Urban Vagabond: Reload

Gu Hyeonwoo could roughly guess the skill of the person right in front of him.

If he really wanted to, he was at a level where he could easily kill someone like Hell Hound.

But that didn’t mean it was acceptable to mock someone and kill them.

“Do you think the clown act you pulled on him will work on me too?”

Gu Hyeonwoo naturally let his momentum spill out.

Sssssss.

At the sensation of a razor-sharp sword being held to his throat, I felt the fine hairs all over my body rise.

He really is strong.

But I didn’t stop provoking him. If anything, I narrowed the distance from five steps to four and asked,

“Want me to guess the real reason you’re mad?”

“I told you. It was excessively cruel and filthy—”

“Because you couldn’t even imagine doing it that way.”

Maybe it was the goggles and the mask, but Gu Hyeonwoo felt like the other man was laughing at him.

“Even with overwhelming skill, all you could do was act like you were getting cut. Just to bump the odds a little, you went and got yourself hurt by that trash. It must’ve pissed you off, didn’t it?”

“Shut up.”

“And you came all the way over here to take it out on me? That’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”

Gu Hyeonwoo clenched his teeth tight, but he didn’t refute it.

It was humiliating—but he felt like the other man was right.

The show I’d put on against Hell Hound was something Gu Hyeonwoo could’ve done too, easily, with his skill.

But he hadn’t.

Instead, to meet the bloodthirsty audience’s needs, he’d picked the stupid method of injuring his own body instead of his opponent.

Even looking at you right now, you don’t belong in the arena.

I narrowed the distance from four steps to three and kept talking. My tone kept provoking him, even though it wasn’t what I truly felt.

“You’re not mad at me. You’re mad at yourself. To keep that precious conviction of yours, you acted so damn stupid—and when you saw me, you realized just how pointless and stubborn it was.”

“......I said shut up.”

Gu Hyeonwoo was an orthodox martial artist to the point it was suffocatingly stubborn.

That was why I was curious.

Why he’d drifted into the underground arena in the first place, and how he’d ended up taking hold of a cursed sword like Phantom Dream.

If I wanted to understand him, I had no choice but to keep poking at him.

“How about you change that worthless conviction, even now?”

“You...!” fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

Maybe it hit his pride, because Gu Hyeonwoo’s momentum lurched violently.

When he took a big step forward, the gap closed to two steps.

It was close enough that either of us could attack the other anytime we wanted.

“Wait! Hold on—wait!”

“You can’t fight here!”

At that moment, Gu Hyeonwoo’s fat manager came running in a panic and grabbed Gu Hyeonwoo. Park Gwangtae stepped in and blocked me, too.

Just the fact that they were barging into the middle of two martial artists’ clash of momentum meant these managers weren’t ordinary in terms of nerve.

“It doesn’t even make money to fight here. If you’re going to do it, why not just book a match instead?”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

Gu Hyeonwoo’s fat manager made the offer. Park Gwangtae immediately chimed in too. The two of them had eyes glittering with greed.

The White-Masked Swordsman was absurdly unpopular for how skilled he was.

He didn’t kill his opponents, and he didn’t seriously injure them either—he always won cleanly and safely.

So the matches were dull, the results felt obvious, and the wagers were always the smallest. The crowd had a solid grudge against him for putting on “boring fights,” too.

In that situation, if he got matched with the Goggle Killer—whose stock had shot up in an instant?

“I’m fine with it anytime. Honestly, you were the opponent I was most curious about.”

I looked at Gu Hyeonwoo without bothering to hide my competitive spirit.

I want to properly clash with him.

He was a swordsman who’d reached the pinnacle realm before I had.

Even setting aside the personal feelings from my previous life, and the reasons tied to Phantom Dream, I still wanted to cross blades with him at least once.

And there was one more important reason.

I might be able to block the possibility of Gu Hyeonwoo ever getting Phantom Dream in the first place.

Talbaek Sword Gu Hyeonwoo wasn’t someone I could confidently guarantee an easy win against.

But if he ever took hold of that once-in-an-era cursed sword, he’d turn into something far more terrifying—a stronger monster than he was now.

