The Sorrow of the King of Vagabonds
Memory is a selective thing. The exact mechanisms of human perception, thought, and memory have never been fully laid bare, but that proposition is an undeniable fact. If every memory stacked up over a lifetime carried the same weight, one would inevitably come to be tormented by madness in the end. That forgetting is regarded as a curse and a blessing at once stems, I imagine, from precisely this truth.
In any case… Myeong-gae, the seasoned informant, possessed a gift for sifting memory that bordered on the singular. Natural brilliance compounded by grueling, repeated discipline — exceptional hardly did it justice. Not unlike my own discerning eye, come to think of it.
Myeong-gae was better than anyone at assigning worth by importance and calling high-value information to mind first. It came of a life spent swimming daily through a sea of information as a beggar of the Beggars' Gang, memorizing an amount of intelligence that would put an archive to shame while quietly balancing it all against the regression to come. Even so, the information he held on the man called Yi Chun-baek, the King of Vagabonds, was not plentiful — only what was recorded in the Jianghu Register of a Thousand Names, and the memory of one fleeting, chance encounter at the Murim Alliance's headquarters. In Myeong-gae's life, no thread of fate had ever connected him to Chun-baek.
Yet for all that, the King of Vagabonds — glimpsed only once — had remained vivid in my mind. The figure my discerning eye had captured back then was a striking one. The Vagabond King of those days was a warrior whose sharp, unyielding bearing concealed a sorrow too deep to fathom, a far cry from the Chun-baek of today, who laughs at the slightest thing and savors the refined arts.
But an impression is one thing, and a connection another. Back then I was a body that might regress at any moment, so my days leaned toward information whose threads reached somewhere — not toward connections with the powerful. It was inevitable that memories concerning the King of Vagabonds had been sorted to the bottom of the pile.
But then, is life not a chain of coincidences? In this life, Chun-baek became more precious to Dancheon Myeong than anyone. Which is to say, the reordering of priorities among the information curated in my brain was equally inevitable. It would be no exaggeration to say that the 'King of Vagabonds' — information I might not even have known I carried — was supplanted by 'Chun-baek,' and now occupies the most important chamber of my memory.
And who am I? The Myeong-gae who memorized the Jianghu Register of a Thousand Names from cover to cover. Also the man who committed to memory the geography of every place spiritual elixirs grow wild, and the essential contents of every treasure map. In keen wits and memory, at the very least, none in the world could rival me. Nearly every scrap of information I had ever gathered lay stored in my head in the form of memory. I could not summon low-priority information on the spot, but neither did I easily forget it.
That must be why the information on the King of Vagabonds — sunk in the far reaches of memory, asleep in the subconscious, perhaps — rose to the surface.
I remember it as one of the days when the great victory dispatches of the King of Vagabonds rang out. A member of the Flying Courier Corps, mid-eulogy over the King's achievements, struck up a conversation with me.
"Myeong-gae, do you know this?"
"Know what?"
"The reason the King of Vagabonds fights so ferociously."
"What warrior in the Great War of Righteousness and Evil fights any way but fiercely?"
Had it not been said that heroes arise in times of chaos? One of those heroes was Yi Chun-baek, the King of Vagabonds. A hero in an age of calamity naturally commands the awe of the multitudes, and for us informants to lay out whatever each of us knew about such a figure was an everyday affair.
"But warriors who butcher demons the way the King does are a rare breed, no?"
"Mm."
The courier was not wrong. The King of Vagabonds was as famous for mutilating demon corpses and hoisting their severed heads as he was for anything else. I had always taken it for nothing more than a vagabond's temperament, yet there seemed to be some other twist beneath it.
"As expected, your information skills and your eye are second to none. You put your finger on what anyone would have walked right past and brought the reason out into the open — a model for informants, I'd say."
"Ha-hah."
Whether my praise pleased him, the courier's shoulders climbed proudly.
"Out with it, then — no dawdling. I'm mightily curious just how far your information reaches."
Perhaps because he had read the information-hunger written on my face, the courier pressed on without delay.
"They say the King's sect and his hometown were left a wasteland by the Demonic Cult."
"A wasteland?"
"Annihilation. No embellishment — I mean it literally."
"And yet I've never heard a whisper of it?"
Information concerning the King's own sect would rank among the highest of importances; that I, a member of the corps myself, was hearing it now for the first time made no sense at all.
"I'm told it was some five or six years back. So the Demonic Cult's handiwork reaches that far, does it."
Proud, apparently, to hold information I lacked, the courier showed no sign of letting his shoulders come down.
That was war for you. It may well have broken something in everyone, somewhere deep inside — we spoke of atrocity as mere information, and swallowed it as nothing more. I stood in the same position and was in no place to reproach him, so I set about finishing what my curiosity had started.
"When, roughly?"
I remember asking with a sliver of hope. Because I was going to regress.
"I heard it was the first day of the first month. By my count, that comes to exactly five years ago."
"I see."
Looking back, it strikes me as a great stroke of fortune. Had it not been so distinctive a date as New Year's Day, even I would never have kept the exact day in memory all this while.
On the New Year's Day when I turn twenty-five, the followers of the Demonic Cult will run rampant through Chun-baek's sect. The season had already reached Minor Cold, when a biting chill begins to seep into the air — which meant that less than a month remained.
