WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 77: Renew Yourself Day by Day (1)

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I turned away from the Life-and-Death Gambler as she walked toward the Sima Clan's side. There were other things I needed to worry about before her.

“Brother Peng. Let’s tend to our people first.”

“Very well. But are you all right, Brother Yeok?”

Peng Juhyeok tapped his head with his index finger. Having just escaped the Ghost Valley Master's shadow, I supposed he meant I should look after myself first.

I nodded slowly.

“I’m all right.”

Thanks to Peng Juhyeok’s brutally hard blow, I quickly forgot the pain that had felt as though something were scraping through my head.

In the place left behind by that pain was the formula the Ghost Valley Master had engraved before departing.

It had been engraved at the final moment in the mindscape, when the Ghost Valley Master concentrated internal energy at my Baihui acupoint.

I had no intention of analyzing the formula or trying to comprehend it. Even martial arts recognized as belonging to the Orthodox Path occasionally drove their practitioners mad in this martial world. What good could come from learning some shoddy martial art forced on me by a heterodox evildoer like the Ghost Valley Master?

And besides...

‘Even without studying the formula, I can roughly tell what it does.’

It was likely a martial art for summoning the Ghost Valley Master, a kind of spirit descent. It was the Ghost Valley Master's unique martial art, mixed with the Left Path's arts until the boundary between martial arts and sorcery had become blurred.

One might call it a perfected version of the sword dance Zhuge Yeong had performed in a trance just moments ago, refined into something even more sophisticated.

It was not worth expending even a drop of my internal energy on. I approached the Zhuge Clan retainers sprawled nearby and began helping them to their feet.

Then I saw something rather unexpected.

Zhuge Byeok had not collapsed. Instead, he was repeatedly helping others sit up.

“Huff... Young Hero Yeok?”

He looked to be struggling to move several unconscious people at once, so I helped him. Though he was gasping for breath, he still expressed his gratitude.

“Thank you greatly. I do not know exactly what happened, but I do know that, thanks to you, everyone’s lives were saved. We all owe you a life-saving debt.”

Despite his haggard complexion, he clasped his hands and tried to bow. I quickly helped him up and suggested that we tend to the others instead of wasting time on courtesies.

Zhuge Byeok nodded and joined me in searching for those scattered about.

“But how did you avoid collapsing?”

It was strange. The warped space and distorted sense of direction that had preceded the Ghost Valley Master's descent had made everyone else stagger and fall.

The Life-and-Death Gambler possessed profound martial arts, and Peng Juhyeok had the Heart-Succession Secret Book to serve as a guidepost that corrected his distorted senses. But Zhuge Byeok?

“Ah... As I stood still and observed the formation array, I began to see the movements of the Eight Trigrams and the harmony of the Five Elements.”

He explained that he could not save the others, but he could tell where he was and how to place his feet to move forward.

Good heavens.

‘He navigated the chaos of heaven and earth turning upside down through nothing but his knowledge of formation arrays?’

As expected of the Zhuge Clan, renowned for its ingenious stratagems.

Once we had gathered even the last fallen person in a sunlit spot and seated them there, Zhuge Byeok stretched.

“Whew. We nearly faced a real disaster. I was so busy moving others that I failed to notice. Are you all right, Young Hero Yeok? ...And who in the world is that crazy woman?”

His final sentence was spoken very quietly.

I answered that I was fine, carefully choosing my words to describe the Life-and-Death Gambler.

“She is a senior master of the Black Lotus Society. Her temperament is eccentric, and she is infamous for her strange and uncanny abilities. Be careful around her.”

“No wonder it seemed even the Sima Clan could not properly control her. Is it because she is a generation senior to Young Lady Gwa?”

I swallowed the words, ‘More than merely one generation.’

I looked around.

“But where is the Radiant Phoenix...?”

Zhuge Yeong was nowhere to be found, not even in the courtyard beyond the wall of the abandoned house at the center of the Gi sector, where she had been performing the sword dance.

“Ah... Shamefully, this Zhuge is a petty man, so I tended to my sister before anyone else. She should be in a corner of the place where we laid the others down.”

Whew. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Not at all. Do not the old maxims say, ‘Cultivate yourself, regulate your family, govern the state, and bring peace to the world,’ advising us to tend to what is close before gradually extending outward? You did well.”

I meant it sincerely. If the Radiant Phoenix were to die here, how complicated would matters become?

If things had reached the point where the Ghost Valley Master could descend upon the Radiant Phoenix, it would be right to stop it even by killing her. But unless that happened, no matter how grave a blunder she had caused, we had to let her live.

‘More precisely, it is not that we must let her live despite the grave blunder. We must let her live because of it.’

Zhuge Yeong had been responsible for this procession. If the person ultimately responsible disappeared through death, the lower-ranking people would have had to divide the blame for the incident among themselves.

