I Only Taught Her How to Walk
"Is this... what it means to follow the grain?"
I couldn't answer right away. No — more precisely, I couldn't get my mouth to work at all.
Soyeon stood holding two halves of a freshly split log in her small hands. The cut faces were smooth to the point of being unnatural. No axe marks, no sign of a violent twist — the wood had parted cleanly along the grain, as though a seam had existed there from the very beginning.
"Master?"
"...One moment."
Suppressing a cough, I snatched one of the halves from her hand and examined it carefully.
It was wood.
I turned it over. Still wood. I ran my palm across the rough bark and pressed down hard with my fingertips. It was the exact same stubborn, dense oak firewood I had beaten to death for three months behind the back yard of Manbokru's kitchen. A little coarse, a little hard. The end.
What exactly am I supposed to be feeling here?!
Desperately, I replayed in my head the nonsense the kid had been muttering earlier. Dense places, hollow gaps, a flow rising from the base like a single thin thread... I squeezed my eyes shut and focused every nerve I had on the log.
Nothing. All that tickled my nostrils was the smell of dirt and dry firewood.
"Master...?"
At the timid call, I cracked my eyes open. Soyeon was staring up at me with wide, thoroughly cowed eyes.
"What."
"Did I... do something wrong again?"
"Like what?"
"You told me to use the axe, but... I went and touched it stupidly with my finger, and it split... I'm sorry..."
Her gaze dropped straight to the ground.
"I'm sorry..."
This kid really did begin and end everything with I'm sorry. She had just split an oak log as cleanly as a master sword would, and now she was trembling in fear of being scolded for not using the axe. If the martial arts masters of the town had witnessed this scene, they would have vomited blood in unison.
"It's fine."
I set the log down.
"You did nothing wrong."
"Then...?"
"I was merely surprised. Your speed of comprehension is... a little faster than I anticipated."
"Mine?"
"Yes."
At that single word, the child's face brightened as if by magic. The expression that had sunk to the very depths of hell moments ago was gone without a trace. In moments like these, she was undeniably a twelve-year-old country brat.
Soyeon looked down at the remaining log clutched in her hands and grinned shyly.
"So I... did well?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"Don't ask twice."
"Hehe..."
Was it really that wonderful?
Suppressing another cough, I stared blankly at the oak stump.
But what on earth did this kid actually see?
My original plan had been pure strength control. That morning she had ripped a house-sized boulder clean in two while pulling weeds, and I'd figured that if she couldn't govern that idiotic, monstrous strength, the day would come when she grabbed me by the collar and snapped my neck. So I had tossed her one of Manbokru's kitchen wisdom tips — read the grain of the wood, find the path of force, split with the least effort possible. That was all.
Instead, she had set the axe aside, laid a finger on the log, and — crack.
So this thing actually works.
Neither modern science nor ten years of veteran murim-novel knowledge could explain the principle. But it had worked, and that was what mattered.
Just then, Soyeon looked up at me with eyes like glittering beads.
"Master!"
"Hmm?"
"What do I learn next, then?"
Way too fast. We had eaten lunch, split a single log, and she was already demanding the next stage!
"Now that I can feel the grain... I can do the next training too, can't I?"
The child's eyes blazed like a living lantern. My lips wavered as I screamed inwardly.
There is no next, you insane little brat!
The firewood-splitting itself had been a scheme fabricated in under a minute because I didn't want my back aching after breakfast. A follow-up curriculum existing in my head? Not a chance. And yet, what was I supposed to do — say, Sorry, the schedule hasn't come out yet, standby until tomorrow? That would shatter the hard-won dignity of the founder of the Cheonhae Sect into confetti.
"Soyeon."
"Yes, Master!"
"In the great pursuit of the Dao, haste is the deadliest of poisons."
First, I had to buy time.
"What?"
"That which is gained through enlightenment does not instantly become wholly yours."
Even as the words left my mouth, I marveled at myself. It sounded like a line lifted straight from the mouth of a pompous elder in some sect novel, yet it fit the situation perfectly.
"Cherish the flow of the grain you felt at your fingertips; sink it deep into your dantian and let it settle. Covet the next step too greedily, and even that supreme sensation you have just obtained will scatter like grains of sand. Do you understand?"
