WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 70: ──────
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The Great Scheme (3)
The dorm parent quarters sat in the southeast corner of the Four Immortal Residences. This was where the four masters overseeing dormitory life lived. The Student Autonomy Council ran roll call each night, but the academy couldn't leave everything to the cadets' own discretion. So the dorm parents received the roll call reports, passed along anything worth noting to the Academy Director, and filed a final account of conditions inside each dorm. Having received their status reports, the dorm parents of each residence were now finishing up the paperwork they'd send up to the main building. Nearly done with it, too. Jin Lip-shin, dorm parent of Eastern River Residence, gathered up his wooden status tablet and spoke.
"I'm finished here. I'll head out first, so the rest of you should wrap up soon too..."
He didn't even get the sentence out. The strength drained from the hand holding the tablet, and it slipped and hit the floor.
Thwack!
Jin Lip-shin stared down at his own trembling hand.
'What is this? My hand won't...'
But it wasn't happening to him alone. Seok Sa-yeong, dorm parent of Northern Heaven Residence, and Yeo Gu-nan, dorm parent of Southern Blade Residence, had also gone weak in the body, leaning against the wall or unable to rise from their chairs. Alarmed, they tried to stir the life energy in their dantians to shake off whatever this was. But their concentration kept slipping away from them.
"What in the world..."
The same thought crossed all their minds.
'Ki Nullifying Poison, maybe?'
But something about it felt off compared to that. An ordinary dose of Ki Nullifying Poison, and masters of Master rank like themselves would have caught it right away, easily countering it with internal energy. While the three of them struggled with the strange symptoms, only one master among them remained perfectly fine, Go Heon-beom of Western Wind Residence. He stood with his arms crossed, watching them with a thin, cold smile. The other three masters couldn't hide their bewilderment.
"Master Go?" "You truly do have deep internal energy, befitting academy masters. Most anyone who drank as much of that as you did would struggle just to stay conscious."
'!?'
At his words, every eye turned to the teacups on the table. They'd all downed several cups of tea just moments ago.
"Don't worry. It's not poison, you won't die from drinking that much. Though my sword won't be so gentle in the meantime." "Master Go, why would you...?"
Shing!
Go slowly drew the sword from the scabbard at his waist.
"No need to explain the rest. With a table set this neatly, I won't have much trouble putting you three down alone."
Startled, the three masters scrambled into ready stances.
Whoosh!
No sooner had they moved than Go's blade cut through the air toward them like a bolt of lightning.
At the same moment, around the perimeter of the Four Immortal Residences. The night-shift warriors guarding the dormitories were vanishing one by one. Black shadows slipped past like ghosts, and each time, someone disappeared without so much as a scream. It happened fast, and it happened quietly.
Around the same time. The stairwell of Northern Heaven Residence, one of the Four Immortal Residences. Roll call was over, and Jin-hyeok, who'd been waiting for Mumu in his room, was heading down to the first-floor floor leaders' meeting room.
'Still hasn't caught him?'
Normally he'd have just gone to sleep without waiting. But tonight he had too many questions for Mumu, so he'd stuck around. There was the dantian that had almost formed, and there was that martial art of Master Dan Baek-yeon's that Mumu had raised doubts about. He'd wanted to talk it all through before turning in, but it was taking forever.
'Is that senior Ki Ma-jin's stealth technique really that good?'
According to fellow floor leader Kang Seo-ryang, Ki Ma-jin's stealth skills ranked among the top five of the third-year cadets.
[This might take longer than expected, so go ahead and sleep first.]
That was how confident Kang Seo-ryang had sounded. Fair enough. No matter how monstrous Mumu's strength was, hiding one's presence was said to be no trouble at all for someone who'd truly mastered stealth technique. Maybe it made sense that Mumu was having trouble finding him.
'Seo-ryang senior should be watching the meeting room in the director's place. I'll get his permission and go help Mumu.'
Jin-hyeok came down the stairs with that thought in mind. More than half a two-hour period had passed since roll call ended, but the hallway was oddly quiet. Come to think of it, his own floor had been quieter than usual too.
'Is something going on tonight?'
Puzzled, Jin-hyeok opened the door to the meeting room. Inside, he found Kang Seo-ryang slumped face-down asleep at the round table. Seemed like he'd gotten tired of waiting and dozed off.
