Damned Transmigration - Chapter 22

WeTried Translations

Translator: Joy

Editor: Joy

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Damned Transmigration ◈

Chapter 22: Orca

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Floating Clouds Wander.

Clouds drift freely across the vast sky.

Cloud and Wind Dance.

The wind follows the clouds. The clouds scatter and dance with the wind.

Dark Cloud Connecting the Moon.

Clouds cover the dark sky. Spreading far and wide, they swallow the moon.

Thunder Cloud Dragon Fang.

From clouds boiling with thunder, a dragon bares its fangs.

“These four forms make up the Fist of the Rending Cloud.”

Bakerd spoke after spending several hours focused on the manual.

“Though it is called a fist technique, you need not use only your fists. At times, use your hands. At times, your fists. Freedom is what the manual emphasizes, so do not be bound by the name or framework of a fist technique.”

Yuri listened while lying on the floor in an impudent pose. He could not help it. Bakerd had worked him mercilessly for hours under the pretense of external training.

“Unlike mages, martial artists store internal energy in the dantian and spread it through the meridians to generate strength. If one’s internal energy is deep enough, even a woman with delicate hands can bring down a mountain with a single punch.”

Bakerd folded his arms as he looked down at Yuri, who was breathing heavily.

“But do not rely on internal energy alone. When internal energy is equal, life and death are decided by external training and one’s martial attainment.”

“...”

“Train hard. Do not try to wriggle out of it by drawing on that shallow internal energy of yours.”

“I didn’t slack off.”

Yuri abruptly sat up and grumbled. He had faithfully used honorifics until now because Bakerd was much older and teaching him martial arts, but he was so exhausted that his speech came out awkwardly curt.

“I did everything you told me to. The running, and those things over there.”

The training equipment Bakerd had brought was piled in one corner of the garden. It was the sort of equipment Lee Su-hyeok had seen while looking around gyms a few times.

“I did it all. Just like you said. No slacking. No internal energy.”

“Good.”

“But muscles don’t grow quickly just because you work hard, do they?”

“Did you bite your tongue while exercising? Your way of speaking is strange.”

“I didn’t.”

Yuri quickly corrected his tone.

“What I mean is, I exercised a little when I was in Oldor, too. I did not have internal energy then, and I could not learn martial arts, so I was trying to bulk up a little. But I had trouble putting on muscle.”

“What do you think is the greatest difference between then and now?”

“Internal energy?”

Yuri tilted his head, unsure whether that was the right answer. Bakerd stroked his beard and nodded.

“Correct. Now that your dantian has opened and you possess internal energy, you are a completely different person from who you once were.”

“...”

“If you train your external arts and the Fist of the Rending Cloud every day, and cultivate your heart technique, your body will naturally grow into one suited to the martial path you seek. Even I did not have a body like this before I entered martial arts.”

That was true. Seronis was not kind enough to provide illustrations, but Bakerd as a game NPC had not been as heavily muscled as he was now.

“Yuri. How old are you?”

“I am twenty.”

“I was twenty-four when I first learned the Diamond-Shattering Fist.”

“Why did you learn a fist technique?”

Yuri took the opportunity to ask.

“Haryeong told me that, even twenty years ago, you belonged to the Sairan city guard and used a spear.”

Bakerd stared at Yuri for a moment without answering.

Assassination and information were inseparable, so it was no surprise that an assassin of Salhomun knew about something from twenty years ago.

Perhaps they connected the tragedy of the Raspion Family to the fact that Bakerd, once a city guard, had cast aside his spear and become a wanderer. But there was no way they could know Bakerd was an illegitimate son of the Raspion Family.

“You do not need to know.”

Even if they had reached that conclusion, Bakerd would not acknowledge it.

He had no intention of revealing an old secret to Yuri, whom he was only teaching out of a passing interest.

‘We are not close enough yet.’

Bakerd had softened compared to when Yuri saw him at the auction, so Yuri had tried probing him. It seemed it was still too soon.

‘If it comes to it, I’ll have to look into it myself.’

Yuri massaged his aching thigh as he thought that.

“Have you rested enough?”

