"The Dovetail Point!"
"......Correct. So you have finally memorized them all."
On a wooden board as tall as a man was drawn an anatomical chart of the human body, and the drawing was exceedingly detailed.
Tang Mu-jeong withdrew the finger that had been pointing at the last acupoint and shook his head.
'His memory is...... ahem! He is a boy who does well when he applies himself; the trouble is that he simply feels no interest.'
Jeong I-shin was certainly a young man with flashes of brilliance, but he showed nothing remarkable in areas like rote memorization.
The study of the human body, which one might call Tang Mu-jeong's specialty, had taken the longest time of all, and only today had they finally been able to finish it.
......It was because there was simply so much to memorize.
But that alone could not cast doubt on Jeong I-shin's intellectual capacity.
In the acupoint-striking techniques he had studied alongside the body, the boy had shown uncanny attainment.
In truth, if one judged by difficulty, the Tang Clan acupoint-striking techniques he had passed on were incomparably harder.
Unlike simple memorization, it was an art that demanded talent as well, so there was nothing more to be said.
The Tang Clan's acupoint strikes were famously vicious at that, and many of them twisted the meridians as though it were perfectly fine if they never came undone at all — and Jeong I-shin had made every one of them his own in a single pass.
'As expected, things done with the body...... no, no. Anyway, thinking is work you can hand to your underlings, so what is there to worry about?'
Thinking so, Tang Mu-jeong took in the sight of Jeong I-shin, who had grown strikingly tall over the past year.
Two years after falling into the Bottomless Abyss, Jeong I-shin had acquired a build one could fairly call a young man's.
Thanks to the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture running ceaselessly, his body had become perfectly balanced. It was a physique any martial artist would long for.
He had worried that Jeong I-shin might turn into a muscle monster like Gongheon, but unlike Gongheon's version of the Scripture, his had to hold lightning, and so a body of exactly the right degree had been completed.
There was still a boyish look about his face, but he was far better than Namgung Baek in his youth, when the man had been called the Azure Cloud Young Master.
'Splendid.'
And so Tang Mu-jeong's year passed.
***
"Hm!"
At dawn, earlier than usual, the expression on Gongheon's face as he opened his hut door and stepped out was solemn.
Because today was a very important day for him.
"Whew......!"
Gongheon, tending to his body with the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture, thought suddenly that the stillness of the clearing felt unfamiliar.
Ordinarily Jeong I-shin would have followed him out with uncanny timing and warmed up beside him, but today he had come out a little early, so he was alone.
"Ha. I have grown used to it already."
In truth it had only been two years.
Two years ago, before Jeong I-shin appeared, the clearing had been far more silent than this.
In those days Tang Mu-jeong and Yeo Hwi spent most of the day in their own huts, and Namgung Baek went off to beat demonic creatures to death the moment he recovered any inner arts.
In truth, Gongheon too had spent several years alone in seated meditation.
They were peerless masters who had maintained a fairly deep bond under the name of the World's Five Oddities, but the Bottomless Abyss was that kind of place.
'It was not easy to accept the reality of being betrayed and shut in the Bottomless Abyss.'
Even he, who had honed the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture, had found it hard to steady his heart.
Around the time they all quietly felt they had reached their limits, Jeong I-shin appeared.
And everything changed.
'Even Benefactor Tang, who said living here would be nothing but suffering, changed.'
In fact Tang Mu-jeong had not merely changed. Gongheon knew his hatred.
Even after Jeong I-shin appeared, Tang Mu-jeong was a man who kept revenge in his heart.
But after the day they met the Human-Faced Spider, something in him had shifted greatly.
And it had grown all the more pronounced as he kept Jeong I-shin at his side this past year.
None of them mentioned it aloud, but everyone could read Tang Mu-jeong's thinking.
'Benefactor Tang also intends to send I-shin up out of here.'
Tang Mu-jeong now looked at the world outside the Bottomless Abyss through different eyes.
Not as a land where he would take his revenge, but as a land where Jeong I-shin would live.
Gongheon was of the same mind.
And he too was working toward it.
The Thunder-Severing Myriad Transformation Hand.
For Jeong I-shin's sake, Gongheon was looking back over his own martial path and compiling a set of hand arts.
The problem was that Gongheon had no lightning.
It was a martial art to be unfolded with lightning as its true qi, and there was no lightning. That was why its creation was not going smoothly.
Jeong I-shin had to take part as soon as possible. By now it was becoming hard even for the Scripture to hold together his collapsing body.
And there was one more old man in this Bottomless Abyss thinking the very same thing.
STEP—
At the sound of light footsteps, Gongheon made a single-palm salute.
"Amitabha. I knew you would come out, Benefactor Namgung."
Namgung Baek trudged over and yawned.
"Haaaah...... that's right. I have something to say to you."
The gazes of the two old men standing face to face in the clearing burned.
Today was the very day Tang Mu-jeong's tutelage ended and Jeong I-shin chose his new course of learning.
