The World Was Never Meant to Be Lived Alone (3)
“Uuuuungh.”
Chung Myung stretched as he got up from his spot and blinked for a moment. Then, when he saw the sunlight streaming through the window, his eyes flew wide open.
“W-what?”
Morning? No way. There was no way in hell that could be right.
But no matter how hard he tried to deny it, the blazing sunlight refused to disappear.
The warm rays were gently heating the blanket, making it cozy enough that sleep might drift back in—
No, wait! That wasn’t the point!
Chung Myung stared, mouth agape, at this absurd situation.
I overslept?
Who was he? Chung Myung, the Plum Blossom Sword Saint.
Of course, that didn’t mean he was some genius who’d become the Plum Blossom Sword Saint through sheer effort alone. No matter how you looked at it, Chung Myung wasn’t shameless enough to claim that. He’d had natural talent to begin with, and that made his effort efficient.
Still, ever since the day he first picked up a sword, he had never once allowed himself to be lazy while turning that talent into real skill.
And yet—
“I overslept?”
Me? I overslept?
Chung Myung’s pupils shook like there had been an earthquake inside them.
“I, I—”
Sloth was a sin. Laziness was a crime.
And now, of all people, he had overslept!
“Uuuuuugh!”
Chung Myung grabbed his head and started raking his fingers through his hair.
“They say once a man gets fat and lazy, he goes soft! My ass! How the hell does this happen?”
If this had been the old days, it would have been unimaginable.
Even during the war, when he had been forced to confront the limits of a human body, he had never slept in like this. And now, with strength overflowing through every bone in his body, he had overslept?
Chung Myung shot to his feet and yanked the window open.
The sun wasn’t just up; it was practically overhead.
“Hiiiiiieeek!”
Something was terribly, terribly wrong. Chung Myung hurriedly threw on his clothes.
“Damn it! No wonder I kept seeing Senior Brother in my dream! How could my luck be good after seeing that face?”
“- What the hell are you calling my face?”
“No! I don’t have time to play with you right now!”
Ignoring the hallucinated voice by his ear, Chung Myung slapped his clothes on as fast as he could. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken his time washing up before heading out, but now he didn’t even have time to wash his face like a cat.
“Hup!”
He blasted the dust off his body with inner energy in one go, then shot outside like a beam of light.
On the training grounds, every single Mount Hua disciple was already there without fail, devoting themselves to practice. Even the first-generation disciples had taken up a corner and were sweating as they swung their swords.
Watching that scene, Chung Myung felt—
G-guilt…
And with that, he came to the earth-shattering realization that there was apparently still a shred of conscience left in his chest.
“You’re here?”
“…….”
“Where the hell were you? We couldn’t find you all day.”
“…….”
“Chung Myung. Seriously, cut back on the training. You go out before dawn every day and train like a maniac—how’s your body supposed to hold up? Just how much did you do today that you’re this late?”
“……Huh?”
“Tsk tsk.”
Yoon Jong clicked his tongue, his expression faintly worried. The concern in his eyes was like someone was jabbing Chung Myung’s heart with a needle again and again.
“You’re the strongest one, and you never stop training, so the rest of us feel like we can’t even rest!”
When Jo Gul snapped at him, the pain started stabbing at his ribs too.
No, why today of all days…
If he’d heard this on any normal day, he would have pointed and shouted, then gone into a whole lecture and condemnation spree. But now, like a thief with a guilty conscience, he had not a single word to say in his defense.
“Everyone’s, uh… everyone got here early?”
“Hmm. Usually, once you go out to train at dawn, everyone else follows within half a shichen.”
“……Half a shichen?”
“Something like that.”
Chung Myung looked at the people practicing with trembling eyes.
Crash!
Every time swords collided, sweat burst from bodies taut with muscle and splattered onto the training ground. So much sweat had soaked into the earth that the color of the floor itself had begun to change.
Normally, he would have watched the sight with satisfaction. Now, though, those drops of sweat felt like blades flying straight at him and stabbing him in the chest.
