Reunion with the Heavenly Heavy Sword
I let out a sigh as I watched one of the Jongnam disciples shoot into the air. It's starting. Now that it had come to this, there was no doubt my senior brother would thoroughly educate every Jongnam disciple standing here. He seemed to have completely lost his temper. Seeing Mu Yeong smiling faintly while his aura burned with rage all the way to the top of his head sent chills racing down my spine.
“Hiiik…!”
“How could you do something like this?!”
Crack.Crunch.
The sound of Mu Yeong twisting shoulder joints echoed brutally through the room. Meanwhile, the Jongnam group could only swallow their groans as they stared blankly at their comrade embedded in the ceiling. They had realized they had provoked the wrong opponent.
In that hair-trigger moment, Mu Yeong murmured in a low voice.
“Ugh…!”
The Jongnam disciples’ momentum shrank back in an instant. Still, as if to prove they were disciples of a proper sect, none of them fully abandoned their fighting spirit. It was quite an interesting sight. Having watched the entire process, I rested my chin on my hand and picked up my chopsticks again. Better to just keep eating.
If I left it alone, my senior brother would likely clean everything up himself. The only thing that bothered me was that they were brawling inside the inn instead of out on the street, but I figured we could compensate for the damages later. The elders of the Jongnam Sect must be having a hard time…
Smiling at the thought of claiming compensation, I picked up one of the dumplings in front of me. Just as I was about to pop it into my mouth while smacking my lips—
“Wait…! Please stop what you’re doing.”
“……?”
Tap.
A man suddenly appeared as if he had slipped in through the inn window. There was no sound of a door opening or hinges turning. Only then did I pause with the dumpling halfway to my mouth and turn to look. A soft “Ah” escaped me.
He looks somewhat familiar…?
The man wore the typical uniform of a Jongnam Sect warrior. He appeared to be in his early twenties, and the impression he gave off reminded me of someone I might have passed in the marketplace before, so I couldn’t help tilting my head.
As the standoff with the Jongnam group stretched on, my senior brother asked with clear interest.
“…I am Yu Seong-ho of the Jongnam Sect.”
The high-level expert from Jongnam answered while swallowing nervously. After hearing his self-introduction, I finally remembered exactly when we had met.
Ah, it’s that Yu Seong-ho from the martial exchange between the Jongnam Sect and Mount Hua Sect…!
Vivid memories from the past rose up. It was from when I was still quite green. The event had taken place more than three years ago. After going out for drinks in Soyang County with the sect elder Myeongryong Sword and returning to Mount Hua, a martial exchange with the Jongnam Sect had been arranged.
Back then, Seol Ayeon and the other three great disciples of Mount Hua had all been defeated by this single man, Yu Seong-ho. In the end, I had to step forward and fight.
It had felt annoying at the time, but now that I looked back, it remained a rather pleasant memory. So when Yu Seong-ho suddenly appeared, I called out in a voice that carried genuine pleasure.
“……?! Who are you?”
Even while facing off against my senior brother, Yu Seong-ho turned his gaze toward me the moment I called his name. Seeing his reaction, I formed a faint smile and continued.
“The memory of crossing blades with you during the martial exchange a few years ago is still vivid. It seems you don’t remember me?”
“……?!”
“The Thirty-Six Forms of the Heavenly Heavy Sword you displayed back then left quite an impression.”
“Ah…!”
Only then did recognition dawn. Yu Seong-ho let out a gasp and widened his eyes.
“Are you the Plum Blossom Sword Ghost, Eun Haseong?”
“……”
I’m still being called by that ridiculous title…?
It was almost absurd that I was still remembered as the Sword Ghost. Still, the fact that Yu Seong-ho remembered my name was fortunate enough that I clicked my tongue once and kept speaking.
“It looks like you’ve only just arrived in Sangju. What brings you all the way here and straight into trouble?”
“Uh, how did you know that?”
“……”
I answered Yu Seong-ho’s question with silence. In truth, it had been easy to tell that he and the Jongnam warriors had only just set foot in Sangju. They never showed their faces here before suddenly bursting into the inn, so they must have only received the news recently.
From my perspective, having guessed as much, their attitude wasn’t entirely incomprehensible. If they had walked in knowing nothing from the start, showing their ignorance was inevitable.
It was then that Mu Yeong, still locked in the standoff, suddenly made an odd expression and sent me a sound transmission.
“...The guy who just appeared—do you two know each other?”
“We faced each other during the martial exchange with the Jongnam Sect in the past.”
“Any bad blood between you?”
“Rather than bad blood… I remember it being rather amicable…”
Mu Yeong let out a short “Hmm,” then clicked his tongue as if he had no choice.
“Tsk. Now that it’s come to this, continuing the fight here would be difficult.”
“…Thank you for showing mercy.”
“No need to thank me. I’m only holding back because you’re acquainted with my junior brother.”
Mu Yeong answered Yu Seong-ho’s grateful words in a casual tone. Then my senior brother sat back down and offered a suggestion to Yu Seong-ho, who stood at a distance with a fist salute.
“……!”
“Since you seem to be on friendly terms with my junior brother, why don’t we resolve things through conversation while catching up on old times?”
“…Thank you, Great Hero.”
Yu Seong-ho smiled brightly. At his reaction, my senior brother let out a wry laugh and poured from the bottle on the table into a cup once more.
Glug, glug—
Crystal-clear white liquor flowed out without a single speck of impurity and filled the cup.
“Whew.”
“W-we’re saved…”
Only then did the other Jongnam warriors, freed from my senior brother’s murderous aura, breathe easy. For them it was an incredible stroke of luck. If my senior brother hadn’t shown mercy, every last one of them would have ended up embedded in the ceiling. I was certain of it.
With the atmosphere now relaxed, Yu Seong-ho gave a small chuckle and addressed the Jongnam disciples who were still staring blankly in our direction.
“I’ll handle things here, so you may all leave.”
“What? B-but…”
“That’s enough. Go back and report exactly what happened to the elders. If you distort the events you caused, I will personally discipline you severely later, so be prepared.”
“…Understood, Senior Brother.”
The Jongnam disciples withdrew. Even as they left they kept stealing glances our way. I simply ignored them, so I couldn’t clearly sense the fear and terror they carried.
It was then that Yu Seong-ho let out a long breath.
“Whew. It seems my junior disciples have grown a bit unruly lately due to a string of unpleasant incidents. I truly apologize.”
“It’s fine. I was basically just venting my frustration anyway.”
“Hmm.”
“By the way, what happened in the Jongnam Sect that they dispatched you all the way here? You don’t appear to be a low-ranking disciple.”
I nodded in agreement with my senior brother’s words. From the Jongnam Sect’s perspective—located far from Sangju—there was no reason to send someone of Yu Seong-ho’s stature, whom regular disciples would call senior brother, to this place. We had come both to guard the newly established business and to take a break from closed-door training, but for Yu Seong-ho, who held an important position within the Jongnam Sect, there was no need to take on such a task. Both Mu Yeong and I harbored some questions about the matter.
At that moment, Yu Seong-ho glanced around cautiously before speaking in a low voice.
“…Recently, we received orders to capture two heretic experts who caused an incident near the Jongnam Sect and fled all the way to Sangju.”
“……!”
Both my and my senior brother’s expressions hardened instantly. Yu Seong-ho’s next words made my eyes narrow sharply.
“The rumor that the Blood Wolf and the Lightning Blade—who committed murders near the Jongnam Sect—had appeared around Unhaeng Mountain spread quickly. As a result, the elders’ council ordered us to stand by here in Sangju.”