Chapter 2: Seonwoo Family-2
Chapter 2: Seonwoo Family-2
When Yeon-ha heard that I had framed myself on purpose to get sent to the frontlines, she wore a slightly bewildered expression and then left.
That look felt somehow different from my memory, leaving me with an uneasy feeling.
'What? What's different?'
Back then, Yeon-ha had just kept consoling me while I wept endlessly....
Was the feeling different this time because I hadn't cried?
I was deep in such thoughts.
When the second visitor I had been waiting for arrived.
Tap!
It was a much swifter visit than I had anticipated.
Startled by his figure descending soundlessly from the roof, I cried out.
"Father?!"
The identity of the second visitor was my father, Seon-woo Jung.
He was looking at me with a grave expression.
'What is this? Even Father feels different from back then?'
Was it because I myself had changed?
Both the time he visited me and the expression with which he looked at me were completely different from my memories, leaving me bewildered.
Back then, he had come with a look of resignation and asked if I had any final requests.
At that time, I had made the pathetic request of asking if he could just let me run away, and Father had simply sighed, shaken his head, and left.
Neither that heavy expression nor the way he just silently looked at me without a word was anything like the past.
As I was looking at Father with a tense expression, he suddenly opened his mouth and asked heavily.
"Is it true that you framed yourself?"
My startled eyes widened greatly.
It seemed he had overheard what I had said to Yeon-ha earlier.
Did that mean he had been here since then?
Then, could it be, in the past too?
Why on earth?
As I could not answer the question and simply stared at Father's face, he spoke heavily again.
"Jin... I knew that you were hiding your talent and playing the fool. But I did not know you wished to leave the clan. Had I known sooner...."
Father's face as he spoke those words held deep regret.
That expression was so unexpected that it bewildered me.
And then, from Father's lips came words I had never imagined I would hear from him.
"I am sorry, Jin. Because of your worthless father, your life has become a mess."
My mind became a tangled mess.
What? What on earth is this?
Father had completely neglected me all this time.
He had not interfered with what I did, but neither had he stopped my brothers and their mothers from tormenting me.
As a result, I had been completely isolated within the clan, and so I had deeply resented Father for making me this way.
But what on earth was this situation?
Could it be?
A picture I had never even considered in my past life was assembling itself in my head.
Within the Seon-woo clan, the influence held by the maternal families of my three brothers—excluding me—was overwhelmingly powerful.
So much so that even Father, as family head, always had to coordinate his opinions with them.
So, could it be that if Father had looked after any single one of us, he would have been unable to control the rest of the maternal families?
And so he had to neglect everyone, and therefore, with no maternal family of my own, no one could protect me?
No, was neglecting me actually his way of protecting me?
'If that's true, then could it be?!'
The face of Father, whom I had always resented and thus never once missed, looked new to me today.
Of course, my thoughts were merely a hypothesis, and the resentment I had harbored for so long did not vanish in a single moment.
But the deep regret etched on Father's face was a reality far too clear.
Father asked.
"Is there nothing you wish to request?"
Suddenly, my mind snapped alert.
Because whatever Father's true feelings were, I could not miss this opportunity I had been waiting for.
I gulped dryly and asked in a serious tone.
"Would you allow me entry into the family head's private archive? Just one day will suffice."
At that, Father asked back with a surprised expression.
"The archive? For merely a single day?"
I carefully selected the right words in my mind and slowly, gravely opened my mouth.
I absolutely had to persuade Father to let me into the archive.
"I am ashamed to say this, but I have neglected my training and do not even know the clan's martial arts. Before I am deployed to the frontlines, I wish to learn at least a little of the clan's martial arts."
That was it. This had been one of the greatest regrets of my last life.
Due to circumstances, I had been pushed into the role of family head after my direct brothers had all died or gone missing, but because of my debauched past, I had known not a single bit of the Seon-woo clan's martial arts.
So when I went to the frontlines in Yunnan Province, I had to struggle from rock bottom to learn martial arts.
'And that meant stealing and learning other people's martial arts on the sly, too.'
The memories of those hard and filthy days surfaced.
Memories of being treated as a complete non-combatant and being ignored and ostracized even by my comrades on the frontlines.
So if I could only learn the Seon-woo Thirteen Swords, the ultimate technique of the Seon-woo clan—which had long existed as one of the top five sects in Guizhou City, where no Nine Great Sects resided—I would surely be able to rise up far faster than before.
