The Master's Teaching
Oh Pilsang, Guildmaster of the Blood Bird Guild, could only stare at his one and only son, unable to speak a word.
The boy's jaw had been crushed beyond recognition, his right arm and both knee joints shattered to pieces. Worse still, his manhood had been rendered completely nonfunctional.
He had frantically dumped every potion he carried over the boy's body, but for some inexplicable reason, none of them had any effect. Perhaps because of that, his son lay on the bed, unable to even properly open his eyes, doing nothing but moaning in endless agony.
Oh Pilsang found himself clutching his forehead. The shock was enough to make the room swim before his eyes.
"A-Ather... aghh..."
His son had barely managed to force his mouth open and was trying to call for him, but with his broken jaw, he couldn't even articulate the words properly.
"Don't talk. Just rest."
That was all Oh Pilsang said to his son. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
The moment he stepped outside, his waiting subordinates bowed their heads in unison. Oh Pilsang spared them no glance and looked out the window instead.
The tallest building overlooking the entire Guro district. That was where Oh Pilsang lived — the royal palace he had built for himself.
"Report."
"Th-the enemy was one man. Identity unknown — he doesn't appear on any Awakened registry. However, according to the men who went along, he seems to be Choi Seoyeon's uncle..."
"Wait. Choi Seoyeon's uncle?"
Oh Pilsang turned the word over slowly in his mind.
He knew quite a lot about Choi Seoyeon. That was only natural — her father, Choi Taemin, had been an old friend of his, the very man with whom he had founded the Blood Bird Guild.
Of course, that was before Choi Taemin died in the Yeouido Gate.
And it was easy enough for Oh Pilsang to dredge up his memories of Choi Taemin's brother-in-law. Choi Taemin's life had begun to change the moment that high-school-aged brother-in-law had vanished without a trace.
"...A returnee."
Oh Pilsang murmured the words in a low voice.
"What?"
"You said that man subdued thirty men on his own?"
He asked his subordinate, though the answer was not what he needed. He merely needed time to organize his thoughts by voicing the question aloud.
Among the men his son had dragged along had been several rated B-Rank. For a single man to overwhelm thirty of them, B-Rankers included, meant that Choi Seoyeon's uncle was no pushover.
And then there was the ten-year gap. Which meant the odds were high that he was what people called a returnee.
"This just became a headache."
Oh Pilsang muttered with a scowl. Of all the people for a feud to sprout with, it had to be a returnee — the whole thing left a sour taste in his mouth.
"Any dead?"
"None, sir. The injuries are severe, but they're all alive."
"That's the one piece of good news."
For the first time, a faint, cold smile crossed Oh Pilsang's face.
The man hadn't killed anyone, and that was a positive outcome in more ways than one. First, with none of his own men dead, Oh Pilsang judged that negotiation with him remained a possibility.
His fury at having his son turned into a half-cripple was very real, but that was a problem money and a top-grade potion could eventually solve. Moreover, dealing with a man who couldn't easily bring himself to kill was, naturally, far easier than dealing with one who butchered people at a whim — whether that meant talking things out or seeing it through to the bitter end.
Negotiation first. If that fails, we deal with him.
Oh Pilsang was mapping out his response with narrowed eyes.
Which world is he from?
The only variable was that he had no idea which world the man had returned from.
Mana users were manageable once you equipped mana-suppression gear. Knight-types were a bit of a struggle, but they could be swarmed under with numbers.
Returnees from Murim, however, were a far more complicated problem. Most of them never strayed far beyond the level of ordinary Awakened, but the upper tier was another matter entirely — there was simply no way to counter them.
The Sword Saint of China was the textbook example.
No way. It couldn't be that bad.
Oh Pilsang shook his head, certain it wouldn't be. It wasn't an entirely baseless guess — a Murim returnee of that caliber would never have hesitated to kill in the first place.
"There's someone I should contact."
"Sir?"
