Because I Am Human
The battle was settled in the blink of an eye.
It was thanks to Brother Gang Pae's outstanding command — the man wielded his five thousand Walpae street fighters as though they were his own two hands.
The Walpae moving under his orders were a strange breed. In looks, they were street rabble to the bone; in bearing, they could have stood beside a royal army without embarrassment. Strict discipline and restraint were written into their every movement — that is what I mean.
The only troops I had ever personally handled were the ragged beggars of my old crew, but even I could not miss that this was the doing of an exceptional leader named Gang Pae.
"It's all sorted, Boss."
Once the fighting was over, two Walpae who looked to be crew chiefs came before Gang Pae and bowed their heads.
"Report."
"We only managed to take three of them alive. Our apologies, Boss."
"How many were there in total?"
"About ten, we believe."
"About ten?"
The reporting Walpae flinched under the sharp edge of Gang Pae's gaze as he repeated the question.
"Exactly ten, Boss."
Fortunately, another Walpae standing guard nearby stepped in to save him. Only then did Gang Pae's expression ease, and he gave a nod.
"We do this right from here on, yeah?"
"Yep!"
Of the Eunyeong operatives, who had numbered close to ten, three had been taken alive. The remaining seven, I was told, had been cut down after a ferocious resistance.
Considering how much intelligence could be wrung from each and every one of Eunyeong's people, it was a somewhat disappointing result.
But there was no blaming the Walpae for it.
"The kids?"
"Sir?"
"Our boys."
"About thirty of them went up first."
"...I see."
This time, Gang Pae did not press the question. I could guess his heart — he had no wish to know his men's deaths as a number.
Just as his man had said, some thirty Walpae had lost their lives in the process of subduing the Eunyeong operatives.
Had they stubbornly made live capture the objective, the Walpae's casualties would have easily passed fifty.
In truth, taking even three alive was more than could fairly be asked of the Walpae, so blaming them would have been an unjust thing to do.
Seen from one angle, against a network of five thousand Walpae, fifty lives might be dismissed as a trifling figure — a single copper coin dropped from a full purse.
And I knew full well that leaders who order captures at any cost are a dime a dozen in the gangho murim.
Especially those abacus-flicking scholar types — they might well reckon it a profit to annihilate the enemy at the price of a single copper of their own.
Most of the commanders, chiefs, and strategists I had watched in my previous life were exactly like that.
But I know that a human life is not a figure to be converted into information.
Was I not the man who returned from the Great War of Righteousness and Evil having seen the countless lives of warriors pressed into a single line of intelligence? This was a perspective I must never forget, now or ever.
Gang Pae knew this truth without ever having regressed — which meant he was, without question, a good leader.
In any case...
Thanks to the efforts of the Walpae network, not a single Eunyeong operative managed to escape.
An Eunyeong branch was ordinarily composed of ten members, so it would be no exaggeration to say we had erased an entire branch.
Before the Great War of Righteousness and Evil had even begun, the strength of the Walpae had wiped one branch of Eunyeong off the map — a truly noteworthy triumph by any measure.
By my personal reckoning, it was an achievement worth more than saving a thousand warriors' lives in the Great War itself.
Some might call it making a great fuss over a mere ten captives, but this was the objective judgment of a man who knew Eunyeong's true power, and it would not be wrong.
If there was one regret...
It would have been perfect had we also taken Ma Pyeong-sam, their field commander, but dwelling on what has already passed serves no purpose.
"Good work."
Gang Pae clapped the reporting Walpae on the shoulder.
And then he added,
"I'll preside over the funeral for our fallen brothers myself, when the time comes. It's the last road of true men — gather as many of the brothers as you can."
"Thank you, Boss!"
Gang Pae's conduct made the Walpae's sacrifice all the more worthwhile.
His demeanor as he offered silent tribute before the bodies of men who had died carrying out his orders was gravely sincere.
In the end, what did it matter whether a man walked the Orthodox Path or the Unorthodox one?
Gang Pae was a man who understood the worth of a human life and knew how to cherish his own — there was nothing lacking in my calling him Brother.
There was more good news yet.
"Young Master Myeong, thank you."
"We are in your debt."
The first greeting was Ma Sok's. The second was Yeo Wol's.
It meant that Yeo Wol, who had been unconscious, had safely come back to her senses.
Perhaps because she had simply been overpowered in her unconscious state, there was nothing amiss with her body.
She was a precious soul destined to rise as the Matriarch of Haomun, so it was a genuine relief.
"Mistress, Young Master Gang Pae also lent us great aid."
Perhaps because this was a formal occasion, Ma Sok addressed Gang Pae with the utmost courtesy.
