The Day of the Spar
“………U-uweeeek!”
“Young Master!”
Things had changed.
Watching Gwak Yeon, who had been running the training grounds without rest only to finally collapse, Cheon Gang thought exactly that.
Thud!
The second young master lay sprawled out in a great X, limbs trembling violently. White, foamy spit dripped from the corners of his mouth, and his chest heaved massively with every breath.
All of it was a sight Cheon Gang had not seen from him in recent days.
Yet the most unfamiliar thing of all was the look in those eyes.
“A-are you all ri—”
“Huff… huff!”
The light shining from the face turned toward him—that gleam in his eyes—was far too clear. Vitality that had been nowhere to be found in the weak nod meant to say he was fine, or in the fingertips he could barely lift, now flashed like lightning.
“At this rate something terrible will happen, Young Master!”
Of course Cheon Gang could not know the truth: that the second young master had already recovered.
A few breaths had been enough. Enough to restore the heart that had been pounding like mad, the muscles that had been seizing throughout his body, and the tendons he had wrung out to their absolute limit.
“Training isn’t about pushing yourself past every limit! You ran at full power like this just yesterday! Rather than that—”
“Cough!”
“Young Master!”
In a situation where he could not even begin to guess that the recovery of a man turned vampire far surpassed any ordinary human’s standards.
Still, a thought suddenly struck Cheon Gang.
He had been about to rush over to the second young master, who was using the wooden sword in his grip as a cane to rise, when he tilted his head.
Wait a moment.
Here and now…
Hasn’t he come farther than he did a few days ago?
Come to think of it, starting from the same point and running until he collapsed like this, the time it took seemed to have stretched just a little longer.
A sudden sense of wrongness.
Yet when Cheon Gang lifted his head and looked back and forth between the far end of the training platform and this side, he soon shook his head.
No way.
It was impossible. Of course it was. Muscles and stamina grew when you pushed them to the limit and then gave them proper nutrition and rest—but growth this rapid defied common sense.
Grit!
That was why, watching the young master clench his teeth and force himself up from the ground, Cheon Gang thought this instead:
Was he that driven?
That all of this stemmed from sheer willpower. In other words, that the second young master had begun recalling, one by one, the memories he had temporarily forgotten.
Honestly, it wouldn’t have been strange if he’d changed at any time.
Just recently he had even fled because he was terrified of sparring with his younger brother.
In the end, Cheon Gang concluded that it was not some bizarre vampiric recovery, but that hitting rock bottom had finally made him come to his senses.
“Young Master. I cannot presume to know what is in your heart. But if you continue training at this intensity—”
“Pick up your wooden sword.”
“What?!”
“We have to prepare for the spar.”
“B-but you’re still out of breath—”
“Will there be time to catch your breath in a real fight?”
“Even so—”
“The sparring day is less than seven days away now.”
“……Understood.”
Cheon Gang was genuinely moved.
Gwak Yeon rose and took his stance. The staggering, gasping figure from moments before had vanished. Cheon Gang saw in that sight a true resolve to prepare for actual combat.
“Coming right away!”
Even as he closed the distance in an instant and swung his wooden sword, he was still mistaken.
Clack-clack-clack—!
He believed the second young master’s obsession with preparing for the spar was vicious enough to surpass anything he had imagined.
Whoosh—!
Horizontal. Vertical. Thrusts and cuts. Bold, then smooth.
Just as he had for the past few days, Cheon Gang guided with his sword in a way that subtly left paths for Gwak Yeon to escape his attacks—teaching him.
……He’s already dodging?
He was beginning to feel it. The half-step gap he had been maintaining while “instructing” Gwak Yeon—his own movements had grown busier than they had been a few days earlier.
His focus has clearly changed as well.
Naturally he did not know that his own skill, which was considered quite solid for a former vagabond, was nothing particularly surprising to Gwak Yeon, who carried the experience of a previous life.
Nor did he know that these training sessions, already going on for several days, were from Gwak Yeon’s perspective nothing more than a means of adapting to the new sensations and reach of his changed body.
“Properly! Stop holding back and do it properly, I said!”
“Understood!”
“Don’t just say it! You’re supposed to be helping me face that bastard!”
“Very well.”
And so—
“I may fall short compared to the third young master… but since I have learned the family’s sword arts as well, I will imitate them as best I can!”
Cheon Gang could not help growing more and more emotional.
Grit. The one quality he had thought uniquely lacking in the second young master he respected had finally been filled.
A changed young master. Cheon Gang resolved to support the second young master, who had at last begun to grow, with everything he had—and to flatten the noses of everyone who had looked down on him.
But he was not yet prepared.
After the spar with the second young master ended, after he had escorted him back to his quarters and was waiting for the meal—
“Are you serious? You think your young master can hold out?”
“Well, holding out is about—”
“A dog walking by would laugh at that.”
“Watch your mouth! Our young master just hadn’t set his mind to it until now. When he does it properly, he’s better than anyone here.”
“Is that so?”
—he ended up making a certain wager with people of the family he ran into.
“Then… you, want to bet with me?”
It began simply enough.
Cheon Gang had been standing guard in front of Gwak Yeon’s quarters. A passing warrior tossed out a careless remark that became the spark.
Working hard at that pointless nonsense, huh~
It was the kind of line one could laugh off and let go.
The problem was the affiliation of the warrior who had said it.
