Chapter 141. Nine Dragons Fortress (2)

After receiving all the weapons, I also handed a letter to Mr. Yeo, the blacksmith.

“This is the letter of introduction I mentioned last time. Take this and go to the Seomoon Clan in Hubei.”

Mr. Yeo took the letter I offered, and both he and his daughter clasped their hands in a fist salute towards me at the same time.

“Thank you very much.”

“We will not forget this kindness.”

At the father and daughter’s farewell, for some reason, the Tang Clan guy started flapping his mouth.

“Hahaha. We were planning to visit the Seomoon Clan at some point anyway. We’ll see you again then.”

What the Tang Clan guy said was true.

With Senior Sister Choyeon’s matter and Brother Sama being there, we were planning to visit eventually.

But when the Tang Clan guy said it, his intentions sounded highly impure.

Perhaps Mr. Yeo felt the same, as he let out a loud, fake cough just as his daughter was about to reply.

“Ahem. Anyway, we will leave as soon as we’ve tidied things up here.”

“Then, we shall be on our way first.”

We exchanged farewells and started walking.

From time to time, the Tang Clan guy would turn his head to look back.

He was a truly pathetic man.

“We’ve spent a long time in Shengzhou, so let’s move as quickly as possible.”

After saying that, I immediately unfolded my movement arts.

My companions hurriedly followed behind me, and the Tang Clan guy, with a face full of lingering attachment, also chased after us.

It didn’t really matter.

After all, if he kept running, the lingering attachment on his face would flow away with his sweat.

***

Shengzhou and Nine Dragons Mountain.

Although they were both in Zhejiang, the distance was quite significant.

Even moving by unfolding movement arts, it took several days.

During that time, we each focused on our own training.

In particular, we needed time to adapt to our new weapons.

As promised, I taught Nam Geon the forms of the Heavenly Wind Sword Art.

“Haaat!”

Perhaps because he had a knack for physical work, Nam Geon learned each movement quickly when viewed individually.

“Ah? Hy, hyung-ah, wh, what was the next mo, movement?”

The only minor problem was that he couldn’t remember the order of the forms.

Every time Nam Geon got the order mixed up, I repeatedly taught him from the first form in sequence.

In truth, there was no rule that said one must perform the forms in order.

If one had to perform them in sequence every time in a real battle, that itself would be problematic.

But right now, the order was important.

Nam Geon hadn’t even learned the art’s chant yet.

I was concerned that if he performed them in a jumbled order with only the forms learned, and I later taught him the chant, the time it would take to learn it might double.

Even more so considering Nam Geon’s insight.

While Nam Geon was adapting to the newly learned Heavenly Wind Sword Art and the twisted balance of the new Mother’s Affection Sword.

The two Senior Sisters were also training, brandishing the Restoring Name Sword and their newly acquired swords.

I watched them for a while and gave some advice to Senior Sister Choyeon.

“Simplify the movements further.”

I demonstrated, recalling the Shadowless Blood Flash Sword that Hyeok Ilso used to perform.

When I showed her a few concise thrusts aimed only at the enemy’s vitals, Senior Sister Choyeon quickly imitated the movements.

Why Senior Sister Baek Hyang was also imitating the movements next to her was a mystery.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you, Senior Brother.”

I just nodded at their words of thanks.

All I did was toss out a few words and demonstrate once or twice.

But that was enough.

As expected, geniuses were different.

When I turned my head, I saw the pathetic sight of the Tang Clan guy dancing with a fan like a moron.

It was a laughable sight.

That guy was quite, no, more talented than me.

But perhaps because the people he was with were so outstanding, it was a strangely endearing scene.

“Your entire body is full of openings.”

At my critique, the guy’s face turned red, but he continued to brandish the fan.

That Iron Fan was also crafted by Miss Yeo. Specially made for the Tang Clan guy who practiced Poison Art.

I watched him fool around for a moment before opening my mouth.

“Isn’t your main skill Poison Art? The fan is a tool for deception and defense, so the sword art of the Sichuan Sword Clan doesn’t suit you. You’d be better off trying to utilize the principle of yielding.”