Gongheon spoke first.
"I have come to realize that the Buddha's mercy lies nowhere else. Benefactor Namgung, if even now you will yield the order to me...... three years, only three years to lay the framework of the hand arts, and I shall pass the turn on."
"That's a truly wonderful idea. Instead of that, how about you yield? Then I'll teach for exactly half a year and pass the turn on."
"......Truly?"
"No."
Namgung Baek threw his head back and laughed for a good while, then tapped the wooden sword at his waist and said,
"Gongheon, I know what you're thinking. You were going to propose joining forces. Is a monk allowed to do that?"
"......Benefactor Tang's momentum is nothing to take lightly. At this rate it would not be strange if he declared he was extending the tutelage. And I-shin would hardly refuse."
"Agreed. The way he keeps the boy under his wing, you'd think he was his own son. He looked ready to teach him the Sky-Filling Flower Rain."
"......"
When Gongheon shut his mouth firmly, Namgung Baek's jaw dropped.
"Don't tell me he actually taught it? That secret art of the Tang Clan?"
"......I do not know whether he transmitted the true substance of it, but the principle contained in a needle I-shin threw not long ago was no ordinary thing."
"......Has that old man really lost his mind?"
The two old men who had passed on Shaolin's Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture and Namgung's Azure Sky Boundless Sword thus scolded Tang Mu-jeong.
Soon the adjusting of differences began.
"Teaching him at the same time would......"
"Blow Sparkles' head open. Creating a martial art isn't something you can manage by carving it into the body without thinking."
"Mm...... then what if we took turns, a year each?"
"And who teaches first?"
"......"
"......"
***
"......What are the two of you doing?"
Jeong I-shin, stepping out into the clearing, tilted his head.
He had wondered what Namgung Baek was doing up at such an early hour, and it seemed he was in the middle of a staring contest with Gongheon.
"Morning, Sparkles."
"Ahem. Did you sleep well? Benefactor Namgung and I have unfinished business, that is all."
The two old men barely acknowledged Jeong I-shin's greeting and immediately resumed the staring contest.
Since it was not a particularly unusual scene, Jeong I-shin soon began warming up with the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture.
The two old men, who had gone on glaring and muttering at each other until Yeo Hwi came out, finally seemed to reach some agreement the moment Tang Mu-jeong appeared; they nodded and clasped hands.
And so the moment arrived to decide Jeong I-shin's next course of instruction.
"I-shin, if there is anything you want, say so. If it is your decision, these men will follow it with a smile. Ah, perhaps they will not manage the smile."
As Yeo Hwi said with a low laugh, Namgung Baek and Gongheon could not hide their anxious looks.
Anyone who knew them would have doubted their own eyes, and anyone who had merely heard it as rumor would have slapped the teller for lying about the wrong thing!
The two of them had of course already agreed on the periods of instruction under the banner of bringing down Tang Mu-jeong.
That was because until now Jeong I-shin had never once expressed his own wishes regarding the martial.
But if, as Yeo Hwi suggested, Jeong I-shin chose someone himself, that changed the story.
And in the moment the tension in the clearing drew taut.
Jeong I-shin asked.
"Can I really say anything at all? Whichever old sir I pick, he'll teach me?"
"Of cour......!"
"I will......!"
Yeo Hwi stopped Namgung Baek and Gongheon as they shot to their feet, and laughed.
"You will see."
"What is there that we cannot teach you? Simply speak."
At Tang Mu-jeong's added words, all of them nodded.
"Mm, in that case!"
Smiling brightly, Jeong I-shin extended his hand without a moment's hesitation.
"This time I'd like to learn from Elder Yeo. Would that be all right?"
Yeo Hwi, caught on the end of that fingertip, blinked.
It was a face Jeong I-shin had never seen before.
Not laughing, not crying, not angry — a strangely twisted face.
It lasted no more than an instant, of course, but Jeong I-shin, who had been keeping Yeo Hwi in his sight the whole time, did not miss it.
"That......"
"Then it is settled that Yeo Hwi teaches this time. The two of you can decide the period between yourselves. This week's perimeter duty was Yeo Hwi's as well, so go out together now and discuss it."
"No, Mu-jeong, I—"
"Jeong I-shin, what are you waiting for? Go fetch firewood."
"Yes!"
And so Jeong I-shin promptly dragged Yeo Hwi away by the arm.
They headed for the Thunder Tree Forest through fog in which he no longer walked backward or sideways.
Jeong I-shin asked carefully.
"Um...... did I do something wrong?"
Yeo Hwi was a man who fundamentally always wore a good-natured smile.
But he had had no expression at all since they left the house, and it worried Jeong I-shin.
Yeo Hwi stopped walking, and the corners of his mouth trembled several times before he let out a sigh.
The voice that came out then was very unfamiliar.
"What are you thinking?"
It was not his usual gentle voice. It was exceedingly hard.
