WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 24: Living off Someone Else's Money (1)

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"How was the rulebook-writing practice?"

It was the first thing I heard after being shut in a small, north-facing room all day. I shrugged at the special physician.

"Why are there so many bizarre incidents in the martial world?"

Even after teaching me the importance of identifying the intended readership through Old Madam Baek's case, Jade Scale had thrown several more booklets at me.

Some were collections of multiple testimonies about the same incident, full of contradictions. The exercise was to sift out reliable information from those accounts.

Before I came to this world, I had studied for the civil service exam. It felt similar to the logic questions I had encountered then.

If A is true, B cannot be true, and if B is assumed true, C and D contradict each other... Long, exhausting, multilayered logic puzzles like that.

The problem was that this was the martial world, so insane nonsense beyond ordinary logic was sometimes presented as the answer.

"Goodness. What case did you read to make you look so disgusted?"

"The Crossroads of Life and Death."

"Ah. That formation array is quite nasty!"

* * *

The Crossroads of Life and Death was one of the formation arrays created by that heterodox evildoer, the Ghost Valley Master.

It was less actively murderous than Soul-Severing Mountain Villa, but its elusive nature was a level above.

The Ghost Valley Master's creations were formation arrays in name, yet none stayed rooted in a single place. Apparently, they were designed from the start to move along earth veins. It made me wonder whether the Zhuge Clan ought to capture that bastard and crack open his skull.

The condition for getting caught in the Crossroads of Life and Death was simple. All you had to do was wander about a four-way intersection in a bustling part of a city while deep in thought.

If the core of the Crossroads of Life and Death happened to rest within that city's earth vein, you would fall straight into the formation array.

True to its name, you would find yourself in the middle of a crossroads. Depending on which direction you stepped, a different being would appear and pursue you.

In theory, there were two ways to escape. One was to shake off the pursuer and flee ten ri.

There was a snake to the north, a cripple to the south, a tiger to the west, and a wolf to the east.

Naturally, I chose the cripple.

"The safest choice would be the cripple, wouldn't it? You could just outrun them."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because they're a Peak realm master who can use remote object manipulation to lift their own body and move."

"...You're joking, right?"

"It's true."

In fact, they would not even need to lift their own body. Merely grabbing whoever tried to flee would be enough.

I asked in disbelief what the correct answer was, then.

"If you're a martial artist, wouldn't you be able to escape from just about any of them by using internal energy? Just don't choose the cripple."

Jade Scale explained the Ghost Valley Master's thinking to me. The Crossroads of Life and Death even had helpful signs telling people what would chase them in each direction.

Most people would naturally choose the cripple, who seemed easiest to outrun, and die along that path.

"It is presumed that the Ghost Valley Master found the contradiction amusing, that the path which appears safest is the most dangerous, and created this formation array for that reason. That is likely why he named it the Crossroads of Life and Death."

"...What's the other way?"

"Stay in the center of the crossroads, at the starting point, without moving until the Crossroads of Life and Death relocates."

If the victim did not move first, the formation array had no way to harm them.

"That's simple enough. We only need to write that method in the rulebook."

"Time is the problem."

"Excuse me?"

"According to the testimonies of those who attempted to escape that way and succeeded, the shortest wait was one sijin, while the longest was forty-eight sijin."

Forty-eight sijin meant ninety-six hours.

Four days.

Without food or water.

* * *

"If you choose the cripple, a Peak realm master uses remote object manipulation... No, what kind of sorcery is that? How can it summon Peak realm masters so easily?"

"Ah. Good question. The Ghost Valley Master made good use of the victims' Essence, Qi, and Spirit in Soul-Severing Mountain Villa too, didn't he? It is believed to be something similar, a technique that employs the souls of captured masters from earlier generations."

The explanation added that the beasts in the other three directions were also illusory souls manifested using the inner cores of spirit creatures. I began to harbor a reasonable suspicion about the Ghost Valley Master.

'Didn't that bastard hunt every spirit creature in existence, making them so rare now?'

"Well, judging by what you said, it seems you've learned well."

"I learned well?"

"It is an especially unusual case, but it seems you memorized an entire Anomaly investigation record. If you learned it in a day and remembered it that well, then you learned well. Now, let's get off work!"

I looked behind me. No footsteps could be heard from the rulebook binding room where Jade Scale was.

"Records Officer Jade Scale isn't coming out?"

"She lives here. Apparently, she likes it dark and damp, so the basement is just the right environment for her."

I looked at the special physician suspiciously. He wasn't just dressing it up because she could not leave work, was he?

"But why did you ask me to leave work with you? And where has Brother Peng gone this time?"

"Hm?"

The special physician looked at me as if I had said something utterly pointless, then spoke.

"Well, because of your constitution."

