WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 8: Great Exorcist Order Headquarters (4)

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‘It really does make me angry. I respect my seniors thoroughly, yet no one respects me in return.’

Ise realized that he had somehow adapted to the senior-junior culture among cultivators.

If he heard one more word, he felt he would be forced to teach them manners, beginning with, “You insect-like fifth-star Qi Condensation Realm brat.”

Of course, there had to be a reason they behaved so shamelessly.

They treated him as a senior well enough, but did not truly respect him.

They had people behind them.

Parents, relatives, siblings. All of them were cultivators who had settled down and put down roots here. Their confidence came from believing that no one would dare lay a hand on them.

If he was going to deal with people like that, he had to crush them so thoroughly that they would never dare rise up again.

Punishing bullies had always been part of Ise’s life.

Those who attacked him were driven until they felt the fear of death. Those who tried to kill him had their throats torn out.

That was not just his resolve. He had actually lived that way.

There had only been one exception, the mercy he had shown the young dokkaebi at Gwisu Temple.

Their bullying had been almost cute by comparison, but more than that, he had been able to let it go because of the kindness Mongryeon had shown him.

Something in Ise’s presence shifted.

The pureblood cultivators seemed to sense the change instinctively.

“...Then we’ll be going.”

Ju Guyeon pretended nothing was wrong as he offered his farewell and slowly turned away. The other pureblood cultivators hurried off after him.

“Ugh... They even took all the Spiritual Stones I’d saved... I was going to use them to buy books about immortal cuisine.”

“Wait. They took your Spiritual Stones?”

“Yes. They called it a settlement fee...”

Those thieves were worse than demons.

Stealing someone else’s Spiritual Stones was, quite literally, a crime worthy of death.

Some of Buchun’s Spiritual Stones had even come from Ise. It was no exaggeration to say that his own money had been stolen.

Ise immediately reached into his storage pouch, then called out to the cultivators walking away.

“Wait. Come here.”

Ise’s voice stopped them in their tracks.

Ju Guyeon halted abruptly. After hesitating for a moment, he awkwardly turned his head.

“...What is it, Senior?”

“I said come here.”

“...”

“Should I come over there?”

At those words, Ju Guyeon reluctantly approached. Ise did not bother calling the others over.

He raised a hand in front of Ju Guyeon.

Then he lightly brushed Ju Guyeon’s shoulder and forearm a few times, straightening his robes.

“...?”

“Keep yourself neat. You’re a cultivator.”

“...Don’t pick pointless fights.”

Ju Guyeon frowned and pulled away. Then he led his group off at a quick pace.

Buchun, who had watched the scene in a daze, cautiously spoke up.

“Senior. What powder did you put on him just now?”

“It’s nothing. Just a lesson in manners.”

Without offering any further explanation, Ise slipped his hand inside his robes.

Then he gave Buchun a light scolding.

“Anyway, take better care of yourself. This is the world of immortal cultivation. Did you really need to get worked up and charge at them?”

“I didn’t charge at them. I just... properly protested because what they said was too cruel. Does that mean they get to take my resources too?”

“Were you always like this?”

“...Not really. I’m sorry, Senior. I got carried away.”

Ise snorted with laughter. The image of Buchun on their first day in the Library Pavilion, helplessly giving up a cultivation manual, faintly overlapped with the person before him. Buchun had certainly changed quite a bit.

“Where are your quarters?”

“Geojin Building 9, third floor.”

“I’m in Cheongyu Pavilion One. It’s right up ahead.”

“Wow, as expected of a disciple the order has high hopes for. You were assigned somewhere nice.”

“Are there good and bad places even within headquarters?”

“Heh heh, you’ll see once you go inside. Geojin Building is barely any different from the Training Compound dormitories.”

Buchun hesitated for a moment, then continued as if they had made up their mind.

“...I’ve decided to become a duty worker instead of a mission worker.”

“Mm. That seems like a good choice.”

“Yes. I’m going to properly learn business. I’ve watched and learned from you, Senior. I want to learn how to run a shop, manage immortal-cuisine ingredients, and cook them.”

