I wish you could have seen it. (5)
“Khugh…”
He had run until his feet were blistered, evacuated the people, and as if that weren’t enough, he had rushed straight here afterward. It would have been stranger if he weren’t gasping for breath.
And now those hideous enemies loomed before him. Fear welled up instinctively. He wanted to flee. He did not want to face them.
But the moment he opened his mouth, all that burst out was a shout brimming with bravado.
“Run! You beggar bastards! What have we got besides our name! If we fall behind the others, the Beggars Sect’s name will be dragged through the dirt!”
At the Sect Leader Hong Daekwang’s shout, the beggars shouted back in desperation.
“That damned Sect Leader!”
“Damn it! At least feed us before you work us to the bone!”
“We were better off with the previous Sect Leader. Goddamn it!”
Hong Daekwang glared as complaints rose from every direction.
“Have all you beggar bastards been eating rotten dog food?! Hey, you bastards, just how much have we gotten out of Hwasan!”
“You’re the one who’s been stuffing his face! What the hell did we ever get?!”
“Shut up and run! Before I smash every last one of your begging bowls!”
“To hell with this, we ought to overthrow this bastard one of these days!”
Despite their words, however, they steadily picked up speed. They, too, were panting so hard their hearts threatened to leap out of their mouths, but disobeying the Sect Leader’s orders was unthinkable in the Beggars Sect.
He was young and inexperienced? What did that matter. A Sect Leader was still a Sect Leader. Besides, anyone who cared about age and experience would never have become a beggar of the Beggars Sect in the first place.
“Uwaaaaaaah!”
The members of the Beggars Sect ran with all their might.
Their minds went blank. In that moment, every grievance they harbored vanished without a trace.
Even ordinary commoners were better off than beggars. Why should those who had less risk their lives for those who had more? It was the Beggars Sect that had suffered the greatest losses in the previous war against Sapaeryeon. So why must they once again take the vanguard and bear the sacrifices?
Being beggars did not mean they were incapable of thought. On the contrary, precisely because they were beggars, they had all the more reason to think. And yet, the reason they were charging forward now was not so different from the reason they wore rags.
Righteous blood [의혈(義血)]. Having nothing, they could follow their burning hearts more honestly than anyone else. The members of the Beggars Sect of the Righteous Blood raised their dog-beating staffs and unleashed a thunderous roar.
“Smash every last one of those Demonic Cult bastards! All of them!”
⠀
“Those beggars are getting ahead of us.”
“Hmph.”
A faint smile played on Namgung Dowi’s lips. He was now officially the head of Namgung Clan. His face brimming with an authority and dignity rarely seen in him before, Namgung Dowi spoke.
“Those damned beggars are trying to beat us to it! Overtake them at once!”
“Please… show some decorum. You are the family head now.”
“And please stop glaring so hard when you speak. Your eyes are about to pop out of your head.”
“Fine, just run!”
The Azure Sky Sword Unit surrounding Namgung Dowi pressed their hands to their foreheads. With each passing day, this handsome young man grew more and more like Namgung Hwang in his younger years.
What saddened them even more was that, if he had to resemble someone, they wished it could have been Namgung Hwang alone, yet his words and actions kept reminding them of a certain Taoist they would rather not mention.
“My Lord, please, at least when others are watching…”
“We keep telling you that being the head of Namgung Clan is no trivial responsibility…”
“Elder, please say something to him.”
But Namgung Dowi raised his voice without so much as glancing at their reactions.
“The pride of Namgung Clan is at stake!”
“No, how is this…”
“What is Hwasan to us?! They are our benefactors, who risked their lives to save us when no one else in the world would lend us a hand!”
The members of the Azure Sky Sword Unit clamped their mouths shut.
“And if we, the Great Namgung Clan, fail to reach our benefactors first in their hour of need and let those beggars beat us to it, what will the world say?! And what would my late father say?!”
The image of the late Namgung Hwang rose in the minds of the Azure Sky Sword Unit.
What would Namgung Hwang have done? They did not even need to think about it. He would have unleashed his fury in words too terrible to repeat, in that thunderous voice of his. No, he might even have drawn the Azure Sky Divine Sword [창천신검(蒼天神劍)] and unleashed his sword energy as though even words were beneath him. Had it not always been Namgung Hwang’s creed that one must uphold their pride even at the cost of their life?
“……Though that’s also why the family ended up in this sorry state.”
“Hahahaha.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“…”
The gazes of the Azure Sky Sword Unit hardened as well.
There was no way they could have come running all this way without giving it at least that much thought. They would repay their debt, even if every last one of them were reduced to bleached bones. That was the resolve shared by everyone in Namgung Clan.
This brief exchange was merely a ritual of sorts to steady hearts that had wavered for a moment at the sight of the countless demonic cultists before them.
They were no longer the Namgung Clan of old.
The clan’s fighting strength had been halved, and there was little hope of restoring it for decades to come. They might have to relinquish their place among the Five Great Families, and perhaps they would never regain their former glory.
That was precisely why. Precisely because of that, there was something they must never forget. The pride and self-respect inseparable from the two characters [南宮] that formed the name Namgung.
Even if they were weaker than before, Namgung was still Namgung. Even if the world mocked and scorned them, Namgung could still remain Namgung.
But there was one exception, the moment they lost their self-respect, Namgung could no longer be Namgung. Everyone here knew that with absolute clarity.
