The Oak Club Safety Measure
“Huff! Huff! Th-this goddamn—! What the hell is going on?!”
Gasping for air, Gang Mu-jeong clawed his way back up the hillside he had tumbled down. His right shoulder was already swelling. What should have been an ordinary regular trial had turned into pure hell the moment a tiger steeped in demonic qi crashed into the middle of it.
Gang Mu-jeong had handled a wild boar with ease, but a tiger corrupted by demonic qi was something else entirely—an existence outside every measure of ordinary danger. Claws scythed in from every direction; a single graze would have split a man’s belly open and spilled his guts. He had never once in his life fought a battle where death was this close, this real. Even in the jianghu, true large-scale bloodshed was something that only belonged to the distant days of the Orthodox-Demonic War, back when his master had still been a boy. Strutting around, showing off in front of female martial artists, roughing up other disciples—those things happened now and then. This was another dimension of violence altogether. It was like a cat jamming its paw into a hole and thrashing blindly to crush a rat. He had barely managed to dodge the tiger’s flailing limbs until, finally cornered, the beast’s tail smashed into him and sent him rolling down the slope.
The last thing Gang Mu-jeong saw before he fell was this:
—*Crrraack!*
With a sound like thunder, Moyong Bi seized the tiger’s foreleg—thick as a mansion pillar—wrapped both arms around it, and twisted until the bone shattered.
Trembling, dirt-caked Gang Mu-jeong hauled himself upright and dragged in a ragged breath.
“Damn it. I should have listened when they said leave him alone…!”
Cold sweat rolled down his forehead as the memory hit him.
“We’re all dead. Dead! From what I found out, at the entrance exam he was just some ordinary bastard of a trashy illegitimate son—so what the hell happened in one year?”
The face of the man who had watched that final scene right before the tiger’s tail sent him flying was paper-white.
“What kind of disciplinary trial turns someone into a monster like that?”
Breaking the foreleg had only been the beginning. Moyong Bi’s body flashed.
—*Crack! Crrrack! Snap!!*
It was merciless. His hands showed no hesitation, not a shred of mercy. He crushed an eye with his elbow. He raked his grip along a claw and tore it out by the root. Starting from the ankle, he climbed the limb and snapped every joint he found. Since ordinary strikes weren’t landing, he simply broke everything that moved.
“GRRAAAHH!!”
Even then the tiger, exploding with demonic qi, swung its dangling foreleg and charged. Moyong Bi clung to the shoulder joint with both hands—
—*Shhhrrrip!!!*
—and ripped the entire foreleg free, hurling it aside. He leapt down. He ran from the tiger’s shoulder all the way to its tail. He kicked up a polearm lying on the ground, seized a saber, and hung from the beast’s nape. He drove the saber into an eye socket like a stake, pinning it there. He hooked one leg around the hilt to brace himself, then gripped the polearm in both hands and raised it high.
—*Thud! Thud! Crrack!*
He began to drive it down in a frenzy. Bloodshot eyes, relentless blows—everyone watching lost the power of speech.
“GRRRAH! GRRAAAHH!!”
The tiger screamed and thrashed, rolling wildly. When it whipped its head side to side, Moyong Bi’s body snapped back and forth like a wet towel. When that still failed to shake him free, the tiger simply threw itself onto the ground and began to thrash.
—*BOOM!*
The polearm snapped. Moyong Bi was flung clear—and in the same instant the tiger’s full weight came down on top of him. The beast’s jaws closed on his body.
“Ghk—!”
In the split second before the fangs met, he caught them. Yellow teeth the size of a man’s head ground down as if to tear him apart. Demonic qi poured in black streams from the tiger’s saucer-wide eyes.
“…! What do we do?! He’s going to get eaten!”
Dang Sa-mun stamped his feet in panic.
“Grrhh—!”
Moyong Bi locked both hands around the two great canines and held on. The jaws closed inch by inch. Yellow drool dripped onto him.
