WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 36: Ha Ryun (1)

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Ha Ryun (1)

The dormitory assignments for all entering cadets were nearly finished.

That was why Jin-hyeok, Mo Il-hwa, and Hae Ryang, who had been looking around here and there, noticed Mumu had gone missing.

Then one of the floor leaders gave them the tip that Mumu had headed to the men's outhouse.

"Mumu!"

"Young master Mumu!"

Jin-hyeok, calling out for Mumu, sighed inwardly. He wasn't the boy's nanny. Why was he out here hunting down someone who'd just gone to relieve himself?

"Call louder," Mo Il-hwa said.

Jin-hyeok stared at her. He didn't understand why only he and Hae Ryang had to be the ones shouting.

"Miss, you could also..."

"He's in the men's outhouse. What happens if I call out? Mumu would be mortified. You men raise your voices a bit more."

"Hmm."

There was some logic to that, annoyingly enough. Jin-hyeok could never win an argument with her.

While they went back and forth, Hae Ryang pointed somewhere.

"Miss! Look over there."

There stood Mumu, holding onto someone who had collapsed. The three of them ran toward him.

"Wake up," Mumu was saying, shaking violently at Ha Ryun, whose whole body convulsed and whose eyes had rolled back.

"Mumu, what in the world are you, wait, what?"

Jin-hyeok, looking closer, couldn't hide his bewilderment. A medium needle sat planted dead center in Ha Ryun's forehead, buried in quite deep. Please don't tell him that thing had touched the brain.

"And what happened around here?" Mo Il-hwa frowned, scanning the area around the outhouse. The ground was gouged and torn, littered with signs of a struggle.

'What did he do this time?'

Wherever Mumu went, he always seemed to land right at the center of some incident. Jin-hyeok pressed a hand to his throbbing forehead.

"What happened here? Did you do this?"

"No. I fell asleep and woke up, and he was like that right behind me."

"You fell asleep and woke up? What does that even mean?"

It sounded like nonsense. Why would anyone fall asleep near an outhouse?

Puzzled, Jin-hyeok studied Ha Ryun more closely, the boy's eyes rolled back, body trembling.

"Wait, I've seen this face somewhere."

"Huh? I know him!" Mo Il-hwa said, eyes going round.

"You know him?"

"That... you know, during our entrance exam, he's the one who opened the second gate besides Hong Hye-ryeong and Young Chun. His temper didn't look too great, if I remember."

Truthfully, Mo Il-hwa remembered him for an entirely different reason. But her words jogged Jin-hyeok's memory.

"Ah!"

With his eyes rolled back and his face twisted, he hadn't recognized him at first. Jin-hyeok remembered him too, a boy who held deeper internal energy than most rising talents his age despite not being a descendant of the Four Immortal Masters.

"Oh. That's right. This looks like young master Ha Ryun," Hae Ryang said.

He'd actually recognized Ha Ryun the fastest. Having shared a temporary lodging with him, it would have been strange not to.

"For now, this doesn't look like something we can just leave be," Hae Ryang said.

Ha Ryun's condition wasn't good at all, given the way his body kept convulsing.

"We should probably tell the academy's masters or the floor leaders and ask if there's a doctor or infirmary. As for the needle in his forehead..."

Pop! Spurt!

Blood sprayed up from the dead center of Ha Ryun's forehead.

"...don't pull it out," Hae Ryang had been about to say, worried it might cause more bleeding.

But Mumu had already yanked it out.

"..."

Jin-hyeok stared at Mumu, at a loss for words. Mumu, seeing the blood spurt from the wound, apparently realized his mistake and scratched his head, muttering.

"Shouldn't have pulled that out?"

"...You think? Move aside."

Jin-hyeok tore a long strip from his own robe and wound it around Ha Ryun's forehead. The wound was only as wide as the needle that had made it, so contrary to Jin-hyeok's worry, the bleeding trickled a little before it stopped.

"Huh? The shaking stopped."

Ha Ryun, who had been convulsing, went still and closed his eyes. Just in case, Jin-hyeok checked his pulse, and thankfully found nothing wrong. He seemed to just be... asleep? No, unconscious.

Examining the unconscious boy, Jin-hyeok asked with a suspicious look.

"You're really sure you didn't do anything? Then what are all these marks?"

Jin-hyeok pointed at the pits gouged into the ground. Obviously, the only person around with the monstrous strength to make craters like that was Mumu.

"Not me," Mumu said, waving his hands.

Hae Ryang studied the pits closely and spoke up.

"I think young master Mumu is half right."

"What does that mean?" Mo Il-hwa asked.

Hae Ryang pointed at the pits, then at the unconscious Ha Ryun.

