Chapter 43
The mistress of the Hebei Peng Family, Dan Hee-young, was having tea with her daughter Paeng Seo-yeon.
Yul, who had been running around playing until just a moment ago, was now fast asleep in Paeng Seo-yeon's arms.
"...Are you worried?"
Dan Hee-young, who had been quietly drinking tea together with her daughter for a while, asked Paeng Seo-yeon, whose face occasionally showed traces of concern.
No matter how much she tried to hide it, it wasn't easy to conceal such feelings from her mother.
Realizing her emotions had been noticed, Paeng Seo-yeon forcefully shook her head.
"Ah, no, I'm not."
"You don't need to hide such things from your mother."
At Dan Hee-young's words, Paeng Seo-yeon let out a deep sigh and nodded.
The worry she had been trying to conceal was now fully visible on her face.
"Sigh... Actually, I am. Even though the Peng Family warriors have always done this kind of work, he's different from them."
"That's true. But still, you know that even though the White Wolf Unit causes a lot of trouble, they're more righteous than anyone. They're also exceptionally skilled warriors, so they'll probably support him well. So don't worry too much."
"...Alright."
She knew. Paeng Seo-yeon tried to think that it would be as Dan Hee-young said.
But is human worry something that stops just because you're told not to?
Bandit subjugation, of all things.
It was a dangerous task that would be worrying even for someone who had studied martial arts for a long time.
It was by no means an easy job.
Moreover, her husband was someone who had been reading and teaching in a small rural village until just recently.
How could such a person...
Sigh.
The more she thought about it, the more she could only sigh.
Dan Hee-young tightly grasped her daughter's hand.
In truth, while Dan Hee-young had told her daughter not to worry and that everything would be fine, she too was barely containing the anger boiling up inside her.
Dan Hee-young had only learned that Yeo Un-hwi had been put in charge of the White Wolf Unit after he had already left with them for the bandit subjugation mission.
To think her husband would handle her request in such a way...
No wonder he had agreed to her request more readily than usual that day.
Ah, really.
Sometimes Dan Hee-young thought her husband could be truly eccentric, even though he was her husband.
She truly wanted to ask her husband about his thought process, wondering how her small and simple request to give him a minor administrative position had turned into the idea of putting him in charge of the White Wolf Unit.
In any case, it was so absurd it made her want to laugh bitterly.
Of course she couldn't help but be angry.
But for now, she planned to wait until her son-in-law returned safely from this mission before expressing her anger.
If he just came back safely, she intended to lecture her husband so thoroughly he'd think a person could actually breathe fire.
Meanwhile, Paeng Seo-yeon also found herself resenting her father today for suddenly entrusting her husband with the White Wolf Unit's affairs.
She simply couldn't understand what he had been thinking to make such a decision.
And she felt she would never be able to comprehend that decision for the rest of her life.
When she first heard the news, she had desperately gone to her father, saying it was completely unreasonable and begging him to withdraw the order. But why had her husband, of all people, willingly agreed to follow that intention? It was truly baffling.
Her father and her husband.
These two men were giving Paeng Seo-yeon such a headache.
At this point, she thought she should strongly suggest - no, insist - that her husband start learning martial arts when he returned, even if it was late.
Of course, she knew it would be difficult to expect any great achievements.
Unless he was an exceptional genius, even reaching the level of an ordinary warrior would be challenging.
But still, it would be better than knowing absolutely nothing.
Hmm.
Paeng Seo-yeon turned her head to look at the sky.
The weather was so nice.
Oblivious to others' worries.
In any case, for now she could only pray for his safe return above all else.
"Oh my! Thank you, thank you so much, warriors."
"To think we'll never have to see those beasts worse than animals again... You've saved us. Thank you! Thank you so much!"
"Sob... I don't know how we can ever repay this kindness."
"Aren't you hungry? Please, have some of these potatoes."
"We have corn here too!"
"Um, I also..."
The village was in an uproar.
The gloomy atmosphere that had persisted in the village had completely changed.
Some people were shedding tears, while others were smiling brightly as they rushed towards the White Wolf Unit members, each carrying something.
The White Wolf Unit members could only smile awkwardly yet warmly at these people.
The White Wolf Unit had just returned to the village that had requested their help after clearing out the bandit lair.
The villagers all wore dazed expressions as they saw the White Wolf Unit return, limping and barely supporting each other.
Then, as they heard their story, the villagers were all shocked.
"Y-You cleared out the entire bandit lair? And the Extreme Evil Laughing Demon... no, how is that..."
If anyone else had heard this story, they might have thought these simple villagers were being told an unbelievable exaggeration.
But they had no choice but to believe it.
Anyone who saw the state of the White Wolf Unit would have felt the same.
