WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 324: The Black Forest (4)
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The Namgwon Sect, responsible for maintaining safety during the Great Journey, vehemently opposed the lecturers' new assignment.
“Mukrim isn't a place where people can wander around carelessly...! Do you know how many entered the forest and never came back out?”
No Jinha sneered at Yang Japyeong's words.
“Is the Namgwon Sect unable to use Grass-Skimming Flight?”
“This man... You keep pushing it!”
“...This man?”
Just as Yang Japyeong flared up and stepped forward, No Jinha rose from his seat, his expression turning cold.
“A nobody from the Namgwon Sect who couldn't even attend the Academy dares behave like this before me, a Hall Master of the White Tiger Pavilion?”
“...”
Just as No Jinha was about to press the fight further, a Namgwon Sect member who had come with Yang Japyeong intervened.
“Please stop.”
Then, gazing steadily at No Jinha, they asked quietly,
“...Are the Academy lecturers truly prepared to take responsibility for this?”
“Hmph!”
Instead of answering, No Jinha snorted.
But the Namgwon Sect martial artist did not back down.
“You must make that clear. Otherwise, we intend to withdraw at once and report this to the Martial Alliance.”
“Ha... This is absurd.”
“Will you take responsibility?”
At the repeated question, No Jinha's eyes shifted for a moment before he confidently nodded.
“Fine. I'll take responsibility.”
“Understood. Then the Namgwon Sect will serve as guides for the expedition. In return, make it a condition that the Academy students obey the guides' instructions without exception.”
“What about attacks by wild animals or monsters encountered during the expedition? Can the Namgwon Sect handle those as well?”
This time, Yang Japyeong stepped forward and shook his head.
“If it's a tiger or a bear, perhaps. But we don't have the strength to subjugate monsters.”
No Jinha's face became smug.
“Then why should we listen to the Namgwon Sect?”
Yang Japyeong's expression turned serious.
“Because otherwise, you'll die.”
“That isn't even funny. You're only guiding the way.”
Yang Japyeong still did not retreat.
“Promise us.”
No Jinha glared at him as though he wanted to kill him, then finally nodded.
“So be it. And there's no need for the Namgwon Sect to guide every Academy student.”
“...What do you mean by that? Have you prepared other guides?”
“That is no longer something for the Namgwon Sect to interfere with, is it?”
“Understood.”
After Yang Japyeong stepped back with that promise, No Jinha assigned an exploration area to each group leader.
One area after another was decided. When my turn finally came,
Tap.
No Jinha pointed to the deepest part of Mukrim.
“If you're the Academy Representative, you should be able to handle an expedition of this level.”
A place called the Demonic Realm, even within Mukrim.
Ha, this man...
“Why? Are you afraid?”
I'd thought he was completely useless, but he was being this considerate?!
Could this man actually like the Taeul Sect?
I smiled and expressed my gratitude.
“Why would I be afraid when I'm not a Qingcheng Sect disciple?”
“...!”
No Jinha must have been touched too, because he couldn't continue speaking.
What a warm master-disciple relationship.
#
The next day, while each group gathered to prepare for the expedition, Ilgak came over to me.
“Benefactor Jin... Please be careful.”
With a face full of concern, Ilgak pressed his palms together.
Why was this bald man so worried all the time? Had he gone bald because he worried too much?
“We aren't going there to die. Why are you making such a big deal of it?”
Ilgak lowered his voice and sighed.
“I heard the Demonic Realm is an especially dangerous place even within Mukrim. Venerable Taesu, an elder of my sect, entered the Demonic Realm in the past and nearly died several times...”
“...”
What was this bald man trying to do to me?
Was this some kind of Buddhist curse?
Still, since someone had entered it before, I was curious.
“Did he obtain any spiritual medicine or spirit creatures in the Demonic Realm?”
“No. He said there was nothing at all. He also warned us never to consider entering that place.”
“...”
This bald man was really no help.
Yang Japyeong was once again assigned as our group's guide.
Apparently, Yang Japyeong was the only one among the available personnel who had been to the Demonic Realm.
At any rate, once we entered a denser part of the forest than before, our pace became unbearably slow.
It was slower than an ordinary person's walking pace.
It was hard to believe everyone in the group was a martial artist and that our guide managed Mukrim.
Every few steps, Yang Japyeong carved a mark into a tree with his knife. He repeatedly retraced the route he had taken.
The undergrowth was thick and the sun was blocked out, so I understood that it would be hard to determine direction. Even so, this felt excessive.
