Extending Branches
Dan Mujin was a truly strange bastard.
Not merely because he was his disciple—objectively speaking, the kid was bizarre.
One day Eun Hwaran had come by looking thoroughly proud and declared that his eye for disciples was something else entirely. The boy would turn out just like him, she said: poor but upright, transcending the secular world—a pure, frugal Daoist. At an age still flush with blood and greed, he had already grasped the principle that commerce is people and people are commerce, putting people ahead of profit before even she had. She gushed with admiration.
Hwang Geolgae nearly burst out laughing when she dropped that on him out of nowhere.
That lunatic, a pure Daoist?
But once he heard the whole story, he was genuinely surprised. Usually when a beggar made good, he bent over backward to scrub away the lowliness of his origins. Yet this one remembered the hard times and wanted to look after the little beggars. The way the brat talked back and stood up to him, yet still acted like that, left Hwang Geolgae confused more often than not.
So he went to the training grounds and asked Dan Mujin, mid-practice, straight out.
"What the hell are you, exactly?"
Dan Mujin frowned as if the old man had just said something completely out of left field.
"Why do you start picking fights the second you see my face?"
Maybe it was from all the lectures and beatings whenever the Heavenly Killing Star looked ready to veer down a dark path. These days the kid just turned sulky and grumbled the moment he saw his master's face.
"It's not a fight, you brat. Weren't you the one obsessed with money?"
He was so money-crazy that when Eun Hwaran offered compensation for the silkworm business and he turned it down, Hwang Geolgae figured he'd racked up years' worth of internal energy from sheer shock. In the kid's own mind, he had probably agonized massively between conscience and greed.
"Money? I love it to death. The problem is not having any."
"And a guy like that, when he finally gets that kind of cash, decides to open a relief shelter…?"
Hwang Geolgae could not understand his disciple. Did the brat not have a selfish bone in his body? It wasn't as if he had attained the Dao and left the secular world behind the way Hwang Geolgae had. So how could he make a choice like that?
"It's, you know. Money I made by teaming up with something dangerous and running a scam… Figured if I spend it, something bad might happen."
Watching Dan Mujin stare into empty space as he said it, Hwang Geolgae sank into deep thought.
"I really can't figure you out."
He had taken him in as a Heavenly Killing Star whose killing intent had not yet fully bloomed, planning to keep him close and watch. But the more he watched, the stranger his thoughts about the kid became. The brat had no manners, yet his path was upright. He kept helping the weak, punishing the wicked, and even possessed a kind nature that wanted to embrace those weaker than himself.
If it was this guy, maybe he really could become a chivalrous hero who guided the Murim the right way even while carrying the Heavenly Killing Star.
Of course, Hwang Geolgae was still half-skeptical.
"You brat, what's your dream?"
"Life extension, immortality. Luxury and pleasure."
If you just listened to him talk, he was the very picture of a greedy little man. But unlike the garbage that came out of his mouth, his actions were solid—completely the opposite of being two-faced. Sure, some of that behavior was probably rooted in wanting to live longer. But if someone actually received help and had their life saved, could you really write it off as mere hypocrisy?
"Oh, right. If I open the shelter, will you be the director, Master?"
"Director…?"
"Ah, since it's a shelter, maybe superintendent. Anyway. You take charge and run it."
"Why me, of all people?"
"You're free all day anyway, just drinking and loafing. You should do something."
The look in the kid's eyes was like he was staring at a useless parasite just eating up food. Honestly, his attitude toward his elders was disrespectful beyond belief.
"Loafing? This is all training so I can meet the Primordial Heavenly Worthy."
"Yeah, right."
Hwang Geolgae swung his staff and delivered instant justice.
Thwack!
"Aagh!"
Dan Mujin rolled around on the training ground floor clutching a slightly dented crown of his head. People from the Eunseong household who were passing by stared in surprise, then pretended not to see—used to the sight by now.
"This son of a…"
Dan Mujin glared resentfully this way, grumbling nonstop. Anyway, the brat had a habit of earning beatings.
