The Swordmaster Wants To Live Peacefully [EN]: Chapter 272

Swordmaster Wants to Live Peacefully – Episode 271

Swordmaster Wants to Live Peacefully 271

Journey to Hell (2)

A good hell!

A great hell!

To create a beautiful hell, work and labor had to be properly distributed.

Currently, hell had a better work-life balance than in the past.

The hell that was once chaos itself was like a black company [exploitative workplace] incarnate, where working 7 days a week was the norm, there was no concept of shifts, and people had to work 18 hours a day.

Now, it was 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, but hell considered that okay.

Anyway, it was better than the past.

Yuseongwoo decided to make that hell an even better hell.

Since this neighborhood wasn’t easy enough to just mess around in, he planned to stir things up internally to the point where the story would leak outside.

Without revealing himself, using the oni [Japanese demon or ogre] named Goki.

Not Gouki, but Goki.

Anyway, Yuseongwoo, with Goki at the forefront, launched various fronts to create a righteous and beautiful hell.

“Comrades! Don’t you think working 6 days a week for 12 hours is unfair! This is unfair!”

“What’s that guy saying?”

“Is he crazy? What are we supposed to do in hell if we don’t work like that?”

“Ahem, workers on Earth currently work 4 days a week, from 10 to 5, which is only seven hours a day! Including an hour for lunch! But isn’t it absurd that we hell workers work 6 days a week for 12 hours!”

“Now that I hear it…! Why do we have to work harder when those humans only work that much……!”

“Tsk! Saying a young one doesn’t want to work! Hell is in its twilight years!”

Goki’s words weren’t entirely unconvincing, and there were a few oni who responded to him.

Yuseongwoo watched the scene from a nearby second-floor cafe, sipping on the cafe’s signature coffee, ‘Hell Sulfur Fire Coffee.’

Hell Sulfur Fire Coffee lived up to its name with its heat.

The coffee temperature was over 200 degrees, but that’s what made it good.

Oni are basically boisterous, cruel, and simple-minded.

Generally, they were manly men… close to commoners.

They were morons who proved their strength by chugging coffee that was hundreds of degrees hot, saying that the hotter the coffee, the better.

“Nice and hot.”

It was still hot even after cooling it down a bit.

Still, his superhuman esophagus and stomach recognized it as something like hot *gukbap* [Korean rice soup].

“Haha! The coffee is amazing today too!”

“Hey, you’re breathing fire?”

“Kuaaaaaaa!”

Listening to the idiots’ conversation made him feel like his brain was melting.

Yuseongwoo put down his coffee cup and watched Goki, who was diligently promoting his cause.

Goki began to preach about the beauty of the 4-day work week, as Yuseongwoo had told him.

“Are, are you sure this is okay?”

Setsuna, who was sitting across from him, looked at Goki with worried eyes.

She didn’t seem to like him much, but she seemed concerned.

She muttered that if he kept promoting like that, he might get dragged away by a hell civil servant at any moment.

Yuseongwoo’s goal was there.

If hell civil servants, that is, subordinates of King Yama [the judge of the dead in Buddhist mythology] or other kings, moved, it would be a big commotion.

He hoped that Shutendoji [a mythical oni leader] would know to follow the commotion on his own.

“I’ve heard that each hell civil servant has the strength of a *Soshinjwa* [a high-ranking Shinto deity].”

“Hmm.”

Should he take on one of them?

He was still not strong enough to defeat Susanoo [a powerful storm god in Japanese mythology], so acquiring a divine status wouldn’t be bad.

His body moved even better than when he was on Earth…….

‘I can use that.’

Anyway, Goki’s speech seemed to resonate with the oni.

The oni, who had been exhausted by hard labor until now, regained their cruel violence and began to shout for a 4-day work week.

Successfully buttoning the first button to create a great hell.

If things continued like this, the second button would be buttoned naturally.

The oni began to march.

The number of oni, which had been only a few, had become hundreds, regardless of gender, and they roamed the streets.

The *Hyakki Yagyō* (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) [a Japanese folklore concept] had begun.

“The Hell Labor Administration must guarantee a 4-day work week! Guarantee it!”

“Guarantee it! Guarantee it!”

“The Hell Labor Administration must guarantee lunch breaks and rest for the oni! Guarantee it!”

“Guarantee it! Guarantee it!”

The oni’s Hyakki Yagyō demanding a 4-day work week, lunch breaks, and rest.

It was quite a sight.

As the oni’s Hyakki Yagyō stretched from the beginning to the end of the street, the number of cruel oni swelled to thousands.

Goki, who was at the forefront of the Hyakki Yagyō, was sweating profusely, as if he hadn’t expected things to get this big.

But if he didn’t want to get beaten by Yuseongwoo, he couldn’t run away now.

“Goki…….”

“It’s about time for a reaction.”

The current Hyakki Yagyō was being carried out by numerous oni who had abandoned their work.

It seemed like they were going to show the Hell Labor Administration how scary the oni who were tired of working 6 days a week for 12 hours were.

For reference, the Hell Labor Administration was a place that made the oni work to death, not a place to stab employers.

“Here they come.”

The very front line of the Hyakki Yagyō, beyond that.

Red oni wearing uniforms appeared there.

They felt a refined energy that was clearly different from the oni he had seen on Earth or the oni of the Multi-Layered Hell.

Yuseongwoo sipped on a newly ordered ‘Eight Cold Hells Iced Tea’ that was said to freeze you to the bone and gauged their strength.

