WeTried Translations
Translator: Joy
Editor: Joy
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Damned Transmigration ◈
Chapter 52: Growth
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“So you did hear it.”
Yuri glared at Haryeong with a twisted expression. When it came down to it, this was all because that fucking Blood Fiend had left behind bullshit as its dying words.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Maybe I shouldn't have said it through Voice Transmission. Should I say it loudly instead?”
Haryeong spoke expressionlessly. Yuri's eyebrow twitched, and Haryeong's eyebrow moved in exactly the same way.
The killing intent creeping toward her was unmistakable. From the scent of blood lingering in that dull killing intent, Haryeong could guess at the two years Yuri had lived through.
Thunder Cloud.
It wasn't a title famous enough to circulate far and wide, but it was gradually spreading through the Black Path.
In the daylight, he hunted wanted criminals. In the shadows, he was known as a fixer. Stand-in duels over petty disputes, conflicts between Black Path sects, anything involving a fight, the young martial artist was always involved.
There were far too many third-tier and fourth-tier martial artists in the world.
It was a world where one needed strength to survive, and the more strength one had, the more one could gain and accomplish.
Those with some physical prowess learned martial arts, while those with a knack for using their heads learned magic. Of the two, martial arts were especially accessible. Even without a proper martial arts manual, someone could take their first steps as a martial artist by picking up a cheap sword. If they possessed exceptional talent, killing several people with that sword might bring them enlightenment and awaken their internal energy.
Of course, such cases were exceedingly rare. The vast majority either made a living by the sword before learning cheap martial arts, or joined a third-rate sect that blindly sought to swell its ranks and began learning third-rate martial arts.
That was how they were filtered.
Those truly lacking talent died while stuck at the second tier. Those who somehow survived gained experience and reached the third tier, then spent the rest of their lives at the fourth tier, the limit of an ordinary person.
Yet Yuri had only just entered his twenties and was already a fourth-tier martial artist, even a martial fighter at that.
The Black Path sects that gave Thunder Cloud commissions had two motives. Half wanted to test his ability before recruiting him, while the other half intended to crush him before he grew any further.
He had survived all of it.
For Haryeong, who remembered what Yuri had been like at the mansion two years ago, the killing intent he now emitted couldn't help but stir complicated feelings.
“I'm not asking because I intend to threaten you, so let's not give off killing intent between friends.”
“Anyone would take that as a threat.”
“Maybe you've forgotten what kind of person I am after two years. That was just a joke.”
That was probably true.
Yuri relaxed his frown and withdrew his killing intent. If Haryeong had truly intended to blackmail him with Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art, she wouldn't have come all this way alone.
“I don't think that's a question I need to answer. I have no reason to.”
“It's disappointing when friends have secrets.”
“You have quite a few secrets too, don't you?”
“Then shall we exchange secrets?”
“You may have many secrets, but I doubt they're as weighty as mine.”
“Aren't you curious whether I'm older or younger than you?”
“I'm certain you're older.”
Yuri still didn't know Haryeong's exact age, but considering she was at the fifth tier, he was certain she had to be older.
“Then why don't you call me noona?”
“Haryeong-noona.”
Once he said it, it felt like something he shouldn't be saying. He had almost never used the word noona in his life, and it didn't sit right on his tongue. It felt as rough as chewing sand.
“Ugh.”
Haryeong didn't like it either. Her expressionless face rarely showed anything so openly, yet now it was plainly scrunched up.
“Let's not do that.”
“Yes.”
“But why are you so certain I'm older? Does my face look that old?”
“No.”
Judging by appearances alone, she might even look younger than him.
The Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.
It wasn't a question that had come out of nowhere. Ever since the Blood Fiend left that fucking dying message two years ago, Yuri had known he would eventually face something like this.
Even among Martial Apex Venerables, the Heavenly Demon was an existence beyond reach. The Demonic Cult itself was powerful enough to be compared with organizations such as the Black Dragon Society and the Righteous Heavenly Alliance, but the name Heavenly Demon carried immense weight even apart from the cult.
And that Heavenly Demon had accepted a disciple.
No one knew exactly when it had happened, but various rumors already existed about the Heavenly Demon’s mysterious disciple.