Jeong I-shin tensed a little inside. He could feel Yeo Hwi's mood from his reaction.
He had come to accept most things as they were, but earning the dislike of the old men, who had already become the most precious thing to him, hurt.
"......I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you in a difficult position."
"I cannot understand it."
"I was rude, wasn't I? I'm sorry......"
Jeong I-shin's shoulders drooped as he apologized over and over.
Yeo Hwi's eyebrows twitched as he looked at him.
'I thought I was keeping a suitable distance...... did he judge that his connection with me was too weak? He did not seem to have the temperament to calculate such things.'
Yeo Hwi had spent every moment of his life measuring the distance between himself and others and weighing advantage against disadvantage.
Keeping someone at your side was an act that created a weakness, and trust inevitably became the passage through which betrayal arrived — this he had learned over a lifetime.
Which was why the Heaven-Forsaker's betrayal had shaken him less.
If anything, he had judged it his own fault for growing too close under the name of the World's Five Oddities and letting go of the thread of suspicion.
The position of Leader of Deathshroud, which he had set down, was that kind of seat.
'I truly cannot understand it. For now...... shall I watch?'
Unlike the three old men who, having been betrayed alongside him, he could regard as his own people.
Jeong I-shin was still an object of observation.
Of course, even to his eyes Jeong I-shin did not look like a boy who would pull anything.
It was simply...... that Yeo Hwi was that kind of man.
"......I am not angry. I was merely puzzled, that is all."
At Yeo Hwi's voice, soon returned to its usual self, Jeong I-shin blinked.
'He totally went stone-faced on me, though.'
Still, he let it pass.
Setting himself aside, was Yeo Hwi not the one closest to normal in the whole Bottomless Abyss?
By now he knew that even Gongheon was not ordinary.
The role of restraining and mediating between them fell entirely to Yeo Hwi.
'No wonder he's stressed.'
Meanwhile Yeo Hwi, who seemed to have fully recovered his composure, said,
"I would like to hear your reason for choosing me. There is not much worth learning from me."
"Elder Tang said your footwork arts are the best there is."
"......Mu-jeong did?"
"Yes."
Yeo Hwi, who had started walking again, came to an abrupt halt.
At that, Jeong I-shin's brow furrowed.
The forest is not even in sight yet, so when are we going to get there at this rate? And I'm the one who has to cut the wood. When you aren't going to help anyway.
While Jeong I-shin's complaints bubbled up, Yeo Hwi let out a long breath through his nose as though he had only now realized something.
"I see, now I understand. It was Mu-jeong's recommendation."
With a face now unburdened, he continued in a gentle manner of speech.
"But footwork arts are not so simple a matter. You are aware that Sir Gongheon and Baek are creating a martial art for you?"
"Yes, I know. But old sir, if you could talk while we walk......"
"Neither the sword arts nor the hand arts those two will create can be complete in themselves. Which means they must harmonize with footwork arts."
"Yes, yes. I'll go on ahead."
Jeong I-shin kicked off the ground at once.
And Yeo Hwi, sure enough, fell in behind Jeong I-shin with an uncanny movement.
He had clearly seemed to take a single step, yet he had crossed a distance of nearly five or six strides in one go.
"Do you understand? However great my footwork arts may be, you must keep in mind how they combine with the martial arts you will learn."
"Yes, I understand. There is another reason, actually, but I'll take that to heart."
"......Hm?"
Before long they were at the Thunder Tree Forest.
Jeong I-shin, indifferent to whether Yeo Hwi was puzzled or not, promptly cut down a tree with his wooden sword.
CRACK!
Yeo Hwi, who had been staring blankly at how utterly natural the sight was, hurried after him.
"Another reason...... you have another reason?"
"Yes."
"......May I hear it?"
The very thin mask he wore was hanging by a thread.
Jeong I-shin turned to Yeo Hwi, whose face had gone strange again, and said with a clear smile,
"It's nothing difficult. It's just......"
Mmm!
Jeong I-shin, swinging his wooden sword this way and that, fell into thought.
Unaware of the impatience surfacing on Yeo Hwi's face, he took a long while choosing his words.
TAP—
When Yeo Hwi, unable to bear it any longer, took a step forward, Jeong I-shin opened his mouth.
"Elder Yeo, you're always watching over everyone, aren't you? Truly always, one step behind."
"......What?"
"You're in a position to see Elder Namgung, and Monk Gongheon, and Elder Tang, all of them. Always."
"......"
Jeong I-shin pointed here and there, as though this place were the clearing.
Mostly the outer edges, the margins, the spots relatively close to a corner.
The places Yeo Hwi liked to stand.
Positions from which, quite literally, everyone in the group fell within a single glance.
"So I thought that if I could presume to learn it, it would be better than any other step. Because you know everyone better than anyone, Elder Yeo."
"......"
At the sight of Jeong I-shin answering with a bright face and going back to cutting trees, Yeo Hwi could not say a word.