Chapter 358
"Innkeeperrrrr!"
As soon as they entered the inn, Wei Yan-ho shouted boisterously. Then someone dressed as a cook came running hurriedly.
"Welcome! Will you be staying the night, or just dining?"
When Wei Yan-ho turned his head slightly to look, Wei San-ho opened his mouth.
"We'll be resting for a day, so please prepare rooms for us. About three rooms should be appropriate. And meals as well."
"Yes. I'll escort you to our finest rooms!"
Martial artists rarely had to suffer from poor service. Who would dare be rude to people walking around with swords at their waists?
"Food first! Food!"
"Yes, yes! Please sit over here."
The innkeeper guided the party to a large dining table and took their order.
"Cold noodle soup first! After that, just bring out whatever you have."
The innkeeper's eyes grew wide.
'They're loaded!'
Ordering without asking about prices was proof they had plenty of money. And when had there ever been a swordsman without money?
Delighted, the innkeeper rushed to the kitchen and shouted loudly.
"Bring out cool towels first, quickly!"
"Yes!"
The servants moved briskly, distributing towels soaked in cold water to the party.
"Oh, this is nice?"
Wei Yan-ho wiped his face with the cold towel. When traveling long distances, your entire body becomes covered in dust. Being an inn located on the main road, they seemed to understand this well.
Jin Ye-ran in particular welcomed the towel as if she had met Buddha himself in hell.
And then…
"What, why are you giving me this?"
A beggar was still a beggar.
"If you're not going to use it, just pass it over."
"Here."
Jang-il tossed the towel he was holding to Wei San-ho. Just from catching it once with his hands, the clean towel had turned pitch black. Wei San-ho quietly set the towel he had received down on the floor.
"Not using it?"
"…I'll use it later."
Traveling with a beggar sometimes required extreme patience.
'I should ask for a separate room.'
Jin Ye-ran was a woman, so naturally she needed her own room. And it seemed like this guy should also get his own room. You had to think about whoever would end up sharing a room with this beggar.
Otherwise, they'd have to make him bathe, but getting a beggar who thought bathing would kill him to take a bath was no ordinary task.
When the food came out, Wei Yan-ho began devouring it ravenously. Wei Yan-ho was proving with his whole being that 'martial strength is power, and power comes from food.'
"Eat a little slower."
"Huh?"
"…Just eat."
"Okay."
Wei San-ho sighed as he watched Wei Yan-ho stuffing food into his mouth.
'Well, it's understandable.'
Having survived on nothing but moss for five years in a cave, it would be stranger if he wasn't obsessed with food. He thought Wei Yan-ho would return to normal once he adjusted somewhat, but that time was just taking a bit longer.
"He's really wolfing it down like a beggar!"
Wei Yan-ho's eyes grew wide at Jang-il's words.
Wei Yan-ho, who was about to retort, trembled with frustration because his mouth was full of food and he couldn't say anything either way.
"Just eat."
Munch munch.
The others sighed as they watched Wei Yan-ho ignore Jang-il and focus on eating his food again as instructed.
"To think that guy is the future greatest under heaven…"
Peng Dao-ji chimed in to Jang-il's words.
"And he's even a Royal Inspector."
"Buddha must be watching over us… Amitabha."
Even Mu-san was shaking his head.
"Mmph mmph, huh?"
"…Just eat, eat."
Everyone sighed again as they watched Wei Yan-ho stuff food into his mouth.
As soon as Wei Yan-ho finished eating, he tried to hole up in his room but was dragged to the bathroom by his ear by Wei San-ho. Only after being semi-forcibly bathed was he allowed to enter his room.
"Don't come looking for me!"
Wei Yan-ho shut himself in his room to become one with the bed as usual. Perhaps feeling pressured about staying at the imperial palace, he fell asleep as soon as he lay down on the bed.
Wei San-ho looked at Wei Yan-ho, who had fallen asleep snoring, then smiled briefly and came outside.
Jang-il, Peng Dao-ji, and Mu-san were out in the wide clearing visible behind the inn. Wei San-ho went down the stairs toward the clearing.
Peng Dao-ji and Mu-san happened to be sparring.
Mu-san's heavy fists and Peng Dao-ji's solid blade sharply targeted each other.
"A pleasant sight to see."
Jang-il snorted at Wei San-ho's words.
"That? To me it just looks like a scene of desperation."
"Desperation?"
Jang-il picked up a stone and threw it to the ground.
"They're feeling inadequate."
"Inadequate…"
"Don't you feel that way?"
"I don't know what you mean."
Jang-il clicked his tongue and stared intently at Wei San-ho. As if he was trying to find something in Wei San-ho's face.
"You were originally called the greatest prodigy under heaven too."
"I've never cared about such empty fame."
"Sure, that's probably true. Anyway, Wei Yan-ho sucked up all the reputation you had. Not only that, but he became a Royal Inspector, earned His Majesty's trust, and even brilliantly blocked the Demonic Cult's provocations. In the markets and streets, Wei Yan-ho's name is probably being mentioned hundreds of times even now."
Wei San-ho looked at Jang-il with blank eyes. As if asking what was wrong with that.
"Aren't you envious?"
"Envious?"
"Yes. Aren't you envious?"
