The Child of Behemoth
Klang! Klang!
As the old joke goes, knock on the head of a man so dim it's completely hollow and you'll hear the ring of a hammer at the forge. That clang-clang sound.
Now, what if it were no metaphor at all — what if that sound really rang out from a human head?
Kaaang—
What's more, it wasn't some iron cudgel that had swung down, but a sword wreathed in sword aura. Jinmu could not contain his horror at the sound pealing from his opponent's skull.
"Hahh....."
Of course, he too had heard the rumors people loved to pass around.
"They say the Sword Saint's disciple has the Indestructible Diamond Body?"
"Wasn't that just idle gossip?"
"At least in the duels I watched, she took blades head-on with her bare body and came away without a single scratch, but still..."
Jinmu, however, had never truly believed any of it. The Indestructible Diamond Body was, after all, the stuff of legends. How could human flesh and bone possibly meet a blade and come away unharmed? Most likely those ignoramuses had mistaken it for protective sword aura of some kind. And even granting such a realm existed — a height said to be reached only by those who had glimpsed the very end of the external arts — how could a woman barely his own age lay claim to it?
Those doubts only hardened once he stepped onto the stage and saw Haemu with his own eyes.
"Hi there?"
Beaming as she offered her greeting, she looked no different from any other girl her age, and her features — untouched, it seemed, by a single day of hardship — had his tension loosening before he knew it...
'No... that one had looked no different from any ordinary rich young master on the outside, either. No room for needless carelessness.' So he chided himself inwardly and steeled his heart.
"Are you both ready?"
"Yes!"
"I am ready."
"Then... begin!!!"
Thanks to yesterday's affair, on the reasoning that even a judge of the Transcendent Realm could never cope should anything go wrong in a duel between Transcendent Realm fighters, the Sword Queen had taken her place upon the stage herself — and with the flutter of her sleeve, the word fell, and Jinmu's sword shot straight out.
Whiiish—
The edge split the air as it dropped toward Haemu's head. His descending cut, robes flaring, fell with flawless, noble grace — yet the girl facing him showed not the faintest flicker of intent to block. With the Sword Queen herself judging, and the Sword Saint below the stage watching his disciple with a fond smile at that, Jinmu swung the blade to its very end without hesitation.
And so, when the sword finally touched her head—
Kaaang—
"No... what the—?"
Along with a sound like hammering a lump of pig iron, there was Haemu — looking utterly, perfectly fine — gazing up at him with a smile.
"Ooh... it tingles."
The height difference left her looking up at him as she spoke, and he nearly lost his composure at the sight — but he reclaimed his sword and flung himself backward in haste, thinking—
'Protective sword aura? No, that's impossible...'
What had just happened made no sense within the bounds of his common sense, but at the girl smiling up at him so sweetly, Jinmu swung his sword once more.
A secret art of Wudang, taught only to its senior disciple — or to the one designated as the next — now unfolding in his hands.
This time, with sword aura coiled about the blade.
The appearance of yet another late-stage master who had reached the Transcendent Realm sent the crowd into raptures—
"Woooaaahhh!!!"
As the sword aura — said to shear through even ten-thousand-year cold iron — dropped once more toward Haemu's head—
Kaaang—
A clear, pristine bell-tone rang out across Shaolin.
Before the duels had begun, one of Shaolin's disciples had stepped up onto the platform and spoken:
"It seems some of you are laboring under a misunderstanding, so allow me to clarify. Yesterday, believing the young hero Mad Blood Ghost had been gravely wounded in his duel, we judged that no further matches would be possible; however—"
The baldy shot a sidelong glance my way.
'Ah, for fuck's sake.....'
When I glared at him and cursed him with my eyes, he turned his head back and continued.
"It seems his body has recovered a good deal over the night and he appears quite well, so his duel with Tanhyeon will proceed today."
At that, the crowd began to murmur.
"So they're withdrawing the disqualification, then?"
"That's how it sounds to me, anyway..."
We and the ruffians around us showed much the same reaction—
"Young Master, that's wonderful news. At this rate the championship is yours no matter what, isn't it?"
"Exactly... well done, Muyeong. Since it's come to this, you need only stomp that Shaolin disciple flat and be done with it. Eh?"
Of course, even amid such glad tidings I wore the face of a man chewing on dung.
"Still 'Mad Blood Ghost' this, 'Mad Blood Ghost' that... I'm a Transcendent Realm martial artist, and they're calling me a 'young hero'? Gah, whatever....."
In any case, though Shaolin's sudden about-face left an itch I couldn't quite scratch, I soon decided that good news was good news and wandered off to watch the others' duels with a lighter heart. My own duel with Tanhyeon would come whether this one finished first or not.
"Make way there, will you!"
"How dare you tell me to... please, go right ahead."
With the tiny Baekhwa's hand in mine, I waded through the sea of people toward the best spot — where the Sword Saint had already installed himself.
"Elder, I'm here."
"It is an honor to meet you. I am called Baekhwa, of the Zhuge Clan."
