episode_0120

“Huh? What’s that?”

“What?”

“It looks like something is moving over there near the water…”

“What’s moving? Maybe just a bird you saw?”

“No, really… Oh my god?!”

The pirate who was looking ahead from the bow exclaimed in shock.

The pirate next to him frowned.

“Oh, you scared me. Why are you suddenly screaming like that?”

“T-t-there…! A-a-a person…!”

“What nonsense… Huh? Oh my god?!”

The eyes of the pirate next to him widened in shock as well.

They saw it.

The figure of a woman approaching rapidly, creating ripples in the water.

***

The pirate captain, Poh Dong-young.

With a fierce personality and never blinking an eye at most things.

Even he was frozen in shock, mouth agape, as he witnessed Yoo Seol-young’s appearance.

He rubbed his eyes and double-checked several times, wondering if he was seeing things, but the woman’s figure was steadily approaching.

That’s reality!

Reality!

“Oh, damn it!”

The curse slipped out involuntarily.

He knew nothing about the experts playing in the distant sky.

He had no idea.

It was a world unrelated to him.

A mid-tier power in the region that couldn’t even compare to the prestigious clans, despite being a leader of a small faction.

Having just emerged from a well, all he knew was power struggles on land.

But even he was clearly aware.

That Yoo Seol-young was a master in the sky beyond imagination.

There was no way he wouldn’t know that.

And he also realized.

That if that woman boarded their ship, they would all be doomed.

“Faster, faster! Increase the speed! Ram her! We have to ram her!”

Poh Dong-young shouted urgently.

In a battle of flesh and blood, even against a formidable expert, there might be a chance.

But they had something else.

A massive warship.

If they could crush her with the difference in size.

There might be a chance.

No, that was their only chance.

“Increase the speed!”

“Ram her and make a bloody mess! Make a bloody mess!”

His subordinates, realizing that was their only chance, raised their spirits with determination.

The ship accelerated.

And it collided head-on with Yoo Seol-young’s figure.

***

“Hey…!”

“D-dangerous!”

“Avoid it!”

The people who were frozen in shock suddenly snapped out of it and screamed in surprise.

A ship charging menacingly.

Even the commoners knew what a formidable martial artist was.

Flying in the sky as rumored, breaking rocks, no, running on the sea like it’s flat ground.

But still human.

In their minds, when a ship and a human collide, only the image of the human dying was painted.

But.

Yoo Seol-young was calm.

“It’s annoying.”

Her gaze was fixed on the prow.

A sharp and sturdy prow like a bull’s horn.

If it collided, a medium-sized warship would be destroyed in an instant.

No, even before that.

That prow was clearly aimed at Yoo Seol-young.

As if to make a bloody mess.

Swish.

Clang.

Yoo Seol-young, who was running, turned her sword and changed her grip.

Blade down, edge up.

A stance that could cut.

The eyes of the swordsman were fixed on the stance that was natural to a swordsman.

“Oh, what is she doing?! M-master! Are we all going to die like this?”

Jang-il shouted in a panic.

He knew that if Yoo Seol-young finished them off, they would be next.

But Poh Dong-young regained his composure.

“No, she seems to be aiming to cut through?”

“Cut through? That thing?”

Jang-il still had a flickering look of anxiety.

But that was when.

Yoo Seol-young’s sword finally moved.

The blade drew a line in the air.

A clean and graceful line.

Like a textbook, it was a precise and clean cut without any excess.

Perfect.

The fact that Bang So-woon and Jang Il simultaneously had the same thought in their minds was no coincidence.

However.

What was in front of that cut was not a scarecrow made of straw.

It was the bow of a giant battleship.

An absurd collision that seemed ridiculous.

But the result was…

Swish!

The sound of something cleanly being cut.

And then.

The vertically severed bow plummeted into the sea.

Boom!

A sound as loud as its weight.

That sound woke up the minds of the people who were stunned by the impact.

“What, what, what was that?!”

“She, she, she cut it?! Tha, tha, that?!”

“Is this a d, d, dream?!”

Jang Il also shouted in surprise, his face like a bewildered bear.

“It, it’s real! She really cut it!”

“I had a feeling she would do something like that.”

Bang So-woon did not react with much surprise.

She had already ingrained in her mind that when facing a monster, applying human common sense was not the way to go.

The problem was.

That the impulse to tame that monster, who was a beauty beyond compare, had only grown stronger.

‘Truly a flower on the edge of a cliff.’

As Bang So-woon had that thought.

Yoo Seol-young’s new ship surged upward, propelling the half-cut bow into the air.

Onto the deck of the enemy ship.

“These trashy pirates really met their match today.”

Bang So-woon let out a triumphant laugh.

***

Poh Dong-young, the eighth mate of the naval department.

Like his nickname, the agile and swift minnow, he was not afraid of meeting any expert in the water.

