WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
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◈ I Became the Mad Demon in a Novel ◈
Chapter 30: Peach Blossom Curse
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Our surroundings rippled with a translucent blue curtain.
It was the Flying Sword Empress Yeowol’s Sword-Mystic Pure Qi Art.
Now I knew what it meant to spread qi arts like a curtain and block every sound around us.
A fully matured master of Five Qi Returning to the Origin. A martial artist whose title stood proudly among the Hundred Greatest Masters Under Heaven.
Yeowol’s face had already returned to its usual indifference.
“You. You’re the Mad Demon.”
Her voice was flat, drained of all emotion.
She couldn’t have said that because she genuinely hadn’t known I was the Mad Demon.
“...So quickly. You’ve ended up just like that person, the Northern Emperor.”
I thought I could understand some of the helplessness behind those words.
“People like you... You really make a person feel sick... No, insignificant, I suppose.”
Yeowol’s expressionless face slowly sank out of my view.
She had dropped to her knees.
“I was wrong. I’ll never call you a Galler again. I’ll see you only as the Venerable of the Hundred Thousand Mountains, worthy of your fearsome name. I was trying to survive... I just wanted to live.”
Yeowol stared blankly up at me.
“I lost my mind for a moment. No, I forgot. Instead of seeing you purely as the Mad Demon, I was just happy and excited to meet you... I forgot this cruel gap between us for a moment. Please spare me. Please let me live. Ah...”
Blood streamed from her nose.
The spiritual energy of Demon Calamity Snow Domain was still swirling around us.
That snow-white mist had broken through the curtain of Sword-Mystic Pure Qi Art with ridiculous ease.
“...”
What expression was I wearing as I looked down at her?
Probably nothing but indifference, without a trace of emotion. Just like the Mad Demon.
But my honest feelings were quite complicated.
Did it feel good?
Of course. After everything this bastard had put me through?
She’d grabbed me when I knew nothing and told me to get stabbed, to jump off a cliff.
As if that weren’t enough, she’d even demanded Silent Aeon Demon Soul, my very lifeline, as collateral.
Now that our positions had reversed, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t satisfying.
And yet.
That satisfaction wasn’t all I felt.
The person who’d been swearing freely at me just moments ago was now groveling, unable even to raise her head.
Her words were all about survival. She no longer treated me as a Galler.
Even though she knew perfectly well that I was a modern person possessing Yuk Jin-gwang, someone who’d been unlucky enough to fall into a martial arts world, just like her.
The Mad Demon.
Right now, that name alone filled her gloomy eyes.
I’d thought being the Mad Demon would leave me drunk on victory.
Instead, it felt like someone had dumped sewage over my head.
‘...’
If every surge of the Mad Demon’s pride in my heart came with this feeling that my own existence was being denied...
Could someone like me really endure this martial arts world?
“Fuck.”
I cleared the madness from my eyes.
Yeowol looked up at me suspiciously as I suddenly swore.
“I think I finally understand why you want to go back so badly.”
At first, I’d thought it was all because she hated living in this insane world, because her sex had changed.
But there had to be more to it than simple self-pity or longing.
The more her soul blended into the life of the Flying Sword Empress, Yeowol...
Her own existence.
Her original self.
Would slowly fade and disappear.
Now that I’d experienced a little of the hell she’d endured...
“I think I’ve finally become a real Return Seeker too.”
Still looking up at me, Yeowol burst into tears.
“...You fucking bastard.”
She bit her lip and cried without a sound.
Now I understood what those tears meant.
Relief that this Mad Demon...
Hadn’t turned into a being like the Northern Emperor.
For now, I didn’t want to enter the realm of those true monsters either.
Thup.
I slid Silent Aeon Demon Soul into its sheath.
Through the fading mist of Demon Calamity Snow Domain, the Pale Enchantress Fairy walked toward us in a daze.
Her eyes trembled wildly, as if caught in a storm.
