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◈ Raised by a Ruthless Swordsman ◈

Chapter 20: Walking on Thin Ice

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My foot, just about to step forward, froze in place.

Wudang.

It was a name I had first heard in Geonnyeong a few days ago. Those people who supposedly shut themselves away in the mountains to polish their swords. Hadn't they been the ones who disappeared somewhere with a Beggars' Sect beggar?

Only days ago, I had worried to myself that the elder they were pursuing might be Hyeonam.

But why was Wudang being brought up to me now?

"...What do you mean by that?"

I kept my tone calm and carefully studied Ma Jeongsan's face.

Why did he think I was from Wudang? What about me had led him to that conclusion?

As though answering, Ma Jeongsan's gaze dropped to my waist. More precisely, to the sword hanging there.

"No need to try deceiving me."

With both hands resting on the hilt of his broad sabre, Ma Jeongsan gestured with his chin.

"That pattern on the sword guard. Isn't it Wudang's? I may not have come from any respectable sect, but my eyes aren't so poor that I can't recognize a Wudang insignia right in front of me."

Ma Jeongsan paused as though waiting for an answer, but I said nothing. I had no idea what I ought to say.

Perhaps he took that silence for an answer. He spoke again.

"Seeing as you've been openly wearing a Wudang sword where anyone can see it, I didn't think you meant to hide it. So why are you keeping your mouth shut now?"

My thoughts raced.

I had never become a Daoist, nor had I ever set foot on Mount Wudang. The only connection I had was an elder now buried in the earth, without ever having formed a master-disciple bond with me.

But if the sword was Wudang's, there was nothing I could do about it. Since this man had recognized it at a glance, he would never believe me if I insisted otherwise.

Denying any connection to Wudang might only make him more suspicious.

I looked over Ma Jeongsan's face. There was no particular hostility there. Come to think of it, he had been speaking respectfully to me all along.

Remembering how the Black Snake Gang had gone pale and backed away at the mere mention of Wudang, it was not hard to guess how much weight those two syllables carried.

There was no reason for me to cast aside that weight with my own hands.

I had no need to actively claim I was a Daoist, but perhaps I did not need to wave it away either. Still, an evasive answer would at least not be a bad move.

Yet as soon as I tried to speak, one thought caught in my throat.

Wudang had been pursuing someone. Perhaps Hyeonam, and me, carrying Hyeonam's sword.

If word spread that I was a Wudang Daoist and it reached Wudang itself, I would only be inviting trouble.

What should I do?

After weighing it in my mind for a long while, I opened my mouth.

"Whatever the escort captain may have seen, I'm only an escort carrying a sword on the road to Yeongpa."

It was neither an admission nor a denial. Ma Jeongsan seemed to quietly consider my words, then pulled one corner of his mouth into a crooked smile.

"...I see. If you're an escort, then you're an escort."

Fortunately, Ma Jeongsan did not press further.

As though he had come only to ask that, he rose heavily without even washing himself, leaning on the hilt of his broad sabre. He tested his weight on his bandaged thigh, then limped forward.

"Still, let me add one thing."

He spoke low as he passed me.

"It seems the young Daoist thought a scabbard alone would conceal it, but there are at least three more people who can recognize Wudang's insignia. You'd do well to be careful."

The emphasis he put on young Daoist made it clear that he saw me as an ignorant novice.

Well, he was not wrong. Everything he said was true except for the Daoist part.

Ma Jeongsan grinned and limped back toward the convoy. He seemed quite pleased that his eyes had not deceived him.

Only then did I begin to understand why Ma Jeongsan had gone out of his way to tell me this.

I wiped the rest of the water from my hands onto my clothes and slowly followed after him.

Still, my mind would not settle.

Hyeonam had possessed a Wudang sword. What did that mean?

Hyeonam might once have belonged to Wudang. But if that were so, why would Wudang have pursued one of their own so relentlessly? It made no sense.

It seemed more likely that Hyeonam had cut down someone from Wudang and taken the sword. I recalled that night in the mountains, when the elder cut down five martial artists in blue-green clothes. And not only that night. There had been all those nights over ten years when the elder returned covered in blood.

Could this sword have belonged to one of them?

A chill ran through me.

If the person Wudang had pursued was Hyeonam, the target of their anger was gone now. Hyeonam lay buried in a mountain grave, his chest pierced by my sword.

But would anger simply fade away because its target was gone?

Even I, who had driven a sword into the elder's heart, still felt anger with nowhere to go boiling up inside me on certain nights.

