Placement Exam (4)

Go Hyeon-woo was in the thick of his second placement exam.

His opponent was the very picture of a knight — solid armor layered over his uniform, a two-handed sword sweeping in wide arcs. Every time that heavy, thick blade carved through the air, a vicious whistle of displaced wind followed in its wake.

But no matter how ferocious an attack looked, it meant nothing if it never landed.

Baek Jun-seok was clearly the one raining down attack after attack, and Go Hyeon-woo was clearly the one doing nothing but evading them. And yet the exchange looked nothing like Baek Jun-seok having the upper ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hand. Baek Jun-seok was drenched in sweat, exhaustion written across his face, while Go Hyeon-woo wore an expression of perfect calm and drifted about the arena at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his leisure.

"Hah... hahk... keuhk."

Baek Jun-seok broke off his assault and put distance between them. He had simply run himself into the ground, repeating attacks that never once connected.

Watching his opponent gulp down ragged breaths, Go Hyeon-woo leveled his sword at him and asked, "Shall we continue?"

"...Grrah!"

Baek Jun-seok flared up and lunged. He was already running on fumes, yet he swung his longsword wildly without a thought for what would come after his stamina gave out entirely.

In that instant, Go Hyeon-woo — who had done nothing but evade from start to finish — took a single step forward. Then, with a stroke as smooth as brushwork, he drew his iron sword in a gentle arc.

— Screeeee-ch!

Accompanied by a spine-chilling shriek of metal, a diagonal wound was carved clean into Baek Jun-seok's armor.

His health carved away in one massive chunk. Baek Jun-seok clutched his chest against the searing pain and dropped to one knee. The sword was leveled at him once more.

"Shall we continue?"

"...I concede."

'That was genuinely impressive.'

A single step taken at the perfect moment, and one clean stroke of the blade. He had nearly perfected the art of the sword, whatever else one might say about him.

Even if Shin Byung-cheol wasn't capable of deep analysis, apparently even he agreed that Go Hyeon-woo was formidably strong.

"Wow... Baek Jun-seok's no pushover, and he just carved him up like it was nothing. I heard he even went even with Han So-mi?"

"And where exactly did you hear that?"

"Hehehe, I buy and sell information for a living, you know. This much comes with the territory. Anyway, that's his second win, right? Let's test our judgment on match three."

Go Hyeon-woo stepped onto the teleportation array for his final placement exam. Moments later, a figure strode out from the opposite side — a full head taller than the average male student, a massive frame built of steel-hard muscle.

"...This one's going to be a struggle."

"Who's stronger — Han So-mi or Jo Byeok?"

At my question, Shin Byung-cheol stroked his chin with an uncharacteristically serious expression. "Hard to say. Going by public reputation, the Fist King edges out the Sword Empress a bit. But that's a comparison between the Fist King and the Sword Empress themselves — their disciples' skills are another matter entirely."

"In other words, you have no idea."

"......"

Having been struck speechless for a moment, Shin Byung-cheol swiftly changed the subject. "Anyway! Let's mix up the wager this time. Not who wins — how many minutes it takes for the match to end. What do you say?"

"Sure, fine. You pick first."

When the match ended, how many of the five allotted minutes would have elapsed? After a short deliberation, Shin Byung-cheol set his number first. "Four minutes for me. No wait — the full five. If they're evenly matched, it won't end quickly, right?"

"Then I'll take two minutes flat."

"...Huh?"

Incredulity written all over his face, Shin Byung-cheol stared at me. Unless one side overwhelmingly outclassed the other, a match rarely concluded inside two minutes.

"I mean, why two minutes flat this time? You think he's going down that fast?"

"Nobody's going down fast. I never said anything like that."

"Then what is it?"

"Watch, and you'll see."

"Ugh, do you get off on making people curious? Two minutes is a stretch by any measure, come on."

"If it's a stretch, I'll return your five silver. Let's see how it plays out."

'Brother Kim is watching.'

Kim Ho had come into view at the edge of Go Hyeon-woo's vision. From the spectator seats, he was looking down at him, engaged in what appeared to be an earnest conversation with Shin Byung-cheol. He couldn't know the contents, but it surely had something to do with him.

He wanted, if possible, to show his friend a victorious display. Victory and defeat hardly threatened a friendship, but winning was simply the more dignified way to be seen.

And yet it would be no easy feat — given who his opponent was.

Go Hyeon-woo let his gaze rest once on the scoreboard, once on Jo Byeok.

'The Fist King's disciple.'

