Urban Vagabond: Reload

After a quick round of introductions, we sat around the table set up on one side of the training hall.

Looking over the info I’d brought on Sword Demon, Bokja asked,

“So this Sword Demon grandpa. You’re sure he’s in this part of town?”

“...I’m sure down to the district.”

What I knew was that Sword Demon had appeared on YouTube five years from now, and that a few days after that he’d been found dead alone in his home—somewhere in ○○ District, Seoul.

But if he’d moved during those five years, then my premise was already wrong.

It really is pretty overwhelming, huh.

We were trying to track down a martial arts master who’d gone into seclusion twenty years ago.

Even if we did our absolute best, we’d have to rely on luck to some extent.

At my answer, Shin Kangheon shook his head, like this whole thing was hopeless.

“How are we even supposed to find him? Go door-to-door like, ‘Excuse me, does Sword Demon live here?’”

“Oh, that’s actually a good idea. We can make the errand boy do that.”

“Fuck...”

He’d tried to be a smartass and only ended up losing face. Even as he glared at me, with one cheek all swollen up he just looked ridiculous.

“...I think I can narrow it down a bit.”

After a moment of silent thought, Bokja spoke.

Her eyes were shining like some detective manga protagonist’s.

...I’d noticed this before, but Kim Bokja genuinely enjoyed situations where she got to investigate or track something.

She spread the printouts I’d brought across the table and started in.

“Just from his clothes, you can see he’s lived frugally. And even if it’s not spelled out, you can feel he caused some massive incident and had no choice but to retire, right? With that kind of background and twenty years gone by, what do you think his situation looks like now?”

Hit with the unexpected question, Shin Kangheon blinked a few times and answered,

“...Bored?”

“Idiot. Try thinking before you talk.”

“Wow, we barely met and you’re already—”

Cutting off the indignant Shin Kangheon, I asked Bokja,

“You’re saying he’s probably not doing well financially?”

“Exactly.”

“...”

Shin Kangheon glared between the two of us with a put-out look, then folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“If money’s tight, he could be bored too.”

“Keep forcing that if it makes you feel better.”

“He’s not gonna be any help. Can’t we just leave him out?”

Why Sword Demon had gone into seclusion wasn’t written anywhere in detail.

All we knew was that he’d been famous as a sword instructor of the Martial Alliance, that he’d committed some big mistake and been expelled, and that the Eight Great Sects had been involved to some degree.

After that, Sword Demon had vanished, and there was almost no information on him.

It really does feel like someone hid it on purpose.

In an age like this, covering up an incident like that shouldn’t be easy, but if it was something that only concerned the martial world, and if the Martial Alliance or the Eight Great Sects got involved, it wasn’t impossible.

Pointing from one document to another, Bokja took the lead in her deductions.

“From Sword Demon’s past movements and his temperament, he doesn’t feel like the kind of guy who would’ve made a lot of money. In other words, chances are high he’s become a poor old man living alone by now.”

“Isn’t that prejudice? He could have saved up a lot and be living comfortably somewhere. And honestly... if a martial artist wants to make money, it’s not exactly hard.”

Both Bokja’s opinion and what Shin Kangheon said had their points.

The two of them, with opposite takes, both turned to look at me.

Like they were both asking, So what do you think?

“I’m pretty sure Bokja’s right on this.”

I wasn’t taking sides between them.

It was just that the Sword Demon I’d seen on YouTube had looked like a dried-up mummy, dressed in ragged clothes.

—I will reveal the swordsmanship I’ve been researching my entire life. Anyone who needs it can study it and, if they make it theirs, it will greatly help them improve their martial arts.

His slow voice and parched lips were enough for anyone to see he was suffering from malnutrition.

He’d stood in a dirty, worn-out room and slowly, one by one, demonstrated and explained his swordsmanship.

I’d watched that more than hundreds of times trying to make it mine.

That was back when I was living on blade and rice as a vagabond, desperate to grab onto any rope I could to survive.

Hearing Bokja talk, the image of that room surfaced in my mind like it was right in front of me.

Even the wide, high sky and the ginkgo trees visible out the small window when Sword Demon had adjusted the camera.

“...An old, worn-out house where you can see the sky through the window and look down on a ginkgo tree.”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“Well, if that’s how the one who’s looking for him remembers it, then that’s that.”

