If It Were You, What Would You Do?
Lee Kang and Seol-ah stopped after one round of training.
A twig was still in Seol-ah’s hand, and on the floor beneath them were the faint footprints she had left behind after moving again and again. The old office floor wasn’t exactly clean to begin with, so the traces of her motion stood out clearly.
Lee Kang glanced over those footprints and gave a small nod.
Much better than before.
Of course, she was still lacking. Her toes lifted too high at times, her center of gravity wavered, and the transitions between forms were still stiff. Even so, for someone who had only just begun learning swordsmanship, it was absurdly impressive.
Seol-ah set the twig down and quietly caught her breath.
She hadn’t been moving for long. But her body still hadn’t fully recovered. Just repeating a few forms had left a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead.
Seeing that, Lee Kang said, “That’s enough for today.”
Seol-ah looked at him.
“Already?”
“Not already. With the condition your body’s in, you’ve done plenty. You need to recover your basic stamina first. If you push too hard, that isn’t training. It’s self-harm.”
Seol-ah looked a little disappointed, but she didn’t argue.
She sat down as he said. A brief silence settled between them.
Seol-ah looked down at the twig, then suddenly spoke.
“When will I be strong enough?”
Lee Kang looked at her.
Her voice had been quiet. It wasn’t a question tossed out carelessly, either. There was a fairly serious light in her pale eyes.
Lee Kang thought about it for a moment.
To be honest, it would be fast. Terrifyingly fast. With the right environment, medicine, food, and safe time to train, Seol-ah could grow far stronger than most people would expect.
But Lee Kang didn’t say that.
“As you know, it takes time.”
The light in Seol-ah’s eyes dimmed a little.
“Time...”
“Right. No matter how gifted you are, your body doesn’t become something else overnight. It takes time to feel qi, to open the path, to learn the forms, and to make them usable in real combat.”
Lee Kang paused, then glanced toward the window.
“But the world is cruel. It doesn’t give people that much time.”
Outside was quiet.
But quiet didn’t mean safe. Somewhere in Mangwon Haomu Market, someone else might still be fighting. Mak Daehan might already be hunting for him, and the Wicked Sect Alliance might be grinding its teeth while cleaning up the aftermath of the auction hall bombing.
Lee Kang muttered inwardly, Some people spend their whole lives and still fail. Others become a minor success with just an hour a day. Time itself isn’t absolute, either.
After a moment of silence, Seol-ah asked, “Does that Mak Daehan person... know where we are?”
“He probably has a rough idea.”
Lee Kang didn’t bother hiding it.
“It’s hard to say he knows exactly where we are. But he can probably guess it’s somewhere near Mangwon Haomu Market. I posted recruitment notices for the Black Moon Sect on the Gallery, and I never completely hid the fact that our base is around Mangwon. Ah, the Gallery is...”
Lee Kang gave Seol-ah a brief explanation of the Gallery. Her expression went cold.
“Then Mak Daehan could come looking for us.”
“He’ll try.”
“How are you planning to deal with him?”
Lee Kang didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked at Seol-ah.
“If it were you, what would you do?”
***
Near Hapjeong Station.
Under the old sign that read Hiphop Sect, blood had spread in a long trail down the stairway leading underground.
In a place that should have been echoing with music, with the stench of alcohol and cigarettes mixed together with cheap perfume, only groans filled the basement club now.
Most of the people on the floor were members of the Hiphop Sect, lying in bloodied heaps.
Some had broken arms. Some were bleeding from the mouth. A few were still conscious, but none of them dared lift their heads.
At the center of it all stood Mak Daehan.
He had brought his men here and smashed the Hiphop Sect himself.
Mak Chilseong approached him cautiously.
He was one of the Mak Family’s men standing behind Mak Daehan. He could be called one of the people Mak Daehan trusted most, his right hand. Mak Chilseong had a decent build, but standing beside the massive Mak Daehan, he looked ordinary.
“Boss.”
Mak Daehan turned his head.
“What.”
Mak Chilseong glanced at the Hiphop Sect members sprawled on the floor.
“These are Seok Yuha’s men, aren’t they? Boss, weren’t you planning to absorb the Hiphop Sect’s forces?”
“I was.”
“Then is it really all right to beat them into this kind of shape?”
Mak Daehan laughed. It was a thick, low laugh.
“What would I do with useless trash if I absorbed it?”
“Pardon?”
“The weak are useless.”
With the tip of his wooden club, Mak Daehan prodded the side of a man lying on the floor. The man let out a small groan.
“Seok Yuha is dead. Their sect master is dead, but none of them have the guts to come out and avenge him, and they sure don’t have the courage to come at me. What exactly am I supposed to do with dogs like this?”
Mak Chilseong shut his mouth.
It was hard to say Mak Daehan was wrong. The only problem was how brutally he went about it.
Then Mak Uni, standing nearby, asked carefully, “Boss, won’t this make it a pain to track down the Black Moon Sect guy at Mangwon Market? Weren’t we trying to rope these guys in because it’s hard to find that Black Moon Sect bastard otherwise?”
