The One Who Broke Mount Hua Was Me? (3)
"For now, I’ve saved two of them."
Chung Myung stared down from the eaves, then lay back down on the spot. Beside him sat a rice ball.
Keh. I wasn’t the kind of generous guy to begin with.
If he went into the dining hall now, his martial nephews and brothers would be so on edge they wouldn’t even be able to eat properly. At the very least, he had to let them have a meal in peace. Wasn’t that basic human decency?
Chung Myung patted his stomach and let out a sigh.
This started a lot louder than I expected.
Originally, he’d planned to lie low for a while and let things settle. But those bastards hadn’t just pulled a tiger’s whiskers; they’d shoved a fire poker into its mouth.
So what choice was there? There were things a person could endure, and things they couldn’t.
"What’s done is done, I guess."
At least Un Geom was someone who could be reasoned with. Chung Myung had prodded him just a little, and the man had understood immediately and helped push Chung Myung’s case forward. Thanks to that, things had gone more easily than expected.
Of course, Chung Myung had already prepared for what he’d do if Un Geom went in a different direction, but that would’ve been a little annoying, so this was better.
He’s smarter than I thought.
Smart.
"...Smart?"
Un Geom was clearly Chung Myung’s grand-uncle in the sect hierarchy. But he was also his grand-disciple-nephew. Calling a grand-uncle smart might be disrespectful, but wasn’t it praise if you said it about a grand-disciple-nephew?
"Ugh. This is complicated."
He’d probably have to spend a little more time around them before it all sorted itself out. His position inside Mount Hua still didn’t feel clearly defined.
But that aside...
"Those two are definitely smart."
Chung Myung’s gaze drifted toward Yoon Jong and Jo Gul as they entered the dining hall.
When there were this many people gathered together, there were always a few who stood out. In Chung Myung’s eyes, the two who would become the backbone of the third generation were those two.
"They’ve even got proper brains."
Wasn’t that impressive? Usually, after training this much, a person should be so miserable they couldn’t stop complaining. Yet they weren’t just not whining; they were actually eager. Even Chung Myung had to admire that.
Especially Jo Gul.
It was remarkable that a guy who got beaten up could set aside his grudge and look at the situation calmly. The fact that he was certain he’d grow stronger if he followed Chung Myung was impressive too. If he still had any money left, Chung Myung would almost want to invest it in him.
"If I raise them right, they’ll be useful."
Chung Myung snorted and bit into the rice ball.
Those two were one thing, but the more important matter was Chung Myung himself.
For now, building the body comes first.
He’d already laid the foundation. There was still a long road ahead, but the most dangerous part was over. Now it was time to properly learn martial arts.
So what did he need most at this point?
A perfect body.
People might think that since he’d returned to a child’s body with all that knowledge, he could just get stronger through meditation or theory duels.
Nonsense.
"Martial arts are honest."
Theory was theory, and reality was reality. No matter how profound the martial arts one knew might be, if one couldn’t embody them, they would never show their true power.
Inner energy training and embodiment couldn’t be done with the mind alone. They had to be learned through sweat, through the body itself.
And for that, more than anything else, he needed strength.
Mount Hua’s sword was fast and dazzling?
In other words, Mount Hua’s sword meant swinging a blade infused with inner power in one hundred and eight directions using only the wrist. The sword was dazzling, not the body.
To make a beautiful, splendid plum blossom bloom, you needed sturdy roots. In martial arts, those roots were the body.
You can’t just look at the pretty parts.
People were captivated by Mount Hua’s dazzling swordsmanship. But because of that, they never saw the one who was swinging that sword like hell to make that splendid plum blossom bloom.
- Damn sword forms! Why the hell is this so complicated? Why can’t I just stab someone to death?
- Why do you have to twist it three times just to stab straight? My wrist’s gonna snap!
The legs of a swan gliding gracefully over the water were paddling desperately underneath. If Mount Hua’s dazzling sword forms were the swan’s body, then the body that had to swing that sword was its legs.
So he had to train, and train again.
If those kids could digest even a quarter of the training he put himself through, then in three years or so they could become young martial artists with the strongest bodies in the world.
By then, Mount Hua might no longer be the sect with the world’s most dazzling sword, but the sect that could slap Shaolin across the face.
Chung Myung snorted and got to his feet.
The problem isn’t the chicks. It’s the generation above them.
The chicks would be easy enough to mold into shape, but the problem was that he couldn’t simply roll the older generation around like dough. That meant he had to make them strong enough to grow on their own...
Thinking of Un Geom made him sigh.
His talent isn’t bad.
Just from the aura rolling off his body, Chung Myung could tell how hard Un Geom had been working all this time.
It was no easy thing for someone who had never been properly taught a sword style to reach that level. If Chung Myung could give him real swordsmanship before it was too late, he’d definitely become a good swordsman.
But how the hell do I give it to him?
Chung Myung scratched his head hard.
This was troublesome.
If he could just toss it over casually, that would be great, but if he did, chaos would break loose. He had absolutely no confidence in handling the aftermath. So he had to pass it on naturally, without making it obvious. But how was he supposed to do that...?
"Ugh."
He scratched his head again.
He didn’t think he was stupid, exactly, but he hadn’t exactly lived a life where he had to think things through all the time. In situations like this, finding an answer was always difficult.
"Maybe I should go take another look?"
To find a solution, he first needed to understand the situation precisely.
He had to check exactly which martial arts had been lost, and whether the ones that remained were still being properly passed down.