Biryongdang
The elite martial force of the family.
At the same time, it was the place Cheon Gang had first joined when he entered this family as a former vagabond.
That was why—
Pointless nonsense? Watch your tongue.
—he needlessly stood on his pride.
Yes. This was definitely pride.
The pride that wanted to shout that his choice to leave Biryongdang and follow the second young master Gwak Yeon had not been wrong.
“……A b-bet?”
“Winning is out of the question, so just whether your young master can last about five exchanges. If you really believe in your young master, you can take a bet like this, right?”
“……”
“See? That face says you’re not confident.”
“……”
“That’s why a guy of your level went over there. You knew full well that once you leave Biryongdang, you never get back in.”
The sneering martial artist of Biryongdang.
Facing him, Cheon Gang finally opened his mouth.
“……I’ll take it.”
“……What?”
Honestly, he did not think they could win.
But he refused to say that the choice he had made to leave Biryongdang of his own will had been a mistake.
“Let’s bet.”
“Are you serious?”
On top of that, Cheon Gang had made up his mind to support, in his own way, Gwak Yeon’s efforts to become different from before.
“If our young master lasts even five exchanges, I win. Right?”
“……How much are you putting up?”
Of course—
“……One silver tael.”
“Ha.”
—the value of that resolve was more than enough at that amount.
In other words, no matter how much he had begun to change, even in Cheon Gang’s eyes it was honestly difficult for Gwak Yeon to last five exchanges against the third young master.
“Is that enough?”
“I’d like to put more, but I don’t have much spare cash these days.”
“……Well, fine.”
A snort of laughter from the Biryongdang martial artist.
And Cheon Gang, facing him, forced an easy smile of his own.
Good thing I saved up.
One silver tael. Not a small sum, but for Cheon Gang, who unlike others did not enjoy gambling, it was now an amount he could lose, curse once about, and forget.
Rather, as the price of protecting his pride and making sure word reached the second young master’s ears that he trusted him—this was cheap, wasn’t it?
I hope he knows I’m not just cheering with empty words.
That was what he thought.
The next day.
After news of the bet had spread—
“……Hey.”
“I heard there’s a good wager going around here.”
“Spare a moment.”
—until a pack of jackals came looking for him.
Samhogak
Those belonging to the third young master’s pavilion.
In other words—
“I hear your young master said he can hold out against our young master?”
“This is an insult to our young master.”
“Are you insane?”
“At least you should remember how he cried and ran away because he was scared of our young master. What? Seriously?”
—the blatant provocation of those who looked down on Gwak Yeon the most in this family.
“If that’s serious… then bet with us too?”
His blood up, Cheon Gang put every last coin he had on the line.
Chirp-chirp-chirp—!
Gwak Yeon woke to the sound of birds outside the window. He slowly looked around his quarters, then stretched with a clear, refreshed feeling.
……Today’s the day.
The day of the spar had arrived.
Others in the family believed that from today an order forbidding him from leaving would be issued, but Gwak Yeon was different.
The day I receive the spiritual medicine.
Today was simply the day he would obtain one of several means to surpass the realm he had reached in his previous life.
In other words, for Gwak Yeon, who had perfectly adapted to this body over the past two weeks, the third young master he would face today was no threat at all.
Clench.
He closed his fist and felt it at once. The contracting and relaxing muscles. The bones and nerves surrounding them, and the flow of internal energy passing between—all of it seemed to stand out clearly along the blood vessels running through his entire body.
And that was not all.
He had completely grasped the reach of this body as well.
The two-week adaptation period. In that time Gwak Yeon had grown fully accustomed to this body’s muscles and keen senses.
Hmm.
Like aiming an arrow, if he focused a little attention on a specific point, he could draw in more precise information than before.
For example, the muttering of the people walking beneath the window right now.
—Today, right?
—Looks like he didn’t run away this time?
—Yeah.
Curious chatter from family members coming and going past his quarters.
—It would’ve been better for the escort warrior here if he’d just run.
—Because of the bets?
—Obviously. They say he’s already put up one silver tael dozens of times.
—Crazy.
This was something he already knew.
……Cheon Gang.
A bodyguard with high loyalty. Separate from that devotion, the fellow possessed quite solid skill—enough to hasten the time it took to awaken the senses of this body.
Not as bad as I expected.
Moreover, Gwak Yeon had felt it. The strange sense of familiarity that grew day by day in the fellow’s sword as he took the spar more seriously. It was probably because of the family’s martial arts that he used.
The martial art that, in less than three generations, had raised this family into one of the two great houses of Zhejiang. At the same time, a practical sword style that even latecomers from vagabond backgrounds like Cheon Gang could put to use as family warriors.
In short—
Manhyeong Swordplay, is it…
Gwak Yeon had caught a peculiar scent from the martial art the third young master would use today. How long had he closed his eyes and sunk into thought?
Step, step.
Along with the rapid footsteps of someone approaching the door—
Knock-knock.
—Gwak Yeon realized the time had come.
“Young Master, it is time.”
“……Let’s go.”
The time to prove his martial way before the later generations of the murim, decades after his own era.
And so—
Waaaaaah—————!
Hearing a roar that seemed to shake heaven and earth,
Gwak Yeon stepped into the training platform packed with hundreds of people who had come to mock him.
Thump!
……With an expression that was somehow fully heated.