He’s gone mad. Gu Chil stared down at Park Jin-hyuk, a grim certainty settling in his gut. The beating must have finally broken something in his head.
It had been a little harder than usual this time. Hwang Cheol always had a heavy hand, but today he’d laid into Park Jin-hyuk with the kind of viciousness meant to teach a permanent lesson. A pack of wild dogs couldn't have left him in a worse state. Even those who might normally have intervened had kept their distance, watching as Hwang Cheol worked him over. Gu Chil couldn’t blame them.
“So, what you’re saying is… I’m a beggar?”
Did the blows land on his body or his skull? A beggar asking if he was a beggar? What kind of insanity was this? Gu Chil was sure of it now. The boy hadn't just turned strange; he'd become unsettling.
He’d always been a slacker, so a beating like this was inevitable. It was just rotten luck that today was the day. That was the iron law of the Gaebang: if you didn’t find food with your own two hands, you’d either die like a dog, starve, or get beaten for it.
Usually, a good thrashing knocked some sense back into people. Usually. What was happening now was the exact opposite.
“Is this real? I’m really living in a place like this? It can’t be.”
“…Have you gone blind?”
“Huh?”
“Take a look at what you’re wearing. It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.”
Park Jin-hyuk looked down. His clothes were a patchwork of fabrics and rags, frayed and filthy. They might have once been garments, but now they were just tatters. Any normal person would have accepted it and moved on. Not Park Jin-hyuk.
“Don’t I have a name?”
“Since when do beggars have names?” Gu Chil sighed, a weary sound. “You have a number. You’re Cheol Sam.”
“…Sounds like a beggar’s name.” Even his name was pathetic. “A beggar. This kind of beggar…”
The other man just stared at him, his expression blank.
“And my age? Am I around sixteen?”
“Since when do beggars count their years?”
“That makes sense.” But nothing else did. Everything about Cheol Sam was different—his way of speaking, his posture, even the look in his eyes. He was completely oblivious to his own life. This was more than just a concussion.
“Then what year is it?”
“…Beggars count the days. Have you ever seen a beggar who counts the years?”
“Spoken like a true beggar.”
Gu Chil rubbed his tired eyes. A beggar’s life was a constant grind, but this was a whole new level of exhausting.
“I have one more question.”
“…You’ve been asking them for a while now.”
“Do you know who the Blood Demon is?”
“You were muttering about him earlier. Why are you suddenly looking for the Blood Demon?”
“Just answer me.”
“Of course I know. Everyone knows. He was the leader of the Blood Demon Sect. Defeated a hundred years ago.”
“What?”
“Hey—”
In a flash, Cheol Sam surged forward and grabbed Gu Chil by the collar, his eyes wild.
“A hundred years? It’s been a hundred years since the Blood Demon was slain? One hundred years? You mean a full century has passed?”
“…That’s right.” He must have been hit harder than I thought.
“Tell me the truth. Don’t you dare lie to me.”
“What would I gain from lying to you?” Gu Chil grunted, prying Cheol Sam’s fingers from his rags. The moment his hands were free, Cheol Sam started clawing at his own hair in a frenzy.
He’s completely lost it. There was no other explanation. This wasn’t confusion from a beating; this was pure madness. Gu Chil had never seen a man’s face twist through so many shades of frantic disbelief.
“A hundred years, you said?”
“Do you need me to say it again?”
“…I need to go back.”
Park Jin-hyuk tilted his head up. He hoped the sight of a clear blue sky might bring some comfort, but all he saw was the grimy canvas ceiling of the tent. It was as dark and suffocating as his mood.
“A hundred years have passed since then?”
Gu Chil finally snapped.
“You’re not some old man losing his memory, so why do you keep repeating yourself? It’s been a hundred years! The great sects fought the Blood Demon on the Black Wind Mountains and took his head! That was one hundred years ago!”
“…I see.” No wonder he felt so desolate.
The man who’d beaten him, Hwang Cheol, seemed to hold some rank. That meant this man, Gu Chil, was likely higher up the ladder than Cheol Sam as well. The Gaebang, was it? Not that it was anything to be proud of. The Union claimed to take in all beggars, but it could barely feed a fraction of them.
Most members were just beggars on the street. The higher-ups gave them numbers instead of names, and their clothes were without knots. But for all their poverty, these beggars roaming the streets often knew more about the goings-on of the martial world than any secluded practitioner. Gu Chil’s words could be trusted.
“Huh. Crazy. A hundred years.” Everything would have changed. He had no choice but to accept it: he had been reborn in the body of this boy.
But why now? Why not right after his death? After a century, everyone who knew Park Jin-hyuk would be long dead. Besides, most of the people he’d known had died with him on that cursed mountain.
He was utterly alone.
No matter how twisted fate could be, this was too much. Then, Mount Wol—
“Ah! Wait—the Mount Wol Sect!?”
When Cheol Sam shot up from the floor, shouting, Gu Chil didn’t even flinch. He was getting used to it.
“The Mount Wol Sect! What happened to the Mount Wol Sect?”
“What do you mean?”
“What happened to them!?”
“Mount Wol?”
“Yes!”
“What’s Mount Wol?”
“…Huh?” Park Jin-hyuk stared, dumbfounded. He didn’t know Mount Wol? A beggar didn’t know?
