Chapter 33: Swordsmanship Training (1)

Swish!

“Good, now again.”

“What? How many times am I going to swing the sword?”

“Until Mi Yeon or I say otherwise, now swing your sword again.”

Swish!

“Again.”

Swish!

“That swing didn’t have enough force behind it. Again.”

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“That swing had even less force! Are you even trying to swing the sword?!”

“It’s hard to swing my sword more than once back to back! Surely you did the same thing as me when you first started your swordsmanship training?”

“Yes, I did do the same thing, and that is exactly why I’m not as strong as I could have been. So grit your teeth, relax your body and swing again!”

Swish!

“Again!”

Swish!

“Good, again.”

Swish!

“That swing was too weak! Again.”

“Arghhhhh!”

Swish!

---

Several hours later.

“Alright, that’s enough, Myeol Mang.”

Thud!

“Haaaaaaaah… “

“Myeol Mang, when you swing with your sword are you pulling or pushing the sword downward?”

“Haaaaaah… What do you… Haaaaaah… Mean?”

“When you swing downward, do your arms pull the sword down or do your arms push the sword down?”

“I guess I’d say pull? I wasn’t really paying attention to that, I was just swinging my sword.”

“Hmmm. Myeol Mang swing your sword one more time, but this time pay attention to your arms and see if you pull the sword down or push it down.”

“Sigh… Alright.” Myeol Mang replied as he stood up off the floor and readied a swing stance once more.

Swish!

“Well?”

“It feels like I’m pulling the sword down rather than pushing it.”

“Good, pushing your sword while swinging can overextend your arms. Causing damage to your body and decreasing your accuracy.”

“Alright, well am I done with the basics?”

“Myeol Mang, you do realize there are more types of swings than just a vertical slash right?” Mi Yeon snickered.

“Well, I knew that. But I’ve been doing vertical slashes pretty much all day.”

“All day? It's only been a couple of hours

“What!? Only a couple of hours? That felt like forever!”

“Well, now you have to work on forwards and backwards diagonal slashes. Now watch me as I demonstrate.” Mi Yeon said as she drew her sword.

Watching as Mi Yeon slid her right foot slightly behind her and raised her sword above her left shoulder with both hands.

Swish!

“When performing a forward diagonal slash you must keep your dominant leg behind you, or you must step forward with your weaker leg while raising your sword. Otherwise you’ll risk cutting off your dominant leg while finishing through.”

“Step with the weaker leg, got it.” 

Myeol Mang then returned to the base stace with his legs shoulder width apart while holding his sword in front of him with both hands.

Thud!

Swish!

“How was that?”

“Horrendous. Your shoulders were too stiff, you locked your elbow out too early, your legs were locked and made a sound when you planted to swing, your eyes were focused on Mi Yeon rather than the space in front of you, your hands were gripping the handle too tight again and your movements weren’t connected in the slightest. Now swing again, your thousand diagonal swings will start once you do five in a row correctly.”

“Myeol Mang, I’m going to stand behind you so one problem can be solved easier for you.” Mi Yeon said as she began to walk behind Myeol Mang

“No, don’t.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t stand behind me, in a fight I will need to focus on what’s in front of me, not what is to my left or right. So stay there so I can practice keeping my eyes in front of me.”

“Alright…” Mi Yeon responded as she returned to her previous spot.

Myeol Mang then took a deep breath before relaxing his shoulders and taking up sword stance once more.

“Hrggghh!”

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Swish!

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Within the Heavenly Demon’s palace, a masked man could be seen walking down a staircase leading into darkness.

‘I wonder if the fool down here will listen to me when he hears about the upcoming raid?’

After arriving at the bottom of the staircase, the masked man then turned and looked into a cage on the left.

“So, Ro Se-Mang. Do you want to give in and work for me now?” The masked man said as he stared at the crimson stained man curled up within the cage.

“Never…”

“You’ll never work for me? No matter how much I torture you to work for me you’ll never do it?”

“You killed my wife, my only son and everyone in that village… Why would I ever work for you?”

“I see, well I think I can change your mind.”

“You’ve kept me here for three years… There’s nothing you can do to persuade me.”

“What if I told you, that your precious son and his best friend are alive.”

