“I am Geom Yeon, a new recruit of the White Dragon Class. Not the yeon as in fate, but…”
Whoosh.
Before he could even finish speaking, Yeon Baekjin launched a surprise attempt to seal Geom Mugeuk’s acupoints.
But Geom Mugeuk lightly twisted his body and avoided the attack.
“I use the yeon as in acting. Once this matter is over, I’m someone who will disappear. Forever.”
Looking at his empty hand clutching at the air, Yeon Baekjin felt a strange tremor. Was it fear? No, it was clearly an emotion different from fear.
He knew. If he had seen someone without openings as being full of them, then in the end, those openings had been his own.
“Ah, of course, I didn’t come to Hwangryong Martial Academy to learn martial arts.”
“Then why did you come?”
“To help a friend.”
“Who?”
There were two reasons Geom Mugeuk had revealed himself today.
First, he had confirmed that Yeon Baekjin stood on the side opposed to Pyo San.
Not every enemy of one’s enemy was an ally, but in this urgent situation, where the enemies were even trying to kill Guimun’s own flesh and blood, he judged that joining hands with Yeon Baekjin was not a bad choice.
The second reason, of course, was Seojin. If the wheel of fate carrying the two of them rolled all the way toward ruin, he intended to willingly climb onto that wheel with them. To do that, no one else mattered, but he had to get close to Yeon Baekjin.
“I am not someone who belongs to Guimun, but personally, I owe Guimun a great debt.”
It was an answer that he had come to help Seojin. It was not a lie. He truly did owe Guimun a great debt.
“Surely you didn’t think the Guimun Lord would let his daughter wander around alone?”
“Then that woman called Ian as well?”
Geom Mugeuk nodded.
“We are protecting her.”
These people were protecting the daughter of the Guimun Lord?
It was believable. The day after Seojin entered, the two of them enrolled. After that, they had been going around together.
“I showed myself because I thought the target of Seojin’s revenge and Great Hero Yeon’s enemy might be the same person.”
Geom Mugeuk took out another weapon from the pile and handed it to him.
“Do you feel like searching together now?”
Yeon Baekjin threw the sword back into the heap of scrap iron.
“I refuse.”
His gaze turned toward the new weapons hanging on the wall.
“So many new ones pour out every day. There’s no need to rummage through scrap metal.”
Even if what the other man said was true, he could not simply trust him at face value.
Yeon Baekjin turned and left the place.
“If you’re a new recruit, don’t be late to class.”
As Yeon Baekjin walked toward the entrance, one thought suddenly came to him.
‘But did he hear even the part where I pressed Pyo San about where that place is?’
Yeon Baekjin looked back.
But Geom Mugeuk was nowhere to be seen, as if he had vanished at some point.
* * *
“Great Hero Yeon has noticed the existence of that place.”
Pyo San’s burned face throbbed with heat, but he did not even have the leisure to apply medicine.
“Given Great Hero Yeon’s personality, he’ll keep digging.”
Yeon Baekin, the master of Hwangryong Academy, merely stood with his hands clasped behind his back, silently looking out the window.
Giseok, their chief, shook his head to tell him not to say any more, but Pyo San could not hold back and added one last remark.
“As long as Great Hero Yeon knows that you will forgive him no matter what he does, Master, he will keep trying.”
Truly, if he had been alone with Giseok, curses would have come out first.
Yeon Baekin let out a light sigh, then turned toward Pyo San.
“Yes, I suppose he will.”
Then he walked toward Pyo San with a concerned expression.
“Your burns are severe. Let me see. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Thank you for your concern—”
Crack.
At Yeon Baekin’s fingertips, Pyo San’s neck twisted at an unnatural angle, then returned to its original position.
It was a move so swift that before he could even register it, his cervical bones snapped, and he collapsed where he stood.
Looking down at the corpse, Yeon Baekin let out a low, anger-filled groan. Mmm, the rage that seeped out with that sound was not directed solely at Pyo San.
Giseok, on the other hand, showed no reaction even at the death of his own limb.
In this situation, now that Yeon Baekjin had become involved in earnest, he deemed it appropriate to remove him. Only, now that the lips were gone, he would have to grit his chilled teeth.
“You said the excavation is in its final stage?”
At Yeon Baekin’s question, Giseok answered respectfully.
“Yes. They say they have almost broken through. They will find the entrance soon.”
Passion flashed through Yeon Baekin’s eyes. Yes, they had to find it. For that moment, he had become an academy master who twisted an instructor’s neck.
