Urban Vagabond: Reload

Choi Geon infiltrated the building and immediately headed for the sect leader’s office on the top floor.

Dangerous items or documents that could serve as evidence are usually kept under the boss’s direct control.

In the past, Choi Geon had served the Martial Alliance as a hidden Dark Sword, tasked with uncovering and executing the corruption and atrocities of the orthodox sects.

He took more pride than anyone in being an orthodox martial artist—yet he had also seen, time and time again, the orthodox world’s double standards and ugliness.

Bastards who’ll do anything to keep their power and strength.

It was only natural that Choi Geon, who never compromised with injustice, hated the Eight Great Sects—and that the Eight Great Sects saw him as a thorn in their side.

Most of the cases he had resolved, if you dug deep enough, were connected to the Eight Great Sects in one way or another.

In the end, he had been all but driven out after earning the Eight Great Sects’ hatred, but Choi Geon had not regretted a single thing he’d done.

“...Even after all these years, the stench of the sewer on you bastards hasn’t changed. The taller and flashier the building gets, the thicker it gets.”

Muttering under his breath, Choi Geon stopped in front of the sect leader’s office. He spread his senses wide, gauging the security beyond the door.

Infrared sensors, spell-detection devices, even a Mechanism-and-Formation Array. You’ve layered the place up in every way you can. How guilty do you have to be?

But no amount of cutting-edge security could stop Choi Geon’s infiltration.

Slip.

A stealth skill surpassing even a top-tier assassin had not rusted, despite the fact he’d retired from active duty twenty years ago.

Like a shadow, Choi Geon slipped into the sect leader’s office, deftly disabled the security devices, and began searching the places most likely to hide confidential information.

It didn’t take long to get results.

Click.

With keen senses, he found a hidden button in the sect leader’s desk and pressed it. One wall slid sideways, revealing a concealed space.

As he confirmed the passageway stretching beyond, a smile formed at the corner of Choi Geon’s mouth.

Disciple. Looks like your master won our bet.

Just imagining boasting to Kim Muhyuk was enough to lift his mood.

In the old days, he wouldn’t have been able to imagine himself making bets with a disciple.

But after meeting a young disciple he clicked with, Choi Geon kept finding himself acting childish sometimes, like he’d gone back to his youth.

The problem is, the brat’s barely even an adult and he’s already trying to beat his master. When we get back, I’ll tell him to put on a cute little show in front of his parents.

The thought of watching a disciple with zero charm force himself to act cute made Choi Geon’s lips curl up on their own.

But not long after he stepped into the secret passage, Choi Geon’s smile vanished.

“...That bastard.”

It was the trail of the assassin who had slipped out of his grasp and fled the Martial Alliance.

Faint footprints left on the floor. A familiar metallic blood scent. And above all—torn clothing, ripped during the fight with Choi Geon, discarded on the ground.

Changed clothes here and left? Which means...

This was a passage that led outside.

In that moment, Choi Geon felt a strange sense of wrongness.

The assassin who had escaped him was not someone to take lightly.

But if he had left traces this sloppy inside a secret passage...

“Did he leave them on purpose?”

Choi Geon was certain the assassin was not from Great Heaven Gate.

If he’d been from their own sect, he wouldn’t have left dangerous evidence behind in the first place.

Instead, the reason he’d come all the way here just to dump his clothes was becoming clearer and clearer.

If someone chases him, he’ll pin it on Great Heaven Gate and cut off the tail.

In other words, Great Heaven Gate was a piece they could afford to throw away.

And the only people who could use a mid-tier sect as a disposable piece were the scum of the Eight Great Sects.

Choi Geon ground his teeth and muttered quietly.

“So it’s you again.”

But even Choi Geon, who had inferred so much from the circumstances, missed one thing.

Once something had been marked as disposable, they could blow the entire piece away at any time.

Grrrrrk...

“...!”

The instant he felt the Mechanism-and-Formation Array activate within the passage, a bad premonition hit him—and Choi Geon spun around and unleashed his lightness technique at full power.

Whooooosh!

He barely made it out of the secret passage. To warn his disciple, he blew the whistle with everything he had.

The explosion went off behind him immediately after.

BOOOOOM—!

Flames surged up with the blast and swallowed Choi Geon whole.

As the secret passage ruptured, the shockwave shattered the reinforced glass with a crashing spray. Each shard was no different from a hidden weapon.

