WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 41: Interest (4)
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It was quite the coincidence.
Gu Yang Seo-rin had made tonight her decisive night.
The more time passed, the more attention Mumu drew. Even today, countless female cadets had suddenly taken an interest in him, openly throwing flirtatious looks his way.
This was only the beginning.
Mumu was a seventeen-year-old man standing close to the peak of the current martial world.
No one would want to miss the chance to make such a man theirs.
This was the beginning of a competition, a war.
Tonight, she would make Mumu hers for certain and keep all those pests from swarming around him.
‘A physical-charm offensive.’
She had only one strategy.
From what she had seen, Mumu was rather innocent and pure. According to what she had heard, he had lived alone with his adoptive father at a place of exile until entering the academy, leaving him lacking in social skills and knowing nothing about women.
Perhaps that was why, despite being at such a vigorous age, his only desire seemed to be his obsession with building muscle.
‘Then I’ll awaken it.’
Even a man without desires had instincts.
Men possessed a powerful instinct to reproduce, so even if their minds did not waver, their bodies could react differently.
She intended to awaken Mumu’s desires.
‘Perfect.’
Honestly, she was confident.
She had a seductive, if somewhat sharp, face, a slender waist, and a full chest.
She believed her charms as a woman were second to none.
Tonight, she would make Mumu hers and drag him into a swamp he could never escape.
Just as she steeled herself...
‘!?’
Gu Yang Seo-rin’s eyes narrowed.
This was unexpected.
To think someone else had the same plan.
“...Senior Ma.”
“Gu Yang Seo-rin.”
The woman she encountered at the crossroads was none other than Ma Yeon-hwa.
Unlike her usual dark and dreary appearance, Ma Yeon-hwa had dressed brightly, and she was breathtakingly beautiful.
Ma Yeon-hwa's gaze filled with wariness at the sight.
‘What is this supposed to be?’
Ma Yeon-hwa was equally flustered when she ran into Gu Yang Seo-rin.
Normally, she had never dressed in a way that openly displayed her charms as a woman. Yet to seduce Mumu, she had painstakingly sought help and dressed herself up.
All to look good for one man.
But before she could even show Mumu this new appearance, she had run into someone else.
Ma Yeon-hwa’s gaze naturally swept over Gu Yang Seo-rin’s outfit.
She instinctively understood.
‘...She’s after him.’
Gu Yang Seo-rin had the same goal as her.
This was troublesome.
She had never imagined she would encounter another rival before she could even begin her seduction.
The two women stiffened as they faced one another.
Gu Yang Seo-rin spoke first.
“Senior... you look lovely. Are you perhaps going to meet your beloved?”
Ma Yeon-hwa’s cheeks flushed slightly at those words.
The word “beloved” made her self-conscious.
Though she had resolved to seduce Mumu, she had been so tied up rebuilding her cult that she had never liked anyone, even at her age.
‘So she really was after Mumu. This senior is a fox too, despite how she looks.’
Ma Yeon-hwa’s reaction only made Gu Yang Seo-rin more certain.
She was after Mumu as well.
Gu Yang Seo-rin’s gaze sharpened.
‘I’ll have to get rid of her.’
Compared to the other women, Ma Yeon-hwa was more troublesome.
Like herself, she was one of the Four Blossoms of Heaven, beautiful and charming.
She was too dangerous to let her guard down around.
More than any other female cadet at the academy, Ma Yeon-hwa was someone Gu Yang Seo-rin had to keep in check.
Smiling softly, Gu Yang Seo-rin said,
“You must be happy. As it happens, I was on my way to see my beloved too.”
“Your beloved?”
“Yes. It’s embarrassing, but I’ve begun seeing a younger man.”
“A younger man?”
One of Ma Yeon-hwa’s eyebrows rose.
No matter how she heard it, the younger man Gu Yang Seo-rin spoke of could only be Mumu.
‘That can’t be.’
As far as Ma Yeon-hwa knew, Mumu had no woman he liked.
