Chapter 36

I kept a close watch on Moyong Rin so I could step in at any moment, and worked my way through the dead in the fog. It didn’t last long.

Huh, she’s good?

She made a mockery of my worrying, putting the dead down one after another, brisk and untroubled. Come to think of it, this was the girl they called the genius following in Moyong Bi’s footsteps.

And who was Moyong Bi?

Wasn’t he the man who blew out of the Moyong Family like a sudden wind? Nobody had expected anything of that house. Its martial arts ran so strongly to the late bloomer that it could never make a showing at the Dragon and Phoenix Conference, and the disgrace of it had them called the bottom seat of the Five Great Families. Yet he’d knocked down every formidable candidate and taken the runner-up spot: a true rising star of the gangho, in every sense.

You only had to look at how the Mount Hua Sect kids reacted to know how popular he was.

They carried on like they’d met an idol.

That star-crossed genius of the Moyong Family was none other than Moyong Bi, the Glancing River Sword.

And to be measured against a Moyong Bi like that meant Moyong Rin was, plainly, one of the handful of geniuses in the gangho. In percentage terms, top 0.1 percent at the very least, surely? For a girl like that, one percent was a joke.

This was no time to be worrying about somebody else.

I had my own fish to fry.

Moyong Rin will manage on her own.

I cut off my worrying and dealt with the dead as they rose out of the fog, one by one. Sometimes one or two came at me; sometimes a whole crowd of them had me surrounded. Among them were Demonic Cult bastards, the Bursting Fist Demon and the Smiling Ghost included, and the nasty black-path thugs who used to torment us in Fallen Star Village, and even the roughnecks and murim warriors who had looked down on a waiter and made scenes about it.

The fighting went on without a break. One round would end, and while I was getting my breath back, another of them would be quietly picking itself up out of the fog before I knew it.

Drives you right to your limit, he’d said. Sure enough. The fog kept shifting up a gear, pressing in on me from every side.

“Come on. All of you.”

I decided not to use the laser in this fight. Back when I hadn’t known this place was the Training Room, I’d used it to survive; you can hardly cut corners when the point is training.

Death stuck its face out at me more than once, and each time the Divine Cascade Step and the Butterfly Step earned their keep. My legs moved before my head could judge. It was all but unconscious. The two footwork arts saved me every time I was in danger.

I heard the Divine Cascade Step and the Butterfly Step were mutually opposed.

I thought otherwise. They went together like sticky rice cake, so well that I half suspected the two of them had been one martial art to begin with.

Big Bro Un-cheon said the legs are where every martial art begins.

From then on I forgot everything else and concentrated on the movement of legs.

The enemy’s legs. My legs.

My legs. The enemy’s legs.

I put my sword back in its scabbard and did nothing but evade. Slipping the attacks that came flying in, breaking out of their formation whenever they had me surrounded. Now and then something came in from a blind spot and stabbed me, or cut me, but I never drew my sword, right to the end.

Little by little the scratches scored into me grew fewer, until in the end their attacks could not so much as graze me. On a battlefield thick with flying spears and blades, I savored true freedom.

And about the time I had grown reasonably used to evading,

I drew my sword.

Slipping their attacks with the footwork, I swung the blade. It took no great strength.

Just following the flow.

Naturally.

Along the grain.

Lightly.

I mixed the sword into the footwork. The two mixed naturally. And what came of it was a sword art.

Ah.

Enlightenment came.

Swing a sword inside footwork that is peerless under heaven, and it becomes a sword art that is peerless under heaven. At last I understood the truth in Big Bro Un-cheon’s words, truly, with my whole body. The legs really were where every martial art began, and the lightness arts really were the most important of them all.

Root and stem, leaf and flower. The beginning and the end.

The fastest warrior is the strongest, they say. It was a plain fact.

“Ha ha.”

So this is what it means to be drunk on martial arts.

This was fun. I was enjoying myself. I sank into a trance, forgot everything, and gave myself over entirely to the fighting.

And then, at some point, no more enemies came. When I came back to myself, the fog that had wrapped around me was thinning away.

“…Is it over?”

Already?

A regret I couldn’t account for brushed through me. There was a sense of achievement in it, certainly, but the regret was bigger.

That Herion. All those scare tactics, and it was nothing much.

Like the drink just starting to hit you, and then the party breaking up.

Not even a taster.

The regret kept me from getting up and leaving.

Didn’t Big Bro Un-cheon say he goes to some lightness arts club?

I hadn’t thought much of it when I first heard. Now I was interested.

I’ll ask him next time I see him.

“Where’s Moyong Rin?”

