What It Means to Grow Up (3)
Clang!
The moment the swords collided, Jo Geol was sent stumbling backward in a rush.
“Tch!”
He quickly shifted his feet to regain his stance, lowering his body further as he glared at Baek Cheon.
“......”
He had to bite down hard on his lip to keep a groan from escaping. The hand gripping his sword was trembling uncontrollably.
By contrast, Baek Cheon didn’t so much as flinch. He simply stared at Jo Geol with a flat, emotionless face.
The crushing pressure of it made Jo Geol draw in a short breath without even realizing it.
Sajil.
Mount Hua’s disciples acted like brothers, no matter their generation. In any other sect, such a thing would have been unthinkable.
And the one who created that atmosphere was none other than Baek Cheon.
No matter how little Cheong Myeong cared for seniority, if Baek Cheon had chosen to wield his authority, no one except Cheong Myeong would have dared so much as to push back.
But he hadn’t. He’d willingly set aside the dignity of the senior disciple and met them from the same low ground, like some neighborhood older brother who was far too easy to tease.
And yet...
He’s a completely different person when it comes to this.
Only someone who had faced Baek Cheon with a sword could truly understand how extraordinary he was.
“Too light.”
“......Huh?”
Baek Cheon looked at Jo Geol with lowered eyes.
“Your sword is fast. In Mount Hua, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it the fastest.”
“......”
“But it’s too light. Focusing on speed isn’t a bad thing, but losing all sense of weight in the pursuit of speed is definitely a problem.”
Jo Geol slowly nodded.
Being told one’s weaknesses wasn’t exactly pleasant. Especially when they were weaknesses he already knew full well.
Still, Jo Geol didn’t mind. He knew Baek Cheon was saying this entirely for his sake.
He smiled faintly and replied, “I’m grateful for the advice, but...”
Then he gave the sword thrust out in front of him a slight shake.
“Aren’t those the kind of words you can only say once you can keep up with my speed?”
“Oh, really?”
Whoosh!
In that instant, Baek Cheon surged in and brought his sword down. Jo Geol flinched and raised his blade to block. The instant the swords met, a heavy thud rang out, and Jo Geol’s body bent backward.
“Ghk...”
“Anyone can talk with their mouth. What matters is whether you can make it real.”
Blood rushed to Jo Geol’s face.
He could barely breathe while struggling to push back Baek Cheon’s sword, yet Baek Cheon continued speaking as calmly as ever. That alone made the difference between them painfully clear.
But—
Grind, grind...
Jo Geol still didn’t give up. Twisting his sword, he let Baek Cheon’s blade slide off for a split second, then unleashed over ten sword shadows in a flash.
Clang!
Before the sword could even fully extend, Baek Cheon’s Plum Blossom Sword slammed hard into the lower half of Jo Geol’s blade.
Jo Geol was knocked backward and tumbled to the floor.
“Tch!”
He shoved himself back up at once, gritting his teeth.
Baek Cheon casually spun his sword once and reset into a middle stance as if none of it mattered.
“When you’re charging full speed, your swift sword becomes a weapon. But what will you do when you meet someone stronger than you?”
“......”
“If you don’t want to give up the swift sword, then you’d better learn how to endure.”
“Damn it, I know that much!”
“Then quit running your mouth and show me!”
Bang!
As if Baek Cheon’s words were a signal, Jo Geol kicked off the ground and lunged in. His sword, seething with a scarlet force, shot straight for Baek Cheon’s face, as though he meant to pierce through him in a single stroke.
Baek Cheon moved to meet the attack head-on.
But in that instant, Jo Geol’s sword suddenly twisted, changing direction to slash at Baek Cheon’s thigh instead. A brutal, forceful strike.
Whoosh!
Baek Cheon stepped back to avoid it. And the moment he did, Jo Geol, as if he had been waiting for exactly this opening, began hammering him with a storm of successive attacks.
“......”
