Absolute Regression Chapter 196

196 Every time I see that scar from now on.

A boat carrying passengers was crossing the river.

Kwonma and I were standing on the windy deck, looking out over the river. We were getting further and further away from the main campus.

There are people who are anxious about their deviation. What if something happens? Or what if this incident changes his life for the worse? Because of me?

But Kwon Ma’s deviation did not make me feel uneasy at all. Was it because of the sincerity in life he showed? Or was it because I felt that it was rather weighing down on Kwon Ma’s true nature?

That was when.

Tsk tsk.

A ball of yarn rolled down to Kwonma’s feet.

A little boy came running towards me and stopped. He looked frightened at the sight of the large horse. The horse picked up the ball and gave it to me.

“Please give it to me.”

“Is there anything that makes you cry?”

“I won’t cry.”

Even though Kwon-ma handed the ball to the child, the child hesitated and did not come closer, so Kwon-ma rolled the ball to him.

Hey, today is the day you got the ball from Kwonma.

The child who received the ball bowed and ran towards his parents. Kwon-ma, who was watching them, suddenly asked.

“Did I say I was going to a place where I would have fun?”

“yes.”

“You know what I enjoy.”

“Shall we make a bet?”

“What bet?”

“If you go and have fun, I win. If you don’t have fun, I lose.”

“What if I say I’m not happy even though I’m happy?”

“You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

“What should I bet on?”

“You have to put your pride on the line.”

It was the same when jumping off the waterfall.

Then Kwonma looked at me with a strange look.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to bet on the third volume?”

“I want to walk.”

“But why don’t you ask me to walk?”

“I got the first and second rights too easily thanks to the kindness of Kwon Ma-nim. I have a conscience, so I can’t do that again.”

It was both sincere and intended to score points with him.

“Come on, put your man’s pride on the line!”

I threw my fist at him.

“What? You want to fight?”

“When people make promises, they bump their weapons. We martial artists have to bump our fists.”

“I won’t bump into baby hands.”

I looked at Kwonma’s hand and then looked down at my fist.

“Unfortunately, I can’t deny it.”

Kwonma turned his body towards the river.

The sunset was beginning to set over the river in the distance.

“Good.”

It was the first time he said he liked the scenery. Kwonma was looking at the river, and I was leaning against the railing, looking at Kwonma with my back to the sunset.

“I heard you traveled a lot when you were young.”

“It wasn’t attached to the church.”

“I heard you went out a lot with your father?”

“Did the leader say that?”

Yes, I answered softly, but in fact, it wasn’t something I heard from my father. It was something I learned while investigating the demons before returning. The place I’m going to now is also a place I learned from that way.

“Do you still meet your father often these days?”

“I hardly ever see you. It’s been a long time since we last met at the tavern.”

“Is something wrong?”

“What about work? Can human relationships always be hot?”

“That’s true.”

I turned around, and the sunset that had colored the horse moved to my face.

Will this moment of slacking off be remembered as a passionate moment between him and me?

* * *

Two days later, Geommu-geuk and Kwon-ma were entering the market where many people were coming and going. If the last time the Beast Sect was in the Murim Alliance territory, this was the Sadomaeng territory.

As he walked, Kwonma’s expression changed strangely. Sometimes he became stiff, and at other times he looked passionate.

The two arrived at a shabby warehouse building on the outskirts.

The swordsman handed over money to the guard at the entrance. After receiving the money, he led the two inside. There was a passage leading down to the basement between the piles of luggage.

After going down the stairs for a while, there was a large iron door. The moment I opened the door and went in, a blast of hot air and shouts were heard.

In the middle there was a large unarmed man, and two shirtless men were fighting with their bare fists.

“This is an underground fighting arena.”

There are many types of underground fighting arenas in the Central Plains. Some use internal energy, while others use weapons. And there are also pure fighting arenas, like the one we came to today, where people fight only with their fists, without internal energy or weapons.

“You can pay the admission fee to come in and just watch the match, or you can place a bet on who will win. Most people come here to place a bet.”

“How did you know about this place?”