“Ghh…! Ghhh—!”
Veins stood out along his forearms and across his entire body. The tiger began to give ground. Bloodshot vessels flooded Moyong Bi’s eyes.
—*Pop! Crack!*
Veins bulged. The tiger threw everything it had into the press—and still it was forced back. Then the body that had been pushing without pause simply stopped.
“RAAAAAHH!!”
With a raw roar, Moyong Bi surged to his feet, ripping both canines out by the roots and driving them into the ground.
—*BOOOOM!*
“GRRAAAHHH!!”
Stone split. The earth shook. He slammed the tiger left and right until, at last, both fangs tore free. Blood sprayed; the moment one tooth came out he seized the next beside it. Tiger teeth went flying in every direction. Flesh tore away. For a while the thrashing tiger began to fight back with everything it had. The difference in mass sent Moyong Bi’s body whipping into the air—
—*BOOM!*
—and this time it was Moyong Bi who was driven into the ground. Even then his grip never once let the tiger go. Murderous intent poured from both their eyes.
—*Shing!*
What he pulled free near his leg was an iron skewer. Left hand locked in the tiger’s hide, right hand clutching the skewer, he began to stab without discrimination.
—*Thuk! Thuk-thuk-thuk! Thuk!*
There was no martial art in it. No forms. The tiger’s face became a complete ruin, and that mountain of a body began to stagger and topple. Everything happening here was nothing but killing intent and real combat, a slaughter-technique built solely on the will to kill.
“Ah… ahh…!”
Watching the entire exchange, Eul Mi-ye’s eyes rolled back and she fainted dead away.
“Bleeegh!”
Dang Sa-mun vomited.
“I-is this even a fight between humans?”
From the opposite thicket, Han Jung-mae—one arm broken—stared with eyes stretched wide.
Gang Mu-jeong ran through every senior brother, every junior sister, even his master, martial uncles, and martial great-uncles—every towering figure he had ever known. Not one of them, he was certain, would ever move with that pure, head-to-toe practicality, that body language stuffed full of nothing but killing intent. And every last motion of it had unfolded in the brief instant he himself had been rolling down the hillside.
—*KUUUNG!*
A massive boom rolled out. The staggering tiger finally toppled like a giant rotting tree, crashing down the slope. Moyong Bi, tangled with the carcass, went tumbling down the opposite incline with it. That was the last sight Gang Mu-jeong saw as he himself rolled down the far side of the hill.
“H-Han Jung-mae, you bastard… when you told me that new guy was weird, when you said we should leave him alone—you should’ve stopped me harder. You were so half-assed about it that we ended up—!”
He had seen it clearly. In the instant before Moyong Bi went over with the tiger’s corpse, those eyes had locked straight onto him—onto Gang Mu-jeong, rolling alone into an empty stretch of brush on the far slope.
He jerked his head up. He had cracked his skull and blacked out; he had no idea how much time had passed. He scrambled back up the hill like a madman.
“That crazy bastard’s eyes are gone—he’s definitely killed people before. I’m sure of it…! I have to run. Or at least get somewhere with people—!”
“Hearing you say that really drives home how peaceful the jianghu has been.”
“Hiiik!!!”
Gang Mu-jeong made a sound like a baby bird being crushed underfoot and spun around.
“Hey. Nice to finally meet you somewhere quiet.”
Behind him stood Moyong Bi, soaked in tiger blood, smiling as if nothing were wrong.
“Been waiting long? I hurried as best I could—glad you stuck around. Still nearby, huh.”
—*Clink.*
I dropped the iron skewer in front of Gang Mu-jeong. Every tooth on it was gone. Looking at the slaughter tool still smeared with scraps of tiger gut, his face went pure white.
“H-hiiik.”
