Urban Vagabond: Reload

The private training hall Shin Kangheon had reserved was a top-of-the-line facility, stocked with all kinds of weapons and protective gear, sandbags, stretching equipment, emergency medicine, and even set up so you could grab a simple meal.

This bastard. Guess he’s loaded.

For me, who’d only ever used the generic facilities attached to my academy, this place might as well have been a whole new world.

When I looked around like some country bumpkin, Shin Kangheon puffed himself up and bragged.

“First time in an expensive training hall? I always train at places like this.”

“Stop wasting money on pointless crap and book somewhere cheap next time.”

“Why would I? It’s not like I’m some broke bastard.”

The way this kid talks, seriously...?

Watching him snort and talk back, I started feeling an urgent need to drill basic manners and human decency into him first.

Letting out a small sigh, I set my bag down to one side, took only my practice sword, and walked out to the center of the training hall.

“Want to warm up a bit first? Or just go straight into it?”

Shin Kangheon, who had also put his bag down, slung his blade over his shoulder and walked over.

“Don’t you usually loosen up while you’re fighting?”

For the first time, we were on the same page. We stood facing each other, each with our sword and blade in hand.

I smirked when I saw Shin Kangheon’s expression turn serious in an instant.

Now you’re at least worth looking at.

I’d already noticed it back at the competition hall.

For a guy who acted like everything in life was a joke, like nothing mattered, the one time he put on a real face was when he picked up a blade.

“The one thing I actually like about you is that.”

“What are you even saying? I don’t... like you at all!”

Shin Kangheon tilted his head at my mutter—and then suddenly lunged, thrusting his blade. Without any warning, the duel had begun.

Clang!

I lightly knocked it aside and opened up some distance. The heavy vibration that ran up my grip made the corner of my mouth twitch up before I even realized it.

Yeah, the talent’s real, all right.

The future Korea’s Greatest Blade.

Even now, I often replay in my head that final life-and-death match from my last life against Shin Kangheon.

If back then we’d both been in perfect condition... I would have been guaranteed to lose.

I wouldn’t have gone down easily, but in the end I would have fallen to Shin Kangheon’s blade.

That was a judgment made without the slightest exaggeration or downplaying, just cold, objective self-assessment.

Because my win back then had just been the result of a moth throwing itself into the flames and getting absurdly lucky.

Clang, clang, clang!

Our blades collided in rapid succession, threatening each other.

But the swings—far rougher and cruder than the Shin Kangheon I remembered—were all blocked by my sword or ended up slicing nothing but air.

“Not bad... but you’ve still [N O V E L I G H T] got a long way to go.”

I made sure he heard me. At those words, veins bulged on Shin Kangheon’s neck, and the tendons on the backs of his tightly clenched hands stood out like they were about to burst.

“Let’s see how long you keep acting like you’re so relaxed!”

But if just getting pissed off made you stronger, why would anyone bother with grueling training?

The way he started swinging his blade around like a windmill only made his openings even bigger.

I stepped inside one of his big swings and smacked Shin Kangheon’s side with the flat of my sword. In that instant, he brought up his knee and blocked the strike.

Seeing him skid back, I let out a dry laugh; his reaction speed had overshot my expectations.

Yeah, watching talent like this just flounder around really does get under my skin.

I couldn’t just leave the current Shin Kangheon alone.

And it wasn’t just because his future was tied to Heavenly Demon Cult.

He could get even stronger than this, so why wasn’t he?

I was convinced Shin Kangheon could become even stronger than the Korea’s Greatest Blade I remembered.

And I wanted to surpass that level version of him with my own strength.

This time, both of us at full strength, going head-to-head and putting him down properly.

Not for anyone else. Just my own, extremely personal greed.

“...Shit. You’re stronger than I thought.”

After backing off for a moment, Shin Kangheon regulated his breathing and spoke.

His face said he was frustrated that the duel wasn’t going the way he’d imagined.

But his eyes were blazing with fighting spirit.

Of course, I had zero intention of stopping at “good enough” either.

“Is this really all you’ve got?”

I stepped in with a big forward stride and slashed down hard with my sword.

CLAAANG!

I hadn’t bothered to hold back my strength. Shin Kangheon’s eyes flew wide at the force of the blow. That strike would have made it clear I’d been holding back until now.

