Chapter 138. The Black Flame Dragon Meets the Monster of the Ten-Thousand-Book Repository (2)
“Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for your hard work.”
Three times each to the servants of the Ten-Thousand-Book Repository.
The hunchbacked old man, who gave greetings no one even accepted, left the Ten-Thousand-Book Repository and slowly walked toward the lodging where he stayed.
Since he was not an official servant of the Murim Academy, he could not use the dormitories, so he headed to a small hut somewhere within the Murim Academy.
Limp, limp.
As a hunchback with a bent back who even limped on one leg, he looked as though moving was difficult, yet he walked diligently without rest.
When he entered a forest path with few people around, a young man appeared before him.
“Eek! Goodness, you startled me!”
Because he was a hunchback, the old man always moved with his head lowered.
Only when the young man had approached very close did he discover him, and he retreated in great surprise, as though he might fall backward.
“Wh-Who are you?”
The young man politely clasped his hands and introduced himself.
“I am Jin So-un, a disciple of the Taeul Sect and the representative of the Murim Academy.”
“Ah……? Ah, I-I see. But how did you come here? This is not a place people pass through.”
Jin So-un scratched the back of his head and said,
“The thing is, I have recently come up against a wall, and it has not been easy to cross it……. I was hoping Old Master might help me a little.”
“M-Me, you mean? No, what could you possibly want from a crippled hunchback like me……?”
“Well, I am not asking you to transmit martial arts to me. I am asking whether you could perhaps teach me a little of the knack for Sword Force from the martial arts you use, Old Master.”
“S-Sword Force?”
“Yes.”
“Young master. In my entire life, I have never once properly looked up at the sky. How could someone like me know Sword Force?”
“……Mm, is that so?”
“Of course it is. If you grabbed anyone passing by and asked them, would you not receive a better answer than you would from me?”
At the hunchbacked old man’s words, Jin So-un stroked his chin as if lost in thought.
“Could you perhaps tell me the reason you are staying here? If you do, I think we could make a deal.”
“……The reason? What reason would there be for an old man with nowhere to go to do odd jobs while receiving a few coins?”
“Even so, for the Sword Demon, called the summit of the Black Path Murim, the Ten-Thousand-Book Repository of the Murim Academy seems like a rather unsuitable place to be.”
“…….”
The hunchbacked old man opened his mouth blankly, as though rendered speechless by words too absurd to believe.
“……Young master, are you perhaps ill somewhere?”
“Hmm…… As expected, you have no intention of simply revealing your identity, do you?”
“What are you talking about……?”
The moment the hunchbacked old man turned his head to look at Jin So-un’s face.
Jin So-un’s two hands trembled violently, and dozens of fist shadows appeared in the air.
Then, as though they would crush the old man at any moment, they began striking his entire body without missing a single spot.
THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD.
The hunchbacked old man, attacked without warning, flew as far as two jang and crashed into the ground, then spat out blood at the same time.
“Keugh.”
The hunchbacked old man lay sprawled on the ground in a miserable state, but Jin So-un looked at his own fist and said,
“You truly are incredible. How did you neutralize all those fist strikes right before they hit?”
“Keuheuk.”
As if answering Jin So-un’s words, the old man once again spat out blood.
His pale complexion looked as though he might die at any moment.
Even so, Jin So-un slowly drew his sword as if he felt nothing in particular.
“Do you know this? Blood coughed up from an internal injury is dark red. On the other hand, fake hemoptysis from biting the inside of one’s mouth and making it burst is bright crimson. I know that because I have done it a lot.”
“…….”
“What I will show you now is my sect’s unique martial art, so I would appreciate it if you watched it once.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Jin So-un’s Black Dragon Sword swung, and five swords appeared in midair.
As those five swords each moved and began unfolding sword forms, dozens of illusion swords centered around them began filling every direction.
“It is called Ten Thousand Swords. It can block Sword Force, but it does not seem to be at a level where it can overwhelm Sword Force. Please evaluate it once, Old Master.”
