A Man With a Thousand Years of Internal Force Doesn't Need Flashing Light Divine Art (2)
“What are you talking about?”
Mu Daebo asked, looking puzzled.
He had no idea how Hwonwon Chiguk, once the Martial Alliance Leader, had become Emperor. One day a rebellion broke out, and when it succeeded, the Alliance Leader ascended the throne. The martial artists' rebellion had been meticulous. The Emperor, who commanded a million soldiers and tens of thousands of imperial martial artists, was defeated without even mounting a proper resistance. The Emperor and Crown Prince Ju Seon-jik were beheaded in the public square.
“One day—on the former Emperor's birthday, he threw a grand banquet, inviting not just his civil and military officials but the famous sects of the murim as well. The Martial Alliance Leader attended. He was bedridden with illness at the time, but apparently he couldn't refuse an imperial invitation. And at that banquet, a young man slapped him across the face. The charge: failing to recognize his superior despite having eyes. Normally the punishment would have been to gouge out his eyeballs, but the young man said he'd forgive it with just one slap.”
“Who was this young man?”
“Crown Prince Ju Seon-jik.”
“How old was he?”
“Ju Seon-jik was nineteen, and the Alliance Leader would have been sixty-one.”
“So a nineteen-year-old slapped a sixty-one-year-old man—no, the Martial Alliance Leader—across the face, and then said gouging out his eyes would be too harsh, so he'd forgive him with just the slap?”
“Yep.”
“And the Alliance Leader said, ‘Thank you’?”
“Huh?”
Jin Yigang widened his eyes and stared at Mu Daebo.
“What?”
“I'm just amazed you thought of that.”
“Thought of what?”
“Not many people would guess that the Alliance Leader said ‘thank you’ under duress.”
“What do you mean, under duress?”
“At first he took the slap without saying a word. But then, even though the Crown Prince had forgiven him, he apparently didn't say thank you.”
“Son of a bitch. Even I'd be pissed.”
Even though it hadn't happened to him, Mu Daebo felt his blood boil in an instant.
“Anyway, because of that, the Alliance Leader—pissed off, just like you said—ended up starting a rebellion.”
“So that's how he became Emperor.”
“Right. He became Emperor, and I became a dog's tail.”
“You?”
“Yep.”
“Why you?”
“There's a reason for that. But first, one thing I'm curious about.”
“What?”
“Daebo, your martial arts are strong.”
“It's Daebo, not Daeboh, you brat.”
“Daeboh rolls off the tongue better. Anyway, you're strong, right?”
“If you lined up all the martial artists in order, I'd be in the top hundred.”
“What do you think of the Samjaegwon?”
“The Samjaegwon?”
“Never heard the name before?”
Jin Yigang tensed up. If the Samjaegwon was a martial art even Mu Daebo—a top-100 master—had never heard of, it might actually be an absolute divine art.
“You mean that Samjaegwon where the dog learns it, the ox learns it, the chicken learns it, and even the cat learns it?”
“…….”
Jin Yigang glared at him in silence.
“What?”
“There was really no need to drag the cat and chicken into it.”
“Far as I know, what they all know how to perform is the Samjaegwon, the Samjae sword art, the Samjae blade art, and the Samjae kick art.”
“Say, hypothetically, what would happen if someone performed the Samjaegwon with a thousand years of cultivated power?”
“A thousand years of power?”
“Yep.”
“Does power like that even exist?”
“That's why I said hypothetically.”
“Even if it did, wouldn't it look pathetic to be performing the Samjae fist arts with a thousand years of power?”
“Pathetic?”
“The efficiency would be abysmal, you jackass.”
“Why are you worrying about efficiency?”
“That's the thing, kid…….”
“Efficiency is for people who don't have anything. A poor man is always short on money, so he has to pinch pennies and spend only where it's needed most. But a man with gold rolling around at his feet can spend however he pleases. Isn't internal force the same way?”
“So what you're saying is?”
“A man with a thousand years of internal force doesn't need the Flashing Light Divine Art. He just swings however he likes, and that is the Flashing Light Divine Art. Am I wrong?”