No.
His neck was already breaking out in a cold sweat for real.
I should just go die.
His sisaeng and martial nephews, even his sasuk and grand-sasuk, were all sweating buckets while training, and here he was, sprawled out asleep until the sun was high overhead.
“- Haha! Serves you right!”
“Kyaak! Shut up!”
“Hm? What is it?”
“……N-no.”
Chung Myung stammered awkwardly, then tilted his head slightly.
“But everyone seems a bit more intense than usual?”
“Intense isn’t the word. They’re just working harder than usual.”
“Huh?”
Just as Chung Myung was about to ask more, Baek Cheon lowered his sword and wiped the sweat from his forehead as he walked over to them.
“Hoo!”
“…….”
Seeing the beads of sweat dotting his face made it clear how seriously they were all training right now.
“The celebration only just ended, so why the hell are you all going this hard?”
“That’s exactly why.”
“Hm?”
Baek Cheon looked at Chung Myung and said with grave seriousness,
“Now that the Heavenly Alliance exists, Mount Hua’s standing is different from what it was before.”
“…….”
“So just as you said before, the people we have to face will be stronger too. You don’t even have to bring up that Jang Il-so or Maninbang to know that.”
Chung Myung nodded.
“If I stay the same while my opponents grow stronger, the outcome is obvious. So we have no choice but to become stronger too.”
At Baek Cheon’s words, Chung Myung turned to look over the training grounds with a subtle expression.
There wasn’t a single person issuing orders.
In the past, Un Geom had to bark himself hoarse to get them to train, and later Chung Myung had to beat it into them with his fists. But now, nobody on the training grounds needed to raise their voice. Everyone was training on their own.
Seeing the profoundly serious expressions on every face made his fingertips itch strangely.
“And….”
Just then, Baek Cheon twisted his face and glared at Chung Myung.
“The way you train like that, if we train less than you, we’ll never catch up in our whole lives!”
At that, Yu I-seol, who had happened to be walking over, nodded with a face that even seemed to carry a hint of killing intent. Chung Myung stared at them blankly.
“……Is that really so important?”
“It is!”
Jo Gul shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Honestly, I don’t give a damn about becoming the best in the world or the best in Mount Hua!”
“…….”
“I just need to be a little stronger than you! If that lets me punch you in the face just once, I can ascend to heaven in peace!”
At Jo Gul’s words, Yoon Jong and Baek Cheon nodded vigorously in agreement.
“You’d probably shoot off into the heavens with your fist still extended.”
“An achievement like that might even have Grand Pure One Himself running barefoot to welcome you.”
“…….”
What the hell was wrong with these bastards?
“A hundred years isn’t nearly enough!”
“A hundred years, and you’re saying that like it’s nothing.”
“That’s a worthwhile investment.”
“It’d still be a profitable deal if all it took was a hundred years to land one hit on that bastard.”
“Exactly.”
Chung Myung’s eyes trembled violently.
These bastards are serious.
Those eyes were absolutely not the eyes of someone joking.
No, what the hell had I done to deserve this…?
“I’m kidding.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re kidding.”
“Then call it half serious.”
When Chung Myung fell silent, Baek Cheon let out a snort of laughter.
“We all know. We know there’s a lot ahead of us.”
“…….”
“I don’t think a little extra training, a little more effort, will be enough to change everything. But… it’s a hundred times better than doing nothing.”
Chung Myung nodded without a word.
“We’ll do the best we can from where we stand now. That way, we’ll at least keep moving forward, even if only little by little.”
“Then watch your back!”
“Keep your damn manners in check!”
Watching Jo Gul jabbing his finger in the air and Dang Soso doing the same behind him, Chung Myung’s face went a little blank. The sounds of Mount Hua’s disciples pouring themselves into training rang out over and over.
Chung Myung’s eyes wavered slightly.
If you just run forward blindly, you can’t see the ones following behind you. Did you really think your sisaeng and sije to follow you didn’t matter?
What was it like back then?