Wei San-ho was about to answer readily, but Jang-il's face was too serious for him to answer immediately. Wei San-ho, who quietly asked himself whether he had really never felt such emotions, opened his mouth with conviction.
"I don't think I've ever felt such emotions."
"What a true saint."
"Is that something to mock?"
"I'm not mocking—it's pure admiration. Because you're someone who can really be like that. But most people… no."
Jang-il wore a bitter smile.
"At first I thought, 'So there's someone like that too.' The world has so many monster-like people anyway, so it wouldn't be a big deal if one more monster was added to them. But the more I watched, the more I realized. That this monster is on a different level from the others."
Wei San-ho said nothing. It was an unusually heavy demeanor from Jang-il.
"Even when I try to think of him as a different kind of person, seeing that monster constantly causing a ruckus right next to me makes me feel inadequate. So I struggle. To avoid thinking that I'm a useless human being."
"Hmm…"
Wei San-ho looked at Peng Dao-ji and Mu-san again with a fresh expression.
It was definitely heavy. At first he thought it was just because their martial arts focused on weight and dominance, but he could feel the heaviness of their hearts, not the heaviness of their martial arts.
"You really don't feel anything at all?"
"…"
"If it were a difference you could reach through effort, you wouldn't be shaken. Because you could think, 'You may be stronger now, but someday I'll be stronger.' But at some point you intuitively realize it. The fact that even if you trained for your entire life, you couldn't reach Wei Yan-ho's current strength."
Wei San-ho's face hardened slightly.
"And you still feel nothing?"
"I've never thought I couldn't reach it."
"Do you really think so?"
Wei San-ho nodded slowly.
"Yan-ho is strong. But I've never thought I couldn't reach that strength. I will continue to grow stronger, and I believe that someday I can even surpass Yan-ho."
"I'm sure you could."
Jang-il said with a bitter laugh.
"If Wei Yan-ho stopped at that level."
"…"
"But unfortunately, that guy is getting stronger even at this very moment. You know it too. The Wei Yan-ho from not long ago and the Wei Yan-ho now are incomparably different."
"That's true."
"Wei Yan-ho gets stronger faster than we do. In the end, that gap will never be closed."
Jang-il pointed at Mu-san and Peng Dao-ji.
"Those who absolutely cannot accept that fact end up like that, and when you finally accept that it's reality, you end up like me."
Wei San-ho nodded quietly.
'It's certainly not wrong.'
Wei Yan-ho was someone who had a great impact on his surroundings, whether in a good way or bad way.
Just watching him made countless people think various thoughts. The problem was that the aftermath didn't always manifest in a good direction.
Those two were the same.
They were training somehow out of impatience that the gap with Wei Yan-ho was widening just by staying still, but forced training while fatigued couldn't be of much help.
'At this rate, they might ruin their bodies.'
Wei San-ho felt that some countermeasures were needed.
"They can't catch up by doing that."
"You think those guys don't know that? Don't look down on them too much. You and Wei Yan-ho are such monster-like guys that it seems that way, but those guys are also pretty successful prodigies in their own right. If it weren't for you two, they'd be guys who could aim for the next greatest under heaven. You two are the ones at fault for making such guys so impatient."
"Even so, that method is still wrong."
"Well, that's true."
"It would be better to use an orthodox approach."
"Orthodox approach?"
Wei San-ho nodded.
"There's no better training method than receiving guidance from a master. The shortcut shown by someone who has walked that path first takes priority over anything else."
"Who doesn't know that?"
Jang-il frowned.
"The sect elders worth learning from are all busy, and we're currently dispatched here. Who are we supposed to grab and learn from? And those gentlemen are so obsessed with getting stronger themselves that they don't understand the need to raise kids. Most of them are gentlemen who won't even marry because they consider the time spent caring for their own children a waste. Who are we supposed to grab and ask to teach us? Otherwise, why do you think that an inefficient Academy gets called the best educational institution? Anyway, these martial artists."
"But we have one, don't we?"
"What? Grand Hero Wei Jeong-han?"
"No. Don't we have one? An idle master who has no children, isn't busy, and whose only activity is lying around rolling back and forth."
For a moment, Jang-il's eyes trembled.
"That… are you talking about your younger brother?"
"That's right."
"You want to learn from Wei Yan-ho?"
"Yes."
Jang-il looked Wei San-ho up and down with a bizarre expression and let out a hollow laugh.
"Haven't you heard what happened to the kids who learned from Wei Yan-ho at the Academy? That…"
"But they got stronger."
"…"
Jang-il shut his mouth tight.
Wei Yan-ho's education was certainly effective. Among those in the know, it had the reputation that if you were willing to stake your life and chase after it desperately, it was worth taking the course once.
"But…"
"To catch a tiger, you must enter the tiger's den. If you want it, I can mediate."
"Hah!"
Jang-il snorted.
"These guys aren't stupid either, and you think they'd do such a thing just to get stronger…"
"I'll do it!"
"Amitabha!"
Before he knew it, having heard their conversation, Peng Dao-ji and Mu-san came running over and shouted.
Wei San-ho asked Jang-il as if to say 'see?'
"What will you do?"
Jang-il quietly turned his head to look at the distant sky.
They're crazy, these guys.
They're all crazy.
Jang-il wanted to cry.