“Pardon?”

“You seem to have rested enough. Stand up.”

It was not the sort of atmosphere where Yuri could say no. Bakerd raised both fists before him.

“You are not suggesting a spar, are you?”

“I will not use internal energy.”

“Ha.”

“I will attack with Cloud and Wind Dance. You will deal with my attacks using Floating Clouds Wander.”

Bakerd told him which technique he would use before moving his fists. He would not use internal energy, and he put almost no strength into his punches.

Even so, the movements of his fists were eerie and strange. They swayed slowly, not fast at all, yet Yuri could not read them.

‘There are only two fists.’

Now he understood why Bakerd told him to face it with Floating Clouds Wander. While Cloud and Wind Dance focused on bewildering changes, Floating Clouds Wander was relaxed and gentle.

It was also the form Yuri was most familiar with.

Yuri carefully extended his left hand to meet Bakerd’s fist. It was not easy. He still could not see the movement.

Before becoming Yuri, he had learned about fighting with Lorelia for a long time. It helped Yuri greatly now, but he needed more than that.

‘I have to read the changing trajectory, see through what is hidden and unseen, and predict where it will move next.’

He thought he was familiar with Floating Clouds Wander, but he had been mistaken. This form was meant to divert or deflect the enemy’s attack, then drive in his own fist.

There was far too much he needed to master before he could fulfill those conditions.

‘Floating Clouds Wander is the first form of the Fist of the Rending Cloud. It represents what this fist technique truly is.’

The foundation of foundations, and its essence.

That was why it was difficult. If he could not do this, the other forms were out of the question.

The game had not implemented individual forms.

The martial art learned by UrMumSpammer, Lee Su-hyeok’s character, was simply called the Fist of the Rending Cloud.

Learning it greatly increased agility, and it also gave an additional evasion bonus beyond the stat effect. When activated, it raised evasion chance by a percentage, and every successful evasion dealt counter damage proportional to the opponent’s level and attack power.

Agility and evasion rate were extremely important to UrMumSpammer, who did not wear armor, so Yuri had initially filled his build with skills that granted agility, evasion, and counterattacks.

That left him lacking decisive attack power, and he was far too helpless against enemies like Heavenly Thunder Orca, who was immune to physical attacks, or enemies who used magic instead of physical attacks.

In the end, Yuri dropped the Fist of the Rending Cloud while refining his build. There was a limit to the number of skills he could learn in the game, so it could not be helped.

What about here?

Unlike in the game, he did not think he would lack attack power. Yuri had the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil in addition to the Fist of the Rending Cloud. He had yet to use it in real combat, but he also had an offensive technique called Sacred Flame Release.

If he steadily advanced through the martial tiers and became capable of forming force aura, he would make up for his attack power even further.

‘There are no agility stats here, no evasion bonuses. No evasion or counterattacks that activate by chance.’

He had to do everything himself.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Bakerd’s fists kept slipping past Yuri’s arms and tapping his chest. Yuri still had not managed to deflect those slow changes even once.

He did not grow impatient. Yuri concentrated and watched how Bakerd’s fists moved.

Clouds follow the wind. The two fists were clouds and wind. One moved in response to the other. Everything was connected.

This was a dance.

‘What about me?’

Floating Clouds Wander.

Clouds drift freely through the vast sky. Freedom was the essence of the Fist of the Rending Cloud.

Was Yuri free?

His body was stiff. His arms moved slowly, as though something blocked them. What about his eyes? His mind?

‘Freedom? How?’

It did not mean wildly swinging his fists on his own. He had even been told beforehand how Bakerd would attack.

Yet he was still constrained.

Could he remain free in a real fight where lives were at stake?

[Standing on the ground, one looks up at the sky. A sky filled with clouds seems terribly low. Rising into the sky and standing among the clouds, the ground remains far below. The sky is never low.]

The same scenery changed depending on where and how one looked at it.

‘Ah.’

The first thing constraining him was his eyes.

His eyes were deceived by the bewildering changes. He was looking only at the fists.

That was wrong.

Yuri was not facing fists. He was facing a person.