"There's a team in China that specializes in handling returnees. I have a connection to the Ironblood Guild, so let me make a call and—"
That was the moment.
A commotion erupted from the floor below.
"GYAAAAGH!"
"R-run! Run for it!"
Screams rose from beneath his feet, and Oh Pilsang's face twisted. There was no mistaking those voices — they belonged to his own men.
CRASH.
A moment later, the door to Oh Pilsang's floor was ripped clean off its hinges, and a man walked through.
Bare-handed. No weapon of any kind.
"Who the hell are you?"
In answer to Oh Pilsang's question, the man smiled thinly.
"Me? Seoyeon's uncle. I've come to collect a debt."
At those words, spoken with that calm face, Oh Pilsang felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
A half-wit who couldn't bring himself to kill? No. The man had simply spared his subordinates because he was confident he could kill them whenever he pleased.
Damn it all.
That was the curse Oh Pilsang swallowed in silence.
"...Master, was all of this your doing?"
"As you can see, it was. My disciple."
My master had most certainly not been a blood-mad butcher who relished slaughter. He had always been far more interested in refining and advancing martial technique itself than in subduing opponents with it.
But not enjoying something did not mean being unable to do it.
Master rarely drew his sword — but once that sword left its sheath, there was no mercy to be found in it. And so, when the people of Murim gnashed their teeth at the mention of the Blood Sect and the Blood Jade Demonic Lord Gal Junghyeok, there was, indeed, good reason for it.
"Was it really necessary to kill them all? They were vermin either way."
Back then, I couldn't understand my master at all. He claimed to dislike killing people, and yet time and again he seemed to cross the line without hesitation.
That was how it looked to me then. The other side had always struck first, and most of them richly deserved their deaths — but there had been those caught up in it too, swept along for the ride. The family of that Dark Sect man whose head had just rolled, for example.
"Oh-ho. Do you truly think so?"
But Master only smiled faintly at my question and spoke those words. And I couldn't help but scowl at them — I recognized that expression. It was the face Master made right before he launched into an argument with me.
It wasn't that I disliked debate itself, but no matter how our conversations began, it was always me who ended up cornered by the end of them. A fight I was destined to lose every single time was never going to be fun.
"No, come on. That one didn't have to die, did he? Maim him — sever his limbs and leave him alive — and he'd never have amounted to anything again anyway."
Of course, the same applied to me: just because I disliked something didn't mean I was incapable of it.
"Yes. Quite right. So let's set aside, for the moment, the question of which is the more humane existence — a man dead, or a man living like a worm with his four limbs severed. Disciple. As I have told you time and again, the ways of the world are unknowable. Suppose you'd spared him, as you suggest, with his limbs hacked off — and suppose that creature later rose to become a high minister, or a magnate of commerce, and dreamed of revenge. What then? Worse, by some twist of ill fortune he might stumble upon some extraordinary opportunity and become a peerless master. Just as a butterfly's single wingbeat, crossing a distant ocean, becomes a typhoon. Heh heh."
"Master, realistically — what are the odds of that?"
"Heh heh. A man from a world utterly unlike ours became the Young Sect Master of the Blood Sect, did he not? What in this world can truly be said to be impossible?"
I had no choice but to shut my mouth at that. I doubted there was anything my master couldn't do, but stonewalling his opponent's arguments was also one of his talents.
"Very well. Today I shall bestow a lesson upon my disciple— timing. Yes, timing! That is the lesson!"
"..."
"Did I not say that my jianghu operates on the principle of eun-won — of debts of kindness and grudges repaid in full? Live long enough in this world, and one way or another, both kindness and grudge inevitably pile up around you. And here is the thing: many people never repay a kindness, but when it comes to a grudge, everyone — everyone — tries to settle it. That is why grudges are to be feared. So tell me, then. How does one avoid piling up grudges in the first place?"
"...I couldn't say."
