WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Mad Demon in a Novel ◈
Chapter 6: Top Post
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The flowers blooming lavishly by the roadside had merely raised their heads first, and yet the Mad Demon turned the whole area into a wasteland.
That was the Mad Demon, the psychopath of the century.
Although I had only read the beginning of Mad Heaven Records, I didn't need to check the rest to know what the Mad Demon's personality was like.
I only had to imagine the worst scum possible.
It was daunting.
From now on, I would have to kill people because I didn't like their faces, because they couldn't read the room, because I was in a bad mood.
Could I really live as such a trashy butcher?
This had nothing to do with my innate character. The question was whether I could castrate the moral values of a modern person.
Honestly, it didn't seem easy.
“Hey. Is this post about the Mad Demon on the gallery you?”
“Huh?”
“It got pinned as a Top Post yesterday.”
What? A Top Post?
I hurriedly summoned the gallery window, and it was true.
Gallers didn't only send high-quality informational posts to Top Posts. Sometimes, they pinned garbage posts there just so everyone could ridicule them.
“...Should I delete it?”
“Leave it. Nobody believes it anyway. More importantly.”
Their eyes sharpened with interest.
“Is it true that you saw an illusion the moment you held the Silent Aeon Demon Soul?”
Their unexpectedly serious question made it hard to answer.
I didn't want this thoroughly crusty veteran to humiliate me again. There was no reason to carelessly reveal information about myself.
Yet they were looking at me with crescent-shaped eyes, as if I were adorable.
“Looks like you've adjusted a little. Hmm. That means the sword spirit of the Silent Aeon Demon Soul definitely reacted to your soul. You could say that's basically the Mad Demon's entire ability.”
“Entire ability?”
“It means you can draw upon the Silent Aeon Demon Soul's spiritual energy.”
“Ah.”
“If internal energy is coal, spiritual energy is uranium. They're fundamentally different in quality. A guy with a shattered dantian didn't reach the Seven Seats for no reason. The Mad Demon alone is practically a cultivator.”
That made sense. Spiritual energy originally belonged in a cultivation fantasy setting.
In a way, this was the author's worldbuilding falling apart.
They must have wanted to make a villain with a shattered dantian and a tragic backstory into the strongest character. So they had suddenly introduced an unprecedented, xianxia-tier treasure artifact called the Silent Aeon Demon Soul.
The power balance would surely go off the rails later on. Hmm.
It was newly frustrating that I hadn't read the rest.
“Anyway, it is strange. According to the setting, it shouldn't react unless it was its original master's soul. And it's not like you're truly the Mad Demon's soul.”
There was no more playfulness in their eyes.
It was the cold curiosity peculiar to a crusty veteran who had encountered an unforeseen mutation.
But I didn't react to their gaze.
‘...’
When I held the Silent Aeon Demon Soul, that vivid killing intent and thrill had felt completely mine.
It had even felt welcome, like putting on old clothes that had been tucked away in a wardrobe.
Why?
I couldn't say I had lived virtuously, but I wasn't enough of a wreck to be called a complete psychopath.
Still, the Silent Aeon Demon Soul had clearly mistaken me for the original Mad Demon.
That meant it had found some facet of my soul that rivaled such an evil villain's...
Could I have been born with a villain's sinister qualities?
‘...No way.’
I'm the sort of soft guy who sometimes cries while watching dramas.
If I had the makings of a lunatic, would I really have put up with upstairs noise for years?
I had never wanted to smash someone in the back of the head just because I disliked their eyes, nor had I blocked someone's path because our shoulders bumped.
Ah?
I had once stuck foxtail grass into a dragonfly's tail and sent it flying.
Hmm, and now that I thought about it, I had broken one of a frog's hind legs and giggled while asking why it couldn't hop...
No, but didn't all elementary school kids grow up doing things like that?
If so, all the kids who giggled with me would be psychopaths too. No, that couldn't be right.
At that moment, the old man's pupils slowly slid toward me.
His gaze was full of desperation.
It was probably a plea for mercy.
What kind of acupoint strike had been used on him that he couldn't even move his lips?
“Mad Heaven Records. How far did you read?”
“Huh? Chapter 206, maybe? Somewhere around there.”
“Oh, you've read more than I expected. Honestly, the writing starts dragging a lot after chapter 400. What on earth did the author drag out so much?”
I had seen complaints on the gallery that the story became painfully slow from the middle onward.
But weren't most hit series like that?
“I'll only tell you about fifty chapters at a time. You wouldn't be able to digest it all if I told you everything at once, and I need to prepare in case you betray me. Understand?”
So they meant to control me by releasing fifty chapters whenever I grew impatient.
Vicious bastard.
I really wanted to beat the crap out of them.
“I'll give you an advance release, though. This is roughly around chapter 400, so I'll briefly summarize everything before that. What's important is what comes next, right? All right, spoilers ahead.”
But their way of speaking was gradually changing. How should I put it? It was like a modern identity was surfacing.
They were definitely insane.
A Galler, the Swordwood Lord, and a modern person, switching back and forth whenever they pleased.
“First, the Fist Saint's Ironblood Sect...”
And so I began desperately listening, like a student right before the college entrance exam.
No matter how much I wanted to beat this crusty veteran to death, at the moment they were no different from a top cram-school tutor reciting invaluable study notes.
“But then the Fist Saint's disciple dies after exhausting all their innate true qi. Who benefits the most? One Flower, obviously. That's when the Emei Sect starts rising. And what does betrayal earn you? A proper lesson. Repeat after me. A proper lesson.”
