The Swordsmanship Club (4)
Mak Daewoong was nowhere to be seen.
If it truly was just the two of them, it was safe to assume they hadn't come for a fight. Which meant answering their question would be no trouble at all — but still,
"I'm short on time. Let's talk as we walk."
"Very well."
We traded words as we made for the Training Center.
Jang Sam and Wang Pil opened with an apology.
"We were left with no choice but to move against you. It was not the manner I would have wished... but club affairs rarely unfold as one pleases."
"I suppose they don't. I understand."
Belong to a group, and you move with it toward its goals, willing or not. That was what being tied to a club at Dragon Slayer Academy meant — and it was precisely why I intended to stay unaffiliated.
For my part, beyond a little wasted time, I had lost nothing, and Mak Daewoong's side had taken the heavier losses — so I bore the pair no particular grudge.
"So, what was it you wanted to ask?"
Jang Sam opened his mouth, then hesitated and exchanged a glance with Wang Pil — for all the world as if they were about to confess something embarrassing.
"...Was it obvious again this time?"
Back when we'd first met in the 2v2 PvP assessment, I had seen through them at a glance as assassin-type classes. Afterward, Jang Sam had asked how I could possibly have known, and I'd cited the simple fact that they looked too ordinary.
And now they'd disguised themselves as "Chul-soo" and "Minsu" and been caught again — apparently it had been quietly gnawing at them.
I gave an honest answer.
"This time it was better, at least."
"Was it?"
Jang Sam's expression lifted a shade.
The truth was, this time I'd recognized that the pair were Jang Sam and Wang Pil — I hadn't found anything strange in their plainness. Had it been a first encounter, I likely would have judged them no further than: ordinary-looking, but handy with a sword.
The two had taken my earlier feedback fully to heart. Their disguises were a touch more distinctive now, and in place of their cheap iron swords they carried D-Rank longswords with leopard-head pommels. It was the kind of unremarkable look you could find on a student or two in any class — not a bad choice for hiding who they were.
Except for one thing.
"Let's clear up just one thing first."
"...?"
"Chul-soo and Minsu. Whose idea was that? Out with it."
Everything had been going so smoothly — and then the naming sense had to wreck it. Why, with all the names in the world to choose from, did it have to be Chul-soo and Minsu — the two most textbook-generic names in the country?
"..."
Jang Sam looked at Wang Pil in silence, and Wang Pil dodged his gaze to stare off at a distant mountain. From that alone, the culprit was not hard to deduce.
But the stares kept coming, and at last Wang Pil could bear it no longer. He jabbed a finger at Jang Sam.
"He's the one who came up with 'Jang Sam and Wang Pil'!"
The tide turned in an instant — this time it was Jang Sam who fled our gazes and contemplated a distant mountain.
A sheepish silence stretched on until the two of them cleared their throats in unison.
"Ahem. We shall look into other aliases."
"Good idea. No — on second thought, not you two. Just leave the naming to somebody else."
"...Very well."
Jang Sam and Wang Pil fell to pondering, faces gone grave. I didn't need three guesses what about — new aliases, surely — so without waiting, I moved on to the next topic.
"That's not why you came to find me, though, is it?"
"...No."
"Ghost Without Shadow. Am I right?"
"You are."
The two nodded readily and owned up to it.
In the 2v2 PvP, they had faced us wielding nothing but the Three Talents Sword Technique, identities concealed. I, meanwhile, had wanted them to fight at their true strength — my goal was to grow Go Hyeon-woo, after all. So the bait I'd dangled was this: win, and I'll tell you about Ghost Without Shadow.
Wang Pil had been blasted away by the palm art I'd blended from Great Palm Imprint and Wind Force, and the duel between Jang Sam and Go Hyeon-woo had ended in mutual ruin — a draw, in other words. They remembered all of it. That was why they had come.
"In truth, that is also why we acted on Senior Mak Daewoong's orders."
— Ghost Without Shadow is...
— He said to win first, then ask.
— I will challenge you again.
That was how we had parted ways last time. Their scheme, in other words, had been to overpower me on this occasion — and then ask.
"Yet it proved no easy task."
Even attacking in concert, the two of them had failed to leave a single scratch on me. They had surely held back a good measure of their strength — but then, so had I.
They must have judged that, left as things were, the day they actually brought me down and got to hear about Ghost Without Shadow would remain a distant one. Hence this visit.
Jang Sam and Wang Pil each put in a word.
"I know it is a shameless ask. Even so, I would have you reconsider."
"If there is anything you desire, we will meet it as far as we are able."
I rested my chin in my hand and thought it over, then slowly nodded.
"Fine. It's not as though it's something I can't share."
"Do you mean that?"
I'd have to go collect it sooner or later anyway.
Ghost Without Shadow wasn't owed to these two alone — I had promised it to the Thief Club as well, on the condition that they breach the Deep Layer for me. I couldn't let the debt sit open-ended forever; going to claim it was already on the schedule. I could simply trade with these two while I was at it.
"You do realize it won't come free."
"Naturally. Name what you want."
But I raised a hand to stop them.
"You're in too much of a hurry. Once it's in my hands, there'll be plenty of time to mull over the deal."
"Hmm..."
"First, grant me one favor. If another clash is brewing, give me warning in advance."
Today they had been forced to withdraw thanks to the Disciplinary Committee's sudden appearance, but Mak Daewoong's crowd would hardly give up here. They would keep picking fights one way or another — and each time, I wanted a heads-up first.
