It Could Get Even Better! (5)
Day sixteen.
“Uuugh...”
Several pairs of eyes watched from behind as Hyun Jong almost dragged himself into the room on hands and knees.
“...I don’t really see anything different.”
“That’s strange.”
Baek Cheon tilted his head.
“That bastard never stops spouting nonsense, but he’s not the type to lie.”
“...That’s an incredibly weird thing to say, but it’s true.”
Baek Cheon narrowed his eyes and frowned.
There really doesn’t seem to be anything obvious.
Chung Myung had said they’d be able to see the change with their own eyes soon enough, but from the Sect Leader’s appearance alone, there wasn’t the slightest sign of that.
After a moment’s thought, Baek Cheon let out a quiet sigh.
“Let’s keep watching for now. He isn’t always right, after all.”
“Yes.”
Before long, the lights in the room went out. Baek Cheon and the Five Swords exchanged uncertain looks and turned away.
Day seventeen.
“Uuugh...”
Hyun Jong threw off his blanket and struggled to sit up.
Crack!
“Hngk.”
His lower back screamed in protest. He hadn’t exactly worked his body to the bone, and yet the strain still seemed too much for this elderly frame.
Patting his waist a few times, Hyun Jong let out a long breath.
How much longer can this body hold out?
He hadn’t lost his will yet. As for the pain that felt like needles stabbing through his body—that much, he could endure. Easily.
Compared to the suffering of sitting alone in this room while Mount Hua crumbled, holding back tears that kept spilling down his face, compared to the pain that had felt like his very organs were melting away, this was nothing at all.
The problem was that his body could not keep up with his spirit.
Whether it was because he had grown old, or because his natural constitution had simply been too frail to withstand Jahasin Gong, he couldn’t tell. But since he wasn’t improving day by day, it almost felt as though he were sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss.
Still.
I can’t complain.
Hyun Jong kneaded his own hands tightly.
Even if his body failed to keep pace, even if he collapsed in qi deviation while learning the divine art, he had no intention of giving up.
Setting aside the responsibility of being Mount Hua’s Sect Leader, there was no way he could say he couldn’t bear it when his disciples were enduring the same pain and gritting their teeth through training, or when Chung Myung himself was sweating buckets while circulating his inner energy before their eyes.
So today, too, he would endure it with everything he had.
“Huuuu...”
With a deep breath, Hyun Jong got up and began to fold his blanket. Every time he reached out, every time he stepped forward, his body cried out and creaked, but he did not let out even a single groan as he made the bed and changed his clothes.
I’m not late, am I?
It was still early morning, before the sun had even risen, but Chung Myung’s training never started after sunrise.
With practiced, careful movements, Hyun Jong tidied the room completely and stopped at the door.
Don’t lose your spirit.
No matter how much his body ached, he was the Sect Leader of Mount Hua. His every expression, every gesture, inevitably influenced the disciples. So no matter how hard it was, he had to maintain as calm an expression as possible.
“Let’s go!”
He gave himself a short, steadying cry and grabbed the door, flinging it open.
And then.
CRACK!
“Huh?”
Hyun Jong stared at his own hand, eyes widening.
Dangling from his outstretched hand was the door, ripped clean off.
“...No, why would that—?”
The hinges still attached to the frame had snapped clean through, hanging loose as if they might fall any second.
“Why’d you go and break the door?”
“Huh?”
By then, Hyun Young had finished getting ready and was standing there with a deep scowl, glancing back and forth between the broken door and Hyun Jong. Hyun Jong looked at him quietly for a moment and asked,
“Why do you look like that?”
“...My joints are aching.”
“...”
“...”
Hyun Young coughed dryly and asked again,
“But seriously, why did you rip the door off?”
“I didn’t rip it off. It came off on its own. The hinges must’ve been old.”
“Old hinges? We replaced everything when we built and repaired the building this time.”
“Really? Then it must be defective.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. This is why you have to check even the hinges one by one. The Eunha Merchant Guild really isn’t what it used to be. We’ll have to inspect things more thoroughly.”
“Yes. That would be for the best.”
“Leave it there. I’ll have the kids put it back on. You should hurry along. If you’re late, that bastard Chung Myung will stick his lips out for a mile.”
“...Right.”
