WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ Damned Transmigration ◈
Chapter 145: Kang Yu 2
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He carefully put the thing, whether it was a metal fragment or a scale, into his bag and headed for the cave entrance.
“Are we going up, or down?”
“Up.”
Haryeong answered without hesitation. They had fallen quite a long way, but they were still at such a height that it would take much longer to reach the ground.
There was no telling what might happen if they kept falling, and Yuri’s levitation magic could only be used on himself. It would be better to trust Haryeong’s lightness technique and climb up.
Having made up her mind, Haryeong held the Twin Fangs in both hands like climbing spikes. Estor rotated his ankles to loosen them up, then took off his shoes altogether.
Perhaps because they had spent last winter running from avalanches, climbing the cliff was not as difficult as they had expected.
The three quickly climbed up the cliff, then sighed in relief as they looked back down at Nakseong Cliff.
“Good thing we avoided a pointless fucking ordeal.”
Even without the Black Rabbit Society’s map, they could have found the cave entrance somehow if they had painstakingly climbed down the cliff and searched. It would have been far more difficult than this, though.
Myou-hee in the recording had not directly mentioned the Black Rabbit Society or its map, but this map had led them straight to the cave entrance.
With the Binding Restriction in place, tracing the Black Rabbit Society members back to its leader was impossible.
“The Bright Moon Festival? The Bright Moon Festival...?”
This world had commemorative days too, since people lived here, but Yuri did not know every holiday on the Eastern Continent.
When he turned to Haryeong, she nodded as if she had expected the question.
“Long ago, an imugi lived on Mount Jeongro. It devoured countless people and rampaged through the area. Everyone who came to subdue it ended up in its stomach, so people called it a calamity beyond human power and prayed to the gods.”
Haryeong brushed the dust off herself as she recited the old tale.
“Their prayers reached the heavens, and the Moon God bestowed upon a young girl who served them the power to face the imugi. The girl became an avatar and fought it for three days and nights, finally beheading it. But she had received a fatal wound from the imugi and died as well. Her soul was taken in by the Moon God, ascended to the heavens, and became part of the moonlight.”
“What a sad story...”
Estor muttered with a sigh.
“The Bright Moon Festival commemorates the Moon God’s mercy and grace, as well as the girl whose name was never recorded. It falls on a cold Start of Winter night, when a brilliant full moon rises. I do not know where Full Moon Pavilion is, but judging by the name, it is probably a luxurious inn where one can admire the full moon up close.”
Fortunately, this year’s Bright Moon Festival had not yet passed.
“Are you going?”
“Yes.”
Yuri had no intention of going alone. He would speak to Chuk-sin-doo first. Chuk-sin-doo was not free to move about at the moment, but if Yuri told him he had arranged a meeting with Myou-hee, he might come in person.
Myou-hee was probably affiliated with the Demonic Cult.
The Black Rabbit Society members had been from the Demonic Cult, and Myou-hee herself had been avoiding Chuk-sin-doo.
Still, the message she had left in the box did not suggest that she was reluctant to meet him. From Myou-hee’s perspective, anyone would do, so she could hardly complain if Yuri brought Chuk-sin-doo along.
“Are we coming too?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“I want to come, but what about Sir Estor, who wants to become the Demon-Slaughtering Sword?”
Suddenly saddled with the nickname Demon-Slaughtering Sword, Estor made a sullen face.
“Is it something to mock me for, drawing my sword against a Demonic Cultist who hid their demonic qi and operated in secret?”
“You just wanted to swing your sword. Yes or no?”
“If they had not been from the Demonic Cult, I would not have drawn my sword. Even then, I put it away after hearing their circumstances.”
“Would you draw your sword on the Black Rabbit Society’s leader too?”
“I would hear their circumstances, then draw it if they were a cruel and vicious demonic fiend. What would you do? If your friend became a demonic fiend of the Demonic Cult, someone who ground up and ate innocent people and massacred them for the sheer thrill of it, would you let them go just because they were your friend?”
That question reminded Yuri of his call with Chuk-sin-doo. He was silent for a moment before speaking.
“A Transmigrator is someone forced into a body they never wanted, then left with no choice but to live seething with resentment. If Myou-hee has committed the kind of evil a great demonic fiend would, I’ll make her do Ten Good Deeds a Day if I have to. I’ll reform her into a decent person.”
“Hmm.”
Estor’s eyes gleamed with interest. He looked at Yuri for a moment, then snorted and nodded.
“That would work too.”
Yuri had also been unwillingly transmigrated.