And whatever had lost its destination would search next for anything connected to Hyeonam.

The only such thing was me.

Even if I told them I was the one who killed the elder, they would not believe me. More likely, they would treat me as that mad elder's disciple or accomplice.

What use would it be to tell them that I could perfectly reproduce Hyeonam's Sword Path without ever forming a master-disciple bond?

The conclusion came easily.

As soon as we reached a city, I needed to get a new sword.

As long as I wore that lump of iron bearing Wudang's insignia at my waist, I would feel a chill down my back wherever I went.

"Hey, the swordsman's back."

Unaware of my troubled thoughts, Gwak Seok grinned and nudged my shoulder.

He had been calling me swordsman ever since earlier. I had no idea where the startled expression he wore during the day had gone.

The convoy was preparing to move again. As I slipped into the group, I absentmindedly touched the sword at my waist.

The road began again.

As though the fierce battle at midday had been a lie, the mountain path was silent once more.

Only the cries of mountain birds occasionally cut through the air.

At every bend, the slopes on either side rose and fell, and each time, the escorts swept their gazes across them.

The blood spilled during the day had not yet dried.

Whenever the cargo wagon wheels rolled over stones, the cloth-wrapped bundles laid atop them swayed heavily. Two dead escorts and three laborers.

The sun slowly sank beyond the slopes.

The sun set cruelly fast in the mountains. After we rounded one bend, the valley deepened and the light thinned. After another, darkness had already gathered around our feet.

I had no desire at all to spend another night in these damned mountains.

The others likely felt the same. Tonight seemed certain to feel even longer.

"We'll camp here tonight."

As soon as the agency head gave the word, the escorts began pulling the wagons into place with practiced hands.

We had stopped in a fairly broad clearing. On one side, the mountainside rising along the road formed a natural wall behind us. On the other, the slope dropped sharply down to a river.

The river was not especially wide, but even through the darkness, the sound of rushing water rose heavily. I glanced down the slope. If someone slipped down it, climbing back up by human strength alone looked difficult.

Thanks to that, we did not need to seal off every side. The river side was naturally blocked by the slope, and the mountain side was just as steep. In the end, only two openings remained, the road before and behind us.

The escorts placed wagons across those two entrances. Rather than forming a circle as before, they used the wagons only to block the road. The cargo, people, and carriages were brought inside.

After what had happened that afternoon, the night watch was very different from the previous night's.

Two people were stationed at each entrance to guard the road, while two more patrolled inside the camp separately. The river and mountain sides were left lightly guarded, trusting in the slopes, but someone still checked them from time to time, as though no one could rest easy otherwise.

Only then did everyone settle down for a late meal.

Even after narrowly escaping death, the meal had not changed. We softened the hard, salty travel sesame flatbread in water as we bit into it, with a few slices of pickled radish on the side.

But no one complained.

Only Gwak Seok kept talking. He said the bandits had carried a decent amount of money, that at least there was some comfort in that whenever a fight broke out, and that he would visit a pleasure house with the money once we reached Yeongpa.

Imagining Gwak Seok enjoying himself at a pleasure house before offering up money taken from a bandit's underclothes made my appetite vanish.

Jin Song held his side near his ribs and only half-listened. Du Gi, as usual, silently finished his own share.

Even Yang Hyeon, who would normally trade jokes with Gwak Seok, had little to say.

Before long, we finished eating and lay down in our separate places.

I sat with my back against a wagon, in its shade. Sleep did not come easily, but as I lay there with my eyes closed, I must have drifted off at some point.

A hand shook my shoulder, and I opened my eyes.

"Your turn for watch."

An unfamiliar escort's face was close to mine.

I suddenly thought of the man who used to wake me at this hour. He would tap my shoulder to wake me, then make a few sleepy jokes. Now he lay wrapped in cloth on one side of a cargo wagon.

I shook off my drowsiness and forced my heavy body up.

As I rose, I looked over the camp once. The fire had burned down, leaving only red embers, and people lay sleeping carelessly on the dirt around it.

Gwak Seok was deeply asleep with his mouth open, while Jin Song and Du Gi breathed evenly beside him.

The escort who woke me moved over and shook Yang Hyeon's shoulder. Yang Hyeon soon sat up groggily and rubbed his eyes.

Without waiting for him, I got up and headed for the side of the camp facing the road we had traveled that day. Behind me, I heard Yang Hyeon gathering his broad sabre and following.

The two escorts who had been on watch stood at the entrance. When I approached, they gave us brief greetings. They seemed quite happy to see their replacements.

