The Jaegal Clan's Heavenly Star Pavilion.
Standing at the entrance, Jaegal Mun-hyeon looked at the signboard and sighed.
"What are you doing? Go on in."
"......."
"Your father has told the Pavilion Master everything."
Another sigh came.
But the effort was truly commendable.
The descendants of the Jaegal Clan build their learning young and only at the age of ten do they first touch martial learning.
Here in this Heavenly Star Pavilion they build their foundations until they come of age at sixteen, and then advance down the road they wish according to the talents each possesses.
Jaegal Mun-hyeon, seven years old.
As is usual with a clan of scholars, given the Jaegal Clan's strictness about its regulations, there was no chance it had been permitted easily.
He must have persuaded them, and persuaded them again.
For his son.
It was a useless thing, but the heart that cared for his son's future was worth esteeming.
'Well, what of it? Learning other martial arts can only be good.'
Was he not a man who would leap from sleep at the word martial learning? He need only think of it kindly.
"Mun-hyeon, what is the matter?"
"Pardon?"
"You do not go in and only stand there deliberating."
"It is nothing. The feeling is simply unusual for me."
"You rascal......."
"I shall go in."
"Yes. I should like to go in with you, but parents are forbidden to enter......."
At the sight of his father's regretful expression, Jaegal Mun-hyeon grinned.
"Do not worry."
"Worry, indeed...... But, well...... you must not do as you did at the Myriad Books Pavilion."
"......."
"Endure it if you possibly can. You know what I mean?"
Seeing him so full of anxiety, it seemed that although he had never said so, he had suffered a great deal over the business at the Myriad Books Pavilion.
Then again, an order of rank does not exist for nothing.
"I shall try."
So long as no one provokes me.......
But at those words Jaegal Do-yun rejoiced greatly and pushed him forward by the back.
Jaegal Mun-hyeon pretended reluctance and knocked at the gate of the Heavenly Star Pavilion.
KNOCK, KNOCK!
The gate soon opened and the inside was revealed.
A big-framed man in black robes looked at the two from beyond the gate and gave Jaegal Do-yun his greeting.
"Hall Leader of the Military Stratagem Hall. We had word you were coming, and I have been waiting."
"Oh, Gang-hu. It has been a while."
"Yes."
After the greetings passed, Jaegal Do-yun said to his son,
"Mun-hyeon, greet him. This is Instructor Yu Gang-hu of the Heavenly Star Pavilion. He is a man of such excellence that in murim they call him the Fierce Fist. He will be taking charge of your foundation training from now on."
"I am Jaegal Mun-hyeon."
At his father's urging Jaegal Mun-hyeon bowed his head.
A ferocious fist, is it.......
He looks capable of breaking a decent-sized rock.
"I shall take him inside."
"Thank you."
"I merely follow the Pavilion Master's orders."
"Ah, about that......."
"It is quite all right. I did not say it to blame you, Hall Leader. But from here on, please observe the Heavenly Star Pavilion's regulations."
"Understood. And I am sorry. If it displeased you, I hope you will let it go."
"I shall take a cup of wine off you sometime."
"Indeed, name the day."
"Yes."
Having bobbed a bow, Yu Gang-hu looked coolly at Jaegal Mun-hyeon and said,
"Follow me."
"......Yes."
This fellow is going to blow cold for a while yet.
Jaegal Mun-hyeon moved his steps after Yu Gang-hu into the Heavenly Star Pavilion.
The threshold was high here as well.
For a seven-year-old.
"Mun-hyeon."
"......?"
"You must do well. You know your father is always on your side?"
It was hardly a long journey.......
Anyone watching would think he was being conscripted and sent off to war.
THUD!
The moment he looked back the gate closed, and another world opened.
Somehow his heart grew easier.
Because until now, wanting to be a good son to his parents, he had been minding their reactions and could not act freely.
"What are you doing?"
"......."
"If you miss your father you may go out this instant. If not, hurry and follow."