The terrible wounds that seemed to prove there had been a fierce battle, and above all, the look in their eyes was not that of people telling lies or boasting.
Moreover, after seeing the head of the Extreme Evil Laughing Demon that the White Wolf Unit had brought back, they couldn't help but believe.
That's right.
As they said, the bandits who had been threatening the village were finally all gone.
At this news, all the villagers had come out to express their gratitude.
The villagers' hands were full of various foods like corn and potatoes.
Of course, it wasn't because they had plenty to spare.
Until just yesterday, they had been wondering if they could even survive a week with the food they had left.
But now, none of that mattered.
Because right in front of them were benefactors who had given them help so great it felt like they could never repay it in their lifetime.
Honestly, the villagers had never dreamed the White Wolf Unit would go this far for them.
At most, they thought they might drive the bandits away once, make a big show of it, and then leave.
In fact, they couldn't help but think that way.
The village, which had always suffered at the hands of bandits, needed help.
But more often than not, when they somehow managed to ask for help, they were ignored. Even when they scraped together money to hire warriors, those warriors would often just make a show of doing something before taking the money and leaving.
And the situation never changed.
After this process repeated a few times, any expectation that things would improve completely disappeared from the villagers' hearts.
That's why the overall mood in the village had been so gloomy, even as the village chief and a few others refused to give up, continuing to seek help from various places and struggle however they could.
Because they could no longer hold onto hope.
That's why even when the White Wolf Unit first arrived in the village, the villagers didn't welcome them at all.
They thought these people would only bring disappointment and an unchanging reality, just like before.
They didn't want to foolishly hope again only to be disappointed and hurt.
But unbelievably, the White Wolf Unit turned out to be completely different from anyone they had encountered before.
They had slaughtered all the bandits who came to collect tribute from the village again, and even found and cleared out their mountain stronghold.
Moreover, they had accomplished the unbelievable feat of beheading the Extreme Evil Laughing Demon, one of the Absolute Great Evils, who had been there.
How could they not be grateful!
Even people living in such a remote mountain village knew the name "Extreme Evil Laughing Demon."
Everyone knew how terrifyingly powerful and horrific a serial killer he was.
When the villagers belatedly learned that such a Great Demonic Master had taken up residence in the bandit lair and was controlling the bandits, they got goosebumps all over their bodies.
If the White Wolf Unit hadn't beheaded the demonic leader today, the villagers would have been brutally massacred by the Extreme Evil Laughing Demon's hands in the near future.
What if they had done nothing, as some had said, claiming that no one would help them and that even asking the Hebei Peng Family for help would be futile?
It chilled them to the bone.
In the end, the White Wolf Unit had prevented that worst-case scenario from coming to pass.
They could see it with their own eyes.
The White Wolf Unit members, who had been perfectly fine when they first arrived in the village, had returned in a completely battered state.
Their bodies were covered in cuts, scrapes, and gashes, and their faces and bodies were covered in blood.
Even at a glance, one could see large wounds all over their bodies that looked incredibly painful.
Yet they were smiling.
Telling everyone to rest easy now that the bandits had been eliminated.
At this point, the villagers couldn't help but wonder.
Why had these people gone to such lengths for a poor, insignificant village that couldn't offer them any great reward?
What was it for?
They didn't know. No matter how much they thought about it, they couldn't understand why.
But the villagers were deeply moved by their kindness.
Once that realization hit, they couldn't just stand still.
They wanted to give them everything they had, whether it was food they had been carefully hiding away at home or anything else.
But the White Wolf Unit went even further.
They distributed the rice, food, and other assets from the bandit lair to the people of this village and neighboring villages.
They said it was only natural, since all of these things had originally come from the villagers, so they were just returning them to their rightful owners.
But the villagers didn't take it for granted at all.
These people had risked their lives to save them from a hellish situation, and now they were even returning the property that had been stolen from them. Even if they hadn't done this, no one would have said anything.
No, even if one or two people had complained, it could have been ignored.
No one in the world would have blamed them.
If anything, people might have criticized the villagers for being too greedy.
Yet they returned all of these things as if it were only natural.
"Thank you. Thank you so much."
Those words flowed endlessly from the villagers' mouths.
Because they came from the heart, they couldn't easily stop.
And so, smiles returned to the faces of these people who had been trapped in deep despair for so long that they had forgotten emotions like hope and happiness.
And then,
"Heroes, they are truly heroes," said the village chief, watching the backs of the White Wolf Unit as they turned to leave without seeking any praise, after smiling and waving to the villagers.
Everyone in the village nodded at those words.
How could they not acknowledge it?
If saving the world makes one a hero, then these people had saved the world of these small, marginalized people.
They were indeed heroes to these villagers.