“……Damn it! You win.”
“But gathering a thousand years of power would be hard, right?”
“There might be one person in all of murim history. Maybe.”
“That Cheonma that even dogs, oxen, cats, and chickens know about?”
“Well, even a third-rate hack like you knows the name.”
“Let's get some sleep.”
“What's your name?”
“Je Suryong.”
“Not that name—your real one.”
“Je Suryong.”
“You're full of shit.”
Mu Daebo closed his eyes, and the two of them soon drifted off. The moment he woke, Mu Daebo headed straight out to hunt.
His reason for going was simple.
He wanted meat, first thing in the morning.
Half a shijin later, he returned with a deer.
“It's not already dead, is it?”
“It's dead, you brat.”
“It wasn't dead before you caught it, was it?”
“What do you take me for…… anyway, let's decide who's butchering the deer.”
“Shouldn't the one who caught it butcher it?”
“I caught it—isn't that enough? You want me to butcher it too?”
“You went and caught it because you wanted meat. So you butcher it.”
“So you're not eating?”
“I'll do the roasting.”
“Let's bet on it.”
“Bet on what?”
“Loser of the bet does the butchering and the roasting.”
“What kind of bet?”
“Men settle things with fists.”
Mu Daebo clenched his fist and thrust it in front of Jin Yigang's face. He had zero intention of letting yesterday's incident slide like it never happened. He wanted to pay back exactly what he'd taken. That was the whole reason he'd proposed the bet.
“How do you bet with fists?”
“We each take one fair hit, and whoever drops loses.”
“You're a martial artist and I'm a commoner?”
“No internal force whatsoever.”
“You're a bear and I'm a rabbit.”
“You are absolutely not a rabbit.”
“Rabbit's too much, huh? Then let's say a dog.”
“I'll only use about eighty percent of my strength.”
“I'm not doing it unless I hit first.”
“We should settle that with rock-paper-scissors, brat.”
“I said I'm not going second.”
“……Fine. You go first.”
Mu Daebo cheered inwardly. Win or lose, he was guaranteed one free hit in this bet. That one hit would be enough.
Take a punch and black out yourself, you brat. Then you'll know how I felt.
“Let's start.”
Jin Yigang stood in front of Mu Daebo and clenched his fist.
Holy shit, that fist is huge.
Mu Daebo flinched at the sight of it.
Jin Yigang's fist was so massive it looked like a boulder.
If that lands clean, it's going to hurt like……
THWACK!
In that instant, a dull thud rang out from Mu Daebo's jaw.
“Guhk! I—I wasn't even ready…….”
Mu Daebo's vision went dark.
“Me, kid? I've sent tigers packing with a single punch.”
Those were the last words Mu Daebo heard before blacking out.
“Well, since he's out cold, I guess I'll have to butcher the deer myself.”
Jin Yigang carried the deer to the stream and set to work. For a man who'd lived in the mountains, butchering game was no chore at all. In moments, hide, bone, and flesh came apart.
He built a fire, cut the venison into manageable pieces, skewered them, and hung them over the flames.
He sprinkled salt as they cooked, turning each skewer just before the fat dripped off. Whenever the sizzling started, he turned them again.
It was the smell of roasting meat that woke Mu Daebo. The first thing his eyes found wasn't the meat but the leaf-covered ground. Apparently he'd pitched forward face-first when he went down.
Heh heh heh! I'm face-down in the dirt right now, but I've still got one hit coming to me. My suffering is over, but yours is just beginning, brat.
Mu Daebo sprang to his feet. He clenched his fist with all his might and glared at Jin Yigang.
“Didn't think you'd get up.”
Jin Yigang said with a grin.
“My turn now, right?”
“I already did all the work.”
Jin Yigang pointed at the venison roasting over the fire.
“What's that got to do with anything?”
“It means you won, Daeboh. What else?”
“So……”
Mu Daebo looked back and forth between his own fist and the roasting venison.
“You mad?”
“You little…….”