At my point, the guy sighed and replied.

“I’ve never learned a martial art that utilizes the principle of yielding.”

At the Tang Clan guy’s answer, I scratched my chin a few times and drew the Master’s Blade.

And I showed him a few demonstrations.

I recalled the sword art of that genius Taoist I had seen in my past life, and I also performed the techniques I had realized during my duel with the Azure Sword Sect Leader.

Having learned various sword arts haphazardly had been helpful in many ways for things like this.

Furthermore, thanks to the enlightenment I gained about the principle of yielding while learning the Moonlight Coiling Sword, I was able to perform a plausible sword dance.

After stopping the sword dance I had repeated a few times, the Tang Clan guy asked.

“Isn’t that a sword art? Can’t you change it to a fan art and teach me?”

“Did you leave it in my care?”

“……That’s not it, I just thought that with your level of skill, it wouldn’t be difficult to apply that sword art. Come to think of it, when you were creating a martial art for Miss Yeo, you left it to Miss Baek, didn’t you?”

“I have no talent. All I’ve learned is sword arts, so I can only teach sword arts.”

“You’ve reached such a level at only seventeen and you say you have no talent?”

“That’s right.”

The Tang Clan guy, who looked at me with an expression that said ‘what kind of guy is this,’ soon sighed and raised his iron fan again.

Soon after, he began to imitate my sword dance with his fan.

He was clumsy for the first few times, but at some point, a somewhat plausible dance emerged.

As if he had gotten a feel for it, he nodded to himself and muttered something, then took a few steps back.

Once again, he began to dance with the iron fan in his hand.

Even though he was dancing alone, the movements continued as if someone was brandishing a weapon from the opposite side.

And in the middle of the fan dance, a faint green smoke flowed from the fan.

“Haaat!”

When he brandished the fan roughly, a wind rose and the green smoke scattered wildly.

It had been about half a year since he started learning Poison Art. It seemed he had accumulated quite a bit of poison in his Dantian, as he was now performing a plausible Poison Art.

Applying a sword dance to a fan art after seeing it just a few times, as expected, that guy had some talent too.

I turned my head away from the guy dancing his fan art alone.

Worrying about other people’s talent wouldn’t change my life.

So I focused on my training.

I trained the fifth form of the Sun Moon Infinite Sword, and I also trained the Heavenly Wind Sword Art.

I also tried to imitate the secret of the Life and Death Blood Steps, the Absorption Art.

Perhaps because I wasn’t used to it yet, a slight headache occurred every time I tried to grip the ground with my Qi.

It felt similar to when I first trained the Moonlight Coiling Sword.

Since I already had experience training the Moonlight Coiling Sword, I had a hunch that I was on the right path.

“In many ways, the world is unfair.”

This thought wasn’t because of my companions’ talents.

It was what I was like in my past life.

I would often dither, wondering if this was the right path or the wrong one, and meaninglessly let the years slip by.

I made an effort, but most of the time, I was just treading water.

On the other hand, how am I now?

Having experienced success, I have conviction.

Thanks to that, the years wasted on worrying are reduced.

It was only after returning to the past that I realized this was also a reason why talented people shot ahead so quickly.

Well, the world being unfair wasn’t a one or two-day affair, so I had no intention of complaining.

It was better to swing my sword one more time in that time.

***

A few days later, in the afternoon. We arrived at a place called Guju.

It was a fairly large city in the central-western part of Zhejiang, and from here, it was a three-to-four-day walk further south to reach Nine Dragons Mountain.

“Something seems to be going on.”

Although it was a city of considerable size, it exuded a somewhat gloomy atmosphere.

We decided to stay here for a night and headed to the marketplace to gather information.

As we walked through the marketplace for a while, a strange sight caught my eye.

A group of dozens of men, dressed in iron helmets and armor made by reinforcing cloth with iron plates, were strolling through the marketplace.

Moreover, they were each walking with one or two spears, axes, bows, or shields slung at their waists or on their backs.

