WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 317: The Late-Winter Knife Wind (5)
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The scent of Seven-Colored Flower Tea, one I had not smelled in a long while, calmed my mind.
The faint sunlight streaming through the window in the cold winter felt warm.
What a peaceful, leisurely moment...
Bang!
Who the hell dared to throw open the Academy Representative's office door so violently?!
I was about to kick whoever it was, but then...
“Oh... um, Junior Sister Ryeon, you're here?”
“...”
Perhaps the Seven-Colored Flower Tea I had just drunk had already gone through me, because I suddenly needed to use the latrine.
“Jin So... no, Head Disciple.”
With her eyes blazing in anger, Saryeon repeatedly tilted her head to the side with a creak, creak, as though using Shift Form, Change Position, and arrived before me.
“What... were you thinking?”
I immediately understood what she meant.
First, I moved my precious cup of Seven-Colored Flower Tea behind me to protect it, then opened my mouth.
“Well...”
“Were you in your right mind when you did that?”
“To be honest, at the time...”
“You've been acting normally for the past few days, and you couldn't even keep that up before doing something like this again?”
“No, there were circumstances...”
“Why can't you go even one month without causing trouble?! Why?!”
Couldn't she at least give me a chance to speak?
Saryeon glared at my cup of Seven-Colored Flower Tea as if she found it absurd, then let out a long sigh.
“Fine. Go ahead and explain. Why did you do it?”
“...”
I silently looked at Saryeon.
My gaze asked whether she was finally ready to hear me out.
But then...
“...Don't tell me you have nothing to say? You! No, Head Disciple! Were you always this hopeless?”
“...”
Saryeon thumped her chest as though she were bursting with frustration.
Watching her made my own chest feel tight.
Let me talk already.
#
“So... you're saying the lecturer acted that way deliberately?”
After some time had passed, Saryeon listened calmly to my explanation and spoke in a more subdued voice, as though she understood.
“Even so, turning someone into a cripple was too much.”
“A cripple?”
“I heard you destroyed their dantian and crippled them.”
No matter who I was, I couldn't go that far.
They were Hall Master-level and belonged to Qingcheng Sect, one of the Nine Sects.
If I did that, everyone in Qingcheng Sect would come after my head.
I did think before acting.
Of course I did.
“Ahem, what are you talking about? I only frightened them a little. I didn't destroy their dantian.”
“...Really?”
“Of course.”
“...Are you sure? Do you swear it?”
“...”
Why didn't this girl trust the Head Disciple of Taeul Sect, her senior brother who had spent her whole life with her?
When I shot her a displeased look, Saryeon waved her hands as if making excuses.
“Y-you've done so many bizarre things lately.”
As I generously forgave my junior sister and drank my Seven-Colored Flower Tea, Saryeon muttered as though something had occurred to her.
“Come to think of it... I think something similar happened to me.”
According to her, during the first class after the term began, the lecturer had scolded everyone over the evaluation of reports submitted last year.
It was similar to what I had experienced.
Using Saryeon's report, which had received the highest score, as an example, the lecturer disparaged the cohort's overall standard, saying that the cohort was so weak that a report like that had received a good grade.
“Tch.”
Their intention in coming to the Academy had been so obvious that even the Seven-Colored Flower Tea tasted bitter.
And this stuff was expensive.
As I frowned down at my teacup, Saryeon snorted and lightly rebuked me.
“Even so, you went too far. Attacking a lecturer is grounds for expulsion from the Academy.”
Saryeon struck directly at the part I had been trying to ignore.
“What's more, you gave people desperate to pick a fight with you a pretext... What are you going to do now?”
Tsk.
Even I thought I might have overreacted this time.
‘Why did I do that?’
Had pretending to be part of the Black Path turned me into a real Black Path martial artist?
It wasn't as if I were truly the Stronghold Lord of Black Dragon Stronghold...
I felt ashamed of how recklessly I had acted, as if I were someone with somewhere to return to.
