Chapter 40
On a late night, after Geom Mujin left Taehomun, he made a stop at Heo's Medical Clinic before heading out.
It wasn’t just to say goodbye to the Heo father and daughter. He still had a few errands to take care of.
"You’re leaving?"
"Yeah. I ended up staying longer than I thought."
If I don’t hurry up and move the story into the next arc so a new heroine can show up, the sacred number is going to—mmpf!
"Mujin, sir..."
Heo Yul, who had heard that he was leaving today, wore a dejected expression.
It had been nearly two years since they’d last seen each other, after he cured her blocked meridians and left. Even though this was a reunion, she felt both sorry and lonely that she hadn’t been able to spend much time with Geom Mujin.
"Don’t make that face. We’ll see each other again."
Seeing her like that, I bent down and patted her head.
"Really?"
"Of course. Didn’t I come back to see you this time, too?"
"For all that, you stayed cooped up in your room, so we barely saw you."
"...Ahem."
She’d grown up enough to start making sharp observations. That’s why brats once their heads get too big are a problem.
"I still haven’t shown you all of my martial arts practice..."
"I saw enough, so you don’t need to make that face."
Geom Mujin took a single book from his robes.
"This is..."
"It’s a list of the improvements you still need to make, Yul."
He had written it down in the spare moments during his stay at Heo's Medical Clinic.
He had only watched Heo Yul demonstrate her martial arts once, on his first day, but for someone who had forged his own path with the sword, that had been more than enough.
It would’ve been nice to teach her in person, but the timing was bad.
Rustle, rustle—
Heo Yul flipped through the book, then bowed deeply at the waist.
"...Thank you."
In the book were not only detailed explanations but also adorable little drawings of a person stomping around while performing the forms.
"And here, Heo physician. Take this."
Geom Mujin handed Heo Injun a small wooden box.
"This is... Jamsungdan."
"I took it from Jo Pyeongho. Turns out he was handling distribution here in Gangneung."
Since I didn’t know what might happen, I’d grabbed a few pills and passed the Jamsungdan to Heo Injun.
"The more samples you have when researching something, the better, right?"
"That is true, but..."
Heo Injun’s expression did not brighten.
He had examined Jamsungdan enough to know it was a highly addictive drug.
No one would be happy to hear that something like that had been circulated in the neighborhood where they lived.
This time Geom Mujin had stopped it before the drug could spread widely, but if he hadn’t...
"Papa?"
"...It’s nothing, dear."
At his daughter’s questioning gaze, Heo Injun shook his head.
He needed to devise an antidote to Jamsungdan, not only to repay his benefactor, but also for the sake of the future his daughter would grow into.
"I will certainly find a way to neutralize it."
The Poison Demon from the original story said it with surprising conviction.
"Oh. O-okay."
When determination suddenly lit up in his eyes, Geom Mujin gave an awkward nod.
I don’t really know why, but he looks motivated, so I guess that’s good for me too.
"Ah, if I make progress in my research or run into a problem, what should I do? If you have another place to stay, should I send a letter there?"
This was the primitive era before Nicola Tesla, the grandmaster of the electrical age, had even been born.
If you wanted to contact someone in another region, you either paid to send a letter or released a carrier pigeon.
There were also ways to go through a sect like the Beggars’ Sect or Hao Clan, which dealt in information, but the problem was that Geom Mujin didn’t have a fixed residence.
He was a true 100-percent martial artist who slept beneath the sky and used the earth as his pillow, now in his n-th year of that life.
In a sense, he was practically a branch disciple of the Beggars’ Sect. If you told him that to his face, he’d beat you senseless.
And wasn’t Edison the one who handled electricity?
Direct current, get lost!!
How dare some nobody compare themselves to the almighty Lord of alternating current?
Anyway, keeping in touch with Geom Mujin by letter was a pain in the ass.
Given how enormous the lands of the Central Plains “barbarians” were, even sending mail to the next city over could take two or three weeks to arrive.
Much less for someone like him, wandering from place to place with no fixed route.
"No. If it’s a letter, just give it to this guy."
Geom Mujin called Sodam over through their spiritual bond.
Kkieeeek—!
While staying here, Sodam had worked hard to spread its superior Baekdu bloodline among the women of the Central Plains, and now it landed on his shoulder.
"That hawk—could it be the one you mentioned before?"
"Didn’t I tell you? I had something sexier than a carrier pigeon."
"So it was true."
"...You didn’t believe me?"
Last time, the debut had been ruined because of a lack of navigation data, but this time was different.
"I’ll send Sodam once a month, so use that to communicate."
"Understood."
Sending a carrier bird once a month meant he’d have to write a report each time, but Heo Injun answered readily.
After all, the report would be written by the medical apprentices.
He had hands and a brain for writing, but he also had medical apprentices.
Somewhere, I could almost hear the sound of Geom Mujin’s assassination stack building up.
Sodam was startled.
"Kk, kkee!?"
Did I hear that wrong?
But wrong hearing means correct hearing.