The moment he finished speaking, the Black Dragon Swords filling the air began striking the hunchbacked old man all at once.
Just before the hunchbacked old man’s frail body was about to be torn to pieces by the dozens of swords dropping down while emitting killing intent without warning.
PING.
When the hunchbacked old man’s eyes flashed open, a tree branch as thin as a chopstick was already gripped in his hand.
And from that branch rose an enormous five feet Sword Force.
KABOOM, KABOOM, KABOOM, KABOOM, KABOOM, KABOOM, KABOOM, KABOOM!
Ten Thousand Swords and Sword Force collided, and an enormous explosion burst out.
The Sword Force that poured out afterward soon overturned all of Ten Thousand Swords and swallowed even Jin So-un.
—————!
DONG, DONG— shockwaves spread in every direction.
The mountain birds that had been resting quietly all flew up at once, dotting the sky.
The disorderly trees on the wild mountain collapsed in a single sweep, and the fallen leaves that had been piled thickly on the ground scattered in every direction as though carried by waves.
And Jin So-un’s clothes, struck directly by the wave of Sword Force, had turned into rags.
“Keugh.”
As if he had suffered an internal injury, Jin So-un coughed up blood.
Jin So-un showed the bloodstain he had spat out to the hunchbacked old man and grinned.
“Look at this. A true internal injury is dark red like this.”
After saying that, Jin So-un collapsed with a thud.
The hunchbacked old man holding the branch could not hide his bewildered expression as he looked at Jin So-un.
“What kind of madman is this……?”
He had raced through the murim all his life and met every sort of human in the world.
But this was the first time he had seen a bastard as insane as Jin So-un.
“Ugh…….”
The hunchbacked old man had no idea how to handle the current situation.
When I opened my eyes, I was inside a shabby hut.
The roof had been thrown together so carelessly that sunlight shone through it, and there was not a single decent item among the household goods.
‘Still, he is the Sword Demon in name, at least…….’
Seeing him living to this extent, I had to take it as sincerity that he was staying at the Murim Academy.
My Sensory Perception caught the Sword Demon.
However, I did not immediately get up and go outside.
Because my insides had been churned by the battle with the Sword Demon to the point that I had even coughed up blood, I needed to settle my body before leaving.
I sat cross-legged and drew up the Taeul True Scripture.
When I raised my True Qi and examined the inside of my body, fortunately, it was not a serious injury.
After treating my internal injury like that and stepping out of the hut, I saw the Sword Demon reading a book on the wooden bench.
Perhaps he had given up pretending to be a hunchback, because his back was straight, and even though I came out, he did not even turn his head toward me.
‘To think the Sword Demon is reading a book.’
He was a man who had become so obsessed with the sword that he had even received the epithet Demon.
I was curious as to why such a man was staying at the Murim Academy and reading books.
When I approached slightly and looked, he was reading the theses of graduates.
“Why are you reading something like that(?)”
What the Sword Demon was reading was a thesis written by a graduate of the Murim Academy, a swordsman once called Blue Flower Martial Sword.
Because Blue Flower Martial Sword himself had not been a particularly outstanding swordsman, the thesis he had submitted was not particularly excellent either.
It was merely an empty shell of a thesis that took the theses written by seniors, added a few things to them, and made it look presentable.
The sight of the Sword Demon under heaven examining such a thesis as thoroughly as if it were a Secret Manual felt strange.
“Do you know what ‘Dao Gives Birth to One; the One Becomes Taiji’ means?”
“I do.”
“Spout it.”
“Why are you curious about that?”
“I have read as many as three thousand theses until now, and all of them wrote the exact same words.”
“But for a crippled hunchback, your tone when asking a favor sounds extremely arrogant.”
“…….”
Only then did the Sword Demon raise his head and look at me.
“Did you come to meet a crippled hunchback?”
“I came to meet the Sword Demon.”
“Then is that not enough?”
“That is true.”
“Spout it.”