“We’re nearly there now.”
Yeon Baekin looked down once more at Pyo San’s corpse, then gazed far out the window.
“Yes. Hell Gate must be waiting for us.”
At Yeon Baekin’s self-mocking reply, Giseok bowed his head respectfully.
“Even if you go to hell, you will go as the greatest under heaven.”
* * *
At the inn, Geom Mugeuk was drinking alone as he waited for Ian and Seojin to return.
Yeon Baekjin strode in to where he was sitting and placed an old iron sword on the table.
“There was one sword worth keeping.”
He had gone to the scrap heap piled up in the smithy and found a usable sword.
Geom Mugeuk looked up at him. He felt different from when they had parted earlier. Compared to then, he seemed a little more agitated.
“Surely you didn’t really go back and look for it?”
“I found it myself.”
“I wouldn’t have known even if you’d bought it on the way here.”
Yeon Baekjin snorted. It was a moment that offered a slight glimpse into his character.
“Why did you change your mind?”
It was because of one person’s death.
“Pyo San is dead. They say he hanged himself.”
Yeon Baekjin knew. His brother had killed him. It was the moment when his wavering suspicion turned into certainty.
“What does he take me for?”
Despite the shocking news, Geom Mugeuk remained calm.
“Did you expect it, by any chance?”
“I wouldn’t say I expected it, but it isn’t surprising. They are people who tried to kill even Guimun’s own blood. Cutting off one exposed limb wouldn’t be a problem for them. Now, please sit. If you haven’t eaten, have a meal as well.”
Yeon Baekjin sat down. When he had come here, his thoughts had been complicated and he had not been certain. But once he actually saw Geom Mugeuk, he felt he had done well to come. This young fellow had a strange way of putting one at ease.
“Just a cup of wine.”
Geom Mugeuk poured him wine.
“One more.”
After emptying three cups in succession, he revealed an unexpected fact.
“Instructor Im came to see me before he died.”
The reason Yeon Baekjin had become entangled in this matter was none other than Im Hyeok.
“He said something strange seemed to be happening inside the academy.”
Yeon Baekjin conveyed exactly what Im Hyeok had told him.
The first time Im Hyeok took notice of this matter was two years ago.
There had been an extremely talented student he had personally taught since the White Dragon Class two years earlier. He was skilled, and he had a strong desire for success.
At that rate, he was naturally certain to pass the Hwangryong Class graduation exam, but one day, he came to him and said he was quitting the martial academy, offering his farewell. He said that at least he wanted to say goodbye to his instructor.
Im Hyeon tried to stop him, saying that if he endured just a little longer, he would definitely be able to graduate, but the student left, saying there was something he absolutely had to do.
At that moment, he sensed an indescribable yearning in the student’s eyes. What was it that he had tried to gain by throwing away all the time he had spent suffering until then?
That incident passed, and this year, something similar happened again. This time as well, it was a student whose passing of the graduation exam was guaranteed, and in him, he saw again the yearning he had seen in the eyes of that student back then.
No matter how he thought about it, it was strange, so he began to investigate in secret. And he discovered that in the last three years, many students who were fully capable of passing the graduation exam had quit.
Because so many people attended the academy, no one had paid attention to this fact. If they said they were quitting, what more needed to be said? They must have had their own circumstances.
“He came to me saying it was strange no matter how he looked at it. He asked me to look into it. To be honest, even when I heard him say that, I didn’t think it was all that strange.”
He emptied his cup again.
“Two days after he came to see me, Instructor Im died.”
Yeon Baekjin’s gaze, which had been on his empty wine cup, turned toward Geom Mugeuk.
“That was truly strange.”
Around that time, he had been feeling that his elder brother, the academy master, had changed greatly from before. He had somehow become sensitive and cold.
Even so, he had not thought that his brother was involved in killing an instructor. But today, with Pyo San’s death, it became clear. His brother had been involved in Im Hyeon’s death as well.
“That place you asked about when you were pressing Pyo San earlier—what does it refer to?”
“So you did hear it.”
He had come here already intending to tell him everything.
“I found out after secretly investigating the academy’s finances. Money had been spent buying materials needed for a large-scale construction project.”
That was why he had pressed Pyo San about where the place was. To find out where, exactly, and what kind of construction was taking place.
“That is all I know.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
Thanks to that, he finally learned why Im Hyeok had lost his life. And he had also obtained precious information that some secret construction project was underway.
