WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 371: The Swirling Current (3)
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If one had to name the person who had written a new chapter in the Martial Arts Academy's history, it would probably be Yong Soa.
No star had ever shone as brilliantly in the Academy's history.
Born at the very top, he had remained there ever since.
Then who stood at the opposite end?
The Academy's first student to come from the ranks of wandering martial artists.
An orphan without parents, let alone a sect. A dragon risen from the gutter.
He began as a wandering martial artist's assistant at ten, succeeded in his first job at fourteen, and entered the Academy by taking the examination alone at twenty-two.
The current White Wolf Pavilion Master, Deung Cheonbi.
By the time I began serving in the Sojeong Unit, he had already retired as the former White Wolf Pavilion Master.
He had entered the Alliance from the lowest station, claimed one of the Seven Stars' seats, and became the youngest Pavilion Master in history. The man before me was Deung Cheonbi, the Star-Striking One.
At one point, he had been the symbol of the Martial Alliance's success story.
Yet he was also a tragic figure who could never escape the White Wolf Pavilion.
Perhaps the Orthodox-Demonic War, where one's origins and background would become meaningless, had been his only chance to prove his true worth. Still, he stepped down as Pavilion Master before the war broke out and vanished from the martial world.
At last, I had met the man surrounded by so many rumors.
But...
‘So he's this kind of person?’
A massive build and an unkempt beard.
His half-lidded, bloodshot eyes looked nothing like those of a typical Martial Alliance member.
No, considering the saber at his side and his robe hanging half-open at the front... he suited a Green Forest bandit far better than a Martial Alliance member.
Would I even be able to have a conversation with him?
I spoke as politely as possible.
“I'm the Academy's top student. I'm entitled to go wherever I want...”
“I know. That's why I sent your application back. Let's say you withdrew it.”
“What kind of nonsense is that? Why won't you take me?”
Deung Cheonbi's brow twitched as he answered with obvious displeasure.
“Looks like I was right not to take you. You can't understand a word I say. I just told you, I hate troublesome things.”
“...Hah.”
I was used to a fair amount of unfairness, but this kind of ridiculous attitude still made my anger rise.
“Grr... You're ruining the taste of my drink. Go back already. Shoo, shoo.”
“...”
My anger boiled over.
What made it worse was that, no matter what, this man had the final say. I couldn't just charge in recklessly.
“I have to join the White Wolf Pavilion.”
“I told you. I can't take you.”
“...”
Something felt strange as we spoke.
His words had changed from won't to can't.
“What do you mean by that? It sounds like this isn't your choice.”
“...”
The huge, bandit-like man flinched, then spoke awkwardly.
“...This is why sharp-eyed bastards are such a pain.”
“I'd like to hear exactly what you mean...”
“I can't take you because someone already bought me drinks.”
“...”
What kind of absurd greeting was this?
He'd sold me out before I was even his subordinate?
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“What? What? Did you just say fuck to your superior?”
“You wouldn't be my direct superior, would you? Besides, you said you won't take me.”
“Ah... That's true.”
What was he agreeing with now?
I had examined countless possibilities concerning the future and tried to predict every variable that could arise, but I had never imagined I would fail to enter the White Wolf Pavilion.
In my previous life, I entered the Alliance as a low-ranking martial artist and eventually became the Sojeong Unit Leader.
And now, even after graduating from the Academy, I couldn't join the White Wolf Pavilion.
‘What kind of fucking mess is this?’
Every plan I had prepared needed the White Wolf Pavilion as its foundation.
They were things I couldn't carry out in other combat pavilions, where sects and established powers held too much influence.
Everything I had prepared for the future was about to shatter because of the drunkard in front of me.
I considered waiting until the White Wolf Pavilion Master changed, but that would be too late.
The moment I realized I couldn't back down, I thought of what I needed to do.
My martial arts weren't the only thing that had changed from my previous life.
“How much is it?”
“What is?”
“Your liquor tab. How much?”
