Chapter 39
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: A Choice Without Regrets
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Hey, why didn’t you show up to the organization bonding event this time?”
What’s that? Was there something like that?
Hwang Tae-seong had never heard of it. Or more accurately, he just hadn’t cared.
Posters had been up for a whole month, after all.
“You think your seniors are a joke or something?”
“Haha, a joke? You’re all like the heavens themselves to me.”
He said the words, but in that instant, an overwhelming wave of killing intent poured from Hwang Tae-seong’s body.
The intent was so fierce it scattered the incense smoke rising in the room.
The seniors had never imagined a person could emit such dense killing aura. They were all struck dumb on the spot.
They’d never encountered a master of this caliber in their lives.
“Take a quick look at this, seniors.”
Hwang Tae-seong extended his right arm toward them.
Their trembling gazes shifted to his forearm.
A single mosquito was perched there.
Tae-seong was clenching his muscles so tightly that the mosquito’s proboscis was trapped, leaving it unable to flee.
He thrust it toward them and spoke.
“There are way too many mosquitoes here, seniors. Couldn’t you, who care so much for your junior, take care of them for me?”
“M-mosquitoes? Me? Out of nowhere?”
“It’s for your beloved junior, right? As seniors?”
The thick incense scent permeated the room because Tae-seong had lit it as a mosquito repellent.
But since it wasn’t made for mosquitoes specifically, it wasn’t enough to keep them at bay.
Just as Tae-seong’s patience was reaching its limit, the second-year seniors had come charging in.
“You little punk, getting cocky, huh?”
They’d come to thrash the insolent junior, only for him to suddenly ask them to swat mosquitoes?
What kind of nonsense was this?
Yeop Cheon-u’s rational thread snapped in his mind.
“You bastard! You messing with us right now? We came here for something as trivial as mosquitoes...”
Bzzz...
The moment the mosquito’s wingbeat hummed in his ear.
Whoosh!
A sudden gust of wind pressure grazed his ear, forcing his jaw to drop like a hippopotamus’s maw.
By the time he snapped it shut, Hwang Tae-seong’s flat voice reached him.
“Got one.”
“W-what the hell?”
“I killed the mosquito, senior.”
“You... killed a mosquito?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t believe it.
The junior Hwang Tae-seong had used fist wind from a single punch to take it down.
He’d heard of catching flies with chopsticks, but killing a mosquito with fist wind? First time hearing of that.
“What the hell did you just...”
Before he could finish, Hwang Tae-seong stepped into footwork and unleashed punches in all directions.
Whoosh! Whoosh-whoosh! Whish-whish!
Fists leaving afterimages flew around them.
The whooshing cuts through the air swirled in their ears like a whirlwind.
“...”
“...”
They stood frozen in place, unable to move.
Any twitch, and they might meet their end under that terrifying fist wind.
And so the seniors gritted their teeth, enduring the massive storm of pressure battering them from every side.
When it finally ended, not a single mosquito remained in the training hall.
The seniors couldn’t speak. They just stood there, trembling.
“Phew, got all the visible ones, but who knows how long it’ll last. They breed like crazy. Anyway, what was it you all came here for?”
“...Uh, uh. That is...”
Yeop Cheon-u stammered in shock, so one of the guys who’d been cowed by Tae-seong from the start spoke up instead.
“We hadn’t seen your face in ages, so we all came to check on you. Right?”
“Y-yeah!”
“Is that so? What’s so special about me?”
“No way! Aren’t you the top freshman admit? And I heard you raised the Imperial Palace Martial Academy’s prestige at this training camp too. You’re our academy’s pride.”
“If it was something like that, you could’ve just called me. No need to come all this way.”
They all wanted to shout, You ignored us!—but none dared.
The junior before them—no, Junior Master—was clearly several levels above them.
Just wielding fist wind put him in a realm they couldn’t even gaze upon.
It was the unity of mind and fist.
But what he’d just done...
That wasn’t nearly enough to call it mere unity of mind and fist.
To whip up fist wind into a storm in all directions? That was the pinnacle of fist wind mastery.
Which meant this junior was at least far beyond first-rate—maybe even touching peak.
For them, who were barely called second-rate, it was beyond imagination.
And for such a super-expert to be their junior? A nightmare.
The second-years inwardly cursed why a monster like him had chosen the Imperial Palace Martial Academy, but to survive, they launched into mosquito eradication.