Who could have predicted it?

Explosives powerful enough to blow away the entire sect leader’s office had been installed right beside it.

A moment later, the black smoke cleared, and Choi Geon emerged with more than half his clothing burned away.

“...Ptoo.”

He spat out blood. When he swept his sword, the pitch-black smoke poured out through the broken window.

The explosion’s power was immense. The office furniture had been pulverized into splinters, leaving no trace, and the wall had been blown apart to the point the building’s frame was exposed.

The explosion’s power was immense. The office furniture had been pulverized into splinters, leaving no trace, and the wall had been blown apart to the point the building’s frame was exposed.

Choi Geon had suffered a serious internal injury, but the reason his face twisted like an evil spirit wasn’t just the pain.

“How can creatures like this dare call themselves orthodox?!”

Just to eliminate a pursuer, they planted that many bombs inside another sect’s headquarters?

It was late at night, thankfully—but if that blast had caught Great Heaven Gate’s martial artists, or the civilians working in the building...

His teeth trembled at the Eight Great Sects’ viciousness, unchanged even now—people were nothing but chess pieces to them.

I don’t know who’s behind it, but I’ll find them. And I’ll make them pay.

At that moment, Great Heaven Gate’s guard martial artists, having heard the blast, rushed up from below and surrounded Choi Geon.

“Y-you, intruder!”

“Contact the sect leader right now!”

“Terrorist! He’s the culprit!”

He could have escaped at once, but Choi Geon deliberately watched as they poured in.

Because if the alarm went off, it wouldn’t just be dangerous for him.

Muhyuk will get out just fine, of course, but...

Muhyuk will get out just fine, of course, but...

To buy his disciple even a little time, Choi Geon deliberately stirred up a commotion.

“How dare you, do you even know where you are?!”

“State your identity!”

Kkrrrk.

The sound of his sword tip scraping the ruined floor made the martial artists tightening the encirclement flinch.

From the martial artist once called the Sword Demon—who had made villains tremble in fear—thick killing intent seeped out.

“You want to know who I am? I’m a devil who came to eat rotten orthodox trash.”

The Sword Demon cackled as he swept his gaze over Great Heaven Gate’s martial artists, then his eyes flashed as he charged.

That day, the Sword Demon didn’t kill anyone.

But he gave everyone there a nightmare they would never forget.

“...This should do.”

After dropping dozens of martial artists, Choi Geon turned without hesitation and escaped before Great Heaven Gate’s elite could arrive.

It wasn’t as if he’d gained nothing, but he couldn’t help feeling frustrated.

His certainty that the Eight Great Sects were behind this had only grown stronger—yet he still hadn’t identified exactly which of them it was.

But not long after, he heard astonishing news from the disciple he met up with again.

“Master? What on earth happened to you?”

“You’re one to talk—what the hell happened to you?”

Master and disciple met again looking thoroughly battered, clicked their tongues at each other’s state, and shared what each of them had learned.

[Why is Sun and Moon Gate doing something like this?]

[We failed? Ridiculous. You’re the ones who failed completely in the license exam and accomplished nothing!]

After listening to Gu Jaseung’s voice saved on the phone, Choi Geon looked at his disciple with admiration.

“Ha! You’re better than me. You led him into it, in that situation?”

“It’s more like he got spooked and blurted it out himself... but still. That means I won the bet, right?”

“Hahaha! Of course! I’ll grant any wish you want!”

Choi Geon sprang to his feet, beaming, and asked in a low, suggestive voice.

“You said your injuries aren’t serious, right?”

“Mostly scrapes. If I put some Golden Spear Medicine on them, I think I’ll heal fast.”

“Then come with me somewhere.”

“Where now?”

“We’re going to see my old friend. In front of him, you’ll tell him yourself what you saw and heard.”

*****

“...What the hell is this, you two, showing up at dawn like this?”

No Gucheon stared at Choi Geon and Kim Muhyuk with a baffled expression.

He had just woken up after hearing the report that a terror incident had occurred at Great Heaven Gate.

He’d been preparing to head straight to the Martial Alliance—but out of nowhere, the two of them had climbed over his wall and come in.

Choi Geon spoke to his longtime friend with an apologetic tone.

“Sorry for coming so late. But this is important—make time for us.”

“Good grief... I have to go urgently, so finish as fast as you can.”

