Chronicles of the Lazy Sovereign

Chapter 14: The Slacker Meets His Match (3)

Wi Yeonho turned his head without hesitation.

The massive stone gate that had first blocked his path came into view. Now, something like that was nothing to him.

A stone gate nearly three meters thick. When Wi Yeonho had first arrived here, he had given it his all and barely managed to scratch its surface.

But Wi Yeonho was no longer the same person who had entered this place. He was now the successor of the Radiant Sword, Baek Muhan.

“You told me to break it and leave.”

Wi Yeonho smiled faintly.

Splitting the stone gate that had stood in his way until now in half might have felt good.

But Wi Yeonho didn’t do that. Instead, he walked up to the stone wall and gently placed his hand on it.

Drrrrrk!

The stone gate slowly began to rise.

The gate, which looked as if it wouldn’t budge even if hundreds of strong men pulled at it, rose upward, kicking up dust.

If someone had witnessed this scene, they would have been horrified. But fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—the cave beyond the gate was just as empty as it had been when Wi Yeonho first entered.

Wi Yeonho slowly stepped beneath the rising gate. Yet, as if reluctant to leave, he kept glancing back.

Thud!

The stone gate descended again.

It settled back down as though it had been there all along. No one would suspect that another space lay beyond it.

Had Wi Yeonho sliced it down, anyone might have been able to peek inside. But now, unless one was Wi Yeonho, no one would ever know what lay behind that gate.

If the stone gate were to crack from the passage of time, a lost hunter stumbling into the cave might only discover incomprehensible remnants.

“Still... I’ll visit from time to time.”

Wi Yeonho gave a wistful smile.

He’d considered collapsing the cave. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

If he erased the traces still left behind in there, it would feel as if all that time had vanished like an illusion. Even knowing he wasn’t truly alone in there, the lingering sorrow wouldn’t leave him.

Wi Yeonho slowly stepped out of the cave.

Whether it was because he still held lingering feelings or because he was simply being foolish, his eyes kept drifting back toward the now-empty cave behind the gate.

With great effort, he forced his reluctant steps forward, and the mouth of the cave, where light trickled in, came into view.

“Hmm...”

Sunlight after five years was searingly harsh.

Wi Yeonho was reminded again that his clothes were now in worse shape than rags.

“Let’s see... Did I pack a spare outfit?”

Wi Yeonho opened his bundle.

“Huh?”

And then, he noticed something strange. There were indeed clothes in the bundle. The problem was that strange characters had been engraved onto them.

The letters had been made by embedding stone powder.

“This is...”

To Yeonho, my only disciple

-By the time you're reading this letter, I will no longer be in this world.

-No, since I’m already dead, I suppose that wording isn’t quite right.

-In any case, it will be after I’ve disappeared.

-There’s much I want to say, but I’m leaving this in writing, lest my final words appear laughable.

-You must be shocked and confused, but I hope you understand.

-I wanted to remain a steadfast master to you until the very end.

Clear drops streamed from Wi Yeonho’s eyes. As much as he had cried already, it seemed there were still more tears left in him.

“What the hell, leaving something like this behind.”

He almost had to take back all the times he’d said the man was inconsiderate.

-The reason I left this letter behind is because there’s something I absolutely had to tell you.

-You’ve probably guessed, but your martial arts aren’t yet complete.

-After all, your martial arts were engraved in haste over five years, so they remain quite unstable.

-After much thought, I came up with a solution.

-The foundation has been laid, but I’ve devised a way for you to complete the martial arts on your own.

“You really went out of your way to worry about everything, didn’t you.”

Wi Yeonho smirked.

But after reading the next part, Wi Yeonho’s face twisted into an ugly grimace.

-If your training ends like this, you’ll most certainly return home and spend your whole life lazing around and idling away.

-And then my martial arts will vanish without anyone ever knowing they even existed. Yes, I know this all too well. Oh yes, all too well.

-Of course, I have no intention of letting that happen.

-As you’ve probably figured out, I’m leaving these words in a letter because I didn’t want you to see me in a sorry state at the end.

-To the point, I’ve embedded a kind of mechanism within your body.

-Using my Twelve Radiant Sword Forms as a base, I’ve anchored the martial arts—while allowing them to grow on their own, centered around my inner core.

-At first glance, it might sound like your martial arts will grow stronger even if you do nothing...

-Absolutely not!

-There’s no such thing.

-If your experiences and realizations lag behind the growth of your martial arts, my inner core will start draining your qi like a mummy, and you’ll die.

-I’ll say it once more—if you slack off in your training, you will die.

-This isn’t a joke or a threat.

-You really will die.

Wi Yeonho’s hands trembled uncontrollably.

What kind of lightning bolt out of nowhere was this in the middle of summer?

“That... that old bastard!”

Wi Yeonho grabbed the clothes with both hands.

-Of course, you probably want to tear these clothes to shreds right now, but if you do, you’ll regret it.

-I promise you—you’ll regret it more than anything.

Wi Yeonho loosened his grip.

That old man really was worse than a ghost.

-I didn’t want to go this far either, but if I didn’t set something like this in place, I could already see exactly how you’d end up living.

-So in a way, this is all your fault.

-Now, go out into the world and gain experience.

-Travel to the places I mentioned and witness the world.

-The more you see and feel, the more your martial arts will grow. But if you fail to gain anything... then we’ll be seeing each other again soon!