“You said you transmigrated at twenty... I mean, after the Black Snake Gang was attacked. Honestly, I find that difficult to believe. No matter how talented a transmigrator may be, reaching the fourth tier less than half a year after first entering martial arts?”
There were many things to consider.
A fourth-tier martial artist couldn't use force aura. That could be explained by Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art, but when and how had Yuri learned such a divine art in the first place?
“I've never lied.”
His killing intent had receded, but his gaze remained fierce.
‘I'd better not ask any further.’
There was clearly something there, but persistently digging into a past Yuri didn't wish to discuss would be cruel.
Haryeong shrugged.
“My mistake.”
“You fucking bastards!”
The reply to her apology came from the side.
The clerk whom Haryeong had struck with her bead earlier was glaring at them while standing on one leg. Several rough-looking people stood around the clerk with weapons drawn.
“If you came to eat, you should've quietly eaten and left. What kind of trouble are you causing here?”
“It seems there's some misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding? What misunderstanding?”
“The one causing trouble wasn't me...”
Yuri let out a long sigh and stood.
It wasn't as though they would respond to their claims of innocence and misunderstanding by saying, “Is that so?” and leaving. Now that things had come to this, they would cling to any excuse and extort something from them.
So Yuri kicked the nearest person in the leg.
“Argh!”
The large person rolled across the floor, clutching a broken leg and screaming.
“Argh! Argh! Argh!”
The screams continued one after another.
“Let's go.”
Haryeong blinked and looked down.
All five people who had surrounded the table had each had one leg neatly broken.
“You've become rather decisive since I last saw you.”
“This happened because you did something unnecessary.”
“I never asked you to resolve it. If you'd left them alone, I would've handled them.”
Yuri walked out as though it were natural, without even paying for the meal. No one in the restaurant tried to stop him.
“Were you always like this, or did you change during the past two years?”
“I changed.”
“Will you accept my apology?”
“For now. If you keep doing this, we can't be friends.”
Yuri didn't want to kill Haryeong.
Two years had passed, but the time he had spent in Rutlan remained a precious memory to him.
Even if it had ended in disaster.
“I want to become close friends with you too, so I won't ask any more questions.”
If she kept digging, they would truly become enemies. Her wish to become closer to him was, at least for now, close to sincere, so Haryeong decided to set aside her curiosity.
Asking openly about the Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult and Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art had been a great gamble for Haryeong as well. If she only wanted to maintain a stable relationship, she could have treated it as something she hadn't heard and ignored it, just as she had two years ago.
But she didn't want to do that.
It was something Haryeong had learned from the disaster two years ago.
A relationship built on lies wouldn't end well.
She didn't know whether the martial art Yuri had learned was Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art. She didn't know where he had learned it, either. But it did seem to be a martial art whose origins couldn't be clearly revealed.
It was something that needed to be addressed. And if Yuri had pushed her away, what would she have done? She had come all this way to find him, so would she have clung to him?
‘Ah, is that so.’
Would she have said that and withdrawn? And what if Yuri had tried to kill her to silence her?
“Yuri.”
She didn't dwell any longer on things that hadn't happened. Haryeong caught up to Yuri, who was walking ahead, and lowered her voice.
“I'm from the Dang Family.”
“...?”
It was a sudden confession.
Yuri turned back, startled. Haryeong's face was the same as always. Yuri stared at her for a moment before opening his mouth.
“I know.”
Yuri had heard the words the Blood Fiend had directed at Haryeong.
“Yes?”
She had made up her mind to confess, only to receive that response.
“If you knew, why did you pretend not to know until now?”
“I thought you had a reason for keeping it secret.”
“That's right.”
“So I didn't ask further.”
“To think you'd make me look like trash for prying by mastering the principle of yielding to such an extreme.”
Wouldn't most people at least probe a little?
‘Maybe it's because he has so many secrets of his own that he doesn't pry into unnecessary things.’
She was a little flustered, but this level of appropriate distance was something Haryeong wanted as well. Just as Yuri had no intention of revealing Heavenly Demon’s Divine Art or his other secrets, Haryeong had no desire to chatter endlessly about the Dang Family.
To Haryeong, the Dang Family was a family she loathed and resented, one she would completely cut ties with if she could.
But she couldn't.
* * *
Of the five districts outside the central district, District 3, where Yuri and Haryeong were staying, could be called neutral territory.
