WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 12: Newcomer Welcome Banquet (2)

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“Come on, why are we talking about work so seriously at a time like this?”

Peng Juhyeok barged into the tense atmosphere created by those ominous words. Saying that Jade Scale only worried about pointless things because she was old, he scolded her. Naturally, Jade Scale bristled.

“You little brat...! I’ve eaten more salt than you’ve eaten rice!”

“Well, you live in the sea, old hag.”

Jade Scale moved with astonishing speed. A palm strike imbued with the subtleties of a palm technique landed squarely on Peng Juhyeok’s back. He let out a strange cry, then rubbed the spot as he muttered,

“Stop going off on tangents and let’s get on with the introductions. It’s our first meeting with the newcomer. We can’t be good seniors if we start talking about work.”

Though she was still fuming, Jade Scale obediently followed Peng Juhyeok’s advice. I muttered in disbelief.

“...Um, you don’t observe seniority based on age here?”

From a martial artist’s perspective, what Peng Juhyeok had just said was practically the same as spouting bullshit. It would not have been strange if it had immediately led to a duel to the death.

Hadn’t he just insulted a senior from the martial world whose seniority far surpassed his own?

“Ah, the members of our Anomaly Records Office are always busy running around outside, and plenty of them die, so they don’t have time to make friends. That’s why we agree to be friends and speak casually to one another. Usually, we do respect age, but that old hag doesn’t act her age...”

Thump.

A dull impact echoed through the room. Peng Juhyeok bent over, clutching his side.

“Ghk, this is why you should act your age...”

“As that little brat said, I’m Jade Scale. I’m a Ritualist with the blood of an abomination mixed into me. I can use talismans, Soul-Binding Art, and some knowledge of formation arrays.”

“Explain quickly, will you? Once you’re done explaining, it’ll take some time to convince the other three to take off their hoods. Honestly, why are they all so shy?”

“It’s not shyness. It’s caution, you young fool. You’ve had your face exposed carelessly and gotten burned before too.”

Peng Juhyeok started provoking her again. As I filed away the work tip that people hid their faces to avoid being targeted by Anomalies, I chose my words.

“Perhaps...”

At present, there was only one way to confirm that Jade Scale was not an Anomaly.

I had to ask whether Jade Scale had come to the Anomaly Records Office alone. I carefully formed the question in my mind.

‘Would asking when she came to work be enough?’

It was a natural question to ask a senior. It was only natural for a newcomer to be interested in their work.

Just as I was about to speak, something struck me as strange.

Wasn’t there a better way to deal with an Anomaly that had infiltrated the Anomaly Records Office?

“Hmm? Why did you stop talking?”

“...Brother Peng, where’s the latrine?”

I hurriedly changed the direction of what I had been about to say.

* * *

“Ah, the latrine’s this way. You should’ve said so earlier.”

I grabbed the shoulder of the awkwardly smiling Peng Juhyeok and, urgently, or rather, pretending to be urgent, told him about the conversation I had with Byeolui yesterday.

“...That’s serious.”

“Yes. You’re definitely human because I personally saw you open the door to the Anomaly Records Office, but we don’t know about the other four.”

I explained that an Anomaly impersonating a Records Officer might have slipped in by tagging along with someone else on their way to work. Since they all wore hoods that concealed their faces, it would not have been easy to notice even if their expressions seemed subtly unnatural.

After breathlessly laying out my deduction, I steadied my breathing and added one more thing.

“That’s only the surface-level explanation.”

* * *

“The surface-level explanation?”

I nodded.

“I was given several clues, and I did my best to analyze them while wondering whether one of them was an Anomaly. Still, it all felt too suspiciously coincidental.”

The corner of Peng Juhyeok’s lips curved upward. He nodded, silently urging me to continue.

“First, isn’t the eccentric physician’s explanation itself too contrived? ...No, Byeolui’s explanation.”

I thought of the eccentric physician, who had specifically told me that four people would come. There was no need to tell me the exact number of people attending the banquet.

“Well, perhaps he said it because he’s thorough by nature.”

I thought the physician was closer to eccentric than thorough, but speaking ill of a senior was not a good habit. I let Peng Juhyeok’s words pass.

In truth, the fact that he had asked why already showed, to some extent, that my deduction was correct.

This was probably part of the grading process. I gave him my next piece of evidence.

“That isn’t all. The fundamental reason I thought an Anomaly might be among the people at this banquet was the dream I had last night.”

That dream had been the most suspiciously coincidental part of everything that happened before the Newcomer Welcome Banquet.

Of all times, I dreamed of a demonic practitioner who said they would take revenge on me right before I attended the banquet. Wasn’t that far too timely?

