Setting Out
A cliff so sheer that one wrong step would send a person plunging a thousand spans into the abyss below.
So treacherous that even the mountain beasts turned back from it, a child was laboriously crawling up its face, sweat pouring down in streams.
And on the child’s back were two hefty mountain rabbits.
"Uuugh..."
Even as blood ran from fingers torn raw, the child clenched their teeth and moved their legs forward, little by little.
Perhaps five more steps.
Just as the child reached the middle of the cliff and was trying to catch a breath, a thunderous old man’s shout crashed down from above.
"You planning to starve at dinner tonight? Even if you can go hungry, must I, your poor old grandfather, skip a meal too? Stop dawdling and get your lazy self up here!"
"Sheesh..."
The old man’s merciless prodding left the child with no time to even recover breath, and they lifted their eyes, glaring up toward the cliff top.
At once, as though he had been waiting for it, the old man’s bellow split the air again.
"Don’t you open those eyes like that!"
Not a single strand of hair would have been visible from above, and yet the old man’s rebuke sounded as if he could see straight through them. The child let out a small sigh.
"I’m going. I’m going."
In the end, the child took only the briefest pause to breathe before starting up the cliff again.
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By the time the sunset had painted the sky red, the child finally hauled themselves onto the cliff top, panting so hard it felt as if their lungs might burst.
"Haah... haah..."
As the child lay sprawled on the ground, unable to gather their thoughts, the old man approached and clicked his tongue, shaking his head.
"Tch, tch. You climbed a little cliff and now you’re acting like the world’s ended? When I was your age, I’d go up and down a cliff like this four or five times a day, you brat."
Even after that absurd scolding, the child had no strength left to argue and simply closed their eyes.
"You little rascal. When an adult speaks, at least pretend to listen."
"...I am listening."
"Well, your answering is certainly quick."
As the old man slung the rabbits over his shoulders and turned away, the child opened half-lidded eyes and looked up at the sky, now slowly deepening into red.
An ordinary day.
An ordinary sky.
An ordinary grandfather.
Because everything was the same, the child felt, for some reason, a quiet sense of relief and closed their eyes again.
Soon, a gentle breeze tickled the child’s nose, but by then they were already asleep.
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Thwack!
The old man’s sword cut harshly through the air and came crashing down on the child’s shoulder.
The child nearly screamed at the searing pain, but though one knee buckled and they dropped to the ground, they did not let go of the sword in their hand.
"I told you to move your waist, not your hands! Hips before hands! Feet before hips! Eyes before feet! How many times do I have to say it before you understand!"
The old man scolded them sternly, but the child only rubbed at the shoulder and climbed to their feet again, resetting their stance.
"Can’t you go a little easier? You’re going to break my bones."
At the child’s complaint, the old man answered not with words but by swinging the wooden sword again.
Whoooosh!
It looked like nothing more than a casual slash, but had the child not snapped their waist backward in time, it would have split their skull open. Fast and razor-sharp, it was a strike capable of serious injury.
As the wooden blade brushed past the crown of the child’s head, the child immediately drove force into both legs and unleashed the subtle art of Gungsin Tanyeong.
Shreeeek!
Like an arrow loosed from a drawn bow, the child shot toward the old man, but the old man only needed to shift half a step to smoothly bleed the child’s sword aside.
Yet the moment he realized the child was holding the wooden sword in an inverted grip, the old man’s lips curved into a faint smile, and he struck the child hard in the ribs with the heel of his palm.
"Gah!"
The child rolled across the ground with a choking cry, and the old man’s smile vanished again as he slowly approached.
"You didn’t close your eyes. You watched my sword all the way through, then used the collapse in your stance from dodging to blend into the principle of Gungsin Tanyeong. Not bad improvisation."
Still breathing unevenly, the child looked up at him and panted, "What about holding the sword backward? That was no good, then?"
"That’s right. The principle of Gungsin Tanyeong lies in speed, so even if it seems a little obvious, you have to gather all your force into one point. Gripping the sword in reverse did catch me off guard, but that was all it did. Against someone experienced, it wouldn’t work."
At the old man’s instruction, the child loosened the death grip on the wooden sword.
