A New Question
Chairman Kim Seong-oh was discussing the future purchase of TY Telecom shares with Chief Manager Ma Sang-ho when he reached inside his jacket.
Buzzz.
“Perfect timing. He’s sent me a text.”
“……”
Chief Ma could not begin to guess what message James had sent.
Please don’t be upset...
After checking the message, Chairman Kim held out his phone to Chief Ma.
“Heh. Hahaha. Read this.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
[Thank you for the allowance, Chairman. I’ll buy Suji and me lots of good food.]
He called the cash packed into five apple boxes “allowance.” That audacity rang a fresh warning bell in Ma Sang-ho’s head.
So cash really is nothing to him after all...
“How much was it again?”
“Two billion won per box. Ten billion won total.”
“He and Suji will get fat going on dates, won’t they? Heh.”
It was only a light joke from Chairman Kim, but Chief Ma did not hear it as a joke.
“I should probably get him a golf club membership near the capital area, at least.”
“He’ll need to learn early if he wants to mingle with the chaebol heads later. Take care of it, Chief Ma.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
* * *
James parked in the underground lot and came up to the living room with one apple box on his shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“I bought some fruit.”
The fake(?) apple boxes had already vanished into James’s inventory. This time, the box was real.
“Cut it nicely and bring it out.”
At Colt’s words, James gave a dumbfounded laugh and set the box down from his shoulder.
“Ah!”
Colt started to stop him, as if that wasn’t what he meant at all, but the box James had let go of opened on its own and apples sprang out. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the magic show began.
Whirr.
A plate that had been in the kitchen flew over, several apples burst out of the box, shed their red outer skins, and revealed their white flesh. Then they were split cleanly into eight pieces, laid neatly on the plate, and settled exactly on the table in front of Colt. It was all over in an instant.
Thud.
“Eat up.”
“Th-that’s not it... Hojung’s home.”
“What?”
Click.
Hojung had just finished showering and was coming out, shaking water from her wet hair.
“James oppa, you’re here?”
“...Yeah.”
Good thing she hadn’t seen him use magic. If she had come out while the apples were flying around, the spell would have been exposed.
“Colt, you should’ve told me in advance.”
“...Sorry.”
Hojung scolded her boyfriend, Colt, for apologizing, then turned on James.
“How long have I been coming here? What’s the big deal about not saying anything beforehand?”
She had a point, in her own way. Hojung and Suji coming and going from James’s home was perfectly natural. Still, that did not mean there was nothing to say back.
“You want me to see you naked again?”
“Ah... yeah, that would be a little much.”
“If I’d arrived thirty minutes earlier, that’s exactly what would’ve happened.”
Since that was a pretty accurate prediction, Hojung gave Colt a hard look.
“You should’ve called the homeowner first, Colt.”
“I thought it’d take a while. Besides, I said it was an important business meeting. If I’d called and interrupted it for no reason, that’d have been a disaster.”
“Hmm... fair enough.”
James saw no need to press Hojung further, so he changed the subject first.
“Come eat the apples. I picked the ripest ones.”
Hojung grinned and hurriedly took a seat.
“You said you were coming from a business meeting? Where?”
“Ah. Suji’s father.”
“...Oh. Then that wasn’t a business meeting, was it? It was a personal visit.”
“Haha. Was it?”
In any case, there was no need to reveal the details of the meeting, so he let it slide with a vague answer.
“Oh, and thank you again for telling me about that place last time. The director of the training hall really is a wonderful person.”
On the second day, Director Choi had copied all of the martial knowledge he had acquired to date and implanted it into James and Colt. They had been able to absorb his vast knowledge and grueling training in a single stroke. That was special knowledge no other place could offer.
“He really is. And he’s kept up remarkable training for a long time.”
“I’m glad you two liked it. Still, I just hope you don’t do anything dangerous in training from here on out.”
James and Colt exchanged a glance, then nodded.
“That’ll never happen.”
“Right. We’re past that stage already.”
Back when they had been little kids first starting sword training, they had swung their blades at each other while dreaming of powerful, dazzling sword techniques. It was a time when faster, deadlier methods seemed like the highest good. But after encountering Director Choi Sang-guk’s lofty skill and the martial arts he had refined over many years, things were different now.
“More than speed or force, the first thing is to train correctly.”
“And to train correctly, you have to discipline the mind first.”
As a result, their recent training was very different from the old days. Sitting still in meditation mattered more than hurling blades at each other.
“...Well, that’s a relief.”
As long as the two of them weren’t going to keep up dangerous training, Hojung was satisfied.
“Since we’re on the subject, why don’t we spar for old times’ sake? What do you say, Colt?”
“Sounds good. Bring it on, Jim!”
But somehow the conversation still ended with a match.
“Good grief. These men... Honestly, they’re like children. What happened to everything you just said?”
But James and Colt did not face each other with swords. They both walked out to the garden empty-handed.
“Huh?”
Confused, Hojung followed their steps with her eyes out the living room door and into the garden.
The two of them faced each other, took their stances, then lightly lifted a foot and tapped it toward the other as they began to move to a rhythm. It was pum-balgi, the foundation of Taekkyeon.
Watching them shift lightly left and right, forward and back, Hojung murmured, “...Taekkyeon?”
As their bodies flowed like silk, Colt’s sole suddenly shot upward like lightning.
“Ack.”
Whirrr.
