Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 14

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 14
“Why me?”
“Because you’re smarter than anyone else and so charming. You’re cute and handsome too—exactly the kind of child adults adore.”
I coughed awkwardly at that.
Gongseon Yeong’s voice grew slightly quieter.
“My sister, you see… you can’t trust yourself, so you can’t trust others either. Everyone says you’re more ruthless than anyone, but the truth is you’re more fearful than anyone. A daughter of the Gongseon Family who never learned martial arts—I can only imagine the weight of those stares and expectations.”
“….”
“Actually, my sister loves hearing stories about the wandering heroes of Gangho. And there was a time when she desperately wished to become one like them. Of course, she’s given up on that now.”
She scratched her head vigorously and laughed in a carefree manner.
“As for me… it seems I became everything my sister once wanted to be.”
Solar Body Constitution.
A physique that perhaps one in ten thousand people are born with.
Those born with it possess abundant yang energy from birth and accumulate inner power with ease.
It’s an excellent constitution for achieving the Way—lacking the learning speed of the Heavenly Demon’s Heavenly Killing Star, but also without its madness. Thus, the energy radiating from her body was both luminous and weighty.
It was ideal for learning orthodox martial techniques.
But that wasn’t all.
Her bones and muscles were far superior to ordinary people. Even in modern twenty-first century society, such people occasionally appeared.
Those with abnormally developed muscle strength—people capable of grasping steel with their bare hands and crumpling it.
Or those whose lung capacity was several times that of ordinary people.
Could they too have possessed martial bones? I speculated.
If she continued to grow for merely twenty more years, there would be almost no one in Gangho capable of withstanding a single strike from her sword.
“Have you ever considered becoming the family head?”
“No.”
She answered without a moment’s hesitation. When I asked why, she shrugged her shoulders.
“I forget things easily and take a liking to things just as easily. Once you step into Gangho, there’s no danger greater than the cup someone else offers you. Pyohaeng especially. But I forgot that fact. If my sister had been in that position instead of me, things would have been different.”
“Is that so?”
“Haha, even if I accumulated enough inner power to drive out Sanggongdok, I’d probably still be me. Simple-minded and stubborn—Gongseon Yeong.”
She unfastened a short sword from her waist.
It was too long to be called a dagger, yet too short to be called a longsword.
When she drew the short sword, a pitch-black blade came into view.
Above the black blade, the pine tree emblem of the Gongseon Family was etched.
At first glance, it was a straight sword crafted by a master artisan.
“It’s a short sword made from ten-thousand-year-old dark iron. The craftsman said he couldn’t obtain enough material to make it any longer. Still, it should be sufficient for you to use now.”
“What?”
“Take it. I’m giving it to you.”
Thunk—
She sheathed the sword again and handed it to me.
I knew what that blade was.
The Black Pine Cloud Sword.
An unbreakable legendary blade among legendary blades. But that wasn’t all.
What makes this sword terrifying is that its blade is dark and reflects no light.
It’s also suited for covert operations.
This sword would eventually flow into the hands of Yeo Ha-ryun, the Heavenly Demon, and would save his life countless times.
Jin Cheon-hee shook his head.
“I cannot accept it.”
“I haven’t repaid the debt of saving my life yet.”
Jin Cheon-hee replied.
“The Gongseon Family has already repaid it.”
“That was merely a debt settled by my household, not by me personally.”
There wasn’t the slightest wavering in her eyes.
Clear and profound eyes gazed upon Jin Cheon-hee.
Observing her, Jin Cheon-hee found himself asking without thinking.
“Is that your code of honor?”
“Code of honor? Yes, you could say that.”
Martial chivalry.
Since it’s a story about fighting, naturally the character for martial would be included, but what could honor mean?
Jin Cheon-hee pondered.
If honor didn’t exist, it would have simply come down to sword fighting to determine the strongest and be done with it.
‘I see. In the end, Yeo Ha-ryun couldn’t strike me, an ordinary person.’
It would violate honor to oppress those who hadn’t learned martial arts.
‘This sister is trying to repay her debt with her own sword.’
A household debt is a household debt, but settling one’s personal debt is her own responsibility—that was her code of honor.
Of course, honor was different from goodness.
Not all honor was good.
Honor existed even within vengeance and intrigue.
It was truly a curious thing.
And that was also why Jin Cheon-hee loved martial chivalry.
She spoke.
“The Black Pine Cloud Sword no longer suits my swordsmanship, and I was planning to return it to the main house anyway. I’d be grateful if you would use it instead. If I can repay my debt this way, my heart will find peace.”
“…I’ll accept it.”
“Good. If you refused, I was prepared to leave it with the Yunlong Courier Bureau and make a fuss until you came to collect it.”
“Haha.”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a joke.
Jin Cheon-hee accepted the sword.
‘It’s light.’
For a short sword, it couldn’t be better.
Jin Cheon-hee spoke.
“But this still leaves me with change owed, sister.”
“Hmm?”
Yeo Ha-ryun has his code of honor, and Gongseon Yeong has hers.
‘Then do I have what it takes to be a hero as well?’
Me, who had scraped by on Earth until just recently. Me, who had never done anything remotely similar to the martial world, let alone actually lived in it.
I spoke up.
“Could you show me how to use this small sword just once?”
It was a bold request, asking to see the other’s sword technique. But I was just a child who had never learned martial arts.
In a way, it was the kind of thing that might earn a scolding and nothing more.
Gongseon Yeong replied.
“Of course! But just because you see it doesn’t mean you can copy it… you know? It comes from long years of training.”
