Urban Vagabond: Reload

The first thing I wanted to do was jump on a plane to the States and sign up for the World Martial Arts Tournament.

Obviously, that wasn’t happening.

To face the cult leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult, you couldn’t just show up at his front door and say, “Fight me.” You had to meet the “qualifications” he’d mentioned on his broadcast.

Which meant getting your skills recognized at one of the Heavenly Demon Cult branches spread across different countries.

So I went to the most obvious place.

“Hey.”

I headed straight for the national parliament building—currently locked down and occupied by Heavenly Demon Cult terrorists.

If you wanted cultists, this was where they’d be clustering.

The martial artists guarding the perimeter were already on edge. I tried to be at least somewhat polite when I spoke up.

“I wanna enter the World Martial Arts Tournament. Who do I talk to for... evaluation?”

“...Who’s this psycho?”

“Get lost!”

I had to cut down about twenty of them—quick and clean—before I finally ran into someone I could actually have a conversation with.

“What the hell are you supposed to be?”

Flameblade Shin Kangheon.

Even I was a little shocked to see him wearing Heavenly Demon Cult colors.

This guy... He’s my age.

Back before constitution tests, anytime someone listed “promising late-teen martial prospects in Korea,” my name and his were almost always mentioned together.

One of us got illegal surgery and ended up drifting through the underworld as a vagabond mercenary.

The other became one of the main faces of a global terrorist cult.

You couldn’t really say either of us had “won at life.”

“Man. No wonder this country’s a mess,” I muttered.

“What are you even talking about?”

“I came here because I wanna enter the World Martial Arts Tournament. Are you the one I need to get evaluated by?”

“You just say whatever pops into your head, huh.”

Naturally, he didn’t recognize me.

He looked exhausted, worn down, like he’d been fighting or working nonstop. But after hearing why I was here, he muttered, almost reluctantly, “Can’t be helped. Orders from the Cult Leader and all.”

“Are we doing a straight duel? Or a life-and-death match?”

“I only know how to do life-and-death,” I said.

He laughed.

“Hah! I like you. That’s easier for me too. Let’s go with a life-and-death match. Time and place?”

“Right now works for me.”

“Love the attitude. Give me a second.”

Shin Kangheon leaned over and whispered something to one of his subordinates. The man’s expression said he didn’t like it, but he eventually nodded and stepped back.

“Alright. Let’s begin.”

We drew our weapons at the same time.

Steel rang—sword and blade colliding, qi flaring, the impact traveling up my arms and down my spine.

Every time our weapons met, it felt like the half-dead cells in my body were sparking back to life.

I’d forgotten what this felt like.

Forgotten how good it felt.

Why didn’t I fight this guy earlier in my life?

It was almost enough to make me regret it.

“Hahahahaha...!”

“You crazy or what?” he scoffed. “You look like you’re about to die and you’re laughing?”

“Says the guy grinning like a maniac. You having fun or something?”

I can say this without exaggeration:

It was the best fight of my life.

We went past five hundred exchanges before we finally reached an ending.

I punched a hole straight through his chest.

In return, he cut deep into my side—so deep I could practically feel my organs spilling out.

“...”

“...”

We’d both lost.

If I was being honest, it was closer to my defeat.

Shin Kangheon had clearly been worn out before our fight even started. He hadn’t been fighting anywhere near his full strength.

I, on the other hand, was burning what little remained of my lifespan just to stay in the fight.

They say there’s no grave without excuses, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth. Bitter enough that I found myself asking:

“You think the result’s unfair?”

“Not at all,” he said, voice low but steady. “It was a damn good last fight.”

At least he didn’t look dissatisfied.

Shin Kangheon gave me a crooked grin, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and asked:

“...So why the hell was someone like you running around as a vagabond?”

“Branch chief, sir! We have to treat your wounds!”

The Heavenly Demon Cultists, who’d been too stunned to move, finally snapped out of it and rushed toward us—only to freeze when Shin Kangheon’s roar crashed over them.

“Are you trying to insult me?! A life-and-death match isn’t over until one of us goes down!”

His voice was so powerful you’d never guess he had a hole in his chest. The cultists froze like they’d been nailed in place.

Then he turned back to me.

“Sorry about the noise. Mind answering my question now?”

He remained standing, even with a gaping hole through his torso.

People say martial artists are hard to kill, but this was beyond that.

It was impressive, in a way.

Out of respect, I answered honestly.

“I got flagged as constitution-incompatible back in the day. I couldn’t let it go, so I got artificial dantian surgery. After that...” I gestured vaguely at myself. “You can see how that went. I’ve been drifting through the underworld as a vagabond ever since.”

“...Damn.”

The sigh he let out wasn’t mocking. It was closer to regret.

“That’s a waste,” he said. “If you’d joined the Heavenly Demon Cult early on, things could’ve gone differently. We might’ve figured out a way for constitution-incompatibles to cultivate martial arts.”

