Chapter 50
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 50
Chapter Title: Martial Academy Life (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"From now on, this will be your room."
"Yes."
"Yep!"
The bear-like man, Instructor Cheolwoong, led them to the innermost room in the dormitory.
The Martial Academy was fundamentally a dormitory lifestyle.
For someone like me with nowhere else to go, this was a ray of light.
Coming to the Martial Academy had truly been the right choice.
The one assigned to the same room as me was a short man with a nameplate reading number 7.
Being number 7, he must have some important role—his appearance was certainly striking.
How should I put it? A face radiating boyish charm.
With his hair tied back long, he could easily be mistaken for a girl at a glance.
But his voice and the fact that he was roomed with me made it clear he was a man.
True to his looks, the man responded to Instructor Cheolwoong's words with diligence and energy.
"Then get some rest today."
"Yep!"
Once Cheolwoong left, an awkward silence filled the room.
"I'm Seonghan."
"...Hmph."
I'd gone out of my way to greet him first and offer my hand, but he just snorted and turned his back, flopping onto his bed.
'Well, aren't you something?'
It was a complete one-eighty from how he'd acted around Cheolwoong.
Was that whole performance just an act? His face twisted into a scowl as he glared at the hand I'd extended.
Being ignored after making the effort to say hello didn't sit well with me.
Still, I understood.
He must have poured a lot of energy into his first day, and he looked young, too.
Here, as the adult, I had no choice but to put up with it.
"..."
That didn't stop it from annoying me a little.
In petty revenge, I checked his fetish.
[Fetish: A big, strong, and reliable man]
"Whoa..."
I let out an exclamation mixed with all sorts of emotions the moment I read it.
Of all the people to room with in the dormitory, it had to be a gay guy.
And the conditions matched me pretty closely, too.
Big build, strong—I wasn't sure about that, but reliable enough, I suppose.
To protect the chastity of my rear, I slept with my back pressed flat against the wall, making sure not to expose it to him.
...Come to think of it, Instructor Cheolwoong fit the bill perfectly: big, strong, and reliable.
I'd thought the guy was just acting to impress the instructor, but maybe not.
What a scary dude.
Even while sleeping, I kept cracking my eyes open now and then to check if he was asleep.
I hadn't felt this anxious even in the zombie world.
Thanks to that, I still felt exhausted even after waking up.
When I got up, the spot next to me was empty.
Thud thud.
The door burst open after a perfunctory knock.
It was Cheolwoong who'd opened it.
My roommate was stuck right beside him.
Hmm.
Even looking at him again, Cheolwoong was big, strong, and reliable.
Did he have any idea how terrifying a presence he was to the diligent-looking guy next to him?
"You're here to learn martial arts?"
"Ah, yes."
"Hmm. That makes four of you including him. Come out to the clearing."
There were fewer cadets learning martial arts at the Martial Academy than I'd expected.
Most who passed the exam already knew martial arts.
They were mostly affiliated with large and small sects or clans, so they learned their faction's unique techniques and had no need for others.
As a result, the academy mostly assigned growth-oriented training or missions to guide cadets' development rather than teaching martial arts from scratch—that was reserved for a select few.
And those select few were cadets who passed despite lacking formal training but showing solid external skills or talent, or those who needed to learn new martial arts for some reason.
"Everyone here?"
We gathered not in the large exam clearing, but in a small one in front of the dormitory.
It made sense—there was no need for just four cadets and one instructor to use the big field.
The other three were me, the guy from my room, and Seol-yeong with the number 5 nameplate.
The last one was none other than a disciple from the Mount Hua Sect, nameplate reading number 1.
The infamous guy who'd been expelled from the Heavenly Martial Academy for impure relations with the opposite sex.
From what I'd heard, the Heavenly Martial Academy was like a school for perfect scorers on the national exam—gathering the world's top rising stars.
So what did that make this place, the Inmu Academy?
A martial academy for the low-grade students?
That was the image.
There was also a Jimu Academy in between.
The three academies—Heavenly, Earthly, and Humanly—were the Orthodox Faction's premier training grounds for rising stars.
"Before I teach you martial arts, you need to tell me why you want to learn them."
Cheolwoong crossed his arms and scanned the four of us.
"Cadets who want to learn martial arts here generally fall into two categories."
Cheolwoong slowly uncrossed his arms and pointed at me with a finger.
"Those who haven't learned any, or those who can't use what they've learned now."
As he spoke, he pointed next at Seol-yeong in turn.
Not having learned any was me; can't use what they've learned seemed to refer to Seol-yeong.
His finger then swung toward the remaining two.
