Chapter 2 :

Chapter 2: The Third-Rate Warrior Who Remembers Everything (2)

“……Senior Brother, what are you doing?”

Right now, I was looking at Geumpyo, whose dying figure was still vivid in my memories.

“Geumpyo…….”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

Geumpyo hurriedly rummaged through his clothes and took out a small pouch.

“Don’t tell me you stole my taffy?”

“…….”

Seriously, what the hell kind of person was I?

“……Anyway, I’m sorry.”

“The taffy’s still here……. Ah, damn it, what is this?”

After apologizing to Geumpyo, whom I had failed to protect in my previous life, I quietly eased a little of my guilt and asked,

“Isn’t it class time right now? What about class? Why did you come here?”

Geumpyo said with an absurd expression,

“If you know that, why are you lying on the wooden platform?”

“My head hurts a little.”

“You’ve been using that excuse for a whole week now.”

“Has it already been that long?”

But I had been busy in my own way.

From this moment onward, I had to think through all the disasters that would happen in the future, and I had to find out why Taeul Sect fell and when the problems had started.

“I’ve been busy in my own way…….”

“……That posture does not make you sound credible at all.”

“It’s true. I was thinking about the future of our sect.”

My sect, Taeul Sect, was a small sword sect near Hefei in Anhui Province.

It had a long history but no tradition, and while it had many martial arts, its martial force was weak.

When parents compared Taeul Sect to a large martial academy, most chose the martial academy.

If there were any advantages at all, it would be that Taeul Sect provided one meal a day and that it held one of the Martial Alliance’s “One Hundred and Eight Peaks,” I suppose?

‘The biggest question is how we even got into the One Hundred and Eight Peaks.’

Our sect had neither martial power nor wealth, and yet even though we had never once bribed the higher-ups of the Alliance, we had never been pushed out of the One Hundred and Eight Peaks.

By maintaining the position of the “One Hundred and Eight Peaks,” one could be somewhat free from territorial disputes and armed conflicts with other martial sects.

Whatever pretext there might be, if a war broke out between sects, the Martial Alliance’s principle was to side with the “One Hundred and Eight Peaks.”

Because of that, Taeul Sect had been somewhat free from the wild competition between sects in Hefei.

However, it was more or less because of this “One Hundred and Eight Peaks” position that the sect was destroyed, so it could not necessarily be called a good thing.

How was I supposed to get through this contradictory situation…….

“……Senior Brother!”

“……Huh?”

“Taeul Sect is perfectly fine, so stop worrying and get up.”

“……How could a sparrow understand the deep intentions of a stork?”

“The head of Busaeng Hall is looking for you.”

“Why is that bastard looking for me?”

“……No matter what, calling the hall head ‘that bastard’ is a bit…….”

The current head of Busaeng Hall was not a member of Taeul Sect.

To be precise, he belonged to the Gyeryong Merchant Guild and was the younger brother of the guildmaster. The only thing he could boast about was that he had once been a secular disciple of Mount Hua.

Then why was such a man acting as a hall head in Taeul Sect?

Because the Gyeryong Merchant Guildmaster had planted him there as a supervisor, fearing that his son, who had become a secular disciple of Taeul Sect, might learn Taeul Sect’s “bad martial arts.”

This contradictory story, which had no plausibility at all, could be explained by one of the privileges of the “One Hundred and Eight Peaks”: the “special admission track to the Martial Academy.”

The first step to success in the Martial Alliance was admission to the Martial Academy.

However, getting in through regular admission was extremely difficult.

So, in order to enter through the special admission track granted to the One Hundred and Eight Peaks, the precious young master of the Gyeryong Merchant Guild had entered the insignificant third-rate sect, Taeul Sect, as a secular disciple.

The impoverished Taeul Sect accepted most of their demands in order to receive the Gyeryong Merchant Guild’s support.

“If I don’t call a bastard like that a bastard, then what should I call him?”

Geumpyo giggled as though he found that satisfying.

“Anyway, he says you must attend today.”

“Hmm…… Did he say they were holding sparring today?”

“……It seems like that’s the mood.”

