Urban Vagabond: Reload

Even sprawled on the ground, Black-White 13 kept moving his mouth without pause.

“...Let me tell you something. A waste of effort. Do you really think I’m going to fear you over this?”

It sounded like he wanted to insist that no matter what Kim Muhyuk did, he couldn’t make him submit.

“Even if you make me suffer, there’s no information you can get. Interrogation? Torture? Go ahead. Do whatever you want. Hahahaha!”

“I’m not trying to get anything.”

I looked down at the man laughing at me and spoke flatly.

I knew better than anyone that pain alone wouldn’t easily push this kind of person into fear or rage.

I just didn’t want to hand over a man who’d threatened to kill my parents to the Martial Alliance with all four limbs intact.

“At minimum, I’m going to make sure you can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

“Don’t waste your strength on something that pointless. Instead, we should continue a constructive con—”

CRACK! THUNK! SHRRK—

I swung my sword the way a butcher handles meat—shattering bone, tearing living flesh, and slicing skin.

I didn’t care what he babbled. I didn’t even look at his face.

“Ghhh...!”

No matter how strong someone’s will was, no matter how trained they were to hide pain, the body still reacted on its own.

He was forcing himself to laugh out of pride, but a mix of blood and sweat streamed down Black-White 13’s face.

“Y-You’re... extremely... skilled...”

That was the underworld’s way.

If you lived as a vagabond and took on enough dangerous work, there were things you became good at—whether you liked it or not.

That was why there wasn’t a shred of emotion on my face.

As I crushed him thoroughly, I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t enjoying it. If anything, I looked sick of it—like I was doing an annoying chore.

“Y-You... right now... you—”

My indifference seemed to provoke him more.

He’d been calm in the face of physical pain, but being treated like livestock dragged into a slaughterhouse was what made him truly miserable.

“Don’t you look down on me—!”

It was a booming roar, like there was no way he had that much strength left.

Only then did I stop the hand that had been moving on autopilot—and meet his gaze.

“I thought you might have something hidden. Guess I expected too much.”

“...What?”

“Like a life-saving trump card. Some special martial art you can’t really show unless it’s the very last moment.”

Too bad. Looks like you’re not that level.

The moment our eyes met as I muttered that and smacked my lips—

“...!”

Black-White 13 felt that same chill up his spine he’d felt when I cut his fingers off.

A late-bloom talent who was barely even an adult, giving off that weird, uneasy feeling. The anxiety that he’d touched something he shouldn’t have.

Staring into eyes that cut him down without emotion—as if he were an object—he finally understood what that unease had been.

“A martial-art fanatic... You... you’re truly a man who’s gone insane for martial arts...”

There was exactly one person Black-White 13 had seen in his organization who was like me.

Even among the cult’s leadership—people they called madmen—one overwhelming, exceptional existence surfaced in his mind.

“You’re like him...”

The assassin’s eyes, once packed with viciousness, went slack—then filled to the brim with fear. His whole body shook uncontrollably.

‘Master Han!’

Right now, in Black-White 13’s eyes, my face overlapped with another man’s.

The terror loosened every muscle in his body, and filth spilled from his lower half and soaked the ground.

The mind that had been barely holding on finally hit its limit and collapsed.

“Hehehehe...”

“What is it?”

I frowned as I watched Black-White 13’s eyes suddenly go wrong.

There was no way for me to know who he thought he was seeing in me.

“Hey. You’re giving up already? If you die right now, it’ll be a problem for me.”

I tore cloth off his clothes and stuffed it in his mouth like a gag so he couldn’t bite his tongue. Then I kept slapping his cheeks to force him to stay conscious.

SMACK! SMACK!

He was a pest who would benefit the world more by dying, but if I wanted to dig out who was behind this, keeping him alive was better.

‘There’s a chance this ties to the Heavenly Demon Cult, too.’

I didn’t have hard proof, but I had a feeling the incident in the license exam—and what came after, the Martial Alliance Leader being forced out—weren’t unrelated to the Heavenly Demon Cult.

“If I grind him down a little more, will he come back to his senses?”

“Hehehehe...!”

I was weighing a few methods—ones that had made even assassins talk in my previous life—

FWOOOOOSH—

The scenery around us began to melt away.

The gloomy forest where thunder and lightning had been crashing vanished, and the world returned to the Martial Alliance Grand Training Ground.

The spell formation had been completely released.

And a moment later, I felt several presences approaching.

“...You little brat. Are you all right?”

At the familiar voice, I turned around with a shocked expression.

My master, Choi Geon, was striding toward me with a face full of worry.

“Master? Why are you h—”

I blinked in surprise at his sudden appearance, and he closed the distance in a few long steps, touching and checking my battered body here and there.

“Tsk, tsk. You’re torn up bad. Just how recklessly did you throw yourself around!”

That familiar nagging.

Without realizing it, I felt the stiff mask on my face loosen, and a smile spread.

When I returned to my usual self, I scratched the back of my head with an awkward grin.

“I avoided all the vital spots. Nothing’s seriously hurt.”

“I want to hold up a mirror and show you what you look like right now...”

He spoke gruffly, but the moment he saw me drenched in blood, his heart had dropped through the floor.

Because at my feet lay a human being, twitching and limp like a butchered animal.

‘No matter how angry he gets, he’s not a kid who swings his sword this mindlessly...’

Just then, behind Choi Geon, No Gucheon appeared—and so did the Martial Alliance Leader, Yeo Pilgeuk.

