Chapter 10

The world turned over in an instant, and an impact slammed into my back.

“Kugh!”

For a moment I couldn’t breathe.

What just happened?

All I could remember was losing my balance in a heartbeat, and sky and ground trading places. While I lay there groaning, murmuring voices reached me.

“Hah… this is enough to drive a man mad. A thing you only manage after years of steady practice, and he does it straight off? Without even being taught, no less?”
“You went too hard on him.”
“I know that. But there was nothing else for it. You saw it too, didn’t you? That boy parted my attacks like so much undergrowth and threw a punch at me.”
“Even I find this a little startling. Does a Heavenly Martial Body really exist?”
“The way he drew and released internal energy was far too natural. You’re certain you never taught him?”
“I told you, yes. The boy hasn’t even learned the basics properly. You watched him shave his dodges finer and finer and you still ask me that?”
“…Fair enough.”
“A talent frightening enough to raise the hairs on your neck. Perhaps not even the Moyong Family will be able to hold him….”
“No. I don’t think so. This one could break the ceiling of our Moyong Family’s martial arts. Did you see it? The moment he got even slightly used to dodging, the first thing he did was throw a punch. That’s a talent the Moyong Family could hardly ever produce. Splendid aggression.”
“A Moyong Family that attacks and defends as one… the thought alone gives me chills.”

…Some talk, coming from the man who just knocked me flat.

“Unngh….”

When I hauled myself upright, Moyong Bi was watching me, beaming.

“Just as I thought.”
“?”
“Teaching you as though it were a real fight was the right answer after all.”
“Sorry?”
“Again.”
“W-wait a second—”

Moyong Bi dropped low and came gliding in. Twice as fast as before.

“An enemy won’t wait for you, I told you.”
“Aaaagh!”

“Impressive. A whole hour, and he lasted it.”
“You’re telling me. Has he been sneaking elixirs somewhere? A boy who’s only just learned the mind arts, and where’s all this internal energy coming from?”
“Haah… haah….”

I didn’t have the strength to answer. I lay on the ground covered in dirt, dragging in ragged breaths. The sky that had been blue a moment ago was yellow. Moyong Bi had rolled me around like a ball, quite literally, and I couldn’t even remember how many times I’d been driven into the ground.

Cough, cough— my throat stings from how much dirt I’ve swallowed.

Between the violent movement and the merry beating, there wasn’t an unbruised spot left on my arms or legs. I was already worried about tomorrow. Would I even be able to get out of bed, with muscles like this?

These crazy murim warrior bastards.

I’d braced myself, but what kind of training method consists of just beating a man senseless? Are all murim warriors this violent? Surely not. Did Moyong Rin train like this too?

“Teacher Yong-bi.”
“Mm?”

I asked between ragged breaths.

“Did Moyong Rin learn this way as well?”

The children of the great orthodox sects start learning martial arts at five, don’t they? So had Moyong Rin been put through a regime this brutal from the age of five? Somebody beat up a five-year-old?

No wonder she turned out warped.

“Hm? No. Rin built up the basics slowly, from the ground up. The horse stance for lower-body strength, the bow posture for suppleness, running for stamina, and so on.”
“What? Then why am I….”
“Didn’t I tell you? When the student is different, the teaching has to be different too.”

Rage I couldn’t hold down came surging up like fire. I shot to my feet and launched a flying kick at Moyong Bi.

“Die!”
“Haha. Still full of beans, I see.”

Moyong Bi gave ground easily as he went, swatting my storm of an assault aside with nothing but a few simple flicks of the hand, then caught my wrist and spun on the spot. And my body floated up into the air and drank deep of a freedom I had never much wanted.

“Uwaaah!”

— Thud!

I flew through the sky for a moment, and then I was driven into the ground.

“Guh….”

Moyong Bi came over to where I lay, squatted down, and said:

“That doesn’t mean you get to make light of the basics. If anything you have to work harder at them. Right now you’re the boy who came in late to class. Late as you are, you run that much harder.”
“…And how am I supposed to run?”
“Search me. I’m your martial arts teacher, not the teacher who drills your basics. Ask your master to help you with basics training. I’m a busy man, whatever I may look like.”

I shot a glance at Big Bro Un-cheon, watching from a little way off with his arms folded.

