WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Asakusa

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◈ A Wandering Warrior's Survival Guide ◈

Chapter 18: A Killing Ordeal (2)

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A gambling den in Changchun.

Bang!

The moment the door flew open, a man covered in blood shouted.

“We have to run!”

Everyone, including Yi Mu-gwang, who had been carefully studying his cards with his tongue sticking out in concentration, turned to look at him.

“The Blood Serpent Gang... The Blood Serpent Gang...!”

Everyone's eyes widened at once, already sensing what he would say next.

“They've started a Killing Ordeal!”

Scurry!

Some snatched up the money on the gambling table in an instant, while others simply sprang up and ran to save themselves.

There was no need to get caught up in a Killing Ordeal for nothing.

The gang had only one goal.

They were probably planning to wipe out Cheongmok Pharmacy for daring to declare it would strike the Blood Serpent Gang. Anyone they encountered along the way would merely become victims for them to vent their anger on.

Unless one was an especially chivalrous hero or had a strong sense of righteousness, it was only natural to flee such violence rather than resist it.

But Yi Mu-gwang was different.

‘Cheon Hwi...!’

When he left the gambling den, chaos awaited him.

More than one blaze already surged skyward, as though they had set private homes aflame merely to vent their rage. Screams rang out from every direction.

‘They'll definitely target that bastard Cheon Hwi too.’

The other wanderers ran toward the outskirts of Changchun. Yi Mu-gwang, however, headed for the shabby inn where he and Cheon Hwi had been staying.

As he ran, Yi Mu-gwang watched his surroundings.

Columns of smoke rose in every direction in the distance. Judging by that, this was a planned attack. They had taken up positions all around the city and were closing in.

Everything he saw on the way was horrifying. It was clear that the Blood Serpent Gang was not alone. Other Black Path factions had joined them.

The extermination roster before the Wandering Warrior Hall had been viciously torn apart. All around him, wanderers clashed blades as they fought to protect themselves.

He could even hear shouts nearby.

“Find the bastard named Cheon Hwi!”

At the mouth of an alley, a man in a bloodstained headscarf had seized a wanderer by the hair and was interrogating them.

“Where's that bastard Cheon Hwi?”

“I, I don't know! I really don't!”

“He's the bloody whelp who killed Deputy Leader Gyu Pae. The one in cahoots with Cheongmok Pharmacy. They say a wanderer carrying a Pudao travels with him too.”

“H, how many wanderers do you think carry Pudaos?!”

Yi Mu-gwang stopped short at those words.

‘They've put me on their list too.’

The Blood Serpent Gang member twisted the wanderer's neck until it snapped, then gestured toward the South Gate, where the inns stood.

“Search the inns by the South Gate first! If the brat isn't there, grab that bastard he calls master!”

“Hwi!”

In an instant, Yi Mu-gwang used his lightness art to cross the street. He kicked off the inn wall, leaped to the second floor, caught the railing, and swung himself over.

He checked whether Cheon Hwi's belongings were still in the room.

He had hoped Cheon Hwi had heard the commotion, packed up, and already left.

“That mad bastard even left his sword behind.”

What martial artist left their sword behind?

Yi Mu-gwang had told him countless times never to let it out of reach, not even while sleeping or stepping away to relieve himself.

He had been thinking he would give Cheon Hwi a proper scolding when he returned.

‘Will there even be a next time?’

Yi Mu-gwang froze.

Cheon Hwi's things were still there. Even his sword had been left behind. Yi Mu-gwang knew well that the sword was Cheon Hwi's father's only keepsake.

Cheon Hwi would never leave it behind, no matter the circumstances.

Which meant...

‘That bastard Cheon Hwi will come back here.’

Yi Mu-gwang considered it.

Should he wait? Or should he just leave?

‘I am not his master.’

No. Perhaps he had humored him by playing master during their brief journey from the Black Dragon River to Jilin, but once the brat had begun to look somewhat like a wanderer, he had severed any bond between master and disciple.

So...

So...

