There Are Losses More Precious Than Victory (2)
When Mu Gak stepped down from the arena, he lowered his head before Heo Sanja.
“...I’m sorry.”
“...”
“I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I used Hyegeom. I’ll gladly accept whatever punishment comes.”
Heo Sanja looked at Mu Gak with a somewhat complicated expression.
“Why?”
“...”
“You could have won easily enough without using Hyegeom. And yet you still chose to break the rules of the sect. Was there really any reason to do that?”
“...It’s hard to explain in words.”
At that answer, Heo Sanja gave a small nod.
“Very well. It doesn’t matter.”
Then he patted Mu Gak on the shoulder.
“You won. That’s what matters. If we were to condemn the victor, the whole world would laugh at Wudang. I’ll consider your offense pardoned.”
“But...”
“Straighten your back. There’s nothing to apologize for!”
“...Yes, sir.”
Heo Sanja’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“They’ve seen Hyegeom with their own eyes, and they’ve also seen the crushing defeat of their first-generation disciple. They’ll lose confidence. They may flare up in anger for a moment, but soon enough they’ll face reality.”
“...”
“All that remains is to sweep up the rest of the victories. That will do.”
Mu Gak simply nodded in silence and walked past Heo Sanja toward the rear. A complicated expression was written all over his face.
I won, huh...
It was a strange feeling.
He had clearly won, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to think of it as a victory. He had won the match, but as a swordsman, he felt as if he had lost.
As he stood there with that strange sense of defeat lingering in him, Mu Jin approached.
“Senior brother.”
“How was it?”
“...”
Mu Gak hesitated, unable to answer at once.
It was too difficult to put his impressions of that match into just a few words.
“Senior brother. Maybe we...”
He was about to say something when he suddenly looked at Heo Sanja’s back in the distance.
“Maybe we’ve been missing a great deal because of the name Wudang.”
It was not the sort of thing a disciple of Wudang should say.
Yet Mu Jin heard it without rebuke, simply nodding in quiet agreement.
“A bout, huh...”
A bout was about comparing one’s martial way against another’s in order to learn.
People in the world thought the point of a bout was simply to measure superiority, but the true purpose of a bout lay in learning.
In that sense, through this contest they were learning far more than they had expected.
I wish the rest of the disciples could understand this as well...
Mu Jin let out a low sigh.
“It’s fine. He’s just exhausted.”
“He really is all right?”
“Yes.”
Dang Soso nodded seriously. Even so, she did not let go of the hand holding Un Geom’s pulse, as if she still feared something might happen.
“He does have internal injuries, but if he rests for three or four days, he’ll recover completely.”
“Phew.”
“Thank goodness...”
Only then did the tension in the shoulders of the Mount Hua disciples begin to ease. If Un Geom had been seriously hurt, it would have been unbearable for them.
“Hall Leader...”
Un Geom’s face, unconscious as he was, looked oddly serene. More than a few of Mount Hua’s disciples stared at him and then quietly wiped at their eyes.
In particular, Baek Sang had his lips bitten so tightly that it looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
Then, from behind them, a low voice spoke.
“Don’t get carried away by your emotions.”
Everyone turned. Chung Myung was walking toward them with his usual calm, unconcerned expression.
“Just remember what you saw and learned properly. That’s what Hall Leader would want.”
“Of course.”
“We’ll never forget it!”
How could they? They had seen it with their own eyes. They had felt, with their whole bodies, what Un Geom had been trying to convey.
Seeing their faces grow so serious, Chung Myung’s mouth curled upward. This was something he could not have said, and a lesson he could not have taught himself.
A person has limits to what they can do alone. That was why people gathered together. Even if they could not do something alone, they could do it when they stood together.
“So then...”
Chung Myung slowly looked over everyone.
“Are there still people who’re scared of losing?”
No one answered, but everyone’s eyes answered for them.
“Good!”
Chung Myung nodded hard and jabbed his chin toward the arena.
“Who’s next?”
“Me!”
“Step aside, senior brother! I’ll go!”
“The juniors don’t need to move! I’m going!”
