Chapter 40

Chapter 40

The reasons martial artists learn martial arts are countless.

Some  learn martial arts simply to elevate their social status, someone learns martial arts absorbed in the martial arts themselves, and others learn martial arts for revenge.

Everyone contemplates ‘why’ they learn martial arts and contemplates ‘how’ they will learn martial arts. That’s why there’s one thing everyone overlooks. That is precisely one thing.

Why was that martial art created?

“True meaning…… you say?”

“Right. True meaning.”

Slowly cutting off my words, I crossed my arms and loosely tilted my head back to look at the sky. The sun still shining brightly in the center of the sky since not much time had passed despite the intense training.

“There’s a saying that pine caterpillars must eat pine needles to survive.”

Looking at that sun with slightly squinted eyes, I continued speaking.

“It’s often used to mean know your place, but thinking conversely, it means you must eat what suits you even if you eat. Pine caterpillars don’t covet anything other than pine needles in the first place, do they?”

“True meaning is like that. The essence of martial arts. Something one wants to convey to those who learn this martial art.”

When generations change, groups inevitably change. When members change, tendencies change, and when tendencies change, essence changes.

Sects are like that too. After one generation passes, it will change a little. After two generations pass, it will change a little more then. Like that, after three generations pass, four generations pass, a hundred years pass, two hundred years pass.

Is the sect remaining then the same sect?

“Old Buddhism and current Buddhism have different doctrines. Indian Buddhism and Central Plains Buddhism cannot be the same. Because the Buddhists who practice them are different, the language is different, and the region is different. Then can Central Plains Buddhism with different doctrines not be called Buddhism?”

That wouldn’t be the case. Even if the doctrine is slightly different, they ultimately share the same history and emphasize the same values.

“The core that Buddhism speaks of is ‘compassion.’ If only that spirit can be preserved, even in the heart of the Unorthodox Path, we can purely assert that we are a Buddhist sect. Martial arts are also like this.”

There’s a saying that master and disciple  and martial brothers resemble each other. The atmosphere of those who share the same martial arts and enjoy the same teachings often gives off a strangely similar feeling.

Of course, the environment they’re living in might make it so. But is that all there is?

No.

“Martial arts are no different from messages that predecessors leave for future generations.”

That’s not the case.

“If you can’t empathize with the true meaning of martial arts, you can’t advance beyond that. The past me was like that too, and the current you are also like that. There are cases where a sword that fits perfectly in your hand doesn’t cut well when you actually try to use it, aren’t there?”

“From what I see, Unorthodox Path martial arts seem to be like that for you.”

Is his disposition soft?

Probably not. Seonwoo Gang doesn’t simply have a soft disposition. If he only had such a soft disposition, he wouldn’t have reached this point. He would either be caught by me and being dragged to the Murim Alliance, or would have fallen somewhere before that.

However, Seonwoo Gang somehow overcame all those difficulties and is standing here. He’s here to finish his 4-year Muryeongwando life and put a period to it.

Then Seonwoo Gang is by no means weak.

“When you swung your sword for your comrades, it clearly went against spy behavior. But was that done out of cheap sympathy, a moment’s impulse?”

You can’t commit such an act on a moment’s impulse. Can you throw your life away like trash and dump everything you’ve worked on for 4 years into the gutter in a moment’s impulse?

You can’t. If you’ve been running toward a goal, you can’t do that. No matter how precious your comrades are, your comrades won’t die just because you don’t receive this training.

You can’t commit such an act on a moment’s impulse. But Seonwoo Gang did commit it. Then the premise must be wrong.

That it wasn’t an impulse in the first place.

“You had doubts about this behavior itself, about the Unorthodox Path.”

The Unorthodox Path is about throwing away and discarding anything to sharpen a single blade in order to win.

“Are you holding a sword to win?”

At my words, Seonwoo Gang squeezed his eyes shut.

—Son. This is an overhead strike.

Seonwoo Gang remembers when he first held a sword.

—Good, well done. Hahaha! Our son has talent, doesn’t he?

His father was a third-rate martial artist. The kind of third-rate you could easily see at any sect or escort agency, who had just been taught some methods of swinging a sword.