Was he seriously telling it to fly here once a month?!
"Why? You’ve got the location memorized, don’t you?"
"Kuu..."
That was true, but...
If it had known it would be worked this hard, it never would’ve signed that contract.
As punishment for falling into a bowl of seonjiguk, Sodam could only nod, tears in its eyes.
The conversation was done, and now it was truly time to go.
"All right, then take it away."
"Pardon?"
"Huh?"
Geom Mujin turned his back and thrust the child toward them, and Heo Injun and Heo Yul both had question marks floating over their heads.
"What are you waiting for? Hurry up and take it."
"This child? Me?"
"Then who else here besides Heo physician is going to look after the kid?"
"Why me?"
"What?"
"Huh?"
It was the kind of conversation where one question mark gave birth to another.
"I’m a wandering martial artist. How the hell am I supposed to carry a kid around with me?"
There could be trouble with the Neo-Demonic Cult down the line.
"That’s true, but..."
Still, who just drops a child off at someone else’s house and leaves? A demon child, no less.
He wanted to shout that, but Heo Injun, who still counted himself among the honorable sort, couldn’t bring himself to speak so rudely to his benefactor.
"O mighty one."
Instead, Heo Injun spoke in a grave voice.
That wasn’t the casual “hey.” It was the honorific o of steering and i as in barbarian.
In particular, the character o was a precious one, used in words like imperial decree.
The i was a title of respect for Geom Mujin, the barbarian benefactor. The etymology wasn’t his problem.
By using the highest possible honorific, Heo Injun was asking him to reconsider.
"No, I mean one kid or two kids, what’s the difference..."
"O mighty one!"
"....."
This time it really did sound like casual speech.
With that powerful, earnest plea, I had nothing left to say.
"Mujin, sir..."
Heo Yul was looking at him with trembling eyes, as if watching someone abandoned in the wilderness.
"N-no, I’m seriously saying this won’t work..."
Geom Mujin showed a rather strong refusal.
It wasn’t that he disliked children.
It was just that, after living freely for nearly sixty years, backlash had finally hit him.
"......"
The child, who had woken up midway while being carried on his back, heard that he was being left behind and moved its little arms.
Clutch.
Its arms tightened around his neck, and it buried its face against his back.
"H-hey..! Look at that—!"
Seeing that, Heo Yul bounced up and down.
Leaving aside the fact that it was an unconscious action, the meaning behind it was crystal clear.
"Sigh..."
Geom Mujin was not so dull that he could fail to understand that.
That day, a new party member joined Geom Mujin’s party.
* * *
"Then I’m really going now."
"Take care of yourself."
"You have to come again!"
And so, with that bulging little back turned away, he was just about to leave when—
"Ah."
Something occurred to him, and his steps came to a halt.
"That was close. I almost just left without saying it, Heo physician."
"What is it?"
"Well..."
Geom Mujin, glancing aside and stalling for time, spoke at last.
"If anyone comes looking for me after I’ve gone, tell them you’ve never heard of me."
"Pardon?"
"No... I don’t think they’ll come, more likely than not. But if they do, just point them straight at Taehomun. Got it?"
"For now... yes."
He nodded with a confused expression at the oddly worded request.
About eight days after he left, the Plum Blossom Sword Princess arrived in Gangneung.
* * *
Hyangyeongdan.
This was an unofficial organization within the Mount Hua Sect.
The reason it was unofficial was because Hyangyeongdan existed for only one person.
Unlike a clan, a sect was built on the spirit of “one for all, all for one,” so an organization created for a specific individual went against that spirit.
And yet Hyangyeongdan wielded tremendous influence within Mount Hua.
That was because the person it served was one of the Seven Martial Stars.
Hyangyeongdan had one unusual feature.
Its members were not made up solely of Mount Hua disciples.
Outer disciples, Mount Hua’s trading partners, members of other sects, even ordinary commoners.
It was a truly rootless group, made up of people from all sorts of different backgrounds.
Though they belonged to different groups and came from different places, they shared one thing in common.
That was the hot-blooded resolve to throw themselves into a fire for the Plum Blossom Sword Princess!
Yes. Hyangyeongdan was an organization made up of her followers.
Beauty like a single flower blooming atop a high mountain, along with martial prowess and accomplishments that ranked among the best in the martial world!
She possessed both beauty and strength, and had created countless followers in her wake.
If it felt like a strange contrast to someone who was always called a “special-case barbarian” wherever he went, that was not your imagination.
They spread like shadows throughout the martial world, working for the Plum Blossom Sword Princess.
There was only one thing she wanted.
Geom Mujin... where the hell are you?
At her single sentence, Hyangyeongdan’s course of action was decided.
Great Swordmaster! Find the barbarian swordsman!
The followers lit their eyes and ears on fire.
After repeated dead ends from his elusive, ghostlike behavior, their efforts finally bore fruit.
The Great Swordmaster had appeared in Gangneung!
The Jiangsu branch of Hyangyeongdan immediately released a carrier pigeon.
