WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
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◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈
Chapter 83: Confidential (3)
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I waved the Eccentric Physician away. There was a limit to slander.
How could I possibly get along without prejudice with people like Myeong Myeong Myeong Myeong, Soso Soso, and the Life-and-Death Gambler?
The Eccentric Physician gave me a doubtful look, then nodded as if to say, “Fine. If you say so.”
“Is that all you were curious about?”
I was about to nod. My questions about the stairs one must not climb had been answered to some extent.
Then, a remark the Ghost Valley Master had made came to mind.
“What is Self-Oblivion?”
“You do not mean the state of forgetting oneself through devotion to martial training. Is that the answer you seek?”
I nodded. I knew of that kind of self-oblivion too.
But what I wanted to know was...
“The Ghost Valley Master called me a departed soul at first. It seemed to be the name for that red shadow born in Soul-Severing Mountain Villa. But...”
I recalled the moment when the Ghost Valley Master had uttered the words Self-Oblivion.
It had happened when the Life-and-Death Gambler woke me. She had interfered with my battle against the Ghost Valley Master and shaken things up by using a strange ability to affect even the mental realm.
The Ghost Valley Master had said this then.
“Self-Oblivion... One who long ago forgot their studies and abandoned themself is holding me back.”
“It seemed that the Ghost Valley Master called the Life-and-Death Gambler Self-Oblivion.”
The Eccentric Physician gave a quiet hum, then spoke as if it were nothing important.
“This is only a hypothesis. We have not been able to confirm it properly either.”
“Yes.”
“In the Lesser Nine Provinces, in places like Azure County or Black County rather than Red County, or perhaps even in the Greater Nine Provinces beyond them, there may be someone corresponding to each of us in those worlds.”
And there would likely be certain common tendencies among those counterparts. It sounded like a theory of parallel worlds.
“But there may also be irregular beings who have strayed beyond those tendencies. Perhaps such beings are called Self-Oblivion because they have forgotten their original selves.”
“Well, it would be difficult for there to be another person with a mind like the Life-and-Death Gambler’s.”
“Hm? If you put it that way, would you not be spitting in your own face?”
“What?”
“Are there more people fated to fight Anomalies, or more people who simply live ordinary days laughing and enjoying themselves?”
“Uh...”
It meant that the moment I became entangled with Anomalies and joined the Anomaly Records Office, I had already strayed from the course of an ordinary life. I trailed off and avoided answering. I did not want to be considered on the same level as the Life-and-Death Gambler.
“Then perhaps most people who oppose Anomalies, such as those in the Anomaly Records Office or the Anomaly Destruction Hall, walk paths far removed from their original selves.”
“Most likely.”
A group of people who had forgotten themselves. Because of the Ghost Valley Master’s arrival, the Anomaly Records Office had gained one new recruit who was now walking a path different from the one originally meant for him.
What might the Anomaly Destruction Hall, similar to yet different from our Anomaly Records Office, be going through right now?
* * *
Soso Soso, one of the madmen in the Black Lotus Society, or more precisely the Anomaly Destruction Hall, scratched his head.
After returning from an exploration mission in the Ghost Continent, he found the atmosphere in the Anomaly Destruction Hall strangely different.
‘No. It is not just the Anomaly Destruction Hall.’
A strange tension hung over the entire Black Lotus Society. What had happened before he returned?
‘Hmm. Who would be suitable to ask...’
There was no point asking prisoners. They would not give him any useful answers. Yet visiting the Many-Eyed Court would make old ties awkward, and most people in the Infiltration Warfare Office were already on edge from devoting themselves to strange research.
There was only one person with whom he could have a proper conversation.
“Chef. You there?”
Soso Soso went looking for the Human-Skin Chef, who was remarkably sociable and peaceable for a jailer in the Anomaly Destruction Hall.
Speaking with the Life-and-Death Gambler would likely waste time on pointless nonsense, while Depose the Ruler, Seek the Sword cared only about forging a sword to depose the emperor and would be far removed from rumors.
Compared to those lunatics, the Human-Skin Chef was a truly reliable conversation partner.
The Human-Skin Chef, who was considering that day’s menu for the prisoners, answered quietly.
“Yes.”
“What happened to the Society? Why is the atmosphere so damp? It feels more dank than the Ghost Continent.”
“The Life-and-Death Gambler has been imprisoned in the abyssal depths of the prison.”
That was a surprising story. Soso Soso had expected something ordinary, like one of the Black Lotus Society’s affiliated sects growing too bold and getting caught preparing a rebellion against the Society Leader.
“She is a little touched in the head, but she is not the sort to bare her teeth at the Alliance Leader. What happened?”
“They say she spread information about the Ghost Valley Master at the Discourse on Heaven and Earth.”
“Would that not earn her a reward instead? It may become somewhat troublesome to resolve the conflict with the Martial Alliance, but from the perspective of cutting off the Zhuge Clan at the root in advance...”
“I heard she gathered everyone from both the Sima Clan and the Zhuge Clan in one place and shouted it aloud.”
Soso Soso squeezed his eyes shut.
This was a situation where even a proper punishment would leave no room for complaint. It was no different from giving the Infiltration Warfare Office’s researchers a death sentence.
“Why?”
“She took a liking to a man named Yeok Cheonmyeong, who was selected as the Anomaly Records Office’s External Affairs Officer for this Discourse on Heaven and Earth.”
“Tch. That fellow must be dead.”
He remembered a past conversation. The new Records Officer who had defeated the Life-and-Death Gambler in a wager. Had that been Yeok Cheonmyeong?
