Geumran
Because the work at Mangeum Merchant Union had dragged on longer than expected, I’d been unable to take on the other jobs Hangingakju had meant to hand me.
So I was left waiting at the Murim Alliance for the time being. It wouldn’t take that long, though.
The Murim Alliance got countless requests every single day, after all.
With that in mind, I passed the time by training my martial arts in the Alliance’s practice grounds.
Martial arts were like that. It was an honest trade: the more you trained, the better you got.
You couldn’t look down on a rabbit just because it only gave one experience point.
If you killed a million rabbits, you’d get a million experience, wouldn’t you?
...Hmm. Come to think of it, a million rabbits was kind of scary.
That’d be a ridiculous amount of rabbit fur and meat, though. I’d get rich.
So I drew Hanjunggeom and swung it.
The nice thing about Yuyu Muguk Sword Art was that even if I trained the improved version Geokseon had taught me, the original kept rising along with it.
Was it because they shared the same root? Or because they were so similar?
Either way, I kept swinging my sword, and Geokseon watched me with a chilly expression.
But that was a satisfied look. After hanging around her a bit, I’d come to understand it.
See? The corners of her mouth were lifted just a little. Barely at all, but still.
Beside Geokseon, Baek Jin-ah sat there checking something.
What was she doing? It looked like she was experimenting on something.
And Dang Yeong-young had gone off somewhere and was nowhere to be seen.
Was it really okay to let her wander around alone? Then again, I couldn’t exactly lecture a grown woman about it.
I pushed the thought aside and refocused on my swordplay.
This wasn’t the time for distractions.
When you held a sword, you focused on the sword.
I kept working through the forms of Yuyu Muguk Sword Art with the twenty-geun Hanjunggeom in my hands.
A sword with absurd weight was being swung around, but at a glance, nobody would know.
They’d just think it was an ordinary sword.
No one would ever imagine that this blade swinging from my slender arms was that heavy.
That was an advantage for me. Hadn’t I already proven that in my fight with that masked Transcendent Realm expert?
Of course, it was a cheap trick that only worked the first time.
But if I thought about it, even if someone knew, there wasn’t much they could do to stop it.
The sword’s weight wasn’t going anywhere.
After finishing Yuyu Muguk Sword Art, I moved on to practicing Flashlight Sword Art.
Then Geokseon’s mouth corners drooped. Her cold expression, however, remained the same.
She really was easy to read. How was she so obvious?
Still, it probably wouldn’t be easy for people who didn’t know her well to tell.
There was something strangely thrilling about performing Flashlight Sword Art while holding Hanjunggeom.
At its core, Flashlight Sword Art was all about speed.
And because of that, a ridiculous thought crossed my mind.
What if I swung it like this and then let go?
What would happen to the person it hit?
Interesting. If they took a direct hit from a sharp twelve-kilogram lump of metal thrown with all my strength, they wouldn’t come out unscathed, would they?
Damn it. There I go, getting distracted again. Focus. Focus.
But just as I was swinging my sword, two people started walking over from over there.
Normally, nobody approached when someone else was training.
So if they were coming over anyway, they must have business. The trouble was, I didn’t know them.
When I looked at Geokseon, I saw the slightest crease in her brow.
Ah. So she knew them. Didn’t seem like she was terribly pleased to see them either.
"Yukmae!"
The two women approaching from over there.
Both were quite beautiful. One of them, though, had a faint air of maturity about her.
About as much as Geokseon, maybe?
And she’d just called her Yukmae. Since Geokseon’s name was Mae Yeong-ok, that Yukmae must be the way she addressed Geokseon.
In other words, she was roughly the same age as Geokseon.
"So the Thorny Immortal has been wagging her tongue again, has she?"
"Oh, come on, Yukmae! If we haven’t seen each other in ages, isn’t the first thing you should do say you’re glad to see me?"
Geokseon’s brow furrowed a little deeper.
She was probably saying something like, If you were really glad to see me, wouldn’t you show it? That was my guess, anyway.
"I, Hong Si-yeon of Mount Hua, greet the Great Master Geokseon."
In any case, the younger woman who had come with her bowed politely toward Geokseon.
A woman so beautiful that calling her a peerless beauty wouldn’t feel out of place.
Probably any ordinary man would look at her and lose his head. That was how lovely this Hong Si-yeon was.
Even so, Geokseon kept her cool expression when looking at Hong Si-yeon, though I could see the faintest lift at the corners of her mouth.
Just like when I’d been swinging Yuyu Muguk Sword Art earlier?
"Mm."
Since Hong Si-yeon had greeted her, the Baek Jin-ah standing beside Geokseon also offered a greeting of her own.
"I am Baek Jin-ah of the North Sea Ice Palace."
Truthfully, I had no idea who this woman was, but I followed the mood and greeted her right away.
"I’m Baek Harin."
The woman then looked between Baek Jin-ah and me with a bright smile, as though she found us fascinating.
"I’m Geumran of Mount Hua. But aren’t you two twins?"
"I can see why you’d think that, but no."
"No, we’re not."
That made the woman’s expression turn puzzled.
Well, I’d react the same way. That said, if she kept spending time around Baek Jin-ah, she’d probably get that reaction hundreds more times in the future.
