Ballad of the Mountain Fox

제 32 장: Fade to Silence

Won Soo knew it had been too easy.

Granted, Mi Nam—no, her name was Nara, he reminded himself—had been quite frightening in her performance as a vengeful virgin ghost.

But it would take more than a cross-dressing ghost to scare away a band of angry robbers bent on revenge.

If only his young master had not run off in the first place!

The servant cowered as the men who had chased him, Young Min, and Kim Nara in Bird Village stomped past his hiding place. He could recognize some of them, but they had added more to their numbers in the short week since he had last seen them.

He should have been back at the horse stables, waiting for his young master to return. But then she had shown up.

"Keep an eye on them," the gumiho had said. "Make sure they don't start any trouble."

She had snarled and revealed her more vulpine features for a moment, effectively scaring Won Soo speechless. But really, the servant thought, she hadn't needed to go that far. He was, after all, ensuring his master's safety by following the thugs. Even though he was very, very intimidated by the large, brawny men, he would have done anything for Young Min.

So he would continue to follow the robbers, and make sure his young master did not get hurt.

Their first stop had been for drinks. And their second stop. When, after drinking more soju than Won Soo thought possible, the men then went into a third establishment, the servant couldn't help but roll his eyes. At this rate, the thugs would be more dangerous to themselves than to his master.

This time, however, the men did more than just ogle passing gisaengs and toast to their safe arrival in the town.

"Ya!" one of the robbers slurred at a man passing by. "Do you know of a noble named Park Young Min? He lives in this town, doesn't he?"

The other man replied that he couldn't be of help and continued on his way. Yet that didn't seem to deter the robber from asking another man at a nearby table.

"Ya!" he tried again, bunching up his sleeves to show the large biceps beneath. "Do you know where I can find that nobleman? We have a score to settle with him, after what he did to my brothers."

The other man's complexion turned a frightening shade of white and he shook his head vehemently.

Displeased with the response, a different thug stood up and stumbled over to the man's table.

"It's a small village," the second robber growled. Even drunk, he was menacing, perhaps even more so. "Surely you must have heard of the son of the Minister of Justice."

The man being interrogated gulped and tried to shy away. "I really don't know who you're talking about," he protested, just as Biceps came over to join his friend.

"Oh, but we think you do," Biceps replied, putting a well-muscled arm across the man's shoulders in what would have in any other circumstance been a friendly gesture. "Now spill."

The man looked up at the second robber, and then over to the table where six more pairs of beady eyes were glaring at him. Won Soo, hiding in the corner, held his breath.

"I—" for a moment, it looked as though the man would plead ignorance. Then the second robber drew a knife from his belt.

"Up the street!" the man blurted. "I saw him go up the street, after a pack of bounty hunters. They were heading towards the Oh Estate."