Everything I Do Is for Your Own Good (5)
Scritch. Scritch.
The soft sound of grass underfoot spread through the quiet mountainside like a melody, carried on light, careful steps.
“Hmm.”
Hyun Jong drew in a deep breath of the crisp dawn air and let out a pleased hum through his nose.
How nice.
Waking before dawn was hard for anyone. Even for people of the martial world, with bodies tempered by discipline and training, it was no different.
But once they forced their stubborn bodies up, washed their faces, straightened their robes, and composed themselves, all that weariness would vanish, replaced by a natural sense of contentment.
Especially when they went out to train at a time like this, before the others had even woken……
Then Hyun Jong’s shoulders sagged as he looked ahead with a slightly deflated expression.
Damn it. I’m late.
Whoosh!
The sword flew beautifully through the air.
Moonlight from the fading dawn cast a pale glow over Yu I-seol’s back as she leaped into the air and struck with her blade.
Hyun Jong watched her in silence for a while.
She landed lightly, tilted her head, then gave the sword a few experimental swings in front of her before nodding and settling back into position.
When did that child grow so much?
She was the same child who had not shed even a single tear before her father’s grave. The memory of that day, when she had come to Mount Hua with a tiny hand trembling as it clutched Hyun Jong’s own, was still as clear as if it had happened yesterday. And now she was already this grown, wielding a sword of her own.
Good.
The Yu I-seol of the past had always seemed lonely.
Though Mount Hua had many fellow disciples, she had never really blended in with them. She always swung her sword alone, always pursued something alone, just as she was now. She stubbornly walked a path no one in Mount Hua could walk beside her on.
A smile appeared at the corner of Hyun Jong’s mouth.
But now Yu I-seol had people who stood at her side. Dang Soso was there, and Chung Myung, and Baek Cheon, and Jo Gul, and Yoon Jong.
Perhaps because of that, the Yu I-seol swinging her sword now no longer looked lonely the way she once had.
Hyun Jong shifted his gaze to the moon shining behind her.
Are you watching?
You can rest easy now. Everything you wanted has come to pass.
With eyes full of warmth, Hyun Jong watched Yu I-seol train for a while longer before quietly turning away.
“Now then…… let’s see. The next secluded place would be……”
Looking toward the opposite peak, Hyun Jong let out a sigh. It seemed he would have to go down a long way and climb back up again.
“……”
Hyun Jong’s brow twitched.
“Haaah!”
Whoosh!
With a forceful cry, the sword cleaved through the air with razor-sharp precision.
“Damn it! Why the hell isn’t this working? It was easy when Chung Myung did it!”
The one who had swung the sword around crouched on the spot, propping up his chin with one hand as he muttered to himself.
“Did I distribute my internal energy wrong? No, that can’t be it…… If that were the case, it wouldn’t twist like this. Wait—did I put too much strength into my wrist? Hmm…… no, that doesn’t seem right either.”
He traced lines in the dirt with his finger as he thought it over, then suddenly jumped to his feet.
“I don’t get it! If I just do it a hundred times, a thousand times, I’ll figure it out! Martial arts are learned through the body, right?”
No, they’re not!
That’s not it, you idiot! You’re supposed to understand it before you use it!
“Urachaaaaa!”
He repeatedly slashed the sword through the air, over and over, repeating the same technique again and again. Hyun Jong wondered if there was anything he could do to help, feeling sorry for him. But then—
“Got it!”
Huh?
“Hahahahaha! This is it! It was the knees, the knees!”
……Got it?
The one who had been hopping in place with delight burst out laughing.
“That’s all it took! Ha, I should’ve tried this sooner!”
Hyun Jong blinked. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then eventually shook his head.
Well. If he solved it, then that was that. What did the method matter?
“All right, then. Next!”
The sword once again began cutting swiftly through the air.
Hyun Jong smiled as he watched from behind the dense brush.
That boy really is something.
Seeing Jo Gul smiling so brightly made Hyun Jong feel pleased all on his own.
Jo Gul was a child who had once wandered without direction, unable to form any attachment to martial arts. But now he was devoting himself to it so earnestly that he trained alone before dawn like this.
And it wasn’t only pleasing because he was training hard.
A person’s life doesn’t come twice.
When you only get one life, if you do your best no matter what you’re doing, then that alone is enough to deserve praise.
Still, that is surprising.
He would have understood it if it had been Yoon Jong, but he hadn’t expected Jo Gul to train this early in the morning.