Bokja’s eyes sparkled with interest, while Shin Kangheon stopped arguing and just shrugged.

“We’ve got this much info together; we can narrow it down pretty well. Let’s focus on older villas, one-room places, rooftop rooms with ginkgo trees out front. In neighborhoods where the sky isn’t blocked by apartment towers or office buildings.”

Shin Kangheon seemed genuinely impressed at how easily Bokja rattled off her deductions and calculations.

“Are you, like, some kind of private detective?”

In response, Bokja pulled out a business card, handed it to Shin Kangheon, and winked.

Having clocked at a glance that he was from a rich family, she even slipped in a little sales pitch.

“Freelance spell-caster with both skill and looks. If you ever need procedures done, call me. I’ll even give you a special ten percent discount.”

Looking down at the card that read “Spell-Tech Specialist RED RABBIT”, Shin Kangheon tilted his head.

“But your name’s Bokja? That’s what Kim Muhyuk called you earlier.”

“...Only people I’ve known for five years or more get to call me that. And you’ve been bugging me since earlier—use polite speech, I’m older than you.”

When Kim Bokja’s face went dead serious, Shin Kangheon snorted.

“Kim Muhyuk talks down to you.”

“What does that have to do with you? Are you and I close?”

“...You’re not wrong, but that still feels like bullshit...”

For the record, from Bokja’s perspective, I’d only known her for a month too—but there was no need to share that with Shin Kangheon.

I clapped lightly to pull their attention back and said,

“Okay, we’ve got the rough plan. So the very first thing we should do is...”

Bang!

Slamming her palm on the table, Kim Bokja cut me off and shouted,

“Go eat chicken ribs! I’m starving after using my brain this much!”

She looked about ready to eat me in place of the chicken if she didn’t get some right now, so I nodded obediently.

“I was going to say we should eat first anyway. I’m the one who dragged you both out here, so I’m paying today.”

“For real? Shin Kangheon. How much chicken can you put away?”

“Ha! I can go until I can’t move.”

“Okay! Your big sis is ready to roll home like a barrel today.”

These punks.

Teaming up to empty my wallet, Kim Bokja and Shin Kangheon ate twelve portions of chicken ribs that day.

*****

From that day on—

Every day, I went around with Shin Kangheon, checking out every place an old man living alone might stay: villas, one-room units, rooftop rooms, and so on.

Sometimes we knocked on doors ourselves to ask; sometimes we went to local real estate offices, pretending to be looking for a place while fishing for information.

Unlike us, Bokja had an actual day job, so she couldn’t come along, but she fed us all sorts of intel by phone and messenger.

[rabbit : Another dead end today? The divination says the west side looks good. Try over there.]

[God Kangheon : Are you some scammer? Your divinations haven’t been right once.]

[rabbit : Newbie, you want to die?]

[God Kangheon : stfu]

But a full week passed without anything you’d call a real lead.

“Man, what kind of bullshit grind is this...”

Climbing up and down villa staircases with no elevator dozens of times a day, even Shin Kangheon—who prided himself on his stamina—started whining.

“Think of it as cardio. Aren’t those thick thighs going to waste?”

“I do my cardio without missing a day, thanks? And this isn’t exercise, it’s labor.”

“If you’re that upset, you could try beating me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Determined to wipe out his previous loss, Shin Kangheon came at me again—but in our second duel too, I beat him down without mercy.

Which naturally extended the length of his errand-boy contract.

“You were better than last time, though. About... a [N O V E L I G H T] fingernail’s worth?”

“I swear I’m wrecking you before the year’s out!”

Not a chance.

Anyway, day after day, Shin Kangheon and I roamed around looking for Sword Demon in seclusion, and all sorts of things happened along the way.

“Hey, you two! What exactly do you think you’re doing here?”

“We’re sorry. We were just...”

One time, locals reported us as suspicious, and we ended up detained by the police, explaining ourselves for ages.

“Heeheehee! Begone, why don’t you! You vile demon bastards—!”

Another time, we had to dodge the swinging bottle of an alcoholic old man who thought he was some peerless sword master.

“Are you guys college students? Want to hang with us?”

“We’re in high school.”

“Ahaha! Yeah, right. What high schoolers look this good?”

We even had a pork-belly party with some college kids playing guitar and enjoying their youth on a rooftop.

