The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything - Chapter 289

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 289: The Right to Have a Chance (5)

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“We’re not from Zhongnan.”

The martial artists watching us warily furrowed their brows at my words.

We weren’t here to fight them anyway.

Wasn’t the enemy of an enemy an ally?

“Put your swords away.”

The junior disciples hesitated at my command, then sheathed their swords.

Once we showed no intention of attacking, the martial artists gradually began to lower their guard as well.

“Why did you come out of there? And what happened to you?”

Still suspicious, one of them questioned us.

Did we really look that bad?

I turned to look over the junior disciples.

...We did look bad.

“Ahem. We were originally heading for another cave, but somehow ended up here.”

It sounded like a ridiculous excuse even to me, but what else could I say right now?

I had no choice but to make something up.

Still, it seemed to work.

“Looks like they got greedy and suffered for it.”

“They’re not from Zhongnan, so there’s no need to fight them.”

“Finding the spiritual medicine comes first.”

The martial artists accepted it surprisingly easily and soon lost interest in us.

They were all too busy pulling out Beggar Sect maps and searching for a route.

“I’m telling you, we have to go this way!”

“No! It didn’t appear here last time!”

“Then go that way yourself!”

While they were busy finding the path, we slipped into the crowd.

A little color had returned to Dongryong’s face.

As the urgency eased, I began to notice the state of the people around us.

Why were these bastards so clean?

Not one of them had a bloodstain or even a speck of dust on them.

‘Did they seriously come all this way without running into a single Zhongnan bastard?’

Only then did I understand why they hadn’t been especially wary despite strangers appearing among them.

They had only traveled along easy paths, so their vigilance had naturally weakened.

“Head Disciple, I don’t think they’ve fought even once so far. That’s probably why they lowered their guard so quickly.”

As expected of Eunho. He saw through it at once.

I was about to praise him...

“If that was going to happen, did we really need to enter from the opposite side?”

What?

Did this brat just dare to give the Head Disciple a jab?

A bad child had to be punished.

“Eunho.”

His shoulders flinched at my voice.

Look at those narrow shoulders. How could a swordsman’s shoulders be so frail?

Smiling, I took two iron rings from my pack and handed them to Eunho.

“Put them on.”

“...I’m sorry...”

“It’s fine. Put them on.”

His eyes trembled, but he soon clenched his fists.

“Is there any point in adding iron rings when I’m not even using Dynamic Practice? It doesn’t seem logically sound.”

He really was good at saying things that made sense.

Which was why...

“Do you want me to hit you in a way that isn’t logical?”

“...”

Eunho eventually accepted the iron rings.

He seemed to consider whether to wear them on his hands or feet, then added them to his ankles.

That much weight wouldn’t make things difficult for him anyway.

I looked around again.

For now, the important thing was to hide among the crowd.

With this many people watching, Zhongnan wouldn’t be able to act recklessly.

After signaling the junior disciples, I was about to blend deeper into the crowd.

“...Huh?”

I ran into the one person I least wanted to see right now.

Ha, seriously.

“Representative Jin, why are you here?”

Why was Cheol Sunjik so bad at reading the room?

Didn’t he know when to insert himself and when not to?

I lowered my voice to avoid causing a commotion.

“Ahem, things just happened that way. But didn’t Jukhyeon Sect say they weren’t entering...”

“...Don’t tell me.”

He cut me off now?

Ignoring me, Cheol Sunjik looked us over from head to toe, his eyes widening in shock.

“You broke through from the other side and made it all the way here?”

Damn it, this was why I hated quick-witted bastards.

I was about to play dumb.

“No, we came in right after breaking through the entrance...”

“...So it was you, Representative Jin, who opened a new entrance.”

Aaaagh!

I’d just confessed to breaking through the entrance with my own mouth.

Maybe that Zhongnan expert had rattled my head too badly, but I couldn’t see through any of the hidden intentions in Cheol Sunjik’s words.

Fine. I’d go all in.

“So what? Are you going to tell Zhongnan?”