Worry appeared on Geumpyo’s face.

Legal violence carried out under the name of sparring.

Sparring class was currently the class Taeul Sect’s disciples hated the most.

“Tsk. And that’s all a guy who calls himself a secular disciple of Mount Hua can think of.”

I slowly got up.

They were not faces I particularly wanted to see, but I could not exactly stand by and watch my junior brothers get beaten, could I?

#

Crack.

“Ugh!”

As soon as I entered Busaeng Hall, I saw one of Taeul Sect’s disciples clutching his head and rolling on the floor.

Saryeon quickly ran over, checked the fallen child’s wound, and glared at Gye Cheolyeong.

For some reason, Gye Cheolyeong seemed to misunderstand Saryeon’s gaze and smiled triumphantly.

“How was it? Cool, right?”

That idiot. Tsk, tsk.

I approached the child Saryeon was helping up.

“Let me see for a moment.”

Fortunately, there was no wound.

In truth, head injuries were more frightening when there was no bleeding, but in the first place, there was no way the current Gye Cheolyeong had that much strength, so there was probably no need to worry too much.

“When you get home, press it with a cold stone. It’ll help bring down the bump.”

“Ah, yes…….”

The child wiped away the tears gathered around his eyes and bravely returned to his seat.

“What is this? You said your head hurt. Are you all right now?”

At Saryeon’s question, I shook my head.

“No, my head got even more complicated, so I came out.”

“What?”

Keeping my gaze away from Saryeon, I spoke to Gye Yeonseung, the head of Busaeng Hall.

“How about ending sparring class here?”

“What?”

“It seems quite a lot of the junior brothers have already been injured.”

More than half the disciples sitting there were clutching their heads, shoulders, or arms.

Every single one of them had been assaulted under the pretext of sparring.

“Jin Sowoon, you show up late and start spouting that nonsense?”

“Isn’t this sparring just meant to show how great Senior Brother Gye Cheolyeong is anyway?”

“What did you say!”

I looked at Gye Cheolyeong, who was standing smugly beside Gye Yeonseung.

“And Senior Brother Gye. No matter how poor Saryeon’s taste may be—and I mean really, really poor—do you think she would ever like a good-for-nothing like you? Dream big, why don’t you.”

“Jin Sowoon, you bastard! How dare you!”

Just as Gye Cheolyeong’s face turned bright red and he was about to spring forward,

Gye Yeonseung raised a hand and stopped him.

“So in your eyes, this sparring looks like nothing more than that?”

Fire burned in Gye Yeonseung’s eyes. Whether it did or not, I continued speaking.

“I honestly don’t know what we are learning in Busaeng Hall these days. Isn’t it just physical training and sparring class every day?”

“That is all for actual combat…….”

“At this rate, I think practicing forms alone would be better.”

“What did you…….”

Gye Yeonseung’s face flushed red as though it might burst.

“How dare you say that in front of me, a disciple of Mount Hua?”

“Not a disciple. A secular disciple, aren’t you? Just like Senior Brother Gye, someone who paid ‘money’ to learn swordsmanship.”

I had only stated the truth, but for some reason, Gye Yeonseung looked even angrier.

This must be why they say the truth can be violence too.

“You, you bastard!”

Killing intent slowly seeped out from Gye Yeonseung’s body.

Not only Saryeon and the junior brothers, but even Gye Cheolyeong instinctively felt fear and took a step back.

But strangely, I was not afraid at all. It was not as though my martial arts were superior to Gye Yeonseung’s.

‘Well, compared to the guys I dealt with in my previous life, this killing intent is like child’s play.’

After roughly accepting that, I continued speaking.

If we could not strike with skill, we struck with words. That was the way of the Sojeong Unit.

“Honestly, I wish you and Senior Brother Gye would stop doing this. Then at least my junior brothers and I would be able to learn Taeul Sect’s martial arts.”

“Ha, haha. Are you saying it is better to learn from Taeul Sect’s hall heads than from me?”

“Isn’t there nothing we can learn from you in the first place? Secular disciples are not allowed to pass their sect’s martial arts on to others. On top of that, you have no real combat experience at all.”

