WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Returned Zenith Wants to Rest ◈
Episode 6:
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“With a bamboo sword?”
“Yes.”
“You could get hurt.”
Yoo Kangmin gave Yoon Seoha a look of disbelief.
No one had voiced that concern even when the world’s 127 greatest martial artists had surrounded Kangmin in the Valley of No Return.
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“But just in case, maybe you should wear some protective gear...”
“Are you a hobgoblin? Are you stronger than that thing?”
“Ugh.”
At those firm words, Yoon Seoha adjusted her grip on the bamboo sword.
She tightened her hands around it as she usually did with her longsword.
“Here I come.”
Yoon Seoha kicked off the floor.
“Power Strike!”
A faint light rose from the bamboo sword.
Guided by the skill, it came down quickly toward Kangmin’s shoulder.
The blow was powerful enough to kill a goblin in one hit, but to Yoo Kangmin, it was little different from a child’s attack.
Tap.
To show her the difference in their abilities, Kangmin first stopped the bamboo sword with a single finger.
“...!”
Yoon Seoha’s eyes widened.
It felt as though she had struck a massive mountain.
The skill’s power vanished from the bamboo sword the instant it met Yoo Kangmin’s finger.
“Is that all?”
“Gah!”
Yoon Seoha pulled the bamboo sword back.
Only one attack had been blocked, yet she was clearly shaken.
‘She hasn’t improved at all.’
With a sigh, Yoo Kangmin gave her a small reminder of that day.
“Remember how it felt when you fought the goblins. How did you hold your sword then?”
“Oh.”
Only then did Yoon Seoha realize what was wrong.
‘What did I do back then?’
Recalling that day, she slowly changed her stance.
She relaxed her body, moved her left foot forward, and lowered her center of gravity.
A gleam of interest appeared in Yoo Kangmin’s eyes.
It had taken only a few words for her to partly correct the problem just pointed out.
‘So her ability to learn passes the test?’
Kangmin shifted half a step back.
The bamboo sword brushed past the front of Kangmin’s clothes.
“Argh!”
Frustrated, Yoon Seoha attacked again and again.
But not once did she make contact.
Kangmin avoided every attack with nothing more than a finger to block or a tilt of the head.
Before long, an exhausted Yoon Seoha came to a stop, breathing hard.
“Hah, hah...”
“That’s enough. You can stop now. I’ve got a rough idea.”
“Of what?”
“Why you were so weak.”
Yoon Seoha’s expression stiffened.
Hadn’t Kangmin clearly said she had talent back at the convenience store?
Had seeing her in action changed that opinion?
“You said I had talent.”
“You do.”
“Then why...?”
Yoo Kangmin took the bamboo sword from her hand.
“You’ve gotten into the habit of relying on skills.”
“Is it wrong for a hunter to use skills?”
“No. But you should at least know who’s moving the sword.”
“Who’s moving the sword?”
“Yes. Are you swinging it, or is the skill?”
“...”
Yoon Seoha couldn’t answer.
“No one’s ever taught you how to handle a sword, have they? They must have only taught you how to use skills.”
“That’s right.”
A hunter’s worth was determined by the skills they possessed.
A skill’s rank, power, cooldown, mana cost, and so on.
Skills were always the standard used to judge a hunter’s strength.
As a result, most of what awakening academies taught was related to skills.
Of course, students did learn how to handle weapons, but only the basics, such as how to grip them, which way to point the blade, and how to avoid injuring allies.
After all, their bodies moved on their own when they used a skill.
Even someone who had never held a sword could cut through a monster’s tough hide with a swordsmanship skill.
Someone who had never fired a bow could hit a target dozens of meters away after gaining an archery skill. Why bother training separately with swords or bows?
In a world like that, spending years learning swordsmanship was considered foolish.
Skills forcibly corrected the user’s movements.
It was far more efficient to spend that time using a skill even once more to raise its proficiency.
[Don’t learn the sword. Learn sword skills.]
That was the first piece of common knowledge taught at awakening academies.
It was also why existing martial arts, including kendo and fencing, had declined after the gates opened.
