Eh, It Was Nothing Much.
Kugugugugu—
"Haah..."
I looked down at the wooden sword, unable to withstand the power I'd poured into it and shattering apart, then slumped to the ground where I stood and muttered.
"Ah, damn. I'm out of internal energy... that cursed Three Powers Cultivation Method..."
And then, right at that moment.
Thud—
"Thank you, great hero... thank you..."
"Uh, huh?"
Before me, an old man who appeared to be the owner of the smithy threw himself into a deep bow.
Caught off guard, I fumbled my words.
"No, no—please get up. I just did what I felt like doing."
"Truly... truly, thank you..."
I smiled as I looked at the old blacksmith, and at the little girl a few paces behind him, tucked safely into Cheon Seolhyeon's arms.
Raising himself from the ground, the old man reached for my arm, and I helped him to his feet.
"I'm just... a person who thinks he shouldn't leave regrets behind."
"And who might you be, great hero? Please, tell me your honored name..."
The old man's eyes were trembling.
Holding his hands in mine, I met his gaze and spoke, carefully, in the warmest voice I could manage.
"My name is Baek Sihyeok. The Taeguk Sword Marquess is my master."
"Baek Sihyeok... ah, ah... the Taeguk Sword Marquess!"
At the mention of the name, the old man wept hot tears and clasped my hands tightly in his wrinkled ones.
I smiled at the sight of him.
"Please keep it secret from the others. My name must not become known just yet."
"Understood. I will remember, and remember again, never to bring trouble upon you, my benefactor."
The old blacksmith bowed deeply to me in gratitude.
I watched him quietly for a moment, then brought up the reason I had come here.
"We have a long road ahead of us, and we'll need two swords for the journey. Might you have any good ones?"
"Oh my, right this way. If there's a sword among my children that catches your eye, you may take as many as you like."
He seemed ready to forge new ones from scratch if I didn't like any of what he had.
That was how precious the child named Weol-ah must have been to him.
Following him toward the back of the workshop, I saw dozens of swords hanging upon the walls, carefully displayed like treasured collections.
Even at a glance, they radiated a killing intent sharp enough to cut flesh.
Those famous blades filled three entire walls of the workshop.
Glancing back, I saw Cheon Seolhyeon following us inside, the little girl still held in her arms.
"Every one of these would put famous swords to shame."
"From the time I was but a young man, sixty years I have lived alongside iron."
"Haha... you're the first person I've ever heard say that with confidence."
"Well, what's the point of false modesty? If I talked like that and still couldn't forge a single decent blade, I'd toss my hammer away and look for other work."
"You never know how life will turn out, do you?"
Like me—someone who died once and came back with all his hard-earned mastery intact.
At my words, the blacksmith's eyes went wide. He stared at me for a moment, then began to laugh heartily.
"Hahaha, that's true enough. And yet... even if I were the clumsiest hammer-man in all the world, I still wouldn't have given this up."
"I've been learning the martial arts for quite a while myself, but it feels far too late to go looking for another path now."
I lifted one of the swords hanging from the wall.
An ink-dark hilt, contrasted by a snow-white blade. The weight was impossibly light, and its balance was beyond comparison to the cheap mass-produced sword I'd carried in my past life.
It was, quite simply, a masterpiece.
The blacksmith watched me hold the sword with a soft, faint smile.
"Most martial artists act as though the way of the sword were the only way to live. But the martial path is merely one of many ways a life can be lived."
"It took me a while to figure that out too. That's why I'm living how I please now—though I still beat up the odd bad guy along the way."
"Hahaha, well, that's a mercy. That little realization of yours just extended my life."
I reached out and took the scabbard hanging from the wall. A single dragon was carved into the ink-dark sheath. When I slid the blade inside, it settled home with a soft, satisfying click.
The blacksmith asked me, "Have you decided on that one?"
"Yes. What is this sword's name?"
"I do not name my swords. A name decides the road that blade will walk for the rest of its life—and shouldn't that choice belong to the one who wields it?"
"...I see."
Tilting my head, I tried thinking of a name for the sword, but nothing came to mind. I shrugged and looked back at the old man.
"Nothing's coming to me at the moment. I'll figure it out later."
"Haha, of course."
I fastened the sword at my waist, then asked the man, who was watching me with a kindly smile, "Come to think of it, might I ask your name, elder?"
"It is Danwoobaek."
"Danwoobaek... I'll remember it. Chosam, did you pick out a sword yet?"
I turned around to find Cheon Seolhyeon staring at the blades with her eyes stretched wide. She reached out and took down a scabbard painted with a golden dragon, and drew the sword an inch to test it.
"Wow. This one. I want this one."
"I see... hmm? Chosam? Are you that Chosam I know?"
"Yeah, grandpa. What do you think?"
"All cleaned up, you've certainly got the look of it. Trying to become a Taoist of Mount Wudang, are you?"
"What—how'd you know?"
"You said you're leaving on a long journey. At your age, what else could it be? And you're traveling with a Taoist of Mount Wudang, besides."
At Danwoobaek's words, Cheon Seolhyeon shot me a sidelong glance—then, before long, she let out a little snort of laughter.
