The Family I Saved
"There are nine more like me!"
"So why are you only killing me, you son of a bitch?!"
"You stupid bastard! Did you think I was the end of it?!"
Even now, the memory remained vivid.
The old monster's roaring voice, his face twisted into something ghostly as he shrieked. And the tattoo of the characters for Sun and Moon that had blazed scarlet across his skin.
"Our cult…"
Those characters on the tattoo, and the suspicious word the man had spat with his dying breath — both of them were contained in these four letters.
Ilwolgyo
Exactly as written on the document before him.
Why… could it be…?!
Coincidence? But the timing was far too perfect. Could this family, by any chance, have some connection to that incident? Thoughts of every kind whirled through him, plunging him into confusion — and then, suddenly.
A strange fragrance pricked at his nose.
When Gwak Yeon lifted his head, he found an object that had appeared atop the desk without his noticing.
A gold-leafed box.
One that would, without a doubt, contain a spiritual medicine.
That was when it happened.
The moment it drew Gwak Yeon's attention, a fierce light blazed in Gwak Seo-ryong's eyes like a torch —
Whik—
Three throwing knives shot from the tips of his casually flicked fingers.
Startled, Gwak Yeon dodged the blades that came at him without a trace of killing intent.
Tak-tak-tak!
The knives embedded themselves one by one — into the floor, the wall, and the marble bookshelf. Inner energy had been poured into them; any single hit would have been a fatal blow, both in force and placement.
Gwak Yeon had avoided them on pure instinct.
When he turned his head to look at Gwak Seo-ryong, bewilderment filled his eyes — but the words that came back were plain and calm.
"How did you dodge them."
"Pardon?"
"Three knives, staggered in their fall. If you hadn't already known the first was aimed at your knee, you could never have avoided them in only two steps."
"…"
"Meaning you already knew where those knives would strike."
A precise analysis.
Gwak Yeon, who had been briefly dazed by the words Ilwolgyo, had simply moved in the form most familiar to him the instant he registered the number of knives glittering in Gwak Seo-ryong's grip.
And that was not all.
"It was the same earlier. With that wretched body of yours, you successively dodged Ho-shin's attacks and, at the end, struck him cleanly under the chin. He may have held back, but without reading his path, it would have been impossible."
He summarized the spar just as cleanly.
Family Head Gwak Seo-ryong.
The fact that this man had grasped that he had read Gwak Ho-shin's trajectory meant only one thing.
Right now.
The martial art transmitted through this family shared the same root and lineage as the one he himself had wielded in his previous life.
Thump!
Gwak Yeon's heart pounded.
Perhaps the clue that had remained unsolved ever since his reincarnation was about to unravel. Suppressing a curiosity that felt ready to burst, he listened as the Family Head's level voice continued.
"How long have you been training in secret."
"You mean… the Manhyeong Swordplay?"
"Don't answer a question with a question."
"I suppose I've been doing it little by little, in the gaps."
"You suppose?"
"I apologize. The truth is, ever since that last trip into the mountains, my memories of the past have been… scattered. Incomplete."
"Do you remember running away every time there was a spar?"
"As I said… I don't remember it well."
"…"
Gwak Seo-ryong regarded him steadily.
A pressure like a mountain settled over him.
The hair on Gwak Yeon's neck stood on end, yet he clenched his jaw and refused to look away. In the end, memory loss was the only excuse that could explain the situation.
"Hmph."
How long did they face each other like that?
Gwak Seo-ryong slowly withdrew his presence.
"Whether you've truly lost your memories is of no importance."
"Pardon?"
"To master this martial art, one must be able to use a variety of weapons. As I've heard, that eye of yours seems serviceable enough — so continue to devote yourself from now on."
"…?"
Gwak Yeon realized the words were praise, but that was not what mattered to him now.
The secret of this family.
Together with the Ilwolgyo he had just seen, he asked the question that had been troubling him all along.
"I have something I wish to know."
"What is it."
"This martial art you just spoke of — the Manhyeong Swordplay. How was it created?"
"You ask for the origin of the art?"
"Yes."
Gwak Seo-ryong's expression twisted slightly, but Gwak Yeon did not care.
He could not hold back the curiosity any longer.
"Ever since you returned from that mountain, you've been saying strange things. Perhaps… this, too, is fate."
With an odd look on his face, Gwak Seo-ryong continued.
Through his mouth, the true nature of the martial art so strikingly similar to the style Gwak Yeon had used in his previous life began to come to light.
"The Manhyeong Swordplay is the pride of our family, created by my father — your grandfather."
The Seoho Gwak Family.
There had been a man who took this family — once so obscure it was scarcely known even around West Lake, let alone Hangzhou — and raised it into one of the two great powers of Zhejiang Province.
Gwak Ja-gyeong
The previous Family Head, now departed from this world.
And also his own father. Recalling him, Gwak Seo-ryong spoke as if murmuring to himself.
"Even I still cannot match my father's skill."
Gwak Seo-ryong closed his eyes firmly.
What was he thinking?
A faint curve touched the lips of a man famous for his severity.