They’d said they’d lived in the area a long time, so we joined them hoping to get some info—but when they kept hitting on us, we ended up jumping off the rooftop to get away.

And so, on the seventh day—

By now, we were so used to the Sword Demon search that we canvassed our respective areas during the day, then met at night with faces like we’d been chewing on shit to exchange information.

“Get anything?”

“I hit the west side too just in case, and some grandma gave me this.”

“...Rice cake, huh.”

Sitting on a park bench, we split the rice cakes Shin Kangheon had been given and ate while I wondered if we needed to revise our plan.

I’d expected it to be hard...

But with no results at all, it was true the time felt wasted.

Wouldn’t it have been better to spend that time focusing on my own training?

Wouldn’t it be better to switch to a backup plan now, while we still could?

“Shoo, shoo! These things, I’m trying to chase you off and you’re not even pretending to care.”

Meanwhile, Shin Kangheon was in a staredown with the pigeons lurking nearby, eyeing our snack.

Maybe because they were about the same intelligence level, the picture looked strangely fitting.

I was just thinking that when—

“Hey there, kids.”

A strange voice made us turn. A middle-aged man with glasses was hovering nearby, inching toward us.

His scruffy beard and aggressively protruding gut made him look like one of those nosy uncles every park has a few of.

“You kids looking for a martial artist, by any chance?”

“...Why do you ask?”

When I stood up and politely asked, for some reason the man hunched his neck and shuffled back a step.

“Ah, no, it’s just... I’ve seen you around here for days now. And you two, anyone can see you’ve got serious builds. You’ve been wandering around with that look in your eyes like you’re about to go stomp somebody...”

At that, Shin Kangheon and I looked at each other at the exact same time.

This is because of your build.

You’re the one putting murder in your eyes.

We silently blamed each other for a moment.

Then Shin Kangheon looked at me like, So what now?

After thinking it over for a second, I answered the man.

“That’s right. We’re looking for a martial artist. It’s nothing bad... we just have a favor to ask him.”

“I knew it. I’ve got a good eye, you know. I could tell right away.”

Pleased that his guess had been right, the man scratched his scruffy beard and handed us the kind of information that made our ears perk up.

“There’s an old man named Mr. Choi in the rooftop room over in the next neighborhood. I heard he used to be decent with a sword back in the day. Might be worth checking him out, just in case.”

Choi?

Sword Demon’s real name was Choi Geon. Shin Kangheon seemed to remember that too; his eyes widened and he nodded.

We got the exact address of this Mr. Choi and stood up from the bench.

“Thank you, sir!”

“Be careful! I hear that guy’s got a pretty nasty temper!”

Leaving behind the nosy neighborhood uncle’s warning, we immediately started running.

“Doesn’t this one feel different?”

Even though it was late at night, Shin Kangheon was burning with enthusiasm, and I let out a small laugh. As we ran, I spoke to him while he pulled out his smartphone.

“You’re having fun, huh?”

He flinched, then stiffened his face and glared at me.

“Fun, my ass. I’m forcing myself to do this so I can hurry up and quit being your errand boy.”

For something you’re “forcing” yourself to do, the corners of your mouth were sure creeping up just now...

I prodded at something I’d learned over the last few days of running around with him.

“You don’t have any friends, do you?”

Snorting like I’d said something outrageous, Shin Kangheon shot back,

“Do you have any idea how many followers I’ve got?”

“Does that count as friends?”

“Shut up. Like you’ve got any either.”

Trading the lead back and forth, we ran until we reached the rooftop room where this Mr. Choi supposedly lived.

We had to wander through several deserted alleys to find it. When we did, it turned out to be the rooftop of a villa that looked extremely old.

We climbed the creaking metal stairs and saw a structure of old concrete walls. The atmosphere was so eerie it felt like a ghost might pop out.

Swallowing hard, Shin Kangheon opened his mouth first.

“Excus—”

In that instant, I shoved Shin Kangheon aside with my left shoulder and drew my sword with my right hand, swinging it in the same motion. My body had moved on its own in response to killing intent.

The moment I turned, I felt a cold wind brush right past the side of my neck.

CLANG!

Our blades collided and I slid back several steps.

If I’d failed to block in time, that strike would have been more than enough to take my head.

“Who the hell sent you punks?”

From out of the darkness, a pair of eyes glared at us.

The cold voice that followed was saturated with killing intent.