WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Satori

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◈ Wanderer of the Martial World ◈

Chapter 3

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I sat on the porch with a brazier at my side, drinking baijiu.

The harsh alcohol melted away my frayed nerves.

“Whew...”

I drank with stir-fried pork as a snack.

I had not gone with Yi Pyeong earlier because I had not wanted to deal with people.

I preferred soothing myself alone like this.

Creak.

A door opened in the house opposite, and a figure emerged.

It was a full moon, so I could at least make out the silhouette of the person coming out.

A woman with a familiar build.

Maybe it was the brazier’s firelight.

I could feel her looking at me through the darkness.

Then she slowly approached me.

“You’re back.”

Her voice was gentle.

“Yes.”

She naturally sat beside me.

We sat side by side with the brazier, bottle, and stir-fried pork between us.

Her face came into view in the faint firelight.

A straight nose, large eyes, and lips framing neat teeth.

Even in the weak light, her clear white skin stood out beautifully.

Though she looked worn down, she was beautiful.

“Did you wash up?”

“...Yes.”

In this place, being beautiful was a crime for the weak.

No, perhaps it was the same anywhere.

That was why she smeared soot across her face whenever she went out, hiding her beauty.

At least before we slept together, she washed her face, so I could see her bare face properly.

“Would you like a drink?”

“...Yes.”

I handed her the cup beside me.

I had brought it for myself, but I had been drinking straight from the bottle, so it had gone unused.

I filled the cup with baijiu, and she drank it without hesitation.

“Have some food too.”

“I’m fine.”

Despite the strong liquor, the woman did not so much as frown.

It was the way of drinking unique to someone whose life was harsher than alcohol.

It occurred to me that I knew almost nothing about her.

All I knew was that her husband had been an older man, that she had arrived here while pregnant, and that she had been left alone after he died in an accident.

I had happened to overhear it while drawing water at the well, listening to the neighborhood women chat.

“...I have always been grateful to you, benefactor.”

She spoke in a lovely voice.

Grateful...

“It was only natural.”

“It’s a world where what should be natural isn’t.”

I had started living in this house not long after her husband died.

Then, one day, as I was returning from a job, I found two men trying to force themselves on her.

At the time, I was Third Grade, third-rate.

Normally, I could have dealt with two thugs from the slums in an instant, but I had been injured during the job, so it had not been easy.

In the end, I had only managed to kill them because luck had been on my side.

And she had not changed expression even when she witnessed the killings.

As we carried their bodies deeper into the slums and walked back, I impulsively told her that I would pay her if she slept with me.

Thinking back on it now, it was completely insane, but my blood-heated brain had made me say it.

She stared at me in stunned silence for a moment, then blankly nodded.

And that was how our relationship had continued until now.

She was a strong person.

As far as I knew, she could have easily made money by using the means available to a beautiful woman, but she had not done so.

She had simply raised her son by taking odd jobs.

Other than her relationship with me, there was no stain on her.

“My name is Hwang Jeong-un.”

I told her my name.

She might have already known it, but it was the first time I had said it to her directly.

“...I’m Yun Seoryeong.”

“A pretty name.”

I poured her another drink.

When the cup was full, she drank.

I raised the bottle and swallowed the strong liquor myself.

She had been gazing blankly at the moon when she spoke.

“...When I was little, I often played hide-and-seek with my older brother. Thinking about it now, he was just playing with me... One day, I hid in the wardrobe drawer because I didn’t want to be found.”

She quietly recited a memory.

“Then I fell asleep... When I woke up, everyone was looking for me.”

Perhaps remembering that moment, a faint smile bloomed on her face.

“My brother was scolded badly, but he didn’t blame me. Instead, he said he was glad and held me tightly. And... whenever I see that moon... I think of him.”

Sadness settled into her smile.

It was the first time I had heard of her past.

I did not know what had happened or what circumstances she had faced, but I simply listened.

It felt like that was what I should do.

She took her eyes off the moon and looked at me.

The faint moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes made her look pitiful.

“I’m happy now. Gyeong is growing up well... and you help us too, benefactor.”

Predatory hands had reached for her more than once.

She walked around with soot on her face because things similar to before had happened several times.

Fortunately, they had always happened while I was around, so I had been able to help her.

Before I knew it, I reached for her.

I placed my hand on her cold cheek and stole a kiss from her lips.

We parted, facing each other from close by.

“...Would tonight be all right?”

Knowing what I meant, she glanced toward her house before answering.

“...I think it can only be brief...”

I took her hand and went inside.

That day, she did not accept the silver taels.

Like any other day, my day began with training.

First, I filled my stomach with the stir-fried pork left over from yesterday, then began qi circulation and breath regulation in my room.

The inner-energy method I possessed consisted only of Qi Accumulation, so I could build internal energy but could not circulate it. Still, looking at it positively, I was fortunate to have even that.

Most ordinary wanderers had no cultivation method at all, or they ruined their bodies by practicing whatever method they had heard secondhand.

Judging by the internal energy I had accumulated so far, at least my method was not dangerous.

“Whew...”

I inhaled shallowly and exhaled for a long time.

As I slowly released the breath I had drawn in, pressure built within my body.