“...A proper lesson.”
Some people couldn't get through a story unless you reacted or encouraged them. They were that tiresome type.
“And there's one more thing. One Flower had a hidden son. Want to know who he is? Don't be shocked. Take a deep breath first. Hoo! Hoo!”
“Ah, stop padding it out and just get on with it!”
“You little bastard. What did you say?”
One look at their crazed eyes brought me to my senses.
I was showing off in front of a crusty veteran who had likely cut down hundreds of people, all while lying there like a corpse.
“Hoo! Hoo!”
Only after I made a show of taking deep breaths did their deranged eyes return to normal.
I quietly watched as they began spitting out words again.
But the more I listened, the more I felt a strange sense of dissonance.
There were too many parts that didn't fit together.
South Korean web novels normally revolved entirely around the protagonist.
Yet Han Yubaek, the protagonist, appeared in none of the events they described.
More than that, it was completely different in tone from the plot I had vaguely pieced together while lurking on the gallery.
Hold on.
If the Emei Sect rose to power, Qingcheng would inevitably decline.
If Qingcheng lost strength, who would benefit?
Ordinary martial arts readers would answer the Sichuan Tang Clan and the Emei Sect, since their territories overlapped with Qingcheng's. But I saw it a little differently.
The most important area in Sichuan was Heungmun.
It was a strategic hub connecting Guizhou, Yunnan, and Chongqing, as well as one of the few open stretches in a province full of sheer cliffs.
Other than Qingcheng, which sect was closest to Heungmun?
According to them, we were currently near Yuzhou in Chongqing.
The answer was neither the Tang Clan nor Emei. It was their Swordwood.
At last, I was certain.
They weren't recounting the original work. They were setting up an entirely different game board.
Why?
Then all that talk about chapters had been a lie?
They had said that protecting the original work was an unspoken rule among crusty veterans, yet now they were ignoring all of it and trying to use me as a game piece.
“Hah. Who do you take me for, a sucker?”
“Huh?”
“Are you kidding me? The protagonist's route doesn't overlap with this at all, and suddenly Heungmun becomes an empty house? Are you sure that's really the original?”
“Y-you figured that out? No, more importantly, how do you know about Heungmun? Weren't you a skip freak?”
There was one crucial difference between ordinary readers and me.
The reason it took me an hour to read one chapter.
I overlooked none of the locations the author created, the food mentioned in passing, the religions, the cultures, or anything else.
This wasn't merely an addiction to text. It was closer to a personal hobby.
The authors had probably grown sick of me.
Ordinary readers only pointed out typos or plot holes, but my comments were on a completely different level.
I couldn't tolerate authors getting locations, geography, cultures, and customs wrong.
Of course, I hadn't memorized an entire map of the ancient Central Plains, but most important places were in my head.
“What are you trying to accomplish by betraying me like this? You said we had to protect the chapters. You called me a nuclear bomb. And now you're doing this?”
“Because I'm certain now.”
“Certain of what?”
They glanced to the side.
Then, without warning, they tore open the old fisherman's upper garment.
Riiip!
“Huh?”
The old fisherman's entire torso was covered in tattoos.
Hideous serpents, too numerous to count.
“Just as I thought. An old man from Hundred Snakes Valley.”
“H-Hundred Snakes Valley?”
“The old man who really saved you had been struck in the stomach and was dying by the riverbank. This old man must have come in his place. Do you understand now? The fact that Hundred Snakes Valley intervened at all proves that the original work has already gone off course.”
Their eyes had become cold enough to raise goosebumps.
“Mad Heaven Records has a thousand chapters. Unless someone is a genius who remembers what they ate for lunch months ago, Gallers' memories of the original are bound to become distorted little by little.”
“...”
“We put considerable effort into protecting the chapters, but everyone must feel it by now. That things have already started going off course.”
No, this wasn't merely starting to go off course.
“Some Galler who knows the original must have sent him.”
Who would send someone to capture the Mad Demon at this perfect moment?
Almost certainly, it was a reader who knew this hut existed.
Which meant this person wasn't the only one breaking the rules of chapter preservation.
“Ha... Fuck.”
The old men of the Nine Exalted had never been the problem.
The most cunning enemies threatening my life were the Gallers.
Tat-tat-tat!
The Swordwood Lord's arm blurred into afterimages.
Soon, the old man from Hundred Snakes Valley began taking ragged breaths.
“Hoo...”
They had released his mute acupoint after all.
“Go on. Tell us.”
“Heh heh heh...”
The old man from Hundred Snakes Valley gave his usual aged smile, then immediately mixed a sigh of self-mockery into his words.
“Heh heh. I am about to lay down a harsh and weary life. What more could I possibly say? How could I express all my regrets and resentment in a single sentence?”
The old man's expression turned strangely astringent and bitter.
“Only one thought comes to mind at a time like this. Gah! Why did I enjoy martial arts fiction instead of adult content? Why couldn't I have been transported into some ridiculously sweet otaku harem story?”
“Idiot.”
A flash flared.
The old man's eyes and nose slid down diagonally.
My body began to tremble.
It was my first time seeing a person's head split so horribly in two.
“Why does nobody think? You were transported into a dying old man here too. What makes you think anything would be different if you landed in a harem story? You'd be an old man there too. Tch. Hopeless.”
I stared wordlessly as they casually wiped the blood-dripping blade on the old man's ragged clothes.
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