Colt's Wish
"Ah. The meeting ran a little long. Sorry."
"Let's hurry. If we leave now, we might just make it on time."
"Okay. Let's head to the parking lot."
James and Colt hurried toward the parking lot, but Colt suddenly came to a stop.
"Hold on!"
"Did you leave something behind?"
"Shouldn't we bring our swords?"
"Uh…"
Today, James and Colt were on their way to a traditional martial arts training hall they had learned about through Ho-jung. It was their first time visiting, but they planned to train there regularly from now on.
"What kind of soldier goes off to war without a gun?"
Colt was adamant that they had to bring their swords.
"We don't even have permits to carry swords…"
"Then we can't bring them?"
For the two of them to train properly, the heavy greatswords they normally used were essential, but no matter how James looked at it, hauling around a knight's greatsword didn't seem quite right. Still, there was no chance of getting stopped in some random police check.
"Fine. We'll take them for now."
"Okay!"
They grabbed the heavy swords they usually used for sparring.
James drove the large SUV he and Su-ji had ordered together toward the training hall. Every time Colt rode in James's new car, he repeated the same complaint.
"You should've ordered mine at the same time you bought yours."
When Colt heard that James had ordered a car with Su-ji, he had rushed out to place his own order too, but it still hadn't arrived. For the same reason, every time he looked at James's gleaming car, he would let out the same envious grumble.
"Who told you to sit at home doing nothing? It's not like Colt can't speak Korean. You could've just gone and ordered one yourself…"
"Who said I was doing nothing? Do you think I just sat around at home?"
Lately, Colt had been cutting back on even his dates with Ho-jung, saying he was learning swordsmanship.
"Anyway, it's not my fault!"
"Tch."
But Colt's complaints didn't stop with James ordering his car first.
"And why did you buy one for Su-ji too?"
"I bought it because I wanted to. What, got a problem with that?"
"Because Su-ji kept bragging about getting a car as a present, Ho-jung started demanding I buy her one too."
"Heh."
There was no need for an explanation there.
"I've only got twenty billion won in my account—do you and I look the same to you?"
Though he said that, Colt had also ordered a car as a couple's gift with Ho-jung. It wasn't in the same price range as James's, but it was still expensive enough to make Colt feel the pinch.
"Just wait. Once I find a good investment, I'll share it with you."
"You serious?"
James had recently been searching for companies to invest in through the people he'd met in the Las Vegas VIP Club and through Chairman Kim Seong-oh, Su-ji's father, and from them he had already found several highly reliable opportunities.
"And even if something goes wrong, I'll handle it. Don't worry about it, old man."
James was not the sort of man who needed to imagine failing an investment.
"Heehee. Then can I expect a few hundred percent returns again this time?"
"Don't go dreaming impossible dreams."
Colt was thinking of the profits he'd made from shorting TY Telecom, but this time they were making a normal investment.
"Why not?"
"These are stocks tied to batteries and rare earths, so no matter how well they do, it'll be hard to break 100 percent. Best-case scenario, maybe thirty percent?"
Thirty percent was already an enormous return, of course, but Colt only clicked his tongue.
"Tch. I thought I might become a hidden jackpot investor too…"
"Puhaha. There can't be more than one investor like me."
James laughed, thinking Colt was envying him, but the person Colt was really jealous of wasn't James.
"You kept going on and on about investments without actually saying much, so I dug around and found something interesting. There's a guy called Mister M."
"Mister M? Who's that?"
The Mister M Colt was talking about was actually a figure whose gender had never even been confirmed. So many people simply called him M that the name Mister M had stuck.
"A person living in Australia?"
"That's all you've got?"
Australia was said to be his base, though even that was uncertain. He was a mysterious figure shrouded in secrecy. Just as Warren Buffett was the name most associated with value investing, Mister M was known as the king of risk investment.
"He's the kind of person every investor in the world dreams of."
"Oh? Anyway. Why him?"
At James's question, Colt began summarizing the rumors that had circulated about Mister M.
"They say Mister M started investing about thirty years ago. That was the beginning of the legend."
"A legend?"
What followed was a success story so outrageous it sounded made up. Every investment he touched returned at least ten times over, and he always got out just before the bubble burst. Nobody could believe Mister M's returns. Yet he had never shown his face to anyone, and even now nobody knew what he looked like. By keeping his true self hidden behind a curtain, he had remained a mystery to the public all these years.
"After swallowing up stock markets all over the world from behind the scenes, Mister M entered the crypto market at just the right moment. Back then it was a coin nobody was paying attention to, but now…"
"Didn't crypto crash?"
"What if he sold before the crash? What if he bought at the absolute bottom and sold at the top?"
At one point, crypto had risen tens of thousands of times over its original price. Back then, even a ten-thousand-won investment could have turned into a hundred million won, and Mister M, who was obviously no small fish, must have invested tens of billions at the very least.
"…That would've been a real jackpot."
"There are even quite a few Australian corporations suspected of belonging to Mister M showing up in the shareholding structures of major American companies. According to investors, his assets are said to far exceed even Middle Eastern oil money."
Middle Eastern oil money already held a huge place in the global economy, and some of the assets managed by those groups alone ran into the hundreds of trillions of won. Yet Mister M's wealth supposedly surpassed even that.
"Holy crap. Just how much money does he have…"
"Lately, there's even growing suspicion that Mister M isn't one person at all, but some kind of private fund made up of several investors. And that Middle Eastern oil money is part of it."
