novelraw Chapter 91 : Chapter 91
Chapter 91 : Chapter 91
Chapter 91 - I remember it well
“Who did you say is coming?”
A bear-like, imposing figure and a distinct red spot engraved on one cheek.
People who saw Guardian Gwangyo for the first time received two major impressions.
The question of how a beggar brat, who must not have eaten well, could have such a large build.
And the other was the thought that they should never get involved with that person.
“The elder Ji Seok-gi of the Three Knots has arrived in Yiliang County.”
In front of Gwangyo, who was flashing the whites of his eyes, Muchwi of the First-Knot Beggars was prostrated flat.
It could be said to be overly formal for a group of beggars, but since they never knew when Gwangyo would throw a fit, it was best to lower their posture as much as possible.
Especially when his nap had been interrupted, like now.
“Hahahahaha. What's so important about that bastard coming that you had to wake me from my sleep?”
Shit.
I knew this would happen.
Muchwi cursed inwardly.
His moniker, Mad Laughing Shoulder Steps, had transformed over time into Mad and Aberrant Man (a mad beggar with bizarre behavior).
The one with the foulest and most eccentric personality among the beggars.
The one who lived with a mad laugh habitually on his lips.
The one who, in terms of skill, was more suited to be the head of the Fifth Knot or a Law Beggar of the Sixth Knot, but was deemed too much for a madman and was thus permanently stuck at the Fourth Knot.
‘I heard he used to be normal in the past….’
His unique laughter was the same then as it was now, but it was said that he used to be much more normal(?).
Far from being a madman, his personality was said to be more suitable for a good man, but at some point, his personality began to grow more eccentric.
It was about ten years ago that his moniker came to be known as the Mad and Aberrant Man.
For Muchwi, who had just become a First-Knot Beggar, it was natural not to know where his change had originated.
He just hoped he would not end up like his comrade whose body was folded in half yesterday.
“I-I’m sorry, Guardian. But the situation is just too strange.”
“Strange? Did you just say strange?”
It was as if he was asking if anything in the world could be as strange as the things he himself did.
“Ehehehehe. If I think it’s nothing special, you should worry about one of your arms flying off.”
“!”
After saying that, Gwangyo raised one hand.
As Gwangyo's thick hand turned towards him, Muchwi's face turned ashen.
He knew all too well that Gwangyo was a master of palm energy.
Muchwi had to desperately explain the reason he had woken him.
“Please forgive me! I thought it was by no means a normal situation! Elder Ji Seok-gi is coming with a crutch, accompanied by a man!”
“A crutch?”
Gwangyo twitched his wide, white eyes once more.
Please.
Every time you roll your eyes like that, you look truly insane, so stop it…!
“So, you’re saying Ji Seok-gi failed his reconnaissance?”
“According to the beggar who ran ahead, they didn't seem to be in a hostile relationship.”
“Not hostile…?”
Gwangyo moved the hand he had raised and stroked his chin.
Thankfully, it seemed his arm wouldn't be flying off.
Muchwi sighed in relief at that thought.
“Well then, I suppose I’ll have to make it hostile. Heheheheheh.”
“!”
He did not know the circumstances, but the fact that Ji Seok-gi’s leg was disabled was a huge loss.
Since Gwangyo had lost a useful pair of eyes, he would naturally have to pay a corresponding price.
Gwangyo raised his massive frame and asked Muchwi.
“Which way are they? I’ll have to go out and teach them a lesson myself.”
The answer came not from Muchwi, but from outside.
“Hey!! Gwangyo!! Your friend is here, you bastard!!”
“…………?”
For this moment, even Gwangyo could not help but let his mouth hang open.
Here in the Yiliang County branch, no, anywhere where the beggars’ eyes and ears reached, there was no one who would call him in such a manner.
Friend.
To Gwangyo, that word was practically a taboo.
“Ehehehe……”
Gwangyo's laughter turned a little thicker.
Muchwi, who had been prostrated, squeezed his eyes shut without realizing it.
The two syllables of the word ‘friend’ had clearly entered his ears as well.
He did not know who it was, but it seemed a corpse would have to be cleaned up today.
In ten years, no one who mentioned ‘friend’ in front of Gwangyo had walked away unharmed.