"Judging by these craters, it looks like someone was flung down and slammed into the ground repeatedly, but the shape is narrow. Meanwhile, young master Ha Ryun here has fairly broad shoulders. And the clincher is that young master Ha Ryun's clothes are spotless."

"Huh, they really are," Mo Il-hwa said.

Just as Hae Ryang said, there wasn't a trace of dust or dirt on Ha Ryun's clothes anywhere.

Jin-hyeok frowned.

"Wait. Flung down and slammed into the ground?"

"Yes. Judging by the shape, it wasn't just once, it happened several times... which means this is probably..."

Hae Ryang glanced carefully at Mumu.

Mumu's brow furrowed.

"I said it wasn't me."

"If it wasn't you, then who did it? You're not just playing dumb, are you?"

"I don't lie about stuff like this."

"Hmm."

Jin-hyeok couldn't hide his puzzlement at that. As he himself had said, Mumu rarely lied about anything, and even if he tried, his personality would give it away instantly. What was in his head and what came out of his mouth were nearly always the same thing.

Just then, Hae Ryang came back holding something.

"There are more needles here."

"Huh? Isn't that what was stuck in Ha Ryun's forehead?"

"Yes. Looking at just one, I couldn't tell, but seeing several like this, I think I know where they're from."

"Where?"

"That's..."

At Mo Il-hwa's question, Hae Ryang's fingers curled briefly into a circle with his thumb before he let it go. Old habit, he'd almost asked for an information fee. But given that he'd promised to support this group with everything he had, information this small should come free.

"You were just about to ask for money, weren't you?"

"Ahaha. No, of course not."

"Hmm. Really?"

"Didn't I say I'd give my full loyalty to you, Miss? Ahem. This needle-shaped dart looks like it belongs to the Sichuan Tang Clan."

"The Tang Clan?"

At the mention of the Tang Clan, both Mo Il-hwa and Jin-hyeok looked startled. The Sichuan Tang Clan, the finest of the fine among the martial families. One of the Six Great Families, no less.

Hae Ryang studied the needles, puzzled.

"But it's strange. Why would a needle-dart used by the Sichuan Tang Clan be planted here and in young master Ha Ryun's forehead, and why are these craters even here?"

Three traces, or rather, three clues. And yet finding any connection between all three was impossible. The craters looked like Mumu's doing no matter how you looked at it, and yet he insisted he hadn't done it, which made the whole thing worse.

All three of them only grew more confused by clues that felt like a maze.

Jin-hyeok turned to Mumu.

"Why were you asleep, anyway?"

Jin-hyeok figured the key to this whole thing lay in Mumu's missing memory. Mumu tilted his head, then told them what he remembered, everything up to a girl named Jo Mae-hui appearing as he stepped out of the outhouse, undressing herself and telling him to feel her chest.

"Th-that girl, Jo Mae-hui, told you to feel her chest?"

Hae Ryang swallowed hard at that. What a stroke of luck, he thought to himself. Mo Il-hwa, meanwhile, went bright red and started fuming.

"M-Mumu, you! Don't tell me you fell for that woman's, no, that vixen's little trick?"

"Trick?"

"Wow, she was trying to seduce an innocent kid with her body. That's just blatant scheming."

"Really? I just thought her chest fat looked so big that maybe she wanted to join the Muscle Training School and train it."

'...'

Everyone fell silent at that. Though each of them was thinking something different.

'He said that to me too, and now he's said it again. Should I be grateful he knows so little about women? Hmm.' That was Mo Il-hwa.

'Father... even if you wanted to raise him freely, you should have at least taught him some common sense beyond basic schooling.' That was Jin-hyeok.

'Wonder if I could pull off pretending to be innocent with young ladies and offer to train their chests too.' And that absurd thought belonged to Hae Ryang.

Regardless, Mumu didn't seem bothered and finished telling them everything he remembered. Mo Il-hwa, having heard it all, looked puzzled.

"You smelled a scent, watched a few hand gestures, and then just fell asleep? Is that even possible?"

Hae Ryang frowned and stroked his chin.

"Hmm... this seems like we've gotten tangled up in something troublesome."

"What do you mean?"

"At first I thought it was nothing much, but this looks like some form of the Soul Captivation Art, or hypnosis."

"Soul Captivation Art?"

"Yes."

"What's that?"

"Exactly what it sounds like, a kind of technique. I've heard that among some of the heretical groups of the force of evil that were wiped out in the past, there were those who used sinister techniques to entrance people."

The Hao clan had turned to the force of justice now, but it had originally been an information clan born from the force of evil. That was why so much of this kind of information still remained within it.

Jin-hyeok asked Hae Ryang.

