Third-rate Swordsman
Crack.
The practice wooden sword snapped in two.
At the same instant, my palm split open. A single sword form, repeated every day without fail. I had been drilling this one motion for ten full years.
A simple cut, descending from high to low.
Drip. Drip.
Dark red blood welled from my clenched fist and fell in slow drops. A sharp sting climbed steadily up my arm.
I had swung in a fit of temper. My focus had scattered, and in the end my hand had torn.
A realm of the sword that hovered just beyond my reach. The proof of that realm—I had still not attained it.
"You think swinging like that will shatter your hands? Put more strength into it!"
A middle-aged man with a kindly face walked toward me. His name was Guan Jinho, chief escort of this bureau.
He was nearing sixty. Retirement was not far off for him either.
"Forgive me."
Guan Jinho examined my hand. With careful hands he spread wound salve over the split flesh of my palm.
"…What's a bit of Sword Qi worth, anyway? Don't you worry. You think I can't carve out a place for a brat like you even without that nonsense?"
The words were kind. I still couldn't bring myself to accept them.
Wasn't Sword Qi something any decent martial artist could use? Even a second-rate swordsman could call it up—and in more than ten years I had not managed it once.
For reasons I could not name, I was unable to raise Sword Qi.
"…They won't follow me."
"A third-rate swordsman who can't even use Sword Qi, climbing into the chief escort's seat—is that it?"
A bitter smile escaped me. Who would follow such a man?
Shing.
He seemed to have something to show me. He drew the sword at his hip. The moment he circulated his inner power, a vivid blue radiance gathered along the blade.
Sword Qi.
His realm was first-rate—or perhaps higher still.
"Well? Does using something like this mean a man will do escort work well?"
"…It may differ from the rest of the martial world, but in the end we are martial men too."
"True enough. But if you and I crossed blades right now—what then? Do you believe you could beat me?"
I did not dare answer. He was the master who had taught me the sword. I had no wish to measure my skill against his.
"Why no confidence?"
"…I am a third-rate swordsman."
"So you mean to say that is why you cannot defeat me?"
"……"
If I fought him with everything I had? A blade coated in Sword Qi was formidable. Unless it was a famed treasure sword, an ordinary weapon would shatter on contact.
And yet—
Setting that aside, if the question was whether it was impossible to take my master's head, the answer was no.
Even Sword Qi only cuts what it is allowed to cut.
"That will never happen."
At my words, my master and senior in the escort bureau let out a short snort of laughter.
"If I truly crossed swords with you, how would an old man like me win? Inner power, Sword Qi—none of it comes before bone and sinew. Once age sets in, all of it turns useless."
He was right. Realms out of legend—returning to youth, remolding the body—I had never once seen with my own eyes.
And how many people could even display Sword Qi the way he just had? Ordinary folk could live entire lives without ever meeting a single martial artist. Even if they did, they would never know whether the man before them belonged to the martial world or not.
"Come, sit. We ought to disinfect that wound, shouldn't we?"
He produced a bottle of liquor he had prepared.
"…You disinfect with distilled spirits. Drinking it does nothing to help."
"Ah, come now—smear it or swallow it, what's the difference? Hm? Why don't you tell those stories about your hometown anymore? They were entertaining, weren't they?"
"Do you even believe them?"
"Of course I do. I believe every word out of your mouth. A world where you ride iron flying ships that soar higher than a peak master, carriages far swifter than any horse, weapons that spit invisible arrows—and where food is so plentiful the poor grow fatter than the rich? What a splendid world that must be."
When I was younger, I had sometimes gotten drunk and rambled about my homeland like a man spouting nonsense. Naturally, no one had believed me.
I had assumed even my master treated it as a tale not meant to be believed. These days I myself no longer knew whether a place called the Republic of Korea had ever truly existed, or whether it was nothing more than a product of my own delusions.
"…I made it up. I was drunk and just running my mouth. How could the poor grow fatter, and where would you find flying ships or carriages several times faster than a horse?"
"Hahahaha! Is that so? A pity, a real pity. If I could only go to a world like that… how fine that would be."
He took a swallow of liquor. A long breath followed, and he looked out at the world with eyes full of regret.
"…In a world like that, at least no one would have to worry about starving to death…"
Another swallow.
