Chapter 24

— Cla-clang!

Swords clashed, and the sunlight that shattered across the blades was dazzling.

“Ah, would you quit doing that already!”
“Ho ho. This is all strategy too, I’m telling you.”

Moyong Bi had spent every clash angling his blade just so to gift me a flashbang, and he was grinning all over his face.

“It’s a technique for scrambling your field of vision. Steal this one with your eyes too, if you like.”
“I’m not stealing it. Cheap trick like that.”

I’m a toy to him, is that it?

I was livid. The more our swords met, the more murderous intent came boiling up in me. He kept needling away at me, and I half suspected he was doing it on purpose.

I swung at him without warning, and Moyong Bi gave ground and tipped his blade this way and that. The sunlight scrambled my eyes.

“Hahaha, how’s that? Do you think you can unravel the principle of my Borrowed Light, Dazzled Eye?”
“…”

Seriously, this was pissing me off.

I’ll kill him. I will absolutely kill him!

But going in here would only mean playing into the move Moyong Bi was angling for. I held the opening stance, swallowed it down, and waited for him to come to me.

“No fun at all.”

A stroke Moyong Bi threw out carelessly came flying in along one of the sword paths I knew by heart.

Now!

I drew my sword back a little, the way you welcome in a guest, and canted the blade to a slant. Moyong Bi’s sword rode down the edge of my saber and slid away.

“What?”

Moyong Bi’s eyes went wide.

I shook his blade off where it clung and dragged, then slashed straight up at him. The Pork-Slicing Demon-Cleaving Saber, packed full of murderous intent, cut across his chest.

“Die!”

— Whoosh—

“?”

I had cut him, no question about it, and yet the saber had split empty air. His sharp outline blurred and then scattered like mist, and in that same instant a thrust like a ray of light came shooting out from between the scattering shapes.

Insane.

I worked out what he had done a beat too late. He had pulled back fast enough to leave an afterimage hanging in the air, and then, while that afterimage scrambled my vision, he had split it and come bursting through it like a flash of light.

He had taken one form of the Sword of Flashing Light and Parting Clouds and applied it exquisitely. Stripped down, all he had really done was drop back and burst forward again with a thrust. But when footwork honed to a divine level met a sword art pitched to the same height, what came out was an ultimate technique you could not dodge even knowing it was coming.

So it can be used that way too.

Admiration came out of me on its own. The movement was fully ripened, the principle of the art living inside it.

But admiration was admiration,

and at this rate I was going to end up with a hole in my chest.

— Bump.

I knocked my heels together on reflex and slipped Moyong Bi’s ultimate technique with the Butterfly Step.

“No. He dodged that?”

I let the muttering wash past behind me and poured true qi into the point of my sword, unfolding a form of the Sword of Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon. Sunlight flashed off the tip as it cut in at a slant toward his flank.

“Die!”

— Clang!

But my wish stayed as far off as ever. My killing counter was blocked as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Moyong Bi stared at me, eyes round.

“A counter, too?”
“Not yet. Sing, Pork-Slicing Demon-Cleaving Saber!”

But the one who ended up singing was me.

Moyong Bi’s kick sent me rolling over and over across the ground. A cloudless blue sky filled my vision.

“…Damnably blue.”

His face popped abruptly into view above me where I lay sprawled on the ground.

“You mad monster.”
“Adding insult to injury, on top of it. It does make me doubt this is really one of the great orthodox sects.”
“You’re the third to dodge that on first sight.”

I took the hand he held out and pulled myself up.

“Hup. Who were the first and the second, then?”
“The first was the head of our proud Moyong Family.”
“And the second?”
“The second was your master.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, my foot.”

Moyong Bi snorted a laugh.

“But you’re the first to answer the opening move with a counter. I did cut the speed a touch, granted, but broken is broken. The harmony of your Divine Cascade Step and your Butterfly Step is truly something.”
“Is that so?”
“You may be proud of it. This is the hidden move that landed a cut on the Namgung Family’s Azure Dragon Sword — who took first place at the Dragon and Phoenix Conference, mind you. Not even that one dodged it completely.”

As I listened, a question came to me.

