Urban Vagabond: Reload

While the leader of Blue Wolves was running all over the place preparing for the Great Anomaly hunt,

Kim Bokja, the self-proclaimed vice leader of the crew, was also spending her days in a frenzy.

While making the spellcraft tools Kim Muhyuk had asked for, she visited Dr. Man whenever she had time to learn Pilcheon Style.

“I do not want to injure my one and only disciple, so.......”

SHHK-SHHK-SHHHK—!

With Dr. Man’s shout, strange and wondrous characters spread around him, spinning as they stirred up a whirlwind.

“Keep your mind sharp!”

The characters rose several dozen meters into the air, sharpened like arrowheads, and soon began pouring down like a torrential rain.

“Don’t your words and actions contradict each other a little too much?”

The rain of arrows soon blackened the sky, and blue ghost fire bloomed in Kim Bokja’s eyes.

“Kkagwi. King Snake. Shaggy Dog. Block them!”

Kim Bokja’s flashy accessories vibrated, and the anomalies under her control manifested.

They were reliable controlled anomalies who had always protected their master.

As Kim Bokja grew as a spellcaster, they had grown stronger with her. By now, if the three joined forces, they had enough power to face an intermediate anomaly.

But before the attacks of Pilcheon Style, counted among the foremost battle spellcraft lineages, they could not hold out for long.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The pouring rain of spellcraft arrows pierced through Kkagwi’s body, and King Snake, coiled up to protect its master, writhed in pain.

Shaggy Dog charged bravely at Dr. Man, only to be subdued at once.

Ruuuumble......!

Using spellcraft to create a character meaning “heavy” the size of a car, Dr. Man pinned Shaggy Dog beneath it and spoke.

“I acknowledge your ability to command multiple anomalies at once. But what do you intend to do once all your controlled anomalies fall?”

When Dr. Man waved his hand, ring-shaped characters flew toward Kim Bokja along the ripple of his motion.

Kim Bokja threw herself aside and barely dodged, but at that moment, all of her bracelets and earrings lost their light.

Whimper.......

Kkagwi, Shaggy Dog, and King Snake, having lost their homes, remained around Kim Bokja in bead-like spirit forms and whined.

“My spellcraft tools! You didn’t actually break them, did you?”

“I have merely blocked the flow of energy for a moment. And yet you still look as relaxed as though you are playing around.”

Dr. Man’s expression hardened, and his body floated gently into the air.

Ssssss.......

When one of the only five Grand Spellcasters in Korea deliberately drew up his energy, Kim Bokja felt a pressure that seemed to choke off her breath.

“I will attack again, so block it with Pilcheon Style. Only by realizing it entirely for yourself will you be able to accept it properly. No other petty tricks will work anymore!”

Kim Bokja protested with an incredulous expression at her teacher’s one-sided lesson.

“You want me to figure it out while getting hit? Where on this delicate disciple of yours is there even a place to hit?”

It had only been one month since she had begun learning Pilcheon Style.

She was only just beginning to feel like she understood what Pilcheon Style was, yet Dr. Man was abruptly telling her to unfold it.

“......Ahem. I taught you more than enough theory up to the last lesson, did I not? Why do you try to obtain everything so easily!”

Dr. Man instead shouted at her, then flew up to a height where his disciple’s voice could no longer reach him.

He had realized long ago that if they started arguing, he would not win.

Kim Bokja shouted up at that teacher.

“Wow, that is so cheap!”

Ruuuumble......!

The sound of thunder echoed through the training ground, which was the size of a soccer field. It was a special spellcraft training ground within Mystic Hall that only Grand Spellcasters could use.

“Pilcheon Style is spellcraft that engraves one’s will into the world through a single brush within the heart.”

Dr. Man was gentle by nature, but when it came to teaching, he was an extremely strict master. His voice rang out louder than thunder.

SHHK-SHHK-SHHHK—!