Among their many members was even someone who ran a pigeon loft for breeding carrier birds.
The special messenger bird took flight, and before long, she descended.
"Are you the branch leader of Jiangsu Province?"
Yu Seol-yeong asked, having crossed from Shaanxi to Jiangsu in only ten days without so much as wrinkling her clothes.
Just standing there and speaking, she seemed to raise the saturation and temperature of the entire area all at once.
"Y-yes, I am!"
The middle-aged man called the branch leader—Bang Sun—shouted like a teenage boy standing before his first love.
Hyangyeongdan Action Code, Article 2!
When meeting her, each branch is to elect a representative for the reception.
This was to ensure that the Plum Blossom Sword Princess would not feel burdened.
"I-It is the glory of three lifetimes to meet you! I am Bang Sun, branch leader of Hyangyeongdan’s Jiangsu Province branch! Sword..."
Just before the word “princess” could come out of his mouth, Bang Sun’s lips paused.
Seeing the chill gradually enter her expression, something flickered through his mind.
Hyangyeongdan Action Code, Article 3.
When receiving the Plum Blossom Sword Princess, under absolutely no circumstances should she be called...
Absolutely not “Sword Princess.”
Unable to call the Sword Princess a Sword Princess, Bang Sun changed course with the desperation of some barbarian-rat bastard from the other side of the sea.
"Lady Yu."
"Yes, it’s nice to meet you too. But are you all right?"
Only then, after her expression returned to normal, did Yu Seol-yeong accept the greeting.
She looked at the branch leader’s face.
Bang Sun’s face was a wreck in several places, the kind of decoration earned during the previous night’s branch-leader title defense match.
-Bastard! Branch leader! I’ll inherit your seat!
-Y-you bastards..!
-Oi! Beat him down!
He had knocked down a total of twenty challengers.
"T-Then I’ll guide you!"
With his eyes swollen black and blue, Bang Sun forced them open and etched Yu Seol-yeong’s face into his memory.
The person standing before him now was not human.
She was a celestial maiden who had merely slipped and fallen into the mortal world from Mount Olympus.
He had no regrets left, even if he died now.
"No. Just tell me where the man was last seen, and I’ll find it myself."
"B-But..."
How could he end the real-life face-to-face greeting this quickly?
He wanted to throw himself on the floor and flail his arms and legs, but...
Hyangyeongdan Action Code, Article 1.
The Plum Blossom Sword Princess’s word is law.
Bang Sun swallowed his tears and began explaining.
"Recently, the Great Swordmaster got involved in Taehomun’s rebellion."
How the current sect master had used his help to crush the rebel faction.
How he had become sect master on the back of that.
How he was now flaunting their closeness to recruit retainers and new sect members.
"Taken together, there’s a good chance Taehomun knows where he is."
Because Andong-shin had caused such a huge commotion, all eyes were focused there, and unlike Geom Mujin had feared, Heo's Medical Clinic was not mentioned.
In the first place, because he had been living in seclusion inside the clinic, no rumors about him had spread.
"Taehomun... I understand."
She didn’t think he would be there.
He was as skilled at escaping as he was at swordsmanship.
If it were the Geom Mujin she knew, he would have already sensed the danger and fled.
So she would go to Taehomun, find a clue to his whereabouts, and pursue him.
Since the Jeongma War, it was rare to have gotten this close.
I’m not losing him.
"And there is one last thing you should know."
"What is it?"
"Well... I’m not sure how reliable this is, but I heard the Great Swordmaster has been traveling around with some black-haired child. Hah!?"
At that instant, the temperature around them dropped as cold as the dead of winter.
"Heh... heheh, I see."
As she lowered her head slightly, shadow fell across her face.
She was clearly smiling, yet for some reason it was terrifying.
"U-um... are you all right?"
"I’ve decided."
"!? Y-yes? Decided what...?"
"As of today, I will destroy Taehomun."
The thought of extracting information from him vanished from her mind.
"...Pardon?"
BOOOM—!!
With the light gone from her pupils, Yu Seol-yeong shot up into the sky in a single leap.
"There."
Rolling her eyes wildly as she searched for something, she fixed on a direction.
Whoosh—!
Planting her feet on the empty air, she shot forward like an arrow.
As she flew, plum blossom petals gathered around her.
Clang—
Drawing her treasured sword, Jamyung Sword, the plum petals began spinning like a vortex.
Her body advanced atop the raging current of blossoms.
"Is this really where the Great Swordmaster passed through?"
"It is! This is the very place where our sect master, Andong-shin, and the Great Swordmaster of the Seven Martial Stars shared a sworn brotherhood drink! If you enter now, you too may inherit his spirit—huh?"
"What is that thing!?"
"R-run!"
CRAAASH—!!!
The hopeful applicants trying to enter Taehomun were suddenly engulfed by a storm of plum blossoms that came flying in from nowhere.
Flash—!
The petals, blazing with violet light, ground everything in the area to dust.
That was the end of Taehomun.