“You said my master dodged it, though?”
“I did.”
“And the Azure Dragon Sword, who took first place at the Dragon and Phoenix Conference no less, couldn’t dodge it?”
“That’s right.”
“Then… does that mean Big Bro Un-cheon is stronger than the Azure Dragon Sword?”

Moyong Bi smiled and said nothing.

“Big Bro Un-cheon. Did he take part in the Dragon and Phoenix Conference?”
“He didn’t take part officially. On account of turning up late.”

What’s that supposed to mean? He didn’t take part officially? Then is there some way of taking part unofficially?

“Measuring strength by whether one form was blocked or not blocked is a touch narrow. Every warrior has their matchups.”

Moyong Bi went on grinning and let the question slide past him. I glared at him.

“So that’s how it is?”
“Go and ask your master, why don’t you.”
“My master doesn’t talk about himself, I’m telling you.”
“A warrior does not go blabbing about another person’s affairs. All the more reason I can’t tell you, then.”
“…”

He could just tell me, honestly. Moyong Bi seems to enjoy winding me up that much.

“Not bad at all. Your body’s taken to it now, hasn’t it? The forms of the Sword of Flashing Light and Parting Clouds and the Sword of Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon flow out of you naturally.”
“Don’t change the subject. That’s your last warning.”
“Anyway, what’s with the earring all of a sudden? You’re not some goodwife.”

He paid me no mind and asked anyway.

“It’s my taste. I’d ask you to respect it.”
“I respect it, but the rest of them are another story — that’s why I’m saying it. Get caught by one and it’ll be torn out.”
“Let them try. I’ll tear their groin off for them.”

I gave my future enemies fair warning, twirling the Pork-Slicing Demon-Cleaving Saber round and round.

It’s Ishtar’s starlight. She asked me not to forget her, and I am never taking it off.

“…Grim stuff. Suit yourself.”
“I intend to.”

Speaking of the earring, something occurred to me.

“Teacher Yong-bi.”
“What is it.”
“Are there any bad sorts around here who deserve to die?”
“Bad sorts? More of those than anyone knows what to do with. Why?”

Why, he asks. Because there’s no better teaching aid for testing the powers of the earring Ishtar gave me, that’s why.

“There’s a reason.”
“Real combat, is it. Good attitude.”

I fudged it, and Moyong Bi went ahead and interpreted it however he liked.

“Any warrior worth the name goes looking for fights. I was the same at your age. Itching all over.”
“…”
“Only, everything around here falls under the Moyong Family’s sphere, so they won’t be easy to find.”
“Then what?”
“Dress yourself up nicely and go out past the city. Just walking along the roadside will get you picked on.”
“Oho.”

Thanks for the pro tip.

“Ah, now that I think of it. That monster you brought back.”
“What about it?”

I’d heard they were hard at work studying it inside.

“Care to go and have a look at it?”
“What for?”

Moyong Bi cocked his head.

“You still haven’t caught on?”
“Caught on to what?”
“?”
“?”

Moyong Bi gave me a strange look.

“Didn’t you say you took it alive? I assumed you’d noticed by now.”
“Well….”

Because I wasn’t the one who caught it. It was that curious General Hwa Mu-hong, the Iron-Blood General, who caught it.

“Good. Take your friends along and go. You lot have earned the right to know.”
“…?”

I took our team and headed for the place Moyong Bi had named, somewhere deep inside the Moyong Family compound. I had never set foot there.

“There was a place like this?”
“You two have never been here either?”
“No. It’s strictly forbidden.”

Not even the family head’s direct line was allowed in? Curiosity welled up in me.

What kind of secret is it, then?

We chattered away like that as we walked, and an elderly person came out to meet us.

“I’ve been expecting you. This way.”

The old researcher, who introduced themselves as an eminent scholar of ruin sites, led us into a room. Inside, the puppy-sized Ear Rat we had brought back lay tied to a leash, sleeping peacefully.

“…Seen like this, it’s sort of cute?”
“Right?”

The ones we saw on Phoenix Mountain were big and revolting. This one was small enough to have a cute side to it. Maybe it’s the big ears. Or maybe it’s just that it isn’t gnawing on a rock.

The old researcher picked up an iron rod.