Mak Daehan’s sharp eyes shifted to Mak Uni.
Mak Uni flinched instantly.
“A pain?”
“Yes. We were supposed to have the Hiphop Sect guys help us squeeze information out of people and search around, but if we leave them like this...”
“There’s a way.”
Mak Daehan opened a translucent window. With a thick finger, he tapped the writing button. Mak Chilseong and Mak Uni leaned in, stealing a look at the screen.
Mak Daehan slowly typed.
Title: Looking for Black Moon Sect Members
The body was short and blunt.
We are looking for Lee Kang, the Black Moon Sect master.
The enemy of the Mak Family who killed Seok Yuha, a comrade, and threw the Hiphop Sect into chaos.
We will pay 1,000 nyang to anyone who finds the location of the Black Moon Sect bastards.
Or provide 1,000 nyang worth of food.
If you have proof, contact us immediately.
I am Mak Daehan of the Mak Family.
Then Mak Daehan kicked one of the collapsed Hiphop Sect members.
“Get this bastard’s face up.”
Mak Chilseong hurried over and grabbed the man by the hair, yanking his blood-smeared face toward the camera. Mak Daehan snapped a photo.
Click.
He took several more, too. The bloodied basement club, broken chairs, shattered bottles, even the Hiphop Sect emblem scattered across the floor.
Mak Daehan attached the photos.
Then he posted it.
After a moment, comments began to appear.
Mak Chilseong stared at the screen in admiration.
“Oh... Boss. That’s a good idea.”
Mak Daehan curved one corner of his mouth. Then Mak Chilseong asked cautiously, “But are you really going to pay the 1,000 nyang if someone finds him?”
Mak Daehan looked at him for a moment when he heard that.
Then he burst out laughing.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Mak Daehan closed the translucent window.
“Why would I give that money? If someone really comes to collect it, I’ll have to teach them a lesson. Heh heh heh.”
***
Several days passed.
Lee Kang and Seol-ah holed up on the second floor of the private investigator’s building, repeating only training, meals, and breathing exercises.
They kept outings to an absolute minimum. Lee Kang moved only briefly late at night, and even then he used Shadowless Night Walk to erase his presence, checked only what he needed, and came straight back. By day, he inspected the dust under the windows and the thread across the crack in the door, skimmed Gallery posts, and guided Seol-ah through her breathing method and Night Moon Killing Sword.
Seol-ah was improving quickly.
No, “quickly” wasn’t enough to describe it.
After one day, the orbit of the Black Moon Force had taken shape. After two, the flow of Moonshadow’s Circle had become natural. By the third day, the retreat and reentry of Night Slash Trace had begun to look like a genuine sword form.
And now.
Whoosh.
Seol-ah’s Black Moon Force, carried by the twig in her hand, shot toward Lee Kang.
“Kuh.”
Lee Kang barely managed to deflect it with his short sword.
Clack!
The twig and the short sword collided with a dry, sharp sound.
“Stop.”
Lee Kang said it, but Seol-ah didn’t stop.
She twisted her body, withdrew the twig she had thrust forward, and immediately cut sideways.
Moonshadow’s Circle.
Lee Kang wasn’t able to evade completely.
Tap.
The end of the twig lightly struck Lee Kang’s waist.
“...”
Lee Kang looked at Seol-ah with an expression of utter disbelief.
Seol-ah finally stopped moving.
Still holding the twig, she stared at him for a moment, then her face colored slightly.
“Give me my reward.”
“What?”
“I hit you.”
Lee Kang let out a dry laugh.
She had been swinging a sword so seriously just a moment ago, and now she was saying something like that. It was even harder to deal with.
He lifted a hand toward Seol-ah’s head. Her eyes brightened just a little.
At that moment.
Tap.
With his left hand, Lee Kang flicked the Black Moon Force out and lightly tapped the top of Seol-ah’s head.
“Ah.”
Seol-ah’s eyes widened in surprise.
It wasn’t that it hurt. It was more that she hadn’t expected it at all. She covered her head with one hand and looked at Lee Kang.
“Were you letting me win up until now?”
Seol-ah could feel it now. That last Black Moon Force had been on a completely different level from before. She hadn’t sensed it at all.
Lee Kang gave a low laugh at her words.
“Heh.”
Over the past few days, Seol-ah had grown quickly. But Lee Kang hadn’t been idling either.
Every hour he couldn’t go outside had been turned into training. Being chased by Mak Daehan was a nightmare, but it had also given Lee Kang enforced seclusion time.
And just a moment ago.
The instant Seol-ah’s Moonshadow’s Circle struck his waist, a message had appeared.
He couldn’t hold back his laughter when he saw it.
Shadowless Night Walk: Minor Success 0 / 1000
He had met the conditions of a third-class martial artist.
His realm had risen.
Realm: Third-class
“I wasn’t letting you win.”
Seol-ah was still covering her head as she stared at him.