WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 403: The Reason for the Struggle (3)
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‘Where am I?’
They say that when death approaches, a person reflects on their life in a brief instant. Was this that?
“...Hmm.”
But if so, it was unfolding far too slowly.
No, it felt as though time had stopped.
“This place...?”
It was a tent he had never seen before.
A terrain map and battle plans were spread across the floor.
A bed crudely woven from wood and rope, covered by an old blanket.
Among those unfamiliar objects, Dam Ak spotted a familiar emblem.
‘...The Martial Alliance.’
He remembered Jin Sowoon leading him over the cliff.
Had he been brought to the Martial Alliance while unconscious?
Having sorted through his thoughts, Dam Ak straightened his back.
If he was going to die anyway, a true man should die without shame.
But that firm resolve weakened the moment he stepped outside the tent.
“Gaaaah!”
A terrible scream rose from somewhere deep in a dantian.
“Just... just kill me!!!”
Fearing that the people who had come with him were being tortured, Dam Ak hurried forward.
“What in the world are you doing? You should kill me instead...”
He could not finish the sentence.
“W-What is this...?”
There were countless wounded.
People who could not even make it onto makeshift beds lay scattered across the ground like discarded objects.
Their heads had been split open, their arms and legs severed, blood streaming from their eyes.
More people cried out to be killed because they could not endure the pain than begged to be saved.
“A physician... Where is a physician...?”
He searched for the physician who had left the patients in this state, but everywhere he turned, all he saw were patients.
How many were there?
More people lay screaming on the ground than the Black Path martial artists who had attended the Black Alliance’s founding ceremony.
Someone suddenly grabbed Dam Ak’s clothes.
“P-Please... please... kill me.”
A Martial Alliance martial artist clung to him, the Chief Strategist of the Black Alliance, and desperately begged for death.
Before he could even question the absurdity of it, Dam Ak quickly dropped to his knees.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Please... please kill...”
The Martial Alliance martial artist, who had been pleading desperately, rolled back their eyes and died.
Dam Ak raised a hand to call for a physician, then quietly lowered it.
The physicians were already exhausting themselves as they treated those in critical condition.
‘Where am I?’
The heat and humidity made it clear that this was not Hubei Province.
Then had he been moved somewhere else in that brief span of time?
Dam Ak moved to assess the situation.
He had not even taken a few steps before his entire body froze like a statue.
Buzzzzz.
Countless flies swarmed through the air, thick with the stench of corpses, laying eggs everywhere.
Maggots that had already hatched in the heat gnawed at the rotting bodies.
The problem was that those hundreds of rotting corpses had belonged to martial artists.
“...Hah. Hah. Hah.”
He had read and reread records of the horrors of war hundreds of times, but they could not compare to the vivid scene unfolding before his eyes.
For the first time in his life, Dam Ak felt fear before such a horrific, miserable sight.
Someone who appeared to be a Martial Alliance member hurried over, but Dam Ak did not even have the presence of mind to care.
“Chief Strategist! Are you all right?”
What was this now?
The Martial Alliance martial artist carefully supported him and called him Chief Strategist.
‘Chief Strategist...?’
The words were not wrong, but their attitude was clearly strange.
He was the Chief Strategist of the Black Alliance.
Even when he had visited the Martial Alliance as part of an official delegation before being pursued, its martial artists had looked down on him.
“Are you hurt somewhere? A physician... I’ll get a physician...”
In this situation, they were going to call a Martial Alliance physician for him?
“N-No, I’m fine.”
“Are you certain?”
“...”
Dam Ak was about to answer when his eyes met a rotting corpse again.
He vomited before he could stop himself.
“Urgh...”
The Martial Alliance martial artist stayed beside him, kindly patting his back before offering him water.
Dam Ak barely wet his lips, then swallowed back another wave of nausea and asked,
“Just... just how many people died?”
“I’m not sure... Probably around eight hundred.”
“Eight hundred...? That many people died while we were escaping... Don’t tell me the war has already begun?”
The martial artist muttered, “The war began long ago...” then looked at Dam Ak as though something was wrong.
“What do you mean, that many? Weren’t you asking only about the deaths in this battle?”
“...”
“If we counted everyone who has died since the Orthodox-Demonic War began... Ugh. It’s horrifying just to think about.”
“The Orthodox-Demonic War...? Then what happened to the Black Alliance?”
“Pardon? What is the Black Alliance?”
They did not know the Black Alliance.
Then why were they calling him Chief Strategist?
“Then who are you fighting?”
“Who else? Those damned Demonic Cult bastards.”
‘Everything has changed.’
As far as he could tell, the Black Alliance did not exist, and somehow he had become the Martial Alliance’s Chief Strategist.
But none of that mattered.
