Those Left Behind [1]
"It's been a while, Yun Hyeon."
"Yes. It has been some time."
Yun Hyeon looked unchanged from the last time I had seen him. Gray hair, a calm middle-aged face marked by fine wrinkles. In his plain, faded clothes, hands clasped behind his back, he brought to mind a quiet, frost-stripped winter field.
He spoke.
"So then… hmm. What should I call you?"
I shrugged.
"Whatever you're comfortable with."
"Shall I call you Bilyu, and let those old feelings rise again?"
"By 'those old feelings,' you mean the assault on the Ju Family?"
"Just so."
"I've thought this for some time," I said evenly. "If the day ever comes when I have to cast off my surname… if that day arrives…"
I paused a moment.
"I wonder if that might become the day my true name is born."
"Oh. That's a moving thought." Yun Hyeon snapped his fingers twice, click, click. "Our Family Lord would be very pleased to hear that news."
Creak.
Two Baekjao in white headwraps entered.
"Yun Hyeon-nim."
Yun Hyeon gestured.
"Everything you brought. All of it."
"All of it, sir?"
"All of it," Yun Hyeon said.
"We receive your command."
The Baekjao bowed silently and left through the door again. Watching them go, I murmured with a faint smile,
"I appreciate the sentiment, but abandoning the Moyong name doesn't mean I become Namgung Bilyu, Yun Hyeon."
I laughed softly. Yun Hyeon laughed softly too.
"A joke. I know perfectly well what you mean, Bilyu. And since the subject has come up — when we first heard you were staying with the Jegal Family, our Family Lord was thoroughly displeased."
"Displeased?"
"Yes." Yun Hyeon's brow twitched. "What could we possibly lack that would send you to the Jegal household as a guest instead of coming to us? We were the first to recognize your worth, after all."
"Yun Hyeon, you really don't need to go so far with the courtesies."
"It isn't courtesy."
The door opened. A Baekjao returned carrying a large bundle.
"Which is precisely why, even without any written pledge, we gladly answered your requests by carrier pigeon and produced and supplied these goods on credit."
The Baekjao spread a cloth on the floor and laid out everything he had brought.
Clank. Clatter.
Weapons and equipment of every kind.
Yun Hyeon stepped forward and indicated them one by one.
"Everything was newly made from the full record of your physical measurements, preferred style, and habits as noted during the Ju Family assault. Beyond simply replacing what you had, we also took into account the growth you've shown and the adjustments you mentioned now and then by pigeon…"
He looked me up and down.
"…and brought improved versions of your old gear, as well as entirely new pieces."
The equipment lay in silence, black as if it drank even a single speck of light. Swords and sabers of various lengths. Spears. Staves. Spike-forms. Blunt weapons.
I picked up a blade. Swung it. Turned the edge under the wavering light. Nodded, set it back on the table, and said to Yun Hyeon,
"Armor?"
"Prepared, of course."
Yun Hyeon snapped his fingers. A Baekjao produced a set of black martial robes.
Clink.
The cloth, continuous from top to bottom as a single piece, looked like fabric at a glance — yet it swayed with real weight.
"That doesn't seem like ordinary cloth."
"Woven from heavenly silkworm thread. Heat- and water-resistant, as you requested. It can also turn aside an ordinary blade to a degree. Held over the mouth while you breathe, it won't make you immune to poison — but it will let you endure it a little longer."
"Impressive."
I ran my fingers along the hem of the black robes. The texture was rough, grainy — less like cloth than iron drawn out into impossibly fine threads and woven into garments.
"And considering the… shortcomings of someone who has lately favored close-quarters fighting," Yun Hyeon said, turning the robes inside out.
Besides the guards meant to wrap shin, wrist, and throat, thick iron plates had been fixed at several points along the inner lining.
Ting.
When Yun Hyeon tapped a plate with his finger, a clear metallic note rang out.
"You've seen something like this before. Rather unorthodox, I admit, but we added protective plates of hundred-refined pure iron over the vital areas. A knife."
A Baekjao drew a short blade and handed it over. Yun Hyeon scraped it down the plate without mercy. Not so much as a scratch.
"Far lighter and harder than ordinary black iron. An ordinary sword is a given — and there's enough rebound that it should stop a blade charged with sword-qi at least once. Most martial artists of the jianghu would leap up screaming that extra armor like this is an insult to a warrior. But the Bilyu I know, worn smooth by real combat…"
I answered without hesitation.
"I'm grateful for the consideration. I like it."
"Just as I thought."
Yun Hyeon smiled.
I began putting on the prepared gear.
Clack. Thud. Creeeak.
Iron guards on wrists and shins, leather straps drawn tight. Outer layer and inner layer — the double-lined robes, the plates pressed snug against my body so they wouldn't shift.
Flutter.
Over that I pulled on a black long robe in the style of a rain cloak, woven of reed. Then I cinched a belt hard at the waist.
Shake.
The sleeves fell to the backs of my hands. The hems dropped to my ankles, perfectly concealing every piece of armor and every trace of it. Outwardly I looked no different from any ordinary martial artist.
In that state I began choosing weapons one by one.
Yun Hyeon selected one from the many and held it out.