“Let’s do it. I’m fine with even today.”

At the provocation from the swaggering Goggle Killer, both managers’ lips curled into smiles they couldn’t hide.

But one dry sentence from the White-Masked Swordsman wiped those smiles clean away.

“I refuse.”

The managers were even more disappointed than I was.

“What? Why the hell are you doing this again? You said you need to make money!”

“Please just think about it one more time. This is guaranteed to be a massive hit—”

Especially the fat manager—he looked like he was about to grab Gu Hyeonwoo by the collar and shake him.

Gu Hyeonwoo avoided his gaze like he felt sorry.

But the answer that followed carried a stubbornness that wouldn’t bend.

“......If I fight that guy right now, I think I’ll break my conviction.”

“What kind of bullshit is that! You’re not going to pay your debts? How long are you going to keep scraping by on pocket change!”

I was the only one who understood what Gu Hyeonwoo meant.

He might kill me?

It was only for an instant, but I didn’t miss the thick killing intent that gathered in Gu Hyeonwoo’s eyes—and then vanished.

And then, shaking his head hard, Gu Hyeonwoo brushed past me.

“In a different sense from before... I hope you don’t meet me in the arena.”

“That’s already the second time you’ve said that. Don’t you feel like it’s turning into some kind of foreshadowing?”

Gu Hyeonwoo moved quickly, like he didn’t even want to respond.

I clasped my hands together and shouted at his retreating back.

“See you again soon!”

I had a feeling that “soon” would be a lot closer than I thought.

*****

Park Gwangtae walked us out to the entrance of the casino and bowed a full ninety degrees.

“Thank you for your hard work today! As soon as the next match is booked, I’ll contact you right away!”

He stayed bent over until I disappeared into the distance—polite to the point of groveling for the customer who was going to bring him big money.

On the way to the parking lot, Kim Bokja poked my side over and over like she couldn’t understand it.

“But seriously, why is that guy treating you so well?”

“Because the manager’s cut is ten percent of my win bonus.”

“Insane! Make me do that!”

Complaining that it was basically free money, she kept grumbling—until we found the car in the parking lot, and I naturally headed for the driver’s seat.

The moment I did, Kim Bokja and Shin Kangheon both freaked out and grabbed my shoulders from either side, yanking.

“You’re not driving. Don’t even dream about it!”

“Swing a sword instead, you psycho!”

“......Why?”

With the two of them working together, even I couldn’t fight it. I got shoved into the back seat.

Thanks to that, the three of us made it back to the lodging slower—but safely.

It was well past midnight.

When we got back to the pension, Apricot came sprinting up across the yard on short legs to greet us.

PYAAK-PYAAK-PYAAK-PYAAK!

We’d made it wait alone for safety, and maybe it was sulking about that—Apricot flapped its wings with obvious complaints and circled around us.

“Aww, our Apricot. Were you bored all by yourself?”

Kim Bokja scooped Apricot up and rubbed her cheek into its soft fluff.

Beside her, Shin Kangheon scratched Apricot’s back and picked a pointless fight.

“Must’ve had a great life and slept all day. You didn’t eat all the meat in the fridge, right?”

At that moment, Apricot jumped onto Shin Kangheon’s head and started pecking his crown.

“AAAH! Why do you always pick on me!”

“Because the bird’s nest keeps wandering around.”

“Who are you calling a bird’s nest!”

Like it agreed with me, Apricot settled down on top of Shin Kangheon’s orange hair. It looked much more satisfied.

PYAAK-!

A little later.

Maybe nobody was tired, because we all cracked open beers again.

But unlike the day before—when we’d been loud and hyped—tonight the atmosphere among the three of us sitting together was noticeably serious.

“I looked into the inside of the arena a bit, but there wasn’t anything obviously weird.”

“Honestly, everything was weird, so I can’t even tell what the real problem is.”

When Kim Bokja started, Shin Kangheon scratched his cheek and added on.

While I’d been fighting in the underground arena, the two of them had been roaming around, investigating the disappearances of swordsmen.

“Almost nobody even knows who disappeared and when. Like you said, it was just the loan sharks who were going crazy.”

