The Grandmaster of Late Arrivals
Now, just how did things come to pass this way, you ask?
The awards ceremony had only just wrapped up, and I was heading down from the dueling platform with the Grand Restoration Pill tucked in my hand when Bulseong abruptly called me to a stop.
"Muyeong, is it... A fine name. If the hour is not too pressing, why not linger a while and share a bit of conversation with this old man?"
"Ahaha... I'm terribly sorry, but I really don't have the time. I need to hurry back to Sichuan as it is."
Wearing an apologetic little laugh, I did my best to sidle behind the Sword Saint's back—
"There you go! This rascal has time to spare. Take him off my hands."
—whereupon the old man seized me by the nape and deposited me right back in front of Bulseong.
"Wait... Elder?"
So this was how that Roman emperor felt, was it—betrayed by the very retainer he'd trusted with his life.
Caught completely off guard, I turned a look of burning resentment upon the Sword Saint, but...
"Ooh... um..."
Good grief, what was a man's glare supposed to be that murderous for?
I had swallowed my tears and fought that duel for Haemu's sake, all for that girl—and yet apparently none of that devotion had managed to come across.
At any rate, just as I found myself cornered into an unavoidable tea time with Bulseong—
"It has been far too long since so many of us gathered under one roof. Might I suggest we all share a pot of tea together?"
The Sword Queen, who until that moment had been trading words with Geomseon, drifted over to my side and made the offer to Bulseong of all people.
At her suggestion, Geomseon too let out a rolling "hohoho" and nodded his head...
And thanks to her, I was mercifully spared from being left alone with the old monk and his endless chatter.
Though, of course, that meant the sitting Murim Alliance Leader got thrown into the bargain.
And so we relocated to Bulseong's quarters, where a barrage of questions that would put a formal tribunal to shame soon came raining down on me.
"So then—what in the world is the true nature of that martial art of yours?"
"That would be... a martial art I created myself?"
"For something dreamed up by a mere late-stage Peak Expert, it looks far too refined. You did not inherit it from anyone, did you?"
"I've always had a rather sharp head on my shoulders, you see. Besides, who else in this world could even practice a martial art like that?"
"Hoho... child. Setting refinement aside, that power of yours looked profoundly sinister to these old eyes. Might it be a demonic art of some stripe?"
"If it were, then when I crossed blades with that... Ha-min, was it? I'd have been flattened on the spot."
"My disciple's name is Harin, not Hamin..."
"Ah."
Where did these old fogies get such bottomless curiosity...
They grilled me without mercy, everything from the origins of my martial arts down to how many spoons the Dang Clan kept in its cupboards.
"And this fiendish beast—did you capture it or not?"
"...That matter is classified, so I'm afraid I cannot discuss it."
"Come now... how is the Alliance meant to help you if it is not kept informed?"
Little by little, the conversation was sliding in a very strange direction.
What was it with people and their insatiable appetite for other families' private business? One by one they began dropping loaded little questions, probing me from every conceivable angle...
Ah... so they didn't summon me here for my martial arts at all. They wanted to dig into the Dang Clan.
It was written all over their faces: Bulseong and Geomseon could not have cared less how I had come to learn such techniques. All they wanted was to sound out the Dang Clan's inner affairs.
And through it all, the Sword Saint did nothing but glower holes in me, while the Sword Queen sipped her tea with quiet little slurps beside us...
"Hah..."
Then I smiled, thin and sour, and spoke.
"If the Dang Clan's internal affairs intrigue you so much, why not ask my father directly?"
The rebel sleeping inside me had, once again, decided to wake up.
Bulseong, for his part, was struck dumb by the sheer gall of this Dang Muyeong, talking back to his face with such brazen cheek.
Why had I even bothered asking such worthless questions in the first place?
It was all information that had already circulated through the Beggar's Union, or that could be had for the asking anyway.
The real reason he had called the boy over was, in truth, the secret transmission the Sword Saint had abruptly sent the moment the crowd came trooping into his quarters...
"I have examined that child's body from head to toe. I would stake my own name on the fact that his martial arts are no demonic art—so I advise you not to go picking fights over nothing."
And judging by how Geomseon slid his eyes sideways to glance at the Sword Saint, that warning had not been sent to him alone.
"Tsk, tsk..."
At that transmission, dripping with warning, Bulseong clicked his tongue without quite meaning to.
As if anyone with eyes could fail to see it was no demonic art.
It was not as though he had clawed his way to the abbot's seat of Shaolin through a children's game of paper-tile flipping.
Not a mote of demonic qi—not so much as a speck of dust's worth—had ever been felt in the boy's body or his techniques. The power had simply worn the mask of martial arts while behaving like some inexplicable trickery, and he had summoned the boy for no other reason than to ask where on earth it came from...
And yet no matter what he asked, that young pup Dang Muyeong rattled off brisk little answers, waving it all away with because I'm a genius, naturally—so what more was there even to say?
At best, all he could fall back on was asking after the boy's health or his family.
And in the middle of it all, the milk-toothed brat wore an unpleasant little smile and dripped insolence with every word—it was enough to make anyone's blood pressure spike.
"Fine. I've heard quite enough."
His heart yearned to flip the boy over and give him the same stick-beating his own senior brothers had once administered to him—but the boy's father was such a lunatic that...
The little wretch was his father carved all the way down...
"Hohohoho..."
Beside him, that black-hearted snake Geomseon just kept hohoho-ing away—what in the world did a man that rotten find so funny?...
Feeling that old ache creep up the back of his neck for the first time in years, Bulseong spoke.
"It seems we elders have stolen far too much of the young man's time. Off you go, now."
He threw out the dismissal because he could feel it in his bones: one more exchange, and his blood pressure would fell him before the boy ever could.
