The Dog-Beating Staff Technique
“Dan Mujin, you little brat.”
The next morning, after a sleepless night of mental sparring with the Heavenly Killing Star, I finally managed to collapse into bed—only to open my eyes to Hwang Geolgae’s wrinkled face hovering inches from mine. I screamed.
“Oh, fuck.”
The curse slipped out on pure reflex. One of Hwang Geolgae’s eyebrows shot up at a crooked angle.
“Did you just say that to this old man’s face?”
“Aigoo, of course not.”
I nearly caught a few shots to the crown of my head the second I woke up. What kind of old man shoves his face right up against someone to wake them? I thought I was having a heart attack.
“Since you’re up, follow me to the training grounds.”
He showed up out of nowhere, then walked out of the room before I’d even agreed to go anywhere.
“Ugh.”
This was what life on a leash felt like. In the end I dragged my exhausted body over to the training grounds, which still bore the scars of countless practice sessions.
Hwang Geolgae was already waiting in the center, thumping a thick club against his shoulder. The look he gave me was not normal. It was the same look the principal used to give when he’d caught you skipping class, and I flinched hard.
What the hell is this about? Don’t tell me he found out about last time.
“I’m sorry.”
“……Sorry for what, you brat?”
I apologized first and Hwang Geolgae just stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
“The guy who raided your side dishes last time—that was me.”
“That was you……? You absolute lunatic. Why do you keep putting your hands on your master’s food?”
So that wasn’t it. My guess was wrong. Then why haul someone out at the crack of dawn and set this kind of mood?
Had he sensed the Heavenly Killing Star acting up? It didn’t feel like that, though.
“If you go to Merchant Leader Eun Hwaran she’ll lay out every expensive dish you want. Why on earth are you stealing food?”
“Ah, about that.”
I knew that. But if I kept freeloading fancy meals, it started to feel like I was racking up debt. Then later, when I did a good deed, the first thought would be “well, that covers the meal,” and the merit wouldn’t stack properly. Besides—stolen food just tasted weirdly better than free food.
“Hmm. I can get behind that last part, at least.”
Hwang Geolgae nodded, apparently finding some common ground in my explanation. That beggar nature of his really wasn’t something you could scrub off easily.
“So why’d you call me? If you’re about to make me do something, save it for tomorrow. I’ve got somewhere to be today.”
“Where, you brat?”
“It’s been a while, so I’m taking the kids from my beggar days out for a good meal at an inn.”
That Beijing inn that always kicked us out because we looked like beggars. This time would be different. Everyone had real jobs now.
“Hm? A cheapskate like you is opening his wallet? What’s the occasion?”
“I just suddenly felt like doing a good deed. Got a problem with that?”
The bonus had fattened my purse, and something bright red kept feeling like it was right on my heels. I needed to stack merit, and fast.
“Heh heh. As if. Taking care of the children in the Beggar Sect’s name—how could I object?”
This old man had always been weirdly happy whenever I looked after the little beggars. Probably because he had a guilty conscience about something.
“You should make up with the Emperor already, Old Man.”
“You brat, you think I don’t want to?”
A beggar and the Emperor being old friends—sounded like something out of a fairy tale.
“Winning once was fine, but yelling that he was trash was a bit much.”
“Quiet. While I was eating thirty losses I heard every insult under the sun.”
Hwang Geolgae claimed the head of a nation was also top-tier at provocation. Judging by the lingering resentment on his face, the Emperor must have really gotten under his skin.
“And if he was angry he should’ve taken it out on this old man. Honestly—owns the whole world and still has a heart the size of a dried anchovy……”
He had a lot stored up; every time the Emperor came up, Hwang Geolgae started muttering and grumbling nonstop. Anyway, the conversation kept drifting.
“But what’s with the staff, Old Man Hwang? And why’d you drag me here?”
At my question he stopped complaining and slammed the club—thick enough to cave in a skull—into the ground with a heavy thud. He leaned on it like a cane and stroked his chin beard, looking like a man facing a major decision.
“Do you know? I’ve met countless people in my life, but never a creature as strange and complicated as you.”
