Urban Vagabond: Reload

After Yang Hayun, Jeon Seungyeon, and Chae Eunsu were eliminated—

“They did really well......”

Kim Muhyuk muttered, looking more disappointed than the three people involved.

Just as he started walking toward them to approach the three who were supporting one another, Sunwoo Jeha stepped in front of him first.

“You were trying to force those three through this test somehow, weren’t you?”

Her voice was so low it was almost too soft to hear, but a faint warning ran through it.

“That was presumptuous. Don’t do it again.”

Yang Hayun had said that if Kim Muhyuk had not passed the test alone the previous night, the four of them had planned to rush Sunwoo Jeha together.

To Sunwoo Jeha, that was not merely unfair. It was meaningless.

“Even if you had been included, the result would not have changed. If they couldn’t prove they were qualified, I never would have passed them. It was pointless.”

At the sight of the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader speaking in that curt, icy tone, the young rising stars around them quietly edged backward.

But Kim Muhyuk did not avoid her gaze.

Instead, he answered with a small smile at the corner of his mouth.

“To be honest, I didn’t think the Sect Leader would pass all four of us either.”

“......Then why?”

Looking straight at the questioning face of the Transcendent Extremity Gate’s sect leader, Kim Muhyuk explained the intention he had kept hidden.

“If they’d challenged you alone, would those three really have pushed themselves that hard? Maybe they would’ve felt their limits and unconsciously given up.”

But because they had spent all three days encouraging one another, training together, and fighting together, none of them had given up, and all of them had been able to give it everything they had.

That was exactly what Kim Muhyuk had wanted.

“Even if it’s the same failure, I think they learned more and improved more by doing it together than they would have alone. So it definitely wasn’t pointless.”

“......You meddle too much.”

Sunwoo Jeha had seen countless martial artists with no talent struggle desperately, only to give up in the end or break under frustration.

That was why she told these young rising stars that if they had no talent, it was better to give up martial arts quickly.

Because spending your whole life reaching for a sky you could never touch was a little pitiful.

Because when you later saw someone lightly leap over the wall you had mistaken for the sky, all that remained was misery.......

“You know, the more I look at you, the less you resemble him.”

Sunwoo Jeha no longer thought Kim Muhyuk resembled Han Shinhu.

The more she looked, the more obvious it became that the two of them were far too different as martial artists.

“......Though the way you get on my nerves is similar.”

Even she could not tell which of them had the greater talent.

No, comparing Kim Muhyuk—who was still only a pinnacle expert—to the Strongest in the World in the first place was absurd.

But if she compared the two of them at the same age.......

“There’s something I’ve really wanted to ask. If you compared twenty-year-old me to your friend, how would it stack up?”

As if he had read her mind, Kim Muhyuk asked the question.

Sunwoo Jeha did not answer. She simply turned away.

The one she was looking at was Shin Kangheon, waiting for his turn.

The owner of the eyes that had been glaring at her like he wanted to devour her the entire time she had been testing the young rising stars. Along with Muhyuk, he was the one she had been watching most closely.

“Well then. What kind of talent are you?”

As Sunwoo Jeha flicked the tip of the saber in her hand, Shin Kangheon drew his own blade and charged.

WHIIISH!

His movement was unmistakably different from three days ago.

At the sight of it, Sunwoo Jeha unconsciously ran her tongue lightly across her lips, like her appetite had been stirred.

His lively footwork was insolently imitating hers, and the force sharpened into his blade was as keen as an awl.

The way he gripped the saber, the way he used his lower body, the angle of his shoulders—every one of them had changed a little from before. Sunwoo Jeha’s eyes widened slightly.

“......Did you copy all of that from me?”

“You’re the strongest saber user I’ve ever seen with my own eyes!”

Closing the distance in an instant, Shin Kangheon let out a shout and swung his saber in a huge arc.

BOOM!

Even without internal energy behind it, the impact was enough to make the floor of the training ground tremble. Dust billowed up, blocking the view of the young rising stars watching from around them.

From inside the slowly settling cloud of dust, Sunwoo Jeha’s voice came out. It sounded a little excited.

“So you did copy me. But then you went and tore it apart and changed it however you wanted.”