I looked around and found her some way off, swinging her sword with gusto. She was even rolling head over heels without a thought for her dignity, so it looked like a fairly fierce fight.

“Good.”

I plopped myself down nearby.

“Let’s have a look, then.”

— Keeen—

Normally the fog room only lets you see your own enemies, but when I used the power of the star eyeball, the enemies Moyong Rin was facing came into view.

“Huh?”

The faces were familiar. My big brothers and sisters: Moyong Pae-cheon, Moyong Gun-ak, Moyong Cheon-bung.

Why is she fighting our big brothers and sisters? Weren’t they close?

Or was this a different situation from mine, where only enemies had come out? From what Herion had told me, this fog room, also called the Training Room, puts the emphasis on each person’s growth. So do the enemies it produces. Wouldn’t facing your bitterest enemies spur more growth than facing some ordinary goodwife you might find at a tavern? And winning against an opponent branded into you as terror might let you get past the trauma of it.

And if you can’t overcome the trauma?

You die, that’s all.

This Training Room had never been designed for the weak in the first place. To Herion, they were ‘those who deserved to die.’

— Rustle—

I fished out a griddle cake and watched while I ate.

Hair sheared off, a sword tip grazing her ear, a blade turned aside after it had already reached the nape of her neck. There were plenty of heart-stopping moments, but she came through every brush with death without batting an eye, steady as anything. In the end she took Moyong Gun-ak’s head off, cut both of Moyong Pae-cheon’s arms away, and drove her sword into Moyong Cheon-bung’s heart.

“…Grim stuff.”

That merciless even to her own flesh and blood? Fake or not, you’d think being family would give her pause. There was not a trace of hesitation in her.

Better not mess with Moyong Rin.

I was firmly resolving that all over again when,

“Haah… haah….”

the phantom Moyong Cheon-bung, sword still through her heart, reached out and cupped Moyong Rin’s face while the girl heaved for breath.

“…Sis.”

At the sight of it a single tear ran down from the corner of Moyong Rin’s eye. Moyong Cheon-bung smiled.

With that, Moyong Cheon-bung scattered into fog.

“…?”

What is going on here?

The fog room is built purely for the user’s growth, for the purpose of training. There’s a reason the enemies that came at me out of the fog were my own enemies. That way they did more for my training, presumably.

So what on earth was Moyong Rin’s case? Why had her brothers and sisters come out?

She didn’t look as though she resented them, and they didn’t look like bad people either. Only a little awkward with one another.

In any house, of course, a succession contest is a grim business. Take the Demonic Cult, where a storm of blood blows; the imperial house is surely no different either, only more refined in its methods. Set against that, the Moyong Family is a remarkably peaceful place.

Because of Moyong Bi?

Come to think of it, there’s no rule in the Moyong Family that only the direct line may become family head.

In any case, there was only one reason they had come out.

Because that would do more for Moyong Rin’s growth.

Having cut down her phantom brothers and sisters, Moyong Rin seemed a good deal more at ease. The tear that had run down her cheek was like a knot tied up inside her coming loose and running out of her; she looked unburdened. Like watching a bird come out of its egg, I suppose.

Her fog, too, began to disperse. One way or another, she had passed the test as well.

She was looking this way and that when our eyes met. She started, scrubbed her eyes quickly with the back of her hand, and asked in a shaky voice.

“How long have you been there?”
“Uh, um. A while?”
“…”
“…”
“Did you see?”
“No.”

Moyong Rin and I ran a good long circuit of the fog room training the lightness arts, and then came out the exit.

“Tch.”

What is this feeling of regret?

One thing was certain: the Moyong Gwang-seon who had walked into this place and the Moyong Gwang-seon who had walked out were plainly different people.

Did I break past my limit, I wonder?

Honestly, I couldn’t tell. Murim warriors like to call it crossing the wall; there was no grand feeling of that sort.

I do feel stronger than before, though….

More precisely, it was more like tearing down a tower I’d built with care and stacking it up again from the bottom, piece by piece? Like walking a road I’d walked once before, except it seemed to be a slightly different road from the one I’d walked. I didn’t know why. That was simply how it felt.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you coming out?”

I put the bittersweet feeling behind me and stepped out through the exit. Yeon Seo-ha, the Plum Blossom Swordsman, had been crouched beside the door nodding off; she opened her eyes.

“…So you’ve finally crawled out.”
“Anyone listening would think we’d been in there for an age.”

Yeon Seo-ha answered through a long yawn.

“You were. An age.”
“How much time has gone by?”
“Tomorrow is the last day.”

Which meant today was the sixth day of the hunt. We’d been in the fog room about a day, then.

