WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Alyo

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◈ Memoir of a Regressor ◈

Chapter 25: Demonic Arts

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It felt as though he possessed the whole world.

Yi Won, the new Clan Head of the Yi Clan, sat in the seat of honor at the far end of the Clan Head's Hall and looked around.

That seat had always seemed so high above him.

Now that he was sitting in it, it truly was high.

There were many empty seats, but that was all right.

He could fill them little by little from now on.

His mother was smiling with satisfaction.

“Mother, you have worked hard.”

“Yes, and so have you.”

Yi Won then looked at the middle-aged man beside her.

“You have worked hard as well, Uncle.”

“Ha ha... What have I done? You are the one who did it all.”

The matter of what they called him could be dealt with gradually.

The Clan Head's Hall held members of the Yun Clan and a small number from the Yi Clan.

Yi Won might be the Yi Clan's Clan Head, but the Yun Clan's help had been immense in this affair.

They had yet to absorb all the businesses owned by the Sang-un Trading Company and the Jang Clan. There was simply too much to take.

Once they absorbed it all, the amount of money they would earn was beyond imagination.

At a generous estimate, they could dominate all of Jangnyeong County within a year. They would need military strength to match, but that would be no obstacle. They could invite renowned martial artists from across the martial world and retain them as guest warriors.

That was when Lady Yun waved her hand.

The people waiting throughout the hall left at once.

Only three people remained in the Clan Head's Hall.

Lady Yun spoke quietly.

“Won.”

The ominous atmosphere caused Yi Won to lower his voice as well.

“...Yes, Mother.”

“This is not the time for us to be celebrating.”

“...All of a sudden?”

“It is not all of a sudden. Is there not one urgent matter we must deal with first?”

Yi Won had no idea what she meant. Then Un Mu-jeong, his maternal uncle, spoke.

“We can clean up everything that youngest brat did in Jangnyeong County, including the matter of the Sang-un Trading Company. But what happened in the Jang Clan is another matter.”

That was right.

“Do you think the Emperor Sword Sect will sit still?”

Yi Won swallowed hard.

There was no way he did not know of the Emperor Sword Sect's fame. It was one of the Eight Great Sects, the sect that wielded swords better than any other.

They dared to call themselves the Emperor Sword Sect, and no one could refute it.

A sect like that had become the Yi Clan's enemy in all but name.

No.

“It is not the Yi Clan's enemy. It is that youngest brat's enemy.”

“...Uncle... Are you saying...?”

“That is right. We must draw a line.”

The martial world was never a beautiful place. People did not simply kill one another often. Pinning any deed on someone else was an everyday occurrence.

That was the martial world.

“We need to make it seem that the Jang Clan affair was that youngest brat's decision alone. That is the only way we can survive.”

Honestly, it was not even something that required consideration.

If everyone here, including Yi Won, had to choose between becoming the Emperor Sword Sect's enemy or abandoning Yi Do, every last one of them, down to the Yi Clan's curs, would choose the latter.

That was the right choice.

Otherwise, they would all be slaughtered.

Yi Do had provoked the Jang Clan, whose Jang Un-yeon was even being discussed as the Emperor Sword Sect's next Sect Leader. He had gone even further and killed Won Hu, a first-generation disciple.

They had to rely on the Emperor Sword Sect's generosity. They needed to offer Yi Do up and save their own lives, if only to give themselves grounds for leniency.

That was what Lady Yun and Un Mu-jeong thought.

Yi Won hesitated.

“You brat, what are you hesitating for?”

Yi Won came to his senses at his mother's words.

“You are the Clan Head. The first thing the head of a clan must consider is the clan's stability. Especially now, when we have absorbed so many forces, that stability matters more than ever.”

“...But Mother, we were able to take control of the Yi Clan because of Yi Do.”

“Yes, I do not deny that. But do you not even know the saying, ‘When the rabbits are gone, the hunting dogs are cooked’?”

Lady Yun's words were sharp.

“He is the son of a concubine. Should we trade the fate of this clan for the talent of an illegitimate son just because he happens to possess a gift for martial arts? You are agonizing over something that does not even require consideration. Is that how I raised you?”

Yi Won stared at his mother as she scolded him, his gaze conflicted.

He stood at a crossroads.

He was not quite a reed in the wind, but Yi Won was still easily swayed. His mother's words made perfect sense.

At the same time, he began to imagine Yi Do's expression when he learned of this.

A chill ran through his body.

“...I will think about it first.”

“You brat...!”

“Mother, I am no longer simply the Yi Clan's second son.”

“...What?”

“I am saying that I am the master of the Yi Clan. No matter that you are my mother, and no matter that he is my uncle, I would like you to be mindful of your forms of address from now on.”

Yi Won spoke to the two people who had been left speechless.

“My thoughts are in disarray, so leave for now. I need time to think alone.”

“...The answer is already clear, so why would you even need to think...”

“Leave.”

“...”

“I said leave!”

Lady Yun had no choice when she saw Yi Won's flushed face.

Un Mu-jeong took her outside.

Left alone in the Clan Head's Hall, Yi Won clutched his head in both hands.

* * *

As the Elder had said, I entered Yi Se-geuk's bedchamber.

When I moved the enormous bed aside, a small door leading downward appeared beneath it.

An underground entrance.

I opened it and went down.

After descending for quite some time, I came to stand before a massive iron door.

It stood nearly seven feet tall.

It was impressive.

Not only the iron door, but the entire space around it was impressive.

