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< Dishonest >
That night.
The man quietly hid himself in the ceiling of the old man’s room.
Swish.
His figure melted into the darkness. He used stealth to kill his presence, and even used his unique skill,
‘They just so happen to be together.’
The man peered into the room through a thin gap in the wooden ceiling. He saw the old man and the boy together.
“Ugh···.”
The boy with the evil eye was groaning softly. The boy was wearing thin clothes and sitting cross-legged, while the old man sitting behind him was hitting the boy on the back.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
It wasn’t just a hit.
He was constantly stimulating the blood vessels throughout his body with his fingers, palms, and sometimes even fists.
‘Challenge and bloodshed?’
Chugung and Hyeol are a type of massage therapy that utilizes Qi. It stimulates the blood vessels of the body, boosts vitality, and gently relaxes muscles, so it is very helpful when learning martial arts.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
As if this wasn’t his first or second time doing it, the old man touched the boy’s acupoint without hesitation.
‘That’s not a massage level?’
“Phew···.”
Sweat beaded on the old man’s forehead as he exhaled deeply. He was extremely focused.
After a good hour had passed.
The old man took a deep breath and patted the boy on the back.
“It’s all over.”
“Phew···.”
At the same time, the boy took a deep breath and opened his closed eyes.
‘That guy looks like he’ll make a lot of women cry.’
The man thought so as he looked at the boy’s face.
A slender figure with long arms and legs. Her hair is tied back tightly.
His pale face was slightly wet with sweat, but his lips were as red as cherries.
Except for being a little short, the boy had the looks of an idol.
An old man and a boy sat facing each other with a lamp in the middle. The old man wiped the sweat from his forehead and said.
“It seems like your physical condition has improved a lot compared to before.”
The boy smiled self-deprecatingly at those words.
“Grandpa, don’t you get tired of hearing the same story every day?”
“This time it’s real, you punk. Didn’t you change the medicine a while ago?”
The old man gave the boy a drink and handed him a bitter medicine he had prepared in advance. The boy drank the bitter medicine in gulps.
“Ugh···. Write···.”
“Here, I bought some new candy too.”
The old man stuffed a piece of candy into his frowning grandson’s mouth.
Drinking a herbal medicine every night after the examination was over was the routine for the two.
The boy said, sucking on the candy.
“Grandpa. The guest who came today. Doesn’t he seem a little suspicious?”
The man hiding in the ceiling focused his hearing.
The old man who was rubbing his shoulder said with a mischievous expression.
“You mean that young man? Why? Do you like him?”
The boy became serious.
“Don’t joke around. That guest… he didn’t come looking for us, did he?”
“Hmm. That’s probably not it.”
The old man’s eyes were sharp as he shook his head.
It wasn’t just a few hours ago that he was smiling and having a drink with a senior citizen.
“I was suspicious at first too, so I asked a few questions… but there was no such feeling.”
“He could be a trained assassin. He could have been deliberately acting sloppy to make us let our guard down.”
The old man shook his head despite the boy’s question.
“I didn’t even wear a face mask, and my hands didn’t have many calluses. You can hide your internal energy, but you can’t hide your sword-wielding hand.”
‘That old man. He looked at all that stuff while pretending to drink with me.’
The man was listening with interest to the conversation between the old man and the boy.
The identities of the two people were roughly guessed.
‘Survivors of the extinct Sword Emperor clan. I don’t know about the old man, but that kid is probably a descendant of the Sword Emperor.’
After the death of Emperor Geumhwang, the Geomhwang clan gradually became smaller in size, and was eventually destroyed by a mysterious force during the reign of his grandson.
The Murim Alliance officially announced that the Demonic Cult had destroyed the Geomhwang Sect, but the Demonic Cult strongly denied this fact.
‘It’s been 20 years since the Geomhwang clan was destroyed, right? I came to the martial arts world 5 years earlier, so it’s been 15 years since then.’
Then the boy spoke. He spoke about his first impression of the man.
“But… I felt a little strange.”