There was nothing exceptional. He hadn’t learned great martial arts, nor did he possess ghostly talent. Though his father, as a martial artist he was nothing special, Seonwoo Gang thinks.

However, his life wasn’t third-rate. His father was at least a good father to him and a trustworthy person to his colleagues.

Because he liked his father, he naturally became absorbed in the swordsmanship his father taught him.

Vertical cuts and horizontal cuts. And thrusts. He learned only three movements. Could a fragment of talent be glimpsed in those simple movements? Nevertheless, his father who liked making a fuss didn’t hesitate to spread rumors everywhere that he was a genius, and Seonwoo Gang inwardly found it embarrassing yet liked it.

──Until his father returned as a cold corpse.

Seonwoo Gang exhaled deeply and directed his trembling gaze forward. Baek Riyun’s eyes looking down as if scolding him with strict eyes.

“I am…….”

He was a third-rate martial artist. How much help could he have been? Though a good person, his father with weak martial prowess went to help an acquaintance and died a dog’s death before the Evil Path’s assault, unable to be of any help.

“I am……!”

Everyone thought so. A dog’s death.

Seonwoo Gang couldn’t deny it either.

That was frustrating.

“……There’s someone I must get revenge on.”

“Is that so.”

I must kill them.

He had to go and declare that Seonwoo Yang’s son Seonwoo Gang had come to kill them, and he had desperately endured to do that.

Winning competitions, swinging the sword even when his arms and legs hurt enough to break. When night brightened, he swung the sword until night came again. These are the martial arts learned that way.

That should have been the case.

At some point, he stopped thinking about revenge. No, he became less desperate for revenge. He thought he had just put it off temporarily due to various matters piling up. Seonwoo Gang, who became Hyeolgeommun’s Small Sect Leader rather than Seonwoo Yang’s son, had too much to think about.

Was it really because of that?

“My father…… was proud of me. He introduced me as his pride everywhere.”

He hated his father’s honor being tarnished.

He knows he wasn’t a great father. He had neither Mount Tai-like heaviness nor sun-like presence. He knows he was an ordinary person who could be found anywhere. He knows his father also knew that there was nothing he could do in that fierce battle.

In reality, he couldn’t do anything.

“Everyone said it was a dog’s death. Even my mother resented such a father.”

Nothing changed. If he couldn’t do anything, if he was going to die a dog’s death without being able to show anything.

Rather, it would have been better if he hadn’t gone.

Crrrack!

“That can’t be right!”

Clenching his teeth hard enough to break them, Seonwoo Gang clenched his fist tightly.

“Even if no one else knows, I know!”

He wasn’t a strong person. He wasn’t a superhuman who could accomplish anything. Excluding martial prowess, his father was an ordinary person.

The night before setting out to the decisive battle with the Evil Path.

He remembers his father’s trembling fingertips as he quietly tilted his drink. Even his young self could tell—his father was trembling in fear. As if sensing his own death, in the cozy home with the lamp lit, relying on a bit of light.

The light reflected in the drink.

The trembling flowed down without being reflected.

The next day, his father headed to the battlefield with a smile.

“I will prove it!”

Everyone fled. They said there weren’t even twenty bodies remaining on that battlefield. Even though there were over a hundred enemies.

Among them was his father’s, Seonwoo Yang’s corpse. Firmly gripping his sword, leaning his back against a wall.

Without showing his back, with his heart pierced through.

“That I am Seonwoo Yang’s bloodline, that I inherit that man……!”

Seonwoo Yang died. But that death wasn’t a dog’s death.

That because Seonwoo Yang existed, Seonwoo Gang exists, that his son had come to prove it.

That the son of the man who was braver than anyone else there is himself!

“Then you fight to protect.”

Hearing Seonwoo Gang’s trembling voice, Baek Riyun indifferently turned his head, ran his fingers along the Uicheongeom’s sword sheath, then closed his eyes.

“You’ll become weak.”