"My ability to smell Anomalies well?"

"No. The part where you'll die if you don't eat Anomalies."

"Ah."

...I had forgotten.

It occurred to me that, after thoughtlessly chewing and swallowing the Feathered-Human Gu the special physician had first given me, I had not consumed anything that could be called an Anomaly.

"Well, it seemed like you could live for a year without eating anything, so there probably isn't an immediate problem. But while traveling to investigate the Azurewater Village incident, didn't you use quite a lot of internal energy through lightness techniques, movement techniques, and all sorts of things? I wanted to see what condition your acupoints were in."

His orderly explanation made me nod without thinking.

"Let's go to the Medical Hall, have your pulse checked, then get something to eat. You've done nothing but stare at rulebooks, so you must be hungry."

I nodded. I had skipped lunch and kept reviewing rulebooks, only coming out after hearing it was time to leave work.

I welcomed the offer of a health check, but I welcomed the suggestion of food even more. As I nodded three or four times, a vague question surfaced in my mind.

"Then why not yesterday...?"

Wouldn't checking my pulse that same day have been faster and more accurate? Was there some reason he had needed to wait a day...?

"There was a very important reason. Once you hear it, you won't be able to help agreeing."

"Uh, did the Alliance Leader perhaps have an acupuncture appointment scheduled?"

"I forgot."

...He truly was the Eccentric Physician.

* * *

In truth, the White-Robed Miracle Physician had had his own reasons for waiting a day.

Originally, a special physician was a physician dispatched by the central court to the provinces. The special physician had once held an official post.

The white robe in White-Robed Miracle Physician referred to the white clothing he favored, but it also described his decision to cast aside the silk official robes of a bureaucrat.

Whenever he heard that epithet, the special physician could not help but laugh bitterly.

To others, it must have looked as if he had abandoned his post to practice medicine for martial artists fighting on the front lines of the Orthodox Path, rather than accept the gold and treasures bestowed by the imperial family.

The truth was different.

He had had an audience with the Emperor, reached his limit, and run away.

Afterward, he had simply accepted the Alliance Leader's persuasion and transferred to the Martial Alliance.

The special physician knew the Alliance Leader's intentions well. He might have been an old man who had resigned from office and withdrawn of his own accord, but his skill and connections, which had carried him all the way to the imperial court, had not vanished.

The Alliance Leader must have wanted him to stand as an intermediary between the current Martial Alliance and the court.

After suddenly meeting the Director of the Records Office one day, the special physician realized that the Alliance Leader wanted him to be more than a negotiator with the government authorities.

After much thought, he accepted a position with the Anomaly Records Office, but he was not removed from his original work of negotiating with government authorities.

There was no one else in the Martial Alliance as familiar with government affairs as the special physician.

That was why, the previous night, he had been writing a letter to Commissioner Baek of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

As the imperial family's most loyal agents, the Embroidered Uniform Guard could not possibly be ignorant of Anomalies. There was no need to warn them further about Anomalies themselves.

What they did not understand was the nature of the martial world.

Though they were called demonic arts, to someone who did not know their true danger, they would look like divine techniques that granted a woman who had never learned martial arts terrifying martial prowess overnight.

Rumors would surely spread, and martial artists' greed would create needless conflict. That would be even more true in the unorthodox martial world outside the orthodox sects.

For that reason, the special physician warned Commissioner Baek of the traps and tricks that might be used by the unorthodox sects. At the same time, he sent a letter to the Black Lotus Society's Anomaly Investigation Team to attempt preliminary negotiations.

Those official duties were the first reason he had not checked Yeok Cheonmyeong's pulse immediately yesterday.

The second reason was to observe Yeok Cheonmyeong.

People who had become half-Anomaly like that stood at the boundary between the Human Path and the Demonic Path. The boundary was thin and faint, and there was no telling when they might cross to the other side.

The most dangerous moment came when they rapidly exhausted their internal energy. The sensation of their own life shortening often caused them to lose their reason.

That was why he had entrusted Jade Scale, who had already walked the same path, with observing Yeok Cheonmyeong's prognosis.

As a ritualist skilled in unorthodox arts, she could properly set a junior who was beginning to lean toward the Demonic Path back on course.

The moment the binding room's door opened, Jade Scale sent the special physician a single message through voice transmission.

[Just feed them.]

It was proof that Yeok Cheonmyeong was still thoroughly human.

Author's Afterword

The inspiration for the cripple who uses remote object manipulation came from a passage in Writing Machine's How to Live as a Civil Servant in Murim.

There are actually two separate stories, one about a mountain villa Anomaly incident involving a crippled master, and another about movement through remote object manipulation.

Saying more would be a spoiler, so I recommend that you read it too. It's fun.

Footnotes:

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