Just as I was weighing, deep down, whether to blurt it out or hold my tongue...
"Off you go, now."
Bulseong's dismissal came down like a verdict...
Huh... already? Wait, that's it? Nothing dramatic at all.
He'd summoned a busy man out of his day, asked nothing but worthless questions, and then shown me the door—the sheer pointlessness of it made me cock my head—but a good ending is a good ending, so I promptly rose from my seat.
"Then I shall take my leave."
The moment I bowed and pushed back from my seat, the Sword Saint and Sword Queen subtly rose as well...
Slipping quietly out of my place, I left behind Bulseong, who was rising to see me off, and stepped out through the door.
And so I was making my way down the stone steps, one careful step at a time.
Scraaape—
From behind me came the unmistakable sound of a blade being ground against stone.
Startled out of my skin, I whipped my head around—and there was Bulseong, crouched behind a shimmering yellow qi barrier, wearing the face of a man caught red-handed.
"Heh heh... so you were up to no good after all."
At a voice I knew from somewhere, I turned my gaze forward again—and there was the Saber King, walking toward us with his saber already drawn from its sheath.
This was a man who should have shown up ages ago; arriving now took some nerve. But relief won out over indignation, and I called out, my face brightening.
"Elder!!!"
"Aye, I'm a mite late, aren't I. Muyeong, come over here."
At the sight of him chuckling and beckoning, I bolted for Paeng Juhon at a full sprint.
"Senior Brother Paeng, it's been far too long. Though isn't that greeting of yours a touch... spirited?"
Despite the Sword Saint's hearty, laughing greeting, the Saber King flat-out ignored him and addressed Bulseong instead.
"So you were fixing to pull some dog filth. A pillar of the Orthodox faction, behaving like this—what are the young ones supposed to learn from watching you..."
"Old friend, I believe there's been some manner of misunderstanding—"
"Shut that trap of yours, or I'll shut it for you personally."
"I—honestly—"
"I watched with these two eyes of mine as you reached, plain as day, for this boy's head! What room for excuse do you imagine is left for that mouth of yours to open with?!"
"That's not what—"
"I wasn't finished! Where does a wet-behind-the-ears whelp get off cutting his elders off mid-sentence, hm? If your old master could see you now, he'd clutch the back of his neck and fall over dead."
Hidden behind Paeng Juhon's broad back, I watched Bulseong get dressed down and snickered to myself.
Yeesh... seniority really is cracked, huh. Absolutely cracked...
So what if Bulseong was a revered elder of the Orthodox Murim? The man in front of me was a great patriarch knocking on a hundred years of age...
If it chafed that badly, he was welcome to mosey on over to the Unorthodox factions, where they kept less track of seniority—or to the Demonic Cult, where nobody gave a damn about anything except proving it with force.
Anyway, standing behind the bellowing Saber King, I turned his words over in my head...
...reaching, plain as day, for this boy's head...
Hold on... that deranged baldy seriously tried to swat me upside the skull? Has that black-hearted old coot completely lost his mind...?
And in that very instant, as I was busy chewing Bulseong up in my thoughts, the air began to grow heavy.
And I do not mean that as a figure of speech for an awkward situation—the atmosphere was, quite literally, pressing down on everything around us...
"Senior Brother... don't you think that's quite enough? I understand your anger, but this has gone too far."
"You're every bit as bad. Siding with Shaolin just because you're a Wudang man—then surely it's only fair that I side with the Dang Clan, no?"
"Do you truly mean to carry this through?"
Even with Geomseon playing peacemaker, the mood only curdled further...
Creeeak... groooan... groooan...
Bulseong's quarters began to crumple inward, as though slowly crushed beneath the plate of a hydraulic press.
"Senior! If you persist, I will have no choice but to answer with force of my own!!!"
"Do as you please. You do remember whose mountain this is, don't you?"
"Ha!"
"Elder, this is really too much..."
"It's quite all right. Worry not, Muyeong. I've heard the whole story, you see."
The whole story? Of what, exactly? With no earthly clue what he was talking about, my expression was starting to slide into something distinctly awkward...
Shff—
In a single instant, the world seemed to split down the middle—and the force that had been crushing the world was simply gone.
"Elder, it seems you truly have been laboring under a misunderstanding. Walk down with me, and I'll explain everything myself."
"Sword Queen, I am hardly of an age where you need call me—"
"El. Der."
Blade drawn, the Sword Queen hammered out each syllable like nails—while Paeng Juhon went on staring at the pair of them, his face blank as ever.
"Elder, I don't know what's going on here, but there really does seem to be some misunderstanding. Let's head down for now."
"Tsk... fine, fine. I hear you."
Only after I tacked on my two copper coins did the Saber King finally slide his saber back into its sheath and turn away.
And so the Sword Queen, the Saber King, and one Dang Muyeong departed...
Crack... splinter... BOOM... KRAKOOM—
Before Bulseong's quarters—now reduced to honest-to-goodness ruins—three old men stood wearing identical expressions of dumbstruck disbelief.
"In all the heavens, why did you try to smack Muyeong's head off his shoulders?"
When the Sword Saint demanded, utterly flabbergasted, Bulseong answered with the hollow face of a man watching his life's work lie in rubble.
"There was... there was a mosquito. I was merely attempting to swat it."
"Hah..."
At that naked, shameless excuse, the Sword Saint shook his head from side to side.
"A monk of your standing, about to take a life—no wonder calamity came knocking. It's all your own karma, old friend. Accept it gracefully."
With those parting words, the Sword Saint departed.
"Hohoho... then I, too, shall take my leave."
And Geomseon departed as well...
Soon left entirely alone, Bulseong's eyes reddened at the rims, and a single tear rolled down his cheek as he murmured to the empty air:
"Ah, how fleeting it all is... how utterly vain is the life of man..."