Chapter 3: Seonwoo Family-3
Chapter 3: Seonwoo Family-3
"Hyungnim, how's your martial arts coming along? Since you got into the family head's private library, why don't you show us how much you've improved?"
That Bastard had apparently chosen me as the sacrificial offering to make himself look good in front of the ladies.
As expected, he was a bastard whose petty schemes ran unimaginably deep.
But the truth was, my own temper was flaring just the same.
Even if now wasn't the same, in my past life I had climbed to the peak of first-rate upper level—there was no way that experience and enlightenment had simply vanished.
So watching a brat who hadn't even hit first-rate yet strut around—that was a damn difficult thing to tolerate.
'It's hard. It's hard, but...'
The problem was that my body was in even worse shape.
I could trust myself, but I couldn't trust this body of mine right now. Just walking left me gasping for breath as things stood.
It saddened me to admit that the claim I was closer to a pig than a human wasn't far from the truth.
In the end, I gritted my teeth and decided to back off as much as possible.
Isn't it said that ten years is a short time for a gentleman's revenge?
Waiting for an opportunity after returning to human form seemed the wiser course.
Grinning like an idiot, I sweet-talked that bastard.
"How could one day of martial arts training bring about a sudden change? I'm merely putting in the effort, that's all. I should be heading back quickly now, hngh!"
Puh-uhk!
But that bastard apparently had no intention of giving me a choice.
My forearm throbbed as if it were about to snap.
I had barely managed to block the punch he'd suddenly lunged in to throw.
"What?"
That Bastard stared at me with a startled expression.
It seemed deeply unexpected that I had blocked his surprise attack.
But I was just as surprised.
It was genuinely shocking that blocking a single punch could hurt this much.
My untrained arm pulsed with agonizing pain.
Originally I could have dodged with ease, but my body refused to follow my reactions, forcing me to block.
Once again, my body filled me with despair.
"Blocked it? The third hyung blocked my punch?"
But even that much seemed to have thoroughly shocked the fourth son, Seonwoo Gi.
He stood frozen in place, muttering in a daze.
At that, the hyungs who had been watching from behind burst into laughter as if they'd been waiting for exactly this.
"Puhahaha! Gi-ya, getting blocked even by a pig—aren't your punches a bit too slow?!"
"It seems this brat will inherit the shame of the Seonwoo clan after all, hyungnim! Hahahaha!"
It was obvious what they were thinking without even having to look.
They'd thought the chance to show off in front of Lady Jegal had been stolen, and now that their rival Seonwoo Gi looked pathetic, they'd seized the opportunity to tear him down.
And Seonwoo Gi's state, having been subjected to mockery, needed no explanation.
Thinking he'd humiliated himself in front of a woman he wanted to impress, that bastard's face flushed red as he properly set his stance and began charging at me.
"How dare you!"
His fists flew in like the wind, light and swift, leaving afterimages.
Pabababak!
"Hnng!"
Once again I barely managed to block somehow, but the immense pain was numbing me down to the bone.
I was at the point of wanting to beg him to please stop.
But... something felt strange.
The movements of that bastard, whom I was clearly seeing for the first time—they looked somehow familiar.
'That, that's definitely?!'
It was the Gale Thirteen Strikes, the fist and kick technique of the Seonwoo clan.
The movements of the Gale Thirteen Strikes, which I had never once trained in, were entering my eyes far too familiarly.
In an instant I even forgot the pain and focused on that bastard's movements.
His hands and feet were flying in, elusive as a gale. It was an advanced set of forms, where fist and kick intertwined exquisitely to neutralize defense, like small winds merging into a great storm.
That scene was aligning perfectly in my head with the secret manual I had just read in the library.
In an instant, my mind went brilliantly clear.
I was able to comprehend in a single moment the principles I absolutely could not grasp through text and pictures alone.
It felt almost like ecstasy.
I let out an exclamation of admiration without realizing it.
"Excellent!"
At that, the bastard flinched for a moment.
"Wh-what? Excellent?"
When that bastard suddenly stopped his movements, urgency seized my heart.
The forms that had been clicking into place one by one in my head had ground to a halt.