That was why they were here. Not merely to honor the code of repaying kindness and settling their grudges, but to remain Namgung. To uphold the principles of Namgung Clan – that no matter how dire their straits, they would never forget kindness shown to them.
“That’s all well and good, but how does it make any sense that we, coming all the way from Anhui, have to get here before those beggars coming from Kaifeng?!”
“Stop whining and run! Nothing in this world is impossible!”
A small smile played on Namgung Dowi’s lips.
‘I wonder. Am I really the one who’s changed the most?’
That was probably how it looked to them. But to Namgung Dowi, it was nothing of the sort. Back in Namgung Hwang’s day, an ordinary member of the Azure Sky Sword Unit could never have dreamed of joking with the family head. Anyone who had done such a thing might have been thrown into the dungeon on the spot or had the tendons and meridians of all four limbs severed.
But no one in the Namgung Clan of today found this informality strange. Everyone accepted these relationships naturally, as though things had always been this way.
Was this really just because Namgung Dowi was young?
‘Of course not.’
Namgung Clan had lost its former strictness, but in its place had gained a bond incomparably stronger than before. A camaraderie born of having fought their way through the same hell. Perhaps the Namgung of today had become a true ‘family’ more than ever before.
And….
“You can’t help being influenced by what you see.”
“Pardon?”
“No. It’s nothing.”
Whenever he looked at those people, he found himself thinking. Perhaps that way of doing things wasn’t so bad after all. He didn’t know whether it would suit Namgung Clan as well, but wasn’t it said that bad habits were the quickest to learn?
“So, don’t let anyone else take the lead! This is a rare chance to really show Hwasan what we’re made of!”
“Can’t pass that up!”
“Oooooooh!”
The swordsmen of Namgung Clan channeled sword energy into the Azure Sky Swords in their hands and raced towards demonic cultists like bolts of lightning.
⠀
“Elder!”
“Hmm.”
Jin Chobaek’s expression hardened at the shout urging him to give an order.
Jongli Gok. The fact that he, the Sect Leader of Jongnam, had agreed to take over as an Alliance Leader of Cheonumaeng at Hyun Jong’s request might, perhaps, have been a misfortune for Jongli Gok himself.
Discovering that Hyun Jong, who had never seemed particularly capable, had actually been handling an astonishing amount of work, and finding that the process of handing over those responsibilities was taking far longer than expected, leaving him still unable to formally assume the position of Alliance Leader, must also have been most unfortunate for him.
But as a consequence of all this, Jongli Gok was tied down and unable to devote himself to his duties as the Sect Leader of Jongnam. And the fact that the responsibility of leading all these people had fallen to none other than Jin Chobaek was a misfortune not for Jongli Gok, but for Jin Chobaek.
He had done nothing wrong, yet somehow this absurd responsibility had been thrust upon him.
‘No. I suppose I can’t say… I’m entirely without blame?’
Jin Chobaek squeezed his eyes shut.
If he was guilty of anything, it was having sons far too gifted for their own good. And failing to raise those outstanding sons properly.
– Aren’t your children there?
His inability to refute those words must have been the beginning of all his misfortunes.
Yet Jin Chobaek had no other choice. He had failed to be a proper father. When he should have devoted himself to being a parent, he had been unable to let go of his ambitions as a martial artist and had failed to guide them down the right path.
Yes, he admitted it. Jin Chobaek was a poor excuse for a parent.
But.
‘Isn’t the price… a little too harsh? This is…?’
That damned third son of his had lost all sense of fear, appearing without fail wherever the most dangerous place in the world happened to be and fighting like a man determined to die that very day; while his eldest, who ought to have had his hands full simply taking over as the Sect Leader, would suddenly go berserk and start rampaging without a second thought whenever word of his younger brother reached him.
His second son, the only remotely sensible one, was so sick of the eldest and the youngest that he refused to show so much as a single hair on his head in their vicinity…
‘Even a hopelessly dysfunctional family would click their tongues at the sight of this.’
To outsiders, it might seem that the Jin family’s harvest of outstanding sons was so bountiful that the rice had grown beyond all measure, enough to cover Mount Tai itself.
Hwasan and Jongnam. The two Jin brothers were poised to stand side by side as the Sect Leaders of two sects that now ranked comfortably among the five greatest in the world, in both name and substance.
But Jin Chobaek, who knew the festering misery concealed beneath that seemingly splendid exterior, could only quietly wipe away the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
Perhaps what drove him now was the desperation of a man who, having failed so miserably as a parent, could not bear to fail as a martial artist as well.
“……What a pair of unfilial brats.”
“Elder?”
“Ahem…”
Jin Chobaek bit down hard on his lip.
The two men who were the source of his worries came into view. Those pathetic fools, fleeing in absolute panic from demonic cultists pursuing them…
At the sight, Jin Chobaek shouted irritably.
“Those damned… Ahem! Rescue your fellow disciples and comrades of Shaanxi who are in grave danger! Prove it with your blades that Jongnam’s sword is still sharp!”
“Yes!”
Whether or not they understood the anguish burning inside Jin Chobaek, the disciples of Jongnam surged forward, their fighting spirit blazing. As though determined not to lose to the Beggars Sect and Namgung Clan ahead of them.
Watching them, Jin Chobaek’s eyes blazed as well.
“You scoundrels! How dare you lay a hand on someone else’s precious sons?!”
Reverting in an instant to the mindset of a parent, Jin Chobaek drew his sword in one swift motion and raced toward his sons.
________
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