Brother Gang Pae was the leader of his own band as well, so it was entirely proper treatment.
"Thank you, Young Master Gang Pae."
Yeo Wol smiled and offered her thanks.
"Aw, it was nothin'."
Gang Pae answered without daring to lift his face, and there was not an ounce of swagger in his voice.
The awe-inspiring chief of the Walpae from moments before had vanished; in his place sat one sorry excuse for a man, utterly helpless before a woman.
Yeo Wol's head tilted slightly for a moment...
"Are you feeling unwell somewhere?" she asked.
"Aw, no, it's nothin'! Absolutely nothin'!"
Gang Pae hastily flailed his arms in denial, and even that looked quite ridiculous — a fumbling, unwarrior-like flailing for which the word clumsy seemed tailor-made.
Hm.
The Gang Pae who spoke of his yearning and their betrothal without a moment's hesitation simply did not exist in front of Yeo Wol. It would be correct to call him the very archetype of a man undone before the one he loves.
Well, no matter.
I wasn't worried. Perhaps because I knew my Brother Gang Pae's true heart, and knew the future in which he was destined to become Yeo Wol's match.
The heartwarming mood lasted only a moment before the atmosphere in the hall turned on a knife's edge.
"If you've no intention of killing me, perhaps you'd be so good as to release me? I'm not one to be cowed by threats, you see."
It was Geom Bigak, interjecting without a shred of tact.
Bound and captured, yet not a trace of his spirit broken — perhaps the real "man of men" here was Geom Bigak after all.
The unorthodox in the Unorthodox Path is a word meaning "devious," or perhaps "wicked." Join it to the word path, and the whole may be read as "a crooked road" — a road that is not right.
Indeed, the martial artists of the gangho took the Unorthodox Path in exactly that sense.
"Truth be told, they'd have to be called a pack of fools."
Chwipung-gae pronounced them fools without a moment's hesitation.
"Why is that?"
Raised as the direct bloodline of the Dancheon Sword Clan, a great Orthodox family, I too belonged among those fools — and I remember my question coming out a touch bristly.
"The ancients said that a name holds its essence."
"They did."
Chwipung-gae's meticulous schooling had forged Dancheon Myeong into a genuine Myeong-gae — a true beggar of the information trade — so this was a fact I knew well enough.
"And yet — is that truth?"
"Pardon?"
"Is it truth, I ask you."
"Hmm."
"You don't know?"
"No, sir."
"A fool after all, just as I thought."
"..."
"Heh heh."
Back then I had not yet grown close enough to Chwipung-gae to talk back, and even now I regret never having done so.
In any case, Chwipung-gae — thoroughly enjoying himself at my expense — continued his explanation with a satisfied look on his face.
"First of all, what is truth? If you mean to live off begged rice, you'd best look at this 'truth' from a practical standpoint."
"Practical?"
"What if the sun were to rise in the west? Chaos would descend upon the world, and men would take it for an omen of the end times — because truth had been violated."
"I suppose that would be so."
"And what happens when a name fails to hold its essence?"
"Nothing much, I'd imagine."
"Just so. Therefore the maxim 'a name holds its essence' must be treated as a proposition, not an immutable truth. Which is to say — there are exceptions."
"You mean the name 'Unorthodox Path' is one of those exceptions?"
"Hah. Not a complete fool after all."
"Hmm."
When I still looked unconvinced, Chwipung-gae pressed on.
"Perspective is a truly vital thing for living in the gangho murim. All the more so if you mean to beg for your rice. Carve what I am about to tell you into that thick skull of yours."
The sight of Chwipung-gae carrying on in an air of uncharacteristic solemnity remained vivid even now.
It was the age when martial arts first sprang into being.
Those who laid the foundations of the gangho murim in those days, it is said, were Daoists who cultivated the Art of Nurturing Life.
A monk called Mumyeong — the Nameless — took the Three Powers of Heaven, Earth, and Man as his foundation, refined the Art of Nurturing Life to a blazing height, and shared the learning even with ordinary folk. That became the wellspring of all martial arts.
Refined though it was, the root of martial arts remained the Art of Nurturing Life — and so those who walked the martial way naturally took as its summit the Uhwadeungseon, the winged ascension by which a man becomes an immortal.
"And what is this Uhwadeungseon?"
"It means casting off the limits of the flesh and ascending to the Pure Land to become an immortal."
"Correct. To put it another way, you may well call it the pursuit of the road to the next life."
"...So it is."
