WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Seven-Time Hero Goes Live ◈
Chapter 18: Mana Punch (3)
──────
Martial Artist Tou.
He had been Yulian’s first master.
Tou looked East Asian too, which made him feel somewhat familiar to Yulian.
But he was taciturn and rough-spoken.
Especially with Yulian.
Then again, Yulian in his first run had been below average in every sense.
“Hero. Your sword only shows its true power once mana is infused into it. Do you know that?”
Tou never even called Yulian by name.
He just called him Hero.
“I know! I know! You think I’m not doing it because I don’t know!?”
Yulian could not speak politely to him either.
It was probably an inferiority complex.
Tou was a martial artist who could freely infuse mana into his body to fight.
Meanwhile, Yulian was the “chosen” Hero who struggled to even sense mana.
‘Damn it.’
Whoosh! Whoosh!
No matter how much he swung his sword, he could not draw out its full power.
“...Hmph. I can’t understand how someone like you became the Hero.”
“Yeah, well, get lost if you can’t understand it.”
Even as he said that, Tou always watched Yulian practice from beneath the canopy.
At first, Yulian thought he was doing it to mock him.
‘What an annoying bastard.’
It was one day in particular.
Probably a miserable, soaking-wet day after they had struggled against something like a Giant Swamp Slime.
Rain drizzled down, and nobody wanted to go outside.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Only Yulian had gone out to swing his sword.
“Hero. Infusing mana into a sword is not easy. First, you need to feel mana through your body.”
Tou suddenly said this, but...
“...”
Was some dog barking somewhere?
Yulian did not answer. He only swung his sword.
‘Come on... Please work!’
They would soon enter the Demon King’s direct sphere of influence.
If he, the Hero, could not freely control mana, the Hero’s party was as good as dead.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
He desperately swung his sword in the rain.
His palms blistered and bled, but the rain quickly washed it away, leaving him unaware even of the wounds.
That was when it happened.
“Put down the sword, Hero.”
Tou made a shocking suggestion.
“...What?”
Having heard enough, Yulian finally reacted.
It sounded to him like Tou was telling him to stop being the Hero.
“From what I’ve seen, you cannot properly sense mana.”
“...”
“You made it this far by drawing on mana through nothing but instinct in desperate moments, without even knowing how to do it. Any further would be dangerous.”
Step. Step.
Tou walked out of the shelter and into the rain.
He pressed a fist against Yulian’s chest.
Tap.
“To feel mana, you start with your fists.”
Shhhhh...!
Amid rain that had suddenly grown heavier.
“Fa Jin.”
Tou murmured the words and stamped his foot.
Splash!
Rainwater sprayed in every direction, and an immense force suddenly drove into Yulian’s chest.
“Ghk!?”
BOOM!
Yulian’s body was thrown nearly five meters back.
Tou had not even thrown a punch.
‘Damn it... The gap between us is huge.’
Yulian lowered his head as he lay in the rain.
Tou approached him again.
“It is the first realm martial artists seek. Generating the force of a punch through mana alone, without even throwing one. You should aim for this too. I’ll teach you.”
“...You’ll teach me?”
Yulian asked again, wondering if he had misheard.
The Tou he had known was not the type to kindly teach anyone anything.
Tou’s answer was simple.
“Get up.”
Yulian pushed himself up with his sword.
“Put down the sword.”
BOOM!
Yulian was sent flying again.
“Ghk!”
After that, Yulian was beaten senseless by Fa Jin in the rain.
‘Did this bastard offer to teach me just so he could beat me up!?’
The thought had crossed his mind.
Clang...!
“O-okay. I’ll put it down.”
For the first time, Yulian felt that he had gained a master.
He put down the Hero’s Sword and stood before Tou with his bare fists.
From then on, Tou taught him in considerable detail.
“Feel the mana in the air. Once it circulates through your body like blood, decide where to direct that power. For us, it is our fists. More specifically, the point where they meet the opponent...”
The next day.
“Fa Jin!”
Thud!
Yulian struck a tree and tried to recreate what he had learned.
A deep dent formed in the tree, and mana rose from it like a heat haze.
Tou came over, looked at the mark, and said one thing.
“Mana is leaking out. Every bit of it must be contained on the surface of your fist, without wasting even a fraction.”
The mana rising like a heat haze was proof that it was leaking.
