WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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Chapter 26: Attention (2)

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Attention (2)

Her hair was the color of dyed tangerines, a bright orange red. Hong Hye-ryeong was combing out her long, luxurious hair when her lips puffed out like a duck's.

Annoying.

No matter how she thought about it, it made her angry. She had assumed that once the entrance examination ended, every eye in Changcheon Martial Academy would turn to her. And that would have been true even without leaning on the reputation of her father, the Southern Blade Imperial Uncle Hong Hwa-yun. But the result had been nothing like she expected.

Yeo Jin-sung's younger brother?

She had heard the name Yeo Jin-sung before, too. The story of how he became an Inspector Censor to save his father, who had been wrongly framed and exiled, had moved the hearts of countless women. But unlike most of them, that was where her interest ended. Hong Hye-ryeong simply did not care. What bothered her instead was,

Who does that kid think he is, getting talked about more than me?

In the temporary dormitory where the female candidates waited, most of the talk was about nothing but Yeo Jin-sung's younger brother.

[Did you hear? They say the whole entrance examination got delayed because of Yeo Jin-sung's brother.] [Really?] [Yeah. This girl who got in late told me he ripped the city gate right off and used his movement skill, and it made the water in the artificial lake surge like waves. Apparently he's some incredible master.] [Oh my gosh. How can every single one of the brothers turn out so amazing. I can't wait.] [Look at you, already drooling.] [If he's not taken, I might as well stake a claim, right? Kyahaha.]

No. No!

This was not the picture she wanted. From the entrance examination all the way to graduation, only one name was supposed to be carved deep into everyone's mind, male or female alike, and that name was Hong Hye-ryeong. But from the very start, that Yeo Jin-sung's brother had swallowed up all the attention. Good or bad, it didn't matter. She grew curious just what kind of person he was, to steal every bit of interest away from her.

Fine, then.

Hong Hye-ryeong tied her hair up and rose from her bed. She had planned to wait until the opening ceremony to get a look at this fellow's face, but she changed her mind.

Let's see what kind of face he's got.

* * *

This little punk actually got angry?

He had figured the boy was just some easygoing type who would laugh everything off. But seeing that terrifying expression, seeing him hold nothing back, sent a chill down the spine that went well past surprise.

"O-oh, oh geez..."

Thud! Crash!

With one swing of Mumu's hand, another head was driven into the ceiling. A person's head lodged in the ceiling, dangling there, was not something anyone saw every day.

Again. Again!

The boys who had underestimated him for his gentle looks now wore completely different expressions. Terrified, they backed away, not knowing what to do.

"S-Seo-ryong. What do we do?"

What do we do?

At the boy's question, Kang Seo-ryong couldn't hide his own helplessness. He had assumed Yeo Jin-sung's brother was this one, and that the other guy would be nothing much, but that assumption had been completely wrong. He'd been confident enough to take on the remaining four at once and win. But this business of jamming people's heads into the ceiling, that was on another level.

"I think we should apologize and tell him to stop."

Damn it.

At the boy's words, Kang Seo-ryong bit down hard on his lip. If he'd come out of this having handed Yeo Jin-sung's brother a beating, fine, but going in talking big and coming out scared out of his wits would smear the good name of the Nam Yang Strong Blade Clan. The other students would laugh at him without a doubt.

Crash!

In the meantime another head got driven into the ceiling. By the look of things, he intended to put every last one of them in that same state. This was insane. Just then, the boy standing beside Kang Seo-ryong bolted forward, dropped to his knees before Mumu, and begged.

"M-Mumu, was it? Please forgive us. We won't act out again..."

Mumu looked down at him with no expression at all. Then he spoke.

"My father told me a gentleman should always show mercy." "Ahhh!"

At those words the boy's face lit up. He was sure he'd made the right choice.

"Thank you. Really, thank..."

But then,

Thud! Crash!

Mumu kicked his chin upward, and just like the others, the boy's head went straight into the ceiling. At the sight, Kang Seo-ryong shouted, unable to believe it.

"Didn't you just say to show mercy?" "But he also said mercy doesn't have to be shown to anyone who goes after family." "F-family?"

Kang Seo-ryong's eyes went wide. So this kid and that monster were brothers? Only then did Kang Seo-ryong realize their real target had not been Jin-hyeok but Mumu all along. While he stood there flustered, Jin-hyeok's expression turned strange.

Family...

He hadn't expected the word family to come out of that mouth. They hadn't even lived together that long, and yet he'd called him family. Something about it felt strange. It was right at that moment.

Grip!

