WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 96: Three Free Minutes of Training
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‘What the hell...?!’
Corpses with crushed heads, pierced throats, mangled lower bodies, slashed chests, torn limbs, gouged-out eyes, and severed tongues.
The department store was soaked in blood and filled with countless bodies killed by every imaginable method.
It was a scene straight from hell.
But neither the gruesome sight nor the pain of the knife in his eye was what made Xue Rong writhe.
‘My security detail was wiped out in less than ten minutes?’
Xue Rong could not believe it.
Every member of the security detail was a warrior of the Black Dragon Clan.
They had not inherited the Seventy-Two Martial Arts Schools, but each was a fighter comparable to a Player level 50 or higher.
Yet fewer than half of them were still alive.
Barely ten minutes.
And at the hands of a single person, most of them had already become part of that pile of corpses.
“Still, the guards here had some chew to them. Lately, those bastards from some armed unit or whatever keep popping up everywhere, so I haven’t been having much fun.”
The one responsible for this tragedy was a young man wearing a clown mask.
Lazily twirling a knife between his fingers, he muttered,
“Leader Comrade’s lost all his spirit too. The previous comrade would’ve kept fighting to the end without a scream, even after losing an arm. But you’re surrendering already.”
“Who... said I surrendered?!”
Xue Rong gritted his teeth through the agony of losing an eye.
The young man grinned at him.
“Don’t put on airs for nothing, Comrade. Your mouth can say whatever it wants, but your eyes have already given up on winning.”
“Bullshit!”
Xue Rong snapped, but he could not bring himself to charge at the young man.
He knew it himself.
That he could not defeat him.
That he was merely putting on a brave face.
That neither he nor his subordinates would make it out alive.
The difference in skill between them and this cocky young man was simply that vast.
‘Damn it, I underestimated him too much!’
Xue Rong clenched his teeth.
He had only heard that most attacks had been stopped without damage or losses, and that the murderers had fled quickly each time.
So he had unconsciously assumed that the Black Dragon Clan members at Black Dragon Construction and Wang Gi-seong had merely been caught off guard.
That the murderers were not truly that formidable, and that they could be captured easily if proper preparations were made.
It was not as though Xue Rong alone had thought that way.
Quite a few Black Dragon Clan members had.
The Seven Dragons Society had ruled the world in the past and still wielded absolute influence over both business and crime.
Their pride was just that great.
But it had been a misjudgment.
No, it would be more accurate to call it arrogance.
They had ignored the fact that the Seven Dragons Society’s strength did not make every one of its members strong.
This scene was the result.
The eye he had lost to a knife, and the subordinates who had died so pointlessly.
‘I should have judged things more carefully...!’
If he had not looked down on the enemy.
If he had focused on defense alongside his subordinates.
If he had cast aside his greed for merit.
He might not have won, but he would not have been defeated so easily.
Instead, Xue Rong had rashly charged in after underestimating the enemy, lost an eye, and collapsed. His remaining subordinates had then been slaughtered without putting up a proper fight.
It was a truly bitter mistake.
“Playing with you comrades was fun, but this is work too. It’s about time to finish things.”
Perhaps he liked the grief, despair, regret, and humiliation mixed across Xue Rong’s face.
Still grinning, the young man in the clown mask flipped his twirling knife into a reverse grip and strode forward.
Xue Rong instinctively took a step back.
Ashamed of himself almost immediately, he gritted his teeth.
Then he stepped forward twice instead, tore a strip from his clothes to bind his wounded eye tightly, raised his spear, and shouted,
“Deploy the Small Black Flow Reversing River Formation!”
“...”
“What are you doing? Hurry and form the...”
He had given the order resolved to fight to the end.
But when Xue Rong turned around to see why his subordinates showed no sign of moving, he was left speechless.
The space behind him was empty.
When he had stepped forward again, his subordinates had run away instead.
They had abandoned Xue Rong alone to fight until the end.
“Y-You...!”
Xue Rong could understand.
The bravest warriors had already died fighting.
Those still alive were not as brave or spirited as their fallen comrades.
And after watching their captain fall in an instant and their fellow guards get massacred, it was hardly strange that they were terrified.
“You damned cowards! Get back here! Even if you’re going to die, show the spirit of the Black Dragon Clan!”
But understanding and forgiveness were different matters.
Whether as the officer responsible for security here or as a Black Dragon Clan warrior, Xue Rong could not overlook subordinates who had been frightened off by a mere murderer.
He slammed his spear into the floor and roared.
But it was a mistake.
“Look here, Comrade. I understand you’re angry, but aren’t you paying too much attention elsewhere with me right in front of you?”
“...!”
Had his focus slipped?
Startled by the voice suddenly ringing out before him, Xue Rong swung his spear to drive the young man away.
The spear was swung according to the forms of the Flood-Splitting Flood Dragon Style.
Its movements were the pinnacle of dazzling intricacy, like a snake that would pursue its prey and tear out its throat no matter how it dodged. Even an ordinary high-level Player would have been unable to avoid a fatal wound.
“Goodness. Isn’t it a bit much to split someone’s neck just because I split one little eye?”
Stab!
There was only one problem.
The young man in the clown mask was no ordinary high-level Player.
The young man bent backward to evade the spear, then flashed his knife like lightning and carved a long cut across Xue Rong’s wrist.
