Heaven-Defying Martial Talent

Reason shoved the nausea aside, and a cold clarity flooded my mind.

"Speak. Why were you hiding there?"

The words left me as my hand settled on the sword's grip, and the calculations came with them. How many seconds to kill her? Five, if I didn't waste a motion. And after—hide the body? If I were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠caught, I would have to leave the village and take up a wanderer's life.

She didn't look hostile. Nothing proved she had meant to put a knife in my back. Even so, one always assumed the worst. And still, in some corner of my heart, I hoped with perfect sincerity that all of this was nothing but an overblown delusion.

I watched her mouth. It trembled, then opened.

"I—I'm sorry! I didn't mean to…."

As she said it, she folded nearly double, bowing close to a right angle.

I studied those blue eyes. Fear was there, but it didn't seem to be what had bowed her head.

"I was passing by and saw you, so I wondered if you were feeling any better…. I'm sorry. Even so, hiding and peeking was wrong of me…."

I didn't believe her. If words were all it took, what couldn't a person say? Nothing guaranteed any of it was true, so suspicion beat blind trust—even if none of that suspicion showed on my face.

"…A glance would have told you I was perfectly fine. Why did you keep staring?"

I pressed, brow faintly creased. She scratched her cheek and dodged my eyes.

"Th-that's…. The way you swing a sword is just… impressive…."

She laughed awkwardly and tried to talk past it.

A strange excuse. Impressive? Was there really a person alive who found the sight of someone taking heads impressive? Not among the Hunters I had known, at any rate. The intent was obvious, too. Calling something impressive was praise, and praise in a moment like this was, seven times out of ten, an attempt to skate past the question.

I let the suspicion swell and looked her over.

No dantian. Not a martial artist, then.

That made her unlikely to threaten me. If she kept martial artists as subordinates, that would be another matter—but my qi sense caught no one else.

"May I ask your name?"

I asked it with my hand still resting on the hilt. A name meant I could look into her background, and follow the trail by asking around the village. This was a narrow country place. Most people knew one another.

"Lee Seol-ah."

The answer came out unwillingly, and my brow twitched.

From what I had gathered listening to the villagers, the Lee Clan Manor was reputed to be the greatest clan in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠region. They practiced frost arts that commanded cold qi, and the art was said to be of divine grade—few clans could compare.

Then why is someone like that here?

The place sat alone in the forest, halfway up a mountain. A backwater, in a word. And a scion of a great clan was wandering a village like this without a single guard? Even a collateral-branch member wouldn't do that lightly—least of all an ordinary person who had not even formed a dantian.

I looked at her with open suspicion. Lee Seol-ah smiled bitterly and spoke.

"…I-I'm not actually a member of the Lee Clan Manor. There are circumstances."

Not enough to be obvious, but the rims of her eyes were red, and the lift at the corners of her mouth looked forced. Seeing that, I eased—if only a little.

If even this is an act, she deserves the grand prize.

I didn't let the suspicion go entirely. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very existence of a prize for acting meant there were people skilled enough to win one. Still… perhaps I didn't need to kill her just yet. Yes, part of that was convenience—a reluctance to bloody my own hands. But the reasoning behind it was sound enough.

"…I understand. Forgive the rudeness. My name is Yu Hajin."

After a long moment's thought I spoke, and bent to gather up the manuals.

"No—I'm the one who should apologize. To spy on a martial artist's training is a grave offense…."

Lee Seol-ah said it with that same bitter smile.

I stared at her. Even the bitter smile was clear. No—the person herself seemed clear, and pure. Unlike someone else.

As the coldness receded, nausea surged and struck the base of my throat.

"…Urk. That's… quite all right. Yes. …Farewell."

I forced the greeting out past the heave rising in me, then unfolded the art and quit the place at once.

"Ah—"

Lee Seol-ah reached toward the direction Yu Hajin had vanished and let out a short, startled breath.

What a strange person.

One moment he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had looked ready to collapse, and the next—when the cold came over him—he was sharper and more cutting than anyone. And then he swallowed his nausea and simply left. She couldn't get a read on him at all.

He doesn't seem like a bad person, though.

When she had been caught watching his training, his hand had gone to the hilt, but he never drew. He had only looked at her as if he didn't want to. Forcing out a farewell while fighting down the nausea was the same. To her eyes, he seemed closer to kind than not.

If I get the chance, I ought to try getting close to him.

From his temperament, it wouldn't be easy. And yet that was precisely why Yu Hajin looked like someone who needed people. Thinking so, Lee Seol-ah turned the swordwork she had just seen over in her mind.

Movement that could never have come at that age. Absolutely never.

It had been beautiful swordsmanship—motion that appeared only when the body was complete and the mind could command that body utterly. The minimum requirement was Unity of Body and Sword, one of the standards that divided the First-Rate realm. As someone who revered the sword, she could tell at a glance.

A bitter smile touched her lips. Because the sword she revered so deeply was one she herself could never learn.

For a start, learning martial arts had won me a measure of real strength. As I was now, I wouldn't lose to a B-rank Hunter.

