A Job Tailored Just for You
What would you do if, one day, something like a ghost started talking to you?
Especially if it was a phantom only you could see and only you could hear?
The correct answer was thorough ignorance and total avoidance.
It wasn't that I believed the old superstition about ghosts liking it when you reacted. I was simply playing it safe so the people around me wouldn't write me off as a lunatic.
Especially since coming back from Shaanxi, Hwang Geolgae seemed to have his eye on me.
Shiiing—!
On the flagstone sparring ground of the Eunseong Merchant Group, the Hell-Cleaving Demon Sword I drew from the Black Peak cut through the air, flashing a silver arc.
Idiot.
I swung through the Chamgu Sword Art and ignored the voice. I wasn't an idiot to begin with.
Fool.
Another jab dug into my ear, and I ignored that too. I wasn't a fool in the slightest.
Enemy of women.
"Okay, that one's bullshit. What the hell did I even do?"
That one I couldn't let slide. I snapped back without thinking.
Salsung snorted, clearly pleased she'd finally hooked me, and kept going.
Hmph. I call you that precisely because you did nothing. Idiot.
She unfurled the five fingers she currently had, one by one, naming the women around me.
She'd made them anxious, she said, and leaving them like that was a crime. She told me I was worse than a womanizer.
"Damn it, and whose fault is it that I can't do anything?"
I stopped the tip of my blade and muttered.
As long as I was chained to that cursed fate called the Heavenly Killing Star, any friendship, love, or bond I formed could turn dangerous in a single instant.
So of course I drew a line in my relationships and stopped short of going any deeper.
"Hm. You've gone a little crazy after all, you brat."
Right then, Hwang Geolgae rose up like a ghost from one side of the sparring ground.
He'd used the distinctive footwork of Seonpungbo to slip in silently behind me.
"W-what do you mean by that, Master?"
He'd overheard my muttering and, as expected, decided I wasn't right in the head.
"I was only asking and answering myself as I worked toward enlightenment in the Chamgu Sword Art."
Martial artists did every kind of eccentric thing when they were trying to break through a wall. I tried that excuse.
"You're full of shit."
We'd been knocking each other around since I was a kid, so of course he knew me too well. These days nothing I said landed with him at all.
"Master, look into my eyes. Look at these clear, pure, trustworthy eyes."
"Heh. Look more like a pair of dead fish eyes to me."
He went on muttering that they were murky with greed and that he could feel an unpredictable madness in them.
"How can you slander me like that…"
A cold sweat ran down my spine.
I was already under suspicion for any number of things.
"Hmph. I never believed you from the start when you said it had no effect on you."
There was no way the baleful star wouldn't react after the Heavenly Killing Star had committed slaughter, he said.
No matter how hard I'd insisted nothing was wrong, he had never believed me.
"Then if you thought I was lying, why didn't you press me on it?"
"Because I trust you."
"…"
Had that much thick trust really built up between us?
I rubbed the crown of my head—still well-acquainted with the daily flying knuckle—and looked at Hwang Geolgae in surprise.
"Well. There may have been some effect from that business, but you can handle it, so of course you wouldn't say anything. This old man decided to believe that."
Even while his mouth said he couldn't trust me, he seemed to have a fairly solid faith in his disciple.
He was willing to believe me even after the Heavenly Killing Star had committed murder. All the suffering I'd gone through to prove myself with my actions had been worth it.
"Ahem. Well, if you're going to believe me, then that's fine."
I coughed awkwardly.
Hwang Geolgae smirked at the look on my face.
"Right. Nothing else you're still hiding, then?"
It was the kind of question you toss out just in case. The problem was that I did have something that would catch me.
"…Of course not. No problem at all."
Beside me, a pair of crimson lips twisted into a smile.
What a funny little bastard.
She sneered that I lied as easily as I breathed. Was I supposed to bet my neck and just spit it out, then?
If I handled it wrong, both of us could be screwed.
Because of the slaughter, the baleful star's influence had grown stronger, and now something strange only I could see had appeared and kept urging me to kill?
Even if I told him that, would Hwang Geolgae really laugh it off like it was nothing?
And even if I did tell him, it didn't look like he had any solution. All he knew about the baleful star was the scrap of knowledge connected to the Seongun Simbeop.
"But you, earlier—your swordwork looked strange. What was that?"
It hadn't been the Chamgu Sword Art he'd taught me, he said. It looked like I was chasing after something formless.
What kind of sword dance was that? he asked.
I'd thought he was absorbed in teaching Ilhong, but apparently he'd been watching me longer than I realized.
"I want to cut the grain."
I mentioned the Heavenly Killing Star's ability to split the weakness—the grain—that every thing possessed.
"Hm. You mean that grain from last time, when you took up a sword and could split the jiangshi?"
Back then I'd gotten a small taste of what it meant to be optimized for killing.
This time, clawing my way out of the Demonic Cult's den with my life, I'd realized the Heavenly Killing Star's talent: the power to kill anything.
"Yes. But what I want to cut this time isn't something of that type…"
Not flesh or bone or metal, I said, and continued.
"I want to cut something formless."
"Hm. Formless. For example?"
"Something that has no substance but still has influence. I want to cut sword force."
Sword force—the fundamental power of a martial artist, the qi that lurked in nature itself. I wanted to sever that.
"…"
Hwang Geolgae's brows twitched. He closed his mouth for a moment.
"You say some frightening things."
He was right.
Why was a Peak Realm expert worth more than ten first-class fighters? Part of it was expanded perception and ability, sure—but it was also the presence or absence of sword qi that could slice an ordinary iron blade coming at your face as easily as tofu.
