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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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I gave the guys who were after my money a light lesson.
“One.”
“I will never!”
“Two.”
“Act up again!”
“One.”
“I will never!”
“Two.”
“Act up again!”
“At ease.”
Only at my words did the guys, who had been in a push-up position before, finally relax and sprawl out on the ground.
The sprawled-out guys didn’t seem to have any intention of sitting up straight or standing up.
They were so exhausted from the disciplining I had given them that they had no energy left to sit or stand up.
“A m-monster….”
“Hey… Wasn’t the Artist supposed to be an aura ability user…? How is he making our bodies heavy….”
“He used a sword, so I said he might be, but in the first place, I saw a post saying that he’s probably closer to a psionicist than an aura ability user….”
“Who knows…? Maybe he’s pressing down on our bodies with aura….”
Meanwhile, the guys who seemed to be in the best condition were having such a conversation.
Hmm…
So people thought I was either an aura ability user or a psionicist.
Making them think I was an aura ability user was something I had intended, but still, a psionicist….
‘Well, if they saw my sword flying around freely, they could mistake me for a psionicist.’
I had never heard of an aura ability user who had the ability to freely move their weapon after it had left their hand.
Of course, I had heard that there were those among the aura ability users who used weapons like bows or guns, and that the arrows and bullets they used didn’t draw a parabola and would curve, but it would be difficult to see even those moving as freely as when I used Sword Control.
‘…To have my main body pretend to be an aura ability user, do I have to seal techniques like Sword Control as well…?’
I thought that inwardly and looked at my watch.
It wouldn’t be bad to put these guys through a little more, but it was getting close to the time when the market shops would close.
In other words, I had no more time to play with these guys.
“Hey, you guys talking over there.”
“Y-yes, sir…!”
“What… is it…?”
“…You must be more comfortable than I thought. Should I put you through more until you don’t even have the energy to speak? Or should I make your bodies heavier?”
“No….”
At my words, the guys made an expression as if they were being wronged, but none of the other guys defended them.
It was probably because they were afraid that the trouble would spread to them.
No, wait a minute.
I have to go soon too, so I can’t put them through more, can I?
Thinking that, I decided to change my words.
“Well, whatever. All of you, get lost. I don’t want to waste any more time on the likes of you.”
I said that and got up from my spot.
And the guys, who hadn’t grasped the situation yet, stared blankly at me with foolish expressions.
“…What are you doing? Aren’t you going to get lost?”
“W-we need you to release this heaviness….”
Heaviness?
Ah, were they talking about how I had struck their acupoints?
I had indeed struck their numbing points to make their bodies heavy.
However….
“Why should I release it for you?”
What reason do I have to trust these guys?
“This… idiot…! I-I’m sorry!”
“Excuse us…!”
At my words, the other guys, afraid that I might change my mind, began to flee while somehow dragging their heavy bodies that were afflicted by the acupoint strike.
…If they rested quietly for a few days, the acupoints I had blocked would naturally open, but I didn’t bother to tell them that.
In the end, they were contemptible guys who had targeted me, so I had no good feelings for them.
‘More importantly, I need to look around more before the market shops close.’
Thinking that, I left the deserted alley and began to look around the market I had been browsing through until just now.
How much time had passed since then?
‘…Tsk, as expected, there’s nothing that catches my eye.’
After checking the goods on the market stalls for a while, I clicked my tongue inwardly.
Well, it was hard to expect that a product good enough to catch my eye would be sold in a market like this.
Such items all went to the government-run market, or if not, the finder would usually use them themselves.
Still, with a sliver of hope, I continued to look around the market, but in the end, I was unable to find any decent items, so I just bought some rare minerals from a dungeon and some metals refined from them.
I bought them thinking that it was a kind of investment.
‘The prices of items from dungeons will continue to rise from now on.’
The Greenskin Wave that had happened in Yeouido.
An anomaly that occurred not just in Korea, but all over the world.
As I said before, the Black Fog, which had overexerted itself to cause the anomaly, would reduce its activities for about 10 years to recover.
The Black Fog reducing its activities for about 10 years meant that the number of dungeons that would appear in the next 10 years would also decrease.
As such, the value of monster byproducts or minerals from dungeons was bound to rise.
Still, since dungeons wouldn’t disappear entirely, the price increase would also stop at a certain point.
‘Later on, it becomes common to not clear a dungeon to the end on purpose, but to finish the clear only after extracting all the resources inside.’
It was a matter for the future anyway, and that in itself wasn’t a problem. Also, since people who were going to do it would do it no matter what I said, I had no intention of stopping them.
In the first place, if it hadn’t been for the capacity issue of my subspace artifact, I would have taken everything that was in the Wyvern dungeon.
At times like this, I was dissatisfied with the capacity of the subspace artifact on my arm.
‘…Actually, for an artifact the size of a small bracelet that fits on my arm to have enough internal space to hold several Wyvern corpses at once is already ridiculous, but….’
Was this what they meant when they said that human greed knows no bounds?
While thinking that, I bought rare minerals and metals and put them in the subspace.
Since minerals and metals wouldn’t deteriorate over a long storage period, their value would merely continue to rise just by leaving them in the subspace.
Moreover, the minerals and metals I bought were already rare even at this point in time, so in the future when they became even rarer, I would be able to sell them off at a much higher price.
It was when I, who was thinking that, had filled a part of the subspace with the purchased minerals and metals…
“Shall we have a drink today too?”
