Fateful Ties
“Why are you reacting like that?”
“If you’re going to compare it to a man’s testicles, wouldn’t it be breasts?”
I was completely serious when I said I’d staked everything on this.
The woman in the blue robes had lowered her sword and was staring at me, flustered.
I hurriedly took two steps back to put some distance between us.
At this range, she wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to get caught flat-footed, right?
“L-look, let’s calm down for a moment. I think there’s been a misunderstanding, so let’s talk this out.”
“An underhanded strategy to lull me with your appearance, then deceive me with words. I won’t be fooled.”
When she saw me spreading both hands in appeal, the woman tightened her grip on her sword.
She’s completely one-track-minded.
Just a few exchanges in, and I was already sure of it.
She was the type who didn’t speak the same language as other people.
Stiff and upright, but utterly unwilling to doubt what she had already decided to believe.
That sharp, glittering gaze had already pegged me as a criminal.
Well, if I’m being honest, I do look suspicious.
I let out a long sigh and stepped one foot forward.
I wasn’t really sure, but wasn’t this the sort of stance you used when you were about to throw a punch?
The moment I set my posture, the woman in front of me pointed her sword at me as well.
Oh. So it’s that kind of fight?
This was a self-defense stance!
I hadn’t planned on facing her head-on!
The woman drew her sword back with a proud, imposing air.
Some kind of hazy shimmer seemed to rise around her.
Is that what inner energy looks like?
She really did seem intent on fighting me seriously.
Maybe because of the tension, a warm current stirred in my lower abdomen and spread through my body, sliding up my spine.
I felt a little calmer somehow.
“Th-this is getting awfully serious.”
“…If you draw a sword, then you should cut something with it.”
She seemed to have recovered her composure in that brief interval as well.
The anger she’d shown when she first drew her sword was gone without a trace.
Now she was studying me with cool, measured eyes.
Was this that thing martial artists always talked about—searching for an opening in battle?
I’d be full of openings. About the only fighting style I knew was the taekwondo memory lodged somewhere in my head.
For her not to let down her guard even against my clumsy stance suggested she was a fairly careful type.
The standoff continued.
The wind that flowed down from the mountain brushed past us both.
…This is exhausting.
Was this really how Murim battles worked, with everything decided in a single exchange?
The endless tension wore me down, and my thoughts started wandering.
Before I knew it, even the stance I’d been holding so tightly had begun to loosen.
“Should I go first?”
Was Jongnam’s swordsmanship supposed to be more defensive in style?
Maybe it was the exhilaration buzzing through my whole body. Maybe it was the unreal, oddly calm state of my mind.
Whatever the reason, my sense that this was a real fight where life and death were on the line had grown faint, and the words slipped out without thinking.
“…I was given the chance to act first.”
Whatever she’d taken from my words, the woman leaped forward and closed the distance in an instant.
The sword came crashing down.
I couldn’t even hear the sound of it being swung.
By the time I realized what was happening, the blade was already at my head.
Huh?
Wait a second.
I’m empty-handed.
Wasn’t this actually a crisis?
Perhaps because it really was a life-or-death moment, everything seemed to slow down again, just as it had before.
I could see it happening, but I had no idea how to respond.
I couldn’t just stand there and take it with my eyes open, so I reached out.
Tap.
I carefully caught the blade with both hands.
At the same moment, time—which had been crawling along—snapped back to its normal pace.
“Kh?!“
The woman immediately realized what had happened and looked visibly startled.
I didn’t know that would work either.
I’d just done the best thing I could think of with bare hands, something I’d seen in animation all the time.
“Hngh.”
She grunted and tried to wrench the sword back.
Since I was holding on with all my strength, I pressed down harder on the blade, resisting the pull.
It turned out to be more of a contest of strength than I’d expected.
Trying to hide her shock, she twisted the sword and heaved harder, trying to tear it free.
Crack.
An ominous sound rang out.
I quickly let go, and the woman took several steps backward, staring down at her sword.
The side of the blade had split open.
If she kept swinging it, it looked like it would break clean in two.
“Uh… um…”
Watching her face go blank, I couldn’t hide my own bewilderment.
Wasn’t that… expensive?
Did I need to pay her back? I didn’t have any money.
Yu Hyeonju stared at her ruined sword and struggled to make sense of the mess in her chest.
I didn’t sense any inner energy.
The force she’d felt while climbing the mountain had not been a lie.
Once the girl set her stance, the energy that seemed to cloak her body was far from sinister, yet it unmistakably signaled a formidable expert.
It wasn’t fair to call her careless.
The punching stance was sloppy to the extreme, and there were countless openings in that awkward posture.
And yet Yu Hyeonju only grew more alert.
The girl’s attitude was far too relaxed.
