Return of the Heavenly Sword

Chapter 2. Regression

When I opened my eyes, what I saw was a very familiar sight.

“You rascal. Are you dozing off while standing?”

It was the face of the innkeeper elder, who looked decades younger than when I last saw him, and the scenery of the inn where I had worked as a waiter.

‘Dozing off?’

Feeling puzzled, I lowered my head and looked at my hand.

It was not the calloused hand that had been treated roughly for nearly forty years.

Just then, men with familiar faces entered the inn.

“Innkeeper. You've prepared plenty, I hope?”

It was a scene that gave me a sense of déjà vu.

It was the exact same scene as the day I first set my sights on the Jianghu.

“Of course, it’s prepared. Please wait a moment. I'll bring it right away.”

Unlike how he treated me, the elder answered the black faction men while bowing and scraping.

As the elder hurriedly walked somewhere to retrieve the tribute for the men, the black faction men swaggered over and plopped down on the chairs.

“Bring out a bottle of wine.”

“We'll count the payment as the price of your life. Hahahaha!”

Up to this point, it was no different from what I remembered of that day.

“I'll bring it right away.”

Unlike that time, I answered humbly and headed for the kitchen.

Originally, on this day, I had stood still and glared at them, ignoring their orders.

Naturally, those bastards had drawn their weapons and threatened me.

- Oh, my lords! This boy is just young and foolish!

The elder, who had belatedly come back with the goods, was startled and knelt in my place, rubbing his hands together as he begged for forgiveness.

On my way back with the wine bottle and cups as they instructed, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

The thought that I had been a coward who only acted on emotion.

Swallowing a sneer directed at myself, my eyes took in the sight of the three black faction men and the elder.

The elder had brought out goods like cloth and rice and was handing them over, while one of the black faction men was inspecting them.

I approached them, placed the cups on the table, and poured the wine.

“Have a drink.”

Tuk.

Then, one of the black faction men clicked his tongue and lifted the cup I had poured.

“Ehh. Wine poured by a man.”

The moment the black faction man tilted the cup to drink, I swung the wine bottle in my hand.

Thwack!

Crash!!

A sound of something breaking echoed simultaneously from the man's head and the wine bottle.

While the two other black faction men and the elder's eyes were filled with bewilderment.

Crack!

I thrust the broken wine bottle and stabbed the neck of the black faction man whose head had been smashed.

“Gack...”

“How's the taste of wine shoved in by a man?”

The man, who had been struggling with bloody foam gushing from his throat, soon went limp with his tongue hanging out.

“Looks like he's tasted nirvana.”

I was starting to feel a little relieved.

Ah, what a coward I had been.

To see these street thugs committing atrocities right in front of me and only think of getting my revenge after honing my skills.

Just then, the two men who had belatedly come to their senses hurriedly drew their weapons and shouted.

“You, you crazy bastard!”

“You must be dying to die!”

Regardless, I looked at the corpse sprawled on the chair and said with a regretful expression.

“Oh dear. The wine bottle broke. The price of your worthless lives won't be enough to compensate for it.”

Was it because they were provoked by my monologue? The two black faction men rushed at me, swinging their weapons.

“Die!!”

At the same time, I turned my back and fled.

“You rat-like bastard!!”

After a few steps of running, gauging the distance by the shouts and footsteps of the black faction men behind me.

I suddenly turned around to see the man who had been leading the charge swinging his blade.

A posture full of openings, and on top of that, a sluggish movement.

I willingly threw myself towards the blade he was swinging, taking out a single chopstick that I had secretly tucked into my sleeve when I went to get the wine bottle.

Swish!

His blade grazed past my side.

Thwack!

A brutal sound of a chopstick digging into the black faction man's vital point echoed.

Following that, the blade swung by the other black faction man came flying.

I grabbed the nape of the black faction man I had stabbed with the chopstick and spun my body half a turn.

Crack!

Then, an eerie slicing sound echoed.

“Tsk. You shouldn't cut down your comrade.”

“It's, it's because of you!”

The eyes of the black faction man, who had inadvertently attacked his own ally, were trembling violently.

Was it because it was his first time actually cutting a person, or was he scared of me?

The man, who had been frozen with a terrified look, suddenly turned his back and started to run.

He was running not towards the inn's entrance, but somewhere else. Straight towards the innkeeper elder.

His intention must have been to use the elder as a hostage.

A chair I had picked up and thrown collided with the back of his head.

Thwack!

I had acted like I was running away at first because I had anticipated this from the start, to create distance from the elder.

The black faction man, who had been struck in the back of the head and collapsed, tried to get up and move again somehow, but.

Crack.

He was pierced through a vital point by a chopstick I thrust, and he went limp.

“Hoo.”

Perhaps because I had pierced living flesh with a chopstick without any inner energy, the fingers holding the chopstick felt tingly.

While I was shaking my tingling right hand to loosen it, the elder approached me with a terrified expression.

“Are, are you alright?”

“I'm alright.”

“Th-then hurry up and run. Hurry!”

As expected, the elder was a coward, but he was a good person.

Seeing a person like this being plundered by such trash might have been what nurtured my rebellious nature.

I smiled to reassure the elder and replied.

“I apologize for dirtying the inn. I'll pay you back for the broken wine bottle and chair soon.”

“I-I'll take care of that, so just hurry and run. Before more men from the Black Serpent Gang show up!”

It seemed he would be anxious no matter what I said, so I started walking for now.

First, I approached the corpse sprawled on the chair with a wine bottle stuck in its neck, took the sword in its scabbard from the man's side, and left the inn.

‘I've returned to the past...’

It still didn't feel real, but I supposed that was what it was.

It was all too vivid to dismiss as just a wild dream.

I walked for a while, recalling the events I had experienced in a world I didn't know whether to call the past or the future.

