Urban Vagabond: Reload

Late at night.

In the alleyways of an old villa cluster, a sudden fight between martial artists erupted.

Cha-cha-cha-chang!

The sharp, bursting clang of metal clashing against metal, rough shouts, and killing-intent-filled roars jolted the sleeping residents awake.

“What—what’s that noise?”

“Sounds like martial artists fighting...”

Many people trembled with unease.

Some hurriedly called the police or the Martial Alliance; others, gathering their courage, opened their windows to peek outside or tried filming with their phones.

“Did you hear that? Someone ran by yelling for us to call the Martial Alliance...”

“Be still! What if they take revenge later?”

“Don’t turn on the lights—stay quiet!”

Meanwhile, others covered their ears and hid under their blankets, hoping the chaotic commotion would die away quickly. They forced themselves to try falling asleep, pretending it had nothing to do with them.

You couldn’t exactly call them cowards.

Martial artists were beings who, if they wished, could smash through a window and kill someone without blinking an eye.

No matter how hard the Martial Alliance’s heroes and the Special Police worked, people knew they couldn’t stop every single villain.

“......”

And amid all that collective anxiety, there was one person—

—who watched the fight from above with a calm gaze.

“A strange combination.”

He wore a worn flight jacket and gray sweatpants.

If not for the tidy white hair tied back and the hard lines at the corners of his eyes, his posture and the fierce light in his gaze made it difficult to think of him as an old man at all.

“One is a vagabond, one is a beast, and one is a ghost...”

His quiet muttering followed his eyes as they swept over Kim Muhyuk, Shin Kangheon, and Kim Bokja clashing with the Nightfiend Sword.

Raising his internal energy to sharpen his hearing, the old man listened to their conversation.

“His left-side vision’ll be bad because of the wound. Focus everything there.”

“Uraaaaah!”

“Bite!”

As a half-joking saying went, martial artists who reached high realms could see a man’s nature by his footwork alone.

The old man continued murmuring as though he truly saw through all three of their natures.

“A completely mismatched trio... yet oddly balanced. Curious indeed.”

All three looked barely past their early twenties at most, but their talents were extraordinary—even among all the martial artists and spellcasters the old man had witnessed throughout his life.

“Especially that boy...”

While commanding the other two, Kim Muhyuk was also at the very front, crossing blades with the Nightfiend Sword. The old man examined him intently.

Kaga-ga-gang!

It was like watching a martial artist with countless real combat experiences—despite his age.

Annoyingly fixating on nothing but the enemy’s weak points, he resembled a wolf biting the neck of a beast far larger than itself and never letting go.

“Hooh! How tenacious.”

But despite the harsh words, a faint smile had formed at the old man’s lips.

The beast-like boy swinging the saber opposite him was naturally fearless and aggressive. With excellent physical strength, he swung that massive blade with astonishing power.

The girl controlling the ghost looked scared out of her mind yet never stepped back, cleverly using spells at just the right moments to support her teammates.

Either of them alone was skilled enough to earn high praise from someone as stingy with praise as this old man.

But Kim Muhyuk overwhelmed both with his presence. And there was another reason he kept drawing the old man’s eye.

“That swordsmanship... oddly...”

A thought flickered across the old man’s mind, but he soon shook his head.

No... impossible.

While he watched closely, Kim Muhyuk displayed reckless ferocity even while covered in blood, bold decision-making, and the cold precision to retreat when needed.

Before he knew it, the old man found himself nodding, immersed in the boy’s fight.

“Yes, yes... just a little more...”

Realizing he was getting excited, he forced his expression flat.

A painful memory had surfaced.

The incident that forced him into seclusion for twenty years after being stripped of his name and expelled from the Martial Alliance.

The trauma that left him suffering from inner-devil backlash so severe he could barely move for a long while. His fingertips still trembled faintly even now.

After taking a slow breath, he exhaled a quiet sigh and looked back toward Kim Muhyuk.

“...At this rate, he’ll subdue him without issue.”

If the Nightfiend Sword suddenly went berserk and attacked civilians, he was prepared to intervene personally.

But judging from the situation, that probably wouldn’t be necessary—

—until an unexpected variable appeared.

“Gyaaaaaah!”

Cornered, the Nightfiend Sword screamed like a wounded animal and began swinging wildly.

At first it looked like desperation—

—but when the boys pressing him retreated for a moment, he instantly pulled a syringe from his robes and jabbed it into his forearm.

“Hhrrrgh...!”

As if struck by lightning, his entire body convulsed violently.

A drug that erased pain, inflamed the blood, and temporarily amplified internal energy.

Many who used it ended up crippled... or dead. But it was a last-resort tool some used to survive a crisis.

“...That’s a line you shouldn’t cross.”

The old man’s eyes sharpened as he stepped once—

—and leapt off the rooftop he’d been standing on.

Whoooosh!

With a single bound he crossed the gap between buildings, approaching the battlefield with a thin needle held between his fingers.

“Get lost! If you don’t want to die—!”

Even drugged, the Nightfiend Sword still had the instinct for self-preservation. Instead of a mutual-destructive rampage, he chose to flee, amplifying his energy and crushing anything in his path.