Hyun Jong was just about to sigh and say something when Hyun Young grinned and said,
“Still, our Chung Myung really is so nice, isn’t he? And polite, too.”
What?
Hyun Jong stared blankly at Hyun Young, even doubting his own ears. Usually, Hyun Young was sharper than a blade, but today, for some reason, he didn’t seem to catch Hyun Jong’s expression at all and just kept rambling nonsense.
“If anyone else had been late to training, Chung Myung would’ve cracked their skull on the spot, but look at him—he’s only pouting because he’s an elder. You’d think he’d be cursing up a storm, but he doesn’t. How kind is that?”
“...He’d be justified in cursing?”
“If you screw up, elder or not, you deserve a beating.”
“...”
“But look, he doesn’t even curse. Good heavens, how kind and adorable is that? Hahaha!”
Hyun Young. I think the concept of “kindness” has gone a little crooked in your head. How on earth did it get like that, brother...
“...For now, let’s go.”
“Yes. Right over there, Sahyung is coming too.”
“Good.”
Hyun Jong turned his gaze and looked at the moon still hanging in the sky.
I need to work hard again today.
So that, like that moon, he might at least faintly illuminate the disciples walking through the dark road ahead.
Day twenty-one.
“Are you all right?”
“...Does this look all right to you?”
“...I’m sorry.”
Shoving aside one worried disciple, Hyun Young dropped heavily into a seat on the spot.
“Ughhh. How does it keep getting harder day by day?”
Seeing Hyun Young sprawled out carelessly with his face as gaunt as a corpse, Hyun Sang frowned.
“You’re making a spectacle of yourself in front of the children.”
“Is dignity really important right now? I’m about to drop dead, and you ask whether I’m tired? Sahyung, aren’t you even struggling?”
“Heh. Struggling, you say... I’m not sure I know.”
“Pardon?”
Hyun Young stared at him in surprise, and Hyun Sang smiled faintly.
“I was just thinking it would be rather nice to just die already. That’s all.”
“...”
“...”
“At this age, what sort of glory am I supposed to be chasing? Jahasin Gong or whatever—just...”
“Hey! Hey! The kids are here!”
Hyun Young hurriedly tried to stop him.
But once Hyun Sang got going, he seemed entirely incapable of rein in, muttering nonstop with the face of a man who had long since lost his grip on reality.
“Instead of all this martial arts nonsense, I should’ve just lived peacefully tilling fields. What am I doing in Mount Hua, suffering this damned misery in my twilight years? I should’ve just married Yeongyeong back home and lived quietly, farming the land...”
“Cover your ears! Cover your ears, you idiots!”
At Hyun Young’s shout, the disciples all clapped both hands over their ears at once. Letting out a heavy sigh, Hyun Young turned to the Sect Leader for help.
“Please do something, Sect Leader.”
“...But, Hyun Young.”
“Yes?”
“What Hyun Sang says does make rather a lot of sense, doesn’t it?”
“...”
Hyun Young painfully realized that the two elders remaining in Mount Hua were all, in fact, going senile together. At that moment, Baek Cheon quietly came up beside him and said,
“Elder, allow me to help support you.”
“Ugh. There’s no need for that.”
“I...”
“No, no. I’ll get up on my own.”
“Please don’t force yourself. I’ll—”
“I said it’s fine.”
Hyun Young gave Baek Cheon a light shove. Truly light—nothing more than a lazy swat, like swatting away a nuisance.
But... the result was anything but light.
“Aaaaaagh!”
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Hyun Young’s startled eyes nearly popped out of his head. No, not only Hyun Young—everyone who saw the scene stood there with their mouths hanging open, blinking as if they’d forgotten how.
Baek Cheon had been kicked back at terrifying speed, as if he’d been struck by the foot of a giant the size of a house, slammed into the ground several times as he bounced, and then sent tumbling straight over the far cliff.
“Aaaaargh!”
Baek Cheon’s scream came faintly from far below.
For an instant, silence fell. Everyone lost the ability to speak and looked back and forth between Hyun Young and the cliff. Hyun Sang was the first to break the silence.
“N-no... You said you were just going to support him, and you sent the child flying off a cliff? Have you lost your damn mind?”