Then again……
In some ways, Jo Gul was also the one among the disciples showing the fastest progress.
If he hadn’t been putting in quiet, diligent effort behind the scenes, he never would have achieved results like that.
It was only natural, and yet when one thought of Jo Gul’s usual words and behavior, it was easy to overlook that fact.
Keep at it.
Hyun Jong sent his support in his heart and turned away with satisfaction.
“But……”
His expression turned a little wistful as he looked toward the opposite peak.
Where am I supposed to go now?
They were incredibly diligent.
Good kids.
“Hmm. There’s no way this shouldn’t work. I’ll try again.”
Yes, yes. Baek Cheon.
You’re really working hard. This sect leader is very pleased.
Swish! Swish-swish!
Thwack!
Soso, too.
Why are you throwing needles in the middle of sword practice?
Yes, yes…… Of course Mount Hua wasn’t such a narrow-minded sect that it insisted you could only use Mount Hua’s martial arts…… but still, if you’re training, shouldn’t you be using a sword?
Dang Soso trotted over, pulled the needles out of the rocks where they had stuck, and gathered them up. Then she hurried back to her spot, resumed swinging her sword sharply—and suddenly spun around, firing needles again.
“Argh, damn it! Why do these keep coming out when I’m using my sword? I’m only supposed to be training swordsmanship!”
Ah…… so it wasn’t on purpose.
……
What is that now?
Hyun Jong’s eyes trembled slightly.
Yoon Jong, sword in hand, wasn’t moving at all. At first Hyun Jong thought he might be deeply lost in thought, so he watched for a while—but even after the length of a full quarter hour, he hadn’t budged an inch.
Is he asleep?
No, no, that couldn’t be it.
No matter how you looked at it, a person couldn’t sleep while standing like that with a sword in hand.
Then what in the world……
After maintaining the same posture for a long while, Yoon Jong slowly lowered his sword.
“Hmm. So that’s how it works.”
How?
What works, you idiot? You were just standing there holding a sword. What exactly were you figuring out?
“Then this……”
Yoon Jong took on the posture of swinging his sword sideways. But just as the blade seemed about to move, it stopped in the air, and Yoon Jong once again froze like a statue.
Hyun Jong watched him staring blankly for a moment before shaking his head.
I don’t get it.
Well…… everyone had their own way.
Hahaha. Heh-heh-heh.
“Urachaaa!”
Baek Sang, didn’t you say you were going to devote yourself to the Finance Hall?
“Ooooooh!”
Jong Hoi, too.
Right. It wasn’t just Yoon Jong and Jo Gul among the Cheong generation. Right.
“Huuuuuum!”
Unam?
Wait, Unam? Since when have you been training like this? And not even Un Geom?
Everywhere he went, there was someone there. Hyun Jong now turned back with a sour expression every time.
At this rate, he couldn’t even call it early morning training. Hadn’t the entire mountainside been taken over by this brat and that brat, all of them out here training?
It’s a good thing Mount Hua’s future is bright, but……
Where am I supposed to go? Where……
He had already been out of his room for nearly half a shichen. He had finally steeled himself and come out for dawn training, and this was how it was going……
“Hmm. Fine, I’ll just go farther down.”
The upper area had been completely occupied by the youngsters, so he had no choice but to aim for a middle slope instead.
After trekking down the mountain for a long while, Hyun Jong checked the presence around him. His face brightened.
“There’s no one he…….”
“No! That’s not what I said!”
He jolted.
At the shouting that suddenly exploded right beside him, Hyun Jong stretched his neck and looked around.
There’s someone here too.
If it was going to be like this, you should all just gather in the practice yard and train there. Why on earth do you have to go to such lengths!
But even though he knew someone had gotten there before him, he didn’t turn away immediately. The voice he had just heard was far too familiar.
Of course, all the disciples of Mount Hua were familiar to him—but the voice from just now was on a completely different level.
“No, I did it exactly as I was told!”
“I said use a little force! A little! Not just a little, but a little!”
“How the hell am I supposed to know the difference between ‘a little’ and ‘a little’!”
“You little—!”
Hyun Jong, listening to them bicker, slowly edged closer and poked his head out from the bushes. At once, the two of them were startled and let out shrill screams.
“Mom! You scared me!”
“Eek! At least announce yourself first, announce yourself!”
Looking at the awkwardly standing Hyun Sang and Hyun Young with swords in hand, Hyun Jong tilted his head slightly to one side.
