One of the Seven Martial Families
“Well, there is. Places like your maternal family, the Uiseon Suga.”
“……The Uiseon Suga?”
Yoo Eunhyeon, who knew nothing of the great martial families of Wulin, tilted his head at the unfamiliar name.
“Is it a famous place?”
He had guessed that his mother’s side of the family might have some connection to the martial world, but he had always assumed it was nothing particularly renowned.
When Eunhyeon asked with curious eyes, Yeo U-hui let out a short laugh and raised her open hand, displaying all five fingers.
“If I exaggerate a little, you could say it ranks among the top seven martial families in Wulin.”
At those unexpected words, Eunhyeon was left speechless. Even with Yeo U-hui’s caveat limiting it to martial families, ranking among the top seven still meant it was a massive clan.
Watching his reaction, Yeo U-hui continued.
“Families like the Uiseon Suga are called the neutral powers. They don’t stick tightly together the way the Heavenly Martial Alliance or the Demonic Cult do, but they’re strong enough that neither side can afford to ignore them. In a two-power system like this, which side the third force leans toward is always crucial.”
“I see. The Uiseon Suga……”
Only then did Eunhyeon accept the situation and nod as if it made sense. The temperament that refused to belong to either side was probably something he had inherited from his mother’s family.
A moment later, a new question rose in his mind.
“But Mother is one thing…… Father was a truly ordinary farmer. How did he end up marrying her?”
He knew that Su Hwa-seon had come to their home, a place rich in vital energy, to recuperate from her chronic illness. But how had she fallen for Yoo Dong-gi, who was nothing more than a plain farmer?
Of course, calling him ordinary was a stretch—he was the man who had perfected the Yoo family’s three-generation farming methods—but that brilliance was limited strictly to farming.
“Well…… I don’t know the details myself. What do a man and woman really need to get married? There might have been other reasons, but I suspect the biggest one was simply that their hearts matched.”
In truth, that was how Eunhyeon saw it as well. From the beginning the two of them had been so devoted to each other that status and livelihood never seemed to matter.
“You’re right—they never looked unhappy together. Father did get pushed around by Mother quite a bit, though. Oh, Auntie, are you married?”
“Of course. You think I’d talk like this if I hadn’t been through it myself? I even have a daughter about your age. Lately she won’t listen to a word I say, and it’s giving me a splitting headache. Same with you?”
“No? I listen to Mother extremely well.”
“……Somehow you’re saying the exact same thing my daughter does.”
When Eunhyeon answered so shamelessly, as if he truly believed it, Yeo U-hui replied with a look of pure disbelief.
A short while later she rose to her feet.
“Anyway, that should be enough of a simple explanation. Ask Hwa-seon for the details yourself. Shall we get going now?”
“Ah, just a moment. I need to take care of something.”
“Hmm. Just handle it here. No good comes of wandering far.”
“What? How could I do that? I have some dignity left, you know.”
Apparently growing a little more comfortable with her, Eunhyeon answered with playful cheek and headed into the nearby woods.
The talk of dignity had been half an act, but even setting men and women aside, there were still lines one simply did not cross.
Perhaps for that reason Yeo U-hui said nothing more, only repeating that he should not go far.
“Still, a forest like this is practically a private room.”
Muttering to himself, Eunhyeon nimbly pushed through the undergrowth, stopped at a suitably large tree, and finished his business.
Just as he was about to turn back, a cold sensation prickled at the nape of his neck.
“……!”
It was the presence of a beast stalking its prey.
With his keen senses, Eunhyeon could never have missed it. Quietly drawing the short blade he had hidden at his waist—the one Yeo U-hui had bought for him just in case—he spun around.
“You bastard?! How?!”
The man gripping a great blade as thick as a human torso cried out in shock the moment their eyes met. He had approached with his presence completely concealed while Eunhyeon was occupied, and had clearly believed the ambush was perfect.
Whoosh!
But he was already past the point of no return.
The man immediately swung the massive blade. A great sword thick as a man’s torso against a short blade barely half the length of an arm—the outcome should have been obvious.
A moment later the clash of steel rang through the quiet forest.
Clang!
“Th-this can’t be?! What the hell did you just do?!”
The instant the blades met, the man’s face twisted in horror. He had expected to smash the short blade aside in a single stroke, yet somehow they were locked in a contest of strength, and he could not hide his panic.
“So you weren’t some ordinary brat after all!”
After the brief shock, the man roared again as if refusing to let his momentum die.
The great blade nearly slipped from his grip; he gritted his teeth and seized it with both hands.
Eunhyeon immediately poured more force into his short blade and fixed a sharp gaze on his opponent, tracking every movement.
Huh?
Watching the man’s sword, Eunhyeon could not help a moment of bewilderment.
The strikes were so slow he could follow them with his eyes. At that speed, even his current self could handle them easily.
Clang!
Thinking as much, Eunhyeon simply redirected the attack. The man looked briefly startled at how easily it was avoided, then launched a flurry of consecutive blows.
“You bastard! Are you just going to keep dodging like a damn rat?!”
Unable to endure it any longer, the man shouted a provocation. Eunhyeon’s teeth clenched hard.
I can’t keep going like this. The things I trained…… training?
As he recalled the process of his training, Sa Unsik’s face suddenly flashed through his mind.
At the same time the words the man had once spoken rose vividly before him.