More than that, the art of feeling the flow of qi and cutting along its grain would be especially lethal in this world. I could probably scatter even sword blade Qi, if only for a moment. A First-Rate master, then, was not beyond me. A Peak Realm master… that, I couldn't promise.

In any case, a First-Rate master here was treated about like an A-rank Hunter from my first life. Which meant this was not, at the very least, a level of martial power that got me beaten wherever I went.

And that was not the end of it. My inner energy was still growing under the circulation of my heart method, and with it my acupoints were opening one by one. The martial arts I possessed? Already mastered, every one of them. My skill with the sword? I had already reached the realm the manuals called Unity of Body and Sword, and whatever else they liked to name. I was confident I could take a meal with a sword for cutlery. My body was the twenty-year-old body of my Hunter days, in perfect health. In short, I didn't need any further training.

Then the work ahead is already decided.

Raise my standing, and gather money. Going straight after information on my ability would be stupid. This came first.

I still believed a person's good faith ought not to be betrayed for the sake of money or fame. Even so, it was true that status and money were what business required. Status kept me from being dismissed out of hand. It could also become a line to others who stood higher than I did. Money bought information outright, and the more specialized and high-level that information, the more it tended to cost—so I would need a great deal of it. To test whether any of it was reliable, I would have to buy several accounts and set them against one another. In a word, this was laying a foundation.

Whether this world even held information about an ability that had come from another was doubtful…. But I couldn't simply sit on my hands. Gods existed here. Perhaps something like sorcery could treat the problem.

Which raised another question. How, exactly, was that foundation to be laid?

That, too, was simple in truth. Status usually followed ability and reputation. Ability could be cultivated. What mattered was displaying it well enough to build a name. And people, at bottom, liked violence aimed at the other side. Beat someone who passed for a public enemy halfway to death, and fame rose on its own. There were other methods, surely, but this was in practice the simplest, and the effect was decent enough. Cutting a throat clean through was what I did best.

So who was the public enemy? Reputation in this village came first, so I narrowed the field. Whom did people living in the mountains fear and hate most? Bandits.

Now and then someone blurted out "rotten officials," but the high offices of this village weren't particularly corrupt. Bandits, then—no need to travel far to hunt them—were the ideal opponent. That their martial power wasn't high was a bonus. Take back the money they had plundered, or claim a bounty if one existed, and the coin solved itself. It was hardly an exaggeration to call them a Giving Tree in bandit form.

Which was why I now stood directly before their stronghold. How had I found it? Simple. It had snagged on my qi sense.

"Raid! We're under raid!"

One of them charged me. A single stroke took his head. Guilt? It came, but less than before—perhaps because he was a villain. No. Closer to vermin than a villain. The scout, or whatever he was, who had shouted on purpose, I let go.

Even in my Hunter days, when the gap in skill was this wide, the sound method was what they called a drive hunt. It cut the time sharply, and with it the stamina spent. Two gains for one hunt. To make it work, I had to lure them into swarming me.

"Right. Call your chief, too. All of them. I'm a First-Rate master."

I said it bone-dry, loosening inner energy into the air until the pressure of it settled over them.

Nausea? Of course not. Betrayal required at least a sliver of trust to betray, and self-reproach required me to be the lesser man. I was neither fool enough to trust a bandit nor a man worse than one. Living in the countryside and seeing a few pure smiles had weakened the nausea itself, besides. My limbs were sound. Nothing here would hinder a fight.

Crimson eyes cooled, I looked over the forty-three bandits standing before me.

Hm. A small band, at this size?

I had no standard to measure by, but probably. Forty-three was neither few nor many, and bandits tended to be much of a muchness in skill.

"This bastard isn't First-Rate! Can't you do your damn job?!"

A hulking bald man—the one who looked like their chief—bellowed at the bandit I had sent back.

"How would you know whether I am or not?"

"Because I am, you dumbass!"

That, I hadn't expected. No matter. Judging by presence, posture, and the inner energy I could feel, I would win regardless.

"What's a First-Rate master doing playing bandit?"

"Because it pays. Obviously."

"Mm. Fair enough. If the head doesn't work, banditry's about the best trade left."

I nodded as I said it. Half sincere. Block the roads the merchants used, and the money would be decent.

"The hell did you just say, you little shit?"

He'd bitten. An open provocation, and true to a bandit, he was ignorant and emotional.

"Nothing growing on that head, and nothing in it either? I'm telling you to come at me."

I scoffed as I said it. Not a real laugh. An act.

"You son of a—! Tear him apart!"

Funny, how a so-called boss wouldn't step up himself and sent his men instead.

"Nothing growing on the boss's head, so why isn't he doing a proper boss's job?"

At that bare mutter, the bandit chief's face twisted into a fiend's mask.

Regardless of him—

"Graaah!!"

"Waaaaah!!"

Obedient bandits roared and charged. I had no idea why they bothered roaring.

"So a head with no hair on it still counts as the head? They follow well."

"…Y-you fucker!! You dare make fun of my head?!"

Unable to endure the next jab, the chief—face flushed a furious red—threw himself into the wave of his own men.

Just what I had wanted.

I watched a moment longer, then drew the sword from its sheath. Been a while since I'd seen a little blood. Ah—not mine, of course.