Then, closing their eyes for a moment, they began reviewing the sparring they had exchanged with the old man that day.
"Grandfather."
"What is it?"
"No matter how hard I try, it’s just too difficult to weave several sword forms into a single sword path. Maybe I really don’t have talent for martial arts."
There was so much disappointment in the child’s voice that the old man nearly burst out laughing, and only barely held it back.
Lacking talent? After learning every one of the secret techniques of the Im clan, which the old man himself had spent his life mastering, before even reaching fifteen?
More than that, to connect seventy-two sword forms into a single path meant the child understood the essence of each technique to perfection.
Even the old man, who had spent half his life swinging a sword in a revenge-soaked rage, had only reached this level after passing forty. He could not help but marvel once more at the child’s extraordinary aptitude for the blade.
But arrogance was a worm that ate a great tree from the roots upward.
Keeping his thoughts hidden, the old man fixed the child with a face full of stern displeasure.
"Is that so? If that’s what you think, then you may put down the sword right this instant. What good is revenge, anyway? The past is already gone. I’ll go ahead of you and explain things properly to your father and mother, so you just rest easy."
The moment the old man brought up the family’s revenge, the child bit down hard on their lip and staggered back to their feet.
"That blasted revenge. I can’t give it up even if only because it’s unfair that I got hit. The ones who burned our clan and harmed my parents—I’ll make every last one of them pay for what they did."
Meeting the child’s gaze, one far too serious for their age, the old man’s heart grew complicated for a brief moment, but soon he turned away as if he had seen nothing.
"At your current level, even a lifetime of training won’t be enough."
Even after the old man’s cold assessment, the child once again grasped the wooden sword with trembling hands and took up their stance.
"Then I only need to be better than I was yesterday."
As the child’s aura began to leak out through the fingertips in tiny, prickling threads, the old man snorted softly and leveled a wooden sword at them with one hand.
"Arrogant brat. If it were that easy, everyone in the world would be a master."
As soon as the old man finished speaking, the child’s figure vanished in an instant.
Bang!
A moment later, a deafening crash—so violent it was hard to believe it had come from wooden sword meeting wooden sword—rolled across the cliff and echoed through the entire mountain.
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"I really can’t drink this. It’s too bitter, and it reeks."
The child held out the medicine with a tearful face, but the old man shook his head with unyielding resolve.
"If you spill or leave even a single drop, I’ll double the number of times you have to climb that cliff."
"Grandfather..."
Unlike usual, the child’s eyes even welled with tears, but the old man did not waver even a little.
"If you’re done, then drink it already."
"Hmph."
No matter how pitifully the child tried to plead, the old man did not budge, and in the end the child clicked their tongue and forced down the dreadful-smelling medicine.
"Ugh."
Somehow they managed to swallow it, but the revulsion made the child instinctively try to spit it back out.
But the old man merely looked at them in silence and pointed toward the cliff.
"Hoo..."
In the end, the child covered their mouth with both hands and stared up at the sky for a long while, praying that this terrible moment would pass quickly.
"Do you even know how precious the elixir you just swallowed is? If you were to take it out into Central Plains, you could easily get yourself a manor."
But the child did not even know what a manor was, so the value of the elixir meant nothing to them.
"What’s a manor?"
"You don’t know that either?"
"How would I know if you didn’t tell me?"
Thunk!
"Ow! Why’d you hit me? I’m barely holding back from throwing it all back up already."
"I hit you because your constant backtalk is insolent. Anyway, a manor means a residence and the wall surrounding it."
At the explanation, the child rubbed their aching head and looked at him with wounded eyes.
"Then it’s not that special."
"What was that?"
"Our house is surrounded by a wall too. It’s woven from branches, but still."
At the child’s innocent words, the old man went blank for a moment.
Then he burst into hearty laughter and patted the child’s head.
"Yes, you’re right. If a place can hold your body and let you live with your family, then if this isn’t a manor, what is? Only now, at this age, am I realizing such a simple truth."
Not understanding what had changed, but seeing that the old man seemed pleased, the child nodded vigorously and joined in agreement.
"Right. I think I’ve realized something too, just like you said, Grandfather. Then I should probably go and collect my realization, so if you’ll excuse me..."
