King Shura

It rained that day. It signified that it was the last day of summer.

Someone got off of a carriage in the road and soaked himself in the rain.

It was a man in a black robe. He stared forward with an extremely sad expression.

There was a funeral in front of him. The man looked at it for a moment, then quietly opened his mouth.

“Is this teacher Jo Gi Chun’s house?”

“Yes.”

The man didn’t say anything for a moment, then opened his mouth again.

“I’ll go in alone.”

“…….Yes sir.”

The bodyguard thought for a moment, then gave the man permission to enter alone. The man entered the house with a serious face.

“You must be Jo Min Gyu, am I correct?”

“Y, yes. But…….”

“It must’ve been hard for you. I’m here now, so you don’t have to worry anymore.”

“……What?”

The man who seemed to be the head of the house, Jo Gi Chun’s eldest son, Jo Min Gyu, looked at the young man in front of him with a confused expression.

A man who seemed to be at least ten years younger than him just grabbed his hand and told him to not worry.

It was surprising, but since all kinds of things happen in a funeral, he just let it pass.

“Jo Gi Chun truly was an amazing man.”

“Right…….”

Jo Min Gyu made a complicated face when he heard the young man’s words.

He didn’t know what his father did outside, but he knew for sure that his father never took care of the family.

It wasn’t that his father never earned money.

When he thought about it, they weren’t that lacking in money. Their life might’ve been a little hard, but it wasn’t to the point of them actually lacking in money or anything.

But that was it. His father just came to see his family once every few years.

Jo Min Gyu only felt more and more complicated whenever he saw a packet of money come to his house every month.

It was almost as if the packet of money was the substitute for his father.

In other words, Jo Gi Chun, his father, never did his job as a father.

‘That damn mathematics…….’

Whenever he thought of that, he automatically would ground his teeth in anger.

His father, Jo Gi Chun, devoted his life to that useless thing called mathematics.

That was why he never paid attention to his own family.

That was why he always felt a little heavy in his heart whenever people complimented his father.

Just how much did he hate his father?

When he first heard that his father died a few days ago, he didn’t get very sad. No, he thought he wasn’t sad.

But when he saw his father’s corpse lying down in the coffin, something just shot up from his heart.

He cried without knowing in front of his father’s coffin.

He realized for the first time that he could cry like this. His mother must’ve felt the same.

While the whole family was drowning in sadness, the man in black, who handed them Jo Gi Chun’s corpse, took out something from his clothes and handed it to them.

“This is a small gift from the church. We hope this helps.”

The martial artist who brought his father’s corpse. He was handing them a small packet.

It seemed to be a packet of money. Jo Min Gyu didn’t expect much from it though.

That was why he didn’t open it until the martial artist left. Without even knowing about what was inside the packet…….

‘One thousand gold coins.’

There was a check for one thousand gold coins inside the packet.

A family of four could live well for an entire year off of a single gold coin. There was a thousand of it. Wasn’t this too much money?

Just what was father doing outside? Wasn’t he just a mathematician? Jo Min Gyu began to feel even more complicated than before.

The young man who had been holding onto his hand let go slowly and lit the incense sticks in front of him. He was grieving for Jo Gi Chun.

“In mathematics alone, he was like my teacher. Studying mathematics together in the palace was probably one of the greatest moments in my life. …….How regrettable. If he had waited a little longer, he would’ve witnessed me creating a better world for all of us……. To think he’d leave like this…….”

The man’s sobbing just grew louder and soon turned into a full fledged cry of pain.

“Kuh, uaaaa!”

The young man soon started to beat the ground with a sorrowful cry.

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Jo Min Gyu, the eldest son of Jo Gi Chun, felt troubled when he saw this.

The man who seemed fine just a moment ago started to cry extremely sorrowfully.

He was also muttering something under his breath, but it was hard to tell just what he was saying.

‘Just what did father do outside?’

Jo Min Gyu’s face just kept on getting more and complicated, as he realized that he was only learning more about his father after death.

* * *

The young man cried for quite a long time. He lifted his head and looked at Jo Min Gyu with swollen eyes.

Jo Min Gyu felt quite guilty when he saw the young man covered in snot and tears.

He became ashamed at himself because of the young man who grieved more than he ever did for his father.

“…….Who was it?”

The young man’s voice was cracked, due to crying so much.

“What?”

The young man opened his mouth again when he realized that Jo Min Gyu didn’t understand him properly.

“Do you know who made teacher like this?”

“I, I don’t.”

Come to think of it, the man who handed over the corpse said something about where he came from, but he couldn’t remember too clearly.

At the time, Jo Min Gyu was in too much of a shock to take in anything.

Although his father never did anything for the family, the existence of a father itself had always given Jo Min Gyu something to rely on.

“Other than the fact that it was a martial artist……. I can’t really remember.”

“Martial artist!!”

The young man shouted out loudly when he heard Jo Min Gyu’s answer. He then ground his teeth in pure rage. He beat the ground again out of frustration.

