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Translator/Editor: Asakusa
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◈ A Wandering Warrior's Survival Guide ◈
Chapter 51: A Suspicious Wanderer Who Doesn't Hide His Strength (2)
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Good news spread through the Dawn Sun Gate. More precisely, it was good news only to the rank and file. To those who knew what lay beneath, it was nothing less than terrible news.
A disaster among disasters, like a bolt from a clear sky.
“The Iron Bear Sect has... been smashed to bits!”
“Smashed to bits?!”
“Th-that’s the only way to describe it!”
“You mean they were wiped out overnight?!”
“N-not quite!”
“...What?”
“Who would dare, and why?”
The Iron Bear Sect was actually a Black Path rabble that had survived for quite a long time, considering how it tormented the townspeople.
People often said that where there was light, there was shadow. But that was not true.
Perhaps light was the one dependent on shadow.
Darkness and shadow needed nothing else. They simply stained and swallowed.
Light, however, gained value only when there was darkness for it to illuminate. Wicked men could commit evil for evil’s own sake, but did those who wished to do good not need a justification to appear good?
That was the relationship between the Dawn Sun Gate and the Iron Bear Sect.
The Iron Bear Sect called itself a sect, but in truth, it was little more than a gathering place for third-rate Black Path thugs.
The Dawn Sun Gate wore the mask of benevolent people offering relief, while using the Iron Bear Sect as villains behind the scenes to seize both public support and profit.
Naturally, the Dawn Sun Gate collected cheaper protection fees under the name of sect sponsorship, promising to protect people. Then, if they put on a little show of fighting the Iron Bear Sect, people gradually began paying the fees they had once handed over reluctantly as though they were only natural.
At first, it had seemed as if they were simply being robbed. Protected from whom, exactly? But once the sect appeared to take action in exchange for payment, things looked different.
“Which bastard... no, which righteous hero accomplished such a feat?!”
* * *
Let us turn back the clock a little, before that rumor shook Baekseokjin.
Inside the Iron Bear Sect’s front gate.
“I came to take down your signboard, you bastards.”
Cheon Hwi grinned.
The most enjoyable kind of fight was, first, one where victory was assured, and second, a dirty brawl. This one fulfilled both conditions.
For a moment, the Iron Bear Sect martial artists looked blank.
He had come to take down their signboard?
It took them a breath to understand what he meant. The instant they did, the faces of the Black Path members gathered in the courtyard twisted viciously.
“That crazy bastard!”
“He came in alone?”
“Close the gate! Break his arms and legs first!”
“Where does he think he is?!”
The grounds inside the Iron Bear Sect were larger than expected. It seemed to have been converted from the warehouse of a merchant company that had once handled mining shipments. The courtyard was large enough for three or four carts to move around, while weapon racks, wooden training dummies, jars of liquor, and assorted junk lay scattered everywhere.
Around thirty martial artists in rough martial garb poured out from the middle of it.
Some were third-rates who could barely be called martial artists at all, while others looked as though they had seen their share of blade-work.
But to Cheon Hwi, the difference hardly mattered.
Even their charge was slow.
Far too slow.
‘I’ve gotten stronger.’
Han So-gyeom had told him not to strut around just because he had reached second-rate. But what could he do if it was true?
Once one crossed into a new realm, third-rate knife-wielding thugs could not even graze them with their blades. That was what the wall between realms meant.
The hand drawing a sword was slow. Even the order in which they planted their feet was slow.
Cheon Hwi stepped forward.
“Attack him together!”
The man at the front swung his saber.
A horizontal slash aimed at the waist. There was decent force behind it, but that was all. He had focused so much on his weapon that he had left his entire body open.
Cheon Hwi did not even dodge. Just before the blade reached him, he lightly tapped the inside of the man’s wrist with the scabbard in his left hand.
Thud!
“Urgh!”
Before the saber even hit the ground, Cheon Hwi struck the man’s jaw with the scabbard.
Smack!
With Cheon Hwi between them, three attackers charged at once. They seemed to think it was a coordinated attack, each thrusting a sword or saber at him.