“Hoh... What on earth happened here?”

“Both of them are in terrible shape.”

The two of them relaxed when they saw I was alive, but when they saw Black-White 13 collapsed beneath me, their expressions hardened.

For a late-bloom talent of the orthodox martial world, my hand felt excessively brutal.

If even my master, Choi Geon, looked shaken, the unease those two felt could only be worse.

Sensing the mood, Choi Geon asked me with a stern face.

“He deserves to die, but did you really have to go this far?”

His eyes looked like a rebuke, but worry was inside them. I straightened my posture and answered.

“I admit I went too far. He threatened to go to my parents and kill them... In that moment, I lost my reason.”

“Hm.”

“If that’s the case...”

Yeo Pilgeuk and No Gucheon nodded, the reason understandable to a point.

What they didn’t expect was Choi Geon’s reaction.

“Kill who?”

Choi Geon snapped his eyes wide, fierce, and glared down at the writhing Black-White 13 like he was about to tear him apart on the spot.

Then he swung his sheathed sword and smashed it down on the man’s head.

WHACK!

Black-White 13’s body went limp, completely out.

Choi Geon pressed his foot down hard on the man’s head and spoke.

“A bastard I wouldn’t be satisfied with even if I ground him up and drank him! If he’d fallen into my hands, I would’ve driven needles into every joint and sliced him off piece by piece!”

To Choi Geon, Kim Chanho and Park Jiyeon were practically family.

They were the people who’d opened a heart that had been tightly shut for twenty years.

Even though there was no obligation, they’d often come by, offered him food and drink, and on nice days, even gone out together.

When he thought of the warmth those two had shown—far beyond simple courtesy toward their son’s master—rage at the assassin surged to the top of his head.

Choi Geon whipped around to Yeo Pilgeuk.

“Martial Alliance Leader. May I interrogate this one personally?”

“...Do as you please.”

The Martial Alliance Leader nodded without realizing it, intimidated by that killing intent in his eyes and the sheer force of him.

Choi Geon turned back to me, and unlike a moment ago, patted my shoulder as if I’d done well.

“You did well holding back and not killing him. Your patience is better than mine.”

“We need him alive if we want to find who’s behind him later.”

“Exactly! Trash like this only needs breath in his lungs and a mouth on his face. Leave the rest to me—now you go get some proper rest.”

Saying the training hadn’t been wasted, Choi Geon grinned in satisfaction and didn’t spare his praise—calling me his disciple with pride. I laughed with him, saying it was thanks to what I’d learned from him.

And behind us—

“...He really is the Sword Demon’s disciple.”

“Yes. Even the part where his way of thinking isn’t normal is identical.”

Yeo Pilgeuk and No Gucheon exchanged looks and whispered.

“What did you two just say?”

When the Sword Demon glanced back, both of them shut their mouths at the same time.

“Ah, nothing.”

“I said I’m glad your disciple isn’t seriously hurt.”

*****

The Gate Masters of the Eight Great Sects heard the news that a major accident had occurred inside the spell-formation zone during the license exam, and they rushed over immediately.

“I knew this would happen!”

“I warned you over and over to prepare for accidents!”

“At the next Eight Great Sects meeting, we will put forward an agenda to replace the Martial Alliance Leader!”

The Supreme Pole Sword Gate, the Sun and Moon Gate, and the Golden Glory Gate.

Except for cases where a Gate Master was out of the country or couldn’t come at once, the three Gate Masters who’d been watching the license exam returned to the Martial Alliance again.

Representatives from the other Eight Great Sects were also already rushing to the Martial Alliance.

“Damn it...”

Out of the three, the Sun and Moon Gate Master’s expression was the worst. Rage and impatience clung to his face as he spat the curse under his breath.

Because he’d heard that Yang Hayun had become the assassins’ target.

The disciple personally taken by the Sun and Moon Gate’s strongest expert—the Grand Elder, the Glacier Priestess—who held overwhelming authority.

If word spread that the first cherished disciple she’d ever had might have met with disaster, the entire Gate would be thrown into chaos.

But that wasn’t even the most important part.

“To fail at handling something this easy...”

The Sun and Moon Gate Master was the first to launch into a lightness technique and sprint ahead, planning to pour his boiling anger onto the Martial Alliance Leader.

The Gate Masters of the Supreme Pole Sword Gate and the Golden Glory Gate followed close behind.

“...We will demand accountability for this exam that’s become a complete disaster.”

“You’ve inflicted massive harm on the late-bloom talents who spent years preparing for this exam. What did those children do wrong?”

They were disciples each Gate had raised like treasure.

Now they’d all be furious and crushed by disappointment, thanks to the years that had been blown away by this wreck of an exam.

How could the heads of the Gates—elders of the martial world—not relieve that anger?

‘I will not let this go.’

The three Gate Masters, streaking forward with their lightness techniques, arrived at the Martial Alliance and immediately ran for the Grand Training Ground—

WAAAAAAAH!

“Martial Alliance! Martial Alliance! Martial Alliance!”

Several hundred late-bloom talents had become one, hugging each other as they celebrated victory.

Most carried at least one cut or bruise, but they were smiling proudly, as if those wounds were badges of honor.

Among them, late-bloom talents from the Eight Great Sects were mixed in as well.

“What is this...?”

“Where are the assassins?!”

“What do you think you’re doing right now?!”

The Gate Masters couldn’t hide their confusion at the festival-like atmosphere—so different from what they’d expected.