The next day, as they were on their way to attend the White Dragon class, Seojin asked worriedly,
“What if that man takes us hostage again and tries to kill the Young Cult Master?”
At that, Ian looked at Geom Mugeuk’s back as he walked ahead of them and said calmly,
“The Young Cult Master will stop him.”
But Seojin knew just how close to the brink yesterday’s atmosphere had been.
“If you’re trying to stay because of me, I’m all right.”
Seojin was worried that Ian might be forcing herself to remain because of her revenge.
When Ian stopped walking, Seojin stopped as well.
“You asked what kind of person the Young Cult Master is, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“If he had judged that we needed to return, the Young Cult Master would have packed our bags himself and sent us back. Honor? Justification? Pride? He isn’t someone who overextends himself for things like that. If the Young Cult Master says nothing, then it’s fine.”
After returning from class yesterday, Geom Mugeuk had gone out somewhere and come back. She had not asked where he had been, but it had surely been an outing to prepare for this matter.
And at dawn, Ian had heard the window of Geom Mugeuk’s room open. He had been awake until then.
Lying on her bed, Ian had looked at the stars visible through the half-open window. Perhaps Geom Mugeuk was looking at those same stars right now.
“If the Young Cult Master says the sun won’t rise tomorrow, I’ll bet my entire fortune that it won’t.”
It was Ian’s absolute faith in Geom Mugeuk.
“When you make that bet, please be sure to tell me.”
“So you can bet with me that it won’t rise?”
“No, I couldn’t do that. Now that I’ve left home, I have many places to spend money too.”
Ian and Seojin looked at each other and laughed.
Just then, up ahead, Geom Mugeuk looked back at them.
“What are you doing? Hurry up!”
The two women began walking again. As they went, Ian offered another optimistic theory.
“The Young Cult Master isn’t just an ordinary master. With his skills, and if the opponent is skilled enough to threaten someone like him, then hostages won’t mean anything. It’s like this: if the Young Cult Master can beat him, he’ll win even if we’re taken hostage. If the Young Cult Master can’t beat him, then the opponent wouldn’t bother taking hostages in the first place.”
Seojin had lived as a blood relative of the Ghost Gate, lacking nothing. And now she was feeling an unfamiliar yet intense longing.
“I want to become strong too. Truly.”
She wanted to fight alongside them in this world of the strong. Not as a hostage, but as a protagonist.
How could Ian not understand her feelings? She, too, had once felt the same longing and had thrown herself into training like a madwoman.
When one stayed beside Geom Mugeuk, one naturally became this way without realizing it. It wasn’t because anyone ordered them to. Perhaps it was because the path that man walked was one that could not be shared unless one ran until one’s heart felt like it would burst.
“If you want that, then absolutely don’t doze off during class!”
* * *
The Sword King’s second class began.
He looked a little different from yesterday. The shabby martial robes, the tightly tied hair, and the single iron sword were the same, but today he had come barefoot.
“Try walking around barefoot from time to time. You can feel the energy of the earth, and it’s quite nice.”
The trainees laughed at the sight of him hanging his shoes on the side opposite his sword.
On top of that, he had dragged in a large box.
“I brought it from the storage.”
When he opened the box, thick with piled-up dust, it was filled with training wooden swords.
In the early days of the Yellow Dragon Martial Academy, students had trained with wooden swords until several years after entering.
But as the Yellow Dragon Martial Academy became famous and began selecting students through examinations, wooden sword classes had vanished at some point.
“Now, take one each.”
Until now, they had trained with their own real swords at their waists, so the trainees were bewildered when wooden swords were suddenly handed out.
“You brats, who do you think you’re good enough to cut down that you’re already using real swords? Even wooden swords are too good for you.”
The trainees took up the wooden swords, inwardly dumbfounded. From what he had shown yesterday to his bare feet and now this out-of-nowhere wooden sword lesson, he was the very image of a slacking instructor.
As Ian picked up a wooden sword, she sent a sound transmission to Geom Mugeuk.