Jo Gul swallowed nervously as he looked at Chung Myung, who was sitting with his legs crossed in front of him.
I think I may have misunderstood something.
Getting stronger? Training?
Sure. Fine. All good.
But to do that, he had to keep living with this bastard like this.
Can I really endure this?
The more he thought about it, the stronger the feeling that something was very wrong.
"So..."
"Yes."
"Speak casually, Sahyung."
"...Yeah."
"So this is all of it?"
"Yes."
"I said speak casually."
"Yeah."
Chung Myung frowned as he looked over what Jo Gul had written down.
"Seriously, this is it?"
"I told you... yes."
"Casually... No, whatever. Do what you want."
He’d start speaking casually on his own when he got used to it. That wasn’t important now.
Looking at the paper that still had wet ink on it, Chung Myung clutched his head.
"So you’re telling me this is everything in the Library?"
Jo Gul nodded silently.
"Ha, this is insane."
"...."
Chung Myung slumped into the chair. As always, Jo Gul couldn’t even begin to guess why he was acting like this.
What the hell is wrong with him?
He’d suddenly told Jo Gul to go to the library and write down the titles of all the martial arts books there, and now that he was looking at the list, he was huffing in disbelief.
"This is all of it?"
And then he kept repeating the same thing like a parrot.
No matter how I look at it, he’s not normal.
His grand-uncle had said it. If you wanted to get stronger, you had to throw away a great deal.
But wasn’t this guy throwing away far too much? He should at least preserve some basic humanity...
"Sahyung."
"Yeah?"
"There isn’t anything else? There must be limits to where you can go inside, right?"
"You’re not allowed to read them, but you can look at them. That’s all there is."
"...No."
Chung Myung’s eyes swept the list again.
When he’d heard that they’d thrown away Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art and were instead practicing some half-baked thing like Taeulmirigeom, he’d already roughly guessed how bad the situation was. But this was worse. Much worse.
"Seriously, how did half of it fly off the shelf?"
And only the important sword arts, at that.
Unless someone had deliberately set out to ruin Mount Hua, how could this even happen?
"So the first-generation disciples are mainly learning Taeulmirigeom and Subduing Tiger Azure Sun Sword now?"
"That’s what I heard."
"...Good grief."
Chung Myung scratched his head furiously.
This is worse than I thought.
This wouldn’t do.
Of course, people mattered more than martial arts. But there were limits, weren’t there? If the enemy came charging at you with a well-forged blade while you handed your own side a tree branch and told them to fight, they’d get slapped senseless before they’d even picked up the branch.
There had to be a minimum. There had to be.
But in Chung Myung’s eyes, Taeulmirigeom and Subduing Tiger Azure Sun Sword didn’t even meet that minimum.
If only they still had Seven Plum Blossoms Sword.
Mount Hua wouldn’t have ended up in this state. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
Chung Myung was trying to forcibly calm the boil inside him when Jo Gul suddenly spoke.
"From what I heard..."
"Hm?"
Something was spilling out without anyone even asking.
"When the Demonic Sect attacked back then, the western hall caught fire."
"...The western hall caught fire? No, wait— the Demonic Sect attacked?"
Why the hell would the Demonic Sect attack Mount Hua? Weren’t they shattered after the Heavenly Demon died?
Before answering, Jo Gul asked another question.
"You know the Plum Blossom Sword Saint?"
"I do."
Very well. Better than anyone else, probably. No one knew him better than he knew himself. Very well indeed.
"The senior brothers said that Plum Blossom Sword Saint helped kill the Heavenly Demon."
"...Helped?"
I was the one who cut that bastard’s neck off, and they say I helped?
Chung Myung’s face heated slightly. To belittle an achievement he had earned by staking even his life on it, and to do so like this!
"But, well. Who knows?"
"Who knows what, you punk! Plum Blossom Sword Saint cut off the Heavenly Demon’s head!"
"Huh? Who says that?"
"Who says it? Everyone knows that—"
Huh?
Chung Myung tilted his head slightly.
W-wait a second.
"It can’t be said for certain that’s false either, because everyone who climbed Daesan back then died. So no one actually knows how the Heavenly Demon died."
"...."
Right. They’d all died. Chung Myung had been the last one left, the one who cut off the Heavenly Demon’s head.
So there was no witness... Yes, that made sense. There was no witness.
That was it.
Chung Myung realized it.
Wait, then...
He’d thrown his life away to bring down the Heavenly Demon for Mount Hua’s honor, and nobody even knew about it?
No, what kind of fucking situation was this?
"Anyway, after the Heavenly Demon fell on Daesan, the remaining remnants of the Demonic Sect went crazy and pushed down into the Central Plains. They suffered huge losses, but in the end they still climbed all the way to Mount Hua, set everything on fire, and caused total chaos."
"...."
Cold sweat began to pour down Chung Myung’s body.
But Jo Gul, who hadn’t noticed the change in him at all, continued speaking as calmly as ever.
"They said no one could figure out why they did it. It’s not like Mount Hua had any real grudge against them or anything."
"Uh... well, that is..."
He didn’t know why? Chung Myung thought he might.
"Ha."
So, putting that all together...
Mount Hua was destroyed.
Because of me?
Huh?
Because of me?
"Hahahahahaha."
"Why are you suddenly laughing?"
"Hahahahahahahahahaha."
Ah, life was really something else.
Ha. Ha-ha-ha.