Surprise appeared in Ise’s eyes. The meaning behind Buchun’s words was clear.

“Of course, since my Spiritual Stones were stolen, I’ll have to take missions for a while...”

Buchun swallowed once more before adding in a serious tone.

“Senior... If you permit it, I want to become your hands and feet. Officially. I’ll help you focus on cultivation and demon hunting, and through the byproducts, I want to pursue my own immortal cultivation.”

It was a frank confession.

Strictly speaking, Buchun was not especially talented, and surviving as a mission worker would not be easy. It was not a matter of spiritual-root aptitude. Buchun’s nature simply did not suit demon hunting.

Buchun knew that well, so Buchun had chosen to find a way to make himself useful.

Besides, Buchun knew many people and worked quickly. Thinking of how Buchun had sold out the meal vouchers at Dine and Go in an instant, Ise knew Buchun was at least one step above him when it came to social skills and calculations.

No one could do everything alone.

Ise had begun to understand that little by little.

Watching delicate flowers reach the fifth star of the Qi Condensation Realm through nothing but support from those around them, without ever going on a single demon-hunting mission, had only made him more certain.

“Fine.”

He needed influence and people of his own as well.

“Really? You mean it?!”

“But keep cultivating diligently. You never know when a fortuitous encounter might come to a cultivator.”

“Yes, Senior! I’ll definitely prove that I’m useful!”

Buchun clenched both fists excitedly. The sight was so determined that Ise watched with satisfaction.

“Then follow me for a moment. We have something important to do today.”

Even at Ise’s natural commanding tone, Buchun followed without complaint.

Western Cheongyu Pavilion One, Ise’s room. He pushed open the heavy iron door.

“...All of this is my room?”

“Wow! As expected of Cheongyu Pavilion... It’s far, far better than the rumors said. If Cheongyu Pavilion is this good, I can’t imagine how impressive the residences of Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators must be...”

Cheongyu Pavilion was a cluster of buildings that looked like tiled houses had been cut into neat squares and packed closely together. At a glance, its structure resembled a beehive.

A small exclamation escaped Ise’s mouth as he stepped inside.

There was more than one room. There was a separate bedroom, an additional space, and another small room beside it.

‘At this rate, I could set up an immortal-cuisine workshop right inside my quarters.’

Happy calculations raced through Ise’s mind.

At the Training Compound, he had only had enough space to lie down, so there had been no choice. Here, though, he could easily make one of the rooms into a workspace.

Outside the window stretched the view of Cheongyu Park.

Bare branches swayed in the wind. Beyond them lay a pond covered by a thin layer of ice and a pavilion.

Apart from the three rooms, there was also a separate washing area.

Along with a somewhat strange notice.

「Fill the water container directly with the Jet Stream Art. Place a spark in the warming furnace on the right with the Fire-Release Art, and hot water will come out. Semi-automatic.」

Ise found the wording unfamiliar and amusing. Semi-automatic? Was it some concept like a spinning wheel?

After filling the container with water and placing in a spark as instructed, he heard a strange humming sound. When he placed his hand near the round, hemispherical jade, warm water actually came out.

‘The Great Exorcist Order... is incredible.’

It was an impressively mysterious waste.

They could have simply handed out a cleansing spell for free instead of selling it for Spiritual Stones like misers.

The largest room even had a safe built into one wall, but with a storage pouch, Ise had no particular use for it.

Instead of storing valuables there, he decided to neatly put away the cold stones and immortal-cuisine ingredients that he had planned to keep at the butcher shop.

After finishing the packing, Ise lightly dusted off his hands.

‘Now then, shall I go teach the Great Exorcist Order a lesson?’

After drinking the Scent-Chasing Water, Ise gestured for Buchun to follow.

He had originally planned to go alone, but it would be better for Buchun to learn a little in advance about the nature hidden beneath Ise’s kindness.

* * *

The Scent-Chasing Water led them to the training district.

For all their swagger, the pureblood disciples at least had enough sense to go train immediately.

It was at the northeastern edge of headquarters.