It was because of the energy of the Heavenly Sword that the Great Man had mastered. Just as the Great Man recognized the boy’s martial arts at a glance, the boy also felt something.
The old man spoke to the boy who still had doubts.
“Hyun-ah. They say that when you get to my age, you start to develop an eye for people. In my opinion, that young man doesn’t seem like a bad person.”
The man hiding above the ceiling scratched his chin.
‘It’s a bit of a prick to my conscience to hear such words while hiding like a thief.’
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It was then that the old man suddenly hardened his expression and spoke.
“Or maybe···!”
“Oh, what is it?”
The old man said to his grandson, whose expression hardened, with a sly smile.
“You really like it, don’t you? Well, you’re old enough to do that. And you don’t look so bad either…”
“Grandpa, really!”
“Hahahaha!”
The two seemed to be very close. The old man, who had been playing with his grandson for a while, checked the time and said.
“I guess I’ve absorbed all the energy, so let’s have some luck breakfast.”
The morning meal was also one of their daily routines that had continued for more than ten years. The boy sat cross-legged.
‘I guess I should definitely check this now.’
The man expanded his senses to the fullest. He tried to feel the flow of energy flowing through the boy’s body.
If it were any other martial arts, it would have been impossible.
However, since I had learned martial arts like a boy, I was able to vaguely resonate with the flow.
‘···It’s not the Pacheon Shingong. The level of completion is much lower.’
What the boy learned was not the Pacheon Shingong.
The flow of energy was more unstable, wasteful, and inefficient.
It was something that only a great person who had mastered the Pacheon Shingong could know.
‘This must be the martial art that the Sword Emperor used before he created the Pacheon Shingong.’
Of course, the martial arts that the boy had learned were also great divine arts. However, they were not worthy of the eyes of the great man who had already learned better ones.
The boy who finished his breakfast opened his eyes.
“Coolook!”
The boy vomited black blood from his mouth. His forehead turned red.
“Hyun-ah!”
A startled old man approached and handed the boy a handkerchief. His face was full of concern.
“Are you okay? You were okay for a while, but why are you like this again···.”
“···are you okay.”
The boy shook his head as if it was nothing. Then he smiled with a pale face and reassured the old man.
“Haha. I feel better after vomiting dead blood. I guess the new medicine is effective.”
“Hyun-ah···.”
The old man held his grandson in silence. For a while, the two of them were silent. The shadows cast by the lamp in the room trembled uneasily.
The silence was broken by an old man. He spoke while patting the boy’s back with his thick hand.
“I decided to sell the last thing your mother left behind.”
“···yes?”
“I went to town a while ago, and they said that some good elixir was coming in. Let’s sell our belongings and buy it.”
The boy’s voice trembled as he answered.
“We decided not to sell it. If we did, our location might be exposed…”
“You can just go somewhere else.”
“I just finally settled down here…”
The old man’s voice was flat. He looked the boy in the eye and spoke.
“Hyun-ah. This old man would do anything to save you.”
The child was born with a weak body. Furthermore, he was destined to run away from his pursuers as soon as he was born.
The old man had been on the run with his newborn baby for 15 years. He was very good at hiding and running away.
‘There was a time when I thought countless times about abandoning you and running away on my own.’
The old man had many nights and many troubles.
And as he endured those years, the old man thought of this child as his own blood relative, not as his lord’s child.
‘Hyun-ah. Please, you have to live longer than this old man.’
The old man spoke in a bright voice, trying to hide his heavy heart.
“I asked Elder Yang, so it will take a few days. Once we get the elixir, we will leave for the next village.”
“yes···.”
Hyun nodded with a gloomy expression. There was nothing he could do. His weak body was just a curse.
The old man, who had read his mind, gently patted his grandson’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry too much. The current state of affairs in the martial arts world is not normal. If the Great Battle of Jeongma breaks out, they won’t have the energy to pursue us.”
At that moment, the boy’s eyes turned fierce.
“I wish the Demonic Cult and the Murim Alliance would all die.”