“I had told him multiple times to not get involved with those barbaric scum, yet he…….”

He lost the person he respected most to barbarians. That was what the young man thought.

After crying for quite some time, the young man stood back up with his face covered in snot and tears and grabbed onto Jo Min Gyu’s hand.

“Don’t worry! I’ll take care of everything.”

“Ah…… sure.”

The man, as if he just remembered something, clumsily took out something from his robe and handed it to Jo Min Gyu.

“This is a gift from me. Please, cheer up!”

When Jo Min Gyu took the gift from the young man, the man walked to everyone in the funeral grounds and personally told them to cheer up, then cried again and left.

After looking at the young man leave dumbly, the family remembered the gift in their hand, and opened it.

Their eyes widened once more. The gift contained a check inside it, and it was a check of a hundred gold coins.

“Mother……. Just what did father do?”

“I don’t know…….”

Even the family did not know. Just what did Jo Gi Chun do?

The only thing they knew about Jo Gi Chun was the fact that the man loved mathematics and devoted his entire life to it.

* * *

“Are you done?”

“Yes. I’ve finished.”

The bodyguard who had been waiting outside led the young man into the carriage and stepped in the carriage with the man. The carriage began to move.

They were moving to the palace.

“I must see the Great General when we get back.”

When the young man opened his mouth with a voice of determination like this, the bodyguard’s eyes brightened.

“You’ve made your mind?”

The young man avoided the bodyguard’s eyes as he nodded.

“Yes. I’m just ashamed that I made everyone wait so long.”

“No. The general will be very happy. Everything is complete now that you are joining.”

The bodyguard was unable to suppress his joy.

He quickly directed the driver to head to the Great General’s headquarters. As he did this, he thought this in his head.

‘Be elated, Great General! Everything you have wanted for this mission is now within your hands!’

The young man, who wasn’t known too well in the world, was actually an extremely powerful existence.

* * *

“So you have made up your mind?”

The Great General, Chuk Gye Guang (戚繼光), ran outside with bare feet to greet the young man.

The young man turned his head in embarrassment when he saw the General to this and spoke.

“Forgive me for making you wait this long.”

“It’s nothing. I’m just thankful that you are on board with my plan.”

The Great General laughed loudly. It was finally time for him to proceed with his plans.

The man in front of the General was his trump card.

This man’s talent wasn’t known to the world, but his intelligence rivaled even that of the prime minister himself.

‘No, it’s even greater.’

The man just wasn’t known to the world, as he devoted all his time into an useless thing such as formations.

The General liked the man even more because of that.

He liked how the young man was able to focus on his work without minding what the rest of the world thought about him.

And the young man even had talent. Just how amazing was this man?

It was very hard for someone to not become arrogant of his intelligence and use it for evil ways in this age.

‘Ju Ho Yu’ was this young man’s name.

“The greatest mathematician in the world” was the young man’s title.

“We must use this chance to sweep away all those damned martial artists in one go.”

At first, Ju Ho Yu hesitated a little when he heard of the Great General’s plan. The plan just seemed too dangerous and violent.

But even Ju Ho Yu knew how dangerous these martial artists were to the imperial palace. They needed a method to control these people.

“I’ll do my best.”

The Great General smiled.

He thought that him attaining this young man was akin to Liu Bei attaining Zhuge Liang in the past.

“I’ll go get the king’s permission to strike the martial artists so just wait.”

“Yes sir.”

When the Great General went back inside to dress up in order to meet the king, Ju Ho Yu rubbed his swollen eyes and sighed.

‘Many people will die from now.’

Ju Ho Yu’s face darkened. He didn’t want people to die or get hurt, but he soon shook his head.

“Martial artists must disappear.”

Right. Martial artists were barbarians who did whatever they wanted just because they had strength.

They were people who didn’t even follow the laws of the nation, and engaged in murder and violence as much as they pleased. They needed to disappear for the people of this nation.

‘Please give me strength, teacher.’

Ju Ho Yu thought of Jo Gi Chun, who would be observing his movements from somewhere in the heavens and steeled his thought.

Jo Gi Chun was the first one to teach him what the word ‘surprise’ was.

Ju Ho Yu had never suspected there would be someone who had studied mathematics to that degree in the entire world.

It was a new experience for him, and it gave him the most joy he had experienced in his entire life.

But that person died a meaningless death. He had wanted to talk to his teacher some time in the future…….

Ju Ho Yu’s eyes got filled with sadness once more.

The fact that he would never be able to meet a man who loved mathematics that much brought him great pain.

‘I wanted to show him what I had discovered recently…….’

Ju Ho Yu thought of Jo Gi Chun’s face in his mind and rubbed his fingers together.

Thinking of all the conversation they had in the past made him sad again.

‘I’ll take revenge in your stead.’

He would be going up against the martial world itself…….

Like this, the imperial palace began to move into the world of martial arts.