WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 1: Opportunity (1)

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Zhonglang County

A large crowd had gathered in the marketplace.

The woman selling snacks from her stall, the man precariously carrying a water A-frame carrier, children playing with their friends, and passing pedestrians all turned their eyes toward the same place.

A long procession was passing through the center of the village.

Creak! Creak!

The wheels of thick wooden-barred wagons rolled along.

Inside the wagons, visible amid the government troops escorting them, were prisoners with their hands and feet bound.

“Look at that.”

“Goodness. They’re covered in blood.”

Their faces were haggard and scarred, as though they had suffered harsh torment.

Their white prison garb was stained red.

Perhaps because of that, a grim atmosphere hung over the villagers watching the procession.

Then, as the procession continued for some time, someone picked up a stone from the ground and threw it into one of the wooden-barred wagons.

“You vermin!”

Thud!

“Urgh!”

Unable to avoid it with their hands and feet bound, a prisoner took the stone head-on.

Seeing the prisoner writhe in pain, some of the pedestrians began grabbing whatever they could find and throwing it as well.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The prisoners within the wagons could only take the blows.

“You wretches!”

“You lowborn bastards!”

“Die after taking this!”

Not one of the government troops escorting them tried to stop it.

Instead, they merely watched with sneers.

That had been the purpose of publicly transporting prisoners from the beginning.

To proclaim their crimes to all beneath heaven.

“Hmm.”

A middle-aged man watched them from the second-floor window of an inn.

As he sat neatly and sipped his tea, the official in robes seated across from him asked in puzzlement,

“What is it?”

They were criminals.

The man before him was not someone who would easily pity prisoners.

The middle-aged man looked toward one particular wagon.

Unlike the others, one prisoner was confined alone.

The prisoner's garb was red around the chest and abdomen.

“He is young.”

The prisoner sat upright with disheveled hair.

Half his face was hidden behind tangled locks, but even at a glance, the prisoner was clearly a boy.

He could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen.

‘...About the same age as Young Master.’

The sight of that young prisoner suddenly reminded the man of the young master he served.

Then he shook his head.

What did age have to do with committing a crime?

The official watching him spoke with a grave expression.

“I cannot reveal it before the sentence is carried out, but despite how he looks, that boy committed the gravest crime among them.”

“What do you mean?”

“The one you said was young is the worst of all the prisoners brought in this time.”

“The worst?”

The middle-aged man could not hide his confusion.

What could make that young prisoner so wicked?

“...Did he harm someone?”

To officialdom, the worst crime was treason, known as a crime against the state.

But those who committed treason had their charges publicly announced during transport, so that could not be it.

That left only one especially heinous crime.

Murder.

“That is right.”

The middle-aged man let out a quiet breath at the official's answer.

To ordinary civilians, murder was a grave crime. But for martial artists like himself, killing and being killed happened often enough.

The official clicked his tongue.

“Tsk, tsk. As expected of a martial artist. It does not seem to affect you much.”

“Deaths are countless on this side of the world.”

“I suppose so. But if you knew who that boy was, even you would...”

Thud!

Before the official could finish, a stone flew straight into the wagon and struck the boy in the head.

The surroundings stirred.

Blood ran down the boy's head.

Yet unlike the other prisoners, the boy neither moved nor groaned in pain.

“That little bastard is tough.”

“Doesn't that hurt? His head is split open, yet how can he...”

The middle-aged man's eyes also gleamed with interest.

‘That boy...’

Those who cultivated internal energy or received training could endure pain to some extent.

But that boy was an ordinary civilian.

Even after taking a stone squarely to the head hard enough to split it open, he had not made a single sound.

He had not even flinched. The boy was certainly tough.

Rustle.

As blood soaked his hair, the boy tilted his head back as though it annoyed him.

The face concealed behind his hair was revealed.

Gasps escaped the pedestrians watching nearby.

The official reacted no differently.