“Ugh…….”

Gye Yeonseung began trembling.

Saryeon came close beside me and whispered,

“What are you doing, Senior Brother! Have you gone insane?”

“I don’t know. It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Damn it, I don’t know anymore either.

A future obviously filled with nothing but despair.

Me, unable to do anything.

Maybe if I died here after being struck by Gye Yeonseung’s blade, Gye Cheolyeong would have no choice but to leave Taeul Sect too.

Then perhaps a disciple of Taeul Sect could go to the Martial Academy through the special admission track.

‘Though I suppose nothing would really change just because one person went.’

Even if they went to the Martial Alliance as a low-ranking warrior, there would be nothing to do but serve as a meat shield.

Still, to actively take part in the Righteous-Demonic War, one had to enter the Martial Academy.

In the first place, the opportunity must not be taken away by Gye Cheolyeong, who was trying to enter the Martial Academy to rise through the ranks of the Martial Alliance.

“Haah…… So that’s what you thought? Fine. You must have that much skill if you said such things. Come out right now! Prove it in front of Cheolyeong!”

This was how it always went.

If the end of every argument was an exercise of force, then in the end, there was nothing more to say.

If this had happened in the past, I would have tucked my tail between my legs around now.

‘Haah, I guess I’ll have to show him a lesson.’

Even if it was meaningless venting, didn’t it gain meaning if it made me feel better?

I held out my hand to Saryeon.

Saryeon hid the wooden sword behind her back and said,

“……Senior Brother, if you fight him now, you’ll really get badly hurt. Just apologize.”

“Why would I apologize when I haven’t done anything wrong?”

I used White Peak Hand, snatched the wooden sword from Saryeon’s hand, and stepped forward.

“Jin Sowoon! Take your opening stance!”

“Why would I need an opening stance just to face Senior Brother Gye…… Let’s just begin.”

I rested the wooden sword on my shoulder, signaling that I was ready.

Perhaps my flippant response displeased him greatly, because Gye Cheolyeong’s expression was not much different from Gye Yeonseung’s.

“Jin Sowoon! How dare you speak to the hall head like that!”

“Senior Brother, let’s start already.”

“You really need to be taught a lesson.”

Gye Cheolyeong began taking an opening stance that did not belong to Taeul Sect.

‘Three Shadows Sword. A sword art I was beaten by countless times in my previous life.’

It was a martial art he had learned after inviting and studying under Heon Wonsu, a wandering warrior famous in Shaanxi Province.

I had memorized the forms and techniques the moment I saw them for the first time, but in my previous life, I had not had the ability to dodge and counter them.

But now, I was a former low-ranking warrior of the Martial Alliance and even had the glorious career of serving as a meat shield in the Sojeong Unit against various armed groups of the Demonic Cult, including the Heavenly Demon Black Sword Unit.

I would not be beaten one-sidedly by a twenty-year-old Gye Cheolyeong.

“Begin!!”

No sooner had Gye Yeonseung’s words fallen than Gye Cheolyeong stepped with footwork and shot forward as though gliding.

It was clearly not Taeul Sect’s footwork.

Gye Cheolyeong’s first technique was deliberately aiming for the eyes.

As expected of a wandering warrior’s sword art, the sword formula was extremely rough, and the momentum was incredibly fierce.

It was only natural that Taeul Sect’s young disciples would panic.

‘But.’

Compared to those Demonic Cult bastards obsessed with murder, all of it was nothing but child’s play.

Moreover, Gye Cheolyeong had neither Heon Wonsu’s life-risking spirit nor the desperation to make a single technique succeed.

Even if it was the same martial art, the way it was executed was completely different.

There was no need to use any other martial art I had gained in my previous life.

The Small Heaven Sword Art, which every child in Busaeng Hall knew, was enough.

Tap.

I struck Gye Cheolyeong’s sword upward with the flat of my blade and poured out the third technique of the Small Heaven Sword Art.

Thud, thud, thud!

In an instant, the wooden sword patted various parts of Gye Cheolyeong’s body.

“Keuk!”

