A Little Too Healthy, That’s All (1)
“Mm!”
“Krrrmm!”
The Hyun generation elders and the Un generation disciples plastered themselves against the window, utterly at a loss, their hands clamped around the frame as if it might keep them from flying apart.
“Th-that looks dangerous……!”
“Aigoo, Baek Sang is……”
“Is that really okay? Why is that Chung Myung brat just standing there with his hands behind his back…….”
They were practically bouncing as though they might hurl themselves out the window at any second.
Watching the scene from behind, Im So-byeong muttered with a strange expression, “......If you’re that worried, why don’t you just go out there?”
Whip!
In an instant, Hyun Sang, Hyun Young, Un Geom, and Un Am all turned with terrifying force and glared at Im So-byeong like they wanted to eat him alive.
“Who says I want to go out there? We’re being told not to, aren’t we!”
“Exactly!”
......Daoist masters.
Usually, elders of a sect were the ones giving orders to the juniors, not taking them.
Traveling with the Mount Hua Sect had started to make Im So-byeong feel like his head was going strange. No matter their rank, this blasted sect simply refused to fit within his common sense.
“So, speak up then!”
“Pardon?”
“Are those bastards who just showed up strong?”
“W-well, that is, um……”
Im So-byeong scratched the back of his head without answering right away. It wasn’t that he didn’t know their abilities; it was that he was struggling to explain it in a way these people would understand.
“As you know, the Green Forest isn’t a faction where every individual is especially strong.”
“Mm?”
“If you compare it to the orthodox sects, then, well…… ah, yes. It’s more like the Beggars’ Sect.”
“Ah, the Beggars’ Sect!”
Hyun Young understood immediately and nodded repeatedly at the apt comparison.
Even though it was one of the Nine Sects and One Gang, the beggars of the Beggars’ Sect were generally weaker in individual combat strength than the disciples of the other orthodox sects.
And yet the Beggars’ Sect could still proudly claim one of those places because its number of members was incomparable to the others.
“The easiest thing in the world to become is a beggar, and since the place people most easily go when they decide to become bandits is the mountains, there are plenty of them—but each one isn’t all that strong.”
“Then these guys shouldn’t be all that strong either, right?”
“Dae-byeol Bandit Band is a little special among those mountain strongholds. Since they’re the elite of a place like that, they can’t be compared to ordinary bandits…… but there are still limits, I suppose.”
Im So-byeong thought he had explained things clearly and step by step, and in truth he had. But learning required not just the teacher’s ability, but the student’s capacity to receive it.
“What? Elite? You’re saying those bastards are elite?”
“Th-this is bad! Then our children are in danger!”
“No! But why the hell is that Chung Myung brat still drinking like that?”
In the end, Im So-byeong shut his eyes tightly.
Trying to teach a cow the sutras.
What was the point of putting in the effort to teach people who had no intention of listening in the first place? It would be more productive to chant prayers instead.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
It was beyond his common sense to understand.
Dae-byeol Bandit Band?
Of course they were strong. Among the seventy-two mountain bandit factions of the Green Forest, they were one of the especially powerful top ten, and even among those, they were ranked fairly high.
They were certainly a force no one in the Jianghu would dare dismiss lightly.
But the problem was…….
Im So-byeong turned his head slightly and looked at the fierce battle unfolding outside the window.
Your disciples are not just people who don’t get pushed around anywhere.
These beasts…… no, these strong swordsmen, dragged around in a pack with all that power, and yet they were worrying over some bandit rabble…… no, he really shouldn’t be saying things like that. Still, here they were, panicking over fighting the bandits of the Green Forest.
Im So-byeong clicked his tongue bitterly and looked back out over the battlefield.
They won’t kill them, right?
At the very least, they were Taoists.
Bandits were a truly bizarre profession.
It was clearly a job(?) chosen by people with violent temperaments and poor adaptation to ordinary society, but to keep a bandit identity going over time, one needed the patience to wait endlessly for customers who might never come.
Bandits needed patience to survive? What a paradoxical thing to say.
But in the end, those who actually settled into banditry were people who had forged that patience through sheer tenacity.
And yet today, the bandits of Dae-byeol Bandit Band realized something deeply, painfully true.
The human will to endure was completely useless against the hard, vicious impact of a sword scabbard slamming into your skull.
CRACK!
“Ghk……”
A scabbard driven into the top of one bandit’s head with enough force to crush his skull sent his consciousness flying somewhere far away.
“Y-you little…….”
“Who’re you calling little? You weak bastards. Still not beaten enough?”
Clang!
A Great Smasher Blade swung with savage force collided with a sword that darted in like a swallow skimming low over the water, and the blade was cleanly knocked back.
“Kugh!”
Ma Maeng, the Second Squad Leader of Dae-byeol Bandit Band’s Yacha Hall, clutched his wrist as it bent alarmingly and stumbled rapidly backward.
Just where the hell did these guys come from?
It was impossible to understand.
The Great Smasher Blade he wielded weighed at least fifty geun. It wasn’t a divine weapon, but once infused with inner energy, it was a heavy weapon that could smash most ordinary weapons—spears, swords, anything—into pieces without effort.
And yet the instant that Great Smasher Blade met that thin, narrow sword, it had been flung away as if it were made of straw.
What kind of strength is that!
He had lived his life proud that in terms of brute force he was unmatched by anyone in the mountain stronghold, but he simply couldn’t withstand the power behind that sword.
It was enough to make ghosts weep.
If he were being generous, strength alone he could accept. There were always people born with monstrous natural power.
But unless these youngsters had cultivated their inner energy in their mother’s womb, there was no way their power could be strong enough to suppress him so easily!
