WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 42: To the Imperial Palace (3)
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The ten Censorate officials found themselves wondering about one thing throughout the journey.
'Just what is that guy?'
'He's been sleeping on horseback all day.'
The source of all those questions was supposedly an instructor from Changcheon Martial Academy, riding beside Inspector Censor Yu Jin-sung.
Of course, he was not really an instructor but Mumu, though the Censorate officials did not know that. To them, Mumu was no different from an eccentric.
'They said he was one of the academy's foremost masters, though no one knows much about him.'
'He certainly doesn't look like one.'
'Did he become a master with that face?'
'Seems that way.'
His face looked utterly vicious.
At first, every official had been intimidated by it. Yet the longer they watched him, the less convincing it seemed. According to Gwak Dan, the most skilled in Martial Arts among the Censorate officials, Gwak Dan's Ki sense suggested Mumu was just below the Advanced level.
An Advanced martial artist was not weak, but it was hardly martial prowess befitting the renowned Changcheon Martial Academy.
'This is strange.'
Mumu barely spoke, to the point where he might as well have been mute. At first, he could not even ride properly, clumsily guiding his horse.
No, he had not even known how to hold the reins.
The Inspector Censor had needed to ride beside Mumu and help him because of that.
'Have we been deceived?'
'I'm already worried sick as it is.'
They did not show it before Yu Jin-sung, but the Censorate officials were anxious about the situation as well.
After all, that female academy cadet was apparently royalty.
They had not been told the exact details, but the Inspector Censor had ordered them to protect her even at the cost of their lives.
Still, this was truly strange.
'We're supposed to escort a royal returning to the Imperial Palace with only us?'
'Isn't this too much?'
'Doesn't it feel like we're sacrificial pawns?'
'Don't say something so ominous.'
No official receiving a salary from the state was ignorant of how power moved through the realm.
Even they found the situation suspicious.
Many already disliked Inspector Censor Yu Jin-sung for having entered the Censorate from the academy, and their unease steadily grew.
Then,
-Paaang!
The Censorate officials' eyes widened.
"Huh!"
"W-what was that?"
Mumu, who had been nodding off, suddenly caught a pole-length arrow flying at him without even lifting his head.
Everyone was stunned by the sight.
But only for a moment.
Yu Jin-sung saw Mumu catch the massive arrow and shouted,
"An ambush!"
-Clang! Clang!
The Censorate officials hurriedly drew their weapons and lifted the shields hanging from their horses.
Jin-sung asked Mumu,
"Where did that come from? No, where did it come from, sir?"
He had nearly slipped into casual speech.
Mumu turned his head and looked precisely toward where the arrow had come from.
The arrow had come from above the valley.
Jin-sung followed Mumu's gaze. He could barely make out human figures there.
'So it has finally begun.'
They seemed to be the enemies Princess Seo Hong Na-yeon had warned them about.
Jin-sung spoke quietly enough for only the Censorate officials behind him to hear.
"Raise your shields overhead and ride forward. We're at a positional disadvantage, so hurry..."
-Creeeak!
An unfamiliar sound reached his ears.
Jin-sung glanced toward Mumu.
-Creak!
Mumu's upper-body muscles swelled so greatly that they looked ready to rip through his clothes.
At the same time, the skin on his neck heated and glowed gray.
-Shuuuuuu!
Mumu gripped the pole-length arrow backward and drew his arm behind him.
The muscles around his biceps and forearms bulged enough to tear his clothes apart.
'What kind of muscles are those?'
'Wait, is he going to throw that upward?'
The Censorate officials stared in disbelief.
The cliff where the enemies waited rose more than 1,300 feet above them.
Even shooting an arrow from a bow to that height would be difficult. No matter how much Force of ki one poured into it, reaching that far with one's bare hand was impossible...
-Paaaaaang!
At that instant, the air rippled like waves as the pole-length arrow shot up toward the cliff.
Its speed was incomparable to an arrow fired from a bow.
At the same time, atop the cliff.
'Is he really going to do it?'
The scarred man in tiger-skin clothing, who had targeted the dozing Mumu with the massive arrow, frowned.
Mumu had stopped his arrow, but this was absurd.
Shooting down from high ground added the force of descent, while firing upward meant fighting against the air itself.
Even a bow could not easily do it, yet he intended to throw it with his bare hand?
"That bastard's insane."
A snort escaped him.
The scarred man raised a hand and said,
"Roll the rocks down..."
'!?'
