Back To The Front (2)

I stared blankly as the wanderers deftly lit the fire and cooked porridge, then suddenly stood and walked over to ask.

“May I have a share as well?”

Warrior Jang readily agreed.

“Of course. But didn’t your beautiful younger sister pack you a meal earlier? I thought you’d eat that.”

I gave a wry smile and answered.

“My sister’s cooking hasn’t caught up with her looks yet. It’s not really fit for human consumption.”

At my words, the wanderers burst out laughing.

“Huh? Puhahahaha! True enough! If a famed beauty from a great house also cooked well, that’d be unfair!”

“Wahaha! Whoever marries your sister will have a hard time! Imagine every time she insists on cooking—how awkward! Hahaha!”

“Gongga, you mean like you?”

“What, you punk?! Fine, it’s true in my case. That’s why I head out early and come back late even when I’ve got nothing to do. I only want to see her at night. Hahaha!”

Amid their raucous banter, I glanced toward the brush where I’d tossed the rice balls.

There, squirrels and insects that had nibbled the rice balls lay piled up dead.

On the front, the three-year survival rate for comrades was about thirty percent.

Meaning: after about three years, if I lived, the two who’d started beside me would be dead.

‘Well, that was the figure for the next five years from now. After that, it fell into the teens.’

Of those two deaths, if one fell to the Blood Cult’s demon heads or fiends, the other often died to comrades.

To comrades unknowingly soul-seized by the enemy.

So we always had to watch our comrades.

Did anything in them seem off; would they perhaps strike me from behind.

Yeonha, who had visited me yesterday, looked very different from my memory.

And her seeing me off today also differed from my past life.

In that life, Yeonha hadn’t even come to see me off; this time she did—and even cooked, which she never did. That alone warranted caution.

Above all, her eyes.

Eyes that spoke as if worried for me, yet held emotions entirely unlike her words.

Unfathomable traces of hatred and contempt.

Those soul-seized by the Blood Demon Cult lose all emotion in their eyes.

So Yeonha’s change was not because she’d been seized.

I had to admit it now.

It wasn’t Yeonha who changed; it was the fool I’d been who failed to notice.

From the start, the child hadn’t been doing it for me.

If you think about it, my male siblings weren’t the only ones who could have killed Dan Hasang.

“Fuuuu.”

I let out a long sigh.

My chest felt tight.

It felt like I’d lost the one person I’d thought was my only true family these thirty years.

Just when I felt I’d gained one—understanding Father’s heart—I lost another.

Perhaps my fate was to have only one family member at a time.

A bitter smile escaped me.

Smothered by frustration, I stood and asked Warrior Jang,

“May I borrow a saber?”

“Hm? A saber? I carry a spare—use that one. But don’t you use a sword, young master?”

“Ha, to be honest I’m poor with the sword too. Thank you.”

While the meal cooked, I began to swing the saber.

With this body, I was unaccustomed to sword or saber alike; trying set forms would only make me a crawling grub.

True masters were strong not for their sets, but their fundamentals—so they said.

In truth, the masters I had seen could butcher mediocrities with basic cuts and thrusts alone.

So I had to train my fundamentals while losing weight.

And in my experience, when my heart was clogged, cuts felt far better than thrusts.

The journey after that became continuous training.

At every move I kept running; once I grew used to it, I ran while swinging a saber and sword.

At rest or at night, I slept less and cultivated inner energy.

Thinking of the approaching front, I could not waste even a quarter-hour.

That place was death itself; in my past life I survived many dangers only by being exempted for weakness—this time, I might die even earlier.

So if I didn’t wish to die, I had to give it my all.

After watching me for days, Warrior Jang spoke over a meal.

“In all my life, I’ve never seen anyone train as relentlessly as you. At first I thought you’d give up soon, but now I’m ashamed of myself. Seeing you makes me want to live earnestly too.”

The other wanderers nodded now, their eyes warm.

I answered with an awkward smile.

“I’m just struggling because I don’t want to die. If I’d always lived like this, would I have gotten fat?”

But Warrior Jang shook his head.

“I may be only second-rate at my age, but I’ve eaten my share of steel; my eye’s not bad. When you swing a sword or saber, you look less like a novice than a retired old master.”

A wanderer asked, curious.

“What do you mean, brother?”

“The saber he swings may be slow, but it moves as if he already knows the path. Not flailing to learn the unknown like a novice—he’s repeating a known road. That makes progress fast.”

“Aaah.”

“Indeed, there’s a strange seasoned air when Young Master Seonu swings the blade.”

Warrior Jang looked at me again.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through, but your life hasn’t been easy. I thought a scion of a great clan lived differently from us.”

Sensing the vertigo in his words, I gave a bitter smile and bowed my head once.

As he said, I was changing fast.

What would take two days by horse had taken us a week on foot, but in that short time my fat had melted, and though not yet satisfying, my sword, saber, and fists had grown fairly competent.

Around then—

About seven days after departure, an arrow suddenly flew at me as I panted along.

Fwee!

“Ugh!”

Keeping one’s senses open is the most basic rule of a Flying Dragon trooper. No matter how tired, I wasn’t so dull as to be struck by an arcing arrow.

I could have batted it aside with my sword, but to be safe I rolled out of the way.

Thud!

‘Mm—what a smooth roll.’

I felt proud of how much nimbler my body had grown.

Then laughter rang out.