“I did it because they gave me reason to.”
“...”
Of course, that wasn't what I actually thought.
If I showed genuine uncertainty here, Saryeon would only become more anxious.
I deliberately lifted my teacup with an easy expression and added,
“If they wanted us expelled from the Academy, this probably wouldn't have ended with this provocation. They would have spent the rest of the term piling up pretexts, then struck at the surest moment.”
“...”
“If that happened, we would have completed the Academy curriculum properly and still ended up as students deemed unfit, unable to graduate.”
The more I spoke, the more convinced I became by my own words.
That's how relationships between people worked.
Someone who hated me for no reason wouldn't come to like me no matter how hard I tried to win them over.
The effort I made to please them could even become another reason to hate me later.
People were that irrational.
“So it's better to strike first before they have time to prepare. That way, at least we'll have time to respond.”
I called it Giving Them a Reason.
The most effective response to someone who hated me for no reason was to give them a reason to hate me.
If I gave them a clear reason, then when that reason eventually disappeared, there was even a chance to improve the relationship.
It seemed contradictory, but it was the truth.
A good relationship couldn't exist without respect for the other person.
“Whew... honestly.”
Saryeon seemed persuaded by my words. She sighed but didn't argue further.
Then she suddenly asked,
“But why did you say ‘we’?”
“Hm?”
“You're the one who caused trouble, Head Disciple. Why are you lumping all of us together by saying ‘we’?”
“...”
“Are we supposed to leave too if you get expelled from the Academy?”
Uh...
When she put it that way, I had nothing to say.
Hmm...
“Whether in death or life, Taeul Sect disciples are always together.”
“...”
Saryeon furrowed her brow deeply.
Having watched her since childhood, I knew exactly what that expression meant.
It meant Saryeon was thinking, ‘I really, really hate this!’
Ah, that hurt.
It really hurt.
#
Even after Saryeon left...
Bang!
“Young Master Jin, what exactly happened?!”
Bang!
“What the hell have you been doing now?!”
Bang!
“Representative! Is what I heard true?!”
That door was going to break at this rate.
“Could you be a little gentler...”
Bang!!
...Thanks to everyone barging into the Academy Representative's office as if they intended to shatter the door, it finally broke.
Would the Academy cover the cost of replacing it?
I had no intention of paying for it myself, so I couldn't help worrying.
Still, I could hardly leave the Academy Representative's office wide open like a hallway.
“Hm... This incident could certainly grow into something serious.”
Jang Woojae, who had entered just before the door was destroyed, spoke.
He hadn't flung the door open as if trying to break it, and he quietly entered the office with an oddly detached expression.
Thanks to that, he bore no responsibility for destroying the door.
He really was a cultured fellow.
I liked him. I really did.
With a grave expression, he leaned forward.
“Even if the assault on a lecturer is quietly brushed aside, the lecturers' intentions will determine what happens from here.”
He was worried about the same thing I was.
“As the Representative said... no, as Cheol Sunjik said, if they came here to rig the scores, they'll begin acting more openly from now on.”
I looked at the murderer of the Academy Representative's office door sitting beside Jang Woojae and asked,
“What does the person who destroyed the door think?”
“...Ugh, wasn't the door already broken...?”
Ilgak wiped his sweat-covered head, then spoke as if that didn't matter.
“Anyway, public opinion among the Nine Sects One Gang regarding the new lecturers isn't very favorable either. Whatever their intentions, they insulted them.”
The reaction was roughly split in half.
Half were furious that I had attacked a lecturer, while the other half said it was satisfying to see the lecturer end up like that.
Hm, but why was there no faction supporting me? Shouldn't someone be saying the Representative did well?
While I was lost in that irrelevant thought, Ilgak spoke quietly.
“What worries me most... is the people of Taeul Sect.”
“Hm?”
“They've realized it, haven't they? That Representative Jin is beyond a level they can handle.”
“...”
Ah.
Was he saying my junior disciples would suffer in my place?