"Not twins? How astonishing. In any case, Yukmae! I came because I heard you were keeping a child by your side!"
Then Geokseon gave the slightest smile.
And seeing that, something clicked in my head.
Ah. Could it be Geokseon had wanted to take me as her disciple because of this woman?
That seemed likely.
This Geumran woman had said she was from Mount Hua.
Mount Hua and Jongnam were close to each other, and both belonged to the Daoist line of sects. On top of that, they seemed to be about the same age.
So there was bound to be some kind of competition or bragging over disciples.
Like showing off your own child, maybe?
"It seems the Thorny Immortal has been saying far too many unnecessary things."
"How could that be Master Cheon’s fault? Good news should be shared far and wide. So? What sort of child is she? Did she go somewhere else?"
"Isn’t she right in front of your eyes?"
Then Geokseon grinned and looked at me.
Whoa. It was really rare to see Geokseon smile like that.
"Pardon? Wait, this child isn’t from the Ice Palace?"
"The Ice Palace child is this one here."
"No, no. Aren’t they both from the Ice Palace?"
"No. I have no connection to the Ice Palace. Well... not completely no connection, but I’m not one of the Ice Palace people."
When I said that, Baek Jin-ah looked a little disappointed, then relaxed again after hearing the whole thing.
What was with that reaction? If I hadn’t hurried to correct myself, that might have turned into a disaster.
"What? You’re not connected to the Ice Palace? But your hair is white, your eyes are blue, and your surname is Baek?"
Yeah. I’d be hearing that one a few hundred more times in the future too.
"If she says she isn’t, then she isn’t. Why do you keep adding unnecessary remarks?"
"No! Yukmae! If someone called a stork a crow, wouldn’t anyone talk like I do?"
"In any case, she is not. So stop talking about it."
Geumran still didn’t seem to have shaken her suspicion.
Then she stepped closer to me and peered at me intently.
Her gaze was a little suffocating, like she was raking my whole body over with her eyes.
"Hmm. So you’re the sort of child Geokseon would keep beside her? Then of course your skill must be of the same caliber."
With that, Geumran turned a grin toward Geokseon and said,
"How about it, Yukmae? Why don’t the disciples have a little spar and exchange sword strikes?"
Confidence leaked from her voice.
Arrogance, really — the certainty that my disciple could never lose.
And when Geokseon heard that, she smiled even brighter.
As though she’d been waiting for exactly those words.
"Very well. That is a good idea."
As soon as Geokseon casually accepted her own suggestion, a faint flicker of discomfort passed over Geumran’s face.
Huh? This isn’t how it was supposed to go? A sliver of unease?
But once words were spoken, the tiger had already been mounted. There was no climbing down now.
No matter how faint that unease was, there was no taking it back. It would look ugly, too.
If I were being honest, I wanted to say, Senior. How can you decide that on your own without even asking us? But I held it in.
Right now, it was better to let Geokseon save face.
She was probably keeping me by her side for this exact moment.
"Will you be all right, Miss Hong?"
So I gave her a light provocation.
I had no idea how skilled Hong Si-yeon was. But I didn’t think I was the one who’d lose.
"Of course!"
As expected, she took the bait at once. She looked positively ablaze with enthusiasm.
So Hong Si-yeon and I took our places in the center of the practice grounds.
"Please take care of me."
I turned my sword upside down, brought my hands together, and bowed. Hong Si-yeon did the same.
"Likewise."
Then the two of us gripped our swords properly and pointed them at each other.
My left hand formed the sword-finger seal and extended forward, while my right hand holding the sword hung naturally at my side.
What sword art starting stance was this? When I thought of Mount Hua, the only thing that came to mind was the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art.
So I, too, held my sword with both hands and let it hang naturally before me.
The starting stance of Yuyu Muguk Sword Art.
And seeing that, Geumran’s expression stiffened slightly.
She probably recognized what stance this was.
"Begin!"
Geumran shouted, and at the same moment Hong Si-yeon rushed toward me in a blur.
The wildly dancing tip of her sword pointed at my whole body as though it meant to strike everywhere at once.
Ah. Now I get it. This really is the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art.
That swaying sword tip looked just like a plum blossom, didn’t it? So yeah, definitely.
But that was all it amounted to. It was certainly fast and beautiful, but not so much that I couldn’t block it.
More importantly, I had something I could trust.
For starters, a sword like that couldn’t leave even a scratch on my body.
The Golden Dragon Body was cheating.
So I didn’t bother distinguishing the real strike from the feints mixed into it.
Instead, I pretended not to notice and deliberately opened a gap, inviting her to attack there.
Hong Si-yeon didn’t ignore it.
Well, if you exposed an opening this cunningly, anyone who didn’t take it would be a complete idiot.
There was no helping it.
It was on the same level as children who see a puddle and immediately run over to step in it.
So I swung Hanjunggeom and cleanly struck Hong Si-yeon’s sword as it honestly drove into my opening.
Clang!
One blow.
With a single clash, Hong Si-yeon lost her sword, and it spun through the air before landing with a clatter on the practice ground.
Then Hong Si-yeon stared at her trembling hand with a miserable expression.
Geumran’s jaw practically hit the floor.
And Geokseon was wearing a face full of delight.