I was able to arrive in front of a manor with a sign that read [Black Serpent Gang].

I hadn't left the inn to escape the village.

As I trudged towards the Black Serpent Gang, a man at the entrance asked.

“What's your business here?”

“I've come to give you money.”

“Hmm. Come to think of it, you're the waiter from Azure Wind Inn.”

The black faction man, who recognized my face, nodded and held out his right hand.

I reached into my clothes and approached the black faction man, and.

Swish!

I drew the sword I had taken in a surprise attack and thrust it.

“Gack...”

Because I had accurately plunged the sword into his lungs, the man couldn't even scream properly and collapsed, struggling on the ground.

When your lungs are pierced, it becomes difficult to breathe, making it impossible to produce a proper sound.

Passing the soon-to-be-dead man, I threw open the gates of the Black Serpent Gang, and two menacing-looking men were there.

“Who the hell are you!!”

I felt this in my past life, or future life, as well, but I didn't know why these guys were so predictable.

Every time I stormed in, they said the same thing.

“You don't know me?”

They looked dumbfounded at my confident question for a moment. Then one of them realized something and shouted.

“That bastard. Isn't he the waiter from Azure Wind Inn?”

“I quit being a waiter as of today.”

“Ha. Then what are you now?”

“Gray Ghost.”

“Gray Ghost?”

While the men were asking again, looking at me as if I were a complete madman, I charged them in a surprise attack.

“This crazy son of a bitch!?”

As the men drew their weapons in surprise and swung, a dry laugh escaped my lips.

“You're so damn slow.”

I didn't just mean their movements. The problem was this weak body.

If it were my original body, I would have already cut their throats, but now I could only just reach them.

But those guys were just as pathetic.

Swish!

While dodging the black faction man's sword, which was full of openings, I cut his throat with my sword.

At the sight of blood gushing from the black faction man's neck, the other one let out a strange scream with a terrified expression.

“Hiek!?”

“What? Did you think you wouldn't die while threatening people with knives?”

I approached the man who was letting out a pathetic scream and plunged my sword into his lungs this time.

“Gack...”

Then, as I twisted and pulled the sword out with force, it came out, scraping against the grain of his tensed muscles.

“An untrained body is troublesome in many ways.”

While I was muttering to myself, the rest of the riff-raff started to pour out.

“How dare you, do you know where this is!”

“Kill him!!”

I watched the five of them rush at me all at once for a moment, then I made a surprise dash towards the man on the left.

Then the two closest men swung their weapons at the same time.

Clang!

The sword and blade swung by the two men collided, and a pathetic clang of metal rang out.

I had deliberately aimed for the two who were running close together and charged in.

While the two men's weapons were tangled, I closed in on the moron who couldn't even manage his spacing during a pincer attack and swung my sword.

Crack!

The sword dug into the man's abdomen, but I didn't have the leisure to leisurely pull the sword out of his stomach like before.

I let go of the sword and rolled on the ground, and an eerie blade brushed past from behind.

The moment the man who had swung his blade from behind me rushed in and swung again, I rolled on the ground, scooped up a handful of dirt, and threw it in his eyes.

“Die!!”

The man, with dirt in his eyes, swung his blade wildly in all directions, not wanting to die, and the man who had been rushing in from his side was stabbed by that blade and screamed.

“Aaaargh!”

While the black faction men were getting tangled up amongst themselves, I quickly snatched the sword from the hand of the man I had killed just a moment ago.

“You despicable bastard!”

At a black faction man's shout, a smirk escaped my lips.

“You think I'm called Gray Ghost for nothing?”

Gray Ghost was the alias I got for killing bastards like this without caring about the means or methods.

Rolling on the ground and throwing some sand was nothing more than child's play.

After that, I fought for a few more exchanges, rolling on the ground and using a black faction man's corpse as a shield.

Swish.

With the last man whose head was cut off, all the black faction men were soon rolling on the ground.

All except for one man who had been standing a few steps back with his arms crossed, acting important.

“Hah. It seems you've learned to swing a blade somewhere.”

The Black Serpent Gang’s leader, who had let out a dry laugh, asked arrogantly.

“Have you any thought of working under me?”

“How can I work under a man who's going to die today? Think before you speak. Are you an idiot?”

At my question, the Black Serpent Gang’s leader's face turned beet red.

“...To choose punishment. You must want to die.”

“Oh dear. Calling a man worse than trash an idiot. This is an insult to idiots.”

“You son of a bitch!!”

The Black Serpent Gang’s leader, whose already red face turned even redder, immediately drew his blade and charged.

Perhaps a leader was a leader after all.

The speed at which his blade flew was completely different from the previous black faction men.

If I tried to dodge after seeing it, my head would be cut off just like that.

The me from my past life might have been able to, but this body, which had never trained in martial arts once, could not keep up with his speed.

But I wasn't afraid.

My body might have returned to the past, but my experience hadn't disappeared.

I focused my mind and calmly observed his entire body.

The length of the blade he swung, the shape of the hand holding the blade, the movement of his shoulder joint, the distance between his feet, and so on.

Based on the posture the Black Serpent Gang’s leader took, I predicted where his blade was headed and quickly threw my body.

Swish!

My sluggish body couldn't completely avoid the blow, and an eerie sound echoed from my clothes as they were grazed by the blade.

Funnily enough, that sound was sharpening my mind even further.

After a few more exchanges of barely dodging his attacks.

The moment he took a stance to swing his blade again, a strange sensation, as if the flow of the world had slowed down, enveloped my entire body.

At the same time, the venerable master's words came to mind.

Did he say my eyes had opened?

A single trajectory was drawn in the air, starting from his blade and connecting to my neck.

Along with another trajectory to pierce his heart while avoiding that one.