That’s Not How You Use Martial Arts

Chapter 11
The Attack (5)

『 Translator – Divinity 』

“Haaap!”

“Uwaaa—!”

With a shout, swords thrust at me from both sides.

Ignoring the screaming man I had just injured, I took a step back.

Two swords crossed before my eyes.

With the downward strike of the first move of the Three Talents Sword Technique, Mountain Suppresses the Summit, I heavily struck the point where the swords intersected.

Clang!

“Ugh!”

“Kugh…!”

The two men lost their grip on their swords from the impact.

I swiftly swung my sword twice, cutting them down in an instant.

“Gah!”

“Keugh!”

Two more bodies fell on top of the one still groaning in pain.

In the blink of an eye, three out of the five were dead.

The remaining two, their faces pale and eyes filled with fear, backed away from me, trembling.

I slowly and deliberately approached them.

“U-uwaaaa—!”

“Hey, hey!?”

One of them seemed to have lost his mind, screaming and swinging his sword wildly.

His swordsmanship was formless, like a child throwing a tantrum.

Did he think I would just stand there and let him hit me?

I slashed at his right wrist, the one holding the sword.

His tendons were severed, and the sword fell from his hand, but he continued to flail his right arm, unaware of what had happened.

He finally stopped moving when my sword pierced his chest.

“Gurgling…”

Stepping over the fourth man, who was foaming at the mouth and convulsing, I approached the last one.

“Pant… Pant…”

He was trembling, clutching his sword with both hands, but his eyes were still full of fight.

For a bastard who killed innocent people, he was quite sharp.

Well, he was still a bastard, though.

I brushed past the fifth man.

Like those who had surrounded me earlier, he clutched his neck and collapsed.

Glancing at him, I continued walking and stopped in front of the deputy leader, who had been busy running his mouth.

“J-just who are you? What are you!?”

The deputy leader shrieked in terror.

Why ask about my identity now? You already know it.

“The youngest son of this house. Have you already forgotten?”

“D-don’t be ridiculous! We’ve already investigated everything! The youngest son of this house is an idiot who’s only practiced the Three Talents Technique for ten years! He’s not a monster like you!”

At the deputy leader’s outburst, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s true that I’ve only practiced the Three Talents Technique for ten years, but an idiot? What does that make you guys, who all died to that idiot? Idiots… ah, right, you already were idiots.”

These guys were no different from the others.

Idiots who didn’t know how to use internal energy at all.

Every single one of them possessed an immense amount of internal energy that couldn’t even be compared to mine, yet they didn’t know how to use it and died helplessly by my hand.

And this deputy leader would be no different.

“Y-you…! Uwaaaa—!”

The deputy leader, trembling with humiliation, charged at me with a roar.

I swiftly dashed forward, slashing at his side as I passed.

“Kugh…!”

The deputy leader clutched his deeply cut side.

His left hand, desperately trying to stop the bleeding, was quickly dyed red with blood.

“Wh-what is that martial art? Such a fast sword, I couldn’t even see it properly, just what kind of technique is that…?”

“Three Talents Sword Technique, Horizontal Sweep of a Thousand Armies.”

At my answer, the deputy leader’s face, already contorted in pain, became even more distorted.

“That’s, Horizontal Sweep of a Thousand Armies? Don’t be ridiculous. How could such a third-rate technique…”

The Three Talents Sword Technique.

A sword technique with only three moves, and even those three moves were nothing more than the most basic vertical cut, horizontal cut, and thrust.

But because it was the most basic of basics, a blank canvas of a sword technique, it could become anything.

The reason I could move and swing my sword faster than those other idiots was that I had incorporated the principles of swift swordsmanship into that basic technique.

He was spouting such nonsense because he didn’t know that.

The people in this strange murim world only used internal energy to enhance their physical abilities.

No, the expression “use internal energy” wasn’t even appropriate.

They were just circulating internal energy through their meridians.

Perhaps that was why.

There was no concept of swift swordsmanship or heavy swordsmanship in this world.

I still couldn’t forget the bewildered look on Master’s face when I briefly asked him about it, as if I had said something absurd.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. You’re going to die anyway.”

“W-wait..! Wait!”

The deputy leader desperately tried to stop me as I was about to swing my sword again.

Curious about what he wanted to say, I lowered my sword for a moment.

He let out a sigh of relief and continued speaking.

“I-if you stop here, I’ll just retreat.”

“…What?”

As I stared at him in disbelief, he started spewing out words like a rapid-fire cannon.

“D-do you know who I am?! I am Im Mu-hong, the Dark Night Flashing Sword, the deputy leader of the Dark Heaven Squad, one of the fifteen squads of Paecheon Fortress! If you kill me, thousands of Paecheon Fortress warriors will turn this Gun-gang County into a wasteland!”

“T-thousands…!”

Father muttered in a trembling voice at Im Mu-hong’s boastful words.

But I just shrugged and raised my sword again.

“Do you not understand what I’m saying!? I said Paecheon Fortress will come after you if you kill me!”