—This is unexpected. I thought he would create a frightening atmosphere with a class that felt even more like real combat.
Then an unexpected sound transmission came back from Geom Mugeuk.
—I find this more frightening.
—Pardon? Why?
—Because they’ll swing freely, thinking they’re only wooden swords.
—!
The wooden sword in the Sword King’s hand will be sharper than a treasured blade, Ian.
Geom Mugeuk looked down at the wooden sword.
‘Come to think of it, how long has it been since I last held a wooden sword?’
He had once recalled the day he first grasped a real sword in his father’s training hall.
Now that he thought about it, he had considered the day he first held a real sword special, yet had completely forgotten the day he first held a wooden sword. Perhaps that moment had been the more important one.
The martial art taught at the Yellow Dragon Martial Academy was the Yellow Dragon Sword Art.
The Yellow Dragon Sword Art had played the greatest role in making the Yellow Dragon Martial Academy the foremost martial academy in the Central Plains, but it was not because its swordsmanship was overwhelmingly powerful. It was a martial art created so that its sword techniques could be performed without conflict no matter what inner cultivation method one had learned.
“The Yellow Dragon Sword Art consists of twenty-six forms in total.”
At that, the trainees said,
“It’s twenty-nine.”
“Ah, was it?”
The trainees wore expressions that said, I knew it, but the Sword King was not embarrassed at all.
“If you learn this sword art properly, you’ll be able to give the Demonic Cult’s Young Cult Master’s backside a thorough beating.”
The trainees laughed at that. The one who laughed the loudest among them was Geom Mugeuk. He was enjoying the Sword King’s joke without feeling the slightest displeasure.
Ian could sense it. The two of them were engaged in an invisible battle of wills. And both of them were enjoying it.
“Now, today we will learn the first three forms of the Yellow Dragon Sword Art.”
The Sword King held up his wooden sword and stood before them all.
Only Geom Mugeuk properly felt it. Though it was only a wooden sword, the moment he held a sword, his presence changed completely.
If he drew a real sword, what sort of presence would he reveal? The Sword King with a sword in hand felt like a different person, enough to make such fear arise on its own.
“I don’t usually teach things like this just anywhere, you know.”
The trainees took him as an instructor merely making glib remarks, but Geom Mugeuk focused on every word he spoke and every gesture he made. The trainees did not know who was teaching them swordsmanship at that moment.
The Sword King’s movements were truly gentle. They seemed to have no strength in them at all, to the point that they looked almost like a dance.
Everyone tilted their heads. The Yellow Dragon Sword Art they had learned until now was a martial art performed with fast, forceful movements.
So they all thought the same thing. Looks like he’s trying to get through this carelessly, just like yesterday.
He even changed the movement midway through performing a form.
“Ah, it would be better to do this like this.”
Everyone shook their heads, but it looked different in Geom Mugeuk’s eyes.
He could tell that the Sword King had reinterpreted the fierce Yellow Dragon Sword Art on a foundation of softness.
Had he ever properly learned the Yellow Dragon Sword Art for a long time? He had likely only glanced at the manual briefly in order to act as a temporary instructor, yet he had reinterpreted a martial art and presented it as something else.
After performing the forms, the Sword King sat on the box from which he had taken the wooden swords and brushed the dust from his feet.
“Did you all get a good look?”
As he said that, the Sword King’s gaze turned toward Geom Mugeuk.
From the look in his eyes as he stared at him, Geom Mugeuk understood.
‘The fight has begun.’
I performed it this way. Now how will you show me this Yellow Dragon Sword Art?
It was a probe meant to gauge Geom Mugeuk’s skill, a game played by one who had reached the pinnacle of swordsmanship, and at the same time the beginning of a fight in which either could cut off the other’s head at any moment.
“Now, everyone try it!”
The trainees thrust out their wooden swords in unison. As if saying, This is what the Yellow Dragon Sword Art is, they performed the forms quickly and powerfully, exactly as they had already learned them.
A few tried to imitate what the Sword King had done, but soon thought, What am I doing? and returned to performing the martial art in its original way.
