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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Vine
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“It’s a strange feeling.”
I raised my head from the floor where I had been lying. Sanyeo was looking up at the sky with her fingers intertwined. She fidgeted with her hands that were tangled like a fence and put on a languid smile, before looking back at me and saying,
“Do you know what I thought when I came back here?”
I rubbed my face and said,
“That you needed to beat up Do-cheol since you were annoyed from sleeping outside.”
“Oh my, how did you know?”
Sanyeo blinked and asked back. The way she responded to a joke with another joke was even more annoying.
“You seemed even more enthusiastic today. You said you’d adjust to the second-rate level, but if that was second-rate, then first-rate must be shooting energy blasts.”
I frowned as I rubbed my waist and my chest. After crossing paths with Sanyeo, who had returned, her movements had become even sharper than before. Although she had said she’d adjust to the second-rate level, I didn’t think that was the case at all. Each and every one of her blows was heavier, and her attacks, which came aiming for my blind spots, were at a speed that I couldn’t match.
She dusted the dirt off her feet.
“I was a little frustrated so I might have gone a little harder, but in a way, this is also part of your training, right? What if the setting was that you were facing an opponent who was hiding their true skill? Like ‘I’m actually first-rate, but I was acting as if I was second-rate in front of you.’ Something like that.”
When I thought about it, it made sense. Which made me even more frustrated.
“I wouldn’t have anything to say if I lost to someone like that. It makes sense.”
“The excuse that you didn’t know is meaningless after you die. You can’t even complain when that happens.”
She said that and glossed over how intensely we had been training today. Since I was the one receiving the training, I had no intention of pursuing it further, so I went back to the main topic.
“So, what were you thinking when you came back?”
Sanyeo tilted her head at my words, then tossed her head back, and her hair fluttered. Although she wasn’t wearing any accessories, the fluttering seemed to make a sound as if beads were colliding. She looked down at me and said,
“Ah, I’m finally back.”
I didn’t respond. Seon-go was also looking at Sanyeo strangely. Sanyeo looked at us and said,
“After having that thought, I suddenly felt strange when I regained my senses. It’s not like this is the place that I’m supposed to return to, why would I even return? A person’s heart is so strange, it becomes careless and does strange things even when relaxed just a little bit.”
“I know how that feels.”
I had also felt that before. It was when I was in the military. When I was returning after field training, I had unconsciously said this to my subordinate who had been beside me.
‘Let’s go home.’
I had felt strange after saying those words, and even when I was resting in the barracks, it didn’t feel like I was truly resting. Seon-go was startled and said,
“Huh? Do-cheol, are you saying that you don’t consider this as your home either?”
I shook my head and sat next to Seon-go. And then I stroked her hair and said,
“No, this is my home. With my wife and the place that I govern, what else would it be if not home? I’m just saying that I had felt those kinds of emotions before.”
Sanyeo seemed indifferent to us acting like lovey-dovey newlyweds. She said to me,
“I appreciate you understanding me.”
“I’ll do it any time, just say the word.”
Seon-go leaned against my chest when I was talking to Sanyeo. Since she was like a cat that clung to me whenever we were talking, I fidgeted with her cheek with my finger. It was so soft that it felt nice to touch.
Sanyeo raised her shackled hands and said,
“Since we managed to overcome the inspection, they’ll probably come up with another method. They won’t be trying to push you out peacefully, they’ll be targeting your head.”
“What do you mean targeting my head?”
“If they were to use a simple method, they’d just send an assassin. That’s easy to resolve, but it’s troublesome afterward.”
“If they send an assassin that I’m unable to handle at my level, and if I end up killing him, then it will definitely be troublesome.”
Of course, there was no way that I would ever end up killing an assassin. If an assassin that I couldn’t handle was sent to me, Sanyeo would quietly take care of it. Sanyeo nodded and said,
“That’s right. They’ll start to be wary of you. They’ll think that you have some kind of backing, or a hidden card. Giving them a reason for the Martial Alliance to be wary of you is not a good thing.”
I didn’t want assassins coming into my house. For me, home was a place where I could stretch out my legs and sleep comfortably.
“What’s another way? Do they have another method of taking care of people?”
Sanyeo casually turned her gaze away. Seon-go was listening to us with an amused expression. She was holding onto rice crackers, munching on them while listening to our conversation as if she were part of the audience. When I lowered my head and looked at her, Seon-go looked back and forth between us, broke off a piece of her rice cracker, and offered it to me.
“…Would you like some?”
Sanyeo smiled. I chuckled and took the cracker that she had offered. Seon-go stood up and took out more rice crackers from a plate beside her, and then offered it to Sanyeo. Sanyeo personally walked toward Seon-go and took it, saying,
“Thank you.”
