Chapter 395. Salmak 1
The name sounded grand.
In truth, it was closer to a gathering of drifters.
It was the kind of place people washed into after the world had worn them down beyond endurance.
They abandoned their homes, their work, their ties to other people, and slipped into valleys where few eyes ever reached.
There, they spent what remained of their lives in drink and idle lethargy until, one day, they quietly disappeared into the wilderness.
Simply put, they were people who had left society behind.
They no longer had the strength to return to a village, the energy to begin a new trade, or even the will to bow their heads and ask someone for help.
Failure had come too many times.
There was no spark left to rekindle.
It was like cooking and eating the seed grain meant for the following spring because there was nothing else to eat.
You could survive today.
But next spring vanished.
The lives they had chosen were much the same.
For one cup of liquor today and a brief sense of fullness, they had burned away tomorrow's possibilities.
Salmak, the Killing Curtain, was a valley where people like that gathered.
Some were skilled with blades.
Some knew how to set traps.
Some had long since lost whatever guilt they might once have felt about turning another person's life into money.
They had not gathered there with the intention of becoming assassins.
People who had lost every other way to live had gathered first.
And after they gathered, killing became the easiest work available to them.
Across Liaodong there were several places where people who had given up on ordinary survival drifted together.
They were the final valleys for those cast out by villages, discarded by armies, or unable to continue as merchants or farmers.
Then he appeared among them.
He told them that even lives already fading away could still be used for something.
They could earn food.
They could buy liquor.
And while they remained alive, they could still make others fear them.
He was the Master of Salmak.
He gathered them, organized them, trained them, and used unusual methods to ensure their work succeeded.
The work he chose was assassination.
High martial skill was not always necessary for assassination.
Of course, some among them could use blades.
Some handled bows.
Others had come out of the military.
But the Master of Salmak placed greater value on strange devices and preparation than on martial arts.
Poison.
Hidden weapons.
Traps.
Bait.
Choke points.
Rumors.
Messengers.
False messages.
He wove all of those together.
He did not try to defeat a master with a single blade.
He made the target move.
Then he drove the moving target into a narrow space.
And in that narrow place, he layered poison, hidden weapons, and traps.
Even an expert found it difficult to escape.
Before the target could draw a sword, poison might already be in the wine cup.
Nails could be hidden beneath a threshold.
Stones might already be prepared on a rooftop.
An archer waited in the alley chosen for escape.
And at the end of the road where the victim ran seeking help, another trap might already be waiting.
Rarely did only one or two people take part in a single assignment.
They called each one a business venture.
Once a venture opened, nearly everyone in Salmak moved.
One person watched the roads.
Another spread rumors.
Someone sold liquor.
Someone applied poison.
Someone else made the final confirmation.
That was how they made sure they succeeded.
Their claim that they took no payment for failure was not empty boasting.
They simply poured in people, tools, and time until success became inevitable.
That valley of drifters had, in this way, become one of the most dangerous assassination groups in Liaodong.
The name Salmak sounded grand.
But beneath that grand name lay the despair of people who had nowhere left to go—and the cold ruthlessness of the man who had turned that despair into money.
Bae Junho had originally intended to take the silver and run.
He had not formed a detailed plan.
He only knew one thing for certain.
If matters continued as they were, he might die.
He had to avoid that somehow.
That was why Salmak had come to mind.
He would use hiring Salmak as an excuse to obtain the silver, then take the money and flee far away.
Even in unfamiliar lands, a man with money could find a way to live.
All he had to do was put distance between himself and Liaoyang.
Distance between himself and Go Youngchang.
Distance between himself and the edge of Yi Youngwoo's blade.
But Go Youngchang seemed to have read his thoughts and assigned two subordinates to accompany him.
One could call them assistants.
Outwardly, that was what they were.
In truth, they were watchers.
The moment Bae Junho changed direction while carrying the silver, those two would be the first to draw their swords.
Unable to think of another scheme, Bae Junho headed for Salmak.
The place the three men reached was, unexpectedly, an ordinary village.
There was no blood-soaked lair.
No hidden fortress deep in the mountains.
Only a few old houses clustered together, with thin smoke rising from their chimneys.
A dog barked.
A child rolled a piece of wood along the frozen roadside.
That very ordinariness made the place more unsettling.
Apparently, even killing people was simply another trade conducted amid the ordinary routines of eating, chopping firewood, and making a living.
Bae Junho met the broker who arranged the work.
The broker looked like an old merchant.
Dirt had settled beneath his fingernails.
He spoke slowly.
Only his eyes were unnervingly clear.
"The target is highly skilled in martial arts. He is famous as a fierce commander on the battlefield."
The broker merely nodded.
"Twenty silver bottles."
He asked little else.
Only who the target was, where he stayed, and what sort of guards accompanied him.
When Bae Junho said the man was a master of the Realm of Transformation, the broker's eyebrows moved slightly.
But he did not raise the price.
Inside, Bae Junho rejoiced.
He had received thirty silver bottles.
Salmak wanted twenty.
If he paid ten in advance, twenty would remain with him.
If the assassination succeeded, he could tell Go Youngchang he had spent all of it.
If it failed, he could find a way to flee before that happened.
He opened the wooden chest and took out ten silver bottles.
The heavy pieces of silver landed on the low table.
The broker pushed them one by one with his fingertips and counted them.
"Ten in advance. The remaining ten after the work is complete."
"Agreed."
The broker gathered up the silver and said simply,
"People will begin moving today."
A chill ran down Bae Junho's back.
It had begun far too easily.
The business of killing a man had been settled as casually as buying rice or a horse.
Only then did he understand that the excuse he had invented to save his own life had now begun rolling forward into a real murder.