Perhaps from staring into the darkness all night, both had hollow eyes. They walked tiredly back into camp, then lay down where we had come from.

I turned back to face forward.

Two wagons stood across the road, and beyond them, the mountain path we had traveled wound down through the darkness. There was little moonlight, so everything more than a few steps away was ink-black.

I stood facing that darkness beyond the wagons. Yang Hyeon took a place beside me.

Perhaps because I had spent too long in the mountains, standing silently beside someone felt strangely awkward.

It would have been better if someone like Gwak Seok were beside me, talking on his own. But with us both keeping our mouths shut, the silence was uncomfortable.

For a while, neither of us spoke. It was deep in the night, and even the insects had gone quiet. Only the sound of the river below our feet rose without pause.

"...I was completely out of my mind earlier today."

Yang Hyeon spoke first. It seemed he could not shake what had happened that afternoon.

"I talked big, saying bandits would be easy, but when I actually swung my broad sabre, everything went white before my eyes."

I recalled the bold look he had worn on the first day, when he talked about training until he bled.

"I'd only ever split straw dummies while training, never people."

Yang Hyeon adjusted his grip on his broad sabre. I thought about what to say, then simply threw out a few words.

"You did well. How many people could have faced that huge man head-on?"

I had not meant much by it, but Yang Hyeon seemed rather pleased. He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders.

"Well, the son of a martial arts school should manage at least that much."

A trace of pride slipped into his voice.

What sort of place was a martial arts school, for it to make him puff out his chest like that? When I cautiously brought it up, Yang Hyeon eagerly began explaining, as though he had been waiting for the question.

After listening, I gained a rough picture of what a martial arts school was.

They were places where families with some money sent their children to learn how to fight with fists and blades, or where people seeking to join an escort agency or become runners for the magistrate's office came to learn enough to find a place for themselves.

For a monthly payment of grain or copper cash, they taught broad sabres, staffs, spears, and more.

Yang Hyeon's father's school was among the smaller ones, with only a dozen or so local children as students. Yet he puffed out his chest as he said no one in the area failed to know the Yang Family Martial Arts School. There seemed to be quite a bit of exaggeration in his words.

Still, he looked happy while talking, so I did not interrupt him.

"My eldest brother inherited the school, and my second brother joined a nearby escort agency. I'm the third son, so there was nothing for me to inherit. That's why I set out like this."

He spoke as though it were nothing, but there was something like envy in his voice. His eldest brother had a school to inherit, and his second brother had already found his place. Yang Hyeon had neither.

"But if I make a fortune from this protection convoy and go back home, won't Father see me differently? He always said he couldn't rely on me because I was the youngest."

Yang Hyeon looked somewhere beyond the darkness, as though picturing his hometown.

I watched his profile for a moment.

A life with a home to return to, a family to see again, and a place where one could resolve to return with a fortune.

It was not as though I had none of those things. I too was on my way to that old home.

But mine were different from Yang Hyeon's.

The things I had left behind lay beyond ten years. Beyond those years, where I did not even know whether Mother, Father, and Yeona were still there.

And even if they were, would they recognize me, already grown? Me, who cut people apart instead of fish?

Yang Hyeon kept talking after that. He said something about how things were going in his hometown and what he would do once he returned.

The words entered one ear and left through the other. Thinking of what I had left behind, half of me was somewhere else.

It was then, as I sank into my thoughts.

Something mixed into the gentle sound of the river.

Could it be the night wind passing over the slope? But if it were wind, it should have brushed by once and been gone.

My scattered mind snapped into focus.

Yang Hyeon's voice grew distant. The river below, the even breathing from within the camp behind us, all of it grew distant.

My hand naturally went to my sword hilt.

How long had I remained focused like that? The ink-black darkness beyond the wagons was drawn sharply before my eyes.

Tap!

The sudden sound of feet striking the ground rang out briefly from the darkness beyond.

The next instant, two black shadows leaped clean over the wagons blocking the road without touching them. Riding that momentum, two slashes of blade wind shot down like arrows.

One toward Yang Hyeon, and one toward me.

Yang Hyeon seemed to seize the hilt of his broad sabre at the sound, but he did not look as though he would deflect it in time.

There was no time to think. With my left hand, I struck Yang Hyeon's chest and shoved him aside. At the same time, I drew my sword with my right and caught the blade descending toward me.

Clang!

The sound of metal burst briefly through the darkness.

My wrist throbbed painfully.

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