“After him!”

With Kim Muhyuk in the lead, the three gave chase.

The old man followed quietly across the rooftops.

With internal energy boosting his senses, he heard their conversation clearly.

“Shouldn’t we just let him go? That kind of drug doesn’t last even ten minutes.”

“He’s not in his right mind—he might attack civilians he runs into.”

“...Didn’t think that far.”

“What drug is that? Stop talking like it’s some secret only you two know!”

Hearing this exchange, the old man’s expression softened.

Far better than those righteous-path posers.

At first he thought they’d be rough-tempered like back-alley vagabonds, but it felt like he’d glimpsed another side of them.

Feeling unexpectedly pleased, the old man decided to give the children a small helping hand.

He closed the distance with the Nightfiend Sword—

—and flicked his wrist like lightning.

Piiit!

The needle left his fingers, pierced the Nightfiend Sword’s calf, and pinned him into the ground. Enough to shatter his balance.

“Khuk! Who—?!”

“Uraaaaagh!”

As the Nightfiend Sword staggered and looked around wildly, Shin Kangheon tackled him from behind, and Kim Bokja bound him with spellwork.

Then finally—Kim Muhyuk brought down his cracked practice sword with all his strength onto the old monster’s face.

Bwaak!

Twisting and thrashing violently, the Nightfiend Sword finally lost consciousness and collapsed limply.

“Haa... haa... What was that just now?”

Breathing roughly, Kim Muhyuk lifted his head and looked around.

Because what unsettled him was how the Nightfiend Sword had suddenly stumbled at the end—and how he’d frantically looked around as if searching for something.

But the old man was already watching him from far away.

“Hooh. Good instincts, too.”

Just then, Martial Alliance agents who’d received the report arrived, sprinting in with lightness techniques.

The old man, who had been watching the boy who’d piqued his interest since days ago, murmured quietly:

“...There is one thing I must confirm.”

And moments later, his presence vanished without a trace.

*****

We handed the unconscious Nightfiend Sword over to the Martial Alliance members who’d arrived late.

“...You three truly subdued this man yourselves?” ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

“I’m telling you, it’s true! See this wound on my side? I almost died before I even became the world’s greatest blade!”

Shin Kangheon, still full of excitement, was explaining the whole situation.

His story, of course, grew more exaggerated by the second—but I was too exhausted to bother correcting him.

“So how much is the bounty? He wasn’t your average expert, so at least three thousand, right?”

Kim Bokja moved straight on to checking the bounty: how much exactly, when it would be paid, whether taxes were deducted, etc.

Then she glanced back at us and said we should sort out the calculation now.

“You two know you’d both be dead without me, right? So we split the bounty exactly three ways. Anyone got complaints?”

I waved my hand—do whatever. Shin Kangheon didn’t seem to care about the bounty at all.

What weighed on my mind was something else entirely.

Someone intervened at the end.

Because that moment when the Nightfiend Sword staggered and looked around kept bothering me, I had thoroughly checked the area where he collapsed—

—and found a single needle-hole in the ground.

It was driven so deep that even the tail of the needle wasn’t visible.

If that needle had been aimed at one of us instead...

“The investigation’s done. You’re free to go. As for the reward, we’ll contact you later.”

I shook off the unpleasant thought and got to my feet.

We left the police station after the questioning, looked at each other—

—and all three of us looked like absolute wrecks.

We couldn’t help but chuckle at one another’s faces.

“Good work, both of you. Get home safe. Let’s meet later.”

“To be honest, I don’t want to see you two for a while.”

“I’m dead tired. If you need something, just text.”

We split up and each headed home.

*****

“Hey, kid! Are you okay?”

“...Mister?”

It was the man from the park—the one who’d told me to go look for old man Choi and given me the address.

In a way, he was the cause of all this mess—but instead of resentment, a hollow laugh slipped out.

The look on his face as he approached was full of guilt.

“They’re saying Mr. Choi was some criminal martial artist? Good god, I was so worried something might’ve happened to you because of me. Oh jeez! You’re covered in wounds—you need to go to a hospital!”

As he fussed over me, patting and prodding all over, I pushed his hands away.

“Sorry, but... I’m really tired right now...”

And then a strange feeling struck me.

A vague, unexplainable wrongness.

The chilling instinct I’d forged in my vagabond days—after surviving countless backstabbers—crawled along my skin.

And I realized why.

The Nightfiend Sword... wasn’t Mr. Choi.

When the Martial Alliance checked his profile earlier, the surname listed wasn’t Choi. It was Lee.

The man felt my gaze turn cold and stepped back, smiling awkwardly.

“You really do have good instincts.”

“You’re...”

At the same time, the ordinary middle-aged man’s body began to change.

His slightly hunched back straightened, and the common, forgettable eyes sharpened.

Bone-Shrinking Art.

A technique used mainly by assassins—manipulating bones and joints to completely alter one’s appearance.

In moments, he became a completely different person.

Then, staring at me with a gaze that pierced straight through me, he asked:

“Since you noticed, I’ll ask plainly. Who taught you your swordsmanship?”

“......”

And instinctively—

—I understood.

The man standing before me was Sword Demon himself.