But Cheon Hwi’s body slid with the Returning Cloud Step, leaving afterimages as he twisted out of the paths of their blades.
Swish, swish, swish!
The moment their attacks tangled amid Cheon Hwi’s afterimages.
Thud! Thud! Crack!
Cheon Hwi kindly subdued them rather than killing them in a single blow. Their necks and ribs had been struck, leaving them unable to fight.
“Do you know why I’m not killing you?”
“...?”
“Because that’d be too clean. You need to roll around in pain for a while.”
How many people in this town had suffered a broken bone or two because of these thugs’ threats?
A clean death was a luxury for such thugs.
That did not mean Cheon Hwi’s sword remained unstained. He did not hesitate to use it as he subdued his enemies, cutting shoulders, thighs, and the tendons in their legs.
“Surround him!”
Cheon Hwi stomped down.
Bang!
With that small sound, his body burst forward. Before the Black Path fighter in front could react, Cheon Hwi’s shoulder slammed into his chest.
Crack!
The sound of his breastbone breaking.
The body flew backward, sweeping down three others behind him.
Cheon Hwi did not stop.
A step from the Meteor Chasing the Moon Movement Technique sprang atop the flow of the Returning Cloud Step. Just as it seemed a cloud had drifted past, Cheon Hwi flashed left and right too quickly for the eye to follow, like lightning bursting forth.
Each time he moved, one or two fighters were sent flying without fail.
Cheon Hwi’s sword tip stopped before a man’s Adam’s apple. The man froze, his lips moving soundlessly.
“S-save... me...”
“I will.”
Cheon Hwi brought the scabbard down on the man’s shoulder.
Crack!
“Argh!”
“You won’t be holding a sword for a while, though.”
Screams erupted.
Then it happened.
Thwip, thwip, thwip!
Crossbows fired from the eaves on both sides of the courtyard.
The Iron Bear Sect was apparently not made up of fools who relied only on their fists and blades. They had probably not expected some madman they had provoked at an inn to attack their base immediately afterward, but they had prepared measures for enemies who broke through their gate.
Six crossbow bolts.
Three from the front, two from the sides, one aimed at the back of his head.
Cheon Hwi’s eyes sank.
Before a star falls, its starlight reaches the eye first.
Cheon Hwi’s Eye Art had changed since he understood that passage.
After Murong Hyeoncheon’s question, those words had led to a new realization within him.
Did martial arts not differ greatly even with the same art, depending on how one understood and absorbed the same mnemonic formula?
Clang, clang, clang!
His iron sword drew lines through the air.
The three bolts from the front were knocked away. He twisted aside from the two coming from the sides. The one aimed at the back of his head was struck down with the tip of his scabbard and driven into the ground.
The courtyard fell silent.
Even the shooters on the eaves held their breath.
Cheon Hwi raised his head.
“You there.”
The shoulder of a shooter on the eaves twitched.
Something flew from Cheon Hwi’s hand. It was the crossbow bolt that had just been embedded in the ground.
Whoosh!
Thud!
The shooter tumbled from the eaves.
The other shooters hurriedly tried to hide, but they were too late. Cheon Hwi kicked up a stone rolling near the gate, caught it in his hand, and threw it.
Smack!
The stone cut through the air, striking the second shooter in the forehead and sending them down as well.
The terrified third shooter dropped their crossbow and lay flat on the roof. The other Black Path members, realizing Cheon Hwi was far beyond their ability, were busy inching away to flee when the doors of the inner hall flew open.
“Move!”
A huge man emerged.
He was a middle-aged man with a bearskin draped over his shoulders and thick iron rings around both wrists.
The Iron Bear Sect’s leader, Mo Gwang-pil.
His face twisted at the sight of the devastation before him.
“What sect’s dog dared turn my home into this? Where did you come from?!”
“Cheon Hwi, a wanderer.”
Cheon Hwi answered calmly.
“...That bastard was eating dumplings at the inn...”
“You remember exactly. That’s right. I came to digest my meal.”
“...What?”
“You need to pay for interrupting my meal.”
Mo Gwang-pil’s face turned red.