He looked at the whole. Beyond the fists, he saw forearms, shoulders, chest, waist, knees, feet, and even Bakerd’s gaze.

All that information connected in Yuri’s head.

‘The sky is space.’

The space in which the fists moved was the sky of the Fist of the Rending Cloud. That sky broadened or narrowed depending on how Yuri moved.

‘Freely within my own range.’

It was an entirely different feeling from using skills with a mouse and keyboard.

Something he had never done in his life, never wanted to do, never thought he could do, and had not even known existed.

But why was this unfamiliar thing so enjoyable and exciting?

“Ha.”

Bakerd’s fist lightly touched Yuri’s fist.

‘I see.’

Now Yuri understood the importance of external training. They had only lightly touched, but if this had been a real fight, Yuri’s fist would have shattered.

‘It touched, but I lost. No, I died.’

That was what would have happened in a real fight.

“Ha ha...”

Yuri laughed without realizing it.

‘What’s with this bastard...?’

Bakerd could not laugh. He stared wide-eyed at their touching fists. In a real fight, it would have ended there. Bakerd knew that, but it was not important right now.

Bakerd was no more familiar with the Cloud and Wind Dance of the Fist of the Rending Cloud than Yuri was. He had merely studied the manual closely and copied the forms, with no depth behind them.

But Fist Wolf Bakerd was a sixth-tier martial artist. Though he had only seen and copied the forms today, his understanding of martial arts, especially fist techniques, had already reached a profound level.

He had told Yuri to try facing him with Floating Clouds Wander, but he never thought Yuri would manage it. He was not doing this merely to torment Yuri. Bakerd believed that a master personally holding back and facing someone with nothing but forms would surely allow Yuri to gain something simply from the experience.

But this bastard had gained far too much.

It was only natural that Yuri could not read, see through, or predict the movements.

‘He read it.’

Not perfectly. But Yuri had clumsily read the changing trajectory. Before Bakerd’s fist could touch him, Yuri stopped it with his own fist.

In a real fight, Yuri would have given up his fist and avoided death.

“Ha... Hahaha.”

Bakerd laughed belatedly. A cold sweat ran down his spine.

Someone who had entered martial arts only yesterday...

‘At the end, he even mixed in footwork.’

Yesterday, Bakerd saw Yuri use footwork on his own while practicing Floating Clouds Wander. He had wondered whether Yuri could use it even during a spar.

‘He did it.’

Bakerd had thought of testing him, but he did not expect much.

That was why his astonishment was so great now.

‘It is different from Whirlwind Cloud Steps. But the essence is the same. Pure footwork added because it was needed.’

Bakerd stared at their touching fists for a moment, then nodded slightly and withdrew his fist.

“Yuri.”

“Yes?”

Yuri hurriedly wiped the grin off his face.

‘He is not going to scold me for laughing so arrogantly, is he?’

Now that he had felt it, Yuri knew one hit from Bakerd’s fist would hurt like fucking hell.

“If you use all four forms of the Fist of the Rending Cloud to face my fists, I will give you a gift.”

“A gift?”

“Yes. Do not ask what it is.”

Bakerd grinned and stepped back a few paces, raising his fists again as before.

“Let us try again. I will attack with Cloud and Wind Dance...”

“I will face it with Floating Clouds Wander.”

The word gift made Yuri’s heart race, even though he did not know what it would be.

Yuri had lost his parents at a young age and rarely received gifts in his life. That made it all the more meaningful.

The fists became clouds and drifted.

* * *

There was a song that had been popular a few years ago about how twenty-four hours were not enough.

It was about time with a lover passing so quickly that a day felt too short, but Yuri did not have enough hours because he had too much to do.

Every morning, he woke early and practiced energy circulation and breathing.

Prepare Elena’s breakfast.

External training.

Fist technique practice.

Sparring with Bakerd.

More external training.

Prepare Elena’s dinner.

Fist technique practice.

Review the sparring and meditate.

Energy circulation and breathing.

Elena insisted she could take care of her own meals, but Yuri stubbornly prepared breakfast and dinner. Taking care of meals did not take long, nor was it difficult.

