Martial Arts Survival Guide - Chapter 2

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Martial Arts Survival Guide ◈

Chapter 2: I Didn't Even Know I Had Talent.

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“Have you ever been in a fight?”

“No.”

Baek Hyun looked sheepish as he answered the casual question.

“Oh, I did once in elementary school.”

“Elementary school?”

“Let’s see... I think I was eleven? There was this guy named Min-sik at my orphanage. I don’t really remember why we fought. We were kids, so it probably wasn’t anything serious.”

“You must have quite a good memory to remember even his name.”

“Huh? No, my memory’s not that good... Min-sik and I are still friends.”

The old man’s expression froze. Looking baffled, he stared at Baek Hyun.

“That Min-sik fellow. Did you not kill him?”

“...What? Why would I kill Min-sik?”

“You said you fought.”

“What does that have to do with killing...?”

“Then it was not a fight.”

Muttering that, the old man rose from his seat. Baek Hyun swallowed without meaning to.

He didn’t know where this place was or who the old man was. He had boarded a bus on his way home from his part-time job, just like any other day. Then there had been a voice he heard in his sleep.

‘Do you know martial arts?’

Just as he had tried to wake up at those words...

He had come to his senses to find himself sitting here.

“Excuse me, old man.”

He hadn’t noticed while he was sitting, but the old man was very tall. Baek Hyun wasn’t short by anyone’s standards, yet the old man was about his height. There was also nothing about him that felt like an ordinary old man. Apart from the wrinkles on his face and his long beard, he looked even stronger and healthier than Baek Hyun.

“I already asked you. Why won’t you answer? Where the hell am I, and why am I here?”

The old man didn’t answer. He simply stood there, his eyes narrowed as he looked down at Baek Hyun.

That was all he did, but Baek Hyun’s shoulders drew in despite himself. He had never felt anything like this before. It was like standing completely naked while someone judged his body.

“...This seems like kidnapping. Abduction. Something like that. I don’t have any money. I don’t know if you’re aware, but I don’t have parents, either. I grew up in an orphanage. I never got adopted, so after I got too old to stay there, I moved from one shelter to another. Now I work part-time jobs and live in a gosiwon.”

“What a miserable life.”

Baek Hyun had described his circumstances without exaggerating. When he finished, the old man gave that brief reply.

Baek Hyun blinked, his eyes round. Then he burst out laughing.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s a miserable life. It’ll probably stay that way, too. So please send me back instead of making my miserable life even worse. What good is kidnapping a bastard like me?”

Again, the old man didn’t answer. Frustrated by the silence, Baek Hyun kept talking.

“...I think being healthy is one of my better points. Wait, is that why you kidnapped me? Is this some kind of organ-trafficking thing...? Come on, for fuck’s sake, say something. I was getting along just fine, and you suddenly kidnapped me...”

“Do you not wish to change your miserable life?”

The old man spoke again.

That shut Baek Hyun up. He closed his mouth for a moment and glared at the old man.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I think I’m working pretty hard in my own way. Like you said, my life’s miserable, and I don’t want to keep living like this. I’m even studying for the civil service exam.”

“What is that?”

“...Are you asking because you don’t know, or are you making fun of me?”

“I ask because I do not know. But it does not sound particularly impressive.”

“How would you know when you don’t even know what it is...?”

Muttering, Baek Hyun glanced behind him. The paper door was firmly shut. Who still used doors like that in this day and age? Still, Baek Hyun and the old man were the only two people in this little room.

‘He’s pretty fit for an old man... But I can’t just knock him out. Should I try taking him hostage first? No, no. He could be a mob boss or something.’

Baek Hyun’s mind raced.

“Your first fight was at eleven... A child throwing punches, hardly worth calling a fight. And if you have not fought since, you must never have killed anyone, either.”

“...Well, obviously. Why would a person kill another person?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“It is far, far too late to begin learning now, but it cannot be helped. You were the only person who met the requirements...”

The old man muttered regretfully. Unable to understand what he meant, Baek Hyun frowned.

“What’s that supposed to...?”

“My name is Ju Han-o.”

The old man, Ju Han-o, approached Baek Hyun as he spoke. Baek Hyun flinched and scooted backward.

“I devoted my entire life to martial arts. I had no children and took no disciples. There was no point.”

“I don’t really understand...”

“Innate Martial Genius is not passed down to one’s children. I wandered throughout the Central Plains, but I was the only one born with it.”

“...What?”

“You did not even know what talent you possessed. Had you discovered your Innate Martial Genius at a young age, you would not have lived such a miserable life.”

“Hold on... What on earth are you talking about?”

“No. It would be more accurate to say you were born into the wrong world. Had you been born in the Central Plains instead of that world, even into some insignificant martial family... Even if you had learned nothing but the martial arts of some third-rate nobody, you could have become a master capable of contending for the title of best under heaven.”

“Has this old man read too many martial arts novels...?”

Baek Hyun muttered in disbelief. He had borrowed his fair share of martial arts novels from rental shops as a child, so he could more or less understand what Ju Han-o was talking about.

Innate Martial Genius? The Central Plains? Martial arts? Best under heaven?

