Day And Night (2)

Blood spurted high into the sky.

Seol So-ha’s eyes wavered.

What flew with the blood was Lee Pyo’s wrist. At the moment she braced for death, the sight of the enemy’s hand flying off whole felt strangely unreal.

Lee Ho was startled, and Lee Pyo, swinging his arm without knowing it was severed, tilted his head at the sudden emptiness.

A moment later.

“Aaagh!”

With a tearing scream, Lee Pyo fell on his backside.

Then, a sound slicing the air was heard.

Seogeok.

With a chilling slice, Lee Pyo’s head dropped to the ground.

Seol So-ha’s face went pale, and so did Lee Ho’s and Lee Yong-dan’s. None of them saw how Lee Pyo’s neck and hand had been cut.

“One side a festival full of cheers, one side a festival full of screams.”

Seol So-ha turned her head to the right.

There, Han Cheol-sang was walking over with a long saber hooked over his shoulder, face expressionless.

“If life-and-death duels are part of the festival, I wonder if there is any need to linger in a place like this.”

Within his relaxed tone seeped a steel-hard martial heart.

Startled out of his wits, Lee Ho backed away and leveled his short sword at Han Cheol-sang.

“Who are you!”

Han Cheol-sang’s eyes flashed coldly.

‘A master.’

Meeting his eyes, Lee Ho felt his whole body stiffen.

He exuded no outward pressure, yet the presence particular to a master overflowed.

It was another level, literally. A master he could not beat even if he was in peak shape, one that left him doubtful whether the two brothers together could last ten exchanges.

As he backed away swallowing hard, something caught his foot. Checking, he found his brother’s head, dead with the same screaming face.

In that instant Lee Ho’s face flushed red.

“You damned bastard!”

Just then.

Peo-eok!

“Urgh!”

With a sharp thud, Lee Yong-dan dropped to his knees. Im Yeo-wol had taken his rear position and kicked at the hamstrings.

Reeling from the sudden appearance of a master and Lee Pyo’s death, he was even struck in the hamstrings. Rousing his internal energy, Lee Yong-dan hurried to throw himself left.

Puk!

“Graaah!”

Rolling along the ground with his running momentum, Lee Yong-dan clutched his thigh with trembling hands.

A dagger was stuck in the back of his left thigh. It was the throwing knife that Im Yeo-wol had hurled.

Even one trained in first-rate martial arts collapses easily if he has no will to fight. Besides, in sheer ability alone, the battle-hardened Im Yeo-wol outclassed Lee Yong-dan.

“M, my leg! My leg…!”

Pababak!

Closing in, Im Yeo-wol stamped his right leg in an instant and crossed his arms up behind his back.

A slight wrong move would shatter his shoulders. Lee Yong-dan let out a strange groan with ragged breath.

“Put the sword down.”

Lee Ho, staring blankly at Lee Yong-dan, started and looked at Han Cheol-sang.

A blue blade was already at his throat. His gaze had been stolen, yet he had not even sensed when the man approached.

Lee Ho ground his teeth.

Han Cheol-sang, staring at him, shook his head.

“Do not.”

“…You bastard.”

“Do not.”

Strength entered Lee Ho’s trembling hand.

Seogeok.

Swinging as his head flew, his short sword did not even cut Han Cheol-sang’s lapel.

Looking coolly at Lee Ho’s corpse, Han Cheol-sang turned to Seol So-ha.

“Are you alright?”

“Eh? Ah, yes!”

Two masters so strong had died in an instant.

Seol So-ha struggled to gather herself at Han Cheol-sang’s cold cutting. More than the blade’s power, its decisiveness shocked her.

“First fix your breathing. We are far from the festival grounds, but someone could still come.”

“Ah, understood.”

Han Cheol-sang looked toward the forest.

“You may come out now.”

At that, as if waiting, Jin-hyeon walked out.

Was it the moonlight? Seol So-ha thought Jin-hyeon’s complexion looked especially pale.

“Teacher Jin…”

She started and stopped. Jin-hyeon’s clothes were ragged in places. Looking closer, one side of his face was bruised blue.

“Teacher! Are you alright?”

“You look rougher than I do, Lady Seol.”

“What happened?”

Jin-hyeon smiled and pointed to the woods.

“I came over upon wrapping up one matter, but at the same time Brother Han was heading this way with Yeo-wol. Only then did I hear the sound of blades.”

“Do not tell a lie that will be caught at once.”

Chiding without chiding, Han Cheol-sang looked at Lee Yong-dan. He only groaned, seeming to have lost the will to flee.

“Shall we handle the bodies first?”

All but Jin-hyeon returned to the lodgings. He vanished, saying there was a place to secretly take Lee Yong-dan and that he would only be able to return past midnight.

Im Yeo-wol heated water in a large bowl, and Han Cheol-sang brought a bundle from who knows where.

“I brought clean cloth and Golden Wound Medicine. How are your internal injuries.”

Seol So-ha shook her head.

“I’m fine. I’m only a little exhausted from heavy internal energy usage.”

“I know, but unintended overuse of internal energy can also cause internal injury. Treat the external wounds first. I will try to find a physician.”

“I truly am alr—”

“Is there not a duel tomorrow as well?”

“…”

“If you say it not to trouble us, do not worry. The Patriarch instructed this.”

Seol So-ha’s eyes widened.

“The Patriarch? Do you mean my father?”

At her words, Han Cheol-sang rather looked puzzled.

“You heard nothing from the Patriarch.”

“…Huh?”

“It seems best you hear that from the Patriarch, no, from the Teacher himself.”

Staring blankly at him, Seol So-ha suddenly asked what came to mind.

“Cook Han. What did you mean earlier? What you said to Teacher Jin.”