Xue Rong grimaced in pain but desperately continued swinging his spear at the young man.
Every attack missed uselessly.
In contrast, the young man’s casually swung knife never missed even once, leaving wound after wound on Xue Rong’s body.
“Hm. Your persistence isn’t bad, at least...”
After several exchanges, Xue Rong was so drenched in blood that he could barely support himself by leaning against his spear.
The young man clicked his tongue at the sight.
“It’s a shame your skill can’t keep up. If you had clung to me and resisted desperately, I might’ve felt some sense of accomplishment too.”
“...”
“Well, I had fun in my own way. Farewell, then.”
As though he had played enough, the young man leisurely thrust his knife forward.
Xue Rong could not evade that chilling blade.
Slash!
“Eh?”
The sickening sound of flesh being sliced rang out.
A gaping hole opened in a shoulder, and blood sprayed like a fountain.
Not from the blood-soaked Xue Rong, but from the young man who had been about to drive his knife into Xue Rong’s remaining eye.
“...Well, that startled me.”
Just before the ambush could stab him in the back, the young man had turned at the last possible moment, slipped past the blade, and swung his knife to halt the pursuit.
Despite the wound in his shoulder, he did not so much as furrow his brow.
Instead, he grinned as though genuinely impressed and turned his head.
“I was disappointed because this place was full of nothing but chaff. I never expected there to be another expert like you.”
Xue Rong was the one left shocked.
The person who had just ambushed the young man in the clown mask should never have been here.
“Chao Weiling?!”
“...Have you forgotten my warning not to casually call me by my surname, or do you truly wish to duel me that badly?”
It seemed that having her surname called by Xue Rong displeased her more than the failed ambush.
Xue Rong stared blankly at Weiling, the woman dressed as a man, whose usually cold face now held open irritation.
“Why are you here?!”
“I heard the commotion while passing by and returned.”
“This is the security detail’s duty! A dog of the Sword Duke has no business interfering!”
“It is an emergency, so I am forcibly exercising Guardian’s right to provide defense under its granted authority. If you have a complaint, please call headquarters afterward.”
“Y-You...!!!”
Xue Rong’s face turned bright red.
He would rather die than accept this.
It was bad enough that Weiling had saved his life. He could never tolerate entrusting her with dealing with the murderer as well.
But neither she nor the young man cared about Xue Rong’s opinion.
The young man only looked at Weiling, who held her sword and glared at him, then asked with amusement,
“So, Comrade, you’ll be my opponent from now on?”
“That is my intention.”
“Your spirit is good, but can you handle me alone?”
The young man smiled coldly.
Weiling answered evenly.
“No.”
“...Listen here, Comrade. Even if it’s true, aren’t you giving up too easily?”
“It is merely an objective judgment.”
Weiling spoke coolly.
Of course, she was stronger than Xue Rong.
She had been entrusted with guarding Li Qing-yu at a young age, and was one of the few masters within the Seven Dragons Society who had reached division-head rank.
But skill was relative.
Considering that this young man in the clown mask was one of the murderers who had killed Wang Gi-seong, a master above even Weiling, it was difficult to expect him to be weaker than her.
He had not only evaded an ambush using the Voidless Advancing Sword Style, an ultimate art specialized in stealth, but had even counterattacked in that brief instant and cut Weiling’s skin, however shallowly.
That alone made it clear.
In other words, the moment that ambush failed, her chance of victory had already vanished.
“And I have not given up.”
“Hm?”
The young man looked puzzled as he saw her sharp eyes.
Unlike Xue Rong, whose eyes had gone dark after being stabbed just once, Weiling’s gaze had not yet given up on the fight.
“What do you mean by that? You can’t beat me alone, but you think you can win if there are two of you?”
“Unfortunately, that would be impossible. Xue Rong, as he is now, would be a hindrance rather than help.”
“Weiling!”
Xue Rong flared up.
Ignoring him, the young man asked,
“Then are you planning to run away?”
“If I were alone, perhaps. But carrying baggage as I am now, that would be difficult as well.”
“Did you just call me baggage?!”
“You understand that well, Comrade.”
“I made a mistake once before because I failed to properly assess myself. Now, I try to judge myself as objectively as possible.”
Xue Rong’s shout was ignored once again.
The dismissal was so thorough that Xue Rong almost wondered whether he had already died and become an invisible ghost.
“So how exactly do you intend to defeat me?”
“I intend to try using this.”
The young man looked intrigued by the source of Weiling’s fighting spirit despite her knowing she was outmatched.
But the moment he saw what Weiling took out, he blinked.
What she held was neither a weapon nor an item.
It was only an ordinary smartphone.
“...What are you doing, Comrade? Surely you’re not planning to call the police now?”
While both the young man and Xue Rong stared at her in disbelief, Weiling frowned, selected a number, and pressed the call button.
Rrrring. Click.
[What is it? I’ve already heard all of today’s reports.]
“I have a work-related request.”
[Hm? What request?]
“Were you serious when you said that if I learned swordsmanship from you, I could face the murderer?”
[Of course I was serious.]
“Good.”
After the brief connection tone, a familiar voice came through.
Weiling spoke words she would rather die than say personally, but words she absolutely had to say as the secretary to Guardian’s representative.
“Then teach me, within three minutes, a sword art that will let me defeat the murderer one-on-one.”
[...]
[Have you been drinking in the middle of the day???]
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