Chapter 32
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: The Five Great Clans' Meeting (2)
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Nam Jong lay before Kang Gwi-jong, battered and bloodied.
The Yangcheong Escort Agency had been decimated by his fists. Amidst the collapsed buildings, as if struck by a localized earthquake, a half-buried arm stuck out like a young thornbush.
Seeing the Sword Fiend, Nam Jong, barely breathing in the middle of it all, Kang Gwi-jong muttered with a hint of regret.
“It’s a very simple martial art, the Strength to Uproot Mountains. You just focus all your internal energy into external power. But depending on who uses it, a simple technique can make you a mediocre master, or it can make you one of the Twenty-Two Masters Under Heaven, like me.”
Kang Gwi-jong clicked his tongue.
“Tsk! But people think I’m just a muscle-brained fool. I find that deeply insulting. So I disguised myself and hatched a plan, but a certain young man stopped it.”
A smile formed on his lips.
“With just a sword. He cut through the Jeunggyeong Sect, the assassins, and even you. With nothing but his sword. Isn’t he exactly the kind of muscle-brained fool I despise?”
Kang Gwi-jong sat down next to Nam Jong. The Sword Fiend, with broken bones and internal injuries, listened to Kang Gwi-jong’s words.
“You lost to that young man too, didn’t you? It occurred to me that if my scheme could break his sword… perhaps the world would finally acknowledge me.”
“Cough, hack! You madman. Do you really think a bandit like you can handle his sword?”
“Right? Everyone would think that. But what if I win? What if my plan succeeds? They’ll all look up to me. They’ll say, ‘Ah! The Great Emperor of the Greenwood isn’t all brawn after all.’”
As he spoke, Kang Gwi-jong looked every bit the part of a hulking monster.
“Well, I did make a promise to my old friends from the Blood Demon Cult, and the preparations will take some time.”
Kang Gwi-jong dusted himself off and stood up.
He checked the Sword Fiend’s condition and administered first aid to ensure he wouldn’t die.
“So, make sure you tell everyone. That this wasn't a mere coincidence, but that I intended to challenge the Sword of Completion from the countryside with my wits from the very beginning.”
Kang Gwi-jong said, pressing on Nam Jong’s acupoints to stop the bleeding.
* * *
I left the Yangcheong Escort Agency, picked up Tang Jin-seong from Suan Village, and returned to the Tang Clan.
Upon arriving at the Tang Clan's estate, Jeok-sam and Nam Gyeong, who had been working hard to organize the family's affairs, gave me a boisterous welcome.
“Instructor!”
Nam Gyeong ran over with a bright smile.
“Haa… is this finally the end of paperwork hell and counseling hell?”
Jeok-sam, looking as if he’d lost several pounds in just a few days, walked over listlessly.
I accepted their welcome and asked.
“So, did things go well?”
“Yes, I considered writing a separate report on the Tang Clan’s reorganization, but you wouldn’t read it, would you?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’ll explain it simply. The Tang Clan’s current problems stemmed from the main family monopolizing information and discriminating against the branch families.”
“Right…”
According to Jeok-sam, the main family’s numbers had dwindled so much that they lost the power to control the branch families, which then ran wild.
They claimed it was to avenge past grievances, but the current generation of the Tang Clan had never really suffered any harm.
If anything, they had lived well, coasting on the reputation built by the main family—the reputation of being one of the Five Great Clans.
“I explained that to them and gave them a sense of crisis. I told them that in this situation, they could be dropped from the Five Great Clans at any moment and become a third-rate sect.”
“Did they get it?”
From the few Tang Clan members I’d met, I knew they were cunning but foolish. It was because of their narrow perspective, their inability to see the bigger picture.
Jeok-sam scratched his head and glanced at Nam Gyeong.
“He’s not as good as you, Instructor, but Nam Gyeong also knows how to persuade with a sword.”
“We are people of the Sinnae Sword School. Violence and intimidation are not the way.”
Having received our master’s teachings, it was right to handle matters with fairness and integrity at all times.
Even if it meant enduring some trouble and loss, carrying out justice was the duty of anyone from our Sinnae Sword School.
“Huh?”
“Hmm?”
Jeok-sam’s eyes widened as if to ask what I was talking about.
He was smart, but a bit dense. Sometimes he didn’t understand what I meant.
“So… hmm. I guess I’m not very good with words. Let’s see, which training ground is empty? Let’s have a little chat.”
“There’s no need for you to trouble yourself, Instructor. Your first disciple understands perfectly. The disciples of our Sinnae Sword School always act for justice without a speck of shame before heaven, protecting the weak and…”
“The way your tongue is wagging, you must have done something. Let’s hear the details. Over there, at the training ground.”
