WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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Chapter 66: The Terrifying Old Teaching Hall (3)

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The Terrifying Old Teaching Hall (3)

'What in the world...'

Mo Il-hwa and Jin-hyeok truly doubted their own eyes.

A blood-soaked, long-haired ghost, both arms flapping helplessly, pinned down by Mumu's forearm. Watching the ghost writhe in apparent agony, they lost the words to say anything for a moment.

'No. How did he even do that?'

Jin-hyeok couldn't wrap his head around what he was looking at. The ghost that had swallowed every attack he threw at it without resistance was being held down by Mumu as though it had a real, solid body.

Just then Mo Il-hwa asked, her voice full of disbelief.

"Hey... wh-what is that thing?"

At her question, Mumu looked up and said,

"You mean this person?"

"Person?"

"Yeah. Its waist was stretched all the way out to the stairs, so I pulled on it, and it shrank back down like this."

'...Does he not think there's anything strange about that at all right now?'

The thing had stopped being anything human the moment its waist stretched out like that. And yet Mumu held onto the ghost without a shred of unease or fear.

While Mo Il-hwa stood there clicking her tongue in disbelief, Jin-hyeok crept closer and gave the ghost pinned under Mumu's forearm a cautious poke with the tip of his foot.

Shhk!

To his shock, his foot passed straight through the ghost.

"Huh?"

That made no sense. Mumu was clearly holding the ghost down, pressing on it, and they were both watching it happen right now. And yet Jin-hyeok couldn't touch the thing at all.

"I-It passed through?"

Hae Ryang, looking uneasy about the whole thing, cautiously stretched out his own foot to try. Just like with Jin-hyeok, his foot passed straight through as well. The ghost was visible, but it was as if it wasn't actually there.

"What in the world is this thing?"

"Wh... what do you mean, what is it. It's a ghost. But Mumu, how are you even holding onto it?"

At Mo Il-hwa's question, Mumu tilted his head. He hadn't done anything special. He'd just grabbed it.

"I just grabbed it. More importantly, why can't you two grab it?"

"No. It's not that we don't want to grab it, it's that it's a ghost, so it can't be grabbed."

"A ghost?"

"Yeah. A ghost. The soul of a dead person. A soul!"

"This person?"

Mumu tilted his head, puzzled, then asked the blood-soaked female ghost he had pinned down.

"Are you a ghost?"

"There's no way it'll answer just because you ask like that..."

Uuuuugh.

'!?'

At that moment the ghost let out a strange, garbled sound, hard to make out as words. It was an eerie sound, nothing like a human voice, but coming right after Mumu's question, it almost sounded like a reply.

"Wh-what? Can it actually talk?"

"Seems like it."

Mumu pressed down on the ghost's back instead of its neck and asked again.

"Can you talk?"

Uuuuuugh.

The ghost made the same sound in response to Mumu's question. There was no telling if that was a yes or not, but Mumu took it as one.

"It says it can talk."

"...That just sounded like uuugh to me."

"No, it can talk. Hey, do you happen to know Master Dan Baek-yeon?"

Uuuuuugh.

"It knows her."

At Mumu's words, Jin-hyeok clicked his tongue in exasperation.

"No, Mumu... it just said uuugh again."

"Sounded like it knew her to me."

"Where in the world did you get that from..."

Shhhhhhk!

Just then, the blood-soaked ghost's body suddenly convulsed, its form flickering between blurry and solid over and over. If Mumu hadn't been pinning it down, it looked like it might have vanished right then. So Mumu smacked the ghost's head with his palm.

Thwack!

Struck by the blow, the ghost's head slammed into the floor. The flickering form solidified again. Its eyes, barely visible through the strands of hair, looked close to tears now.

Uuuuugh.

Mumu spoke to the ghost.

"Try to run off again and I'll hit you harder."

"......"

At Mumu's warning, the ghost trembled as if terrified.

* * *

'Huh?'

Tang So-so's pretty brow furrowed. She'd definitely climbed two floors up the stairs. And yet somehow she was standing on an underground level, not an upper one. Judging by the surroundings lit up by her firelighter, all stone walls with not a single window, this had to be underground.

She bit down on her lower lip.

'...Have I really been running the Three Suns Return to the Root Art this whole time, and this energy still hasn't cleared?'

That made no sense. Even accounting for this being some poison unlike any ordinary one, running the Three Suns Return to the Root Art this long should have been more than enough to clear any hallucination. And yet instead of going up, she'd come down. Which meant she still hadn't broken free of it.

"Tch."

As someone from the Sichuan Tang Clan, a family that had built its name on poison, something about this made her genuinely angry. Falling for a trick like this.

And on top of that, she'd been feeling something colder than just chilly for a while now.

"Haa~"

Her breath even fogged in the air.

Crunch!

She went to take a step and heard something crack underfoot. Looking down, she saw the floor's surface frozen over, ice shards crunching where she'd just stepped. Her breath fogging wasn't happening for no reason.

