Urban Vagabond: Reload

Sunwoo Jeha looked over the young rising stars who had come out changed into the training clothes provided by the Transcendent Extremity Gate.

Until last night, these brats had been afraid of her. Now, their eyes held grim resolve. A few of them even started declaring their ambitions without being asked.

“I’ll show you my absolute best!”

“I’ll make sure the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader is astonished by me during this training camp.”

“I came here representing my sect, so I won’t disappoint you...”

Most of the ones speaking so confidently belonged to the Eight Great Sects, including Kang Hyuntae, and at that moment Sunwoo Jeha’s brows bent downward.

“...These brats are getting awfully full of themselves.”

If they had thought she would find their enthusiasm admirable, they were badly mistaken.

Instead, Sunwoo Jeha made her irritation obvious and drew her sword.

SHIIING.

“I hate noise. Shut your mouths and lower your eyes.”

The moment the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader let out that chilling killing intent, the young rising stars who had been showing so much spirit all shrank back, lowered their heads, and fell silent.

Because he had somehow expected this exact outcome, Kim Muhyuk merely clicked his tongue inwardly.

Her personality really is rotten.

Still, he couldn’t say he failed to understand her behavior. He would have found it irritating too if a bunch of idiots did nothing but flap their mouths.

“Anyway, you passed the first test, so I’ll teach you.”

Once the young rising stars quieted down, Sunwoo Jeha finally nodded, as if satisfied.

“For a martial artist, another important talent is intuition. Intuition is... hm.”

She paused, took out her smartphone, glanced at the screen, and read,

“The ability to perceive an object directly without passing through mental processes such as sensation, experience, association, judgment, or inference.”

The young rising stars looked thrown off by the sight of her apparently reading the dictionary definition word for word.

But they had no choice except to focus again at what she said next.

“A third-rate martial artist with excellent intuition can kill a first-rate expert who lets their guard down. On the other hand, if your intuition is poor, even a third-rate martial artist can kill you. That’s how important it is.”

At that point, Bu Yeonha raised her hand with the earnest expression of a model student and asked,

“Is the intuition you’re referring to different from simply having sharp senses?”

Sunwoo Jeha tilted her head sideways, then shook it.

“Similar, but different. If your senses are sharp, you can evade an attack coming from behind. But you still can’t predict the opponent’s next move. If your intuition is sharp, the range of what you can predict becomes much wider.”

Sunwoo Jeha was not particularly good at explaining things, nor did she kindly repeat herself several times for the sake of the young rising stars.

She probably thinks understanding what she says is part of each person’s own ability.

They all felt it.

Every one of them wore a serious expression now, concentrating so hard they wouldn’t miss even a single word from the Strongest in Korea.

“There are probably many ways to sharpen intuition or awaken it, but I only know one.”

Sunwoo Jeha’s method of teaching others was simple.

She showed them directly and made them realize it for themselves.

“Bring them all.”

At her signal, martial artists from the Transcendent Extremity Gate who had been standing by carried over racks hung with all kinds of weapons.

In addition to the sword and saber Sunwoo Jeha usually carried with her, spears, staffs, axes, whips, gauntlets, bows, and more were spread out behind her.

“The weapons you use. They’re all here, right?”

The young rising stars nodded.

Among the weapons hanging on the racks were not only the ones they themselves used, but unfamiliar ones as well.

Sunwoo Jeha first picked up a sword from among them. It was not one of her own carefully fitted weapons, just an ordinary, common sword.

“From this point on, no questions. Whatever you realize, whatever you feel, that’s on each of you. If you can’t understand it, then that’s as far as you go. And...”

Flick.

Giving her wrist a snap, she spun the sword once, then, by pure coincidence, aimed its tip at Kim Muhyuk and said,

“...Don’t.”

He had no idea what, exactly, was forbidden, but the look in her eyes as she stared at him was so firm that Muhyuk obediently nodded.

Hooooo—

After drawing in a long breath, Sunwoo Jeha began to move.

The young rising stars widened their eyes and watched every motion of the Strongest in Korea.

At one point during the flowing sequence, the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader picked up a saber. From saber to spear, from spear to axe, then taking up a bow and firing an arrow into the sky, leaping into the air to whip up a fierce kick and throw a punch—

A demonstration that flowed like water, shifting freely from one weapon to the next as her hands touched them.

One of the young rising stars, staring blankly with his mouth hanging open, murmured,

“Ha... so the title Ten-Weapons Master wasn’t just for show...”

That had been Sunwoo Jeha’s sobriquet before she became sect leader of the Transcendent Extremity Gate.

It was a title born of reverence for a woman who could perfectly handle any weapon placed in her hands.

“...I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“A-aren’t the two swords she’s holding different sizes right now?”

When she wielded the sword, the swordsmen, including Bu Yeonha and Song Junho, were unable to hide their shock.

“It’s flexible, but overflowing with power.”

“She’s smaller than I am, and yet...”

When she moved through fist techniques, kicks, and palm arts, Yang Hayun and Jeon Seungyeon of the Skybreaker Gate stared with their eyes wide open.

When the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader took up the saber again, the saber users unconsciously gripped their own hilts tightly.

“...That’s insane.”

Shin Kangheon in particular had started drifting forward toward Sunwoo Jeha one step at a time without even realizing it.

As if he wanted to {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} take in the sight in greater detail, he drew so close it was dangerous, right up to the space the blade itself was passing through.

“Hey, Shin Kangheon! If you go any closer, it’ll be dangerous—”

“Just leave him.”

Kim Muhyuk stopped Kang Hyuntae, who was about to grab Shin Kangheon from behind.

“He’s doing it because even if he gets cut a little, he still wants to see it up close.”

“What if he ends up seriously hurt?”