"Ooh."
James also thought it was a plausible theory.
"That would explain why he never showed himself to the outside world. They'd already be people known to the outside."
"If it were them, they could spend a fortune without raising suspicion."
"Exactly. If you've made that much money, you can't exactly sit on it forever."
Colt's own situation was proof enough. He had received an auction payout worth around twenty billion won, and he was already spending hundreds of millions on a car. Anyone with assets in the hundreds of trillions would surely spend even more than he did.
"So Colt wanted to become like Mister M?"
"Isn't it better to dream big?"
"Pfft. And you're out here hunting for investments with someone else's intel…"
"Everyone has to start somewhere."
"If dreams are better when they're bigger, then fine. Heh-heh-heh. Let's become Mister Colt and Mister James."
"Hahaha. That's exactly what I'm aiming for."
Colt's chest swelled with hope.
Later, I'll point you toward even better investments, Colt.
James was planning to bring Colt into the scheme to swallow up TY Group whole.
With enormous swords strapped to their hips, James and Colt stood in front of a small building, hesitating.
"This is where we're supposed to learn?"
"…Maybe?"
Having left Seoul and made it all the way to Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, the two of them had arrived in front of a three-story building, but neither of them could quite bring themselves to step inside. The place looked far too shabby, and that made it hard to believe they could possibly learn anything there.
"Colt. Let's go in first and decide after we see it. It's too early to judge by the outside."
"Still, there is a picture from Muyedobotongji hanging there."
On the second-floor window was a faded sticker illustration, bleached dull by years of sunlight. It was the same picture the two of them had seen countless times in the book.
"Let's go."
"Yeah. Fine."
The two of them climbed the stairs of the building, which didn't even have an elevator, and opened the door carefully.
"Hello?"
"Is nobody here?"
When the two of them stepped inside and called out, someone from deeper within the building came out to meet them.
"Welcome. You're the people who called earlier, right?"
"Yes. This is Colt Evans, and I'm James Kane."
"Both of you are Americans, I see…"
That was because James spoke Korean so fluently despite being American. On top of that, James looked so unmistakably Korean that it only made the impression stronger.
"Yes. He speaks Korean well too, so don't worry about it."
James nudged Colt, who was still looking around inside.
"Ah. Hello. I'm Colt Evans, sir."
"Then there's no need to worry about a language barrier. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Director Choi Sang-guk."
Director Choi led them inside and served them fresh green tea.
"There aren't many people in Korea interested in traditional martial arts, so I didn't expect foreigners to take an interest."
"A friend gave us a copy of Muyedobotongji, and the two of us have been learning from it ever since. That's how we ended up here."
"Ah, I see. It isn't easy to learn from a book alone. You can end up picking up bad habits if you're not careful."
James completely agreed with him. Even though he and Colt had been reading and practicing together, sharing what they learned with each other, there were many times when James still felt lost just staring at the book.
Once they stepped into the inner room and looked over Director Choi's résumé and photographs, James was able to tell at a glance.
This man was the real thing.
He was a man who had trained specifically in the martial arts recorded in Muyedobotongji, and his background in the field was impressive.
Most of all, the clear, transparent green of his mana proved that he was someone worth trusting.
"Do you hold the training sessions here?"
"Ah. Is the space a little cramped?"
At the word cramped, Colt reacted immediately.
"…A little?"
"Hahaha. Actually, this place is used mostly by children. It's mainly for body-based training like punching forms and taekkyeon. Of course, we also teach swordsmanship, archery, and polearm work, but adult training usually takes place outdoors."
James was more interested in whether the training they wanted was actually available here.
"Oh. Then what kinds of training can we learn?"
"There's movement and footwork, hand techniques and kicking techniques, swordsmanship and spear work, traditional archery, and even mounted martial arts. What gets taught depends on the day of the week. To go into more detail…"
From the explanation, James was able to confirm that this place covered every martial art listed in Muyedobotongji.
"Colt. This is pretty good."
"Hmm."
But Colt still looked doubtful.
"What's the problem?"
"The sword hanging outside… it's too small."
"Ah…"
The sword hanging in the training hall looked light compared to the two-handed swords and bastard swords they used. James grinned and made a request to Director Choi.
"Director."
"Yes. Go ahead."
"Could you show Colt a quick demonstration? I already feel like training here, but this friend of mine still hasn't made up his mind."
"Haha. A quick demonstration? That's no trouble at all."
After James and Colt came back out from the inner room, they watched Director Choi Sang-guk closely.
Honestly, he doesn't look all that impressive…
Colt was looking down on Director Choi a little, but that impression lasted only until Director Choi took hold of his sword.
!
The atmosphere changed the instant his hand closed around the blade.
W-what…?
It was the opening stance of the swordsmanship they had been learning all along, so they recognized it at once. But the posture of a true expert was completely different.
Shhhk.
The demonstration began with the draw itself.
Whoosh.
What followed was a simple downward strike, one of the basic sword forms, but it was clean and precise, without a single wasted motion.
Step.
The next step, and the smooth flow of the blade that followed it, captured both of their eyes completely. The sword arced sideways, then swept down from above, flowing endlessly in time with his footwork. It was as though his body and his sword had become one, the demonstration unfolding in a seamless stream of motion.
…
…
With a short tap, Director Choi finished the demonstration and set the sword down.