Sunwoo Jeha was stepping on Shin Kangheon’s saber, which had been driven into the floor.

Standing in front of her, Shin Kangheon scratched his head with one hand and said, almost as if making excuses,

“There were a few motions that felt uncomfortable for me, so I adjusted them a little. Is that weird?”

“If you copy me however you please and twist your whole body out of shape, that’s still not my fault.”

“Heh. I’m tougher than I look.”

Grinning, Shin Kangheon suddenly threw a surprise punch.

WHISH—!

His fist brushed past beneath Sunwoo Jeha’s feet as she jumped lightly in place with graceful movement, and in the same flowing sequence, Shin Kangheon’s saber swung up and cut off a few strands of Sunwoo Jeha’s hair.

Sunwoo Jeha retreated in a single bound, and a faint smile formed at the corner of her mouth.

“So that’s your kind of talent.”

An extraordinary talent that had been born gifted and probably lived in lazy satisfaction with that fact.

The type who had known how outstanding he was, so he had never felt the need to grind desperately, the type who had lived without ever knowing his limits.

But seeing someone with even greater talent than his own must have changed him.

No one else might know it, but Sunwoo Jeha could feel it clearly.

He’s like me.

She was reminded of her own youth—when she had been praised all her life as a genius of martial arts, then met Han Shinhu and became desperate.

A talent like this needed someone to provoke it.

Needed someone to set it ablaze so fiercely that it would break through limits even the owner had never known were there.

“You know, you’re still worse than Kim Muhyuk.”

“......That’s crossing a line, isn’t it?”

Sssssss—

From that one sentence alone, he flared up instantly. She could tell just by the steam rising off his whole body.

Sunwoo Jeha quietly admired the intense heat pouring off Shin Kangheon.

“Blessed body, and flame too......”

A talent similar to her own.

No—she even found herself thinking he might be a little better.

If he could handle fire to that degree, then even constitution did not matter all that much.

“Two in one generation? I don’t like it.”

Sunwoo Jeha knit her brows as if displeased.

But at the same time, the thought This is going to be fun made her mouth curve into a smile.

CLANG!

After batting aside the savage saber strike flying at her, Sunwoo Jeha stared at Shin Kangheon.

“Yes! That just touched—”

“Try coming at me once with internal energy.”

“......Seriously?”

“Or we can just end it here.”

Shin Kangheon did not refuse. He immediately drew up the Blazing-Yang Art with everything he had.

Who knew when he would ever get another chance to cross blades with the Strongest in Korea?

FWOOOOOOOSH!

The insight he had gained upon becoming a pinnacle expert, combined with the further growth he had attained after handling Dark Flame, wrapped his saber in a blaze that belonged to Shin Kangheon alone.

“W-What is that?”

“That heat is insane.......”

The young rising stars gaped in shock at the violent flames roaring along the blade. The heat was far beyond anything they had imagined, and they hurriedly retreated.

Shin Kangheon grinned. Each time he exhaled, flame leaked out with his breath.

“Even for the Strongest in Korea, this might be a little hot. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

Sunwoo Jeha let out a scoff, leveled her saber at him, and crooked a finger.

“Don’t get cocky, brat.”

“Uraaaah!”

Watching Shin Kangheon charge at her like a raging bull, Sunwoo Jeha let her saber hang low.

“Not bad. But you’re still a long way off.”

Almost no one knew this, but the weapon Sunwoo Jeha liked most was the saber.

In other words, she was the current greatest saber in Korea.

The strike she swung like a bolt of lightning scattered the flames in an instant and hit Shin Kangheon’s saber head-on.

“......!”

Shin Kangheon did not even properly register what had happened. By the time he felt the breath-crushing shock, he was already flying in the opposite direction.

BOOOOM!

Watching Shin Kangheon bounce away for a long distance, Sunwoo Jeha shrugged and said,

“Pass.”

The Strongest in Korea’s test for the young rising stars was over.

*****

Kim Muhyuk exchanged farewells with Yang Hayun, Chae Eunsu, and Jeon Seungyeon, the three he had studied together with.

After packing up and coming out, they all wore expressions that held both regret and relief.

“......We worked hard, but I guess this was our best.”

“I’m satisfied. I feel like one day I really will be able to reach it.”