Calling someone a freak right to their face.
“Aren’t people all complicated and three-dimensional to begin with? I accepted that a long time ago.”
Working as a troubleshooter at the detective agency had taught me plenty. Even the ones who looked rotten turned out to have their reasons once you dug deep enough, and the ones who seemed pure as snow usually had some nasty corner hidden away. Black and white were murky; truly good people and truly evil ones were rare. Take Moyong Cheonghye—to me she was the woman who nearly murdered her little brother, but to her blood relatives she was a reliable sister and eldest daughter.
“So why all the buildup?”
It didn’t feel like he was about to say “you look dangerous, better cut you down,” yet his expression stayed rigid.
“I’ve been watching you constantly these days. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Felt a pretty creepy stare.”
Thanks to the Heavenly Killing Star’s passive, whenever I got that sensation of being watched from somewhere and turned around, that old man’s face was always there. It was exactly what being stalked felt like—hard to forget.
“At first I thought I’d just wait and see. Lately I was half-convinced. But after what happened on the escort run, this old man’s mind changed a great deal.”
The escort incident—that had to mean the time Dang Yeohye and I personally stepped up and blocked the Soul-Stealing Demon Lord. I’d only jumped in to survive, but a lot of people lived because of it. Even though it was the first time I’d killed someone, it registered as merit, and my mind stayed clear of the Heavenly Killing Star’s influence.
“Can you promise that the martial arts this old man teaches you will continue to be used not for evil, but to help others?”
“Promise or not, that’s the only way I stay alive, isn’t it?”
Stack merit, suppress the Heavenly Killing Star with the internal energy refined through the Seongun Simbeop, and steal its power in the process.
“I’m not asking about your situation. I’m asking about your pure intention, you brat.”
Hwang Geolgae’s face had turned as solemn as a true Daoist’s.
“I’ll look out for myself, sure—but I have no intention of committing evil for that sake. That was true even before I knew the Seongun Simbeop existed.”
Even after getting stabbed and falling off a cliff into the worst possible situation, I still couldn’t bring myself to exploit the younger beggars who were weaker than me. That would have made me feel less than human—exactly like that goat-bearded merchant who’d insulted me to my face. I’d stay in the gray zone and practice mutual benefit before I ever sank to the level of absolute monsters like the Soul-Stealing Demon Lord. Star in my head or not, that was the absolute minimum creed of Dan Mujin.
“A very you answer. I like it, brat.”
Hwang Geolgae grinned in satisfaction and kicked a long staff up from the ground, tossing it my way.
“What’s this?”
“Didn’t you ask this old man to teach you before? The Tagubongbeop—the Dog-Beating Staff Technique.”
The Dog-Beating Staff Technique. I’d seen it once or twice in the wuxia novels I used to skim. I knew it belonged to the Beggar Sect, and since it was a weapon art of sorts, I’d asked for it without knowing anything. Back then he’d flatly refused, telling me to accumulate at least fifteen years of internal energy first. Had his heart changed this time? I still hadn’t even measured how much internal energy I’d built up.
“Ah, so you’re putting on this whole dramatic act just to pass down some dog-beating technique?”
The moment the words left my mouth, the club in Hwang Geolgae’s hand flashed.
Thwack—!
“Agh!”
A single blow designed to shut a mouth. It was the most painful hit I’d ever taken from him. This time it really felt like my crown had caved in.
“Fuck! Why do you keep hitting me there?!”
I frantically felt around. Luckily it hadn’t actually dented. The Heavenly Killing Star’s body really was something else in the durability department.
“Heh heh. ‘Dog-beating technique,’ is it? Is that what you thought when you demanded this old man teach it to you?”
“Then what the fuck is it?!”
Tagubongbeop. The name itself meant “the method of beating dogs with a staff.” That bluntness was exactly why it had stuck in my memory even after a casual glance.
“This art is not for beating the dogs of the street. It is a staff technique for thrashing those dog-sons-of-bitches who are worse than beasts—men with human faces and the hearts of animals.”
“……Ah.”
