Cheongpungdae
The Murim Alliance’s combat forces were divided into five units, excluding Cheokmadan.
Among them, the Biyeondan was the main force, numbering as many as ten thousand men in total, and beneath it were seven martial detachments.
Cheongpungdae of the Biyeondan.
That was where Socheon and Jang Il belonged.
⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎
Cheongpungdae’s schedule was, by all accounts, rather late.
Unlike the other martial detachments, which had been training for days already, Cheongpungdae had only just been summoned that morning.
Jang Il had found that fact troubling at first, but he quickly decided not to worry about it.
What did it matter if they were a little late? The great and important people of the Alliance must have had their reasons.
And so, having been granted an extended rest, Jang Il was in excellent spirits.
“You don’t seem bothered at all?”
Jang Il broke the silence from across the table, where Socheon was shoveling food into his mouth.
The face he turned toward him was no different from usual.
His eyes seemed to ask what, exactly, Jang Il was trying to say this time.
Socheon truly did look perfectly at ease, unlike Jang Il, who had barely slept with excitement over the first muster.
“No, I was just wondering because today’s the day we officially become members of Cheongpungdae, isn’t it? I was curious whether you were nervous.”
“Not really. Why would I have to be nervous?”
“Well, I suppose you wouldn’t have to be. Still, it’s strange, isn’t it?”
The very words “Cheongpung” made Jang Il’s heart flutter, and he could not understand this unfazed friend of his.
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The training ground of Cheongpungdae was already swarming with people.
Jang Il could not help feeling disappointed.
Everywhere he looked, front and back, there were nothing but third-class martial artists.
In Murim, “third-class” meant men who could not use internal energy.
In truth, they were hardly even martial artists at all; they were little different from ordinary men with swords in their hands.
“What the—”
Only then did Jang Il grasp reality.
Cheongpungdae beneath the Biyeondan.
This place had a grand name, but in truth it was nothing more than a gathering hall for third-class trash.
Jang Il began to doubt whether this even counted as a martial detachment in the first place.
He understood better than anyone, because he himself was third-class.
These men, if they ever had to face the demonic men, would not even make decent meat shields.
Tens of thousands of martial artists had volunteered for the War Against the Demonic Cult.
Among them, third-class fighters made up a fairly large share.
Perhaps the Murim Alliance could not bear to reject those who wanted to fight, and had therefore created a unit like this.
Jang Il was still reeling from the shattering of his dream when someone new stepped into the training ground.
His gait was far removed from that of a third-class martial artist.
He was a man with a rather imposing presence.
He swept his gaze across the training ground and laughed loudly.
“Haha. Your faces look like you’ve just bitten into shit. What, did you all think you’d be getting something better because you’re third-class?”
He drove the nail in for the people who had still been clinging to a shred of hope.
“That’s right. Cheongpungdae is a unit made entirely of chaff. And not just the members—its detachment leader as well. Unlike the other leaders, I’m not even Peak level. I’m just a first-class nobody.”
The Cheongpungdae leader paused for a moment.
“We cannot be the heroes of the battlefield. Swinging swords bravely and cutting down the demonic men by the score is nothing but a fantasy.”
It was a dismissal of the dreams of countless martial artists as mere delusion.
The training ground began to stir. Some sighed; others seemed to have expected nothing else and accepted it bitterly.
But even amid that atmosphere, the Cheongpungdae leader did not stop.
“So let me ask you this. Are we nothing more than baggage for the other martial detachments that fight on the front lines? The answer is no, absolutely not. The Murim Alliance is not foolish enough to have chosen us otherwise. We are going to be pillars. Pillars that support all of Biyeondan.”
Pillars. Them? Third-class men like themselves?
Jang Il frowned, unable to understand what the man meant.
“Our task, entrusted to us by the Alliance Lord, is supply and logistics. Don’t look down on it. We will be the heroes who work in the shadows of the battlefield.”
Heroes.
Even if they were only words, they were enough to make the blood of the third-class fighters boil.
Among the excited martial artists, someone shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Yeah, so what if we’re supply men? We’re still the heroes who fought the Demon Cult!”
For men who had lived their whole lives as third-class rabble, that little bit of recognition was enough.
The leader laughed and added, “The other detachments can’t afford to sneer at you as third-class either. If the supply lines are cut, they die. Everyone will respect us.”
To be respected by others. The words felt terribly distant to Jang Il.
And yet, to have renowned masters look at him with respect...
Just imagining it was enough to make his heart race.
“Then what do we do first?”
Unable to hold back his excitement, Jang Il shouted loudly.
“Stamina! That’s all.”
⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎
The Cheongpungdae leader had the men do only two things.
Horse stance and running.
For an entire month.
At first, no one was willing to obey.
Complaints poured out that they were not at that level, but after the leader told them to try it first, every one of them shut up before long.
They were third-class because they had no internal energy.
Then why could they not build internal energy?
The reason was simple.
It was because they were people with no foundation at all; they had never even approached the threshold of internal energy.
Jang Il was drenched in sweat as he ran the training grounds day after day.
More and more lately, he had been thinking that joining the Murim Alliance had been the right choice after all.
Watching himself grow a little each day was sweeter than any fruit in the world.
Jang Il turned his head and looked at the friend running beside him.
A face so calm it was almost serene.
It did not look like the face of a man who had already gone around the training ground more than ten times.
He was no different when holding the horse stance.
Socheon, who showed not even a hint of fatigue, had even the Cheongpungdae leader wondering.
“A third-class fighter? No, I guess that’s right if he doesn’t have internal energy, but... huh.”
After tilting his head for a while, the leader seemed to decide to ignore him entirely.
