Fundamentals

Hwang Yanggeon climbed the mountain again, his workmen and the carts coming up behind him. Halfway up the slope they all stopped at once, as though by agreement.

Even at a glance there looked to be dozens of bodies. And they had not simply been killed. Every one of them had been parted from his head.

“Th—that…”
“Bleurgh!”

The workmen stood stupefied before a sight out of hell, and some of them brought up everything they had eaten before the climb. Hwang Yanggeon’s own stomach was no steadier. Yesterday came back to him.

Sir, how much will you give me for a black-haired beast?

Yang Mujin had asked it without a flicker, then drawn a hatchet from inside his robes and taken the heads off the Geodobang men caught in the traps, one after another.

— Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

He struck their necks as casually as a butcher at his pigs. If anything, it was Hwang Yanggeon, watching, whose blood ran cold.

A human butcher.

Was there a better word for the Yang Mujin of that moment? Those eyes, empty of feeling, as he took head after head…

— Shudder.

A shiver ran through him before he knew it, and gooseflesh rose over every inch of him. He shook himself once, throwing off the fear, and shouted at the workmen still standing dazed.

“What are you dawdling for! Move!”
“Y-yes. Yes, sir.”

At his bellow the workmen scrambled, hauling the carts past the heap of corpses. Hwang Yanggeon went after them, thinking.

How much am I supposed to give him?

From the look of things, this was not a man he could settle with by naming some reasonable price. Would the boy have asked ‘how much will you give me’ for nothing? He had known all along what it meant. The boy wanted the lightning-struck jujube wood.

Hwang Yanggeon made up his mind.

Give him whatever he wants.

If not for Yang Mujin, his life would have ended at the hands of the Geodobang men. Miser though he was, he begrudged nothing to the man he owed it to. He gathered up every last piece of the lightning-struck jujube wood and went back to House Hwang Timber.

A little later Yang Mujin came into Hwang Yanggeon’s office, and Hwang Yanggeon was on his feet before he knew he had moved.

“So you’ve come?”
“Yes, sir. Did you get all of the lightning-struck jujube wood?”
“Brought back every last piece of it.”
“You’ve worked hard, sir. Please, sit.”

Hwang Yanggeon nodded and sat. This was his own house, and yet the air about the boy overwhelmed him.

He looked the boy over carefully. Seventeen, perhaps eighteen. Not yet twenty, the down still soft on his cheeks. But for all that boyish look, there had been nothing hesitant in his hands.

— Gulp.

The sight of Yang Mujin killing the Geodobang men up on the mountain rose in his mind again, and he swallowed on a dry throat. He watched the boy’s face and waited for whatever came next.

“Half. I’ll take exactly half.”
“…?”

For a moment Hwang Yanggeon doubted his ears. Half? Only half? He had braced himself to hand over seven parts in ten, even eight, and the boy had asked for half. It left him blank.

“You’ll take only half?”
“Yes. That’s enough.”
“Why?”

Hwang Yanggeon asked, baffled. In the boy’s place he would have demanded seven parts at the least.

“You provided the information and gathered the timber, sir; I handled the guarding. Half is plenty.”
“…”
“Send my share to the Yang manor. I’ll take my leave, then.”

Yang Mujin gave a cupped-fist salute and left the office. Hwang Yanggeon stared at the door for a long while before he eased back into his chair.

“Haaah—”

As the tension drained out of him, a long breath escaped before he knew it. His clothes, soaked with cold sweat, clung to his back, and that damp chill said everything about the day he had had.

To hold power and not swing it, hm…

He had spent his whole life a merchant and met every sort of man there was. Men who would sell their own parents and brothers for money; drifters who pressed their demands at knifepoint; officials swaggering about, insufferable, on the strength of their power. But he had never seen the like of the boy who had just walked out. Perhaps fate had put a rare connection in his path.

He was up out of the chair at once, shouting toward the door.

“You there! Is nobody about!”
“Yes, sir!”
“The lightning-struck jujube wood going to the Yang manor — pick out only the finest and load it!”

Something like anticipation soaked through Hwang Yanggeon’s chest. Perhaps, he thought, he was looking at the first leaves of a tree that would grow tall.