What should I do?
Maybe I should have a proper fight with those lecturers...
“...Don't make this bigger for no reason.”
Saryeon's chilling voice reached me like a winter wind.
“Having someone find fault with us and becoming their enemy are completely different things. It could hurt not only us, but also our junior disciples who will have to perform mandatory service later.”
She had a point. Even judging by sheer numbers, I couldn't fight all Nine Sects right now.
Saryeon had identified the key issue.
Being on hostile terms with them wasn't the problem. The real problem would be the junior disciples assigned to mandatory service later.
If they bore a grudge and maliciously refused to approve service-branch changes or transfers, there was no telling what my junior disciples might suffer.
The Martial Alliance claimed to follow an absolute chain of command.
In reality, it didn't always work that way, but outwardly, people were expected to follow their rank in the Martial Alliance regardless of sect or clan.
At first glance, it seemed like a fair and impartial system.
Those with established power saw it differently.
For example, what if an elite Wudang Sect disciple had to take orders from Jin Sowoon of Taeul Sect, a third-rate sect?
‘Their pride would be hurt, and they'd be furious.’
What if Ilgak of Shaolin Temple were deliberately harassed by a martial artist from Iron Sword Sect?
Could he really accept that without resentment?
That was why the established powers showed impure intentions before the Academy's supposedly fair evaluations.
It was also why I couldn't act however I pleased.
“We were prepared for a certain amount of discrimination from the start. If it remains at this level, we can endure it.”
Saryeon straightened her posture.
“Things like this will happen again and again. If we hadn't been prepared for that, we would never have come to the Martial Arts Academy in the first place.”
Saryeon stared directly at me and continued,
“So don't even think about causing a bigger disturbance or accident because of us!”
“...”
“Stop sacrificing yourself for us!”
At Saryeon's firm rebuke, Seong Moran added,
“Wow, Junior Sister is more mature than Head Disciple.”
What was she talking about?
Saryeon's fierce eyes remained fixed on me, demanding an answer. I eventually nodded.
If I didn't answer, it felt as though she might do something herself.
Still, her words didn't put me at ease.
There was no telling what humiliation the Geum-Eun-Dong brothers had suffered in class today.
And there was no telling how difficult their lives at the Academy would become from now on.
I desperately hoped their spirits hadn't been crushed.
After all the hard training I had put them through...
No, no. Ahem.
I would feel terrible if those children, who had only just spread their wings and begun to fly, realized their limits and stopped.
Just then...
Tap tap tap tap tap tap.
The sound of hurried footsteps came from the hallway.
I didn't need to look to know they belonged to the Geum-Eun-Dong brothers.
“Huh? Why did the door fall off?”
“Let's see Head Disciple first!”
“Y-yeah!”
Geumpyo, who had been entering the office, tilted his head before turning his attention to Eunho's words and coming inside.
A small sigh escaped me at the sight of the three brothers' stiff expressions.
They looked as though something had clearly happened.
“Did something happen to you three today as well...?”
“Head Disciple!”
Eunho immediately cut me off.
Had something serious happened if this polite child was interrupting me?
Worried, I stood and approached them.
Then...
“You crushed a lecturer with internal energy? Is that true? How did you even...?”
Geumpyo's disbelief came first.
“Head Disciple, tell us honestly. What the hell did you gobble up behind our backs... no, what did you take? You ate a spiritual medicine, didn't you? Right?!”
Eunho wore an expression full of outrage and disrespect.
“Head Disciple, p-please teach me that too. How to destroy someone's dantian with internal energy...”
Then there were Dongryong's bright, sparkling eyes as he said something terrifying.
“Is that why you came to find me so urgently?”
“We're curious. How did you do it?”
“Head Disciple, please admit it. Then we'll understand and let it go.”
“C-can I learn it now? Or do I need to accumulate more internal energy first?”
Uh...
They were more spirited than I expected.
I should consider that a relief, right?
Footnotes:
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