WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 23: Rules Manual Writing Practice (3)

──────

While I wondered whether there would at least be an extra allowance for the semi-forced blood donations to come, Jade Scale rummaged through the things around the table.

Perhaps because my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I could see what she was handling.

Books.

'Well, everything around here is books anyway.'

I had not realized it when the door closed and I entered by trusting my sense of smell instead of sight, but I could see the room well enough now. Aside from the table, the room contained nothing but books.

Several pillar-like structures rose from the floor to the ceiling like abstract sculptures. Those, too, were made from books piled atop one another.

Jade Scale furrowed her brow. I could make out the movement of her eyes from the candlelight reflecting off them. She curled her fingers, and the top of a pile of books floated into the air. A book that had been pinned beneath the stack landed in her hand.

She gathered three books this way.

Then she laid them out before me.

"All right. Rather than how to bind a rulebook, I will teach you how to write one. First, read those three books."

The first book contained a dry investigation record concerning a strange incident at a place called the Cheonhu Clan Estate.

Cheon Huyeong, its clan head, was a Peak realm master who had obtained a treasured sword one day.

Whether the sword had brought misfortune, nighttime intruders began scaling the estate walls. Before long, one of the estate's servants was killed.

Enraged, Cheon Huyeong showed an active intent to drive them off, taking in more retainers and reinforcing the guards.

Despite those efforts, Cheon Huyeong died, and the treasured sword vanished from his side.

I honestly voiced my impression as I skimmed through the booklet.

"Did you steal this government report too?"

"Ah. Did you hear that from the Peng Clan's wild man? I cannot exactly say it was stolen..."

'Then how else could a report that ought to be in a government office end up in the Martial Alliance's basement?'

I forced down the words that nearly burst out.

Picking a fight with my superior might make life at the Anomaly Records Office difficult. Besides, I had a feeling that asking someone in a middling management post would not get me an answer anyway.

Could the Director truly be unaware of something this dangerous?

Either the Director was behind the removal of government reports, or at least tacitly approved of it. If I wanted to ask, 'Will not all our heads roll if we get caught?' I would be better off asking the Director directly someday.

The people investigated by the government office seemed to have been the Cheonhu family's members, along with the martial artists standing guard.

An appendix listed the people involved in the case. Retainers, hired wandering martial artists, and estate servants.

And Cheon Huyeong and his son, Cheon Husak.

The other members of the Cheonhu family had moved to separate residences after the servant's death. Therefore, the only direct members of the Cheonhu family who remained at the scene were Cheon Huyeong and Cheon Husak.

It seemed Cheon Huyeong's younger brother and his wife, as well as Cheon Husak's wife and children, had been released without much investigation.

Cheon Huyeong's younger brother had been suspected of trying to kill his older brother, the clan head.

Yet Cheon Husak had already grown up, and his position as heir was secure. Since the younger brother had not opposed Cheon Husak becoming clan head, the suspicion remained nothing more than suspicion.

I picked up the next booklet.

This seemed to contain testimony personally recorded by the Anomaly Records Office. Its writing differed from the stiff, dry government report.

『...Father changed after he acquired the sword. To be honest, the sword's origin was troubling from the start.

-What do you mean by its origin?

As the heir, I knew how the estate's money came and went. Yet there was no record anywhere of a transaction involving that sword.

All I can assume is that Father secretly acquired it at the black market using his private funds.』

I quickly understood who was telling this story. The first booklet had also described the Cheonhu Clan Estate's household.

If the speaker was the estate's heir, then it was Cheon Huyeong's legitimate son, Cheon Husak.

『Father always believed someone was after his sword. But I never saw anyone. Old Madam Baek as well...

-Old Madam Baek? The servant killed by an assassin?

Yes. She was also my wet nurse. It was not an assassin who killed Old Madam Baek. It was Father.

Holding the treasured sword with blood dripping from it, he said this.

"That old woman was after my sword!"』

The booklet, likely handwritten by a Records Officer, listed testimony about Cheon Huyeong's madness.

After obtaining the treasured sword, his paranoia had steadily worsened until he began killing people.

Had there been some secret martial manual hidden in the sword?

I thought of a scroll concealed in the hilt or a sword manual engraved into the blade.

I picked up the final booklet.

This one appeared to contain testimony from Cheon Huyeong's wife, Cheon Husak's mother.

『Sak was a good son, and my lord was a good husband. But that treasured sword was the beginning of every problem.

My lord became captivated by the sword and kept it closer than he kept me. Sak resented his father's obsession, yet could not hide his own greed.

I learned that Sak had secretly asked Old Madam Baek to steal the sword...

Old Madam Baek had served the clan estate for many years and was trusted enough to be entrusted with the role of wet nurse.

Sak must have believed that someone like her could take the sword from my lord's hands.』

I closed the booklet.

"Hmm? You have finished already? Then what about the Cheonhu Clan Estate would you write a rulebook for?"

