WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Returned Zenith Wants to Rest ◈
Episode 8:
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“What did you just say?”
The smile vanished from Jang Taeho’s face.
Yoo Kangmin did not bother repeating himself.
“If you didn’t hear it, forget it.”
“You little bastard...”
Jang Taeho strode closer.
He was so large that it almost seemed he had become a tank because of his build.
“Do you want to die?”
As the atmosphere turned hostile, Yoon Seoha hurriedly tried to stop Yoo Kangmin.
“W-wait! I’ll apologize for him, so... Let’s stop this here!”
“What?!”
With a nasty smile, Jang Taeho grabbed Yoo Kangmin by the collar.
“You apologize yourself. Don’t hide behind a woman. I’ll let it slide if you get on your knees and beg now.”
“What are you doing? This is the Association!”
“So what? What do you want me to do about it, huh?”
“...”
Seoha sighed.
The Jang Taeho she knew was a prideful man.
And if he thought another hunter was lower-ranked than him, he had the rotten habit of throwing his weight around.
There was no way someone like that would quietly let an insult slide.
“Have you gone mute? Huh?!”
Jang Taeho tried to lift Yoo Kangmin one-handed by his collar.
He thought he could easily hoist him up and choke him.
Gasp?!
Yet Yoo Kangmin’s body did not budge in the slightest.
“W-what is this?!”
“What are you doing?”
Jang Taeho’s eyebrow twitched.
He did not like the expression on Yoo Kangmin’s face, as though he were looking down on him.
Ordinarily, Jang Taeho would have sensed that something was wrong and let go. But having lost his reason, he crossed a line.
Grit!
Biting his lip, Jang Taeho drew up his mana.
At that moment, the muscles all over his body swelled further.
It was proof that he had used Indomitable Body, a D-rank body-enhancement skill.
It was originally a skill used to withstand monster attacks, but it could also be used to enhance one’s raw strength.
“Let’s see how long you can hold out!”
All Jang Taeho could think about was lifting Yoo Kangmin, throwing him to the floor, and proving his own strength.
“Haah!”
Just as Jang Taeho tried to raise his arm with all his strength...
“Showing off your strength? Fine by me.”
Yoo Kangmin smiled faintly and wrapped a hand around the wrist of the hand gripping his collar.
Then, with a light exertion of force, he bent it in the opposite direction.
Crack!
There was the unpleasant sound of a wrist bone twisting.
“What?!”
Jang Taeho spotted his grotesquely twisted wrist. He failed to understand what had happened for a moment, then belatedly clutched his wrist as pain crashed over him and collapsed to the floor.
“Aaaaaagh!”
Screaming in pain, he rolled across the floor with tears and snot streaming down his face.
Even Indomitable Body, the skill that strengthened his body, was useless.
“Did it never occur to you that a day like this would come if you strutted around relying only on your pathetic strength?”
It reminded him of old times.
Judging by Jang Taeho’s behavior, he was no different from the lowlife thugs and mountain bandits of the martial world.
The sort who ran wild relying on their meager strength.
Yoo Kangmin had seen far too many of them.
That was why he knew well how to deal with such people.
‘Should I kill him? Or let him live?’
If this were martial society, Yoo Kangmin would have killed Jang Taeho on the spot.
After all, their logic was that lesser strength was crushed beneath greater strength.
The problem was that this was not the martial world.
“Phew... Consider it heavenly luck that you met me in such a fine world.”
“Y-you lunatic!”
Jang Taeho’s party members recoiled in shock and each drew their weapons.
They looked ready to attack Yoo Kangmin at any moment.
“Stop! Stop it!”
Meanwhile, Seoha was desperately trying to mediate between them.
“Stop what? That bastard picked the fight first!”
“Y-yeah! What are we supposed to do while our party leader is down?”
It was a hair-trigger situation.
Seoha bit her lip and gripped her sword as well.
She intended to help Yoo Kangmin if a fight broke out.
“So you do have some loyalty to your comrades, at least.”
Yet Yoo Kangmin was smiling, as though he found even this situation amusing.
“Go on. Try something else.”
Flinch!
Why was that?
Everyone who met that smile began to tremble.
“I’ll show you hell.”
“...!”
They had no choice but to admit it.
They were overwhelmed by an indescribable pressure.
‘P-please, somebody help.’
‘I don’t want to fight!’
They had already lost their will to fight.
All they could do was hope someone would stop this.
“I’ll help too!”
They could only despair upon seeing even Yoon Seoha, their only remaining hope, give up on persuasion and stand beside Yoo Kangmin with her sword drawn.
‘Fuck. What do we do?’
It was then, as they stood there unable to do anything...
Click.
The sound of a cane striking the floor came from somewhere.
“That is far enough.”
It was a woman’s cool, subdued voice.
The onlookers parted, making way for someone to emerge.
She had a glamorous blonde bob cut at her jawline.
She was dressed in a fitted black suit and a short skirt.
Holding a cane, she slowly approached them, and she appeared to have trouble with one of her legs.
Her cool blue eyes swept over Jang Taeho and Yoo Kangmin in turn.
The hunters who recognized her murmured quietly.
“Isn’t that Branch Chief Baek Dohee?”
“Baek Dohee, the Spear of Thunder?”
Seoha’s eyes widened as well.
Baek Dohee, the Spear of Thunder.
The branch chief of the Hunter Association’s Sinyeong-dong branch.
She had once been an A-rank hunter and considered the strongest candidate for promotion to S-rank.
She had defeated countless monsters with spear techniques wreathed in lightning, earning the sobriquet Spear of Thunder.
However, injuries sustained in a gate collapse incident five years ago had ultimately forced her to retire as a hunter, after which she had been appointed branch chief of the Association.
