Urban Vagabond: Reload

From the moment the Skybreaker Gate sect leader requested a witness—no, even before that—Choi Geon had been preparing himself.

For the possibility that they would use his former disciple, Yang Seonu, to corner him.

And for the possibility that every detail of his past would be dragged into the light because of it.

“...I will testify. Numerous people died because Sword Demon Choi Geon recklessly forced the operation to proceed. There was no information leak. It all happened because of Sword Demon Choi Geon’s poor judgment.”

The disciple who had betrayed him at his weakest and joined the Eight Great Sects.

The shock had driven Choi Geon from the Martial Alliance, forcing him into long years of seclusion.

But he had sworn this time would be different.

I will face you head-on. This time, I’ll curse you out to your face until I’ve had my fill!

Yet the instant he came face-to-face with Yang Seonu in the conference room, Choi Geon’s resolve crumbled.

“You... How dare you stand before me again!”

An old Inner Demon.

To hide the trembling in his hands, Choi Geon clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. His eyes bloodshot, he glared at Yang Seonu and forced the words out.

“Y-you wretch who deserves Heaven’s punishment! You shameless bastard who knows no gratitude! I raised you like my own child. How could you... how could you...”

Choi Geon rambled as though he had lost his senses.

The hard-edged martial artist who had once poured venomous abuse over evildoers with effortless eloquence was gone. In his place stood only an old martial artist, consumed by resentment.

“Even if the whole world turned against me, you should not have. You should never have betrayed me...”

Love and hatred, twisted together with unbearable intensity, burned in his bloodshot eyes.

As Choi Geon stared at him with a face contorted as hideously as an evil ghost’s, Yang Seonu respectfully clasped his hands.

“It has been a long time, Master.”

“...How dare you call me Master?”

“I am glad to see you are well. And that you still hate me. I agonized over whether to stand here myself. But as I told you twenty years ago...”

His stubborn eyes resembled Choi Geon’s exactly.

But unlike Choi Geon, whose emotions were in turmoil, Yang Seonu’s gaze held nothing at all as he looked at his former master.

If anything, one corner of his mouth had lifted almost imperceptibly.

“Your way was wrong, Master.”

“...!”

Choi Geon beat a fist against his chest as though he could not breathe.

He glared at Yang Seonu through eyes reddened by burst blood vessels, but his mouth would not open, as though someone had sealed it shut.

Yang Seonu turned toward Ivan Volkov and began his testimony.

“Sword Demon Choi Geon was known as the Martial Alliance’s assassin and Shadow Sword. He conducted illegal background investigations into martial artists of the orthodox martial world. Those who did not meet the standards he set were killed or crippled.”

“Rubbish! He is twisting the truth to fabricate lies!”

The Martial Alliance side reacted fiercely.

Yet the Martial Alliance Leader and No Gucheon already looked thoroughly thrown.

“It is all true. I possess more than enough evidence, and my master will not be able to deny my words.”

“...”

Yang Seonu knew everything about Choi Geon’s past.

He had been an exceptional swordsman to whom the Sword Demon had taught everything, a beloved disciple Choi Geon had once intended to make his successor.

That made the information he possessed highly credible—and ruinous for Choi Geon.

“Investigator Ivan. Regardless of whether his words are true, these are events from more than twenty years ago. They are unrelated to this special audit. There is no reason to hear any more.”

Yeo Pilgeuk stepped in personally, trying to contain the situation.

Ivan Volkov refused.

“I will decide that. Elder Yang Seonu, continue.”

With the investigator’s permission, Yang Seonu drove his former master even deeper into a corner.

“Blinded by his conviction that he had to eradicate evil, Sword Demon Choi Geon harmed countless martial artists. Once he deemed someone evil by his narrow standards, he spared no one. And sometimes...”

Yang Seonu paused.

He released a long breath, as though it pained him to go this far against the man who had once been his master.

Haaaaah...

But every word that left his mouth in that pained expression was as deadly as a dagger coated in virulent poison.

“He even killed martial artists who had done nothing wrong, simply because they stood in the way of his justice.”

At that absurd slander, No Gucheon shouted even more furiously than Choi Geon.

“You animal! You can lie so brazenly without your face changing at all?”

But Choi Geon only lowered his head and said nothing.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip...

When tears suddenly began to fall from Choi Geon’s eyes after he had remained silent for so long, everyone held their breath.

Kim Muhyuk, too, could only watch his master with a grim expression.

“...Seonu.”

When Choi Geon raised his head again, his eyes were unbearably sad.

Over Yang Seonu’s face, now nearly middle-aged, he saw the image of the boy he had raised like a son for more than ten years.

“Master. I’ll become a heroic swordsman like you and punish the wicked!”

“...I do not understand, Master. Why can’t we kill them all?”

“It would have been cleaner to kill everyone associated with them too...”

A disciple who had shown, as he grew older, a nature increasingly different from his master’s.

Choi Geon had believed that if he taught him enough, he could change him.

Back then, he could not admit that it was already too late.

And now—

Choi Geon wept as he smiled.

“Heh heh. Yes. Now I understand. What kind of thing you are. I was blind. Blinded by affection, I failed to see it...”

The former disciple he had met again after more than twenty years had become an irredeemable evil.

That was the boy’s true nature—the nature Choi Geon had refused to acknowledge until the end.

In the eyes of the Sword Demon, who had seen more evil than anyone, Yang Seonu wore the face of a chillingly cunning villain.

At that moment, Choi Geon resolved to erase the evil he had raised from this world with his own hands.

“I should have killed you before I left that day. I hesitated out of guilt and missed my chance, allowing my disciple to become something even worse. This master’s sin is grievous indeed.”

FWOOOOSH!

Killing intent erupted from Choi Geon and flooded the conference room.

He gave his disciple a savage smile.

“I will not hesitate any longer. Before you become a great evil, I will take your head.”

“...!”

The killing intent pouring off the Sword Demon was so suffocatingly dense that the martial artists on the Eight Great Sects’ side rose as one and drew their weapons.

“...He has finally lost his mind.”

“That madman...”

“Protect the witness!”

The Martial Alliance side rose as well. They, too, were visibly shocked by Choi Geon’s sudden outburst.

“Choi Geon! Please stop!”

“What are you doing? If you start a fight here, then you—”

“Stop!”

Desperate voices called to him from behind, but Choi Geon instead released killing intent in their direction as well, keeping them from approaching carelessly.

He picked up a ballpoint pen from the table with his right hand.

It was an ordinary pen, yet in Choi Geon’s grasp, it carried a sharper and more sinister edge than a honed sword.

“Heh heh heh...”

He bent his knees slightly and lowered his stance.

At any moment, he looked ready to charge forward and drive the pen into Yang Seonu’s throat.

“M-Master? Please do not do this.”

Yang Seonu trembled as though he were afraid, cleverly hiding behind the sect leaders of the Eight Great Sects.

“Seonu. Let this old master play a round of tag with you, for old times’ sake.”

Even Choi Geon would have to break through five supreme masters to reach him.

Yet not a trace of hesitation showed in his eyes.

Choi Geon chuckled and prepared to spring at Yang Seonu.

Then—

“You keep looking for your old disciple. You are going to make me feel neglected.”

Someone calmly stepped into the Sword Demon’s killing intent, sharp enough to cut anyone who touched it.

Kim Muhyuk had somehow slipped behind Choi Geon and taken his position at his back.

As Choi Geon turned toward him in shock, Muhyuk spoke.

“Master. Take a moment to cool your head.”

“No. I have to deal with that bastard—”

Tap.

Kim Muhyuk pressed his master’s sleep pressure point, then carefully caught Choi Geon as he sagged bonelessly down.

Huuuu...

The martial artists who had been tense through the standoff all exhaled at once.

Choi Geon’s killing intent had been that dreadful.

At the same time, however, they stared at Kim Muhyuk as though he were a monster.

He had slipped past that horrifying killing intent and qi sense, taken the Sword Demon’s back, and struck his pressure point.

He fooled the Sword Demon’s senses and slipped into his range?

How in the world...?

Is that even possible for a young rising star?

No one voiced the thoughts aloud.

But in that moment, Kim Muhyuk’s presence was branded deeply into the minds of the orthodox martial world’s most powerful figures.

Then Ivan Volkov, who had watched the entire situation as quietly as a remote island, gave a low chuckle.

“What a complete shitshow. I like it.”

He shook his head, his personal weapon—his tonfa—resting on the table before him.

Then he addressed everyone looking at him.

“I have determined that it is no longer possible to continue this confrontation interrogation. We will end it here.”

Rising from his seat, he looked at the unconscious Choi Geon with an unreadable expression.

“Once suspect Choi Geon regains consciousness, we will schedule the next confrontation interrogation. Both sides are to submit all evidence brought with them by the end of today.”

Having said all he had to say, Ivan Volkov left the conference room without a second glance.

For the Martial Alliance and Choi Geon, the confrontation interrogation had ended in the worst possible way.

“...”

“...”

The representatives of the Eight Great Sects and the Martial Alliance glared at one another before gathering their things and leaving one by one.

Then Yang Seonu approached Kim Muhyuk.

“You are Kim Muhyuk, right?”

Kim Muhyuk had been checking his master’s condition. He turned to look at Yang Seonu.

Yang Seonu gazed at Choi Geon with an expression that seemed almost bitter before speaking.

“You called him Master. Did he teach you swordsmanship?”

“...What do you want?”

At Kim Muhyuk’s cold response, Yang Seonu raised both hands and offered an awkward smile.

“Do not be so sharp. If you learned the sword from Master Choi Geon, that makes you my junior as well. Ah, it was a joke. Was it not funny?”

Kim Muhyuk stared at Yang Seonu’s shameless face for a moment, scratched his head, and let out a low sigh.

“I do not particularly want to think of you as my senior.”

“Of course not. Master hates me deeply...”

“Well, that is part of it.”

After confirming that Choi Geon’s breathing had stabilized, Kim Muhyuk rose and faced Yang Seonu directly.

Perhaps because they had both learned the sword from the same master, a strangely similar air flowed between them.

“When I beat you to a pulp with my own hands later, I think I would feel a little guilty if I thought of you as my senior.”

“I am not the type to worry about that. Then I will call you Junior.”

Heh.

The two men smiled at each other.

Even the way they concealed killing intent behind those smiles was similar.

“By the way, what were you so disappointed about?”

When Kim Muhyuk pressed Choi Geon’s sleep pressure point and watched him collapse, he had read Yang Seonu’s lips.

Yang Seonu had clearly mouthed, What a shame.

“Were you disappointed that Master did not go any further? Or disappointed that you could not use that as an excuse to kill him? Both?”

Kim Muhyuk provoked him while carefully studying his expression.

Yang Seonu only smiled lightly.

“Master took in an interesting disciple in his later years. He will not be lonely.”

With a faint chuckle, he turned away.

“See you next time, Junior.”

“You can look forward to it.”

At that moment, as they turned their backs on one another, both men’s eyes gleamed with the exact same killing intent.