“Myeol Mang and Sung Ho are alive?... What horse shit, you said you killed them yourself…”

“Ah but you see, they are alive. And they’re being trained at a location I plan on raiding rather soon. So if I bring you your son in perfect condition, will you work for me?”

“Bring my son and Sung Ho to me alive, and I’ll consider it.”

“Still as stubborn as always I see. I’ll be back once I have your son.”

---

Swish!

“Good, your thousand swings starts now.”

“Can I… Haaaaaaaaah… Have a minute…. Haaaaah… Before starting those swings?”

“I assume you need something to drink? Your voice sounds really dry.” Mi Yeon said as she started to walk towards the training hall doors.

“Yeah.”

“You can take a break while Mi Yeon goes to get us water. In the mean time how about me and you catch up? We haven’t talked since you locked me out of the Forge.”

“Sure, and sorry about locking you out. I had an idea while you outside and I didn’t want to risk you coming in and making me lose the idea.”

“No hard feelings, Myeol Mang. I was just a little surprised when I found the door jammed shut with your message on it.”

“Okay good, I didn’t want to have any bad feelings about you since you taught me how to forge my sword. Anyways, how were you during my week of solitude?”

“I was doing good, sparring with Seok Hwan and Sang Chul to keep up my training. Now what I hear from you is how you got your sword to be that sharp.”

“Ah, well you see. I just sharpened the sword as best I could with the whetstone in the Forge, hell, one of the whetstones can’t even be used anymore.”

“So you just sharpened your sword a lot more than I did huh?”

“Hey, I’m back Myeol Mang!” Mi Yeon blurted out as she entered the training hall holding a bucket full of water.

“Welcome back Mi Yeon.” 

“Welcome back.”

“So what did you two talk about while I was gone?”

“Nothing much, just how we’ve been since we last talked and a little bit about Myeol Mang’s sword.”

“Did he tell you how he got it so sharp?”

“Wait, you’re interested about how I got my sword that sharp as well, Mi Yeon?”

“Well duh! You’re sword is probably as sharp as Master Tang’s sword! Here, take some water and tell me how you got your sword to be that sharp.” Mi Yeon replied as she handed Myeol Mang the bucket of water.

“He didn’t do anything special to make the sword that sharp. He just sharpened it a lot more than we did.” Seo Jun responded as Myeol Mang began to drink the water within the bucket

“So he just sharpened it more than we did? I don’t believe that, there has to be some other reason.”

“Well, it could be that the iron he used to make his sword was better than ours, or he used some technique when sharpening it that would allow for a better edge to form, the same could be said during the forging process since I only taught Myeol Mang how to start making the folds on the metal.”

“Hey, Seo Jun, Mi Yeon. You’re about to get into one of those long talks again, so if you continue I’m just going to start with my thousand swings.”

“Go ahead Myeol Mang, Seo Jun and I aren’t going to be able to stop this conversation from happening so just focus on your swings.”

“Sigh… Alright, have fun you two.” Myeol Mang said as he picked his sword up off the ground and readied a stance.

Swish!

“He couldn’t have had better materials to make his sword with, our swords are made with Cold Iron!”

Swish!

“Not entirely, the outer covering of our sword is made of Cold Iron, the inside of our swords are just regular iron! So that stands to say that since we have to be careful when sharpening out swords so we don’t sharpen off all the Cold Iron, we won’t get as much sharpening as someone who doesn’t have to worry about that!”

Swish!

“So because his sword is made entirely out of one metal it’s sharpness is better than ours? That could be plausible, but what about the forging techniques? Did you say you only taught him how to make the folds?”

Swish!

“Yeah, I only taught him how to fold the metal properly before he locked me out of the Forge. So maybe he had some sharpening or forging technique that is better than ours?”

Swish!

“But that would mean he never needed our help in the first place, since if he knew a forging technique better than ours he could have forged a sword without being taught how to fold the metal!”

Swish!

“But what if he only knew a better sharpening technique? That would still mean he needed to learn how to fold the metal from me to forge his sword!”

‘They’re just going to go in circles trying to find the most plausible answer, I’ll just go along with what they come up with at the end unless it’s completely absurd…’

Swish!

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