WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle

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◈ Raised by a Ruthless Swordsman ◈

Chapter 24: Sword Path

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The river at Seonharyeong in early winter was deeper, colder, and swifter than I had expected.

But I was a fisherman's son, after all. As a child, I had played in the sea as though it were my own home.

It had been ten years, but my body naturally remembered the water. My arms and legs parted the current on their own, and even in the fierce flow, my head remained above the surface.

Unlike when swords met on solid ground, my mind was calmer in the water.

I pushed through the water with one hand and let the current carry me along. If I drifted like this for a while, I would be far enough from the protection convoy.

Then I heard something splashing roughly beside me.

Gasp, gasp.

There was also the sound of someone gulping water.

"Brother Du? Are you all right?"

There was no answer. The splashing only grew more frantic.

I turned my head.

Something was wrong with Du Gi's faintly visible figure. He was wildly flailing both arms, his head sinking beneath the water and rising again. His ragged breathing made it seem as though he was constantly swallowing water.

He could not swim? Then why had he not said so?

If I left him like that, he would sink within a few breaths.

I hurried against the current toward Du Gi. The moment I reached him, he instinctively grabbed at my shoulders and arms, clinging to me desperately. The force of it dragged me beneath the water once as well.

"No..."

At this rate, we would both sink.

I kicked through the water and pulled my head above the surface, then grabbed the back of Du Gi's collar from behind.

"Relax! If you keep struggling, we'll both die!"

Whether Du Gi understood me or not, his flailing arms gradually calmed.

"Lie back in the water and just breathe. I'll pull you the rest of the way."

The strength slowly left Du Gi's body. Only then did I support his chest with one arm and keep his face above the surface.

Cough, cough. Du Gi spat out the water he had swallowed.

"For someone who throws out sword strikes like that, you can't even swim?"

I scolded him while catching my breath. I supported Du Gi with one arm and paddled with my other arm and both legs. Carrying the weight of two people at once quickly made my limbs ache.

"Valley streams are rather different..."

Du Gi spat out more water, then answered through a cough.

After drifting for some time, I finally dragged Du Gi onto the riverbank where the current slowed around a bend.

The early-winter night wind struck our soaked bodies, and the cold made our teeth chatter. If we stayed like this, we would both freeze to death.

With trembling hands, I searched inside my clothes. Fortunately, my money pouch was still safely tucked deep inside.

I quickly took it out and opened it. Among the escort token, silver ingots, and copper coins, I found the fire striker and flint.

Munhwi had given them to me before, asking whether I had spent ten years in the mountains without even something like this.

I had simply kept them in my clothes because I had not needed them. I had not expected them to become so useful.

But their surfaces were soaked through.

I tore out a handful of dry grass and wiped the moisture from the fire striker and flint. They were steel and stone. As long as they dried, they should work.

Once they were somewhat dry, I gathered nearby dry brush and twigs. Then I struck the fire striker over them.

Click. Click.

I wondered if this was really how it was done.

Sparks flew several times, but they did not catch on the brush and died out instead. Perhaps my hands were too numb, or perhaps I simply did not know how to use the fire striker. No matter how many times I tried, it was the same.

"Give it to me."

Du Gi held out a trembling hand beside me.

I handed him the fire striker and brush. Du Gi blew on his numb hands once, then struck the fire striker a few times. Sparks caught on the brush, and smoke began to rise.

I hurriedly crouched down and gently blew on it. Before long, a small flame appeared.

I placed the dry twigs I had gathered on top and built up the fire. Only once the flames had properly taken hold did I finally feel relieved.

But with our wet clothes still on, even sitting by the fire did not drive away the cold. The chill clinging to my body felt as though it were burrowing into my flesh.

I first took off my escort martial attire and wrung it out. Dark water streamed down from it. It must have been my blood mixed with theirs.

I spread it over a nearby rock and branches to dry. Without a word, Du Gi followed suit, taking off his outer robe, wringing it out, and hanging it up.

Leaving on the thin undershirt beneath, we crouched close to the fire. It was wet and clung to our skin, but it was not as heavy as our outer clothes. Steam soon rose from it in the heat.

For a while, we simply warmed ourselves by the fire in silence. The numbness gradually left my fingers, and warmth slowly returned to my back.

Only then did my thoughts settle.

There were many things I wanted to ask. What kind of sword was that? Why had he been among the escorts? Did he know who those people were?

Would this man become my enemy, or my friend?

Without thinking, I looked Du Gi over. His sword still rested across his knees beneath his wet undershirt.