Gye Cheolyeong’s eyes widened as though he had snapped back to his senses.

I swung the Small Heaven Sword Art once more and drove Gye Cheolyeong back.

“Huh…….”

“……Wow.”

“Isn’t that the Small Heaven Sword Art?”

The children’s surprised exclamations burst out at the familiar techniques.

On the other hand, even though the techniques were familiar to him, Gye Cheolyeong could not respond to each one properly and was floundering.

In the end, the moment he failed to continue his technique and revealed an opening,

“I see an opening. Senior Brother!”

I struck his head down with all my strength.

Crack!

Along with the sound of something breaking, a scream rang out.

“Aaaagh!”

Gye Cheolyeong dropped his sword, clutched his head, and began rolling on the ground.

“Kraaaagh!”

After a momentary silence, the children of Taeul Sect began shouting.

“““Waaaaaah!”””

“Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!”

Gye Yeonseung, who had been checking on Gye Cheolyeong, released a fierce aura and shouted harshly.

“Everyone back to your places!”

Feeling fear at the pressure of an adult—and one with powerful martial arts at that—the children quickly returned to their places and swallowed hard.

“Aaaagh, my head!”

Gye Cheolyeong, who had been feeling his head, sensed something strange and lowered his hand to look at it.

His hand was stained red.

Gye Yeonseung saw it too and glared at me as though he would kill me.

“How did this happen!”

“What do you mean?”

“I am asking how you defeated Cheolyeong.”

“I defeated him with the Small Heaven Sword Art.”

“The Three Shadows Sword lost to something like the Small Heaven Sword Art…….”

Gye Yeonseung, who had been about to speak, suddenly stopped.

No matter how much the Gyeryong Merchant Guild held Taeul Sect in the palm of its hand, there were still lines that must not be crossed. Gye Yeonseung barely kept to that line.

“There is a great difference in form between the Three Shadows Sword and the Small Heaven Sword Art. I am asking how you bridged that gap.”

Gye Yeonseung was talking around the point.

To put it simply, his fundamental question was how the Small Heaven Sword Art, which was nothing more than a basic martial art, could defeat the Three Shadows Sword, which had even produced peak experts.

“Where in the world is there such a thing as ‘absolute’? If the practitioner is lacking…….”

As I spoke, a realization struck my head, and my mind snapped awake.

—The Demonic Cult will return.

—The Martial Alliance will fall at the hands of the Demonic Cult.

—Taeul Sect belongs to the Martial Alliance, so it will fall with it.

—And in the midst of that, I, whose memory is pointlessly good, will be used here and there before dying.

Were these things also “absolute” and unchanging?

“Seeing as you cannot speak properly, it is clear you used some trick, isn’t it?”

As I was lost in thought for a moment, Gye Yeonseung’s bullshit reached my ears, and my face naturally crumpled.

“……What kind of nonsense is that now?”

“The gap between a basic sword art and an advanced sword art cannot be bridged. That is common sense for those who train in martial arts.”

“Does Mount Hua teach you to make excuses like that when your own skill is lacking?”

“You brat……! Take back those words right now!”

“Was I wrong?”

“Fine! Then try bridging that gap against me.”

“…….”

Contempt appeared in Hong Saryeon’s eyes and in the eyes of the junior brothers.

No matter how generously one looked at it, this was an adult throwing a tantrum against a child.

“Are you serious?”

“Of course, I will not use internal energy and will face you only with techniques. Why, can you not prove it?”

“Before that, should you not take Senior Brother Gye to a physician?”

Gye Cheolyeong, who had been shouting that it hurt, seemed to be expecting Gye Yeonseung to avenge him, so he stopped crying and shook his head as if nothing was wrong.

“I, I’m fine.”

Hey, man, you’re still bleeding.

“I will ask again. Can you not prove it?”

Maybe I had been soaked in defeatism before I even began.

My situation was certainly just as hopeless as it had been in my previous life.

But decisively, the “me” from my previous life and the “me” now were clearly different, weren’t they?

Just as I had said, where was there such a thing as “absolute”?