“Do we have to keep moving at this pace?”
When I finally voiced my dissatisfaction, Yang Japyeong nodded as if it were obvious.
“In Mukrim, securing a route out is more important than going in. Even if it takes time, we have to enter like this.”
I couldn't understand it.
No matter how strange Mukrim was, it was still just a forest, wasn't it?
The trees were taller than any I had seen in the Central Plains, but not so tall that a martial artist couldn't climb them.
And once you climbed above the trees, you could determine direction by the sun or the stars.
If you knew your position and direction, couldn't you reach your destination?
“Just as I thought... That is a very Central Plains way of thinking.”
He laughed with a strange sense of resignation.
After looking at me for a moment, he began to move.
“...It would be better to show you than explain it.”
Yang Japyeong gathered the dry leaves around him.
He then pulled a flint and a wad of cotton from inside his robes and began making a fire.
Click, click.
Soon, the cotton caught fire, and the flames spread to the dry leaves.
As the fire grew stronger, he suddenly broke off wet leaves and covered the flames with them.
The moisture in the leaves evaporated, weakening the fire as acrid smoke began to rise.
Yang Japyeong turned toward me as I watched the whole process with a puzzled expression.
“Would you like to try climbing up now?”
“...”
I looked at him for a moment, then kicked off the ground and leaped upward.
Other than near the densely leafed top, the tree did not have many branches.
The gaps between branches were also quite wide, making it difficult to keep stepping upward.
That didn't mean climbing was impossible.
Ping.
I threw the Flying Dragon Claw into the tree, reeled in the Heavenly Silkworm Thread, and used its pull to kick off the trunk again.
After repeating that about three times, I had nearly reached the top.
‘It really is incredibly tall compared to the Central Plains.’
Near the top, the branches became dense enough to step on, so I no longer needed the Flying Dragon Claw.
Just as I was about to kick off the branches and leap above the forest canopy with my bare body,
“Whaat?!”
My body wasn't flying through the air above the forest.
Whoosh.
I was plummeting toward the ground.
#
“Damn it!”
Maybe because I had enthusiastically kicked off the ground, I was falling at an alarming speed.
I fired the Flying Dragon Claw and secured myself to the tree, then looked upward again.
I had clearly stepped on the branches and climbed up.
Yet for some reason, my body had been plunging toward the ground.
“Senior Brother! What are you doing up there?!”
On top of that, my companions were ten jang away.
‘What kind of trick is this?’
I kicked off the tree and climbed upward again. This time, I moved carefully in case I fell.
Fortunately, I rose above the forest and was able to see the sun.
But...
‘What's going on?’
Smoke that appeared to have been lit by Yang Japyeong directly below me was rising twenty jang away.
Unless Yang Japyeong had put out the fire and another group had lit one, there was no possible explanation.
I began running across the treetops toward the smoke.
Yet this time, the smoke was getting farther away instead of closer.
“This is driving me crazy.”
Then Yang Japyeong's sound transmission reached me.
-Can you follow the smoke?
It was strange.
I could see it clearly and smell it distinctly.
Why did it keep getting farther away?
-I saw that you have an interesting tool. Come down as you are. I'll come to you.
Following Yang Japyeong's words, I released the Flying Dragon Claw and descended.
By the time I reached the ground, Yang Japyeong had pushed through the undergrowth and come toward me.
“What did you think?”
“...What kind of trick is this?”
“It is the influence of the spirit vein.”
“The spirit vein?”
Yang Japyeong nodded gravely.
“Natural formations form both on the ground and above Mukrim. That makes Mukrim take the form of a single cave. On top of that, the dust released by insects living in Mukrim disrupts people's senses.”
Natural formations appearing in the mountains was not particularly surprising, but the fact that they formed even above the trees was truly strange.
And apparently, we were continuously breathing in soul-befuddling incense whose source was unknown.
“If you could walk through empty space and fly high enough to completely escape the spirit vein's influence, you might be able to get out as you said.”
Yang Japyeong continued calmly.
“But the moment you set foot on a tree even once, your sense of direction will become distorted. Academy Representative, can you still distinguish direction and move forward?”
He said it so easily, as though one only needed to reach the realm of Void-Walking or Void Crossing.
It didn't simply make you lose your way. It threw your senses into confusion.
Only now did I understand why an ordinary forest had been designated a forbidden ground, and why countless martial artists had entered it with confidence only to become lonely ghosts.
“From now on...”
I readily admitted it.
“I won't act up again.”