With my business at House Hwang Timber finished, I went home with Elder Kang. The moment I arrived I told my mother everything that had happened, and she heard me out to the end without a word, only nodding.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No, Mother.”
“Then that will do. But you were far too hasty. You may have made some progress in your martial arts of late, but you have only just begun to take your first steps, so move with more care.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“And do not worry yourself over Geodobang. Even if they learn the culprit was you, they will not dare move carelessly while your father is with us.”
“I will keep it in mind.”
“Good. It must have been hard on you — go and rest now.”

I left my mother’s room and went out into the courtyard. A light run around the yard warmed me up, and then I picked up the spear standing at one side.

“…”

I closed my eyes and let everything narrow. The laughter of people beyond the front gate, the wind brushing past my ears, every other sound around me fell away one piece at a time, until there was nothing left for my ears to hear. It felt as though I stood alone in the middle of an empty lake.

Settled and calm, I replayed what had happened at House Hwang Timber, move by move. The conclusion came easily enough. I had already turned it over any number of times on the road home.

Heavy.

At House Hwang Timber I had beaten the Geodobang men’s attacks aside, blocked them, thrust. From the outside there had seemed to be nothing much wrong with any of it, but with the weapon in my own hands I had felt it clearly.

Too slow.

The spear followed a beat later than I wanted it. Which was natural enough. It had been only a little over a month since I set my mind to training this body, and even with the unidentified voice lending its help, I had a long way to go before I could handle a spear freely.

My basics are lacking.

House Yang’s spear was heavy. Blade to shaft it was iron all the way through, so raw strength was essential. To wield it like an extension of my own limbs, both internal energy and the external arts had to reach a decent level.

So there was only one thing for me to do.

Train the basics, and train them again.

It was not difficult. All I had to do was repeat, every day, the training I had already been doing for over a month. The only change was that the spear would take the axe’s place.

The fundamentals first.

I straightened my back and settled my grip on the shaft. The beginning and the end of the spear were Lan, Na, Zha, and everything else was built out of combinations of the three. Once I had begun to grow used to them, I took wounds far less often and the number of enemies who fell to my spear kept climbing. I had lived it myself, so I knew it well. There was no reason not to train when training would make me stronger.

I set an imaginary enemy in front of me and, picturing the sword in his hand coming down, moved the spear.

Lan.

I struck the shaft upward at a slant, from the inside out.

— Whsh!

The motion was clean, without waste. But I knew. This time too, it was a little slow.

A memory of Blood Sand Plain came to me suddenly. I had failed to beat a weapon aside properly and taken an axe in the shoulder; had I twisted my body a moment later, my head would have come off. From that day on, Lan, Na, Zha… I put far more work into drilling those three fundamentals.

I set my stance again and repeated the motion.

— Whum!

Once.

— Whsh!

Twice.

— Whooosh!

Three times.

I kept repeating the same motion. The count of swings passed several dozen. Sweat poured off me like rain, the muscles in my arms screamed, and the hands gripping the spear began to shake. But I did not stop. This pain was proof of growth.

Patience is bitter, after all, but its fruit is sweet.

— Whsh!

When I beat the imaginary enemy’s weapon aside for the hundredth time, the voice I had been waiting for rang inside my head.

In that instant I felt something change. The feel of it… A habit that should have taken hundreds of swings to build had been carved into my body instead.

I swung the spear once more.

— Shhk!

A sharp tearing of air burst out, on another level entirely from a moment before. The spear had grown a shade lighter, and not because my muscles had grown. The angle of my twisting waist, the placement of my feet, even the force my hands put into moving the shaft: every motion corrected itself naturally, as though the memories of a past life had been branded into my body.

Next was ‘Na’. The imaginary enemy bored in at my flank, and I brought the spear down from outside to in, pressing as it fell. The sword in his hand lost its line and was driven downward.

If Lan is to knock a blade away, Na is to draw it in and wind it up. Na was letting an enemy’s attack slide off exactly as I intended.

— Whum! Whoof! Whsh!

My muscles, already worked to ruin by a hundred swings, screamed. It was a familiar pain, so it was nothing much; set beside the pain of Blood Sand Plain, this did not even count as suffering. I ignored it and swung a hundred times, and the voice came again.