"For a primary armament, we thought carefully about the kinds of fighting you described. We acknowledge you have arts derived from the sword — but our conclusion was that a sword doesn't suit you particularly well."
I looked down at what he offered.
"A saber?"
"A saber, yes — more precisely, a cavalry weapon that pursues the form of a sword as far as possible."
Flash.
At a glance it was almost a sword: a near-straight line with barely any curve. But the edge was unmistakable — not a double-edged blade, but a single thick cutting edge of saber design.
"We've reduced the thrust-oriented character and raised the structural strength to the extreme. It should suit your rough, overbearing style of martial arts. And in truth, for someone whose mainstay is hand-to-hand combat, this is the real primary weapon."
I sheathed the saber across my back and tilted my head.
"And that is?"
Yun Hyeon held up something heavy wrapped in cloth. He pulled the cloth away.
"…This!"
"It will, of course, fall short. But we truly did everything we could."
In his hands was a gauntlet shaped for the left hand — nearly identical in form to the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap I had once worn.
"Compared to the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap, which was closer to an artifact, this will be heavier, and fine control will be harder." Yun Hyeon smiled lightly as he offered it. "But in sheer strength alone, I believe it surpasses the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap. And the extra weight can become an advantage, depending on the form of unarmed combat. Wouldn't you agree?"
Yun Hyeon knew me far too well.
I took the gauntlet. Slid it onto my left hand. Opened and closed the fist again and again.
Clack. Clack.
It felt as if the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap itself had returned. I swung a closed fist through the empty air.
Whoom!
"A mace in its own right," Yun Hyeon said.
"I like it."
"Ah — and as you requested, there's a mount for stowing a dagger in reverse grip. Keep it in mind."
I slid Myeolseom upside down along the forearm of the new Chiljong-heukjusa-gap. Then I snapped my hand toward empty air.
Clack!
Like a tiger's claw springing free, Myeolseom flicked out in a half-arc and settled into my grip. When I shook my hand downward again, it folded back in.
"For this one, we set our own views aside and improved it more actively according to your preferences."
Clink.
What Yun Hyeon held out next were jade-green powder spheres.
"Where we once divided them into three separate types — blast, smoke, and scatter-shot — we've combined all three into a single sphere. The individual effects are weaker than before, of course. We've decided to call them San-hwan. Use them well."
I took the green spheres. Held one to my ear and shook it; countless tiny iron pellets rattled and clicked against each other inside. One by one I fitted them into the holes along my leather belt.
Watching all of this from the side, Yun Hyeon said,
"It's a little absurd for me to say this while I'm the one providing all of it, but…"
"Yes?"
"It feels as if I'm watching you leave for a war."
I smiled quietly.
"I don't want one — but if it comes to that, then yes, it will be a war. And I will repay the cost of this equipment. Without fail."
"Naturally. The Family Lord said he will most certainly collect. But what matters," Yun Hyeon stressed, "is that he wants you to return in one piece and hand him the payment yourself, with both hands."
"…"
My hands, still fastening gear, slowed for a moment, then resumed their former pace.
"I'll do my best."
It was all I could say.
"I heard you mean to leave at once. The person I saw at last night's banquet isn't coming with you, I take it?"
"That person?"
A beat later I realized he meant Eun Seollyeong.
"This whole affair has left a temporary gap in the Jegal Family's martial strength. Against that contingency, the Jegal household personally asked Eun Seollyeong to remain here for a while. So even if she wanted to go, she couldn't."
"For all that, you're slipping out rather quietly. At this hour of the morning? Almost as if…"
Yun Hyeon smiled softly, as though it were nothing.
"…the way we once left the young lady behind without telling her, back at the Namgung Family."
"…Thank you for the equipment. It's been an enormous help."
As I started to leave without another word, Yun Hyeon spoke to my back.
"I thought so. It's that again."
He had already seen through it — that I was taking the road without any special word to Eun Seollyeong.
"You've always been afraid of forming ties, Bilyu."
"…That isn't entirely wrong. But this time, it isn't only because of that."
My gaze wandered for a moment, lost in empty air. I parted dry lips.
"This is jianghu business, yes — but it is also my family's business."
"…"
"No matter how much I hate them. No matter that they are my enemies. They are of my house — so if they die, I kill them."
My voice was hoarse.
"And if I die, I die myself."
"…"
"I don't need anyone else to step forward. I don't want to open my hands and ask."
Yun Hyeon nodded slowly.
"Right. I forgot I was speaking to Bilyu. I was thinking of you too much like the rest of the jianghu. A man like you would rather bite through his own tongue than demean himself by begging help from others. Only…"
Yun Hyeon let out a short breath.
"The other side would have to be someone who knows shame the way you do."
"…What do you mean by that?"
Yun Hyeon shook his head.
"If an ordinary man like me could foresee it, then Lady Jegal Sea has certainly thought of it as well — and if she has, she will have told her friend. The meaning you already have in mind is the correct one."
"You needn't worry on that account."
"Pardon?"
I opened the door.
"I haven't spent all this time merely idling either. And—"
One foot already across the threshold, I looked back.
"This time, I am going to show them, clearly and right before their eyes, what their little games have brought about — the price of that karma."