The old man must have gone senile.

“The people of the world feared me, calling me the Martial God Demon (武神魔).”

“That’s the kind of nickname you see all the time in martial arts novels.”

“...I brought you here to make you the successor to the martial arts I practiced all my life. That was my only remaining regret.”

Ju Han-o ignored Baek Hyun’s comment.

Baek Hyun didn’t want to hear any more.

“Old man, did you escape from a psychiatric hospital?”

“...A psychiatric hospital? What is that?”

“A hospital you go to when you’ve lost your mind.”

“...”

Ju Han-o’s eyebrows twitched. He calmed his boiling anger and took a deep breath.

He wasn’t a completely unreasonable man. Urgent and unavoidable though it might have been, hadn’t he brought Baek Hyun here without so much as asking permission?

“...Listen carefully.”

Ju Han-o spoke again.

“I have not lost my mind. What you are experiencing is reality, not a dream. It is the greatest stroke of fortune, one you could never have found in an entire lifetime.”

But Baek Hyun remained unimpressed. To him, the Martial God Demon was just an old man who had read so many martial arts novels that he had lost his mind.

“Your eyes tell me you do not believe me.”

“I’ll believe you when you say something that doesn’t defy common sense.”

Baek Hyun grumbled under his breath. At those words, the corners of Ju Han-o’s mouth lifted.

“Common sense... Common sense, you say. Well said. The first thing you must do when learning my Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art (破天神化攻) is abandon common sense.”

“...What?”

“First, you should understand your situation.”

Ju Han-o reached toward Baek Hyun as he spoke.

“What are you...?”

Baek Hyun tried to stand, but before he could get up, some unknown phenomenon lifted his body into the air.

“Uh...?”

His floating body slid backward. The closed paper door opened on its own before he could hit it.

Baek Hyun flailed in the air, trying to escape the unknown “force” wrapped around him. But before he could break free, his body was pushed through the open doorway.

“I hardly know what to teach you first.”

The Martial God Demon followed him outside at a leisurely pace. Floating on his back, Baek Hyun saw a gray sky above him.

“I suppose I should begin by telling you where you are. This place is called the Peach Blossom Realm (桃源境).”

“The Peach Blossom Realm...?”

“It lies on the boundary between the world of the living and the afterlife. Normally, someone like you could not enter, but I paid a rather troublesome price to summon you here.”

Baek Hyun dropped.

Splash!

He landed not on the ground but in a large garden pond. Spluttering and flailing, he struggled to his feet. The water only reached his chest, but so much had gone up his nose that he coughed several times.

“Do you understand now that this is not a dream?”

“Wh... What the hell...?”

Baek Hyun pushed his wet bangs aside and stared at Ju Han-o in confusion.

Ju Han-o was still walking with his hands behind his back. He stepped onto the pond.

Baek Hyun’s mouth fell open at what happened next.

Ju Han-o didn’t sink into the water as Baek Hyun had. He walked across its surface toward him as if that were perfectly natural.

“I was on the verge of ascending to immortality.”

Ju Han-o looked down at Baek Hyun.

“But my regret at having no successor held me back. Belatedly, I scoured the country for someone born with Innate Martial Genius... But as I said earlier, I found no one.”

Baek Hyun swallowed as he looked up at Ju Han-o.

“My Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art can only be learned by someone born with Innate Martial Genius. As I struggled with my failure to find a successor, an imugi offered me some advice. If no one in this world was born with Innate Martial Genius, might there not be someone in another world?”

The pond water around Baek Hyun was cold. His soaked hair and clothes were clammy, and the chill of the passing breeze made him shiver. Those clear sensations told him that this was absolutely not a dream.

“That is why I paid that troublesome price to summon you.”

The old man stood on the lake. Sending Baek Hyun flying and standing on the lake like this were no cheap magic tricks or sleight of hand.

Naturally, Ju Han-o wasn’t a madman who had read too many martial arts novels, either.

“Today is a very happy day.”

Ju Han-o smiled.

Still dazed, Baek Hyun let Ju Han-o take his hand and lead him out of the pond. Amazingly, the moment Ju Han-o touched him, his wet body and clothes became completely dry.

Baek Hyun stared blankly at this before finally looking around.

The cloudy sky was gray. The sun was hidden behind the clouds and hard to make out, and the spacious garden was full of trees he couldn’t identify.

He looked at the doorway he had been “sent flying” through. It belonged to an old-fashioned mansion, the sort of building he might have seen in a history book.

“Come to think of it, I have not even asked your name. What is it?”

Ju Han-o asked from behind him.

Baek Hyun had been staring blankly at the mansion. He hesitated before answering.

“B... Baek Hyun.”

“Baek Hyun... Yes. Hyun, begin with the nine-bow ceremony.”

Ju Han-o sounded pleased.

Baek Hyun glanced back. Looking at Ju Han-o’s smiling face, he swallowed.

“...Nine bows?”

“Now that we are forming a master-disciple bond, you must pay your respects to me.”

Baek Hyun understood what that meant. He turned all the way around and faced Ju Han-o with an uneasy expression.

“...Can I say no?”

“No.”