WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 11: Newcomer Welcome Banquet (1)

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Having emptied my stomach at Byeolui’s request, I reported to the Rites Department Preservation Archive and was met by an unfamiliar face.

“Huh, are you the newcomer?”

He was a strapping man with broad shoulders and thick wrists. The saber strapped to his back appeared at least an inch wider than an ordinary blade. Perhaps it should be called a horse-chopping saber.

“Yes. I’m Yeok Cheonmyeong.”

“Great name! I’m Peng Juhyeok, a Records Officer like you.”

“Are you from the Hebei Peng Clan?!”

Peng Juhyeok grinned and raised his right hand. With his four fingers tightly curled, he lifted only his thumb and pointed it at the saber on his back.

It was answer enough.

The Peng Clan was renowned for its saber techniques. A martial artist surnamed Peng who carried a saber was more likely than not to be from the Hebei Peng Clan.

“I’d only seen members of the Five Great Clans from afar during the Martial Alliance tournament. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Honor, my foot. I’m just another person who happened to be born lucky. Even more so since my family has practically cast me aside. Feel free to call me Brother Peng.”

I had wondered why I had never heard of a member of the Five Great Clans who held a separate post in the Martial Alliance.

It seemed Peng Juhyeok had some conflict with his family. I finished sizing up the situation in my head.

At least he was not someone who would lash out at me for daring to share his table, asking where trash like me got the nerve.

“I won’t refuse, Brother Peng.”

I was the kind of person who could desperately cling to even an empty courtesy.

Before I became skilled enough in fighting to make a proper living as a wandering martial artist, I had gone hungry almost every day. Embarrassment and resignation had long since been digested and disappeared.

“I like how straightforward you are! Now then, let’s head down!”

* * *

While the mechanism formation in the Preservation Archive activated, I chatted with Peng Juhyeok about this and that.

He was the first senior I had met, after all. Byeolui was too far removed from me in both seniority and duties to count as a direct senior.

The words came easily.

What I was most curious about was...

“When will I learn how to open the mechanism formation?”

In other words, how to get to work.

Even if the method of entering the Anomaly Records Office was classified, should not those who had to report there be told?

Until now, I could accept that they had not told me for security reasons because I was not officially affiliated yet. But was it not about time?

‘Surely I will not have to commute with a senior for a while even after the newcomer welcome banquet ends.’

It was a horrifying future just to imagine. Regardless of whether the senior was a good person or not, having to go to work with a superior was dreadful in itself.

Peng Juhyeok stroked his chin after hearing my question.

“Hmm, I don’t know either. The Director of the Records Office has to handle that personally.”

“Don’t you just lift the shelves in a certain order?”

“The order you have to lift them in changes every day.”

“Tsk, then do I need to check some kind of record board and memorize it before leaving work?”

I recalled the military’s daily password. Going to the administrative office every day to memorize the changed password was not difficult, but it was quite bothersome.

“No. You won’t need to. When you stand before the door, you’ll automatically hear a voice transmission.”

“...Is there a formation array specialist stationed inside?”

“If someone like that were there, there would be no need to wait several days! That function is built into the mechanism formation itself. I can’t even imagine how they made it.”

It was astonishing. A formation array that identified those affiliated with the Anomaly Records Office and sent only them a voice transmission with the password?

“Maintenance is troublesome, though. When a new Records Officer joins, the mechanism formation has to be adjusted manually. How long that takes depends on how much free time the Director has.”

“Why is that...?”

Was it not inefficient? Even to maintain the Anomaly Records Office’s security, everyone who came to the Preservation Archive would already be a Records Officer or a prospective Records Officer.

“An Anomaly once tried to infiltrate by wearing a Records Officer’s skin.”

It was a chilling remark.

“Ordinary mechanism formations do not have any function for changing the method of entry. Then something like that happened. It was somehow repelled, but the Anomaly Records Office’s security system was completely overhauled afterward.”

The current Anomaly Records Office was the New Records Office, built elsewhere after the Anomaly’s attempted infiltration. The Old Anomaly Records Office was apparently used only for storage now.

“...What happened to the Records Officer?”

“Under the skin? Hmm, I heard the Anomaly ate them. That tells us Anomalies are not truly incomprehensible creatures.”

I looked back at Peng Juhyeok. An Anomaly had sucked out a person’s insides and worn their skin, yet Peng Juhyeok called it something whose actions could be understood?

“Tsk, strange. Everyone makes the same face when they hear this story. Listen to me.”

The explanation Peng Juhyeok added had its own unexpected logic.

First, they had to determine why the Anomaly ate the Records Officer. Judging by the sword marks remaining on its true body, the Anomaly had clearly suffered severe wounds from the Records Officer it ate.

Then the most reasonable interpretation of the Anomaly’s act of chewing and eating the Records Officer was that it had been nourishing itself.

It had restored its injured body through human essence. While it was at it, it had looked through the Records Officer’s memories to find out why a human like that had come to kill it.

People also ate nourishing food to care for weakened bodies. That alone proved that Anomalies could bleed and be injured too.

