Fitch untied the rope that had lashed the horse to Junior.When his body tilted and he was about to fall, Fitch caught him just in time and sat him down on the ground.The outside stimulus brought him around; Junior stirred and lifted his head.“I-I won… but… suddenly… another one jumped in… and I ended up like this…”“Got it. Don’t talk.”It didn’t look like anything life-threatening.Max took his eyes off Junior and stared at the one with the swollen face.They said they’d fought the Indian with bare fists—hard to square with what he was seeing.What are these men.While he weighed who they were,Jones, down from his horse, looked over at Max’s crew and jeered.“A woman deputy and an Indian. That East Asian bastard turned this town into a damn mess.”“Before I put a bullet in your mouth, start with who you are. All right?”Jones went on, amused.“Two months from now. In that time, get your stinking stink out of this office. I’ll be using it.”“Douglas County’s sheriff, are you?”Jones tilted his chin with a crooked smile.He talks like it’s already decided.If Kansas soon becomes a slave state, it may go their way.But Lawrence, which is about to walk an independent line close to rebellion, won’t accept a sheriff picked by them.What was this bastard’s name again.He rummaged through his previous life and dragged up a few things.Taking orders from the slavers, spoiling things at every turn. Tied to several big incidents.In short, a Border Ruffian disguised as a sheriff was the sheriff of Douglas County.Max’s cooled gaze fixed on Jones.“So what’s your business here?”“I wanted to check that ridiculous fairy tale about you in advance.”Their eyes collided.In Jones’s, a strange light rose.Not a simple one.Predator’s instinct. Sensing Max’s danger, Jones felt a thrill, even his chest pounding.Thinking he’d finally found a proper opponent, even his eyes rippled.“I’ll grant you’ve got confidence—”Jones cut off as he saw Max suddenly kicking off his boots.“What the hell are you doing.”“You’re not here to shoot, seeing as you’ll be the formal sheriff soon. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”A look at Junior’s condition told the story.Back in the mercenary years, there had been men like Jones.Men who preferred fists over cutting-edge guns.One of them was Eric, now dead.— Bullets kill with guns and blades kill with knives. If you really killed somebody, it should’ve been with your hands and feet before you can say you ‘really killed’ him.— There you go again, talking crap. That’s just posing, Eric. When a gun is efficient, what’s with the fist-fighting.— No romance in you. Bland, boring.— Then fight me bare-knuckle.— … I don’t want to do anything with you, bastard.— Chickening out. You’re Spartacus only when your mouth runs.He’d laughed at Eric, but the rush of cracking someone with your own body was, no question, addictive. Max knew the taste; that’s why he’d learned everything beyond commando combatives.“You idiot East Asian. Why the hell are you taking your shoes off?”The man beside Jones sneered.Max crook-beckoned him with a finger.“I’ll show you why. Come on.”“You little—”Jones flicked his eyes; the man doffed his hat and rolled his sleeves.“When I’m done with him, you’re up next. Be ready.”Catching Max’s look, Jones folded his arms and snorted.Max watched the man come at him, twisting his neck left and right.“Ow. Where are you wiping.”“Huh? Oh—sorry.”Fitch, dabbing the blood off Joe Jim Junior’s face, couldn’t take her eyes off the fight about to start.Junior’s eyes were locked on Max too.He wanted to see exactly how Max would flatten the man.Fighting in this era was all instinct—swing and dodge. Max took no particular stance, just loose-swung as the man closed.“You cocky punk!”The man lunged and swung a big punch.Leaving his feet, Max slid his upper body back to slip it, then used his left foot as a post and whipped his right foot into the man’s face. A taekwondo roundhouse, by another name.The instep landed clean across the cheekbone structure—temple to zygoma to mouth—where the bone sank in.Thwock.If it had been a hard shoe and not a bare foot, it would’ve been an instant kill. The man fell like a rotten plank, straight as a board.Thud.It happened in a blink.Mouths dropped open.Max loose-walked toward Jones.Jones’s eyes heaved wide.W-what did I just see?Meeting Max’s gaze, Jones flinched and reached for his gun.“What, can’t hack it so now you want to draw?”Stung, Jones checked his hand, then drew a knife instead. Seeing it, Max snorted.“You think a knife will do it?”