“If he’s at a level where he’d get hit by a blind blade, he’d be better off just going home.”

“Urgh...”

Kang Hyuntae looked at Muhyuk as if asking whether that was really acceptable, then eventually sighed and stepped back.

In the meantime, Shin Kangheon had advanced until he was within a hair’s breadth of Sunwoo Jeha. His gaze was nailed to her saber art as though bewitched.

He probably wants to learn it, even if he has to carve it directly into his body.

Muhyuk understood that feeling perfectly.

Back when he had been a low-ranking wanderer in his previous life, before he started learning from the swordsmanship videos Choi Geon uploaded to YouTube, he too had gone through each day with that same thirst, unable to refine a martial art of his own.

I have the Solitary Life-and-Death Sword now, but Shin Kangheon doesn’t have a proper saber art.

Unlike the young rising stars of the other Eight Great Sects, Shin Kangheon had not learned an advanced martial art beyond his internal-energy method.

The greater his talent, the greater his thirst for a powerful martial art was bound to be.

And now he had encountered, right before his eyes, a martial artist who could fairly be called the greatest saber in Korea. There was no way he could endure that quietly.

Tap!

Drawing his saber, Shin Kangheon kicked off the floor before anyone could stop him.

“...It’s that weird one from yesterday.”

Sunwoo Jeha stared directly at Shin Kangheon as he charged at her with the momentum of someone about to devour her whole.

Then she flicked her eyes sideways and glanced at Kim Muhyuk as well.

As if asking whether he intended to jump in too.

When Muhyuk shook his head, she looked back at Shin Kangheon and crooked a finger.

“Come at me. No internal energy. Purely blade against blade.”

“Thanks—!”

Grinning from ear to ear, Shin Kangheon swung his saber at full force from the very first move. His movement exploded forth like a wild beast pouncing on prey.

FWOOOOSH!

The saber tore through the air with a mighty sound. The pressure from the swing alone was enough to shove the body backward.

But Sunwoo Jeha evaded it with a motion as natural as flowing water. Circling to Shin Kangheon’s side, she smacked his shoulder with the flat of her saber.

“If you act wild just because you trust your strength, you won’t live long.”

CRACK!

Shin Kangheon rolled across the ground, then sprang back up like a roly-poly doll.

Allowing an attack through in a single exchange seemed to wound his pride. His brows twitched, and then he burst out with a roar.

“Uraaah—!”

Shin Kangheon brought out every scrap of saber art he possessed with all his strength.

But every one of his attacks cut nothing but empty air. He didn’t even manage to clash blades with the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader a single time.

“Dull. Slow. Disappointing. Was I expecting too much?”

Each word drove into Shin Kangheon’s chest like a dagger.

He had never once in his life been told he lacked talent, which only made his face twist more harshly.

“If I can just land one clean hit—!”

FWOOOOSH!

The instant Shin Kangheon, worked up, unconsciously drew up the Blazing-Yang Art—

THUD!

The fist of the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader shot forward like lightning and slammed into his solar plexus. Shin Kangheon staggered, then dropped to his knees with a thud.

“Urgh...”

“Disqualified. Go back and reflect.”

The Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader kicked Shin Kangheon in the side, sending him skidding far away.

In that fleeting instant, the faintest smile brushed the corner of her indifferent mouth and vanished.

But by the time she turned back to the young rising stars, her usual expression had already returned.

“One at a time. Come out. If you can make your weapon meet mine, I’ll count that as passing the second test too.”

“...Excuse me?”

“S-should we go by age? Starting with Senior Hyuntae...”

“You shameless bastards!”

Naturally, the young rising stars came out one by one and sparred with the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader without using internal energy.

And every single match ended in complete one-sided fashion.

“I-I lost!”

“I yield! I yield!”

“I learned a great deal...”

Even Shin Kangheon, who possessed some of the best athletic ability and reflexes among the young rising stars, had failed to make contact with the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader’s saber even once.

Even pinnacle experts like Kang Hyuntae and Bu Yeonha were flung away without exception, since this was sparring without internal energy.

No wonder she’s the Strongest in Korea.

She’s mastered every one of those weapons? Every single one of them at the level of a true master?

We were completely overwhelmed without being able to do anything...

With their pride shattered, the young rising stars could only collapse where they were and stare at the Strongest in Korea in shock.

But in the middle of all that, Kim Muhyuk alone was worrying about something entirely different.

Intuition? This feels way too favorable for me.

He remembered the split-second choices that had saved his life again and again in his previous life.

And when that was layered atop countless real combat experiences, intuition only became clearer and sharper.

That was why, during the first test, while the other young rising stars had all been wounded, he alone had gotten through it without a single injury.

Even sparring without internal energy was not a handicap for him. If anything, it was an advantage.

Would it really be okay to pass too quickly? They told me to go make plenty of memories...

Still debating what to do, Muhyuk delayed his turn until the very end.

“Last one. You lucky bastard. Get out here.”

Called forward by the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader, Muhyuk stepped out and let out a sigh like he couldn’t help it.

“I’m sorry, but may I ask just one question?”

The Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader shook her head, saying no.

Then she informed him that the rules were different now.

“You use internal energy. I will too.”

“...What?”

The young rising stars’ eyes began to gleam with a certain expectant excitement, and instead of taking one of the practice swords from the rack, Sunwoo Jeha drew her own beloved sword, which had been hanging off to the side.

SHIIING.

Even the sound of it leaving the scabbard was different. Whatever its spiritual nature might be, in sheer sharpness it was undoubtedly a precious sword that rivaled Phantom Dream.

“...Why am I the only one who has to use internal energy?”

“Personalized instruction.”

Sunwoo Jeha answered with a shrug, then put on a fake smile.

A moment later, her eyes lit up like fire, and she lunged straight at Kim Muhyuk.