"It is called the Path of Immortals — and this is precisely what the murim of today means by the Orthodox Path. The great principle of the Path of Immortals came bound to an unwritten law: karma, the rule that every deed meets its recompense. That is how the belief took root that goodness and chivalry were the very substance of the Orthodox Path."
"Oh ho."
Though I had thought myself a warrior of the Orthodox Path all my life, it was the first time I felt I truly understood what the Orthodox Path was.
"Then what is the Unorthodox Path?"
"Pray teach me, sir."
When it came to learning, my face was iron — shamelessly thick — so I begged the teaching without a moment's delay. Chwipung-gae, not forgetting to preen with a self-important "ahem," spoke once more.
"In truth, the power called martial arts brushes against the uncanny and the supernatural. The Path of Immortals itself exists to transcend the limits of being human, so whether one cultivated the Art of Nurturing Life or its blazing offshoot, the martial arts, surpassing mortal bounds by a wide margin was an everyday affair. The root of the Unorthodox Path lies precisely in this power — the power gained in the course of pursuing the winged ascension."
I cannot say whether it was Chwipung-gae's own interpretation or the teaching of history, but every word of it rang true.
"Having already grasped great power and reigned above the multitude, why trouble oneself with the winged ascension to reach the Pure Land? For a man with power, is not this present world itself the Pure Land? The first sect master of the Unorthodox Path must have been a man who thought exactly thus."
"Indeed."
I agreed with his reasoning.
The gangho murim is a world generous to those with power, after all.
"To sum it up, then: if the Orthodox Path is the study of shedding the shell in pursuit of the next life's road, the Unorthodox Path is the study of desire in pursuit of this life's road. Its practitioners grew intoxicated by 'power,' a mere byproduct — and so the world came to call their road the Unorthodox Path."
It was the first day I looked upon Chwipung-gae — whom I had taken for nothing more than a dirty old beggar — and saw a teacher.
"Is that road wrong, then?"
To that question, I don't believe I ever managed an answer.
From the Orthodox point of view, the Unorthodox Path may well be a crooked road.
But that, too, is merely the view of a common man like me.
It is so because those who pursued the Path of Immortals with single-minded devotion never forbade the Unorthodox Path.
— Perhaps that, too, is a road of its own.
That was the reason he gave.
By nature, a road forks into many branches — such is simply the way of things.
A truth known even to me — there was no chance the Overlord Martial Emperor, supreme leader of the Sado League, did not know it.
And that leader had now taken the measure of an Unorthodox warrior with his own eyes.
To be precise, he had taken the measure of a degenerate who understood nothing of the Unorthodox Path.
"The name 'Unorthodox' is wasted on the likes of you."
The sovereign of the Sado League, making no effort to hide his displeasure, continued.
"'Demonic' — that is the name that befits you."
Thus did the Overlord Martial Emperor, Wiji Han, judge Geom Bigak.
Grandmasters do not draw a heavy line between the Orthodox and the Unorthodox.
Having set foot upon the threshold of immortals and grasped that all streams return to a single source, they know that right and unorthodox are not so very different.
This was why Pahwang and the Overlord Martial Emperor appeared as friends, and why the Orthodox and Unorthodox Paths of today were not in enmity.
They were simply people aiming at different destinations.
If even a man like Wiji Han judged it so, then Geom Bigak's road was crooked beyond dispute.
"And where in all the world would you find a man more truly Unorthodox than myself?"
Not that Geom Bigak seemed to agree with the Overlord Martial Emperor's assessment, of course.
If I had to guess, the man had simply never studied the Orthodox and Unorthodox Paths deeply enough.
"Tsk. So you never even knew what the Unorthodox Path was."
The Overlord Martial Emperor ground Geom Bigak's words underfoot and pressed on.
"A human face upon a beast's heart — the old saying fits you to the letter. What else could you be, if not demonic?"
"Hahaha. If the Sovereign insists, then perhaps it is so. I really must reflect on myself."
At that, Geom Bigak merely let out a hearty laugh.
I believe the Overlord Martial Emperor was right.
If the Orthodox Path pursues the road of the next life and the Unorthodox Path the road of this one, then the road pursued by the Demonic Path is the road of the inhuman.
A human face, a beast's heart. No words could better express the inhuman road.
— That, too, might be called a road. But I cannot bring myself to accept it. Perhaps because I have yet to shed my shell.
So spoke, it is said, a certain sage who stood upon the verge of the winged ascension.
Surely there are roads that must never be accepted.
In the murim of today, such a road is simply called the Demonic Path.
This was why I spurned the Demonic Path and sought to erase the Great War of Righteousness and Evil altogether.
Because I am human.
"You... I find I dislike you after all."
I could tell that the sovereign of the Sado League felt exactly as I did.