He did not get to finish.
His eyes widened at the pole-length arrow that suddenly appeared before him.
'T-that's impossible...'
-Thud!
The arrow embedded itself in his chest.
It would have been better if it had pierced through, but the fletching had been curled inward so the arrow would lodge in an enemy and drive them back.
"Keugh!"
The man's body shot upward together with the arrow.
-Paaaaaang!
"Aaaaaaah!"
His scream, echoing through the valley, rapidly faded into the distance.
"C-chief!"
The man's retainers could not hide their shock as their leader was impaled by the massive arrow and flung wildly into the sky.
In the blink of an eye, he had become a tiny speck.
'!!!!!!'
What in the world was happening?
How could an arrow launched from beneath the cliff carry such force?
Then something occurred that they had not expected.
-Kwaaaaaang!
A tremendous blast of wind followed the arrow through the air and struck the cliff.
No, the cliff itself was blown away.
The Censorate officials watching from below stood with their mouths hanging open.
"This can't be..."
"T-the cliff..."
The cliff where the ambushers had been waiting was devastated and blasted apart by a single arrow.
It was an unbelievable sight.
They were not the only ones shocked.
Mumu's older brother, Yu Jin-sung, who had only heard rumors of Mumu's strength, was stunned, as was Princess Seo Hong Na-yeon.
'Was this child's strength really this great?'
'...So the rumor that he defeated two of the Four Immortal Masters wasn't false.'
Seeing it with their own eyes made it even more shocking.
Mumu's monstrous strength was beyond words, enough to make them wonder whether it could truly be human power.
As everyone stood there too astonished to speak, Mumu tried to say something.
'I can't see any lights on the cliff, so I think it's safe to go.'
But then he remembered Vice-Master Dan Pil-hu's warning.
[It would be better if you spoke as little as possible.]
[Speak less?]
[Yes. Your voice does not suit you at all.]
"Ahem."
Mumu coughed to get Jin-sung's attention and gestured.
First, he pointed at the cliff. Then he raised his index finger and waved it from side to side.
'There is no one left up there now.'
That was what he meant.
Yet the looks in the Censorate officials' eyes changed as they watched him.
'Heh...'
'That's reassuring.'
'This sort of ambush is no problem at all. It's nothing, so don't worry.'
'So we both took it the same way.'
'His confidence is as great as his skill.'
Contrary to Mumu's intent, the Censorate officials interpreted his hand gesture that way.
Perhaps because of that, the way they looked at Mumu now was completely different from before. Their eyes were full of trust and awe.
Even the silent way he conveyed his meaning with a single finger looked different to them now.
* * *
Early the next morning.
In an outlying district not far from Geumjeong Palace in the imperial capital, a carrier pigeon flew into a splendid Manor of considerable size.
A sharp-featured middle-aged figure wearing blue silk received it and brought the message to an elder tending a small vegetable patch in the garden with a hoe.
"My lord. A carrier pigeon has arrived."
"..."
Despite the middle-aged figure's words, the elder did not even glance toward the middle-aged figure and continued working.
Used to this, the middle-aged figure unrolled the message attached to the carrier pigeon and read its contents.
"Hmm."
A low groan escaped the middle-aged figure.
The elder, who had been pulling weeds, spoke.
"It did not go well, then."
"As you said."
"You said Gang Yeon, the Silent-Stained Bow, was quite capable. He was all show and no substance."
"...I have no excuse."
"What a waste of the money paid in advance."
The elder shook his head.
The middle-aged figure let out a faint sigh at the elder's attitude.
Gang Yeon, the Silent-Stained Bow, was a master with a considerable reputation among wandering martial artists. Some said his martial prowess might reach the level of the Ten Great Masters of the Force of Justice within ten years.
He had seemed useful enough that they had intended to employ him if he handled this matter well.
Yet the man had lost his life.
'This differs from what the Left Assistant Censor said.'
O Mu-yang, the Left Assistant Censor of the Censorate, had said in the information they sent that aside from the Inspector Censor, the escort consisted of only ten Censorate officials.
Gang Yeon and the group of wandering martial artists he led should have been more than enough.
That meant...
"It seems there is an unknown variable."
"A variable?"
"I have heard that Changcheon Martial Academy has many masters of the force of justice. They may have sought help from them."
-Thud!
At those words, the elder drove the hoe into the ground and stood.
Stretching his back, the elder said,
"Hmm. Then you failed to predict even that much."
The middle-aged figure bowed with clasped hands.