The moment I heard it, I moved the spear once more.

— Fwip!

Just as with Lan, the sound had changed. The weight was lighter too, and so was the movement of my body. The motion came out on its own, and Na unfolded with ease. I could feel myself getting stronger, and it began to be fun.

Last, Zha. The thrust, the essence of spearmanship and its deadliest technique.

“Hsssss… Hup!”

I drew a deep breath, let it out, and drove the spear at the imaginary enemy.

— Thwip!

The spear tore out through the air and ran the imaginary enemy through. I did not stop there. I kept thrusting.

— Fwsh!

Thrust.

— Thwip!

Thrust again.

— Fwsh!

And thrust once more.

Pain came as if my shoulder were about to leave its socket, and the more it came the harder my hands gripped the spear. As I have always thought, pain was not a bad thing. If anything, it was a good thing. So long as you can endure it.

Bearing the pain, I reached a hundred thrusts.

At the voice, anticipation welled up in my chest and my hands tightened on the shaft. Twice already I had felt what it did, which only made me more curious how much would have changed.

I drew an imaginary enemy before my eyes, then fixed my gaze on the spot to aim for. The heart. I drove the spear out.

— Shhk!

The spear split the wind, shot out, and buried itself exactly in the enemy’s heart. Zha went the way Lan and Na had gone. The motion soaked in of its own accord, and I could feel clearly that it had become part of my body.

“Haah…”

I planted the spear in the ground and dragged in ragged breaths. My whole body was soaked through with sweat, but I felt light enough to fly. Only now did I think I understood a little of what a rise in understanding actually meant. It was gaining the ‘experience’ and the ‘feel’ that can only be had by carving them into the body through thousands, tens of thousands of repetitions.

This is fun.

To think that swinging a spear could be this enjoyable. In my past life I had never once felt it. To me the spear had been a weapon for killing enemies easily, nothing more and nothing less. And now, of all things, spearmanship was making me feel this. It was astonishing. Even the pain felt good.

I set my stance again and moved the spear.

— Shhaak! Thwip! Fwsh!

Lan, Na, Zha. Beat the enemy’s attack aside, draw it down and press, run him through. The imaginary enemies fell helpless before my spear.

The sun went down and the night grew deep, and the training went on without stopping.

“…Hah.”

A hollow laugh escaped Ju Cheolsan, who had been watching Yang Mujin train from one side of the manor. He stared at the boy’s spearmanship, dumbstruck.

When on earth did he polish his spear work like that?

So far as Ju Cheolsan knew, all Yang Mujin had done in that time was run and fell trees, over and over. He had never once seen the boy handle a spear. And yet what in the world was this spearmanship?

His mouth had fallen open without his noticing. Yang Mujin’s spearmanship was already past the level of a greenhorn. Lan, Na, Zha. In those three at least, every motion was near perfect, close enough that it would not have shamed his own.

I thought he had no martial talent… Was I wrong?

Seeing the boy’s spearmanship for himself, he knew the world’s judgment had been wrong. And Ju Cheolsan had of course been one of the men who helped make it. Yang Mujin was not lacking in martial talent at all. Perhaps he had merely been catching his breath all this while.

This is getting interesting.

He found himself looking forward to how far the boy would grow. The corner of his mouth curled as he watched.

A month went by.

In that time my body had grown beyond recognition, so much so that it was hard to believe only a month had passed. Looking at myself in the bronze mirror, I could not help being startled. A body that should have taken half a year of training, I had shaped in less than three months.

Well, I’ve only just taken my first steps, even so.

You cannot fill your belly on the first spoonful. There was no shortcut to strength in the martial arts. Barring heretical arts or demonic arts, there has only ever been one way to grow strong.

Training.

Drilling every day, and drilling again: that is the only road. And I had the voice’s help besides, so there was no reason to be impatient.

I was straightening my clothes in front of the bronze mirror when Elder Kang knocked at my door.

— Knock, knock.

“Young master, the lightning-struck jujube wood you spoke of is all loaded on the carts.”

It was time to go after the second item, the one that would let me close the escort bureau and set up a new source of money.