Red Sun (2)

A Striker’s role is to knock down his opponent in a match and score a goal. Since I did what was obvious, I didn’t perform a ceremony. Have you ever seen a postman deliver a letter and then perform a ceremony?

-Mario Balotelli (1990.08.12~), striking the Hulk Pose after scoring in the UEFA Euro 2012 semifinal-

The postman’s name was Robin.

Robin Myers.

An ordinary old man of the Myers family, who had learned the Kung-Fu of the Kunlun Cathedral and worked as a postman for three generations.

His pay was not particularly high, but satisfied with stable work, he inherited the family trade and took pride in his profession.

To begin with, even the name Robin meant a robin with a red breast.

His name had been given by his grandfather, who worked as a postman back when the uniforms issued to postmen of the Postmaster General were still red.

His grandfather blessed Robin and said.

That because he was born with sturdy legs, he could become an excellent postman.

That he would work diligently and faithfully all his life, live out his natural years, and die amid blessings.

The postmen’s official uniforms had been changed to blue decades ago, but Robin still took pride in the name he had been given, and in all his life he had never once doubted the fate his grandfather foretold.¹

Just as his grandfather and father had, Robin set out at a young age on the pilgrimage road that led to the Kunlun Cathedral.

Robin did not harbor lofty ambition to achieve chivalry with his fists.

He believed it. That changing the world was not his work.

He had always thought heroes and chivalrous knights were born under a different constellation than his.

That was why Robin could be faithful to the life given to him, day by day.

Hurting someone didn’t suit his nature.

Wrapping Brain Stopping Qi around his fists and palms and swinging it was enough to subdue ruffians who targeted the mail.

No. There was no need to subdue them at all.

Continuing his training on the pilgrimage road, he soon realized that, like his grandfather and father, he too had been born with the aptitude for movement arts that let him run faster than others.

That’s right.

To protect the mail from bandits and other underworld rabble, there was no need to beat them down.

He only had to run the city’s pathways faster than anyone, differently than everyone else.

Robin’s Kung-Fu talent was insignificant, but he was more diligent than anyone.

After mastering Lightning Clap up to the first stage in order to meet the minimum requirements to work as a postman of the Central Post Office, he poured all his ability into mastering movement arts.

Was it because he enjoyed running?

Robin, lost in recollection, shook his head.

Robin loved London.

For decades, he had etched into his eyes this great city’s narrow alleys, its filthy roads, its damp air, and the human crowds that roamed the metropolis, from the lowest of the low to the nobility.

Though he was sometimes scorned by those of the upper class, he had never hated or resented them.

Instead, Robin lived engraving every emotion he felt in London, sweet and bitter alike, deep into his heart.

His daily life was traveling the city as a postman, sketching its scenery in his little notebook, and it was that everyday life he wanted to protect.

This was the place where his father and his father’s father had lived.

Robin’s root, and his everything.

Even if all he owned was a faded postman’s uniform and a small house on the city’s outskirts bought with money saved across generations, each day, whenever he filled his bag with letters and parcels and unfolded the Ocho Dragones Nubes, he felt a satisfaction beyond words.

So it was only natural that when the Postmaster General secretly issued an order, Robin Myers accepted it without complaint.

Because of a foreign monarch’s plot, London was under threat of vanishing.

To stop it, they had to gather the postmen of the communications bureau most skilled in long-distance movement arts.

They didn’t need numbers.

It was enough if the one who could run the fastest could, at full power, carry the Vermilion Phoenix’s egg safely without slowing down until the destination.

‘I will follow.’

The minimum number was two.

Following the Postmaster General’s order, Robin supported the first runner.

He was a common citizen, so he had no interest in complicated matters like diplomacy or war.

Politics should be handled by people of high station. It was not something an ordinary postman like Robin needed to concern himself with.

But the old postman did not want to see these lovely streets burn and vanish.

It was true that unseen darkness was everywhere, as much as its brilliant glory, but to Robin, nearing seventy, London was an irreplaceable home he could not lose.

To a lofty Russian, it might be a city that was nothing, merely overflowing with people.

But to the postmen of the Central Post Office, and at least to Robin, these streets meant everything.

‘Other than you, we could find no suitable man.’

The Postmaster General said to Robin.

Robin, who had never compared his movement arts to other postmen, felt dazed.

Because he had never dreamed he would hear such praise, that he had the fastest legs in all of Britain’s territory.

Robin had served at the Central Post Office for decades, but during that time he had never exchanged a single word with Sir Henry Fawcett.

The other man was a high minister, and a master Robin could not dare compare himself to.

They had crossed paths several times long ago on the pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela’s Kunlun Cathedral, but that blind martial artist was born with genius incomparable to Robin’s.

Sir Fawcett stepped onto the pilgrimage road late, yet arrived at the cathedral before Robin.

Not only that, he had already conquered the three paths and even obtained the shell that contained a saint’s remains.

It meant that not only in skill, but even in standing within the Kunlun Cathedral, there was an immeasurable gap between an Alcanzador and someone like him who had barely conquered a single pilgrimage route.

And yet Sir Fawcett took the hand of the hesitating Robin.

Out of countless postmen, he had found him and asked him to lend his strength to save London.

In that firm palm, Robin could feel trust directed toward him.

Because he was blind and could see nothing, Sir Fawcett had perceived more accurately than anyone that Robin was the Kung-Fuist suited to carry out this mission.

Robin did not want to betray that faith.

The pressure surged in. If he failed, London would become ashes and a part of grim history.

However, Robin overcame the burden.

For a full sixty-five years of life as a postman, he had devoted himself to one thing alone.