As dozens of these men, who looked like soldiers, moved in a group, the merchants and residents in the marketplace would invariably watch them warily and step aside to make way.

There were even dozens more of such groups gathered in the distance.

I observed them for a while as they swaggered and walked confidently as if the main street were their front yard.

The Tang Clan guy nodded as if he understood and opened his mouth.

“No matter how you look at it, they seem to be government troops. The notoriety of those Nine Dragons Fortress guys is so widespread that the government must have finally decided to subjugate them.”

The Tang Clan guy’s reasoning was plausible, but it was difficult to agree with it easily.

“I don’t recall hearing any stories of government troops being dispatched, except for the northern border and near the capital.”

It was like that in my past life, and it was the same in this life.

The emperor had no interest in the people’s livelihood.

The officials were the same.

Perhaps it was because their grip on power was weak.

It was called the Central Plains, but the distance from the capital, Henan, to Sichuan alone would take a good two or three months to travel on foot.

I couldn’t tell if those high and mighty people were uninterested in the affairs of the lower classes, or if they simply lacked the ability.

In any case, except for the area near the capital and the northern border, the government was practically non-existent.

That was why the regions I had been mainly active in, such as Hunan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, were in such a mess.

This southern part of Zhejiang was not much different.

Compared to Guizhou or Guangxi, it was closer to the capital, but it would still take a good month to travel on foot.

At my point, the Tang Clan guy snorted.

“What, do you know everything that goes on in the world?”

Because I had memories from before my regression, I nodded.

“I know most of it.”

But perhaps he misunderstood my words, as the Tang Clan guy confidently exclaimed.

“Then shall we make a bet? On whether those are government troops or not.”

“What kind of bet?”

“Money… would be meaningless since it’s public funds anyway. Hmm. Then how about this? The winner simply flicks the loser’s forehead.”

It seemed he was still holding a grudge for the times I had hit him.

He was truly a petty person.

He seemed to have no regard for how he had treated me in our past life.

“Alright. But I’ll change the conditions. I don’t think they’re here because of the Nine Dragons Fortress.”

At least in the past life I remembered, there were no rumors of the Nine Dragons Fortress being brought down by government troops.

“Then I’ll bet that they’re here to subjugate the Nine Dragons Fortress.”

After exclaiming confidently, the guy started walking.

He approached a nearby marketplace merchant.

It was the merchant who had bowed his head low and watched warily when the soldiers had passed by earlier.

“Excuse me, may I ask you something?”

A merchant is a merchant, I suppose. Unlike his earlier wary attitude, he replied with a calculated smile.

“Is there anything you need?”

When the Tang Clan guy shook his head, the merchant’s expression soured.

“I’m not trying to buy anything, I just have something I want to ask.”

Oblivious, the Tang Clan guy continued speaking regardless of the merchant’s darkening expression.

“Are those government troops here to subjugate the Nine Dragons Fortress?”

As soon as the Tang Clan guy’s question ended, the merchant was startled and quickly reached out to cover the Tang Clan guy’s mouth.

The Tang Clan guy, having learned a thing or two about martial arts, dodged the merchant’s hand and was about to protest when the merchant spoke first.

“Wa, watch your mouth! Wh, what if they hear you!”

“……What’s so wrong with the government troops attacking the Nine Dragons Fortress.”

“No! Please just shut your mouth!”

The merchant shouted in a small voice, his face contorted.

It was an amazing sight. To be able to shout in a whisper.

But what was even more surprising was his next words.

“Government troops, my foot. Those bastards are the bandits from the Nine Dragons Fortress!”

Wondering if I had misheard, I looked left and right.

Nam Geon had the same bewildered expression as me, but since Nam Geon often made that face during conversations, I decided to let it go.

Senior Sister Choyeon had her usual expressionless face.

Should I call it a relief?

Senior Sister Baek Hyang and the Tang Clan guy also had expressions that said, ‘what kind of crazy talk is this.’

It seemed I hadn’t misheard after all.

I composed myself and asked the merchant again.

“Why are bandits roaming around in broad daylight, in the marketplace of all places, and not in the mountains, dressed like that?”

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