Jeok-sam was too talkative. He had a bad habit of using it to obscure the point.
A very bad habit. To think he’d try to deceive me, his teacher.
“…With swords?”
“Haha, you state the obvious.”
“Instructor! Your disciple contacted the Jegal Clan.”
Jeok-sam, sensing the mood, changed the subject.
My senior sister was at the Jegal Clan. I had sent her news of our master’s passing, but I hadn’t received a reply.
“I did too.”
“A reply came! It seems the Tang Clan’s name still carries some weight.”
“It’s not dead!”
Tang Jin-seong, who had been watching from the side, shouted.
True, given the secretive nature of the Tang Clan, it was unlikely that news of the branch families' rebellion would have leaked out.
Internally, they were half-dead, but no one in the martial world knew this fact.
In the twenty-five years since the War of Righteousness and Evil, there had been no incident significant enough to expose the Tang Clan’s true state, and no one was crazy enough to provoke the notoriously persistent clan.
“What did my senior sister say?”
My senior sister, Hwa Wol-lyeong, had married into the Jegal Clan and left for Hubei. Like a daughter married off, she hadn't sent much news for a long time.
At my question, Jeok-sam took out a letter he had prepared and handed it to me.
“She asked after your well-being, Instructor.”
“Is that so?”
Senior Sister Hwa Wol-lyeong, who left over a decade ago, had looked after me at the school, sometimes like an older sister, sometimes like a mother.
Somehow, she ended up marrying into the Jegal Clan, and I remembered how sad I was at the time.
“Hmm, she has nothing to be sorry for.”
In the letter, she began by apologizing for not visiting when our master was ill, and for not coming when he passed away.
It went on to say that she hoped to see my face at the upcoming meeting of the Five Great Clans.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Yes, my senior sister isn’t someone who writes this well.”
The content was nothing special, but the letter was filled with sentences that had an old-fashioned, elegant air.
My senior sister wasn't particularly bright, to the point where I wondered how she ever became a daughter-in-law of the Jegal Clan.
“It’s absurd.”
Jeok-sam nodded as well.
“That’s our Senior Aunt for you. Her hands always moved faster than her mouth.”
Jeok-sam smiled, recalling his senior aunt.
I tucked the letter into my robes and spoke.
“She couldn’t even come when our master passed away, my senior sister.”
“And the Jegal Clan values etiquette more than any other martial clan or sect.”
“Plus, this letter seems like it was dictated by someone else.”
“That’s not the kind of writing skill someone from the countryside could acquire through study. Especially not her.”
I gritted my teeth.
“Our senior sister… seems like she’s having a very hard time with her in-laws, doesn’t she?”
“She’s probably suffocating and going through a lot. Not that she's the type to soak her pillow with tears.”
Hwa Wol-lyeong had such a fiery personality; she wasn’t the type to cry and complain about her hardships.
But it was true that our master’s disciple, my senior sister, was suffering.
“I’ll have to go to the Jegal Clan and see how they’re treating my senior sister.”
“It seems the Jegal Clan doesn’t know what kind of family she comes from, or who she has on her side.”
Jeok-sam said with a chuckle.
But his face wasn’t smiling in the least, showing his displeasure.
* * *
On the way to the Jegal Clan, the venue for the meeting, Tang Jin-seong brought up the story of meeting Hwa Wol-lyeong at the Five Great Clans’ meeting five years ago.
At the time, Hwa Wol-lyeong had attended the meeting as the wife of Jegal Hap, the young lord of the Jegal Clan. Being from the countryside, she was an outcast among the children of the prestigious families.
“Back then, because of my own family’s situation, I couldn’t easily mingle with the others either.”
Tang Jin-seong had been unable to engage in many external activities due to the oppression of the branch families. Yet he couldn’t ask for help from the other Great Clans.
The Five Great Clans were in a relationship of both cooperation and competition.
‘Back then, I was ashamed, and I didn’t want to tarnish my family’s honor.’
That was already five years ago.
After that, his father collapsed, and he changed his mind, deciding to seek help from others for his own future rather than for the clan.
“At the time, Madam Hwa praised Instructor Jin a great deal. It was mostly things like, ‘Our youngest is the Sword of Completion.’”
Thanks to her boastful pride in her junior brother, Hwa Wol-lyeong, already an outcast, became even more distant from the members of the other clans.
The Namgung Clan in particular, whose former patriarch was hailed as the Sword of Completion, treated her with open contempt.
“The Namgung Clan… I’ll have to teach them a lesson.”
Hearing the story, Jin Je-yong wore a deeply displeased expression.