“Well, I wonder if they will. An entire fortress mobilizing to avenge some rats who snuck in during the night? It’s a bit hard to believe.”

“I-it’s not a lie! Paecheon Fortress will definitely… Why are you still approaching me?!”

I continued to advance, and Im Mu-hong continued to retreat.

Their game of cat and mouse quickly ended when Im Mu-hong’s back hit the wall.

His eyes shook like an earthquake as he saw me still approaching him, with nowhere left to run.

“If y-you kill me…”

“Oh, shut up. Whether you’re a Paecheon Fortress warrior or royalty, you’re going to die here today.”

Perhaps sensing that he couldn’t escape death, especially since I had mentioned royalty, despair washed over Im Mu-hong’s face.

***

“W-why…? Aren’t you afraid of Paecheon Fortress, of the Imperial Family behind them?”

Mu-hong trembled as he looked at the young man standing before him like a grim reaper.

‘How did it come to this?’

It wasn’t a difficult mission.

A mission to simply kill the daughter of the former Fortress Lord, who had luckily escaped and been in hiding for over ten years, and everyone around her.

If the daughter, the core of the rebels, died, the rest would crumble on their own. The Fortress Lord himself had declared a great reward for those who succeeded.

Moreover, they even had the support of Master Shin, one of the top experts in Paecheon Fortress.

An easy task with an incredibly generous reward.

Only a fool would refuse it.

And so, he had come to Gun-gang County.

Seeing the village, filled with ignorant people who knew nothing about the murim, only strengthened his confidence in their success.

It seemed that the Leader and Master Shin felt the same, as they decided to carry out the operation tonight after only a basic investigation.

Master Shin and the Leader personally took charge of the school where the Fortress Lord’s daughter was located.

Meanwhile, he was tasked with framing the Gun family, a backwater landlord family, as Demonic Cult collaborators and wiping them out.

The reason was that the youngest son of this family had been frequenting the school where the former Fortress Lord’s daughter was hiding for the past ten years.

‘Tsk, tsk. Because of one youngest son who was interested in martial arts, the whole family is going to be ruined.’

He clicked his tongue, but nonetheless followed orders and moved without hesitation.

Wiping out a single manor of ignorant country folk was a simple and familiar task for them.

Just a quarter of an hour ago, he had been laughing with his subordinates, who had been coaxing him to play with the daughter of the house for a bit before killing her, since she was quite beautiful.

In that short time, the simple mission had taken a turn for the worst.

His subordinates were all dead, and he was the only one left.

Moreover, this monstrous boy, who had single-handedly killed all his subordinates, seemed to have no intention of letting him live either.

“……”

The monster remained silent with a cold gaze despite his threats about Paecheon Fortress and the Imperial Family.

His mind numb with fear, Mu-hong desperately blurted out whatever came to mind.

“W-why! Why are you trying to kill me! Didn’t you say you’d let this all slide!?”

Of course, it couldn’t truly be swept under the rug. It was just nonsense he spouted to escape this situation.

But this monster reacted to a strange point.

“…Why am I trying to kill you?”

His eyes were filled with contempt and anger, as if asking, “Do you really not know?”

Despite feeling humiliated by the gaze of a mere youngster, he desperately nodded his head, hoping for a miracle.

“T-that’s right…! You gain nothing by killing me. I-if you let me go, I’ll never come back here again…!”

It was a lie.

If he could somehow survive this, he would immediately go to Se-gon and ask for help.

‘Master Shin should be able to handle even this monster!’

It was a delusion he could only entertain because he didn’t know Se-gon was already dead by Ja-seong’s hand.

Seeing Ja-seong fall silent at his words, Mu-hong’s heart kindled with a spark of hope.

Ja-seong, watching him, raised his left hand and pointed somewhere.

Mu-hong’s gaze instinctively followed Ja-seong’s left hand and slowly turned.

At the end of his gaze were the bodies of the Gun family servants he had killed as an example.

‘W-what’s that supposed to mean?’

Mu-hong couldn’t understand why Ja-seong was suddenly pointing at the dead servants.

Seeing his bewildered expression, Ja-seong let out a short scoff and opened his mouth.

“Nanny carried me on her back and raised me since I was a child. Uncle Kang always took care of my bedding. I used to sneak into the kitchen with Brother Jin-il to steal rice cakes, and Granny Dal always slipped me snacks whenever she saw me.”

“What… what are you saying…?”

Mu-hong still couldn’t understand Ja-seong’s words.

As if he hadn’t expected him to understand in the first place, Ja-seong immediately gave him the answer.

“Those people were my family.”

“…!”

“You bastard who killed my family. Would you let someone like that live?”

“…Y-!”

Crack!

Mu-hong couldn’t speak any longer.

Because the sword Ja-seong thrust had pierced his mouth.

Mu-hong died with his eyes rolled back.

Looking down at his face, Ja-seong pulled out his sword and muttered under his breath.

“At least I wouldn’t.”

Thus ended the sudden enemy attack, leaving behind irreversible damage.