Don’t Worry! I’ll Make Sure You Win! (1)
The strength of the Eunha Merchant Guild was truly formidable.
The guild’s people had stabilized and tidied up the business operations in Hwaeum—the very same ones Mount Hua had been unable to do anything about even after mobilizing every disciple in the sect—in just a matter of days.
Thanks to that, a Buddha-like smile never left the face of Elder of Finance Hyun Young, who was usually as fierce as a yaksha.
And most of the time, that Buddha-like smile was directed at one person in particular…
"Have you eaten?"
"Yes, Uncle-Master."
"Good, good."
With an expression of boundless benevolence, Hyun Young patted Chung Myung on the head. It looked as if honey might drip from his eyes.
"You should eat a lot. Eat plenty, then go out and earn some merit."
"…Huh?"
"No, no. Go out and achieve some merit."
"…"
The third-generation disciples were shocked once at the fact that that asura-like Uncle-Master Hyun Young could smile, and shocked a second time that he could actually pat someone on the head.
As for Chung Myung, who had to offer his head up to a junior so blue it was practically green, it was pure hell.
'Feels like I’m being raised as a pet.'
And incredibly enough, Hyun Jong and Hyun Young were both, absurdly, getting younger. Watching black hair sprout beneath their pure white locks, watching the hair by their ears darken, was enough to send a wave of disbelief washing over him.
'Well, they were overly old to begin with.'
They looked their age, but considering they were martial artists, they had been a little too white-haired, too wizened. After all the hardship they had endured, the ones who had grown old on the outside seemed to be regaining their true selves as they recovered some peace of mind.
Hwaeum had been stabilized, and the elders had found their laughter again.
And then time began to flow like a river.
The disciples of Mount Hua felt the long-lost peace in the sect with their whole bodies and surrendered themselves to the passage of time.
And while everyone else enjoyed the calm life, the third-generation disciples were dying.
"Kruuuuuuuugh."
"Aigoooooo."
The third-generation disciples, each carrying boulders as big as their own bodies, sweated like rain as they moved. They bent down until the stones touched the ground, then hauled them back up with all the curses and groans they could muster.
"Kruuuugh!"
"M-my back…."
But there was one thing that had changed: the swearing about Chung Myung, which should have been flying out nonstop, had almost entirely disappeared.
"I’m gonna die!"
"You’re not dying. You’re not dying. Straighten your back."
"No, seriously, I’m dying…!"
"Just two more times. Come on, this is the last one. The last. Hup. Good. Just one more, huh?!"
"Aaagh!"
The one who collapsed face-first to the ground shoved the boulder away and panted for breath.
"A-at this rate, aren’t we going to die?"
"I’m telling you, you won’t die. No one’s died yet."
"…Grrr."
At first, they had started because Chung Myung ordered them to, without really knowing what they were doing. It was just training they had begun because they didn’t want to get hit, because they didn’t want to be singled out.
But after repeating the training for months, they began to realize something.
'This works.'
No, saying it "works" was too weak. To be exact, the results were tremendous. Ever since the elixirs Chung Myung had fed them made it possible to endure the training, everyone could feel the effects with their whole bodies.
For one thing, their lower bodies had become firm, so their sword stances no longer wavered. Their stamina had increased, and above all else, their entire bodies seemed filled with vitality.
No matter how little enthusiasm they had lived with until now, they were still martial artists at heart. Martial artists were the kind of people who, if it meant growing stronger, would not hesitate to chew on a live snake or hurl themselves without a second thought off the cliffs of Manjangdan Valley.
If they could improve their skills by just grunting and lifting a few rocks, who would refuse such training?
They might complain with their mouths, but the number of stones they carried kept increasing, and now some of them were even lifting the boulders outright.
The most conspicuous among them, by far, was Jo Gul.
"Hyaaaaaaaah!"
Jo Gul was lifting a rock twice his own size. At the sight, everyone clicked their tongues.
"And he’s not even using inner energy?"
"Seriously."
Those exchanging remarks had changed quite a bit as well. Only a few months had passed, yet everyone looked at least a handspan taller, with their shoulders spread wide.