Some people might have been happier with their lives on Earth and longed for that world. Yuri was the opposite. He liked his life in this world, his life as Yuri, more than he had liked his life on Earth.
That was why Yuri considered himself lucky. He had transmigrated right after dying, and his life had seemed as though it would begin in strange, harsh circumstances. Yet he had found people along the way.
What if he had not met Lorelia in the Waiting Room? What if Elena had not come to find him? He would have lived a life where he met neither Estor nor Haryeong.
Perhaps he would have died within hours of transmigrating. Or perhaps, desperately trying to survive, he would have drifted through the gutters of the Black Path, just as the real Yuri had.
USAUSAMI.
He imagined Myou-hee’s life.
FS, Chuk-sin-doo, and Cat Panties had separated their real lives from the internet so thoroughly it was almost excessive.
They rarely shared private stories, except for things like soccer commentary or masturbation diaries. Yuri, or Lee Su-hyeok, simply had almost nothing from his real life worth talking about.
USAUSAMI was different. She complained every day about how hard life was. Then she came to another world.
A world with no company that made her work unpaid overtime every day, no superiors who dumped their work on her.
Like Lee Su-hyeok, USAUSAMI probably valued life in this world more than life on Earth. She would have tried to survive somehow, gain strength...
At least she had not become a follower of the Evil God.
The Demonic Cult was full of awful people, but it was still better than the Evil God. Tang Mu-seok, who had once made a name for himself through contract killings, had become the great hero One Good Deed a Day. If Myou-hee had thrown herself into the Demonic Cult, perhaps Ten Good Deeds a Day would be enough to...
“...?”
They had left Nakseong Cliff and were heading down the mountain when something lightly pricked at Yuri’s senses.
They had found traces of Myou-hee, but this was still a Rift. It was the sort of place where anything could happen. Mana could suddenly run wild before them, and a boss mob could appear.
Yuri had even encountered one of the Seven Evils who had gone into seclusion in Logos.
That was why he had kept Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death active. Something had touched the edge of the web he had spread out.
There was no need to flinch. There were plenty of yokai and adventurers here.
Since entering the Rift yesterday, he had sensed distant gazes observing them or people stumbling close without realizing it more than a hundred times.
This was different.
This gaze was focused precisely on them, and it was incomparably alien to anything he had sensed before.
What was that?
There was no time to judge. He could figure that out later. For now, he had to move faster.
“Run.”
He did not explain why. Yuri immediately pushed off the ground and shot forward.
The other two could not sense as far as Yuri could, so they looked startled for a moment. Still, trusting that he had a reason, they followed.
Their realms were not exactly equal, but all three were Sixth Tier. It would not be easy for someone to catch them from far away when they were deliberately using their lightness skills at full speed.
Sure enough, the gaze Yuri had felt at the edge of Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death was no longer following them.
Yuri relaxed at that thought. Then the edge of the web suddenly sensed a presence.
It was not behind them.
It was ahead.
Yuri stared wide-eyed into the distance.
He met the eyes of a man in a pitch-black robe and a golden official’s cap.
The moment a sticky darkness welled up from the depths of those gray eyes, Yuri instinctively understood who he was without introductions.
One of the Three Hegemons beneath the Martial Apex Venerable. The Dark King, Tang Yu-shin, leader of the Salmun and head of the Dang Family.
Without speaking, he raised a pale finger. The movement was hesitant and slow, as though it had been filmed in slow motion. It did not fit with the world around him.
The instant that movement imprinted itself in Yuri’s mind, something shot from Tang Yu-shin’s sleeve.
An Ox-Hair Needle, the most common and basic concealed weapon. A needle thinner than a chopstick rushed at Yuri.
Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death. The web was pierced the moment he read the movement. Yuri immediately countered with the Blood Wheel Soul-Locking Palm.
A spinning crimson vortex pulverized the needle.
It had only been a warning to stop, and only one needle at that. Yet it had moved too quickly for a Sixth Tier martial artist to read, and Yuri had destroyed it head-on. Interest flashed through Tang Yu-shin’s eyes.
What should I do? Stop? Turn and run? Or charge straight through?
Three choices flashed through Yuri’s mind in an instant, and Tang Yu-shin moved his hand again.
He still held his hand out in front of himself. His wide, fluttering sleeve was full of a sticky darkness that concealed its interior. At its center floated a single pale hand, like the hand of a ghost.
That hand slowly turned in a circle. When the back of it tilted downward, three needles were gripped between Tang Yu-shin’s fingers.