So he could not bring himself to think it was all right to leave him behind.

Yi Mu-gwang clenched his fist tight. He was trying to suppress his instincts.

Those instincts told him to forget everything and run at once.

Wouldn't it be right to abandon Cheon Hwi and escape first?

The screams and clashes of blades drew ever closer. If he was going to flee, it had to be now.

But Yi Mu-gwang could not bring himself to do it.

He took some of his own things from his pack and placed them in Cheon Hwi's bag. Then, holding the Pudao he always used, he walked down to the inn's first floor.

The innkeeper and waiter stood there with bundled luggage in hand, terrified.

“Great Hero! Y, you need to run!”

“Leave through the back door.”

“What about you, Great Hero?”

“I haven't finished paying for my drinks yet.”

The innkeeper and waiter immediately ran for the back door.

Yi Mu-gwang stopped them for a moment.

“Wait.”

“...?!”

Yi Mu-gwang flicked a copper coin to the waiter and made a request.

“When you return, will you pass along a message?”

“T, to whom?”

“...You don't need to know his name. You'll recognize him when you return after taking shelter.”

“S, speak, Great Hero! Quickly!”

As the waiter urged him on, Yi Mu-gwang hesitated over what he should say. There was no time.

In the end, only one thing came out.

“Don't avenge the fool who pretended to be your master. Don't seek revenge... Live freely, Hwi. Hwi.”

“...Yes!”

The waiter and innkeeper ran away as though their feet were on fire.

He did not know whether the message would reach Cheon Hwi, but it was not a bad thing to take the chance.

He had spent decades making his living with a blade in the Martial World. Had he not always known how to distinguish a place to die from a place to live?

Yi Mu-gwang muttered as though sighing.

“Is it right to choose a place to die like this?”

He could not answer that question himself.

But one thing was certain.

Cheon Hwi would return to this inn to retrieve his father's sword.

That alone was enough reason to hold his ground.

It was enough.

Otherwise, even if he lived, he would feel no different from a dead man.

He could feel the footsteps of five or six people rushing toward the inn through the floor.

Yi Mu-gwang slowly drew his Pudao.

Yi Mu-gwang (李無光).

He had wanted to become like those martial artists whose names shone throughout the Martial World like stars in the heavens. But he had known since the age of ten that he lacked the talent for it.

He had watched even the most exceptional students of a renowned local sword school get utterly crushed by the rising talents of famous sects. From that, he knew his talent would never reach the first-rate.

He had not even stood out at his local sword school. Believing he lacked the aptitude, he gave up training and set out into the Martial World as a wanderer.

It had been an unremarkable life.

A life without light, just like his name.

But after meeting that brat of a disciple, though he could hardly call him one, he had come to realize something.

It was all right even if he could not become a star in the sky.

When Yi Mu-gwang saw himself reflected in Cheon Hwi's eyes, he understood.

Even if he was no more than the glow of a firefly, to the brat who looked up at him, he glittered like starlight, if only for a moment.

It was a light he had found again after a long time.

Even if he could not shine like a star. Even if the light lasted only an instant. If he could shine for even a little while, and that light could reach someone's heart, then that was enough.

That had been the dream he had held as a boy, when he wanted to become a martial artist who shone like a star.

“Come.”

With his Pudao drawn, light shone in Yi Mu-gwang's eyes.

“This light will not go out so easily.”

Five Blood Serpent Gang members rushed into the inn at once.

* * *

At some point, Cheon Hwi stopped counting how many times he had died.

Partway through, he began to wonder whether this was even physically possible.

After that, he naturally came to understand ways to circulate inner qi through the acupoints of his entire body amid the pain.

What one learned with the mind was quickly forgotten, but what one learned with the body was not easy to forget even if one wanted to.

Cheon Hwi's qi circulation and breath regulation, sustained amid this agony, were gradually becoming entirely different from those of other martial artists.

He was drawing his own map without relying on another person's instructions for how inner qi should be controlled.

It was a method of qi circulation suited to a wanderer.

