Honestly, Even I Can’t Handle This Anymore (1)
What was the condition for a great sect?
In the past, Do Un-chan had thought it was reputation.
If the world did not know of a sect’s existence and acknowledge it, then it could not be called great.
But recently, his opinion had changed a little.
No matter how much renown a sect gained, if its skills were not solid, it could never truly be considered a great sect. That was why Do Un-chan had decided to devote himself to strengthening the Ghost Sect’s foundations.
And the moment he climbed Mount Hua, that resolve only grew firmer.
Look!
Even Mount Hua, the sect with the greatest momentum in the world, trained this hard? Given everything they had achieved so far, they would have been justified in growing a little proud, and yet Mount Hua’s disciples were training as though they had no tomorrow.
Look!
What a beautiful sight it was!
He wanted to drag every disciple of the Ghost Sect here and show them this scene.
Only…
There was just one problem.
Isn’t that a bit much, humanly speaking?
Do Un-chan rubbed his eyes before he knew it.
“Grrrraaaahh….”
“Kill me… You bastard, just kill me already….”
Mount Hua’s disciples, coated head to toe in dirt until they had turned the color of yellow clay, were writhing and crawling across the ground.
It was admirable that, even so, they still refused to let go of their wooden swords, but the sight of those trembling hands made his eyes blur with tears for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.
And what about the iron weights hanging all over their bodies? Nothing could have spoken more clearly than those lumps of metal about how brutal the training was.
“You there, all of you, get moving.”
Chung Myung’s bright, ringing voice poured down over the disciples, who were barely able to draw breath.
“You swing a sword a few times and all this baseless confidence starts leaking out of you. A swordsman can’t skip the basics for life. What, are you jerks trying to show off technique before you can even put strength into your legs?”
Even while he lectured them, his eyes flashed wildly, and the look on his face was far from normal.
“Yeah, Mount Hua’s sword is flashy. But that’s exactly why it’s so easy to get sucked into it and lost in it! If you’re a swordsman, your fingertips can be flashy, sure, but your center has to be able to hold steady like a boulder! Why’s your ass twitching like that? Huh?”
Who’re you calling flashy?
I’ll really kill him. I really will!
Baek Cheon and the others ground their teeth.
At long last, they had escaped the hellish basics training and felt a burst of joy at finally being able to swing their swords a little. But before they had even managed a few forms, that demon bastard’s eyes had gone strange, and now it had all come to this.
“Oh? Trying to cut corners? Not going down?”
“……Again?”
“Again? Aaaagain? Why, should I throw you down myself?”
“…….”
Mount Hua’s disciples, who had just barely crawled up the cliff with iron weights hanging from their bodies, looked down into the abyss below with tears in their eyes.
“Grrrraahhh….”
Then they started down again.
“Aaaagh! The rock’s breaking apart here now!”
“Senior Brother! Hold on tight! If you don’t, you’re really dead this time! There’s no one below to catch us anymore!”
“Aaaaaah! That son of a bitch!”
Screams and curses flew everywhere, but Chung Myung only picked at his ear as if a dog were barking somewhere off in the distance.
“Honestly, kids these days are all soft. Back in my day, this wasn’t how it was!”
Oh? Back in my day?
He just meant carrying a boulder the size of a house on his back, racing up cliffs and the like!
Then, when the footholds crumbled and they tumbled into a ten-thousand-foot ravine, they’d understand why people learned lightness techniques in the first place!
“Tsk tsk. They’ve been raised too gently.”
Watching the scene, Do Un-chan was drenched in cold sweat.
Was it because of the training Mount Hua’s disciples were undergoing? Yes, of course that was horrifying.
Was it because Chung Myung was calmly ordering it all? Yes, that was horrifying too.
But what terrified him most of all was the fact that Chung Myung was currently riding on someone’s back.
Hm?
What, that was strange?
It was strange!
Because the one carrying Chung Myung on his back and lying facedown on the ground was none other than a Shaolin disciple.
“You agree with me, don’t you, bald monk? Tch, the way your shiny head’s gleaming, looks like you do.”
“S-Senior benefactor!”
Hye Yeon was drenched in sweat even while lying flat. His face was already completely wet, as though he had been caught in the rain, and sweat was even gushing from his polished scalp like a fountain.