Even while facing unmistakable hostility head-on, there wasn’t the slightest ripple of emotion on her face—only a calm composure.
The Jeongmyeong Heart Method that Yu Hyeonju had cultivated was a martial art that mirrored her own nature perfectly.
When inner energy was raised, its shape emerged clearly, like heat shimmering off the body.
To any ordinary person who had not made the slightest achievement in martial arts, that sight alone would be enough to reveal the gulf between them.
It was the upright spirit of someone who preferred an honest, head-on fight, no matter how evil the opponent might be.
It was the martial art that symbolized Yu Hyeonju’s justice as the Clear Ripple Sword.
And yet the girl felt no fear at all.
On the contrary, she had even yielded the first move with such ease.
In real combat, yielding the first move was proof that she looked down on her opponent without reservation.
Yu Hyeonju, whose pride was as lofty as the martial art she had mastered, could not maintain her composure after hearing those words.
Arrogant.
She had thought she was in.
Seeing the girl remain motionless as the blade came down to her face, Yu Hyeonju had dismissed it as nothing more than bluffing.
But the sword was stopped.
The girl did not dodge the blade descending toward her forehead.
She simply raised her small hands and lightly enclosed it, as if trying to catch a butterfly in flight.
So easily, Yu Hyeonju’s sword came to a halt inside those tiny hands.
Bare-Handed Blade Seizure!
What flashed through Yu Hyeonju’s mind was a technique spoken of in stories, one supposedly used only by Shaolin masters.
A miraculous feat of seizing a sharp weapon with bare hands.
It was said to be so dangerous that no one had ever seen it performed in reality.
No. It’s a coincidence.
It was a gambler’s technique, one that could only be pulled off by perfectly reading the path of the sword and striking at an exquisite instant with no margin for error.
What’s more, the Jongnam sword carried the principle of weight.
Heavy as a mountain, sweeping as the current of a great river—that was the heart of Jongnam swordsmanship.
It was not a blade that should have been stopped so casually.
I didn’t see it.
And yet it had been caught.
What confused her even more was that she hadn’t been able to read the process with her own eyes.
The instant after the swing, the sword was simply already held.
As if the entire process had vanished into thin air.
Panicking, Yu Hyeonju had forcibly twisted the hilt.
When she strained against the unmoving blade, the girl obediently let go.
And this was the result.
Drip.
Silver dust trickled from the cracked tip of the blade.
Its shape still held, but if she swung it again, it was certain to be destroyed in an instant.
“Uh… um…”
The girl stammered as she looked at her.
Her expression was worried.
There was something almost regretful in the way she looked at a toy she could no longer play with.
…She’s an extraordinary master.
Yu Hyeonju’s will collapsed.
She had been so careful not to be arrogant, and yet she had failed to recognize her in time.
She had been fooled by appearances and brazenly raised her sword against a hidden master.
The price would be terrible.
The sword had already been destroyed, and perhaps next it would be her life.
Carefully, she sheathed the blade.
Instead of the usual metallic click, an unpleasant grinding scrape rang out as metal rubbed against metal.
Then she bowed her head to the girl without delay.
“Your junior has committed an act of incompetence.”
Her pride was no longer important.
The strong survive.
The only law in Murim.
Pride was nothing more than the cheapest price the loser could offer the victor.
A swordswoman had lost her sword.
That meant her life as a martial artist was over.
Seeing Yu Hyeonju’s utterly resigned expression, the girl frantically waved both hands.
“No, no. I-I’m fine. Are you all right?”
With that innocent face, her eyes flitted back and forth between Yu Hyeonju and the broken sword at her waist.
Yu Hyeonju couldn’t understand the intent behind that look.
What is she worried about?
But extraordinary masters in Murim were always strange in one way or another.
Wasn’t that true even of her own longtime close friend?
Perhaps this master simply enjoyed her own peculiar eccentricities as well.
“…I’m fine.”
Even though her cherished sword had become nothing more than a hunk of scrap metal, that was all Yu Hyeonju could say.
Whether she truly believed her or not, the girl nodded in apparent relief and offered a thin smile.
At least it seemed she had no intention of taking her life.
Yu Hyeonju let out a quiet breath of relief inside.
“Then I’ll be off.”
“Um, just a moment.”
As the girl turned to leave, Yu Hyeonju called out to stop her without even realizing it.
The girl tilted her head in confusion and looked back at her.
Without hesitation, Yu Hyeonju clasped her hands in a formal salute and bowed once more.
“I am a humble disciple of Jongnam, Yu Hyeonju. If you would permit me, might I hear your honored name?”
In Murim, a bond of enmity could sometimes become a bond of fate.
Perhaps this was the beginning of such a thing.
“…I’m Hyeon. Song Hyeon.”
“Senior Song.”
Yu Hyeonju saluted again and lowered her head.