Namgung Dowi, watching from afar, lowered his gaze to his own hands. His palms were already slick with cold sweat.
Is that... really a spar between fellow disciples?
The killing intent pouring off Jo Geol as he pressed Baek Cheon was enough to raise gooseflesh on the skin. And every one of his sword strikes matched that intent; none of them were anything less than lethal.
Every slash aimed unmistakably at a vital point.
Even the sword that had just brushed past Baek Cheon’s face was terrifyingly dangerous to watch.
If someone in the Namgung Clan used a move like that during a spar...
The whole clan would probably be turned upside down.
As far as he knew, the Mount Hua Righteous Sword was Mount Hua’s senior disciple. That meant he would one day become the sect leader of Mount Hua.
If Namgung Dan had used a killing move against Namgung Dowi during sparring, he would have been bound hand and foot and thrown into prison without even being asked a question. Using a lethal attack in a duel between fellow disciples was that grave a matter.
And yet here, no one even mentioned it.
Even the two fighters themselves continued as if such a thing were perfectly natural.
Fwoosh!
Blood sprayed up from Jo Geol’s body.
“Ah...!”
Namgung Dan’s eyes wavered violently. At last, that vicious spar had produced a result that should never have happened.
But the truly astonishing thing came after that.
Jo Geol, cut across the chest and bleeding profusely, didn’t retreat. Instead, he charged at Baek Cheon again as if getting wounded in a spar were nothing unusual.
Rushing in with reckless momentum, he was kicked square in the chest and smashed flat to the ground. The force of it made even Namgung Dan, who was watching, flinch.
“Tch!”
Jo Geol got back up once more, a murderous glint in both eyes. Then he thrust his sword toward Baek Cheon with even more violence than before.
Have they both gone mad?
Namgung Dan couldn’t even decide whom to blame anymore.
There were far too many things to point out. Jo Geol, who kept using killing moves on his sajil, was insane. Baek Cheon, who accepted it as if nothing were wrong, was also insane.
But even stranger were the others, standing right nearby while a life-or-death spar unfolded before their eyes, showing not even a shred of interest.
Crash!
Jo Geol was flung away again like a snapped kite string.
“A-at this rate, he’s going to die, isn’t he?”
The other Namgung swordsmen began to mutter, unable to hide their shock.
They had been through Maehwado. They understood in both head and body what it meant to fight with your life on the line.
And yet even to them, this training looked terrifyingly dangerous.
“At the very least...”
Namgung Dowi, who had silently watched the two sparring all this time, finally spoke.
“I understand how they’re able to perform under such conditions.”
“......”
No one could disagree with that.
Anyone could say “training as if it were real combat.” But there were no sects that truly trained like this in earnest.
What sane person would allow training that involved lethal attacks when the disciples might end up crippled for life?
And yet these people were doing exactly that.
“And that isn’t all.”
“Pardon?”
“Look there.”
Namgung Dowi pointed a little farther away from the two sparring disciples.
There, a group was standing in the middle stance, quietly observing the duel. It was a perfectly ordinary sight. The middle stance was the foundation of all swordsmanship. In Namgung, training that focused the mind and removed stray thoughts by holding a proper stance happened often enough.
So there was nothing strange about it.
That is, nothing strange except the fact that massive lumps of iron the size of a person’s head were hanging all over their bodies.
Just how many are there...?
Especially the number hanging from the tips of their swords was enough to make his jaw drop. There were so many weights dangling there that the swords themselves looked like giant hammers.
They’re holding that up with just their bodies? Are they using internal energy?
No. No, that couldn’t be it.
If they were using internal energy, they wouldn’t be sweating like rain. They were clearly enduring it with sheer physical strength.
With muscle alone...?
All those iron weights together probably weighed more than the boulder they’d been made to lift—if not by a little, then by a lot. The Namgung disciples had been breathing hard just from holding up that boulder. These people were maintaining that kind of load while still keeping a sword stance.