The yellow robe that symbolized Shaolin was soaked through with his sweat until it looked like it had just come out of the wash.
“Oh, your hips are dropping, aren’t they?”
“Kyaaahhh!”
Hye Yeon cried out and lifted his waist.
“No. Why are kids these days all like this? Hey, you’re supposed to be a Shaolin monk, and you’re already whining this much? Aren’t you embarrassed?”
“I-I can’t…! H-how am I supposed to use the thousand-pound press without inner energy…!”
“Inner energy? Inner energy?”
“Huuup!”
Apparently Chung Myung had pushed his power even higher in the meantime, because Hye Yeon’s hands and feet sank deeper into the ground.
“This is the problem with Shaolin brats! You train inner energy and nothing but inner energy, so your bodies all end up like this. What, you’re proud of a frail body that can somehow spew out a ten-thousand-pound strength? Proud? Is that something to brag about?”
Chung Myung shouted, his eyes flashing.
“You guys say you’re training external power too, and yet every one of you looks like you haven’t eaten in ten days! That’s what happens when you rely on inner energy for everything. So what if you have a thousand gu of it? It’s your body that has to use it! If you’re a Shaolin monk, then act like one and train your body first!”
“S-Shaolin….”
“Then go back to Shaolin, damn it!”
Chung Myung slapped Hye Yeon’s bald head, pat-a-pat.
“Your ancestors back in the day had forearms as thick as a kid’s head! And you call that body a Shaolin monk’s? You should be ashamed!”
Moisture blurred Hye Yeon’s eyes.
But he didn’t even have time to shed tears. Chung Myung was getting heavier and heavier. Hye Yeon’s body was far too delicate to bear the weight of Chung Myung while he was drawing up the thousand-pound press.
“Don’t you sneakily use inner power!”
Slap!
“…….”
“You need to fix this habit of pulling up inner energy automatically! The heart goes where the force follows. In other words, if you want to do something, you should be able to move without using power. How are you acting like a master when you can’t even do that, you useless little brute with nothing but strong energy!”
Hye Yeon no longer had even the strength to answer.
This… this wasn’t what I thought it would be.
When he had come to Mount Hua, what he had hoped for was a higher level of training.
But to think the Mount Hua Divine Dragon would be someone who, without warning, simply ran people into the ground.
“From now on, you’re forbidden to use inner energy for a full month. From eating to walking. You’re going to relearn how your body moves from the ground up. If I catch you using inner energy somewhere I can’t see, I’ll split your dantian open!”
“…….”
At the sight of that, Do Un-chan’s face had gone deathly white, paper-white.
And then, in that very moment—
“Hmm. So that’s how it is.”
“…….”
Un Geom, who had been standing beside him observing the scene, nodded as if he had suddenly understood something.
“It’s not just the sword, but first the person wielding it must be perfected. Indeed. That does make sense.”
Sense?
You said sense?
Do Un-chan’s eyes nearly popped out.
Excuse me, Sir Swordsman, are your eyes perhaps built a little differently from mine? You’re saying that after seeing that? All I can see is someone being tortured to death!
“Chung Myung.”
“Yes, Hall Leader!”
Chung Myung leapt off Hye Yeon’s back and trotted over to Un Geom.
“I think I understand what kind of training you’re talking about. But isn’t it too dangerous, if they might fall off the cliff?”
Do Un-chan nodded emphatically beside him. For the first time since coming to Mount Hua, he felt as though he had heard something sensible.
“Do you have some other countermeasure?”
“Ah, that? No need for one.”
“……Hm?”
“They won’t die. By now the senior brothers are sturdy enough that, even if they fall, at worst they’ll just break an arm or a leg.”
“…….”
Do Un-chan’s eyes popped out again.
That’s your countermeasure?
“I see.”
But Un Geom nodded lightly, as though he understood perfectly.
“Then how long should such training continue, in your view?”
“Pardon?”
Chung Myung tilted his head as if he didn’t quite understand the question.
“Isn’t this basic training? You can’t possibly do only this forever.”
“Ah, basic training goes on forever. Hmm… still, if we’re talking about the point where we cut back the basics and increase sword training, then….”