"And what about you two?"
"I really wanted to learn from you, Instructor..."
"That delicate flower named Seol-yeong stole my heart..."
"I'm not joking."
Cheolwoong responded to their deadpan answers with a heavy, gravelly voice.
Was that even an answer?
It sounded more like a beast growling a low warning.
"...Recently, a Demonic Cult infiltrator posing as a cadet at the Heavenly Martial Academy slit the throats of two cadets there and vanished."
"..."
"That guy had learned Orthodox Faction martial arts to hide his demonic arts."
Cheolwoong drew a massive sword from his back.
Even drawing it slowly sent a chill creeping around my neck.
"Choose your words carefully."
His aura suggested he'd sever heads on the spot for unsatisfactory answers.
"I-I-I really..."
My roommate trembled like he had a fever, chin quivering, while the Mount Hua playboy's face stiffened.
It was understandable to suspect them, really.
A Mount Hua guy transferred here over a sex scandal, and another insisting on learning martial arts from scratch just to impress the instructor? Suspicious.
"If it's the Demonic Cult, they won't infiltrate as cadets anymore."
"..."
"They don't reuse exposed methods. You should suspect instructors instead of cadets."
The playboy, suddenly serious, made a bold statement.
Telling him to suspect fellow instructors right in front of a sword-wielding one.
"Tch..."
I eyed him closely.
'Is this guy the protagonist?'
Striking looks, confident personality, speech hinting at hidden knowledge, and openly pursuing Seol-yeong.
He reeked of main character energy.
Cheolwoong narrowed his eyes at him, then chuckled softly.
"Noted."
He hadn't been seriously suspicious to begin with, it seemed—surprisingly, he sheathed his sword cleanly.
Maybe he'd just been tightening the screws on the two who'd been too lax.
Seol-yeong and I hadn't been lax, exactly.
Not scattered, anyway.
The other two had been, though.
My roommate overdid the eager act for Cheolwoong, and the Mount Hua playboy kept hitting on the silent Seol-yeong.
Cheolwoong put away his sword and decided to teach us one by one.
Possible since there were so few learners.
Seol-yeong and I had to start with internal energy cultivation methods, not martial arts.
Internal energy cultivation methods were techniques for operating and accumulating the body's qi, or internal energy.
"Pick the cultivation method you want from here. Choose wisely. Especially you, number 421."
"Yes."
He shoved us into the library and told us to decide for ourselves.
And that's when I learned my roommate's name—the protagonist suspect from Mount Hua.
My roommate was Jeong-seon, and the Mount Hua playboy was Pung-un.
"All of these are cultivation methods?"
The bookshelves reached the ceiling.
There were so many, it made me wonder if this was all the martial arts in the world.
Suddenly, the entrance exam extras who'd freaked out guessing techniques from form names alone seemed impressive.
How do you even choose from all these?
In typical wuxia novels, there'd be some amazing secret manual hidden in one corner of a library like this—
"Hm?"
"..."
Seol-yeong held one book, pondering it deeply.
She stared piercingly at the cover, hesitating as she stroked it.
Thanks to my translation skill, I could read the book.
Solar Heart Technique.
"Planning to learn that one?"
"...I can't."
With that curt reply, she slipped it back onto the shelf and headed deeper into the library.
Were modern wuxia rising stars trending toward being rude?
Jeong-seon was one, Seol-yeong another—their responses were ice-cold.
The difference? Jeong-seon openly guarded against me, while Seol-yeong seemed utterly emotionless.
I checked Seol-yeong's fetish as she turned away.
Did even this icy woman have some fetish?
[Fetish: Savior]
She had one. It just made no sense.
Was Seol-yeong in need of saving right now?
I pulled out the Solar Heart Technique she'd been looking at earlier.
That's when I truly appreciated my translation skill, now over 700 points.
"Huh."
At first, it read like vague nonsense, but as I translated, the text self-corrected into coherent passages I could actually understand.
In summary:
The Solar Heart Technique was the most purely yang internal energy method.
It expelled yin energy, amplifying internal energy the longer one fought.
However, due to its yin-expelling nature, it was hard to build up internal energy.
"Not that she won't, but that she can't."
For that brief moment, Seol-yeong holding the book had looked almost regretful.
Her expressions were so subtle, I might have imagined it.
But she'd clearly scrutinized this Solar Heart Technique.
"...This one it is."
There might be better secret manuals hidden somewhere in this library.
But that didn't matter to me.
What mattered was that Seol-yeong had been paying close attention to this one.
I sat in the corner of the library and began reading the Solar Heart Technique slowly.