Soyeon gazed quietly down at her own small fingers. Then she nodded with the gravity of a high monk who had attained a profound enlightenment.
"Yes, Master. I will bear it in mind."
Excellent. She had swallowed it completely.
"Now then, today you will finish splitting the rest of the firewood in the yard—"
"No need for firewood!"
I cut myself off with a start.
"If you simply do not forget today's sensation, that is enough."
"Yes!"
Soyeon knelt down neatly in a corner of the yard. Playing it cool, I strolled into the corridor with my hands clasped behind my back. When I glanced back, the girl was still drilling holes through the split logs with her eyes — clenching and unclenching her fingers, caressing the rough cut faces, closing her eyes to steady her breathing. She was genuinely reviewing the lesson.
Phew... dodged a bullet.
I slumped down comfortably against a corridor pillar and began to organize my thoughts, rubbing my aching lower back.
This was not the first strange occurrence. The first had been the breathing method — I mixed YouTube abdominal breathing with murim-novel nonsense, and she gained control over the icy qi of her Nine Yin Severed Meridians. The second had been the weeds — I told her to pull weeds, and she froze the ground and halved a boulder. And now the firewood. This one felt subtly different from the first two.
This time, it was something I deliberately handed over, more or less.
To be fair, I had never instructed her to split oak with a single finger. But the direction was clear: release the tension. Don't force your way through. Read the flow. I had thrown her one simple principle, and with her monstrous senses she had manufactured a hundred-point answer all on her own.
...Wait. Is this actually a functioning system?
My heart began to race. I knew no proper techniques. I knew no internal energy formulas. But I possessed a library's worth of the philosophical drivel that masters spout in murim novels. I didn't need to know the right answer myself — I only had to throw out a direction, and that insane genius would create supreme martial arts on her own!
Just as the corner of my mouth began to curl upward, cold reason slammed on the brakes.
No. Calm down. Throw something random at her and you're a dead man.
Tell her to pull weeds, and a boulder went flying. Tell her to split firewood, and a finger-strike cleaved an oak log. If I carelessly blurted something like "cleave through all things under heaven" in this state, the peak behind the mountain might vanish entirely, or the estate buildings might come down on our heads.
The conditions are three.
First, it had to be safe. Second, it must not destroy the house or the mountain. And third — it had to be something I could demonstrate without blowing out my back!
I surveyed the yard. The weeds were already scorched earth. The firewood had just been finished. Water-drawing looked no different from boulder-splitting, and if sweeping started producing sword-qi from the broom, I would have to decline.
Just then, I saw Soyeon rise to her feet. Cradling the split pieces of wood in her arms, she was crossing the yard toward me.
Pad, pad.
The sound of small feet pressing into the dust. As I watched her blankly, a memory flashed through my mind. The day I first dragged her out of the street — the way she couldn't manage even a few steps up the mountain path, wheezing horribly, crawling as though she might cough up blood.
That same girl was now striding briskly across the yard on her own two legs.
...Walking?
I lifted my chin from my hand and sat up. That was it. No blades required. No risk of shattering boulders. And I could demonstrate it myself as much as I pleased! Above all, did murim novels not possess the venerable domains of footwork arts, lightness skill, and movement techniques?
Soyeon set the wood pieces down neatly beneath the corridor.
"All tidied up, Master!"
"Soyeon."
"Yes?"
"Stand. Your next training begins."
Both of Soyeon's eyes flew wide open.
"Already? But you said I shouldn't rush just now..."
"Ahem. Training that establishes the fundamentals may be pursued in unbroken succession. Proceed to that end."
I pointed to the collapsed earthen wall on the far side of the yard. Soyeon trotted over and stood before it, about twenty paces away.
"Walk toward me."
"...Walk?"
"Yes."
"Just... walking is all?"
"That is all."
Soyeon hesitated for a moment, apparently expecting to receive some treasured secret manual — then she came trudging toward me through the dust.
Pad, pad, pad.
The utterly ordinary footsteps of a twelve-year-old girl.
"Go back."
"Yes."
Pad, pad.
"Toward me again."
"Yes!"
After three round trips, a faint perplexity clouded Soyeon's face. Still, she made no complaint and faithfully shuttled back and forth across the yard. Looking into those clear, innocent eyes, my conscience began pricking at me again — I needed to attach at least a plausible theory to this.