“N-no, that’s not it! It’s not like that, Sahyung! I only gave him the lightest little push! What strength do I have to hurl a guy that sturdy that far?”
“...Huh?”
Come to think of it...
Hyun Sang tilted his head, puzzled.
“Then why did that guy go flying like that?”
“...Exactly.”
The two elders stared at the cliff, unable to understand.
Watching that bizarre scene, a chill slowly began to creep up the backs of the Mount Hua disciples.
Day twenty-five.
“Don’t you think they’ve changed a little?”
“...Sasuk, the wound I got then has already healed completely. I’m fine, I tell you. I look absolutely normal.”
“No, not me!”
“Pardon?”
Baek Cheon, who had flushed red with irritation at Yoon Jong’s words, took a deep breath and then put down his chopsticks, pointing toward the innermost seat in the dining hall.
“I mean them.”
As he narrowed his eyes toward where Baek Cheon was pointing, he could see the Sect Leader and the elders. Yoon Jong let out an audible gasp.
“Now that you mention it... they do seem a little different.”
“You see it too?”
“But I’m not sure exactly what’s changed. Still, something definitely...”
“Hmm.”
Baek Cheon gazed at the elders with a complicated expression. Yoon Jong was right. Nothing had changed so dramatically that anyone could point and say, “There, that’s it.” The degree of change was so slight that only someone paying very close attention could have noticed it.
But something had certainly changed.
For one thing... I think they’ve put on a little weight again.
They still looked so gaunt they’d make anyone else think of corpses at first glance. But Baek Cheon could make out a faint return of flesh to those skeletal faces.
“A little weight?”
“Exactly, right?”
Yoon Jong nodded quickly in agreement.
“That must be a good sign.”
“At the very least, it means their condition has improved.”
The two of them, who had been talking, looked at each other. Surprise and relief flickered across their faces. If not for the voice that always poured cold water on everything, that mood might have lasted a bit longer.
“...Can’t even notice it, honestly.”
“Shut up, you bastard, shut up!”
“If I catch you—”
As Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong both shot him a glare and scolded him in unison, Jo Gul flinched and then asked, bewildered,
“...No, do you two just wait around for me to say something these days?”
“...”
“What the hell did I do to get treated like Chung Myung? No matter how you slice it, you can’t just treat a person like Chung Myung! That’s not something human beings do... Aaaaargh!”
The next instant, Jo Gul was struck by something and sent flying into the wall.
BOOM!
“W-what?”
“An attack?”
Everyone eating sprang to their feet and looked around. Half of them stared at Jo Gul, who had been slammed into the wall and was slowly sliding down, while the other half looked at Hyun Sang, who sat on the opposite side, dazedly holding his chopsticks.
“N-no...”
Hyun Sang looked back and forth between Jo Gul, who was twitching on the floor, and the chopsticks in his own hand before stammering,
“I-I just... couldn’t get the meat very well, so I put a little strength into it...”
“...”
“W-why... did qi come out of the chopsticks...”
Several of those who had been staring blankly at Hyun Sang suddenly came to their senses and rushed to Jo Gul.
“Gul! Gul! Are you all right?”
“He’s fine! See? Idiots don’t die!”
“He’s foaming at the mouth, though.”
Jo Gul, limp as a corpse, was carried out of the dining hall on someone’s back. No one could believe what they were seeing. It was as if they’d been possessed by ghosts.
Slowly, Baek Cheon turned his gaze to Hyun Sang. Hyun Young was busy chewing him out.
“No! Why would you hit the child?”
“I told you, I didn’t! I was just trying to grab some meat—”
“Now you’re even blasting qi out of chopsticks! What if the child had actually gotten hurt?”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t!”
Looking at Hyun Sang tearing at his hair as if he were the one being wronged to death, Baek Cheon’s mouth slowly fell open.
He said I’d understand once I saw it. He was right. Seeing it with my own eyes really does make it clear.
And sure enough, this is about the time the effects should start kicking in. Just don’t freak out when you see it. Heeheeheeheehee.
“No wa—”
Baek Cheon’s eyes began to tremble.
Behind the three elders, who looked as though they were on the verge of death and were barely managing to get food into their mouths, an unknown energy was spreading outward.
By now, Baek Cheon had no choice but to be certain.
Something was definitely... happening.
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