What the letters or parcels in his bag meant, how heavy they were, such things did not matter.

A postman’s work is always one.

Deliver what the customer entrusted as quickly as possible, and accurately.

“Charge the fee to the Butler Agency, payment on delivery.”

Robin Myers caught the egg the Little Heavenly Demon threw and began running toward the lower Thames.

‘If we are not obstructed along the way, we can board the fast boat the Butler Agency prepared and go to the waters off London. If we set the egg afloat there and withdraw, the Vermilion Phoenix will be satisfied and return.’

Following Sir Fawcett’s instructions, Robin sprinted through London’s streets at full speed.

Before long, the eastern sky could be seen turning red.

Far too early for sunset.

Londoners had also noticed the bizarre glow painting the early afternoon sky vermilion, and they were watching the horizon.

People were confused, but Robin knew.

A sun that looked twice as large as usual.

It was not the greatest star shining beyond the heavens.

That was the Vermilion Phoenix.

From the far east in search of its young, an enraged divine beast was flying toward London to scatter flames of destruction.

The disaster approaching moment by moment wore light, not shadow.

A light of judgment that did not drive away a city’s darkness, but burned everything that lived and breathed.

The final sunset that would bring eternal night to the empire where the sun never set.

The sunset that hinted at the end of everything was brilliant and beautiful.
Robin’s steps only grew faster as he looked upon it.

‘I must run with the strength of death. Before the sun goes down, before the London Bridge fall.’

Sprinting with desperate resolve, Robin soon noticed Kung-Fuists close on his heels.

He didn’t know where they got them, but the eyes of those riding expensive spirit-beast racehorses were full of killing intent.

-Fwik!

A flying projectile grazed his cheek.

He felt sharp pain climb up his neck and spread through his whole body.

They must have left the Serpentine Avenue estate and followed him to seize the Vermilion Phoenix’s egg.

Foolish men. Did they not know that the moment Robin stopped running here, their own lives would also become perilous?

When he raised his head, he could see Kung-Fuists who appeared to be in league with those following him, one by one, lifting weapons and blocking the path ahead.

They must have called their comrades through Direct Messages and carrier pigeons.

“Deploy the Eighteen Constables Formation!”
“We must open the way for the postman!!”

Constables and inspectors from Scotland Yard, who had belatedly promised cooperation for this mission, appeared and began fighting the ruffians, but it didn’t look easy to break through that hellish melee.

Because even if he tried to leap into the air with movement arts, the killing intent from the Kung-Fuists lying in wait on the rooftops was pricking his skin.

Robin thought.

What did the minister say to do if obstacles appeared?

‘If you cannot go to the lower Thames—’

Even as he ran while executing Ocho Dragones Nubes, the seasoned postman could recall his superior’s instructions precisely.

There is more than one path.

If the Vermilion Phoenix arrived at the waters off London, there was a chance that small coastal towns such as Whitstable would be wiped out.

The Butler Agency made its plan so that, rather than saving London quickly and surely, they would evacuate coastal residents and accept the minimum damage.

But Robin, who knew the pain of his grandfather losing his home in a great fire, did not want to leave someone else to lose their own home.

‘A great cause. But to achieve it, a price will be required.’

A mere postman dared to offer his opinion to a minister as lofty as the heavens, yet Sir Fawcett accepted it.

‘…Do as you will. Whatever decision you make in the final moment, I intend to respect it, and to help as well.’

Whether to bring the egg to the fast boat on the lower Thames and save London for certain, and ignore others’ suffering.

Or to take a greater gamble.

Since the former path was already blocked, there was no need to hesitate.

The old postman took the egg out of his bag and held it carefully to his chest.

Then he whispered to the chick inside, pecking hard at the shell with its beak.

“We go to Norwich.”

The route Robin chose was northward.

Watching the reddening sky, praying only that the Vermilion Phoenix would arrive even a little later, Robin unfolded Ocho Dragones Nubes at full power.

A distance of a full one hundred fifty miles.

No one was chasing him anymore, but Robin ran with his eyes fixed only forward.

He had not achieved much in other Kung-Fus of the Kunlun Cathedral, but as for movement arts, he had trained them his whole life.

Robin’s faith was deep, and he believed in fate.
The Myers family’s postman trade across three generations, all their efforts, clearly existed for this very moment.

And when, at the end of the long march, he reached Norwich’s coastline.

A blind boxer lifted Robin’s staggering body back up.

“You made it here well. If it weren’t for you, I could not have arrived in time.”
“…Minister?”

Waiting on the sand was the Postmaster General.

Having left London at dawn, he endured sunlight dozens of times hotter than usual, waiting for Robin’s arrival with no certainty.

“I will remember your chivalry.”
“Chivalry, you say. That is grand, for a mere postman.”

With those words, the blue-clad knight lost consciousness.

The robin who ran to catch the phoenix fell into deep sleep.

Henry Fawcett checked the old man’s pulse, then set down a water bottle he had saved without taking even a single sip.

Inside the bottle, ice crystals were stored as well, keeping the water cold.

“I cannot rest alone after making an old master suffer like this.”

For Britain’s coastal cities to avoid the fierce flames, he would have to return the egg to the Vermilion Phoenix somewhere roughly two hundred miles away from here.

“…From here, I will take over.”

The minister, taking the egg, pulled his hat down low.

Right now, he was a postman.

It was time to fulfill his duty.

-Pabat!

Jesus Walk began.

Over the reddened waves, the blue-clad postman ran.

Toward the living sun, blazing bright, even if he could not see it with his eyes.