What Did I Do Wrong?

The swordsman swung his sword.

Seuseuseuseuk!

The people quickly ducked their heads, but a few reflexively raised their weapons. That was a mistake.

Chwaak!

Blood sprayed in all directions. Sword Qi sheared through blades and hewed through flesh as well.

“Gwan Hong!”

“Mang Gi!”

Several collapsed with a thud. Others rushed in to support them.

They were still breathing, but it would not be strange if it stopped at any moment.

“This is insane.”

Shin Yul let out a hollow laugh as she looked at her severed spear shaft.

She had ducked, but her long hair and spear shaft could not escape the strike.

She did not care about the cut hair, but she had never imagined the spear her clan forged would be sliced so easily.

And the ones who had gone down had not raised their weapons thoughtlessly either.

Their weapons had also been wrapped in Qi.

They had only let their guard down because they thought they were a fair distance away.

Shin Yul knew the reason why.

‘…They have never fought a peak-level master.’

It was because they had no idea how terrifying such people were.

Meanwhile, the swordsman was readying his second strike.

Would they be able to dodge this one as well?

As everyone quailed, one man stepped forward.

A man drenched in blood.

More wounded than anyone else present, yet his eyes still shone.

“Now that is intense.”

Shin Yul whistled.

“I cannot lose to that.”

She lifted the remaining two-thirds of her spear shaft.

Because it had been cut on a slant, the end was sharp.

That was sharp enough to serve as a spearhead.

“I do not plan on just waiting around to die.”

Even if they could not win, they at least had to struggle.

And she was not the only one thinking that.

Several others lifted their weapons and followed after Gyo-ha.

Among them was her older brother, Shin Gi-yang.

“Damn it, I really have gone crazy.”

At the unfamiliar voice she turned her head and saw a beggar running alongside them.

“Were you not just going to watch?”

“I will watch a fight, but I am not planning to sit and watch the blade come for my own neck.”

Bong Seok said curtly.

Then he raised a hand.

“Of course, if one of my hands flies off, I am running without looking back.”

In other words, he had stepped up ready to lose at least a hand.

Shin Yul looked at him in surprise.

She had been planning to challenge him to a spar the moment this was over, just because he annoyed her.

She knew she would not be able to rest until she had beaten him up a bit.

‘…I should go a little easy on him.’

Naturally, she had no intention of giving up on that spar.

By then, Gyo-ha had already reached the swordsman.

Kwaang!

Gyo-ha smacked the swordsman’s arm aside.

Thanks to that, the Sword Qi veered off its path.

Even so, it was still more than threatening enough.

They swallowed dryly at the gouge it carved into the ground as it passed.

They could see the legs of the martial artist who had narrowly dodged the strike trembling.

With a thud, he collapsed to the ground.

But no one blamed him.

Any of them would have been the same in his place.

Nor had Gyo-ha escaped unscathed.

As Gyo-ha stumbled back, his arm dangled loosely.

The impact had broken the bone.

“Do not let him swing his sword!”

“Damn it!”

They could not give him any room to swing.

But that was easier said than done.

The martial artists threw their bodies at him, trying to keep him from swinging his blade.

Even Gyo-ha’s arm had broken from the force.

There was no way ordinary martial artists could block it.

Soon the third strike flashed out.

Seuseuseuseuk!

“Kraaagh!”

One martial artist whose arm had been severed let out a scream.

Was it someone from the Murim Alliance or Evil Heaven Alliance, who knew.

No one had the leisure to check.

Kwaang!

Gyo-ha’s kick smashed into the swordsman’s head.

His head, which had been knocked to the side, creaked back up.

The face that had been mottled red was now blackened like iron.

The swordsman’s eyes fixed on Gyo-ha.

[Speeii, deeeeer!]

The martial artists winced at the rough bellow.

‘Just what did that noona do to you.’

Gyo-ha grumbled under his breath and settled into a stance. One arm and one leg were already all but useless.

Radiant Burst Strike was out of the question.

But that did not mean he could give up.

If you have no teeth, you use your gums.

He leapt up on one leg.

His body spun and his foot came chopping down.

But a fist slammed into his chest.

It was the left arm.

Until now it had only ever swung the sword, but now it was clenched into a fist.

That was not all.

His foot slid forward as well.

“Footwork!”

Someone screamed the word.

Clumsy as it was, the swordsman’s steps were tracing the Eight Trigrams.

Until now, the only reason they had been able to block him at all was because they could read his movements.

All they had needed to watch for was the sword he swung. That was no longer the case.

Was this a memory Lightning-Strike Swordsman had originally possessed?

Or had it learned by watching the martial artists here?

Either way, it did not matter.

Despair spread across their faces.

At that moment there was something they had yet to realize.

They were not the only ones being struck by the swordsman’s attacks.

―Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!

The fog, now grown thin.

Perhaps it could no longer hold on.

The fog that had been clinging to the swordsman’s body writhed, then peeled away.

Then it changed direction.

“Young Hero!”

The fog wrapped around Gyo-ha’s body.

“Hm?”

Just as he was about to hurl himself at the swordsman, Gyo-ha blinked.

It coiled around him before he could even react.

At the same time, the fog all around them was sucked in at high speed.

The fog surged in like a storm, and the onlookers could only squeeze their eyes shut.

When they opened them again, the fog was gone.

Of course, Gyo-ha, whom the fog had wrapped around, was nowhere to be seen either.

Only the people and the swordsman were left standing.

“Where in the world did it…”

The party hurriedly scanned their surroundings.

But someone else reacted before they did.

[Speeii, deeeeeer!]

The swordsman let out a scream and flung his body forward.

