Part 43 - Genius
"Captain, did you really cancel your transfer request?"
The gate guard just shrugged without answering.
Seeing that, the other guards stationed with him at the entrance to Wongakjeong reacted like they couldn't believe it.
"What, have you lost your mind? You suffered through all that time just to get worked like a dog by that Swordless bastard again?"
"Are you seriously insane? Think it over one more time. A warrior at your level—wherever you go in the Sword Clan, you'd be treated with respect."
The gate guard gave a short snort of laughter.
"…Then why aren't you lot taking the path out of here? Why are you wearing guard uniforms and standing around watching a gate?"
His colleagues stared at him like he'd said something absurd.
"Because dedicating everything to the Sword Clan is the most honorable path, isn't it?"
"And honestly, this is better than getting ground up on the front lines."
"Besides, it's a hell of a lot better than licking the asses of those power-hungry bastards just to puff out your chest."
They burst into loud laughter.
After the Clan Lord collapsed, the political situation had become chaos itself—yet the Sword Clan hadn't split into pieces. That was probably because there were so many men like these.
"Then what's your dream?" the gate guard asked. "You can't possibly want to live forever just doing whatever duty gets assigned to you."
Everyone fell quiet.
After a moment, one man spoke in a low voice.
"…Isn't a warrior's dream to serve his liege lord?"
"Our only liege lord is the Retired Supreme Clan Lord."
"I just wish he'd get back on his feet already."
"I want to receive orders directly from the Retired Supreme Clan Lord again. Not instructions from desk-bound high officials."
Their conversation drifted back to the old days, when the Retired Supreme Clan Lord had been active as Clan Lord.
Watching them trade memories with warm faces, the gate guard murmured under his breath.
"…Liege lord."
He looked up at the sky.
He remembered the day he'd burned with fury at some lowlife riffraff from the Black Bone Sect, and then felt disappointed in himself.
What's there to apologize for? You did your part.
On the face of the Swordless as he said those words, something in him had stirred—an old memory rising back to the surface.
That mountain-like presence.
That cliff-like presence that never crumbled.
What are you so sorry for? You did your best.
He could count on one hand the number of times he'd ever faced his liege lord—the Retired Supreme Clan Lord—in person.
He'd been a warrior who mostly served outside, and his liege lord had been the Clan Lord of the Luoyang Sword Clan.
Maybe that was why.
For some reason, the two faces kept overlapping in his mind.
***
He was walking along the forest path of Wongakjeong.
A stack of routine correspondence—nothing important—had piled up, and he'd come to deliver it.
After passing through a formation so wondrous that "mysterious" didn't even begin to cover it, a breathtaking landscape opened before him.
He paused to enjoy the fresh air, then started walking again.
When he reached a clearing, he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Sword Clan Secret Sword, Seonyeong Chalna…?"
He rubbed his eyes.
But no matter how many times he looked, the scene didn't change.
It was that maid—the one who always reminded him of his own daughter, married off far away from Luoyang.
Just days ago, she'd been an ordinary person with no inner power at all.
And yet now, faintly but clearly, he could feel the presence of inner power from her.
And what was this swordsmanship she was displaying?
It was unmistakably a high-level martial art—one infamous for sending Sword Clan masters crashing down in defeat after they challenged it with confidence.
That level isn't just one or two parts complete…
Her internal energy was nowhere near sufficient, but the form—the shape of it—was at a level that could be called complete.
Still standing there blankly, he watched as Jeong-a finished the full sequence and dipped her head.
"You've come."
The sight of her in black martial attire, sweat beading on her skin, felt unfamiliar.
"I was given strict orders not to stop once I begin, so my greeting is late."
"N-no. Personal attendant—since when have you been learning that martial art?"
"I'm ashamed to stain your eyes with such paltry skill."
Blushing, she tried to hide the sword behind her back.
"…I haven't even learned for a full half-day. If you'd kindly see it as a cute little trick, I'd be grateful."
"…Huh?"
"Yes?"
Just then, footsteps sounded behind him, and someone called out.
"Hey! Gate guard! Stop getting in the way and get over here!"
***
"Oh, perfect timing."
The First Young Master, as always, had not put down the book in his hands.
"First Young Master—um, I just saw something strange back there…"
Still dazed, the gate guard spoke, and the First Young Master frowned.
"You didn't go spouting nonsense, did you? Seonyeong Chalna—at least for that, she's better than you. Don't run your mouth."
"No, but—she said it was only half a day—"
The First Young Master snatched the bundle of documents from his hands.
"That's not what matters."
Then he ordered him flatly.
"Cook."
***
Did I cancel my transfer request for this?
Just a few days ago she didn't have a scrap of inner power…
Half a day?
Those thoughts wouldn't leave his head.
The moment he sat down at the table he'd set and put a spoonful of rice into his mouth, Yeon Sang-hyeon's expression hardened.
"…Jeong-a."
"…I will request reinforcements at once."
She pulled the spoon back out, set it down untouched, and hurried away.