Yulian nodded and began striking again.
The next day, and the day after that.
He had not expected to learn it all at once, but...
“Fa Jin!”
Thoom!
“Fa Jin! Fa Jin!”
Thud...
It was much the same.
The next day, and the day after that, were no different.
Was he improving little by little?
Yulian became increasingly doubtful.
“Hey, Yulian.”
It was one morning.
Maylin appeared, yawning with sleepy eyes.
“Can you stop shouting Fa Jin or Fap Jin or whatever it is first thing in the morning?”
“Because I can’t get it to work...”
In this world, shouting a technique’s name was quite helpful.
“There’s no way it won’t work.”
“What?”
“I said, there’s no way you can’t.”
She pointed at Yulian.
“Yulian. You’re the Hero.”
“...”
At that moment, Yulian remembered what Tou always called him.
「Hey, Hero.」
「Hero.」
「You Hero bastard...」
Hero.
Words he had heard as though they were a given ever since arriving here...
They sounded different coming from Maylin.
“You’re the standard. So forget lofty, difficult words and methods like Tou’s Fa Jin. Do it the Yulian way.”
“I’m... the standard?”
“You don’t need some amazing technique. Just imagine soaking your fist in mana and hitting with it. The amount of mana Yulian can draw on is extraordinary, after all... Hmm...”
Come to think of it, she was a mage.
She used mana differently, but she was the true expert.
At least in theory, she knew every way mana could be used.
And so, she proposed a new name fitting for a new technique.
“Hmm... Mana... mana...”
* * *
「How about Mana Punch?」
Blue light flared in Jun-il’s eyes.
“Mana Punch!”
The mana gathered in his fist blazed explosively, blasting away the thing it refused to accept.
No, it did not stop at blasting it away.
“Graaah!?”
KRAAAASH!
Blue sparks erupted.
A huge hole was punched through the torso of the creature burning with black flames.
-?
-Huh?
-Gasp
-Damn
-What?
-Holy shit
-??
It was enough power to make even the Constellations who had been cheering for Jun-il spam question marks.
“...W-what is this?”
There was no need to explain how the demon felt as he looked down at his body, a massive hole punched through him.
His mind had to be filled with question marks.
“H-how... already... this much power?”
The demon muttered.
“Th-this isn’t part of the contract. This... this power...”
He seemed to know the source of this power.
But the wound he had suffered was already too great.
The Demon of Devouring had failed to devour properly.
He had no strength left to fill that enormous hole.
In the end, he would be sent back to where he had come from.
Knowing that, Jun-il merely adjusted his black cat mask.
‘This can’t fall off. That was close.’
The demon glared at his calm demeanor.
“You... Who are you? I, I will definitely! Definitely come back and eat you!”
Rumble...!
Regardless, the portal to Hell that would take him away had already formed above his head.
“Didn’t I ask who you are?!”
The Constellations answered in his place.
-L4GS! L4GS!
-Would “Line 4 Goblin Slayer” answer that!? Would “Line 4 Goblin Slayer” answer that!?
-This bastard is fucking strong. What is he?
-Moon Jun-il! Moon Jun-il! Moon Jun-il! Moon Jun-il!
-The F Rank boom is coming!
-Fuck, does this even make sense? LOL
-Mom, I want to be F Rank when I grow up! Mom, I want to be F Rank when I grow up! Mom, I want to be F Rank when I grow up!
-Holy shit
Of course, they were not saying that because they had heard the demon’s question.
It was simply a type of exclamation.
“Then who are you?”
Jun-il asked the demon in return.
“What... did you say?”
“Uh, uhahahahaha!”
The demon laughed.
With a hole in his stomach.
The body was not his own anyway.
“You defeated nothing but a shell like this and now you are full of yourself? You dare ask my name?”
A demon’s name and identity were directly tied to exorcism.
Unless he had contracted with someone, declared his dominion, or had to submit, he would not reveal them.
‘Just like before.’
He had asked his name as a test.
This world was the same as the ones Pam had sent him to.
“Well... You seem to have your reasons. Let me tell you my name.”
Jun-il offered his final farewell.
“What is it!?”
Even as his body was gradually pulled into the portal, the demon glared and demanded an answer.
“My name is Gluttony.”
“Gluttony, that’s a good na...”
The demon’s grinning face suddenly crumpled.
