Chapter 170
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 170
Chapter Title: Wake Up, Geum Sihyeon! (1)
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“Huuu……”
The left arm, forcibly pieced back together after being broken, creaked.
The sword wound on my abdomen, which I'd barely managed to avoid being fatal, still throbbed with a dull ache despite my makeshift suturing.
Today's lesson.
When the opponent unleashes their innate true energy, just run away quietly.
I'd gotten too immersed in the fight because of Master’s bullshit philosophy about how you can't grow without risking life and limb, and now my whole body was a ragged mess.
—Even if you can't trust your comrades, how could you bear the stigma of betrayal? Fight with everything you've got. My time won't come easily.
Still.
Brother Heo Jong-su...
Your lines were just too cool...
For the price of my heart swelling with romance and thrill without me even realizing it, the injuries felt a bit too harsh.
Even so, I'd secured a solid alibi with this much.
The scenario goes like this.
—Oh ho! It's Hong Sundok!
A wild full-power Hong Sundok MK3 appeared, leading to a fierce clash, but in the end, to save the promising young talent of the orthodox faction, they resorted to a mutual destruction technique and barely repelled her...
There were more than a few points that pricked at my conscience.
But I was the victim from the start.
I'd only been living my life diligently, yet the Azure Heaven Society was trying to screw me over.
So I decided to get shameless too.
The mountain soul iron principles I'd carved into my own heart were proof of that...
“Kuhk, cough.”
Ah, shit, I stabbed too deep earlier.
Blood keeps welling up.
Acting is murder for me...
I really feel like I've killed myself...
If I could, I'd hole up somewhere, go into deep meditation to circulate my qi, and recover properly, but that wasn't an option.
If I didn't create a witness ASAP, I could get pinned as the culprit in the Orthodox Inspection Team serial killings, or after a quick missing person report, it could spark diplomatic friction with the Demonic Cult.
Top priority: Frame Hong Sundok with the crime.
Therefore.
I had no choice but to walk forward, believing only what my eyes could see.
Conveniently, there was one massive presence approaching this way, so clear I could sense it even with my eyes closed.
It felt a lot like Luri's, but on a level where comparison was impossible—an overwhelming spiritual pressure.
Since it was demonic arts, my Soul Moon Divine Eyes picked it up even more precisely, so I had no choice but to head straight north.
She wouldn't kill me on the spot once she saw Luri's face, right...?
Whenever had I lost consciousness?
My last memory before closing my eyes was hazy.
—Oh my, that's quite a deep wound.
Just something about a familiar yet unfamiliar voice, and the sensation of soft fabric embracing my body.
“Ugh……”
The moment I took in the unfamiliar ceiling cliché and bolted upright, a tearing pain ripped through my abdomen.
I thought I'd properly tempered my steel six-pack core of wonder, but apparently it still fell a bit short.
Only then, with my mind clearing a little more, did I survey my surroundings. It was a tent, but the space inside was almost house-sized.
I'd seen this in historical dramas before.
Definitely a ger, right?
“Oh?”
A single eyeball peeked out from between the tent flaps and locked eyes with me.
“Y-You're awake...!”
With those words, the eyeball vanished in a poof.
A moment later, a bustling commotion echoed from outside for a while.
From the presences I sensed, it seemed like the Demonic Cult folks had picked me up nicely, so maybe I could relax a bit.
...Hm?
Why am I relieved to have been picked up by the Demonic Cult?
Wake up, Geum Sihyeon!
Snap out of your dream of becoming the stable, confirmed legitimate husband of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's successor!
That's not reality! Wake up, Geum Sihyeon! Wake up and, even though we're the same orthodox faction, evade the Azure Heaven Society's plots to take your life, suspect even the Martial Alliance Leader, and spend your life in constant anxiety just to survive! Wake up, Geum Sihyeon!
“Hoo.”
Awakening complete.
Regaining the reason I'd briefly lost.
I returned as Geum Sihyeon, the pride of the orthodox faction: impartial, incorruptible, diligent, upright, crystal clear, deceiving the masses with the three-family bond.
Thanks, Morpheus!
“Oh my, you're awake?”
“Uh...?”
No, it's not.
This whole thing was a dream from the start.
I'm still wandering the Matrix without even taking the red pill...
Otherwise.
There was no way to explain the bizarre creature that had appeared before me.
“Why that look on your face?”
“This is... hell...”
“Hm?”
Elongated top to bottom, at least 170cm tall, with plump, perfectly ripened breasts that'd measure about a modern 65G.