“What you asked just now is a basic teaching of Daoism. In the process by which all things in the universe arise……”
The Sword Demon threw the book and cut off my words.
I stretched out my hand and snatched the book the Sword Demon had thrown.
“Goodness. Is the explanation too difficult?”
“Do I still look like a crippled hunchback to you? Did you think I would not even know Great Change, Great Beginning, and Great Commencement?”
“Ah, you knew that?”
“What I am curious about is why everyone wrote the same content while only changing the characters.”
“Because they have to submit it to graduate.”
“They submit it merely to graduate, not purely for their own enlightenment?”
“That is right.”
“Damn it. It was good that I did not enter the academy.”
“Then may I ask a question now?”
“No need. Go back. And never face me again. I will definitely kill you then.”
“Mm…… Would that not be a little difficult?”
“Hah, do you think I cannot do it?”
I shook my head.
“No. That is not it. If I die, you will not be able to stay here any longer, Sword Demon.”
“Do you think I would leave traces behind?”
“No. I will be the one to leave them. Every time I come to meet you, Sword Demon, I will tell people that I am going to meet the hunchbacked Old Master of the Ten-Thousand-Book Repository.”
“…….”
I looked at the academy students’ theses scattered carelessly on the wooden bench where he sat and asked,
“Are you not staying at the Murim Academy because you have some purpose?”
“…….”
“I am not much, but I am still the representative of the Murim Academy in my own way. If I die, then no matter how it happens, the hunchbacked Old Master in such a suspicious position will also be chased out of this place…… Are you all right with that?”
Half a day ago, his eyes had been shaking violently every time he looked at me, but now they did not waver, like a vast lake.
If one’s martial realm reached the extreme, could one also control the physical changes caused by emotion?
“How did you know my identity?”
In truth, this had been possible purely because I was lucky.
During the period when I had memorized the books of the Ten-Thousand-Book Repository, I had always seen the Sword Demon disguised as a hunchback up close.
But later, during the Great Righteous-Demonic War, the Sword Demon who rallied the Black Path Murim walked and behaved exactly like the hunchbacked old man of the Ten-Thousand-Book Repository.
A human acted differently according to the environment, habits, and mannerisms through which they had lived.
Even twins could not erase those tiny differences.
But the hunchbacked old man and the Sword Demon behaved the same, as though someone had copied and pasted a person exactly.
“I knew after seeing you make a move on my classmate, So Cheon-su.”
“You saw that?”
“It was very clearly visible.”
Of course, it had been possible because I had recognized him as the Sword Demon and observed him carefully, and even then, I had not properly seen all of it.
But I could not tell him the inside story of how I knew the Sword Demon, so I had no choice but to vaguely gloss over it like this.
I really felt that after regressing, I kept getting better and better at lying.
Phew. I had originally been a gentlemanly person who did not know how to lie.
“Why is someone who saw my move asking me to teach him martial arts?”
“Ah, well. Could you just think of it roughly as me being obsessed with martial arts like you, Sword Demon?”
The Sword Demon had originally been a person of an Orthodox Path sect.
Immersed in the sword, he had gone on a journey of martial duels regardless of opponent, and his actions of not caring about fire or water for the sake of martial attainment had turned his epithet into Demon.
So rather than calmly persuading him, I decided to ask for one fragment of teaching through the same method he had once used.
“You insane bastard……”
However, the Sword Demon glared at me as if he would kill me, wearing an expression of utter disbelief.
Being called an “insane bastard” by someone whose epithet even included Demon did not make me feel very comfortable.
Moreover, even though this person had done the exact same things in the past that I was doing now, he did not seem to have any intention of accepting me.
What a selfish human being who only thought of himself.
Tsk. That must be why he became someone of the Black Path.
I looked at the theses scattered on the wooden bench where he sat, then looked at him.
“In that case, how about we make a deal, as I mentioned earlier? I will give you what you want, Sword Demon, and you will give me what I want.”
The Sword Demon was one of the few masters who had been able to face Gwak Gung.
I must learn at least one fragment from you.