“B-b-big brothers, don’t tell me...?”
Come to think of it, she must have watched the whole thing.
“Whatever you heard, you imagined it.”
“B-b-but you definitely just said Return Seeker...?”
“You heard wrong.”
“S-Senior Flying Sword Empress called you a fucking bastard...”
“You heard that part right.”
“Then it’s t-true!”
Hmm. I hadn’t really wanted this one to find out.
This time, Yeowol wiped away her tears and widened her eyes.
“A Galler?”
“F-fuck! It’s real! Holy shit! The Flying Sword Empress and the Mad Demon! Fuck! This is fucking insane! Fuuuuuck!”
She covered her mouth as though she’d just spotted celebrities.
“Shut that mouth.”
“Huh? O-of course! Absolute secrecy! Wow! It all makes sense now! I thought it was weird that the Mad Demon and the Flying Sword Empress knew each other!”
Then she asked something else.
“But, Big Brother, why did you kill all those Swordwood warriors?”
I followed the Pale Enchantress Fairy’s gaze.
Through the lingering mist, the Swordwood warriors lay scattered as cold corpses.
“Because they’d seen the Mad Demon’s face and lived.”
“Ah...? Right, right! They weren’t even Gallers. Of course they had to die!”
Somehow, her groveling expression resembled Yeowol’s from a moment ago.
I couldn’t help chuckling at how hard she was trying to remind me that she was a Galler.
Looking at the Pale Enchantress Fairy, though, something about this situation struck me as strange.
By some remarkable coincidence, every Galler I met was a woman. Apart from our esteemed old-timer possessing Lang Bai.
Was that statistically possible?
“Maybe the sample’s still too small.”
“Sorry? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“I’ve personally confirmed four Gallers so far. Three of them are women, including you two.”
Yeowol and the Pale Enchantress Fairy froze with strange expressions.
“That is... pretty weird, actually.”
“Just a coincidence.”
Hmm. Had the original Mad Demon been born under a Peach Blossom Curse or something?[1]
Thinking about it, not really.
The only woman involved with the Mad Demon should have been the Northern Emperor’s daughter, Im Eunso.
“Ha... What a fucking waste.”
At some point, Yeowol’s gaze had drifted over the scene of brutal death.
Hmm. Fair enough.
One click from the Mad Demon had wiped out the Swordwood Lord’s personal elite in the blink of an eye.
It was certainly a serious loss from her point of view.
I smiled.
“Plenty of my people got hurt back then too, so let’s call it even.”
“How’s this the same as a few stab wounds?”
“Listen to this little shit running that mouth again.”
“Huh? Yeah. Right. Getting stabbed really hurts.”
“Enough. Find me a safe house where I can lie low for a while.”
“A safe house? What are you planning now?”
I briefly explained why we needed Nine Yin White Bone Claw.
As expected, Yeowol’s face twisted more and more as she listened.
“F-fuck. So you want me to spread the rumors for you?”
“You’re a pretty influential mouthpiece in the orthodox faction.”
“What if people find out it’s fake? No, before that! What proof do you even have that the Tang Clan bastard proposed to the Pale Enchantress Sect because he wanted Nine Yin White Bone Claw?”
The history of the Tang Clan Enclave immediately spilled from my lips.
The resentment and desperate wish that the Sichuan Tang Clan had honed with all their hearts for hundreds of years.
After hearing all about the Tang Clan’s bitter, miserable suffering, Yeowol stared at me, dumbfounded.
“Wow. You’re scary. You’re not just some ordinary person. Guess there’s a reason you landed the Mad Demon.”
I snorted.
“Anyway, if you work backward from all the setting details, there’s only one answer. Tang Igo saw a clue to overcoming the Poison Barrier in the Pale Enchantress Sect. Nothing else makes sense.”
“But that’s still just a guess.”
“Right.”