And Yuri simply enjoyed eating with Elena.

“Your results are coming quickly because you work hard.”

Haryeong, who said she was free while Elena was at the mage tower, came to see Yuri every day, even if only briefly, to watch his external training.

“You have gained quite a bit of muscle, too.”

“Please stop watching.”

“Someone would think you were exercising naked. It is not like you will wear out from being watched, so why does it matter? It is not as if I am watching the Fist of the Rending Cloud.”

“It makes me self-conscious.”

“I am fine, so you need not be self-conscious. Now, thirty seconds have passed. Again. One, two...”

Haryeong, said to be a cold and terrifying assassin, truly had neither blood nor tears. By the time Yuri finished his external training to her count, noon arrived and Bakerd came.

“Then I will be going.”

After Haryeong left, Yuri performed the forms of the Fist of the Rending Cloud before Bakerd.

“Your shoulders are stiff.”

“I did shoulder exercises earlier.”

“Do not talk nonsense. Relax.”

After Yuri performed the forms, it was Bakerd’s turn.

“Your shoulders are stiff.”

“...”

“They are not stiff. That is just muscle.”

After watching Bakerd’s forms and reviewing his own, they sparred.

“Cloud and Wind Dance, then Thunder Cloud Dragon Fang.”

“I will face them with Dark Cloud Connecting the Moon.”

“Why not use Floating Clouds Wander?”

“Why?”

“You are not good at Dark Cloud Connecting the Moon.”

“I have improved since yesterday. I might receive that gift today.”

“Only your nonsense has improved.”

Before Elena returned, Yuri washed, prepared dinner, and ate with her.

Then he refined his fist technique in his room, reviewed the day, meditated, and practiced energy circulation and breathing.

He lay in bed and slept as though he had fainted.

He lived that way for a month, though not every day. Overworking the body was not good, so Yuri rested thoroughly one day each week.

On those days, Yuri left the estate alone and wandered around the city. He bought himself food, looked through shops, and walked the streets.

He also went to the library many times and stayed there for long hours.

He learned about the tragedy that had shaken Sairan twenty years ago.

‘The Raspion Tragedy.’

An old, distinguished family had been annihilated overnight, and the family’s secret sword technique had been lost.

Twenty years had passed, but the culprits had not been identified.

There were only suspicions that the three culprits themselves might have been transmigrators.

‘A sword, magic, and a spear...’

All common things in this world.

‘Only Bakerd survived.’

The game and reality were different.

In the game, Yuri needed an insignia that Bakerd dropped at random to enter the hidden Raspion Family field.

But in reality, the Raspion Family was neither a hidden field nor anything of the sort. Even without an insignia, anyone with enough strength could simply force their way in.

‘Could it have been FS?’

FUCKINGSEXY.

Of the transmigrators Yuri knew, only FS used the Raspion Family’s secret sword style as a main skill. But that alone could not confirm that FS had slaughtered the Raspion Family twenty years ago.

The secret Raspion sword style was famous in the community as a high-value skill. It was entirely possible that another transmigrator had done it.

‘If it was FS...’

Would Chuk-sin-doo, who openly used his own real name, know anything?

If FS had annihilated the Raspion Family, a renowned sword clan, and even had companions traveling with him, then perhaps FS had come into contact with Chuk-sin-doo.

There was no way to confirm it.

Bakerd remained in Rutlan to duel Chuk-sin-doo.

He hid the fact that he was an illegitimate son of the Raspion Family.

The duel with Chuk-sin-doo was Bakerd’s own desire, unrelated to the family.

Yuri stopped making premature guesses. If he needed to uncover the truth later, he could ask Chuk-sin-doo once he had enough strength.

‘But is this bastard even coming?’

Elena had told him Chuk-sin-doo might come as a guest of the Ascard Family, but the man had not set a date. Was he really going to come?

The month Bakerd promised to teach Yuri had passed. Yet Bakerd came again the next day as if it were only natural.

“Moonlit Reveller has not arrived yet.”

“It seems you want to give me a gift one way or another.”

“Do you not want it?”

“Of course I do.”