NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 104: Okcheon Express Agency (6)
“These brats! What have you been doing all night!!!”
The next morning at breakfast time, the roar of the Leader echoed as several bandits, including a green-haired officer, knelt before him, beaten and bruised.
“Please, Leader. It was merely the overflowing vigor of the subordinates that caused this in the middle of the night.”
One of the officers with green hair attempted to intervene as the Leader was about to execute his subordinates with a sword.
What’s with the killing and all that fuss?
“Do you burst into a marum when your blood runs hot! Don’t you know that robbing a civilian’s house brings the government soldiers coming, too? Are you trying to ruin the Black Tiger Gang? Are you in league with them too?”
A marum was an official in charge of managing agricultural lands, notorious for squeezing the people almost as vilely as tax collectors and usurers.
So they’d robbed a marum. Had they really committed an act of righteous thievery?
“We all wore masks and robbed him. And that marum was known to be vicious enough that everyone around here knows him. Even if the local magistrate tries to catch the criminal, the public sentiment is so bad that a proper investigation won’t be done.”
Leader furiously scolded the kneeling subordinates, incredulous at the situation.
“Leader. How could we bring all that grain? We managed to bring some gold. Please take this and calm your anger.”
Other officers also intervened, suggesting it was a good deed and tried to calm the Leader down.
“You bastards! Lock them up and don’t feed them for ten days!”
Despite the officers’ collective intervention, Leader could not contain his anger, stabbed his sword into the ground, and stormed back to his room.
“……Such a fucker.”
Someone next to me muttered quietly as they watched.
“I brought some rice porridge.”
I delivered the porridge at the request of one of the officers who had just finished locking up the subordinates.
“Did the people really enjoy it?”
“Hehehe. Just enjoy it? They were so grateful they might’ve spread their legs if it was their home.”
“Ohhhh.”
The front of the jail was crowded with bandits eager to hear the absurd tales of their experiences.
I wondered if I could sneak the porridge to them with so many people around.
“Hey! You guys! Eat and then talk!”
Despite my concerns, the bandits shared the brought porridge with their imprisoned comrades.
“Done. Fuck. I’m so full right now.”
“Me too. Hehehehe.”
Despite being beaten to a pulp by the Leader, the bandits exchanged glances, seemingly happy
about something.
“Did you eat your fill while robbing the marum?”
“No. The smiling faces of the villagers filled me up.”
The bandits looked at their comrade, not understanding what he was saying, until another nearby opened his mouth to add something.
“Me too. Fuck. When we usually do banditry, they fear and hate us, but after sharing the grain, they cried and laughed with snot and tears. Just seeing that filled me up.”
“So that’s the feeling. I’ve felt something filling up in my chest for a while too.”
Despite the pain from the beating, the bandits inside the jail couldn’t hide their content smiles.
“…….”
The bandits outside were speechless, seemingly shocked by the scene.
This atmosphere was going in a weird direction.
A strange atmosphere began to grow within the Black Tiger Gang.
“Hong Gil-dong! Gather the followers of the Band of the Hawk and say! By committing acts of righteous thievery and making the rich shed tears and snot, all the people can be happy! They called it the trickle-down effect! That’s the word!”
The problem was, to maintain my place here, I had to keep telling stories from the Tale of Hong Gil-dong.
Even when I subtly mentioned that the Tale of Hong Gil-dong was just a story and following it in reality could lead to trouble, the bandits’ reaction was not what I expected.
“Creating a trickle-down effect through righteous thievery.”
“Committing acts of righteous thievery can earn you respect.”
“Hong Gil-dong….”
Laugh or chatter like the uncles before. Why were they taking it so seriously, as if it were a solemn religious gathering?
As the situation reached this point, the number of bandits behaving strangely began to increase.
“Why are these bastards wearing red headbands?”
“They say they want to inherit Hong Gil-dong’s will. Do they think they’re the Band of the Hawk or something?”
“Ah? Really? I should do it too.”
“…….”
The number of bandits wearing red headbands in honor of Hong Gil-dong’s “Hong” increased.
“Are you guys really crazy?”
“Vice leader, please. It was all rotten grain anyway. What’s the big deal about distributing it to the nearby village?”
Some of the bandits started distributing the grain stored by the Black Tiger Gang to the nearby villages.
“You bastards! Now you’ve gone and robbed moneylenders wearing masks? Do you really want to die?”