“B-Branch Chief!”
Jang Taeho, sprawled on the floor, urgently called to Baek Dohee.
Somehow, he had already set his broken wrist bone back into place in that brief time and had recovered somewhat.
“Y-you came at the right time. This civilian suddenly attacked me!”
“A civilian?”
“Yes. I was trying to talk him down kindly, but he suddenly broke my wrist...”
“That’s a lie!”
Yoon Seoha hurriedly cut in.
“He grabbed my master by the collar first. He even used a skill.”
“B-bullshit! That’s a lie! That woman is lying!”
Baek Dohee lightly tapped the end of her cane against the floor.
Tap.
It was not a loud sound, but both of them fell silent at once.
“I was watching through the CCTV before I even got off the elevator.”
“What...?!”
“The one who grabbed someone by the collar first and used a skill was Hunter Jang Taeho, was it not?”
“That was because he insulted me first...”
“Does being insulted permit you to use a skill against a civilian inside the Association?”
“That’s not...”
“Answer me.”
“N-no.”
“And Hunter Jang Taeho, go to the security office and write a statement.”
“Branch Chief?!”
“After reviewing the matter, we will decide whether to refer it to the disciplinary committee.”
“I’m the victim!”
“You may make that claim there, that the person who used an enhancement skill against a civilian is the victim.”
The employees behind Baek Dohee approached Jang Taeho.
Jang Taeho looked resentful, but he could not resist any longer.
“Just you wait.”
At the typical threat, Yoo Kangmin gave a quiet snort.
“Next time, it won’t end with your wrist.”
Flinch!
Jang Taeho’s face went pale.
His steps seemed to quicken slightly as he followed the employees away.
“Hunter Jang Taeho’s companions?”
“Yes?!”
“What are you doing? Aren’t you going with him?”
“U-us too?!”
“You were accompanying him. Go state exactly what you saw. Do not embellish anything. If your statements contradict one another, you will also be charged with perjury. Understood?”
“Y-yes, ma’am!”
Once Jang Taeho and his companions had disappeared, Seoha finally relaxed and sighed as she called to Yoo Kangmin.
“Master, do you really have to say things like that at the end?”
“That way, he won’t come after us again.”
“That is a threat.”
“It is instruction.”
Baek Dohee looked at the two of them.
“You call him your master.”
“Yes.”
“What does he teach you?”
“I’m learning the sword.”
“Are you registered as a hunter?”
“No.”
Baek Dohee narrowed her eyes.
“Then you mean...”
“I’m not a hunter.”
“You are an unawakened person who subdued a D-rank hunter?”
“I don’t think that is so remarkable.”
“...”
“Master, please watch how you speak...”
Seoha urgently poked his side.
Ignoring her, Yoo Kangmin looked at Baek Dohee.
More precisely, he was examining her body.
The right leg she relied on the cane to support was not simply injured.
‘What a mess.’
Most of the pathways through which qi flowed inside her body had been destroyed.
‘They call it mana here instead of internal qi, do they?’
Internal qi and mana differed in nature, but their foundations were ultimately the same.
Of course, one was gathered in the heart and the other in the dantian, but that difference was not particularly important.
What mattered was that the mana circuit in Baek Dohee’s heart was as precarious as cracked pottery.
If she forcibly used her power in that condition, the broken fragments would surely shred even the surrounding blood vessels.
‘She could die.’
Baek Dohee noticed Yoo Kangmin’s unblinking stare.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m amazed you are still alive.”
The air around them grew icy.
Baek Dohee’s injury was like a dragon’s reverse scale. No one had ever mentioned it.
“Master!”
Seoha covered her face with both hands, while the employees behind Baek Dohee glared at Yoo Kangmin with hardened expressions.
Everyone knew that she had ended her career as a hunter because of her injuries.
Saying that he was amazed she was still alive was more than enough to sound like mockery.
“You are quite rude for someone I have just met.”
“I merely said what I saw.”
“What do you know about my body?”
“They call it a mana circuit, right? The one in your heart. It looked ready to shatter at any moment.”
“...”
Baek Dohee’s expression froze.
Only her medical team and the Association’s leadership knew that her mana circuit was in a precarious state.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I can see it.”
“You can see it?”
“Yes.”
“...”
Just as Baek Dohee was about to say more, one employee who had been watching her carefully gathered their courage and intervened.
“B-Branch Chief?”
“Go ahead.”
“This is Hunter Yoon Seoha, who is scheduled for a special promotion assessment today.”
“I see. I received the report.”
She had already received a report that an F-rank hunter had defeated a hobgoblin.
After all, the special promotion assessment had only been possible because Baek Dohee herself had approved it.
Baek Dohee’s gaze moved to Yoon Seoha before returning to Yoo Kangmin.
“You said the two of you are master and disciple?”
“Yes.”
“Was this person perhaps involved in your being able to defeat the hobgoblin as well?”
“Ah!”
Yoon Seoha covered her mouth.
Seeing that reaction, Baek Dohee became certain that Yoo Kangmin had intervened.
“Fine. For now, let us proceed with the promotion assessment as scheduled. And...”
Baek Dohee stared at Yoo Kangmin.
“There is something I would like to ask about what just happened. Do you have some time?”
“Me?”
“Yes. I would like to treat you to a cup of tea.”
“Well, all right.”
Yoo Kangmin answered casually.
“Branch Chief? You have an afternoon appointment...”
“Ah, I am sorry. Please cancel it today. I am not feeling well.”
“Ah, understood.”
Baek Dohee turned around.
“Please follow me.”
“Mm.”
And so, Yoo Kangmin suddenly found himself alone with the branch chief of the Hunter Association.
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