"Soyeon. Stop."
She halted in the middle of the yard.
"When you walk, do not merely thrust out the soles of your feet."
"What?"
"A person walking employs the strength and balance of the entire body."
This was a hundred-percent account of hard field experience. Eighteen hours a day at Manbokru hauling heavy wooden trays through the dining hall meant that everything from the soles of the feet through the knees, hips, and lower back ached without mercy. Misplace a step and you sprained an ankle; channel force wrong and a herniated disc would rupture. A workplace straight out of hell.
I descended slowly from the corridor and demonstrated a single step.
"Plant the foot, push off the earth, and carry the body forward."
Soyeon drilled her gaze into the tips of my feet. It was an intensity of focus that bordered on unnerving.
"But there is no need to force strength down and stomp the ground. Feel for yourself where your center of gravity flows."
"Center of gravity...?"
"When you split the firewood earlier, I told you that wood has a 'grain' along which force flows, did I not?"
The child's eyes wavered.
"The grain...!"
"The human body and its gait are the same. Foot, knee, hip, spine — they must not act each on its own, but connect like a single stream of water. Do not fight the ground. Let your weight pour naturally forward."
Once I'd said it, I was frankly impressed with myself. It was the lecture of the century — orthopedic physical-therapy theory and murim footwork doctrine fused into one seamless whole.
"I'll try it, Master!"
Soyeon returned to the far end of the yard and drew a breath. Then she took her first step.
Pad.
The second foot. Pad. The third. Pad.
Arriving in front of me, Soyeon tilted her head.
"I don't really understand..."
"If you could master it in a single try, you would be an immortal, not a person. Loosen yourself further."
"Yes!"
She went back again. Pad, pad.
"There's tension in your shoulders."
"Oh, right!"
Pad, pad.
"Don't stomp the earth with your heels."
"Yes!"
After several more rounds, her gait had grown noticeably smoother. But it still made the plain sound of feet pressing dry dirt. No boulder cracked. No frost spread across the ground.
Phew. Finally, a normal training session.
I leaned back against the corridor pillar with a sigh of relief. The autumn sunlight was warm and the breeze was cool. Using the steady rhythm of footsteps on dirt as a lullaby, I quietly closed my eyes.
Pad.
Pad.
...
Pad.
...
...
...Hm?
A strange silence brushed past my cheek. The sound had cut out again, just as it had during the axe work. I cracked my eyes open and peered out into the yard.
Soyeon stood before the earthen wall on the opposite side, just now turning toward me.
She was simply walking.
And yet.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
...Huh?
No sound. Her worn straw sandals were clearly pressing through dry dirt, yet not even the rustle of friction reached my ears. Not a speck of dust rose.
Sshh.
Sshh.
It wasn't speed. She was walking slowly, and yet the outline of her body slid through the air the way mist slides over water — gliding toward me across empty space. Whenever I tried to trace her trajectory with my eyes, my focus slipped strangely aside. A bizarre optical illusion.
"...Hey."
At my call, Soyeon stopped dead. And in that instant, the uncanny, mirage-like wrongness washed away as though it had never been, leaving behind an ordinary child.
"Yes, Master? What is it?"
"How... how exactly did you just walk?"
"The way you taught me."
"When did I ever tell you to walk like you're gliding?!"
Soyeon looked down at her own legs with an aggrieved air and mumbled.
"At first I tried to relax my feet, but my body kept swaying. So, like you said, instead of putting force into it... I just let my feet quietly meet the ground wherever my body was about to tip forward."
"...What?"
"Rather than kicking the ground to move ahead, it's more like letting my body pour forward and only supporting it with the soles of my feet. Like this."
Sshk.
Soyeon took a single step. Not even a sandal print remained on the earth where her foot had landed.
A term I had seen a thousand tedious times in murim novels flashed through my mind.
...Don't tell me this is Treading Snow, Leaving No Trace?
The legendary phrase that spilled from every page describing a master's lightness arts — to walk upon snow and leave behind not a single footprint.
No, hold on.
I stared dumbly at Soyeon's feet.
What I taught was just how to walk without wrecking your back.
What on God's green earth had this little brat managed to realize from my fraudulent physiotherapy walking seminar?
...And yet.
I swallowed hard and looked around the yard.
