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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Vine
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Immediately after the lieutenant left, Sanyeo and I talked again.
It was about the Duel Assassin. Sanyeo had a puzzled expression even after hearing the name.
“Duel Assassin. I’ve never heard of that name. It’s like they’ve started using him recently, or he was someone they used very discreetly.”
“They say that he’s almost at the first-rate level, can I even face him?”
Sanyeo smiled at my words. She seemed to react strongly when I showed signs of weakness.
“Almost first-rate and first-rate are different. Just like how someone who is almost at the peak and a true master is different. The difference in levels, you see, it’s like the difference between holding onto the doorknob and being inside the room.”
“Isn’t it almost the same? I can’t really tell the difference.”
When I thought about her analogy, it sounded surprisingly close. Sanyeo turned her head. Her gaze was directed toward the storage.
“If you’re holding onto the doorknob, can you bring out the things inside? Can you even know what kind of things are inside? If you don’t even understand the essence of it, then how can you say that you’ve almost reached it?”
She looked back at me. She was staring intently with her red eyes, and her energy wrapped around us. A suffocating feeling, as if we were trapped inside some kind of intangible sphere.
“Do-cheol, you are skilled enough to face even those at the second-rate level now. The training that we’ve piled up and your talent is a testament to that.”
I asked Sanyeo while staring intently,
“Do you believe in me?”
Sanyeo answered without any hesitation.
“Of course.”
Her confident answer seemed to crush the small sense of unease that had been within me.
“Hahahaha!”
I started to laugh loudly. Sanyeo blinked her red eyes like warning lights, seemingly not expecting my reaction, and stared intently at me. Her lips were turned down when she was focusing her gaze, making her look like a doll.
I stopped laughing. And then I looked straight into her red eyes and said,
“If you believe in me, I have to win.”
Sanyeo raised her head. Looking down at me, she said in a mischievous tone,
“If you lose, I’m going to run away.”
“Then I’ll crawl out of my grave to catch you. You said you’d make me the strongest in the world. You can’t run away.”
“If that’s the case…”
Sanyeo rolled her eyes, as if trying to find the right words.
And then she walked toward the middle of the courtyard and drew a line with her foot. The line on the dirt floor had a large curve like waves drawn by a sailor. At the end of the curve, there was Sanyeo in her stance.
“We have to train, right? This time, let’s try using your left hand more effectively in battle.”
Damn it.
There was nothing I could say.
Because the duel competition was approaching.
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They say that the duel competition is the closest thing to hell. Gamblers, who had money on the competitors, and those who wished for someone’s death would mix in, and an infernal scream would ring out with every match.
Even with the sudden duel competition, gamblers were busy making bets just by looking at the names on the match list. And on a platform looking over the gamblers, a muscular man was sitting in a chair, looking down at them.
He could clearly hear the gamblers shouting from where he was sitting.
“Do-cheol! Are there any takers for Do-cheol? The new leader of the Hongryun Sect! Do-cheol!”
No one was betting on Do-cheol. Unlike other participants, Do-cheol was almost a nobody. The man said while looking at the scene,
“No one’s taking him. I guess the news that he’ll be killed at the competition was leaked.”
The middle-aged man beside him glared at him and said,
“Watch your mouth.”
The man frowned at the middle-aged man’s words and said,
“I don’t understand why you’re so wary of some guy named Do-cheol. Not only that, you even inserted that madman from the Demonic Sects. What if that Violet Night Sword guy causes an accident at the competition? Wouldn’t that be a headache for you?”
“It’s better if he causes an accident. It becomes a cause for us to remove him on the spot.”
The man leaned against the back of his chair. An ominous sound rang out from the back of the chair due to his heavy weight. The middle-aged man briefly looked at the man before looking away.
“I don’t care who kills who, as long as I get paid, but I feel like this is an excessive investment. This is like using a butcher knife to kill a chicken, isn’t it?”
“Don’t they say it’s better to be safe than sorry? It’s better to be overprepared. But still, that Violet Night Sword is late. I clearly told him to come here today, two days before the competition.”
“Maybe he ran away? He’s also a seasoned guy, so he would have known something was up.”