'It's like it's winter only underground.'

There was no way to explain it except as some kind of artificial force at work. Puzzled, she shook her head. Rather than exploring the basement alone, she needed to hurry back and warn the others that everything they were seeing was a hallucination.

Just as she turned back toward the stairs,

"Wondering who broke in, and it turns out it was you, Tang So-so?"

At the low voice behind her, Tang So-so's eyes went wide. She hadn't sensed a hint of presence there. Startled, she spun around and pointed her firelighter toward the direction the voice had come from.

In the flickering light, a pale-faced man who looked about nineteen stood in the middle of the underground hallway, his hands clasped behind his back.

'!?'

She couldn't hide her shock at the sight.

"Senior Kang? How are you here?"

She doubted her own eyes. The handsome man standing with his hands behind his back was none other than Kang Mu-i, a third-year senior at the academy. And not just any third-year, he was the man ranked second in the entire academy, called a genius.

'The sickly handsome man.'

That was what So-so used to call him. He always looked frail and sickly, yet he was a monster of a senior who fought for first or second place among the third-years, and being so handsome, plenty of women at the academy had taken an interest in him. But because of his particular gloominess and the way he pushed people away, few had ever dared approach him. She'd had a passing interest in him once too, but had given up on it because of that.

"Um... how are you here, senior?"

At her question, Kang Mu-i spoke with an expressionless face.

"That's what I'd like to ask you. You saw the ghosts of the Old Teaching Hall and kept wandering around inside without a shred of fear?"

"Ghosts? Those are artificially induced hallucinations."

"Ho. So being from the Tang Clan means 'that' doesn't work on you?"

At his murmur, sounding intrigued, Tang So-so frowned and asked.

"Don't tell me you're the one who scattered Illusory Powder."

Illusory Powder.

It was closer to a medicinal herb than an actual poison. Inhaling it affected the brain and caused hallucinations. She'd caught its scent on the painting with the eyes that moved, and that had convinced her the whole thing was a hallucination.

"You knew what it was and used it anyway, senior?"

At her question, Kang Mu-i answered without a trace of concern.

"That's right."

"...Then does that mean every ghost incident that's happened at the Old Teaching Hall until now was caused by you too?"

At this question, Kang Mu-i wore an odd expression for a moment, then nodded.

"You could see it that way."

"What do you mean, could see it that way? That means the whole incident that caused such an uproar last year was all your doing."

Tang So-so was speechless. How much chaos had that incident caused last year? And here he was, speaking about it like it was nothing at all. To her, Kang Mu-i said,

"Let's be clear about one thing. Last year's incident was a separate matter from the ghosts. That happened because the academy's masters and cadets mishandled the poison."

"But still..."

"The Old Teaching Hall still carries residual toxicity throughout the entire building from that accident. That building should have been closed off regardless of any ghosts. You, of all people, a descendant of the Sichuan Tang Clan, should know that well enough."

"......"

At his words, Tang So-so found herself at a loss. It was true that some of the poisonous energy still lingered inside the building. That poisonous energy spread far more aggressively than she'd expected, to the point where moving around inside without an antidote pearl was still difficult.

"...Fine. Let's say you're right about that. But why are you scattering hallucination-inducing Illusory Powder and doing whatever you're doing in this dangerous place?"

At her question, the corner of Kang Mu-i's mouth curled up slightly.

"Hmm. What could I have been doing?"

Something about that felt genuinely chilling. She'd known he had a reputation for being unusual, but that smile was deeply unsettling.

Kang Mu-i began walking slowly toward her. Sensing danger, Tang So-so put a hand out and said,

"Stay where you are and talk."

"Why so wary?"

"Because right now, senior, I find you extremely suspicious."

Anyone would have found this suspicious. Scattering hallucination-inducing Illusory Powder inside a building already contaminated with poisonous energy, doing something alone underground, it couldn't have looked more suspect. If it came to it, she was prepared to unleash her Body of Ten Thousand Poisons and face him head on.

To her, bristling with wariness, Kang Mu-i shrugged and said,

"Seems I've been misunderstood by my junior here, though I meant no harm. I just needed a quiet place."

"A quiet place?"

Just for that reason, he'd scattered something like Illusory Powder inside a building? With grades like Kang Mu-i's, he could have applied to rent a special-grade training hall without needing a dangerous building like this one.

"Even without coming to a place like this..."

"There are things I can't experiment with anywhere else."

Snap!

Kang Mu-i flicked his fingers lightly. At that instant, a chill ran down her spine and she looked up at the ceiling.

Creak! Creak!

A black shadow with bloodshot eyes clung to the ceiling. But that wasn't the end of it.

Shhhk!

A monstrous being with a half-melted face passed through the wall and appeared.

'Huh?'

Tang So-so's brow furrowed at this bizarre sight. Even if the Illusory Powder's effects still lingered, it was strange for beings like this to appear so vividly. Looking at them, they were exactly what people would call ghosts.