The ground was not frozen.
No boulder had shattered.
The buildings were perfectly intact!
It's a total success!
For the first time, a training session had concluded with zero property damage. What a peaceful, beautiful form of progress this was!
"Good. Excellent. Hold fast to that sensation and do not lose it."
"Yes, Master!"
Thrilled by the praise, Soyeon scampered back to the far end of the yard. Sshk, sshk. Watching the girl move through the air in soundless flight, I let out a long breath of relief.
Peaceful. Perfectly peaceful.
"This must be the place."
Beyond the overgrown gate, from the direction of the forest path, an unfamiliar voice cut in without warning.
"...?"
I went rigid as if struck by lightning.
"The map clearly shows the path ending deep within this valley."
"There was a building in terrain this rough?"
"My first time seeing one as well. An abandoned house, perhaps?"
Along with the rustle of underbrush, a steady, light set of footsteps drew steadily closer. Not one person. At least three.
What the hell?!
In all the time since entering this deep valley of Mangryeong Mountain, I had never once laid eyes on a human being besides the wild beasts. That was precisely why I'd gone and hung up a sign and founded a sect here of all places!
Moments later, three figures emerged at the mouth of the vine-choked gate. Two young men who looked to be in their mid-twenties, and a woman of gentle, refined bearing.
And the instant my gaze fell to their waists, the blood in my entire body ran cold.
Swords.
All three wore matching indigo martial uniforms, each with a keenly gleaming steel blade hanging at the hip.
...Real martial artists!
These were not the rusty axes and kitchen knives carried about by street thugs. These were the genuine article — blade-wielders schooled in a sect's discipline and its martial learning.
The tall young man leading them looked up at the rotting wooden signboard.
"Cheonhae Sect?"
The woman beside him furrowed her brow.
"Martial brother, have you ever heard of such a sect?"
"No. There was no sect of this name in these parts."
Please, just keep walking. Just leave.
Behind the corridor pillar, I wept bitter tears inwardly and prayed to every god, spirit, and mountain deity in existence. An abandoned estate belonging to some unheard-of no-name sect — just turn around and go back down the mountain, please!
But the world was never on the swindler's side. The young man's gaze swept into the yard — and locked squarely onto mine where I sat in the corridor.
"..."
I couldn't run, either. Standing up would send me tumbling in the most undignified fashion imaginable, thanks to my creaking herniated disc.
I equipped the poker face of the coldest, most arrogant, world-transcending hermit master in existence.
The young man flinched, assumed a respectful fist salute, and stepped into the front yard.
"We beg your pardon. We had no idea a place of cultivation lay within these mountains. We are from nearby—"
The young man's voice snapped off mid-sentence. His unfinished gaze had slid to the space beside me — to the middle of the yard.
There stood Soyeon.
Utterly unaware that uninvited guests had entered, she continued walking the yard with her back half-turned, savoring her master's lesson.
Sshk. One step.
Sshk. Two steps.
The young man's eyes narrowed to slits, as though refusing to believe what they saw.
"Martial brother? What is the matter?"
The woman behind him asked in bewilderment, but the young man in front had stopped breathing altogether, his eyes glued to Soyeon's feet. No — before long, the other two froze solid as well.
The yard of the abandoned estate, dry dust swirling in the wind.
Across it, a gaunt girl of barely twelve was walking, slowly.
She was clearly stepping on the earth — and yet there was no sound.
No friction. No dust rising. Not even a footprint left in her wake.
"...Traceless?"
A gasp of pure astonishment escaped the young man's lips.
Just then, Soyeon sensed the presence, halted her steps, and turned her head. And catching sight of me seated in the corridor, she called out brightly:
"Master! It looks like we have visitors!"
Three pairs of eyes swung toward me.
Ah, goddammit...
The young man in the lead saw the fragments of the split boulder. He saw Soyeon standing there without a single footprint beneath her. And at last, he looked up at me — motionless, draped in my worn old robes, seated in the corridor as though nothing in the world could stir me.
The young man's face went deathly pale.
Whump!
His voice trembled like an aspen in the wind.
"Might you... be the master of that child, senior?"
"..."
In the silence that followed, a whole bowlful of cold sweat came pouring down my spine.
We were screwed.
Truly, thoroughly, absolutely screwed.