“What’s that?”
“Made of meteoric iron. Watch closely.”

Then, without warning, they swung it at the sleeping Ear Rat.

— Clang!

— Squeak!

The Ear Rat started violently, scurried about in a panic and hid behind a chair. The sight of it trembling was pitiful enough, but I felt nothing of the kind.

“Did you see?”
“…Yes.”

Because I had just witnessed the thing’s true identity. When the meteoric-iron rod came down on it, the Ear Rat’s skin gave a ripple and the color drained out of it.

And there stood a monster made of cold metal.

“…!”
“It can’t be!”

Moyong Rin clapped a hand over her mouth. Danho couldn’t hide his shock either.

— Shhhrr—

But only for a moment. The metal skin rippled again, an illusion like a hologram slid back over it, and the thing recovered its original appearance.

My skin crawled. It really had pulled a hide over itself and been doing an impression of a rat.

A broad smile spread over the old researcher’s face.

“There’s a reason they’re called monsters.”

The researcher fetched the Ear Rat out of the corner where it was trembling, held it up by the tail, dangling it upside down, and went on with the explanation. The Ear Rat thrashed in midair.

“Here now. Take a good look.”

— Clang!

— Squeak!

One blow of the meteoric-iron rod and the illusion vanished again, baring the cold metal skin. The same metal fragments we had picked up at the ruins were packed dense across the whole of it, writhing like water in waves.

So there was a reason blades don’t bite into them.

A monster made of metal. No, not even ordinary metal. A monster made of meteoric iron.

…How did General Hwa Mu-hong catch a thing like this.

The more I thought about it, the more he had to be an extraordinary person. Now I understood why Moyong Jin-seong and the elders had been knocked flat with astonishment.

“Can you see it?”

— Clang! Clang!

— Squeeak! Squeak!

“…I’ve seen it all, so let’s stop there.”
“Hm? You don’t want a closer look?”

I stopped the old researcher, who was whipping the meteoric-iron rod around over their head.

“What… is that? How can such a thing exist?” Danho asked in a shaking voice; the shock still hadn’t left him.

“We don’t know the details either. Beyond the fact that they’re found near ruin sites. By what principle they dress up an outward appearance and mimic a beast, why they turn up only near ruin sites, how a creature made of metal can exist at all and move about alive… nothing whatsoever is known about their ecology.”

The old researcher let out a sigh.

“Every secret sleeps inside the ruins. But there’s no way to open the Three-Point Gate.”
“…”

Moyong Rin and Danho stared fixedly at me.

What. I don’t know either, so what do you want from me.

I made an effort to ignore their looks and asked.

“Why has this been kept secret?”
“It’s rare to have occasion to see a monster. Most people will never have laid eyes on one.”

It was true. I myself had taken them for a story the grown-ups made up to frighten children.

“Not only is it no easy thing to meet a monster and live, but you have to strike them with their own meteoric iron, like so, before the true shape shows.”

— Clang!

With every blow, triangular metal fragments came pattering down.

“All right, so please stop hitting it.”
“What they are is known to nobody but a very few of the highest in the orthodox coalition. There were fears the common people’s lives would be thrown into turmoil.”

What would happen if word got out that monsters made of steel exist? I couldn’t say for certain, but the odds were high it would be more chaotic than things are now. Because human beings fear what they don’t know.

I’d heard the Ear Rat was on the small and weak side, as monsters go. What are the others like. To people they would look like monsters risen out of hell to destroy the world. Creatures of the devil, no less. Worst case, some strange new religion might even spring up to worship them.

“In fact that has happened a few times. They frightened people and spread confusion and threw the common people’s lives into disorder. To the point they couldn’t work their trades. Each time the orthodox coalition stepped in and wiped them out.”
“…I see.”

The moment the old researcher set it down, the Ear Rat bolted behind the chair. Watching it shiver there, I belatedly realized one thing.

“Danho.”
“Yeah?”
“General Hwa Mu-hong. When he gave you that. What did you say he said?”
“You can’t even eat it. He had no use for it, so take it… Ah!”

So that’s what “you can’t even eat it” meant.

That’s right. At the very least, the imperial house knows about these metal monsters. Perhaps in more detail than we do.