EP.4 – Lee Han Was Demoted

Knowing one's own skill—one's true level—with any honesty was no small matter.

Try as a person might to see clearly, the mind insisted on reading every situation in its own favor and turning endlessly generous toward itself. That was simply how people were. Lee Han, however, had always been strict with himself. He had no choice. He had no master, and he had to stand entirely alone.

He did possess a few unusual gifts, but those were nothing more than convenient tools. So even as he drove himself, he worked constantly to look at his own ability without flattery.

How am I supposed to measure where I stand?

If this world had been a murim tale, most of the creatures called knights would have sat somewhere between first-rate martial artists and the peak—men who had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠learned the Fighting Art, the promising young talents of an orthodox sect. He, by contrast, would have been the sort who grew strong by the methods of an unorthodox path outside the sects. Sorcery and a troll's regeneration came to much the same thing. Even so, after strengthening himself that way again and again, Lee Han had plainly reached the far edge of the peak. And if he ever crossed that peak and stepped into the realm where a man touched the divine, then most likely he would become that gentleman over there.

KWA-AAAAANG!

Lee Han's body tumbled wretchedly across the dirt. No sooner had he hit than he sprang up like a coil and charged. The motion was so elastic, so quick, that it called to mind not a man but a four-legged beast. Every kick shattered the concrete underfoot, and he drove straight into a tackle. Weight, strength, and speed stacked together until the impact briefly rivaled a collision with a dump truck—but unfortunately, the man across from him was not someone a mere dump truck could budge.

Whoosh!

"Still rough. You ought to learn a little more ease."

A body that played with the wind like a butterfly. Baltar let the brutal tackle slide off him and slip away, then raised a palm and, as naturally as breathing, planted a single strike into Lee Han's back.

KUUUNG!

"Ghk—!"

The ground heaved. Whatever subtle principle was woven through that palm, it felt as if a skewer had been driven clean through his hardened body, intent on breaking him down. An ordinary man would have ruptured from the inside in a chain of explosions and simply burst. An ugly sight, in short.

"...You vicious old bastard!"

"Heh. You've gotten harder."

But Lee Han's body neither burst nor blacked out. He seized Baltar's wrist where it was. A grip that could crumple iron closed without mercy. Strength enough to snap a human wrist like a thin branch.

"And what do you expect to come of pouring in nothing but brute force?"

Even under that grip, Baltar showed no sign of pain. There was a reason an Aura User was counted a superhuman. That body, which looked so frail, was a vessel holding a strength no one could have predicted. However great the grip, it was not a thing easily broken.

Sure enough—

"Hup!"

"Kehuk!"

Lee Han went flying, pathetic as a rag. Fierce pressure burst from Baltar's body as if something had detonated, became a typhoon, and hurled him away.

But he did not go down. He held the line of his charge and drove power into it. Force gathered in his calves and thighs until they swelled fit to split, and from that same posture he launched his whole body—a bold technique that fired him like an arrow.

KWA-AAAAANG!

A gale tore through the surroundings. Pressure and shockwave turned even the scattered stones to sand, and that was enough to announce the force behind him. Watching, Baltar—who had worn a sneer the entire time—lost it for the first time.

In its place:

"Good."

For the first time, he took up his sword. The blade never left its sheath, yet the mere fact that he had taken the weapon in hand changed the air. He swung before Lee Han could even reach him. A cut at empty air. It might have looked ridiculous—what kind of stance was that, all of a sudden?—but the change that swing produced was anything but.

PAAANG!

"...?!"

Lee Han slammed into something. His path sealed shut, and he flipped clean over. Unlike an arrow that meets a shield and sticks, the wall of air was immensely hard and yet soft enough that it did not wound him. It simply threw him back.

"...Old man, you can make a shield out of wind, too?"

"A small trick. Against a beast to rival the Tyrant of the Mountain, though, it is a fairly decent move."

"......I'm gonna lose my mind."

Lee Han sat there in that humiliating sprawl, dragging in breath, his face twisted. He did not look particularly exhausted. He had taken fewer hits than usual, and his stamina sat so far outside any normal measure that this much did not even wind him. Not that crossing blades with an Aura User had left him unmarked. A sharp throb ran through his side.

"...Cracked a rib."

"Heh. Only that?"

"Only, my ass. Hurts like I'm dying."

An hour, at least, before he could go again.

"Good. To think you made even me bring out this move."

"How do you even do something like that?"

"Read the grain of the wind, and anyone can manage it easily enough. Those spell-slingers are fond of it."

"...First I've heard of magic without an incantation."

"The martial path has no end. Keep at it, and tricks like theirs become simple."

"You're talking shit."

A spell-slinger would probably have said the same of him. The claim was that far past reason. A wall of wind—and how exactly was he meant to break through that?

Peel one layer away, and there's always another.