"The truth is, there is no such method. None whatsoever. Even those bald monks at Shaolin accumulate grudges in the course of living."
"..."
"Everything you gain in life, everything you enjoy, everything you do — for someone, somewhere, any of it can become a grudge. A grudge is a byproduct of being alive, nothing more. So what should one do with this byproduct? Just as your room grows filthy as you live in it and you clean it, you clear away grudges each time you notice them, and only then does life grow comfortable. And that — that — is what I have just done. You foolish disciple of mine."
Honestly, the explanation didn't sit well with me. As much of a transcendent genius as my master was, he had been born into a world steeped in ungoverned rage, and his way of thinking could not help but differ from mine.
"Tsk, tsk. Judging by that face, you're thinking in terms of your own world again."
"..."
"Disciple. Do you imagine the world you came from is so different? In the place you lived, the state held the greatest power, the law governed all, and private revenge was forbidden — is that not so? And so? Did every last human being live by it? In the end, it was only the powerless who obeyed. And the powerful — didn't they settle their grudges one way or another, sooner or later?"
He asked it with the expression of a man thoroughly enjoying his debate with me, and I could only screw up my face at the sight.
No matter how he preened about how different he and I were, on Earth I had been nothing more than a high school student. I understood precious little about how the world actually turned.
"So in the end, all that matters is power. Isn't that right?"
"Precisely. But believing that your power will hold the upper hand forever — that belief itself is arrogance. And even if you yourself never fall, it may be your family, your children — or perhaps even this dim-witted disciple of mine — who are made to pay that grudge in your stead."
"...I'm not that weak, Master."
"That, my boy, is for you to worry about. Heh heh."
Truthfully, none of it resonated with me. I had no family left to protect in that world, and the only person I knew there was Master himself.
"There's that look again. As if you're a man who could go back at any moment. Well — since you hate hearing it, I'll give you only the bare essentials. If ever you find something worth protecting, and a grudge takes root around you, then the ones capable of harboring that grudge are best put in the ground, every last one of them — for your own good. So if you can't understand it, memorize it. My foolish disciple."
Saying that, Master laughed as he looked at me.
Back then, I couldn't understand those words. But now, it was different.
I had returned to Earth — and I had found things worth protecting.
"Uuugh... you m-monster."
I looked down at Oh Pilsang, sprawled on the floor before my feet, and smiled.
I had let Oh Sejun go — and then quietly tailed him. Strike at the root. Pull the weeds by the root. When someone had the potential to become my enemy, the way my master taught me was to kill the sprout before it ever grew.
But the man and his people had clearly misunderstood something about me. The moment I broke into their hiding place, rather than scrambling to fight back, he had actually tried to bribe me.
We've both done each other harm, so why not call it even here, and talk about something constructive that benefits us both?
To me, it was laughable. He seemed to think it was some great act of restraint on his part that he was willing to swallow his son being turned into a half-cripple — but from where I stood, that meant absolutely nothing.
A single thorn caught in Seoyeon's finger mattered more than a blade driven through Oh Sejun's throat.
That was why.
That was why I had shown no restraint whatsoever to the men wearing the Blood Bird mark on their chests.
No — to be precise, I'd only spared them back then because it would have been ugly to finish the job in front of Seoyeon and Seojun. I didn't take pleasure in bloodshed the way the Blood Sect did, but if I wanted to, I could indulge as much as I liked.
Not enjoying it doesn't mean being unable to do it. I told you.
They had been trash who'd latched onto Oh Pilsang's coattails and devoted themselves to every manner of filth. Their continued existence would benefit no one in this world, and if there was even a chance they might threaten my nephew and niece, then clearing them out entirely, right now, was the correct choice.
Besides, anyone who draws a blade against another has no right to cry injustice when it costs them their life.
"Y-you... do you really think you'll get away with doing something like this...?"
The moment those words left Oh Pilsang's mouth, my smile deepened into something far heavier.
Figures.
My master's words had, once again, not been wrong.