Urban Vagabond: Reload

I was used to fighting opponents who had more inner power than I did.

My match with Song Junho was no different.

This is more doable than I thought.

Back in my vagabond days, the inner power I could drag out of that artificial dantian was so little you could call it a handful, and if I didn’t ration that handful at the right moments, it dried up in no time.

If I wanted to stay alive, I had no choice but to make up for the lack with something else.

Train the body to its limits and crank every sense up as far as it will go.

Like how a blind person develops other senses to an extreme when they lose their sight, my inner power had been so weak that I threw myself into external training and sensory training.

And I figured out on my own how to squeeze the most out of a tiny pool of inner power.

It’s not like I’m actually short on inner power right now, but...

Maybe it was just an ingrained habit. I hated wasting even a little bit of inner power.

“At this rate he’s going to break something...”

“Isn’t the inner-power gap way too big?”

So from everyone else’s point of view, it just looked like I couldn’t handle Song Junho’s overwhelming inner power and was getting pushed back.

Boom-boom-boom!

Every time Song Junho unleashed a move from Eight Trigram Palm, the air exploded violently. Throwing palm blasts from a distance was banned, but wrapping your limbs in power was allowed.

“Haaap!”

Inner power flowed down both of his arms, trembling in a translucent shimmer. That was what happened when you had so much qi you literally couldn’t hold it in.

From the opponent’s side, every clash felt like getting hit with an iron club. That was why my brow kept twitching and scrunching.

Still, this much is manageable.

In my last life, overworking my body to the point of abuse had been an unavoidable choice.

My external training and inner power never harmonized, so the side that was intact had to make up for the side that was lacking.

Of course, now that I had a real dantian, there was no reason to live like that.

Even so, there was one reason I was practically meeting him head-on with just my body right now.

Bam-bam-bam-bam!

I wanted to experience his martial arts directly with my body.

Even in my last life, it wasn’t common to clash directly with the martial arts of a Great Sect.

I’d run into their branches or subcontractors plenty of times, but I’d avoided anything that might entangle me in favors and grudges with the main sects as much as I could.

With just a minimum of inner power protecting my body, I focused on feeling the subtleties contained in Eight Trigram Palm straight through my skin.

So this is what Eight Trigram Palm is.

Eight Trigram Palm, which sublimates the Eight Trigrams—a system that supposedly contains all changes and phenomena of the world—into a palm art, was a technique that turned aggressive, forceful moves into soft, flexible motions expressed through both arms.

There was a reason it was one of the Eight Great Sects’ amplification inner arts. Just seeing and experiencing it like this was a huge study in itself.

This is probably enough of a look...

By now, Song Junho had used the same moves several times, with similar setups. It was getting more and more obvious to my eyes.

“Just a little more, just a little more!”

He was muttering to himself like he was drunk on his own martial arts as he poured out a wild barrage, but to me it only looked awkward, like clothes that didn’t fit his body.

— When you get to the exam ground, you’re going to run into kids who learned a Great Sect’s martial arts half-baked. Late-bloom brats who suddenly have so much inner power from elixirs they can’t even control it, and think that learning an amplification inner art overnight made them into something special... Do you know the best way to smack some sense into punks like that in one go?

— What if I beat them down with the Three Talents Sword Technique?

— That’s it! Exactly that!

A conversation with my master popped into my head, and a smile tugged at my lips.

But to Song Junho, that smile just looked like I was looking down on him.

“Don’t smile at me from up there!”

“Don’t look down at you? What, do you want me to kneel and fight, then?”

“Uwaaaah!”

At my honest question, Song Junho let out a scream-like shout and charged in.

He came at me like a little wild boar, and thanks to the way he turned that explosive inner power into driving force, his speed was insane.

Slaaash!

As he just barely skimmed past my side, shredded cloth fluttered in the air.

“...That was a little dangerous.”

I muttered, looking down at the ripped sleeve of my right arm. A red handprint stained my upper arm. If my reaction had been a beat slower, his grappling move might really have yanked my shoulder straight out of the socket.