“...What?”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m wrong. If the Tang Clan takes the bait, great. If they don’t, that’s that.”
Yeowol snapped at me in disbelief.
“N-no! What about me when those vicious bastards find out in a few years that Nine Yin White Bone Claw is fake? Do you have any idea how much I stand to lose if I help you?”
“So what?”
The gleaming madness of a Demonic Cult thug, shining through my clear, innocent eyes, finally left her speechless.
“Ha. This is such fucking bullshit... Is that supposed to be a human being’s logic?”
“B-big brother, please watch your mouth.”
I was glad she was treating me like a Galler again, but seeing her run her mouth without a thought made me wonder if I should put her back on her knees.
“If they find out it’s fake in a few years, the Pale Enchantress Fairy won’t be safe either. She’s risking her life too.”
“That’s what I’m asking. Why do something so reckless?”
“Two or three years isn’t a short time. If she can operate normally in River North during that time, she can change a lot. It all depends on what she does.”
“Fuck, just be honest. You’re using us to give yourself a clean identity.”
I chuckled.
“That’s true too. So what? What the fuck are you going to do about it?”
I looked at the Pale Enchantress Fairy, who stood frozen with a defeated expression.
“Our interests overlap. Isn’t that what people call a win-win?”
“Then why don’t I get a share of those overlapping interests?”
“Huh? You do.”
“Me? What the hell do I gain from this?”
I gazed far to the west.
“Nine Yin White Bone Claw, an art cultivated by sacrificing countless lives. The Tang Clan’s reckless decision to choose such a sinister, unorthodox art. There’s only one person in the orthodox faction who knows about it. You, the Swordwood Lord.”
“...Huh?”
“She’s an interested party, so no one will listen to her. I’m a Venerable of the Demonic Cult, so anything I say will be dismissed as bullshit. But you’re the Swordwood Lord. If you expose it, it’s not something they can brush aside.”
Only then did Yeowol seem to understand my true intention. She stared at me in disbelief.
“You’re telling me to put a leash on those vicious Tang Clan bastards?”
“That’s for the person holding the cards to decide. You could take their weakness straight to the Alliance Leader or negotiate with the Tang Clan Enclave.”
“Wow... Fuck. You.”
Yeowol rubbed the goosebumps on her arm, her mouth twisting.
“You’re seriously terrifying. What are we supposed to do if the ridiculously strong Mad Demon gets brains too? The River North Alliance is so fucking screwed.”
Then her gaze suddenly turned serious.
“But can she actually create a convincing Nine Yin White Bone Claw?”
True. That was the biggest problem.
Creating a martial art that didn’t exist in this world.
It was easy to say we needed an art that would fool them for two or three years. Actually creating something that could deceive the Tang Clan Enclave, one of the Five Great Clans, was no simple task.
“Well, um... I should’ve told you this earlier.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re my big brothers now, hehe. We’re all Gallers, so it should be fine, right?”
I narrowed my eyes and studied her expression.
“The reason our Pale Enchantress Sect was forced to close its gates. The claim that the Pale Enchantress Sword Formula contains a terrible demonic nature... That wasn’t bullshit.”
A possibility flashed through my mind.
“Wait. That original martial art from the Ancient Tomb Sect... It wasn’t actually lost?”
The Pale Enchantress Fairy gave a thin smile.
“That’s right, big brothers! I’ve got the real mnemonic formulas and Lotus Circulation Diagrams for Nine Yin White Bone Claw right here in my head!”
Yeowol immediately recoiled in shock.
“Holy shit! You mean the Nine Yin Demon Empress’s actual martial art from a thousand years ago still exists?”
“Hahahaha!”
Blood rushed to my head in a thrilling surge.
This would make things much easier.
A new plan was already weaving itself together in my mind.
Footnotes:
[1] In Korean fortune-telling, a “Peach Blossom Curse” is a fate associated with strong romantic or sexual attraction, often bringing unwanted complications.
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