It was still lawless, so public safety was poor. But corpses didn't lie scattered through the streets.
The worst of the lower districts was not District 5, but District 4.
Unlike District 5, which continued expanding rather than driving out migrants with their own circumstances, District 4 was even more closed off than the central district.
Yuri had made it as far as District 3, but he had never even entered District 4. Its residents had built walls around the district's outskirts and excluded outsiders.
District 4 was a place of vicious laws born from lawlessness.
“I'm really having a hard time here.”
The next day, Guzen looked miserable.
“A District 4 entry pass isn't as easy to get as you two think. There's far less supply than demand for these passes. More shady people want to enter closed-off District 4 than you think...”
“Did you only half-listen to what I said yesterday?”
Now that Haryeong knew he had already learned her identity, she no longer hid it. She openly took out the Scorpion Dagger and waved it before Guzen.
“No, that's not it. I'm not saying I couldn't get one. I did get it...”
Guzen immediately tucked his tail between his legs.
“But it's not as though I obtained it for free...”
In the end, he was asking for payment.
“Would you have charged me even if I cleaned up the shit in District 5 for you?”
“Well, I have business ethics too, so I wouldn't have charged you much. Thunder Cloud, didn't you come here after hearing about it from Roichi? Not just anyone can get one of these entry passes. Only someone like me, a Haomun branch leader, can obtain one.”
Haryeong was about to say something, but Yuri raised a hand to stop her.
With an indifferent expression, he pulled the bag from his back to the front, opened it before Guzen, and began rummaging through it.
“A friend with business ethics, huh.”
Guzen's face brightened when he saw Yuri taking out money, but it crumpled the moment he saw what was placed on the desk.
At a glance, it didn't look like even 100,000 sel.
“Fuck, are you joking? Do you even know how much a single entry pass costs?”
“Yuri, aren't you giving him too much?”
Guzen's head snapped around at that.
Thunk!
The Scorpion Dagger embedded itself in the desk.
“...”
Guzen swallowed the curses rising in his throat and stared at the Scorpion Dagger.
Then a thought occurred to him.
Was it real?
Only direct descendants of the Dang Family could possess the Scorpion Dagger. The Dang Family was such a secretive family that almost nothing was known about its lineage, but was it not excessively humiliating for someone who was, at least in name, a Haomun branch leader to tuck his tail merely because of a dagger?
“Do you doubt me?”
The whisper made Guzen's spine chill.
At some point, Haryeong had moved to stand beside him.
Whether the Scorpion Dagger was genuine or not, the woman beside him was unquestionably a fifth-tier assassin. If he still had doubts, he could let them leave first and investigate afterward. If he dug around, he would find something more.
“N-No, of course not.”
For now, the pressing matter was getting rid of these thugs. Guzen looked away from the Scorpion Dagger and opened a drawer.
“What did you do?”
After leaving the old brothel, Yuri held the black coin that served as a District 4 entry pass to the light. The densely carved intaglio changed with the light, making it seem difficult to forge.
“You saw?”
Haryeong's eyebrows rose, as though she was slightly surprised.
“You sprinkled something.”
“Your eyes are still remarkably sharp.”
An ordinary martial artist wouldn't have noticed. Thinking so, Haryeong shrugged.
“Poison.”
“Poison?”
“I find poison cowardly, so I don't particularly like using it. But I'm an assassin who uses it when necessary.”
She had warned Guzen to take the secret to the grave, but judging from how he had inspected the dagger at the end, he didn't seem like someone who would heed that warning.
So she used poison.
Fourth-tier One-Eyed Badger Guzen would die that night without even realizing he had been poisoned.
“My principle is not to kill outside of work, but thanks to you, I've broken that rule.”
“Will there be trouble if he dies?”
“I killed him because his death won't cause trouble. It's also because of the kind of place this is.”
Haomun was a faction of people who were scorned, but sharing the same circumstances didn't mean they shared close bonds or loyalty. If anything, because they possessed nothing and were filled with resentment from being despised, they stabbed each other in the back.
This was especially true of the lower districts, which could barely be called part of the city. From District 3 onward, most residents were people unable to live in the daylight, people who treated disorder as ordinary life. Haomun in another city might have affection and loyalty, but such things didn't exist here.
