The Scoundrel Plunders a Fateful Opportunity (3)
Clang!
A heavy ring of metal rolled through the air. Lost even to reason, the enraged giant did nothing but swing that enormous saber of his.
Clang!
Sword and saber locked together, and the deadlock stretched on.
"You bastard! You dare—!!"
"Quit hollering, you bastard. Keep it up and I might actually get attached."
"Bullshit!!"
I answered with all the lazy swagger I could fake, but he was nowhere near as manageable as I'd hoped.
Not first-rate... the tail end of second-rate, maybe?
It was almost laughable that I was the one appraising him—I, who had been half-forced into a second-rate martial artist's realm by spiritual medicine. Even so, there wasn't a single opening in the man's blade.
The moment I showed him nothing but defense, no attack at all, a cold sneer tugged at his mouth.
"Ha! For someone who provoked me, you're awfully desperate just to block!"
"..."
"Don't even have the breath left to answer?!"
Clang!
With every exchange his attacks gathered force, growing heavier and heavier. And yet, at the same time, they began to show their limit.
I slipped into a gap, and a lock of his hair sheared away.
"You... you... you dare touch me!!"
"Kh—!"
"I'll kill you!!"
When his assault at last grew too fierce to simply endure, I drew up my inner energy and began to meet him.
The twelve-stage inner art surged to the level called the Second Star. Faint purple lightning kindled, and strength began to swell.
"You bastard!"
"For the love of—would you shut up!!"
Clang!
With a little more strength behind the blow, I shoved his saber aside with ease. I gave the man no room to recover from the sudden surge and swung—but all I managed was a shallow cut across his brow.
Clutching the wound, he roared at me.
"You dare... you dare wound me... a wretch like you!!"
The words, choked with rage, never finished.
By the time the man grasped what had happened, his right arm was no longer where it belonged.
"Ghk—gaaaaaah!! My arm... my arm...!!"
"The people who died by your hand felt the same."
"Wh... what!?"
"Assault, murder, extortion, threats, kidnapping, confinement, rape—every last one of them is your crime. Count the times, and they can't be numbered..."
"I... I! I was only...!!"
Shhk!
With the thick sound of flesh parting, the head of the man called Go Hwang fell.
It was a wretched end—nothing one would imagine for a man who had ground a village under his heel for more than ten years.
"Fucking trash, trying to sell me a sob story..."
As Go Hwang collapsed, the flames that had been roaring at the cave mouth began, right on cue, to die away. Just in case, I spread my qi sense and checked, but within the cave not a single presence remained.
"It's over..."
The sight of the man's corpse lying pitifully on the ground sent my thoughts running deep. No—more precisely, they ran deep as I stared at the cracked hilt of the sword in my hand.
Strength, speed... I had him beaten in everything...
True, at the start of the clash I had tried to catch his great saber, heavy with force, on a one-handed sword. Even so, a sour unease I couldn't name kept gnawing at me.
Had the martial art I'd used been too weak? That was fair enough, as far as it went, but the Go Hwang I'd faced hadn't been any remarkable martial artist either.
Then the cause was...
Not the martial art. Something more fundamental than that simply did not fit me.
"Did you hear? They say Jin Muwon is back!"
"Huh? Where'd that guy even go? No wonder I hadn't seen him in a while..."
"So where do they say he is?"
"Beats me. From what I hear, he hasn't shown his face once since he went home."
"Rumor is he went straight into closed-door training the moment he got back."
"Hah, closed-door training my ass. He went out calling it a chivalrous journey and got the stuffing beaten out of him! Then he got scared and locked himself away. Has to be."
"Yeah. That lazy bastard would never actually train."
In a city of Sichuan, people had gathered to talk about a single man.
Call it talk—most of it was gossip behind his back—and still the chatter refused to die down.
And I, the very subject of those rumors, was standing at the entrance to the closed-door training chamber buried deep within the Thunder Power Sect.
"Young Master, your letter has been sent to the Tang Clan."
"Yeah? Thanks."
"I only did what was expected of me."
On the journey that followed, I had secured a martial art I could be satisfied with, and a few spiritual medicines besides. Now I was back at the Thunder Power Sect, ready to begin training in earnest.
A tangle of matters after my return had delayed me a little, but I had decided to enter seclusion before the delay grew any longer.
"You don't think she'll hate me for being such a cold fiancé?"
