Reincarnated as the Master
Could it be... I’ve become Young Master Seok Geum-ryong?
Woo Do-min was so stunned that he froze in place.
At first, he had thought it was an illusion or a dream, but this vivid sensation, this weight of breath and flesh and presence, was absolutely no illusion.
“So now you’ve gone silent and shut your mouth? Young Master Geum-ryong is, for good or ill, a direct descendant of this vast Seokga Manor. Dream of becoming a merchant, not a martial artist. No matter how strong martial prowess may be, in the end nothing shines brighter than gold.”
Seeing the usually outspoken Young Master Seok Geum-ryong go rigid with shock and clamp his mouth shut, the Scholar in Blue, Gong Sang-pil, could only patiently chide him, though a trace of exasperation lingered in his tone.
Watching Gong Sang-pil’s reaction, Woo Do-min finally realized that he had entered the body of the master he had once served, Seok Geum-ryong.
And not just that... I’ve possessed Young Master Seok Geum-ryong’s body from childhood!
The reason Woo Do-min was so certain was simple.
First was the man before his eyes now, the tenth butler, Gong Sang-pil, lecturing Seok Geum-ryong with spit flying from his lips as he tried to guide him back onto the proper path.
This man had already died in the original timeline by the time Woo Do-min had come to Seok Geum-ryong as his bodyguard.
Moreover, Seok Geum-ryong, who should by rights have already been grown and of age, was currently only a small, plump child. At best, he looked no older than ten.
“Ahem, did my words shock you? If so, I apologize. I only want Young Master Geum-ryong to follow the proper path of a merchant. So for your tenth birthday gift, ask for something else. For example, a book to cultivate your education, or perhaps an abacus made of jade. I can bring such things for you.”
Gong Sang-pil, who always wore blue and had become part of Seok Geum-ryong’s household at a relatively young age, had been an outstanding prodigy who, had he not died young in his original world, might have risen not as a mere steward but as chief steward himself.
Unluckily, he had ended up losing his life in Seok Geum-ryong’s place at the hands of an assassin sent by another faction.
After Gong Sang-pil died, the issue of Seok Geum-ryong’s safety was finally brought to the surface... and then I, after losing my son and leaving Seokga Manor, came to Seok Geum-ryong.
It had been several days after Seok Geum-ryong’s thirteenth birthday banquet, on the day tragedy struck.
That had been the day Woo Do-min first met Seok Geum-ryong.
In other words, this was a scene and a memory from before the time when the Gold-Selling Swordsman, Woo Do-min, had met Seok Geum-ryong.
On the day I died, and Young Master Seok Geum-ryong was cut down by Geuk Tae-cheon’s blade, it was only a few days after his twentieth birthday.
Which meant he had somehow been thrown back exactly ten years and possessed the body of Seok Geum-ryong.
Right now, it was only a few days before Seok Geum-ryong’s tenth birthday.
“Then perhaps... as a birthday gift, could I ask for a bodyguard?”
Woo Do-min hesitated, then a thought struck him and he spoke.
“Hmm? A bodyguard? Aren’t there already enough martial artists?”
“Even so, it is better to have a particularly capable one.”
“Still talking about martial arts, are you? Hah... well, with succession struggles and all the rest making things so unsettled these days, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to bring in someone strong. Is there some martial artist you’ve been keeping an eye on?”
“The Northern Dipper... no, the Gold-Selling Swordsman, Woo Do-min!”
The reason Woo Do-min had asked for a bodyguard was, naturally, because he wanted to know what had become of himself in this world.
If his own spirit had entered Seok Geum-ryong’s body, then where was the Woo Do-min of this world?
And yet, what was this?
“What? The Gold-Selling Swordsman? I’ve never heard of him.”
“What?”
“I know every master of first class rank and above who exists within Seokga Manor, but I’ve never heard of a martial artist with that title. Could he be someone below first class?”
“No...”
“As Young Master knows, my work brings me into contact with many people from the martial world, so I know the names of most famous martial artists, but this is the first I’m hearing of the Gold-Selling Swordsman and a man named Woo Do-min.”