"You want me to take full charge of the shelter. You're telling me to look after the little beggars."
"Yeah. Do you know how hard it is to survive as a kid beggar in Beijing?"
"I know. I was a Beggar Sect man myself."
"For the record, it got harder partly because of you, Master."
"…I know that too, you brat."
Truthfully the worst culprit was the Son of Heaven in the Imperial Palace, but. Anyway, at that point Hwang Geolgae decided he would cut back on the booze and try working.
And the old man just quietly stared at Dan Mujin, who had made that request. All sorts of thoughts seemed to be crossing his mind; his expression rippled with complexity.
"Looks like this old man had the wrong idea about you."
When he muttered that and stomped closer, Dan Mujin flinched and backed away.
"Ah, what now. Even when I do something good…"
He covered his crown and made a wary face.
"You brat, I'm not scolding you… Ugh."
Had he only ever cracked the whip? When a disciple did something praiseworthy, a carrot was needed now and then.
"I'll bestow my swordsmanship upon you."
At those words, the kid's eyes went wide.
Lately a strange rumor had been circulating through the Demon Exterminating Squad building.
It concerned Vice Leader Moyong Cheonghye. Among the members there was a great deal of chatter about how she had grown noticeably brighter and softer of late.
"Obvious, right? She's got a man."
"Come on, no way. That's the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden."
"Hey, I'm telling you. If not, how does someone who was like a single blade end up with that kind of expression?"
Once she had radiated a murderous aura that felt as if it would cut you merely by brushing against it—the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden. Now the members' gazes were fixed on her, her expression loosened like someone who had passed a harsh winter and met the spring sunlight.
"That's what the members are muttering. What do you think about it, Vice Leader?"
Squad Leader Jeok Unyeop, who had overheard every word with the hearing unique to masters, spoke with a sly smile.
"…Looks like we need to reestablish discipline."
Moyong Cheonghye clenched her fist so hard veins stood out, foreshadowing harsh training. Watching her, Jeok Unyeop whistled and offered a silent prayer for the members. Her training was notorious for being brutal and grueling.
"Squad Leader, you should join too."
"Why me…?"
"There's been no progress tracking the Blood Sect lately, so even you must be getting rusty for real combat, Squad Leader. I'll gladly swing my sword and reawaken that sense for you."
The Moyong Clan woman proposed with a faintly cold smile. In that look Jeok Unyeop felt a fragment of the old Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden.
"I must firmly decline."
"I decline your decline."
The subordinates said her atmosphere had softened lately, but to Jeok Unyeop she still felt purely murderous.
"I am the Squad Leader, Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden."
"Then act like a Squad Leader and don't get swayed by baseless rumors."
He felt as if he had stuck his nose in out of curiosity and gotten burned. Moyong Cheonghye glared at him with crescent eyes. Under that sharp gaze, the memory of her beheading villains in the past made his spine chill.
"Still, it's true the atmosphere's different lately. Is there some change in your personal circumstances?"
Even so, he was too curious. Jeok Unyeop pressed on, determined to find the reason for the change.
"Well… maybe because I found hope to live for."
Moyong Cheonghye murmured wistfully, looking in some direction, as if she had thought someone was dead. Watching from the side, it was a sight that really made all sorts of thoughts spring up. No wonder people whispered, wondering what was up.
Knock knock.
Just then someone rapped on the desk and woke the two from their thoughts. When they turned, there stood a man with jade-like eyes that always shone brilliantly. It was Young Master Namgung Jin of the Namgung Family, called the next Greatest Under Heaven and harvesting the affections of countless women wherever he went.
"You're here again…"
And lately he was the person Moyong Cheonghye found most exhausting. A man who visited at the drop of a hat and threw strange questions, as if monitoring something.
"Vice Leader of the Demon Exterminating Squad, it's been a while. These days you don't seem to be roaming the entire Central Plains to chop off villains' heads?"
A man showing a strange interest in her every move. Thanks to him, weird rumors like the earlier one had started sticking.
"Tracking the Blood Sect takes priority, so I've been refraining from such acts."