I met Moyong Rin’s eyes. She looked startled too.

“A day? It felt like no time at all. A whole day’s gone by already?”
“My point exactly.”

They do say time runs fast when you fall into a trance.

“Even if we set off now there’s no way we get back by tomorrow.”

Since we were late anyway, we decided to rest properly before setting off. Treating our wounds, cooking ourselves some food.

“Well? Did you get anything out of it?”
“Some, yes.”

For the record, Yeon Seo-ha hadn’t gone into the fog room; she’d waited outside, because the room was strictly for newbies who hadn’t cracked their eggs yet. For someone who had already reached a proper level it wasn’t much use. If it smashed your limits every time you walked in, people would go in day after day, a hundred times over.

And so, after resting and gathering in what I’d gained in the fog room,

the seventh day of the hunt. The last day.

We left the ruins.

— Grrnngg…

We chatted as we watched the Three-Point Gate shudder open. The door came open slowly, and the sunlight leaking through the widening crack was dazzling.

“So today’s the last day.”

“I wonder who won.”

“We’ll find out when we get back.”

I was about to step out through the door when I glanced back.

In the dim darkness.

Herion stood smiling.

Herion’s voice rang inside my head like a voice transmission.

The seventh day of the hunt. In effect, the last day.

There was not a single team that had yet to return.

Each team stood before the quarry it had done its utmost to hunt, waiting for the judging. Their faces were full of pride. They had brought down these terrifying monsters by their own strength, and they were proud of it. Unbelievably so!

“Sorry, but we’ve won this one.”
“It was a tremendously dangerous monster. The family head will recognize it, no question.”
“You’re free to dream.”
“Have you ever heard of a fire-breathing monster? You’ll have caught it only in old tales. What I’m saying is, we hunted that legend ourselves.”

While the Paeng Family and the Moyong Family raised their voices at each other over who was the better, the Mount Hua Sect, of all people, stayed quiet.

Finding this odd, the Paeng Family asked.

“Why are you lot so quiet? No confidence?”

The Mount Hua children snorted.

“It’s the frightened dog that barks.”
“What was that?”
“Now, now. Quiet, quiet.”

The heads of each house stepped in and quieted the children.

“I am glad you have all come back safely. This exchange meet was intended to foster cooperation and healthy rivalry among the families and sects, and at the same time to give you a sense of achievement. In the gangho there are no eternal friends and no eternal enemies. I hope you will compete and cooperate in turn, and show us the best of yourselves. And with the Dragon and Phoenix Conference before us….”

While the Mount Hua sect leader’s long speech rolled on, Moyong Jin-seong, head of the Moyong Family, asked Moyong Bi by voice transmission.

— Rin and Gwang-seon? Still not back?
— No, sir. But there is no need to worry. A Plum Blossom Swordsman went with them.
— Even so….

Was it a mistake to give them that Phoenix Mountain ruins mission back then?

Moyong Jin-seong found himself regretting it for no good reason. Rin had always been full of curiosity, so that was one thing, but he had not known Gwang-seon would take such an interest in ruins as well. It must have been that earlier experience that drew them.

The Phoenix Mountain ruins were among the earliest of the ruins to be found. So many had been through it that it had a settled reputation for holding no dangerous monsters any more. But other ruins were a different matter. This Azure Sea Bamboo Forest ruin in particular was said to lie deep inside the forest, within the Iron Bamboo Forest where bamboo of metal grows wild, and rumor had it that a powerful monster called ‘the Warden of the Iron Bamboo Forest’ guarded the place.

Should I have scolded them then instead of rewarding them? No. Well done is well done. There was no way not to reward that. But still….

“Moyong family head.”
“Mm?”
“You must say a word yourself.”
“Ahem. You have all worked hard. This experience will be the soil for your lives in the gangho hereafter. Press on all the more bravely and….”

After another round of speeches was over,

“Well then. Let us get to what we came for.”

— …Gulp.

The sound of people swallowing hard came from here and there.

“We will now inspect the quarry.”

The judging began.

Led by Seomun Jeong, the Mount Hua sect leader, the three heads walked over to the Paeng Family’s quarry, which stood at the front, and lifted the cloth away.

“Oh.”

Beneath it lay a huge monster, a good ten feet long in the body alone. It resembled a boar, and the tusks that curved out of it like horns were as savage as anything. Gored by those, no strongman under heaven would walk away.

— Murmur, murmur.

“Holy shit.”
“How on earth did they take down that monster?”

A stir went through the children.

Paeng Dol-hwi, the team leader, stepped forward. His shoulders swelled sky-high with pride, and his thrown-out chest was as broad as the Manchurian Plain.