That actually made sense. Beating down the human trash who were worse than dogs. I’d already met more than enough of those while surviving in the Murim.
“So how do we train this thing?”
I gripped the long staff he’d thrown me in one hand and asked. An instinctive unease prickled under my skin.
“Heh heh. How do you think we’ll train it?”
Haa. Of course.
I should’ve known it would be like this.
“Ugh. Goddamn it.”
A very long road of suffering stretched out ahead of me.
A fierce dog blocks the road ahead!
Hwang Geolgae swept the staff through the air, demonstrating the form that drove such a beast away.
Whoosh—
The tip of the staff, carrying enough force to split a log, grazed so close past Dan Mujin’s forehead that it stirred his hair. Dan Mujin’s eyes flew wide.
“You’re going to kill someone! You crazy old man!”
A red light flickered in both of his eyes—he had felt the threat to his life, and just like before, he was reading the trajectory of the attack.
One swing that thrashes two dogs at once.
Thud! Crack!
He took the first blow with his body, yet somehow managed to whip his own staff up and block the second strike.
“Heh heh.”
Truly worthy of the Heavenly Killing Star. The moment a little killing intent was released to threaten his life, he absorbed the martial art the way dry earth drinks water. What a convenient disciple to teach. Other students needed ages to cram forms, key points, and mental imagery into their heads. This one just needed to be beaten with killing intent and his body remembered on its own.
The staff darts after its prey, then snaps like a serpent to smash the spine.
Crack!
“Aaaargh!”
Dan Mujin howled. Hwang Geolgae roared the form names at full volume and left the pain in the boy’s flesh so the memory would stick.
Beat every dog around you until none remain beneath the heavens.
“Even the form names are pure dogshit!”
It was the final form of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique, packed with such ferocious power that wherever it landed something would rupture. Dan Mujin sensed it by pure instinct and unleashed the Whirlwind Steps he had been taught to their absolute limit.
Hwang Geolgae’s eyes widened slightly at the polished, ghost-like footwork that slid across the ground like water. The desperate fight against the Soul-Stealing Demon Lord must have pushed the boy up another full step.
But a flea can only jump so high. Displaying Whirlwind Steps in front of the man who taught them was a lost cause.
Thwack!
The long staff swept both of the boy’s legs out from under him. Dan Mujin spun like a top and slammed face-first into the dirt.
“Uweeeh!”
Dizzy, he spat a dry heave mixed with a scream. In pain, he rolled left and right, then surged back to his feet with a string of curses.
“Shiiit!”
No matter how hard he was beaten, this one never broke. Instead his eyes burned even hotter. A true beggar’s spirit lived in him—a disciple worth teaching.
“Hey, old man.”
When he got angry enough for his eyes to flip, the polite “Old Man” vanished and “old fart” or “geezer” came out. One of the brat’s more insolent habits.
“What is it, you brat?”
“What’s your exact realm?”
Hwang Geolgae already knew why he was asking and let a faint smile curve his lips.
“Why? Planning to leap over that realm and take revenge?”
“Fuck, how did you know? Sometimes you really are as uncanny as a Daoist.”
“Heh heh heh. This seat has reached the Transcendent Realm. Go ahead and try, you fool.”
How had he picked up a disciple like this so late in life? It had to be the arrangement of the Primordial Heavenly Venerable.
Hwang Geolgae laughed as if thoroughly entertained and began swinging the staff again without pause.
Whoosh— Thud!
“Aaaagh!”
Crisp, meaty impacts, as if thrashing a mad dog. For a long while after that, the training grounds rang with the sound of blows and someone’s screams.
In the end that deranged old man didn’t let me go until late afternoon.
“Boss, you okay?”
“Nnngh…… Do I look okay?”
It was the first time in a while I’d stood in front of the kids, so I’d wanted to put on a little swagger. Instead my entire body was a mess of lumpy bruises and wrecked flesh.
“……He said Transcendent Realm, right?”
At least the motivation was crystal clear.
I was going to get my revenge. No idea when, but I would.
I clenched my fist tight and made myself that promise.