“I am very interested in all things related to martial arts. Since it is a place where people fight purely with their fists, I thought you would like it, so I brought you here.”

There was a trembling in Kwonma’s eyes.

“Why are you like that? Don’t you like it?”

Then, surprising words came out of Kwonma’s mouth.

“I was a fighter here when I was young.”

“yes?”

The swordsman was surprised. No, he pretended to be surprised. In fact, he knew that he was from here.

“Are you talking about here?”

“Yes. It was right here.”

Kwon Ma’s life was not an easy one either.

“Then how did you become connected with our school?”

“I was selected after catching the eye of the people at this school.”

He didn’t even know about swordsmanship up to that point. It must have been a time when he hadn’t learned any real martial arts, but even so, where would the skills of someone with the qualities to become a martial artist go?

“Were you undefeated here too?”

Kwon-ma asked back at Geommu-geuk’s question.

“Am I still not undefeated?”

“What does it mean?”

“I wouldn’t be able to win even if I fought the cult leader, and the same goes for the leader of the martial arts world and the leader of the apostles. I can’t be confident that I can win right now without having to call in the countless hidden masters like grains of sand in the world, can I?”

“Aren’t I a baby?”

“The black magic sword held by that baby’s hand is scary.”

Geommugeuk suddenly had the thought that Kwonma might dislike the nickname of undefeated.

“You never know. If it really becomes a matter of life and death, what will the outcome be? Couldn’t Kwon Ma-nim defeat his father?”

Kwonma’s gaze turned back to the arena. He looked at the unmanned man who was being beaten to death and said.

“If you fight the cult leader, that’s what will happen. Even if the cult leader doesn’t draw his sword.”

The sword dance nodded.

“That’s true. He’s the kind of person who would beat his own child like that.”

At Geommugeuk’s words, Kwonma nodded with a serious face.

In fact, even Geommu-geuk didn’t know what Kwon-ma’s memories of this place were. Maybe he was sick of it, and it was also possible that it was a place he never wanted to come back to.

But still, the reason he was brought here is because he is now a Kwon Ma. He has risen from the bottom of the fist to the top of the fist.

Haven’t you ever wanted to come here? Haven’t you ever wanted to feel that hot heat again?

Geommugeuk and Kwonma stood among the people and watched the match.

It was so hot in here that no one seemed to care even though this scary looking horse was around.

The sword dance could tell. They were not into fighting, but into gambling. They were only shouting for the outcome of the fight.

Kwon-ma, who had been watching the fight for a while, blurted out without thinking.

“The left will win.”

Whose judgment could be wrong?

The result was a victory for the left wing.

The match continued without a break. When the match ended, three or four men came out and quickly wiped away the sweat and blood on the stage.

Meanwhile, other men held up a large board with the records and recent results of the fighters who would be competing in the next match, and showed it to the crowd. They would then place bets on it.

All of this happened in an instant. As if time were money, as if the excitement of the onlookers would not be quenched, the game continued without a break.

Kwon Ma predicted the next game exactly. Kwon Ma was truly a prophet.

“Can we get rich and leave here?”

Contrary to popular belief, the sword dance did not involve a single penny of money.

“Why don’t you take a walk for fun?”

“I don’t like it.”

“why?”

“Honestly, I regret it. I brought you here to feel the heat of the fight, but the heat of gambling seems hotter.”

Kwon-ma smiled bitterly at the honest words of the swordsman.

“It was like that back then too. Here… … it’s always like that.”

At that moment, Kwonma noticed a young man.

“That little guy, he has nice eyes.”

I could feel the sword dance. I could feel that Kwon Ma was projecting his own childhood onto that friend.

“Okay. I’ll bet my entire fortune on that guy.”

Kwon-ma suggested a joke from the sword dance.

“Try it. You’ll definitely win.”

“Okay.”

But the young friend who Kwon-ma said would win lost the match. Kwon-ma’s expression hardened slightly at that result.

“If I had done as you said, I would have lost all my money. We would have been homeless today!”

How could Kwon Ma have misjudged their abilities? Match fixing had occurred.

“Should I ask to see the owner here?”