"I do not think so. You are doing this for her, are you not?"
"That's true, but..."
"Waiting a few years for the one you love is a common thing. You needn't feel so sorry."
Perhaps the Chief Manager was right. In the world I'd come from, a woman waiting out a year and a half of military service was already a rare thing—but this place was different.
"Thanks, Chief Manager. I must have been too sensitive."
"Not at all. Longing for the one you love is only natural."
Only then, under his comfort, did my heart ease a little.
Come to think of it, the Chief Manager had been one of the few who treated me without prejudice. The first time I possessed this body, the change in my attitude had seemed to throw him, but he'd adapted so quickly that I'd forgotten all about it.
"I'm always grateful, Chief Manager. The only ones who really see me are you and Soye."
"Young Master..."
"Well then. I'll be back."
"Yes. I shall be waiting, in the hope that you return with a fine attainment."
With the Chief Manager seeing me off, I stepped into the closed-door training hall.
The first thing I did was close my eyes and let them grow used to the dark.
Built so that not a glimpse of the world outside could intrude—the better to kill stray thoughts—the place was bleak indeed. Nothing but water running in along a channel, and a pile of fasting pills, the sort that took the place of meals, heaped in one corner of the hall.
"The perfect environment for losing your mind."
If whoever was shut inside couldn't open the door and walk out of their own will, one or two people would have gone mad in here... no. Dozens. Hundreds.
I set the idle thoughts aside. Once the dark had grown familiar, I sat cross-legged at the center of the hall and began to recite the mnemonic verses of the martial art I had committed to memory.
After the bloody fight with Go Hwang, I had thought, and thought again.
The sword and I don't match.
Plain as that. I was a son of the Thunder Power Sect, a sect that made the sword its mainstay, and I had no talent for it.
In Jin Muwon's memories—memories I had peeked into without quite meaning to—he was never a person who neglected his effort. At least until the age of eleven, he had been a child who truly worked hard. He'd gone off the rails after that, yes, but up until then he hadn't slacked, and even at fifteen he still couldn't break free of third-rate?
That was a lack of talent.
Once I'd confirmed there was no talent, there was no reason left to be stubborn. Of course, if I leaned on the fateful opportunities and the little cheats I knew, I could probably aim for a high realm with the sword. But why would I?
I had no particular attachment to the sword, and I wasn't foolish enough to choose another road when a faster one lay wide open in front of me. So I abandoned the sword without hesitation.
And the new weapon I chose, having given up the sword...
Within a vast hall.
A woman leaned back against a throne so immense that even an emperor might have clicked his tongue, listening to a subordinate's report.
"It's gone?"
"Yes. According to the scouting party's report, there were signs that someone had intruded."
"You mean someone recovered the manual a step ahead of us?"
"It would seem so."
"Haa—!"
Her tone did its best to sound at ease, but a tremendous pressure crashed down upon the man before her. Then a calm voice, the very opposite of that pressure, turned on him.
"We had only just learned where the manual was and sent people to retrieve it... and in that short a span of time, it vanished...? Do you truly believe that makes any sense...?"
"I... I am deeply sorry."
"And now you dare...!"
For an instant she failed to swallow her anger and hurled her fury at the man—but she mastered her emotions at once and spoke.
"Fine. Failing to recover the manual is infuriating... but it is a trifling matter. I will press you no further."
"I am grateful for my lord's grace. Th... my lord, there is something I failed to report. According to the scouting party, the cave of the Nameless Art held traces of two people."
"Two...?"
"Yes. The timing differs, so they don't seem to have been companions. It appears someone else came away empty-handed, just as we did."
"Hah. Very well. I've heard enough—you may withdraw..."
"By your command."
Dismissed, the man was on the verge of leaving the great hall when another subordinate entered and carried the report onward.
"My Lord, someone is said to have recovered the Formless Soldier Art a step ahead of us."
Crack!
At the report that followed on its heels, the woman could restrain her rage no longer. One armrest of the throne shattered.
"Who... who are these damned vermin that dare covet what belongs to this lady!!"
A vast wave of inner energy burst outward with her fury. The two subordinates caught in its path coughed blood.
"Begin the investigation at once! Find out who these vermin are that covet this lady's treasures, and bring me their names!!"
"B-by your command!!"
Blissfully unaware that, somewhere, a woman's wrath was making several people miserable, the man who was the very root of that wrath simply went on with his training in peace.