Back then too, the training grounds had been full of people practicing.
But Chung Myung had not been able to see the sweat they shed. Now he could. The sweat they poured out was plain to see before his eyes.
Slow down a little.
Senior Brother…
Is that what you wanted to say?
“……Honestly, the nagging never ends….”
“What was that, punk?”
Chung Myung snorted and turned his head slightly. It wasn’t that his emotions were overflowing, but for some reason, he didn’t want to show the expression he was wearing right then.
After letting out a low breath and smoothing his expression, he looked at the Mount Hua Five Swords again as casually as ever.
“Like this, and you think you’ll ever catch me! In your dreams!”
“……But this bastard!”
Baek Cheon ground his teeth.
Clang!
Then his sword slid free in one clean motion.
“Fine! It’s been a while since I learned how to train properly from you! Come on then, let me see what you’ve got! Thinking about it, it’s been ages since I’ve sparred with you!”
“Oh?”
Chung Myung’s eyes gleamed.
“Looks like our little Dong-ryong’s been winning lately and now his confidence is through the roof. You’re actually drawing your sword in front of me?”
“I’m your sago, you bastard!”
“You’re alive only because you’re my sago. If you weren’t, you’d already be dead.”
“Fine! Then let’s see you die today!”
Baek Cheon’s eyes practically spat fire as he charged at Chung Myung.
“DIIIIIEEEE!”
“As if that’ll kill me!”
The sword energies erupting from the two of them instantly swept across the surrounding area.
“W-what the hell!”
“Are they insane?”
The disciples, shocked by the brutal spar that had begun so suddenly, hurriedly fled to places beyond the reach of the sword aura.
The rest of the Five Swords, who had also stepped back, folded their arms and watched the scene.
“……That’s vicious.”
“This doesn’t look like sparring at all.”
“Is it okay for them to use killing intent against a fellow disciple like that?”
Yet even amid the storm of sword qi surging like a violent gale, Baek Cheon and Chung Myung’s mouths never stopped moving.
“Today I’m gonna knock your jaw loose and ascend to heaven!”
“Your dreams are huge, huh. You think ascension is something just anybody can pull off?”
Krkakakak!
Baek Cheon’s sword was sent flying back, blocked by Chung Myung’s casually swung blade.
Hm.
A faint ache came to Chung Myung’s wrist, and the corner of his mouth curled up.
You’ve grown a lot.
In the past, he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known how precious it was to have people who could cross swords with him like this, people who chased after him desperately from behind.
Only after losing it had he finally understood.
Just as Chung Mun had said, if he’d looked back at his sisaeng and sije a little more back then, perhaps the future might have changed, even a little.
But…
It’s all in the past now.
He could leave regrets behind, but not attachment. Not when there was something in front of him right now that he had to protect.
“I told you to relax your wrist more! You idiot with no strength!”
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
With every attack blocked, Baek Cheon charged in as if he were about to foam at the mouth. Chung Myung grinned.
Don’t worry, Senior Brother.
He flicked his gaze toward the other Mount Hua disciples watching the spar and shouted,
“This time, it’ll be different!”
His sword burst into a dazzling bloom of flowers.
Plum blossoms, blooming once more.
“Ah, that feels better.”
Chung Myung smiled with a face so polished it practically shone. Then he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Looking around with the expression of a well-fed cat, he shrugged.
“I moved around, so now I’m hungry. I’m heading to eat first.”
“…….”
Chung Myung sauntered off in that direction. His steps were so light and cheerful that anyone watching would have felt better just looking at him.
But if there was one problem…
The people watching Chung Myung’s back slowly turned their gazes toward the training grounds.
“…….”
Everyone let out a collective sigh as they looked at Baek Cheon lying sprawled on the ground, twitching in tiny spasms.
“He still couldn’t land a single hit.”
“……Maybe a hundred years won’t be enough.”
“Gul. Take Senior Brother to the medical hall.”
“……Yes, sir.”
The disciples of Mount Hua were once again reminded that they still had a long way to go.