“Then do you know the Northern Dipper Swordsman?”
“The Northern Dipper Swordsman? I’m afraid not.”
The Scholar in Blue, Gong Sang-pil, did not look as though he were joking. He truly did not know.
This makes no sense. When I first met him, and the last time in my previous life, Gong Sang-pil said he had known me since my days as the Northern Dipper Swordsman and had long respected me.
Woo Do-min was so bewildered he went slack with confusion.
By all rights, around this time he should have sold his martial arts to Seokga Manor in exchange for gold to pay for his son’s incurable illness, but what on earth had happened?
Could it be that something has changed with the world I remember?
With confusion piling upon confusion, Woo Do-min had no choice but to remain silent.
Nothing was certain yet, so he decided to postpone searching for the Woo Do-min of this altered world until later.
If fate remained as it had been, they would meet again eventually.
“You keep talking about martial artists... if you’re asking for one because you want to learn martial arts yourself, I’m against it. Now then, I’ll take my leave.”
Afraid the young Seok Geum-ryong would start tormenting him again about martial arts, Gong Sang-pil quickly made his escape.
The moment he was gone, Seok Geum-ryong searched for a mirror in the spacious, lavish room.
In the mirror was not the rough, masculine face of Woo Do-min, but a cute little young master dripping with obvious refinement at a glance.
“Well, now.”
Woo Do-min, inhabiting Seok Geum-ryong’s body, examined himself from head to toe with an expression that said he still could not believe it.
He even raised a hand and touched his own face.
It was youthful and a little round, exactly what one would expect from a ten-year-old child.
Seeing that, Woo Do-min thought of his biological son, Woo Ja-an.
Ja-an had been around exactly this age when he passed away.
Thinking of Ja-an brought back, next, the final scream of the grown Seok Geum-ryong, still echoing in his ears.
His whole body trembled.
As his memories reached back into the past, his emotions only surged harder.
“Kh... khh... khhh...”
For a moment, the wonder and shock of having been given another chance at life held him still.
But in the end, the martial artist who had failed to protect his son and the master he cherished as dearly as a son broke into tears and cried until the room rang with his grief.
I failed to protect anything in the end.
What good was surviving alone when even the soul that should have remained within Seok Geum-ryong had vanished?
Then he had done nothing more than steal Seok Geum-ryong’s body.
“The Young Master is already gone. What use is it that I alone survived?!”
Woo Do-min shuddered in emptiness and helplessness, and cried for a long while.
The joy of being alive again, the luxury of the room that did not suit a child, none of it mattered.
All the precious things he had once sought were already gone.
Woo Do-min drowned in despair for a long time.
After suffering for what felt like an age, a thought suddenly came to him.
“Could it be...”
Had the reason he had crossed back over a decade, entering not even his own original body but Seok Geum-ryong’s, been precisely because of his desire to protect his young master at all costs?
That same overwhelming desire to protect the already dead Woo Do-min had been shared by Seok Geum-ryong in his former life.
-Then please kill me and save the martial artist.
-Martial artist, you cannot die so meaninglessly! If only I hadn’t been such a burden, if only I could have protected myself at least!
He remembered Seok Geum-ryong’s cry at the end of his previous life.
Knowing that assassins were after his life, Seok Geum-ryong had been willing to offer his own throat if it meant protecting Woo Do-min.
Then perhaps... the fact that I was reborn and came to inhabit Young Master Seok Geum-ryong is also something he desired?
Seok Geum-ryong had wanted to save Woo Do-min even at the cost of his own life.
Perhaps, if he could not escape the fate that said he would die before reaching adulthood, he had been willing to entrust his life to Woo Do-min instead.
I was his bodyguard and failed to protect him, but in return the Young Master protected me and brought me back to life.
Streaming tears poured down Woo Do-min’s face until it was soaked through.
He wept in silence until late at night, and as time passed, he gathered himself while thinking of the son he had lost and the master from his previous life, whose memories would one day grow dim.
