Chapter 14

Overtaking Baek Un-cheon of the Instant Step, star member of the lightness arts club, was all very well. Watching that supremely unruffled face flood with shock was a sight worth seeing, too.

The problem came afterward. Once the thrill of victory drained away, brutal reality came calling.

Hold on, though. How do I stop this?

Current situation: hurtling between the trees at a terrifying speed. Both feet floating in midair, no less.

— Whooosh!

A tree tore past me at horrifying speed. If I’d caught that one, I’d have ended up as well-tenderized Gwang-seon meat. A chill ran down my spine. And that tree wasn’t the only one out there. Every trunk in the forest seemed to be charging at me at full tilt.

Stop! Stoooop!!!

I mashed the button on my palm like a man possessed and shut off the laser thrusters firing from the soles of my feet. Then, like someone leaping down from a carriage at full gallop, I worked my legs frantically and braced for the landing.

“Hyaaaaaah!”

Hard landing: successful. I pumped my feet like a lunatic and unfolded the lightness arts at full speed.

Got it!

But it lasted only a moment.

Wha—!

I lost my balance almost at once and went over. My lightness arts simply couldn’t keep up with the speed.

— Crash-bang!

I rolled and rolled along the ground, and once that had bled off enough of my speed I finally came to a complete stop.

“I— I’m alive….”

Everything ached, but I was alive, and that counted for something. Measured against a proper hiding from Moyong Bi, it was more or less bearable.

I checked the ring’s battery straight away.

Dammit.

I’d gone and spent a whole half bar of my precious battery.

Looks like I’ll have no choice but to sit tight and charge for a while.

— Tak—

I felt someone there and looked over. Baek Un-cheon of the Instant Step, star member of the lightness arts club, had come down to earth and was looking down at me with startled eyes.

“You… how…?”

He spoke haltingly, his face gripped with shock.

“…What was it, that power just now?”

How was I supposed to explain this? I turned it over a moment and reached a conclusion.

“It’s a secret.”

The conclusion being: not to explain.

This is extremely hard to explain. I would have to go all the way back to how I came by the wondrous artifact in the first place. And there’s no guarantee that after sitting through that whole rambling account, he’d ever arrive at the Peach Blossom Spring called understanding¹. Even I don’t properly understand this power. How much less would anyone else? The whole thing would only come out tedious and pedantic.

So I simply don’t explain.

At that, Big Bro Un-cheon asked with an extremely grave face:

“Gwang-seon.”
“Yes.”
“That power. Is it the power that killed the Bursting Fist Demon?”
“…”

When I didn’t answer, he took hold of my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye.

“Gwang-seon.”
“Yes, Big Bro.”
“From this moment on. You breathe a word about that power to no one. Not even if the Emperor himself calls you to account. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

The words caught me off guard, and I stared up at him with round eyes.

“The moment a treasure map or a secret manual surfaces, a storm of blood blows through — that is the sort of place this gangho is. Even one root of snow ginseng turning up draws every eccentric master and strange adept there is. And if it were a power like that….”

His face couldn’t have been more serious.

“Word spreads in a heartbeat. All manner of murderous fiends will come for you.”
“I know that.”

That was exactly why I’d kept it hidden even from him all this time. If anything, I’d wondered why he never asked, when he had plainly guessed at what happened….

“No. You don’t know.”

He contradicted me flatly, his eyes unyielding.

“You know nothing about the gangho. You have no idea at all how far the creatures called murim warriors will go for power.”
“…”
“I promise you this. They would try to take that power from you even if it meant eating you alive.”
“…!”

I had guessed roughly as much, but.

That far?

“So keep it in mind. That ominous power of yours. That one thing you must hide as though your life depended on it. Understood?”

Only then did I grasp how serious this was, and I nodded, my face stiff.

“Yes. Don’t you worry. I intend to outlive every last one of them and hold the grand opening of my own inn.”

Big Bro Un-cheon studied my eyes for a long moment, then finally let go of my shoulders and sighed.

“Grand opening — what in the world is that supposed to mean now… Anyway, get up.”
“Unngh—up.”

I took the hand he held out and got to my feet. I was brushing off the grass and dirt I’d picked up rolling around when I felt eyes on me, and looked up to find Big Bro Un-cheon staring at me.

“What is it?”

He watched me a long while without a word, then said:

“If ever I hear the byname ‘the Red Ghost’ in days to come, I’ll know it’s you.”
“…Sorry?”