When they turned their eyes the way he was headed, they could see fog beyond the mountain slope.

The fog that had spilled out halted, then was sucked back the way it had emerged.

And then it vanished.

“Over there!”

At someone’s shout, the group managed to track the fog.

Far beyond several ridges.

It swelled and spread, looking like a bank of clouds.

But only for a moment, before it disappeared again.

“…Is it moving?”

They had never known fog could move like that.

No, ordinary fog would never move that way.

“Should we not at least try to follow it?”

Shin Yul asked cautiously.

It was not just that the fog had vanished. It had taken Gyo-ha with it.

Seo Jong-dae calmly turned his head.

“How?”

They could not even see it anymore.

Even Swift Wind Beggar in his prime would not be able to catch up to it.

No, no one could.

It was not a speed a human could chase.

Naturally, the swordsman also seemed unable to pursue.

The trees toppling in the far distance proved as much.

[Speeiiiiiii, deeeeeeeeeer!]

After staring past it for a moment, Seo Jong-dae nodded.

“Well, he probably won’t die.”

The group turned to him with dumbfounded looks.

Yet no one contradicted him.

They had all seen Gyo-ha fight.

Once both the fog and the swordsman were gone, a new problem remained.

The Murim Alliance and the Evil Heaven Alliance.

The two factions watched one another warily, hands going to their weapons.

“You going to have it out here? Suit yourselves then. I’m going to rest.”

Shin Yul shook her head.

Then she turned to Tang Ho and his group.

“I know a tavern nearby with amazing side dishes. Interested?”

Tang Ho glanced over at Jeon Pyeong. When Jeon Pyeong gave a slight nod, Tang Ho spoke.

“…Let us go together.”

“I like thin noodles.”

Bong Seok sidled up beside them.

“All right. I’ll buy you some.”

Shin Yul readily nodded. Bong Seok stared at her in surprise.

Given the way she usually looked at him, he had not thought she would pay for him.

But Shin Yul’s true intentions lay elsewhere.

‘…If I am going to spar with him, I should fill his stomach first.’

They said even a ghost who dies on a full stomach looks better.

If she was going to thrash a beggar, she needed to feed him well first.

Before moving off, Jeon Pyeong turned to the martial artists from the Murim Alliance.

“If you want to know the circumstances, you would do well to come along.”

At his words, the eyes of those from the Murim Alliance changed.

Just then, one of the Evil Heaven Alliance martial artists beside them spoke up.

“Those circumstances. Can we hear them as well?”

His tone was brusque, but his face was still pale.

Instead of answering, Jeon Pyeong looked to Shin Yul.

Shin Yul scratched her head irritably.

“I am only paying for this side. You two can cover your own tabs.”

She was speaking to the martial artists from the Murim Alliance and Evil Heaven Alliance.

At her words, they nodded.

They could at least afford that much.

Not long after, the incident was reported to each Alliance.

Naturally, it was brushed aside.

The Murim Alliance and the Evil Heaven Alliance had no time to waste on something so inexplicable.

They were too busy keeping each other in check.

War clouds hung over the Central Plains as a whole.

To the Murim Alliance and the Evil Heaven Alliance, this was nothing more than a minor incident on the fringes.

Naturally, Gyo-ha’s disappearance was treated as a trivial matter as well.

---

He had lost count of how many times it had happened now.

The sensation of his entire body being torn apart and stitched back together.

In the middle of his daze, the world around him brightened.

“Uwek!”

Gyo-ha vomited up everything inside him. His stomach turned over several more times.

When he finally pried his eyes open, he saw blue waves.

It was a sight he had never seen in his life.

Gyo-ha realized this had to be the sea he had once heard about.

And the fog lay beyond the sea.

It had spat Gyo-ha out and moved on alone.

Now, as if it thought it had gone far enough, it stopped above the water.

Gyo-ha glared at the fog and spoke.

“…Just what did you take from me?”

The fog had not wrapped around him to save him.

It had dragged him along because it needed something that was in him to move.

Now that it no longer needed him, it had thrown him away.

It was not his internal energy.

His internal energy remained intact. He could not tell what it was.

He only had the sensation that something had been taken.

A crawling sense of disgust rose up inside him.

It was a feeling he had never known before.

But he could hardly ask the fog.

He was not even sure it was something he could communicate with.

The fog bobbed over the sea.

Had it fled this far on purpose? Did it know it could not come up onto the black water?

The chaos from just before now seemed like a lie, the scene peaceful.

Gyo-ha glared at the fog a moment longer, then passed out on the spot.

Some time later,

Some villagers passing by found him, and before long two Buddhist nuns came and took him away.

---

When he opened his eyes, an unfamiliar ceiling came into view.

The scent of incense rose together with the smell of herbs. Somewhere, someone was humming.

When he turned his head, he saw a girl sitting in a big chair, humming to herself as she read from a bamboo slip.

A young Buddhist nun.

She was so small that her feet did not reach the floor.

Her legs swung back and forth.

Her head bobbing side to side, the young nun met Gyo-ha’s eyes.

“Oh?”

The young nun’s eyes went round.

Soon her face flushed red.

Was it because she had been caught humming to herself?

“Ah, um, hello?”

When Gyo-ha greeted her, the young nun’s face turned even redder.

At some point her legs had stopped swinging as well.

With a little hop, she jumped down from the chair and bolted from the room before he could stop her.

“Sajeooo!”¹

The young nun called out desperately, like a chick searching for its mother hen.

“Sajeoo! Saajeo!”

For some reason she sounded on the verge of tears. Her voice carried in clearly from beyond the room.

‘…Did I do something wrong?’

Gyo-ha cast his mind back for a moment, but nothing came to him.

He had only said hello.