“Why? Are you going to pay it?”
Deung Cheonbi snickered.
“Yes.”
“Huh?”
His eyes widened even more than a rabbit's.
Looking at his bottle, I made my offer.
“I'll pay the liquor tabs you owe at Yanggaru and Cheongbinru as well.”
“...”
“Do you have tabs elsewhere too? I'll settle all of them. No, from now on, I'll make sure you never have to worry about the cost of liquor again. So...”
“Hey, brat.”
At that moment, an overpowering stench of alcohol came with a rough surge of fighting spirit that squeezed my throat.
“Ghk!”
My body jerked, and I took a step back.
That alone startled me. It had been a long time since anyone had forced me back like that.
‘The Star-Striking One... is this strong?’
The unrefined, savage fighting spirit vividly showed the nature of a man who had started from the bottom.
Even after wasting away in alcohol for so many years, he had not forgotten his wildness.
It resembled Blood Brawl's fighting spirit, or Bang Duchil's.
It carried the boldness unique to someone who had forged a path with his own hands.
“That's enough of your presumptuous talk. I've already cut you plenty of slack after selling you off.”
It was a strange feeling, one I had not experienced since regressing.
I had lived one life and was now living a second.
Because of that, no matter how old someone was, they tended to feel like children to me. Yet what he had shown just now was so fierce and unhurried that, for a moment, I forgot the long years I had lived.
Of course, that didn't make me want to back down.
Shouldn't we settle accounts properly?
“I don't think it's enough.”
“...Then what are you going to do?”
He growled like a tiger baring its fangs.
The intent was obvious. If I kept pushing, he would pounce without caring about the consequences.
But what use were crude threats fit for tavern thugs against someone from the Sojeong Unit?
I smiled brightly and looked around the office.
“Hmm. First, I should inform the Mantong Office. I should report that the White Wolf Pavilion Master is handling his duties irresponsibly, incurring enormous debts outside the Alliance, and committing breaches of trust in his management of the White Wolf Pavilion.”
“...”
“Then I plan to file a complaint with the Inspectorate. You've accepted bribes and acted for someone else's benefit, so that should be more than enough to make an issue of it.”
The face that had been full of hostility gradually began to show panic.
Even someone as solid as an iron wall would waver if their weaknesses were dug up one by one.
“Ah! I should speak to the Enforcement Hall too. Deliberately refusing someone who could benefit the White Wolf Pavilion could look like a plan to weaken it on purpose. That would weaken the Martial Alliance's strength as a whole, so... hmm, you might not be able to avoid suspicion of being a Black Path spy, either.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?!”
His tiger-like face was gradually turning canine.
He fidgeted with the expression of someone who couldn't tell whether I was his enemy or his master and badly needed to relieve himself.
“You said you had no interest in the White Wolf Pavilion Master's position, didn't you? Don't tell me you're suddenly eager to keep it now.”
“...”
Even if someone acted carelessly and lived as though they had given up everything, no one could truly let go of everything in their grasp.
Everyone feared giving up what they possessed.
It was difficult to bear the loss that followed.
“If the White Wolf Pavilion Master stops me from joining the White Wolf Pavilion, then I'll just replace the White Wolf Pavilion Master.”
“...Do you think that's possible?”
I heard his teeth grind.
I refused to yield.
The burdens I carried were too great for me to step back just because of his feelings.
“We'll find out whether it's possible once I try. I'll join the White Wolf Pavilion, even if I have to do that.”
“I heard you were crazy, but I didn't know you were the kind of bastard who charges in blindly. Hah! I was right not to take you.”
“So you really want to do this.”
“Do what, you crazy bastard?!”
“...”
Deung Cheonbi turned his gaze away.
Soon, though, his shoulders slumped.
It seemed he had finished what little alcohol he had left. He turned the bottle upside down and shook it, but not a single drop came out.
After doing that several times, Deung Cheonbi seemed to give up. He set the bottle down and asked me.