“Don’t you know about the trickle-down effect, leader? Making the rich cry and snivel will make the people happy! Are you upset just because one vile rich guy shed tears and snot?”
The number of bandits committing acts of righteous thievery began to increase.
Why was everyone acting like this? I was going to lose my mind.
Despite my feelings, the Black Tiger Gang’s activities of righteous thievery became more vigorous day by day, and the new leader and some officers, the more they tried to discipline them, the more the atmosphere turned grim.
Half of the Black Tiger Gang ended up wearing red headbands, and as discontent piled up, eventually, an incident occurred.
“Leader! This is not right!”
The Black Tiger Gang members had returned after completing their tasks. Among them, an officer with dark green hair and a red headband pointed at the leader, voicing his complaints.
“What is this guy talking about?”
“They were just merchants! Poor merchants with only one person for an escort! To massacre all those merchants just because they couldn’t pay the toll! What are you trying to achieve?”
“Idiot. Those guys didn’t have any money to give anyway.”
The leader spoke as if it was justified to have killed them all since they wouldn’t have been able to collect ransom money in any case.
“No! Leader! Are we so desperate for money that we need to extort it from the poor? Are we in such dire straits that we’re living hand to mouth?”
The officer raised his voice, incredulous.
“What did this guy suddenly ingest? He wasn’t saying that a while ago.”
He did ingest something wrong. A food called ideology. It seemed killing poor merchants wasn’t a new practice for them.
“Yuck! Back then, that was the only way we knew how! If we need money urgently, we should rob the corrupt officials or those marum bastards! Shouldn’t we, the green forest, also uphold some virtue?”
“This guy has really lost it. Touch the government? Don’t you know about the inviolability of government officials? Do you want us all to die?”
“Just wear masks and rob them! Blindly following the leader like this won’t win the hearts of the people!”
“The hearts of the people? Has this guy lost his mind after listening to Hong Gil-dong? Hey! I’m the Hong Gil-dong of the Central Plains, so shut up and follow me when I’m speaking nicely.”
“Eek! The leader is not Brother Hong Gil-dong!”
The officer, as if his favorite character had been insulted, shouted until his neck turned red.
“This guy keeps escalating things.”
“Rather… The previous leader was better. Although the previous leader wasn’t Brother Hong Gil-dong, he was at least loyal like Hong Gil-dong’s followers. Cough!”
Wow. The person just flew away like that. The Black Tiger Gang leader punched the officer in the abdomen, the same officer who had mentioned the previous leader.
“Defend that bastard in front of me!!! Look at this guy. Do you want to die?”
“Cough! Cough!”
The violence was so one-sided, it made you want to look away.
“Hey you! Are you feeling a bit reflective now?”
The Black Tiger Gang leader grabbed the fallen officer by the hair and spoke.
“Ptui! Leader… you’re not Hong Gil-dong; you’re just a filthy official!”
The officer spat bloodied saliva at the leader’s face.
“You bastard. This won’t do.”
Crack. The leader then snapped the officer’s neck. Seeing this, all the bandits wearing red headbands were shocked, their mouths agape.
“What are you staring at! Clean up the corpse!”
The bandits reluctantly followed the leader’s order, their faces filled with anger.
That evening.
Numerous bandits of the Black Tiger Gang were crammed into one lodging. Although their hair colors varied, all of them were wearing red headbands and had faces full of resentment.
I was not wearing a red headband, so why was I brought here?
“To kill such a good guy. The leader. Such a shitty bastard.”
“The ones clinging to the leader, how do they plan to handle the aftermath of just scraping together money like this?”
“Isn’t it thoughtless? How are we any different from a gang of thieves then?”
You guys were a gang of thieves.
The bandits gathered in the lodging vented their complaints about the leader and his close associates.
I felt like an employee who didn’t want to attend a men’s meeting, just filling a seat when I heard something strange from the side.
“It’s about those Okcheon Express Agency bastards. They say the negotiations with Okcheon Heobu failed because they couldn’t spend that money. So, the leader says he’s going to kill them all tomorrow evening.”
“Really going to kill them? Don’t they know that would mean war with the express agency?”
“They say an example needs to be made. If the leader says so, what choice do we have? Just kill them all.”
I was part of the Okcheon Express Agency group.
Suddenly, I had less than 24 hours to live.
Of course, if I was lucky, I might survive by being an automatic Hong Gil-dong story player. But if the leader singled me out as the cause of the Black Tiger Gang’s discord right now, I’d die tomorrow along with them.
‘I need to find a way to escape.’