Chung Myung fell into thought, cocked his head, and considered it.
“Thirty years?”
“…….”
“No. Too little? Forty years?”
“…….”
“Around that much, I think, before you really become a person?”
Un Geom let out an admiring breath and looked at Chung Myung with renewed eyes.
“I didn’t think the basics were that important, but it seems I, too, had been thinking very wrongly.”
“That’s the hardest part, after all. Anyway, if I’m not around, just keep running them like this.”
“Understood. I will make sure of it!”
Do Un-chan turned his gaze toward the distance and fell into thought.
Couldn’t people just live happily even if they weren’t a great sect? Isn’t happiness more important than anything else in life?
It was the moment his lifelong values were forcibly twisted out of shape.
“……I feel like I’m going to die.”
“……I don’t even have the strength to speak…….”
The eyes of those staring at the meal looked exactly like the dead, clouded eyes of rotten fish.
The food itself was flawless, more than worthy of praise.
But right now, whatever they ate would have felt the same. Even if they were eating mountains of delicacies and treasures from the sea, it would feel as though they were chewing on sand.
“Why the hell has that bastard been acting up so much lately?”
“Chung Myung’s been acting insane for ages, so why say ‘lately’ like it’s something new….”
“It feels especially bad these days, though….”
Baek Cheon trailed off and let out a long sigh.
Wasn’t learning supposed to be something like this?
At first it was unfamiliar and difficult, but if you kept at it, you’d develop skill; once the skill came, you’d eventually begin to enjoy it.
But for some reason, that bastard’s training only got more hellish with each passing day.
- What? Enjoyment? Enjoyment? If studying is fun, then that’s called playing, not learning.
“His way of thinking is different from ours to begin with.”
“……Yeah.”
Baek Cheon answered weakly through cracked lips and turned his head. They had at least grown used to it by now and could barely endure it, but how was Hye Yeon faring…?
“Hm?”
Baek Cheon’s eyes widened slightly.
Hye Yeon, seated in one corner of the table, had buried his face in both hands and was hanging his head low.
“……Why is that monk acting like that now?”
“I don’t know.”
After a brief hesitation, Baek Cheon rose wearily and went over to Hye Yeon.
“Um… Monk. Are you all right? Something bad happen?”
Hye Yeon slowly took his hands away from his face and lifted his gaze with no strength at all.
Tears shimmered in his large, gentle eyes.
“S-Senior benefactor….”
“Yes. Tell me wha….”
“I… I can’t survive on grass alone.”
“…….”
Baek Cheon’s gaze naturally moved to the lush pile of greens before Hye Yeon. He shook his head and clicked his tongue.
No wonder he’s suffering.
Even Mount Hua’s disciples, who were stuffing themselves with meat at every meal, looked ready to die of exhaustion. How much worse must it be for Hye Yeon, who was eating nothing but grass and hollow steamed buns?
Baek Cheon discreetly called Yoon Jong over with a gesture.
“Yes, Senior Brother.”
“Go to the kitchen and tell them to at least put some boiled eggs in Monk Hye Yeon’s quarters.”
“B-but he’s a Buddhist….”
“He has to stay alive first.”
“…….”
Yoon Jong felt it might not be proper, but in the end he could only nod. Whether Hye Yeon ate them or not was for Hye Yeon to decide.
“……How long are we supposed to keep doing this?”
“Chung Myung will be heading to Sichuan soon, so if we just endure until then, it’ll be fine. So just a little more….”
“But didn’t Uncle-Un Geom seem to find the training rather fascinating?”
“I-I heard that too. He said, ‘Is this enough?’ or something like that….”
Baek Cheon flinched. Goosebumps rose all at once along both arms.
We have to keep doing this?
Then there were only two possibilities.
Either they’d die in training, or they’d survive and become iron-bodied monsters.
The odds were probably far higher for the former.
The disciples fell silent for a moment, then grabbed their heads.
“If that’s how it is, I’d rather go to Sichuan with Chung Myung….”
“What kind of insane nonsense is that? Do you know how much that bastard torments people?”
“Still, at least there aren’t any cliffs on the way to Sichuan.”
“Hm?”
Come to think of it….