The two Black-Whites who had been watching our match closely turned increasingly worried eyes on me.

[He’s getting pushed back that hard and still hasn’t really drawn on his inner power.]

[Could his constitution itself be lacking in inner power? Even at Level 4, his accumulation capacity could be poor...]

To them, it looked like the exact opposite.

Song Junho was handling far more inner power than they had expected, and I looked like the one who was short.

My physical abilities were unbelievable for my age, but the way I was using inner power felt oddly clumsy. Like I was forcibly holding in something that should have been surging outward.

Black-White 13 folded both arms and murmured quietly.

[Thinking back to when he fought Songwol Gate’s Oh Jungmin, he didn’t look like someone who uses a lot of inner power either. At most he hardened his blade with that distortion thrust, right?]

[Participant Kim Muhyuk has outstanding skill, but... unfortunately, it looks like the gap in constitution is starting to show right now.]

The two Black-Whites reached that conclusion between themselves and nodded.

Who could possibly imagine the truth?

That ever since my last life I’d had this miserly habit of hoarding inner power.

And that I was fighting while barely using any of it because I wanted to feel a Great Sect’s martial arts right on my skin.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t feeling the slightest sense of crisis. I was busy worrying about something else entirely.

How do I win so it looks like a razor-thin comeback?

In the official constitution test, I’d been rated Level 4.

But my real constitution was Level 2.

The only people who knew that were Kim Bokja, who had personally performed the spell that hid my true grade, and my master, Sword Demon Choi Geon.

If I cranked up my inner power right now and fought Song Junho head-on?

I’d crush him.

But that wasn’t the picture I wanted.

This wasn’t like my fight with Oh Jungmin.

If I showed myself completely overwhelming a late-bloom prospect carrying all the expectations of the Eight Great Sects, I’d draw way too much attention.

And some of that attention would definitely be malicious.

Barely scraping out a lucky win is enough.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t stood out a few times already without meaning to, but until I was certain I’d become strong enough to protect my family and the people around me, I intended to hide my full strength as much as possible.

The problem was that my opponent wasn’t soft enough to beat while I kept holding back my inner power like this.

“Haaap!”

Song Junho was still inexperienced, and his mastery of his martial arts left something to be desired, but the overwhelming inner power of a Level 1 constitution—and his ability to handle it—were unquestionably impressive.

Especially that tight, net-like qi-sense domain I had to pierce to reach the number tag on his back. Even for me, that was no easy job.

Blocking his wild assault and grinding my brain as hard as I could, I came up with one method.

A little acting, then.

My eyes changed as I thought of something I’d done a lot in my vagabond days. I bit down on the inside of my cheek and drew blood.

Drip...

As the blood trickled down the corner of my mouth, I saw Song Junho flinch. I muttered softly to myself.

“Even if I’m short on it, when it’s time to use it, I have to use it.”

“W-what are you trying to do?”

With a grim tone, I puffed out my upper body.

Fwoooosh!

In that instant, the eyes of the two Black-Whites watching us went wide, and Song Junho jerked back in surprise.

“Ta-haaat!”

For the first time, I launched an active offensive. A faint aura gathered around both of my arms.

“This is my full power!”

Charging in while coughing blood, I had the face of a martial artist burning his last, final trump card.

Anyone watching could tell that those twin palms I was throwing with everything I had were my last move.

“...I’ll answer that with everything I’ve got!”

After retreating for just a moment, Song Junho didn’t dodge. He thrust out both palms to meet me. Inner power far stronger than mine wrapped around his arms.

C L A N G!

The instant our palms collided and we were both shoved back by the rebound, it felt like motion sickness hit and his senses went fuzzy.

“H-huh...!”

It all happened in a split second, so even he didn’t realize it, but that was what happens when another person’s qi interferes with—or invades—your qi-sense domain.

Truth is, I can do it too.

My eyes went cold.