Jo Gul, especially, had changed so much that anyone who had known him before would have rubbed their eyes in disbelief. Once among the smaller ones in the third generation, he had now grown into one of the taller disciples, and his whole body had been honed into solid muscle.
Yoon Jong looked around at everyone and let out a faint laugh.
'It really is a strange thing.'
When they first began this training, Yoon Jong had been worried in his own way.
Mount Hua’s swordsmanship was fundamentally evasive, full of feints. Its hallmark was to create countless changes through speed and use those changes to pressure the opponent.
So he had thought this kind of training—simply building brute strength—would interfere with Mount Hua’s sword.
Yet when the effects actually began to show, their swordsmanship became twice as sharp.
Thanks to that, they had been able to master the Yukhap Sword again without difficulty, even after relearning it from the beginning, and now they were learning a new sword art called the Nakhwageom.
It was a little much to take on together with Chilseongbo, but Yoon Jong welcomed that strain wholeheartedly.
Chilseongbo and the Nakhwageom were unlike any of the martial arts they had learned until now. The deeper one delved into them, the more they contained the subtle principle of ascension. They were the sort of arts that made one feel, with certainty, that mastering them would lead to strength.
So of course they were excited.
Though there was one thing.
"Huuuuup!"
"Kruuuuuugh!"
"Argh, with my body this big, the sword feels like a pair of chopsticks!"
"Hahaha! Is that all you’ve got? Bring me another lump of iron!"
Was this really Mount Hua, or a bandit den pretending to be Mount Hua?
Yoon Jong couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the sect where immortal energy and Daoist spirit should have flowed had started to resemble a nest of mountain brigands instead.
"Senior Brother. It’s about time for us to go eat."
"Mm, right."
In the past, everyone had eagerly awaited the end of training, but now that they were organizing their own training schedules, they often ran over time.
Keeping them from overtraining and ruining the rest of the day’s schedule had become Yoon Jong’s job.
"Let’s wrap this up and go in. Wash up, eat, then head to morning training."
"Yes, Senior Brother."
"I’ll just finish what I’m doing now and call it done."
"Mm. Do that."
Yoon Jong glanced around, then casually flicked his gaze toward Jo Gul.
"By the way, where’s Chung Myung?"
"He hasn’t really been coming to training lately."
"True, but still."
Ever since the third-generation disciples’ physical training began running on its own, Chung Myung rarely showed his face at the training grounds.
"It’s not like he’s sleeping around either. He’s always up first, isn’t he? Where the hell does he keep wandering off to?"
"How would we know? Honestly, isn’t Chung Myung the busiest person in Mount Hua?"
"Yeah."
That wasn’t an exaggeration. It was the truth.
After the series of events, Mount Hua had regained its vitality. Visitors, who had once been so rare you could scour your eyes raw looking for them, now came by at least a few a day, and the businesses recovered from Hwaeum had been renovated and were making money smoothly.
In step with that, Mount Hua’s old buildings were being repaired, and preparations for accommodating visitors were also underway.
In the middle of all that, Chung Myung was shuttling between the Eunha Merchant Guild and Mount Hua, spending his days in nonstop motion.
"Senior Brother."
"Hm?"
"How strong do you think we are now?"
"Who knows."
Yoon Jong tilted his head.
Strength was relative. To know exactly how strong one had become, one needed a standard. But they had none. They were definitely growing stronger, but because all the senior and junior brothers were improving together, it was hard to feel just how much stronger they had become.
"At the very least, I’d say we’re twice as strong as we were before that bastard showed up."
"Only twice?"
"I don’t know. Even saying twice is a bit abstract. What I do know for sure is that I’m confident I could take on about three versions of my old self."
"That’s not enough."
"Hm?"
"You know what’s coming soon."
At the mention of that, Yoon Jong frowned.
"Right."
"We have to get stronger. A lot stronger."
"…I see."
Yoon Jong let out a small laugh.
"Then maybe I should ask Chung Myung to run us a little harder."
With a grave expression, Jo Gul nodded solemnly.
* * *
"What the hell am I even doing."