“If it gets hurt in a fight and starts wasting away, doesn’t that mean it will die if you hit it harder? This case has value because it shows us they are not invincible, incomprehensible beings that can never be defeated.”

It was a conclusion I never could have imagined.

As I climbed the stairs, I wondered whether I should submit a statement explaining why I wished to transfer departments, even now.

People had gathered around the central table in that familiar, library-like space.

“Oh, everyone’s here. There are more people, but these four were the ones who could show their faces today.”

‘...Four?’

A warning rang through my mind that something was wrong. There were four people standing in the Anomaly Records Office.

Five, if I included the person who had brought me here.

And yesterday, the White-Robed Miracle Physician had said this.

‘Four people, including the Director, will attend the banquet.’

The numbers did not add up.

The nightmare I had last night and the skinning incident Peng Juhyeok had just told me about led me to one possibility.

‘What if one of them is an Anomaly...?’

“Your expression suddenly stiffened.”

“Ah, sorry. I tensed up because I thought you were all seniors.”

Peng Juhyeok heartily slapped my back. Under normal circumstances, it would have hurt badly enough to bring tears to my eyes.

But not a single tear came out now. This was not the time to whine about a little pain.

‘First, let’s organize the information.’

First. Four guests had been scheduled to attend the welcome banquet.

Second. The bookshelf-password required to enter the Anomaly Records Office changed every day.

Third. The mechanism formation informed only official Records Officers of the password through voice transmission.

...Fourth. Even someone who was not an official Records Officer could infiltrate the Anomaly Records Office by tagging along with one.

There was only one conclusion I could draw from that information alone.

‘Peng Juhyeok is an official Records Officer.’

Of the five guests, he was the only one I could exclude as a possible Anomaly.

“Haha, the hero who just tore apart an Earth-grade Anomaly is surprisingly nervous! Don’t worry, come over. I’ll introduce them one by one.”

I nodded at Peng Juhyeok’s words. Yes, it was best to learn things step by step first.

The White-Robed Miracle Physician’s words were not absolute truth, either. Perhaps someone had finished a mission earlier than expected and joined the banquet.

Maybe the nightmare had made me overreact. I approached the table and greeted them energetically.

“Hello! I’m the new Records Officer, Yeok Cheonmyeong!”

The gazes of four people settled on me. They all remained silent. Eight eyes from four pairs stared at me without a word, and I felt pressured.

“Ah. Please understand. They’re very shy.”

Peng Juhyeok muttered with a sigh.

“Pardon?”

“Actually, I’m the most sociable person among the Records Office members gathered today. If you put those four together, they wouldn’t say a single word even after several hours. All right, all right, everyone, attention!”

The four shrank back at the loud voice meant to get their attention. They looked so pitifully insignificant that my sense of danger quickly faded.

I discreetly looked them over. They all appeared young enough that I wondered if any had even reached thirty.

Martial artists aged slowly due to internal energy, but could the Director really look that young?

‘Had the Director undergone rejuvenation?’

“Brother Peng, what kind of person is the Director?”

I asked quietly. Peng Juhyeok tilted his head and asked back.

“The Director didn’t come to work today.”

“...The Director had something come up, so they assigned the work to me before leaving.”

One of the four seated people finally spoke. Something about the scent bothered me.

For a moment, I traced where it came from. I could not say it was exactly the same, but I was familiar with something similar.

The fishy smell of water.

“Ah, you were the first to speak, so I’ll introduce you first. Cheonmyeong, this is Jade Scale.”

Jade Scale was a girl with ebony-like hair tied back in a single tie. Her eyes, though, were green enough to call fresh foliage to mind. The color was strangely vivid. Did she have ancestry from the Western Regions?

“You two might have similar tastes.”

“What do you mean by tastes?”

“She thought it was a Ten Thousand Year Fire Carp and ate a strange fish that resembled a person. It warped her constitution.”

Jade Scale glared at Peng Juhyeok. He pretended to be frightened and playfully held out a hand.

“Oh, I don’t taste good. My meat’s probably tough.”

Jade Scale clicked her tongue once, then turned her gaze to me.

“Sorry about before. I was choosing my words. As soon as I came to work, the Director left after asking me to handle today’s newcomer welcome banquet. It must be confusing, but the Director is always busy, so you should just accept it.”

“Ah...”

I nodded. As the secret organization’s overall head, the Director likely met often with the Martial Alliance’s leadership, including the Martial Alliance Leader.

“With the Director absent, what happens to the Anomaly Records Office’s work?”

“Nothing that affects you much... will happen.”

Jade Scale explained that the Director was like the core of a formation array that affected the Anomaly Records Office as a whole. The Records Office would not collapse simply because the Director was absent, but access to the Sealed Repository, where Anomalies were confined, was strictly forbidden.

“There are other rules too, such as suspending the intake of Anomalies meant to be sealed inside the Anomaly Records Office. You don’t need to remember them right now, though, so relax.”

I could not relax.

In the end, did that not mean the Anomaly Records Office’s formation array against Anomalies became less effective while the Director was away?

Wariness filled my eyes again as I looked at the four people.

Footnotes:

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