“…… I’ll hack your hands off.”Back in the merc years, they’d argued over what the strongest close-quarters battle was.A former Spetsnaz man, of course, said Systema; some tossed in Israeli Krav Maga, Pencak Silat, even jiu-jitsu.Max shut it down by saying he’d answer after he learned them all.And the conclusion he handed down:— Every CQC is excellent. What matters is the man using it, you dumb bastards.— Knew he’d say that.— If you don’t like it, come at me.After round upon round, he’d proved it—people are the problem.And now.Trusting only instinct and drunk on his own power, Jones drove the knife in fast.A dozen counters flashed through Max’s head.The moment he chose, his body moved.He chopped the stabbing arm down with the knife-edge of his left hand like an axe and, at the same time, shot his right palm into Jones’s face.Crack.As Jones’s head rocked back, Max yanked the knife hand toward him, seized the collar, and slammed him to the ground.He drove a knee onto the man’s neck and slowly torqued the knife wrist and elbow.Son of a—“Urrgh…”Pinned by the knee and wrung at the arm, Jones let a groan leak.Max brought his face close and murmured, almost a whisper.“You don’t get to walk away clean after coming here.”A grim voice, pressure on the arm, pain—breathing so hard it felt like choking. Fear seeped into Jones’s eyes. Enjoying it, Max twisted the arm further.Crunch.“Gyaaaah!” ****To faint from that much—soft bastard.Max clicked his tongue, looking at Jones.He didn’t know the state of medicine in this era, but the man wouldn’t be using that arm for a while. With bad luck, he might be crippled for life.Truth was, what knocked Jones out wasn’t the arm—it was Max’s knee on his neck.Either way.I’d rather kill him.Samuel Jefferson Jones.He’d be a nuisance going forward, but killing him wasn’t simple.If he killed an unarmed man—one about to be named sheriff—the shock wouldn’t be small.Besides, lop off a tail and the body stays.Missouri and a host of slave-state power men.To keep a balance with them, they needed to gather free-state strength fast.Max flicked his eyes at Jones’s buddy, the one with the face puffed like he’d been sucking a giant candy.The man had gone ashy-pale; when Max’s eyes hit his, his body shook.With Fitch covering them at gunpoint, he didn’t even dare to reach for his own.“Get them out of here.”“……”Two down.Their friend struggled and heaved the two onto the horses; Max tossed him the rope that had bound Joe Jim.“Tie them.”By the time they finished,Max walked up to the man wobbling on his feet.He slapped him with an open palm.The swollen lip split; his mouth and face ran with blood.“If we meet again, it won’t end with this.”With a flick to scram, the man swung into the saddle.He knotted two sets of reins together and left Lawrence.“What were those?”“I thought a jackass showed up; turns out it left a real jackass.”The townsfolk, unimpressed, drifted off. After what they’d been through, little rattled them anymore.No—this was normal to them.Joe Jim Junior stared after the men riding off, forgetting the throbbing pain.Then his eyes shifted back to Max.He’d seen Max kick like that in training, but he hadn’t expected that ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) kind of power in a real fight.I’ve got to train even harder.When Junior grinned, teeth showing, Max spoke as he slid his boots back on.“What are you smiling about with a face like a bruised plum.”“I’m just… happy. And really… I did beat one of them.”“That’s not something to be proud of.”Max walked up and set a hand on his shoulder.“Still, what you did well, you did well. Next time you see those bastards, you run no matter what.”“I think my horse is slow… I ran the moment I saw them and they still caught me.”“Then we start with changing your horse. Anyway, today I’m taking you home.”“No—I’ll go with you. I’ve got business anyway.”James Henry Lane popped up, just like that.Looked like he meant to head out today to nail proof of the governor’s land speculation. He was supposed to go with Joe Jim and his son, but seeing Junior’s condition, that seemed unlikely.Lane stared at Max with fresh wonder. He’d seen him shoot, but never fight bare-handed—made it all the more surprising.Now he was curious where Max came from.Saying they should talk, Lane moved with Max into the office.“Sheriff, what country did you say you came from?”“Joseon.”“And those techniques you just used—you learned them all there?”“You could say that.”Lane stroked his jaw, filed “Joseon” away, then changed the subject.“Who were those men earlier?”“They came saying one of them will be sheriff of Douglas County.”