-And I trust you understand what I mean by that, right?

“Graaaahhh!”

Wi Yeonho grabbed the garment and threw it to the ground.

“Waaaahhh! That damn old man tricked me!”

Wi Yeonho lashed out at everything in sight. There was nothing around to break except innocent trees, but to the furious Wi Yeonho, it didn’t matter whether the trees had done anything wrong.

All that mattered was whatever was in front of his eyes. As if he would smash every tree on the mountain, he raged and gasped for air, then looked around.

Still, the anger didn’t subside.

He wanted nothing more than to drag the man back and beat him within an inch of his life—but how could he catch someone who’d not only died but vanished without leaving a trace?

“Ugh... I’m ruined.”

Wi Yeonho slumped down onto the ground.

Then his eyes caught a phrase written on the garment he had flung aside.

-If you're wondering whether I’m bluffing or making empty threats, just wait. If you start feeling pain all over your body, that means the mechanism I set in place is working properly.

-If the pain hits, just accept it calmly and do as I said.

At that moment, as if on cue, an unbearable wave of pain surged through Wi Yeonho’s entire body.

“Ghhhkk...!”

The agony was brief, but intense enough to soak his body in sweat in an instant.

Wi Yeonho clutched at his solar plexus. A dull sensation pulsed inside him. It must have been Baek Muhan’s inner core stirring.

“You...”

Wi Yeonho’s face flushed red with rage.

“What the hell did you do to me, you damned old man!”

But there was nowhere to release his fury.

After panting and fuming for a while, Wi Yeonho finally regained some composure and weakly picked up the clothes.

-Travel the world and witness it for yourself.

-Once you see the world, you’ll feel something. And when you feel something, you’ll gain something.

-Don’t settle for staying in a small place and becoming a small person—see the great, and become great.

-The first place you must go... is the Confucian Forest.

-Martial arts and scholarly learning have much in common. They, unlike us, are those who pursue the ultimate.

-Seek out the Grand Historian of the world and stay by his side for a while.

-Surely, you’ll come to understand something.

And after that…

Having finished reading, Wi Yeonho threw the garment to the ground.

“Argh! Just how many places does he expect me to go?!”

But what could he do?

There was no other way. If he didn’t want to die by having his qi drained like a mummy, he had no choice but to do as he was told.

“Seriously, even after death, he still messes with people.”

Coming to this cave had been a mistake.

And meeting Baek Muhan had also been a mistake.

But...

“Tch...”

Even as he grumbled nonstop, Wi Yeonho picked up the garment and stuffed it back into his bundle.

No matter how unpleasant the writing was, it was essentially the last keepsake left behind by Baek Muhan. No matter how angry he was, he couldn’t bring himself to tear it up or leave it behind.

“I was planning to go home...”

Wi Yeonho stared off into the distance. Somewhere far out there was his home. A place he hadn’t seen in a full five years.

He missed his mother and Suryeon.

As for his father... maybe he missed him a little. His older brother—honestly, not so much.

“They’re probably really worried.”

But there was nothing he could do.

Better this than his parents having to bury their son. They would understand.

Wi Yeonho let out a long sigh and bowed deeply in the direction of his home.

“I’ll take care of everything and come back. So don’t worry too much...”

He silently gazed in the direction of his home for a while, then turned and offered a formal nine-prostration ritual toward the cave.

Like him or hate him, he was still his master.

“Still tormenting me to the end. Well, I’ve changed my mind. I won’t be coming back, so keep that in mind.”

Wi Yeonho let out another deep sigh and began walking away.

“Where even is this Confucian Forest...”

Grumbling endlessly, Wi Yeonho trudged off into the distance as the setting sun sank behind him. And once he had gone far enough, a figure appeared before the cave.

“Keuk keuk keuk.”

The figure of Baek Muhan, thought to have vanished, was there.

“Kwahahahaha!”

Baek Muhan burst into hearty laughter.

Far off in the distance, Wi Yeonho had become nothing more than a speck.

He was so smug with satisfaction it was almost too good to bear.

“You brat, you really believed you’ll dry up and die like a mummy if you don’t learn from the world? What kind of martial arts nonsense is that supposed to be?”

Baek Muhan smiled faintly.

The contents of the letter were a lie. He neither had the ability to create such a martial art, nor the strength left to forcefully control Wi Yeonho’s body.

The pain Wi Yeonho had felt had been the very last of Baek Muhan’s strength, squeezed out to the limit.

Until the very end, Baek Muhan had anxiously fretted over whether Wi Yeonho would fall for it or not. Now, he looked at Wi Yeonho with a satisfied smile.

“The world’s too wide to rot away in a corner. And besides, it’d be a shame for my martial arts to go to waste.”

With a warm smile, Baek Muhan gazed upon Wi Yeonho.

“You rascal...”

Baek Muhan looked at Wi Yeonho’s back as he walked away.

The boy who had given him no end of headaches was finally stepping out into the world.

If Wi Yeonho could see and learn much from the world, he would surely grow even further.

Even if he couldn’t witness it himself, just knowing that his disciple would continue to grow was enough to make Baek Muhan smile.

Baek Muhan’s figure slowly began to fade.

This truly was the end.

“Thanks to you, I was happy.”

Baek Muhan wore a joyful smile—one he had never once shown in his lifetime.

“Live happily.”

In the place where he vanished, only the scent of wildflowers lingered.