Chapter 7. A Third-Rate Warrior Who Protects His Sect’s Honor
If one were to seek the reason the Iron Sword Sect and the Taeul Sect bore a grudge against each other, there was nothing remarkable about it.
They were both established in Hefei.
In truth, from the Taeul Sect’s point of view, even that alone was enough to drive one mad.
The Taeul Sect was an old, stagnant institution with nearly five hundred years of history, while the Iron Sword Sect was a fresh young sprout that was, at most, not even quite one hundred and fifty years old.
From the Taeul Sect’s perspective, they were upstarts whose building pillars had not even dried of sap, yet who still dared to swagger about.
However, one outstanding figure who had appeared one hundred and fifty years ago, the Ghost Sword Immortal Elder Seong Hyeon-baek, had laid such a solid foundation that now the Taeul Sect had to watch the mood of that painfully young upstart.
When one’s body grew large, even a palace of one hundred rooms felt narrow. The Iron Sword Sect had always wanted to expand its influence, and our Taeul Sect stood as an obstacle to them.
Having the rank of the One Hundred Eight Peaks was like having the Murim Alliance as an elder brother at one’s back. No matter how feeble the opponent might be, one could not easily lay a hand on them, so the Iron Sword Sect had always wanted to remove the Taeul Sect and enter that position themselves.
“Especially since not receiving the special admission track must have been bitterly galling.”
Since the regular examination for entering the Murim Academy was already difficult enough, a privilege like the special admission track must have seemed like an advantage that even a rising new power such as the Iron Sword Sect could not ignore.
How many members of the One Hundred Eight Peaks accepted countless outsiders under the name of “lay disciples” during the period when the Murim Academy opened?
The Taeul Sect was already a thorn in their eyes, so it was only natural that their stomachs would twist each time the Taeul Sect received the benefits of the special admission track.
In any case, despite such circumstances, we attended the Iron Sword Sect Leader’s sixtieth birthday banquet at his invitation, and Father knelt.
“But it is strange.”
When I thought about it, it had not actually been a great matter.
Hong Sa-ryeon, Gye Cheol-yeong, and I attended a late-night tea gathering with others of our age. There, because of the sudden outburst of the Blood Wolf Iron Sword, the present Sect Leader’s grandson, we ended up being scheduled for a sparring match the next day.
I had intended to step forward in the sparring despite knowing I would lose, merely to ease my anger.
But when Father learned of it, he brought the matter to a close by kneeling and apologizing before the countless people attending the banquet.
“It could have ended with me simply getting beaten.”
Because of that incident, the Taeul Sect’s name was dragged through the mud once more, and the Murim Alliance assigned us far more “mandatory service personnel” than usual.
Honestly, even thinking about it now, I did not believe I had done anything wrong that evening.
How was I supposed to evade a man who, fully aroused, came charging with the force of the Bow-Body Bullet Shadow?
‘……Have I spent too much time with the bastards of the Sojeong Squad? My phrasing grows cruder by the day.’
Suddenly realizing that my manner of speech had fallen to the level of a street Hao Gate thug, I gathered my thoughts and continued thinking.
They had probably only needed a pretext to trample the Taeul Sect once.
If I had endured it that day, they would have found fault with something else the next day. If we had endured that too, they would likely have criticized the gift we had brought later.
‘The best method would be not attending at all.’
If I considered methods, there were several.
There might be a way to turn the Taeul Sect upside down by revealing the Ascendant Form of the Minor Heaven Sword Art, then force everyone into a frenzy of reorganizing our martial arts.
There was also a way to return with a plan for making money and make the Hall Masters of the Taeul Sect focus their minds on that instead.
The problem, however, was that I had taken this as a matter of pride.
If I thought about it coldly, rather than going to the Iron Sword Sect, scuffling with people for several days, and then wasting time cleaning up what happened afterward, it would be far more constructive for me to spend that time finding one more spiritual medicine or hunting one more demonic beast.
“But if I leave those damned bastards alone, I feel as though I will not sleep properly for some time.”
For the moment, I postponed the matter and headed for Songak Mountain in Jeongwon.
In the Murim Compendium of Spiritual Medicines, it was marked as the place where the One-Horned Fire Python would appear. Originally, I would not have tried to take it, but thanks to the Azure Dragon Bracelet, I could absorb even a venom-filled inner core without any after-treatment, so there was no reason to pass it by.
HISSSS!
There was no particular need to hunt it.
The moment it coiled its enormous body around me and tried to swallow me in a single bite, all I had to do was activate the Azure Dragon Bracelet.
SKREEE!
The creature let out a strange scream and began shriveling in an instant. In the end, it became a wretched thing like a dried, twisted root.
Once again, I clicked my tongue at the Azure Dragon Bracelet’s merciless ability.
