Chapter 19

We ran like hell. Laughter came chasing after us.

“Hahaha! What adorable little brats you are! So it’s a game of tag! Go on, run all you like!”

Is he out of his mind?

A game of tag, at a time like this.

Moyong Rin, running at my heels, said:

“We have to open up as much distance as we can, right now! While the monsters still have them tied up!”

Moyong Danho flatly contradicted her.¹

“No. It doesn’t matter how much distance we open up. Run all we like, they’ll have us before we’re off the mountain.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“We stand and fight. Either we die, or they do. It’s one or the other.”
“I don’t like running either, but we’ve got no chance! There’s nobody up here but us!”

I sided with Moyong Rin.

“Masters or not, they can’t search the whole of Phoenix Mountain. If we hide as best we can and slip away….”

Just then a shout came from behind us.

“Smiling Ghost! I’ll see to these monsters myself, so you go after them!”
“Haha. Shall I, then?”

And with that the laughter started closing in.

“Hahahaha! You lot! Where do you think you’re going!”

It swelled in a heartbeat, and the chill of it went straight through me. Any second now he could come bursting out at our backs and fall on us.

“Ah, shit.”

Run, or stand and fight. We’d never had a choice to begin with.

“He’s on us!”

I glanced back at Moyong Rin’s shout. There was the Smiling Ghost, running at us with a grin on his face. He had closed the gap in no time at all.

“Found you!”

Coming on with that long saber, grinning wide enough to tear his mouth open, he made a thoroughly ghastly sight.

The Smiling Ghost, was it. The name checks out, all right.

At the head of the group, I let myself slow, little by little. I checked what was left in the ring.

One bar and a half.

A single shot. I had to kill him with that single shot. Turn it over however I liked, it was the only way any of us was getting out alive.

Kill the Smiling Ghost first and I could deal with the One-Eyed Dragon somehow. He’s only got the one eyeball, so getting away from him shouldn’t be all that hard. And if it came to standing and fighting the way Danho wanted, the Ear Rats had each had a bite out of him, so maybe he could even be put down.

Right now. This one perfect moment, with the One-Eyed Dragon and the Smiling Ghost apart. This was where it had to be settled.

As I dropped steadily back, Moyong Rin and Danho shouted at me in alarm.

“Hey! What are you doing?”
“Gwang-seon! Don’t tell me you’re out of stamina?”
“It’s nothing like that!”
“Then what is it?”
“I’ve got an idea.”

I eased off the pace and read the lie of the ground around me.

Use anything you can use.

As luck would have it, we were crossing a stretch where the ground reared up abruptly into a rise.

This ought to do.

Not as good as the ground I’d killed the Bursting Fist Demon on, but all things considered it wasn’t bad. The instant he showed himself over that rise, he’d take a laser he’d never dreamed of.

I picked the best ground I was going to get and stopped. Then I leveled the ringed finger at the top of the rise we’d just come over and bellowed:

“Eyes front and run!”

I counted in my head.

One.

Don’t shake. How are you going to hit anything with your sights wobbling?

Two.

It isn’t a difficult thing. The moment he pops up over that rise, I feed him a laser through the chest. That’s all it takes.

Three.

He came up over the rise with a smile on his face.

Now!

— Vwip—

A brilliant light flooded my whole field of vision.

“Kugh!”

I heard him groan.

Hit!

The light died away and left the Smiling Ghost standing there, a hand clamped over one shoulder. The laser had gone through the shoulder, not the chest. No, it hadn’t even gone through. It had done no more than graze him.

I missed…?

There was no way. My aim had been exact, hadn’t it?

“You… that power…?”

He spoke haltingly, shock all over his face. Then, a moment later, his mouth twisted into a grotesque smile.

“So it’s you. You’re the one who killed the Bursting Fist Demon! Hahaha! A mere waiter!”

He shifted the long saber into his other hand and leveled it at me, teeth flashing white in that grin.

“You’ve come by a power that doesn’t suit your station. I’ll take it off you.”

I turned and ran without stopping to think about it any further.

“Fuck… fuuuck…!”

