WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 272: Someone's Malice (3)
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Eunho quickly formed a new formation.
Nam Hwaseong and Geumpyo stood at the tip of the arrowhead-shaped assault formation. Dongryong and Saryeon followed behind them, taking over for the two defensive specialists.
The people who had been incorporated into our platoon followed behind our original members.
“Let's go!”
At Nam Hwaseong's shout, Geumpyo charged alongside him.
They tore through the enemy formation and drove deep into it like a meteor hammer piercing a castle gate. Then Dongryong, Saryeon, and I subdued whoever stood in our way.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The members of the Red Force blocking our path weren't doing it to earn high scores.
They were angry that we, who should have remained beneath them, kept climbing higher.
They resented their own inability to meet expectations and vented that inferiority on us.
And they were too foolish to notice Cheol Sunjik's serpent-like ambition creeping into their weakened hearts.
All those things combined, making them act with short-sighted desperation.
“St-stop them!”
“Find their flag bearer!”
“The White Force will come help us!”
They had become someone else's puppets, dancing in the palm of another's hand.
They were no different from disposable game pieces.
Did they want to see us kneel so badly that they were willing to accept that?
Had they ever once considered how hard we had worked or what resolve we had forged?
“Argh!”
“You brainless bastards!”
“You think you're the only ones who matter?!”
Sadly for them, I had no intention of obediently playing along with their malice.
I had no intention of letting our efforts be crushed by their petty jealousy.
That was why we advanced.
Forward, and further forward.
“Move!”
I swung the Black Dragon Sword and knocked out two Academy students. Then I used the Flowing Cloud Divine Art to snap another bastard's wrist.
“Arrgh!”
“Damn it!”
I showed no mercy to those who had fallen.
The price of envying another person was supposed to hurt deeply enough to chill one's bones.
I would simply make them pay the proper price for the malice they had sent our way.
“Representative!”
Jang Woojae shouted. Before I knew it, enemy Academy students had surrounded him.
“At this rate, we'll be encircled.”
“Doesn't matter! We'll break through them!”
There was no resolve in petty jealousy.
Those who settled into comfort and only wished to watch others fall would recoil in shock over a thorn beneath their fingernail.
They were no different now.
Every one of them looked as if they wanted to kill us, yet none of them truly stepped forward.
They were all talk.
“Stop them! Stop them! Take those bastards down!”
“You there! Don't retreat!”
“Then you stop retreating, you bastard!”
If they wanted to see us fall that badly...
If they truly did, then they should try to bring us down.
They should watch closely while their bones broke and their flesh tore.
“Isn't this too fucking much?!”
“It's just an evaluation!”
Meaningless cries from flowers raised in a greenhouse, people who had never considered the price of malice. No, people who had never needed to consider it.
Yet the members of our platoon, who had endured countless acts of malice and survived tenaciously like weeds by the roadside, silenced those childish cries by knocking out a few teeth.
“Then get the hell out of here, you bastards!”
“Can you even call yourselves men after saying that?!”
I urged the unit forward.
One step at a time.
We kept moving, smashing through whoever blocked our path.
“The White Force!”
Once we broke through the chaos of the Red Force, the true enemy appeared before us.
“Charge!”
Nam Hwaseong and Geumpyo didn't stop, despite being covered in wounds.
Our objective was Cheol Sunjik on White Mountain.
Anything blocking our path was nothing more than an obstacle.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Those who had never fought without internal energy had exhausted all their stamina early on, so they tried to face us with martial arts that had become noticeably slower.
A fight among ordinary people with no experience in close-quarters combat was little different from children playing war in the neighborhood.
Awkward punches. Kicks thrown without strength.
They gritted their teeth and tried to endure, but their stamina had clear limits.
Without resolve or training, those filled only with malice couldn't display skill equal to the anger burning within them.
“Urgh!”
“Gah!”
“Ugh!”
Their eyes rolled back as they collapsed, blood streaming from their noses.
We passed them and kept moving forward.
“Head Disciple! The rear ranks have been cut off!”
That didn't mean we had no disadvantages.
Our disorganized movements could cause us to lose our rear ranks.
It didn't matter.