“Good heavens.”

Though soaked in blood, his handsome features could not be hidden.

His face was striking yet delicate, carrying a strange charm.

What was more unusual was that he even appeared kind at first glance.

“How could someone with that face do such things...?”

The official looked perplexed.

The middle-aged man stared fixedly at the prisoner boy, his face deeply shocked.

“Why? What is it?”

At the question, the middle-aged man flinched and shook his head.

“...It is nothing.”

“Nothing?”

Though he acted as if it were nothing, he had clearly looked as though he had received a shock just moments before.

As the official was about to ask again, the middle-aged man rose from his seat.

“I enjoyed the tea. Something urgent has come up, so I should go.”

“Come now. It has been so long since we last met...”

“I am busy. Next time we meet, I will buy you a proper drink at Wolhyang Pavilion.”

“Wolhyang Pavilion? Ahem.”

The official's lips twitched at those words.

What man would dislike being taken to the most luxurious pleasure house in the county?

* * *

Near the end of the Chou hour before dawn, in the basement of Zhonglang County Office's holding-cell building.

Most of the imprisoned prisoners had fallen asleep, and even the guards watching the holding cells were dozing against the walls.

Amid them, only one person remained awake.

It was the disheveled prisoner boy.

Confined in the holding cell, he stared blankly at the wall.

‘...’

It had been four days since he had awakened after believing himself dead.

A great deal had happened in that time.

Miraculously surviving was fortunate, but when he awoke, he had already been imprisoned as a criminal.

The date of his public execution had even been decided.

The sentence was dismemberment by carts.

His arms and legs would each be tied to separate carts, then torn apart.

‘...A fitting punishment, perhaps.’

He had brutally killed so many people that he was called the Sickle-Slaying Fiend.

Regardless of the punishment, he could hardly escape death.

Even so, there was neither regret nor any trace of anxiety in the boy's eyes.

Instead, his mind was occupied by something else.

“What? Martial Arts? Hey, brat. Did you perhaps encounter a martial artist?”

Those were the words one of the prisoners transported alongside him had said.

Through them, the boy had resolved a question that had troubled him.

‘Martial artist...’

He had occasionally heard of them when following Grandfather to the village.

People said they could run as fast as horses and cultivate something called ki, surpassing the strength of ordinary people.

Those things he had only heard as rumors were real.

That person had driven him to the brink of death in the blink of an eye.

‘...Even if I meet them again, the outcome will be the same.’

No matter how long he stayed awake thinking about it, he could not think of a way to kill that person.

Even if he ambushed them or laid a trap, would it work?

That person was a monster wearing human skin.

‘Are martial artists all that strong?’

If that were the case, avenging Grandfather might become a distant dream.

That was someone he could not kill, no matter how desperately he struggled.

After pondering for a long time, the boy suddenly remembered something.

‘Martial Arts.’

There was only one difference between that person and himself.

One had learned Martial Arts, while the other had not.

If so, perhaps the conclusion was simple.

‘I need Martial Arts.’

With equal conditions, the result could change.

It felt as though he had finally found an answer.

However, there was one problem.

‘No, two?’

First, he had to get out of here.

If he remained still, he would be sentenced to dismemberment by carts and torn apart limb by limb.

Second, how could he learn Martial Arts?

‘Who would teach me?’

He needed to find someone to teach him Martial Arts, but he had no idea how to find such a person.

Moreover, even if he somehow escaped, he was still a prisoner.

If he broke out, a wanted notice would certainly be issued.

Then who would teach Martial Arts to a prisoner like him?

‘...Mountains upon mountains.’

His thoughts became tangled again.

Grandfather's promise had been right after all.

Even for revenge, he should not have revealed the nature he had hidden away so easily.

‘It was like digging my own grave.’

Even if he realized it now, it was too late.

The results had already come to pass.

At least, it seemed that person still did not know he was alive.