It was better to be nonchalant than flustered and fussing over worries. Sanyeo grabbed the cracker with both hands and then said,
“There are a few ways for the Martial Alliance to take care of someone that they don’t like. Frame them for murder. Frame them for corruption. Kill them off with an ‘accident’.”
“What’s killing off with an ‘accident’?”
Although I understood the contexts for the other two, I didn’t know what she meant by an accident. Did they just push them off a building or something? Or drop a large stone on them?
Sanyeo looked at me strangely, as if she knew what kind of thoughts I was having. I awkwardly averted my gaze, and she continued,
“Like saying they were accidentally killed during a duel, or during a spar or something. There are many situations where it could be considered an accident, right? A man without any backing like you wouldn’t be able to say anything if you died.”
“Ah, an ‘accident’ that happened during a spar, huh?”
“That’s right. It could be said that the opponent carelessly used a powerful technique, and you were unable to defend against it. There are more people who die like that than you think. And there are also experts in ‘accidents’ that happen during spars, amongst high level martial artists from the Demonic Sects.”
“There are people who purposely try to kill during spars?”
“Of course. There are many people who like the notoriety that follows their names. How unsightly, those bastards who just shrug their shoulders when people whisper, ‘I heard they even killed a man during a duel’?”
Sanyeo mimicked the whispering and showed her dislike of those people. And then, shaking her head, she added,
“The current Martial Alliance doesn’t try to push away such people to uphold justice in the martial world. Instead, they actively utilize such people to remove those who go against them.”
She clenched her shackled hands. The hard shackles did not budge, even though she was pulling on them.
“Do-cheol, I don’t want you to die pointlessly after being caught up in those bastards’ schemes.”
She gestured to the courtyard. I didn’t understand what she meant and took another bite of the rice cracker. Sanyeo said to me with a smile still on her face,
“What are you doing? I mean, you should train more. We need to intensify your training so you can react to any situation.”
This bitch.
I cursed inwardly, and dashed out towards the courtyard. Seon-go had raised her body, as if she had never been lying there, and shouted,
“Do-cheol! Do your best!”
Along with her cheerful cheer,
Thwack!
“Ack! Damn it!”
I was hit in the face without even being able to react.
“What do you think you’re doing, looking away?”
Sanyeo said that and then changed her footwork. Her legs were moving like whips, so much so that I couldn’t grasp their trajectory at all. When I tried to roughly defend with my ax, Sanyeo’s leg disappeared before my eyes and then plunged downwards from a strange direction.
“Damn it!”
“You can’t just blindly try to block. You have to get used to the speed. You have to follow them with your eyes until the very end, and read their trajectory.”
It was easy to say. But it was too hard to do. Because I couldn’t even see the trajectory. I gnashed my teeth and said,
“It’s impossible for me to see, are you sure that this is an attack that I can even defend at my level?”
Thump.
The next attack stopped right before it hit my arm. Sanyeo’s smooth thigh was extended straight.
She slowly put down her leg like a crane and then took a step back before saying,
“Focus your gaze. You can see it. You’re not able to see it because you’re thinking that my level is too high. Just think like this. It’s nothing special.”
It was easy to say. But it was hard to actually do it. How could I possibly look down on her when she seemed so overwhelmingly powerful?
Was that even possible?
Sanyeo said after looking at my expression,
“Even if you can’t do it, I’m going to keep training at this level. It can’t be helped even if it’s unfair. It’s not like every fight in the world is fair, is it?”
She was right.
Even if I didn’t like it, I had to do it. As she said, it was pathetic to just die while making excuses if I met someone stronger than me. There were countless fights that were more unfair than this spar with her. Such an unfair fight might be right around the corner.
If I thought like that, then this spar with her was nothing.
“Huu….”
I took a deep breath.
She was raising her leg diagonally. Her feet looked like a sharp spear, and then, the next moment, they became blurry and disappeared.
I quickly moved my eyes, trying to follow the afterimage. I couldn’t see the trajectory of her feet. But I could clearly see the afterimage left behind as they moved.
The leg that she had raised to my right side was now plunging downwards from the front.
“Damn it!”
Clang!
A metallic sound echoed, and my body moved back by a step. My ax blade shook, and Sanyeo was looking at me with her leg still raised. I panted and looked at her.
“This is it, right?”
I could do this.
The challenge she had posed wasn’t anything at all.
If I was to become the king of the world, something like this wasn’t anything.
I tightly gripped my ax.
I could clearly see Sanyeo’s lips curling up.
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Thanks vine!