But if the person ultimately responsible lived, then regardless of what happened, the others could avoid directly bearing the wrath of those above them.

As we tended to the fallen, people from the Black Lotus Society began approaching.

They were the three members of the Sima Clan, including Sima Gwa. At a glance, I saw that the Life-and-Death Gambler wore shackles on both wrists and ankles.

“...Let us speak for a moment.”

Sima Gwa shot the two of us a sidelong look and gestured.

* * *

Since many people on both sides had yet to regain their senses, we could not move to the original meeting venue for the Discourse on Heaven and Earth.

Thus, the abandoned house in the Gi sector became the temporary meeting place.

“I shall watch over the others.”

Peng Juhyeok said this and waited beyond the wall. Those who entered the abandoned house's enclosed yard numbered five, including me.

The three members of the Sima Clan. Zhuge Byeok. And me.

Sima Gwa spoke first.

“First, as the person responsible for the Discourse on Heaven and Earth, I apologize for failing to manage my subordinate.”

I looked at Zhuge Byeok, my gaze saying, Since Zhuge Yeong is absent, you are responsible.

Yet Zhuge Byeok looked at me instead. Since I had resolved the problem at hand, he seemed to consider me more suited than himself to act as temporary leader.

Left with no choice, I spoke.

“Then.”

As I considered what I should say first, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

With everyone actually handling this matter gathered here, we ought to settle it now.

“May we consider the Discourse on Heaven and Earth to have ended with our victory, two wins to one loss?”

* * *

‘Is he really insane?’

Sima Gwa felt a chill at how her opponent’s first words were neither an acceptance of her apology nor a rebuke for the Life-and-Death Gambler’s madness, but a declaration of victory.

Had he not just wagered his life against the Life-and-Death Gambler?

He had even wagered himself on the insane choice of drawing the Ghost Valley Master into his own body.

And he had won. He had somehow seized victory in that deranged wager and made the Life-and-Death Gambler say with her own mouth that she had lost.

It was difficult even to count how many lives had been at stake in that brief instant, or how many crises Yeok himself had overcome.

And when the Black Lotus Society was prepared to fully accept responsibility and withdraw, he said:

‘We won...?’

He did not even intend it as a provocation. He sincerely wanted to settle the contest even after matters had come this far. He was utterly mad.

Sima Gwa suppressed the sigh threatening to escape. He should not be treated as a newcomer who had only recently joined the Anomaly Records Office, but as a madman of the same kind as Peng Juhyeok, the Eccentric Physician, or even the Life-and-Death Gambler.

“...That is...”

Just as Sima Gwa was about to say something, Yeok Cheonmyeong added:

“If Sima Ye proposes a new contest, I will accept it.”

Yeok’s gaze fixed on Sima Ye.

It was a way of shifting the conversation away from the Sima Clan’s person in charge and toward the party to the contest. His obsession was almost desperate.

Seeing Sima Ye tremble so badly while unable to say that she was afraid, trying to preserve her dignity as a clan member, Sima Gwa felt pity for her half-sister for the first time in her life.

She had accumulated some resentment toward the family atmosphere that cherished her younger half-sister.

But after her sister had suffered Yeok’s threat to kill her, then been swept up in the Life-and-Death Gambler’s insanity, and now had Yeok, for reasons unknown, press a verbal dagger toward her again, Sima Gwa could not help but feel compassion for her.

This was partly Zhuge Yeong’s doing as well. Had this not happened because she dismissed another member of her own clan as beneath her and refused to communicate?

Sima Gwa did not wish to follow in Zhuge Yeong’s footsteps. She sent a voice transmission to her half-sister.

[Ye.]

Startled by the voice transmission, Sima Ye trembled.

[Do not say anything. Just listen. There is no need to insist on continuing the contest here.]

Sima Ye’s eyes wavered. She seemed about to say that doing so would tarnish the clan’s reputation.

[We have already gained what we needed from Cheongyeong Town. One does not associate with madmen. Do not fight here. Preserve your life and display your abilities later. That is what will truly serve the clan. Withdraw.]

Sima Ye trembled as she nodded.

Trying not to avert her eyes from Yeok Cheonmyeong’s gaze, she spoke slowly and clearly despite her trembling.

“No. Young Hero, I... I owe you a life-saving debt. To continue the contest any further would instead be the pettiness of a small-minded person. I admit defeat.”

Yeok Cheonmyeong nodded as if satisfied. Sima Gwa was truly afraid.

The Anomaly Records Office had recruited another madman after Peng Juhyeok.

‘What were they thinking, making someone like that an External Affairs Officer?’

The Infiltration Warfare Office's strategic planning work would likely become considerably more arduous from now on.

Footnotes:

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