“T-that’s my name!?”
Whoosh!
With that, the demon vanished.
The portal had swallowed him.
-?
-What the fuck LOLLLLLLL
-Ack LOL
-What is this LOL
-How did he know???
-What LOL
-Is he a regressor??
-What is this teabagging? LOLLLLLLL
“Since he kept talking about eating, I just guessed.”
Jun-il calmly muttered a lie, swallowing up the Constellations’ doubts.
‘So he really was one of the Seven Deadly Sins.’
Calling it a guess was not a complete lie.
There were many demons that liked to eat.
He had simply named one of the weakest among them.
The beings who governed the Seven Deadly Sins in the human world.
Demons grew stronger the further they were from human understanding.
Those who governed sins with familiar names, familiar forms, and sins humans could easily understand were weak.
Gluttony, the one who governed overeating?
In modern society, where dieting was a lifelong task, there was probably no weaker bastard.
No one even considered it a sin.
‘Still, a demon is a demon.’
Sizzle...
Jun-il looked at his smoking fist.
A little blood was flowing from it.
If he had not surpassed one percent of his power, he would not have dealt with him so easily.
‘Good thing so many Constellations gathered.’
-Damn
-That’s S University for you
-Is this what an elite university is like?
-That teabagging was flawless too LOL
-Is the theory that F Rank is secretly EX true???
-Teabagging, holy shit LOL
Jun-il’s road ahead looked solid.
[Current Constellations Watching: 166]
The number of Constellations had increased considerably.
It was probably thanks to what he had just done.
[Inheritance of Incarnation ‘Hero - Yulian’]
[1.66% in progress]
The Inheritance had progressed further as well.
It was now heading toward two percent.
‘Good.’
Jun-il clenched and unclenched the hand that had used Mana Punch.
‘It’s been a long time since I used that.’
It had been a crude, brutish technique he had only used during his first run.
He did not know why that memory had suddenly surfaced, but without realizing it, he had thought it would be better to throw away the box cutter and strike with his fist.
‘Why...?’
That was when it happened.
Ding.
[You have successfully inherited part of the memories of Incarnation ‘Hero - Yulian’!]
So that was why his memories from the first run had suddenly returned.
‘Huh?’
It seemed the Inheritance gained functions as its progress increased.
[You have acquired the skill ‘Mana Punch’!]
A skill had appeared through the Inheritance.
No matter how much an F Rank leveled up, they were not supposed to gain skills.
‘Am I getting the techniques I used as Yulian?’
He had inherited Yulian’s memories.
Jun-il opened the description.
Ding.
[Mana Punch]
==== ====
Mastery: ★
Potential: C+
Description: A skill containing someone’s memories. Gather mana and strike hard.
==== ====
He did not like how half-hearted the description was.
But...
‘Potential C+...!’
It was the highest letter grade he had received since the world changed.
“Wow. C-plus~”
Who would have thought there would come a day when he would be happy to receive a C-plus?
-He got a skill?
-What? You can get them this way too?
-Amazing
-I’m so glad I watched Jun-il
-An F Rank with a skill? LOL That’s awesome
* * *
There were others who were not happy.
“W-what!?”
Fairy Corporation’s monitoring room.
It was Ram.
She grabbed Sam by the neck and lifted him up.
“Hey! You little shit! You said he’d win!”
“...Ghk...!?”
“You said he’d win!”
“Th-this... Ghk...!”
The monitor behind the dangling Sam displayed the Constellations’ reactions.
-?
-Did the man on the roof die?
-??
-What happened on the roof just now?
-Hae-il, what are you doing? ;ㅡㅡ
-Ugh, the protagonist is so frustrating. Get to the roof first, fuck.
-What the fuck is happening on the roof? Is he already dead?
-No, get to the roof first!
The reactions were not good.
It was easy to understand why Ram had lost her mind.
“Hae-il was supposed to get that, and that bastard took it! What are you going to do about it!?”
This was the debut stage of the protagonist she had poured so much effort into.
And some bastard had stolen the entire stage from him.
Unaware of that, Kang Hae-il was belatedly making his way toward that stage.
Footnotes:
“Fa Jin” is a martial arts term for releasing explosive force. Maylin’s “Fap Jin” joke localizes a Korean syllable swap that turns the technique’s name into “erection.”
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