out myself. It was probably going to be mixed into the food after the project was completed. I gave him one last chance.

“Still not gonna talk?”

“......”

I looked him in the eye one final time.

“I’ve discovered a true villain. Where’ve you been hiding all this time? Amazing. Life’s full of surprises.”

Then I poured the drugged water into his mouth. Gurgle— Foaming immediately, he struggled to spit it out even as his body froze. I clamped his mouth shut and watched his throat convulse.

“...If it’s just a knockout powder, you live. If not, tough luck. Looks like you’ve got no fortune this year, Chief Tak. You did all this for money, didn’t you? It’s all gone up in smoke.”

He didn’t answer—because he died standing up. I let go of his jaw, and he slumped sideways. Just then, the guy I’d slapped earlier came to and locked eyes with me.

I asked him,

“Did I hit you too softly?”

“...Who are you?”

I stepped closer to keep him from running, grabbed my axe from the floor outside, and came back in. Holding the axe, I approached and said,

“I am Yi Zaha, Unit Leader of the Slave Liberation Front. Who are you? Trading group?”

I slowly raised the axe.

“Hey, I think it’s about time you answered... or join Chief Tak.”

“I’m a recruiter for Jungcheon Trading Group.”

“Recruiter? You gathered the laborers?”

“Yes. Multiple groups hired us at once.”

“You were gonna kill them all after the job was done?”

The moment I saw his pupils twitch like a frightened snail, I split his skull with the axe.

“To hell with deviation or enlightenment.”

Sentimental words don’t suit a unit leader of the Slave Liberation Front. Martial arts or internal state can’t define my life. I stood, holding the blood-soaked axe, picked up the chest of iron coins with one hand, and stepped out of the barracks.

I kicked open the chest and looked at the laborers working nearby. They were the ones who would’ve died during the final meal on the day of completion.

I laughed.

Grabbing one bundle of tied coins, I called out to a nearby worker.

“Hey.”

I tossed him the bundle. As he caught it with both hands and looked at me, the others swarmed like they were lining up for food. I handed out payment in the order they came. This demonic cult money was mine now. Eventually, tired of handing them out one by one, I just threw the chest to the ground. The coins vanished fast.

The workers, now each holding a bundle, looked at me.

I looked back and said,

“You’re free.”

“......”

“The ones above these managers are from the demonic cult. Scatter. Take anything of value you can find along the way. Disband.”

I pointed my bloodied axe at the dazed laborers.

“...I said disband. Before I kill every last one of you.”

As the word “survival” exploded in their heads, they scattered. The coins in their hands must’ve awakened some instinctual light footwork—what a sight.

There were surely more of Chief Tak’s men, but I figured they were fleeing disguised among the workers. I didn’t bother chasing them.

How dare they build a barracks and plant flags in front of me?

Axe in hand, I leapt into the air and tore down every flag planted throughout the site. A moment later, I bundled six or seven flags and slung them over my shoulder. Then I set fire to the barracks that had been erected on the demonic cult’s orders.

Someone had tried to match me with clever schemes, but whatever their plan was, I didn’t need to find out.

Whatever the scheme, it went up in flames with the barracks.

This is what we call a fire attack.

I didn’t know where southeast was, so I couldn’t tell if the wind was blowing that way. With the trading group flags slung over my shoulder, I watched the burning building for the first time in a while.

A meal, a slave liberation, and a fire show.

Three birds with one stone.

My cultivation must’ve improved after all.