“People thought they just ran off because they didn’t want to pay. What if that’s really it?”

I shook my head as I listened.

“If they ran, at least one of them would’ve gotten caught. The missing people are probably all dead.”

“.......”

Looking at the arena’s atmosphere today, I was sure of it.

The underground arena was managing its fighters so tightly that they even assigned managers to them.

Even if they seemed friendly and servile on the surface, they were people who handled humans who were basically serial killers.

Disappearing while dodging their eyes would never be easy.

Which means whoever has Phantom Dream at this point is that careful, and that meticulous.

After sorting my thoughts, I asked Kim Bokja,

“Did you feel any traces of a powerful anomaly?”

“Anomaly? There were a few spellcasters throwing around techniques, but they were all below standard.”

If I couldn’t find it even with my spirit sight, and Kim Bokja couldn’t sense it either, that meant Phantom Dream wasn’t in the arena today.

...Or it was being sealed so tightly—by some powerful sealing tool—that its presence couldn’t leak out at all.

At the very least, they didn’t draw the sword today. That much is certain.

As I organized my thoughts, I decided it was time to tell my teammates about Phantom Dream too.

“This is information I can’t reveal the source of. In a few days, in the underworld of Jeju Island... a cursed sword infused with anomaly will appear.”

“Anomaly?”

“A cursed sword?”

Kim Bokja and Shin Kangheon reacted to different parts.

But neither of them looked particularly shocked.

Not until they heard what I said next.

“It’s a sword that deserves a sacred weapon classification. It’s also a demonic weapon that bewilders swordsmen and calls blood.”

“A sacred weapon?”

Startled, Shin Kangheon set down the beer he’d been drinking.

Any martial artist knew what “sacred weapon” meant.

Across the entire world, only around a hundred weapons could claim that name.

And depending on the country, there were cases where you couldn’t even possess one without permission.

“Are you sure it’s a sword? Not a saber?”

“Why do you think all the missing martial artists were swordsmen?”

“You never know! You didn’t see it yourself, so it could be a saber!”

Shin Kangheon looked like he really wanted to believe that.

Unfortunately, Phantom Dream was unmistakably a sword.

But I didn’t bother crushing his hope.

“If it turns out to be a saber, I’ll give it to you. But if it’s a sword, I keep it. Deal?”

“The moment you only use one edge, it becomes a saber!”

“Stop talking nonsense.” freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

With the determination to confirm Phantom Dream’s shape with his own eyes, Shin Kangheon’s eyes burned.

“Then what about me? What are you giving me?”

When it came to anything tied to anomalies, a skilled spellcaster was absolutely necessary.

So I promised Kim Bokja what she liked best.

“I’ll give you all the money we make in the arena.”

Kim Bokja thought for a second, then shook her head.

“After they take all the cuts, there won’t even be much left. Forget it. Use it as your allowance.”

“......For real?”

“If you’re grateful, treat your big sister right!”

Kim Bokja laughed boldly, raised her beer can, and clinked it against mine.

Once the three of us understood the concrete target, we talked seriously.

How we would find Phantom Dream, what we would do if we found it, and so on.

But the meeting that felt like it could go all night stopped when a phone call came in.

It was Park Gwangtae, calling at dawn.

[Mr. Killer! The match schedule is set! The sir must have found the match impressive, because he personally planned a super-huge event!]

It seemed Park Gwangtae had decided to shorten “Goggle Killer” and just call me “Killer.”

His voice on the other end of the line was so excited it was almost vibrating—and once I heard the details, it made sense.

[Total prize money: ten billion won! They’re saying the biggest slaughter match in arena history is going to happen—one hundred swordsmen participating!]

It was more than enough money to drag out every swordsman hiding quietly in the arena.

“Te-ten billion...”

It was also an amount big enough to make someone’s pupils shake like there’d been an earthquake—someone who’d just refused compensation with swagger.

Kim Bokja glanced at me cautiously and said,

“Hey... you don’t want to give me half, at least?”

“.......”

“Half of half?”

“.......”

“Ugh, just give me a liiiittle!”