“You crazy...!”

“Weren’t you going to half-kill me? With this level?”

With a mocking curl at my lips, I swung my sword again.

Shin Kangheon failed to react in time; blood ran down from his shoulder in a thin red line.

“Are you maybe not going all out? Or is this seriously all your skill amounts to?”

“Shut up!”

“If you don’t like it, shut me up with your skill.”

I kept provoking him, scratching at his pride on purpose. And I crushed him with strength and technique to a degree even an idiot could feel the gap.

CLANG CLANG CLANG!

At some point, Shin Kangheon had his hands full just blocking. His eyes shifted from simple dismay to fury.

He knew that if things kept going like this, he’d lose without getting to do anything.

“Kh... damn iiiit!”

Like a cornered beast throwing its entire body into one last struggle, Shin Kangheon gave up on defense and started swinging his blade with his full power.

Whoooosh!

Even the pressure from his blade cutting the air was different now. With his overwhelming physicality fully behind it, it carried real intimidation.

“Yeah. That’s more like it.”

I could feel the resolve to trade flesh for bone in the way he came at me, and I smiled faintly.

Not that that meant I had any intention of going easy on him.

I didn’t dodge the brute-force charge; I met Shin Kangheon head-on.

CLANG CLANG CLANG!

Even deflecting his strikes at an angle, my hands were tingling.

The force behind them was such that if the contact point had been off by even a little, I might have lost my grip on my sword. But that was never going to happen.

“Now you’re at least somewhat usable.”

“I said shut up—!”

No matter how he raged, the current Shin Kangheon couldn’t be my match.

Never mind the difference in real combat experience—there was a twenty-year gap in the amount of time we’d spent swinging a blade.

“And back in this period, my rating was higher than yours to begin with.”

“Argh! What the hell are you even saying, you annoying bastard...!”

“Let’s wrap this up.”

I smashed the half-crazed Shin Kangheon’s face with the flat of my sword.

Thud!

“Guhk...!”

His head snapped to the side, and then his eyes went unfocused as he toppled backward.

I set my sword tip lightly against his chest where he lay on the floor and spoke.

“If you’d spent less time chasing clout and more time training, you’d be better than this.”

“......”

The frustration of facing someone your own age who completely overwhelms you.

For a kid who’d probably thought of himself as a genius, it would hit even harder.

To Shin Kangheon, who didn’t know I was a regressor, what he’d just seen could only look like an unfair difference in raw talent.

In the worst case, the shock could make him never pick up a blade again and give up on his dream of becoming a martial artist.

If that happens, then that’s that.

One Heavenly Demon Cult terrorist who would someday throw the world into chaos disappearing wasn’t exactly a bad outcome.

But the Shin Kangheon I knew wasn’t the kind of guy who’d break over something like this.

“...Why have you been nagging me so much since earlier?”

Still sprawled flat on his back, Shin Kangheon looked up at me with a hollow expression and asked.

“Hm? Even my mom and dad—who are dead—didn’t nag me this much. So who the hell are you supposed to be?”

He didn’t look annoyed so much as genuinely curious, so I answered honestly.

“Because it’s pathetic. It’s a waste watching someone with that kind of talent just dig themselves into a hole. Maybe getting your ass kicked while being nagged at will knock some sense into you?”

“You insane bastard... heh heh heh.”

All of a sudden, Shin Kangheon started laughing hard enough that his whole body shook.

He giggled until his eyes watered, then abruptly sat up and looked straight at me again. The faint curve at the corner of his mouth didn’t look like a bad mood.

“Damn it, I lost. So, three days of errands, right? You want me to buy you bread every morning or something?”

“I don’t need crap like that.”

It seemed he’d misunderstood what I meant by errands, but I had zero intention of playing school gangster and dragging him around just to show off.

“We need to find someone.”

“...Who?”

I told Shin Kangheon I was looking for a martial artist known as Sword Demon, who’d gone into seclusion a long time ago.

“Sword Demon? Feels like I’ve heard that somewhere... Isn’t he from way back in the day?”

We were nineteen. Not knowing much about Sword Demon—a martial artist from a generation long before Richard Han—was normal.

I myself hadn’t really heard of him properly until I saw him on YouTube.