“……What are you two doing here? At this hour?”
“Well…… cough.”
Hyun Young looked away awkwardly. The tips of his ears had turned red, and it seemed he was embarrassed about something.
Hyun Sang answered instead, smiling.
“They’ve asked for help because the Plum Blossom Sword Manual is proving terribly difficult.”
“The Plum Blossom Sword Manual?”
Hyun Jong let out a dry laugh.
“So you came out at dawn for that and have been doing this? With so much to do during the day?”
“What do you mean, so much to do?”
Hyun Young grumbled.
“And even if there is work to do, does it make sense for us to send the youngsters off to train while we just sit around and slack off? If we’re going to do this honestly, we should be doing our part too.”
“What do you mean, ‘us,’ you brat?”
“Then are you going to loaf around, senior brother?”
Hyun Jong chuckled heartily. But at the same time, his eyes grew damp, because seeing a sword in Hyun Young’s hand stirred up all sorts of emotions.
That’s right.
Hyun Young had given up on the path of martial arts early on and taken charge of Mount Hua’s household affairs. But that wasn’t because he had never wanted to learn martial arts; it was because there had been no one else who could take on that burden.
It was true that he lacked talent, but if Mount Hua had not once been on the brink of collapse, Hyun Young would never have put down his sword.
“What are you looking at me like that for?”
“No, it’s nothing…… I just found myself thinking about it again.”
“Thinking about it again, my foot.”
Hyun Young kept snapping irritably, but Hyun Jong knew very well that this wasn’t the sort of reaction that came from malice. It was what Hyun Young did when he was embarrassed.
“Well…… in the old days, maybe not. But now we’ve got Baek Sang, and a couple of kids helping out in the Finance Hall, and people dispatched from the Galaxy Merchant Guild too, so we’re not exactly short-handed anymore……”
“Hahaha. Yes, yes.”
“Grrh! Yes! So I just practice in my spare time! Is that satisfactory?”
“Who said otherwise? Hahahaha!”
Watching Hyun Jong laugh boisterously, Hyun Young shot him a glare.
Damn it. If only he weren’t the sect leader.
“You’ve suffered a great deal.”
At Hyun Jong’s words, Hyun Sang shook his head.
“Not at all, Sect Leader.”
Hyun Sang hesitated briefly, then went on with a faint smile.
“I simply think we’re fortunate that such an opportunity has come to us.”
“Fortunate?”
“Yes. When the Maninbang attacked before, didn’t we stand at the front to protect the disciples?”
“Of course. That’s only natural.”
“Yes, Sect Leader. It is natural. But if the disciples become stronger than we are, will we really be able to stand in front of them?”
Listening quietly, Hyun Jong understood Hyun Sang’s meaning and nodded.
“I see. I understand what you’re saying.”
“I don’t want to put the disciples ahead of us because we’re too weak. But I also don’t want to stubbornly stand in front when we have no strength and become a burden to them. With this divine skill and the sword manual, at least for a while longer, we can protect the disciples, can’t we?”
Hyun Jong looked at Hyun Sang with affectionate eyes.
“Hyun Sang.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“I have no intention of giving those brats the front line for at least another ten years.”
“Nor do I.”
The two men smiled warmly at each other. Unfortunately, one person’s expression was a little different.
“Can I join too?”
“You’re a bit……”
“Yeah, that’s…… maybe not……”
At their reluctant expressions, Hyun Young flared up and shouted, “If you came here to train, then stop chatting and train! And senior brother, finish teaching what you were teaching earlier!”
“……Is that the attitude of someone learning?”
“Oh, fine. Then why don’t you try living without pocket money starting today!”
“R-right, let’s get started. Quickly!”
Hyun Jong chuckled as Hyun Sang flinched and hurriedly demonstrated once more. But the end of his laughter carried a faint bitterness.
It’s fortunate that such a chance has come.
Yes. It was true.
Hyun Jong lifted his gaze upward.
Beyond Mount Hua’s towering peaks, the morning sun was slowly beginning to reveal itself.
Yes. It truly is fortunate.
It was dazzling.
Smiling, Hyun Jong looked briefly at the two of them before butting in.
“You’ve got to relax your strength there, you brat!”
“Don’t interfere! I’m dying here as it is.”
“Let me show you how it’s done!”
“Just go away already!”
In the middle slopes of Mount Hua, where the first pale rays of dawn were spilling over the mountain, the sound of the three of them bickering spread out warmly through the air.
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