The Illustrated Manual of Martial Arts
Ho-jung was the daughter of a chaebol family, just like Su-ji, but she had been granted a remarkable amount of freedom. Su-ji found herself deeply envious of that.
"I wish my parents would treat me like I was already disowned."
"Heh. Our family is a little unusual, I guess. My dad just doesn't have the personality you'd expect from a chaebol."
Ho-jung's home was nothing like the inflexible households most chaebol families ran. If anything, it felt not so different from an ordinary middle-class home. Of course, that might only have been how it seemed to Ho-jung.
"Did your father really say you could bring home any man you want?"
"Yep. He told me to bring back a guy who can actually handle me."
"Heh."
The reason was Ho-jung herself.
She had been a handful since she was young, and after becoming an adult she had gone through men almost daily. For that same reason, her parents worried over whether she would ever marry at all, and whether she would stay married if she did. They were even prepared to approve of any man so long as he had all his limbs and a stubborn enough temperament.
"This isn't even funny... Haaah."
Compared to Ho-jung, Su-ji had always obeyed her parents and carried herself carefully as a member of a chaebol family. The one real break she had taken from that path was meeting James during her studies abroad, and even then it had started as nothing more than a small rebellion.
"James oppa already made a lot of money, so..."
"Just James oppa? I heard Colt made quite a bit this time too. Does having money change anything?"
"Right... money doesn't matter. Not unless it's enough to help Chairman's company. Still, I think he has several hundred billion won."
"Only several hundred billion?"
"......"
"You should at least look for a family with a market cap of over ten trillion won."
"......"
Even after Ho-jung brought up ten trillion won in market cap, Su-ji had no answer. Her own family owned a company worth far more than that.
"Haaah."
"Once you graduate, things will be different."
"...Right. They said my freedom only lasts until college."
Su-ji had been allowed her freedom only until the moment she graduated from university, and thanks to that she had been able to keep dating James.
"There's not much time left now."
She had delayed graduation and even studied abroad, but now she truly was on the verge of finishing school. Waiting for her after graduation were countless husband candidates chosen for an arranged marriage.
Should I run away with oppa?
Ho-jung seemed to read the thought Su-ji had kept buried in her heart.
"If you and James run off overseas together, Chairman will throw the entire secretary's office at you. Don't even dream about it."
"...Don't act like you can read minds."
"Huh? Wait, you were seriously thinking about running?"
"I just... thought maybe it would be nice."
At Su-ji's answer, Ho-jung shook her head firmly.
"Don't be absurd. You'll get a lot of people killed if you try that."
"It doesn't even seem like James oppa has any intention of marrying me to begin with."
"So you're upset? Picking at a fruit you can't eat?"
"I'm just saying how I feel."
"Settle it before it gets deeper. You'll end up causing trouble like this."
"...I don't know. I don't know what I should do."
"Tch. You soft thing. That's what happens when you give your whole heart away."
"That's rich coming from you. Weren't you the one who got drunk and cried to Colt's uncle...?"
"Hey now! Why would you bring that up?"
The two of them bickered the whole way in the taxi, and soon enough they arrived in a neighborhood lined with luxury homes.
"Go on in."
"Okay. You be careful too."
After saying goodbye to Ho-jung, Su-ji walked through a gate that looked even larger than James's house.
Click.
"I'm home."
The person who greeted her was not her parents.
"Young lady. You're back."
"Yes."
"Did you have dinner?"
"I ate something light."
The woman who called her "young lady" was one of the live-in staff members at her home. There were other employees in the house besides her.
"Where are Chairman and Madam?"
"Didn't they go to Europe together for Fashion Week today?"
"Ah. Right."
Only then did Su-ji remember that the two of them had gone to see the Milan fashion week.
"They said it would take at least a few weeks..."
"I forgot."
"You've been looking for a place to stay near the university lately... I guess it's not going well?"
"There's no way to get anything with that kind of money."
"Well... asking you to find a place with only a few tens of millions of won was basically the same as telling you not to find one."
Su-ji wasn't unable to find a place because she was truly short on money. It was simply that her family had only allowed her that much, because she had asked to live outside the house for a while and experience the sort of environment ordinary people lived in. But the amount her father had approved was far too small.
......
She had even considered staying at James's place, but when she thought of her uncertain future, it felt unfair to do that to him.
If Chairman finds out, then...
That would be the end of their relationship that same day.
"I'm going up."
"You've been drinking, haven't you? Should I make you some honey water?"
"No. I didn't drink much, so I'm fine. Go rest."
"Yes, young lady."
Su-ji went up to her room and threw herself onto the bed.
......
For some reason, her situation felt even more hopeless tonight.
"Haaah."
A deep sigh escaped her on its own, but no matter how she thought about it, she couldn't see a way out.
James.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
James and Colt were left alone in the house after their girlfriends had gone, and they were sitting together with drinks in hand.
"I thought Ho-jung would be shocked by the house, but she didn't seem to care all that much. Is it because it's not mine?"
"I don't think it's because it isn't Colt's house. Su-ji was the same way. You'd think they'd make a bigger fuss about it."
To James and Colt, their newly secured house felt incredible, so they had assumed Ho-jung and Su-ji would react the same way. But both women had accepted the enormous place as though it were perfectly normal.
"Maybe everyone in Korea lives in houses like this?"
"No, that can't be..."
Then James remembered what the real estate agent had said.
Only chaebol chairmen or people like that would live in homes like this, and places like this don't even come onto the market.
"I did hear that corporate owners in Korea live in houses like this."
"Then does that mean business owners live in homes like this... and Ho-jung does too?"