Or perhaps they did know, but had left him alone because he was going to be executed anyway.

It was while he continued to brood over these thoughts.

Ssssss.

A faint sound came from somewhere.

The boy turned his body.

Feeling that something was wrong, he held his breath and focused on the sounds around him.

‘What is it?’

Then something caught his eye.

A faint haze seeped in from beneath the right side of his holding cell.

The boy narrowed his eyes.

‘Is there a fire?’

He wondered if the holding-cell building had caught fire.

But that doubt soon faded.

There was no commotion, and it was far too quiet for a fire.

Then,

Thud! Thud!

Something fell over.

Judging by the sound, it seemed to have come from where the guards had been stationed.

‘This is...’

The creeping haze was spreading into the holding cell where the boy was confined.

A faint fragrance touched his nose, and several medical herbs came to mind.

‘Saururus... angelica, valerian root, eonyeong herb...’

He had spent a full decade gathering and cultivating medical herbs alongside Grandfather.

Terrifyingly sensitive to scents, the boy immediately recognized the herbs mixed into the mist-like smoke.

‘...Sleep Fragrance.’

Valerian root and eonyeong herb induced sleep.

With that blend, those who inhaled the smoke would not awaken for about four hours.

But the boy was different.

‘The blend is crude.’

If it were Grandfather's blend, perhaps. But he had steadily built up a resistance to countless herbs since childhood, so this level of Sleep Fragrance could not put him to sleep.

‘Hmm.’

The boy judged that something was happening.

Sleep Fragrance had been released inside the government holding cell in the dead of night, when everyone would be asleep.

He leaned against the wall and focused on the sounds.

Rustle, rustle.

He heard someone moving while suppressing their presence.

It was a sound most people would struggle to notice, but it faintly reached the boy's ears.

‘Who is it?’

Someone had scattered Sleep Fragrance and entered.

That meant they had come with a purpose.

Extremely quiet footsteps moved through the holding cells.

‘What are they trying to do?’

He had no idea who had infiltrated this place or why.

Then the footsteps headed toward his holding cell.

The boy lowered his head and deliberately pretended to be asleep.

Rustle, rustle.

The footsteps stopped before his holding cell and did not move again.

‘Could it be?’

Click!

The sound of the holding cell's lock opening followed.

‘...Was I the target?’

The target was clearly the boy himself.

Several thoughts ran through his mind.

That person might have come all the way to the holding cell to deal with him after learning he had survived.

But would there be a reason to come after someone already destined for execution?

‘It does not matter.’

Whatever the purpose, someone was definitely after him.

The boy kept his breathing as even as possible.

He could not let them realize that Sleep Fragrance had not affected him.

Rustle, rustle.

Once again, he heard someone enter while suppressing their presence.

The intruder cautiously slipped inside.

Though his eyes were closed, he could sense that they stood directly before him.

Tap!

The intruder lightly nudged him with a foot.

They seemed to be checking whether he was truly asleep.

The boy relaxed his body and did not move.

Apparently convinced that he was asleep, the intruder suddenly lifted the hair covering his face.

The intruder's even breathing stopped for a moment.

‘...’

The boy sensed emotional agitation.

Having learned to read ordinary people's emotions from Grandfather, he was highly sensitive to others' states of mind through their expressions, actions, and breathing.

‘An opportunity.’

Such agitation was an opportunity to strike an enemy.

The boy immediately raised the wooden restraint binding both hands with all his strength.

Thud!

“Urk!”

Caught off guard, the intruder was struck in the jaw and staggered back.

The boy did not miss the opening and tried to bring the wooden restraint down on the intruder's head.

At that very moment, the intruder kicked him in the abdomen.

Thud!

As the boy was shoved back, the intruder rapidly struck the boy's chest acupoints with their fingers.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!

His body became stiff, unable to move.

As the boy struggled to understand what had happened, the intruder muttered in disbelief.

“How did you not fall asleep?”

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