“Keep moving!”
“Is that all right?”
I looked at Eunho. “How many people in our platoon received a Mu rating on the written evaluation?”
“Two.”
“Then we only need to keep two people alive.”
“...Understood.”
Eunho pressed his lips together and made the sword formation even sharper.
Our platoon now drove into the enemy formation like the blade of a spear.
They had overlooked two things.
First, Seong Moran and Geumpyo were the only people in our platoon at risk of being eliminated.
In other words, as long as those two survived this evaluation, no one else had to worry about elimination.
Second, I was accustomed to battles like this.
The Sojeong Unit had never fought with the goal of bringing everyone back alive.
Every morning, we drew lots to decide who would live and die that day, then did everything we could to save those people.
“Representative! Everyone's reaching their limit!”
We had not even climbed halfway up White Mountain, but people were already exhausted and dropping out.
I shouted at those following behind me.
“From now on, don't hold back!”
“What?”
Jang Woojae stared at me with eyes wide as a rabbit's.
“If you think you're about to hit your limit, then get eliminated! Take one bastard down with you before you leave!”
After hesitating briefly, Jang Woojae nodded, his lips pressed tightly together.
“...Yes!”
Perhaps he was beginning to understand my intentions. Jang Woojae didn't add anything else.
He really was clever.
Or perhaps he was simply furious about what had happened during this practical evaluation.
Slash!
“Argh!”
“C-cheating! That's cheating!”
“Go Myeongjin! Eliminated!”
Platoon members who had reached their physical limits began taking opponents out of combat before withdrawing from the fight.
As excessive attacks erupted throughout the battlefield, the enemy couldn't hide their confusion.
If they had intended to sabotage the evaluation from the start, they should have been prepared to accept whatever happened afterward. Yet they looked flustered, as if they had never expected us to act outside their predictions.
“Kill them!”
“Kill them!”
“Kill them!”
Anger rose to confront malice.
The pain consuming our bodies became fuel for that anger, making it explode with enough force to drive us into madness.
Panic began creeping across the faces of the enemies surrounding us.
That expression stoked the anger of our platoon members again.
Was that all they had?
Was that all the resolve they had brought when they came after us?
“Hah...!”
They had spread such petty jealousy, only to panic this easily?
As if answering their anger, I shouted until my voice nearly burst.
“Kill them all!!!”
Our platoon members answered my shout.
“““Kill them all!”””
Voices burning with fury thundered across White Mountain.
Even as they fell, the members of the Red Force continued moving forward.
I swung my sword and fists without pause, seized by the same desperate feeling I had known on the battlefield of the Orthodox-Demonic War in my previous life.
#
The summit of White Mountain.
The White Force's camp.
“Ugh...”
Cheol Hyeonjik, the eldest son of the Jukhyeon Sect, let out a low groan.
“Wouldn't the orthodox strategy be to gather your people, expand your unit, and focus on defense?”
Cheol Hyeonjik spoke in a tone that sounded half like a question to himself, then looked at Cheol Sunjik beside him.
“...”
Cheol Sunjik kept his lips tightly shut as he watched the battlefield, as though lost in thought.
After a moment, Cheol Sunjik asked quietly, “What would you have done, Brother?”
Cheol Hyeonjik asked back, “If I were Jin Sowoon?”
“Yes. If allies opened the way for you and the enemy was targeting only you.”
“Hmm...”
After thinking for a moment, Cheol Hyeonjik gave a conventional answer.
“I would have followed the traditional strategy. Gathered the unit, built up my forces, and focused on defense.”
Cheol Sunjik shook his head.
“If he had done that, he would have been eliminated early.”
“Hm? Is that so?”
Cheol Hyeonjik watched Cheol Sunjik for a moment, then grinned.
“Still, I have you, so I won't end up like that. Isn't that right?”
“...”
Rather than answering, Cheol Sunjik turned his stiff face toward the battlefield.
Cheol Hyeonjik tilted his head.
“Why? Did I say something wrong?”
“...No. That is the average approach.”
Cheol Sunjik's voice was cold.
His eyes fixed on Jin Sowoon's unit again.
Those who had descended Red Mountain eventually entered White Mountain.
