WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Alyo
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving Among the Anomalies ◈
Chapter 77: Martial Artist
──────
Kim Mi-ri, now Park Chun-ja, an eighteen-year-old girl born during the Japanese occupation, immediately sprang into action.
[I cannot live in comfort while the fate of our country has been stolen by Japanese invaders. I shall leave home for the greater cause, so please do not look for me.]
After composing herself, she left home after leaving behind only a single note.
If the question had been, ‘Independently liberate the Republic of Korea,’ it would have been impossible to do alone. However, she had accurately grasped the conditions.
‘The condition is to become the Korean Liberation Army and alter history.’
As long as the alteration rate was at least 50%, it would be accepted as a correct answer.
She did not need to liberate Joseon. She only needed to change history by at least 50%, so it was worth trying.
‘The Korean Liberation Army won’t be founded until 1940. That’s still thirty years away.’
Acting alone might fulfill the condition, but it might not.
She needed to test every stone before crossing, except there was no bridge in the first place.
“Can’t I just found it myself? I don’t even need to gather people. I can just call myself a one-person Korean Liberation Army. If it hasn’t been founded yet, whoever founds it first gets the name!”
Then she simply had to build the bridge.
After declaring herself the Korean Liberation Army, she set out to alter history.
“How should I change it?”
Unfortunately, her historical knowledge was limited to what she had learned in school and bits of information she had picked up elsewhere.
Under the influence of her master, Kim Go-deuk, she had recently begun reading wuxia novels. However, she had never touched alternate-history fiction, so she knew nothing about that either.
“I don’t know.”
So she chose a simple but reliable method.
“If I kill people indiscriminately, history will change, right?”
She headed to Japan. Foreign languages had been part of agent training, and she could learn them easily with an Anomaly’s help, so communication was not difficult.
“Are you Hideki Tojo?”
“Who are you?”
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth!”
Hideki Tojo.
Masatake Terauchi.
Aritomo Yamagata.
She even attacked the emperor, assassinating numerous historical figures.
“Catch the fox monster!”
She wore a white fox mask whenever she carried out an assassination, so the Japanese called her the fox monster.
“This isn’t enough.”
She had to kill more people.
That was what she said, but she was not a psychopath obsessed with murder.
“Ah, it’s time for mental cultivation.”
She was simply a martial artist. She did not hesitate when it came to acting.
[For a martial artist, Killing Karma is inseparable karma. Yet one cannot practice chivalry while shunning Killing Karma. Therefore, one must tame Killing Karma and make it one’s own.]
The mental cultivation method of the Five Elements Divine Art, Ascending Vitality Defies Heaven: Wood, cultivated not only the use of Internal Energy but also an Unshakable Heart.
[Do not fear when acting, and do not hesitate in fear.]
She killed because it was necessary.
To protect the world from Anomalies and escape from this place, she repeatedly accumulated Killing Karma.
“Japan alone isn’t enough.”
She headed to Russia.
“Are you Lenin?”
“Who are you?”
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth!”
She killed Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and numerous other historical figures.
“Not enough.”
Next, she headed to Germany.
“Are you Hitler?”
“Who are you...?”
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth!”
She killed Hitler, Goebbels, Göring, and numerous other historical figures.
“If I’m doing this, I should do it properly.”
She headed to France.
“Are you de Gaulle?”
“Who are...?”
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth!”
She set foot on British soil.
“Are you Churchill?”
“Who...?”
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth!”
While she was at it, she went to America too.
“Are you Roosevelt?”
“Wh...?”
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth!”
By then, thirty years had passed, and the world had become completely different from its original history.
“Hmm, World War III.”
Had she killed too many people?
She was only briefly surprised by the changes caused as one historical alteration led to another.
[Alteration Rate: 99%]
[Pass]
In the blink of an eye, she returned to the original classroom.
‘Ugh!’
There were aftereffects. The memories of living through thirty years of Japanese occupation remained vivid in her mind.
“Urgh!”
“W-Where is this!? Joseon’s liberation was just around the corner!”
“Aah! Honey? Honey!? Where are we!?”
The other agents were no different.
After adapting to thirty years of life there, they could not regain their senses.
‘It can’t be helped.’
Kim Mi-ri quickly struck the backs of their necks.
After knocking them all unconscious, she took the test alone.
‘If even one person passes, everyone passes. I just have to do it.’
She was confident.
‘I was shaken for a moment, but it was manageable.’
For some reason, baseless confidence welled up inside her.
‘It’s not like I’m being made to repeat this hundreds of millions of times. This is nothing.’
‘There can’t be such a horrible Anomaly, right?’