Yeon Baekjin silently emptied his wine cup. It was guilt he did not necessarily need to carry, but Geom Mugeuk could sense that he felt some sense of debt over Im Hyeon’s death.
The Yeon Baekjin of now was not an evil man. No matter how he looked at him, he was not an evil man pretending to be good either.
Why had such an ordinary person walked that path? When Seojin took her revenge, his brother had already been dead as well. At the time, he had naturally assumed Yeon Baekjin had killed him.
Why did you, such a man, walk the path of fate where you killed your brother and even the woman you loved?
Geom Mugeuk’s gaze lowered to the iron sword Yeon Baekjin had brought. In any case, one thing was certain. The moment he chose this sword and brought it here, the wheel of fate must have begun to turn slightly in another direction.
Slowly drawing the iron sword, Geom Mugeuk said,
“You found a good one. This sword is now fated not to melt in a furnace.”
* * *
The mechanical lift was descending endlessly underground.
Yeon Baekin was riding alone in the space, which was just large enough for one person.
He was staring at his own face reflected in the metal of the mechanism. A face that had become unfamiliar at some point.
Thud.
The stopped mechanism’s door opened.
A martial artist was waiting in front of it. A familiar face. He was a man from Hwangryong Martial Academy.
“Please step only where I step and follow me.”
Yeon Baekin walked after him.
Lines were drawn all over the floor like a Go board, and each was painted a different color.
Yeon Baekin stepped where the guide stepped.
Along the way, sections of the walls had been torn open here and there. The complicated devices visible inside were terrifying mechanisms.
Some had already been completely dismantled, while others remained as they were, so stepping on the wrong part of the floor could cost one’s life.
There were places they had to cross on a single rope, and there were even places where they had to climb up, only to slide back down.
There were places where they had to crawl through small passages, and they even had to swim through water. It was truly a maze that could never be navigated without a guide. He had come several times over the past three years, but the paths changed as well, so he was confused every time he came.
And then they arrived at the final space.
In that wide place like a plaza, those who had once been students of Hwangryong Martial Academy were working diligently.
There were those raising sword energy to cut into the walls, those looking down at blueprints and busily writing something, and those carrying boxes.
They had not been dragged here. Every one of them had chosen this of their own will.
They were being paid a monthly sum that could not be compared to the jobs they might have chosen after leaving the academy. Once this work was over, it was an amount that would let every one of them fulfill their dreams.
And there he was.
The man who had changed not only his own life as the master of Hwangryong Academy, but the lives of everyone here.
The man’s first words when he came to him had been this:
—You’ll have to dig some ground with me.
He was a very handsome middle-aged man with a genial impression. There was ease in his eyes, and mischief clung to the slightly upturned corners of his mouth.
“Careful there!”
The man had his hair tied tightly back, his upper body bare, and was running here and there barefoot.
The countless scars on his body told what kind of days he had lived through.
“I said, be careful there!”
The instant the man’s shout burst toward one young man—
Whoooooosh!
A massive lump of iron several times the size of a person fell toward his head.
Craack! Kwaaang!
Yeon Baekin thought that since the lump of iron was so huge, they would not even be able to find traces of the corpse.
Fwooooosh.
When the rising dust settled, everyone stared at the spot in astonishment.
The massive lump of iron had been split in two, and between the halves stood two people.
The man was standing beside the young man.
When he had shouted, he had been quite far away, yet in an instant he had flown there and cut the lump of iron in half.
The cut surfaces were so clean and smooth they seemed to shine. Astonishingly, the man had cut this enormous lump of iron without emitting sword energy.
Nor had he cut it with a treasured sword. The sword in the man’s hand was an old iron sword one could find anywhere in the marketplace.
At the man’s divine might, not only Yeon Baekin but everyone there revealed awe. The move he had shown was truly the pinnacle of swordsmanship.
The man lightly struck the young man on the back of the head.
“Were you trying to die before even spending the money?”
“I’m sorry. Thank you for saving me.”
The young man bowed deeply in thanks. The other young men also expressed their gratitude. There was not a single one among them who had not received this man’s help at least once.
“Everyone, clear this first!”
“Yes!”
The young men gathered to move the lump of iron. They raised sword energy and began cutting the iron into pieces. When they had first entered this place, most of them had been unable to raise sword energy, but now all of them handled it skillfully.
Only after standing there for quite some time and watching over the cleanup of the iron lump did the man turn toward Yeon Baekin.
“It’s been a while since you came.”
The man brushed off the dust covering his body with his hands and walked over with a bright smile.
“Did something interesting happen in the outside world?”