“Don’t mess with me. How is the Mount Wol Sect doing now?”
“Mount Wol Sect?” Gu Chil tilted his head, genuinely confused.
He really didn’t know? About the Mount Wol Sect?
“The… one of the Nine Great Sects… you don’t know the Mount Wol Sect? You have to be…”
“One of the Nine Great Sects? What are you talking about? There’s no Mount Wol Sect in the Nine Great Sects.”
“…There isn’t?”
“Sorim Temple, Mudang Sect, Jeomchang Sect, Cheongseong Sect, Gongdong Sect, Namdo Sect, Amun Sect, Namgung Clan, Gonyun Sect, and the Gaebang. There are ten of us now.”
“Southern… Namdo Sect? Those worthless bastards are in the Ten Great Sects? Ah—that doesn’t matter. So Mount Wol isn’t one of them?”
Gu Chil sighed. It was like talking to a wall. Cheol Sam only heard what he wanted to hear, and his patience was wearing thin.
“The Mount Wol Sect isn’t one of the Great Sects? No, I suppose that’s possible. But for you not to even know the name? They say a rich man can live for three years on his remaining fortune after going bankrupt! How can you, a beggar, not know of the Mount Wol Sect?”
Calling him a beggar wasn’t just an insult; it was a statement of fact that carried consequences. The boy could starve to death for this foolishness.
“Does that make any sense?” Park Jin-hyuk grabbed Gu Chil by the shoulders and shook him. “Any sense at all? You really don’t know Mount Wol? Mount Wol? The Mount Wol Sect?”
“…Mount Wol.” A headache was starting to bloom behind Gu Chil’s eyes.
“Yes! Mount Wol!”
“Now that you mention it,” Gu Chil said, his head still tilted. “I think I’ve heard of a sect like that in the Seomseo province.”
“Yes! That’s it! Mount Wol, in Seomseo!” Park Jin-hyuk’s eyes widened with hope.
“From what I heard, they’re doomed.”
“What?” Park Jin-hyuk’s heart stopped.
“I don’t know if they were ever in the Great Sects, but the story goes that all their best warriors were wiped out in the war with the Blood Demon. It’s just rumors, I don’t know for sure. If you want to know more, go ask someone else.”
What did he mean? The Mount Wol Sect… had fallen? Mount Wol? The Mount Wol Sect?
“This lying beggar!”
Gu Chil just looked at the ceiling. He tells the boy the truth, and he gets cursed for it. This was why he hated helping people.
“No! Impossible! I don’t believe it!” Park Jin-hyuk shoved Gu Chil aside and scrambled to his feet. “I have to see it for myself!”
“Hah!” Gu Chil yelled at his retreating back. “If you’re not back by dinner, Hwang Cheol will kill you for real this time! Stop wasting your time and get back to work!”
But Cheol Sam was already gone.
“…What’s gotten into that bastard?” Gu Chil muttered, shaking his head at the boy’s bewildering transformation.
Park Jin-hyuk’s face was a mask of devastation, like a merchant who had just lost his entire fortune in a single night.
Thinking about it, with so many of Mount Wol’s disciples lost in the final battle, a decline in power was inevitable. They could have been pushed out of the Great Sects in the chaos that followed. But for Mount Wol to be forgotten, and for the Gaebang to take its place? In just a hundred years? How could beggars, most of whom knew nothing of martial arts, be included in such a list?
The beggar he’d spoken to didn’t seem to know much, so Park Jin-hyuk started asking others. He grabbed anyone who would listen, but the result was always the same.
“Mount Wol? You mean the mountain range over there? What about it?”
“The Mount Wol Sect? Was there a martial arts school on Mount Wol?”
“Never heard of it.”
“How dare a beggar grab my sleeve! Do you want your arm cut off? Let go of me this instant!”
Well, not that last one.
No one knew. Not a single person.
“This makes no sense!” How could the world forget the Mount Wol Sect? There were always countless sects, but none were as renowned as Mount Wol. It was only a slight exaggeration to say that most of the greatest swordsmen hailed from its peaks. Everyone knew Mount Wol was one of the three pillars of swordsmanship, alongside Mudang and Namgung.
And now people didn’t even know it existed?
“Argh…”
He did get one positive response, if one could call it that.
“The Mount Wol Sect? I think I’ve heard that name. Weren’t they famous a long time ago? I heard they slew the Blood Demon and then just… collapsed. Are they even still around?”
Collapsed? The Mount Wol Sect?
“What kind of nonsense is that?” It would be more believable to hear that the Imperial Palace had burned to the ground and the Emperor had fled into the night.
The Mount Wol Sect had fallen. Mount Wol!
Maybe it’s for the best that it was me who came back. Park Jin-hyuk remembered the haunted look on Sahyung Lee Kang-min’s face in his final moments. If he were alive to hear this news, he would have coughed up blood and died all over again.
“No, no!” Park Jin-hyuk shot up from where he’d slumped. “I have to see it with my own eyes!”
The Mount Wol Sect had stood for centuries. No matter how far it had fallen, it had to still be there. He had to see it.
“I’m going to Mount Wol!” His blue eyes burned with a fierce, rekindled light.
This was the moment a butterfly’s single flap of its wings set a tidal wave in motion.