From what he'd managed to gauge of Han So-mi's skill on the train, even if Jo Byeok were merely her equal, victory would be a difficult proposition to bet on. On the train, he had held out a little longer thanks to Kim Ho's mysterious power, but this time he would have to face him on nothing but his own strength.

Then, suddenly, he looked down at his own hand — a hand trembling faintly without his having noticed.

Was the trembling fear? Excitement? Anticipation? Perhaps all three at once? Even he couldn't say for certain.

He clenched his fist hard, then opened it, and the trembling stopped. Only then did Go Hyeon-woo lift his gaze to the front again.

Holding each other's eyes across the arena, Jo Byeok spoke slowly. "I heard you fought Han So-mi to a standstill."

"Hardly. With my meager skills, all I managed was a bit of a show for Miss Han."

"Whether they're truly meager, we can confirm starting now. Shall we draw your sword?"

Go Hyeon-woo realized that the 'sword' Jo Byeok spoke of was not the iron sword at his hip. The man's gaze was fixed on his shoulder line — or rather, on the object bound to his back. He had no choice but to shake his head with a wry smile.

"I'd like nothing more myself, but the time is not yet right."

"I see. A pity."

"I feel the same. Then — let us begin."

[3]

[2]

[1]

[Start!]

The instant the match began, Jo Byeok stamped the ground. For a frame built like a bear, he was astonishingly fast. With each long, powerful stride, the distance between them shrank by leaps and bounds.

Go Hyeon-woo, probing and checking at once, sent out two light sword energies — but Jo Byeok didn't even bother to block them. The energies touched his body and guttered out without exerting the slightest effect.

'He's making his opening move from the very start.'

Go Hyeon-woo found it a refreshingly direct way of fighting. Stripping away all pretense of feints and probing strikes, Jo Byeok came head-on, straight as an arrow, from the opening bell. Go Hyeon-woo would have preferred to savor the duel a little more leisurely, but he bore no dislike for this style of combat either.

"Hah!"

Sensing his opponent entering his range, Go Hyeon-woo seized the initiative. Shifting his iron sword from one hand to both, he unleashed a storm of consecutive slashes aimed at Jo Byeok's upper body.

— Swish swish swish—

Jo Byeok's silhouette swayed left and right, leaving faint afterimages behind. He dodged every incoming slash without missing a single one, moving with a speed utterly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at odds with his bulk — and in the same breath, the fist clenched tight at his side was charged with an immense force.

Jo Byeok drew that force back to its utmost, then thrust it straight out in front of him. To Go Hyeon-woo's eyes, the incoming fist seemed to swell in size in the blink of an eye.

'Like a massive boulder...!'

There was no time to stand and admire it. He channeled his rising momentum into the iron sword and loosed three slashes with lightning speed.

— Pak pak pak!

With each strike that connected, the boulder-like force visibly diminished. But even after colliding with his sword three times, Jo Byeok's single punch had not been fully dispelled — the remnant crashed into Go Hyeon-woo.

— WHAM!

'Nngh...'

The impact washed over him like a blow from a giant rock. In the split second he winced, Jo Byeok had vanished from his sight. Go Hyeon-woo flung himself forward at once —

— BOOOM!

— and a monstrous force came crashing down on the exact spot he had occupied a heartbeat before. The arena floor shattered and scattered in all directions.

Go Hyeon-woo widened the gap in the wake of Jo Byeok's missed strike, but the assumption that distance meant safety proved a grave error.

From far away, Jo Byeok threw out another punch — the very same single strike as before. And yet, from that distant range, that boulder-like force came barreling straight toward him.

'This won't be easy.'

— Pak pak pak pak pak!

This time he fired off five consecutive slashes to cancel the force, but a portion still survived and hammered into him.

— WHAM!

The battle had barely begun — not even a few exchanges in — and yet he had done nothing but take losses the entire time. If things went on like this, the pattern would simply repeat. Go Hyeon-woo could no longer refuse to admit it.

'This is the limit of basic swordsmanship. I had hoped to go a little further with it...'

It was time to bring out the strength he had kept hidden.

"......"

Jo Byeok, closing the distance once more, suddenly noticed that Go Hyeon-woo's aura had shifted entirely. The iron sword was moving in slow, languid arcs — languid enough to bore an observer — and at the same time, a faint breeze stirred from somewhere, brushing against his hair.

A cool wind, the kind that blew now and then on a sweltering summer day to cool the heat of the earth. But no wind could possibly blow inside the Circular Colosseum, sealed off from the outside world completely. Which meant the source of this breeze was none other than Go Hyeon-woo himself.