A good long run with the lightness arts brought me back to the Moyong Family, where news was waiting that the family head wanted me urgently. So, the moment I arrived, without even a chance to change my clothes, I was summoned before Moyong Jin-seong.

“…Did you meet a tiger up in the mountains?”

That was the first thing Moyong Jin-seong said when he saw the state of me. In the short while I’d been out and back, my neat clothes had been torn and were thick with dirt and dust. Anyone looking would have thought I’d been run down by a wild beast.

“Something of the sort did happen, yes.”
“You truly met a tiger?”
“No. I met something far more dangerous than that. A beast of prey that goes by the surname Baek.”
“Dear me. You’re not hurt anywhere?”
“Yessir. Anyway, what was it you needed? I did mean to present myself neat and tidy, as the etiquette of the great Moyong Family demands.”
“The great Moyong Family, he says. In a martial house that puts the martial above all else, what weight would such a thing carry?”

For all his words, he couldn’t keep the smile from leaking out, and was grinning from ear to ear.

Three years at a village schoolhouse and even the dog recites verse, they say. Three years a waiter, and your tongue gets pretty free.

This right here is waiter power.

“It is a matter that will not wait an hour, which is why I called you so suddenly. It won’t take long, so don’t worry.”

My eyes went straight to the man of towering build seated beside him. With those bulging eyes fixed on me from the side and that fierce presence rolling off him, there was no way not to notice him.

“Make your greeting. This is General Hwa Mu-hong, come from the Imperial Army.”

A general?

I’d thought he had the look of a general about him. And a general he really is.

Snap— I threw a fist-and-palm salute.²

“My respects, General.”

To think these hands, which had only ever held cooking tools, were throwing a fist-and-palm salute. And quite deftly, at that.

I’m a full-fledged murim warrior now.

All that practice was paying off at last.

And as I stood there waiting proudly for a reply,

“It’s the wrong way round.”
“Sorry?”
“Your hands. The wrong way round, I said.”
“Ah. Right.”

As I sheepishly redid the salute, General Hwa Mu-hong said:

“There is no time, so I’ll ask you outright. Are you the waiter who came from Fallen Star Village?”
“I am, yes.”
“Did you see the Bursting Fist Demon?”

The question came stabbing in out of nowhere, and I flinched before I could stop myself.

At that, Moyong Jin-seong said in a gentle tone:

“He has not come to call you to account, so speak at your ease. At present the General is pursuing the man.”
“…I see.”

I barely managed to get the answer out, and all the while a storm was churning through my head.

Calm down, Gwang-seon. This was something you foresaw anyway, wasn’t it?

I had expected that sooner or later somebody would turn up with questions about the Bursting Fist Demon’s death. I just hadn’t expected a general to come bursting in out of nowhere.

Think. Why has a general come, and why now?

Why is the Imperial Army hunting the Bursting Fist Demon? And why send a general, of all people? I might not know much about how the army works, but surely a general is a fairly high post.

Could the Bursting Fist Demon have gone and offended the Imperial Army somehow… ah!

All at once I remembered the Bursting Fist Demon bursting the head of that stiff, prim official. He was the kind of madman who killed first and worried about officials and everything else afterward, so the odds were very high that he had earned the imperial house’s enmity without ever knowing it. Or else that official had been a rather more important figure than he looked.

Sooner than I expected, but there is nothing to worry about.

For one thing, the man deserved to die anyway. And I am nothing but a lowly waiter. Who on earth would ever imagine that a mere waiter had killed the Bursting Fist Demon, public enemy of the murim?

“I asked whether you saw the Bursting Fist Demon.”

General Hwa Mu-hong kept those bulging eyes on me, waiting for an answer. I fitted the whole chain of cause and effect together, then answered in the calmest voice I could manage.

“Yes. I saw him.”

There was no need to hide that, and no way to hide it either. They must already have heard that the Bursting Fist Demon took me up the mountain in the first place, which was why they had come all this way to ask. A general of the Imperial Army can hardly be that idle.

“Is he dead?”

The General tossed the question out, his rock-like eyes fixed on mine. My heart lurched, but I answered with studied calm.

“What makes you think so?”
“There was no reason for the man to leave you alive. And yet you came back. The Bursting Fist Demon did not.”
“…”
“Answer me. Is the Bursting Fist Demon dead?”
“That much I really wouldn’t know.”

The General held my gaze, waiting for me to explain.

“While we were climbing the mountain, some murim warrior burst in on us. The Bursting Fist Demon took the ambush and fled, bleeding heavily, and the murim warrior went after him. I came within an inch of dying and ran for it in a blind panic.”

