WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 17: Flag (2)
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Crack! Thud!
‘!!!!!!’
For a moment, the squad members were left speechless at the sight of So Hwa, dead with her neck snapped.
They had all gathered around her as their center, so her death was all the more shocking.
One of the boys could not hold back and shouted.
“Y-you crazy bastard! What did you do?”
No one had expected this.
They had trusted her and only thought of using him before casting him aside.
They still had stamina left, and they had watched with their own eyes, yet this had happened right in front of them.
The corners of Mok GyeongUn’s mouth twitched as he spoke.
“Shall we call it a pleasant mealtime?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Another boy, apparently recovering his senses, snapped back at Mok GyeongUn.
Then, at his signal to the others,
Rush!
The six boys surrounded Mok GyeongUn in a circle.
Mok GyeongUn tilted his head slightly at the sight and spoke.
“This is unexpected.”
“What?”
“I thought you would be running around in confusion, like a swarm of bees following their queen.”
‘!?’
The boys’ faces twisted viciously at Mok GyeongUn’s words.
He had called them idiots hopelessly infatuated with So Hwa, the only girl among them. There was no way they could fail to understand the insult.
“You bastard, I’ll kill you...”
“Don’t lose your heads!”
One of the boys shouted.
Taking the opening stance of a fist-and-leg art toward Mok GyeongUn, he said,
“Don’t get worked up and fall for his tricks. So Hwa may be dead, but we still have the advantage.”
“You’re right. I almost fell for it.”
If they rushed him one at a time in their anger, they could be defeated one by one instead.
Their internal energy was restricted under the same conditions, but if he had done this, he must have been confident he could handle them.
“We’ll subdue him together. Then we’ll make him die painfully for killing So Hwa.”
“Fine!”
Mok GyeongUn snickered.
“What a display of friendship.”
Thud!
The instant he finished speaking, Mok GyeongUn kicked off the ground.
Dirt shot up to knee height as his body reached the boy in front of him in an instant.
‘W-what?’
Startled, the boy tried to keep Mok GyeongUn at bay with a push kick.
However,
Clutch! Yank!
Mok GyeongUn caught the boy’s ankle with one hand and pulled.
The boy lost his balance and fell backward.
“Ugh!”
They had known he was strong, but this was beyond anything they expected.
Still holding the boy’s ankle, Mok GyeongUn swung him at the boy beside him.
Whoosh!
‘Damn it!’
The startled boy hastily ducked to avoid it.
But it did not end there.
Using centrifugal force, Mok GyeongUn spun once, then swung low.
Thud!
“Urgh!”
He smashed the head of the boy he held by the ankle into the head of the boy who had ducked.
The impact was so hard that something cracked.
It seemed both boys’ skulls had shattered.
‘What the hell is this bastard?’
Two had been taken down in an instant.
They could not use internal energy, so how could he possess such strength?
“A-attack him at the same time!”
At one boy’s shout, two boys charged Mok GyeongUn.
One kicked at his face, while the other slid across the ground from the opposite side and aimed for Mok GyeongUn’s ankle.
His balance had to break somehow.
Or so they thought.
Thud! Whirr!
In an instant, Mok GyeongUn launched himself off the ground and spun like a top in midair to evade them.
Whoosh! Smack!
“Urk!”
He brought the top of his foot down on the crown of the sliding boy’s head.
Thud!
The boy’s chin struck the ground, his eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness.
“You bastard!”
Though startled for a moment, the boy who had aimed for Mok GyeongUn’s face did not miss the chance. To knock him over, he kicked at the left leg supporting his body.
However,
Smack!
“Argh!”
The boy staggered back, clutching his ankle.
He had clearly been the one to kick, yet his ankle hurt as if it had been broken.
‘W-what is this?’
“What are you doing?”
Another boy, dumbfounded by his staggering state, charged Mok GyeongUn and tried to smash his head with a sharp rock.
Before he could, Mok GyeongUn kicked his ankle.
Smack!
“Argh!”
The boy’s leg flew upward, and his body tilted the other way as he fell.
Thud!
In that instant, Mok GyeongUn stepped on his neck.
Crack!
The boy’s neck snapped, killing him instantly.
The boy with the injured ankle and the boy who had been unable to attack were unable to hide their shock.
Four had gone down in moments.
Though their internal energy was restricted, they had learned Martial Arts and held the numerical advantage. They had thought they would be able to subdue him somehow.
That expectation had been completely wrong.
‘This is insane...’
By strength alone, this bastard was comparable to a Second-rate martial artist.
Only then did they feel regret.
They should have stopped So Hwa when she suggested drawing him in.
They had provoked something they never should have touched.
“Arghhh!”
At that moment, the only boy who had not attacked chose to flee.
He had no confidence he could handle that monster.
Five had attacked him and failed, so how could he possibly face him alone?
‘Bastard...’
The boy with the twisted ankle cursed inwardly at the fleeing boy.
Still, he understood.
Running away was the right choice now...
Whoosh!
The boy with the twisted ankle’s eyes widened.
“Gasp!”
Thud!
The fleeing boy’s ankle rose backward, and he fell.
