The More You Win, the More Enemies You Make (5)
“Uuughhhh….”
A pained groan echoed through the room.
It was the sort of sound that leaked from a throat cracked dry with not a drop of moisture left in it, thick with suffering so raw that merely hearing it made goosebumps rise. Anyone with even the slightest trace of human feeling would have found it impossible to ignore.
Yet the eyes of those standing right in front of the source were as cold as winter frost.
“Ugh… mmngh….”
One of the men who had been ignoring him finally turned his head and looked down at the dying man with an irritated frown. Then he clicked his tongue and snapped, “Just endure it, you bastard! Use your inner energy to blast the alcohol out!”
“Uuugh… th-that’s not alcohol….”
“That madman stuffed his face with every last shred of manners he had and still keeps whining about etiquette.”
Even at Jo Gul’s biting remark, Chung Myung didn’t back down an inch.
“I-I don’t have any other manners, so I have to keep this one at least….”
“…….”
Dammit. It almost sounded reasonable when he put it like that….
Jo Gul wavered for a moment, then hurriedly shook his head.
Mount Hua is doomed if this guy really is the greatest prodigy of the current age, the one who beat up a Wudang elder.
It felt like watching the future of the Central Plains sink not merely into darkness, but straight into the abyss.
But then—
“No, forget Chung Myung for now.”
Jo Gul’s head whipped to the left. Another corpse-like body was sprawled there.
“……Sasuk Baek Cheon, why are you like that too?”
“Uuugh… I, I feel like I’m going to die….”
Jo Gul let out a long sigh and covered his face.
Mount Hua is finished.
Chung Myung being like this was one thing.
But the fact that the person who had stubbornly, day after day, demanded common sense from Chung Myung had somehow become even more bizarre than Chung Myung himself—now that was a real problem.
That was the issue. Chung Myung being weird was acceptable, but why was that man weird too? Why? Just why?
Watching Baek Cheon lying there half dead, Jo Gul’s worries only deepened.
That was when—
Bang!
The door flew open, and Yoon Jong stepped inside.
“Sasuk. Chung Myung. The elders are looking for you— no, never mind, I’ll just handle it myself.”
“…….”
Yoon Jong smiled as though he had never expected anything else. Every time this happened, Jo Gul found that steady expression maddeningly enviable.
Baek Cheon, who had been collapsed on the floor, twitched.
“N-no… I’ll go.”
“……You should just sleep a little longer.”
“Nngh, no… I have to go….”
Baek Cheon staggered to his feet and began straightening his clothes. Responsibility was admirable, sure, but if it had come to this, he should have drunk less in the first place—
“Let’s go!”
“Eek!”
Jo Gul, who had been grumbling while looking elsewhere, jumped like he had seen a ghost when he looked back at Baek Cheon.
The man who had been half dead just moments ago was now standing there perfectly neat, every trace of weakness gone.
No, what kind of person….
There had to be some humanity in this world. Some humanity!
“……Are you all right?”
“Jo Gul.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
“A person can’t always be at their best.”
“…….”
“But those who are meant to be examples must keep their outward appearance as steady as usual, whatever turmoil may exist inside. By now, you are also in a position where many juniors look up to you, so never forget this.”
It was, in truth, very fine advice.
But at that point, Jo Gul couldn’t help but raise one question.
“Then what about that?”
“…….”
Baek Cheon’s gaze followed where Jo Gul was pointing.
There, wrapped entirely in a blanket and flopped over like a caterpillar, was a most peculiar shape. Baek Cheon turned away again without a word, as though he had seen nothing at all.
“Anyway, keep that in mind.”
“……Of course.”
Seeing his perfectly combed hair and spotless white robes, Jo Gul got chills down his spine.
I could never live like that.
Baek Cheon was just as strange as Chung Myung. He was simply strange in a different way.
“Then I’ll be back shortly, so… try to do something about that while I’m gone.”
“I’d rather fight a Wudang elder.”
“……I’ll be back.”
Baek Cheon stepped out, and after exchanging a brief, awkward glance, Jo Gul and Yoon Jong slowly approached Chung Myung.
“Chung Myung… you need to get up now.”
“……Uuugh.”