The martial world was a place where yesterday’s good fortune often became today’s disaster. If a new Records Officer had the luck to defeat the Life-and-Death Gambler, then he could just as easily suffer the misfortune of meeting her again and dying.
The Human-Skin Chef shook their head.
“He won.”
“What?”
“The Life-and-Death Gambler went straight to the Abyssal Prison, so I could not hear the details properly. But she walked off humming that she was looking forward to the next challenge.”
If the Life-and-Death Gambler had called herself the challenger, then naturally the victor had been that Records Officer, Yeok Cheonmyeong. Soso Soso stroked his chin.
“She can be strict with herself in wagers and lenient with others. Even taking that into account, he must have brought the score even.”
“You should be able to confirm the details with the Infiltration Warfare Office.”
Because of the Life-and-Death Gambler from the Anomaly Destruction Hall, the Infiltration Warfare Office’s innocent researchers had nearly met screaming, horrible deaths. It was not easy for a jailer from the Anomaly Destruction Hall to visit them.
But Soso Soso was no ordinary man either. He was a fine man of the Unorthodox Path who knew how to place curiosity above the social mood.
After reviewing the investigation report that the Infiltration Warfare Office had compiled on the events of this Discourse on Heaven and Earth, Soso Soso clicked his tongue.
“Just what is this bastard?”
The Ghost Valley Master wanted his body as a sacrifice, passing over both the Zhuge Clan and the Sima Clan.
“Is he descended from Sun Bin or Su Qin?”
Tracing the epithet Ghost Valley Master back led to a historical figure.
Long ago, an eminent thinker and strategist of the Warring States period had first used the name Ghost Valley Master. Among those who had studied under him and gone on to win great renown were strategists such as Sun Bin and Su Qin.
The one casting a shadow over this martial world of Chaotic World was likely not truly the Ghost Valley Master of that era, but one of countless people who had borrowed that name...
In Soso Soso’s opinion, a body chosen ahead of the names Zhuge and Sima would have to belong to the lineage of Sun Bin, descendant of Sun Wu, author of The Art of War.
After glimpsing fragments of twisted disposition and wisdom through the report, Soso Soso returned to the Anomaly Destruction Hall in disbelief.
It was nearing evening.
‘I cannot miss the table the Human-Skin Chef has set.’
“Has there been any separate result from the Many-Eyed Court’s investigation?”
Sitting at the table with the Human-Skin Chef, he asked about various things that interested him.
Organizing information was not originally part of the Human-Skin Chef’s duties, but news of all kinds naturally reached the person responsible for the table of a department devoted to Anomalies.
“There is nothing. They say he was merely a wandering martial artist. His service record with the White Sword Squad has also been confirmed.”
He was too exemplary a wandering martial artist. So commonplace that he was actually difficult to investigate.
“Another strange one has joined the Anomaly Records Office...”
Thinking about it, perhaps the Anomaly Records Office contained nothing but strange people. Martial artists were people capable of fighting the world with their own stubbornness, and the higher their attainment, the stronger that stubbornness became.
Anyone who survived for long in an organization as perilous as the Anomaly Records Office would naturally become strange as well.
But the problem was that Yeok Cheonmyeong had not served in the Records Office for long, yet he was already unhinged enough to swim in the same waters as the Life-and-Death Gambler.
“Any news that he comes from a clan like the Mad Blade Fiend, or that he has ties to the Imperial Palace like the Eccentric Physician?”
“He appears to have no blood ties to any of the Five Great Clans. I heard they intend to request inquiries into Imperial Palace connections once Depose the Ruler, Seek the Sword returns. But for now, neither...”
“Troublesome.”
Soso Soso muttered quietly. A rising talent with no ties to any power in the martial world of Chaotic World, yet displaying exceptional talent.
Whenever one person of outstanding ability appeared, new talents would sprout up like bamboo shoots as if competing with them. That was the principle of the martial world.
Soso Soso did not welcome the rise of such new stars. It was not that he disliked the arrival of juniors.
Capable successors were welcome, of course. But he was wary of the shadows that followed new stars.
“The martial world’s golden age may be approaching.”
It was another name for the Heavenly Demon’s period of activity.
* * *
I hoped that the Anomaly Destruction Hall would be thrown into confusion and become unable to operate for a while. But I knew well that this wish would not come true.
‘With my luck, there is no chance of that.’
Instead, another question occurred to me.
“What kind of life might my other self be living?”
It was a question that came to me suddenly. The Ghost Valley Master had said that I came from outside the Greater Nine Provinces, so there would be no other Yeok Cheonmyeong.
Still, I wondered what ordinary versions of Peng Juhyeok, addicted to chivalrous deeds, and Gongson Hu, the Eccentric Physician who loved advances in medicine far too much, might be like.
Would they resemble martial artists at Martial World in Turmoil difficulty rather than Chaotic World difficulty?
“That is impossible to know.”
“Of course. How could one’s gaze reach people in other provinces?”
“No, that is not what I meant.”
The Eccentric Physician hesitated for a moment, then began by saying that this was confidential.
“...Were Red County Divine Continent and the Lesser Nine Provinces not confidential?”
“Those are things one naturally learns while honing martial arts. The higher one’s attainment, the more clearly one feels the world’s alienness. But what I am about to tell you is different.”
What could this be? In a short but heavy silence, the special physician spoke.
“Except for the somewhat exceptional Yellow County, the six counties paired as Black, Azure, and White have already vanished.”
Vanished? Did that mean they had been destroyed?
“Of our Nine Provinces, the only land where heavenly principles remain is Red County Divine Continent.”
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