At the words of Yu Gang-hu, who maintained a frigid expression throughout, Jaegal Mun-hyeon frowned slightly.
Is this fellow an angry sort by nature?
Why so cold?
The interior of the Heavenly Star Pavilion he thus entered was quieter than he had expected.
Two training grounds set along the path, and a central pavilion, and that was about all.
Perhaps because the hour was still early, not a trainee was in sight.
Walking ahead, Yu Gang-hu spoke without turning around.
"From now on you will learn martial arts in the Heavenly Star Pavilion's lowest class. Therefore there are rules you must observe without fail."
"Tell me."
"First, in the Heavenly Star Pavilion you will not put forward your inborn bloodline or your family."
Exactly as he wished.
As with any other study, martial learning should be judged by skill alone.
"Second, you will obey an instructor's orders."
"......I shall. Orders that accord with reason."
"And third, you will never, ever break the order of rank. I have already heard your story. If anything like the Myriad Books Pavilion happens again I shall never forgive it, nor will it pass over so easily as it did then."
At that, Jaegal Mun-hyeon stopped walking and stared straight at Yu Gang-hu.
"Why do you not answer?"
"If you know of the business at the Myriad Books Pavilion, you must know the inside of it too...... What you just said sounded as though I must endure it even if someone insults my parents."
At those words Yu Gang-hu finally halted and looked back.
And at the sight of Jaegal Mun-hyeon gazing at him with his eyes level and open, a laugh escaped him.
Was the boy not rather bold?
He had already heard the rumors about him.
Talents for learning and melody?
Hardly.
That sort of thing did not catch Yu Gang-hu's interest.
The reason the name Jaegal Mun-hyeon had lodged in his memory was a story he had heard not long ago over drinks with Gwon No-sik, a guard of the Myriad Books Pavilion.
-I tell you, he dodged the Pressing Hand and the Grasping Hand too. A seven-year-old, mind you.
Basic handwork it may have been, but for a seven-year-old child to evade an adult's hand was a thing worth astonishment.
And so he had looked into it and was told the boy had never learned martial learning.
Which is to say, talent.
Inwardly he had looked forward to the day the boy entered the Heavenly Star Pavilion.
And then, just at that moment, Jaegal Do-yun had gone to the Heavenly Star Pavilion's Master, his own younger brother Jaegal Do-hyeong, and persuaded him that his son was born with a talent for martial learning.
That with the world in such an evil state, surely it was right to teach a talent early.
Naturally there had been an inquiry to him.
Because admitting a seven-year-old to the Heavenly Star Pavilion went against the clan's regulations.
But because the name was Jaegal Mun-hyeon, he had allowed it.
He would take him in and try teaching him.
"Why do you not answer? If I must endure even in such a case, then I shall be going home."
"You rascal...... Do you not know what efforts the Hall Leader of the Military Stratagem Hall made to get you into the Heavenly Star Pavilion?"
"Even knowing it, wrong is wrong."
"Hmm."
At the crisp answer a faint smile touched Yu Gang-hu's mouth.
Here was a fellow a little unlike the Jaegal Clan's other sons.
Even the children who came at ten were apt to shrink before his eyes and his sturdy frame, yet this one looked at him as if glaring back and stated his thoughts boldly.
Perhaps for that reason, what came to mind first was not that he was ill-mannered but that his backbone was straight.
"Who said to endure? What I mean is that if a matter of right and wrong must be settled, it must be settled through a duel."
"A duel?"
"Yes. A scholar persuades his opponent with logic; a martial artist persuades his opponent with his own strength."
"Hmm, that is hardly a remark befitting a man who teaches the descendants of the Jaegal Clan. Is what matters not which side has the just cause?"
"That goes without saying. Which is why I say that if you believe you are right, you should do so."
"Well, in that case......."
Driving one's will through by duel.
That much would do.