"What in the world is..."

At her look of confusion, Kang Mu-i smirked and pulled a book from inside his robe. The transcribed volume bore a title on its cover, Maoshan Ghost-Summoning Arts.

"What's that?"

"The now-extinct Maoshan Sect made its name with strange arts. Commanding spirits, making the dead walk, that sort of eerie business."

'The Maoshan Sect?'

Tang So-so had heard of it before. The Maoshan Sect, said to be a branch of Taoism, had been known more for its arts than its martial arts. But those arts carried so much heterodoxy that the sect had been shunned by many orthodox clans until it eventually walked the path to its own extinction, or so she'd understood.

"How does a senior like you have something like that?"

"You're only in your second year at the academy, so you might not know, but the underground archive of Changcheon Martial Academy holds quite a few interesting martial arts books."

"The underground archive? Ah!"

She'd heard about that from her older brother too. The academy's hidden underground archive. Gathering enough star marks earned the right to enter it. Her brow furrowed suddenly.

"Wait a moment. Then does that mean what I'm seeing right now is actually a real ghost?"

That couldn't be right. This was supposed to be a hallucination caused by the Illusory Powder. Just then Kang Mu-i waved his hand. The bloodshot-eyed black shadow on the ceiling reached a hand out toward her. Tang So-so reflexively flung a needle dart at it.

Shhhhhk!

But the needle dart passed straight through the black shadow.

'It passed through. So it really is a hallucin...'

Just as she was about to accept that,

The black shadow's hand seized her by both arms. The sensation was so vivid that gooseflesh rose across her entire body.

"Th-this is..."

To her, frozen in confusion, Kang Mu-i approached and said,

"Illusory Powder causes hallucinations, like you said, but it has other uses too. The Maoshan Sect used it for suggestion as well."

"Suggestion?"

"Human senses are so easy to deceive. Have you heard the story? Fill a kettle with cold water, keep telling someone it's hot water, and then pour it on them out of nowhere, and they actually burn."

"You don't mean..."

"A soul is exactly what it sounds like, a soul. But combine that with the suggestion of Illusory Powder and the ghost-summoning technique together, and our bodies come to accept it as something real."

Kang Mu-i, now right in front of her, said this with a gentle smile. That smile looked strangely familiar, like someone else's. Who was it again...

Shk!

Just then Kang Mu-i reached a hand toward her cheek.

"Wh-what are you doing?"

"I like that you're sharper than I expected. Most people would be too busy running in terror just from seeing a ghost, but you've gotten all the way to the truth of it. Not bad for a woman..."

Kang Mu-i flinched and stopped mid-sentence, looking up at the ceiling behind him.

Wondering why, she looked too, and saw something blurry and blood-soaked emerge from the ceiling. It was one of the ghosts bound to this Old Teaching Hall.

"You finally showed up?"

He'd been wondering why it was taking so long to answer his summons. Right at that moment,

Boom!

'!?'

The ceiling the ghost had passed through shattered, and someone landed on the floor. Through the swirling dust, a figure came into view.

"Mumu!"

Recognizing him, Tang So-so's face lit up and she cried out.

"Mumu?"

Kang Mu-i's brow furrowed. He'd assumed Tang So-so had come alone, but apparently that wasn't the case. And with the sudden appearance, he hadn't even registered it at first, had that boy just smashed through the ceiling chasing a ghost?

This was an unexpected variable. With his suggestion, anyone trying to go down the stairs would find themselves going up instead, or the stairs would vanish into a maze. And here this one had just smashed straight through the building and come down.

"I told you not to run off... huh? So-so?"

Spotting So-so, Mumu began piecing together the situation. A black shadow with bloodshot eyes had both her arms in its grip, and a handsome man stood in front of her, reaching a hand toward her head.

Without a moment's thought, Mumu threw himself toward her.

"Don't touch So-so!"

'Oh my!'

At that shout, Tang So-so got so worked up her nose nearly started bleeding. Was Mumu really rushing to save her like this? Ahh, this scene was too good. She'd been debating whether or not to unleash her Body of Ten Thousand Poisons, but it seemed there was no need for that now.

'Ah!'

But there was a problem. These ghosts weren't hallucinations at all. They were real.

"Mumu, these ghosts aren't fake, they're..."

Shk!

Before Tang So-so's warning could even finish, Kang Mu-i gave a lazy flick of his hand, as if bothered by the interruption. At once the half-melted ghost blocked Mumu's path.

"Not sure who you are, but hold on just a..."

That was the moment something unbelievable happened.

Thwack!

The half-melted ghost, struck by Mumu's charge, went flying and bounced clean off.

'!?'

Tang So-so's eyes went wide with shock at the sight. Even Kang Mu-i, who had been controlling the ghosts with the Maoshan Sect's ghost-summoning technique, hadn't seen this coming, his eyes wavering with disbelief.

Footnotes:

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