But his grumbling didn’t last long. After hearing what had happened today, No Gucheon’s mouth fell open.

“Do you have any idea how shocked I was when I got the report that a terror incident happened at Great Heaven Gate?! And now you’re telling me you two did it? You should’ve at least given me some warning!”

No Gucheon fumed, then let out a sigh. He knew Choi Geon’s temperament all too well.

“You wanted me to ask you first and get the Martial Alliance Leader’s approval? If we’d waited to move until then, all the evidence would’ve been erased and we wouldn’t have recovered anything.”

“...I shouldn’t have said anything. Anyway, you did good. Muhyuk—you did good too.”

Whatever the process had been, they had secured recorded evidence that Sun and Moon Gate was behind the incident that occurred during the license exam.

But if they revealed that evidence recklessly, it could provoke backlash.

No Gucheon muttered, his face heavy with worry.

“Sun and Moon Gate’s later-generation talent almost became the victim, and yet the culprit is Sun and Moon Gate... If I hadn’t heard the recording, I would never have believed it. They could even claim it was fabricated.”

“Why wouldn’t I believe it? The sect leader belongs to the blazing-yang faction, and the kid who nearly became the sacrifice belongs to the yin-cold faction. If it’s those power-crazed Eight Great Sects bastards, it’s more than possible.”

“Even so...”

I had been listening quietly, and I asked.

“I’m not really interested in that kind of thing, so—what exactly are the factions inside Sun and Moon Gate?”

“How should I explain it... Even among the Eight Great Sects, Sun and Moon Gate’s structure is a bit complicated.”

No Gucheon began explaining Sun and Moon Gate to me.

Sun and Moon.

A term that refers to the sun and the moon together. In the beginning, it was a group of martial artists who sought to master martial arts that encompassed yin and yang.

But as time passed, it changed into a sect where you chose one of two lineages—blazing-yang or yin-cold—and focused on researching and mastering that path.

Naturally, the power inside the sect split into two sides as well.

“In the end, the tradition continues where the two factions take turns serving as sect leader.”

Sun and Moon Gate’s current sect leader was Jang Jinmyeong.

His epithet was the Flame Lord.

A top master of blazing-yang martial arts—someone said to wield flames as if they were alive.

Choi Geon snorted and added.

“The problem is, Sun and Moon Gate’s strongest isn’t the sect leader. It’s the Grand Elder—the Glacier Priestess. In skill and prestige, Jang Jinmyeong can’t measure up to her, but it just so happened to be the blazing-yang faction’s turn, so he got lucky and became sect leader.”

As I listened, I recalled the Glacier Priestess I’d seen in the Martial Alliance ward.

Yang Hayun’s master.

I’d only seen her briefly, but her presence had been enormous—enough to compare to how it felt when I met the Martial Alliance Leader.

“Everyone who knows anything knows Sun and Moon Gate’s sect leader has an inferiority complex toward the Glacier Priestess. So isn’t that why he tried to kill her disciple? To weaken the yin-cold faction’s power in the next generation.”

At Choi Geon’s extreme assertion, No Gucheon’s expression hardened.

“Ha! Even so—”

“Do you still not get it? The Eight Great Sects’ leadership aren’t people you can call orthodox. To protect their power, they’re the kind of creatures who’ll do things worse than beasts.”

“Even if that’s true, are you saying we should make that claim without solid proof? If we’re careless, we could be framed as the culprits!”

“Then what—like before, we pretend we didn’t see it and let it slide again?!”

As the conversation grew more serious, I sank into thought.

Great Heaven Gate’s relationship with Sun and Moon Gate.

The two factions propping up Sun and Moon Gate.

The best move was to make them start swinging at each other.

But they’re not idiots. They won’t collide that easily.

Unless there was a major incident that could ignite a huge internal conflict, they’d avoid a direct clash.

...Wait. If there isn’t one—so we just make it, right?

All of a sudden, I remembered Gu Jaseung immediately mistaking me for Sun and Moon Gate the moment he saw my ice.

—As I thought... you came from Sun and Moon Gate.

If a mid-tier sect’s elder could misunderstand that easily, wouldn’t it look the same to other people too?

Fwooooo—

A pure white wind abruptly coiled around my body. Choi Geon and No Gucheon—still in the middle of arguing—both turned toward me at the same time.

“If it goes well... I think I can set the board for you.”