Yoon Seoha had never questioned that belief before.
“I was taught that there was no need to learn swordsmanship separately when skills moved your body for you.”
“Yes. I’m sure you were.”
There was nothing particularly surprising about it.
Didn’t modern society value efficiency above all else?
Hunter training, too, must have become standardized around the fastest, most efficient methods.
‘Though that’s hardly unique to the modern world.’
The martial world had been the same.
Whether it was the Martial Alliance, the Unorthodox Hegemony Alliance, or even the Demonic Cult, each often grew stagnant in its own way.
“But here’s the thing. That’s all well and good, but how are you going to fight when you can’t use a skill?”
“W-well...”
That was exactly what had happened after she used Power Strike at the convenience store.
While she waited to use the skill again, she had struggled even to block the goblins’ attacks.
Yet hadn’t she defeated goblins without skills when she moved according to Yoo Kangmin’s instructions?
“A skill is just a tool. What do you think you’re doing, letting a tool control your body?”
“Oh...”
“It’s like someone handed you a fine, sharp sword, and instead of learning swordsmanship, you just waited for the sword to fight for you.”
“Then what should I do?”
“First, get rid of the sword.”
“What?”
“Starting today, you won’t be holding a sword for a while.”
Confusion crossed Yoon Seoha’s face.
“But I’m a swordswoman.”
“What kind of swordswoman can’t even swing a sword properly?”
“...”
“First, learn how to stand.”
“How to stand?”
“Spread your feet.”
Caught off guard, Yoon Seoha followed the instruction.
Kangmin used the tip of one foot to adjust the distance between her feet.
“Lower your hips.”
“Like this?”
“Lower.”
Yoon Seoha bent her knees.
“Lower.”
“Even lower?”
“Until your hips are level with your knees.”
Looking uneasy, Yoon Seoha lowered herself.
When her thighs were parallel to the floor, Kangmin nodded.
“Good.”
“What kind of stance is this?”
“The horse stance.”
“You don’t mean I have to stay like this, do you?”
“Hold it for one shichen.”
“One shichen? One hour?”
“No. Two hours.”
“Two hours?”
Kangmin lightly raised the bamboo sword and struck her thigh.
Thwack!
“Ow!”
“You lost your stance.”
“But two hours right from the start is impossible!”
“If you want to pay a million won and go home just as weak, you’re welcome to quit.”
“Well...”
“There’s a good sword inside you.”
Yoo Kangmin pressed down on Yoon Seoha’s shoulders, lowering her back into position.
“But the sheath is rotten.”
“The sheath?”
“Your body.”
“W-what’s wrong with my body?”
Yoon Seoha’s face turned red.
Yoo Kangmin looked puzzled.
“Why are you blushing?”
“Because you suddenly looked at my body and called it rotten!”
“I meant your bones and muscles.”
“...”
“What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking anything!”
Yoon Seoha raised her voice defensively.
Yoo Kangmin didn’t press the matter.
The bamboo sword pointed to her shoulders, waist, and thighs in turn.
“Your lower body is weak compared to your upper body. Your ankles and knees are stiff, and you don’t know how to move your waist.”
“W-well... Of course I don’t! No one ever taught me!”
“Exactly. It means you haven’t been doing the training you needed.”
It had been the same in the martial world.
Even among martial artists who had reached the Peak realm, quite a few didn’t know how to use their own strength.
Yoon Seoha’s case was all the worse, since she had relied entirely on skills without training herself.
‘In the martial world, she might have lost to a three-year-old.’
Still, there was one fortunate point.
Since she hadn’t trained at all, she hadn’t picked up any useless habits.
“If what you have amounts to ten, you’ve only been using three or four at most.”
“You mean I haven’t even been using half?”
“That was a generous estimate.”
“...”
“So get your stance right first.”
Yoon Seoha pouted, but lowered her hips again.
Five minutes passed.
“Ugh...”
Her thighs began to tremble.
After ten minutes, sweat ran down her forehead.
“Your back.”
Thwack!
The bamboo sword struck Yoon Seoha lightly across the back.
“Ow!”
“You’re bending your back.”