The unit they had managed to gather had been cut in half, yet they continued climbing White Mountain with stubborn persistence.
Cheol Hyeonjik muttered in confusion.
“They won't earn many points by doing that.”
Cheol Sunjik clenched his fist slightly.
“...His goal isn't points.”
“Hm?”
He added with a hardened expression, “Jin Sowoon is forcing his way up White Mountain because his goal is to catch me.”
Cheol Hyeonjik's eyes gradually widened.
“Don't tell me... He knows that you arranged this?”
“...”
“You clearly never stepped forward yourself...”
Cheol Sunjik recalled the strange things Jin Sowoon had casually shown them until now.
“He is an unusual person.”
“Hmm...”
Then he stared steadily into Cheol Hyeonjik's eyes.
“Brother.”
“Yes?”
“Could you do what Jin Sowoon is doing?”
Cheol Hyeonjik's brow furrowed at once.
He looked as though he had been asked something absurd.
“What do you mean?”
Jin Sowoon always shattered expectations and carved out his own path, just as he was doing now.
“I mean, could you charge forward so fiercely for your goal?”
Far too fiercely for an ordinary person to even consider imitating.
“Haha. What an odd thing to say. Don't you always say that only the unprepared talk about giving everything they have? Those who are perfectly prepared can wield their swords with ease.”
“...That is true.”
Cheol Sunjik smiled bitterly without realizing it.
The more he tried to look away, the purer the light Jin Sowoon gave off seemed to shine.
“Still, this is impressive.”
Unable to understand Cheol Sunjik's inner thoughts, Cheol Hyeonjik studied Jin Sowoon closely.
“To think he is so skilled in close-quarters combat... Anyone watching would think he came from a northern army.”
As Cheol Hyeonjik said, Jin Sowoon's movements weren't those of a martial artist who had lost the use of internal energy.
They were the movements of a soldier who had never learned internal energy in the first place.
No, more accurately, they were the movements of a fighter hardened through countless brawls.
He struck without mercy and exploited every weakness his opponents showed.
Academy students who had never trained without internal energy could not even display half their usual skill before collapsing.
‘But Jin Sowoon, how can you...?’
Jin Sowoon moved even more smoothly than when he normally used internal energy.
It was as though he alone could still use it.
Once again, the difference in their levels was plain to see.
It wasn't only Jin Sowoon.
Though they could not compare to him, all the members of his platoon were skilled in close-quarters combat.
It was a sharp contrast to the elites of the Orthodox Society and the White Path Society, who were dropping one after another.
“Still, without internal energy, they will eventually reach their limit. It seems he does not know that.”
Cheol Hyeonjik clicked his tongue, still certain of Jin Sowoon's defeat.
His words did have some truth to them.
The pace of Jin Sowoon's platoon, which had been smashing through enemy units, was slowly beginning to decrease.
This was not the battle of a martial artist overcoming inferior numbers through overwhelming internal energy.
By restricting internal energy, this strategy and tactics evaluation was meant to test one person's skill and tactical judgment fairly.
No one could rampage through the field alone like the protagonist of a novel and create impossible miracles.
Then...
“H-huh?”
Cheol Hyeonjik, who had been calmly observing the battlefield, suddenly furrowed his brow.
“What is that...?”
Even the lecturers evaluating the examination from outside the field looked flustered.
The White Force members who had been charging forward without fear also hesitated.
Some even turned around and ran back the way they had come.
Cheol Hyeonjik cursed as if screaming.
“C-crazy!”
He was stunned by what had entered his sight.
Something that had been absent from the battlefield until now began to appear.
A vast amount of blood.
Although the rules stated that seriously injuring an opponent meant elimination, the Red Force members began leaving deep wounds on their opponents without hesitation.
“Aaargh!”
The White Force couldn't hide their shock at the brutality they had not seen before.
Cheol Hyeonjik barely managed to force out his voice as he looked at Cheol Sunjik.
“They must be prepared to be eliminated...”
Deep confusion appeared on Cheol Sunjik's face as well.
Their attitude had suddenly changed.
What could they possibly intend...?
“...!”