“It won’t be one step back for two steps forward, but ten steps back for one step forward. Continuing as you are is the easiest path to achieve what you want. Do you understand what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

At Seonwoo Gang’s answer through gritted teeth, Baek Riyun nodded lightly. And the words that followed.

“Two weeks will be enough.”

“For two weeks, I’ll tear out all your foundation and martial arts from you. Forget eating and sleeping. Forget even yourself. This is the first assignment.”

Forget yourself and just swing it a hundred times.

“If you can’t even do that, there’s no meaning. I’ll help you.”

“……How long will it take to become stronger than before?”

“Well.”

Finishing his words, Baek Riyun slowly turned around toward the training ground’s entrance. Beyond the pouring sunlight.

“Don’t worry. That’s my role.”

Seonwoo Gang heard Baek Riyun’s faint laughter.

Four days since the Muryeongwando began training.

“Aaaah! I lost again!”

At Oh Ryeong stamping the ground in frustration, Seohwa grinned. Oh Ryeong seemed even more heated by that wordless smile.

“Seohwa you! Just how much did you research to have figured out countermeasures for even the forms I first showed yesterday!”

“Eh, that was easy. Unni. Rather, what you showed the day before was a bit more……?”

“What did you say?”

“Kyaaak!”

Unable to endure Seohwa’s provocation, Oh Ryeong wrapped her arm around Seohwa’s neck and swung her around. Unjin unconsciously clicked his tongue at that friendly sight.

“I don’t know when they became that close. It’s only been a few days since they met.”

“……She’s always been good at socializing. That side isn’t bad at it either.”

Two with good social skills got together in the first place. Moreover, they face each other every day devising strategies, so it would be stranger if intimacy didn’t develop.

He understands. He understands, but.

‘I don’t really get it.’

Since his social skills aren’t particularly good, Seomun Cheok couldn’t empathize with that situation and shook his head from side to side, then looked at Seohwa again.

‘Her growth rate is absurd.’

When he first heard about the training content.

Seomun Cheok thought two weeks was too long. Even though he couldn’t withstand even three seconds in the first training.

The opponent is a beginner who hasn’t learned martial arts for long. Though the first training had the advantage of preparation time going to the other side, the story would be different if they had more than a day to think of countermeasures.

In fact, when he showed variable forms deviating from standardized forms, Seohwa couldn’t respond properly. But what about now?

‘I’m not confident I can break through within two weeks…….’

Seohwa blocks all forms she’s seen even once the day before. Wangpal, who was watching for openings, blocks the variable forms she’s never seen.

Then after losing, the opponent invariably comes back stronger the next day. Should I say it feels like the opponent is pulling up their skills to match his level?

“Monsters. Both of them.”

Whether Seohwa with her tremendous memory or Wangpal who invariably responds even to forms seen for the first time.

It’s all incomprehensible. Uicheonmun is.

Shaking his head from side to side for a moment, Seomun Cheok looked around, then made a coughing sound and approached Wangpal’s direction. Wangpal, who had been silently beside the bickering Seohwa, blinked at the presence and turned his head.

“May I ask you something?”

“Of course. Is there something you need?”

“I’m sorry. You should be going to train now too.”

“Not at all. I can’t train alone without my martial sister anyway.”

“Is that so…….”

At Wangpal’s polite manner of speaking, Seomun Cheok repeatedly made coughing sounds, paused, then quietly brought up the topic.

“This might be rude, but I’ll dare to ask. That, it’s about the Sect Master.”

“You mean the Sect Master?”

“Right. Sect Master Baek Riyun. By any chance…… does he favor certain people?”

“……Pardon?”

“I’m asking if he’s the type who’s only good to people who treat him well…….”

“Ah.”

At Seomun Cheok’s words, Wangpal turned his gaze to a corner of the training ground as if understanding, let out a groan, then turned his head back with a dubious expression.

“……Honestly, I don’t really know either.”

A corner of the training ground.

“Are you giving up at this level? Hurry up and get up.”

“Gyaaaaak! Please just kill me!”

“Right. I’ll train you to death. You don’t need to worry.”

“Hyaaaaaaak!”

Baek Riyun was planting Seonwoo Gang in the ground.