WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 64: Records Office External Affairs Officer (2)

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What did I want to do?

It did not take long to decide.

"I have no desire to do anything to the false young master himself."

"Oh?"

Jade Scale raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised. Peng Juhyeok, whose mouth had been sealed, expressed his opinion with his entire body.

I could not fully understand him since he could not speak, but judging by his murderous gestures, such as drawing a hand across his throat, he seemed to be urging me not to hesitate, but to storm the clan and lop off the false young master's head...

Well.

I looked away from Peng Juhyeok. One should not listen to a person who lived as though always ready to stake their life, even if they were technically communicating through nonverbal expression rather than words.

I recalled something the special physician had said. Chivalry was making a choice one could be proud of, even if it went against society and heavenly principle.

I was not the sort of person capable of harboring grand, profound ambitions that could stand against the world. Still, I had desires of my own.

"Killing the false young master is not my goal. I just do not want to see people connected to me get caught up in strange happenings and die."

It might have been a rather unambitious answer for a member of the Anomaly Records Office.

Still, I had little desire to defeat others. I wanted to live, and I wanted the people I knew to live long, happy lives if possible.

Jade Scale stared at me for a moment, then murmured words that sounded halfway between admiration and a sigh.

"To cultivate oneself and bring peace to others."

"What does that mean?"

It sounded like some impressive saying. Was it from a Confucian classic?

People thought most martial artists were ignorant. After all, the martial artists they usually saw were members of unorthodox sects causing trouble, or members of orthodox sects fighting those unorthodox sects.

To some extent, that was true. Yet the higher one's realm, the harder it became to find martial artists who were simply uneducated.

The formulas of advanced martial arts were difficult enough to rival scriptures, and Buddhist martial arts could become so complex that they were described using original Sanskrit scriptures.

Of course, I had never personally seen a secret martial manual containing such divine arts in this world. I only meant that was how they had been described in Chronicles of Black and White Heroes.

Jade Scale was clearly a master far above me, so it would not have been strange for her to be well versed in scriptures and aphorisms, but...

'Why bring that up now?'

"It means cultivating yourself so that others may be at peace. It is not all that different from cultivating oneself, regulating one's family, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world."

"That is far too grand an ambition for a newcomer."

I found myself shaking my head. If my seniors developed strange expectations, life would become exhausting later. I needed to draw a clear line and say, 'I am not that kind of person.'

When I added that I simply wanted to live, so I wanted to look after the people close to me as well, Jade Scale smiled softly.

"You really must meet the Alliance Leader."

"No, Senior Jade. Why would you suddenly say something so terrifying?"

I recoiled. She was suddenly telling me to meet the highest-ranking person in the organization. For someone with ambition, it might have sounded like praise. To me, it was a curse.

"My goal is to live a long, quiet life."

It was bad enough that I had fallen into this strange martial-arts Chaotic World. How unfair would it be if I met a miserable death too?

The injustice might burrow into my bones so deeply that I became a vengeful ghost wandering the Nine Springs.

'Then the Records Office people would catch me again, and I would suffer a second miserable death before truly crossing the River of Three Paths...'

As I indulged in that pointless thought, Jade Scale shook her head.

"Meeting the Alliance Leader would not harm you. The moment the Alliance Leader sees a young person who speaks of cultivating oneself to bring peace to others and extending consideration from oneself to others, they might slap their knee and ask why the Martial Alliance had never had a member like you before, then recruit you into the Alliance Leader's Office."

"Oh."

A department directly under the Alliance Leader. Was that not the perfect place for my goal of living a long, quiet life?

There might be serious issues restoring my acupoints if I could not continue my Anomaly meals, but perhaps I could get a few spiritual elixirs out of it?

"But the Director would oppose it. The Director would say they could not hand a valuable talent like you over to a department that does nothing but idle about."

"Oh..."

I should quietly prepare to find Anomalies and use the Demon-Breaking Vajra Art.

Jade Scale seemed quite pleased with my modest ambition. She kept nodding, then spoke with a bright expression.

"That is fortunate. We had no one to send outside the Records Office, and now you have volunteered."

"Pardon?"

Several questions flashed through my mind at once. Most of the Anomaly Records Office's work involved investigating Anomalies, and was not everything except writing rulebooks already fieldwork?

"Ah, Brother Yeok. Senior Jade does not mean Anomaly investigations. She means we have no one to send to other departments."

The Anomaly Records Office was a secret organization, but it was still a subordinate organization of the Martial Alliance. Depending on the matter, it had to coordinate with other organizations.

She meant they lacked someone who could work smoothly with staff from other departments when handling that sort of work.

My head tilted.

"Um, is not the special physician here?"

"Ha. Gongson Hu? Have you ever heard what that brat younger than me says?"

"What did he say?"

"It was short, simple, and arrogant. 'At my seniority?'"

"..."

Well, that was true. The Eccentric Physician's seniority was a little too high for him to be running about doing practical work. His roots lay with the imperial court rather than the martial world, so it was hard to determine his seniority, but he was old, at least.

Even in this harsh martial world, the elderly were treated with respect.

Not because they were frail, but because anyone who had survived to that age was dangerous.

"Well... the special physician already has a great deal of work at the Medical Hall. It makes sense that he would find it difficult to make time. What about you, Senior Jade?"

Without a word, she pointed to the nape of her neck. Scales, which Peng Juhyeok claimed were traces of having eaten the wrong fish.

"My constitution makes it difficult for me to go outside carelessly. The Director has important duties as well, so it is not easy for the Director to travel outside the Martial Alliance."

