The Dark-Robed Zen Master (1)
"Huu." It was cold. Without enough inner energy to ward off the chill, even the cold had become an enemy. Climbing the mountain in nothing but a single thin layer of clothing was pure torment. The biting winter wind swept across my bare skin once more, but I forced myself to endure with self-suggestion. This is just an extension of training... It has meaning... No. Training, my ass! This was completely pointless. At this rate, I wouldn't be going anywhere cold anyway, so adapting was useless. Later, I'd just circulate my inner energy, so it was useless.
"My fate really is... Maybe I should just fill the carrying frame a couple of times and be done with it."
The reason I'd climbed the mountain was simple. Like any ordinary household, the house needed to stay warm in winter. That meant building a fire with firewood. We were short on firewood, so here I was. At least I wasn't empty-handed.
"Ah, this heavy, cool sensation." An axe. The tool for chopping firewood rested in my grip. Though it wasn't shaped like a sword and I'd never trained with axes, it felt far more familiar and satisfying than a wooden sword. Sword techniques could be adapted into axe forms if needed, but weapons like axes required solid iron, making them hard to come by.
"Is this how you swing it?" I gave it a light test swing. The motion felt much lower than with a wooden sword. Still, it seemed more than enough to fell a tree. With one wide horizontal swing, the tree in front of me was struck and sent flying with a thud. That wasn't a metaphor—the tree, roots and all, had been ripped from the ground and hurled far away.
After several more swings, I moved toward one of the larger fallen trunks. If I split these properly, I could finish the errand in no time.
"...No. This one's no good." It looked decent enough from the outside, but the wood inside the bark was completely ruined. Useless as firewood. I loved nature as much as the next person, but this was beyond saving. With no choice, I raised the axe to cut fresh wood myself.
Just as I was about to start splitting the logs one by one, someone approached and began gathering the scattered firewood for me.
"Ah, thank you." Startled by the sudden help from a passerby, I offered a polite bow and raised my head to express my gratitude. "Thank... you?" The words caught in my throat.
The person who had just helped me wore a dark-colored robe. The hand extended toward me was familiar, and that unmistakable presence was anything but strange.
"Ah..." For a moment, I lost the ability to speak. Standing before me was my master—the one I'd longed to see again yet had deliberately avoided.
. . .
I had no father. My biological father had irresponsibly abandoned my mother and fled. He wasn't even human. When I grew older, I looked into it through the Hao Clan and learned he'd been dragged off to the authorities and died there. That was how I'd been raised by my mother alone. Ten years that could turn the world upside down. Even though I'd received all the love my mother could give, the absence of a father had left a void I'd never spoken of to anyone.
Then another person had entered my life and become my support. My master, who called himself the Lord of the Pacheon Sword Gate. If my mother was the sea that embraced everything, my master was the great mountain I could lean on.
Without realizing it, I came to see you as a father. That was why I was afraid. Afraid that in this life, too, you would die. Afraid that even if you didn't die, I would never see you again.
. . .
Calm down, Jin Sowoon.
"It's nothing remarkable," he said.
Keep your eyes open and look carefully. That man doesn't even know the name Jin Sowoon. He wasn't the type to speak like that in the first place.
"Yes. If there's anything truly remarkable in this world, it would be something like that."
My master gazed at the ruined tree and let out a pure sound of admiration. Right. He wasn't the kind of person who reacted that way. He had been detached, offering nothing but a faint smile in response to anything. That was who he was.
Now I could see it clearly. He was someone with no connection to me whatsoever.
"You look about ten years old, yet you're already nearing first-class. You'll reach it soon."
"Still..." The thought slipped out before I could stop it, but our voices overlapped, so he probably hadn't heard. Relief washed over me. Still, aren't you my master? If there was no connection, then I could just create one.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. It was nothing."
When I denied it, he suddenly bent his knees to match my eye level. His gaze met mine steadily. As an indescribable emotion surged within me, he spoke in a gentle voice.
"There's worry in your young eyes."
I tried to deny it, but gave up. He had always been frighteningly good at catching lies. I answered with a half-hearted admission.