No, he would have been more excited to meet a formidable prey.

But this was not the water.

Legs trembling.

In the end, Poh Dong-young’s choice was to simply jump into the sea.

‘That woman can’t do anything to me in the water!’

“Haha, you! If you want to follow, come on then!”

Even in a completely embarrassing situation, Poh Dong-young deliberately burst into a boastful laugh.

Why?

Because it would be too humiliating to show fear and run away.

It was not just himself who was embarrassed, but the entire naval department.

So, it was better to appear bold and confident in front of a master until the very end, and then inevitably flee, as that would at least give him something to say.

“Are you going to follow?”

Yoo Seol-young muttered as she aimed her gun at Poh Dong-young falling into the sea.

Poh Dong-young momentarily thought that the woman had gone mad.

‘What, do you believe in the depth charges? Do you think you can use depth charges underwater?’

With a nickname like minnow, diving was naturally his specialty.

He could hold his breath for an incredibly long time.

If he hid underwater and waited for an opportunity, and then grabbed her leg and dragged her into the water?

It would be over!

He could finish it!

Excitement surged through his veins.

His heart beat roughly.

‘I will catch the master! This body will catch the master!’

It was involuntarily etched in his mind.

His position in the great achievement that would elevate him.

He might even aim for the fifth mate… no, the fourth mate.

Those damn bastards who thought they were superior and had their shoulders puffed up would never achieve such a feat.

So, he thought while preparing for the dive.

…However.

“What, what?!”

His eyes widened in astonishment.

Wait a minute!

Why, why is that woman falling before me?!

Yoo Seol-young, who fell late, swiftly passed by in the air.

Poh Dong-young’s desperate gaze quickly looked downward.

Below that.

Already landed on the beach, Yoo Seol-young was calmly waiting for the falling Podoong-yeong.

Holding her sword.

“J-j-just a moment! N-no, no!”

“Neck.”

Thud!

Thwack!

“N-nooooo!”

The grotesque screams, like a pig’s fat belly, tore through the sea.

***

A medium-sized pirate ship heading towards Haenam Island.

Unexpectedly anchored at an uninhabited island.

“Is, is this really okay?”

The captain hesitantly opened his mouth with a questioning look.

“Of course. And stop being scared. Since you all have nothing to do with it anyway.”

Yoo Seol-young casually replied, and only then did the captain seem to make up his mind and told the crew.

“Y-you guys. Get off quickly.”

Soon, the crew grunted and exerted their strength to bring something down.

Cargo?

It was definitely cargo, but it was no ordinary cargo.

It was humans.

More specifically, pirates from the maritime prison.

“Just throw them roughly.”

“Yes, sir!”

Following Yoo Seol-young’s words, the crew roughly threw the pirates onto the ground like unnecessary cargo.

“Ugh….”

“Ugh….”

However, the pirates, with their necks broken and bodies paralyzed from friendly fire, could only moan incomprehensibly without any resistance.

They had barely survived the water and had been starved for days, almost resembling walking corpses.

“Sign.”

When Yoo Seol-young reached out her hand, a crew member handed her a sign that had been prepared in advance.

Clang.

She unhesitatingly drove the sign into the ground between the pirates.

“You said this was the territory where the maritime prison passes through, right?”

“Y-yes.”

The captain’s reply.

“Then it’s settled. Write.”

This time, a crew member handed Yoo Seol-young a brush dipped in ink.

She moved the brush and wrote on the sign with a firm and straightforward calligraphy.

-To the unknown maritime pirates of the maritime prison.

Throw away your trash and leave.

Swordmaster Yoo Seol-young.

“Fenghuang (phoenix) is indeed a fenghuang, truly.”

Bang So-un exclaimed.

Yoo Seol-young belonged to the Gyeomgak, known as the mysterious inspectors of the sword.

So even if she wrote the name of the Gyeomgak, no one could say anything.

And that would be an even greater threat to the maritime prison.

Yet she wrote her personal nickname and name that she disliked.

Meaning that she would handle this matter alone.

“It won’t be just that simple.”

Several people were involved in this matter.

Not only the captain and crew, but also innocent civilians.

Although they did not have a direct involvement, they could inadvertently provoke the maritime prison and suffer the consequences.

Knowing this, Yoo Seol-young deliberately wrote provocative words on the sign to narrow down the target of resentment to herself alone.

Bang So-un was convinced of this.

And he took action.

As a proud male leader and ruler who ruled over numerous female students as livestock, he could not just stand by.

“Have you finished writing?”

“What?”

Yoo Seol-young tilted her head.

“I have something to say too.”

“Hmm.”

Yoo Seol-young handed the brush to Bang So-un.

Approaching the sign, Bang So-un, without hesitation, filled in a line beneath Yoo Seol-young’s name.

-Golden Dragon Commander Bang So-un.

At that moment, a faint smile flickered in Yoo Seol-young’s eyes.