Someone with malicious intent and martial prowess beyond anything I could estimate had created an ominous mood by declaring that they would beat the bastard who ruined their masterpiece to a pulp. That unease had stayed with me.

Of course, it might have been a fragment of the future I had glimpsed through some supernatural intuition. They said truly high-level martial artists could read heavenly fate.

Still, I considered another possibility.

“Hmm, are you saying someone manipulated your dream? I’m hesitant to say this, but have you heard of a mental affliction?”

I shook my head.

“There’s another possibility.”

“What, are you going to tell me about an Anomaly that enters dreams?”

“No.”

I looked at the four people faintly visible beyond the corridor. More precisely, I looked at Jade Scale, the only one among them with her face exposed.

“A Soul-Binding Art.”

If it was a technique that could seize control of a person’s spirit, it could certainly induce dreams.

‘Or make someone believe an illusion was a dream.’

There was not much difference between the two.

“Then let me ask you this. When would Jade Scale have had the chance to use a Soul-Binding Art on you?”

Peng Juhyeok added several explanations. Unless she was an eccentric who had reached the Transformation Realm through Soul-Binding Art alone, someone at Jade Scale’s level would need a catalyst.

That required preparations such as making someone stare at a swaying coin, or disrupting their mental strength and dulling their spirit through incomprehensible geometric patterns.

“If Soul-Binding Art were that versatile, everyone in the world would learn it.”

“There is a catalyst.”

“Hm?”

“The Anomaly Records Office.”

I raised my index finger and pointed at the ceiling. The ceiling here was also the floor of the Preservation Archive.

“I know the Preservation Archive is not normally a place people need to visit. Still, there are far too few people there.”

Neither when I first came here, led by the eccentric physician, nor when I came today for the Newcomer Welcome Banquet had I seen anyone besides myself heading toward the Preservation Archive.

Considering that countless precedents were recorded there, and that most of the Ceremonial Affairs Department’s rules were created with reference to those precedents, it would have been reasonable for people to come and go at least occasionally.

Not encountering anyone unexpectedly was a good thing for someone coming to work, but was the lack of people really only because few had reason to visit?

What if people had been made unable to come?

“Just as Zhuge Liang’s Stone Sentinel Maze did, sufficiently powerful formation arrays can bewilder the soul and overwhelm the spirit. I think the bookcases in the Preservation Archive are tools of that sort.”

They were arranged according to special rules unknown from outside, designed to repel people on their own and function as a formation array that protected secrets.

“The formation array made from those bookcases could serve as a catalyst for a Soul-Binding Art. Anyone entering would already have their spirit dulled to some extent.”

Then I moved my finger again. Today, the brush and books were sitting quietly on the table.

“And what about those rulebook drafts? If those books can only be read with the Martial Alliance’s eye technique, they should be more than capable of serving as catalysts too.”

This was my deduction. The Soul-Binding Art had already been placed on me as I came and went from the Anomaly Records Office. It simply had not been activated.

It was likely a type of restriction that triggered through a specific action. The latent Soul-Binding Art had probably been set in motion by the eccentric physician’s words, “There’s a Newcomer Welcome Banquet.”

Thinking about it, the direction of my thoughts had been somewhat strange from the start.

As the eccentric physician had mocked whenever bored, I was Second-rate. I might manage a fight with ordinary unorthodox thugs, but a duel to the death against a bizarre Anomaly was beyond what I could handle.

The thought that I had to uncover an Anomaly’s identity alone was unlike me.

If I had thought, ‘One of them is an Anomaly!’ then instead of thinking, ‘Damn it, I have to figure out which one is the Anomaly by myself,’ I should have shouted, ‘Aaargh, Brother Peng, help me!’

Two people joining forces was obviously much better than fighting alone.

“After Byeolui, Brother Peng came and gave me another clue. You told me an Anomaly had tried to infiltrate the Anomaly Records Office by wearing someone else’s skin. My anxiety has been growing progressively more concrete and intense.”

I remembered the eccentric physician looking pleased and repeatedly saying that this newcomer was perceptive.

“So this is my deduction. The Newcomer Welcome Banquet at our Anomaly Records Office is a test of a newcomer’s courage and awareness.”

I considered the physical abilities of martial artists. I had lowered my voice, but with their excessively powerful senses, they had probably heard every word.

I had not particularly intended to hide it anyway. If I truly wanted to conceal it, I would have tried communicating in writing.

It was a shame that, as someone who was still only Second-rate, I could not use voice transmission because I was incapable of sophisticated internal energy control.

Certain that the other examiners were listening to this conversation, I finished my statement.

“Am I wrong?”

Footnotes:

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