“...Why do you want to join the White Wolf Pavilion so badly?”
Why?
The answer was simple.
“Because it's the place that suits me best.”
My comrades and my plans were all here.
Everything I had prepared since the day I regressed would take root here.
Then it would grow into a great tree.
Another plan at this point? What a joke.
I had overcome so many impossibilities to get here. I couldn't be stopped by the White Wolf Pavilion Master's liquor tab.
“...Fuck, you're like a reflection of my younger self.”
“Are you cursing me?”
“Even if you could replace the White Wolf Pavilion Master, you still wouldn't be able to join the White Wolf Pavilion.”
“We'll find out once I try.”
Deung Cheonbi shook his head.
“No. I know without trying. Because I wasn't the one who blocked you in the first place.”
What was that supposed to mean?
Hadn't he sold me off for drinks?
“Then who was it?”
“Why? Are you going to replace that person too?”
“It's not like I can't.”
“You can't.”
Deung Cheonbi didn't know that my path had been just as difficult as his, if not more so.
“Give me the name. Who is it? What bastard blocked my path?”
The dejected Deung Cheonbi's lips twitched.
Then he casually gave me a name.
“Hyeok Mugang.”
Hyeok Mugang. Hyeok Mugang. I had heard that name somewhere before.
I searched through the Martial Alliance's register of names, carefully checking where he stood now.
All I had to do was get rid of that bastard...
“...?!”
Hmm. No, that couldn't be right.
I searched through the register again, then abruptly stopped and looked at Deung Cheonbi.
“I think you got the name wrong.”
“Did I?”
This man... his joke had gone too far.
“No. You definitely got it wrong...”
“I didn't.”
“...Are you joking right now?”
“I said I didn't, you little bastard! That Hyeok Mugang!”
“...”
There was only one person named Hyeok Mugang in the current Martial Alliance's register.
“White-Handed Divine Sword Hyeok Mugang?”
The moment that name I had hoped against hope was not true slipped from my lips with the epithet attached, Deung Cheonbi sneered as if he had won.
“Yes, the Martial Alliance Leader you know, you little punk!”
The mind that had been racing to eliminate every variable abruptly stopped.
#
“...”
“Are you still here because you don't know where the Alliance Leader's Hall is? Want me to tell you?”
What kind of thing was that to say right now?
“That would be an act of rebellion. Watch your words.”
“You said you'd replace the Alliance Leader if you had to, just to join the White Wolf Pavilion.”
“I never said that.”
Was this crazy bastard trying to make me into a traitor?
More importantly, my head was spinning.
Why was the Martial Alliance Leader stopping me from joining the White Wolf Pavilion?
When I met him last time, he had definitely seemed well-disposed toward me.
Could this man be lying?
“Is that true?”
“Would I lie?”
“You look like someone fully capable of doing that.”
“Thanks for the compliment, bastard. But I'm not lying. If you doubt it, go ask him yourself.”
“...”
Was he bluffing because he knew I couldn't do that?
Or could he say it so confidently because it was true?
While I was deep in thought, Deung Cheonbi's mutter reached my ears.
“I never thought I'd meet the Martial Alliance Leader in my life, all because of an Academy student.”
His voice was filled with a strange sense of emptiness.
“What the hell are you that everyone is making such a fuss over you?”
That was what I wanted to ask.
What exactly was going on?
He seemed calmer now. Leaning back in his chair, he looked at me.
“Why are you so obsessed with the White Wolf Pavilion?”
His expression held pure curiosity.
No one knew the White Wolf Pavilion's true situation and treatment better than he did, so this situation must have been the hardest for him to understand.
“There's something I need to do in the White Wolf Pavilion.”
“Something you need to do... Isn't it because you think this is the place that suits you?”
The question came while I was trying to think of a way into the White Wolf Pavilion.
Something about it lingered in my mind, and I looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, don't you think this is the place that suits you?”
“...”