Once blade-clashing itself became impossible, an enormous gap opened between first-class and Peak. That was why Peak experts could reign like human weapons among ordinary fighters.
"…You can cut sword force? You?"
Jo Harang had only seen me volunteer as a sacrifice in the cave and what was left afterward. She hadn't watched me fight the Demonic Cult's protectors, so I hadn't told her about this.
"If I can cut sword force, wouldn't I be able to land a completely unexpected blow on a Transcendent Realm master—something they never saw coming?"
"Hah."
As if he'd just grasped one of the reasons the Heavenly Killing Star had always been able to run wild even against the great masters of the Central Plains, Hwang Geolgae gave a hollow laugh.
"So please help me experiment just once, Master."
"You brat. You're saying you want to experiment on this old man?"
I didn't want some half-baked Transcendental Peak sword force. I wanted to test against a proper Transcendent Realm master's sword force.
The ones I was aiming for, after all, were the Transcendent Realm and higher experts who might come for me again at any time.
"Master, normally when someone comes at me, I leave room in my hands."
I brought up what had happened in the Demonic Cult—the moments when I'd had no choice but to get blood on my hands.
"Mercy is something only the strong can afford to give. In the Demonic Cult I had no room left in my hands, and so I committed slaughter."
I had to get stronger so the same thing wouldn't happen again. I tried to persuade him with that.
"This isn't just so you can learn how to break sword force and land one on this old man, is it?"
"…"
When it came to me, this man really was sharp.
I hemmed and hawed, and Hwang Geolgae narrowed his eyes.
Earlier he'd said he'd believe me, so I should speak honestly without lies.
"It's not that that reason doesn't exist at all…"
Thwack!
A crisp impact cracked through my skull like lightning.
In the blink of an eye he'd drawn his sword like a bolt and smashed the pommel into my forehead.
"Heh heh. I like the honesty. Let's see that ability of yours. Come at me."
Grinning as if this were fun, Hwang Geolgae pulled his sword in tight and ordered me to attack.
The instant the blade was in his hand, he began radiating a single, razor-sharp killing intent.
It was only a posture with the sword held close, yet I couldn't see a single opening to dig into.
"Well? Coming or not?"
I couldn't see the grain the way I had back then.
Probably because I wasn't under a real threat to my life. In that case, all I had to do was fight hard enough to feel that threat.
"Swing like you're trying to kill a man."
In this merciless jianghu, being weak meant you could lose someone precious the way I nearly had in that cave.
"Heh heh. Ilhong too. Everyone's attitude toward the jianghu has changed."
Out of nowhere he brought up Ilhong.
Then he crooked the fingers of his free hand at me in a come-on.
"Don't worry. I was already planning to kill a man."
"…"
He looked like he had some grievance with me involving Ilhong.
I didn't know what it was, but it would probably help the training.
"I'll go in with a battle cry."
"Hmph. That crazy battle cry of yours, is it?"
Crazy battle cry? It was just a word I shouted to focus.
I gathered sword force at the tip of my blade, activated the Heavenly Killing Eye, and roared.
Taat!
"DIE!"
The sky was yellow.
No—thinking about it, what was yellow was my vision.
"Uuugh."
My whole body throbbed from the thorough thrashing.
I'd tried to recreate that sensation while fighting Hwang Geolgae, but unfortunately I never saw the "grain" from the time I'd cut sword force.
"I thought the Heavenly Killing Star… could kill even Gang Qi…"
I flopped onto the ground and let out a long sigh.
I'd meant to kill the Gang Qi, and beyond that, to kill this shackle of a destiny itself.
Apparently my dream had been too big.
I loosened the cloth I'd bound tightly around my grip so I wouldn't drop the sword, and grumbled.
Foolish. Did you truly think the Heavenly Killing Star could kill anything?
Salsung's lips twitched above my exhausted form.
A slender palm and one arm, a shoulder leading into a neck and jaw, and those lips—all arranged in a posture that seemed to mock me.
If she'd had a full body by now, she'd probably be standing there with her arms crossed, snorting.
"I did think I could kill anything."
I'd severed a martial artist's refined energy—sword force—so next I should be able to cut unrefined natural qi.
And further on, formless existences and even concepts themselves… that was what I'd believed.
"Thinking about it, this is pure middle-school syndrome."
…?
Salsung pursed her lips as if she didn't understand a word of it.
And then—
"Boss!"
Ilhong, who'd lately been training under Hwang Geolgae as brutally as I was for some reason, came running toward me.
"What's going on?"
"A client came. A client."
These days Harang was also away reporting to her master, so the office had been empty.
That was why, Ilhong said, a client had tracked me all the way to the merchant group.
"This body's popularity still hasn't cooled off."
Even with a closed sign hanging on the shop, someone had hunted me down to the end. I grinned and headed to the place Ilhong indicated.
There, in the shadowed corner between buildings, a figure wrapped deep in black robes was waiting for me—apparently to hide their identity.
"I heard you were looking for Beijing's finest troubleshooter, the Dog-Beating Dragon himself?"
"Hah. Still the same punchable mug, you bastard."
A familiar voice came from under the black robes.
In the eaves where no eyes could reach, the client slowly lifted the hood.
"Cheon Su-gong…?"
I looked at my unexpected visitor in bewilderment.
"You."
The head of the Eastern Depot pointed a finger straight at me, as if something important was on the line.
"Yes?"
"Work with me on a job."
He kept glancing around to see if anyone was watching, then made his proposal—
with the kind of weighty line that belonged in a movie scene.
"I've got a commission that's a perfect fit for you."