Just when I thought I had dealt with all the remaining survivors, Yukhap brushes the blood off his sword and says,
“… even after doing this, the guys who run away still have a long lifeline so it cannot be helped. What do we do? Chase them down? Or should we just join the Flower Valley?”
I shake my head.
“What can we do? This is enough. Since the man in charge is dead, even if the young lord tries to figure the situation out, there is a slim chance that the Flower Valley will be suspected.”
“Why?”
I mention the old man’s body which vanished.
“The old man was pretty strong. In the first place, he wasn’t one the Valley Leaders could kill. It would have been possible to kill him only after a fairly skilled warrior was present. It would be difficult to determine the exact cause of the situation. Also, there are many corpses that got blown away. They would think that the valley leaders too died with them.”
“I get that, but if there were survivors they will come find you.”
“Let us not forget that we don’t have to finish the job perfectly. There is no perfect end. If a smart and meticulous man can solve the world Zegal Ryang would have never lost at all. Let us leave them.”
Anyway, I am already at war. It will be more convenient for the enemies to come to me right now than search for me later.
After thinking about something, Yukhap says,
“I have a place I need to go. What will you do?”
“Where?”
“Things I need to handle near Six Harmonies Sect.”
“Six Harmonies?”
“To be precise, it’s about the ancestral tablets in the shrine. It is the old place of the sect.”
I look at Yukhap’s expression and say,
“I am bored, so let us go together. While doing that….”
If we are unlucky and one of us runs into enemies, we will be in trouble. It is because there is no way that a person called the Great Young Lord of the Demon Cult would be alone. His family is unlikely to leave him unguarded, and the warriors he would be accompanied by wouldn’t be weak.
And at that, we leave the corpses behind as we head for Yeonbo Mount.
Yukhap climbs the mountain side, opens a door camouflaged by vines, and enters. It wasn’t a super discrete place so as soon as the door opens, I can see several things.
Yukhap walks around as he examines the place. After a while, he points to an area that I’m unable to discern on whether or not it is a training hall or just an empty area.
“I mainly trained there.”
The lonely training hall filled with weeds. There are stones which hadn’t been swept away in a long time.
“I guess there weren’t many sahyung/sajaes1.”
It is my first time seeing a ruined sect.
Yukhap nods.
“There were times where there were huge numbers. And also, a time when the number of disciples suddenly increased after a great sahyung slaughtered many people who were rumored to be evil. Most of them didn’t last long and disappeared.”
“I guess they left because training was difficult.”
“In the first place, only disciples who had no place to go, like me, were left behind.”
Actually, not everyone can be a person of Kangho.
Those who enter a sect because they want to look cool or be stronger, often leave because of the wall that blocks their growth.
This is because they do not have a special story to dedicate their training to. Most of those who long for something superficial give up fast.
Yukhap stands in the training hall for a while without speaking a word. It seemed like he was thinking back to the sahyungs and sajaes that he trained his sword with.
And he says,
“… master wasn’t doing well physically, so a great sahyung would guide us a lot. I was more afraid of the great sahyung than master. I wondered if there could be a man stricter and more cold-hearted than this sahyung, but if great sahyung wasn’t that strict, I would have died several times already.”
I also think of Yukhap’s youth with his many sect sisters and brothers who wielded the sword with him.
Perhaps because this was on the mountain side, where cool winds blow from time to time, I look to the side, and I can see the sajaes of Yukap smiling as well as the great sahyung with a blunt expression.
Yukhap, who is appreciating the ground, nods and says,
“… let us head in. It has been a while since I guided a guest.”
And so Yukhap takes me around.
Master Yukhap takes five swords and a tablet out of a storage box and lays it in front of his knees.
It seems that the things he needed to pack were his sahyung-sajae’s swords.
Suddenly he gets up and wipes the cobwebs off the tablet with his bare hands and goes back to kneeling.
I look at the tablet.
At the top was the name of a person who I assumed to be the master of Yukhap.
Beneath that were five more tablets, but when I looked at the names, they all had different surnames which meant they were born in different places but held the bond of siblings.
Since Yukhap said nothing, I was silent too. After looking at the tablet for a long time, he turns to me.
“…”
I nod, and then approach the tablet as I pull out an incense.
I’ve never been taught any special manners, so I just burn the incense like Yukhap and put it in a bowl filled with soil. The incense which we placed began to give out smoke.
And I bow at the tablet.
“Junior Low-Down Sect Leader, Lee Zaha here. Starting from now, I will be looking after the final disciple of this sect, so please look after us from heaven.”
After I speak, I move. And Yukhap speaks in a calm tone.
“Thank you. They haven’t had any guests for a long time, so they must be happy.”
“It was nothing… are those five your sahyungs?”
Looking at the tablets, he smiles.
“Right. This familiar sword gives me the right to take revenge. Perhaps they knew that the sword was good, but those unorthodox guys kept going after them. Like loot. Thanks to that, I was able to find and get my revenge, and bring their swords back.”
“How many years did it take for you to kill them all?”
“I don’t really remember. But it took a long time… seek and kill, seek and torture and kill. I didn’t count.”
Yukhap looks at the five swords. And I ask,
“You will take them along instead of keeping them safe?”
Yukap nods.
“If the Six Harmonies sect could be rebuilt, it would be right to keep them in here. But I intend to take them now.”
Yukhap said so and he bows.
“Great sahyung. I will be taking the swords of sahyung-sajaes now. I will find five disciples who resemble the nature of the great sahyung and give each of them a sword. I will tell you in advance, the disciples would be of Six Harmonies. The name has been ruined… already. The stigma of it being a bit evil has stuck to this for long because I went after taking revenge. I achieved my revenge but how do I clean back the name of the sect I tarnished? I don’t have the answer, so I have been looking for it. I apologize to master and great sahyung.”