She moved on to the next question.
[2. Prevent the emergence of nuclear weapons.]
She possessed someone in 1940s America.
“J. Robert Oppenheimer?”
“Hm?”
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth!”
She solved the problem through pure offense.
[3. Become the ruler of Joseon in King Seonjo’s place and resolve the Imjin War.]
“Konishi Yukinaga! The ruler of Joseon is here!”
“What! Capture her!”
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth!”
She did not always succeed.
No matter how much Martial Arts she had learned, individual strength had its limits. She could not stop a massive war by herself.
[4. Become a soldier in the Spanish Civil War and unify Spain.]
On battlefields where modern weapons rained down, rather than against assassination targets, even the slightest mistake led straight to death.
Fortunately, dying there was not real. Still, it counted as a failed solution, and she was thrown out of that world.
[5. Participate in the American Civil War and lead the Confederacy to victory.]
Instead, she grew stronger as she continued solving problems.
The potential Kim Go-deuk had acknowledged was ready to burst forth at any time after she joined the Foundation and received Anomalies known as spiritual medicines.
[6. Become a German Wehrmacht soldier in World War II, expel the Nazi Party, and restore everything to normal.]
All she lacked was time, and solving the problems gave her that time.
By the time she cleared the sixth problem, she had surpassed her master.
[7. Become a warlord during the Warring States period and make more than half the land your territory.]
During the seventh problem, she advanced the Five Elements Divine Art by another stage.
[8. Become a child of Nicholas II and restore the Russian imperial family.]
During the eighth problem, she opened her Middle and Upper Dantians, reaching the higher martial realm Kim Go-deuk had longed for.
[9. Become a child of Emperor Gojong and restore the Joseon imperial family.]
During the ninth problem, she succeeded in recreating some techniques from wuxia novels.
[10. Establish your own nation during the Three Kingdoms period, when Wei, Shu, and Wu have established their foundations, and unify the Central Plains.]
Only the final, tenth problem remained before she passed.
Kim Mi-ri, dropped into a wasteland, looked up at the blue sky.
“Not unifying the martial world, but unifying the Central Plains.”
Standing with her hands behind her back in the cool breeze, she smiled.
“I’ll settle this with strength.”
She had the power to do it.
“Should I call my country the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult? I should practice introducing myself too. Ahem.”
Every step she took across the wasteland carried the air of a conqueror.
“I am the Heavenly Demon.”
＊＊＊
[To-jo!]
The Yi Sun-sin Statue’s sword cleaved through the air. Kim Go-deuk barely escaped its range, but his exhausted steps were already half a beat too slow.
“Urgh!”
His right shoulder tore open. His ragged clothes were soaked in blood, and before he had a moment to recover even a little stamina, another statue attacked from behind.
[Let’s think!]
He evaded The Thinker and moved behind the main building.
Only then did he spot Girl Reading a Book, whom he had been searching for. Pushing himself past his limits, he activated his movement technique.
[Hee hee! You caught me again!]
The instant his fingertips touched her, Girl Reading a Book vanished again.
[Then I’ll hide! Find me again! You have three minutes this time too!]
“Cough!”
Kim Go-deuk vomited blood. His insides had long been reduced to rags from forcing his Internal Energy and facing relentless attacks that gave him no time to recover.
“Hoo, this really is difficult.”
Without time to stop, he ran again.
“I suppose it’s time to use that.”
He recalled something he had learned during Foundation training.
[Anomalies are generally impossible to destroy physically. Using another Anomaly or employing Mysteries gives you the highest chance.]
Mystery was the name for psychic powers or Supernatural Abilities manifested by humans.
The Foundation possessed Anomalies that could artificially grant such Mysteries, and there were agents who had used those powers to destroy Anomalies.
[In my opinion, Agent Kim Go-deuk’s Martial Arts are one such Mystery.]
His first attempt had failed.
King Sejong’s statue had not even been scratched, and his Martial Arts had been useless against it.
“But what about this?”
He drew up the Internal Energy in his Lower Dantian.
Another energy raced through his entire body, following the Internal Energy racing through it.
“Mad Sound Explosive Flow.”
The final technique of the Five Elements Divine Art.
“Fire.”
It was a life-saving ultimate technique that burned Innate Qi, the Origin of humans and the root of life, to draw out all his strength at once. At the same time, it was a technique that took both sides down.
“Use it for one minute, and it saves your life. Use it any longer, and it means mutual destruction. I won’t be arrogant enough to think I can finish you within a minute.”
Strength surged through him.
He casually fired a palm blast.
“Heavenly Demon Void Art: Earth.”
[Let’s think...]