James’s body bent backward like a bow, letting the strike pass by as he kept riding the rhythm as if nothing had happened.
Whirr.
This time it was James’s foot that rose against the sky. Colt flinched and neatly dodged it, but James’s foot was already dropping back down, aiming at him again.
Snap.
It was the instant James’s sole stuck to Colt’s face.
“!”
It was only a tiny contact, so light it looked almost harmless, but Colt nearly jumped out of his skin.
I have to deflect it!
But perhaps his judgment had been too slow, because he was knocked backward and rolled across the ground.
“!”
Right before Colt could divert James’s force, James had already predicted his movement and driven his power in another direction.
“Heh. Damn.”
“How do you like a face tap?”
Within their light movements were hidden all the subtleties and refined techniques of Taekkyeon. That was thanks to the knowledge they had copied from Director Choi, a true master of the art.
“Again! That was a mistake.”
“Bring it on anytime. This time you’d better be ready for a foot slap.”
James used the threat of a foot slap to make Colt guard his upper body, then took his balance out from under him with a hooked sweep at the ankle.
“Gah!”
“That’s two wins?”
“Again! Again!”
Only now did the two of them really look like they were sparring, and Hojung finally breathed easier.
“Looks like I don’t have to worry anymore.”
But the problem was that the sparring had only just begun. It was growing rougher by the second.
Whirr. Snap!
James and Colt kicked at the same time and met in the middle.
Crack.
It was clearly the sound of shin bones, flesh, and all, colliding head-on, yet it rang out like a pair of thick wooden clubs smashing together.
“!”
Watching them, Hojung jolted her shoulders in surprise. Still, she couldn’t decide whether to tell them to stop or to keep watching, and ended up doing neither.
...That’s amazing.
The way the two of them moved together revived the same feeling she had gotten when she had once watched them spar with swords.
When did they learn Taekkyeon that well...?
Their bodies flowed like water, then flashed into kicks aimed at each other before shifting back into a dancing rhythm. It would not have been an exaggeration to call it a form of performance art.
“...It’d be a shame to keep this to myself.”
Hojung quickly pulled out her phone and aimed it just as the two of them leaped high into the air and rushed at each other.
Click.
The photo captured the wild physicality of two men grappling against the backdrop of a setting sun. The scene was all there.
“Ooooh!”
Hojung began filming without noticing time pass at all.
Click! Click!
In the split second when sweat sprayed from their hair and the sharp edge of an attack was about to land, those spectacular moments were being saved to her phone. The elegant techniques of Taekkyeon were unfolding completely now, coming out of the two of them so fully that even calling them experts would hardly do them justice.
“...They’re too cool. This is a masterpiece. A real masterpiece.”
* * *
After sending Hojung home, the house was left with only the two men inside, and silence filled it.
“......”
“......”
That was because the two of them were seated cross-legged in the spacious living room, deep in meditation.
At the same moment, they opened their eyes wide.
“I didn’t know there was a way in the East to master a force similar to the knight’s fierce mana.”
From Director Choi’s memories, they had found a distinct mana training method that resembled the training of Knight’s Mana. James found this astonishing as well.
“Same here.”
Today’s Taekkyeon training had gone beyond simply controlling mana; it had also included techniques for directly using it in striking. That was the sound Taekkyeon practitioners made with their voices. In the syllable “ik,” they condensed breath and mana together and released them in the strike, and with the “keu” sound, they exhaled and let that gathered breath disperse. The Taekkyeon James and Colt had learned through Director Choi was now being recognized as one of the noble martial arts that required not only muscle power, but also the continuous use of intangible force.
“But unless you train to a certain level, you won’t be able to use it anywhere else. In Colt’s case, it only went that fast because I was there.”
As James had said, the reason they could use mana in Taekkyeon like this was that both of them had reached the level where they could gather and wield enough mana. That was why Director Choi, despite having trained in Taekkyeon for so long, had not been able to make use of that intangible force himself.
“...You don’t have to say it. I know it was because of you.”
But Colt still had questions.
“Still, what’s different?”
“If you’re curious, ask properly. What exactly is different from what?”
“I mean the fierce mana of Knight’s Mana that I’ve learned, and the mage’s mana you use.”
“Well...”
Only after hearing Colt’s question did James realize he had never really thought deeply about this point.
“Why does the knight’s mana whirl so fast and fiercely through the body, while the mage’s mana is slower?”
“Uh... first of all, mage’s mana isn’t slow either. It only looks that way to you because I use it in a still way.”
The mana James used for magic was extremely stable, so compared with the knight’s fierce mana, it could appear slower. But that was because he had no reason to use magic quickly; it did not mean the mana itself was slow.
“But the effects are just too different. Knight’s Mana strengthens the body, but mage’s mana seems to have much less of that effect.”
“Yeah... why is that?”
It was the moment a new question rose up before the magician. James began to think about the difference between the mana operation method he had learned and used, and the mana operation method of knights.
“Even the way mana is named is different in Director Choi’s memories. They call mana by the name qi, don’t they? I’m right, aren’t I?”
“...Ah. Right. Qi can also be considered a kind of mana.”
James added the essence of the knight’s fierce mana and the fundamental power of qi to the question before him. He had to examine the same force under different names.
The knight’s fierce mana whirls through the body quickly, and qi does the same. Both strengthen the body and drive it beyond its natural limits.
But the mana used by mages acted on the outside, not on the body.
Why? Why doesn’t mage’s mana act on the body?