WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 103: Subjugating the Mountain Lord (4)
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The moment Gari's tank appeared behind him, the Mountain Lord started running.
His senses as a beast, his instincts, screamed at him.
People often imagine fierce predators as brave beasts that never shy away from a fight.
But in reality, the fiercer the predator, the more it avoids fighting.
If it gets injured, it can't hunt. If it can't hunt, it starves to death.
In nature, taking a fight you can't win is no different from volunteering for extinction.
【Grrr...!】
The Mountain Lord lowered his body.
Despite his enormous size, he raced through the mountain forest at unbelievable speed.
Thanks to the nimble, superhuman reflexes unique to felines, he could tear through the cluttered woods without crashing into anything.
Meanwhile...
Bam! Baaaam! Baaaaang!
Thunderous crashes echoed from behind him.
It rammed down trees and forced its way across the slopes.
"Urgh! Urgh! Baek-gunja! It's shaking too much!"
"Lord Choi, take my hand."
The ride was awful, but the tank tore through the rugged forest without slowing down.
It didn't dodge or go around obstacles. It just charged straight ahead.
It was simple and crude, but inevitably the fastest method.
"Black Tiger! The Mountain Lord is over there, Baek-gunja!"
"Okay! Gari, let's go!!"
The Mountain Lord was horrified to see Yohan's group right on his tail and sped up.
At least he had the advantage in speed.
That monstrous tank was closing the distance with its stupid straight-line charge, but he himself was faster.
Besides, he knew every inch of this mountain's terrain with his eyes closed.
He led the thing toward denser clusters of trees and places where thick boulders were embedded in the ground, hoping to build up damage from repeated impacts.
Bam! Crack! Craaash!
Idiot.
No matter how sturdy it was, could it really be fine after slamming into that many trees?
Bam! Crack! Craaash!
【...】
Was it fine?
Why wasn't it stopping?
Right. A few trees couldn't possibly stop that thing.
Then he'd make it crash into a boulder this time.
There was a huge boulder buried beneath a mound of dirt around here.
If it charged in without knowing any better, it would smash to pieces.
The Mountain Lord cunningly guided Gari's tank toward the boulder.
Just before it collided with it...
Craaaack!
It opened its mouth.
As though its entire body were one enormous maw, its gaping mouth opened wide and swallowed the boulder whole.
Gulp!
【...?!】
It... swallowed that?
The boulder was as big as its own body. It swallowed it whole?
Fine, say it swallowed it. But how was it not slowing down after swallowing a boulder that heavy?
That had to add at least several tons of weight.
It was incomprehensible.
That thing was something incomprehensible.
The Mountain Lord decided he should never confront it.
【Rooooar!】
The Mountain Lord used his sorcery.
He was the ancestor of the Sapung Black Tiger, a great monster infamous throughout Gangwon Province.
Even an exceptional sorcerer would struggle to find him once he hid himself in the mountains.
He blended into nature and concealed his form.
"Huh! It disappeared!"
"It hid itself that quickly?!"
Gari's tank stopped and looked around.
It seemed to have halted to search for the Mountain Lord, who had suddenly vanished.
Seon Master Unjeong and Lord Choi, riding in the tank, also looked around for the missing black tiger.
Yet they couldn't see it anywhere.
"Could it have widened the distance while we weren't looking?"
"Baek-gunja. What do you think?"
"Hmm, smell... I can smell the bastard around here."
Yohan sniffed the air and sensed that the Mountain Lord was nearby.
The moment he pinpointed the direction the scent was coming from...
Rat-a-tat-tat!
Precious swords and spears poured from Gari's mouth.
Each one was valuable enough to be called a treasure.
"My heavens...! That's..."
"The Xuanyuan Sword?! I thought Pastor Kim had stolen the original and it was lost!"
Yohan was the one who had inherited Pastor Kim's legacy.
That fact wasn't widely known.
"I shouldn't fire the Sain Sword. It's said to use tiger energy..."
Yohan was simply launching tough, powerful treasures with spiritual power.
Still, that alone created a bombardment capable of crushing most supernatural creatures.
【...!】
The Mountain Lord, hiding behind a tree, was stunned as the barrage accurately targeted his location.
At this rate, he'd be hit.
As he moved to evade the increasingly precise bombardment, Gari noticed the movement and charged.
Crash!
【Grrroar!!】
The Mountain Lord nimbly evaded Gari and lunged at Yohan.
But when Yohan unleashed dozens of Gutenberg holy swords with telekinesis, he had no choice but to retreat.
Sizzle!
Cut by a holy sword, the Mountain Lord immediately sensed that these were no ordinary holy swords.
Yohan had personally soaked them in holy water and holy oil through a blessing sacrament.
A holy sword that destroyed demons and cut down evil was deadly even if only one struck him.
He couldn't defeat Gari in a direct fight.
Yet if he targeted Gari's master, Yohan's vast spiritual power and sword-control technique became a problem.