"Ah, no! My words came out wrong. What are you doing? Attack, won't you?! Attack me more, more!"
At that, the bastard's expression twisted.
It was the kind of look you'd give a pervert.
The other brothers, missing no opportunity, jeered again.
"Puhahaha! Gi-ya, the pig says it's excellent?!"
"He wants more? Looks like he's enjoying your attacks, hahahaha!"
Then the bastard ground his teeth, sparked fire in his eyes, and began charging again.
"Die!"
"Yes, come at me! Uwahahah!"
I was thrilled.
What I had learned in my past life were merely scraps—Jeomchang and Mount Qingcheng sword techniques picked up by watching over someone's shoulder. Naturally, they were just shells, lacking any accurate principle or application.
Which meant I was now, for the first time across two lives, properly learning martial arts.
And the martial arts of my own house, Clan Seonwoo, at that.
As I absorbed the storm-like attacks the bastard poured out, I was finally able to align every form in my head with memory.
It felt as if a clear bell chime—'ding'—resounded in my mind.
And in that moment, the bastard attacked me with a form that had now become as clear to see as the palm of my hand.
It was the Raging Wind Wave technique, where one flurries fist strikes like a gale, then in an instant, exploits an opening with a kick.
I could see his fists creating afterimages as they flew in between my thick arms, which were wrapped to defend my upper body.
Dudududu!
His fist shadows drummed against my arms like a downpour, and I could see his stance shifting to transition into the kick.
In that moment, I unconsciously took a step forward.
The opening that had looked awkward, as if insufficiently trained, since earlier was now vividly visible.
As I stepped forward, extending my long fist smoothly, the bastard's own chest rushed in and collided with it.
Puuh-eok!
A tingling sensation shot through my palm from the heavy impact.
"Khu-hurk!"
The bastard bounced backward at the same speed he'd come in, spitting blood from his mouth.
Teol-sseok!
As his body was flung onto the grass, I too collapsed, sitting down limply as if all the tension had drained away.
"Huk, huk!"
It seemed I had used up every ounce of strength this body could muster at its limit.
At that moment, even the hyungs who had been mocking Seonwoo Gi fell silent.
Blinking their eyes as they looked at the unconscious Seonwoo Gi, they seemed utterly bewildered.
But soon, having collected themselves, they began approaching me with fierce eyes.
"The piglet got lucky."
"That move you just used—why don't you show it to us once too?"
This was serious.
Now I truly had no strength left to stand.
'Ah, shit. This is bad.'
Cold sweat trickled down.
Getting hit didn't matter to me, but I could feel killing intent in their eyes right now. If I got seriously injured and couldn't return to the library, there would be nothing more unjust than that.
First, I tried to defuse the situation.
"Hy-hyungnims! It seems Gi has been gravely injured by my mistake! Shouldn't we examine his condition first?!"
But they sneered.
"Hmph! Who says who should be worried about whom?!"
"Gi would surely want us to take revenge on you for him!"
That was when it happened.
In that moment of crisis, an utterly unexpected rescuer appeared.
It was Lady Jegal, the very person who had gotten me into this predicament.
"Your younger brother is injured, and rather than checking on his condition, you try to torment someone too exhausted to even stand. Truly disappointing. Don't you agree, Cheongyeon?"
At that, the woman who had been standing half a step behind Lady Jegal, her eyes hidden by long bangs, nodded with a stiff expression, and with that, the situation came to an abrupt end.
The flustered hyungs hurriedly made excuses and ran over to Seonwoo Gi.
"Ah, no! Of course not! We were just about to examine our brother's condition!"
"I'm already checking on him! Gi-ya, are you alright?!"
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Honestly, it was a truly pathetic sight.
To think I'd been living at the mercy of bastards like these all this time.
I was just as pathetic myself.
Though, if they had been decent guys, we'd probably already have a good relationship by now.
Like my friend Dan Ha-sang.
The face of my friend, killed unjustly, suddenly came to mind.
Even after returning to the past, in the end I had only been able to see my friend dead. I renewed my firm resolve once more.
'Ha-sang, I will absolutely find the culprit who did this to you. And I will make them pay the price.'