'...I should still tell him before I head out.'
Jin-hyeok reached out to wake him, then froze. A sound had drifted in from outside the meeting room.
'The Director?'
If not him, maybe Mumu. Jin-hyeok opened the door and stepped out. There in the hallway in front of the meeting room, he saw a girl gripping the wall for support.
"Miss Mo?"
It was none other than Mo Il-hwa. Her legs were trembling as she clutched the wall, and Jin-hyeok rushed over to steady her.
"Miss Mo? Are you feeling unwell?" "I... I don't know. My whole body won't listen to me. Something's... wrong." "What?" "I was in my room and suddenly my body just wouldn't move right, and while I was sitting there confused about it, my roommate, Ho Jin-hwa, just suddenly face-planted into a book on her desk and fell asleep."
Jin-hyeok frowned at that. Now that he thought about it, Kang Seo-ryang had also been slumped over the table asleep. Too strange to be a coincidence. Jin-hyeok helped Mo Il-hwa into the floor leaders' meeting room and tried to wake Kang Seo-ryang.
"Senior. Senior."
He shook him, but the man showed no sign of waking. Kang Seo-ryang stayed lost in a daze, like someone drowning in sleep.
"Mmmnh." "Senior!"
Shaking him harder did nothing. Jin-hyeok almost considered slapping him awake, but stopped himself.
"Something's wrong here." "I think so too. We should check whether the others in different rooms are like this." "Right. We'd better."
At Mo Il-hwa's words, Jin-hyeok left her in the meeting room and went to open the doors of the rooms on the first floor. Every door he opened, he found cadets asleep somewhere other than their beds. He'd only checked about five rooms, and every single one was the same.
'What is this?'
A bizarre phenomenon. While he stood there puzzling over it with a door still open, he heard footsteps coming down from the stairs. He ran over to check, and,
"Young master Jin-hyeok?"
It was Hae Ryang. His baffled expression suggested he'd run into something similar. Jin-hyeok asked him.
"Did your roommate fall asleep too, by any chance?" "Huh? How'd you know? Something felt off, so I checked a few other rooms, and everyone was either asleep on the floor or slumped over their desks." "...Ha!"
Too strange to call coincidence now. Jin-hyeok looked Hae Ryang over.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" "Are your hands or feet shaking? Any weakness in your body?" "No. Not at all." "You're really fine?" "Yeah. Are you feeling sleepy, young master Jin-hyeok?"
At that question, Jin-hyeok shook his head. No drowsiness, nothing like that.
'What's going on?'
Strange. Judging by what was happening, most of the cadets in the residence seemed to have fallen asleep, and yet Hae Ryang, Mo Il-hwa, and Jin-hyeok himself were still standing, more or less fine.
'Ah!'
Jin-hyeok pulled the antidote pearl he wore around his neck out from his collar. Tang So-so had given it to him to carry for a few days, just in case, since she'd gone in and out of the Old Teaching Hall and might have picked up some lingering poison. Hae Ryang's eyes sharpened at the sight of it.
"Could it be Sleep Fragrance, or some kind of poison?" "I don't know. But seeing how only Hae Ryang, Miss Mo, and I are still awake, it seems likely."
That was the most probable explanation right now. The three of them hurried back to the meeting room. Mo Il-hwa sat there, clenching and unclenching her hand over and over.
"Oh? Hae Ryang?" "Miss Mo. Why are your hands shaking like that?" "I don't know. I can still circulate my life energy, but my body just won't respond right, strangely." "What? Is that true?" "What is it? Do you two know something about this?"
At the question, Hae Ryang looked at Jin-hyeok and spoke.
"Young master Jin-hyeok, don't you remember? That incense that Ha Ryun had, back then." "Ah!"
Jin-hyeok's eyes went wide. Now that he thought of it, Mo Il-hwa's symptoms matched what he'd gone through back then. No, hers looked a bit worse. He'd lost strength too, back then, but it hadn't been bad enough to trouble his walking.
'Could Ha Ryun be behind this again?'
But that made no sense. As far as he knew, Ha Ryun was still under investigation by the academy's disciplinary committee over that incident. He hadn't even been assigned a dormitory yet. There was no way he could pull something like this off. And even if he had somehow managed it, this was on a scale that dwarfed what happened back then.
