47 — Chapter 47

The Night Water Clan leader ran away.

The Great Thief Guest, Gu Ma-cheon—the man who’d secretly kidnapped the sect leaders—died by my hand.

The warriors aiding Gu Ma-cheon were killed by members of our External Protection Troops.

With that, the matter of the Southern Four Alliance was, for now, concluded.

Shall I sort out a few things?

I have a habit of tidying things up after I finish something.

If I don’t, I get confused and can’t stand it.

After repeating the same life seven or so times, it’s easy to remember things—and just as easy to lose direction.

So I always organize my thoughts like this; I never know when my mind will slip, when I’ll go mad and run amok.

I can’t really trust myself either.

For Bukgung Yoon to become Family Lord, she needed power.

Not just supporters inside Flying Swallow Manor, but murim forces outside the walls who could be her strength.

The Southern Four Alliance isn’t a major power, but for the present Flying Swallow Manor even they are worth being grateful for.

What’s meaningful is that the Southern Four Alliance would originally have fallen to that fellow Bi-beom.

In other words, we’ve essentially taken a rival’s source of funds.

Bi-beom aside—foolish as he is—I’m sure he’s gnashing his teeth and cursing me.

Ah, now that I think of it.

—Do you want to start a war with our Solitary Cloud Manor or something?

That guy called Un Ho or whatever said something like that.

He couldn’t be more ridiculous. I’ve been at war with them from the moment I opened my eyes.

There’s only one throne and seven princes—if that’s not a war, what is?

But honestly, this case was that big.

Several reasons explain why the fallout from raiding the Southern Four Alliance is greater than from the earlier Wang Merchant Union raid.

On the surface, the Wang Merchant Union incident wasn’t seen as my doing.

So naturally, from that fellow’s perspective, he couldn’t blame me for the raid or hold Flying Swallow Manor responsible.

Does he know that the money now funneled into the Southern Four Alliance actually came from his own den?

But this time it was officially carried out by Flying Swallow Manor—by sending me.

In the process we smashed the Night Water Clan, killed Gu Ma-cheon, and even killed members of his own manor.

From his point of view, a clear enemy has emerged.

He’ll probably think:

‘As soon as an opportunity arises, I must kill that Yeon Mujin fellow.’

Fine. If he wants to try killing me, let him try.

But as for you, you’d better be on high alert.

I might kill you before you kill me.

You don’t know me, but I know you, don’t I?

I know your habits, your quirks, your martial art, even your thoughts.

Do you think it would be the first time I’ve killed someone like you?

In fact, as a warrior I’m not particularly strong.

I’m somewhat strong, but not strong enough to beat a hundred men by myself.

The higher you climb in the Bukgung Family, the more monsters appear who far surpass me.

I’m not a prodigy, I haven’t mastered peerless martial arts, and I lack overwhelming internal energy others can’t match.

All I have are experiences from prior lives—facing and killing countless opponents.

No matter who the greatest warrior of past or present is, they could never know this—it’s my weapon.

Alright. I’ll leave him to gnash his teeth for now.

The task of solidifying Flying Swallow Manor’s foundation is finished for now.

For a while, it’s necessary to let Flying Swallow Manor grow on its own.

So, can I rest now?

No—no chance!

There is something even more important than Bukgung Yoon.

It’s me—my own problem: the regression pill I took.

Each regression via the pill consumes a quarter life of qi—roughly thirty years’ worth of internal qi.

Every time I regress, securing at least thirty years’ worth of internal qi becomes my top priority.

Surviving in the Bukgung Family is like walking a razor’s edge; you never know when someone’s trick will kill you.

I could be poisoned without knowing it, betrayed by someone I trust, or Bukgung Yoon could pair with someone else and abandon me.

I’ve gone through this crap seven times already—I can’t die an ignoble death, can I?

To avoid that death I must gather internal qi—by faithful, steady cultivation, stitch by stitch…

Bullshit.

When the hell would I sit around cultivating internal qi?

The Travelling Swallow Qi Cultivation Technique I learned isn’t that great, and besides, if I sat down to collect thirty years’ worth of internal qi and only then raised a fight, everyone else would be dead and gone by then.

So the answer is spiritual pills. Whether I live or die, it’s spiritual pills.

No matter how much money it costs, I must take the fastest, easiest route. There’s no other answer.

There is both good news and bad.

The bad news is I’m stuck stationed at Flying Swallow Manor.

Even though I carry the respectable title of leader of the External Protection Troops, my stipend is modest, so it’s hard to buy great elixirs with my own money.

Bukgung Yoon likely doesn’t have that kind of money or connections either… In the end I’ll have to steal it or sort it out myself.

At the moment I can’t think of a specific method.

The good news is I’m extremely receptive to medicines.

The Travelling Swallow Qi Cultivation Technique I learned repairs the body and sets its frame.

I’m hopeless at building internal qi, but as the technique advances it makes the body’s condition outstanding.

And this honed body responds exceptionally well to medicine.

Most famed spiritual pills in the murim world depend less on how much internal qi they contain and more on how well the body can absorb their properties.

Representative examples are Shaolin’s Great Restorative Pill and the Shaman’s Taiji Divine Pill.

They have almost no side effects; whether taken by a dying old geezer or a child just beginning, there’s little difference in absorption. That’s why they’re famed.

But I’m confident I could digest even third-rate street pills brilliantly.

So in my case, rather than famed spiritual pills, I often benefit more from bizarre medicines that cram in raw medicinal potency.

Many of these are little-known and thus sometimes cheaper.

But there’s one more problem here.

Even those require power, money, and information to obtain.

Where am I located?

Right on the Bukgung Family’s frontier—Flying Swallow Manor.

Goddamn.