"Who is this person said to be Cheon Husak's mother?"

Instead of immediately giving me the answer, Jade Scale nodded once. The shadow swaying with the candlelight looked strangely sinister.

'If she is nodding, then my line of thinking is right...'

"You said Anomalies are beings that have strayed from the Human Path. Then should not a rulebook center on the most alien presence in the recorded information?"

At first, I naturally assumed the treasured sword was the Anomaly's true form.

There were plenty of stories about swords that bewitched people. A demonic sword sounded more like something from fantasy than martial arts fiction, while a cursed blade felt more like it belonged in tales of Japanese yokai than the Central Plains.

Then, while reading the third booklet, something occurred to me.

The appendix to the government record. The list of people investigated.

I turned my eyes back to the appendix in the first booklet. The list contained everyone from the Cheonhu Clan Estate, even those who had fled elsewhere, yet Cheon Husak's mother was not listed.

"The treasured sword has been confirmed through multiple witnesses. But this... let us call her the 'mother.' The thing claiming to be Cheon Husak's mother has left no trace in any other record."

A presence that existed only in a one-on-one conversation with a Records Officer. Something truly ghostlike, never witnessed by two or more people at the same time.

"If I am to write a rulebook, I should first call in the Records Officer who spoke with the mother."

Jade Scale nodded.

"At first, everyone thought the Anomaly was the sword. But they were wrong. The woman was the heart of the problem."

A Human-grade Type C Anomaly.

Sword Maiden Ghost.

"That thing clings to a clan head and pretends to be the lady of the house."

"'Ghost' must refer to a ghost, but why 'Sword Maiden'? Is it a spirit dwelling in the treasured sword?"

"To be more precise, Wealth Maiden would be more fitting than Sword Maiden."

Sword Maiden Ghost infiltrated alongside a "gift" as it bewitched a clan head, and the gift's form varied according to the family's characteristics.

"We belong to the Martial Alliance, so naturally we investigate many martial families. When it parasitizes a martial family, it usually gives them a sword."

If the family belonged to a civil official, it would give something like a collection of writings. But because most cases witnessed by the Anomaly Records Office involved swords as gifts, it naturally came to be called Sword Maiden Ghost.

At first, a family that received Sword Maiden Ghost's gift would prosper even further.

As they rejoiced in the good fortune brought by the gift, Sword Maiden Ghost would slip among them before they knew it.

Sword Maiden Ghost then began acting in earnest as the lady of the house. At a glance, everything she touched seemed to go well.

Cheon Huyeong's martial arts had grown stronger after he took hold of the treasured sword, and the clan estate had seemed to enter a period of prosperity.

But when that glory reached its peak, happiness would reverse. Misery equal to the happiness brought by the gift would descend upon them.

The peak of that misery was the clan head's death. When the clan head died, all memories of Sword Maiden Ghost vanished with him, and it would disappear in search of its next target.

That was the nature of the Anomaly known as Sword Maiden Ghost.

"Then I will give you a question. Why was Sword Maiden Ghost still there when the Records Officer arrived?"

"Was it not trying to attach itself to Cheon Husak? He was already half-bewitched by the Anomaly, so it must have thought there would be no difficulty in making him another victim."

"Correct. Then who should we write a rulebook for regarding Sword Maiden Ghost?"

I thought it over again and again. As far as I could see, the only way to deal with this Anomaly was to destroy the gift it had planted within the family.

Or perhaps a Transformation Realm master could suddenly appear and beat it to death.

But that obviously could not be the intended method...

As I continued to think, Jade Scale offered one more clue.

"I will give you one more hint. The Cheonhu Clan Estate case will be added to a revised edition of an existing rulebook."

This was an Anomaly that already had a rulebook? Then someone among the estate's members must have read it...

"Old Madam Baek. Was she the one who read the rulebook?"

Once the clan head accepted the gift, it was difficult for the clan head to break free alone.

Direct descendants connected to the clan head also found it difficult to defy the clan head's authority. More than anything, as long as they recognized Sword Maiden Ghost as the lady of the house, they could hardly notice anything strange.

That meant the people capable of noticing the situation were those close to the family, yet distant from it to a certain extent.

The servants.

Jade Scale nodded.

"If the first part of writing a rulebook is the method of response, the second is who the reader that will follow those rules is."

Even for the same Anomaly, the contents of a rulebook had to differ depending on whether the person following it was an ordinary commoner or a martial artist.

"The Sword Maiden Ghost rulebook was the same. It did not assume that an ordinary person like Old Madam Baek would find the rulebook, so it got an innocent person killed..."

That must have been what the earlier mention of a revision referred to. A rulebook for commoners with no martial arts training...

"But is that possible?"

"It is not. If the reader has not a shred of internal energy, we simply add an instruction to report it to the Martial Alliance immediately."

"Ah."

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried