Urban Vagabond: Reload

Choi Geon did not wake easily. He groaned in his sleep, as though trapped in a terrifying nightmare, cold sweat pouring from him as he kept tossing and turning.

“...Even after I released his pressure point, he still won’t wake up.”

“Muhyuk, this is not your fault. His Inner Demon is gnawing away at his mind. Let’s wait a little longer.”

Only Kim Muhyuk and Yeo Pilgeuk remained in the hospital room.

As Kim Muhyuk wiped the beads of cold sweat from his master’s brow, he asked casually,

“What kind of bastard is Yang Seonu, anyway?”

“...You didn’t know? I thought he had told you...”

“He never talks about himself much.”

Kim Muhyuk looked at his pale-faced master with a trace of resentment.

It would have been better if he had told him beforehand.

Then Kim Muhyuk would have found some way to keep him from ever facing Yang Seonu...

“Sword Demon must have known this day would come. He knew that if he stood against the Eight Great Sects, he would inevitably meet Yang Seonu again.”

Yeo Pilgeuk continued, looking sorrowfully at Choi Geon lying in the bed.

“Yang Seonu... was a disciple Sword Demon raised like his own son. His parents were swept up in a conflict between unorthodox sects, and he was orphaned. Sword Demon went out in person and rescued him.”

The boy had no family left beyond his dead biological parents.

Choi Geon saw his own childhood reflected in that young boy. So he became the child’s guardian himself, brought him home, and began teaching him martial arts.

“If I remember correctly, he took him in at eight years old and raised {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} him like a son for ten years while teaching him martial arts. The people around him urged him to adopt the boy properly, but he refused outright. He said that if he died, the boy would become an orphan all over again. But aside from having different surnames, they were no different from father and son.”

“...He was closer to a son than a disciple.”

Kim Muhyuk realized that the bond between the two had been much deeper than he had thought.

He could understand now why Choi Geon, who was normally so cold and composed, had reacted with such raw emotion.

“Yes. To this man, he was practically a son. That is why he must have taught him everything without holding anything back.”

Choi Geon had taught many disciples while serving as the Martial Alliance’s swordsmanship instructor, but Yang Seonu was the only one who had inherited every last part of his exclusive sword art.

A young rising star raised by Sword Demon—the Martial Alliance’s strongest swordsman—as his successor.

Yang Seonu entered the Martial Alliance amid great expectations. On every mission he personally undertook, he distinguished himself and made his master proud.

...Except for the one heretical-cult suppression operation he had joined alongside Choi Geon.

“At the hearing that was meant to determine responsibility for the operation’s failure, that bastard suddenly gave false testimony. He sided with the Eight Great Sects... and pushed his master’s back while he was standing at the edge of a cliff.”

Even now, recalling that day seemed to enrage Yeo Pilgeuk. He clenched his fist tightly.

The moment the disciple Choi Geon had raised as a son for ten years stabbed him in the back.

The shock broke Choi Geon’s heart. He meekly accepted the punishment demanded by the Eight Great Sects and was expelled.

That was how Sword Demon left the martial world and vanished into the darkness.

Yeo Pilgeuk let out a long sigh.

“Even mentioning that name in front of him feels like a taboo. It must have been the same for him as well. Perhaps... it was not that he chose not to tell you. Perhaps he simply could not. So do not be too hurt by it.”

Kim Muhyuk nodded silently.

He was not hurt at all.

If anything, he now understood how much courage it must have taken for Choi Geon to accept him as a disciple.

“...It must have been hard, Master. Hard enough to make you want to give up on everything.”

Remembering the lonely end Choi Geon had met in his past life, Kim Muhyuk wiped the cold sweat from his master’s face.

Yeo Pilgeuk watched with sorrow as well.

“I thought enough time had passed for him to be somewhat better. I had no idea the Inner Demon had sunk so deeply. To think he tried to kill Yang Seonu right there...”

He had tried to kill a witness in front of a World Martial Alliance investigator.

For both Choi Geon and the Martial Alliance, today’s confrontation interrogation could hardly have ended worse.

“This is my failure. I should have stopped Yang Seonu from coming in somehow...”

But Kim Muhyuk shook his head, seemingly of a different opinion.

“I don’t think it was only because of the Inner Demon.”

“...Then what else could it have been?”

“Master has spent his whole life fighting evil people. Maybe he instinctively sensed something in that moment.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Kim Muhyuk had felt something unpleasant from Yang Seonu as well, though not as intensely as his master had.

It was not simply because Yang Seonu had shamelessly lied and driven his master into a corner.

His expressions, attitude, and voice throughout the ordeal had all felt wrong.

It was natural enough that most people would never notice it, but Kim Muhyuk clearly sensed the difference.

As though something that was not human were pretending to be human...

The moment that thought crossed his mind, Kim Muhyuk formed a hypothesis.

“What if Yang Seonu was the traitor who sold the Martial Alliance’s information to the Heavenly Demon Cult more than twenty years ago?”

Yeo Pilgeuk, realizing what Kim Muhyuk was thinking, shook his head.

“At that time, Yang Seonu was not even twenty. He was a young rising star who had been lured in by the Eight Great Sects’ promises of wealth and glory. At that age...”

“Alliance Leader.”

Kim Muhyuk looked directly at the Martial Alliance Leader, who was trapped by his assumptions about age.

“I’m twenty now as well. But you have seen with your own eyes what I have done so far.”

“...!”

For a moment, Yeo Pilgeuk was left speechless. Then his eyes cooled.

A new possibility had appeared—one that did not involve the sect leaders and senior figures of the Eight Great Sects he had suspected until now.

He did not immediately place much weight on the possibility Kim Muhyuk had raised, but his voice began to tremble faintly.

“...After betraying Sword Demon, Yang Seonu entered Skybreaker Gate. There was nothing unusual in his record afterward, other than the speed with which he became an elder. In particular, there has been no connection whatsoever to the Cult’s movements that we have uncovered so far.”

Deep-rooted evil.

Until now, Yeo Pilgeuk and Choi Geon had believed that the person in question was someone the Heavenly Demon Cult had spent years carefully planting in the orthodox martial world.

That was why they had regarded Yang Seonu’s betrayal, back when he was only a young rising star, as a separate matter.

But what if...

“What if it was the other way around?”

Once again, Kim Muhyuk presented a possibility the two men had never considered.

“What if Yang Seonu approached the Heavenly Demon Cult first, out of his own need, rather than the Heavenly Demon Cult approaching him?”

“What?”

Kim Muhyuk had occasionally encountered people like Yang Seonu in the underworld.

People with an extreme lack of empathy, who barely felt emotions themselves and artificially imitated the expressions of others.

The sort of people who could drive a blade into the back of the master who had raised them for ten years without feeling a shred of guilt.

Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Kim Muhyuk was convinced that Yang Seonu was a psychopath who had simply been lucky enough to grow up in the orthodox martial world.

Because of Choi Geon’s unusual background, no one would have suspected him.

If I frame my master and drive him out of the Martial Alliance, then I can enter another sect without worrying about anyone watching me. I won’t have to listen to that tiresome talk about justice anymore, either. While I’m at it, should I kill all those annoying people who keep praising me as a heroic swordsman? Then I could live exactly as I please...

“What... what are you saying right now?”

Kim Muhyuk, who had been muttering to himself, looked at Yeo Pilgeuk’s stiff expression and shrugged.

“I thought that was what I might have thought if I were Yang Seonu.”

“...That is far too much of a leap. More than that, you do not have a single piece of evidence.”

Yeo Pilgeuk had spent his entire life as a heroic swordsman of the orthodox martial world.

To him, Kim Muhyuk’s reasoning sounded like little more than deciding someone was guilty first, then attaching one piece of speculation after another.

“We’ll start looking for evidence now.”

But Kim Muhyuk’s eyes were cold.

He remembered his own instincts, along with Choi Geon’s words and actions—his insistence that Yang Seonu had to be removed before he became a great evil.

“Alliance Leader, there is one more thing I would like to ask. Do you know why Yang Seonu went to Skybreaker Gate of all places?”

After taking the Eight Great Sects’ side and helping drive his master out,

Yang Seonu entered Skybreaker Gate and became one of its disciples.

But Kim Muhyuk could not quite understand that choice.

“If he wanted money, he would have gone to Golden Glory Gate. If he desired fame or martial arts, he would have gone to Azure Sky Sword Gate or Supreme Pole Sword Gate. So why Skybreaker Gate?”

Compared to the three sects Kim Muhyuk had just mentioned, Skybreaker Gate was rated lower.

Despite its grand name of breaking the sky, its standing within the Eight Great Sects was, frankly speaking, somewhere in the middle or below it.

“I do not know the exact reason. But...”

After hesitating briefly, Yeo Pilgeuk told him a secret story involving Choi Geon and Skybreaker Gate.

“Long ago, the cousin of Skybreaker Gate’s sect leader committed a revolting crime. There was no definitive evidence, but the circumstances strongly indicated that he had been involved in a crime against a child.”

The incident had been so horrific and shocking that Yeo Pilgeuk remembered it clearly.

“But that vile crime never became known to the world. In exchange for burying it quietly, Skybreaker Gate offered the victims’ families an enormous sum of compensation.”

It was bitter, but the perpetrators and the victims’ families had reached a settlement. By all appearances, that should have been the end of it.

But Choi Geon did not let it end there.

“...After confirming that the families had received the compensation, Sword Demon tracked down the sect leader’s cousin, who had fled overseas, and killed him. He left no evidence, but anyone could tell it was Sword Demon’s work. They said a single thousand-won bill had been placed on top of the corpse as ‘compensation.’”

It was one of the incidents that made the Eight Great Sects regard Sword Demon as a thorn in their side—and fear him at the same time.

For the first time, the corners of Kim Muhyuk’s mouth curled upward in satisfaction.

“As expected of my master.”

“...Do you think Skybreaker Gate is involved in this as well?”

At the possibility that Skybreaker Gate and the Heavenly Demon Cult might be connected, Yeo Pilgeuk’s eyes glinted coldly.

“We need to find out. Whether they are accomplices, the ones behind it all, or simply idiots being manipulated.”

Kim Muhyuk rose to his feet. He did not know when the next confrontation interrogation would begin, but there could not be much time left.

“Master.”

Choi Geon still had not opened his eyes.

But Kim Muhyuk believed his master could hear him, and so he spoke.

“I told you, didn’t I? If you stayed still, I would bring you prey myself. I didn’t mean you were supposed to lie here like this...”

Kim Muhyuk forced a brighter tone and made a joke.

“Rest for a little while. I’ll bring you prey soon. Though I might chew it up a little beforehand, so please understand.”

With a playful smile, Kim Muhyuk turned and offered Yeo Pilgeuk a clasped-hands martial salute as well.

“Alliance Leader, please look after my master.”

“I will keep watching over him. Contact me if anything happens.”

“Understood.”

After Kim Muhyuk left first,

Yeo Pilgeuk spoke to Choi Geon, who still had not woken up.

“You did not see that brat’s eyes earlier, did you? I nearly pissed myself. If he had been an enemy, I definitely would have wet myself.”

“...”

As though he had not expected an answer, Yeo Pilgeuk turned his head and looked out the window.

Though it was late afternoon, it was still bright outside. Summer was clearly beginning in earnest.

And with that season came something else.

“...The monsoon will be here soon. A violent storm is coming.”

“Once it pours, all the filth will be washed away.”

Yeo Pilgeuk whipped his head around and stared at Choi Geon in shock.

Choi Geon had woken up at some point and was looking back at him. His eyes were so clear they seemed almost cold.

“Isn’t that right?”

“Choi Geon...!”

The moment their eyes met, Yeo Pilgeuk sensed that Sword Demon had undergone a tremendous change.