Unable to make a scene, I quietly drew the Black Dragon Sword halfway and glared at Cheol Sunjik.

“...That doesn’t sound like you, Representative Jin. Threatening me and all.”

If you played games with me, I could become a thug too.

“I asked if you were going to tell Zhongnan.”

“I entered this place without Zhongnan’s permission in the first place.”

Ah, come to think of it, that was true.

Seeing a Jukhyeon Sect disciple, who should have been keeping other martial artists away from the newly opened entrance, inside Heavenly Cave, Zhongnan would hardly be pleased.

As my excitement cooled and a chill filled my head, my reason slowly returned.

“What gave you the nerve to come in here?”

Cheol Sunjik’s expression grew complicated at my question.

“...There’s something I wanted to see.”

“Something you wanted to see?”

His voice was quite serious.

“There is.”

Why was he putting on such airs for no reason?

What could there possibly be to see inside Heavenly Cave, where bloodshed between martial artists and Zhongnan was bound to erupt, besides blood and corpses?

I could never understand what went on inside the heads of these scheming bastards.

“Then you’re not here for the spiritual medicine?”

“...It isn’t something you can have just because you want it.”

Cheol Sunjik deeply furrowed his brow, as though sick of my question.

“If you could get it, would you take it?”

“...What are you talking about?”

I didn’t believe him.

Among those who cultivated internal energy and carried weapons, how many could remain indifferent with spiritual medicine right in front of them?

So...

“Work with me on something.”

“...”

It would be better to use him.

“If we succeed, I’ll give you five percent of the Five-Spirit Flower Dew.”

“...What are you plotting now?”

“There’s someone troublesome following us from behind. Keep them busy for me.”

Cheol Sunjik’s eyes widened slightly.

“Do you... believe I have that level of skill... no, do you think so?”

I curled my lips into a smirk.

“Who said you had to fight them?”

“...?”

“You have something you’re good at. I’m asking you to use that and stop them.”

“What am I good at?”

For the first time, Cheol Sunjik asked with genuine curiosity.

“Riling people up and driving them to the edge of a cliff. Making them jump into a fire on their own. You’re good at that.”

“Representative Jin...”

Cheol Sunjik glared at me with obvious dissatisfaction.

But what could I say?

It wasn’t as if I’d said anything untrue.

That was his specialty.

Even so, Cheol Sunjik’s gaze remained fierce.

Hah. It couldn’t be helped.

“Fine, I’ll be generous. I’ll give you eight percent.”

No matter how easy the task might be for Cheol Sunjik, it still carried risks. He wouldn’t move for a bargain price.

If it were him, he would try to squeeze at least thirty or forty percent out of me.

The key was to settle this within thirty percent.

I needed at least seventy percent of the Five-Spirit Flower Dew to make one hundred elixir pellets.

“I’m not asking you to risk your life and fight. I’m only asking you to set two sides against each other. It’s not particularly difficult for you.”

“...You make it sound easy. Do you know how difficult that is?”

I knew he would say that.

I didn’t know what he had come in to see, but Cheol Sunjik was too quick with calculations to pass up a chance to obtain spiritual medicine.

As expected, he wasn’t easy to deal with.

“Fine, then I’ll be generous and...”

“Ten percent.”

“Huh?”

What was this brat saying?

I tilted my head, wondering if I’d heard him wrong.

Then he continued.

“If you obtain the Five-Spirit Flower Dew, give me ten percent of it. Then I’ll stop whoever it is.”

What was this? Cheol Sunjik would never act like this.

The moment I proposed the deal, he should have already calculated his gains and losses.

...He was only asking for ten percent?

What was going on?

Just as I was about to ask Cheol Sunjik more.

“...Head Disciple.”

Dongryong grabbed my arm, his face pale.

Damn it, had they already come close?

I had no idea what Cheol Sunjik was plotting, but I couldn’t delay any longer. I had no choice but to accept it for now.

“Fine. Ten percent.”

I held out my hand to seal the verbal agreement, and Cheol Sunjik clasped it.