“It took a fair bit of doing to bring him down, if I may say so.”

Paeng Dol-hwi patted the thing’s tusks with his hand and proudly unspooled the tale of his heroics.

“This fellow, you ask? The moment he laid eyes on us he came charging in, that’s how vicious he was. He came storming in on us in the middle of the night and scared us half out of our wits. And then he rammed a boulder — a rock the size of a house — until it burst apart. Can you imagine such a thing?”

He went on at great length about how they had decided this would not do and fallen back a step, and how the next day they had lured the beast onto a narrow stretch of ground where they had set traps in advance, then rushed it all together and beat it to death.

— Murmur, murmur.

“The Paeng Family used their heads?”
“Great strides, that.”
“They do say even the Paeng Family will work an abacus when they’re cornered.”

It was common wisdom across the gangho that when the Paeng Family used their heads, nine times out of ten what they meant was a headbutt. By that reckoning this was genuinely astonishing.

“Ha ha. When we say we’ll do a thing, we do it.”

Pleased by the praise pouring down on them, the Paeng children shrugged their shoulders.

“Splendid. As things stand, the Paeng Family are first!”
“Woooo!”

The Paeng children hugged one another and rejoiced.

“A strong candidate for the win.”

Next it was the Moyong Family’s turn. Moyong Pae-cheon stepped forward and swept the cloth away, revealing a huge lizard monster every bit as big as the boar before it.

“Is this…?”
“A Firespit Lizard. I trust you have heard of it.”
“A Firespit Lizard…!”

The whole company was startled. A fire-spitting lizard was peculiar enough that its name was fairly well known.

“How on earth did you take this one? Dealing with the flames it spews cannot have been easy.”

There were murim warriors who used scorching-yang arts, but even they didn’t spray fire like a madman, the way a flamethrower does. Even veterans found the thing hard to handle, so that children with little experience yet had taken one down among themselves beggared belief.

“…And in that way, by combining all our strength, we succeeded in hunting it.”

Moyong Pae-cheon finished his account, concise and precise.

“Impressive.”

The three heads were sincerely struck. Even the Paeng Family nodded along, with faces that said: credit where it’s due.

“Gwang-seon’s quick thinking stood out in particular. Making shields out of bamboo was his idea.”
“What? Wasn’t it Gwang-seon too who drove a sword into its eye?”
“It was. Honestly, without Gwang-seon I find it hard to imagine how we would have taken it.”
“…!”

Everyone was astonished. Moyong Jin-seong more than anyone.

Our Gwang-seon. Clever as well? Accomplished in letters and arms both!

But contrary to the thoughts in his head, he offered his commendation with a solemn face.

“Gwang-seon’s quick thinking shone, certainly, but your judgment in taking it up was excellent too.”
“…Thank you.”

Emotion flickered across Moyong Pae-cheon’s blunt face. That was how precious his father’s praise was.

After a brief conference, the three heads declared.

“As things stand, the Moyong Family are first.”
“B-but ours is bigger.”
“The Firespit Lizard spits fire and swings a mace with its tail.”
“…”

Last it was the Mount Hua Sect’s turn. When the cloth came away, a huge body with only one leg appeared.

“A One-Legged Ghost!”

The One-Legged Ghost was a humanoid monster, shaped much like a man, that went thumping about on its single leg. Thumping around like a jiangshi¹ had made it a regular fixture in ghost stories. It attacked by leaping high and coming down on you, and if that bloated body pinned you, you were flattened on the spot. On a dark night, one of them thumping toward you with a body no spear or blade could pierce was terror itself.

“…Looks doable, though?”

But that was true for ordinary people, not for murim warriors. Frightening to look at, yes, though nobody could be confident it was stronger than the two monsters before it. Part of what makes fighting monsters hard is that you can’t predict how the thing will move, and a humanoid monster was a good deal easier to handle than the other, grotesquely shaped ones.

“What’s this? It’s just an ordinary One-Legged Ghost.”
“Small, too. About half our boar, I’d say.”
“What in the world were they so confident about?”
“Does that put our Paeng Family up above this?”
“Ho ho. It rather looks as though the victory falls to our Moyong Family. My apologies.”

And so, children and adults alike, everyone was of one mind and one heart in sneering at the Mount Hua Sect when,

— Flap!

Seomun Jeong, the Mount Hua sect leader, smiled meaningfully and pulled away one more cloth.

“…Huh?”

The Mount Hua Sect had caught two monsters. And the second one boasted a size to rival either of the quarries before it.

The whole company stirred, and

…My Heavenly Silkworm Thread gloves.

Moyong Jin-seong’s vision went dim.