“We’re supposed to head back to Mount Hua today.”
“Urrgh….”
“Get up already, you damned bastard!”
“Hey! Leave me alone!”
“May you get a boil on your back if you keep lying there like that! Damned bastard!”
But then the door that had just been shut was roughly thrown open again.
Bang!
“Huh?”
“W-what?”
Two people strode in through the flung-open door. Yoon Jong and Jo Gul swallowed hard and quickly moved aside to make room.
Yu I-seol and Dang Soso.
“Soso.”
“Yes, Sago!”
“Wake him.”
“Yes!”
Ching!
Dang Soso’s hands flashed in and out of her sleeves, and when they came back out, she was holding a pair of long silver needles. Seeing that, Jo Gul and Yoon Jong retreated so fast they nearly glued themselves to the wall.
And then….
“AaaaAaaAaaAaaAaaAaaagh!”
Chung Myung’s ghastly scream, impossible to hear with one’s eyes open, rang out through the hall like a bell being struck.
“……Uuugh.”
“Does it hurt that much?”
“You stuck needles in my skull—why wouldn’t it hurt? Huh?”
Avoiding Chung Myung’s glare, which looked ready to charge at him any second, Yoon Jong turned his head aside.
Why is he yelling at me when I’m not the one who stuck them in?
He can’t even make a peep at Soso.
Even while grumbling, Yoon Jong could understand Chung Myung perfectly well.
Everyone was equal before those needles.
“What’s so urgent that you have to torture people first thing in the morning?”
“Why? Still drunk?”
By then, Soso had approached and said with a bright smile, “Then just say so. The Dang family’s secret hangover needle works wonders.”
Yoon Jong looked at her skeptically.
“……Soso.”
“Yes?”
“Does the Dang family really have acupuncture like that?”
“If you don’t believe me, go ask the Dang family yourself.”
“…….”
Of course, there was no practical way to travel thousands of li to the Dang Family and ask them directly. If the daughter of the family head said so, then he could only believe it.
“Then why are you dawdling on the very morning we’re supposed to leave?”
“Does getting up a little earlier somehow make us reach Mount Hua faster? Huh? Faster?”
“What did you say? Still drunk?”
As another needle slid out of Dang Soso’s sleeve, Chung Myung promptly clamped his mouth shut.
Good heavens. She tamed that rascal.
Should I switch my weapon to needles too?
For a man who didn’t fear swords to be afraid of needles—it was a most bizarre thing.
“Tch.”
Chung Myung stirred the rice porridge in front of him twice, then slouched in his chair and grumbled, “If we’d left sooner, we’d already be back at Mount Hua and resting comfortably! Why did so much happen along the way….”
As if you weren’t the one who caused most of it yourself, you bastard!
It was the classic behavior of a man who got excited while making a mess and then found cleanup annoying afterward.
“So we’re leaving today?”
“That was the plan.”
“Honestly, I’d rather stay another week.”
“Why? You said you wanted to get back to Mount Hua quickly. You were just saying that.”
“Yeah, but….”
“Hm?”
Chung Myung’s lips curled into a sly grin.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to leave a couple more holes in the Wudang bastards’ stomachs while we’re here?”
He was a demon. This bastard was a demon.
“That won’t do.”
“Huh?”
At the voice, Chung Myung turned his head. Baek Cheon, having finished speaking with the elders, was entering the dining hall.
“Where are the elders?”
“They said to eat breakfast and leave without wasting any more time.”
“Why the rush?”
“……If you’ve embarrassed yourself in someone else’s house, it’s only manners to leave quickly.”
“Manners, my ass.”
Chung Myung snorted as if the idea was laughable.
They had already trampled every last inch of the place into the dirt; how would leaving quickly help the wounds heal? Wudang was probably going to have a miserable time dealing with the injuries they’d taken this round.
Serves them right.
Of course, he had tempted them a little by dangling one arm out as bait to get them to charge properly, but he hadn’t expected them to come at him with such determination. Thanks to that, they had gained even more than expected….
Heo Do-jin-in, huh.
He was certainly no one to underestimate.
“Whatever. I won this time, anyway.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing.”
Chung Myung waved a hand carelessly.