"I don't say this because I am his son. With only a few glances, he could read an opponent's every movement — that was the strength of his eye. I do not know the true measure of the talent you have been hiding all this time, but…"
He opened his eyes again and fixed a bright gaze on the second son who had brought him nothing but disappointment these past few years.
"Before I continue the story, let me ask you one thing."
"Please ask."
"Suppose someone you knew suddenly claimed to have lost his memories, then appeared before the world acting completely differently from before and revealed a strength he had been concealing. What reason would you think he had for it?"
"I apologize, but my memories really are scattered—"
"If you saw someone acting that way even though he was perfectly fine, how would your present temperament and nature judge him."
"Of course this isn't about me—"
"Answer simply."
"Perhaps… a resolve to live a life different from before?"
"A resolve."
"If there were someone who still remembered everything yet pretended otherwise, that is how I would take it. Of course, I myself have no memories…"
"Hmph."
Gwak Seo-ryong regarded his second son quietly.
The possibility that someone else — a reincarnated soul — might be inhabiting that body never even entered his mind. Finding the answer not entirely unsatisfactory, he gave a slow nod and answered his son's question.
"My father — your grandfather, the previous Family Head — completed the entire framework of the Manhyeong Swordplay in a single night."
"…!"
His second son's eyes widened like lanterns.
Unable to guess the true meaning behind that shock, Gwak Seo-ryong continued.
"He was a genius of the highest order."
A secret history of the family.
Not merely the starting point of a martial art, but the family secret hidden within it. A story the first and third sons already knew — but which the second son, who had lacked the qualifications, had never been told.
"And for that very reason… he suffered unspeakable hardships as a child."
Some eighty years ago.
There had been a rumor that threw not only Hangzhou but all of Zhejiang Province into turmoil.
Children were disappearing—
In cities everywhere, the number of children dwindled with every night that passed. Those who vanished left no trace that could be found anywhere.
In short: kidnapping.
The households of the abducted were many and varied. High officials and great lords, farmers, wealthy merchants, cloth-shop owners — even a waiter at a small inn, even a beggar on the street.
Their families differed, but they shared one thing in common.
Every one of them had been a child the world called a genius.
Some were brilliant of mind. Some, even from a young age, possessed extraordinary martial talent for striking and grappling. Some sang beautifully. Some had unusually keen ears and quick wits. Some were gifted with their hands.
And among them.
The only son of a family that made its living as blacksmiths near West Lake — Gwak Ja-gyeong — was of course among those taken. Those who were kidnapped were cast into a maze of mountains shrouded by a concealing formation laced with strange, heretical arts.
A living hell.
Every kind of experiment was performed upon them. Not only children, but Taoist adepts and martial artists abducted from somewhere in the Central Plains. All of them became sacrifices to the purposeless experiments of madmen whose identities remained unknown.
Talismans wrapped around a hundred bleached bones. Pools of blood that squelched underfoot. Hair-raising screams. Corpses that piled higher with every passing day. In that true pandemonium, the number of the living dwindled day by day — until one day.
A benefactor appeared.
Even after every one of his comrades had died, the benefactor did not flee.
He did not hesitate to stake his life on destroying the great evil at the heart of it all.
The benefactor who fought with everything he had, right up to the brink of mutual destruction.
An instant. And then another instant.
Every moment of the man who had saved him from that living hell was preserved, by someone, to a degree that approached perfection.
And so.
"Your grandfather, that genius of the highest order, remembered the man's movements with all the desperate strength he possessed — enough to shed tears of blood. With that lifelong sword, carved into his heart together with the benefactor's chivalry, he perfected this martial art with devoted care even after he came down from the mountain."
Thus was the martial art of the Seoho Gwak Family completed.
"…This is the Manhyeong Swordplay."
His eyes flew open of their own accord.
It felt as though a thunderbolt had been driven straight into his skull.
……………What?
Gwak Yeon recalled the brief exchange from that day.
"G-great hero—!"
"I can still see you! Run, quickly!"
"This grace of saving my life! From generation to generation, I will never forget it—!"
"You crazy brat! Instead of standing on ceremony, put another step between us!"
Yes. That was right.
There had been one.
A little boy who had survived that living hell created by the Shadowless Old Monster.
"Puhahahaha! Fine — I'll leave that one alone."
That little boy.
So he hadn't fled at once? He had watched the fight in secret? Until when? Right up to the brink of mutual destruction? Why on earth hadn't he run right away? Carving the benefactor's chivalry into his heart?
Right now.
The genius talent of someone who, from watching only a single night, had idealized and reconstructed his martial art to such a degree meant nothing at all to Gwak Yeon.
You fool — why would you do something so dangerous…!
A thousand thoughts whirled in chaos — and amid them, a sense of relief rose.
Thank goodness. At least one of them had made it out alive that day.
"Your grandfather said while he lived that although the Manhyeong Swordplay is a sword art, its true power and achievement are realized when—"
Gwak Seo-ryong's voice reached him only faintly.
A strange sense of pride even bloomed in him — so the man had properly captured that fighting style of his, the one that used every weapon without any real foundation.
Ahhh—!
Everything had become clear.
Thump!
This place, right now, was the family that the little boy he had given his life to save in his previous existence had raised with desperate effort, using his martial art.
In other words.
The Seoho Gwak Family
…was the family he himself had saved.