“You've lived at the Academy, so you know. Whether it's the Academy or the Martial Alliance, there are limits placed on the places people like you can go from the beginning.”
Though he was clearly insulting me, he looked at me with an oddly sympathetic expression.
“You've probably spent your days being worn down and exhausted, repeating hope and disappointment in the gap between opportunities that appeared fair and what you were actually given.”
Although we had just met, he somehow seemed to know me well.
“Then you start to distinguish between what you can have and what you can't. You act as though you never wanted what you can't have in the first place. That's probably why you want to come to the White Wolf Pavilion. You don't want to show that you're afraid.”
He was talking about me, but it sounded as though he were telling his own story.
“Why are you talking about yourself as if you're talking about someone else?”
“...What the hell are you saying? Kids these days really have no manners.”
It put me in a terrible mood to hear that from someone with no basic decency.
“As one of those kids these days, I'll be leaving now.”
As I stood up, Deung Cheonbi hesitated before opening his mouth.
“...Don't give up first just because you see a wall. Even if you fall flat on your face, it's better to crash into it first. That way, you won't regret the days that have passed.”
As though he were speaking to someone from the past, he casually added.
“Isn't the Martial Alliance Leader personally stepping in to light your way forward... unlike mine? In that case, it wouldn't be bad to go along with it once.”
“...”
His words themselves didn't sound bad.
“That's good advice.”
It still irritated me that Deung Cheonbi was the one saying it.
“But I'm someone the Martial Alliance Leader has taken notice of from the start. Don't lump me together with someone on your level, Pavilion Master.”
“...You bastard.”
I didn't know what was happening, but if the Martial Alliance Leader had instructed the White Wolf Pavilion Master himself, I had to assume there was no chance of my assignment to the White Wolf Pavilion.
‘But why would he go so far as to defy Alliance Law?’
What I still couldn't understand was why the Alliance Leader had stepped in personally.
It wasn't illegal, but it was certainly something his enemies could seize upon.
Maybe he had judged that sending me to the White Wolf Pavilion would be bad for my future.
‘Hah...’
My head spun. I had no idea where to start clearing up this misunderstanding.
As I tried to sort through the mess in my mind, Deung Cheonbi cleared his throat.
“Ahem, ahem. By the way, that liquor tab you mentioned earlier... were you really going to take care of it?”
“...”
For the first time in my life, I was so dumbfounded that I couldn't speak.
“Are you joking with me right now?”
“No, I mean, I was going to take you in, but I can't because of the Alliance Leader, so...”
Just as I was about to leave the Pavilion Master's office in response to that ridiculous nonsense, something felt strange. I turned back to look at him.
“You said you had already decided not to take me in because of the Alliance Leader's order. Then who bought you drinks, and why?”
For the first time, Deung Cheonbi smiled brightly at my question.
“Oh, that? The Pavilion Masters from the other combat pavilions kept acting friendly and begging me for a favor, so I pretended I couldn't refuse and accepted their drinks. Heh heh. Once they learn the truth, their faces will be something to see. Damn, I'm craving another drink already.”
“...”
What sort of people were Pavilion Masters, and he had conned them?
When I first saw him, I thought he was just crazy.
Now I knew for certain.
This man...
‘Is completely insane.’
#
After escaping the office that had given me such a headache, I wandered through the White Wolf Pavilion.
The thought that my assignment there had become difficult kept me from immediately returning to the Academy.
The building's ceilings were lower than those of the other combat pavilions, and its facilities were poor.
Even so, it was better maintained than the White Wolf Pavilion I remembered.
Seeing that the facilities were cleaner than in the past, despite it being a place I had not seen in so long, left me feeling strange.
As I blankly looked over the facilities one by one, I eventually reached the White Wolf Pavilion's main training ground.
‘When did I get all the way here?’
The barracks of each unit stood around the main training ground.
Compared to the Academy, let alone the Martial Alliance's other pavilions, the sight was small and desolate.