If the gap between the Martial Alliance and the Demonic Cult was this great, if they were being pushed back so overwhelmingly, why were they still fighting?
What was the reason for accepting such sacrifices?
Another sickening wave rose in his throat, but he forced it down.
“Where is Jegal Somyeong?”
Jegal Somyeong was no ordinary person.
They had not become Chief Strategist through their family’s influence or personal martial strength alone.
No matter how capable Dam Ak was, there was no way he could have displaced them and taken the Martial Alliance’s Chief Strategist position.
Yet the martial artist’s expression changed strangely.
“If you mean the previous Chief Strategist... Weren’t they assassinated before the Orthodox-Demonic War?”
His mind went blank.
Where was this place?
It was too vivid to be a dream, yet nothing matched the reality he knew.
Then someone flashed through his mind.
“Black Flame Dragon! Where is the Black Flame Dragon?”
“Black... what? What kind of epithet is that?”
“Even the Black Flame Dragon... does not exist?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
Dam Ak started walking again.
The martial artist tried to support him and take him back to the tent, but Dam Ak shook off the hand and walked through the encampment.
He was looking for someone he knew in a place where he knew no one.
Countless tents stood throughout the vast encampment, and corpses whose warmth had not yet faded lay scattered everywhere.
The living stood in long lines to receive a steamed potato and a millet rice ball, then squatted beside corpses to eat.
Wounded people filled every direction he looked, and some treated their own injuries.
‘What... What is this disaster...?’
He could not understand.
Just how fiercely were they fighting this war?
Throughout history, countless dynasties had quietly come to an end when the strength of imperial authority waned.
There had been wars in those times, of course, but nothing this horrific.
What were these people fighting so desperately for?
He forgot that he had awakened in a strange place as a strange person. All he could feel was boundless despair at the devastation before him.
There was something else strange.
“Chief Strategist! Have you eaten?”
“Chief Strategist! Thank you! You saved us!”
“Chief Strategist! Please keep it up. Compared to the sons of... Anyway, compared to those bastards before, it’s much easier to fight now.”
“We’ll fight even harder from now on. Please carry out as many bold operations as you like!”
Everywhere he went, every person he saw looked up to him and renewed their resolve.
There were more wounded people than healthy ones.
Many still had a long way to go before they could recover, yet whenever they saw him, they cried out that they wanted to fight more.
‘For what?’
He had heard that eight hundred had died in this battle alone.
Why, then, did they consider it such a satisfying battle?
Unable to understand that absurdity, Dam Ak’s steps grew faster and faster.
He avoided corpses, avoided people, and kept walking until exhaustion set in and he no longer knew how he was walking.
Then, at last, he saw a familiar face for the first time.
“Young Master Jin...!”
A man was awkwardly walking while loosening the drawstring of his trousers.
It was undoubtedly the Jin Sowoon he knew.
But...
‘He is different...’
Jin Sowoon, the Black Flame Dragon...
He was a giant.
A sturdy body and overwhelming presence.
Even though he controlled his energy, endless, immeasurable power roiled within him.
His eyes shone brightly, and the smile on his lips never faded, no matter what hardships he faced.
A giant no one could easily approach.
But what about the Jin Sowoon before him?
“C-Chief Strategist?”
His eyes trembled. He hurried to fix the drawstring of his trousers, but his posture had gone stiff with panic.
A cheap iron sword hung at his waist, and his coarse hair was unkempt.
He was not the Jin Sowoon Dam Ak knew.
He was not the giant who overwhelmed his surroundings and shone alone.
“Young Master Jin...”
Dam Ak pressed his lips shut before he could call out to him.
Only then could he be certain.
He had come to an entirely different world.
“...”
He did not know if this was the butterfly dream Zhuangzi had spoken of or if he had somehow entered another person’s memories, but it was certainly not the world where he had lived.[1]
‘This man is not the Black Flame Dragon I know either.’
Perhaps it was because he had found a familiar face.
Without realizing it, Dam Ak asked the man the question that had been circling his mind all along.
“Do you... Do you also want to keep fighting?”
“...Pardon?”
Unlike the Jin Sowoon he knew, the man simply stood there with a blank, foolish expression.
“On my way here, all I saw were rotting corpses and endless despair. Even a war between nations staking their survival would not be so horrific.”
It was a question he had carried ever since accepting the position of Chief Strategist of the Black Alliance.
A question that had never been resolved even as he continued his bitter conflict with the Martial Alliance.
A doubt that had become vivid and certain after he came to this strange place.
“Is the martial world truly a place like this?”
The reason for the struggles of the martial world, which he had never been able to understand even after deciding to live on.
“Is the martial world a place where people throw away their lives and fight for such pointless reasons?”
And the reason to live that he had to find.
“What is everyone doing this for?”