“That’s okay. I just want to see my sister wielding the sword.”
At those words, Gongseon Yeong’s face flushed slightly.
‘C-c-cute… so cute…’
This was truly unfair.
* * *
The two of us arrived at a sparsely populated open field.
Before drawing her sword, she gently stroked my head.
‘Ugh, how embarrassing. I’m past forty, yet here I am acting so coy.’
Despite biting my tongue and wanting to disappear, my rationality had spun the wheel 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
“I’m not sure what you mean, but if my sister is happy, then I’m happy too.”
“Cheon-hee, you adorable thing.”
She pinched my cheeks and pulled them playfully once.
Satisfied, she took the black pine sword from me and moved to the center of the open field.
She drew her small sword and slowly took her stance.
It was, in a way, an extraordinarily simple posture.
She simply drew the sword with one hand and aimed it at an imaginary opponent.
And then her sword, which seemed to be frozen in eternity, began to move.
Like a pine tree bending and swaying, the blade suddenly became invisible.
The Gongseon Family’s sword emphasizes speed.
A human dies if even half an inch of the neck is severed. So wouldn’t faster be better?
There was one who rose to become the greatest swordmaster under heaven with this seemingly obvious idea.
That was the founder of the Gongseon Family, Gongseon Cheong-yeon.
Her sword began to cut through the wind, faster and faster still.
Her sword energy created the image of pine needles.
In that moment, Gongseon Yeong’s expression furrowed slightly.
‘Families that aim for the speed sword usually symbolize waves or wind. Why is it pine? And why did the founder tell us to resemble the pine?’
It was a question that many of the Gongseon Family’s swordmasters had harbored.
Because of this, the Gongseon Family’s current sword forms had been changed anew.
They had abandoned the pine. Yet still, traces of the pine remained in every movement of the sword.
Because it was their root.
Was this progress? Or was it regression?
The Gongseon Family had always held its place as a superior family, yet it had never once been discussed as the greatest swordmaster under heaven. The changed sword forms had become both a cradle and a wall.
I watched the sword path she had created.
The sword path created by a martial artist was a sight I had never witnessed in my entire life.
Of course, seeing this didn’t inspire any particularly plausible thoughts.
It simply looked magnificent and impressive.
Her sword path had ended.
An ordinary martial artist would have clicked their tongue in admiration, but I simply observed it in an ordinary manner.
This was because I knew nothing about martial arts.
It was only natural, having never learned anything.
‘Wow, I can’t take my eyes off it. In novels, sword dances are often described as beautiful, but seeing it in reality is definitely different. Anyway, since I’ve never learned the sword, I can’t understand anything about the sword dance even when I watch it.’
I muttered these thoughts to myself.
‘Still, I should do what needs to be done. Will it be effective? In novels, people gain enlightenment even from small conversations. Well, I’ll find out if I try.’
“So. How was it?”
Gongseon Yeong lowered the hand holding the sword toward the ground and asked.
Not a single drop of sweat fell from her.
Though she was young, she was a genius who earned the reputation of a master.
Watching her, I smiled broadly.
“The pine tree remains green throughout all four seasons. And an ancient pine that has grown old does not break even in storms. It takes root and stands firm, swaying its branches with the wind.”
‘The ultimate principle of the Gongseon Family’s sword technique. That is the ultimate counter-attack from a disadvantaged position.’
Counter-attack from a disadvantaged position.
In modern terms, it was the ultimate counter.
Every attack has its own trajectory.
A straight sword would advance in a straight line, while a curved sword would advance with variations.
Recognizing that trajectory was the first step.
And the second was to penetrate the enemy’s attack path and strike back in reverse.
This seemed to align with the principle of softness overcoming hardness—yet the Gongseon Family’s sword was different.
The Gongseon Family’s sword strike was to deliver maximum counterattack with minimal force.
One had to understand why the greatest master of the current age yielded one step first.
It was not the concession of the strong.
It was because it was the sword path that best suited the Gongseon Family’s sword principles.
That was why it was the pine tree.
It was an ultimate sword technique that pursued elegance yet never moved excessively—a paradox contained within.
Of course, this was only theoretical, and I well understood that executing this was no ordinary feat.
That was why I spoke of it.
‘This is a passage that Gongseon Hyeon would later realize when she rewrote the family’s secret manual… but what about Gongseon Yeong, called the Flying Dragon of the Gongseon Family? Gongseon Hyeon had discovered it belatedly and spoke of the ultimate principle of counter-attack from a disadvantaged position and such.’
“…!”
I saw Gongseon Yeong’s eyes widen.
‘Oh? Could it be?’
From her hand
the
strength drained away.
And as focus faded from her eyes, she picked up her sword again and began to move.
‘Wow… this is actually working?’
Her movements transformed like a pine tree swaying in the wind.
Pine needles began to form at the edge of her sword energy.
Then her sword slowed once more. Yet the delicate sword energy she had conjured began to ripple outward in all directions.
The sword dance continued.
A pine tree—strong against blizzards and typhoons—bloomed abundantly in that space.
Though it was a pine tree without showy flowers or beautiful transformations, her sword carved lines through space itself.
Swiftness finally connected to completion. And completion did not end but flowed back into beginning.
In a state of transcendence, Gongseon Yeong understood.
‘The Gongseon Sword Principles of the Gongseon Sword Technique were merely written for the understanding of later generations.’
She had awakened to the truth.
Her sword could not pursue swiftness alone.
She had to understand the reason behind the swiftness itself.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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