“This is no time to cry like a weakling.”
One experience of dying pointlessly because he could not protect what he had wanted to protect was enough.
Even if he had somehow ended up inhabiting the body of the very young master he had sworn to protect, that decision had not changed.
No, rather than feeling offended, he would take it as Seok Geum-ryong’s consideration, and this time, no matter what it took, he would protect Seok Geum-ryong and help him live out every last day of his natural span.
I know what will become of Young Master in ten years. If I make good use of that information, I can change the future in any number of ways.
Fortunately, the current Woo Do-min possessed not only extraordinary martial skill but also knowledge of the future.
Using that, he could save Seok Geum-ryong from the miserable end that awaited him, bring back Gong Sang-pil, who had died young at the hands of assassins, and even help Seok Geum-ryong, who had been unable to learn martial arts because of the fierce opposition of the retainers and the manor lord, finally cultivate his skill and grow strong.
The Seokga Manor lord and the upper ranks of the manor may oppose it, but I will live as Seok Geum-ryong and become strong enough to protect myself.
Becoming strong by his own hand.
Only that path would allow an incompetent bodyguard who had failed to protect his master to find peace and truly move on.
“I won’t cry weakly anymore, Young Master.”
With that thought, Woo Do-min, no, the one who had resolved to live on as Seok Geum-ryong, clenched his fist tightly.
He would no longer accept the fate of being a useless bodyguard who could not protect his master.
Fortunately, I know all the formulas and deeper truths of every martial art I learned in my days as the Northern Dipper Swordsman.
In other words, it was no exaggeration to say that he had already installed the teachings and manuals needed to become the greatest martial artist in the world inside his own brain.
What remained was the state of Seok Geum-ryong’s bones and sinews, and whether he truly had talent for martial arts.
There was no need to worry about innate talent, either.
In my memory, I once examined Young Master Seok Geum-ryong’s constitution because I was curious what it was like.
At the time, the Gold-Selling Swordsman, Woo Do-min, had examined Seok Geum-ryong’s frame and been stunned.
He remembered it as an exceedingly fine constitution, if not quite the Heavenly Martial Body or the Nine Yin Severance Meridians that existed only in legend.
But back then, he had started martial training far too late, and, most crucially... after narrowly surviving a number of threats, he was left with a limp.
No matter how superior one’s martial bones might be, one had to begin early and hone them diligently for their brilliance to show.
Seok Geum-ryong had been born with remarkable foundations, but because of opposition around him and because no one had paid him the slightest attention, he had never been able to begin martial training. Then, when he finally resolved to learn on his own, it was already too late: after barely surviving an assassin’s attempt on his life, he had been left badly lame.
However gifted a body may be, if it is incomplete and unstable, it can never reach a realm beyond the Zenith Realm.
From that day on, Seok Geum-ryong had cut off his interest in martial arts and devoted himself to the merchant’s path instead.
But now things are different.
At ten years old, he could not be said to be very early to begin martial training, but he was certainly not too late, either.
And at this point in time, before any threat to his life had emerged, his natural bones and sinews still gleamed with full potential, untouched and shining bright.
And if I add my Northern Dipper martial arts to that...
The martial arts of the Northern Dipper, learned by the Gold-Selling Swordsman, no, the Northern Dipper Swordsman, were nothing less than a secret art passed down from one person alone.
“Perhaps I’ll become a far greater martial artist than I was in my previous life, where I fell short in so many ways.”
He had dreamed of reaching greatness as a martial artist, only to be forced to abandon that desire because of the realities of life.
But now that he had entered Seok Geum-ryong’s body, he could unfurl that ambition as far as he wished; what remained depended on how earnestly he, in the present, learned martial arts.
I will change everything with my martial arts and my own effort.
He, who knew every major event of the next ten years and still remembered the martial teachings of the Northern Dipper that had once earned him a place among the ten greatest masters under heaven, took his first step toward that change by walking the path of the Northern Dipper’s martial arts.