“Sorry. An unlucky bastard like me doesn’t get lucky breaks very often. But every once in a while something rolls in that looks like pure misfortune for other people and pure fortune for me—something really special. I wanted to make full use of the chance, so I ran late. Some woman got in the way for a bit, but never mind that. The important thing is—”
I looked around. I looked at the sky. Then I looked back down at Gang Mu-jeong sprawled at my feet.
“I’m really glad to see you.”
“A-ah, um. Moyong Bi.”
“Don’t suddenly act friendly and call my name. I almost killed you.”
A drop of blood fell from my bangs; Gang Mu-jeong flinched and threw his hands up to shield his face.
“A-haha. R-right. So, uh.”
“Let’s be polite about this, and ask like a proper orthodox martial artist. There’s something I want to know from you right now.”
I squatted in front of him. His instincts were sharp.
“Th-that… if I answer right away, you’ll let me go?”
“Of course.”
His face brightened.
“Ah, then of course I’ll talk. See? We’re friends from the same training hall. Friends.”
“Good thinking. So you’ll be honest.”
“Of course!”
I spoke in a hoarse voice.
“Honestly, until a little while ago my mood was absolute garbage. Heaven helped a bit, so it cooled down to just ‘pretty bad’—count yourself lucky it ends here.”
“Heaven helped!”
“Yeah. You’re a lucky guy.”
Gang Mu-jeong nodded so hard his head looked ready to come off.
“So what’s the question?”
“Nothing much. Just one.”
I looked steadily at his right shoulder.
“I saw you pass the regular exam earlier. But that right shoulder looks like it broke when you took that unlucky fall just now. Am I right?”
He let out a sigh of relief, glanced at his own shoulder, and started babbling cheerfully.
“Ah, that! I thought it was something serious. You’re asking about something that easy? Yeah! I passed the exam, but when I rolled down it probably broke. That’s what’s worrying me. Like the Supervising Escort said, even if you pass the trial you still have to make it back to Cheonsubaekryeonsa for the final—.”
His words cut off as cleanly as if a blade had fallen. His head turned slowly toward me.
“…Why… are you asking that?”
I was staring at him with eyes that looked ready to burn.
“What?”
Gang Mu-jeong’s eyes blinked. A bead of sweat rolled from his forehead down the bridge of his nose.
“Um, so… if there were any hard feelings between us, I’m sorry. We were just messing around… don’t misunderstand—.”
“I’m messing around right now too. Don’t misunderstand.”
I said it fast.
Gang Mu-jeong said, “Why are you being so serious?”
“Why are you being so serious?”
I answered the same way.
“J-just stop.”
“Nothing to stop.”
“M-Moyong Bi.”
“Don’t call my name. Shoulder.”
“No, I mean—”
“Shoulder.”
“Stop it, just stop.”
“Shoulder.”
I looked at his shoulder.
“It’s broken right now, isn’t it? It was fine earlier, but now it looks broken. Right? Shoulder. Hmm? Shoulder.”
His face looked ready to cry.
“Y-you son of a bitch. Look—why the hell are you suddenly so interested in my shoulder…? You come and squat in front of me covered in blood, staring holes through my shoulder asking questions—it’s terrifying, you crazy bastard…!”
“I made a promise.”
“A promise?”
I swept my blood-soaked bangs back and stood up.
“I promised Executioner Lee Jasuo. I told him I understood—that I wouldn’t cripple disciples halfway and make them fail the exam. But when I thought about it, that promise, flipped around, means—”
I kicked Gang Mu-jeong’s shoulder like lightning.
“GAAAAHHH!!!!”
I watched his arm twist into a clearly broken shape and kept talking.
“Anyone who’s going to fail the exam anyway—I can beat them half to death, right?”
“Aagh! Aaaagh!”
I lifted the tip of my foot. The end of my leather shoe had iron studs set into it for protection.
“All right. Here comes a slow kick from a cowardly soft-handed weakling who actually wears armor. Turn your head to the left. Now.”
“Aagh! Aaaaagh!”
