Chapter 41
When I said I’d found it, Dang Hye gave me a puzzled look. I curved the corner of my mouth.
“I’ll teach you swordsmanship.”
“Are you serious?”
Dang Hye scanned me with obvious suspicion.
“There are two conditions.”
“Conditions? What are they?”
“First, make me Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons.”
At the words Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons, Dang Hye’s face lit up with interest. But that expression soon twisted into a scowl.
“You just don’t want to teach me swordsmanship, do you?”
“Is it impossible?”
“……”
Frowning, Dang Hye thought for a moment before speaking slowly.
“I don’t know where you heard that term, but it’s a legendary realm. There’s not a single martial artist in the Dang Family who’s succeeded at it. It’s not something you can just make happen that easily. First you have to reach Invulnerable to a Thousand Poisons, and then…”
She went on at length, explaining what it meant to be Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons.
The funny thing was that her explanation was almost exactly what I’d read in the opening of Ten Thousand Poisons Codex.
Of course, I stopped listening before long. It wasn’t a realm I could fully grasp anyway, and what mattered was that, with her, there was at least a chance I could reach it.
“That’s why reaching Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons is all but impossible.”
“Enough of that. Are you saying it’s impossible or not?”
“Well… in theory, it’s possible. The problem is the success rate. Once in a hundred? No, maybe once in a thousand? Everyone else dies, naturally.”
“I see. At that rate…”
“So stop wasting time and…”
“That’s more than manageable.”
“What?”
Judging by Dang Hye’s face, she thought I was a lunatic. Still, she let out a sigh.
“Ha… What’s the other condition?”
“Your reason for wanting to learn swordsmanship.”
When the topic of Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons came up, her expression had actually darkened. Along with that brief silence, a cold wind brushed her cheek.
“Do I really have to say it?”
“A martial artist’s mindset matters most.”
“……”
It sounded trivial on the surface, but in truth it was the foundation of a martial artist.
When the heart wavered, the sword wavered.
So the most important virtue for a martial artist was, in the end, an unshakable stillness.
Whether she understood me or not, Dang Hye drew in a deep breath.
“The way the righteous sects treat the Dang Family right now is absurd.”
As she continued speaking, her expression began to warp little by little.
“As you know, the Dang Family is one of the Five Great Clans. And yet the world still accuses us of not being a righteous sect. Even righteous martial artists do. And the reason is…”
“Because you use poison and hidden weapons.”
Dang Hye’s gaze sharpened as she looked at me, as if she wanted to say: So you’re a righteous sect type too.
But I just snorted.
“So you want to prove them wrong? With a sword?”
“Is that wrong?”
“Not necessarily.”
I rose to my feet, then asked her, “Want to learn from me?”
“Why would I be listening to all this if I didn’t?”
With a metallic hiss, I drew my sword at once. Dang Hye gaped at the sight.
“What are you doing?”
“What am I dooing?”
“……?”
“Do you talk to your teacher like that? Honestly, kids these days don’t even have the basics.”
“What the hell—”
“No more questions. I’m not taking formal disciple vows, and I don’t have time to teach you that way.”
Smiling faintly, I took a step toward Dang Hye.
“The important thing is this. We don’t have time.”
Whoosh!
My sword stopped right before Dang Hye’s nose.
“You just died once. And next time, I won’t stop like this.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“You’re asking me?”
As I pulled my sword back, I let out a burst of killing intent and struck again.
Feeling it, Dang Hye twisted on instinct and narrowly avoided my blade.
“That’s how I’m teaching you swordsmanship.”
“What kind of lunatic teaches swordsmanship like this?”
Dang Hye drew her sword as well. Then she began desperately fending off every slash I threw at her.
The frantic clashing of steel and Dang Hye’s rough breathing filled the air.
What she needed now wasn’t a single form. I couldn’t teach her the Baek Family’s martial arts to begin with, and we didn’t have enough time for anything elaborate.
So I chose the only method that mattered: real combat. The kind where you might truly die.
“You’d better block properly. You might actually die.”
So we raced toward Sichuan by day while I explained Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons, and at night we drilled in actual combat. Five days passed like that.
By the end of it, I had come to one conclusion.
When I looked at Dang Hye as a swordswoman, there was no way to polish it nicely: she was hopeless.
I’d seen countless martial artists in my time, and many who longed to learn the sword, but I had never seen anyone with talent this lacking.
Dang Hye, being from the Dang Family, had probably spent her entire life focused on throwing needles and using poison, controlling enemies from a distance. That was why she couldn’t properly handle a sword.
“Think of the sword like an arm. You’re not swinging a sword. Just think of it as your hand getting longer.”
“Easy for you to say…”
Dang Hye tried to say more, but every move I threw at her carried the feeling of life and death.
“That’s enough for today.”
“Haa… haa…”
Dang Hye was half-kneeling on the ground, gasping for breath.
Still, she definitely has one thing.
Those eyes full of poison.
As a swordswoman, she was hopeless, but as a martial artist, she had potential.
Which meant that if I wanted Dang Hye to improve, I had to make her let go of the sword.
No, more accurately, if I wanted to reach Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons, she had to focus completely on poison.
With the next dawn, we moved out again at speed.
“Whatever the case, the current you can’t become Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons. That’s my conclusion.”
“Why not?”
“Are you Invulnerable to a Thousand Poisons?”
“No.”
“Then have you reached the Hwagyeong realm?”
“Of course not.”
“Exactly. How could you reach Hwagyeong at your age?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
At night, while we trained in swordsmanship, I was the teacher. But by day, when we talked about poison, Dang Hye was the one teaching me.