“Hey. What do you think about us keeping this group going and meeting regularly?”

At Jeon Seungyeon’s suggestion, Chae Eunsu’s face brightened and he nodded.

For someone from a mid-sized sect like him, keeping his connection with those two was an opportunity too precious to lose.

“I-If you’re all okay with it, then I’d gladly......”

Yang Hayun nodded easily as well. Then she stared straight at Kim Muhyuk.

“Kim Muhyuk, you’re in too, right?”

“I’m good with it too. Next time, want to meet at my parents’ café? I’ve got my own private training room in the basement.”

“Y-You have your own private training room?”

“So you were rich.......”

Chae Eunsu and Jeon Seungyeon looked at Kim Muhyuk with naked envy.

“Uh, could we join that study group too?”

Song Junho and Oh Jungmin naturally slipped into the conversation as well.

Apparently they had been deeply impressed by the sight of the three rushing Sunwoo Jeha together.

And just like that, the connections formed among the young rising stars in the camp lodgings continued on.

“Make sure you’re still here at the end!”

“Good luck!”

“And don’t push yourselves so hard you get hurt.......”

After the young rising stars who had failed the second talent-evaluation test left the camp lodgings—

Kim Muhyuk, Shin Kangheon, Bu Yeonha, and Kang Hyuntae.

In the Transcendent Extremity Gate annex, which had held more than ten young rising stars that very morning, only four remained now.

Sunwoo Jeha gathered the remaining four and questioned them first.

“You’ve proven two talents. Death, and intuition. What do you think the next talent is?”

Bu Yeonha shot her hand up and answered.

“You haven’t mentioned constitution or frame even once so far. Could it be one of those two?”

If someone was born with a weak frame, their body could not endure high-intensity training.

If their constitution was lacking, they had difficulty gathering and releasing internal energy through qi circulation.

It had been revealed that the two talents were related to some degree, but it was very rare for both to be outstanding at once.

That was why even the Eight Great Sects prioritized constitution above all else when selecting their young rising stars, leaving frame as a lower priority since it could be improved through scientific training and diet.

“Neither.”

But Sunwoo Jeha shook her head.

“The third is anomalies. More precisely, the ability to see anomalies, resist them, and control them.”

“......Why anomalies of all things?”

There was something a little strange about the way Shin Kangheon asked the question with that baffled expression, but Sunwoo Jeha simply nodded indifferently.

“You all want to go beyond pinnacle expert and climb to supreme master, and beyond that too, don’t you?”

All of the young rising stars unconsciously nodded. It was a desire any martial artist would naturally have.

“The higher your realm, the more often you inevitably run into anomalies.”

Sometimes that meant hunting them to obtain inner cores, and sometimes it meant taking commissions to deal with them.

And once your realm grew high enough, there were even times when anomalies came looking for you whether you wanted them to or not.

On top of that, martial artists who stood at the summit of the orthodox martial world carried one particular duty.

“There are times when you have to fight Great Anomalies that appear once every few decades. That’s completely different from fighting humans. If you don’t know how to deal with them......”

She left the rest unsaid, but it was clear.

“You’ll die for nothing.”

As she told the young rising stars about Great Anomalies, Sunwoo Jeha’s expression was colder than usual.

“First, I’m going to teach you how to open your spirit sight. This is absolutely not easy, so focus—”

Sunwoo Jeha broke off mid-explanation and tilted her head.

Because for a while now, Shin Kangheon and Bu Yeonha had both been sneaking glances at Kim Muhyuk.

Shin Kangheon, especially, looked deeply displeased.

“Why?”

“It’s nothing!”

Kim Muhyuk answered while pointedly avoiding the eyes of the other two.

Because this time, truly, he wanted to get through things quietly without standing out.

But in the end, Shin Kangheon couldn’t hold it in any longer and shot his hand into the air.

“Teacher!”

“......Teacher?”

Sunwoo Jeha looked puzzled at the unfamiliar form of address, but then what came next made her tilt her head even farther.

“Can’t we just kick this bastard out? Feels like he’s only going to muddy the water!”

“What do you mean......?”

And in the middle of all this, Kim Muhyuk could only stand there looking utterly baffled, as if he had no idea what Shin Kangheon was talking about.