Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Episode 15.
“Woohoo, woohoo.”
The young man’s clothes were already like rags as he breathed heavily. In front of him, my mouth watered.
Even though I thought I’d honed my skills after the battle with the Black Tiger, each sword strike was unnatural and unpleasant.
When will I become natural?
“Why the hell am I…….”
Unlike me, you didn’t self-objectify at all. Tsk.
You probably feel the tip of the sword, which was light as fluff, and have the urge to lie down immediately if someone tugs at you.
In the midst of all this, I found myself looking at the young man who was struggling to hold his drooping head up.
I blurted out to the young man, Kang Woo-moon.
“Maybe it’s because he’s lax.”
“…….”
No matter what I say, he doesn’t understand. It must be a bit of a shock.
But it’s not something I can solve. It was a matter of his own mental strength.
If he can’t handle the bitterness of a single defeat and turns it into a fever, there’s no point in taking him there in the first place.
“……I’ve studied the Iron Sword Sixty-Six countless times.”
I could hear him muttering. Turning to the dumbfounded creature, I opened my mouth to speak.
“Don’t try to figure it all out with your little mind.”
“……Fuck you, fuck you!”
I shook my head, seeing the blood in the corners of my eyes as I realized I had no control over my emotions.
“That’s all you can do. ……The effort you speak of is no better than a candle, quickly extinguished by the slightest breeze.”
Then I looked at Namgung Ho. I should finish this right now.
Nam Gung-ho shook his head as if he understood my meaning, and he raised his hand as if he, too, was about to determine the status of the rain gate and draw a conclusion.
But then.
“……I’m not done yet.”
Kang Woo-moon blurted out.
“More?”
Seeing that his sagging shoulders and haggard face didn’t have the energy to fight anymore,
“The world is too big to measure everything by your standards.”
I tried to shake my head as if that were impossible.
“I won’t forget, and my fight is just beginning.”
I tell him I’ll use my anger as fuel to keep grinding. In front of them.
I say.
“Hahaha.”
I burst out laughing.
* * *
Although there were countless swordsmen in the Namgung family, Kang Woo-moon judged that there would be no fool who would teach the Grand Duke of the Namgung family, who was called a wretch, such an outstanding Ascension Sword Technique.
Up close, the Grand Duke of the Southern Palace Family was nothing more than a dwarf, but from afar, the Southern Palace Master was a different person.
He was the patriarch of the Southern Palace, the spiritual support of Anhui Province, and an example to all sword-wielding martial artists, so he would not allow a mere beggar to teach him the art of the Southern Palace’s Ascended Sword.
Kang Wu-moon believed so strongly in this that he often attended the performance of the Iron Sword Sixty-Six and Island Warfare Sixty-Three sword dances that the uninitiated in Anhui Province could see.
Although the basic swords were far superior to the rudimentary swordsmanship of the Kang Wu Pavilion, it was not a gap that could not be filled, so he studied and studied and studied.
To seize the one chance that would surely come.
……But.
“Why on earth would I…….”
Kang Wu-moon, who had been practicing swordsmanship over and over again, had to face an unbelievable result.
“Maybe it’s because I’m lax.”
It’s because I’m lazy. No, it couldn’t be.
I know how well I know myself, especially Woo-moon Kang.
I’ve spilled everything I can spill, and I’ve spilled everything I can spill.
“……I’ve already researched how much if it’s an iron sword sidereal.”
Nevertheless.
“Don’t try to figure it all out with your little mind.”
“……Believe me, damn it!”
The Grand Duke snorted. It did. To put it in very simple terms, he was defeated.
It also crushed the expectations of Kang Woo’s servants and the children who were staring at their backs as they struggled to climb.
What kind of face is this?
“So much for that. The effort you speak of is no better than a candle, quickly extinguished by the slightest breeze.”
Arrogant.
arrogant.
His voice was so arrogant.
So I shouted out in response to the Grand Duke’s arrogant and arrogant words.
“……I’m not done yet.”
“More?”
The next words that came out of his mouth were.
“The world is too big to measure everything by your standards.”
It was a small voice, but it sounded like thunder to Kang Woo-moon, and he turned to look at the man walking past him.
The boy who had taunted him just a few years earlier had grown up and was no longer a boy. The flabby flesh was gone, and the calluses on his fingertips were visible at first glance.
Is that so?
I said no, but I let my guard down.
Surely, I began to see things that I hadn’t seen before.
I see it.
The dozens, hundreds, thousands of times I had swung my sword to strike the blow flashed through my mind like a flashlight.
I realized how hard I’d worked to make the sword sound, and at the same time, I remembered the sword sound that the Grand Duke had heard. A sword that resonated harder than his own.