I quickly assessed the situation. The bandits were filled with grievances. They were angry. But they didn’t want to disobey the leader’s orders.
Why?
Because they’re afraid of the leader. They feared the leader and his close associates. And if this situation continued, I’d die tomorrow.
‘Then I just need to remove that fear.’
Even if I could survive, I had no intention of living here forever. I’d escape with Tang Hwarin and go to Yichang to write a book.
Let’s eliminate the fear of the leader.
Let’s cause chaos in the Black Tiger Gang.
It’s time to escape.
“It’s my fault.”
With a voice strengthened by Soyun Sim Sang Gyeol, I spoke low and powerfully, wrapped in guilt, ensuring everyone could hear.
“What wrong have you done?”
At my single statement, the previously noisy atmosphere instantly calmed, and everyone’s attention was drawn to me.
I stood up from my seat to a position where everyone could focus on me.
“It’s my fault! Again, it’s my fault! The situation has come to this because I was blind!”
With a remorseful and lamentable expression, I started self-criticism while beating my chest.
“Why are your eyes blind? Aren’t they open right now?”
“Even with my eyes open, I couldn’t see properly! Fooled by the leader’s presence, I called him Hong Gil-dong! How can I say my eyes weren’t blind.”
Everyone had heard me praising the leader as Hong Gil-dong on a festive day. By reminding them of that, I shifted the focus from my fault to the leader.
“Right. The leader, that bastard, what Hong Gil-dong!”
“Did you hear earlier? He said he’s Hong Gil-dong! Crazy, right!”
Good. Let that anger towards the leader spill out.
“Have you seen the leader’s secret vault? He whines about having no money all the time but enjoys the treasures inside! How could such a person be called Hong Gil-dong?”
I depicted the leader like Uncle Scrooge, swimming in a vast treasure every morning with a greedy face.
“The, the leader has a secret vault?”
“I think I’ve heard something like that.”
“If that’s true, he’s worse than a corrupt official!”
I didn’t actually know if there’s really a vault. But if we’re setting him up as the axis of evil, shouldn’t there be a justification as significant as a biochemical weapon?
“The leader is not Hong Gil-dong! The leader and his close associates are children who drink the tears that arise from wealth like wine! They are exactly what Hong Gil-dong despised! Bourgeoisie!”
“The leader is a bourgeoisie?”
At my words, the seated bandits’ eyes widened as if they had realized something.
“Then, party leader! How should we deal with the bourgeoisie?”
A red headband-wearing officer with green hair approached me, knelt down, and asked with a bowed head.
No, why was I the party leader? That’s a dangerous thing to say.
“Watch your words! Do we need a head for where we’re at! Despite different hair colors, we all have the same party in our hearts! The Band of the Hawk!”
I pointed at the man who called me the party leader and lectured him with anger.
“Indeed, you are the party leader!”
Stop calling me the party leader. Even in Joseon, my family was wiped out for treason, and I had no intention of becoming a rebel leader here.
This wouldn’t do. It seemed they treated me as the party leader just because I was standing and talking alone. This called for an emergency measure.
“Stand up!”
“Eh? Oh, understood.”
I grabbed the hand of the man who called me the party leader and helped him to stand.
“Stand up. You too!”
One by one, starting with the green-haired man, I grabbed their hands, compelling them all to stand. Soon, every individual adorned with a red headband in the lodging was on their feet.
It was an achievement to have all these sweaty men standing, but now I found myself obscured from view.
I climbed onto a suitably high drawer and began to speak, pounding my chest for emphasis.
“The leader and his close associates do not have a party in their hearts! They lack the spirit of the Band of the Hawk!”
“Right!”
“Exactly!”
“No matter how eloquently you speak, they won’t listen!”
“The leader and his close associates have already distanced themselves from us!”
I mimicked the action of tearing something in two with my hands.
“So, what should we do?”
I gazed at the bandits, anticipating a specific response.
Deep down, everyone knew.
It was the action everyone desired. But fear held them back. Their opinions remained fragmented, unvoiced.
The madness known as the Band of the Hawk was infiltrating the Black Tiger Gang.
Just like Mr. Joe from America, who always triumphed in the movies, said, now all I needed to do was give that madness a slight nudge.
And then escape amidst the ensuing chaos.
I pounded my chest and voiced the sentiment that resided in everyone’s hearts.
“Let’s drive the leader out! And transform this Black Tiger Gang into a true, unified force! The Band of the Hawk!”