"Ho ho."
Grab.
Just as the child tried to sneak into the room, the old man reached out and caught hold of the child’s collar.
"Well now, let’s see what exactly you’ve realized."
"W-wait!"
Whoosh!
"Aaaahhh!"
The child sensed something ominous in the old man’s laugh, but by the time they understood, they were already flying off the cliff.
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Years passed swiftly, and before long the child had become a boy.
Small in frame, with such delicate features that one might mistake him for a girl at first glance.
Seeing the boy, whose inborn martial talent had finally bloomed, the old man realized instinctively that the time to send him away was approaching.
Yet there remained something weighing on his heart, and only after a little more time passed did he finally steel himself to let the boy go.
"I’ve thought about it many times, and I still say you should give up this revenge."
"...!"
At the old man’s words, the boy shivered slightly.
"Just listen. Only listen. Didn’t I tell you that if you speak, the two of us are both in trouble?"
"..."
Once the boy seemed to have calmed a little, the old man laid a palm gently between the boy’s shoulder blades and began to pour his internal energy into him with care.
"You’ve lived entirely as I wished until now, haven’t you? You should live once the way you want to, too. If you cling to revenge, before long you’ll become an old, worn-out man just like me. And if that happens, what face would I have when I meet your parents?"
Though his face could not be seen, it was easy enough to imagine the expression the boy must be making, and the old man smiled faintly.
"You once said you were curious whether righteous heroes who pursue justice and chivalry really exist, didn’t you? Then go to Central Plains and look for them. It won’t be easy, of course."
As he spoke the word chivalrous hero, the old man thought back to when the boy was still a child.
Whenever he told stories of such heroes picked up from somewhere, the child had listened with eyes shining brightly.
"You also said you wanted to meet those Daoist eccentrics living atop cliffs even steeper than this one, didn’t you? And what about those lakes as vast as the sea? Just wandering through the things you said you wanted to see and wanted to go to will make a few years pass in no time."
By then, a subtle tremor had crept into the old man’s voice, and at the same time the flow of internal energy pouring into the boy’s body had begun to thin.
"Try living once the way you want. You’re a child who has every right to do so."
"..."
The boy’s body shook again, faintly, but the old man only smiled with quiet satisfaction.
"Every moment I spent with you... truly was happy, I think... so..."
Thud.
The old man’s body, which had seemed as though it would never fall, collapsed over the boy’s back.
"From now on... find happiness of your own..."
The boy clutched at the body of the only blood relative he had ever known.
The stern and remarkable master.
The man who had been both parent and friend.
And with a grief too deep to measure, the boy burst into tears.
The fact that they would never meet again made his weeping all the more aching, all the more forlorn.
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After carving a small stone with care to make a gravestone and setting it before the old man’s grave, the boy knelt in silence.
"Grandfather. Thank you so much for raising me all this time. I even thought about going to Central Plains and burying you there... but I figured you’d probably like it better here, so I decided not to."
-Im Yuguang
Staring at the gravestone engraved with the old man’s name, the boy smiled faintly, wistful and distant.
He was remembering the countless memories he had shared with the old man.
"I’d like to stay longer, but I should go now. I’ve already delayed for half a year."
The boy slowly rose and offered his final bow before the grave.
"I won’t forget the memories I made with you, or the lessons you taught me. So please don’t be too sad that I’m leaving. Or no—if it were you, would you just be angry that I’m only going now?"
Forcing himself to smile brightly, the boy took his first difficult step forward.
Each step was unbearably heavy, but he did not stop.
More than anyone, he knew that now was the time for him to move on.
Yet when he reached the edge of the cliff, he could not take that final step at last.
For the fear of leaving behind the place where he had been born and raised, and stepping into a world where he knew no one, clamped itself around his ankles.
Hurry up and go, you little brat!
Then, astonishingly, the old man’s shout rang out behind him, as if he were scolding the boy.
Was it an illusion?
Most likely, it was.
And yet, as though pushed forward by that rebuke, the boy found himself stepping out over the cliff before he could even think.
It was the moment Im Cheongwol—who would one day come to be called the Demon Dao Wanderer—first set foot toward Central Plains.
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