A monster who had lived seventy years, sure enough. The hidden ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠techniques never ran out.

"And you—what was that just now? You came flying at me like an arrow."

"I named it Divine Bow, Elastic Shadow."

"...That Diamond Body or whatever you mentioned before, and now this. Every technique you use has something strange about it."

"So what."

Lee Han grumbled, but in his head he was already reviewing the exchange.

One move close to the Weighted Strike Method. The rest—if I think of it as sword-wind?

He turned Baltar's techniques over in the language of the countless murim novels he had read in his past life, and worried at them.

...Even if the sword-wind is beyond me, maybe I can imitate that Weighted Strike.

...Something like this?

He set his palm to the ground and snapped it outward. All he got was a light shock. Closer to simply loading force into the blow than to the Weighted Strike Method. He was busy being disappointed when Baltar spoke again.

"Your sense is as good as ever. A man who doesn't even know the basics of the Fighting Art, imitating that? Hah."

His disbelief was only natural. What was the Fighting Art, at its root? A kind of body-hardening art: a martial artist who had piled up training felt the current of life-force within the body, then burst it outward or strengthened the flesh in an instant. Because it was a profound technique not just anyone could learn, people had named it a fighting art. From the first sensing of the life-force within to the governing of it, the whole matter belonged to talent. More than that, the proper time to feel the current was childhood, while life-force was still faint. Try to learn it late, and the effort was meaningless. The season when the flow was finest and weakest had already passed, and for an adult whose current of life had somewhat hardened, sensing it was a distant hope.

This one was different. He was already thirty, and still his life-force pulsed like a child in the middle of growing. Whether that came of the growth itself, or of some uncanny trait he carried, he handled the current by feel. Swelling the strength in his legs and firing himself like an arrow was one such case. So was the way the organs inside him had endured Baltar's force.

His power is all over the place, though. That's what comes of handling it by instinct alone.

He lacked the foundations of the Fighting Art. All he had done ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was enlarge the current through raw training, until a peculiar state had formed—a fierce rotation through the whole body, no different from a wave heaving without rest inside him. Had anyone but Baltar understood the condition of that body, they would have been horrified. A man who should long since have died, unable to endure his own current, had stupidly grown nothing but the vessel, and was still perfectly intact. A mad spell-slinger would have fought to make him a test subject, or to cut him open.

...Interesting. Truly.

All Baltar felt was interest. Suppose a current like that—life-force—kept growing fiercer, and suppose the vessel could keep enduring it. If, from that state, he awakened aura and became a superhuman, what then? Perhaps he might come to possess a strength to match the legendary Lion King, or the Knight King. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was still only a guess. But imagining the future of a young man whose road still ran long ahead of him—for an old man facing retirement, that was an amusement he could not help. To find, in his last years, a fellow who stirred the blood like this.

Baltar hid his tingling wrist and laughed, bright and clean.

Gulp....

Only the faint sound of a dry swallow stirred the quiet. The clash of the two knights had struck that hard, and the shock was sharper still for the new knights seeing it for the first time.

They had known Lee Han was strong. Had he not put Jord, top of the graduates, down in a single exchange? They had not known it was like this. What was that?

A miniature Mountain Tyrant?

The Mountain Tyrant—the monster also called the Tyrant of the Mountain, an ogre. They had never seen one in the flesh, but if such a thing ever took human shape, it might look exactly like that. Enough to make a man suspect mixed blood with a monster.

Why is someone like that still a regular knight?

Whatever his station, a man of that skill ought to hold some rank. Jord would not deny that his view ran a little partial, but that the man was still a regular knight—that, he could not accept...!

"It's the demerits. Don't go inventing some other story."

"...Sir?"

"Plenty of the higher-ups find him an eyesore over his low birth, that's true. But that alone isn't why he's still a regular knight. He's still a regular knight because his conduct is rotten."

"Rotten?"

"Late, for a start, and he hardly goes out on missions. The demerits have piled up something awful because of it."

"......"

"On skill alone he could have been aiming at vice-captain ages ago, but with habits like those, who knows when he'll ever rise. Hah."

"...He really is a strange one, Senior Rihan."

"It's Lee Han. ...And why am I the one correcting this?"

Jord never caught the rest of what Jake said. He only stared at Lee Han, burning. Lee Han himself might have thought he had been beaten hollow, but Jord, watching, did not see it that way. In that moment he understood it: the great wall, the mark he ought to aim for, was not the captain. It was Lee Han.

To have a man like that beside me. What luck!

A powerhouse of that caliber, right here. And he was always looking for someone to spar! For Jord, it was an opportunity. Spar with a strong man like that, and he would grow as a matter of course.

I can hardly wait.

Life in the knight order felt rewarding beyond anything he could—

...Huh?

Unfortunately, Jord's hopes seemed to have flown off somewhere very far away.

Lee Han.

He had been demoted.