“Ah, about calling it a lie?”

“Yes.”

Han Cheol-sang gave a wry smile.

“The one who arrived at the woods first was the Teacher. He was watching your fight.”

“Eh?!”

“Do not feel hurt at the Patriarch for not helping. The Teacher was fully ready to join the fight at any time. Of course, he left that right to me who came later.”

Seol So-ha was taken aback.

“The Teacher was watching my fight.”

“He did not explain it, but considering his nature, it is not hard to guess why.”

His gaze at her was like that of a senior of the Kangho looking at a junior.

“The reason those rich in real battle are rare is that more than half who face a real fight lose their lives in that fight.”

“!”

“There is much to learn from a single real fight. Yet even if you learn a lot, there is no guarantee you will survive the second. The third and fourth are the same.”

“Ah!”

“The realization one gets from a life-and-death duel itself cannot be traded for anything. If you die it ends, but if you kill and live, you can be reborn as a warrior.”

“But I…”

“You nearly died, but you lived. Did you learn nothing from that.”

“!!”

“The Teacher cares much for the Seol Patriarch and for you.”

Han Cheol-sang turned his body.

“Nothing will come to mind now. Treat your wounds and rest.”

With that, he left the room.

Left alone together, Im Yeo-wol opened the bundle and took out several white cloths and Golden Wound Medicine.

“Most of the wounds are on your arms. There are some on your back too. Lower your top and turn around.”

Seol So-ha lowered her top with an awkward face.

She wetted a cloth in warm water, cleaned the wounds, then sprinkled the Golden Wound Medicine over them.

Soon the powdered wounds foamed with bubbling white froth.

She had been cut many times in training, but these seemed especially painful, she thought. It must be the tension loosening after a life-and-death fight.

Im Yeo-wol wrapped each wound with cloth. Her hands were highly skilled.

Feeling awkward for no reason, Seol So-ha spoke.

“Lady Im, have you faced real combat too.”

“Yes.”

“How many times.”

Pausing a moment, Im Yeo-wol answered calmly.

“It is hard to count.”

“That many?”

“Mostly courier work and errands, but between them I undertook many impossible missions. And my former master, when giving missions, did not worry about ruining the knife.”

Frost fell over Seol So-ha’s face. The master she meant must be Gwan Hong.

In other words, Gwan Hong treated Im Yeo-wol as a thing, not a person.

For some reason, she chose conversation over silence.

“The top priority is mission success, but I also did not want to die. So I strained my wits and fought to exhaustion over and over. I came near death as many times.”

“…I see.”

“But it was pointless.”

“Pardon?”

“In the last fight, had the Patriarch not helped, I would have died. The assassins who targeted me were first-rate, and they spread poison even before the fight began.”

Seol So-ha felt her spine go cold.

Without today’s fight, she would have felt a strong aversion to the mention of assassins using poison.

But now was different. The aversion remained, yet thinking what would have happened to herself gave her gooseflesh.

Draping a cloth over her shoulders, Im Yeo-wol continued.

“Fights in the Kangho go like that. No one speaks of fairness, and no one fights that way. What matters is that I live and the foe dies.”

“I do not think that is right.”

“After you die, you cannot even grumble that you ended up like this because the foe fought wrongly.”

“That’s…”

“Will you resent even after death that two higher-level foes combined against you and call it cowardly.”

“!!”

“I too think there is dignity to fighting. But those used to the sunlit side do not know the fights of the shade. Even living in the sun, one who does not know the shade’s viciousness will find it hard to leave even a single line of last words.”

Trials hard to imagine were buried in her calm tone.

Seol So-ha closed her eyes.

“I was a frog in a well.”

Without the White Sword Seol Clan’s renown and martial arts, she too would have lived no different from others.

She did not feel shame for that. The Seol Clan was her everything. To deny it would be no different from denying herself.

But even a flower raised in good sun must know how to be tough like a weed.

“I thought I had grown somewhat, but I’m still nothing but a child.”

A small smile rose at the corner of Im Yeo-wol’s mouth.

Of course it vanished at once, and Seol So-ha, turned away, did not see it.

“You have outstanding talent and martial arts. And you know how to bend your stubbornness to advance.”

“It is true I am a greenhorn.”

“Many live without admitting their own greenness out of shame. Those people mostly do not grow.”

Im Yeo-wol finished the last dressing and stood.

“You, Lady Seol, will live proudly even in this gloomy Kangho.”

The place Jin-hyeon brought Lee Yong-dan was a deserted pass.

“Hup!”

Struggling on Jin-hyeon’s shoulder, Lee Yong-dan froze.

On the pass, a few trees stood holding darkness. In that darkness someone lay collapsed, covered in blood.

“Know who that is?”

Jin-hyeon tossed him down and drew a dagger from his breast. It was Im Yeo-wol’s dagger.

“He is not dead. Only cut and beaten to the verge of death. I would love to take his head, but I should compare what you will spit out from now on.”

Lee Yong-dan chattered and stammered.

“If you touch me, the Oh Family Merchant House will…!”

“Put away that threat. I’m going to smash your mother’s family anyway.”

Puk!

Jin-hyeon planted the dagger in the ground before him and sat down easily.

“Why do you think I brought you fools here under nice moonlight instead of to the Investigation and Defense Court.”

Lee Yong-dan’s face was painted with fear.

With the moon at his back, even the man’s white hair looked dark.

“Each time you do not answer what I ask, a dagger will come out. Better than my sword, yes?”

Seeing the Indestructible Sword’s massive presence, he could not but agree.

And he realized why his idiot elder brother had ended up so miserable.

“I will answer. I will answer anything, just do not touch me.”