“What, don’t tell me you weren’t planning on drinking?”
“Haha! No way!”
…That a group of Awakeners passed by me while having such a conversation.
These Awakeners seemed to have just finished clearing a dungeon and had just sold the byproducts they had obtained from it at a trading post.
For an Awakener, clearing a dungeon and selling the byproducts obtained from it at a trading post was a natural routine.
And since there were many Awakeners who wanted to drink afterward in what they called an after-party, there were also many pubs clustered in the market where the trading posts were gathered.
‘…I’d better head back quickly.’
If Awakeners started to flock to the pubs, and if a drunk Awakener were to cause a commotion, the surroundings would get noisy.
I didn’t want to get caught up in such a disturbance.
Although, for the most part, the comrades of the Awakener who caused the disturbance would usually subdue them on their own.
It was when I was thinking about that and was about to continue walking…
“Here….”
“Ah, right. You’re a minor, right? I’ll give you your share, so you just go home.”
“Ah, thank you.”
…When I heard a voice that was both unfamiliar and familiar to me.
It was from a woman who seemed to be a member of the Awakener group that had just brushed past me….
No….
‘A high school girl?’
Turning my head slightly, I saw that the woman, who seemed to be the porter in that Awakener group, was wearing the uniform of the nearby Awakener-specialized high school.
…A high school student working as a porter was not illegal.
No, rather, even the high schools encouraged their students to go to dungeons with veteran Awakeners as part of a field trip or an internship.
So it wasn’t strange for a high school student to work as a porter.
‘But what is it? That child….’
However, for some reason, the female student who was repeatedly bowing her head and saying thank you after receiving her meager share caught my eye.
Her voice, and the fact that she was a high school girl…
“Ah, and let’s end the contract for today. I think I know why your evaluation is so low.”
“…What? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no matter how much you want to save your aura… I know you’re an aura user, so what’s your reason for not using aura while butchering? Thanks to you, the blade of the butchering dagger is all worn out.”
“Th-that’s….”
“Consider yourself lucky that I didn’t deduct the dagger repair cost, okay?”
“…Yes. Thank you.”
I turned my head slightly and looked at the Awakener group having that conversation.
‘…She didn’t use aura while butchering….’
Since a monster’s body tended to be tough, the work of cutting up a monster’s corpse, butchering, was a difficult task to do with just a simple dagger.
Just as the Awakener who had just fired the high school girl said, the blade of the butchering dagger could be damaged, and in severe cases, the dagger could even break.
So, if an aura ability user was butchering, it was right for them to use aura for most of the process.
While thinking that, I looked at the high school girl who was bowing her head low and checking the money she had received.
Well, even if I had been the Awakener who had hired her, I would have made the same judgment as the Awakener who had just fired her.
Seeing as the high school girl herself didn’t protest, though she wore an expression of being wronged, it seemed like she also recognized that her actions were sufficient grounds for being fired.
‘That’s how strange the high school girl’s actions were.’
Still, I had a rough idea of why that high school girl didn’t use aura… no, to be precise, why she couldn’t use aura.
The Eyes of a Grand Master, which the Awakener System had given to me as a reward for completing and learning the Divine Art of Harmony, could see the cause clearly.
‘First, all the meridians in her body are blocked.’
With that, she couldn’t operate her aura.
No, if it had been just that, it might have been solvable by receiving treatment.
The biggest problem was something else.
‘The Middle Dantian that produces aura… that is, her heart, is not functioning properly.’
No, it wasn’t just her heart.
The Lower Dantian where I gathered my internal energy, and the Upper Dantian… that is, her brain, were also not functioning properly.
There was no hindrance to her life activities, but she wouldn’t be able to produce the energies discovered after the Black Fog appeared… whether it was mana, aura, psychic power, and so on.
With that, there was no way her body could accept aura, even if she had obtained the ability from the Awakener System.
In other words, that high school girl was an aura ability user who couldn’t use aura.
‘As expected, she’s the person I know.’
And I knew one person who had the same constitution as that high school girl… No, there was a high chance that this high school girl was the same person as the one in my memories.
Furthermore, that person was someone who had a rather deep connection with the pre-regression me.
‘Because of our pre-regression connection, I was thinking of visiting the place where she lived someday, but… I never thought I’d see her like this.’
Her name was Yeon Mi-rae.
And the epithet attached to her before my regression was….
‘Sword Blossom.’
A title given to her because she performed a beautiful, flower-like swordsmanship.
However, this title wasn’t given to her with merely good intentions.
Her appearance and her swordsmanship were as beautiful as a flower… but at the same time, it was also a derogatory title meaning that was all there was to her.
It meant that she was beautiful, but she lacked substance.
She was a sword genius who had awakened as an aura ability user, but ironically, she was a half-baked ability user who couldn’t properly cut down monsters because she couldn’t use aura.
‘She was called… the Unfortunate Genius.’
Thanks to that, she wasn’t called upon for dungeon clears, and instead, she was a woman who made a living by teaching her swordsmanship to others.
And….
‘Master.’
She was the woman who had served as my swordsmanship master when I was in the middle of creating my martial arts in the past.
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T/N – Well, here is harem candidate number two! I want to make a sarcastic remark here about this ‘coincidence’, but the MC mentioned wanting to seek her out later anyway to help her out with her condition. I guess the earlier the better? 🤷♂️
Anywho, I wonder how many more heroines will appear? I hope the author doesn’t go too crazy with the number of women…
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