As Cheol Sunjik watched the battlefield with wide eyes, he finally realized it.
They were not prepared to be eliminated.
They expected to be eliminated because they had reached their physical limits, so they had begun deliberately wounding their opponents with the blade of their swords instead of the flat, ensuring that their elimination would not be meaningless.
“Crazy...”
If they were going to be eliminated anyway, seriously injuring their opponents made no difference to them.
They were turning the restriction against their enemies.
To the opposing side, though, it was unexpected and devastating damage.
The White Force began retreating as the Red Force acted as though they had lost their minds.
“What, what are you doing?! Stop them now!”
Cheol Hyeonjik shouted, but no one readily rushed at the Red Force members covered in blood.
On top of that, Jin Sowoon's Red Force was charging in a straight line as though it targeted only the White Force camp where Cheol Sunjik stood.
Realizing they weren't the target, the White Force members retreated without hesitation.
Just as the Red Force had opened a clear path for them at the beginning.
“S-Sunjik, what should we do now...?”
“Can't you do anything unless I tell you to?”
“What do you mean by that...?”
Cheol Sunjik looked at him with contempt.
Cheol Hyeonjik flinched, then spat out a resentful response.
“Y-you said this would work.”
Instead of answering, Cheol Sunjik ground his teeth.
Creak.
‘Once again... he moves in a direction I cannot predict.’
He had lost count of how many times this had happened.
Again and again, Jin Sowoon had scattered ashes over the great plan meant for everyone.
He had ruined countless chances to overturn the martial world, which had stagnated for centuries.
Even so, there was nowhere left for Cheol Sunjik to retreat.
Filled with fury, he gave the order.
“All White Force members, attack!”
Cheol Sunjik's company, stationed around the camp, formed ranks in an instant.
Defense was naturally advantageous from higher ground.
Unlike the others, Cheol Sunjik's company stood against Jin Sowoon's platoon without fear.
Cheol Sunjik clenched both fists tightly.
“This time, it will not go as you intend.”
He had a goal.
He could not fall here.
He had no intention of abandoning his goal because of Jin Sowoon, who was nothing more than a small stone in his path.
The two groups soon faced each other head-on.
Cheol Sunjik's gaze fixed on the person standing at the very front of Jin Sowoon's platoon.
The person who should originally have stood at the forefront of his own platoon, or perhaps his company.
“Nam Hwaseong...”
Nam Hwaseong had become an enemy and was coming for his head.
“Aaargh!”
Though he could not use internal energy, he crushed through enemies with his inborn strength as he approached.
Swords passed by him, sabers cut into his flesh, yet he did not stop moving.
Nam Hwaseong fought madly, exhausting the last of his strength as if he had staked his life on this battle.
“Why...?”
Would Nam Hwaseong have fought that way if he had remained in the Twelve Peak Alliance?
The stray thought threw Cheol Sunjik's mind into confusion.
He did not need to think deeply to know the answer.
That was why he tried not to face the answer that came to him so naturally.
If he faced it, he would understand even less why Nam Hwaseong was acting this way.
Creak.
Instead, he poured his resentment and anger onto the true cause of it all.
The one fighting at the very front, using Nam Hwaseong and Geumpyo as shields.
“Sunjik, stop going forward. You need to command the unit!”
Cheol Hyeonjik's voice came from behind him, echoed in his ears, then faded away.
At that moment, Cheol Sunjik could see only one person.
“Jin Sowoon...”
Perhaps he heard the low growl.
Jin Sowoon, his hair disheveled, turned to look this way.
“CHEOL SUNJIK!!!”
Cheol Sunjik felt every hair on his body stand on end at that thunderous shout.
At the same time, he felt relieved.
‘Thank goodness.’
Jin Sowoon was angry too.
This anger wasn't one-sided.
Still, no matter how furious Jin Sowoon was, it could not compare to his own anger.
If he could, he wanted to kill Jin Sowoon right then.
That was right. At this moment, he was that furious.
“JIN SOWOON!!!!”
Cheol Sunjik began doing something he had never done even once in his life.
He began acting on his emotions.
“Aaargh!!!!”
His footsteps raced wildly toward Jin Sowoon.
Footnotes:
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