He did not have a beloved either.
The only thing he cared about was muscle training.
Ma Yeon-hwa’s eyes narrowed.
‘Is this girl lying to keep me away?’
Her instincts as a woman told her Gu Yang Seo-rin was bluffing to exclude her.
Having always watched Gu Yang Seo-rin closely as a fellow resident and the granddaughter of one of the Four Immortal Masters, Ma Yeon-hwa knew her well.
There was no chance she would fall for such an obvious trick.
Ma Yeon-hwa spoke again.
“Oh, really? What a coincidence.”
“A coincidence?”
“I’m seeing a younger lover too, just like you, Seo-rin.”
‘Ha!’
At Ma Yeon-hwa’s words, Gu Yang Seo-rin snorted before she could stop herself.
She had intended to brush her aside with ease, never expecting Ma Yeon-hwa to confront her head-on.
In that case, there was no point beating around the bush.
It would only waste time.
“How strange. Why do I get the feeling we’re talking about the same younger lover?”
“That’s what I want to ask. Why does it feel as if the younger lover my junior is talking about is that boy?”
The instant those words ended, the women’s auras steadily rose.
Before they were women, they were martial artists.
When emotions clashed between them, there was only one way to settle it.
To determine who was superior in Martial Arts.
-Chwak!
The fan in Gu Yang Seo-rin’s hand snapped open.
At the same time, Ma Yeon-hwa had already grasped the hilt of Black Dragon at her waist.
Gu Yang Seo-rin spoke in a low voice.
“It may be rude for a junior to say this, but let me warn you. Mumu is a man I’ve had my eye on for a long time.”
-Clench!
Ma Yeon-hwa’s hand tightened at the blunt declaration.
Was Gu Yang Seo-rin arrogantly warning her to back off because she had claimed Mumu first?
It seemed she trusted in her grandfather and was acting high-handedly, but that sort of attitude had only worked until yesterday.
“To set your sights on the man who utterly defeated your grandfather, our junior has quite unusual tastes.”
Gu Yang Seo-rin’s eyes turned fierce as well.
She had not shown it, but every time the academy spoke of her grandfather, Western Wind Lone Angle Gu Yang-gyeong, being defeated, she felt displeased.
Now that Ma Yeon-hwa had brought it up so openly, she could not help growing angry.
“It seems we’ll have to settle this here, Senior.”
“How strange. I was thinking the same thing just now.”
The atmosphere between the two women grew increasingly heated.
It would not have been strange for them to strike at each other at any moment.
Then the two women, who had been watching each other with tense eyes, looked somewhere at the same time.
-Swish!
It was a tree along the path leading to the Special-grade training hall where Mumu was.
Gu Yang Seo-rin swung her fan toward the tree.
Heaven-Shattering Needles shot from it, racing precisely toward something.
At that moment, something sharp flew from the tree and collided with the needles.
-Clang, clang, clang!
They were needle hidden weapons from the Sichuan Tang Clan.
Someone landed from the tree.
“So So?”
Gu Yang Seo-rin was dumbfounded.
The one who had dropped from the tree was none other than Tang So-so of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
She had wondered who the pest was that had slyly tried to take advantage of them while they confronted one another. She had never expected it to be Tang So-so.
Ma Yeon-hwa felt much the same.
‘Tang So-so?’
Ma Yeon-hwa frowned at the sight of Tang So-so, who had dressed up brightly just like her.
No matter how she looked at it, Tang So-so’s intentions were obvious too.
And she was right.
“Tch.”
Tang So-so was annoyed that she had been discovered so easily.
She had tried to use the situation, with Gu Yang Seo-rin and Ma Yeon-hwa clashing while keeping each other in check.
She had meant to sneak off and reach Mumu first, but they had noticed.
As expected of women counted among the academy’s top five, their Ki senses were no ordinary thing.
‘Now that it’s come to this...’
-Paat!
Tang So-so used her movement skill.