Now that the board had been set, even that bald monk Beop Jeong would have to move….
As he sank into thought, Chung Myung’s face suddenly twisted.
“Ah, the more I think about it, the more pissed I get. Those Shaolin bastards.”
At the mention of Shaolin, Hye Yeon, who had been quietly eating porridge at one end of the table, flinched and ducked his head as if he wanted to bury his nose in the bowl.
“That brat did nothing useful but cheer from behind.”
“…….”
“And that old bastard just gobbled up what everyone else set on the table!”
“……Which old bastard?”
“There is one. Like some old raccoon.”
Everyone could vaguely guess who he meant, but no one dared say the name out loud.
There were plenty of eccentrics in the world, but among them all, Chung Myung was probably the only one who could speak of Shaolin’s abbot in such a way and live to tell about it.
“Honestly, it makes my stomach ache. I know it’s a net gain if I eat first no matter what anyone else does, but isn’t it human nature to feel my guts twist when I see someone else eat even a single peanut after I’ve torn into an entire slab of meat?”
“……Chung Myung.”
“Hm?”
“Normally, people aren’t like that.”
“Huh? Really? Isn’t everybody like that?”
“…….”
Silence fell.
Primordial Lord above. What are we supposed to do with this guy?
As everyone stared at him in despair, even Chung Myung seemed to realize something had gone wrong. He let out an awkward laugh.
“Hahaha. I’m kidding, kidding!”
He meant it.
That bastard was absolutely, one hundred percent serious.
How is he still surprising us every single day?
People were supposed to become familiar the more you saw them. That was how normal things worked. But with Chung Myung, that simple truth never seemed to apply.
“Ahem. Anyway!”
Chung Myung swept his gaze over everyone seated around the table.
“We can’t get too full of ourselves.”
His voice had lowered slightly, and the expressions of the Mount Hua disciples changed at once.
“To be blunt, Wudang hit our weak point dead on this time.”
“Mm….”
Baek Cheon hummed thoughtfully and glanced around unconsciously.
He knew Chung Myung had surely already taken care to keep things in order, but he was still worried the Cheong-generation disciples might overhear this.
“Ordinary people will only see that we won, but those with any real sense will understand the weakness Wudang thought they found in Mount Hua.”
“That’s true.”
Chung Myung shrugged.
“Wudang’s judgment wasn’t wrong. Mount Hua really is too short on core members.”
“That’s fair.”
Baek Cheon’s face was grave as he added, “We won a formal victory in the spar, but coldly speaking, with Mount Hua’s current strength, it would be difficult to handle even the direct disciples present there. It was only because it was one-on-one that we could keep pace. If we’d had to fight the entire group of direct disciples, our chances would have been slim.”
The Five Swords all nodded in agreement.
“And once you include the elders of Wudang, the gap between us and them is still vast.”
“Exactly.”
Chung Myung threw Baek Cheon a look, as if urging him to continue.
“It’s good that we gained a lot. But even more important is that we now know clearly what we have to do.”
“Oh?”
“If we lack core members, then we fill that gap ourselves.”
Not a trace of hesitation remained in Baek Cheon’s eyes. His firm voice rang out powerfully.
“If we grow stronger here, then from this point on we become the core. We become Mount Hua’s main fighting force. We must make sure no one can ever again say Mount Hua lacks its central strength. Do you all understand?”
“Yes, Senior Brother!”
“Of course, Sasuk!”
Among the Five Swords, whose eyes had renewed themselves with resolve, someone was grinning in a disgustingly pleased way.
Baek Cheon sighed and shot him a glare.
“……What now, punk?”
“Hehe. Our Dong-ryong’s really grown up and learned how to handle things on his own.”
“…….”
Clap!
Chung Myung gave a light round of applause.
“We’ve gained a lot, we’ve got a lot to think about, and there’s still plenty ahead of us.”
“…….”
“But screw all that!”
“Huh?”
He looked at the baffled faces around him and grinned.
“Whatever else, when it’s time to enjoy ourselves, we should enjoy ourselves! We’re returning in triumph! Let’s go back to Mount Hua!”
Everyone nodded, their faces bright with renewed spirit.
It was time to bring the long journey to an end.