【Rooaar!!】
The Mountain Lord drew in a breath and let out a roar.
It was a beast's low-frequency roar, amplified by the Mountain Lord's status until it had an effect close to a dragon's fear aura.
When exposed to that numbing fear, birds in the forest dropped to the ground, while small animals foamed at the mouth and fainted.
Lord Choi and Seon Master Unjeong were no different.
They were human. They couldn't remain unaffected while facing one of the mightiest great monsters.
It was something close to a living creature's instinct.
The Mountain Lord took advantage of the opening created by that paralysis and charged, but the precious swords and spears blocked his path.
【...!】
What was this?
Weren't those treasures controlled by that bastard?
He could understand Gari.
He could tell that Gari was an existence whose status far surpassed his own.
Fear auras only worked on targets of lower status. Before an equal or superior existence, they were nothing more than a loud roar.
But a human?
Humans should possess an instinctive fear of beasts, engraved into their bloodline.
If Yohan had been reciting prayers and fighting seriously, God's protection would have kept it from working.
But that wasn't the case now.
Yohan simply didn't want to look like a lunatic in front of everyone.
Then why hadn't the fear aura worked?
It was because of the vest made from the fur of the Kyoto White-Faced Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox.
As long as Yohan wore fur from the Kyoto White-Faced Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox, one of Japan's three great evil ghosts, most demonic power couldn't interfere with him.
The fear aura was no exception.
It suppressed others through status, but the fox's fur possessed a higher status and canceled out its energy.
【Grrrh!】
"Hey! It's running away again!"
"It has truly mastered the stratagem of fleeing!"
The Mountain Lord fled cleanly, without a trace of hesitation.
For a predator surviving by the law of the jungle, it was an incredibly wise choice.
That wisdom was extremely troublesome for the people chasing him.
"Hey! Aren't you ashamed to call yourself the Mountain Lord? Fight fair!"
No matter what he shouted behind him, the Mountain Lord ran for his life.
All of Taebaeksan was like his own bedroom.
If he put enough distance between them and hid properly, nobody could find him.
As long as he avoided that strongest human, he could wage guerrilla warfare, increase the number of Chang-gwi, break the blockade, and escape.
Anywhere had to be safer than a mountain filled with those monsters.
The Mountain Lord was even considering fleeing to North Korea if it came to that.
He kept running.
At one point, he entered a valley.
He passed beneath a waterfall and swam through the water to wash away his scent.
Then he rolled through mud.
He rubbed himself against trees, covered the Chang-gwi he had summoned with the scent of his fur, and sent them in every direction.
Finally, he hid beneath a huge boulder, camouflaged beneath fallen leaves so well that nobody would find him without looking closely.
Perfect.
It was a hiding technique he had used in his younger days to hunt roe deer or other deer with sensitive noses.
Rumble...
The sound of wheels came from far away.
Had the Chang-gwi already been hunted down?
Useless bastards.
They were supposedly masters of camouflage and concealment, capable of surviving even in the jungle, yet they'd already been caught?
Rumble!!
One step.
Then another.
The approaching sound stopped.
It stopped? Had they found him?
No. That couldn't be.
His camouflage was perfect. Nobody could see through his concealment technique.
"Ugh... The smell of animal fur is gone, but now that it's gone, all I can smell is shit."
At that moment, the Mountain Lord sensed danger and instinctively leaped out.
Baaaang!
Gari's tank rammed into the spot where the Mountain Lord had been moments earlier.
Even that enormous boulder was nothing more than a thin birch tree before it.
"The Master did not speak of prodigies, feats of strength, disorder, or spirits. A gentleman does not discuss such things!"
Lord Choi's brush wrote characters in the air. The ink-drawn letters soon glowed gold.
They became an invisible force that pressed down on the Mountain Lord and sealed his movements.
"Now!"
Seon Master Unjeong leaped from the tank.
He extended a palm toward the Mountain Lord, who couldn't move an inch.
"Namu Amitabha."
Seon Master Unjeong's spiritual power condensed in his palm, then descended as a strike of Buddhist radiance.
Boom!
The moment it struck him, the Mountain Lord's knees buckled.
It was Fudo Myoo's Demon-Subduing Palm, which expelled evil energy and forced wicked beings into submission.
The demon-subduing art of a wrathful deity worshipped by the Diamond Sect was a fatal blow to the Mountain Lord.
【Grrr...!】
The Mountain Lord felt overwhelming pressure from Cheonghak's scripture, which suppressed his demonic energy, and the Buddhist demon-subduing technique.
Strong.
Yohan and Gari were monsters, but these two old men were monsters too.
There was a reason the Mountain Lord hadn't been able to leave Taebaeksan even after his seal was broken.
"It looks like we've subdued it... Should we finish this now?"
"It is a mystical being with immortality. We should sever its limbs and seal it."
"This monk has a vajra suitable for serving as a sealing stake. Please hold the Mountain Lord down."
Just as they were about to begin sealing the Mountain Lord again...