“Do you know where a martial artist suffers the most when poisoned?”
“Obviously a poison that strikes the danjeon would be fatal.”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
“Isn’t that just obvious?”
My answer made Dang Hye’s face twist in annoyance. She probably had her own reasons for wanting revenge through training, but from my perspective, after reading her books, I could answer this much easily enough.
“Right. For a martial artist, whether the danjeon takes damage or is dead is a huge difference. That’s why you have to reach the Hwagyeong realm. A Hwagyeong martial artist’s danjeon and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians are fundamentally tougher.”
That was exactly it. From Hwagyeong onward, one began to leave the realm of ordinary humans behind. But I wasn’t a man who had that kind of time to spare.
“Then if you reach Invulnerable to a Thousand Poisons and your danjeon and Eight Extraordinary Meridians are as tough as a Hwagyeong martial artist’s, that means there’s a chance?”
“I don’t like thinking in terms of ‘if,’ but if someone like that existed, then I suppose you could at least try.”
“It should be showing up soon.”
“What should?”
“Something interesting.”
I quickly scanned the surroundings. When we first left Henan, Dang Hye’s direction of travel hadn’t been wrong.
But I had changed course because there was something I needed to pick up here.
“There.”
And I found it.
“Bandits?”
“Yeah. Bandits.”
At the far end of my vision stood three bandits blocking the mountain path. The strange thing was the characters on their shoulders, characters that didn’t belong on bandits at all.
Seeing that, Dang Hye glared at them as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Virtue? Bandits with ‘virtue’ on them?”
“Right? They’re ridiculous. Hmm, what should I do?”
I looked at Dang Hye and pretended to think for a moment. Then I lifted the corner of my mouth.
“Looks like it’s time to stop training and try some real combat, don’t you think?”
“What?”
Before Dang Hye could even answer, I was already standing in front of them.
“Oi, you upright scholar. If you want to pass this road, pay the toll.”
The bandit raised a hand axe in both hands and bared his teeth. Seeing that, I slowly curled my lips.
“Oh? You can smile?”
“Why wouldn’t I? You bandit bastards are hanging the word virtue out front. No, wait. You’re not bandits at all. You’re beggars from the Beggar Sect, aren’t you? You’re begging now, right? Because that’s the only explanation.”
“You bastard—!”
Veins bulged at the bandit’s temples. Then he started walking toward me. I didn’t stop.
“If you’re bandits, then act like bandits. How shameless are you, pretending these days’ bandits are righteous sects?”
With that, all three bandits charged me. I turned my head and said to Dang Hye,
“Start.”
“You’re insane.”
The bandit closed the distance in an instant and swung his axe. But I didn’t move. Dang Hye rushed in and blocked the blow in a hurry.
Clang!
The sound of sword meeting axe rang out. At that moment, a string of rough curses burst from the bandit’s mouth.
“That man’s hiding behind a woman.”
“Boss, this girl’s pretty hot.”
“Is that so? How about it? I’ll spare your life if you come to me.”
The bandits grew more excited as they looked at Dang Hye. No, judging from her expression, it looked like Dang Hye was the one getting worked up by the bandits’ words. Her face was growing redder by the second.
“...None of you are getting out of here alive.”
With Dang Hye’s low voice, her figure shot forward like an arrow.
The bandit hurriedly raised his axe to block her blade. But a hand axe couldn’t fully stop a sword.
His own axe was being driven down toward his face.
“This crazy bitch.”
The bandits behind him saw it and rushed Dang Hye. She withdrew her sword and began blocking their axes.
All three of them were only second-rate martial artists. Dang Hye should have overwhelmed them in an instant. But she couldn’t suppress any of the three.
Instead, she found herself exchanging blow after blow with them, creating a strange deadlock.
Well, that’s about what I expected.
At my flat remark, Dang Hye shot me a glare. But she had to turn her attention back immediately under the bandits’ relentless attacks.
The fight between the bandits and Dang Hye was a close one. But before long, Dang Hye’s breathing began to roughen.
Is it the pressure of fighting for life and death?
She tired quickly even when sparring with me, but this was too fast. Even though I was pouring killing intent at her, when she trained with me, there must have been some part of her heart that believed my sword would not actually reach her.
Still, that wasn’t the real issue. The reason she couldn’t suppress them was simple.
At this rate, she might as well be trying to swim with her arms and legs tied.
Dang Hye could still grow as a martial artist. But as a swordswoman, she could not. That was why she couldn’t even suppress three second-rate fighters.
“Haa… haa…”
When Dang Hye exhaled harshly, the bandits began tightening the pressure and closing the distance.
“Hup.”
True energy burst from her entire body, and sword wind exploded outward.
It looked as though she had poured everything into that one strike, but to my eyes the sword wind looked pathetically weak.
Still, the three bandits barely managed to block that feeble sword wind together and were pushed back.
Should I help a little?
In the instant Dang Hye’s sword wind spread outward, I flicked a finger and shot a burst of finger-force.
The moment it grazed one of the bandits, their balance collapsed in an instant.
Without missing the opening, the sword wind surged in and cut through the bandits’ bodies. Well, one of them only took a shallow wound and managed to flee.
“Huk. Huk.”
Dang Hye, after releasing the sword wind, could barely stay standing with her sword as a support.
“Good work.”
I gave her shoulder a light pat.
“You worked hard. But give up on the sword.”
“What!”
Dang Hye’s sharp gaze stabbed into me. But what could I do? I had to say what needed saying.
“No matter how I look at it, you don’t have talent as a swordswoman. No, it’s the worst kind.”
As Dang Hye’s eyes sharpened, I felt killing intent rising off her.