Listening to this, it seemed like Yukhap was the second disciple to the sect. He turns to me and smiles.
“I plan to pass the swords onto my disciples later.”
“That would be better.”
“I should call them the Five Swords of Southern Edge.”
He doesn’t even have disciples, so I smile at his words. And Yukhap speaks to the tablet.
“Great sahyung, I am not qualified to be the Sect Leader of a newly made sect. Rumors will spread that the new leader is one who had blood on his hands. I will be giving that title to the disciples of mine, and I will remain as the last disciple of Six Harmonies until the end.”
I hear Yukhap’s voice tremble.
“Great sahyung… I still don’t know why I had to be the last disciple left. I will repay the grace which was shown to me by taking in an orphan without any conditions by taking them as a disciple and teaching martial arts. The emotions you put in; I understand them all. And I will come back better.”
He bows to the tablet.
Just how many times does he plan to bow?
He bows to the master, the great sahyung, the sajaes too. And suddenly it looks like he is holding back his tears, so I say,
“… you brat, cry out if you want, it will be difficult to find another place for you to cry.”
Yukhap shed tears with a small smile as if my words were absurd.
“Right.”
Yukhap wipes his tears with his hand and ties the swords in cloth and then gets up, placing them on his shoulder.
Yukhap leaves a farewell message.
“Master, great sahyung. I am going. Bless me.”
I walk out with Yukhap, who is red-eyed, and look around the former sect.
“Do not think about staying here in your later years and move those tablets over to the Southern Edge. They should also have fun watching the disciples trained by you.”
To which Yukhap smiles as he says.
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
As we are slowly going down the mountain road, where the Ghost Demon’s sect was put to rest, I say,
“It would be better to name the sword technique after the Six Harmonies.”
Despite knowing the reason, he asks back.
“Why?”
“I don’t know about others, but the disciples should know where their roots come from.”
“But it is a common word.”
“It isn’t so common when it comes to a sword technique.”
The atmosphere around Yukhap looks so dark, that I begin to speak nonsense.
“Do you know what my favorite Sword technique’s name is?”
“I don’t know.”
“The three-point sword technique.”
“Why?”
“The person who created that must have excelled in his swordsmanship. Did he dare to call his technique as that when all he knew to do was stab, slash and cut?”
“What nonsense is this now?”
“I mean… the technique is a name placed for those who are taught the technique. If you teach it to those who aren’t so talented then they wouldn’t learn. There is a limit with teaching. With that in mind, he came up with the technique name. Even idiots would like it if such famous sword techniques were passed down.”
After pondering on my words, Yukhap laughs.
And he refuses.
“But it doesn’t have to be so.”
“What?”
“If we think about this, then you need to do three things to move to a higher level. As a result, the person who invented the Three Point Sword Technique must be a great warrior.”
“Hmm.”
“That is closer to the description of the sword technique. Anyway, we will never know the person who created that technique. It is a mystery that cannot be solved in Kangho.”
“Are there more like that?”
“Do you know since when the Demon Cult existed?”
“Well.”
“It must have been said. It is said that there were times when there were several Demon Cults around. And when they merged into one, the name of the Heavenly Demon was born. It wasn’t mentioned in the past, but it must have been during the Yin Dynasty. Well, most of the cults banned away by those dynasties were turned into Demonic Cults. Specifically, when a dynasty changed, more people died. The traitors and their culprits would soon follow the Cult Leader and then suddenly…”
Yukhap looks at me.
“What?”
“A smart individual must have said to erase the old past and worship him anew. This is the perversion of the sect. For example, the one called as Heavenly Demon must erase his past actions and be only remembered as the Heavenly Demon. These demonic cult bastards always erased history and killed people so much that even they forgot where their roots are from.”
I ask Master Yukhap,
“So even if you settle down in Southern Edge, do not forget your roots. Your roots are the Six Harmonies, where your master and great sahyung took care of you. it is different from what the Demonic Cult did.”
“It is different from such affairs.”
After sitting on a rock for a while, Yukhap tells me,
“I need to take a break for a while.”
It wasn’t like he was resting because of being tired. But he needed to meditate so he picked a rock. And I too picked one and closed my eyes to clear my thoughts.
I was struggling with drowsiness for a while when I heard Yukhap’s voice.
“Sect Leader.”
“What?”
“Even if we lose to someone, our disciples will be able to win later, right?”
I scold the guy for his horrible mindset.
“Yukhap, that isn’t the correct nature. You cannot step in with such a faltering mind.”
“Then with what mind do I go ahead?”
I open my eyes and convey my feelings to him.
“The mindset to drag all the people down to hell. You cannot lose till then.”
He opens his eyes and looks straight into mine. I finally felt like we were forming a bond.
“Low Down Sect Leader, Master Yukhap… a name like that can roll next to filth. The mindset of fighting dirty, petty, and disgustingly. To beat people down to death. That is what we need.”
He smirks at that.
“Hearing that, makes me like it more.”
I nod and take a deep breath.
Finally, is everything done?
Now the Crazy Demon, Poison Demon, Pervert Demon, Ghost Demon can join forces.
Reincarnated Evil One’s Group.
Since only I knew of this, it is safe to say that a mysterious power that will not exist again in the history of Kangho is born. One person doesn’t listen, but every organization as such has one such person.
Anyway, I became the head of a slightly idiotic but cool mysterious group.
.
.
.
Mysterious organization, wicked gatherings, pig meat, everyone having the same temperament issues, but I am the leader. Successful and goosebumps provoking. All that is me.
Editor’s Notes