Swoosh.
Gwangyo extended one hand, just as he had towards Muchwi.
There was a wooden wall in front of him, but Gwangyo paid it no mind and shot out his energy.
Poong!
Gwangyo's palm energy instantly pierced through the wall and moved in one direction.
Seeing this, Muchwi’s eyeballs bulged out.
He had only heard rumors, but he had not known the power of the palm energy would be so mighty.
To think that palm energy could pierce through a wall, even if it was made of wood.
Moreover, far from diminishing, its power was extending outwards with the same initial momentum.
For Muchwi, it was a truly hair-raising scene.
That terrifying palm had been aimed at him just moments before.
Kang!
Just then, an ear-splitting sound came from outside the branch office.
“Hmm?”
A peculiar light appeared in Gwangyo’s eyes, which had been gleaming with madness.
It was not the sound he had expected.
It should have been the dull thud of palm energy piercing flesh; how could such a sound be made unless the body was made of iron?
“Haha! Seeing you fire off palm energy right away, you must be the madman I know!”
“Hah….”
The tone was bold, but the voice that came through was truly youthful.
A brat whose head was still wet dared to come to this branch and mock him?
“Alright, let’s have a look at that face of yours!”
Kwang!
Gwangyo smashed through the hole in the wall and went outside.
“The… the branch’s facilities…!”
Looking at the wall that had been instantly shattered, Muchwi wore a grim expression.
***
“Greetings, Guardian.”
Ji Seok-gi greeted him politely, but the response that came back was cold.
“Hehehehe. You bastard. Do greetings come so smoothly in that pathetic state? I’ll break your remaining good leg myself.”
After saying that, Gwangyo turned his gaze to the man standing next to him.
‘I’ve never seen this face before.’
He had wandered Jianghu his entire life and seen countless faces.
But even so, the handsome man before him had an unprecedentedly beautiful face.
Right.
I was just wondering what part of you to mess up, but I should just destroy the best thing you have.
“Heheheheheh.”
Gwangyo laughed boisterously as if the thought alone was delightful.
Even Ji Seok-gi, a fellow Beggars' Union member, had his eyebrows trembling at the sight, but Biyoung, far from being scared, sounded rather welcoming.
“Wow. It’s been a while, that laughter. I was a bit unsure because you’ve aged so much, but you really are Gwangyo.”
“Hahaha! So there’s another madman besides me here in Yunnan. Was it you who blocked the palm energy from before?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re lucky. But since you didn't run away immediately after seeing the palm energy, you’ve used up all your luck.”
“Your habit of rambling before a fight is the same as before.”
You madman.
Biyoung gave a wry smile, and Gwangyo also bared his teeth and smiled broadly.
Wait.
I think I remember something like this from before.
Gwangyo tried to search his memory but suddenly frowned.
For him, there was nothing more screwed up than reminiscing about the past.
“Guardian. Please listen to me for a moment. This person who came with me is……”
“Shut the X up.”
Gwangyo said that and then suddenly raised a hand.
Booooong!
“!”
Palm energy filled with destructive force began to gather in his palm.
The palm technique Gwangyo used was practically a unique martial art, and its name was Mad Dog's Barking Palm.
The Mad Dog's Barking Palm.
It was indeed a fitting name for the Mad and Aberrant Man.
Some claimed that it was a copy of the martial arts of the Sichuan Tang Clan, famous for their palm techniques, but Gwangyo's response to that suspicion was a masterpiece.
“Would a beggar who picks up food to eat ask for permission for martial arts?”
Since that day, no one had dared to question Gwangyo's Mad Dog's Barking Palm.
Not only was the answer somewhat agreeable, but no one who had raised such suspicions had returned unscathed.
Booooong!
At the formidable palm energy, Ji Seok-gi’s face turned pale as he shouted.
“Young Hero Biyoung! Get out of the way! That is not a palm energy that can be carelessly countered!”
“I’m fine, so Brother Ji, you should step back. I have something to prove on my own.”
“Prove… you said?”
“Yeah.”
Biyoung’s face turned towards the mad beggar.
“Proof of becoming a friend.”
“……?”
Ji Seok-gi could not make heads or tails of what was going on.