He didn’t want to admit it. The frog in the well was none other than myself, Kang Woo-moon.
Kang Woo-moon sat up. He looked at the disappointed face staring back at him and steadied himself.
“I won’t forget, and my fight is just beginning.”
The talent and hard work shining through, the background too extraordinary to be easily matched, and the gap will only grow wider.
However, so what?
In a life of making a living with a knife, shouldn’t I have this much ambition?
So I expressed my will.
At the same time, I realized that the price for expressing my will would be quite high.
His appearance had changed, and his attitude toward swordsmanship had changed, but if you look at the way he was when he slaughtered Minister Kang Woo, he was a mess.
You’d probably scoff at me, saying that I’m flaunting my pride in defeat.
Maybe I’ll make myself an object of ridicule in front of all these people.
I will endure.
I will endure.
As he thought this, he snorted and forced himself to raise his head, and for the first time, he panicked.
She was laughing. The little bastard boy who had grown up was grinning broadly.
“Hahaha.”
Laughing out loud, the Grand Duke stopped in his tracks and strode toward Kang Woo-moon.
“Eh……?”
It flashed.
The Grand Duke grabbed Kang Woo-moon’s wrist and raised his hand high into the air.
He didn’t say anything else, just held it high and scanned the stunned crowd.
“Waaaaaaaaaah!”
“Cool!”
“Rainmaker, rainmaker, rainmaker!”
And then, as if he had been waiting for it, a roar filled Anhui Castle.
The cheers and warm gazes that could never have come from someone who had been humiliated by an underdog were directed at Kang Woo-moon.
It was a reward for a great fight and a young man’s determination to not give up.
With all eyes on him, Kang Woo-moon turned his attention to the Grand Duke as he slowly made his way down the stairs.
His back was turned to him, and he felt his backside seem to grow even bigger.
* * *
“You’re a lousy duke.”
As soon as he descended, he spoke as if he had been waiting for it.
“Not bad, if you ask me.”
“Not good enough. You don’t deserve it.”
The uncle grumbled about what he didn’t like.
“Why don’t you concentrate on cleaning up your own shitty name, and stop trying to add honor to someone else’s.”
“That’s funny. It’s not that important.”
The world of competition is a cold one, but I lifted the corners of my mouth as I turned away from my uncle, who was muttering about how weak-minded I was.
It’s enough if the lice on the bluestone floor heal your wounds through your teeth. What’s the big deal about being called an asshole?
“Too much. You are the winner. It is the fate of the winner to enjoy the leisure of the winner, and the loser to realize the responsibility of the loser.”
“I wouldn’t say that’s the conclusion of a leisurely winner. That’s what winners get to enjoy.”
If it’s too much, let it be a debt.
It’s a good thing, and a point of pride.
“He was said to be a wretch, but he was recognized by the Grand Duke of the Changcheon Southern Palace Family, who was a man of great renown. ”
Kangwu Mugwan was the beginning. In the future, I had to reverse the relationship with the officials whose past I didn’t know, such as Tasanmugwan, Fengyunmugwan, and Baishanmugwan.
As a result of reversing the stigma of losing to a bastard, the bad relationship with the officials would lead to not bad results.
One.
“That can only happen if you win this sword tournament, otherwise, what’s the point?”
The uncle told him to look at the forest and not just the trees. He was not wrong, for if he did not win the tournament, all his efforts would be for naught.
“And there are two others over there who are nothing like what you just faced.”
He looked over to where the old man had pointed, and there were two men who had risen to prominence in Anhui’s great martial arts circles in just a few moves.
They were both wearing the same surname, Namgung.
Second Duke Namgung Hyuk.
And the third duke, Namgunggal.
They were only two boys, not even fifteen years old, but they showed the power worthy of the name Changcheon Namgung. They were good.
I would have expected them to respond to the shouts and cheers around them, but instead, their cold gazes turned to me.
Namgung Hyuk’s cold eyes and Namgung Gal’s challenging gaze.
“I’m so jealous of your brotherly friendship.”
“Why don’t you stop drinking and talk.”
I clicked my tongue, undeterred by the sarcasm.
“You have so many eyes to see, but you’re showing your feelings like that. Was it too much to ask them to look up at the sword council with bloodless heads?”
“……Who are you talking to, a bunch of guys with no blood on their heads?”
Ignoring their ridiculous comments, I smiled with conviction as I realized that I had made it through to the Fourth Duke’s Southern Archery Dog without incident.
As each round passed, the crowd’s attention focused on me. What they thought was just a bunch of ten-year-olds making fun of each other gradually became more and more interesting.
The stage was being set for a hot potato to hit Anhui.