When I gave a slight bow, Yang Japyeong looked surprised.
“Why are you doing that? Is something wrong?”
After hesitating for a moment, Yang Japyeong spoke.
“...No. I just thought you were a person with many different sides.”
“...?”
Well, I had been in the wrong for acting rashly.
I spoke politely again.
“I'll be in your care.”
And so, we began moving again.
After seeing what happened when I acted up, the group members quietly followed Yang Japyeong.
I didn't urge him to move faster anymore, but I couldn't help being bored.
At least as we went deeper inside, it became easier and easier to find poisons.
“...Are you going to keep doing that?”
“Would Lady Seong like to try it too?”
Clang!
“Put that away right now! Before I kill you!”
That startled me. I didn't think her temper used to be that bad...
“Put it away already!”
“Yes, ma'am.”
At first, I had no idea how potent each poison was, so I asked Yang Japyeong about them one by one. After repeating it several times, though, I was able to roughly distinguish poisons by their color and shape.
Before long, I had slowly neutralized nearly thirty poisons and could feel my resistance growing.
Walking all day while neutralizing poisons, finding other poisons, then neutralizing those too was fun in its own way.
Once I had neutralized a poison, its effects weren't particularly strong even if I encountered it repeatedly.
If things continued like this, by the end of the Great Journey, I might not have much trouble unless it was an extremely dangerous poison.
The more I thought that way, the greedier I became. Without realizing it, I looked at my junior brothers and sisters and smacked my lips.
‘Tsk, they need to do it too.’
I wanted to train the Taeul Sect members in poison resistance, at least, even if not the others. Saryeon absolutely refused to allow it.
Geumpyo and Eunho hadn't wanted to do it from the start either.
Only...
“Senior Brother, I can eat this too, right?”
With innocent eyes sparkling, Dongryong shook the purple mushroom in his hand.
It looked like it contained a dangerous poison at a glance, but Dongryong had already digested more than twenty poisons.
I smiled warmly at him.
“Try it. If you think it's dangerous, spit it out right away.”
If it was truly urgent, I could expel the poison with my internal energy.
After doing this for about three days, neither our companions nor Yang Japyeong said anything anymore.
On the fourth day of traveling toward the Demonic Realm, something interesting happened.
“...Why don't Senior Brother and Dongryong get bitten by bugs?”
Geumpyo, whose cheeks were swollen from insect bites overnight, tilted his head.
I had kept the Wind Bell on me, so insects hadn't gathered around me since the moment I entered Mukrim.
Dongryong suffered until the second day, but from the third day onward, he was bitten far less often.
“...”
Yang Japyeong seemed to consider whether to speak, then finally opened his mouth.
“...Actually, people from the Tang Clan are rarely bitten by insects inside Mukrim either.”
“...!”
“...”
“...”
It was impossible to identify the exact reason, but that answer seemed to fit.
While Dongryong and I wore smug expressions, the others frowned. Seong Moran's face went dark as if she were about to die.
I asked Eunho,
“Want to try?”
“...”
After thinking for a long time, Eunho finally let out a deep sigh.
The fact that he had been bitten by insects all night on the second day and couldn't sleep at all seemed to have played a big part.
“You aren't planning to buy me a Hundred-Poison Pellet anyway, are you?”
I gave no answer.
“Damn it...”
Why ask when he already knew?
Eunho approached me with a tearful expression.
“Good. Come here.”
I caught a suitable one among the insects I had used for poison-resistance training and let it bite Eunho's arm.
“Urgh...!”
Eunho's face quickly turned yellow.
The moment his body began to change, Eunho began qi-regulating breathing. Geumpyo, Jaehwa, Eun Seollan, and the others followed after him.
I quietly looked at those who remained.
“Haah... To think I'd choose to do this myself.”
In the end, Saryeon and Namgung Seonhwa held out their hands to me as well.
No one had escaped suffering because of the insects in Mukrim.
Then Seong Moran cried out.
“Eek! No! No! I'd rather do it with a snake!”
After even Seong Moran, who vehemently refused bugs, was bitten, Yang Japyeong began looking at us with an exhausted expression.
“If I report this to my sect, no one will believe me.”
“We can't train external martial arts right away, after all.”
“...”
We were also building poison resistance.
How great was that?
On the fifth day after leaving the garrison,
“Shh.”
Yang Japyeong, who was leading the way, raised a hand and stopped the group.
After holding his breath for a long while, Yang Japyeong spoke quietly.
“A monster.”
At last, the first treasure chest had appeared.
Footnotes:
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