Kang Seo-ryong seized Jin-hyeok's hair and grabbed his throat. Jin-hyeok frowned and said,

"What do you think you're doing?" "I don't know, damn it. That bastard's already gone off the rails anyway, so why can't I?" "What?"

Jin-hyeok narrowed his eyes and looked at the hand gripping his throat. It was trembling badly. Kang Seo-ryong was strung tight with tension. So much so that he really could no longer see anything in front of him. Kang Seo-ryong called out a warning to Mumu.

"Hey! Don't come any closer. You said this guy's your family, right? Take one more step and I'll snap his neck right here." "Snap it?"

One of Mumu's eyebrows went up. That only deepened Kang Seo-ryong's fear, but he couldn't back down now. He couldn't start his life at Changcheon Martial Academy with his head jammed in the ceiling like those other worms.

I just need to get out of here.

He had to hurry. If the noise kept up like this, other students were bound to come running. And then his reputation would be shredded beyond saving. Kang Seo-ryong spoke to Mumu.

"Let's make a deal. Let me walk out of here, and I'll let him go safe and sound. Deal?"

Of course, he had no real intention of killing anyone. It was pure bluff, plain and simple. If he actually did it, his admission to Changcheon Martial Academy would be canceled outright, and his whole life would be ruined besides.

Twitch! Twitch!

Just then Kang Seo-ryong's eyes trembled. Veins bulged across Mumu's blank face, the muscles rippling and twisting until his expression turned savage. He had never seen a human face move like that before. While he stood there stunned, Mumu opened his mouth.

"I think I really need to kill you."

Chills.

The words came out so casually that they sent a shiver crawling up his spine, strong enough to make his legs buckle. Only one thought filled Kang Seo-ryong's head. That guy really meant it. Jin-hyeok felt the exact same thing.

That idiot's about to cause a real disaster.

He had to stop Mumu. But right now his own body had gone limp, powerless to move...

Grip!

Just then, strength returned to his hand. He didn't know when it had come back, but the weakness that had drained his body was suddenly gone. The moment Jin-hyeok felt it, he didn't hesitate. He grabbed the wrist of the hand gripping his hair and sent a kick straight at Kang Seo-ryong's face.

Thwack!

"Guh!"

Kang Seo-ryong, who had let his guard down watching Mumu, took the hit full in the face and staggered back. Jin-hyeok put some distance between them and called out to Mumu.

"Mumu, I'm fine, so sto..."

He didn't even finish the word.

"Gah!"

Slam!

Mumu snatched up the staggering Kang Seo-ryong like a raging bull and charged straight at the wall.

Crash!

"Gyeck!"

The dormitory wall burst open, and Mumu and Kang Seo-ryong dropped straight down through the gap.

Insane! T-this is the fifth floor!

And it was true. Mumu's temporary room sat on the fifth floor. Startled, Jin-hyeok rushed to the shattered wall. He looked down expecting to see two bodies that had fallen and crashed below, but neither Mumu nor Kang Seo-ryong was anywhere in sight.

What? Mumu?

He had no idea where they'd gone. Behind him, he heard voices murmuring, growing louder. Already a crowd of admitted candidates had gathered outside the door, peering in to see what had happened. Ha Ryun was among them.

By now he must have gotten quite the beating.

Since he couldn't kill the boy outright, he had gotten involved as a way to vent some frustration. The powder Ha Ryun had scattered wasn't poison exactly, more like a kind of medicine, one that left a person's body powerless to move for a short while. Its advantage was that, since it wasn't poison, there would be no lasting problems afterward, and since it evaporated and vanished, it left no trace behind. Its drawback was that once used on someone, their body developed immunity, so it wouldn't work a second time.

Only good for one use, but it comes in handy at times like this.

He'd figured that even without internal energy, once the body went limp, there was no way to fight back. Now, looking forward to enjoying the sight of the boy getting worked over, Ha Ryun leaned in to look and his eyes went wide.

...What is this?

Four bodies hung dangling, heads jammed into the ceiling. And there stood Jin-hyeok, frozen, staring out through the shattered dormitory wall. Kang Seo-ryong, the one who'd seemed at least somewhat useful, was nowhere to be seen, and given the state of the broken wall, it looked like he must have fallen outside.

Wait. That's not him.

The one standing there was without a doubt that Yu Jin-hyeok fellow who'd been with Mumu. Why wasn't Mumu in that room, and why was this one here instead?

Hold on... he took a hit from that powder and still did all this to them?

Ha Ryun's eyes sharpened. On the surface he had judged this one clearly beneath himself and hadn't bothered paying him much attention, but here he was, hit with a powder that should have left his body limp, and still managing to take down every one of them alone. It was hard to believe.

Grip!