If Guzen died that night, some underling whose name no one knew would be holding a drinking party and thinking, ‘I'm finally becoming branch leader.’
“District 4 will be more dangerous than this place. Wouldn't it be better to turn back now?”
“If you don't want to go, go back. I'll go alone.”
“How can I send a friend alone to a dangerous place? I, Haryeong, am not such a heartless person.”
“I'm going to do a lot of dangerous things there.”
“Didn't you say you were looking for cultists? Well, that certainly is dangerous.”
“Do cultists become easy to find just because you're looking for them?”
“That's exactly it. So Yuri, what sort of plan do you...?”
Haryeong abruptly fell silent.
Her eyes widened as she stared at Yuri's face.
“Wow.”
Still unable to compose her surprise, Haryeong let out an exclamation without realizing it.
The face beneath Yuri's lowered hood had changed completely from a moment ago.
“Body-and-Face Transformation?”
“I can't change my body, only my face.”
“Even Face-Changing Art is a martial art that's difficult to obtain. Where did you get it?”
“I made it.”
Changing his physique was impossible, but after working on it for over a year, he had learned how to change his face.
‘He made it...?’
It hardly seemed believable, but Haryeong had known since two years ago that Yuri's talent for martial arts was far from ordinary.
She let out a deep sigh and muttered.
“Unfortunately, I don't know how to use Face-Changing Art.”
“I can teach it to you. Would you like to learn?”
“I don't think I could use it right after learning it, so I'll just wear a mask.”
District 4 was so closed off that even information from inside didn't leak out. Without an entry pass, one couldn't even enter.
Conversely, anyone with an entry pass could enter.
It didn't matter if they hid their face or concealed their name. An entry pass was enough.
“But Yuri, setting me aside, you came here through an introduction, didn't you?”
“That's right. Roichi is a low-ranking Haomun member I often dealt with several months before coming here.”
“Seeing that you even learned Face-Changing Art, you don't seem to want anyone following your trail. Is this Roichi trustworthy?”
“I killed him.”
“What?”
“He promised to write me a letter of introduction, then kept bitching for money, so I killed him. Why are Haomun people so crazy about money?”
Yuri grumbled as he pulled his hood back down.
“Wow.”
He had killed Roichi and gotten rid of him. Hearing him say something like that as though it were nothing, Haryeong realized Elena was not the only one who had become twisted over the past two years.
“You really have become decisive.”
ㅡI hadn't expected him to become this decisive.
Had ten minutes even passed since they entered District 4?
“Argh! Fuck!”
“Ughhh...”
It was self-defense, though Yuri had blatantly led them into it.
An excessively closed-off lawless district meant filth worse than garbage had gathered there.
Of course, people lived here too, so there were likely unspoken rules and customs understood among the filth. But such rules never applied to newcomers.
An assassin skilled at concealing her presence.
For some reason, a martial fighter whose internal energy couldn't be sensed at all.
Returning to Simplicity was a realm attained at the seventh tier. That meant reaching the level of a Martial Apex Venerable. Such an extraordinary person would never honestly present an entry pass and walk into District 4.
In other words, these two newcomers were easy marks.
No one knew why they had drifted here, but if they had made it this far, they were filth with no one who would come after them...
“First time here?”
“Big brother will show you around.”
“Come on, don't be so tense. Try to run, and you die.”
Five people surrounded them with snickers.
Another five waited at the entrance to the junkyard where they had been guided.
All ten pieces of filth ended up with one crippled leg each that day.
‘Fifth tier?’
Haryeong was fifth tier as well.
Coldly speaking, her martial ability was above average even among fifth-tier martial artists. Because of the nature of the martial arts she had learned, she was weaker in a direct fight. But if it was a fight to the death where fairness didn't matter and she had to kill her opponent, she was confident she could kill anyone of the same tier, or at least cripple them.
‘This is fifth tier?’
He was right beside her.
Since Yuri calmly followed the pieces of filth who openly acted tough, Haryeong assumed he had some plan and didn't intervene.
The ambushers revealed themselves, and the people guiding them blocked their retreat.
Yuri moved.
Haryeong couldn't follow that movement with her eyes.
When her gaze caught up a moment later, what she saw was a person's leg snapping.
Footnotes:
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