Just then, as Jang Il was grinning at the leader’s expression—an expression like someone who had seen something beyond common sense—the Cheongpungdae leader’s voice rang out across the entire training ground.
“All right, that’s enough. Gather up.”
After hounding them endlessly to build their stamina, and now ordering them to stop—what was this all about?
The members gathered in one corner, looking puzzled, and the leader spoke.
“You’ve all worked hard so far. It looks like your stamina has improved some.”
At that, the corners of the men’s mouths lifted in satisfaction.
They knew better than anyone how much they had grown.
“The war with the Demon Cult is right upon us. At most, we have a month.”
The Cheongpungdae leader unfurled a massive map.
“Headquarters has finally sent down instructions as well. I think it’s far too late, but I’m sure they had their reasons. In any case, it’s time we discussed strategy.”
The leader pointed to one place after another on the map as he explained.
He covered everything from the terrain of the battlefield to each unit’s supply routes, retreat paths, and places of refuge.
“The entire supply network of Biyeondan depends on us, so you need to understand all of this perfectly. Memorizing it until you can recite it with your eyes closed is what lies ahead.”
Each unit had its own detailed routes, so there was an enormous amount of information to cover.
The members groaned, but Jang Il had a different concern.
No matter how he looked at it, this was too much information to be handed over to a third-class martial artist like him.
More than anything, they were being told every route leading to the battlefield. What if this fell into the Demon Cult’s hands? What then?
“Is it really all right to spill such valuable information this easily? If it were to leak...”
Instead of answering Jang Il’s question, the Cheongpungdae leader asked one of his own.
“What do you think being a third-class martial artist means?”
“That we can’t use internal energy, aside from that...”
It was the obvious answer, and the leader nodded.
“Right. Without internal energy, you can’t even use proper sword forms or movement techniques. Do you know what that means?”
“...”
“It means the fact that you know this information poses no threat to the Alliance at all. Even if a spy from the Demon Cult were third-class, their arms and legs would be tied. They might get the information, but they’d have no way to pass it on. In the end, it would become a secret known only to them.”
At those words, a thought flashed through Jang Il’s mind.
If there was no chance of the information ever reaching the Demon Cult, then all that mattered was whether the people who heard it were careful.
And under those conditions, there were no more suitable people than the members of Cheongpungdae.
What could a third-class martial artist possibly do against an entire corps?
“It’s the same reason you’re supply troops. It sounds funny, but because you’re third-class, you can actually be trusted with the job. Besides, from the Alliance’s perspective, the people least likely to be Demon Cult spies are men like you. You can pretty much rule out the possibility of some bastard infiltrating the Alliance as a third-class martial artist just to steal information.”
Then one of the members asked, “Leader, what if one of us is captured by a demon and forced to talk?”
It was a rather sharp question. There were more than one or two ways for information to leak.
“Sure, that could happen. But if you start thinking that way, there’s no end to it. All strategies are built with a certain amount of leakage assumed from the start. In other words, even if it gets out, it won’t do much damage.”
“Is it really possible for it not to do much damage? The routes of the entire Biyeondan will be exposed...”
The Cheongpungdae leader waved a hand as if he were growing tired of the conversation.
“Listen. Biyeondan is made up of nearly ten thousand martial artists, dozens of Peak-level experts, and two Transcendence-level masters. On top of that, the Cheokmadan has top-class experts, and behind us stand the two Hwakyung-level masters—the Demon Slayer Pavilion leader and the Murim Alliance Lord. Whenever a demonic expert beyond our ability appears, they’ll save us. So even if a Transcendence-level demon appears—or even a Hwakyung-level one—we’re fully capable of holding them back.”
“Even Hwakyung-level?”
“Yes. It’s information that’s already known publicly, so I might as well tell you. At present, the Murim Alliance has identified three Hwakyung-level experts in the Demon Cult. Two of them are specialized in one-on-one combat, so there’s no chance they could break through Biyeondan from the outside. The third is noncombat personnel to begin with.”
“Ooh...”
Watching the members marvel, the leader gave a dry chuckle.
“That is why our role is all the more important. We’re the ones supporting a force this large. In that sense, I’ll give you fifteen days, so make sure you memorize everything I told you today.”
⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎
Jang Il let out a sigh as a throbbing headache pressed in on him.
How many days had it already been?
He had spent so long cramming the Cheongpungdae leader’s endless lecture into his head that he had lost even his sense of time.
He had lived his whole life using nothing but his body.
There was no way he would suddenly become good at using his head.
Jang Il missed the stamina training, where simply brutalizing his body had still felt like an accomplishment.
He twisted his neck to ease the stiffness, and Socheon came into view beside him.
He had already memorized everything and was now just killing time in a daze.
And yet, for some reason, his face was still full of the traces of some inner torment.
Jang Il did not like that look, and complained needlessly.
“Ah, Socheon, listen. Truth be told, my dream was far removed from this kind of work. I wanted to swing a sword with real excitement and fight those Demon Cult bastards too, you know...”
Even after Jang Il rambled on beside him for ages, Socheon simply listened in silence.
No—he even made Jang Il wonder whether he was listening at all.
Jang Il thought that, with a high probability, the other man was letting it in one ear and out the other.
Strangely enough, the sight of him caused the clutter in Jang Il’s mind to settle.
As his thoughts grew calm, he found something new in his own situation.
“Whatever else I say, it’s hard to deny that this is the most rewarding time of my life. Doing this stuff long enough does make you get used to it, I suppose...”
Just then, Socheon spoke while Jang Il was still talking without pause.
By then, he had already come out of whatever private worry had possessed him.
“...We’ll need to have it memorized by tomorrow.”
At those quiet words, Jang Il’s frozen time started moving again.
The day of battle was truly not far off.