"Hah— Once this escort run is done, I'll finish your sword for you. You've suffered long enough."
"Even then, it's only the Three Talents Sword Technique, isn't it?"
"Heh heh heh! And the Three Talents Sword Technique is one of the strongest sword arts in the entire martial world, you brat!"
My master's teasing eased something tight in my chest.
What did it matter if I never completed the sword?
I still did not know why I had come to this martial world—
but this world was real to me now.
"Seo-woo."
With this escort run finished, his retirement to the countryside had been decided.
He had told me the name Seo did not suit me, and had given me the name Seo-woo instead. Seo Seo-woo, after all, had been a distinctly Korean name.
"Here. Take this."
He entrusted a small box to me. It had been sealed with extreme care.
I could not tell what lay inside, and it barely had any weight. What could it be?
"What is this?"
"The item we must protect on this run."
"N-no—then Master should be the one carrying it."
He shook his head.
"No. Better that the most trustworthy man keep it. I doubt it will come to that, but if anything goes wrong, you must protect it no matter what."
"……"
"And… there is an important person in that carriage. I entrust that one to you as well. Don't worry overmuch. This is only an old man's fretting."
I nodded quietly. I was curious, but an escort's curiosity had a way of shortening his lifespan.
The run went smoothly.
We might meet Green Forest bandits, but paying the road toll usually let a caravan pass without real trouble. That, too, was the nature of escort work. In truth, working as an escort rarely meant fighting mountain bandits.
Now and then you ran into freelancers who belonged to no Green Forest faction. If the escort detail was thin, those were the times you got ambushed.
It seemed this was one of those moments. A band of outlaws appeared before us as if on cue.
"All of you—halt!!!"
The one who looked like their chief bellowed with swaggering confidence.
As I always did, I drew a few silver coins from my pouch and stepped forward.
"…We are strangers to one another. Let this serve as our greeting."
I showed them the pouch of silver.
Ordinarily they would have no desire to fight to the death either—but today the omens were poor.
Shing.
The bandits had already drawn their weapons.
A chill ran through me. The killing intent rolling off them was anything but ordinary.
These were no simple mountain bandits.
Martial artists of the sort said to cleave the sky and fold the earth beneath their feet? Even among the Green Forest, auras of this weight were rare.
"…Woo-ya, fall back. These are not men you can face."
Chief Escort Guan Jinho stepped in front of me, shoulders set hard. He drew his sword with deliberate care.
Tension stood plain on his face.
Power rose from him in a slow bloom—Sword Qi unfurling along the blade.
At this level, most bandits would have turned and fled. These men did not so much as flinch.
"……Senior, do not resent this junior for the harshness of his hand."
Someone walked out from behind the bandits. He wore a black robe, and a bamboo hat hid his face.
The dense killing intent pouring from him began to devour the air around us.
"Hoo… Can we not simply look the other way and pass?"
"Senior fled with our sect's sacred relic. How could you do such a thing? And an escort, of all things? You would have been better off farming in the mountains."
Our sect? Sacred relic?
Words I did not understand spilled into the open.
"…Nonsense. Not a sacred relic—an accursed one."
"From this moment I will no longer treat you as my senior. The rest of you, stay out of it. These are not opponents for the likes of you."
From the man's sword, blue Sword Qi stretched out in a long, gleaming edge.
Someone recognized what it was. A cry of awe burst out.
"Th-that's Sword Gang!"
Sword Gang. If Sword Qi was merely coating a blade with power, Sword Gang was the realm in which that power could be projected outward. I was seeing it with my own eyes for the first time.
Sword Gang—said to be usable only by the elders of great sects—unfolded before me.
And not from one man alone, but two.
From my master's sword rose a denser Sword Qi than I had ever witnessed.
Had he been concealing his true strength all this time?
A voice slipped straight into my ear—sound transmission.
"Woo-ya, forgive me. I've dragged you into this as well. The moment the fighting starts, take the young lady from the carriage and run."
Sound transmission?
Ten years in the martial world, and things I had only ever read about in wuxia novels were all revealing themselves at once—now, of all times.
Either way, dying was not an option. I eased backward. Fortunately, neither of them spared me a glance.
Then steel met steel, and the melee erupted.