Around Dr. Man, the strange and wondrous characters began swirling once more. This time, they transformed not into arrowheads, but into javelins.

“Um, Teacher? Did I do something wrong?”

When over a hundred spearpoints turned toward her all at once, Kim Bokja’s face went pale.

“I create language with my brush and engrave it into the world. That is because, to me, there has been no clearer or more important medium than language.”

If one looked closely at the strange and wondrous characters revolving around Dr. Man, Korean letters, Chinese characters, English, and several foreign languages Kim Bokja could not recognize were all mixed together.

For a spellcaster who had lived more than half his life as a scholar, the most natural way to express himself was language.

“My disciple, in what way will you engrave yourself into the world?”

Even as Dr. Man gave this important teaching, he did not think Kim Bokja would understand it immediately. Even in his own opinion, it was still too much for her.

But it was also true that somewhere in his heart, he held a small expectation.

Over the past month, Kim Bokja had always shown astonishing talent that surpassed his expectations.

“Ha, this is seriously pissing me off, but it also sounds cool. Engraving myself into the world....... I’m going to use that later.”

Even as Kim Bokja grumbled, she chewed over each of Dr. Man’s words.

With her eyes, she glared intently at the spellcraft her teacher had unfolded, and with her innate sense for spellcraft, she measured its flow.

At that moment, Dr. Man lowered the hand he had raised toward the sky.

“Show me your world.”

Hundreds of javelins began stabbing down toward the ground.

Kim Bokja glared at the javelins falling toward her, then suddenly closed her eyes as if giving up.

And she muttered to herself.

“Pilcheon. Moving with a brush. That’s why I kept trying to make characters by following Teacher.......”

When the muttering Kim Bokja snapped her eyes open,

blue ghost fire blazed in her eyes, and her red hair spread out in every direction.

“But you don’t necessarily have to write letters with a brush, do you?”

The moment she grasped an important true meaning of spellcraft,

Kim Bokja’s overwhelming talent skipped all the calculations and intermediate steps required to unfold the spell.

SHHK-SHHK-SHHHK—!

A whirlwind swept around Kim Bokja’s body.

With her right hand, she formed sword-fingers like a brush and drew gently through the air. It was the first moment her Pilcheon Style unfolded.

“I’m going to draw pictures. Ever since I was little, I liked drawing, decorating, and making things.”

It was different from the strange and wondrous characters floating around Dr. Man. What formed around her took the shape of all kinds of figures.

The pictures born from Kim Bokja’s hand wrapped around her as if protecting her, and the javelins Dr. Man had poured down crashed into them.

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!

Characters and drawings collided, setting off explosions.

A short while later.

When the explosions settled, Kim Bokja stood unsteadily in their place, holding an umbrella she had created with Pilcheon Style.

“I meant to stop the spellcraft midway...... but before I knew it, I watched until the end. Hahaha!”

Dr. Man landed on the floor and approached his disciple with a satisfied smile.

“Holy shit, I really thought I was going to die!”

Only then did the tension leave Kim Bokja, and she shrieked at him. Then she flopped down where she stood.

Dr. Man looked at his disciple as if he found her wondrous.

“To think you became able to unfold Pilcheon Style on your own in one month, without even the help of a scroll case.......”

Considering that even Dr. Man, once called a genius, had taken six months, it was an astonishing speed.

As both a spellcaster and a scholar, he wanted to watch just how far his disciple’s limits extended.

“Rest for a moment and watch. I will show you the next stage.”

“Again? I can’t! I’m not doing any more! Your disciple is on strike today!”

In front of Kim Bokja, who had sprawled on the floor and was throwing a tantrum, Dr. Man gently waved his hand through the air.

Then, as if by magic, a small rabbit appeared above his palm.

“A rabbit?”

Dr. Man’s Pilcheon Style mainly created words and sentences, but his brush could create any number of other things as well.

Hop!

The rabbit leapt up and landed on Kim Bokja’s lap.