"This subordinate was careless. Yet I was half right and half wrong."
"Half right and half wrong?"
"My mistake was believing that Gang Yeon and the wandering martial artists would be enough even if there was a variable."
"How was that half right?"
"They had to hide Princess Seo's identity, so I expected they could not ask the academy for help. Even if they did, I believed they could not receive much assistance."
One of the elder's brows rose.
"And is that all?"
"When I make a move, I always use a pawn and a horse together."
"A horse as well..."
"Old Master Byeok Ung of the Guest House had been bored, so I asked him for help."
"Dae Ja-gwang Byeok Ung?"
"Yes."
The elder snorted at that.
Then he shook his head and muttered,
"Using an ox-slaughtering blade to kill a chicken."
Dae Ja-gwang Byeok Ung was a former member of the Ten Great Masters of the Force of Justice, and one of the three guest-retainers the elder valued most.
How much money and time had it taken to bring him in?
-Rumble!
At the thunder rolling through the air, the elder looked up at the sky.
The heavens were filled with dark clouds. Before long, a heavy downpour would likely fall for quite some time.
The elder's lips curved upward.
"Good. Very good. I too will add a cannon to the horse you have prepared."
* * *
-Shaaaaaa!
-Rumble! Crash! Crash!
Thunder and lightning filled the skies from morning onward as rain poured down in sheets.
Under ordinary circumstances, they would have continued traveling in bamboo rain capes. Yet no one could even consider moving forward through such a downpour.
Even if they protected themselves with internal energy, their stamina and body temperature would inevitably fall sharply.
The escort procession briefly left the road and urgently searched nearby for shelter from the rain.
"Inspector Censor, look over there!"
As they left the forest, they discovered a shabby inn beside the road.
Myeonggyeong Inn.
Soaked through, they hurried inside.
Only after entering the inn did they finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness."
"Who would have thought there was an inn in a place like this?"
They had hoped the rain would ease even a little, but it was not the sort of weather that would permit that.
Warmth greeted them as they entered. After being out in the rain for so long and beginning to shiver, they were fortunate to find it.
"Hoo..."
-Sssss!
Steam rose from Princess Seo Hong Na-yeon's body.
The moment she came inside, she removed her bamboo rain cape and used internal energy to raise her body temperature and dry her clothes.
Several young Censorate officials stole glances at her.
Her wet clothing clung to her skin, revealing the curve of her chest and the shape of her body. It was only natural that men's eyes would be drawn to her.
"Ahem!"
Jin-sung coughed to warn them.
Hong Na-yeon became conscious of their attention. Her face flushed as she covered herself with both hands.
It was only natural that she would be embarrassed.
Even so, she suddenly became curious about Mumu's reaction.
Had Mumu looked at her too?
But then,
'Ah...'
Mumu had already settled into a seat at the inn, looking completely uninterested.
His eyes gleamed brightly in a way that did not suit his vicious-looking face at all.
It seemed he was hungry after having eaten nothing since morning because of the downpour.
'Does he really have no interest at all?'
For some reason, Mumu's indifference bothered her.
Up on the inn's second floor, an elder with a bent back and a cane watched them with hawk-like eyes.
'It must be them.'
The elder nodded.
They matched what he had heard.
The woman carrying a bow, the young man who appeared to be the Inspector Censor, and the ten others were likely Censorate officials.
'Hmm.'
Something was strange.
None of them seemed particularly threatening, so how had they escaped Gang Yeon, the Silent-Stained Bow, and made it this far?
The elder had thought there would be no need to step in personally, but this was unexpected.
The young man who appeared to be the Inspector Censor was the most advanced in Martial Arts among them, but that was all.
Then the unknown variable was...
'That fellow?'
The elder's gaze settled first on the rugged-looking middle-aged man sitting at a table.
He was likely someone from Changcheon Martial Academy who had not been in the information report.
He looked convincing enough from the outside, but the elder's Ki sense suggested he was slightly below the Advanced level.
Still, one could never know.
Some masters with deep cultivation were skilled at concealing their presence so that none of their ki leaked out.
'Even so, it does not matter.'
The elder could also conceal his ki with precision. Though retired from active life long ago, his internal energy had only grown deeper.
The elder took pride in believing that, at present, no one other than the Four Immortal Masters could stand against him.
Looking down at the rugged-looking middle-aged man, no, at Mumu, the elder smiled mockingly.
'I'll kill you first.'
Footnotes:
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