At least compared to my last life, where I had to steal martial arts over the shoulders of other squad members.
Father asked with a complicated expression.
"You mean to say you will learn martial arts in just one day, and from reading books at that?"
"I believe it is better than doing nothing."
At that, Father, who had been contemplating something for a moment, nodded.
"Very well. I shall grant that."
Yes!
For a moment, I clenched my fist and nearly let out a cheer.
At last, I could fill the regret of my past life.
But Father's words were not finished.
"However!"
"Yes?"
Just as I tensed slightly at Father's sudden word, words I had never imagined flowed from his lips once again.
"Learning an internal energy cultivation method alone is extremely dangerous, so I shall teach you myself. Assume the lotus position right now."
"Huh? Yes, yes! Understood, Father!"
Though bewildered, I immediately sat in the lotus position.
Then, a warm energy began to flow from Father's palm touching my back, guiding me.
"What I shall transmit to you is the Honwon Mugeuk Gong. I will recite the mnemonic verses a few times, so listen carefully and memorize them all. In the beginning, there was yin and yang, and chaos."
The Honwon Mugeuk Gong?!
I was so immensely shocked I almost cried out.
The Honwon Mugeuk Gong was a mental technique that only the family head and young family head of the Seon-woo clan could learn.
Which meant Father was currently transmitting the Seon-woo clan's highest secret art to me.
It should have been truly an astonishing and happy occasion, but somehow I felt strange.
I should have been overflowing with excitement and joy for a new martial art, but oddly, the fervent warmth transmitted from Father's palm against my back felt more deeply moving.
So very... warm.
It was the warmest feeling of warmth I had ever felt from family in my entire life.
***
The next day, I was permitted entry into the family head's private archive.
My brothers expressed their opposition, saying it was absolutely impermissible, but Father dismissed their objections, stating that if I were to die at the hands of demons without knowing anything, it would rather disgrace the clan's honor.
And so, for the first time in two lifetimes, I entered the Martial Archive reserved solely for the family head, cracking my fingers and grinning with a sinister leer.
"Euh-heu-heu."
One day, was it?
More than enough!
Today, I wasn't planning to practice any martial arts; I just intended to memorize them all.
Cramming them into my skull unconditionally. That was, after all, the one ability I was most confident in.
Having been called a prodigy in my childhood for this very memory, I had been forced to develop it even further just to survive after being deployed to the frontlines.
Since I knew no martial arts to begin with, I'd had to briefly observe my comrades' techniques and then mimic them to learn.
Later on, Squad Leader Seolpung had marveled at my ability and given it a name.
He called it the 'Scene Memory Technique.'
I was a human copying machine, capable of perfectly recalling and reproducing everything down to the number of leaves in a forest after just a single glance.
So I could say it with confidence.
'This means all of you here today are fated to enter my head. So just quietly give in and come inside, and I'll use you kindly, euh-heu-heu!'
The family head's private library was a small room with every wall crammed full of bookshelves. And most of those books were martial arts manuals.
Just thinking about all those martial arts entering my head made me feel stuffed even without eating.
Of course, I couldn't expect all of them to be useful. The collection included everything from foundational texts like the Three Calamities Sword Technique and Six Harmonies Fist, to health exercises like the Ogumhui.
'But so what? It's a million times better than not being able to learn them because I had nothing, like in my last life.'
First, I took out the Honwon Mugeuk Gong I had learned from my father yesterday and the clan's ultimate technique, the Seonwoo Thirteen Swords, and began reading each meticulously three times over so I wouldn't mix up their sequences.
While memorization itself was perfect, the difference in comprehension between the Honwon Mugeuk Gong, which I had already learned, and the completely unfamiliar Seonwoo Thirteen Swords was stark.
To be honest, I couldn't understand a single thing about what the Seonwoo Thirteen Swords were describing.
'As expected, trying to learn martial arts from just crudely drawn pictures and letters is absurd. In wuxia novels, they just look at a secret manual and train alone to become masters just fine.'
It seemed wuxia novels really were just wuxia novels.
But even so, I kept cramming the martial arts into my head.
Believing that even if I didn't understand them now, they would eventually be of help someday.
Time flowed like water.
After I had meticulously read through roughly half the books in the library three times each, it was suddenly afternoon.