"So you're saying this Jo Mae-hui who put Mumu to sleep is from the dark path?"

"...I can't say for certain. It might be because young master Mumu hasn't trained in internal energy, but there aren't many clans of the dark path capable of casting hypnosis through nothing but scent and hand gestures alone. Still..."

If she really was a bewitching woman, one place in particular did come to mind.

'The Demonic Joy Palace.'

An organization of the dark path made up entirely of women. In its heyday, the Demonic Joy Palace had once been the terror of men across the force of evil. They cultivated internal energy through Harvesting Yang to Nourish Yin, kidnapping and violating countless men, leaving a trail of victims in their wake.

'But weren't they wiped out around seventeen years ago?'

The Great Orthodox-Heretic War, seventeen years past. Back then, countless infamous groups of the dark path had all been annihilated. Whatever survivors still clung to their lineage now were practically saints compared to what they used to be.

'...No, it couldn't be. They said that bloodline was wiped out entirely back then.'

Deciding it was just an idle worry, Hae Ryang let it drop. Mo Il-hwa pressed him.

"But what? Why'd you trail off like that?"

"Ah... if she really has mastered that art, she's undoubtedly from the dark path, but I can't imagine how a woman like that got into Changcheon Martial Academy."

"You know all sorts of things. Nothing comes to mind?"

"A guess? There are a few clans of the dark path currently capable of casting the Soul Captivation Art, the Lustful Gate among a couple of others, but I doubt any of them would take the reckless risk of infiltrating Changcheon Martial Academy, one of the sacred grounds of the force of justice."

"So the conclusion is, you can't be sure of anything?"

"That's right."

"If you'd tried to sell this information for money, that would've been real shameless."

"Ahem."

Mo Il-hwa clicked her tongue and walked over to Ha Ryun. She looked back and forth between him and the Sichuan Tang Clan's needle-dart that Hae Ryang was holding. One more clue than before, at least. A girl presumed to be from the dark path, Jo Mae-hui, had lured Mumu somewhere to do something to him.

'And while Mumu was unconscious, Jo Mae-hui vanished, the Tang Clan's needle-darts turned up scattered around, there are marks of Mumu unleashing his strength somewhere, and Ha Ryun ends up hit by one of the darts...'

Mo Il-hwa turned to Mumu.

"Mumu. When you woke up, you said Ha Ryun was right behind you?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"And the Sichuan Tang Clan needle was already stuck in him then too?"

"Right."

"Hmm."

Mo Il-hwa seemed to be trying to piece the whole thing together. Jin-hyeok spoke up.

"Miss, if the dark path really is involved like Hae Ryang says, this isn't something the three of us should be handling on our own. Shouldn't we tell the academy's masters?"

"It's not like handing it over solves anything right away. Just wait."

"Pardon?"

"Something about this kid smells off."

Mo Il-hwa walked over to Ha Ryun and, without warning, started patting him down. Jin-hyeok startled.

"Wh-what are you doing?"

"What does it look like? This kid was perfectly fine, then he ends up right behind sleeping Mumu with a needle in his forehead, acting like this. Of course it's suspicious."

"Well, that's true, but..."

"When something's suspicious, you search the person's belongings. Don't you know that?"

At Mo Il-hwa's words, Mumu clapped his hands together in agreement.

"I think I saw that in a book. Something about a lonely genius..."

Jin-hyeok's face lit up.

"The Lonely Genius Inspector's Chronicle of the Martial World! You read that too?"

"Yeah. It was mixed in with the books Uncle Oh Ji-gang gave me to read when I got bored."

"You too?"

Jin-hyeok had also received that book as a gift from Deputy Commissioner Oh Ji-gang. The book was full of advice worth remembering for a life in the martial world, one bit being that adopted sons or illegitimate children tend to be greedy, so they should be raised strictly from the start so they don't get taken for granted.

Mumu spoke to Jin-hyeok, delighted.

"Wasn't that a great read?"

"Ahem. It wasn't bad."

"You know that part, right? At the end of the book, the main character gets falsely accused and drinks straight from the bottle alone in his inn room, muttering, 'Damn, I'm so lonely.' Isn't that line the best?"

"Surprising that someone with so little common sense actually knows a classic like that."

For the first time, the two of them had found common ground. Even though Jin-hyeok didn't let it show, he found himself genuinely interested in what Mumu had to say.

Watching the two of them, Hae Ryang spoke up.

"My my, you two young masters. You've read that impossibly rare demonic manual."

"Demonic manual?"

"Ahaha, no, it's not actually a demonic manual. The content's just, well, a bit much."

Mumu and Jin-hyeok looked puzzled, and Hae Ryang explained with a laugh.