“If you just keep screaming like a baby bird and don’t dodge—”
I drew a breath.
“—you’ll never eat meat again for the rest of your life.”
“Aaaa—hup?!”
Gang Mu-jeong wrenched his head sideways with everything he had.
—*KRAAAANG!!!!!*
Where his open, screaming mouth had been a second earlier, the tip of my foot buried itself more than halfway into the rock. His eyes looked ready to pop out of his skull.
“H-hic?!”
—*Crrumble.*
I pulled my foot free.
“Nice dodge. You’ve got talent. Jeomchang Sect after all—quick.”
I nodded in genuine admiration.
“Honestly, with your eyes shut screaming your head off, I figured you wouldn’t make it.”
“You… you…!”
Tears and snot streaming, Gang Mu-jeong bellowed.
“My senior brothers…! My martial uncles! My martial great-uncles…! My master…! Do you even know who—!”
—*Grab!*
I seized him by the collar and hauled him upright.
“Thinking about it, that was a problem too. I’ll admit it. I hesitated. I’ve got some reason left, you know. I know what society is. I’m not some kid who’s never tasted how bitter reality is. When you wander the outside world long enough, you become an adult whether you want to or not. Even when it feels like your throat is blocked and you’re choking on it, you swallow it down and keep living—just like everyone else in this age.”
“Th-then why?!”
“But here’s the thing. There was a solution.”
I spoke in that same hoarse voice.
“The people who came before me already gave a beautiful answer to this exact problem. I was just too dense to remember it, so I sat there fretting.”
Gang Mu-jeong blinked.
“A solution?”
“Yeah. A solution. A perfectly clear one. And from this moment on, you’re going to watch that solution in action.”
I rummaged in my robes and pulled out a gourd flask. I uncorked it and checked the tiger spirit beast’s blood inside.
"Don't worry about the demonic qi. All of it accumulated in the core when I extracted it. Just like with the Golden-Furred Divine Ape and the Snowman Cotton Spider, this is pure spirit beast blood."
Mumyeong confirmed it once more.
I set a single drop on my fingertip and flicked it onto Gang Mu-jeong.
“Wh-what is that?!”
He flinched hard.
—*Sizzle.*
Where the blood touched a scrape on his skin, the wound closed at a visible speed.
“Wh-what? The wound—? What is this?”
I looked around, broke off a solid oak branch as thick as a shin, and took it in hand.
“An absolute powerhouse I know once put it this way. Trouble always starts when you hold back. Beat someone with everything you’ve got and, oddly enough, there are no consequences.”
I gripped it in both hands and swung.
—*Whoom! Whoooom!!*
The air-rending sound made Gang Mu-jeong’s face go slack.
“This heavy feel. Just right. In that spirit—”
Feeling the oak club settle perfectly into my grip, I looked at him.
“Historically speaking, this is the real medicine. For bastards like you.”
“Ah… ahh!”
—*Scrape.*
He scrambled backward. Behind him the hillside cut him off. I stepped toward him.
“Relax. See this? This is my bare minimum safety measure, just in case.”
I pointed at the oak club. Gang Mu-jeong screamed.
“What?! Has this crazy bastard finally lost it?!”
—*Whoom! Whoooom!*
I swung the club, then reversed my grip on it.
“I picked up an oak branch in case I accidentally kill you with one punch from my trained fist—my absolute minimum safety measure! As long as this doesn’t break—!”
—*Whoom!*
“—your life, at least, is safe!”
“A-an oak branch…!”
Gang Mu-jeong shouted.
“What kind of crazy bastard calls that a safety measu—!!”
—*CRACK!*
I started beating him like a madman.
“Gyaaak!!”
He screamed. When I had pounded him until his whole body was breaking and his flesh was splitting and he blacked out, I poured a measured amount of spirit beast tiger blood over him. He recovered like a ghost—and then I started beating him again.
Gang Mu-jeong shrieked.