It did not stop there. Its black body smoothly turned red, and Kim Bokja felt warmth on her lap.

Kim Bokja stared fixedly at the red rabbit Dr. Man had made.

“Cute....... Did you infuse the rabbit with the energy of the Five Elements?”

Dr. Man smiled in satisfaction and nodded.

“I will give you this as homework before your next visit. Create at least two rabbits, each with a different attribute.”

It was homework at a level that someone who had only just entered Pilcheon Style could not even dream of accomplishing, but as always, neither Dr. Man nor Kim Bokja found it strange.

“Only two? I’ll just make all five of them with the Five Elements.”

“Haha! Even for you, that will not be easy.”

Dr. Man watched his motivated disciple with satisfaction, then opened his mouth.

“Do not push yourself too hard.”

“Tch. After driving me that hard earlier.......”

“Ahem. I adjusted it sufficiently. Would I injure the precious disciple I found so late in life?”

Kim Bokja narrowed her eyes and glared at her teacher, then soon giggled.

She knew that if Dr. Man had truly meant it, the umbrella she had created would have been pierced straight through by those javelins.

“......It’s fine if you make it a little harder. I want to get stronger faster as a spellcaster.”

“Even faster than now? Do you have a reason you must?”

Dr. Man looked at his disciple as if puzzled.

She did not seem like the type with a strong competitive streak.

The Kim Bokja he had observed for the past month was not particularly driven by competitiveness or ambition.

......Rather, she had a strong desire for material things, and despite her flashy appearance, she was timid and liked people.

Then Kim Bokja, who had hesitated briefly, said, “This is just a feeling, but...... I think I have to get stronger quickly.”

“You have to?”

Dr. Man did not dismiss his disciple’s words just because she called it a feeling.

Spellcasters were beings who sensed and governed the energy between heaven and earth. Because of that, there were many cases where their intuition surpassed that of martial artists.

And if Kim Bokja, born with genius-level talent, strongly felt something, it could even be a kind of foresight.

“Tell me in detail. What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t really know. I just have this feeling that something huge is going to happen, something I can’t handle with my current strength.......”

Kim Bokja’s eyes wavered with unease.

She continued speaking with an expression that said she herself did not understand it.

“I don’t know if it’ll be tomorrow or far in the future. But I’m becoming more and more certain that, surely, someday, it’ll happen around me.”

“.......”

That anxiety was also what drove Kim Bokja to train harder in Pilcheon Style.

Dr. Man noticed the unease spreading through his disciple’s eyes and lightly patted her shoulder.

“I understand. I will teach you with everything I have. And even if something bad does happen, we will look for a way, so do not worry too much.”

“......Yes!”

Hearing Dr. Man’s words, Kim Bokja also forced herself to shake off her anxiety and nodded.

In the past, she would have shut herself inside her workshop, put on her headset, and hidden until the bad thing passed.

But not anymore.

Now she had her teacher, her friends, and her crew. Kim Bokja wanted to do what she had to do in order to protect them.

“However, I am sorry, but I will have to postpone our next lesson later than usual. It was originally this day, but an important schedule came up.”

After checking the date Dr. Man mentioned, Kim Bokja nodded and said it worked out.

“I can’t do that day anyway. We have a big job.”

“Oh? If even you call it a big job, it must be a decent source of money.”

In just one month, Dr. Man had come to understand his disciple quite well.

Kim Bokja nodded with sparkling eyes.

“I’m only telling you this, Teacher. We got a commission from one of the Eight Great Sects. Do you know how many hundreds of millions we’re getting to catch one anomaly?”

More than the amount of money, Dr. Man’s expression turned subtle at the words “Eight Great Sects” and “anomaly.”

“Is that, by any chance...... a commission from Transcendent Extremity Gate?”

“Huh? How did you know that? Wait, don’t tell me?”

“I received a request from them as well.”

As the two exchanged details, they came to learn something.

That master and disciple would be participating in the Giant Tree Ghost hunt together.