So the Yi Clan had something like this.

It resembled a hidden cave.

It had clearly not been made in a short time. It had to have been built at least several hundred years ago.

I was puzzled.

This was far too strange.

Putting aside why this cave had been made and what Yi Se-geuk had done inside it, had Yi Jeong and Lady Sang, who gained all the clan's power in my previous life, really discovered this cave?

Honestly, there was no reason they would not have.

Once someone became Clan Head, they naturally used this bedchamber. Yi Jeong might have noticed something strange by chance, or Lady Sang, who was quick with calculations in her own way, might have found something odd while reviewing the ledgers and gone to question the Elders' Council.

One way or another, this hidden cave had to have been discovered.

“The Yi Clan was destroyed about a year later, was it not?”

From what I had heard, the Jang Clan and Hyeokri Clan had joined forces to destroy it. It was strange. Even before I died, nothing about this hidden cave had ever become known.

The Iron-Blooded Demon Emperor, was it? I had never heard that name before.

I did not know.

I would check the inside first and think about it later.

Just as the Elder had instructed, I was about to press the corner.

Then my hand stopped.

Trust was the most useless word in the martial world.

How could I blindly believe information given to me by people I did not know?

If I had believed every little thing and acted on it, I would have quietly left this world long before becoming one of the Ten Greatest Masters Under Heaven.

I raised my internal energy.

I wrapped the Properly Aligned Qi, amplified through the ring, around my entire body and heightened my senses.

Then I slowly reached out and firmly pressed the corner.

Rumble.

Something inside clearly began to move.

I immediately tilted my head to the side.

Something that looked like a piece of metal streaked past me.

I stepped back and spun around.

There were roughly five of them.

Five throwing knives flew past me and embedded themselves in the wall behind me.

As my spin stopped, I reached out.

Thud.

I studied the throwing knife I had caught for a moment.

It gleamed.

Something had been applied to its surface, and it was obviously not oil or anything of the sort.

It was poison.

I casually tossed it aside.

Ak Gwi-gwang.

If I had not reached the Four Qi-Cultivation Realms, I would have died opening this hidden cave just as Ak Gwi-gwang had planned.

I laughed.

A hidden cave prepared this thoroughly...

My curiosity would not fade.

I turned my head. The iron door was half open.

That nonsense about the corner had been bullshit after all. The iron door was the real entrance.

The moment I opened it and stepped inside, I stopped cold.

Stalactites filled the cavern in every direction. A stream flowed along the ground.

Was something like this even possible?

It was a magnificent sight, but that was not why I had stopped.

The fishy scent of blood filled my nose so strongly that my brow furrowed.

I moved forward slowly.

A platform stood at the center of the cave.

“Ha... That crazy bastard, Yi Se-geuk.”

Anyone would have said it.

There were roughly fifty things on that enormous platform, at least from what I could see at a glance.

What were they?

Human hearts.

They were not beating, of course.

Then I turned my head.

In one corner of the cave lay around seventy-nine corpses. Men and women alike. They were all naked, their chests split open where their hearts had been.

I walked over slowly and examined the altar.

It had been made so that it could be opened and closed. When I lifted it slightly, I nearly vomited for the first time in a long while.

The things inside were human hearts as well.

There were an unbelievable number of them.

A number that made no sense.

Several thousand, at least.

Probably not ten thousand, but perhaps four thousand? Five thousand?

An endless number of hearts had been piled inside.

Whatever preservation technique was at work, they had not rotted. No wonder I felt like vomiting.

In this vast martial world, if a scene like this appeared, it was certainly connected to the Demonic Way.

Not the usual Demonic Way either, but the Extreme Demonic Path.

The path to becoming a true demonic practitioner, with no room for excuses.

“...I have no words.”

Yi Se-geuk had been desperate. Even after being poisoned with the Soul-Severing Demonic Poison, he had clung to the determination to survive somehow.

Now I understood why he had looked so reluctant to die.

Why he had begged me with his eyes to save him.

That was right.

Yi Se-geuk had been cultivating demonic arts.

It was absurd.

Honestly, more people in the martial world saw what I had done as the Path of Hegemony than as the Demonic Way.

At least I was decisive in my methods. I did not play around with people's corpses.

But this was different.

This was far too obvious.

If this became known to the martial world, I would stake everything I had on it: the Emperor Sword Sect and such nonsense would not be the problem. Martial artists from all across the martial world would rush here to destroy the Yi Clan.

Becoming the Martial World's Public Enemy?

It would only be a matter of time.

I had almost become the Martial World's Public Enemy not long after regressing.

Then a hollow laugh escaped me.

Why had this hidden cave never become known?

The reason was clear.

Lady Sang and Yi Jeong must have found this hidden cave in my previous life.

They must have reached the same conclusion I had.

They had two choices.

They could cultivate the demonic arts Yi Se-geuk had learned, or destroy this hidden cave altogether.

They must have chosen the latter. As a result, they were not branded followers of the Demonic Way, and the Yi Clan was destroyed only after being pushed out in the struggle for power in Jangnyeong County.

That was when I noticed a small box placed neatly in a corner.

Silently, I picked it up and opened it.

Inside was an elixir pill that shone with a brilliant five-colored radiance.

I had never seen it before, but it was undoubtedly a spiritual medicine.

It was different from the horrifying things around it.

This was completely pure.

It seemed that our revered father had given his youngest son one final gift on his way out.

Footnotes:

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