“The town chairs haven’t even sat for a meeting yet. The slave-state men are treating Kansas like a fish already on the line. You did well to give them a thrashing today.”Smiling, Lane shifted to Pawnee.“I’m thinking of going to Pawnee today. It’s a distance—call it three days. If it’s tied to speculation like you said, I’ll go straight to the governor.”Evidence in hand—then comes the threat.Lane meant to waste no time and force Governor Andrew Reeder to move in the free-state’s interest. This, too, was one of Max’s plans.“Hope you get something.”“I’ll dredge up something.”That day, James Henry Lane headed for Pawnee with ten men and Joe Jim. ****On the road to Lecompton.Annoyed by their plodding pace, Corbin turned to glare behind him.Two out cold, and Jones—the instigator this time—had a broken arm. Just thinking of how it looked and the sound of bone snapping made his hair stand on end.Strutting like a cock, now look at him.His anger burned hotter for Jones than for the East Asian.Thanks to that preening brat, his face was wrecked—of course he felt that way.Then, suddenly, he wanted to kill him.Right now.Not a friend—a tyrant.When he thought of how he’d followed the man out of fear and dread, this seemed like the perfect chance.Corbin’s roving eyes slid toward the gun at his belt. And then—Jones’s voice thumped his eardrums.“Told you… hit me in the back… I pay it back fiftyfold…”“W-what? I didn’t do anything. H-how’s the arm?”The instant he tried to move the ragged arm, a hideous pain roared up.Clenching his teeth hard enough to crack them, Jones shuddered, remembering Max’s eyes and face.Anger—and the single way out of the swamp of fear and dread carved into his body.I will kill him with these hands, without fail.But he had to shove that day far down the road.His arm was one thing; the other was the man waiting for Jones in Lecompton.Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow.He looked over Jones’s condition and twisted his face.“For now, we focus on Pawnee, where the legislature will convene. And the governor—we can’t just leave him be, not this time.”“……”“I’ll put a good doctor on you. You stay out of things for a while.”“…Understood.”Jones bowed his head, face gone dingy. ****It took a full week after Lane left for Pawnee before he returned to Lawrence.In the meeting room, Chairman Charles and Holliday, with Max, listened as Lane spoke.“A man named Thornton in Pawnee told me this: among the town’s founding investors, Governor Reeder holds twelve hundred acres in the very center.”“As expected. Our sheriff’s guess hit the mark.”Charles and Holliday looked at Max, astonished.Land speculation was common in this period.The big cities were already sky-high; it was only natural for speculators to fix on the frontier.And cheap—like Governor Reeder buying twelve hundred acres (1.47 million pyeong) for a thousand dollars—so it wasn’t hard to spread small money across many bets.Still, even if the logic was sound, tying the governor’s disappearance to land speculation wasn’t easy.“The interesting part: in the center of Pawnee, the state capitol is under construction and close to completion. Three stories of brick.”“Ha. So that’s what he was setting up while he vanished.”“How does a man who’s governor pull that.”Just thinking of it was enough to make you scoff.Holliday and Charles clicked their tongues and shook their heads.“In any case, the moment I learned this, I went to the governor. He said this: from the start he’d worked to make Kansas a free state, not a slave state.”“Well, that’s not wrong. He did try early on to block the fraudulent elections.”As Chairman Charles said, the governor had shown zeal at first. He’d thought hard about what would best ensure a fair count and fair voting.But armed Border Ruffians seizing polling places had been beyond imagining, and after that, the governor had been dragged around by the slavers.“The governor said it himself. Not because of threats—he’ll actively help Lawrence.”Just hearing it, you’d throw your hands up in joy.But the governor’s words today seemed worth less than gold leaf.“Can we trust that?”“My worry is he’ll knife us at the key moment.”To Holliday and Charles, Lane said to rest easy, and went on.“No need to worry about that. But the governor did say something shocking.”What’s left that’s shocking now.No matter how he scrabbled through the corners of memory, Max couldn’t guess what would come out of Lane’s mouth.“The governor asked for personal protection. And somehow, he singled out one man by name.”Don’t tell me—Lane looked at Max and nodded.Like saying, you win.

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