He had no intention of picking fights or quarreling on purpose, but no intention either of avoiding anyone who picked a fight with him.
'So the form of a duel is all it takes?'
At the sight of Jaegal Mun-hyeon grinning, Yu Gang-hu felt a strange curiosity.
Cheeky beyond measure.
From his expression, was he not brimming with the confidence that he could win a duel too?
'An interesting fellow, just as I heard. I hope the talent is as much as I expect.'
It was while Yu Gang-hu was laughing inwardly.
"There is one thing I should like to ask."
"Speak."
"Does the course of instruction change according to how quickly one takes something in?"
"What do you mean?"
"I wondered whether, for instance, if I learned too quickly and had time left over, you might teach me something new."
"What was that? Hah hah hah hah!"
Unable to contain his astonishment, Yu Gang-hu burst out laughing before he knew it.
There was no bravado like it.
In all his time teaching children it was the first time he had heard such a thing.
A boy who had not even begun to learn, claiming to know what training he would be given and guaranteeing his own swift attainment?
"There will be no such thing. For the present I shall conduct individual training in consideration of the gap between you and the other children, but no one exceeds the course set for a day. You will train according to the schedule of instruction."
"Hmm, then what does one do when the day's instruction is finished?"
"What?"
"I wondered whether I might go home early."
"Hah!"
Yu Gang-hu was dumbfounded.
A boy who had not even begun training.......
Bravado? Or arrogance?
Frowning for no reason, Yu Gang-hu answered curtly.
"If you finish early you may go home."
"Is that so? That is a relief."
Jaegal Mun-hyeon put a hand to his chest in reassurance.
For the present, training the Lesser Heavenly Star Art came first.
Techniques would come along quickly enough through the countless experiences in his head, but qi was different.
There was no shortcut.
It accumulates only as much as the time invested.
Well, having walked the road once, he would be somewhat faster than others.
And so the training began, and in consideration of his being seven, Yu Gang-hu, the Head Instructor, taught him personally.
It was a courtesy owing to the gap between him and the other children.
But.......
"May I go home now?"
"......."
In a single day Yu Gang-hu learned that Jaegal Mun-hyeon's words had been no ridiculous bravado.
The boy had reproduced exactly, in half a day, the ten basic body-movements of the Heavenly Mystery Maze Step, the first thing learned upon beginning training.
When even a ten-year-old who had begun several months before him had yet to get past the fourth technique, Shifting Position, Roaming Form.......
"Is there more I must learn today?"
"Hm?"
"If there is more left, let us get on with it. My father's doing has left me in a position where I cannot neglect my letters either."
Yu Gang-hu could say nothing at all.
Bravado? What bravado?
Courtesy?
This was a fellow who had never needed any such thing in the first place.
He is a genius.
A fellow heaven sent into the world to learn martial arts.
He grasped an abstruse verse-formula immediately at a single explanation, and as if that were not enough, after a few repetitions he reproduced it exactly.
And not in a place where footprints had been drawn to mark the step's movements for trainees, but on bare ground.......
Thoroughly worked up, Yu Gang-hu stared blankly at the footprints Jaegal Mun-hyeon had left behind and blew hard through his nose.
Astonished by a mere basic form.
"Instructor?"
"Hm?"
"If you have nothing further to say......."
"Ah! Y-yes. You may go now."
"Thank you."
Yu Gang-hu could say nothing more, nor could he keep up the cold manner of a short while before.
Because he had already given his word.
He was simply astonished and marveling at the Jaegal Mun-hyeon before him.
'To think there could be a fellow who learns the Heavenly Mystery Maze Step in a single day.'
Of course that astonishment did not spread in common to everyone training in the Heavenly Star Pavilion.
'And so young at that.......'
For children of that age even a year's difference is a large one. And was this not a fellow a full three years younger?
To the children who had yet to finish a day's training, and who could not do it properly and were earning nothing but scoldings, Jaegal Mun-hyeon was nothing but an object of envy and jealousy.