‘First come, first served!’
Rather than waste time exchanging glares or fighting those two, she had decided it would be better to reach Mumu first.
“You!”
“Oh no!”
Without even time to think, Gu Yang Seo-rin and Ma Yeon-hwa used their movement skills as well.
They could not let Tang So-so get ahead of them.
‘Damned woman!’
And so, the three women’s race of movement skills began.
Gu Yang Seo-rin was naturally the fastest among them in movement skills, but Tang So-so had a slight lead and was still ahead.
-Papapapaat!
‘I’ll get there first!’
Tang So-so glanced behind her and curled her lips into a smile.
The Special-grade training hall where Mumu was stood right before her.
If there had been more distance, Gu Yang Seo-rin might have caught up, but at this distance...
-Pak!
“Ah!”
It was another coincidence.
She had glanced back for only a moment, but someone stood in the path she was racing through with her movement skill, and she had no choice but to collide with them.
Tang So-so fell backward.
But...
‘I was knocked back?’
Tang So-so immediately rose, frowning at the figure standing before her.
The man looked strange, leaning his head far forward and tilting it to one side.
His right eye was turned to the right, while his left eye rolled around and fixed itself on Tang So-so.
‘W-what is that?’
The movement of his eyes was so bizarre it made her skin crawl.
She had collided with him while using her movement skill, yet she was the one who had been knocked away.
What was he?
Gu Yang Seo-rin and Ma Yeon-hwa stopped as she was wondering.
They had meant to seize the chance and pass by, but the man’s bizarre appearance made that impossible.
“Who are you?”
Gu Yang Seo-rin asked, staring at him.
Then...
-Roll, roll!
The man’s right eye, which had faced to the right, turned toward Gu Yang Seo-rin.
His mismatched eyes moving in different directions were enough to make the women frown.
Then the man muttered,
“...Must find... him... must find...”
Ignoring them, he tried to head somewhere.
It was toward the Special-grade training hall where Mumu was.
Suspicious of the man’s strange gait, Gu Yang Seo-rin hurriedly used her Body-Lightening Technique and blocked his path.
“Who are you? Where are you trying to go...”
Before she could finish, the man tried to walk past her as if ignoring her.
Gu Yang Seo-rin reached for his shoulder.
At that moment...
-Pak!
‘!?’
The man seized Gu Yang Seo-rin’s hand with lightning speed, then...
-Swish!
He threw her into the wall of another Special-grade training hall building.
His strength was so great that Gu Yang Seo-rin could not shake free of his grip.
Still, as she flew through the air, she twisted her body, kicked off the wall, and launched another kick at him.
-Pak!
Gu Yang Seo-rin’s kick struck the man in the neck.
But...
‘What?’
The man who had taken her kick was completely unaffected.
He had not used Grafting of Flowers and Trees or responded in any way, so how could he withstand it?
She could not help being startled.
Then the man tried to grab the ankle of the leg Gu Yang Seo-rin had kicked with.
“Keep your hands off her!”
-Papak!
At that instant, Tang So-so kicked the man in his right ribs.
She had meant to knock him away so he could not grab Gu Yang Seo-rin.
“Eh?”
Yet the man did not even sway, much less get pushed back by her kick. He grabbed Gu Yang Seo-rin’s ankle.
Then he slammed her into the ground on the spot.
-Boom!
“Argh!”
The impact was powerful enough to crack the ground and drive Gu Yang Seo-rin’s body into it.
Sensing something was seriously wrong, Ma Yeon-hwa drew Black Dragon and cut at the wrist holding Gu Yang Seo-rin’s ankle.
-Chwak!
With a soft sword technique like a fluttering butterfly, she cut halfway through his wrist.
She meant to sever his sinews and make him lose his grip.
“Take this too!”
Not missing the moment, Tang So-so launched Tang Clan needle hidden weapons at the man’s blood pressure points and chi.
-Pupupupupuk!