A strange light flickered in Baek Cheon’s eyes.
“Hmm, ahem. Surely not. Of course going to Sichuan with Chung Myung would be twice as hard. I can’t possibly assign such brutal work to you all.”
“Senior Brother. Don’t be so sneaky.”
Baek Sang’s eyes flashed at Baek Cheon, who had tried to speak with false dignity.
“……Honestly, if I’m being blunt, why do you always go with Chung Myung for everything? If you’ve gone every single time, you should be willing to let someone else take a turn!”
“Hey! As if I decided that on my own! Sect Leader gave the order….”
“Then sit this one out! We want to see Sichuan too!”
A hint of madness had begun to spread through the eyes of the other disciples as well.
Seeing the stirrings of rebellion, Baek Cheon hardened his expression.
“I am the Great Senior Brother!”
“Haha, Senior Brother, now you’re saying something strange. Since when has Mount Hua had any real hierarchy?”
“You little…!”
Just as Baek Cheon was gathering his strength to glare at them, the Cheong generation, who had been eating off to one side while also listening, quietly rose from their seats as well.
“Well, it sounds like the senior brothers are trying to keep all the good stuff to themselves.”
“Please let us in too. It’s not like some of us don’t have the feet to get to Sichuan.”
The Baek generation narrowed their eyes.
“The kids should step back.”
“Who was it just now who said Mount Hua had no hierarchy?”
A smile full of ulterior motives spread across the faces of the Cheong generation.
“If it’s come to this, why don’t we decide by skill? Chung Myung would probably want to take the more capable ones anyway, wouldn’t he?”
“……Skill?”
Baek Cheon tilted his head, then snorted as if the idea was absurd.
“Did you just say skill?”
“Of course we know Senior Brother Baek Cheon is strong. But….”
Chung Gong’s lips curled.
“We haven’t fought properly in a while, have we? Who knows? Maybe we’ve at least grown into roosters by now.”
“Meaning we’re not chicks anymore.”
At the parade of insolent remarks, Baek Cheon smiled with satisfaction.
How lovable.
How had they grown up so freely?
“Fine. Of course there’s no hierarchy in Mount Hua.”
“Hehe. Glad you und….”
“So.”
Crack!
Baek Cheon tore off the tabletop he had been holding.
“Let’s make one today, you rotten brats!”
He hurled the tabletop at the Cheong generation and charged with a thunderous shout.
“Smash them!”
“Crush them!”
In the blink of an eye, the dining hall became a total mess, and only Hye Yeon remained alone, chewing steadily on his grass.
“They do know how to have fun.”
Lying stretched out on the roof above them, Chung Myung clicked his tongue at the commotion below.
Kids were supposed to grow up by fighting, sure, but this was… tsk tsk tsk.
He smacked his tongue and tipped his head back to look up at the night sky, counting his tasks as though he were counting the stars.
There’s a lot to do.
This trip to Sichuan wasn’t only about the Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron Sword. That matter had already been discussed with Hwang Jong-ui.
There’s no point anymore.
The recent affairs involving Maninbang had made it painfully clear. The cohesion among the orthodox sects had loosened compared to the past, and the kind of help they once offered could no longer be expected.
In that case, he had no choice but to rebuild the surroundings with people he could trust.
“Tsk. What a hassle.”
Still, what else could he do?
It was all for Mount Hua.
“Damn it, this is such a pain in the ass. Sect Leader Senior Brother, I….”
Kwaaaang!
Just as Chung Myung was about to say something, the roof beside him was pierced with a deafening roar. One of Mount Hua’s disciples screamed as he was sent flying into the sky.
“…….”
Chung Myung stuck his head out and looked down through the hole into the dining hall.
“Die, you bastard!”
“What do you mean senior brother? There’s no order to this!”
“Uraaaaaaaagh!”
The Cheong generation and the Baek generation were completely tangled together in a heap, engaging in a wonderfully warm and beautiful exchange of fists.
“…….”
Chung Myung drew his head back to where it had been and smiled as he looked up at the sky.
Senior Brother.
Sect Leader Senior Brother.
Honestly, even I can’t handle this anymore.
I’m sorry.
* * *
And so, the day of departure for Sichuan dawned.