That was news to me.

If I’d heard that ten years ago, I probably would’ve grabbed his pants and begged him to let me in.

But now?

Now it was just useless information.

“Should’ve done better marketing,” I said with a shrug. “You guys really slacked on recruiting.”

He snorted.

“Pff... You’re actually funny. If we’d met as kids, we might’ve been friends. What’s your name?”

Traditionally, after losing to someone, a martial artist asks for their name and title. It’s a way of showing respect.

I hesitated for a second, then gave him the truth.

“Kim Muhyuk. They call me The Lone Ghost.”

“...Kim Muhyuk? Don’t tell me—you’re that Kim Muhyuk?”

So he did remember.

His eyes went wide. I nodded slightly.

Even while blood poured from his wound, Shin Kangheon’s lips curled upward in a shaky grin.

“You’re the kid they used to rate higher than me back then. I always wondered what happened to you when the rumors just... stopped.”

His knees suddenly buckled and he dropped down, catching himself with his blade to keep from collapsing completely.

His voice was dimmer now. Fainter.

“Heh... Would’ve been nice to share a drink or something...”

“We’ll do it later,” I said. “In the afterlife.”

Honestly, I wasn’t doing much better than he was.

The wound at my side was so deep my innards were trying to peek out. I had to keep my hand clamped over it just to stop them.

It wasn’t the kind of injury you walked away from.

I could feel my remaining lifespan draining away by the second, like sand slipping through my fingers.

In the middle of that slow fall, a question drifted to the surface of my mind.

“...Let me ask you something too,” I said. “How strong is the strongest in the world, really?”

Shin Kangheon tilted his head back and laughed, still on his knees.

“Strong enough that comparing him to someone like me is a joke. You could be reborn a few times over and still never beat the Cult Leader.”

“What a disappointment. That’s why you lost to a mere vagabond like me,” I said.

“Heh. Maybe...”

Those were his last words.

Shin Kangheon closed his eyes, still leaning on his blade.

I turned, swaying on my feet, and looked around at the circle of Heavenly Demon Cultists surrounding us.

“If anyone wants revenge,” I said, “now’s your chance. I promise this’ll be easier than breathing.”

Nobody moved.

They just watched.

Seemed like they considered letting me die on my feet from my injuries more appropriate—a natural expiration date, the kind of ending martial artists dreaded the most.

What a hassle.

My eyelids felt heavy.

When he slashed my side, his blade must’ve torn through my artificial dantian as well. I could feel my qi leaking out, dispersing uselessly into nothing.

The only reason I was still upright at all was the momentum of the qi already flowing through my meridians.

In reality, I was as good as dead.

Twenty years is a long run for a borrowed life anyway.

I pressed my palm harder against the “rubber ball” trying to roll out of my stomach.

Normally, artificial dantians burned out in less than ten years and had to be replaced.

Mine had lasted twenty.

Guess that quack was actually good at his job, I thought.

He was dead now, but I’d taken care of the revenge he’d asked for years ago. If I met him in the afterlife, I doubted he’d complain.

I stood there for a moment, just letting memories flash through my mind like somebody had pushed play on a montage right before the credits.

That’s when I heard it.

“Move. Out of my way!”

An old man with a face full of dark age spots pushed through the crowd and hurried toward me.

I recognized him instantly.

“...Dr. Man?”

Once, he’d been a world-renowned martial arts scholar and spell-caster.

He was the one who claimed that long-term use of an artificial dantian could eventually cause a real one to form.

He was also the reason I’d gone under the knife in the first place.

Later on, he vanished and was branded one of the biggest frauds in martial arts history.

“What the hell...”

He approached me with a dazed look, like he was only half-present.

I couldn’t even lift my sword anymore. All I could do was glare down at him.

“...You really reached Shin Kangheon’s level with that artificial dantian?” he asked quietly, staring at me.

“He wasn’t at full strength,” I said. “You’d know that if you were watching.”

“But you’re just a vagabond who picked up crude, back-alley martial arts. And your body is incomplete—you’re half-blind, a Cyclops at that.”

This old man really knew how to piss people off.

I thought about using the last of my strength to cut him down where he stood, but ended up letting it go.

In the meantime, Dr. Man pressed hard on my wound, stopping the bleeding as best he could and doing some sort of emergency treatment.

Not that it would actually save me.

It just delayed the inevitable.

“This will hurt,” he said. “Bear with it.”

Suddenly, he pulled his hand away from my side—and yanked my artificial dantian straight out.

It felt like he’d torn out one of my organs.

The pain was so intense I dropped my sword.

“G—ghk...! You crazy old bastard!”

While I was busy trying not to scream, Dr. Man calmly examined the battered artificial dantian in his hand.

Then he started laughing.

Not normal laughing.

The completely lost-it, I-just-snapped kind of laughing.