“If internal energy is water, the body is the vessel that holds it. A vessel fired hard and fired well holds water best. The basics are for that. You follow?”
“…Yes, sir.”
“Get up.”

I took Moyong Bi’s arm and pulled myself upright.

“From here on our martial arts lessons will be built strictly around actual combat. From what I’ve seen, you’re the type of student who finds the road himself. Better to help you find it than to show it to you.”

Big Bro Un-cheon nodded his agreement.

“He’s the sort who’ll come to something great if you turn him loose rather than fit him to a mold. And with a student of that standard, fitting the lesson to the student is far more efficient.”

So — you’re going to keep beating me, is that it?

I blinked a few times, then asked:

“Hold on. Does that mean you’re not going to teach me martial arts at all?”
“I’ll teach you. Only not by the methods that have been used up to now.”

So you ARE going to keep beating me!

At the aggrieved look on my face, Moyong Bi grinned.

“Good, isn’t it?”
“…”

Moyong Bi laid out the policy for the lessons.

“Do you remember the promise from earlier?”

The promise…?

What he’d said before he started beating me came back to me.

— Now. Try dodging my attacks. Land so much as a fingertip on me and today’s lesson ends right here.

“From this moment on, our lesson continues. Day or night, it makes no difference. Lie in wait and ambush me, if you like. Creep into my sleeping quarters while I’m asleep, if you like. Jump me while I’m eating, or on my way to the outhouse. Not until you succeed in landing an attack on me, by whatever means, do we move on.”
“Move… on?”
“That’s right. Until then we keep having combat lessons like today’s.”

In other words, he meant to go on beating me half to death until then.

This bastard.

I gave Moyong Bi a thoroughly disrespectful glare. By the sound of it, he meant to work off every last bit of stored-up stress on me.

“Surely you’re not about to come out with some feeble line about how you couldn’t possibly strike your esteemed teacher—”

I drove a fist out before Moyong Bi could finish. He batted my one great effort aside and kicked my legs out the other way, both in the same motion. Balance gone in a heartbeat, I floated up into the air and then rolled across the ground.

“Nngh….”

Moyong Bi looked down at me and smiled in deep satisfaction.

“This is why a sharp disciple is such a joy. Teach him one thing and he knows two.”

He turned his back and walked away.

“Haha. I’m looking forward to the Intra-Family Sparring Tournament.”

I watched his retreating back and ground my teeth.

I’d assumed the muscle ache would stop me getting out of bed the next day. It didn’t.

“Here, take this. That fellow Moyong Bi left it for you.”
“What is it?”
“They call it a Vigor Pill — it’ll help you recover. Warms the meridians when they’ve gone cold and quickens the circulation of qi and blood, so I’m told. I don’t know the finer principles of it myself.”

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I swallowed it. And when I woke up afterward, my body really had healed, as though it had been washed clean.

“Remarkable.”

When I got up perfectly fine and started making breakfast, it was Big Bro Un-cheon whose eyes went round.

“You’re not sore?”
“I took the medicine you gave me and went to sleep, and I was fine.”

Big Bro Un-cheon sounded like he could hardly believe it.

“They do say some people take to medicine better than others. But how are you this fine?”
“Sorry? Wasn’t it an enormously effective medicine?”
“The great orthodox sects all eat them while they train. It’s good, certainly, but it’s hardly one of the world’s famous cures. I’ve never seen anybody bounce back like you.”

It wasn’t as though I had no idea why.

Is it because I ran a qi circulation all night?

I’d heard qi circulation would speed the healing along, so I’d fought off sleep and run circulations all night long. It seemed to have worked rather well.

“Anyway, are you keeping up your qi circulation?”

I did it all night, sir.

“Your internal qi sweeps around the circulation paths inside the body and draws in a little of the natural world’s qi as it goes. Dull as it is, you’re better off enduring it. There’s not one bad thing about having plenty of internal energy.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.”
“Anyway — after the merry hiding you took yesterday I’d meant to have you rest the whole day and do nothing but circulate. Doesn’t look like there’s any need. I’ll go and fetch Moyong Bi.”
“Sorry?”

Training began in earnest.