The moment he finished speaking, roars burst from all directions. It was a complete reversal from before, when they had held back and looked around uncertainly, reluctant to step forward.
“Ah, senior brother’s weaker than me anyway! I’m going!”
“What, you little bastard? You want to take this outside?”
“A kettle blackens from the inside out! Quit your nonsense and get lost!”
“What’d you say? Want me to see if you still talk tough after I stick a giant needle in your scalp?”
“So-Soso, calm down.”
“...”
Well... it was a little excessive.
Still, it was better than dithering and hesitating.
Just as Chung Myung, slightly flustered, was about to pick one of them, another voice cut through the noise.
“All of you, shut up.”
The voice was so chilly it seemed to freeze everyone’s mouths shut. It was Baek Sang, gripping his sword tightly with a face like a demon’s.
“I’m going.”
“...”
“Anyone got a problem with that?”
“...No, sir.”
Everyone clamped their mouths shut. Saying a word of protest looked like it might cost them their lives.
Baek Sang, lips pressed tight, looked at Chung Myung.
“I can go, right?”
“Uh... yeah. Go on.”
Even Chung Myung flinched at that momentum.
“I’m off.”
Baek Sang turned toward the arena without looking back. Watching his retreating figure, Chung Myung wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
Are they all like this because they’re still young?
A bit extreme, aren’t they...
“Everyone, go stand over there now. Hall Leader needs to rest.”
As soon as Soso gave the order, those gathered around Un Geom immediately retreated like a receding tide. It was as though they were determined not to disturb his rest under any circumstances.
Chung Myung, the last one left, quietly looked down at Un Geom’s unconscious face.
I wish I could show them that kind of realm.
“Honestly...”
He hadn’t expected him to be this perfect.
In truth, Chung Myung had only taught them how to endure.
That was why it had been impossible for him to convey this part. And yet, without Chung Myung even realizing it, Un Geom had so splendidly delivered the spirit he had failed to pass on.
You worked hard.
Not as Chung Myung, but as the Plum Blossom Sword Saint, he offered his deepest thanks before slowly turning away.
Back at his place, he fixed his gaze on Baek Sang standing in the arena.
Apparently no one from Wudang had been decided yet, because Baek Sang stood alone on the platform.
“Who’s coming out?”
“...Whoever it is.”
“Can we win?”
“No way.”
At Chung Myung’s blade-sharp answer, Baek Cheon let out a snort of laughter.
“I guess not.”
By now, they could no longer hope for victory through luck alone. Even if they had won five matches in a row, ten straight defeats afterward would have blotted out those wins and left nothing but self-disgust behind.
That’s what would’ve happened if Senior Brother hadn’t been here.
But now the situation was different.
Un Geom had shown Mount Hua’s disciples that victory was not everything.
Wasn’t that clear enough just from seeing how the disciples who had once been afraid of defeat were now clamoring to go?
“If you can lose with dignity, then losing isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
“...”
At Baek Cheon’s words, Chung Myung’s face twisted with obvious displeasure. It was the look of someone so irritated he could die, but couldn’t possibly say it out loud. Baek Cheon sighed and added,
“...I do know that winning is better.”
“Hngh.”
Then Chung Myung let out a groan and heaved a deep sigh.
“This time...”
His gaze turned cold as he looked toward Wudang.
“This time we can’t help it, so I’ll let it slide once. But...”
Gritting his teeth, he growled,
“Next time, I’m gonna crush them.”
Baek Cheon shook his head at the muttered promise.
That greedy bastard. He never knows when to stop.
They had already gained an absurd amount.
Even if this competition had not been part of their original plan, it was no exaggeration to say they had struck a jackpot far beyond expectation.
And yet this bastard still wasn’t satisfied.
This ugly, insatiable nature is probably part of how Mount Hua made it this far...
Baek Cheon’s eyes moved back to Baek Sang standing in the arena.
Baek Sang probably understood perfectly well as well. Sometimes there really was a defeat more valuable than victory.
“Do your best, Baek Sang.”
As long as they could show Mount Hua’s spirit, that was enough.
Baek Sang fought hard in his own way, but it was impossible to close the absolute gap between them. Still, he made it clear that he would not give up until the very end.