In this place, the only ones following exactly as the Sword King had performed were Geom Mugeuk, Ian, and Seojin.
Of course, the only one who accurately understood the Sword King’s reinterpretation was Geom Mugeuk.
Geom Mugeuk’s movements were identical to the Sword King’s.
Softly, like flowing water.
With all his sincerity poured into each and every movement, he performed the three forms of the Yellow Dragon Sword Art.
A strange light flashed through the Sword King’s eyes as he watched Geom Mugeuk. He really succeeded after seeing it just once?
“Geomyeon, come forward.”
The Sword King called Geom Mugeuk out.
Ian was tense inwardly, but Geom Mugeuk walked forward fearlessly with the wooden sword in hand.
“Show us a demonstration.”
Geom Mugeuk perfectly reproduced exactly what the Sword King had shown.
He did not include his own interpretation in this martial art. He performed the martial art exactly as the Sword King had taught it.
One’s own interpretation should only be applied when one could perfectly perform the original.
Knowing that originality could sometimes become a trap that hindered completion of the essence, Geom Mugeuk strove to remain faithful to that essence.
Laughter broke out here and there. To the trainees’ eyes, it looked ridiculous. The instructor’s demonstration had been strange to begin with, and they thought he was imitating those awkward movements as if trying to curry favor with the instructor.
Some trainees openly sneered. After becoming Shield Geomyeon rather than the new Geomyeon, he had been receiving jealousy and resentment, making it even worse.
When the demonstration ended, the Sword King asked the trainees,
“Now, who wants to try a prearranged spar with the forms we learned today?”
As everyone was glancing at one another, one person stepped forward.
“I’ll try.”
It was Yu Gwang. He had no personal grudge against Geomyeon.
There were two reasons he stepped forward. Half of him wanted to catch Ian’s eye even a little, and the other half was curious why Ian kept this fellow by her side. What was so special about him?
“Now, face each other and perform the forms we learned today.”
The two of them performed the forms.
While Yu Gwang executed them quickly and powerfully as he usually practiced them, Geom Mugeuk moved with unsurpassed gentleness, just as he had learned today.
The problem was that Yu Gwang’s speed was faster, so it seemed the prearranged spar would not work.
And yet the two men’s prearranged spar matched perfectly.
When Geom Mugeuk performed alone, he had truly looked slow, but when he actually matched moves with Yu Gwang, he was not slow at all.
So everyone thought that Geom Mugeuk had performed slowly earlier and was now executing the forms quickly.
But only Ian recognized it accurately.
‘His speed is the same as before. It only looked slow because it appeared so smooth.’
What truly surprised Ian, however, happened next.
When two people faced each other and performed the Yellow Dragon Sword Art forms, their swords were meant to collide on the third form.
The moment the two wooden swords struck each other in midair—
Saaak.
The wooden sword Yu Gwang held was smoothly cut apart.
Not only Yu Gwang himself, but everyone watching was startled.
If a wooden sword were to break, it should have snapped with a crack. Yet it had truly made the sound of paper being cut by a blade.
Yu Gwang, the person involved, was the most shocked. He looked down at his severed sword. The cut surface was as smooth as if it had been sliced by a blade.
There had not even been any impact when the swords clashed.
‘Was it cut from the beginning?’
He had no choice but to understand the situation in that way.
Aside from the Sword King, the person who realized the secret was, as expected, Ian.
Geom Mugeuk’s movements were as fluid as water, and that water was not water that could be taken lightly.
The instant that water focused on a single point, it became water capable of cutting through anything. Water that shot forth so quickly it appeared instead to be standing still.
The Sword King’s reinterpretation, planting extreme hardness within softness, had been contained in the forms Geom Mugeuk performed.
Emotion flashed through the Sword King’s eyes. Geom Mugeuk had perfectly accepted his interpretation after watching a single demonstration.
The Sword King strode toward Geom Mugeuk.
You are qualified to die by my sword!
His steps made it seem as though he would draw his sword at any moment.
As always, the hardest part in a fight against the Sword King was the moment when one had to do nothing at all.