“Come on, hurry! We need to wipe out these mosquitoes root and stem! Fill every puddle, scour for standing water! You check underground, you scour the back mountain. Look in rock crevices and rotten wood for stagnant pools.”
And so the second-years devoted themselves to rooting out the mosquitoes for their beloved junior Tae-seong.
After the training camp, tons of people started coming to me wanting to learn my workouts.
Probably because I’d matched the Sword Emperor’s grandson blow-for-blow in the sparring match using only external arts, then won the arm-wrestling tournament.
A flood of external arts enthusiasts from the academy begged me to teach them.
But things were different now from when I was with the Demonic Cult.
Back then, I needed the cash from training sessions to buy chicken breasts. No need anymore.
The Imperial Palace Martial Academy had no plans for membership drives like before.
Still, I was curious if the Muscle Heart Method worked on others too. So I figured I’d teach it to one representative as a test.
It didn’t take long to decide who.
Someone reliable who’d follow my lead without backtalk.
Sima Liang was perfect.
I’d teach Jo Gi-myeong if he wanted, but the guy’s righteous faction pride was sky-high. Even if I dragged him kicking and screaming, he wouldn’t learn from me.
With the thought fresh, I went straight to Sima Liang and asked.
“You want to get as strong as me?”
“Huh?”
Out of the blue like that, his face looked just like mine when some street preacher asks if I’m interested in the Way.
“What? Heatstroke?”
“What else? I’m offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“Opportunity? From you?”
I nodded instead of answering.
Sima Liang eyed me with total disbelief.
“You’re saying you’re gonna teach me martial arts right now?”
“That’s right.”
“No money. Shop elsewhere.”
“I know you’re broke better than you do.”
“Argh! Shop elsewhere then!”
As he turned to leave after flat rejection, I asked seriously once more.
“You said the internal art you practice isn’t from Black Star Gate, right?”
Sima Liang looked horrified.
“H-how do you know that?”
“Don’t remember? That night we all went out, got smashed on the lodging voucher winnings, and you spilled it all yourself?”
“H-how...”
I recalled that ridiculous night.
“I’ll drink to that! Truth is, I’m a bastard son!!”
“Bastard?”
“You’re a bastard?”
Yang Cho-gun and Jo Gi-myeong were already plastered, eyes glazed.
I was the only sober one, shaking my head at their antics.
“Yeah, bastard!!”
“So what? Bastards are...”
“Bastards aren’t even human? They won’t teach me Black Star Gate’s internal art properly—damn them!”
Sima Liang’s eyes were bloodshot, tears ready to burst.
It was too pathetic to watch, so I was plotting an escape when Yang Cho-gun dropped a bombshell.
“Bastard? Hmph! That’s nothing... So what? I’m a bastard too.”
Huh?
Unexpected words from Yang Cho-gun.
Yang Cho-gun’s a bastard too? Explains why a Hainan Sect guy practices Western swordsmanship.
That’s how I learned both Yang Cho-gun and Sima Liang were bastards.
In this era where polygamy was normal, bastards weren’t rare.
What surprised me was Yang Cho-gun had learned some Hainan Sect arts, while Sima Liang hadn’t even gotten his family’s internal art.
No internal art meant probably no other arts either.
That’s why he came here?
It made sense why a Black Star Gate scion from an evil faction chose the Imperial Palace Martial Academy over Demon Dragon.
And why those weaklings—Crane Palace or whatever—bullied him.
Truth was, Sima Liang’s skills only worked here. In the martial world, second-rates like him were a dime a dozen.
The most common warriors out there were second-rate.
Sima Liang asked anxiously.
“Besides you, who else knows?”
“No idea. I was the only sober one. No one’s mentioned it since, so they probably don’t remember.”
“...If Jo Gi-myeong finds out, he’ll mock me as a bastard.”
“What’s mocking about it? Not your fault.”
“You don’t know what it’s like living as one...”
“I’m an orphan. Having parents alive makes me jealous of you.”
“...Sorry.”
“I get how you feel. So forget that crap and focus on yourself. Being bound by the bastard label changes nothing, right?”
“Changes nothing...”
“Only you can shatter that mold.”
“Shatter it? Me?”
“The mold that looks down on you as a bastard.”
“How do I...”
“Get strong. Fastest revenge on those who boxed you in.”
“Get strong...”
A spark of life flickered in Sima Liang’s dead-fish eyes.