—Martial arts, put simply, are about taking the power of nature into your body and using it. You’re a farmer, little brother, so you should understand nature’s strength better than anyone.
Until now Eunhyeon had been trapped by the obsession that he had to use martial arts when he fought.
But if martial arts and farming were the same, then this was nothing more than farming as well.
In that instant his mind seemed to brighten, and his field of vision expanded all at once.
In farming, watching each individual crop is important, but in the end you have to grasp the overall flow.
Only then did he realize he had been chasing nothing but the man’s great blade. And with that realization, every single movement of the man’s body became crystal clear.
Eunhyeon swung his short blade toward a weak-looking opening.
“Gah! Y-you bastard?!”
There was no time for hesitation, and no room for it either. In farming, a missed moment could never be reclaimed.
A farmer like Eunhyeon knew all too well that sometimes you had to kill something in order to survive.
When the man clutched his wound and staggered back, Eunhyeon gave him no chance to recover and charged again.
Dropping low, he closed the distance and, following the now-familiar forms of the Explosive Cross, swung his short blade in a cross pattern.
“Gaaah!”
Another scream tore from the man’s throat as bright red blood sprayed in a cross shape.
At the same time Eunhyeon felt, at the tip of his short blade, the sensation of flesh parting.
It was similar to the feeling of skinning certain beasts, yet subtly different—a chilling sensation that crawled up from the edge of the blade.
“You little shit!”
The man’s side split open in a cross, and a considerable amount of blood flew. It was a fatal blow; without immediate treatment his guts would spill out and he would die in short order.
Eunhyeon therefore expected the man to gather himself and retreat, but that was a miscalculation.
Whoosh!
Gritting his teeth, the man ignored the wound completely and brought his blade straight down at Eunhyeon.
He knew perfectly well that the injury left him no future. Unwilling to die alone, he attacked without regard for himself.
Slash!
“Huh?”
But the man’s blade never finished its descent. A sharp sound of cutting wind accompanied a keen energy that shot in and swept cleanly across both of his wrists.
“Gyaaaaah! My h-hands!”
Far more blood than Eunhyeon’s earlier strike had drawn erupted upward, and both of the man’s hands flew into the air.
The flying energy had severed them cleanly. Having lost both hands, the man shrieked and stumbled backward, and the attack aimed at Eunhyeon was cut short.
“Are you all right?”
At the same moment Yeo U-hui’s voice came from behind him. When Eunhyeon had not returned, she had come looking.
Turning his head that way, Eunhyeon saw heat haze rising from the sword in her hand and lowered his short blade.
“I-I’m fine.”
The aftermath of the fight had his blood boiling, heat rising through his body, and his breathing rough, but he was uninjured.
In truth, even against the previous attack he had only been startled; he still had enough strength left to respond.
“Tsk. So something like this had to happen after all.”
Yeo U-hui gave her sword a light flick through the air, then quickly approached Eunhyeon’s side.
“Thank you for helping me.”
“Not at all. You could have handled it yourself; I feel like I only got in the way.”
“You were watching?”
“As if I wouldn’t notice when trash like this shows up.”
When Yeo U-hui shrugged, Eunhyeon nodded as if he understood.
“It’s because I carelessly took out the tiger’s-eye stone……”
“Heh. Just knowing that much is fortunate. Remember that things like this happen in Wulin. That alone is enough.”
Ordinarily, if he had been a disciple or subordinate she would have scolded him sharply, but she could not bring herself to do so to a boy who until yesterday had been buried in the mountains farming. Besides, she had already called him her nephew, so a certain amount of indulgence was inevitable.
“Who are these people?”
“Hard to say. They don’t seem like common bandits…… yet they’re too crude to call proper martial artists.”
“I see……”
“Still, even so, they looked like they had some strength, yet they weren’t even a match for you. You don’t seem to have full control of your power yet, but the raw strength itself was considerable.”
At her question Eunhyeon flinched for a moment, but there was no point hiding it now.
“Ah. Yes. I’ve learned a little martial arts.”
“Hmm…… is that so? Hwa-seon never mentioned that you had trained.”
“Right? Maybe she just didn’t feel the need to bring it up.”
Even so, he could hardly say he had learned from the Thousand-Year Dark Demon and the Twin Sages of Sword and Blade, so Eunhyeon glossed over that part.
“Hmm. Well, the blood of our Uiseon Suga flows in you, so it wouldn’t be strange for you to have talent in martial arts.”
Yeo U-hui still regarded him with a faintly suspicious look, but seemed willing to let it pass for now.
“Y-you bastards…… don’t think this is over…… kuh.”
The fallen man muttered while staring toward Eunhyeon, then lost consciousness.
“I-is he dead?”
“Just passed out from blood loss. With both hands cut off and his abdomen split open, he’ll die if left like that.”
Yeo U-hui spoke while casually scanning the surroundings. Eunhyeon followed her gaze.
“Companions?”
“Oh-ho. Our nephew has quite sharp senses. Isn’t it obvious?”
After a brief pause, Yeo U-hui spoke in a solemn, forceful voice.
“All of you, come out. It doesn’t matter if you don’t, but are you going to just let this one die? Even for bandits, that’s a pitiful lack of camaraderie. Tsk.”
As she clicked her tongue, the surroundings grew slightly restless, and more than a dozen people pushed through the forest into view. Every one of them carried weapons and radiated a murderous aura.