Perhaps sensing my gaze, Du Gi turned and looked directly at me.

I became tense for no reason. I barely stopped my hand from reaching for my sword hilt.

But Du Gi did not reach for his sword. He searched through his wet clothes, pulled out a small token, and held it out to me.

When I accepted it and held it to the firelight, I saw a pattern carved into it. A round mirror was engraved in the center, with the characters for Bright Mirror carved around it.

I had never seen it before. As I stared at it, wondering what it was, Du Gi spoke.

"I came from the Bright Mirror Society."

From his tone, it seemed he thought I would naturally know what that meant. But I had never heard of the Bright Mirror Society. What was it?

I handed the token back. Du Gi put it away inside his clothes, then quietly watched me. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

But when I did not know what was going on, it was better not to speak carelessly. I had no idea how things were tangled together. If I let my tongue run without knowing anything, I could not know where it might trip me up.

When I did not know, I should keep quiet and first gather whatever the other person let slip.

As I remained silent, Du Gi seemed frustrated and spoke again.

"The Alliance agreed to handle this matter, so why has a Taoist master of Wudang joined the protection convoy separately?"

What was the Alliance now? There was a probing look in Du Gi's eyes.

"Has Wudang finally decided to get involved as well?"

This man also thought I was from Wudang.

Perhaps the reason he had revealed his identity and even shown me that token was because he believed I was from Wudang.

If so, I could pretend to be from Wudang and draw more information from him.

But I quickly dismissed the thought.

I had nothing to support such a pretense. I did not even know what Wudang was. After only a few exchanges, Du Gi would see through me.

If someone who trusted me enough to reveal the truth later discovered that I was not from Wudang, I would only be seen as a suspicious man hiding his identity.

"I am not from Wudang."

Du Gi's eyes narrowed.

"It seems you think that because of my sword, but this sword was merely..."

Come to think of it, I had nothing convincing to say.

I considered how much to explain. I could not reveal the sword's full history. But if I refused to say anything, he would grow even more suspicious.

After some thought, I gave him a vague answer.

"I merely found it lying on the ground in the mountains. I do not even know who it belonged to."

It was not a lie. Even I had never learned what kind of person Hyeonam was.

Du Gi listened in silence. His expression did not reveal whether he believed me.

Did it sound absurd? It did, even to me. As I searched my mind for a way to make it sound more convincing, Du Gi spoke.

"A sword can be picked up from the road."

He spoke slowly.

"But are you going to say you picked up Wudang's Sword Path in the mountains as well?"

My mind went blank. Before I had time to think, Du Gi continued.

"I saw your sword while you were facing that Mount Hua opponent earlier. It flowed in endless circles and turned everything aside. It was unmistakably Wudang's sword."

Wudang's Sword Path. The Sword Path I had learned from Hyeonam was Wudang's Sword Path.

At those words, the scattered pieces in my mind began to fit together.

Until now, I had only vaguely believed that Hyeonam was an enemy of Wudang. I had thought he had killed the Wudang martial artists who had chased him and taken one of their swords.

But even Hyeonam's Sword Path was Wudang's.

A sword could be taken from a dead man, but a Sword Path was another matter.

Would those who had devised and refined such a profound Sword Path hand it over carelessly to just anyone? Would they give sword arts that were no different from their lifeline to an outsider rather than one of their own?

There could be no such people anywhere in the world.

Then had Hyeonam stolen it by watching from the side? But Hyeonam's sword was far too profound for that.

I remembered the battle from earlier.

Even after studying the black-clad martial artist's sword so closely, I had only barely managed to grasp it.

I had seen which branches were feints and which were real, but I could not understand what each move contained or why it had to extend that way.

There was that much difference between following with the eyes and knowing with the body.

But Hyeonam had been different.

Hyeonam had taught me by pointing out every detail, from the angle at which the wrist holding the sword turned to the direction in which the feet stepped.

Why the sword had to flow this way, why it had to turn back there. Every reason was contained within the sword Hyeonam explained to me.

It was not something that could be copied by watching from the side. Only someone whose body had been steeped in that Sword Path could explain it to another person.

The identity of the elder, whom I had stayed beside for ten years without ever understanding, slipped out of reach once more.

Hyeonam was neither a bandit nor a wandering martial artist. Why would someone from the same lineage as Wudang hide alone in those deep mountains and drag away a mere child from a fishing village to teach him the sword?

"If you are not from Wudang, there is nothing more to ask."

Whatever he made of my silence, Du Gi continued.

"I believed in Wudang's Way and risked my life against the Plum Blossom Sword Corps. I even revealed my identity."