In the mornings I took martial arts lessons from Moyong Bi, and the rest of the time I built up the basics under Big Bro Un-cheon’s direction. My teacher would spend two hours or so beating me, over and over, until every scrap of internal energy in my dantian was spent, and only then would he vanish with a look of deep fulfillment, saying he had things to do. Then the basics lesson would begin. From time immemorial, apparently, the basics work better done with your internal energy entirely spent.

“One more!”
“Ngggh…!”
“Last one — one more!”
“Nggggh…!”
“For real this time — one more, the last one!”
“Big Bro, I really think I’m going to die!”
“You won’t die. You won’t die.”

That stretch of time was hell. Enough to make me want to give it all up and run. The martial arts lessons with Moyong Bi especially.

The breaking news that I healed quickly reached Moyong Bi, and a dangerous smile settled at the corner of his mouth. He started beating me even harder. There was no mercy in his hands at all; he simply laid into me any which way, and it hurt a lot, really, very badly.

I’d wondered whether he hit me hard that first time just to frighten me. He hadn’t. He’d been going easy on me because it was the first day.

If he were beating me in a spirit of self-sacrifice, to guide me onto a warrior’s road, fine. But this man genuinely looked like he was enjoying himself. The moment I started getting used to it he’d switch where he struck, picking out only the filthily painful spots.

“Hahaha! Now that’s a satisfying smack!”
“Ah, shit!”
“At that speed, when do you expect to hit me?”
“Kyaaagh!”

I’ll be honest. There were moments when I seriously considered just shooting him with the laser.

It got to the point where I wondered whether I might actually be beaten to death. There was nothing for it. If only to survive, I had to hit Moyong Bi.

By literally any means necessary.

The Moyong Family’s dining hall.

The family’s warriors ate together there, without regard to rank, age, or sex. There was no set hour for it either. The mood was free and easy, anyone wandering in to eat whenever hunger struck mid-training and wandering out again.

When Moyong Bi came in for a meal, the young of the family, who happened to be eating lunch, shot to their feet.

“Great Hero Moyong Bi!”
“Enjoy your meal, sir!”

Moyong Bi waved a hand at them not to make a fuss and walked on past. Their eyes shone with admiration as they watched him go.

“Wow. That’s the Glancing River Sword, Great Hero Moyong Bi.”
“Born of a collateral branch, and on sheer ability alone he’s become the leading candidate for next family head.”
“There’s even talk it’s already been settled behind closed doors.”
“Well, it stands to reason. In ability at least he’s first among us all.”

Moyong Bi collected his meal on a tray and was making his way to a table,

when something shot out like lightning from under one of the tables in his path, as if a predator had come bursting out of the undergrowth onto prey it had stalked.

“Die!”

Moyong Gwang-seon, his face twisted like a vengeful demon’s, went at Moyong Bi with the chopsticks in his hand.

“Whoops.”

Moyong Bi showed not a flicker of alarm. On the contrary, a delighted grin spread over his face as he drew back and pulled out chopsticks of his own.

— Clang!

“I never taught you that. And now a dagger, is it? You’re improving by leaps and bounds.”
“Uwaaah!”

— Cla-clang! Clang!

The two of them swept the length and breadth of the dining hall, swinging their chopsticks like blades. In a heartbeat the peaceful room was a shambles.

— Crash-bang!

Chairs went over, tables went down, and the meals on the warriors’ trays took to the air.

“Oh my!”
“Look out!”

— Splat!

“…”

Wearing their own lunches, the young of the family glared murder at the author of the commotion.

Moyong Gwang-seon, was that the name? There had not been one quiet day since that boy came into the Moyong Family.

But what made their blood boil harder still was the reaction of the family’s grown-ups.

“Ho ho. Look at that boy, would you.”
“Ah, a fine age to be.”
“Ohhh… the way he moves is already something out of the ordinary.”
“I say. How long was it since our Gwang-seon started learning martial arts?”
“Not even a week, I believe.”
“Haaa… a martial talent without equal under heaven.”
“A wind of change is blowing through a Moyong Family that had gone stagnant.”

Not one of them blamed Moyong Gwang-seon. They had been showered with food exactly as the youngsters had, and far from getting angry, there they sat chuckling away. With their own young they were endlessly strict, and the sight of those same grown-ups behaving like this left young hearts fit to burst with resentment.