The girl who had introduced herself as Song Hyeon watched this and knitted her fine brows.
She looked somehow uncomfortable.
Yu Hyeonju wanted to keep building the connection, but it would be impolite to cling to someone in an ill temper.
Before she left, there was just one thing she wanted to ask, so she hurried to get the question out.
“Senior Song, why did you catch the sword?”
It was the Thirty-Six Swords of the World, after all, the essence of heavy swordsmanship that overwhelmed the enemy with weight and momentum rather than flash.
Though Yu Hyeonju had not yet fully grasped its profound subtleties, she had still practiced that sword for more than ten years.
That was why it was so strange that the girl had chosen neither to evade it nor to deflect it, but to catch it bare-handed.
Was it merely to flaunt an overwhelming difference in skill?
While all sorts of thoughts raced through Yu Hyeonju’s mind, Song Hyeon’s answer came back simple and clear.
“Because it’s hard to block.”
It was a teaching that shook the very foundation of the martial way Yu Hyeonju had pursued all her life.
Masters always had meaning in their words.
Yu Hyeonju pondered it deeply.
The essence of heavy swordsmanship.
By making full use of weight, an opponent who met the first downward strike head-on would be trapped by it.
The true killing blow came in the follow-up, in the opening created when the enemy couldn’t withstand the blade’s weight.
Whether it was the Thirty-Six Swords of the World or the Flowing Cloud Sword, Jongnam’s swordsmanship relied on restricting the enemy’s response with the heaviness of a heavy blade and then binding it together in flowing succession like water.
But all of them lost their force if the first move was caught.
So that’s it.
Yu Hyeonju nodded.
She reads the enemy’s sword and nullifies it.
How flexible that line of thinking was.
So this is the thought process of a master.
You always had to account for the possibility that the first move would be rendered useless.
That was a flaw impossible to grasp if one was trapped inside the forms themselves.
As her whole body trembled with the thrill of that sudden realization, a quiet voice shattered her reverie.
“By any chance, could I borrow some road money?”
At the sound, Yu Hyeonju looked up.
Song Hyeon was standing there with a slightly awkward, embarrassed expression.
Is she asking for payment?
For an instant, Yu Hyeonju tensed.
The price for sparing her life and even imparting advice after defeat.
Masters did not part with things lightly.
Yu Hyeonju, as the second-generation disciple of Jongnam, had seen many masters and remembered that well.
Without hesitation, she drew the coin pouch from her waist and offered it.
“Here.”
Song Hyeon took the pouch and tilted her head.
“All of it?”
“Is that not enough?”
Yu Hyeonju asked carefully, wondering if she had been stingy.
Song Hyeon shook her head and stepped forward with light footfalls to accept the pouch.
“No… thank you.”
Song Hyeon bowed her head a little first, so Yu Hyeonju bowed in return.
The girl fastened the pouch at her waist and quickly moved away.
Now that she had what she wanted, it was as if she had no lingering attachment at all; she didn’t even glance back, and her retreating figure was neat and unburdened.
Yu Hyeonju stood there for a long while, and only after Song Hyeon had disappeared completely did she finally collapse onto the ground with a thud.
Once the tension left her body, a hollow laugh burst out.
She’s practically a highway robber.
The thought flashed through her mind, though she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it aloud.
For someone with such beautiful features and such a noble aura to be so materialistic…
Yu Hyeonju concluded that beings like celestial maidens were nothing more than legends, illusions that existed only in stories.
“Well, that was an eventful day.”
With Song Hyeon long gone from sight, Yu Hyeonju muttered to herself and ran a hand through her disheveled hair.
The fabled encounter with a reclusive master had ended in a far more worldly fashion than she’d imagined.
For some reason, it felt oddly anticlimactic.
“I should head back.”
Her promise to her friend Hwa Rin had gone awry, and she had no word from her at all. The money she’d brought for food had been taken, and her lifelong companion, the treasured sword she’d carried all this time, needed repairs.
In the end, she still hadn’t learned anything about the Mount Hua Sect’s relationship with Song Hyeon.
But Song Hyeon didn’t seem like a villain, so she supposed she had no choice but to believe the story about her being given the clothes.
Perhaps those had been taken as payment, too.
First she should return to her lodging, collect herself, and gather fresh travel money before checking again tomorrow.
So in the end, all I’m left with for today is one realization?
Even that was an enormous harvest, no doubt about it.
What could be more precious to a martial artist than that?
With a bitter smile, Yu Hyeonju looked down at the landscape spread out below the mountain.
The majestic ridges of Mount Hua, one of the Five Great Peaks, cast long shadows across the land.
Maple leaves stained red and gold swayed bleakly in the night wind.
It was the only comfort for the fierce and exhausting day she had endured.
It was autumn.