"So you're saying Su-ji lives in a place like this too? Come on, JimJim. Be reasonable."
"JimJim. You never know."
"As if... When we were looking into this house, we checked out residential property in Seoul too. There were hardly any homes that big and expensive. Most of them were under six million dollars, at best."
"Well, Seoul is a little cramped. It didn't look like there was even room to build houses."
Seoul was a city packed with buildings, and the open space had been swallowed by apartment complexes. There were residential districts, of course, but most of them looked like back-alley slums. That was the Seoul the two Americans had seen and experienced.
"Still, I'm glad the two of them weren't awkward with us."
"Same here. It's not like it's my house anyway."
Colt didn't dwell on the matter since it wasn't his place, and James had no interest in bragging about the house, so the real estate agent's words were simply brushed aside.
"Oh. JimJim. What happened with finding another sword style?"
"Swordsmanship isn't something you can learn easily. Even in films and novels, the master-level teacher always teaches swordsmanship to a talented disciple. I think my master only allowed me magic and nothing beyond that. So maybe he never intended to leave swordsmanship behind for me at all."
"We're just repeating basic sword drills every time, and it feels like my body is rusting. Did you actually look?"
"I searched separately, but it wasn't much different from what we already know."
There were the teachings of Jhonhau, swordsmanship from five hundred years ago, and earlier masters such as Johannes Liechtenauer. There was also everything about binding and winding through feeling the blade, or rather feeling the sword attached to the sword. And then there were names like Pflug, Ochs, Fucht, Alber, Jhonhau, Scheitelhau, Zwerchhau, and Schielhau. Only the names of the techniques were different; most of it was already known to Colt and James. Since they already knew the forms, all that remained was to keep training until the motions settled into their bodies.
"...Haa. Isn't there any other way?"
"That's why I asked Su-ji to look into it earlier. She said she'd bring me anything if she found useful material."
"Should we just go around and check out kendo dojos nearby?"
"Kendo dojos?"
At the word dojo, James pulled a bamboo sword from his inventory. It had come with the sword collection he had gathered from a weapons market in the United States.
"I heard they keep practicing with things like this in kendo dojos. Here, take it."
"Oh. This should be fun."
Colt took hold of the grip James handed over and quickly went gloomy.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
"...It'll break after a few swings."
What disappointed Colt most was not the sword's flimsy construction but how light it was. Compared with the bastard sword he had swung until now, it felt lighter than a pair of wooden chopsticks.
"What exactly are you supposed to learn with this?"
"I heard the sword styles taught in kendo dojos mostly use East Asian swords or daos."
"...Those thin, light swords?"
"That's right. That's why the bamboo sword used for practice is so light."
"Throw this away. It's useless."
"Then why don't you go to a kendo dojo?"
"No way!"
If they learned from an actual kendo dojo, they might be able to raise their sword skills to a fairly high level, but they simply didn't have enough information.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
James and Colt were training in the garden as usual, learning the sword techniques from books while tracing out simple sword forms, when the doorbell rang from outside.
Ding-dong.
"Were we expecting someone?"
"Hoo. No. Who is it?"
Still, since it was his house, James walked toward the door that led outside.
"Who's there?"
But there was no answer from outside.
Click.
When James opened the door and looked outside, he could see a freight truck just pulling away.
"...Huh?"
And on the doorstep sat a brown cardboard box.
"A delivery?"
James hadn't ordered anything to be sent.
"What does it say?"
So he didn't even touch the parcel, only tried to read the writing on the outside.
"...Sender. Kim Su-ji?"
It was a package from Su-ji.
Still, it's best to verify everything.
Because of Park Jin-tae's warning, everything felt suspicious.
"Yeah, oppa."
Su-ji picked up almost immediately.
"There was a package at the house, so I called."
"Ah. That's the book you were looking for before, oppa."
"I was? When did I ever ask for a book...?"
"Didn't you say you needed information related to swordsmanship? I looked it up, thought it might be good, and bought it right away to send to you."
"Ah. That?"
James had believed that, thanks to his master, he had learned swordsmanship from books. Of course other texts also preserved sword forms, but they hadn't seemed very different from one another.
A book... I don't have high hopes.
That made the swordsmanship book Su-ji had sent feel rather unimportant too.
"Thanks. I'll read it carefully."
"It'll probably be hard for you, so I sent an annotated version instead of the original. Take your time reading it. I'm busy, so I'll call you later."
"Okay."
Only after confirming that it was the parcel Su-ji had sent did James pick up the cardboard box and carry it back to the garden where they had been training.
"Who was it?"
"A delivery."
"A delivery?"
"Su-ji said she sent a swordsmanship book."
Colt stared at the book with a look of disbelief and said, "...
...Did you get scammed?"
"Probably?"
Even then, James thought the same thing as Colt.
Riiip.
He tore the box open roughly, then read the title printed in Korean on the book cover.
"Muyedobotongji Juhae... what in the world does that mean?"
James read the baffling title and let his mind drift back to a memory from childhood. It was the moment he had first come across his master's book in an antique shop. Back then, he hadn't been able to read a single character at all, but now at least he could make out some of it, and that alone made a difference.
Compared to back then...
At least now he could read it as it was, so it wasn't a completely hopeless situation. Still, the title alone already carried a sense of difficulty.
"Mu... What?"
And if he thought about Colt, who didn't know Korean at all, the burden of deciphering this book would fall entirely on him.
"Hold on. Let me read the beginning first and see what this is."
James stood in the garden and flipped through the pages.
Flap. Flap.
As he turned the pages quickly, his hands gradually began to slow.
...She bought a swordsmanship book like this off the shelf?