"Is that so? For that, it felt like your passion itself had cooled."
He muttered that the madness from when she had transformed from Cold Flower Jade Maiden into Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden was no longer visible, asking if her will to exterminate demons had cooled.
"It's not particularly that."
"Perhaps those impulses have subsided? Or maybe you're seeing blood somewhere else separately."
"…I have no idea what you're talking about."
He would come out with incomprehensible statements like this. From what she had heard, he was carrying out the Alliance Leader's orders solo without support from the Combat Squad and chasing the Blood Sect, but lately he seemed fixated on something else and acting strangely.
"Hmm, that can't be…"
What couldn't be? Moyong Cheonghye still stared at him with a puzzled expression.
"Anyway, I understand. Since you say so, I'll believe you."
He tilted his head, looking as if he would let it go for now. Had he received some wrong information? She had thought of him as a true chivalrous hero who beheaded villains and led the way for the peace of the Central Plains.
"Anyway, what brings you this time?"
The fortunate thing, if any, was that he never visited without business. Every time he came, the martial artist brought some major, out-of-the-ordinary incident.
"I discovered some unpleasant traces and omens."
Namgung Jin carefully took out something wrapped in cloth. Looks like he had been sneaking around somewhere again collecting this and that.
"What traces do you mean?"
"Traces of demonic arts."
At the words "demonic arts," the eyes of Moyong Cheonghye, once called the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, glinted coldly.
"There are many who have learned demonic arts."
"Yes, true. But this is a bit different."
How different? If a previous generation's demonic leader had appeared, they would just raise the bounty or send the Combat Squad to deal with it. For someone of the Blue Cloud Sword's caliber to make such a grave face over this.
"These are traces of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult."
"…"
When something that could not be brushed off lightly was mentioned, the air in the room froze. Even after all this time, that name still weighed heavily on the Murim. The Squad Leader and Vice Leader of the Demon Exterminating Squad also began staring at the cloth-wrapped thing with uneasy eyes.
A dawn with dew forming.
As always, Ilhong was sweating, swinging her sword and cutting through the wind. And in that quiet dawn scenery, one more figure had been added.
"But why the sudden change of heart?"
I tightly gripped the hilt of the sword Hwang Geolgae had handed me and asked. Normally he hated even having lethal weapons touch my hands.
"If I hadn't known, fine. But you've already tasted it once. Better to master it properly and handle it skillfully than swing it clumsily and cause a massacre."
His voice mixed resignation and expectation. From the speed of the messes I had been making, he seemed to know by now that I would do it even if told not to. So rather than cause accidents swinging it poorly, learn it right—that seemed to be the meaning.
"Oh, right. I knew a day like this would come someday."
First footwork, then fist techniques, then internal energy mind methods, and now swordsmanship. I had been grudgingly acknowledged and finally the time had come to inherit everything of Hwang Geolgae's.
I swung the sword in my hand—called the King of All Weapons—with a whoosh so it made a wind sound.
"Alright, teach me. How to stab people. How to use the tool."
At my excited remark, Hwang Geolgae frowned.
"What do you mean, 'use the tool.' 'Use the tool.'"
"Why, the essence is the same. In the end it's stabbing and cutting people, right?"
No matter what fancy rhetoric you attached. In the end it was a martial art for cutting and tearing people apart.
"Do you remember what this old man said last time? Even the same blade, depending on how you use it…"
"That it can save people or kill them, like a doctor's scalpel?"
"Yes. That's the way."
Hwang Geolgae nodded. Then he looked at me with sharp eyes.
"But you easily turn into a blade that tears people apart at the drop of a hat…"
Mentioning the Heavenly Killing Star inside me, Hwang Geolgae began radiating killing intent from his sword. No matter how you looked at it, that did not seem like a living sword that saved people.
"First I'll straighten out that head of yours!"
Taat!
With that sound, Hwang Geolgae's form shot forward like lightning.
"Whoa!"
And a storm of killing intent began to rage through the training grounds.
The first swordsmanship lesson between master and disciple began.