“Bwahahaha! What was that?! Like a bear rolling down a hill!”

“Indeed, Chief! Even a bear’s got rolling tricks!”

At the sudden attack and voices, Warrior Jang and the wanderers drew steel and shouted.

“Who goes there?! What scum attacks without a shred of jianghu decency?!”

Armed men began bursting from the surrounding woods.

“Wahahaha! Near-dead wretches prattling about decency! Drop your weapons and surrender quietly!”

There were about thirty of them.

The biggest, fiercest-looking man wore a tiger-skin and hefted a great axe—clearly no nameless rabble.

Warrior Jang groaned under his breath.

“Green Tiger Chief Mak Gusam? What’s the Green Tiger Stronghold doing here?”

Green Tiger Stronghold?

I’d heard of them.

Their stockade near Nokho Mountain by Heungin was infamous; its chief’s brute strength and savage temper were well known in Guizhou.

Among bandits—usually mere third-rate trash—he was a rare proper martial man, barely at second-rate’s edge.

Warrior Jang cupped his fists and called out.

“I’ve long heard the Green Tiger Chief’s renown! An honor to meet you!”

He was trying to talk.

They were thirty to our six—numerically superior—and man for man, we couldn’t claim advantage. Of course he’d try words.

But they had already loosed an arrow to hit me; talk was never their intent.

“Kehahaha! Honor to meet this elder, eh? Better honor to die!”

“Hahahaha! Well said, Chief!”

“Best put them down quick, Chief!”

At their savage jeers, Warrior Jang ground his teeth and shouted again.

“If you wish, we’ll pay a toll! Why shed blood needlessly when words can settle it?!”

Then he whispered to me.

“Young master, if it breaks out, mount that horse and flee. We can’t hold long.”

I was genuinely moved.

Most wanderers cared only for profit and thought nothing of betrayal; by what fortune did I meet such men?

Likely Father had labored to hire men of credit.

At Jang’s offer, Mak Gusam snorted and yelled.

“A toll, eh?! A fine toll! Your toll is everything you own—clothes, horse, blades, all of it! Strip naked right here and run, and we won’t chase!”

“Wahahaha! Better start stripping!”

“Chief, if their backsides look tempting, may we pounce? Hahaha!”

Realizing talk was useless, Warrior Jang whispered urgently.

“Young master! Take the horse—now! There’s no time!”

But I did not obey.

Instead, I strode forward and shouted.

“You cur! You dare ambush me, the third son of the Seonu Clan! Do you truly wish to be wiped from the earth?!”

They abruptly stopped laughing and stared.

As if to say: what nonsense was this?

Mak Gusam scowled and asked me,

“Hey, you bear-lump! You’re the Seonu Clan’s third son?!”

“I am! Green Tiger Chief Mak Gusam! You dare attack me and dig your own grave?!”

I had heard rumors in my past life.

Bandits who picked off the softer-looking heirs on their way to the front.

They began their raids after I’d already reached the front, killed a fair number of such heirs, and were eventually hunted down and annihilated.

They targeted mid-minor sect heirs traveling light on faith in their own skill—who also carried fat purses for a long stay away from home.

‘So they never intended to leave witnesses.’

Even minor clans wouldn’t forgive a grudge from them.

In any case, they didn’t attack just anyone.

They chose victims who looked least likely to cause trouble.

Which, clearly, I did.

See? They were flustered at “third son of Seonu Clan.”

I thundered again.

“Why do you not answer?! I ask if you truly attacked me—the Seonu Clan’s third son!”

A thug with a shit-chewing face shouted back.

“How do we know a bear-faced lout like you is Seonu’s third son?! If it’s not a lie—prove it!”

I snorted.

“Why would I—clearly a man of Seonu—prove anything?! And prove how? Shall I fetch my father, the Clan Head?!”

He roared, furious.

“You’ll prove it now! If you can’t—third son or eldest, you die here all the same!”

Feigning a wince, I fumbled in my robe and pulled out a bronze token.

“Will the clan-mark bronze token do?!”

But at five or six zhang away, he couldn’t possibly make it out.

He pointed at the token and shouted.

“Throw it here! I’ll check!”

I barked back as if offended.

“Hand over the clan symbol? Don’t be absurd! If you can’t see, come look yourself!”

He scowled and yelled.

“Are you playing games?! You come show me!”

At his near-exploding bellow, I flinched and asked in a quavering voice,

“If I come there, you won’t suddenly attack me?!”

He snapped.

“Come now, or we attack!”

Hesitating, I staggered toward him as if with no choice.

But when I was about two zhang away, I stopped with a pained look and said,

“F-fine, I’ll toss it from here! But you must look and return it!”

He eyed me with contempt as I wavered forward and answered, voice full of irritation,

“Just throw it already!”

“V-very well.”

I hurled the token high.

I put a touch too much force—so it rose up and fell just behind his head, making him tip back to catch it.

“Gotcha!”

Thunk!

He caught it—and read the characters etched on the token.

“Huh? Guiyang… Banquet House?”

He didn’t know it, but even in Guiyang’s famed Banquet House, this kind of token was given only to regulars.

That was when—

Puk!

“Guaaargh!”

In a blink I closed the two-zhang gap; my sword pierced his heart.

It was “One Breath, One Kill,” the finishing thrust of the Four-One Sword Method—what the Diancang disciples boasted was the fastest thrust in the world.