The Thinker’s arm fell off after being struck directly by the palm blast.
“Still, I will take you with me.”
[...Do you intend to die?]
The Thinker looked at its fallen arm and asked.
“I do.”
[Are you not afraid of death?]
“Not at all.”
Kim Go-deuk took his stance, planting his feet firmly and clenching his fists, then smiled.
“I entered the world to practice chivalry, and I will give my life for it. That is what martial artists are.”
His movement technique launched him forward.
His fist struck The Thinker in the chest.
The statue, which he had been unable to break before, shattered in a single blow and scattered across the ground.
“And I have passed my will down to my disciple. All that remains is this old body. As a senior, isn’t it only right to give my life for those who come after me?”
Bright crimson blood ran from the old man’s lips.
“There’s no time.”
His gaze turned to Admiral Yi Sun-sin.
“I’ll deal with you before it’s too late.”
＊＊＊
‘As expected of an Anomaly.’
This was clearly an ordinary gymnasium.
Yet every time a sports event prepared by the Anomaly began, the gymnasium’s appearance changed.
‘It can alter space as it pleases.’
At times, it became a swimming pool.
At times, it became a massive track. Other times, it became a shot-put field.
“So, what’s the result?”
『Sob...』
I approached the crying Anomaly and asked.
After clearing the eighth event, the Anomaly had thrown a fit, insisting this made no sense. There had been a brief scuffle, but it had fortunately been resolved.
『Y-You... You’re not human, are you?』
“I am human.”
『How can a human run a hundred meters in one second!?』
“Why do you consider that impossible? Just because you cannot do it does not mean all humans cannot. That is a narrow-minded way of thinking.”
『That’s not narrow-minded, that’s common sense! And how can an ordinary human hit me that hard!?』
The P.E. Teacher trembled, tears streaming down their face, with an emotion that might have been pain or rage.
“Ah, I didn’t use only my own strength. I ate this.”
『D-Doping!? I knew it!』
“Would you like one too?”
『Really!?』
“Then tell me where the clubroom is.”
『The clubroom is on the fifth floor of the main building!』
“Here you go.”
The P.E. Teacher swallowed 「Dried Friendship」.
『Khehehe! This is the source of your strength... H-Heaven, heaven, heaven!』
The stammering P.E. Teacher abruptly collapsed, convulsing.
『Blah! Krr! Pff!』
“What a shame. Is there truly no one besides Homun who understands my art?”
The fifth floor of the main building, then.
‘At the moment, the Urban Legend Club’s clubroom is likely the center of this storm.’
After smoking a cigarette, I left the gymnasium.
“They’re weak, though.”
Judging by the Anomalies’ strength and their reactions when struck, they were far weaker than the judges of the Hell Train.
‘If they’re this weak, I don’t need to worry about the agents.’
＊＊＊
‘We’ll be killed if we can’t draw?’
The six people trapped in the art room trembled in fear.
‘This isn’t a hallucination, is it?’
‘It’s a dream. It has to be a dream! If I close my eyes tight and open them again, I’ll be in my bedroom!’
‘I-I have to draw. I want to live!’
‘What am I even supposed to draw?’
‘Aah, I’ll never enter an abandoned school again! Please forgive me!’
No one dared speak because of the instinctive terror gripping them.
“Ttyu...”
Except for one person.
“Ttyu-ttai.”
Lee So-hee skillfully gathered the brushes, palette, paints, and other supplies laid out in the art room.
“Ttyu-ttya.”
Having personally experienced the horrors sleeping beneath the surface of the world, she recovered quickly.
This was her second time, and she still had the gift the horror had given her.
“Ttyu-ttai!”
The gender-swapped cute-girl streamer was good at drawing.
Having gained popularity with her drawings during her streams, she released her seal.
“Ttyu-ttya-ttya!”
『What are you saying? Aren’t you going to draw?』
“Ttyu-ttya!”
Until now, all she had drawn during her streams was anime-style art using a tablet.
Her viewers liked that sort of thing, so it was the only kind of art she had shown. But her artistic skill went far beyond that.
“Ttyu-ttya-ttya-ttya-ttya-i.”
The talent Dr. Janus had given her was one that would remain in human history.
Lee So-hee began moving her brush.
She had to deeply move the Art Teacher and save her companions as well.
『!?』
The Art Teacher’s eyes steadily widened.
『T-That’s impossible!』
When her brush finally stopped, not only the Art Teacher but everyone else had been moved.
“Wow...”
“This is insane...”
“My god...”
“No...”
“Wow...”
An immortal masterpiece, one that would go down in history, had been born.
Footnotes:
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