While I was thinking such thoughts, my brothers had hoisted the unconscious Seonwoo Gi onto their backs and vanished from my sight in an instant, like a receding tide.
Only the young lady with the long bangs, whom Lady Jegal had called Cheongyeon, remained until the very end, looking my way with meaningful eyes.
Now that they were all gone, I lay sprawled like the character for 'big' on the empty grass, gasping for breath for a long while.
White clouds drifted lazily across the blue sky.
Then suddenly, a shadow fell across my face.
Before I knew it, Seonwoo Jung, my father, had arrived and was looking down at me.
Startled, I cried out.
"Ah, Father?!"
It felt like my heart had dropped.
Because it seemed he would think I was lazing around after he'd gone to the trouble of granting me access to the family head's private library.
"I-I was just, so right now...!"
It was truly strange.
Disappointing my father, whom I had never once missed in my past life, was somehow far more terrifying than being beaten by my brothers.
But my father's eyes held no disappointment.
His gaze somehow held a tender sorrow, and a certain emotion I was seeing from him for the first time.
An emotion so unfamiliar that I could hardly believe it.
He spoke to me quietly, and gently.
"You've had a hard time, Jin. And..."
Words I was hearing from his mouth for the first time, words I couldn't possibly believe, came flowing out.
"You've done admirably."
Something surged up from my chest.
I didn't know what expression I should wear.
I could only desperately hold down whatever it was that was welling up.
It was then that Father suddenly turned his gaze to look up at the sky and spoke as if reciting to himself.
"Do you know? That out of the four marriages I've had, there was only one that I truly wanted for myself."
It was the first time I'd heard such a thing.
"Back then, I believed it was something I had to do for the sake of the clan. But... now, I'm not so sure."
His voice was so deeply lonely that my heart ached.
But at the same time, my head was so muddled I couldn't understand what he meant.
No, to be precise, I couldn't believe it.
'Those words... so the one marriage among the four that he wanted for himself—that would mean, could it possibly be...?'
Not knowing what to say, I simply gazed at my father with pained eyes when he suddenly shifted the mood, smiling slightly as he spoke.
"Have you read the secret manual of the Seonwoo Thirteen Swords?"
"Yes? Yes! I have read it."
At that, Father began walking slowly toward the grassy clearing.
"I intend to practice swordsmanship for a while, for the first time in a long time. You may rest a little before going back inside."
And with that, he began to slowly unfold his sword technique.
It was the Seonwoo Thirteen Swords.
From beginning to end, very slowly.
Then again from the beginning, a little faster.
Gradually picking up speed, he repeated it again and again.
Over and over, and over.
Until I could no longer watch.
By the third viewing, I had already been able to comprehend all the forms.
But still, I continued to watch my father's sword dance.
Spellbound, endlessly.
This moment, somehow, felt like one I would never forget.
And when Father's breathing grew rough, I slowly bowed to him and went back inside the library.
The thought that I might stop reading the martial arts texts now had already vanished long ago.
Like the beginning. No, with even greater concentration than the beginning, I began reading through the books once again.
I didn't want to waste a single bit of this moment.
After I had read all the texts related to martial arts, the last books I read were things like the journals of my ancestors.
These were records where they'd left behind various experiences and their inner realizations, which, as expected, I still could not comprehend at all.
'Well, I could barely grasp the forms—it would be weird if I suddenly understood their inner realizations too.'
I had finally reached the last volume and was about to place it back on the shelf. That was when, from a slightly odd texture, I pulled the book out again to examine it.
And I scrutinized it carefully.
'This...?'
No matter how I looked at it, the thickness of one side of the cover was a bit strange.
One side was far too thick compared to the other.
During my time serving on the frontline, I had often rooted out spies who used this exact method to deliver secret messages, so I knew it well.
There was definitely something inside the cover.
Carefully, I tore open and split the cover apart.
"Just as I thought!"
Inside it, there was a thinly folded piece of paper.
And on that paper, on both sides, were several pictures and writings, with titles written large at the top of each side.
Fourteen Forms, and Fifteen Forms.
Fourteen Forms, Fifteen Forms... that meant...
"...No way?"
I was probably the first to discover this.