Tang Jin-seong swallowed hard. The Tang Clan was half-ruined, so that was one thing, but the Namgung Clan was the leader of the Five Great Clans, an unrivaled powerhouse at present.
‘Well, it’s none of my business.’
Tang Jin-seong was afraid of Jin Je-yong, who had swallowed the Tang Clan whole, and he didn’t like Jeok-sam either, but he found the arrogant and pretentious bastards of the Namgung Clan just as disagreeable.
But on the other hand, he was also looking forward to it.
‘What will happen when the Sword of Completion meets the Sword of Completion?’
There was no chance that the former patriarch of the Namgung Clan, the Azure Sky Sword King, would appear at the meeting.
However, Tang Jin-seong couldn’t help but wonder how the people of the Namgung Clan would look at Jin Je-yong when they came face to face with a *true* Sword of Completion.
‘The Sword of Completion who speaks with his sword…’
It seemed that traveling with Jin Je-yong was influencing him with the way of the sword.
As a man of the martial world, Tang Jin-seong couldn’t help but be captivated by Jin Je-yong’s sword.
“Sword of Completion… you mean, the Sword of Completion.”
Tang Jin-seong had spoken his thoughts aloud without realizing it.
Jeok-sam and Nam Gyeong’s ears perked up, and Jin Je-yong let out a long sigh.
“I told you, I’m not the Sword of Completion.”
The one who has completed the sword.
It was undoubtedly a burdensome title for anyone who wielded a sword.
But a title was not something you gave yourself; it was given by others.
Now that even the young lord of the Tang Clan was calling him the Sword of Completion, it had become more difficult to prove that he wasn’t one.
‘Everyone will scoff and call it a bluff.’
The sword fanatics of the Namgung Clan, in particular, would likely charge at him, spitting with indignation.
* * *
“Don’t you think we’ll be late? For the Five Great Clans’ meeting.”
The two leaving Sinnae Village were the grandfather and granddaughter pair: Namgung Cheok, known as the Azure Sky Sword King, or the Sword of Completion, and his granddaughter, Namgung Mimi.
This was Namgung Mimi’s first Five Great Clans meeting. While the meeting’s primary purpose was for the clan heads or their representatives to decide the future of the Five Great Clans, it was also an occasion for the rising generation of the clans to gather and build camaraderie.
“We still have time, so we won’t be late.”
Namgung Cheok had already stepped down as patriarch, so he didn’t need to attend the meeting. But it was different for Namgung Mimi.
She needed to make an appearance at the meeting and form connections with other young martial artists her age.
“By the way, Grandpa, how did you get to know that vil… that person?”
“We met during the War of Righteousness and Evil. We saved each other’s lives a few times.”
Namgung Cheok said, recalling the war against the Blood Demon Cult.
At that, Namgung Mimi’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Then he must have been an incredible master, right?”
“No, he was strictly a third-rate warrior.”
“What?”
Namgung Mimi looked at Namgung Cheok with eyes full of disbelief.
“But he was quick-witted, resourceful… anyway, he was good at navigating the world.”
“How could someone like that have saved your life, Grandpa?”
“Because back then, I was clueless, arrogant, and had no tact. I was truly just a fool who was strong in martial arts and nothing else.”
Namgung Cheok said with a bitter smile.
During the War of Righteousness and Evil, he had learned the hard way just how easily a clueless, muscle-brained oaf could be used and fall into traps in the martial world.
But that experience became a stepping stone, allowing him to safely pass the Namgung Clan to his son and claim a spot among the Twenty-Two Masters Under Heaven.
“In any case, I learned a lot from him.”
The fact that Namgung Cheok was able to lead the Namgung Clan without issue as its patriarch was largely thanks to what he had learned about navigating the world from Jin Sang-ho.
He owed Jin Sang-ho so much, yet in the end, Namgung Cheok was not there for his final moments.
“Still, they say his disciple has emerged in the martial world, so I suppose I’ll be able to see him soon.”
“Not you, Grandpa, but that… ‘Sword of Completion’ person?”
Namgung Mimi said, frowning.
“Yes, the Sword of Completion. Hoho, for the sake of our Namgung Clan, he is someone we absolutely must recruit.”
Namgung Cheok recalled a memory from over a decade ago when he had come to see Jin Sang-ho and met the Child Instructor teaching disciples older than himself.
There, he had witnessed a genius who could turn Jin Sang-ho’s absurd boasts into reality.
“You’ll probably be shocked when you see him too.”
“I don’t really want to be shocked, Grandpa.”
Namgung Mimi retorted in a sullen voice, clearly displeased.