“How am I supposed to keep it straight when I’ve been holding this position the whole time?”
“If you have the strength to talk, go lower.”
“Demon...”
“What was that?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Yoon Seoha gritted her teeth and lowered herself.
Her thighs felt as if they were burning.
Even fighting goblins hadn’t been this hard.
“How long has it been?”
“Seven minutes.”
“But it was ten minutes earlier!”
“I’m leaving out the time when you weren’t holding the stance properly.”
“Who does that?”
“I do.”
Only then did Yoon Seoha realize she had given a million won to the wrong person.
But she had already transferred the money.
She couldn’t give up, if only because it would be such a waste.
“Point your knees in the same direction as your toes.”
Yoo Kangmin corrected the position of her knees with the bamboo sword.
“Press down on the floor with your whole foot. Don’t tense your toes.”
“Like this?”
“Your hips are sticking out behind you.”
“Ugh.”
“Relax your shoulders. And don’t hold your breath.”
Following Kangmin’s instructions, Yoon Seoha steadied her breathing.
She breathed in slowly through her nose, then let out a long breath.
At first, enduring the pain had taken all her attention.
But as her breathing settled, things gradually changed.
When she pressed her feet against the floor, the weight that had been tipping forward spread evenly across both legs.
Her swaying upper body slowly regained its balance.
Her thighs still hurt as if they were about to tear apart, but she no longer felt she would collapse at any moment.
‘Huh?’
Yoon Seoha could feel the change herself.
She had only adjusted her feet and her breathing.
Yet her stance felt completely different from a moment ago.
Watching her, Yoo Kangmin’s eyes gleamed with interest.
‘That was quick.’
Once taught something, she didn’t make the same mistake a second time.
Even with pain disrupting her concentration, she understood the instructions and put them into practice.
‘Talent like this is rare even in the martial world.’
Yoo Kangmin had faced all the most celebrated talents.
Yoon Seoha’s talent didn’t fall far behind theirs.
‘And yet she’s been stuck at F-rank all this time. She must have had terrible luck.’
Yoon Seoha had probably worked like mad.
But her results wouldn’t have matched that effort.
‘Of course they wouldn’t. Your talent lies in martial arts, not skills. If you’d learned proper martial arts from the start... Perhaps you could have reached the Sword Empress’s level?’
Yoo Kangmin gave a small chuckle.
‘The Sword Empress. Yes, I can teach her that woman’s martial arts. She seems to use a sword, after all.’
A perfect plan for Yoon Seoha’s future training was taking shape in Yoo Kangmin’s mind.
With the right polishing, she would become a splendid Sword Empress and a reliable source of income.
About thirty minutes later, Yoon Seoha’s knees began to shake badly.
“Ugh...”
At last, one knee touched the floor.
Thud.
“Are you done?”
Yoo Kangmin’s voice was indifferent.
The tone almost seemed to say that she could give up.
Yoon Seoha braced her hands against the floor, gasping for breath.
She wanted to lie down right then.
“No.”
Even so, she got back up.
She didn’t want to give up.
Yoo Kangmin asked another question.
“Why are you getting up again?”
“Because I paid.”
“Because you don’t want to waste a million won?”
“That’s part of it.”
Yoon Seoha bit her lip hard.
“I don’t want to be abandoned again for being weak.”
“...”
“If I can’t even endure this much, nothing’s going to change. So I’m going to try, whatever it takes.”
“Oh?”
Yoo Kangmin watched Yoon Seoha for a while.
There were plenty of talented people.
But just as many trusted their talent alone and avoided painful training.
Once they reached a certain level, people like that always hit a wall.
By contrast, those who survived to the end had something in common.
They got back up after falling.
Decades later, that simple difference would become as vast as the gap between heaven and earth.
‘So talent isn’t all she has.’
She was well worth teaching.
And she had more than enough kindness, too.
Yoo Kangmin raised the bamboo sword again.
“I’m starting the count over.”
“What?”
“You lost your stance.”
“That’s too much!”
“Talking back.”
Thwack!
“Ow!”
Yoon Seoha’s scream echoed through the training hall.
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