Dozens of large and small sparring platforms stood scattered around the area, with tall trees densely planted between them to block the view from one platform to another.

It was a measure to ensure privacy during training.

“I heard only cultivators with reservations can use this place?”

“Yeah. I know.”

Ise had already reached the area near the sparring platform where Ju Guyeon’s group had begun training.

Noisy sounds came from inside.

Ise walked to the entrance of the platform and drove the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner into the ground, filling it with spiritual energy.

The warding barrier quickly expanded its domain.

Its range had grown remarkably compared to when he had first used the sacred relic.

The warding barrier swallowed every cultivator on the sparring platform.

“Make sure no one pulls this out.”

Leaving those words behind, Ise walked inside.

Ju Guyeon and the other pureblood cultivator brothers were in the middle of practicing with real weapons.

‘The only thing I lack is real combat.’

Ju Guyeon exchanged merciless strikes with his brothers, his heart burning.

His pride had been wounded by the fact that he had felt pressure and fear, even for a moment, before that Training Compound disciple.

The difference between their realms was only one step.

He had never felt so intimidated when facing other sixth-star Qi Condensation Realm disciples.

They were within the same minor realm boundary anyway. Ju Guyeon had thought it was a difference he could overcome with only a little effort.

What he lacked in the end was practical combat experience.

That bastard could give off such a murderous presence because he had been through real combat.

Ju Guyeon, on the other hand, had never experienced truly raw battle.

He seriously believed that was his only weakness.

“More! Put more into your swings!”

“Senior Brother, you’ll get hurt!”

“Come at me even if I do!”

The real-weapon sparring among the pureblood cultivators was fairly fierce. Blades filled with spiritual energy traded through the air with considerable force.

Then, all at once, the spiritual energy contained within their weapons scattered away.

They had only begun to react to the strange change when a familiar voice reached their ears.

“...Are you people playing around? What, are you practicing a dance?”

At the voice, more than a dozen people stopped moving at once.

At the entrance to the sparring platform, Ise slowly emerged from the shade of a tree, rolling his shoulders.

Ju Guyeon’s brow twisted.

“What are you doing, Senior? We rented this sparring platform through the proper process. Even as a senior, you cannot enter without permission. Do you find the Great Exorcist Order’s rules amusing?”

“Of course not. I didn’t know.”

“If you knew, leave at once...”

“But it’s fine.”

Ise casually rolled one wrist, then loosened his neck with a few turns.

“I’ll get your permission soon enough.”

The moment he finished speaking, Ise’s figure vanished.

The next instant, a yellow shield flew straight at Ju Guyeon’s face.

Ju Guyeon instinctively tried to draw up spiritual energy.

Yet it stopped where it should have flowed. Like stagnant water in a pond, it would not budge.

‘...What is this?’

The moment he understood, the shield brutally slammed into his face.

Ju Guyeon’s body flew to the end of the sparring platform like an arrow released from a bowstring.

“Eldest Senior Brother!”

“You brute!”

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

The cultivators stared in stunned disbelief at the abrupt, brutal violence.

“I was going to let it go.”

Ise spoke as he walked toward the nearest pureblood cultivator.

“But if I let it go, I think you people will soon die far from home. So as your senior, I have no choice but to teach you something important.”

When you met a senior of a higher realm, watch how you behaved.

‘Please spare me, Senior.’

How important that plea was.

“We’ll take off the realm labels and fight. Fairly. With body arts only.”

The pureblood cultivators struggled to draw up spiritual energy. Yet not a single person’s spiritual energy responded.

They did not know what Ise had done, but from the way he spoke, he meant to seal their spiritual energy and fight using only their physical abilities.

If that was the case, what did the realm difference matter?

There were more than ten of them. Was this not an advantage for them instead?

The pureblood cultivators exchanged brief glances.

“You can all come at me at once. Come at me as hard as you want. Even if I lose, I swear on my birth parents’ names and honor that I won’t make an issue of it.”

Ise gave them brief permission. As if they had been waiting for those words alone, the cultivators rushed at him.

Footnotes:

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