“If I am caught using this, becoming a public enemy of the Murim is all but guaranteed.”
I lightly broke off the One-Horned Fire Python’s golden horn and placed it inside my robes.
Its horn was an ornament material that could fetch a good price.
I could sell it, or if I met a skilled blacksmith, I could use it as an ornament for my weapon.
‘Roughly forty years.’
It was a small amount, but my internal energy had increased once more.
From now on, I would have to start hiding my internal energy.
“Because if a mere disciple of the Taeul Sect possesses one gapja of internal energy at the age of twenty, it will be perfect grounds for suspicion.”
Fortunately, I was not greatly worried. One of the Sojeong Squad members had possessed miscellaneous skills in this field close to the best under heaven.
“I wonder if that man is working as an assassin around now.”
After descending from Songak Mountain, I stopped by the village, bought a bundle of necessary items, and headed for the Taeul Sect.
“Senior Brother Jin!”
“Senior Brother!”
“Senior Brother!”
The chick-like young junior disciples had been coming out of Busaeng Hall when they saw me and rushed over at once.
“Senior Brother! Where in the world have you been?”
“Senior Brother! I am learning the Minor Heaven Sword Art again!”
“Senior Brother! Have you eaten?”
Just as I was stroking the heads of the chattering little ones one by one, Gye Cheol-yeong and Hong Sa-ryeon appeared.
“Where have you been wandering, only to return now?”
For some reason, Gye Cheol-yeong looked thoroughly displeased.
“Oh? Senior Brother Gye. You seem different somehow. The effects of the Snow Plum Pill must truly be extraordinary. At a glance, I can feel the aura of a master pouring from you, so much so that I scarcely dare meet your eyes. Have you fully digested the spiritual pill?”
At my words, Gye Cheol-yeong’s face turned like that of an evil spirit.
“That is none of your concern!”
After shouting, he shoved past the young junior disciples and left.
“Why provoke him? Did you not hear that the Snow Plum Pill was stolen?”
“I did. That is why I mentioned it.”
Hong Sa-ryeon sighed.
“What in the world have you been doing all this time?”
“I was simply going here and there, eating good things and seeing good sights.”
“……Where did you get the money?”
“I hunted and worked.”
If I told the whole truth, the Taeul Sect would be overturned in an uproar, but in any case, I had spoken honestly.
“……The Sect Leader said there is no longer any need to worry about the Gyeryong Merchant Guild’s mood. So come back now.”
“Hm?”
“They have decided to attend the Iron Sword Sect Leader’s sixtieth birthday banquet this time. And…… as you know, the Gyeryong Merchant Guild is busy with the Snow Plum Pill matter, so they barely come to the Taeul Sect anymore. There is no longer any need to be mindful of them.”
Ah…… that was troublesome for me.
Sa-ryeon seemed to be misunderstanding something rather firmly.
In any case, I had to keep wandering outside. Still, that was not the urgent matter right now.
“It has already been decided that we will attend the Iron Sword Sect Leader’s sixtieth birthday banquet?”
“Yes. The Master of the Gyeryong Merchant Guild must have pleaded earnestly. He asked them to attend without fail, even for his sake.”
“Will you attend too, Junior Sister Ryeon?”
“……”
“Hm? You will not attend?”
“You keep calling me Junior Sister Ryeon, but it makes me itch, so do not call me that.”
“What is wrong with it? I like it.”
“……I said do not do it. In any case, I will attend. Senior Brother Cheol-yeong will attend as well.”
In my previous life, my attendance had not been part of the plan either. I had begged to go because I wanted to see the Twin Wolf Iron Swords.
“By the way, what is that bundle?”
“Ah…… this.”
I gathered the junior disciples whose heads I had been stroking and opened the bundle.
“Wow!”
“Wow! They are candied sweets!”
The eyes of the children, who were covered in sweat and full of weariness, began to sparkle brightly.
“Now, now. Share them nicely. Anyone who eats too many alone will get a beating!”
“““Yes, Senior Brother!”””
The junior disciples chirped noisily and carried the bundle away in a rush, then began dividing everything one by one.
Fortunately, no one seemed to be taking more than the others.
“……Why candied sweets?”
“Hm? I went to the market and thought of them.”
“……With what money?”
For some reason, Sa-ryeon’s expression did not look very bright.
“Senior Brother, Senior Brother. Senior Brother Jin.”
Just then, my junior disciple Dong-ryong tugged at the hem of my robe.
“What is it? Did the others not give you any sweets?”
“No. No. That is not it. This.”
The boy shook his head firmly and held out a wad of paper that had been folded several times.
“Hm?”
“Senior Brother, you never got to try this delicious thing.”
When I unfolded the paper, there was a hard rice cake inside. I did not know how many days had passed since it had been made.