Du Gi's voice lowered slightly.

"But why is Wudang, the Northern Dipper of the righteous factions, working through such back channels? You add your sword to Nangong's filthy work, yet remain silent to the end."

His tone was close to an accusation. After he finished speaking, Du Gi slowly rose.

Once he stood, I saw that the left side of his undershirt and his right shoulder were dark red with blood. The bloody stains had spread wide. His injuries could not be shallow. Even the fingers holding his sword trembled faintly.

"Get up."

Did he intend to fight me in that condition? I watched him for a while.

Unlike what I had first thought, he seemed to be an upright man.

Come to think of it, when Ma Jeongsan had fought the spearman, the yellow-hooded bandits had disrupted the fight by throwing stones from the side. Du Gi had immediately roared and charged up the slope.

Even injured, he did not know how to retreat. There was no sign in his expression that he was hiding something or weighing his interests. His were not the eyes of someone calculating profit or crafting lies.

Besides, I needed someone to ask as well.

Wudang, Mount Hua, Nangong. I had been swept up in all of this without knowing a thing. Unless I learned how this damned situation worked, I did not think I could safely make it back to Yeongpa.

I knew too little. So perhaps it would be better to...

"Wait."

I raised a hand to stop him.

"There seems to be a misunderstanding, so I will explain my circumstances. Listen to everything first. If you still intend to raise your sword afterward, then do so."

* * *

For the first time, I told someone everything that had happened. How the elder had dragged me away from the fishing village, how I had spent ten years doing nothing but swing a sword in the mountains, how I had cut down the elder and descended from the mountain. How I had cut down bandits, met Munhwi, and entered Geonnyeong.

I told him how I had joined the protection convoy and was now heading home to find my family.

There was nothing I needed to hide, so I told him everything as it had happened.

Du Gi sat back down and listened without interrupting. Even in the firelight, I could not tell whether he believed me.

"That is what happened."

After I finished, Du Gi finally spoke after a long silence.

He said that it was quietly known among people in the martial world that Wudang had been pursuing someone for a long time. But he did not know who that person was or what had made them a fugitive.

Du Gi's manner had grown considerably gentler. Fortunately, he seemed to believe at least some of what I had told him.

Then I took the opportunity.

I carefully asked what Mount Hua, Nangong, and Wudang actually were. At first, Du Gi seemed reluctant, but he had already let half of it slip from his own mouth. Reluctantly, he explained them one by one.

After hearing him out, those grand names were all groups of people who knew their way around a sword.

But he said that even those groups were divided into two kinds. Wudang and Mount Hua were martial sects that passed their sword arts from master to disciple, and Wudang stood at the forefront among them.

Nangong, on the other hand, was a great clan passed down only through blood.

It seemed that, whether martial sects or great clans, those groups competed over rank and tangled over interests. This incident was probably one such matter.

I understood half of it, while the other half remained a complete mystery. Still, names that had seemed unfamiliar only moments ago were beginning to take on a vague shape.

"You truly know nothing. How did you get caught up in something like this? Your luck is truly terrible."

I had nothing to say in reply, so I only stared at the flames.

Until moments ago, his eyes had been full of suspicion as he tried to judge whether I was from Wudang. Now they held an entirely different look. It was the look one gave a country bumpkin who knew nothing at all about the martial world.

Pretending not to notice, I asked the rest of my questions.

Cold-Faced Sword was the chief steward's sobriquet. Du Gi added that those skilled with a sword were given such sobriquets, and that Cold-Faced Sword had been a master of some renown in the martial world a generation ago.

He also told me that the Plum Blossom Sword Chief was the leader of the Plum Blossom Sword Corps that had attacked us, a title given to Mount Hua's best swordsman.

I considered asking what Sacha was while I had the chance, but decided against it. It seemed to be at the heart of this entire affair.

If I questioned him carelessly, I might raise the guard that had only just begun to lower again.

Still, I had heard quite a lot. As I tried to digest it all one piece at a time, another thought came to me.

"Did you happen to see the man who leaped out of the carriage at the end and cut the Plum Blossom Sword Chief? His name is Munhwi. Do you know who he is?"

"Munhwi?"

Du Gi looked at me for a moment, confusion in his eyes. I explained that he was the man who had recommended the protection convoy to me.

Then Du Gi hesitated before speaking.

"It seems he concealed his name. That man is not Munhwi."

He tossed the twig in his hand into the fire. The flames surged once, then settled.

"His name is Nangong Hwi. He is Nangong's Second Young Master."

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