“He’s a guy with no future even if he ran away. He’s made too many enemies.”
The middle-aged man said that and tapped the armrest of the chair.
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Violet Night Sword (紫冥劍)
People gave him the nickname Violet Night Sword after seeing his sword stained with poison. If someone was scratched by his sword, their body would stiffen, and they would be consumed by fatigue.
He was a madman from the Demonic Sects who enjoyed humiliating and killing his opponents while they couldn’t move by stabbing them with a dagger or by hanging them.
Because of that, he had many enemies. He had to hide his face, and the Violet Night Sword that he could call his pride wasn’t something that he could bring out so easily. He, who had initially reveled in his notoriety, had felt tired for the first time after seeing an arrow fly towards him.
He felt as if people were bothering him too much.
From his perspective, having so many who considered him as an enemy was very unfair and strange. How many true evils existed in this world? If he was to compare himself to them, having so many people waste their energy on himself, who could be considered as a minor evil, was something he couldn’t comprehend.
He had accepted this request from the Martial Alliance to escape from that fatigue. If he just took one head, just one, he would be able to escape safely to Heilongjiang.
And after he went to Heilongjiang, he could start his hobby again.
“Hhot!”
A happy laugh escaped him, imagining the future. But unlike his laughter, the Violet Night Sword was trembling his legs on a rock, feeling uneasy. Because he had so many enemies, he would feel a sense of unease in a shady forest.
An enemy could appear at any time. Even though he had confirmed that he wasn’t being followed, he scanned his surroundings a few times with his heart filled with unease.
“To even choose an isolated place like this…”
Although he could understand the reason, the Violet Night Sword was still feeling annoyed. Because even if he was the one who had chosen a meeting place, he would have picked an isolated place like this, he was feeling even more annoyed. He was panting and frowning as he examined the presences around him.
“Hmm?”
He briefly focused, and then he felt a certain presence nearby, which he had not felt before. His face paled, he took out his sword, and shouted,
“Wh, who is it?!”
A purple sword sliced through the air with a peculiar trajectory. The Violet Night Sword looked at the other person before speaking, his face even more pale now,
“Wh, what? You’re not the guy from the Martial Alliance.”
“I’m Im Seo-ryeon of the Hengsan Sect. He had some business so I’ve come instead.”
Im Seo-ryeon said that in a monotonous voice. Her calm voice and her beautiful appearance helped the Violet Night Sword quickly regain his senses. He shook his head and said,
“H, Hengsan Sect? Th, th, that place with only women? Ah, I see. You surprised me.”
The Violet Night Sword put his sword away. Im Seo-ryeon pointed past his shoulders after seeing that he had removed his hand from the sword and said,
“Is that guy with you?”
“Who are you talking about?”
The Violet Night Sword, his nervousness relieved, turned his head. But there was nothing but trees.
“What the…”
The Violet Night Sword hurriedly moved his hand to his sword hilt, and a sharp pain shot through his neck. Im Seo-ryeon’s sword had left its scabbard and had cut diagonally. The tree beside the Violet Night Sword was cleanly cut down.
The Violet Night Sword froze in the posture where he had placed his hand on his sword. His eyes had already lost focus, and his body was tilting like a falling tree. Im Seo-ryeon caught the Violet Night Sword’s body with her foot, and rolled it into the bushes.
After rolling a few times, the body tumbled down the hill, and Im Seo-ryeon took out a shovel and sighed.
“…I have to hurry.”
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The middle-aged man raised his head. The man he had sent on an errand was returning in the distance. The awkward looking man flinched after seeing the large, muscular man beside the middle-aged man.
“Why did you come back alone? I clearly told you to bring him back.”
“I waited for a long time at the meeting place, but he didn’t show up. When I asked people around, they said they saw someone who matched his description entering the forest, but it’s strange that he didn’t show up at the meeting place.”
“Uhaha!”
The large man started to laugh loudly. The middle-aged man’s face had become completely red, and he was silently cursing.
The large man laughed heartily and said,
“Sir! Don’t you worry! I’ll take care of everything! Uhaha!”
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Thanks vine you cutie!