“That little bastard, I’ll just…!”
“Easy.”

Moyong Danho caught the shoulder of Moyong Daegi, who could hold the anger in no longer and was halfway to charging out.

“The Intra-Family Sparring Tournament’s almost here. We’ll humiliate him then.”

Moyong Daegi sat back down, snorting hard.

“Hahaha! Come and catch me!”
“I’m going to kill you!”
“Yes — that’s it exactly! Remember that killing intent!”

Moyong Danho’s eyes glinted coldly as he watched Moyong Gwang-seon go tearing off into the distance, leaving the dining hall a wreck behind him.

“Moyong Gwang-seon. I’ll make you regret ever coming to the Moyong Family.”

The Moyong Family’s Grand Training Ground.

The day of the family’s quarterly Intra-Family Sparring Tournament had dawned. A great many people had gathered and taken their seats.

Plenty of contestants were making ready,

but there was only one thing on everybody’s mind.

“I hear a martial genius for the ages has joined the family?”
“They say the family head broke into a beaming smile when he saw the child’s talent.”
“And that Moyong Bi praised him to the skies — a talent in a thousand years, he called it.”
“There’s talk he’s better than Rin.”
“Just how good does he have to be for that?”

Expectations of the boy ran sky-high. And the higher they climbed, the harder they made certain other people’s blood boil.

“Hah! How good can a nobody like that possibly be?”
“It’s absurd. They actually believe the nonsense about him mastering in a single day a mind art that takes three years to learn properly?”
“It’s a lie, obviously. I don’t know how he fooled the grown-ups, but I’ll lay the whole thing bare right here.”

Moyong Danho, chief among the family’s hot-blooded young, spoke to them.

“Whatever they say, he’s a greenhorn who’s only just been initiated into martial arts. He’s on another plane entirely from us, who’ve poured everything into martial arts since we were five. Wherever the boy rolled in from, let’s crush him properly.”

At his words the young of the family nodded with blazing eyes, their fighting spirit alight. Beside them sat Moyong Rin, chin propped on one hand, a sullen look on her face.

Moyong Rin was of the current family head’s direct line, and rumor had it far and wide that she was the genius who would follow Moyong Bi. She had been the most indignant of all at the news of Moyong Gwang-seon’s adoption, and yet for some reason she was quiet.

Moyong Danho put a casual question to her.

“Rin. Do you want to take him on?”
“I’ll pass.”
“…Is that so?”

Before long the Intra-Family Sparring Tournament began. One by one they went out and sparred before everyone, showing off to their hearts’ content what their training had won them, and the crowd honored their efforts with applause and cheers.

“Looks like it’s Great Hero Moyong Bi’s turn as referee today.”
“So it is. You don’t suppose he’ll take the boy’s side and shield him?”

The young of the family muttered uneasily among themselves. And then the names were called.

“Moyong Danho, Moyong Gwang-seon — step forward.”

Yes!

Moyong Danho clenched a fist and rose from his seat. The group clapped him on the shoulder.

“Go on, Danho!”
“Put the greenhorn in his place!”

He strode out onto the Grand Training Ground and took his position. Moyong Gwang-seon came walking in from the opposite side.

Trash talk was a long and venerable tradition among the warriors of the Moyong Family. Moyong Danho sneered and spoke to him.

“Moyong Gwang-seon. Are you ready to get beaten?”
“…”
“A waiter from some backwater nobody’s ever heard of, wasn’t it? I’ll send you home. If you want to go back with your arms and legs in one piece, surrender now while you still can.”
“Grrrrr….”
“Mm?”

Moyong Danho looked at Moyong Gwang-seon, puzzled. Now that he looked, the boy was not sparing him so much as a glance. Gwang-seon was glaring murder at the referee, as though Danho himself were nowhere in his sight at all.

This bastard.

Heat rushed into Moyong Danho’s face and his expression twisted. He had meant to let it go at a limb or so….

I’ve changed my mind.

“I’ll kill you.”

Moyong Bi, referee for the day, had been watching the two young warriors’ affectionate exchange with great satisfaction. He raised a hand, slowly.

“Ready, then….”

He brought his hand down and shouted.

“Begin!”