This time, he did not throw them straight at Yuri. He cast them upward. His arm moved slowly, but the concealed weapons did not leave his hand slowly. They soared high enough to vanish from Yuri’s sight in an instant.
Yuri focused Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death, staying on guard as he searched for Tang Yu-shin’s next attack.
Only the index finger extended from the empty hand. Its fingertip pointed at Yuri. Even at this distance, Yuri could clearly feel the killing intent contained in that finger.
The finger slowly pointed upward, then drew down.
Yuri did not keep running. He braked hard.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The three daggers dropped from above and buried themselves in the ground before Yuri’s feet.
“I am Tang Yu-shin.”
His low voice sounded as close as a whisper beside Yuri’s ear, cold as an ice awl drilling into bone. He slowly withdrew his extended hand and stood with his hands behind his back.
“I had hoped we might meet somewhere more suitable, but our circumstances did not align. So we have met in a place like this instead.”
Yuri did not answer. He watched Tang Yu-shin.
A figure who had been striding closer from afar stopped behind Tang Yu-shin.
The resemblance was obvious at a glance. There was something of Tang Seo-jin and Tang Seo-woo in his face as well. Yuri guessed he was Tang Yu-shin’s eldest son, the Dark Moon Lord, Tang Seo-baek.
“I am Tang Seo-baek.”
Yuri had been right. Tang Seo-baek smiled faintly and offered a martial salute. Yuri silently regarded the father and son from the Dang Family, then glanced to the side.
Haryeong’s face had gone stiff.
After standing that way for a moment, Haryeong barely managed to move her facial muscles and open her mouth.
“Did you truly come here to meet this younger sister of yours?”
Her voice came out from a feeling like someone scraping the bottom of her stomach. It was full of trembling, but Haryeong could barely recognize that trembling herself.
Tang Seo-jin and Tang Seo-woo had openly bullied the young Haryeong, but their bullying had been childish.
Back then, Haryeong had feared Tang Yu-shin more than their mistreatment. He had thoroughly watched from the sidelines and ignored her out of disgust.
Her paternal half-brother stood before her now.
“It has been a long time.”
Gray eyes turned toward Haryeong.
It had been Haryeong who mockingly told him to come in person if he had business with his younger sister. But she had never believed he actually would.
Tang Yu-shin was a Martial Apex Venerable. He was the leader of the Salmun. He was the head of the Dang Family. To the young Haryeong, he had seemed a man brimming with pride suited to his position from an early age.
They were paternal half-siblings. Neither of them had ever cared about that blood relation. To Haryeong, Tang Yu-shin had been the most frightening adult in the family. To Tang Yu-shin, Haryeong had been an insect unworthy of his attention.
Tang Yu-shin was not a man who would move in person just to see an insect. So she had thought. To avenge the humiliation of his child? That was exactly the sort of thing Tang Yu-shin would never do.
“It has been a long time, Aunt.”
Tang Seo-baek smiled and lowered his head. He was Haryeong’s nephew, ten years her senior.
Haryeong had left the Dang Family when she was fourteen. Tang Seo-baek had been twenty-four then, already past the age of twenty and building his reputation.
Back then, Tang Seo-baek had not been an object of fear to Haryeong like Tang Yu-shin and his other children.
After the Poison King became a poison creature and was imprisoned underground, following Qi Deviation compounded by an Inner Demon, Tang Seo-baek had been the kindest person to Haryeong.
“...It has been a long time.”
That was why Haryeong could not treat Tang Seo-baek as she did Tang Seo-jin and Tang Seo-woo.
At the moment of their reunion after fourteen years, Yuri did not step forward. Instead, he spread his qi senses wide.
Only Tang Yu-shin and Tang Seo-baek stood before them, but Yuri could sense Salmun assassins moving in the distance. As though preparing for every possibility, they had formed an encirclement and were slowly closing it.
“You use a mysterious martial art.”
Tang Yu-shin suddenly spoke.
“I was not being especially cautious, yet you perceived my gaze from that distance. That perception must come from your martial art. It does not seem to be purely martial, but it is very mysterious.”
Tang Yu-shin was the king of concealed weapons and the king of assassins. He could kill people more covertly than anyone else in the world, which was why he bore the title Dark King. Yet Yuri had read his gaze.
Tang Yu-shin had not been deliberately trying to hide himself, but a far weaker fighter had perceived his gaze from this distance.
It was something Tang Yu-shin had never experienced, so his eyes could not help but hold curiosity as he looked at Yuri.
“Is the Sword Emperor well?”