Fortunately, there was no surprise attack this time either.
Instead, the Sword King stopped in front of him and extended his wooden sword forward. From that action, Geom Mugeuk understood. It meant he wanted to try a prearranged spar with him.
‘What were you doing in this martial academy? With what thoughts did you appear before me, and with what thoughts are you giving a lecture on martial arts?’
After gazing at the Sword King for a moment, Geom Mugeuk nodded.
‘Are you truly a man who keeps his promises?’
As if they had made a promise, the two moved at the same time.
Their movements were identical. The place their swords aimed, their speed, the movement of their feet—it looked as though they were performing the forms while looking into a mirror. If the two of them had been overlaid, it would have seemed as if a single person were moving.
The wooden swords brushed past each other’s shoulders and grazed their faces. They executed the prescribed forms exactly as they were. If either of them had altered the angle of his hand even slightly, he would have stabbed the other in the face, yet both unfolded the forms precisely. Even so, their eyes remained fixed only on each other’s.
At last, when they reached the third form, their wooden swords collided.
Saaak!
The wooden sword in Geom Mugeuk’s hand was sliced cleanly away, just as Yugwang’s had been earlier.
Carrying that momentum, the Sword King’s wooden sword flew toward Geom Mugeuk’s chest.
It was the wooden sword of none other than the Sword King. If it struck properly, it could be a fatal blow.
Saaak.
Before it could touch Geom Mugeuk’s chest, the Sword King’s wooden sword, too, was sliced apart like paper and fell to the floor. It had only fallen a step later; from the beginning, the two wooden swords had been cut together.
“Ah! What a shame!”
The Sword King hopped barefoot as if he truly found it regrettable.
What bloomed on his face was not anger. It was an indescribable ecstasy. The joy of having someone who had cut his sword standing before his eyes.
“I was only going to stab you three times with this wooden sword. A man trying to protect a woman can afford a few bruises on his chest, can’t he?”
As if bruises would have been the end of it.
If he had been stabbed three times by the Sword King’s wooden sword, he would not have remained standing.
Geom Mugeuk answered with a smile.
“It’s a good thing the wooden swords were old.”
“Then shall we try it with real swords?”
At the unexpected suggestion, Geom Mugeuk returned to the Sword King the very words he had said to the students earlier.
“How could a mere newcomer draw a real sword and try to take someone down?”
“That’s why this instructor is saying he’ll face you, isn’t it?”
Shrrrng.
The Sword King began drawing his iron sword.
“I heard that in this class, an instructor died and a student died as well.”
At Geom Mugeuk’s words, the iron sword stopped halfway out of its sheath.
“Then who will die this time?”
“If we go in order, it would be the instructor’s turn.”
The two were smiling broadly at each other, but an invisible tension was mounting.
Just then, the bell signaling the end of class rang out.
Clack.
The Sword King’s iron sword returned to its sheath.
As soon as the bell rang, he turned sharply and left without looking back.
“See you tomorrow!”
The sight of him leaving so happily was no different from the first day: a slacker instructor who had been waiting only for the bell to ring. All anyone could see were the shoes dangling at his waist.
The students gathered and examined the cut wooden swords.
“They were cut beforehand with a sword.”
After all, even the instructor of the White Dragon Class couldn’t possibly cut a wooden sword like this with another wooden sword.
“Ah, come to think of it, the instructor brought these wooden swords, didn’t he?”
“Obvious. Too obvious.”
Everyone concluded that the instructor had cut the wooden swords in advance.
They even looked at Geom Mugeuk with suspicion, wondering if the two had perhaps planned it together. They thought the two had conspired to pretend to be experts. The conversation they had exchanged at the end, too, had not been the sort of conversation a normal instructor and student would have.
But Ian could see it.
On Geom Mugeuk’s face, the very same ecstasy that had bloomed earlier on the Sword King’s face was blooming now. That face was not the face of the Young Cult Leader, but the face of a martial artist.
In a situation where everyone believed it was a prank, something arranged in advance.
‘Those two are really fighting.’