Jang Sam's face hardened.
"I apologize, but I cannot betray my club."
"Who said anything about betraying? I'm not telling you to throw the fight, or to fight halfheartedly either. Just leave me a message. A man likes to brace himself."
"...If that is all, then."
With Jang Sam already halfway won over, I pressed the advantage.
"And things may be ugly between us now — but they won't stay that way forever, will they?"
I would be striking deals with the Black Way too, so sooner or later we would settle into reasonably cordial relations. Jang Sam had not yet officially revealed the full measure of his strength, but he was a prospect of real promise, enjoying the Swordsmanship Club's wholehearted backing. Set against the contest between the Four Major Factions, and the rivalry among the rising stars themselves, a squabble with me was a mere footnote. Which was why I was certain he would accept, once I came to him with a trade down the road.
Jang Sam nodded.
"I see. Then it is understood."
"Let's keep in touch."
"Very well."
That seemed to be the end of their business; the two turned back rather than follow me farther. I walked on toward the Training Center as I had been — and then a question surfaced out of nowhere.
"By the way. What's your real name?"
"Mugeuk. Jang Mu-geuk."
"That's a fine name."
"My master bestowed it. It means, 'Behold the very end of the martial way.'"
A master with a romantic streak, then.
I nodded along, and turned to Wang Pil next.
"And you?"
"Wang Chunsam."
"..."
I held my silence for a few seconds, then asked Wang Pil — no, Wang Chunsam — once more.
"Are you quite sure you shouldn't be using an alias?"
Mak Daewoong came looking for me again the next day.
His mood looked a good deal lower than yesterday's.
Looks like somebody worked him over but good.
For one thing, he had ignored the Swordsmanship Club vice-president's orders and failed to bring me in besides — that alone would have earned him one dressing-down. The real objective behind it all, "teaching me a spicy lesson," had failed as well — another dressing-down there. And on top of it all, the Disciplinary Committee had marked him, leaving him no choice but to watch his step for the foreseeable future.
Every last bit of it self-inflicted.
I greeted Mak Daewoong with a face of pure, world-brightening innocence.
"Good day to you, Senior! Off to pay the price again today?"
Mak Daewoong's face writhed with fury. It had been fierce enough to pass for a mountain bandit's to begin with; now it turned fiercer still.
But he knew that letting his anger loose here would only dig his hole deeper, and he visibly choked it down.
"...Follow me."
Perhaps to shave every possible second off his time anywhere near me, Mak Daewoong walked fast. This time there was no detour to some out-of-the-way spot; we headed straight for the Swordsmanship Club Room.
Though can you really call this a club room?
If a club took up an entire floor, was it a club room, or a club floor? Club rooms were allocated by weighing a club's size against its record in the various events it entered. The Thief Club, for instance, was mid-tier on numbers alone, but it had kicked up so much trouble that the penalties had piled sky-high — only earlier this semester, they'd broken into the Temporary Confiscation Storage and gotten themselves caught. And so they had been assigned a cramped little room in some quiet corner, nothing like what their size deserved.
The Swordsmanship Club, by contrast, was in name and in fact the largest club in Dragon Slayer Academy, and it actively cultivated ties with the academy administration and every manner of student organization. The result was this: an entire floor to itself.
And not only that — everything the eye could see was cutting-edge and top of the line.
I followed Mak Daewoong, letting my gaze wander. Here, a circle of people seated close, deep in discussion. There, students laying swords out in a neat row and comparing them. In a chamber like a conference hall, a briefing on their next dungeon was already underway.
I was still sightseeing when Mak Daewoong stopped before a handsome wooden door. The vice-president's office.
But he did not knock at once. He squared up to me and spoke as though delivering a verdict.
"I don't know what you mean to pull on the vice-president, but you've landed on our bad side at the very least. You'd best brace yourself for what's coming."
"I can hardly wait. My life's been running short on spice lately."
When I answered with a bright smile, his face twitched one more time. But he spared me no further argument — he tore his gaze from me, raised a fist, and pounded on the door.
A low voice drifted out from within.
"Come in."
Stepping into the office, the first thing to catch my eye was a third-year girl with an air of intellectual beauty. The nameplate standing on the desk announced that her name was Jegal So-so, and that she was the Swordsmanship Club's vice-president.
She appeared to have been wrapping up her paperwork; she gathered the documents spread across the desk and squared them into a tidy stack. Only then did she lift her eyes to Mak Daewoong, who tipped his chin toward me.
"Brought him."
"Thank you for your trouble. Go on and get some rest."
With his dismissal delivered, Mak Daewoong wheeled around at once and marched out, the door booming shut behind him.
Jegal So-so contemplated the closed door with an unreadable smile, then turned her gaze to me. I bowed my head politely.
"Something came up. I'm sorry to be late."
"Not at all. It sounds as though you had quite the ordeal."
We had been meant to meet yesterday; Mak Daewoong's crowd's little stunt had cost us a day. And the "ordeal" Jegal So-so spoke of meant my clash with Jang Mu-geuk and Wang Chunsam. Thanks to it, both she and I had come out ahead — a win-win, all told.
"President Dang Gyu-young mentioned you'd prepared something for me. I'd love to hear it."
And so the negotiation with the Swordsmanship Club opened on a decidedly pleasant note.