“You attacked our sect over some damn dumplings?!”
“Some damn dumplings?”
Cheon Hwi’s gaze turned cold.
“Disturbing someone while they’re eating is a grave crime. You beasts lower than dogs.”
“You mad bastard!”
Mo Gwang-pil kicked off the ground.
Boom!
He moved at a speed that did not suit his huge frame. He was not first-rate, but he had reached the peak of the second-rate.
Both fists wrapped in iron rings swung at once, tearing through the air.
Iron Bear Brawling.
A Black Path fist art that crushed opponents with strength and durability.
An ordinary second-rate would have been forced back by its sheer weight.
But Cheon Hwi did not retreat.
Mo Gwang-pil was not even as good as the Black Fist Twin Tyrants or Murong Geon.
‘He’s far below the Black Fist Twin Tyrants.’
Mo Gwang-pil’s right hand shot toward Cheon Hwi’s head.
Cheon Hwi entered through the opening.
Bang!
‘Meteor Sword Forms, Swift.’
The swift sword, which could be called the first form of the Meteor Sword Forms, burst forth.
Cheon Hwi’s body and sword blade slipped in like a streak of starlight. Mo Gwang-pil’s eyes widened.
To Mo Gwang-pil, Cheon Hwi’s afterimage appeared to split in two.
‘An illusion sword?’
No.
It only looked that way because the principle of Swift, joined with the Meteor Chasing the Moon Movement Technique, had reached its peak. That meant both forms and both sword paths were real.
Thinking the faster one was a feint, Mo Gwang-pil threw a punch. But the blade reached his arm and throat almost simultaneously.
It was a wonder that looked as though Cheon Hwi had created a double.
A sword art in which either strike could be real.
“Urk!”
The tendons in one arm were cut, and Mo Gwang-pil’s right hand hung limp.
“Gah!”
Mo Gwang-pil tried to seize Cheon Hwi by the hair with his left hand, but Cheon Hwi lowered his body and drove the scabbard into the inside of his knee.
Crack!
His knee buckled, and the huge body tilted. At that moment, Cheon Hwi stepped on Mo Gwang-pil’s chest.
Boom!
The Iron Bear Sect leader slammed into the courtyard floor.
Mo Gwang-pil fell face-first, then turned his head aside and cried out desperately.
“Spare me! P-please spare me, Great Hero!”
“Maybe for the others. Not for you.”
Thrust! Crack!
Cheon Hwi cleanly stabbed the back of his neck and twisted.
His movements as he withdrew and shook off the sword were monotonous.
“Hey, relax. I told you I came to take down the signboard.”
Iron Bear Sect.
The bold lettering looked quite imposing.
Cheon Hwi walked closer and lightly struck beneath the signboard with his scabbard.
Once. Twice. Three times against the pillars.
The signboard fell to the ground from the vibration.
Cheon Hwi cleanly cut it apart as it fell.
Crash!
The signboard lay split in half.
Without anyone stopping him, Cheon Hwi calmly examined the ledgers and items inside. He had thought there might be no ledgers, but they had kept records rather diligently.
There were records of what the Iron Bear Sect had extorted from the people of Baekseokjin. Names and amounts, protection fees, stall fees, and dates when they had clashed with the Dawn Sun Gate.
What strangely grated on Cheon Hwi’s nerves was that their income had paradoxically increased after the Dawn Sun Gate was founded.
‘All right. Let’s see.’
Cheon Hwi left the ledgers and silver taels where they were, as though he had not inspected them.
Then he simply watched those fleeing and left the scene first.
He had cast out a fishing line.
Would the Dawn Sun Gate hand them over to the authorities? Would it quietly spirit them away, burn the ledgers, or pretend not to know?
To find out, it was better to leave the others alive.
He took the last dumpling he had packed from the inn from his pocket. It was cold, but still edible.
“Mm.”
Whoever came here first, and whoever came looking for him first, would reveal a little of this town’s true nature.
Cheon Hwi pulled his bamboo hat lower and headed back into town.
‘Infiltration, phase one. Success.’
He could almost hear Han So-gyeom smacking his forehead.
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