“The other senior brothers said it was a truly delicious rice cake.”
Sa-ryeon, standing beside me, covered her mouth.
“Senior Brother Gye handed these out.”
“……And you did not eat yours?”
“I am fine. I ate a lot of meat that day.”
For children of this age from families that were not well-off, how difficult it was to endure when it came to food.
Dong-ryong was looking at my face with bright, shining eyes.
With the same anticipation I felt when eating spiritual medicine, I placed the hard rice cake into my mouth.
“How is it? Is it delicious, Senior Brother?”
“Yes. It is very delicious. It is so delicious that I should eat all of it. Dong-ryong, you go eat the candied sweets.”
“Yes. I am fine with just candied sweets.”
As though satisfied, Dong-ryong ran toward the sweets.
“……Is that not old and hard?”
“It is like a stone…… But it is delicious.”
“……Good grief.”
“It makes no sense for such a fine martial sect to be humiliated by petty thugs, does it?”
“……What are you talking about?”
“There is such a thing. I can go to the Iron Sword Sect too, can I not?”
“……You want to go there?”
“I can see the Twin Wolf Iron Swords, and someone from the Namgung Clan will come as well, will they not?”
When I gave the same reason as in my previous life, Hong Sa-ryeon shook her head.
“Do as you please. The Outer Hall Master is attending anyway.”
The Gyeryong Merchant Guild’s carriage procession heading toward the Iron Sword Sect was extravagance itself.
Around the time Gye Cheol-yeong began learning martial arts, the Iron Sword Sect had offered him the position of lay disciple. However, a lay disciple position without the special admission track was not especially sweet to Gye Cheol-yeong or Gye Yeon-seok.
Even so, as a man who did business with Hefei as his base, he could not avoid watching the Iron Sword Sect’s mood, and the price for that was manifested in this splendid golden carriage.
As the Iron Sword Sect drew near, Kang Chae-seok, the Hall Master of Swift Blossom Hall, thrust his fierce face toward us.
Still, the fact that Kang Chae-seok, the strongest man in the Taeul Sect, had come with us was the Sect Leader’s consideration for any possible emergency.
“There is something you must observe when we arrive at the Iron Sword Sect.”
“What is it?”
“Never act rashly.”
“I do not act rashly.”
“Tsk. You are already acting rashly.”
Kang Chae-seok glared as he spoke.
“You know well what I mean, do you not?”
“I would like to endure, but what am I to do if people around me keep provoking me?”
“That is precisely what I am telling you not to do!”
Ordinarily, this sort of scolding would have belonged to my father, Jin Tae-san. For some reason, however, Jin Tae-san’s heavy expression had not relaxed for some time.
“I understand. But what should I do if they keep provoking us again and again?”
“You brat!”
“Ah, I understand. Then even if they insult our sect and our Patriarch is humiliated, I will endure it and pass it by.”
“……You little brat. Are you in a rebellious phase?”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
Since we were going to the Iron Sword Sect anyway, it was already decided that the Taeul Sect would be insulted.
Under a senior determined to find fault, there was no such thing as a flawless subordinate.
“I am telling you to behave as much like a gentleman as possible, and not to deliberately step in dung.”
“Yes, yes. I understand.”
“……”
At the entrance of the Iron Sword Sect, an enormous crowd had already lined up to enter.
There were several lines for people without baggage, so those were not very long. However, the carriage procession had only one line, so it was long.
We stood in line with the carriages and had no choice but to wait for quite some time.
“I heard the Iron Sword Sect’s influence was great, and it truly is.”
Jin Tae-san’s words were filled with something bitter.
“How is this the Iron Sword Sect’s influence? They must all have come because the Murim Alliance’s Grand Strategist and Elder are attending, hoping to show their faces to them.”
“Ha ha. I wonder if we could invite them to our Sect Leader’s sixtieth birthday too.”
“Cluck, cluck. As the Outer Hall Master, could you handle such a crowd?”
“Even if I could not handle it, I would like to experience it once.”
As they continued conversing like that for a while, another carriage and procession came charging from afar, raising a cloud of dust.
“Excuse me. Make room so that we can join the line here.”
At the absurd words, the Master of the Gyeryong Merchant Guild shouted angrily.
“Stop spouting nonsense and go to the back of the line. Do you know how long we have been waiting?”
“The man standing in front of you is an escort of our Jacheong Merchant Guild. If you continue to be so uncooperative, matters will become unpleasant.”
Beside the person who seemed to represent the Jacheong Merchant Guild, warriors dressed in matching blue martial robes stood in formation.
Judging by their aura and atmosphere, they were no ordinary escorts.
The man who seemed to be their representative stepped forward and clasped his fist.