The hidden weapons struck precisely at his paralysis points.
As expected, with his wrist cut and his blood pressure points and chi sealed, the man released Gu Yang Seo-rin’s ankle.
His body twitched as if bound in ropes.
“Ugh... What the hell is this bastard?”
Gu Yang Seo-rin spoke with a flushed face, apparently in considerable pain.
Tang So-so shook her head.
“I don’t know. Was there someone like this at the academy?”
It was a face she had never seen before.
If he looked to be in his thirties, he should have been one of the academy masters or guard warriors, yet Tang So-so did not remember seeing him.
And with his eyes still moving separately, there was no way someone so strange would have gone unnoticed.
Just as they were wondering...
“Huh? Something’s strange...”
The veins on the man’s face bulged.
They stared at the sickening sight, wondering what was happening.
-Pupupupupup!
The needle hidden weapons embedded in the man’s paralysis points burst free.
At the same time, the man threw a punch toward Tang So-so, who stood closest to him.
-Paaang!
“Ah!”
Tang So-so’s body was flung backward by the wind pressure.
-Thud, tumble, tumble!
Only after rolling across the ground several times could Tang So-so regain her footing.
She was dumbfounded.
Her Ki sense detected almost no ki from him, yet the wind pressure from his punch alone had sent her flying?
It was just like...
‘Mumu?’
Even this monstrous strength resembled Mumu’s power remarkably closely.
As she wondered about it...
-Shing!
After Black Dragon, Ma Yeon-hwa drew White Phoenix from its sheath.
Then she unleashed an Ultimate Technique at the strange man.
‘Scarlet Blossoms Take Flight!’
Ma Yeon-hwa shot forward at speed. Black Dragon and White Phoenix crossed, creating sword trails like scattered flower petals as they swept over the man’s entire body.
-Chwachwachwachwak!
Sword marks appeared all over his body.
It looked as though blood would burst out at any moment.
Then something unbelievable happened.
-Ssssss!
‘!?’
Veins writhed from the wounds left by the sword marks, and the split flesh fused back together as if it had never been cut.
Ma Yeon-hwa and Gu Yang Seo-rin’s faces stiffened at the sight.
‘His wounds...’
‘...He recovered in an instant.’
It was unbelievable.
His wounds had healed in the blink of an eye.
His recovery was too bizarre to be that of an ordinary human.
As everyone stared in shock, the man’s left and right eyes moved wildly in different directions before they began to tremble.
Then he muttered words none of them understood.
“...E... elimi... nate...”
The instant he finished speaking, the man shot toward Ma Yeon-hwa.
Though surprised, Ma Yeon-hwa had been prepared. She swung Black Dragon at him to keep him at bay.
But the man knocked aside Black Dragon’s blade with his bare fist.
-Clang!
‘What kind of strength is that?’
Black Dragon was flung upward in an instant.
The man’s strength was so great that calling it monstrous would not be an exaggeration.
As her sword was knocked upward, an opening appeared on the right side of Ma Yeon-hwa’s chest for a brief instant.
The man tried to unleash a series of punches toward it.
‘Not a chance!’
Ma Yeon-hwa hurriedly thrust White Phoenix at his shoulder.
-Thud!
Yet even though the sword tip sank into his shoulder, the man seemed to feel no pain. He continued trying to punch the right side of Ma Yeon-hwa’s chest.
‘How can this be?’
Startled, Ma Yeon-hwa gritted her teeth and raised Defensive Ki to withstand the punch.
At that very moment...
-Pak!
Before the punch could reach her, the man’s body shot upward.
‘What?’
-Swoooooosh!
As she wondered what was happening, a huge figure stood behind the man, his entire body gray and steaming.
Someone had grabbed the man’s head with a muscular, twitching hand.
It was Mumu.
“Mumu?”
-Swish, swish!
The man whose head was held by Mumu thrashed wildly.
Mumu tilted his head and asked,
“What is this, exactly?”
Footnotes:
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