The man looked at the sight and thought.
‘It seems like the Great Battle of Jeongma will break out soon.’
That was also the reason why the Great Man hurried to come to Murim.
About a year later, the Great Battle of Jeongma takes place in the martial arts world.
A head-on clash between the Murim Alliance and the Demonic Cult.
At that time, jumping into the world of martial arts was a very risky undertaking.
‘Before that, I have to find the Heavenly Sword and go back after finishing my work.’
The man hid in the ceiling and continued to eavesdrop on the conversation between the two.
I was able to get quite a bit of information, but unfortunately there was no story about the Heavenly Sword.
‘Well, there’s no way they would know the whereabouts of the sword that the Emperor had before he died.’
“It’s getting late. You should go to bed now.”
“Yes. Good night.”
The boy nodded to the old man and went into his room.
“Phew···.”
The boy returned to his room and sat in front of the mirror.
When I let go of my hair that had been tied back tightly, the hair flowed down like a waterfall.
Namgung Hyun, with his hair down, stared blankly into the mirror.
A life where you live by hiding your identity, your name, and even your gender in order to survive.
“Is there any meaning to a life like this?”
The girl in the mirror looked visibly ill. The dark circles under her eyes showed that she did not have long to live.
“Phew.”
Namgung Hyun sighed and changed his clothes. In the darkness, a small candle illuminated his skinny body.
At that moment, Namgung Hyun felt an indescribable feeling.
Ssssssssut.
A familiar yet unfamiliar aura instantly passed through her body. Goosebumps appeared on her back.
“Who, who!”
The startled girl turned around, covering her chest with her hands.
“······.”
There was nothing there.
***
The man returned to his room and lay on his bed.
“I am a descendant of the Emperor of Swords…”
He took out the Geomhwangbirok from his bag. He read it whenever he was bored, and now it was completely worn down.
In the Records of the Emperor, not only the Emperor’s martial arts were recorded, but also all kinds of stories were written.
A book filled with the story of one person’s life.
The man unfolded one part of it.
“That guy, Hyuk. He’s my son, so he’d definitely become a great master. He takes after me and was exceptionally smart from a young age.”
Namgung Hyuk was the son of Geomhwang.
He too was a great master, but he was not worthy of being remembered in history like his father.
But the Emperor did not know that fact.
“Keep on going. Maybe you’ll become a greater master than me and sweep away the Demonic Cult to avenge your father. Then you won’t have a turn, disciple.”
The Geomhwang clan was destroyed.
After the disappearance of the Emperor, the clan fell into decline and was wiped out by mysterious assailants 15 years ago.
“···If you ever meet my son or grandson, never tell them about me. Especially, never tell them about the story of how I became a cripple with my arms and legs missing.”
“Even if I tell you, I don’t think you’ll be interested.”
The Emperor wanted to be the best in the world in front of the people of the world and in front of his son until the end.
Because of his pride, he died alone without letting the world know that he had survived as a cripple.
Honestly, Daein couldn’t understand him.
“What’s with all that pride? If he had returned alive, whether he was a cripple or not, he would have been a hero who defeated the Demonic Cult and lived a life of wealth and honor.”
I couldn’t understand it, but I intended to respect its meaning.
Hurrruk!
The Great Man burned the Sword and the Record of the Great Sword through Samadhi Evolution.
I had memorized it all and was planning to throw it away anyway. I wouldn’t need it when I went back.
The book was completely burned, but its contents remained intact in the man’s mind.
“If only. If only. Even if my descendants live in difficult circumstances…”
The Emperor was not stupid either.
He also anticipated that if he went missing, the Geomhwangmun would face great crisis.
“You don’t have to worry about it. That’s the fate of those children. You just have to worry about defeating the Heavenly Horse. Heed my words!”
Keep that in mind. The man chuckled as he recalled that part.
“You should have asked for help outright. You seem like a dishonest old man.”
The man muttered as he rummaged through the bag he had brought from Earth.
< Dishonest > End
ⓒ Ganjjajang