The same qi circulation could not have the same efficiency for everyone.

Just as a dullard and a genius could spend the same amount of time training swordsmanship yet achieve vastly different results.

The best method of using inner power was to circulate it in the direction most suited to the characteristics and flow of one's own acupoints.

It was much like how inner cultivation methods, shared only within famous sects, were passed down for particular martial arts and bloodlines.

Cheon Hwi's method of qi circulation was changing into an inner power method meant for Cheon Hwi alone.

Counting how many times he died was meaningless.

If he opened something incorrectly and died, then he died.

“Ah, here... If I touch it... Cough!”

So this was where he died.

By this point, Cheon Hwi had started to enjoy examining his insides and acupoints.

How did the energy flowing through his body move?

Were these great channels the Twelve Regular Meridians and the Eight Extraordinary Vessels? Ah, so this was how yang qi and yin qi flowed.

It was experience built through death.

Previously, the structure of Cheon Hwi's internal acupoints had been close to two-dimensional. It had been a flat structure where inner qi simply descended through the lower dantian and then rose along his back in circulation.

But now, the map of his internal acupoints gradually expanded and grew more intricate. The structure that had looked two-dimensional became three-dimensional. He could feel even a single acupoint branching into two or more paths as it extended through his arms and legs, forming layers.

The internal map of acupoints reaching to his fingertips and toes expanded further, and its layers naturally became as complicated as a three-dimensional map.

Even acupoints his body claimed had never been opened, Cheon Hwi had already forcibly opened hundreds of times through sensory experience.

He knew how much inner qi to use, which way it should enter, and how it should emerge.

Just as when he had avoided the Mechanism Formation beneath the pharmacy, he learned where inner qi needed to flow slowly and where it had to surge. He learned which places would cause qi deviation or backlash if he tried to force them open, and which places he could manage.

As he died and corrected himself dozens of times, he advanced another step.

He learned to draw out and scrape away the turbid qi that clung thickly to his acupoints, then expel it.

There was no way that inner power the size of a millet grain could be turned into inner qi and used to sweep through every part of such a multilayered, complex system of internal acupoints.

But now, that was no longer a problem.

Instead, his inner power overflowed and churned through his lower dantian.

If he failed to draw out as much inner qi as possible and scatter it quickly through the acupoints in every direction...

“Cough!”

The overflowing inner power would consume him instead, and he would vomit blood and die.

Cheon Hwi immersed himself ever deeper in his own body and in death.

* * *

The inn was as quiet as a dead mouse after everyone had fled.

Yi Mu-gwang sat alone in an empty chair on the first floor, his Pudao resting beside him.

The bodies of four or five Blood Serpent Gang members lay scattered around him, and the stench of blood filled the air.

Yi Mu-gwang, on the other hand, did not have a single wound.

‘They're here.’

A group of Blood Serpent Gang members, blood dripping from them, stormed inside.

Among them was Gwak Do-mun, the Blood Serpent Gang's leader.

The only thing that distinguished him from the others was that he dragged a wanderer along by the hair in one hand.

The captured wanderer spoke through tears.

“Th, that's the place! That man is Yi Mu-gwang, the one who travels with Cheon Hwi...!”

Before the wanderer could finish, Gwak Do-mun lightly pressed a finger into their temple.

The wanderer's eyes rolled back, and their body went limp. They stopped breathing.

The level of a first-rate master, capable of ending an ordinary person's life with a single finger.

Thud.

Applause sounded outside the inn.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

A man in a long robe patterned with red snakes crossed the threshold.

The Blood Serpent Gang's leader. Blood Serpent Sword Gwak Do-mun.

Yi Mu-gwang recalled that name and bit his lip inwardly.

The Blood Serpent Gang leader's snake-like narrow eyes and mouth curved into an arc.

“Where is the brat who killed Gyu Pae?”

Footnotes:

“Hwi, Hwi” repeats Cheon Hwi's name while echoing a Korean expression for moving freely and unrestrainedly.

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