Then he stared at me.

Did this guy eat something strange...?

“...You must survive... and keep your promise.”

Why would he say something so unlucky at the end?

“Got it.”

...He really was an unpleasant bastard.

Tap, tap, tap.

Watching Jin Sowoon’s group run toward the other side, Cheol Sunjik let out a quiet sigh.

‘What could he possibly be thinking?’

And what were those iron rings on his hands and feet, in a situation where life and death hung in the balance?

It had long been proven that training with weights was useless for a martial artist who used internal energy.

From beginning to end, Jin Sowoon was impossible to understand.

Whenever Cheol Sunjik spent time with him, he felt himself becoming stranger as well.

Negotiating over something he hadn’t even obtained yet.

‘But why did I agree to the negotiation?’

Just as one thought began leading to another.

Swoosh.

He had no choice but to stop.

He didn’t know who Jin Sowoon meant by someone troublesome, but he sensed someone with a severe, oppressive presence approaching.

“Seriously...”

A small laugh slipped out.

Even from the presence he could feel in the distance, that person was far from ordinary.

Yet Jin Sowoon had called them merely troublesome.

Cheol Sunjik lightly tapped the shoulder of the martial artist standing before him.

When the martial artist turned with a questioning look, Cheol Sunjik spoke quietly.

“Would you listen to me for a moment?”

If he wanted to confirm whether the Five-Spirit Flower Dew would truly end up in his hands, he had no time to waste.

The small burst of palm force launched by that Zhongnan idiot earlier had caused enormous upheaval inside Heavenly Cave.

“This way is blocked too.”

“Head Disciple, this way is blocked as well.”

“This one too...”

Thanks to that idiot, we had been going in circles along the same paths inside Heavenly Cave.

On top of that, we had been constantly avoiding Zhongnan’s people, so we hadn’t been able to get anywhere near the Five-Spirit Flower Dew.

As the time for its appearance drew closer, I began to feel anxious.

After setting the board this far, I might not even get to take the prize.

I’d be so upset that I wouldn’t sleep properly for half a year.

“Let’s rest for now.”

They said the more urgent things became, the more you needed to take the long way around.

I had the junior disciples rest for now.

This might be our last chance to rest.

“Head Disciple, can’t we just fight our way through?”

Dongryong asked carefully.

He looked worried that he might seem like a murder-crazed lunatic who only wanted to fight.

But the other junior disciples didn’t look much different.

Their skills had improved enormously through the Martial Arts Academy, so Zhongnan’s third and fourth-generation disciples probably didn’t seem particularly difficult to them.

“We can’t fight them. We have to subdue them.”

“...What?”

Dongryong tilted his head as if he didn’t understand.

“No Zhongnan disciples can die in this struggle.”

“...”

“They can’t even be seriously injured.”

“...Why?”

Dongryong rolled his eyes, still unable to understand.

Then Eunho, who had been thinking, spoke.

“Justification.”

“Right.”

It was true that Zhongnan was trying to control Heavenly Cave and monopolize the spiritual medicine for a ridiculous reason.

But a Zhongnan disciple dying here would be another matter.

“If a Zhongnan disciple dies, no one will care about what Zhongnan is doing now. Zhongnan will use every means to demand payment in blood. And everyone who entered here is recorded by the Beggar Sect. It will affect their sects as well.”

“...Eek!”

Dongryong’s face turned pale again at the thought of harming his sect.

He looked like a child who had just heard that a tiger prowled outside at night.

“Most of those who entered Heavenly Cave probably know that too. And this place is practically Zhongnan’s front yard. Zhongnan’s pride would be deeply wounded if one of their disciples died here. How much blood would be spilled to satisfy that pride?”

We couldn’t kill Zhongnan, but Zhongnan could kill us.

It was a truly shitty situation, but there was no helping it.

That was politics.

That was how the world worked.

Cruel as it was, children needed to understand it too.

Only then could they learn how to survive in this cruel world.

“So it would be best to avoid Zhongnan’s disciples whenever possible. Do you understand?”