If everything had been predetermined, then it would not have made sense for our Sojeong Unit to have taken down the Guardian Dharma King of the Demonic Cult in the first place.

‘So I won’t run away in fear like before!’

I raised my head and looked at Gye Yeonseung.

“If I prove it?”

“What?”

“What will you do if I prove it? An adult is throwing a tantrum against a child, so it would make no sense for the child to have no advantage at all, would it?”

Gye Yeonseung’s face stiffened.

It was the face of someone who genuinely wanted to kill me.

“What do you want?”

What did I need right now?

If I was not going to give up on the opportunity, then more than anything, I needed time.

“If I win, please acknowledge that I have completed Busaeng Hall. I will no longer attend Busaeng Hall.”

“……Fine.”

Gye Yeonseung went to one side and picked up a wooden sword.

His aura was so severe that it was clear this would not end with just one broken arm.

I held my wooden sword upright.

Thinking about it, what Sect Leader Hong Mungi had offered the Gyeryong Merchant Guild was an “opportunity” to enter the sect.

That meant we, too, always had the chance to compete with Gye Cheolyeong for the “special admission spot.”

Even so, none of Taeul Sect’s disciples, including me, had ever thought of challenging that opportunity.

The result of giving up without even protecting it was the destruction of the sect.

I could not just sit still and recreate that terrible nightmare.

“Begin!”

The sword art most favored by Gye Yeonseung, a secular disciple of Mount Hua, was Mount Hua’s secret technique, the Plum Blossom Sword Art.

Inside my head, the sword paths through which the Plum Blossom Sword Art would unfold already began appearing one after another.

And then came the weaknesses in those following sword paths.

Jegal Cheon, a once-in-a-generation genius, had researched the martial arts of the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Families in order to turn them into martial arts capable of opposing the Demonic Cult. In doing so, he created breaking forms, ascending forms, and demon-subduing forms suited to each sect.

However, the problem was that there was no way to deliver Jegal’s Three Forms to the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Families, which had splintered and spread throughout the world.

And at that time, I, who possessed a useless absolute memory, was entrusted with that task.

‘Even if I lack internal energy, there is no way Cheon’s breaking form will fail to work.’

Gye Yeonseung unleashed the Plum Blossom Sword Art.

Because he did not draw up his internal energy, I could not smell the fragrance of plum blossoms, but every single movement was incomparably elegant.

At once, I saw the breaking form of the Plum Blossom Sword Art that surfaced in my mind and stabbed into its weakness.

“You bastard!”

Just as Gye Yeonseung’s wooden sword was about to strike my head, the same way I had done to Gye Cheolyeong,

Thud, thud!

“Hup!”

Gye Yeonseung, who had lost his grip on his sword in midair, fumbled and barely managed to catch the wooden sword again.

“What in the…….”

The breaking form of the Plum Blossom Sword Art unfolded.

Gye Yeonseung used the Plum Blossom Sword Art he was most confident in, but there was no way power could be carried by a sword art that had already been broken.

Had he sensed something was strange?

I felt internal energy flowing into Gye Yeonseung’s wooden sword.

‘It’s already too late!’

The breaking form of the Plum Blossom Sword Art that had unfolded broke the Plum Blossom Sword Art empowered by internal energy, and at the same time knocked Gye Yeonseung’s sword out of his hand.

“!!”

In an instant, the wooden sword flew from Gye Yeonseung’s grasp.

I struck his head hard, and he raised both arms to block his head.

Crack!

“Kheuk!”

With a dull sound, the wooden sword that had slipped from Gye Yeonseung’s hand belatedly struck the wall hard.

Thump. Clatter.

Gye Yeonseung’s wooden sword rolled across the floor.

Gye Yeonseung had barely blocked my wooden sword with both hands.

Once again, silence wrapped around Busaeng Hall for a moment.

“““Waaaaaaah!!”””

Taeul Sect’s disciples all rushed out at once and surrounded me.

Gye Yeonseung stared at his own hands with disbelief in his eyes.

I slowly looked around.

This was definitely something that had not happened in my previous life.

‘Yes, it is different from my previous life. Everything will be different from now on.’