Why in the world had it missed?

No. Did he dodge it?

I had underestimated how fast a master reacts.

The monster. He dodged that?

Big Bro Un-cheon told me about it once: a master’s sixth sense goes beyond anything you can imagine. Still, he couldn’t have dodged faster than a laser traveling at the speed of light. He must have seen my fingertip leveled at him and twisted his body on instinct.

I ran fit to sweat through the soles of my feet and caught up with the two ahead.

“Gwang-seon!”
“What happened?”
“I failed to kill him. But I’ve put one of his arms out of action.”
“What…?”

The two of them stared at me, wide-eyed. There was no time to stand about explaining.

At least the arm that’s wrecked is his blade arm. Small mercy.

“I don’t know much about it. But that ought to make it worth a try, shouldn’t it?”

We stopped, caught our breath, and waited for the Smiling Ghost. He came soon enough, eyes flashing white, grinning. His shoulder was shot through and one arm hung in tatters, and still the air about him was more dangerous than ever.

“The madman. He’s still smiling after that.”
“Let’s see if he can smile with both arms off.”

We formed up and threw ourselves at him.

Somewhere on the lower slopes of Phoenix Mountain.

Two warriors with their swords drawn stood glaring at each other.

“And what brings the General, so burdened with affairs of state, all the way out to the back of beyond?”
“I took an interest. Call it a hobby.”
“A hobby, he says.”

A deep gouge scored the ground between the two men holding that standoff.

Crrrack— fissures had split open all around it, and the trees caught up in them lay snapped like sorghum stalks.

“Why must a grown man stick his nose in where children are playing? Go home quietly.”
“And why must you tag along on a children’s mission? I was given to understand the family strictly forbids it.”
“Because I am no man of the Moyong Family.”
“Is that so. Ought a guest-retainer not to observe the house’s precepts as well?”
“Doesn’t the same go for your side?”

And then, from the direction of Phoenix Mountain’s summit, came a sound,

— Vwip—

and a red beam of light split the clouds and crossed the blue sky, bright enough for one instant to stain the whole sky red.

“What is that…?”

Leaving General Hwa Mu-hong where he stood, his eyes stolen by that strange sight,

“Damn it.”

Baek Un-cheon at once unfolded the lightness arts to the utmost and started up Phoenix Mountain. There was no time to stand here in a war of nerves with the General.

The General came to himself and hurried after him.

“Hey. What was that just now?”
“How should I know?”
“You have the look of a man who knows.”
“I don’t know, so stop following me.”

Baek Un-cheon paid him no further mind, gritted his teeth and ran.

Gwang-seon. What on earth is going on.

Moyong Danho and Moyong Rin swung their swords and drove in at him from both sides. They must have spent a long time learning each other’s rhythm; they moved as though they were one body. Whenever Moyong Rin was in danger, Danho’s sword came thrusting in from the other side, and whenever the Smiling Ghost turned on Danho, Rin cut in without flinching. Their strike-and-withdraw was first class.

Were these two always this strong?

Moyong Rin I could grant. But Moyong Danho with a sword in his hand was an entirely different person. Only then did I understand what it really means for a swordsman to set his sword down. If Danho had taken up a sword at the Intra-Family Sparring Tournament, I doubt I’d have lasted ten moves.

And yet. Even with one arm out of use and the blade held in a hand he wasn’t used to, the two of them could not easily gain the upper hand on him. If anything, they were being pushed back, little by little. He was growing more and more used to swinging the blade with his off hand, and the smile hooked at the corner of his mouth was growing steadily deeper.

This monster of a bastard…!

What in the world are these masters made of? I was stuck where I stood, unable to move in for fear of breaking their combined-attack formation.

If there’s one saving grace, it’s that he’s holding himself back because he’s conscious of me….

When I leveled a fingertip at him, he flinched and put himself behind Moyong Danho. He’s pulling back because even he can’t quite believe it. It was only a matter of time before he worked it out.

At this rate we lose.

I had to introduce a variable. I had to do something.

— Cla-clang! Clang!