I sought out the Patriarch's Hall. My father, Dancheon Gang, stood at his post with the same grave bearing as ever. For once, my uncle Yeo-baek — for all the world my father's shadow — was nowhere in sight, making this the first proper private audience with my father in a very long while.
"What is it?"
"I need to leave home for a time, Father."
"Run away?"
"A departure, Father."
"Run away?"
"…Yes."
I had resolved to accept my father Dancheon Gang's vocabulary. What did it matter whether it was called a departure or running away? The heart of the matter lay in the essence — that I would be leaving the Dancheon Clan was the part that counted.
"And how long do you intend to be away?"
"Two months or so."
"Hm."
My answer seemingly failing to satisfy, a faint crease settled between my father's brows. Lately, whenever he saw me, my father had worn a dry 'Heh-heh' and a smile; now worry clouded his expression, and I knew well that the present situation sat poorly with him.
"Are you aware that New Year's Eve is not so much as a month away?"
"I am aware."
As I suspected, it was the timing that troubled him. Last year I had been playing the mountain herb-gatherer with Chun-baek and returned to the estate just in time for New Year's Eve — meaning I had welcomed the new year at the Dancheon Clan, together with my family. Considering the esteemed clan's tradition of prizing rites and decorum, it was fair to say I had narrowly escaped the title of ultimate unfilial son. Before long I even went and discovered Hwanragwon, the Garden of Delight, and was remade as the ultimate filial son besides — so my standing within the clan had of late been, I could say, entirely serene.
But the coming new year could not be spent that way. The reason was simple: I knew that on the first day of the new year — the year I turn twenty-five — a great calamity would fall upon Chun-baek's sect. I had to be at Chun-baek's sect, not at the Dancheon estate. Just as the Dancheon Clan was precious to me, I did not doubt for a moment that his sect was precious to him. I did not know precisely where Chun-baek's reclusive, secretive sect lay, but what good would it do to sit at the estate on New Year's Eve, when the calamity would come crashing into his sect the very next day — New Year's Day itself? It would be one more step toward the ultimate unfilial son, but for Chun-baek's sake, it was a disgrace I could shoulder well enough.
"Is this truly something you must go and do?"
"Yes."
I have said it more than once: I am a mule of such stubbornness that even the inimitable Chwipung-gae once threw up both hands in surrender before me. Whether he knew that temperament of mine or simply read it now, the sentiment seeping into my father's narrow eyes was already tilting toward consent.
"May I ask what this errand of yours is?"
My father asked. I knew the warmth behind the question: it came not as a command from the clan's head, but as a request from a father.
"I mean to pay my respects at Chun-baek's sect."
"Hm?"
My answer seemingly unexpected, my father's sharp brows rose a fraction.
"Lord Yi's sect?"
"Yes. Last year as well, Chun-baek did not welcome the new year with me at the Dancheon estate, did he? I owe him a debt of gratitude, so this time I thought to welcome the new year together at his sect."
"Hm."
After a moment's deliberation, my father granted it readily.
"So be it."
My father Dancheon Gang was, after all, a gentleman who understood what was owed between men.
"Thank you, Father."
I had finished my bow and was on the point of rising when—
"Myeong."
"Please, ask."
My father, after some thought, had called my name.
"By now I know there is a reason behind your every act. Surely some circumstance drives you to leave home."
…
I had always held to the frontal assault in my dealings with my father. But no manual had ever been written for how to answer this, and I could not summon a nimble reply. In other words, I kept my silence.
"The thing you must not forget is this: the Dancheon Clan is your home, and your family. If ever you need help, call upon the clan at any hour. The Dancheon Clan will stand with you."
Seeing me still unable to answer, my father smiled upon me with warmth.
"Do you understand?"
"…Yes."
"Good. Go on, then."
"Yes."
Just as I had been weighing my father's heart, so he had been weighing mine — and I could tell he had, to some degree, succeeded in reading it. Whether my excuse had been imperfect, or my father's instincts simply keen, I could not say. But I had been reminded once more that my father and the Dancheon Clan stood on my side, and I could hardly call having my thoughts laid bare a loss.
I went looking for Chun-baek's guest hall. I intended to visit his sect, after all, and I could hardly make that journey alone.
"Chun-baek."
Today, as every day, Chun-baek was tending to his sword. He was ever a man who kept a warrior's bearing without lapse — a telling glimpse of how he had come to achieve what he had.
"What is it?"
"What are your plans for the time being?"
"Hm?"
My question seeming to come from nowhere, Chun-baek's voice tilted up at the end.
"I mean — are you busy, or not busy."
To my repeated question, Chun-baek answered, "For a while yet, I intend to delve into my sword forms."
"Not busy, then."
That was my conclusion.
"And what will you be doing on New Year's Eve?"
"By then I'll likely be at work researching improvements to my footwork."
"No real work, then."
As if assenting to my blunt verdict, Chun-baek gave the smallest nod.
"And on New Year's Day itself?"
"It might be a fine day to refine my meridians."
"Likewise — nothing that needs doing."
…
As if conceding my judgment, Chun-baek never did raise an objection. It was plain that Chun-baek, too, was a fool for the martial path who knew nothing outside it. To him, every day was simply one more length of the same unending road of training.
"Chun-baek."
"What is it?"
"Come away with me somewhere."
"Hm. That doesn't sound bad at all."
Chun-baek like this was a fine sight too — but a somewhat different itinerary would be the right one. For I had no wish to see, in the Chun-baek of today, the sorrow of the King of Vagabonds.