Was there any need to explain which training was harder?
Whether they knew how the others felt or not, Yoon Jong, who had been standing calmly with his sword, casually spoke to Dang So-so at his side.
“So-so.”
“Yes?”
“How long has it been since we started?”
“I think about half a shichen?”
“Hmm. Then maybe we should stop soon?”
“What are you talking about? We still need another half a shichen.”
“......This seems a little excessive.”
“No, it’s not. You know I’m especially weak when it comes to the basics as a swordswoman. I have to work more than twice as hard just to keep up with everyone else.”
“I know that, but why should I be doing it with you?”
“Got a problem with that?”
“......No. It’s not that, but...”
Yoon Jong gave her a displeased look, then muttered under his breath, “Where did Sago go? You could ask her to do it with you.”
“Why are you saying something so obvious, sahyeong? Of course Sago went out at dawn.”
“At dawn?”
“Yes. She says she can’t concentrate if anyone else is around. She probably won’t be back until midnight.”
“......I have something I’m genuinely curious about.”
“What is it?”
“Does Sago ever sleep?”
“Of course she sleeps.”
“Then how is that even possible?”
“Because she’s Sago.”
“......”
Yoon Jong let out a long sigh and said flatly, “So-so.”
“Yes?”
“Your sword tip went down half a chi.”
“Agh!”
Dang So-so bit her lip in frustration and hurriedly lifted her sword again.
Namgung Dan, watching the scene as though he’d lost his soul, heard Namgung Dowi’s voice like a groan beside him.
“I thought the Namgung Clan emphasized fundamentals...”
“......”
When Namgung Dan looked over, Namgung Dowi was shaking his head again and again.
What shocked him even more was that the one undergoing that training was none other than Dang So-so.
So Mount Hua really does train like this every day.
Without Cheong Myeong even stepping in, they were already forging themselves in the same manner on their own. Proof of that was everywhere in the training grounds, wasn’t it?
“Now then...”
Cheong Myeong, having allowed them enough time to watch, turned to the Namgung swordsmen with a meaningful look.
“You should see the results of this training for yourselves.”
Namgung Dan’s face stiffened. He understood what “for yourselves” meant.
Is it a spar?
The moment his hand reflexively grabbed the sword at his waist—
“Aaaagh!”
Jo Geol was sent flying backward again and rolled across the ground. He struggled to rise a few times, staggered and shaky, but in the end, he slumped back down where he was.
“Ugh... damn that ridiculous sajil...”
Namgung Dan swallowed dryly.
The Mount Hua Righteous Sword!
If the opponent was the Mount Hua Righteous Sword, there was no weakness to exploit.
Since it would be burdensome for the Young Patriarch to step forward personally, the one who would face the Mount Hua Righteous Sword would be Namgung Dan.
I won’t lose easily.
It wouldn’t be simple to gain the upper hand against the renowned Mount Hua Righteous Sword, Baek Cheon, but he resolved firmly not to disgrace the Namgung Clan’s name.
Then Cheong Myeong shouted, “So-so!”
“Yes?”
Dang So-so, who had been immersed in training, snapped her head around to look at him.
“What is it? Did I mess up my stance?”
“No. Leave that there and come here. Ah, bring your sword.”
“Okay.”
Dang So-so casually shed the iron weights wrapped around her body and trotted over to Cheong Myeong.
“What is it, sahyeong?”
“See that gentleman over there?”
“Yes.”
“Go spar with him.”
“......Huh?”
Cheong Myeong shrugged.
“These gentlemen say they want to see with their own eyes just how effective Mount Hua’s training is.”
At those words, Dang So-so grinned.
“Oh. And here I thought it was something serious. What should I do?”
“What do you mean, what should you do?”
Cheong Myeong drew his thumb across his throat.
“Beat him down.”
“You got it!”
Dang So-so smiled brightly and turned to face Namgung Dan.