The clash of blade on blade is a savage sound. I watched the fight, hawk-eyed and careful, and then….

Now!

Unfolding the Divine Cascade Step to the utmost, I ran straight in and swung my sword. The movement came out of the Moyong Sword Art, though which form of it I couldn’t have said. A movement for sweeping a blade aside.

— Clang!

The saber coming down on Moyong Rin was knocked away.

“Haap!”

Moyong Danho did not let the chance go; his sword went for the man’s ribs.

— Clang!

But with a motion like lightning he hauled the knocked-aside saber back and beat Danho’s sword away.

Moyong Rin went for his legs, but.

— Whump!

“Kuh!”

She took a kick in the belly and went sliding backward. In that instant his eyes flashed and fixed on me.

“Gwang-seon!”

The long saber came around in that split second, like a reaper’s scythe.

— Bump.

Without meaning to, I knocked my heels together.

— Whoosh—

The long saber cut through empty air.

“Huh?”

In an instant I had vanished out of his sight, and the Smiling Ghost let out a dazed noise. I had pulled off the Butterfly Step for the first time. And in a real fight, no less! Against a master! A thrill came surging through me.

“Yes! That’s it exactly!”

With Moyong Rin’s praise in my ears, I gripped the sword hilt tight in both hands.

“I’m a learn-in-the-field type.”

Startled out of his skin by a voice behind him, the Smiling Ghost spun around. The instant he did, I bellowed:

“Now!”

Three swords came around at once, from three directions. Master or not, there was no way he could block this….

— Tak!

His form seemed to stretch and lengthen upward, and then it was simply gone.

“…Huh?”

He reappeared a few paces back and gave his saber a light swing.

— Shhk— Flop.

We stared stupidly at the arm lying on the ground. He had cut off his own dangling arm.

“Hahaha! That’s better. It was becoming a real nuisance.”

The Smiling Ghost laughed.

“Now then. Shall we have another go?”

This crazy son of a bitch!

He came at us with terrifying speed.

“He’s coming!”

— Cla-cla-clang!

So the nuisance business hadn’t been a lie: he was twice as fast, and his blade strokes were sharper still. Skill that was ghostly, in the most literal sense.

What kind of monstrosity is this…!

It was all we could do to fend him off.

Boom— in that moment a sound came from somewhere far off, and then the One-Eyed Dragon’s voice rang out.

“Where are you!”

I’d been hoping the Ear Rats would tear him apart and finish him, but that had evidently been nothing more than wishful thinking on our part.

If he joins in as well, we’ve got no chance.

Snow on top of frost, as the saying goes.² The situation was racing toward the worst of all possible outcomes.

Damn it.

I bellowed:

“Bolt!”

The moment I saw Danho and Moyong Rin turn, I screwed my eyes shut. Then I spread my palm and pressed the button hard.

— Flash!

“Kyaagh!”

A blinding light burst out.

“Why, you little brat — cheap tricks!”

I left the Smiling Ghost roaring behind us, swinging his saber in every direction, and ran for it. I had no hidden moves left now. The half bar of battery I’d had was scraping the bottom.

“What did you do?”
“Secret!”
“Save the talking and run!”

We ran until our heads were empty, and at the end of it we arrived somewhere that had no business being there.

“Haah. Hah. Where… is this?”
“It’s the Three-Point Gate I told you about.”

An enormous triangular door of metal had grown up out of the bare rock. The rough, crude stone and the sleek metal without a single seam made a strange pairing.

I walked slowly toward it. Intricate patterns were carved into its surface, and I could not name the meaning of any of them.

“Hey! What are you doing?”
“Gwang-seon. This is no time to be sightseeing.”

Their voices weren’t reaching me. I went toward the door as though something had me under a spell.

Something.

Was calling.

To me.

I reached out and laid my hand on the circle at the center of the Three-Point Gate. Moyong Rin came over and hauled urgently at my shoulder.

“I said this is no time for that!”

— Vwoooom—

— Krrrik— clack-clack—

“…Huh?”

The Three-Point Gate, holding its long-kept secret, opened.