"Muyeong..."
"Yes?"
The moment the introductions ended he called my name out of nowhere, and when I answered, the Sword Saint clicked his tongue.
"Go and buy us something worth chewing on. A boy with money to burn turning up empty-handed — what use is that?"
"Yes....."
By the time I returned with the dumplings, the great clans' brats had swarmed the place like ants. There were, of course, those seething at the shameless queue-jumping, but—
"Haha... if it sticks in your craw, care to have a go at me?"
With Namgung Han flashing her eyes and tossing out a challenge no third-rate street thug would dare, everyone had to swallow their fury whole.
Anyway, back I came with a whole mountain of dumplings...
"Heheh... that was quick of you. Why, the dumplings have gone cold enough to want rewarming."
"Thanks for the food, Muyeong."
"Oh... A-woo, this is mine? I'll accept it gratefully."
"W...we'll take some too."
It wasn't as though they went unfed at home, but these cursed brats must have had the ears of hungry ghosts — in the space of a blink, everything in my hands was carried off at a dead sprint.
"Young Master, this one's miiine!!!"
Seizing the chaos, Dang Giyeong slithered in to lift one for himself — I smashed him in the windpipe and managed to defend a single dumpling.
"Meanie... the duel's sta-rting....."
Watching little Baekhwa chatter away at me, her tiny mouth working busily, I could only smile bitterly and murmur.
"There, there... as long as you ate well. I'm full just watching....."
If the reward for my starving belly was everyone else's happiness, then I could gladly pay the price. Of course, something did seem to be trickling down from the corner of my eye...
"Young Master, if you're full, then that one I could—"
Thwack—
As if it were an eternal, unchanging truth that one clueless bastard must always lurk in the mix, I bestowed a lump upon Du-sik's head as he reached for the last one in my hand, then turned my gaze back to the stage—
"Man... why is that ill-mannered bastard so damn detestable?"
The way Jinmu mounted the stage slowly, milking the moment, just looked cheap to me. The man had a perfectly fine frame, so where on earth had he picked up such useless frippery? The way he postured as though he were somebody grated on me for no good reason. Before long I turned my head to look at that rumored Haemu—
"...I've seen that somewhere before."
Something about her was so terribly familiar that I found myself cocking my head.
And so the duel began—
Kaaang—
At that clear, crystalline chime, I had no choice but to swear.
"Fuck...? Why is that thing here?"
She looked far younger than the one in my memories, but that was, without question...
"Elder!!!"
I ran straight to the Sword Saint and asked—
"Where did you bring that child, Haemu, from?"
"Why do you ask that all of a sudden?"
"There's a reason for it. I'll explain everything later, so..."
Stroking his beard, the Sword Saint began his tale.
"Let's see now... it would have been a dozen-odd years ago, I suppose....."
In those days, the hypocrisy of the Orthodox sects had sickened him to the point of setting his teeth on edge, and so he had chosen to withdraw from the world. He raised a house in the mountains, took nature for his companion, and passed his days swinging nothing but his sword—
Sniff— sniff—
Then one day, as he made for the stream to draw water, a faint sound of breathing reached his ears. Finding it strange, he followed it to its source — and there atop a boulder lay an infant girl, asleep with soft little breaths.
"Oh my, what an adorable little thing... however did you come to be here all alone?"
Perhaps roused by his voice, the child opened her eyes—
"Hahh... so her parents threw her away because her eyes looked strange. What in the world is this world coming to..."
One look into the child's eyes — shaped like a mountain goat's — and he could roughly piece together why the poor thing had been left there. And yet, one could never be too sure. Her parents might have set her down for only a moment. So the Sword Saint lulled her back to sleep and waited a long while. But no parents came — he didn't so much as glimpse a human hair — and before long he gathered the child into his arms and went down to the village, if only to beg a little milk for her.
Once her starving belly was filled, he brought her home with him—
"I suppose all of this, too, is fate... Little one, what shall I call you?"
".....Mu..."
He resolved that he himself would take responsibility for this bond that had so suddenly wandered into his life.
"And so you named her Bae Haemu?"
"That I did. My own family name happened to be Bae, so it seemed a fine fit, and I made it her name."
Having heard the Sword Saint's tale to its end, I scrunched my face into a knot and thought:
'Bae Haemu... Be-haemu... Behemoth..... Fuck — it matches.'
The name of that demented beast I had crossed paths with, purely by chance, back in my days living on Earth...
"Hit me one more time!"
"Hahh... hahh....."
Could it truly be coincidence — that girl over there, gleefully taking sword strikes on her bare body while snapping that bastard Jinmu's spirit in real time — bearing so similar a face and so similar a name to that beast?
'But that one died, beyond any doubt. Hm... did it have a child?'
At the sight of that Haemu girl — presumed to be the beast's offspring — my thoughts tangled into knots. Because...
'Hah... I ended it with my own two hands back then, so one thing at least is certain — she is not that one...'
After all, the one who landed the final blow in the subjugation of Behemoth was me.