It would have been nice if Kwon-ma had met the owner and said something sharp to him.

“Manipulation has nothing to do with the arena. Rather, the arena will try to catch manipulation in some way. They make a lot of money even if they leave it alone, so they don’t bother to cause trouble by manipulating it.”

It meant that manipulation was attempted from outside.

“Memories should just be buried as memories. I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry about?”

“I came here to enjoy watching the fights, but I’m worried that you might be feeling bad for no reason.”

“It’s okay.”

“Times have changed a lot. I guess there are no more pure fights like back then.”

Then Kwonma said to me with a strange smile.

“Why do you think there was no manipulation back then?”

“Was there?”

“Of course it was. It changed my life.”

As Kwonma’s gaze turned to the young man leaving the unarmed barracks, he naturally recalled the past.

“One day, when I was on a winning streak, the local black sword master came to see me in the middle of the night with his men. He told me to lose the next match. Since I was on a winning streak, I could make a lot of money if I lost. He said he would give me money too. It was a lot of money.”

“How did you do it?”

“You refused.”

“I guess they wouldn’t just sit there.”

Kwonma nodded and closed his eyes. That moment came back to him vividly as if it were yesterday.

That moment when I was fighting the black bastards, dodging here and there while throwing punches at them.

He knocked down all the subordinates who came with him, but he couldn’t defeat the leader. He was a person who had formally learned martial arts, and he had not yet learned martial arts. In the end, he was subdued by the guy and couldn’t move.

“If you don’t listen to me, you will die.”

“You retard black-haired bastard! If you were a man, don’t use your internal energy and fight me in the arena!”

“Words won’t do it.”

The chief untied the hem of Kwonma’s clothes.

Swish!

The bastard cut Kwonma’s chest with a knife. Kwonma gritted his teeth to keep from screaming.

“I have to lose anyway, so it’s okay if it hurts a little, right?”

Eventually, Kwon-ma could no longer bear the pain and screamed.

“Okay, I’ll lose the next match.”

“If only I had done this earlier, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Whenever you have stupid thoughts, look at this scar.”

The guy left there laughing.

After hearing the story, Geommugeuk asked.

“So what happened?”

“What happened? I won the next match with flying colors. I made that idiot lose all his money.”

Geommugeuk laughed loudly. Yes, this kind of person is Kwon Maji.

“It’s awesome!”

“It wasn’t cool, it was reckless and fearless. I was even more fearless then than I am now, a thousand times stronger.”

Kwonma revealed his chest again, revealing it to me.

“That’s how I got the scars on my body. They weren’t from a great master, but from a mere black swordsman whose name I can’t even remember. They weren’t even from fighting the elders of the Murim Alliance.”

I thought that perhaps Kwon Ma had never told anyone about this wound. It was not a physical wound, but a wound of the heart.

“Isn’t that a more proud scar?”

“Are you proud?”

“You must have been much more scared than when you fought the elders of the Murim Alliance, but didn’t you endure it?”

“You may want to package it nicely, but to me it’s just a shame I want to erase.”

“Don’t say that. I actually like that scar better. From now on, whenever I see that scar, I think of the confident Kwon Ma-nim from my youth without even a single bit of internal energy. I think that scar is much more wonderful than the blow left by the leader of the martial arts world or the scar left by the leader of the apostles.”

Kwon-ma was momentarily dumbfounded because he had never thought or heard of such a thing. He had always felt bad whenever he saw a wound, but he thought that perhaps from today on, that unpleasantness would be reduced a little.

The Sword Dance Theater knows that what is absolutely necessary to heal the wounds of the heart is someone’s words. Rather than thinking about this and that a hundred or a thousand times on your own, when someone tells you this once, the wounds begin to heal.

“Show me those scars often.”

Kwon-ma felt a warmth deep in his heart and, not knowing what to say, just stared at the sword dance in silence.

Geommugeuk asked again, whether he knew his mind or not.

“Tell me the next story. Then that black bastard came to kill you.”

Kwonma nodded and recalled the day when his fate changed.

“That night, he came to see me with all his men.”