Chapter 241
Chapter 241: Yeop Bi-hwa (1)
Yeop Bi-hwa had been narrow since childhood. It went without saying that her figure was slender and lithe—her shoulders too, her voice too, and even the footprints she left when she walked. Even the sword she used.
Falling Flower Leaf Needle. The sword was uniquely long and slender in the Martial World, so much so that it had been named "needle".
In particular, her human relationships were even more narrow.
Her parents had left her, a newborn, at the gates of the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect and departed. So there had been no such thing as family from the very beginning. Even among her master and fellow disciples, there was little that could be called exchange. She said only what was necessary, and even the necessary things were brief.
The problem was that Vast Heaven's sword must not be narrow.
The sword principle of the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect lay in breadth. One person's sword covered the gap of the person beside them, and the one beside covered the next. At its foundation, it pursued a style of swordsmanship capable of constructing formations—sword formations, that is.
That was one of the reasons Vast Heaven reigned as the mightiest sword sect in the Martial World.
Yeop Bi-hwa's sword, her martial arts, were constitutionally incapable of permitting anyone at her side. She trained her martial arts by looking only straight ahead, cutting and advancing. Her master pressed her on this, tried to correct it—but the more he did, the further her sword path and martial arts developed in a narrower, more confined direction.
Yet strangely, the more this happened, the stronger she became.
A sword strong but inharmonious. A "wench" who could not be harmonious. A prickly and unyielding master of a martial art.
She continued to grow stronger, and the stronger she grew, the more her world narrowed still.
Whether thanks to this or because of it, Vast Heaven did not cast her out. Instead, they did not take her in deeply either.
A sword that could not enter a formation had no choice but to stand outside the formation. Yeop Bi-hwa naturally took charge of Vast Heaven's external affairs.
Tasks to be carried out alone. Matters to be resolved alone.
She went out into the Martial World under Vast Heaven's name, yet there was no one standing at her side.
Was this a source of grievance? No. Since there had never been anyone at her side to begin with, having no one felt natural.
And so, whenever Vast Heaven's orders came, she went out alone into the Martial World and swung her sword without rest.
She struck the river bandits along the Nan River region alone. Naturally, when all was done, she stood alone.
There was a time she tracked Pung Sa-geol near the Northern Yan border for three months. A notorious name earned because his methods of evasion were so fantastically bizarre—it seemed as though he had scattered himself across nine separate paths to cause incidents and accidents. The entire Orthodox faction in the vicinity had thrown up their hands, and Vast Heaven had sent three punitive forces, all of whom returned empty-handed. It was that sort of man whom Yeop Bi-hwa had chased for three full months.
The day she found him, she drew her sword once, and it was over in one stroke.
She also swept through the three halls of the Red Snake Alliance. The minor cells of human trafficking and poison distribution had taken root in three locations along the Nan River basin. They were people who rounded up even children to traffic. For months on end, there was not a day the blood dried on her clothes.
Having traveled alone for so long like this, names naturally attached themselves to her. Whether she wished it or not.
Cut down people and rumor spreads; rumor creates a name; and a name in the Martial World becomes an epithet.
Iron-Faced Lady.
A disposition that, once set on a direction, would not bend. That the Martial World called iron-faced. The "Lady" that followed she did not particularly care for, but having "iron-faced" before it, it was not bad.
Then a strange order fell.
Participate in the Orthodox Council Gathering—an exceedingly simple command to go out and raise the sect's honor.
A gathering where warriors of the Ten Great Orthodox Sects came together to test their martial arts.
To Yeop Bi-hwa, it was not greatly different from cutting down people. She simply had to cut them down one by one as each opponent stood before her. The only difference was whether she killed or did not kill.
Cut them down one by one. And repeat.
And yet—.
At that gathering, which she had considered the easiest of all the orders she had ever received up to then, she suffered her first defeat.
―Nice sword.
Even though it was the finals, she had lost to a young man in strange attire. It was a first—his name, his face, his attire most of all. A person who said he was from a sect called "high school"—a name she had never heard before.
―My name's Kim Rae-won.
Eccentric.
That too became an epithet, for his sword was so peculiar that it could never have come out of Vast Heaven. And the same went for Kim Rae-won.
―Looking around earlier, I saw another fellow who was also being called 'eccentric'—if you count him along with you and me, then... that makes Three Eccentrics?
She did not answer. Not out of contempt—she simply did not wish to. It was not only that she had lost to someone her own age; she found the young man's chattiness disagreeable.
Three Eccentrics.
It was an epithet that bordered on a derogatory nickname they had arrived at by happenstance—but the three of them grew close quite naturally, and spent years together.
The one and only person who had broadened her narrow, narrow circle of relationships: Kim Rae-won.
Right now, a person who appeared to be that very Kim Rae-won was standing before her for the first time in years. With an entirely different face.
"Kim Rae-won……?"
No, he might not have been that Kim Rae-won at all from the outset.
She would have to verify it from here on.
The man was smiling.
He stood with his back to the morning sun spilling in from inside the gate. The backlighting meant only his silhouette was visible at first. The breadth of his shoulders, the way he stood, the habit of tilting his head ever so slightly. These were things that overlapped with the Kim Rae-won in her memory.
But the smile was different. Kim Rae-won's smile had carried warmth. This man's smile had……even more warmth.
No answer came from him. He simply went on smiling.
Yeop Bi-hwa stepped one pace further in.
As the backlighting cleared, the man's face came into view. Mid-twenties. If it had been Kim Rae-won, he should have passed forty.