I held back one-tenth of my breath, then layered another tenth on top of it.

Only after the pressure had been fully built over ten breaths did I slowly let it all out.

Maintaining that pressure until then was the most important part of this method.

Doing so made my pea-sized internal energy grow by a tiny amount.

Of course, throughout the process, I had to focus on that pressure while reciting a sort of mnemonic formula.

Maintain the pressure, focus my mind on it, and recite the formula in my head.

A grueling task where I had to start over from the beginning if even one of those things went wrong.

That was the method I possessed.

“Haaa... whew...”

Inner energy was a mysterious force.

Something science could never explain.

Even without being able to circulate it, merely possessing internal energy enhanced my physical abilities across the board.

Reaction speed, agility, strength.

Everything improved.

I had been lucky to acquire this method.

When I first settled into this house, an elderly beggar with dementia had been staying nearby.

I had learned it from him after buying him meals.

He was an old man who always muttered that he was the greatest man under heaven, and that if he had had time, he surely would have reached that position.

I had wondered, “Doesn’t that mean he wasn’t the greatest under heaven after all?” But I had nothing to lose, and at the time it had seemed hopeless that I would find an inner-energy method, so I bought him food and asked him about it.

One day, the old man who had taught me the method disappeared. Later, I found him frozen to death in a corner of the market alley.

It was a cold winter. I had offered him a room in my house, but it had still happened.

“Whew...”

I finished the breathing method.

The more I practiced, the more accustomed I became to building layers of pressure, but maintaining my concentration was difficult.

I immediately picked up my straight saber and went into the backyard.

The first thing I did was stretch.

To keep myself flexible, I mixed in yoga poses I vaguely remembered and stretched my body as far as I could.

After stretching for about thirty minutes, I stood in the yard with my straight saber in hand.

The cool blade of the straight saber caught the light in the small backyard, which was just large enough for training alone.

After yesterday’s battle, I had wiped the blood from it on a dead wanderer’s clothes and finished cleaning it with an oilcloth I had prepared beforehand.

I slowly examined the blade for chips or cracks.

Fortunately, it looked like it would hold up for now.

I raised the straight saber and took a middle guard stance.

I had never learned swordsmanship. I had not even learned kendo back when I was in the modern world.

That was why I used practical swordsmanship.

It sounded nice to call it practical swordsmanship, but really, it was simply swordsmanship I had developed through real fights.

A blade’s forms were important. That was true whether I used a straight saber or a broad saber.

Just as a fighter prepared combinations according to their opponent and trained until the movements came out instinctively, swordsmanship was the same.

Martial sects and martial clans had refined such things over generations into martial arts forms.

I had heard that when they fought, their strange guard stances and seemingly pointless movements were designed to match their qi-circulation methods.

That was why their martial arts could wield extraordinary power.

Of course, I did not have anything like that, so I had to make do this way.

An imaginary opponent swung a sword at me.

A blade cutting diagonally toward my neck.

Clang.

My straight saber came down and blocked it, and I heard steel striking steel inside my head.

As my straight saber pressed down on the blade, I stepped forward half a pace and pushed hard, driving it forward.

Whoosh.

When my opponent turned their head aside to avoid the saber, I rotated my wrist, turned the edge toward their neck, and slashed downward.

Shhk!

The opponent in my imagination staggered while clutching their neck.

Back to my starting stance.

The sequence was the same up to the thrust, but this time I quickly drew back my straight saber and blocked the opponent’s blade as it came for my waist.

Clang.

Then I moved the straight saber, now angled in the reverse direction, and thrust it directly into my opponent’s thigh.

“Whew...”

Back to my starting stance.

My swordsmanship pursued simplicity and lethality.

Deflect the opponent’s weapon as I blocked, then disable them with the following movement.

The direction my straight saber moved while deflecting their attack became the direction of my next strike.

Even when that was not possible, I moved it in the most lethal direction I could.

That was how I trained, imagining opponents in my head.

They could be beginners, wanderers, or disciples of a martial sect.

My movements were concise but fast, and internal energy was gradually consumed to produce speed and movement beyond human limits.

I went back inside to replenish my spent internal energy, then returned to the backyard and began strength training.

I did push-ups, then alternated between squats and lunges.

I finished with burpees.

Then I picked up my blade again.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Overhead cuts, thrusts, horizontal cuts, diagonal cuts.

Muscles already trembling from strength training cried out.

Without using internal energy, I pushed the limits of my body through raw physical strain.

How much time passed?

By the time the sun high overhead had sunk and dusk was about to fall, I finished training.

I went to the well, drew water, and wiped myself down with a dry cloth dampened in water.

After changing clothes, I stepped out of my room because I was hungry. That was when I saw Seoryeong coming out of the house opposite.

“Where are you going?”

At my question, she smiled faintly.

Perhaps because of last night, it felt like it was the first time she had smiled at me when looking at me.

“I’m going to pick up Gyeong.”

“And that...”

I pointed at the small basket she held, and her face reddened slightly.

“We ran out of rice...”

“Hmm... Then let’s go together. I was about to head out for a meal myself.”

“Pardon?”

I took her basket as if snatching it away and headed down first.

I could sense her hurrying after me from behind.

A smile came to my face without my realizing it.

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