I wrenched open the carriage door. Inside sat a girl who looked to be in her early teens, staring blankly ahead.
"Miss, we have to run."
"………"
Something was wrong. Did she lack even basic awareness?
There was no time to wonder. I scooped the girl into my arms and ran with every ounce of strength I possessed, desperate to leave that place behind.
This was already a battlefield for men who had stepped beyond the bounds of ordinary humanity.
"My lord! H-he's gone."
"What? So the old senior hid it somewhere."
Chief Escort Guan Jinho was already dead. He had fought with everything he had, but an aged body could not fully receive the young man's blade.
"My lord! There's no one in the carriage!"
The man they called lord decided he had paid too little attention to his surroundings while dealing with Guan Jinho. Small wonder—this had been a man who once held the rank of elder in their own sect.
Had Guan Jinho been ten years younger, the one lying on the ground now would have been himself.
A mistake… Still, they can't have gone far.
"If any of you find them, do not kill them—secure the sacred relic first!"
The subordinates dressed as bandits launched themselves away with lightness arts.
How long had he been running?
Into the Blood Wolf Lord's sight came a man who looked freshly thirty, racing along with a young girl in his arms. He was about to cut them down when the girl caught his eye.
That child… isn't she the senior's daughter? Why does she look as if she has not grown at all?
He let out a short breath and sheathed his sword.
He could not bring himself to cut down the daughter of a man he had once served as senior. What mattered was the sacred relic. Find that, and nothing else was needed.
His hand moved once. Finger winds shot forth.
Thud-thud-thud.
The ground in front of Seo-woo cratered. He had no choice but to stop mid-stride.
"Hold. Did the senior leave something with you? Hand over the item quietly, and I will spare your life."
"……"
"…I have never once failed to keep a word that left my mouth."
"………"
"So you are the sort who must see blood."
The Blood Wolf Lord stripped the Sword Qi from his blade and swung. He was wary of damaging the sacred relic.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Something felt wrong. He had expected an easy suppression, and the present situation made no sense to him.
This one… is the senior's successor. To have polished the Pawol Sword to this degree? Remarkable…
Guan Jinho's original creation, the Pawol Sword, was built from ordinary forms and sequences—yet the principle within that blade lacked nothing when set beside any superior sword art.
But Pawol was a sword that could reach perfection only after ten full years spent without circulating inner power, clinging solely to the foundations. Almost no one possessed the patience to swing a blade that way for so long.
Absurd. Why teach a sword he never even mastered himself?
A desire rose in him to watch the young man's sword a little longer.
The more their blades crossed, the more beautiful the sword paths became. But he could not afford to drag this out any further.
He decided to take the neck cleanly.
Powerful Sword Qi bloomed from his blade.
In the instant he was about to extend the cut—
the young man moved first.
A merciless sword path, drawn before the eye could follow.
A chill raced down the Blood Wolf Lord's spine. Against that fierce trajectory, he raised Sword Gang before he even realized he had done it.
Whoosh—crash—
The aftermath swallowed everything nearby. He saw Guan Jinho's daughter flung through the air.
She was flying toward a cliff whose bottom could not be seen.
The moment the Blood Wolf Lord's gaze flicked aside, Seo-woo's sword path bloomed again, seizing the opening.
The Blood Wolf Lord raised his blade on pure instinct and caught the cut.
The clang that should have rung out never came.
Slice.
His bamboo hat split slowly apart. Seo-woo's sword had severed it with perfect precision.
…Moon Shadow Slash?
Boom.
His sword moved once more. The shockwave shattered Seo-woo's blade.
Unconscious, Seo-woo was hurled toward the cliff and fell.
In that instant the Blood Wolf Lord thought of Guan Jinho's daughter.
Th-this—a mistake.
He had never intended to end the senior's line.
But Seo-woo and the girl were already tumbling toward the base of the cliff.
It was too late to save them.
He touched the severed bamboo hat.
"…I have sinned against the martial world."
He felt a quiet regret at having broken another realm of the sword. But what was to be done?
The rivers and lakes were merciless by nature.
He launched his body and vanished without a trace.
Once he was gone, far below the cliff, a vast crimson fissure of unknown origin slowly began to swirl and churn.