Chung Myung trudged toward Nakhwabong.
If a martial artist wanted to grow stronger, they had to train.
His sword was perfectly matched to his body from his previous life. So while he could imitate the old form decently enough, he couldn’t achieve the perfect union of body and sword he once had.
There was no shortcut for this. He had to keep swinging the sword until the mismatch between his body and his mind was resolved.
The problem was that Chung Myung’s sword was not something he could just swing in front of other people. If he trained seriously, Mount Hua itself would turn upside down.
"Grrrgh. If you’re going to suffer, you might as well die."
In the end, he had no choice but to train where no one could see him.
So these days, he climbed the mountain at dawn, swung his sword at the sparsely visited Nakhwabong, then came back down. That had become his routine.
'I need to do something about this.'
Getting up to Nakhwabong wasn’t a problem, but the time it wasted was.
'As if I have time to spare already.'
Between disciplining the third-generation disciples, coordinating with the Eunha Merchant Guild to manage Hwaeum’s businesses, and soothing the sect leader and elders whenever they did something bizarre, he was busy enough to make his eyes spin.
But more important than any of that was Chung Myung’s own growth.
'I can’t afford to relax.'
If he were given another hundred years like this, Chung Myung would one day reach the realm he had attained in his previous life as the Plum Blossom Sword Saint. And naturally, he could become even stronger than before. The stronger Chung Myung became, the stronger Mount Hua would naturally grow as well.
But the world was not so forgiving.
If there were those who had their eyes on Mount Hua, they would try anything to stop it before it grew any stronger. Even if no one had their sights set on it directly, the same would still be true. No faction welcomed a sect that had begun to flourish.
Obstruction would come. Trouble-makers would appear.
And if, while taking his time to grow stronger, he ended up clashing with someone he couldn’t handle?
Besides, Mount Hua had an enemy named Zhongnan—an enemy guaranteed to cause trouble sooner or later.
Chung Myung shook his head.
'I need to get stronger as fast as possible. Strong enough to deal with whatever comes.'
So he couldn’t neglect training. He had no choice but to climb as quickly as he could. Lying around wouldn’t make him stronger on its own. He had to grit his teeth and work hard…
"Huh?"
Chung Myung narrowed his eyes.
Someone was there.
An uninvited guest had appeared on the training ground Chung Myung had claimed for himself a month ago.
'Who the hell is out here this early…?'
Approaching Nakhwabong carefully, Chung Myung’s eyes caught sight of someone swinging a sword beneath the moonlight.
The tip of the blade traced smooth lines through the air.
Soft, yet powerful. Brilliant, yet graceful.
The sword stamped against the ground, painted the sky, then descended slowly like petals falling in a gentle drift.
Sword dance.
In the darkness before dawn, before the sun had risen, a woman was dancing with her sword beneath the moonlight that illuminated the world.
A pure white martial uniform, hair as dark as ebony, and a blade glowing in the moon’s silver sheen.
"A beauty beneath the moon…"
Chung Myung stood there, dazed, lost in the woman’s sword dance.
The sword melted into the moonlight.
A blade that was delicate, yet never wavering. That sword resembled plum blossoms. Yes—an old Mount Hua sword style lived within that sword dance.
Chung Myung was swept up in a strange, stirring feeling.
The old swordsmanship of Mount Hua, which he had thought he would never see in anyone else again, was unfolding before his eyes.
It wasn’t a matter of what sword art she practiced. It was a matter of how she wielded the sword.
Yes, just like…
"Who are you!"
At that moment, a sharp voice burst out, and the woman dancing with the sword suddenly charged straight at Chung Myung.
"Huh?"
The woman reached him in an instant and thrust her sword with stunning speed.
"Huh?"
The fierce blade came to rest at Chung Myung’s throat.
Chung Myung stared blankly at the sword against his neck and let out a sigh.
'All that stirring atmosphere, my ass.'
To have his presence noticed by a girl like this. The Plum Blossom Sword Saint was dead and buried.
"Who are you? I’m sure I’ve never seen you before."
That made two of them.
Who the hell are you?
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