"Wait, but why are you two fine?" "What?"
At Mo Il-hwa's question, Jin-hyeok and Hae Ryang exchanged a puzzled look. Now that she mentioned it, unlike Mo Il-hwa, the two of them really were fine. Mo Il-hwa also carried an antidote pearl, and yet her whole body had gone weak while theirs hadn't. That was when it happened.
Plink! Plink!
Something like droplets of water hit against the window from outside.
"Is it raining?" "No way."
When roll call ended and they'd stepped outside the building, the sky had been clear enough to see the moon. There was no way it could suddenly be raining.
Plink-plink-plink-plink!
But the sound kept coming, like rain really was falling. Puzzled, Jin-hyeok opened the door of Northern Heaven Residence and stepped outside. Once through the door, he frowned. A somewhat sticky black liquid was dripping from above, soaking into the ground, and a metallic, coppery smell struck his nose.
'Could this be...?'
Startled, Jin-hyeok looked up at the building above him.
* * *
"Cough, cough..."
Ki Ma-jin supported Do Yang-woon, the director of Northern Heaven Residence, who kept coughing up blood from what looked like a serious internal injury.
"Hey... you all right?" "Hah... hah..."
Do Yang-woon looked at Ki Ma-jin with a puzzled expression, surprised by who'd come to his aid. If it weren't for him, his face might have been crushed and his life lost with it. Do Yang-woon gave his thanks honestly.
"Thank you, senior."
At his words, Ki Ma-jin cleared his throat and said,
"Ahem. If you're that grateful, I'd appreciate it if you'd forget about that demerit I'm getting today." "...Consider it done."
Director or not, Do Yang-woon wasn't lacking in flexibility when it counted. Even without Ki Ma-jin asking, he'd meant to repay the favor anyway. Pleased to hear the demerit would be wiped, Ki Ma-jin tried not to let it show and asked Do Yang-woon,
"By the way, the one who did this to you, that's Gu Yang Seo-han, isn't it?" "Cough, cough... That's right." "Thought so."
There wasn't a cadet at the academy who didn't know Gu Yang Seo-han. Even as a second-year junior, Gu Yang Seo-han was famous as one of the twin grandsons of Gu Yang-gyeong, the Western Wind Lone Angle, one of the Four Immortal Masters.
"Looked like he was trying to kill you just now. You two have some kind of feud?"
At Ki Ma-jin's question, Do Yang-woon shook his head. They were rivals, inside the academy and out, but nothing that would explain this kind of hostility. And yet the killing intent Seo-han had shown him was something Do Yang-woon himself couldn't quite understand either. But that wasn't what mattered right now.
"More importantly, we need to help him." "Help who?" "The one out there fighting Gu Yang Seo-han right now, isn't that Master Mumu?" "That's right."
So his guess had been right. Dazed from his injuries, he'd barely registered the voice, but it had definitely been Mumu. Ki Ma-jin frowned and asked,
"Master Mumu? What's that about?" "That's..."
A bit complicated to explain. He'd have to start from the Muscle Training School.
"Anyway, helping Master Mumu should come first." "With that bad an internal injury, what do you think you can do? That floor leader kid told me he'd handle Gu Yang Seo-han himself, and to just get you to the infirmary."
That had been Ki Ma-jin's actual instructions from Mumu. Gu Yang Seo-han was too monstrous an opponent for Ki Ma-jin to take on alone. Do Yang-woon pushed strength into his legs and said,
"Cough, cough... Master Mumu can't handle Gu Yang Seo-han alone."
He knew Mumu's raw strength rivaled that of an Expert-level master. But the Gu Yang Seo-han that Do Yang-woon had faced tonight was well beyond what any Expert-level master could handle. That kind of strength belonged more to the masters than to any cadet.
"We need to help Master Mumu right now..."
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Just then, through the shattered wall, they saw Mumu, his upper body swollen with grotesquely bulging muscle, gripping Gu Yang Seo-han by the ankle and slamming him around like a rag doll.
'!?'
Do Yang-woon doubted his own eyes for a moment. Beside him, Ki Ma-jin muttered in a stunned voice.
"...Shouldn't we be stopping him instead of helping him?"
At this rate, it looked like Gu Yang Seo-han might actually die.
Footnotes:
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