'Something is off.'

Jo Byeok's instincts rang an alarm: this time, above all, he must be cautious. And so, uncharacteristically, he held his distance and sent out his third punch. But the boulder-mass of his own force, upon touching that gentle breeze, melted away and vanished in an instant. The single strike he fired immediately after evaporated just as quickly.

Only then did Jo Byeok understand for certain. 'That breeze is a form of sword energy.'

Through the previous two exchanges, he had learned that half-measures were nothing but a waste of stamina. Then he would concentrate every last ounce of his strength into a single strike and settle it.

Visibly materialized fighting spirit bloomed up from Jo Byeok's body. He wrapped himself in it without a single gap, then leapt into the gently flowing wind.

'This is...'

Driving his fighting spirit to its maximum had been the right choice. The soft wind streaming past him pressed in on him from all sides like a raging storm of sword energy. Any ordinary warrior would have been shredded to ribbons in an instant, reduced to a cold corpse. The spirit armor wrapped around his body drained away rapidly — but that much he had anticipated. It was more than enough to reach his target.

"......"

Facing the oncoming Jo Byeok, Go Hyeon-woo likewise sensed that his opponent had thrown down the decisive gambit. He raised the iron sword — which had been moving in such soft, flowing strokes — high above his head, and every wisp of the breeze that had been blowing toward Jo Byeok converged onto the blade.

The moment Jo Byeok thrust out his fist, Go Hyeon-woo's iron sword fell.

— FLASH!

"......"

"......"

In the blink of an eye, the two men's positions had swapped. After a brief silence, Jo Byeok was the first to speak. "The name of that technique?"

"Clear Stream."

Jo Byeok slowly lowered his gaze. A thin slice had been cut from the shoulder of his uniform. It meant that Go Hyeon-woo's single stroke — for an instant no longer than the flash of a blade — had surpassed the D-rank defensive magic woven into the uniform. But judging by the absence of any wound beyond it, the strike had failed to penetrate the guardian artifact Jo Byeok had wrapped around his body.

"I'll remember it. A pity, though."

— Crick-kk,

Go Hyeon-woo's lowered iron sword began to crumble away bit by bit from its tip. The recoil of two techniques colliding head-on had exhausted its durability. When he released the hilt, now all that remained, the last of it dissolved into nothing.

With his iron sword destroyed, two options remained to him: draw the longsword bound to his back and fight on, or accept defeat. Go Hyeon-woo chose the latter.

"I have lost."

"I look forward to our next bout. Show me your full strength then."

"......"

Go Hyeon-woo simply watched in silence as Jo Byeok turned and walked away. What thoughts moved behind those eyes, no one could tell.

My attention, meanwhile, was fixed on the iron sword Go Hyeon-woo always carried. Using a different blade instead of his sect's sacred relic was understandable enough — he surely had his reasons. But did it absolutely have to be an iron sword?

I had turned that question over in my head, and the answer I arrived at was this: 'Because he has to use them as consumables.'

Go Hyeon-woo had brushed off the destruction of his iron sword on the train like it was nothing at all. That was not the attitude of someone experiencing such a situation for the first or second time. It was most likely a consequence of the nature of the martial arts he had mastered — ordinary equipment simply couldn't contain that energy intact, so its durability drained rapidly until the sword shattered.

Which meant the very same thing could easily happen in a placement exam — especially against a powerhouse like Jo Byeok, where the odds were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nearly certain.

And so my wager of "two minutes flat" had never been about when the match would end. It was about when the iron sword would fail to hold out and break.

Two minutes and twenty-eight seconds. Far closer to two minutes than to five — the wager was mine.

"No way. Seriously, that's insane. It ends like that? Hey, that's not fair. How do you even predict that?"

"You have quite the loose tongue. Five silver."

When I held out my hand to collect, Shin Byung-cheol flashed a groveling grin. "Whoa, whoa, I'm broke right now, but I'll borrow some and pay you right back. Seriously, any second now."

"You're the one who proposed the bet. Why bet money you don't have?"

"I mean, I was sure I'd win this time... I'm Shin Byung-cheol when it comes to wagers, but my luck today is just rotten."

Going by his grumbling, he must have been fairly confident underneath. His misfortune was that the opponent testing his judgment happened to be me. I could have let the five silver ride as a debt, but —

"No need to pay me in money, necessarily."

"Really? Then what do you want?"

Shin Byung-cheol asked, brightening. I tipped my chin toward the notepad clutched in his hand.

Information.