“I am Yu Mun-chung, commander of the Blood Bamboo Unit of Blue Bamboo Fortress, from Nanjing. Since we came from a distant road and accumulated much fatigue, we sent a man ahead. I ask for your understanding.”
The moment the words Blue Bamboo Fortress came out, Gye Yeon-seok’s eyes began to tremble violently.
Blue Bamboo Fortress was one of the most renowned sects in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.
If one were to make a rough comparison, it could be called Nanjing’s Iron Sword Sect.
“……”
While Gye Yeon-seok hesitated, unable to do this or that, a young man pushed past the Blue Bamboo Fortress commander and stepped forward in a swaggering, provocative manner.
“Hey. Looking at you, you seem to be a small merchant guild. If you do not want to see the cart hands beside you get hurt, get out of the way at once.”
His eyes did not leave Hong Sa-ryeon’s face.
And a triumphant sneer formed at the corners of his mouth.
‘That bastard knows.’
I was certain.
He clearly knew who we were and which sect we belonged to.
It could not be a coincidence that among those standing before us, there was not a single sect weaker than ours.
If one treated something like this as a mere coincidence, one could not survive in the martial world, where schemes ran rampant.
In the Murim, where the blade moved before the law, if one stretched out one’s legs without even looking at where one meant to lie, it was the perfect situation to have one’s ankles cut.
The situation was somewhat different from the past, but if we showed weakness here, we would be neither one thing nor the other once we entered the Iron Sword Sect.
Moreover, I already knew that ill-mannered fellow.
As I tried to step forward, Kang Chae-seok stopped me.
“Did I not tell you not to act rashly?”
“No, are they not insulting the Taeul Sect right now? This is when I must step forward.”
“No. To begin with, he is not someone you can……”
I did not listen to Kang Chae-seok any further and moved forward.
Bamboo Flame Young Master Gu Yang-sa of Blue Bamboo Fortress.
Right now, he was merely a brat who could not yet tell dung from piss, but later, after entering the Murim Alliance, his arrogant personality would fit perfectly with Gye Cheol-yeong’s, and he would become a wretched scoundrel who ran around with him as though they were sworn brothers.
Naturally, it had not happened only once or twice that he had ordered the junior disciples of the Taeul Sect around as though they were his subordinates.
At present, his martial level was only a little above Gye Cheol-yeong’s.
“It is true that the Gyeryong Merchant Guild is a worthless, beggar-like merchant guild. But we are not people someone from some nameless Purple Bamboo Fortress? can look down on.”
“Hah, how dare this wretch!”
As though he had been waiting, Gu Yang-sa unfolded his arms and tried to draw his sword without hesitation.
I took one step closer than Gu Yang-sa and executed Lotus, a Transplanting Flower and Grafting Tree Art of the Flowing Cloud Sect, putting his sword back into its sheath and turning him once around to stand on the opposite side.
“Wow!”
“Oh! What sect is that young man from?”
Those who had been bored from waiting cried out in astonishment as though they had found something worth watching, and in proportion to their excitement, Gu Yang-sa’s face flushed scarlet.
The moment Gu Yang-sa tried to draw his sword again, I spoke.
“Are you trying to see blood at another man’s banquet? As expected, you truly do belong to a rootless sect.”
“……You dare……”
Gu Yang-sa, who had stopped halfway through drawing his sword, looked as though he was about to leap forward, unbothered even by a bare-handed brawl.
At that moment, a clear voice rang through the hall.
“Stop.”
A rosy-faced beauty appeared, parting the crowd.
Clad in splendid ceremonial robes and adorned with makeup, she was a sight from which the people could not take their eyes. She was Seong Mo-ran, the younger of the Twin Wolf Iron Swords.
“It is the Beautiful Wolf Iron Sword!”
“Is the Blood Wolf Iron Sword with her too?”
After looking around the hall, the Beautiful Wolf Iron Sword Seong Mo-ran spoke to Gu Yang-sa.
“Did you come to shed blood at my grandfather’s birthday banquet?”
“……Ah, that, that is.”
The delinquent air he had shown just moments ago vanished, and his face reddened as he stammered, unable to answer properly.
“And the Iron Sword Sect has established no rule allowing people to reserve places in line ahead of time. So go to the back and wait your turn.”
Though the words came from a girl not yet twenty, their weight was heavy.
The Jacheong Merchant Guild and Blue Bamboo Fortress lowered their shoulders as though they had received a severe scolding and went to the back of the line.
“I heard you were guests from the Taeul Sect and the Gyeryong Merchant Guild.”
The Beautiful Wolf Iron Sword Seong Mo-ran’s gaze slowly swept over the surroundings.
“I offer my apology for what just occurred. It may not be much by way of compensation, but may I escort you inside?”
Everyone waiting in the long line looked at us with eyes full of envy.