"...How did you know, sir?"
He brought a hand to his lips as if pondering for a moment, then burst into hearty laughter.
"Well, at my age, these things just become visible after a while. I couldn't tell you the details."
Then his smile faded, and his voice took on a faintly bitter tone.
"You probably can't tell an old man you've only just met today."
"...Unfortunately, that's true." How could I tell you that you were my master and I watched you die in front of me, murdered in revenge?
He smiled as if it were only natural.
"For someone so young, you speak like a sixty-year-old murim elder."
Even counting both lives, I was barely in my thirties. Sixty was pushing it. At the same time, I worried that my manner of speech was too different from other children and might make others uncomfortable. Feeling awkward, I said, "...If it makes you uncomfortable, I'll try to change."
Damn it. What was different about it?
"It sounds like you're saying you'll adjust to me."
"No...!" Adjust to me? How could I possibly do that? As I frantically tried to deny it, he spoke as if it didn't matter at all.
"It's fine. The world is vast, and there are countless people in it. Among them are adults who don't act their age, and children like you who matured early. At the very least, you're better than those adults."
He clicked his tongue a couple of times as if displeased, then gave me a thumbs-up in praise.
"Those people live just fine, so why should you have to hide? What I meant was that you've felt and learned more about the world than others. I hope you didn't take it the wrong way."
In short, he was saying that even though I was young, I knew a lot. That I was clever. Had my mind regressed along with my body? A single compliment really did lift my mood. I'd have to double my training today in celebration.
"Child, what's your name?"
As if suddenly remembering—though it probably was sudden—he asked for my name. He'd done the same in my previous life, too. What had I answered back then?
—...Jin Sowoon.
"Jin Sowoon."
So from "revive," and un from "rhyme." The characters literally meant "a fate that revives." Mother had said she'd named me that so I would rise again no matter what hardships I faced. Thinking about it now, the power of a name really was something. After all, I had actually come back to life.
"Sowoon. A good name."
"I think so too." Mother had chosen it well.
Names. Come to think of it, my master had asked for my name but had never told me his own. In my past life, even though his adorable disciple had asked every single day, he never answered. In the end, I'd given up and just called him "Master." Would he tell me this time if I asked?
"What is your name, sir?"
"A name... I've had many names."
Just tell me one of them. How stingy.
"Call me Jeon No. It's the name I like best."
"Jeon No... I'll remember it."
Jeon No... An elder with the surname Jeon. So my master had been from the Jeon clan. A fact I'd never been able to uncover no matter how hard I tried in my previous life, and now I'd learned it so easily. Feeling strangely unsettled, I roughly rubbed my face with my palm. My shoulder shifted with the motion, and the firewood in the carrying frame tumbled to the ground.
Ah. Damn it. I had no sense of the atmosphere at all.
Jeon No looked at the fallen wood and spoke as if he'd just realized something.
"Oh dear, it seems I've kept a busy person too long. It must have been heavy. I got too excited meeting someone after so long."
To a first-class martial artist, this much weight was nothing. But still...
"...I feel the same."
Right. Now that I thought about it, it was time to head down before Mother started worrying. With a reluctant farewell, I began picking up the scattered logs.
"Come to think of it, where do you live, Jeon No? You don't seem like someone I've seen in the village."
Why had I asked? I already knew the answer. This was bait, to promise a next meeting.
"Haha." Jeon No laughed and pointed a finger toward the mountain peak. "I built a house a little below the summit and live there. It's beyond this area, so you probably haven't been."
So it was that old house from my memories. I'd have to find time to go repair it, under the guise of training.
"Feel free to visit whenever you think of me."
What should I say? I definitely will?If I remember, I will? I pondered deeply, worried the reply was taking too long, and finally answered in a small voice.
"...I'll come visit someday. Please stay well until then."
"Yes. I should stay well. Let's meet again."
With the carrying frame full of firewood on my back, I descended the mountain. When I turned around once more, the dark-robed Jeon No had already vanished, as if he'd never been there.