【Waaaait!!】
"Huh?"
Yohan stopped at the Mountain Lord's shout.
"What? You can talk?"
"...Well, it's a high-ranking monster. It isn't strange that it can speak like a person."
Among monsters, those of high enough status possessed intelligence equal to humans.
That meant they could communicate through language as well.
After all, the great monsters they had met in Japan had been able to speak.
【Mercy! Please forgive me! I will never harm humans again! Just don't seal me!!】
"..."
It was bewildering.
The proud Mountain Lord was bowing his head and begging for mercy.
"Hey, Mountain Lord... aren't you supposed to have some pride or something?"
【How could submitting to a gentleman and seeking his teachings require pride? I am a beast! Having lived as a beast, if you give me a gentleman's teachings, I will gladly follow them!】
"Wow..."
Look at this groveling bastard.
Then, recalling a previous case, Yohan stared at the little fox.
"My lord? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"N-no reason."
Anyway, Yohan was briefly dumbfounded by the Mountain Lord's thoroughly servile attitude, but it wasn't exactly strange.
The moment the situation had turned unfavorable yesterday, he had run away immediately. And today, he had once again used the stratagem of fleeing.
The Mountain Lord was a great monster exceptionally faithful to a beast's nature.
【Think about it! If I become a gentleman's servant, I can accomplish many things! Take me in!】
As the Mountain Lord said, taking in a great monster of this level as a subordinate would certainly be a huge advantage.
But Yohan was firm.
"No, idiot. You've eaten hundreds of people."
【That is a misunderstanding! I only ever...】
At that moment, something stuck to the Mountain Lord's tail.
"Huh?"
【Urk?! Th-this is?!】
It was a talisman.
A talisman that had flown in from somewhere latched onto the Mountain Lord and began sucking him in.
【You bastards! How dare you! How dare you do this to me...!】
Already subdued, the Mountain Lord was helplessly sucked into the talisman.
And the person holding the talisman that had absorbed the Mountain Lord was none other than Cha Hyeran.
"I-I succeeded."
"Well done, comrade. You have proven your loyalty to the Party."
"Ri Gicheol?"
It was Ri Gicheol and the North Korean sorcerers.
"...I thought you had an ulterior motive, but were you planning to use the Mountain Lord as a shikigami?"
"You guessed right. Now the Republic will walk the path of becoming a strong and prosperous nation, one that has subdued even a great monster and achieved self-reliance through the power of sorcery."
"Excuse me, that tiger has killed far more than one or two people. You want to use something like that as a shikigami?"
Ri Gicheol gave a sly smile as if Yohan's words were amusing.
"Power depends on how it is wielded. I have removed one of South Korea's troubles, so shouldn't you thank the Republic and Comrade Leader?"
"Oh... I see."
To be this shameless... Ah, right. Typical North Korea.
But Lord Choi had been quiet for a while now.
Wasn't he the one who should be furious about this situation?
"..."
"Lord Choi?"
Lord Choi hadn't simply been keeping quiet.
He was furious.
His body trembled with boiling rage.
"Hoo..."
Lord Choi adjusted his gat and glared at Ri Gicheol and the North Korean sorcerers.
Dark shadows filled the deep-set hollows beneath his eyes, and his lips, full of learning and knowledge, trembled as they opened.
"You... sons of bitches."
"Lord Choi? What happened to your four-character idioms?"
"Four-character idioms are wasted on those red bastard punks!"
Lord Choi glared at Ri Gicheol, breathing hard as though his anger hadn't cooled at all.
Ri Gicheol only grinned at him.
"It's already too late, old man. The Mountain Lord has contracted with us through the Republic's mystical sorcery."
"Y-you bastards...!"
Lord Choi was furious, but there was nothing he could do.
The North Korean sorcerers had undoubtedly used a cowardly trick, but that didn't mean he could kill them all.
"Hahahahaha! Comrade Cha Hyeran! Why don't you summon the Mountain Lord and show everyone that magnificent figure as it serves the Republic?"
"C-comrade Lieutenant Colonel..."
"Come on, hurry! I want to see the ridiculous expressions on those South Korean reactionaries' faces!"
"Mountain Lord, come out~"
At that moment, billowing clouds rose from the talisman Cha Hyeran held, and a huge tiger appeared.
It was the Mountain Lord.
"Hahahahaha! What do you think, South Korean comrades? The only great tiger on the Korean Peninsula now serves our Republic!"
"Tiger, lie down."
"Huh?"
Ri Gicheol had thought the voice sounded strange for a while.
It wasn't Cha Hyeran's feminine voice. It was unmistakably the accent of a young South Korean man.
【My lord~!】
The Mountain Lord lay down as commanded.
It even rolled onto its back and exposed its belly.
The perfect posture of submission.
The problem was who it was submitting to.
"Comrade Cha Hyeran?"
"It... wasn't me."
Cha Hyeran's gaze was fixed on Yohan.
Footnotes:
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