As he wondered what was happening, he saw Mok GyeongUn reach out toward the fallen boy and make a pulling motion.
Then,
Yank!
The boy’s legs, no, his entire body was pulled backward.
‘!!!!!!’
It was an unbelievable sight.
‘K-ki telekinesis?’
Ki telekinesis.
It was a technique through which an internal energy master with profound reserves used life energy to draw in objects or anything else they wished.
Seeing something only a master at the very peak of the Master realm could possibly perform unfold before him, the boy could only be horrified.
‘Impossible.’
How could this be happening?
Putting aside the fact that he could do this, was his internal energy not supposed to be restricted?
It was then, while he stood there in shock.
“N-nooooo!”
Scrape!
The fallen boy clung desperately to the ground, but he was dragged over it, leaving long scratches from his fingernails.
His ankle was caught in Mok GyeongUn’s outstretched hand.
Crack!
“Arghhh!”
The moment he caught the ankle, Mok GyeongUn twisted it.
The boy screamed as his ankle bent the wrong way, but Mok GyeongUn stepped on the back of his neck.
Crack!
The boy’s screams stopped as his breath was cut short.
‘Ah...’
The face of the boy with the twisted ankle turned pale as he watched.
They had truly provoked something they never should have touched.
Monster was not the right word for this. Evil ghost suited him better.
How could someone like this exist?
Even if the restriction on internal energy were lifted, could they handle this evil ghost, who could perform ki telekinesis?
Shiver.
His body trembled violently.
He tried to keep his balance, but his legs had gone weak, and he fell.
Thud!
Mok GyeongUn turned toward him, smiled, and walked over.
It was the first time he had found a smiling face so terrifying.
At that moment, the boy chose what he considered the best possible option.
Thump!
The boy dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.
Then he shouted at Mok GyeongUn.
“I surrender! I surrender! I’ll do anything you tell me to. I’ll be your slave if you want, so please, spare my life!”
He believed begging for his life was his only answer.
As long as he survived, this sort of humiliation did not matter.
“Please, spare...”
“Shh.”
“Yes?”
“Be quiet.”
Uneasy at Mok GyeongUn’s words, the boy closed his mouth and raised his head.
Mok GyeongUn was looking toward one direction in the forest. Then he snickered.
“There was one more little rat.”
‘!?’
The moment he heard that, the boy remembered one of their original squad members.
It was the boy they had intended to bring back into the group after killing Mok GyeongUn at dawn.
They had told him to follow at a distance. Had he been discovered?
Come to think of it, it seemed he could hear something running away from the direction Mok GyeongUn was looking.
‘...Right. Run away and tell anyone you can that he’s dangerous.’
This bastard was completely different from the others.
He was not merely competing. He was carrying out a slaughter.
Then Mok GyeongUn took out something resembling a wooden doll from inside his clothes. Forming a strange hand seal, he murmured,
“Force of Fateful Origins, Ninefold Return to the Peach Garden, release.”
Then he put it back inside his clothes.
What had he just done?
As the boy wondered, Mok GyeongUn turned and approached him again.
Then he bent his knees, lowered himself, and spoke.
“Ah. What did you say just now?”
“S-spare...”
Grab!
Mok GyeongUn seized the boy’s head.
The boy tried to shake his hand away in terror.
Crack!
Mok GyeongUn snapped his neck.
Looking into the eyes of the boy who had died with his head bent at an angle, he sneered.
“It’s nice not to toy with someone’s hopes for no reason, isn’t it?”
With that, Mok GyeongUn held the dead boy’s head and recited the verse formula for the movement of Adhesion in his mind.
It was a pleasant mealtime.
He had to absorb the deathly aura before much of it dissipated.
* * *
Tap tap tap tap!
‘H-he’s completely insane.’
The fleeing boy’s skin crawled at what he had just seen.
He had been following at a distance when he heard screams. Startled, he had moved closer, only to witness that scene.
Before he could even approach the flag, So Hwa and the squad members had been killed indiscriminately.
No, it had been almost like a massacre.
‘An evil ghost. He’s an evil ghost.’
Besides, was his internal energy really restricted?
It did not seem so.
That thing at the end had clearly looked like ki telekinesis, drawing something in with life energy.
‘How is that possible?’
Could a mere seventeen-year-old perform something that only an internal energy master with profound reserves could use?
His mind was in complete turmoil.
Still, one thing was certain.
‘I have to tell someone.’
He had to warn the others, whether they were other participants or people of Corpse-Blood Valley overseeing this gate.
That bastard was dangerous enough already. If he alone did not have his internal energy restricted, it was practically cheating...
Thud!
At that moment, the boy’s body was flung backward as if he had collided with something.
Instinctively using a breakfall technique, he turned and regained his stance, then stared ahead in shock.
But there was nothing there.
What was that?
‘What did I hit?’
Puzzled, he got up and unconsciously turned his head.
Then,
“Gasp!”
The boy fell backward in terror.
‘W-what is that...?’
He doubted his own eyes.
A faint shape stood before him, a hulking monk with prayer beads made of skulls around its neck.
The monk looked down at him with pure white eyes, and the boy felt as though his heart would stop.
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