Ha Ryun's fist clenched. It seemed there were more opponents here worth watching than he had expected. Especially those Yeo brothers, they seemed to be no ordinary pair either, on par with the successors of the Four Immortal Masters. Ha Ryun slowly withdrew through the gathering crowd of new admits. The corner of his mouth curled into a thin, sharp smile.

Not a single one of them is making this easy.

If anything, his fighting spirit had come back to life. Unlike him, Jin-hyeok's head was pounding with a headache. The candidates who had crowded in over the commotion were staring at him with eyes full of awe.

"Whoa. Aren't those the guys who were bragging earlier about teaching that one a lesson?" "Yeah, they were mouthing off about it in the hallway." "No way." "So it's not just that his martial arts are strong." "Guess he wanted to show that he shows no mercy to anyone who comes after him. That's why he did that to them." "He's terrifying."

Something had gone seriously wrong here. Whatever Mumu had done had somehow become something Jin-hyeok himself had done. Of all the rotten timing, the crowd had swarmed in the very moment Mumu dropped through the floor. He figured he needed to clear up the misunderstanding. Jin-hyeok let out a sigh and turned to the gathered candidates.

"Look, there's some misunderstanding..."

Murmur, murmur!

Before he could even finish, the crowd suddenly turned to look toward the hallway. Wondering what was going on, he saw them part into two lines as a beautiful girl walked through, her hair a soft shimmering orange red trailing behind her. Her looks were so striking that everyone stood frozen, staring.

"That huge blade slung across her back? Don't tell me, is that Hong Hye-ryeong?" "Hong Hye-ryeong?" "Why is the Southern Blade Imperial Uncle's successor here?"

Once her identity became clear, the candidates buzzed with shock. Jin-hyeok was just as stunned. For a moment he had lost himself staring at her, the first time a woman's looks had ever done that to him, but the instant he heard her name, his head cleared right up.

Why would the successor of one of the Four Immortal Masters be here?

While he stood there puzzled, she swept her gaze once across the room, then parted her cherry-red lips toward Jin-hyeok.

"Showing no mercy to your enemies... not bad. You're more than qualified to be my rival."

What!?

What in the world was she talking about? Her sudden declaration left him stunned, and the watching candidates erupted.

"No way!" "The Southern Blade Imperial Uncle's successor just called him her rival." "Damn it! To get Hong Hye-ryeong's attention like that." "If you're jealous, just say you're jealous."

The murmuring around him made Jin-hyeok's head spin. Things had only gotten worse than before.

This is insane.

He had no idea how everything had gotten so tangled up.

* * *

Meanwhile, not far from the dormitory building, deep in a quiet, empty stretch of forest, a middle-aged man with graying hair arrived and dropped Kang Seo-ryong, whom he'd been holding by the scruff of his collar, onto the ground.

"Ugh!"

Kang Seo-ryong landed hard on his backside and stared at this stranger, utterly lost. At the sight, the gray-haired man let out a short laugh.

"I go through the trouble of saving your life, and this is the thanks I get, all this wariness?" "If you mean saving me from the fall..." "What are you talking about?" "Huh?" "I saved you from that one."

The man tilted his head toward a figure approaching in the distance. It was Mumu.

Gah!

The moment Kang Seo-ryong spotted Mumu, he flinched in terror, his whole body shaking. That guy was a complete monster.

"I, I don't know who you are, but that guy was trying to kill..." "You'd do better to worry about the punishment coming your way for the mess you caused." "What?" "For now, just sleep."

Tap tap tap!

The gray-haired man, looking mildly annoyed at Kang Seo-ryong's theatrics, struck his pressure points and put him to sleep. At this, Mumu tilted his head and asked,

"Who are you, mister, and why'd you take him?"

Mumu had originally planned to let the fall crush the boy's body outright. After all, this was someone who had tried to kill Jin-hyeok. But as they went crashing through the wall and falling, this man had appeared out of nowhere, snatched the boy up by the collar, and told Mumu to follow him.

"Mister? Hahahaha. What an amusing kid you are."

At being called mister, laughter burst from the gray-haired man. His true identity was none other than Dan Pil-hu, Vice-Master of Changcheon Martial Academy. Having come at Master Byeok I-mun's request to secretly observe what kind of boy Mumu was, he found himself unable to hide his astonishment at the unexpected sight before him.

He's trained his external energy to that level?

He had half doubted it before, but now it truly earned a gasp of admiration. He understood now why Master Byeok I-mun had taken such an interest. Vice-Master Dan Pil-hu stopped laughing and spoke to Mumu, his voice turning somewhat serious.

"Kid. How about this old man takes you on as a disciple?"

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