“Hahaha! Ahahaha—!”

I gritted my teeth, reached down with a shaking hand, and picked my sword back up off the ground.

By the time I straightened, wiping tears of pain from my eyes, Dr. Man finally turned back to me.

“You really didn’t know,” he said.

“You’re so dead,” I growled. “I’m going to kill—”

“This artificial dantian has been dead for a long time,” he cut in. “There’s no spell left in it at all. At this point it’s just a lump of dead rubber.”

“...What?”

“You’ve already formed a real dantian in your body.”

For a moment, I forgot about the pain entirely.

I just stared at him.

“I’m... not incompatible?” I managed.

“You were,” he said. “Once. But not anymore. You’ve overcome your constitution and created a dantian of your own. You are the first martial artist in history to do that.”

Tears streamed down Dr. Man’s face—tears of joy, triumph, maybe something close to madness.

I’m the one who wants to cry, you old bastard...

I’d wanted this more than anything when I was a kid.

And it finally happened.

Right now.

When I was already half a step into the grave.

And yet, the absurdity of it all actually made me... laugh.

A little.

“This is what I’ve wanted to prove my entire life,” Dr. Man said. “That it was possible. That we could overcome an incompatible constitution. That’s why I joined the Heavenly Demon Cult. Their resources, their techniques, their money—I used everything to experiment. For twenty years, every attempt failed. I even considered going back in time myself to try it directly. And now, all at once, it’s here. Hahaha...”

He laughed, cried, ranted, losing himself in his own emotions.

Then he lifted his head and looked at me.

My life was hanging by a thread now. My vision was fading. His face was already hard to make out.

“You,” he said.

Even with all my senses dulling, his voice came through clearly.

“If you could go back to the past... what’s the one thing you’d want to do most?”

...What?

In this world, there were strange spells and monsters that defied logic. I’d seen enough of them firsthand.

And before he vanished from the spotlight, Dr. Man had been a world-class martial arts scholar and one of the most powerful spell-casters alive.

So I didn’t dismiss his question as pure nonsense.

Instead, for just a moment, I let myself imagine it.

If I really could go back...

“...Well, obviously,” I said, as the answer rose up without hesitation.

“I’d have dinner with my parents again.”

He went quiet for a long moment.

“That’s... a wonderful answer,” he said eventually. “Then let me ask you one more thing.”

“Can’t you just let me die in peace?” I muttered.

“If you went back, would you still learn martial arts?”

His question pulled a flood of memories to the surface.

The thrill of holding a wooden sword for the first time, after nagging my father into buying it.

The nights when my muscles ached so badly I could barely sleep, but I still went to training with a smile.

The moment I decided to gamble my life on illegal surgery, drowning in despair after losing my parents.

The first time I killed someone as a vagabond.

The faces of the people I’d called comrades. Their corpses. The day I’d thrown my sword away in disgust at my own helplessness.

Looking back, there were way more painful days than happy ones.

And yet.

“...Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’d still learn.”

I’d become a martial artist again.

But if I got a second chance, I wouldn’t live this life the same way.

I’d walk the righteous path, so I could stand tall in front of my parents.

I’d fight alongside comrades—and make sure we all walked back alive.

And I’d become stronger than anyone.

“Then let me grant your wish,” Dr. Man said.

His soft chuckle seemed to come from far away.

...What?

“You granted my life’s wish,” he said. “So now, I’ll grant yours. I’ll pour everything I’ve built—my spellcraft, my deepest desire, the Heavenly Demon Cult’s treasures, and even my own life—into a heaven-defying ritual to send you back into the past.”

Flames—no, something hotter, something deeper—wrapped around my body.

My vision, already going dark, shifted.

The world disappeared.

I was floating alone in space, surrounded by an ocean of stars.

“If you happen to meet me back there...” Dr. Man’s voice echoed from somewhere impossibly distant, like it was bouncing around inside my skull. “...tell me not to waste my life on stupid experiments, and to take better care of my family instead.”

My consciousness started to unravel.

I shut my eyes.

“And there’s one more thing about your body...” he said faintly, as though he were still talking.

But his voice had already faded too far to reach me.

Then, after what felt like a brief moment and an eternity all at once—

I opened my eyes.

The world around me had changed.

“...Oh.”

It was jarringly unfamiliar.

And at the same time, painfully familiar.

A filthy room. Snack bags and instant noodle cups scattered on the floor. The kind of disaster zone only a depressed teenager could create.

Heart pounding, I spun around and looked for a mirror.

Staring back at me was not a scarred, stubbly middle-aged man.

It was a kid.

My face was smooth, barely any facial hair. No scars.

And my left eye—perfectly fine.

“...It’s real.”

I’d gone back.

I checked the date.

Nineteen years old.

Right around the time I’d gotten my “constitution incompatible” result and spiral-bombed my life.

The moment right before everything truly collapsed.