"Most of the content is exaggerated, patched together, or blatantly plagiarized from all over the place, so it got discontinued less than a year after it was published. That's how it earned the nickname 'the demonic manual too rare to find.' Hahahaha."

'...'

Mumu and Jin-hyeok clicked their tongues at this new piece of information. To think there had been such a story behind a book they'd both enjoyed as children.

"I have no idea who the author is, but they've got some nerve. I'd love to know who..."

"Hey."

Mo Il-hwa cut Hae Ryang off. Then she held up a few small pouches she'd found inside Ha Ryun's robes.

"Found something. Suspicious stuff."

"What is that?" Jin-hyeok asked.

Mo Il-hwa shook the pouches.

"Feels like there's some kind of powder in these."

"Powder?"

Curious, Jin-hyeok took a pouch from her and shook it. Sure enough, it was light, and something rustled softly inside, clearly powder of some kind. As he carefully started to open it,

"Hold on a moment," Hae Ryang said, stopping him.

Wondering why, Jin-hyeok watched Hae Ryang pull a long silver rod from inside his robe.

"What's that?" Mo Il-hwa asked.

"A rod made of melted silver."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Just checking in case this is poison. It doesn't work on every type, but silver tends to react to poison fairly well."

Hae Ryang dipped the silver rod into each pouch in turn. He tested all six, one after another, but the rod showed no reaction at all.

"Huh?"

Mo Il-hwa said, sounding disappointed.

"Ugh... I thought something would turn up, but there's nothing here."

'Heh.'

At her words, Ha Ryun, eyes still closed, sneered inwardly. As luck would have it, he'd woken up right when Mo Il-hwa began searching his body. He couldn't piece together the full picture of what had happened, but he understood well enough that they suspected him.

'You think I'd carry poison around that could be caught this easily? Idiots.'

The powders he carried only became toxic through very specific combinations and preparations.

'A silver rod, of all things.'

That only reacted to arsenic or acid-based compounds. He'd been a little on edge knowing she was from the Hao clan, but it seemed she didn't know much about poison after all.

"Should we search for anything else?" Mo Il-hwa asked.

'Search all you want. What could you possibly find...'

"Huh? This smell. This is the smell that was on Jin-hyeok last night."

'!?'

Ha Ryun's eyelids trembled faintly. What was she talking about? Just as he wondered, Mumu's voice followed.

"This blue pouch smells like whatever was on your face."

'This is insane.'

For a moment, Ha Ryun was at a complete loss. What was in the blue pouch was the very powder he'd scattered into Mumu's room the night before. Inhale even a little, and it drained the strength from the body, leaving it sluggish, less a poison than a byproduct of some medicinal formula.

'He smelled that?'

The real problem was that the scent was practically odorless. Even someone who'd handled poison for as long as he had could barely tell it apart, and yet this kid had picked it out from the faint traces leaking between pouches? Did he think he had a bloodhound's nose or something?

"Wait, really? You said someone punched a hole through your window paper and sprayed powder in, and you couldn't move afterward? Hey, wait, Hae Ryang, why are you putting that on your tongue?"

"Just confirming. Ah, don't worry too much, I always carry an antidote pill on me just in case. More importantly... it's true."

"What's true?"

"I only tasted a tiny bit, and my hand's already going weak. Matches exactly what young master Jin-hyeok described."

'...'

This was beyond mortifying. He hadn't expected to be caught this way. He had no idea what to do in this situation.

"So this guy was the culprit."

"We should probably wake him up and find out why he did it."

"But he took a needle almost a full knuckle deep straight into the middle of his forehead. Are you sure he'll even wake up?"

"Let's try waking him first. If it doesn't work, we'll have no choice but to take him to the infirmary."

'Ah!'

Listening to their conversation, Ha Ryun latched onto a plan. Buy time, however he could. Before long, Jo Mae-hui, having dealt with Tang So-so, would arrive. She too was one of the House of the Eight Villains. If the two of them joined forces, then even against a monster like Mumu with his absurd strength, they should be able to kill all four of them somehow.

'Just play unconscious, or pretend something's wrong with my head, until she gets here.'

He'd feign unconsciousness as long as possible, and if they tried to force him awake, he planned to act like the needle had left him addled, playing the fool as an aftereffect.

'They're supposedly the force of justice after all. Surely they won't torture someone to wake them up...'

Just as he thought that,

Swish!

Someone grabbed his hand. And then,

Crunch!

"AAAARGH!"

Ha Ryun's whole body twisted like a pretzel as he screamed.

Watching him writhe in agony, Mumu smiled brightly and said,

"He's awake."

Footnotes:

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