The disciples who stepped up to the arena after him also gave everything they had, but they were no match for Wudang’s first-generation disciples.
It was, in the end, a case of being outnumbered and overmatched.
And yet the people watching did not look at Mount Hua the way they would at someone who had simply been beaten without resistance.
“Lost again.”
“That makes it seven to five?”
“Seven to four.”
“Ah, right. That first bout didn’t count, did it?”
The spectators clicked their tongues.
“Tsk, tsk. They fought hard, but it looks like they’ve run out of steam. What a pity.”
“Indeed.”
The more they lamented, the more they realized something else.
To feel pity was to have expected something in the first place. In other words, even they had thought Mount Hua might be able to take Wudang down.
And they knew full well how absurd that was.
Even now, they could see that Mount Hua’s disciples were being clearly overwhelmed on the arena, but not a single one of them felt like mocking the defeat.
“...Incredible.”
“Wudang, you mean?”
“What Wudang? I’m talking about Mount Hua!”
One of the spectators raised his voice.
“Is that even a normal fight to begin with? In what world do first-generation and second-generation disciples even spar against each other? You’re supposed to match opponents of equal standing.”
“And how is that Wudang’s fault? It just means Mount Hua’s first-generation disciples are thin on the ground.”
“Exactly, they are thin!”
The man speaking snapped in irritation.
“But is it the sort of thing a prestigious sect should do, to exploit that weakness and force a bout like this? If Wudang had even a shred of conscience, they would’ve brought their second-generation disciples too! What do you think it means that they left all their second-generation disciples behind in the first place? Isn’t it because they intended to make Mount Hua’s second-generation disciples fight their first-generation disciples?”
“You really think so? It probably just turned out that way.”
“Say it did turn out that way, as you say! Then wouldn’t it have been enough to delay the bout a little and bring their second-generation disciples from their main sect?”
“...”
“It’s petty, that’s what it is.”
The spectators’ eyes toward Wudang were no longer very kind.
At first, when they had come merely for entertainment, it hadn’t mattered. But once the contest became fiercer than expected, and Mount Hua’s struggle began to feel heartbreaking, the crookedness of the situation became painfully obvious to them.
“That’s why Mount Hua is impressive!”
“...”
“If I’d been told to fight in front of so many people against a first-generation disciple ten years older than me, I would’ve run for the hills without looking back. But they’re not calling that cowardly; they’re just fighting with their heads held high, aren’t they?”
“...Now that you mention it.”
“The one fighting that first-generation disciple is obviously going to lose. But twenty years... no, even ten years from now, will Wudang really still be a match for Mount Hua? There are already young disciples out there fighting Wudang’s first-generation disciples, after all.”
“...”
At first, they had simply felt goodwill.
Who wouldn’t feel kindly toward people who had raided bandit stores, lugged the loot all the way out here, and handed it out to others? So even if they couldn’t win, everyone had applauded their effort.
But as they watched the bouts unfold, they came to painfully understand why the name Mount Hua was echoing more and more across the world.
“The world’s changing, isn’t it. They kept saying Mount Hua, Mount Hua, and there was a reason their reputation kept rising.”
Quite a few people nodded in agreement.
Of course, there were those who inwardly refused to accept it, and those who openly frowned and argued back, so emotions were mixed all around. But no one could deny that Mount Hua was no longer the Mount Hua of old.
Before anyone even realized it, that sect called Mount Hua had risen to the point where it could stand shoulder to shoulder with a prestigious sect like Wudang.
And then...
Behind that turbulent whirlpool of emotions, one person slowly rose to his feet.
“Tch.”
He was a sturdy man dressed in rough, plain hemp clothes, with a face that seemed to hover somewhere between middle age and old age. He stared at the arena with cold eyes and muttered,
“...I took my eyes off it for a moment, and now...”
To think they had come so far because of something like Mount Hua...
He shook his head in clear disgust, then turned and began walking away at an unhurried pace.
The weathered, somewhat worn fabric of his clothes fluttered behind him. At his waist, the Songmun Black Sword hanging there gleamed as though it were brand new.