When I showed Shin Kangheon the last photo of Sword Demon before his seclusion—the one I’d dug up after trawling the internet for a long time—he pulled a bored face.

“If you’re looking for somebody, wouldn’t it be better to pay someone to find him? Oh, right. You’re broke, so...?”

Smack.

I whacked Shin Kangheon on the head with the flat of my sword and said,

“No. There’s a reason I have to find him myself.”

“You asshole...”

I could hire a private detective agency and the like, but the target in question was a martial artist in seclusion. And not just anyone—an incredibly high-level master.

If I were Sword Demon, knowing that someone had been sending people out to track me down... there’s no way that would feel good.

I’m the one who’s going to be asking for martial arts instruction; I want to leave as good an impression as possible.

In the end, I’d concluded I had to find Sword Demon personally—so I’d recruited Shin Kangheon as support.

A nineteen-year-old layabout with money and time.

It’s not like this guy was going to diligently attend school for martial-artist license prep anyway, so he was the perfect worker when it came to pounding the pavement.

“Hey. No matter how you slice it, does it make sense for just the two of us to look for one person in the middle of Seoul?”

“The good news is, we’re not going to be just two. We’ll be three.”

“...Who else is there?”

“There is someone. They should be getting here right about now.”

Before coming into the training hall, I’d sent the address by messenger, so they should be almost here.

And a little while later, I saw a head of red hair come through the training hall door.

Kim Bokja swept her gaze around and let out a sound of admiration.

“Wow, this place is crazy nice. For a civilian with no license, you’re richer than I thought...”

“Who’s that?”

Kim Bokja froze, and Shin Kangheon narrowed his eyes. The two of them watched each other like they were looking at some dangerous creature.

Like they’d instinctively realized the other had just as nasty a temper as they did.

From where I stood, they were exactly the same kind.

The first to look away was Shin Kangheon.

Maybe he’d just realized his whole body was covered in the marks of the beating I’d given him, because the tips of his ears went a little red as he turned to me with a sour look.

“...I’m gonna go change.”

The moment Shin Kangheon grabbed his bag and went into the changing room, Bokja came right up to me and asked,

“Why’s he here? You told me we were just going to eat chicken ribs.”

To the friend who would come running from far away for anything involving red food, I explained the real reason I’d called her all the way here.

Given Kim Bokja’s personality, of course she exploded.

“Fuck! Luring me with food again? I’m just gonna leave!”

“The instant spicy rice cakes we had last time were good, right? This time it’s charcoal-marinated grilled chicken ribs from a place with seventy years of history. It’s a hidden gem that doesn’t even show up in searches—still want to just walk away?”

As someone who’d rolled around as a vagabond for twenty years in my previous life, I knew all kinds of good spots around Seoul.

When it came to places Kim Bokja would like, I could remember at least twenty more.

And most of those were places future Kim Bokja had introduced to me.

A restaurant guaranteed by future Kim Bokja herself—how well was that going to match her own taste now?

Gulp...

Sure enough, Bokja unconsciously smacked her lips, then snapped back to herself and glared at me.

“If it’s not good, I’m telling Chompy to bite your head off.”

At that, the black cotton-candy-like thing spinning above her head let out a threatening roar.

Screee!

When I gave it a slight glare, it flinched and immediately ducked behind Bokja’s back.

“You even gave it a name?”

“It’s my first anomaly. It’s kind of a small fry, but it’s cute in its own way.”

Treating a wandering spirit like a pet... I’m pretty sure that’s a problem.

“Anyway, you want to track down someone, right? That part’s fine. But listen.”

Looking around at the traces of the duel between me and Shin Kangheon, Bokja crossed her arms like something about this didn’t sit right with her.

“Shouldn’t you have asked the opinion of your vice crew leader first?”

“About what?”

“The new recruit entry test. Even if our crew doesn’t care that much about personality...”

“What the hell are you suddenly talking about?”

“You only get one pass.”

Ignoring what I said, Kim Bokja stared at the changing room where Shin Kangheon had gone and started muttering to herself.

“So what do we even put him on? Frontline fighter? Muscle? He looks like he’s got money, so maybe the guy in charge of paying for parties?”

“......”

She clearly had a lot of things wrong, but she looked so pleased with herself that I just let her go.