I was about to mention Peng Juhyeok's name, but stopped.

"Why are you not asking about me?"

Could I suggest placing a person who had sincerely advised me to invade one of the Five Great Clans and cut off the false young master's head in an external affairs department?

"Ha ha. Brother Peng has the bold personality and heroic temperament of a person who enjoys drinking, singing, and dancing, but that could sometimes become a weakness, could it not?"

I could not say what I actually thought, so I offered a suitable excuse instead. Jade Scale clicked her tongue.

"You say, 'He is a reckless brute, so he is unsuitable to send outside,' in such an elegant way."

"Come now, Senior Jade. What are you saying? Brother Yeok thinks so highly of me!"

Jade Scale shook her head, then continued in a low voice.

"First, you cannot simply walk into a house like the Murong Clan's. You need to build a certain martial reputation before you have grounds to enter. It will take quite some time before you can make contact with the false young master."

The position best suited to building a martial reputation in the Records Office was External Affairs Officer.

She said that as I dealt with various departments within the Martial Alliance, and sometimes visited the various sects outside it, my reputation would naturally grow.

"Gongson Hu put you in charge of supervising the Purification Rite last time. Perhaps he intended to train you in this direction from the beginning."

After murmuring that, Jade Scale spoke words that sounded almost like a sigh.

"At last, we will be able to send an actual decent person to seek cooperation."

The remark was steeped in deep fatigue.

* * *

"By the way, where did you hear that story?"

As I was about to leave, Jade Scale asked me a question. It could not have been easy to learn about the internal strife of a place like the Murong Clan, so she wondered where I had obtained such secret information.

There was no reason to hide it, so I answered casually.

"From the Hao Clan. Because of what happened at Iron-Steel Mountain, I tried to send Murong Sung a letter. They put me under surveillance. As we talked, I learned about this secret history."

Jade Scale tilted her head, seeming to think that those people might be weak in martial arts, but they were not the sort to speak loosely.

I hesitated for a moment. Would it be all right to mention the Calamity-Averting and Disaster-Escaping Office in front of Jade Scale?

The underground survival rules had said little about the special physician beyond telling me to keep repeating that I wanted to live, but they had included a detailed clause warning me to be careful around Jade Scale because of certain taboos.

The gentleman thieves of the Calamity-Averting and Disaster-Escaping Office were outsiders to the Records Office, while I was a colleague who ate from the same pot, so Jade Scale might be more lenient toward me.

'I do not know that person very well, though.'

I had spent time with both the Eccentric Physician and Peng Juhyeok in private, so I had gotten a sense of their boundaries.

The Eccentric Physician was a fairly genial elder, aside from how he lost all restraint whenever he found a pretext for an unusual experiment. Peng Juhyeok simply had no boundaries.

He was actually quite polite toward people he was not close to, people with whom he had professional relationships, but among those relatively close to him...

"Could it be that Senior Jade's memory has grown too old? At your age, it would not be strange if your memory had become a little hazy."

"Very well. Since you are begging so desperately to die, how could I refuse?"

...He ran his mouth without restraint like that. He trampled over other people's boundaries, yet laughed it off when others trampled over his. In that sense, he could be called a person of complete consistency.

I still did not know what kind of person Jade Scale was, so I was reluctant to speak carelessly.

I resolved to ask the special physician about the secrets beneath the Records Office when I met him someday, then came up with an appropriate excuse.

"A friend of mine has some connections with them. As the saying goes, a cunning rabbit has three burrows. Would not a wandering martial artist seasoned by experience have one or two lifelines?"

"Such sociability. You are already showing the qualities of an External Affairs Officer."

"Ha ha, I am grateful for your favorable assessment."

* * *

"Still, is that not a purpose somewhat removed from the Anomaly Records Office's main duties? You are not going to say anything about it?"

After Yeok Cheonmyeong left, Peng Juhyeok lay sprawled on the floor, every acupoint in his body having been tapped by Jade Scale's Finger-Flicking Art, and ran his mouth.

Jade Scale snorted.

"Both the Director and the Alliance Leader want to nurture that newcomer. When the Yangtze's rising wave wishes to venture into the vast martial world, how could I stop them?"

"Tsk, tsk..."

Peng Juhyeok clicked his tongue in pity for his junior.

The title of External Affairs Officer sounded like it would involve only peaceful duties, but the truth was the opposite.

That was because interacting with those who walked the Orthodox Path, such as the Nine Sects One Gang and the Five Great Clans, was not the whole job.

Negotiating with Black Path groups among the unorthodox sects was also part of an External Affairs Officer's duties.

The most notable example was the exchange meeting with the Anomaly Destruction Hall.

Peng Juhyeok shook his head.

"Brother Yeok truly has an abundance of work ahead of him."

Author's Note

"By the way, why are you reading the Countermeasure Volume? Looking at the books you have stacked up, they are all about the unorthodox sects. Have you been assigned negotiations with the Black Lotus Society?"

"Pardon? There is something like that?"

Jade Scale nodded and rubbed her chin.

"Hmm, I cannot remember exactly how many years ago the most recent exchange meeting was. It must have been after Peng Juhyeok joined."

Jade Scale sighed, saying that living underground had dulled her sense of time, then shrugged.

"Anyway, it happens from time to time. The Anomaly Destruction Hall and the Records Office exchange information, and sometimes prisoners. It is that sort of event."

-Chapter 38, The Gap Between the Records Office and the Anomaly Destruction Hall (2)

Footnotes:

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