“Hey, look.”
Jin Yigang pointed behind Mu Daebo.
“Not falling for that again, you bastard.”
Mu Daebo quickly covered his lower half.
“There's a guy over there who killed the Dokgeomoma brothers!”
“Wouldn't it be better to cool off first?”
“……GRAAAH!”
Mu Daebo let out a bellow and launched himself backward.
“Th-the bandits are coming…… AAAGH!”
THWACK! THUD! THWACK!
“GRAAAH!”
“AGH!”
“UWAAAAH!”
Wherever Mu Daebo went, miserable screams erupted. After a while, he came back grumbling and muttering.
“Eat.”
Jin Yigang handed him a chunk of venison. Mu Daebo plopped down on the ground, took the meat, and brought it to his mouth.
Chewing, he looked at Jin Yigang with startled eyes.
“What?”
“You…… did you train as a cook?”
The venison was incredibly good. It wasn't his first time eating it—he liked venison and ate it often. But he'd never had venison this delicious.
Above all, there was none of that characteristic gamey smell. You'd have thought a master chef had roasted it.
“So you're saying there's no smell at all?”
“Right.”
“You have to kill it properly. Sever the neck artery first to drain the blood, then……”
The proper way to take down a deer flowed smoothly out of Jin Yigang's mouth.
“Did you work at a slaughterhouse?”
Mu Daebo asked, unable to hide his astonishment.
“Eat it often enough and you just pick it up. Mountain hare, wild goat, deer, boar—they're all about the same.”
“So you were a bandit.”
“A bandit?”
“You're a complete expert on mountains. And you know your way around tombs, too.”
“If you live in the mountains for over twenty years, you can't help becoming an expert, can you?”
“So you were a bandit. And your fists are no joke either.”
Mu Daebo stroked his chin.
It was the first time in his life he'd been knocked out by someone's blow. Jin Yigang's fist wasn't flesh—it was a hunk of iron. He'd heard the phrase “iron fist” plenty of times, but this was the first time he'd learned such a fist actually existed.
“I was a scholar.”
“…….”
“You don't believe me?”
“You expect me to believe that a guy with fists harder than a hunk of iron and feet faster than most martial artists was a scholar?”
Jin Yigang's iron fist was astonishing, but what impressed Mu Daebo even more was the movement he'd shown when kicking his lower half off its feet.
No matter how fast a low-level fighter is, he can't slip past a master's eyes. That's practically an unwritten law of the murim world. It's why they say masters have eyes in the back of their heads. And yet Jin Yigang had landed a kick right past a master's gaze.
Not from behind—from the front.
“I'd bet you've read a few cartloads of books by now.”
“Don't bullshit me, brat. I'll stake my life on this: fists suit you far better than books. It's written all over your face. It says, ‘I made my living punching people.’”
“Just believe me, damn it.”
“We'll see soon enough.”
“You suspicious bear of a man…… Anyway, Daeboh, do you know why those martial artists came out to drink?”
“The Heavenly Physician Wagons, obviously.”
“Murim folk after the elixirs?”
“Yep.”
“Did you finish eating?”
“No?”
“Then hurry up.”
“Why?”
“Because we're going to go beat them to death.”
“With your skills?”
“Beating people to death is your specialty, isn't it?”
“Why should I be the one doing that?”
“I'm just a helpless commoner, so I can't. That's why it has to be you, jackass.”
“Then tell me this, brat—why are we doing any of this?!”
Mu Daebo roared.
“Last night you asked my name twice, didn't you?”
“I did.”
“And what did I answer?”
“You said Je Suryong.”
“That's why we're going. Finish eating and get up.”
Jin Yigang took only the choicest cuts of the remaining venison and hung them beneath his pack.
“I know perfectly well you're not Je Suryong.”
“If you don't want to go, go ahead without me.”
Jin Yigang set off at once.
“That bastard…… he's driving me insane.”
Mu Daebo shook his head and followed after him.
“Say your name, brat!”
Mu Daebo shouted as he chased him down.
“Je Suryong!”