By then, my head was throbbing unbearably, and my body had become completely exhausted.
'I feel like dying. This is too much now.'
Unable to endure this state of memory gluttony any longer, I decided to step outside the library and get some fresh air.
The moment I rose to my feet, the world felt like it was spinning.
I stumbled outside and ultimately collapsed onto the grass in front of the library.
"Aigo, I'm dying!"
I lay sprawled out on my back, staring blankly up at the sky.
I felt a bit more alive, but the thought that I still had half left to do made my head throb again.
Suddenly, a temptation crept in.
'Should I just stop here?'
It wasn't like reading any of it was of immediate help anyway. I couldn't even understand most of it.
Wasn't learning the Honwon Mugeuk Gong and discovering the basic forms of the Seonwoo Thirteen Swords achievement enough?
Such temptations were drifting through my mind.
That was when it happened.
I heard someone's voice.
"Hmph! I knew it! Even given the chance, a creature like that can't learn any martial arts!"
"Indeed. It seems his pig-like nature of lazing about anywhere is incurable."
I lifted my head to see my three brothers.
They were escorting two beautiful young ladies across the garden.
My gaze naturally drifted towards the girls.
Both appeared to be stunning beauties.
But while one had her eyes deeply veiled by her bangs, giving off a somewhat gloomy impression, the other possessed such an overwhelming beauty that just a fleeting glimpse was enough to make my eyes widen.
After swallowing hard, I found myself comparing her to the most beautiful woman I knew.
'At that level, she wouldn't even pale compared to Lady Dang.'
Lady Dang Yeoeun, who had been one of the squad leaders of the Flying Dragon Thirteen Squads, was a direct descendant of the Sichuan Dang Clan.
Though a direct descendant, she was the youngest of Dang Clan's many siblings, which was why she had been deployed to the frontlines. Yet even there, she displayed astonishing prowess with her exceptional hidden weapons, movement techniques, poison arts, and even incredible swordsmanship unbefitting a member of the Dang Clan, earning her the nickname the Tang Family Sword Peak.
She had been granted the title of Phoenix, an honor bestowed only upon women acknowledged for possessing both martial skill and beauty, destined to lead the martial world forward.
And if this girl's beauty was comparable to Lady Dang, I couldn't help but have my eyes stolen by her for a moment.
However, this seemed to have vexed my brothers.
The eldest, Seonwoo Seong, glared at me with furious eyes and shouted.
"How dare a filthy piglet gaze upon Lady Jegal?! My apologies for having offended you, Lady Jegal."
Lady Jegal?
Could this be the famed Heavenly Wisdom Sword Peak, Lady Jegal Seoyul?
I had heard rumors that a sword genius had emerged from the Jegal family, a clan historically never recognized much for martial arts compared to their power and intellect.
'I'd heard the Jegal family was sending her on a tour of various martial families to gain experience... Is that why she's come to our clan?'
A faint memory surfaced that I had overheard something about visitors from the Jegal family around this time.
Since it had nothing to do with me, I'd paid no attention and thus hadn't remembered it.
But whatever the case, I quickly averted my gaze.
I knew all too well what men became like in front of a beautiful woman.
Especially immature bastards like my brothers; there was no telling what they might do to impress her.
It seemed wise to hurry back into the library.
It was then that the girl, who was probably Lady Jegal Seoyul, asked.
"Who is that gentleman?"
My heart sank.
Hey there, miss!
Are you trying to get someone killed right now?
You mustn't show any interest in me!
At this, my brothers scrambled over each other to answer.
"He is my shameful third brother."
"As you can see, he's more pig than man."
"He's being sent to the Great Demon Cult Frontline tomorrow, so Father specially gave him time to practice martial arts, yet there he is, like that."
She retorted with a surprised expression.
"He's going to the Great Demon Cult Frontline?"
Then she looked back at me with eyes full of curiosity.
'Aigo! Miss, please!'
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Sure enough, my brothers' glares turned ferocious, and they began staring at me as if they wanted to devour me.
"He's not someone worthy of your interest, miss."
"Indeed, as you can see, he's a pig-like creature."
"He's merely being sent to the frontline to pay for his crimes."
"Ah..."
But even as she nodded as if she understood, the girls' eyes did not leave me.
Displeased by this, the youngest, Seonwoo Gi, who had been frowning, suddenly began walking towards me with a greasy smile.