As I looked over that lonely scene, my steps abruptly stopped at the sight of a group.
Those faces I had grown sick of and missed.
The moment I saw faces younger than the ones in my vivid memories...
“...”
An indescribable emotion surged up from deep in my chest.
In a trembling voice, I asked.
“Is this... the Sojeong Unit?”
Not everyone there was someone I knew from the Sojeong Unit, but it was definitely the Sojeong Unit.
Faces from my memories were sprawled around the area, glaring at me with annoyed looks.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Crude curses.
“Damn... Does this bastard even know where he is, staring straight ahead like that? Hey, asshole, aren't you going to lower your eyes? Want me to pluck both your eyeballs out? The Cheonmok Pavilion bastards who use ink would love them. Hahaha!”
A vulgar way of speaking.
“Hey, you got any money? Don't say no. If you don't, it's one punch to the mouth per coin.”
Their undisguised thug-like behavior.
“You look like a dried radish strip someone chewed up and spat out, but you've got a sword at your waist? Where'd you buy that? Must've cost you at least ten silver taels.”
Even their intelligence and discernment, which they had long since thrown far beyond the bounds of common sense.
“Fuck, did you eat honey? Why aren't you answering?”
It was them.
It was definitely them.
I barely managed to open my lips and answer.
“I, I'm Jin Sowoon, an Academy student at the Martial Arts Academy.”
It was a greeting completely different from our first meeting in my previous life.
The moment I finished speaking, laughter burst out.
“Puhahahahaha! He says he came from the Academy.”
“The Martial Arts Academy? Hey, has the Academy become a shithole these days? Do they take in every dog and cow? Should we apply there too?”
“Academy student my ass... What the fuck are the scholars doing? At least they should filter out the crazy bastards. No matter how much of a wreck we are.”
The people were somewhat different, but the atmosphere was the same.
This was the place. It really was.
“Actually... I wanted to come here. But... it didn't work out in the end.”
The misery in my heart came spilling out.
How long had I waited for this?
How much had I missed this moment?
Just as tears were about to pour from my eyes with the emotions welling up inside me...
“You bastard! Do you think the Sojeong Unit is somewhere a guy like you can just walk into?!”
“...”
Crude remarks began pouring out from every direction.
“Kids these days have their eyes set way too high. Every dog and cow dreams of becoming a Martial Alliance martial artist.”
“This is all your fault, Do Gwangsu, you bastard! You muddied the waters!”
“Why the fuck are you yelling at me? It's that half-baked bastard's fault.”
Endless criticism and curses were hurled at me.
For some reason... I felt like my ears might start bleeding.
“Brat, suck on your mother's milk for another ten years before you try to join the Sojeong Unit.”
“Eh, would that be enough? Take that sword into some remote mountain valley and swing it around for thirty years. Then we'll take you in. Heh heh.”
“Does your family have money? I know a scholar. Want me to get you in through the back door somehow?”
They were exactly as familiar as I expected.
I quietly listened to the Sojeong Unit members and calmly nodded.
“I see. The Sojeong Unit was originally this kind of place.”
“What is this crazy bastard saying? He's talking like he's been here before...”
“I've made up my mind. No matter what hardship or trial comes, I'll definitely return here.”
Had they seen my resolute determination? The cursing stopped for a moment.
Then...
“““Puhahahahaha!”””
“This bastard is fucking hilarious.”
“Hey, you should become a clown instead. A clown. Heh heh.”
The Sojeong Unit members clutched their stomachs and rolled around on the ground.
I looked over each of them.
Then I made my vow, again and again.
That I wanted to be with these utterly lovable unit members.
That I would definitely return here.
“If you ever join the Sojeong Unit, I'll fry my hand in oil, you bastard.”
And I would make that bastard fry his hand in oil. Then, with all the affection in the world, I would put the rest of them through hell.
As I watched the Sojeong Unit bastards cackle, I repeated my vow over and over.
‘You're all dead.’
Footnotes:
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