What made his stomach burn even worse was the damned attitude of those bastards.
“What is this? Did you guys only get pecked by starving chickens? Why’re you so weak!”
“You bastards! Is that all the strength you’ve got?!”
“This isn’t what I expected! Do you know how much hell I went through just to get ready for punks like you?”
The Mount Hua swordsmen, eyes bloodshot, charged in like enraged bulls.
The way they swung their swords as if they’d run into sworn enemies made their suppressed anger palpable.
W-what the hell is going on?
The Green Forest was one of the Five Hegemons of the Jianghu, and these were the notorious bandits of Dae-byeol Bandit Band at that—but the aura the Mount Hua disciples were giving off absolutely overwhelmed them.
The anger of the Mount Hua disciples, who had been tormented like hell by Chung Myung, hounded mercilessly by Baek Cheon, and whipped into the ground by Un Geom, had finally found an outlet here.
After such a long time—after such an unfathomably long stretch—they could finally swing their swords without getting beaten for it, so of course their eyes would practically turn inside out.
“You bastards call yourselves bandits? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves!”
“Aaaaaah! Die! Die! Dieeeeee!”
The Green Forest bandits could do nothing but stumble backward in terror, unable even to mount proper resistance as the swords flashed wildly like some demon sword from the evil sects had become meaningless.
“……”
Meanwhile, Chung Myung, watching the scene with a wine bottle in hand, tilted his head slightly to the side.
Something feels a little…… off.
Judging by the result, Mount Hua was certainly overwhelming them. Even without him saying a word, strong and refined sword strikes were being unleashed in rapid succession.
Compared to the Mount Hua he had first encountered, it was no exaggeration to call it a world turned upside down.
The combination of brutal training, relentless conditioning, and the pills forcibly stuffed down their throats had driven the Mount Hua disciples’ level up as far as it could possibly go.
Objectively speaking, the Baek generation and Cheong generation of Mount Hua had now cleanly overtaken the level of the second and third generation disciples from the era Chung Myung had once known.
All of that was thanks to Chung Myung’s efforts in raising them so carefully they might burst if squeezed and fly away if blown on…….
But something still felt wrong.
Back then, for instance……
When the second or third generation of Mount Hua went out into the Jianghu, there had been a certain charm to it—the white robes fluttering with vigor, the swords swinging like heroes from legend…….
But now……
“Hahahahahahat! Use a little more strength! What kind of bandits are this weak!”
“Hahahahahahat! Your waist! Your waist, you bastard! Your head!”
“Did you think I’d only hit you where it hurt once?”
Staring blankly, Chung Myung looked at his martial siblings.
Who exactly were the evil sect here, and who was the righteous sect?
Watching the Mount Hua disciples, eyes blazing as they savaged the weak(?) bandits to death, it felt more like looking at a gang of robbers come to plunder a village.
He slowly raised his head and looked up at the darkened sky.
Hey, Senior Brother Sect Leader……
I mean, I did say I’d try doing things my way…… but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, you know?
- Good enough. You bastard. What’s the use of complaining now?
No…… this somehow feels unfair?
With a slightly stuffy feeling in his chest, Chung Myung watched the Mount Hua disciples running wild like lunatics.
“……”
Yeah, my kids.
What if their personalities are a little rotten? Just grow up healthy, will you?
Honestly, what mattered most was health, wasn’t it? Just a little too healthy, that’s all…….
While Chung Myung was lost in this sentimental(?) mood, there was another man who was equally flustered by the absurdity of the situation.
It was Dong Ung, the Giant Bear, who had come leading his subordinates.
His eyes, bulging wide, were trembling. Even seeing it with his own eyes, he couldn’t believe it.
How are those kids doing this?
He had fought in many battles himself.
He knew better than most that, depending on momentary circumstances or the difference in momentum, the outcome could sometimes ignore the gap in martial skill.
But no matter how he looked at it, the cause of this situation was not some simple difference in momentum.
Claaang!
The supple, bending sword sent a blade weighing dozens of times more flying cleanly aside, and whenever they collided head-on, the side with the saber was the one pushed back.
They were losing in strength, losing in inner energy.
He didn’t even need to discuss the precision of their forms. That difference was already as wide as heaven and earth.
A sword was supposed to triumph through finesse, and a saber through force—so if the saber-wielding side was losing in force, how were they supposed to fight at all?
This was too one-sided.
That was the only thing he could say.
“Ch-Chief!”
Seeing the Mount Hua disciples surge toward them like waves crashing over the shore, his subordinates screamed in panic.
Realizing they would be annihilated if things continued this way, Dong Ung moved to do something—anything. But at that very moment—
“Looks like you’re the leader.”
Step. Step.
One person slowly walked toward him.
“You…….”
It was that elegant young swordsman who had been calm and composed from the beginning.
Dong Ung’s face twisted horribly.
“You little brats! You don’t know your place and now you’re running wild!”
“The ones who don’t know their place and are running wild are you people. I won’t waste words. Come at me. I’ll make you pay for every last crime you’ve committed all at once.”
Grind!
Dong Ung ground his teeth and was about to lunge when—
“Aye, you don’t use a butcher’s cleaver to slaughter a chicken. I’ll do it, Sasuk!”
“......Geol. That’s the other way around.”
“Ah, is it?”
Jo Gul grinned and stepped forward to face Dong Ung.
“Hey, bandit.”
“......”
“A man should know how to keep himself clean. Come on, then. I’ll shave off that filthy beard of yours nice and neat today.”
In the end, Dong Ung’s fury exploded.
“You dog-like bastard! I’ll break every bone in your body!”
“You sure about that?”
Chuckling, Jo Gul met the charge of the terrifying-faced Dong Ung head-on.