"Who are you?"
The voice had a timbre similar to Kim Rae-won's. But what it held within was different. It was the voice of someone who did not recognize her.
Yeop Bi-hwa's eyes narrowed.
"……Do you not know who I am?"
"Should I?"
"I asked whether you do not know."
"Iron-Faced Lady of the Three Eccentrics, I suppose."
Not a wrong answer. But Kim Rae-won would not have answered like that. He would have called her by name, not her epithet.
Yeop Bi-hwa's gaze traveled from the man's face all the way down to his feet and back up once.
"Your face is different from what I remember."
"……"
"It will be one of two things. Either you have recovered your true form—"
Her fingers settled onto the sword hilt. One by one. In turn.
"Or you are the seed of a different Karma Root Clan."
"……"
The man's smile deepened by one shade.
"I must verify it."
"Verify what?"
Yeop Bi-hwa gripped the sword hilt tight in answer.
"Whether you are real or not."
Just then, from somewhere behind came a clamor. Several sets of footsteps. One of them closed in quickly.
"Guild Master!"
A man in the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect's martial uniform was running toward the main gate.
Yeop Bi-hwa's eyes flicked briefly in that direction. Jin Ha-gyeong. A face she knew.
"Halt. The fact that I have not returned despite being well enough to move means I intend to verify this man first—hold your place until I am done."
As natural as breathing, Jin Ha-gyeong, receiving her frost-sharp gaze and her stern words, stopped in his tracks. No disciple of Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect could fail to know how unrivaled her standing within Vast Heaven was.
Yeop Bi-hwa's gaze returned to the man—Kim Rae-won.
"Did you know this action could pit you against Vast Heaven?"
"What action?"
Yeop Bi-hwa's cool eyes swept over Jin Ha-gyeong and the other Vast Heaven branch members who had followed him in, then returned.
"Do you intend to dodge it?"
"No, what have I done and what have I dodged—hey?"
"……"
"People in need of help came to me—"
Kim Rae-won's sly face still wore a deep smile.
"And I simply helped."
And the moment those words left him, the smile disappeared from his face.
"If that means being at odds with Vast Heaven, and if that means dodging—fine."
"……"
"I won't try to stop it."
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean?"
Kim Rae-won moved one step to the side and stood in front of Jin Ha-gyeong.
"Come as many as you like, if you want to die. I'll kill every last one of you. Be it Vast Heaven or Vast Heaven's grandfather."
The grip Yeop Bi-hwa had on her sword hilt slackened, ever so slightly.
That……how should she put it? It was far too much the kind of thing Kim Rae-won would say. Taking in the weak, and then being at odds with the stronger because of it.
Kim Rae-won had always been like that. And so he had always been hurt. Even so he had always returned to acts of chivalry, and always found himself in danger again.
"Why……why do you go that far?"
"Didn't you see it when you came in?"
"……"
"That's what a hero ought to do. That is a hero—"
Seeh, the smile that had vanished spread back over his face.
"And because that's how I can grow stronger."
―Why do you cling so to chivalry like this?
―Simple. Because that's what a hero is, and because that's the only way something like me……can grow stronger.
Identical.
The speech pattern, the logic, and even that smile. Taking in the weak and baring his teeth at the strong to charge at them. The notion that this was what a hero was, and that this was the path to becoming stronger—this mad logic utterly incompatible with this rotten Martial World of ours……
"That line."
"Hm?"
"That line you just said……where did you pick it up?"
"Amusing."
"……"
"I have no memory, granted. But this sort of refined line doesn't exactly circulate freely in this Martial World, does it?"
This part is similar too.
Kim Rae-won—the Kim Rae-won of the past—had been prone to sneering at the Martial World in exactly that fashion.
"You have no memory?"
"Right. None."
Instant answer. She could not tell whether it was true or false.
"Is that something you say in earnest?"
"In earnest—what, do I look like I'm spouting lies?"
Yeop Bi-hwa's mouth closed.
There was nothing more to ask. No—there was nothing she could learn by asking. Words can be crafted, and memory can be lost.
But a sword cannot speak falsehoods.
Yeop Bi-hwa's hand gripped the sword hilt.
No—she had not gripped it. The sword had already begun moving toward its target.
There was no sound. It did not cleave the wind. At the instant the Falling Flower Leaf Needle left its scabbard, instead of parting the air, it slid through it.
A straight line.
Yeop Bi-hwa's sword was always a straight line. Toward Dong Bong-soo's throat, one line.
Even as she thrust, Yeop Bi-hwa was already calculating the next.
The straight line of the One-Line Sword Technique is simple yet swift. If the first move is blocked, push it straight through without bending the sword. If he evades, pull back half a beat earlier and stab the empty space. If he is foolish enough to meet the blade, simply twist and cut his wrist.
Whatever the response, the next move was prepared.
And yet—.
There was no response.
He did not evade, did not block, did not step back. At the instant before the sword tip reached his throat, the man's hand rose. It was bare. Onto the blade, which bore the sword energy of the One-Line Sword Technique, a bare palm came to rest.
Clang.
The Falling Flower Leaf Needle stopped. The sword that had been thrashing wildly through the air now became lodged inside it.
Every next move she had prepared lost its light.
She could not bend it. Could not twist it. It would not draw back. It was as if the palm resting on the blade had not caught the sword, but had erased the sword's path itself.
The calculations concerning Yeop Bi-hwa's sword path, sword moves, and sword forms ceased.
Only then, looking up at the man's face, she found the smile still there.
"You've come ready to die, yes?"