---

“Agh! Agh! Agh!”

Today, screams again filled the External Protection Troops’ training ground.

“Your lower stance is empty!”

“How long are you going to keep pulling your waist back?!”

“How many times do I have to tell you you’ll die if you step back, you idiot!”

Yeon Mujin’s paired training hasn’t ended yet.

The External Protection Troops had to undergo brutal training the moment they returned from the Southern Four Alliance.

No—this time it might be even harsher than before.

Before it was one person—Yeon Mujin—pushing the drills; now it had become four.

“Hey! That’s not it! Here, like this—shuk shuk!”

“Deputy captain, the blade’s trajectory bends like this there, you see?”

“Neither of you. Spread the blade like this, and in one motion—chak!”

Seo Nak-il, Wi Gon-chan, and Yu Se-gwang, who had gone with Yeon Mujin as the vanguard to the Southern Four Alliance, expounded passionately on how to handle the pairings, spitting as they spoke.

They were like that even now.

Whack!

“Agh!”

The three rushed the member Yeon Mujin had knocked down.

“If that had been real combat, you’d be dead right now, you bastard!”

“You’re torn to shreds!”

“Torn to pieces and fucked dead!”

“Then they won’t even be able to find your corpse!”

Combat against the Night Water Clan had turned them into different people.

Seo Nak-il and Wi Gon-chan, who used to complain at every paired drill—“It’s hard,” “It hurts,” “Why do we have to do this?”—now followed Yeon Mujin’s training without a word.

In the fight with the two Lonely Claw Troops members, they saved each other’s lives multiple times and achieved victories they couldn’t have even dreamed of before.

Only then did they realize that Yeon Mujin’s training had saved their lives.

It wasn’t surprising that the two became Yeon Mujin’s followers.

And one more person.

“…Se-gwang?”

Yu Se-gwang put his hand on the fallen troop’s shoulder and spoke.

“Get up quickly.”

“…?”

“Stand and take up your weapon. I will not forgive anyone who surrenders before the captain. Captain—only follow the Captain. If you follow him, rice will appear in your sleep, the blind will open their eyes, cripples will walk, ailments will heal, households will be peaceful, and social order will be restored….”

“Se-gwang, what’s wrong with your eyes?”

Yu Se-gwang, who had already followed Yeon Mujin, now followed him like a fanatic.

Yu Se-gwang had followed from the start out of admiration for Yeon Mujin’s strength.

The martial prowess Yeon Mujin displayed against Gu Ma-cheon at the Night Water Clan could inspire a child’s admiration.

Yu Se-gwang, Seo Nak-il, and Wi Gon-chan couldn’t forget the roof being blown away when Yeon Mujin extended a single sword.

Since that day the three had thought that perhaps they truly had an absurd captain.

“That’s enough for today.”

“Yes!”

At Yeon Mujin’s command, the External Protection Troops shouted.

Having finished the sparring, Yeon Mujin took a seat to one side of the training ground, sat cross-legged, and began cultivating qi.

“Captain’s been cultivating qi again whenever he gets a chance these days.”

“That ‘Sitting Zen Vagabond’ nickname sure doesn’t go anywhere.”

Others shrugged it off, but Yu Se-gwang was different.

Yu Se-gwang approached Seo Nak-il and whispered in his ear.

“Deputy Captain.”

“Yes?”

“Isn’t the Captain a bit strange these days?”

“Strange, the captain?”

“He seems to have less vigor than usual, training isn’t as enthusiastic as before, there’s just a slightly different feel than usual….”

“What?”

Seo Nak-il looked around at the groaning, fallen members.

Less vigor?

Then what about the bodies rolling around now?

“The captain doesn’t show the vigor he used to in training. Compared to before he’s more humane and compassionate now. When he sparred with me earlier, where he would’ve dealt twenty strikes before, he only landed eighteen.”

“Se-gwang. From where I stand, your loyalty is veering in the wrong direction.”

“No, it’s not. My feelings toward the captain have always been sincere.”

“Which is precisely why it’s more dangerous.”

“I think perhaps the captain is injured.”

“Oh, right. Of course. The captain was injured…”

Seo Nak-il was about to dismiss Yu Se-gwang’s words when he stopped.

“Wait. The captain is injured?”

“We didn’t stay to watch the end of the fight at the Night Water Clan that day, did we? The Master and that great guest left the building, and the captain returned later. That great guest is someone of considerable renown, isn’t he?”

“Right…?”

“Could it be that the captain suffered internal injuries in the fight with the Great Thief Guest?”

“Internal injuries?”

Only then did Seo Nak-il look at Yeon Mujin’s face, which had sunk into qi cultivation.

Yu Se-gwang’s words made sense.

The Great Thief Guest, Gu Ma-cheon, and the nameless wanderer Yeon Mujin.

If you asked strangers to predict the outcome of their fight, ten out of ten would bet on the great guest’s victory.

Yet Seo Nak-il had never once imagined Yeon Mujin getting hurt or defeated. It was astonishing.

“Come to think of it, his complexion does look a bit pale….”

“Isn’t that really so?”

“So could the captain really have internal injuries?”

“Unless that’s the case, why else would he be engrossed in qi cultivation again?”

“Hmm….”

At that moment Yeon Mujin brushed himself off and stood up.

Usually once he started cultivating qi he’d go on for several periods, but today it ended quickly.

“Deputy captains, come here.”

At Yeon Mujin’s call, Yang Gwan-wol and Seo Nak-il moved toward him.

“You lot. Listen well. Do not tell the others.”

“Yes?”

“If, I mean, just suppose.”

“Yes.”

“Even if I have to be away for a short while, you must guard the Manor Lord properly.”

“…Yes?”