Perhaps feeling guilty for asking, Dongryong nodded.

It was about time for the martial artists who entered through the third entrance to encounter Zhongnan’s disciples.

Zhongnan, which had let its guard down, would learn that outsiders had entered. Once that information spread through Zhongnan, it would certainly move its disciples to stop them.

The one fortunate thing was that Zhongnan didn’t know where the Five-Spirit Flower Dew would appear.

That was probably why Zhongnan had spread its disciples throughout the cave.

It could gather those scattered disciples to stop the outside martial artists, but that would lower Zhongnan’s chances of finding the Five-Spirit Flower Dew when it appeared.

‘And their hands will gradually be tied as well.’

One reason I opened the third entrance was that the more outside eyes there were, the less boldly Zhongnan could act.

If someone trespassed into their sect, Zhongnan could kill them without issue. But if Zhongnan, which claimed to have blocked Heavenly Cave to reduce casualties, began killing people for entering Heavenly Cave without permission, that would create a problem of its own.

I closed my eyes and concentrated internal energy in my ears.

From quite far away came the sounds of weapons clashing and people screaming.

The time I had been waiting for had finally come.

I took masks from my pack and handed one to each junior disciple.

“So we’re becoming real thieves now.”

Eunho made a brief joke before putting on his mask.

He really was growing bolder by the day.

I hurriedly pulled on a mask as well.

The Beggar Sect had already noticed us, so I couldn’t completely hide our identities. Still, I had to at least make an effort to preserve plausible deniability.

“Let’s go again.”

I got the junior disciples to their feet and moved forward once more.

A fight had broken out, so the disciples would begin moving. Once they moved, the disciples scattered throughout the cave would gather in one place.

And my prediction proved correct.

‘Well, not perfectly.’

I sensed people in the cave we were targeting, but the number was clearly small.

‘Two...’

Considering that the disciples had originally been in groups of six, this was an excellent situation.

Besides, we had to pass through here to reach the cave where the Five-Spirit Flower Dew would appear.

Otherwise, we would have to take a huge detour.

As long as they weren’t first-generation disciples, we could handle this.

Judging from the Zhongnan groups I’d seen on the way here, there was no chance that more than one first-generation disciple would be present.

After finishing my calculations, I looked at Dongryong and sent a sound transmission.

-Approach with the Ghost Breath Movement Art and subdue them in one strike. They’ll be as wary as possible, so target their weak points and incapacitate them.

As Dongryong moved to carry out my command, Saryeon tried to step forward, perhaps uncomfortable with making the youngest, Dongryong, do this.

I shook my head.

-This is something Dongryong has to do. He has the sharpest sword among us.

Saryeon bit down on her lip, and Dongryong nodded as if to say he was fine.

It might seem hard to understand.

Why make the youngest junior disciple do something like this?

But if I could keep them alive, even if they misunderstood me and hated me for it, I didn’t care what filth was thrown at me.

‘It is better to see their contemptuous frowns than their corpses, cold and stiff.’

Steeling myself, I slowly moved forward with Dongryong.

Long shadows flickered beneath the small torch, swaying at our feet.

I nodded toward Dongryong, who held a heavy saber. In that instant, Dongryong and I rushed at our opponents.

In the blink of an eye, Dongryong’s sword struck one opponent’s ankle while mine thrust toward another’s vital acupoint. They wouldn’t die, but they’d be unable to keep fighting.

Slash!

But there was no blood or flesh where there should have been.

Only torn scraps of cloth and strands of hair fluttered through the air.

The problem was that our opponents had already thrust their swords through the flying cloth and hair.

Swish!

Using Iron Bridge, I narrowly avoided the sword and pulled Dongryong back.

Neither of us was injured, but parts of Dongryong’s and my clothes had been cut away.

Then.

“Who are you? Who dared interfere in Zhongnan’s affair without fear?”

A low, overbearing voice rang out.

Two figures gradually came into view.

Two middle-aged men, gray beginning to show amid their black hair.