Her hair had a subtle hint of red mixed in, and even her eyes retained Luri's exact crimson glow.
The living, breathing bread Luri herself...!
“Luri...?”
“Oh my, do I really look that much like my daughter?”
“...Daughter...?”
Daughter? Daughter, you say?
Suddenly, the puzzle pieces clicked together in my head.
All those bread Luri composite memes I'd seen in Heavenly Demon Divine Cult praise posts online—turns out they weren't composites; she actually existed...!
No, no, that can't be.
Biologically impossible.
Because...
I'd learned the Clouds and Rain Ecstatic Technique from the Lust Demon.
And I instantly understood why that pervert kept harping on about non-virgins.
The technique had a trash ability to distinguish virgins from non-virgins...
Even if I didn't want to, I'd gained this horrific unicorn-like power to see right through people.
“Definitely a dream, then.”
“Huh...?”
I ignored whatever the bread Luri hallucination was saying, pulled the blanket over my head, and lay back down.
How could the word 'virgin' coexist with 'mom'?
So yeah, this was a dream.
Wake up, Geum Sihyeon...
Snap out of it, Geum Sihyeon...
“Definitely a dream, then.”
With those words, the man named Geum Sihyeon lay back down on the bed and soon fell into a deep sleep, snoring away.
Looking down at him.
Cheon Yuri felt an indescribable emotion.
Just moments ago, she'd caught a strange glint in his eyes, like he'd pierced right through something deeply important about her.
He was clearly in poor condition as a patient, so she couldn't press him on it, and with his connection to Luri, pursuing any rudeness was off the table.
“...Get some good rest?”
Cheon Yuri whispered a blessing as the cult leader and slipped out of the tent where Geum Sihyeon lay sprawled.
The gentle expression she'd worn until then was gone without a trace.
“The culprit?”
“We couldn't find them. But there are corpses nearby... You should take a look.”
Her face cold and impassive, Cheon Yuri followed Woo Ho-beop's lead.
It was the man who might become her son-in-law.
And his own martial prowess was in no way inferior.
She didn't know what supreme techniques he'd cultivated, but his body endured a mix of demonic qi and all sorts of energies, and his physique was even that once-in-a-millennium Heavenly Martial Body.
Word had it he was only twenty-one, and at that age, he'd surpassed the Peak Realm to reach Super Peak—an unprecedented prodigy.
For such a man to entrust himself here, wounded and alone.
“Here, Leader.”
Not far away.
Three corpses lay side by side, as if someone had carefully arranged them.
“Demoness—that bitch...!”
Woo Ho-beop gnashed his teeth the moment he saw them; the wounds left on the bodies were unmistakably Hong Sundok's handiwork.
At first glance, like claw marks, but up close, traces of qi exploding like bursting flower buds, and even gashes like thorny vines had swept through.
Who else could it be but Hong Sundok?
“Hm...”
But as Cheon Yuri examined the traces deeply, they looked different to her eyes.
Though now a traitor to the cult, Cheon Yuri had known Hong Sundok for years and understood her impulsive, ferocious nature well.
However.
These traces were far too composed.
Too clean for Hong Sundok to have ever left behind.
So the conclusion was singular.
...Someone had stolen Hong Sundok's techniques, killed her, and faked the traces to frame her as the culprit.
“Aha...?”
“Leader?”
“It's nothing. Hm... Shall I lend a little hand with this?”
Cheon Yuri flicked her fingers.
Blood vessels bloomed from her fingertips, stirring the corpses once more, subtly layering faint traces onto the existing wounds.
“Woo Ho-beop, contact the orthodox faction ahead of time. Say we found their escort team clashing with the Demoness while heading south, provided support, but all but one perished. We repelled the Demoness.”
“Understood.”
Watching the escort warriors emerge like shadows and carefully carry off the corpses one by one.
Cheon Yuri fell into slight contemplation.
Until now, she'd judged the man named Geum Sihyeon based on Cheon Luri's stories and the Reaper Squad's reports.
But now, she felt the need to completely revise that assessment.
.
.
.
After inspecting all the traces around, Cheon Yuri returned to the tent where Geum Sihyeon lay.
“Ugh.”
He seemed to have somewhat regained his senses again, but the moment their eyes met, he squeezed his shut—Geum Sihyeon's face caught briefly in her gaze.
“Hng.”
Cheon Yuri approached the bed, picked up a plain cloth from beside it, and gently draped it over Geum Sihyeon's face.
And then.
Shwaaak!
She yanked the blanket off in one go and lightly tore away the bandages tightly wound around his upper body.