As Setsuna had said, they seemed to have the strength to be called Soshinjwa. Even though they were far away, he could vividly feel the energy they were emitting.

One of the hell civil servants stepped forward and said in a booming voice.

“Stop! I’m warning you. If you don’t disperse the protesters immediately, we will use force to restrain you!”

So, protests weren’t free in this neighborhood. Was it because they didn’t report it? That makes sense.

“Demonstrations exceeding three people are prohibited by the Hell Labor Law. If you do not disperse immediately, we will resort to force!”

Oh, there was a crazy law in hell.

Yuseongwoo asked Setsuna.

“How do you take annual leave when the Labor Administration is like that?”

“I took the annual leave I can use once a year. They definitely guarantee that…….”

“So, annual leave it is.”

Hell was truly hell.

Goki, at the head of the Hyakki Yagyō, shouted.

“We will not yield! Working 6 days a week for 12 hours, with only one day of annual leave! This isn’t how oni should live! We’re working *Tsukumogami* (artifact spirits) [tools that have acquired a spirit after long use]!”

“That’s right! That’s right!”

“Hell civil servants, aren’t you working under better conditions than us! Working 5 days a week for 11 hours, with five days of annual leave! What’s a monthly leave?!”

Goki’s long speech began.

When he first started causing trouble, he seemed a bit lacking, but he was a selfish idiot who knew how to get benefits, even if he was a bit lacking.

When it seemed like the protesters wouldn’t back down, the hell civil servants revealed their power to exercise their authority.

Their rapidly increasing demonic energy made the protesters hesitate.

However, that was only for a moment.

Yuseongwoo suppressed the energy of the hell civil servants from afar with his own energy.

Even though they had the power of Soshinjwa.

Yuseongwoo had been recognized as a Soshinjwa on Earth.

In this hell where the limiter was released, that meant he was an existence with power far surpassing them.

“N, now’s the time!”

When the hell civil servants suddenly couldn’t move, the oni swarmed them and began to beat them up.

No matter how much they were hell civil servants, they couldn’t stand up to the numbers, and they were released in tatters before long.

Since the protesters were made up of oni, they seemed to want to tear the civil servants to pieces, but they seemed to have restrained themselves because the protesters could really be wiped out completely if they did that.

Goki shouted.

“Let’s go around all the Eight Great Hells and gather our comrades!”

“Waaaaaaah!!”

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

***

After the protesters left for another hell, Yuseongwoo headed to where the hell civil servants had fallen.

Setsuna looked at them with worried eyes.

“Ugh, ugh…….”

One of the hell civil servants opened his eyes with a painful groan and looked up at Yuseongwoo.

He was a living human.

He might be a divine being, but if there had been such a visit, they would have known.

“Y, you are…….”

“Do you know the way to Takamagahara [the heavenly realm in Shinto mythology]? I have some business to take care of there.”

The hell civil servant’s face turned pale at Yuseongwoo’s words.

If another Holy God Hall visits the Japanese Holy God Hall, they are guided to Takamagahara instead of hell.

They go through various administrative procedures there and visit hell.

Every time that happens, an official document is sent to all hell civil servants, so they can’t not know.

“A g, god who illegally trespassed! Damn it, I have to inform the Ten Kings…….”

“I guess you don’t know.”

Yuseongwoo’s hand blade struck the back of the hell civil servant’s neck.

A crunching sound echoed, but it should be okay.

Oni have good recovery.

“Is this oni foaming at the mouth?”

Or not.

Yuseongwoo straightened his crouched knees and summoned Ilsaeng.

The grip that fit snugly in his hand.

He swung the sword a few times and said.

“Stand back. It looks like the boss is coming.”

At his words, Setsuna quickly retreated, and at the same time, an oni walked in from afar, shaking the ground.

An oni who was neatly dressed in a uniform and twice as large as Yuseongwoo.

He was an existence of a different level from the hell civil servants who were sprawled on the floor.

The oni who stopped in front of Yuseongwoo opened his mouth.

“Did you do this?”

“You could say that, or you could say no.”

“I don’t know where you came from, but you made a mistake. How dare you try to disrupt the Multi-Layered Hell?”

“I just told them a little bit because they were working like hell.”

“That’s because it’s hell! The crime of disrupting order is immediate execution!”

“Hell is like this because the boss is so inflexible.”

The battle began with Yuseongwoo’s one word.

In an instant, the hell civil servant’s fist moved and struck Yuseongwoo’s abdomen.

But at that moment, Yuseongwoo inserted Ilsaeng to defend.

Yuseongwoo, who left a long trail with both feet, smiled.

“Yeah, it has to be this much.”

He wanted to test his power, which had been released from its limiter in hell.

It just so happened that a good sandbag appeared.

Yuseongwoo swung his sword in the air a few times and then kicked off the ground.

His figure stretched out long, and dirt and dust soared behind him like an explosion.

And then, a red flash.

The sword, swung leaving a long afterimage, struck the hell civil servant’s hands and sent him flying far away.

Much more than Yuseongwoo had been pushed back… no, he was completely slammed into the floor.

The hell civil servant, an oni who seemed to be about a 5th grade in Korea, rolled on the floor, got up, and frowned.

He dusted off the dirt on his uniform and said with a long exhale.

“I’ll make you regret challenging me. You don’t know your place!”

Yuseongwoo chuckled at his words.

Was he calling that a threat? No way. He was just saying it.

“You’ll have to fight hard if you don’t want to die. You big oaf.”