The Dark King’s eyes shifted to Estor.
“It has been a long time since I last saw him. Ah, I suppose this is our first meeting as well. I am Tang Yu-shin, head of the Dang Family.”
“...I am Estor Orsia.”
“The Sword Emperor last visited when the Sword Lord disappeared. We have heard no particular news on our end. Have you heard anything separately?”
“No.”
“How strange.”
Tang Yu-shin muttered, making it obvious that he had no interest at all in the Sword Lord’s whereabouts.
It was merely a topic to open conversation with Estor, whom he had met for the first time today. Estor sensed that as well and bit his lip.
“Now.”
Tang Yu-shin had met the Three Heroes, the subject of much public discussion. As a senior Martial Apex Venerable, he had exchanged enough formal words with them.
So he did not delay any longer and looked directly at Haryeong.
“I, the head of the family, have come here in person to take you back. Tang Yu-ryeon, what is your answer?”
Haryeong’s lips trembled. Without realizing it, she looked at Yuri.
Yuri was looking at Haryeong too.
Before Yuri could say anything, Haryeong hurriedly spoke.
“Sir Yuri.”
She suddenly spoke and put on her usual expression. But the expression she made was not her current usual expression. It was from the past, an emotionless face without even the faintest curve.
With that frozen face, Haryeong spoke.
“Thank you for everything until now. Since my elder brother, the head of the family, has come to find me in person, I suppose I have no choice but to return to the family.”
“Haryeong.”
“I had a good time because of you. I ate plenty of delicious things, saw many wonderful things, and had all sorts of experiences. Saying it like this makes it sound as though we will never meet again, but that will not happen. I will come find you after I finish the family’s business.”
Haryeong calmly took a dagger from her waist.
“I forgot to return the dagger I borrowed earlier.”
The hilt of the pure white White Fang came toward Yuri. Yuri stared at it for a moment, then nodded and took the dagger.
“See you next time.”
He understood why Haryeong was saying that. Yuri put White Fang inside his robe.
“Sir Estor, please take care of Sir Yuri.”
“...All right.”
“Do not go charging around recklessly just because I am not there.”
“Why would I go charging around?”
Ignoring Yuri’s incredulous response, Haryeong turned around. She took a deep breath, then approached Tang Yu-shin.
“There is something that must be corrected.”
Tang Yu-shin’s gaze upon his paternal half-sister, younger than his youngest daughter, held more emotion than the gaze Haryeong had received long ago when she had still been Tang Yu-ryeon.
At least those eyes were not looking at an insignificant insect.
“Tang Yu-ryeon, you cannot leave the Dang Family. Do not expect a reunion someday.”
Haryeong stopped dead.
“What?”
That did not sound like consideration to Yuri at all. He opened his eyes wide and asked.
“What is happening that she cannot leave the Dang Family?”
“It is an internal family matter.”
“What matter could possibly...!”
“It concerns our father, the Poison King.”
Tang Yu-shin’s attitude was utterly calm as he spoke of the family’s hidden affairs.
“My father became a poison creature that lost its sense of self more than twenty years ago. Now the end of his life is near.”
Haryeong’s shoulders trembled. One of her deepest wishes was to personally kill her father, the Poison King, who continued a life that was not truly living.
“Though he has fallen so low, a supreme poison fitting the title Poison King still runs through his body. As both his child and the head of the family that bears the Dang name, I have worked to ensure that his blood and flesh serve the glory of the Dang Family.”
Tang Yu-shin’s gray eyes turned to Haryeong.
“But as I said, Father’s end is near. At most, he may endure another half year. I have searched day and night for a way, but I could not find one that would completely preserve and multiply Father’s poison. At this point, only one method remains.”
“...”
“My younger sister, Tang Yu-ryeon, carries the blood Father possessed before becoming a poison creature, from when he was a Poison Human infused with a supreme poison. Therefore, Tang Yu-ryeon has the duty to inherit Father’s poison for the Dang Family.”
Tang Yu-shin looked at Haryeong as though this were only natural.
“You were supposed to die twenty years ago, but you did not. Father’s will saved you, and I agreed. The Dang Family showed you mercy and granted you this reprieve. Tang Yu-ryeon, it is time for you to repay it.”
She had been a lowly thing who should have died without even a name.
The Dang Family had granted her its surname.
Now, with that name far beyond her station, she was to offer her blood and flesh for the Dang Family.
How glorious.
Footnotes:
An imugi is a Korean mythical serpent-like creature, often associated with dragons.
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