"He's not a Taoist yet. He is the Taeguk Sword Marquess's disciple, though."
"...Sounds like there's a complicated story there."
"He's a bit of a special case. Can I count on you to keep today's business quiet?"
"I'll carry it with me straight into the grave I'm headed for."
"...No need to rush there."
With that, we exchanged our farewells and left the smithy.
It was rather a shame that it took us quite some time to force our money into the stubbornly refusing Danwoobaek's hands.
I asked Cheon Seolhyeon, who was striding ahead of me, "You know that old man?"
"Yeah. He looked after me a bit, back when I was a beggar."
"Ahh..."
So Danwoobaek was Cheon Seolhyeon's benefactor.
"Glad I saved him, then?"
"..."
Cheon Seolhyeon kept her head lowered and began striding ahead of me faster still. Then, suddenly stopping, she murmured something in a voice so quiet a passing ant couldn't have heard it.
"...Thanks."
"Hm? What was that?"
"I SAID THANKS, you damn perverted piece of trash!"
With those parting words, Cheon Seolhyeon poured everything she had into her lightfoot technique and shot forward like the wind.
And naturally, the principles and logic underpinning that martial art were copied straight into my head.
A technique that carried its user's very body upon the ceaseless incoming wind, making movement look like riding the clouds themselves.
I wove the principle of the Taeguk's cyclical flow into that footwork. The faint image of the Taeguk bloomed beneath my feet, and watching Cheon Seolhyeon shrink into a distant dot, I kicked off the ground.
KWAAAANG—!
The Taeguk's rotation exploded along with my stride, hurling my body forward on the wind in a single, unbroken push.
Before I knew it, I was standing right beside Cheon Seolhyeon.
She stared at me with a look of sheer incredulity.
"...Now you've stolen the Cloudwind Steps too. And you even went and evolved it?"
"Eh, it was nothing much. Should I call it the Cloudwind Taeguk Steps?"
I grabbed both of Cheon Seolhyeon's cheeks with my fingers and stretched them out, squish squish. It was so astonishingly stretchy that I let out a gasp of wonder without meaning to.
"Wow, is this sweet rice cake?"
"Die, you bastard!"
"Whoa—"
Unable to take it any longer, Chosam swung the sword, scabbard and all, straight down at my skull.
And in the very next instant—
KWAANG—!
I kicked off the ground, and the Taeguk's explosive force launched me far ahead.
"You crazy—wait up, you bastard!"
Cheon Seolhyeon's shout faded farther and farther behind me.
Every time my foot struck the ground, I covered an absurd distance—roughly a hundred meters, by feel.
That was a single step.
The distance from here to Mount Wudang was one an ordinary person would need a full week of walking without rest to cover. But at this speed...
Half a shichen.
An hour, in the modern time I was used to. More than enough.
"Haha..."
Leaping with the Taeguk beneath my feet, I could even tread on empty air as though it were solid ground. Watching the village scenery unroll far below me and slide rapidly past, I pressed on, and on, and on.
"...Is Chosam keeping up okay?"
Just as I thought that and turned to look back—
Ten steps.
I took exactly ten more steps forward. And then I began plummeting straight toward the ground.
"Ah."
There was one variable I hadn't accounted for.
"Cursed internal energy... damn it..."
"...What are you doing?"
Cheon Seolhyeon had landed in front of me and was looking down at me with undisguised contempt.
I reached out my hand to her and pleaded with everything I had.
"Chosam..."
"What."
"Just one... just one internal energy cultivation method... please..."
"...Are you actually an idiot?"
"..."
Thinking of myself sprawled on the ground, twitching, I honestly couldn't argue with that. What a shame it was.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A rundown thatched house in a back alley, and inside it, a dark room. A muscular man dressed in black martial robes held a boy who looked to be in his late teens up by the collar.
"...The information's solid, is it?"
"Y-yes, sir, Commander! Gwak Dongpal and two others entered that smithy, and right after, some kind of black-and-white sword energy swept through the place!"
"If that information is a lie, then in the name of Hwang Unhak, commander of the Black Tiger Clan... I'll erase you and this Haomen branch from the face of the earth. All of it."
"It's the absolute truth!"
"Tch."
Thud—
The man—Hwang Unhak—released the boy's collar.
"Mount Wudang... to think they cut down the squad leader of the Black Tiger Den under our Black Slaughter Union without so much as a pretext..."
"W-well... actually, there wasn't nothing to it. They were the ones who first persecuted the smithy's owner over nothing, and tried to destroy the forge, so..."
SHRAAAAK—
The boy never finished his sentence.
In the blink of an eye, Hwang Unhak drew his saber and split the boy clean in two with a blood-red blade.
The blood that spattered across the walls painted them crimson—walls that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
"I don't recall giving a filthy slave scum like you permission to talk back. Tch."
Wiping the blood that had splashed across his gleaming shaved scalp, Hwang Unhak slowly made his way out of the branch office.
Gritting his teeth, he muttered to himself.
"Those worthless pieces of trash... and because of them, my little brothers were touched. That cannot stand."
His eyes, brimming with rage and killing intent, swept across the street.
Emerging from the back alley, he set off, his footsteps carrying him somewhere far away.