In the tiny sliver of time when our twin palms met, I had pushed my own qi into his body and thrown his qi-sense domain into chaos.

It was a level of delicate, stealthy qi manipulation so fine the person on the receiving end couldn’t even notice.

Because of that, right now, in this very moment, his senses were telling him that I had suddenly gone blurry right in front of his eyes.

Whoosh!

He swung for the blurry me and hit nothing but air. Looking flustered, Song Junho muttered to himself.

“Image–Body Reversal?”

“There’s no way I’d already be able to use a lofty art like that.”

Riiip—

Before he knew it, I was behind him, and I tore the number tag off his back. The sharp feel of the tag tearing free made him stare blankly, mouth open.

“I... lost?”

I was a Level 1 constitution. I even used Supreme Pole Sword Gate’s Eight Trigram Palm—and I still lost?

At that moment, my ragged coughing snapped him back to his senses.

“Cough! Cough...”

Each cough brought up a little more blood. To anyone watching, I looked exactly like someone who had strained himself dragging up inner power he didn’t really have.

“A-are you okay?”

He came over with a mix of emptiness and concern on his face and asked.

He was perfectly fine aside from being a little winded and tired. Meanwhile, I looked like I’d taken serious internal injuries at a glance.

“The win’s mine, right?”

But the winner in number-tag stripping was me.

Staggering, I forced myself up and was the one to offer my hand first.

“If you’d stuck with a familiar martial art you’ve been using for a long time, this would’ve been a lot worse for me. Supreme Pole Sword Gate’s martial arts are incredible, but your mastery of them was just a bit lacking.”

“If you’d stuck with a familiar martial art you’ve been using for a long time, this would’ve been a lot worse for me. Supreme Pole Sword Gate’s martial arts are incredible, but your mastery of them was just a bit lacking.”

“...”

His ears flushed red with embarrassment.

Because there was something in what I said that struck him hard.

No matter how great a divine-level technique is, a form of Eight Trigram Palm you’ve only been learning for two months is bound to be clumsy. Deep down, he already knew that.

But he’d tried to plaster over that lack with overwhelming inner power, and up to now, it had always worked.

He’s right. I should’ve put more importance on the basics...

Trying to chain together unfamiliar moves had made his openings bigger, and I hadn’t missed that gap at the very last moment.

In other words, he’d tried to decide a match with a half-baked martial art. That was his mistake.

I’m still just a frog in a well.

The first taste of defeat since he entered Supreme Pole Sword Gate.

More than that, while his opponent was burning every last bit of strength to the point of dragging up insufficient inner power, he’d been too full of himself to give that much in return. That shame was so heavy he couldn’t lift his head.

This should be enough of a justification, right?

I’d only said it to build a decent narrative for my comeback win.

Just then, he finally managed to raise his head and cupped his fist to me.

“...Thanks for the feedback. I’ll take it to heart.”

I managed my expression and nodded with a pale face. Honestly, it was a bit of a surprise.

Maybe because he’s still young. His personality isn’t as twisted as I thought.

I’d half expected him to throw a fit like some Great Sect young master who couldn’t accept losing, refusing to acknowledge the result and insisting we go again.

Instead, Song Junho accepted his defeat with humility.

“And... take this.”

He pulled out a finely wrapped case from inside his clothes and held it out.

It was a top-grade internal-injury medicine Supreme Pole Sword Gate had prepared for their treasured late-bloom prospect, something you couldn’t buy even if you had the money.

“Thanks. I’ll make good use of it.”

I didn’t turn it down. I took the medicine and tucked it carefully inside my clothes.

And as I did, Black-White 13, who had been quietly watching us from behind, replayed the moment when our twin palms had collided.

Participant Kim Muhyuk really is worth keeping an eye on.

He smiled in satisfaction behind the mask.

Just then, with a look like he’d made up his mind about something, Song Junho declared:

“Kim Muhyuk! I’m going to recognize you as one of my rivals!”

“...Mm?”

It was the second rival declaration I’d heard, after Shin Kangheon.