“If it’s going to be like this, I still have the pride of Jeomchang—!! I will not yield—grk! Uwaagh!!”
—*Crack! Thud! Thud-thud!*
“I still have th-the pride of Jeomchang—!”
—*Thud-thud!*
“I-I’m sorry…! I’m sorry…! S-spare me! Someone hel—!”
—*Thud-thud…! Thud…!*
“S-stop! I get it! I surrender! You crazy bastard! Stop already!”
The blood-smeared club paused. Bleeding from both nostrils, both hands covering his head, hair a wild mess, Gang Mu-jeong carefully lifted his face. Our eyes met.
“…Um?”
“….”
The club work resumed.
With twin nosebleeds streaming, Gang Mu-jeong wailed.
“No—I said I surrender, so why are you still hitting me, Hero Moyong?! Damn it! If I’m going to take a beating, at least let me know why!”
I gave the blood-soaked club a little spin and reset my grip.
“There’s still life in your eyes.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?! You just don’t like me, admit i—aaagh!!”
After that, for nearly a full gak, Gang Mu-jeong personally demonstrated the old saying about getting beaten so hard the dust flies even on a rainy day.
“H-Hero…. P-please….”
He pressed his legs together as demurely as he could—though they no longer quite closed—joined his hands, and pressed his forehead to the ground.
“Please… m-mercy…. My lower body is going numb…. I’ll swear loyalty, so….”
It had been a good while since I poured the last of the spirit beast blood and started hitting him again. His face was so swollen he could barely form words. I rummaged in my robes.
“At first I was just confused, but now I think I understand your world a little. I was too naive. So from now on I’m not going to believe a word you people say. Only paperwork.”
I pulled out a sheet of paper. I had scrawled a simple provisional draft on it and held it out in front of him.
“Stamp it.”
“…Huh? Th-this is….”
Gang Mu-jeong took the document. I set the gourd flask with a little of the spirit beast blood left in it down in front of him.
“You know that if you go up that hill looking like this and meet the Supervising Escort, you’ll fail the regular trial because of the broken shoulder, right?”
“…!”
“Want to fail unfairly after you already passed everything, or take my help and pass?”
I tapped the gourd of spirit beast blood I had used to heal him several times, then tapped the document in his hands. His eyes shook violently.
The undersigned agrees to receive treatment of his wounds with spirit beast blood on the condition that he enters into service under Moyong Bi.
Breach of this bond shall render the undersigned an illicit passer of the Ha-mu-gwan examination the moment the fact is spoken aloud.
The content was simple: under the condition of coming under me, he agreed to have his wounds treated with spirit beast blood. Flipped around, it meant becoming a hostage. The moment he took this hand, Gang Mu-jeong might pass the regular trial in front of him—but the instant I ever opened my mouth, he would be nothing more than an illicit passer of the Ha-mu-gwan. Betrayal would become impossible.
He made a strangled sound.
“Khh. Khhhk.”
I put on a look of mild surprise.
“You’re hesitating? Meaning there’s still life in your eyes—”
“I stamped it, Hero!”
In a flash of lightning Gang Mu-jeong pressed his thumbprint under the oath.
“Good choice.”
“Hhh… hhhk….”
I took the signed oath from his sobbing hands and tucked it into my robes.
That was when it happened.
—*Rustle.*
Not far away, frozen mid-step on a dry leaf, stood a limping Han Jung-mae. He too had been caught in the tiger’s rampage, separated from the group, and rolled down below. Looking at Gang Mu-jeong kneeling blood-soaked in front of me, he seemed thoroughly stunned.
“Ah… ahh….”
Han Jung-mae’s eyes went as wide as lanterns as he backed away. He looked ready to run at any second. But his leg was injured; he couldn’t move fast.
“Hey. You come over here too, you bastard.”
Han Jung-mae froze as if rooted to the spot. I flicked the blood off the oak club and beckoned to him.
“What about you—the leg?”