The man still stared at him with a dazed expression.
Dam Ak found himself ridiculous.
What did he hope to gain by asking something like that of the man before him?
Then, at that moment.
Jin Sowoon’s wavering eyes settled calmly. His awkward posture straightened.
The man before him was certainly not the Jin Sowoon Dam Ak knew.
Yet the shabby, pitiful man before him was beginning to grow into a giant.
“The martial world... is a place like that.”
“You mean a place where people fight and die pointlessly? That is worse than beasts.”
“...Our struggle has a reason.”
“The reason for the struggle?”
Something tickled at the top of his head.
It felt as though he might seize the very edge of the answer he had sought for so long.
He did not know why he had come to this unfamiliar place, but perhaps this was the moment when he could resolve the question that had tormented him all his life.
“What does that...”
At the same time, his mind began to grow distant.
Instinctively, he knew it was time to awaken from the dream.
‘I-I have to hear the answer.’
Jin Sowoon, who had not been able to look at him properly, finally raised his eyes.
Then he slowly opened his mouth.
“The reason we want to fight until we die, no, even after we die, is...”
#
Fuck... I seriously, seriously almost died.
Who knew the current in the valley beneath Despair Valley would be that strong?
One wrong move, and I would have been swept away by the violent current, carried down the Yangtze River, and dragged all the way out to sea.
“Wow, I actually survived that...”
I guess all the effort I’d put into chivalrous deeds and upholding the martial world’s righteous spirit was paying off like this.
Phew. Well done, Jin Sowoon. Truly.
After checking that I was unharmed, I laid Dam Ak by the water and checked beneath his nose. He was not breathing.
“Fuck!!!”
I quickly struck his acupoints and forced the water out.
Gurgle. Gurgle.
Once I’d gotten all the water out of his throat, I checked beneath his nose again. Thankfully, he was breathing.
Good grief. I’d saved Dam Ak from the Orthodox Society’s plot, only to nearly lose him here.
Still, how far had we come?
According to the map, following the valley downstream should lead to Jagwi.
Of course, there were two waterways, so if we’d taken the wrong one, we would have ended up back at the Yellow River.
“Hmm, judging by the sun’s position, this isn’t the Yellow River.”
“...Then is it the Yellow Springs?”
“Fuck, you scared me!”
A voice came from below. Dam Ak, pale-faced, struggled to sit up.
“...Thankfully, we’re still in this world, where we can roll around in dog shit.”
“Young Master Jin’s jokes are becoming less amusing by the day.”
Once he was upright, Dam Ak looked around.
Then he quietly muttered, “As expected, there are no corpses...”
After standing blankly for a moment, he looked at me calmly.
I’d expected him to start making a fuss and demand to know why I’d done this once he woke up. Still, he seemed pretty calm.
“...Did the guards sacrifice themselves?”
Was that not it? Was he stunned?
“It isn’t certain yet, so please don’t declare them dead already.”
“They went ahead, while we went down the cliff behind the smoke... No, we fell, so if we’re lucky, only they will die.”
“We were lucky to survive as well.”
Even after I said that, Dam Ak’s expression remained grim.
“Isn’t it clear who the bait was?”
“We aren’t fishhooks, so there’s no need to jump to conclusions already.”
“Are you trying to evade responsibility with words you don’t even believe yourself?”
Just because he spoke calmly did not mean his anger was not clear.
Would he accept it if I told him that the guards had already agreed to this plan?
Even so, this was all I could tell him right now.
“It was their choice.”
“A choice...”
He frowned as though trying to remember something again.
“You mean they chose... death?”
Would it really help to say they might not be dead?
I shook my head. He was not someone who would be comforted by such shallow words anyway.
“It was the same choice Chief Strategist Dam made.”
Dam Ak paused at my words.
He looked at me with a complicated gaze for a long time.
“...You truly are not ‘him.’”
What was this guy suddenly talking about? I’d gotten all the water out of him...
“No, perhaps you might be ‘him’... If the course of your life changed...”
What? Did he hit his head somewhere in Despair Valley? Why was he muttering things I couldn’t understand in such a creepy way?
“What are you talking about?”
“...Nothing. I was only saying that it does not suit Young Master Jin to tremble before me and piss his trousers.”
What the hell was he talking about?
No matter how much of a nobody I’d been in my previous life, I’d never pissed myself after meeting this man.
“Did you really hit your head? That’s strange. There’s no blood.”
“...”
Dam Ak fell silent for a while.
Then he stared at me for a long time with that same complicated look.
After the quiet silence lingered for some time, he cautiously spoke.
“Young Master Jin. Did you not already know me before we met at the Black Alliance?”
Footnotes:
[1] Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream: a classical Chinese parable questioning whether Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreamed it was Zhuangzi.
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