"Gate guard, you bastard. You can't even cook properly?"
"N-no, it's just—"
Yeon Sang-hyeon, who never wasted food, forced himself to shove it into his mouth anyway and snapped at him.
"Your Seonyeong Chalna is worse than that kid's, and now you can't even cook—what the hell am I supposed to use you for…?"
The First Young Master clicked his tongue. The gate guard could only tremble, unable to say a word.
…Annoying little brat.
After being scolded for a while and shrinking into himself, he tried eating the food he'd made——and immediately spit it out.
"..."
Then, shrinking even further, he just stared blankly as the First Young Master devoured everything on the table.
What kind of stomach did this man even have?
And then, suddenly, a question flashed through his mind.
"Um… First Young Master."
"What?"
With his mouth crammed full of food that barely qualified as food, the First Young Master glared at him with eyes full of hatred.
"N-no, it's just…"
He asked carefully.
"Who on earth taught that young lady Seonyeong Chalna?"
In martial arts, the learner's talent mattered—but the teacher's talent mattered just as much.
Wasn't that exactly where the great sects drew their strength, the ability to keep producing brilliant successors?
"And she said she learned it in half a day—what does that even mean?"
He had seen countless prodigies in his time.
Every comrade around him had already crossed the wall, and he himself had talent no worse than theirs.
By the usual standards, he was far beyond what people called "gifted".
Even so, the idea of completing the form of a high-level martial art in half a day was something he'd never even heard of.
If he hadn't seen who she was a few days ago, he would've sworn it was a ridiculous lie.
"Half a day, my ass…"
At those words, the gate guard brightened.
So there really was something he didn't know.
"I taught her for the first time this morning. It hasn't even been half a day yet."
"…N-not even half a day."
People usually called someone a Genius if they crossed the wall before forty—the age of "no doubts".
And he, one of those so-called geniuses, was experiencing firsthand what it meant to find a sky beyond the sky.
As he turned Yeon Sang-hyeon's words over in his mind, he jolted again.
"Wait—you said you taught her?!"
The man called Swordless—teaching one of the Sword Clan's most notoriously difficult high-level martial arts himself?
And the one learning it completed the form in less than half a day?
"Ah, shut up."
Yeon Sang-hyeon frowned at his booming voice, then spoke with firm finality.
"That. Eat your share. All of it."
"No, but—!"
He was about to protest, but when he saw Yeon Sang-hyeon shove Jeong-a's portion into his mouth too, he couldn't say anything.
He'd eaten snakes off mountains and chewed bark while on missions—he could force this down too.
Still, out of everything he'd ever endured, what he'd cooked today tasted the worst.
After downing a bowl of cold water, he asked again.
"Did you truly instruct her personally, First Young Master?"
Unlike him, Yeon Sang-hyeon calmly rinsed his mouth with the tea from Wongakjeong and let out a quiet laugh.
"Why? You want to learn from me too?"
"No—before that. Were you truly so knowledgeable in martial arts that you can teach high-level techniques?"
Yeon Sang-hyeon burst out laughing.
"Who do you think organized Seonyeong Chalna into what it is now?"
"…What?"
Yeon Sang-hyeon leaned back, snickering.
"Back then, a bunch of martial-arts scholars from the Martial Arts Academy were arguing about what the most difficult martial art in the Sword Clan was."
He took a sip of tea and continued.
"So I mixed Jeomchang's Bungwang Sword, Shaolin's Nahan Chalna Hand, and our main family's Sejeol Yeye in just the right proportions and cleaned it up."
He spread both hands wide.
"Ta-da. Debate over."
"..."
The gate guard wanted to say something—anything—but he had no idea what words even existed for this.
That technique—
The one so many Sword Clan warriors had challenged, only to drink the bitter cup of defeat.
The one that crushed so many prodigies, made their talent seem laughable, and drove them into despair.
And yet, so monstrously powerful that it made the Sword Clan's enemies tremble in fear—
That high-level martial art had started as a prank from this boy sitting right in front of him.
"…Weren't you supposed to be Swordless?"
Even as he asked, the question held too many meanings to count.
"Who knows…"
Yeon Sang-hyeon shrugged.
"At least it's true I don't have a sword."
In Yeon Sang-hyeon's joking expression, the gate guard felt something like déjà vu.
No—more than that.
The only liege lord he had ever respected and served.
The image of that man overlapped with the face of the eldest son most despised by the Sword Clan.
"The Sword of Stealing the Ghost."
A title he'd buried in the past.
And the one calling it now was his liege lord's eldest son.
"You're still wearing a toy-like sword."
The First Young Master's gaze fixed on the sword hanging at the gate guard's waist.
"When your sword grows so old you can't draw it for anything at all… that day will come."
First Young Master Yeon Sang-hyeon—
A man who should originally have been the Young Clan Lord of the Luoyang Sword Clan—asked the question of the most ferocious sword the Luoyang Sword Clan had ever produced.
"How long do you intend to keep wearing that fake sword?"