General Hwa Mu-hong thought quietly over what I had said, then spoke.

“So a mysterious master suddenly came crashing in.”
“That’s right.”
“Plausible enough. There can hardly be anyone alive who has earned more grudges than the Bursting Fist Demon. He was not named a public enemy of the murim for nothing. It would be no surprise if he were ambushed at any time.”
“…”
“And yet the circumstances are far too convenient. That a mysterious master should appear at precisely that moment… there cannot be many warriors capable of taking him on.”

I swallowed hard.

Dammit. He said he wasn’t here to call me to account!

One second felt like a minute. So this was how it felt to wait on King Yama’s sentence. My nerves were strung tight.

General Hwa Mu-hong spoke.

“That is a lie. You know the Bursting Fist Demon is dead. No — you are certain of it. As though you had seen it with your own eyes.”
“…!”
“You are hiding something.”
“I am not. Why on earth would I shield a public enemy of the murim? A man who tried to kill me, at that.”
“Then tell me. What sort of man was this mysterious master?”
“Er, well. He wore a straw hat, so I couldn’t see his face. Black martial robes, and at his waist a long sword….”
“That right there is the lie. By your own account you barely escaped with your life and ran in a blind panic — where was the leisure to take in all that?”

Dammit. Dammit!

I bit down lightly on my tongue. Was it too much to hope to fool a general who had been through fire and water?

“Tell me. At whose hand did the Bursting Fist Demon die?”
“Well, that’s….”

General Hwa Mu-hong watched me dither a moment, then turned to Moyong Jin-seong.

“Family head. Could you have the innkeeper called for? There is something I would ask him.”
“The boss doesn’t know anything!”

— Bang!

Just then the door swung open and a man came striding in. It was Big Bro Un-cheon.

“It was me.”

He looked General Hwa Mu-hong straight in the eye and declared:

“I killed the Bursting Fist Demon.”

Big Bro Un-cheon came to a stop before a clear stream babbling past.

“Let’s rest a while.”
“Huff. Huff.”

While Big Bro Un-cheon stepped away a moment to relieve himself,

I plunged my head straight into the stream.

It struck me afresh: if you push all the water and waste in your body out as sweat, there’s no need to pass it as urine after all.

“Pwah!”

Anyway.

Washed clean in the cool valley water, I felt like I might live. I scraped my soaked hair back and looked up at the blue sky.

“…”

Big Bro Un-cheon’s entrance had smoothed the whole business over. The Bursting Fist Demon had come bearing a grudge against him in the first place, so the story was not such a strange one. Killed the man’s master, or something of the sort. General Hwa Mu-hong accepted it too. And my own reason for trying to hide the truth got dressed up as something I’d done for his sake.

But… is it all right for it to go like this?

— Splash!

“Aaagh!”

A great sheet of spray came flying over me and I recoiled. Big Bro Un-cheon, back from his business, had jumped into the stream.

“What’s a young lad like you doing with a face like a funeral?”

He said it with a laugh.

“You look like you’re carrying every worry in the world.”
“But, Big Bro.”
“I’m the one who killed that man’s master. It was going to have to be settled sooner or later. And killing one more of them won’t add to the grudges I’ve already got, so don’t worry.”
“…Big Bro.”
“If you’re that grateful, how about coughing up a wish for me.”
“That’s a bit much.”
“…”
“By the way, if the General said he was satisfied, why does he keep staying on at the Moyong Family?”
“Making the most of being out, I expect — a rest before he heads back. Might be awkward to go straight home, too. Don’t let it bother you.”

A cool wind blew through.

Shff-shff-shff— countless leaves glittering in the sunlight swayed in the wind and sang.

Big Bro Un-cheon gazed blankly at that golden dance and said:

“By the way, have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
“Word is the family head will be handing out assignments to the Moyong Family’s growing shoots before long.”
“Assignments? What sort of assignments?”
“Who’s to say. There’ll be all manner of things a proud member of a great orthodox sect can do. Putting down bandits, escorting merchant caravans, finding runaway cats, and so on.”

Field training, then. It seemed they meant to start sending them out to gather some experience. You only become a real warrior once you’ve been through real combat, so they say.

“The competition will be fierce, I’d say. It’s a prime chance to be recognized by the grown-ups of the family.”
“Hmm.”
“From what I gather, whoever pulls off the hardest job gets a reward as well, in recognition of the achievement.”
“A reward?”

My ears pricked up.