But one thing was certain.
In his current state, on crutches, if he were caught in the aftermath of the palm energy, not even his bones would be retrievable.
“Please be careful.”
Ji Seok-gi moved away with a reluctant expression.
As a result, Gwangyo and Biyoung were left to face each other alone.
“Hehehe. You must have only heard that you're handsome your whole life, so try to feel what the opposite life is like.”
After saying that, Gwangyo unleashed all the palm energy gathered in his palm.
Buwaaaang!
It was a devastatingly powerful force to use on a still-young man.
So much so that all the beggars gathered around frowned.
“Dodge it!”
Ji Seok-gi, unable to watch any longer, was just about to shout.
Booooong…….
A vibration, much smaller than Gwangyo’s palm energy, but somehow more distinct, was heard.
Biyoung’s sword.
It was a fine vibration coming from the sword blade, which had somehow turned pitch black.
“!”
A strange light appeared in the eyes of all the beggars.
However, the most shocked person among them was none other than Gwangyo.
‘That is…?’
It was a somehow familiar scene, but his mind was violently shaking its head.
That is impossible.
Isn't that the martial art of a sect that has already been annihilated?
But as if to mock Gwangyo's thoughts, Biyoung's figure spun once.
Whiriririk!
Swiftly rotating on the balls of his feet on the ground, the counter-attack form of the Sun-Shooting Sword Art that sucked in everything around it.
Shooting Rotation Reversing Shift.
Chwaaaaak!
The energy of the Mad Dog's Barking Palm swirled around Biyoung's rotated body.
The tyrannical energy, thought impossible to block or counter, was dancing around Biyoung's body.
“Hah….”
For a moment.
The Mad and Aberrant Man's face returned to being expressionless.
He no longer twitched the whites of his eyes, nor did he show a mad laugh.
Hard to believe, but a single emotion appeared on his large face.
Nostalgia.
The dear old days that had haunted him even in his dreams were unfolding right before Gwangyo's eyes.
Twirl!
Having spun once, the tip of Biyoung's sword pointed in one direction.
‘Yes. It was like that.’
Death.
Gwangyo sensed his own death.
Yo Seoldam, the greatest master of the Green Snake Hall, had also met his end like this.
Although he was about to depart from this world, Gwangyo somehow felt a sense of relief.
For over ten years, how much guilt had he been tormented by?
After the World's Fastest Sword, whom he had called his friend, died, Gwangyo could only watch as the Diancang Sect fell into ruin.
It was because of the Beggars' Union's directive not to interfere in the affairs of other sects.
But as a result, while the Beggars' Union remained unharmed, Gwangyo had to gain a mind that was not.
And right now.
Seeing the returned Shooting Rotation Reversing Shift, Gwangyo finally found peace.
‘The Diancang Sect was alive.’
He had sent Ji Seok-gi to confirm that very thing.
Although he could not meet the World's Fastest Sword of the past, having confirmed the Shooting Rotation Reversing Shift from this man's hands, he had no more lingering regrets.
My friend, Yeongbi.
Your descendant is wielding a rather splendid sword of Diancang.
Even as he watched the fiercely shooting Shooting Rotation Reversing Shift, Gwangyo did not even flinch.
He had no intention of avoiding it, and in the first place, it was a quick sword that could not be avoided.
Pit!
Kwaaaaaang!
However.
There was something that even Gwangyo, who had sensed his end, had not realized: Biyoung had no intention of killing him.
Why would he kill him?
He had only just met his old friend.
The Shooting Rotation Reversing Shift that Biyoung had countered grazed Gwangyo's earlobe and embedded itself straight into the hut of the Yiliang County branch.
“You remember the promise, right? Friend.”
“………….”
Gwangyo, confirming he was alive, slowly opened his eyes.
For the first time in a long time, his pupils had returned to normal.
He did not know how, but this man before him seemed to know the promise made with the World's Fastest Sword in the past.
‘The one who uses the Sun-Shooting Sword Art is my eternal friend.’
It was the promise Gwangyo had made to the World's Fastest Sword after his life was saved.
“…………Of course.”
After a brief silence, a surprisingly calm answer flowed from Gwangyo's mouth.
“I remember it well.”