Chapter 161
Chapter 161
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 161
>Chapter Title: Newcomer (3)
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Jeong Hyeon, who had been twisting her body vigorously, belatedly came to her senses. Her writhing body hesitated, and before long, she let out her characteristic bizarre scream and curled up.
“Eek!”
Realizing her own disgraceful behavior, her face turned red beyond all measure.
‘She’s gonna burst at this rate?’
With the feeling of handling a thunderbolt bomb on the verge of explosion, with only a fingernail’s worth of fuse left, I carefully opened my mouth.
“Anywhere uncomfortable?”
“N-No, n-nothing, n-no, it’s not.”
She babbled incoherently, letting words tumble out any which way.
“W-Well, serving as Young Master’s guard in the future will be enjoyable… no, not that, uh, receiving assassination missions at Dark Shadow Pavilion sounds enjoyable… which is a bit weird. S-So…, anyway, f-for the future I don’t know, b-but right now, I’m w-worried about the s-sparring tournament.”
She didn’t look unaffected in the slightest.
But provoking an explosive device is an extremely dangerous act, so I appropriately played along with her words.
Dealing with a complainant on the verge of rampaging was all too familiar.
“Hmm. If getting on stage is burdensome, why not just come down?”
I planned to do exactly that anyway, so it was sincere advice.
“Declare surrender the moment the spar starts and step down from the arena.”
But for some reason, at my advice, her flushed face drained to white.
“T-That’s too c-conspicuous, isn’t it? I-I’m not s-someone like B-Baekcheon senior, Young Master.”
“…….”
In an instant, I became a guy like Baekcheon.
* * *
Just as Il-mok and his classmates had received explanations about the sparring tournament, the new cadets had also been informed.
“Haap!”
Thanks to that, a training boom swept through the new cadets.
It wasn’t to defeat their seniors.
Of course, winning would be nice if possible, but the new cadets who had witnessed the auras wafting from seniors returning from practice were already cowed.
The reason they redoubled their training was the same as last year.
The bait that, win or lose, those who showed talent would receive special training from the Academy Lord and Vice Lord as a reward.
For talents worthy of the Demonic Path Academy, it was a tantalizing prospect.
After several days immersed in training to prepare for the sparring tournament.
Finally, the morning of the sparring tournament arrived. Cheon Su-ryong headed to the training ground where it would be held, accompanied by his close friend.
The new cadets had gathered in front of their instructor, Cha Eun-young, and beside Cha Eun-young stood a wooden board that seemed to have been prepared at some point.
“Each of you, check your sparring opponents!”
Instructor Cha Eun-young shouted, pointing at the board. A large sheet of paper was affixed to it, with names written in order.
As Cheon Su-ryong read down the list, he nearly clenched his fist without realizing it.
‘Jackpot!’
His name was written at the very bottom of the paper.
[Cheon Su-ryong vs Il-mok]
Alongside the Eighth Young Master’s name.
A spar against the Eighth Young Master, who at the age of sixteen had already made his name echo throughout headquarters—it naturally stirred Cheon Su-ryong’s competitive spirit.
‘Even if I don’t win, it doesn’t matter. Just facing him will teach me plenty.’
While basking in curiosity about what kind of man the Eighth Young Master truly was, and joy at the chance to face that famous figure.
Instructor Cha Eun-young’s sharp yell pierced his ears.
“No matter how much stronger the opponent, anyone lacking the venom to win no matter what is disqualified as a Demonic Path Academy cadet! Anyone who climbs onto the arena with a weak mindset of just learning a move or two from their seniors—this instructor won’t let it slide! Understood!”
Only then, under the instructor’s threat, did Cheon Su-ryong realize his own mistake and reply in a solemn tone.
“Yes, ma’am!!”
It wasn’t just Cheon Su-ryong. All the other new cadets had solemn expressions by now.
They had already been intimidated by their seniors, but they realized they couldn’t fight while already conceding defeat.
‘Right. I’ll win somehow! Without that kind of resolve, I won’t learn a single proper move!’
While the new cadets prepared for their spars with resolute expressions.
“Did you hear?”
Chu Il-hwan spoke to the senior cadets with a swagger like some back-alley thug.
“If any of you get careless against a junior and lose, I’ll personally give you special training. Not from the Academy Lord or Vice Lord—from this Chu Il-hwan himself.”
His lips curled up, but black lightning already flickered across both his palms.
A blatant threat that he wouldn’t let anyone who lost to a junior off the hook.
Perhaps due to the instructors’ battle of auras, the atmosphere of the sparring tournament felt less like a festival and more like the calm before a storm.
In that tense atmosphere.
“Begin!”
The senior-junior exchange matches began.
* * *
The senior-junior exchange matches started with spars between the lowest-skilled among the new cadets and seniors.
“Haaap!”
“Hueup!”
The blood and sweat shed by the young fighters giving their all soaked the arena.
Sweat was one thing, but since they were sparring with real weapons, it was a mad tournament splattered with blood.
At least it was fortunate that nothing as gruesome as limbs being severed or entrails spilling out occurred.
That was thanks to the instructors stepping in to halt things just before accidents could happen.
In the thick heat of youth’s sweat and blood.
“Yawwwn.”
Il-mok yawned lazily.
It wasn’t solely because the cadets’ levels were too low. To begin with, Il-mok wasn’t even watching the spars.
As he yawned widely over and over, he belatedly realized a new fact.
‘Sparring tournament… might not be so bad?’
The sparring tournament consisted entirely of two cadets sparring in the center. Cadets not on deck just watched from the sidelines.
In other words, aside from his one match, he could just lounge around for a full hour.
Others watched with eyes aflame, seeking even a thread of insight from others’ spars.
‘Insights can freeze and die.’
Il-mok had zero interest in such things.
No reason to watch the spars, and his own turn was still far off.
Having finally realized what he needed to do, Il-mok closed his eyes and focused inward.
“Kerok.”
It was the sound of him dozing off while standing.
Meanwhile.
Cheon Su-ryong, who had been watching his classmates’ spars against seniors with eyes burning to glean even a single useful thing, suddenly felt a poke in his side and turned his head.
“Over there.”
His friend, who had poked his side, nodded toward somewhere with his chin. Cheon Su-ryong turned that way.
His brows furrowed. He had spotted someone dozing off while standing.
“That senior from before, right?”
At his friend’s question, Cheon Su-ryong nodded with furrowed brows.
It was utterly pathetic. With priceless opportunities for insight spread right before his eyes, a senior was dozing standing up.
“I can’t fathom how someone with that scatterbrain mentality even entered the Demonic Path Academy.”
After cursing under his breath, Cheon Su-ryong turned his gaze back to the arena.
He didn’t want to waste a precious chance to observe his seniors’ martial arts fussing over such an incompetent fool.
But as time dragged on, Cheon Su-ryong’s gaze kept drifting back to that incompetent senior.
‘…Still?’
Strangely, there was no sign of that senior heading up to the arena.
Over ten spars had unfolded on the arena.
‘A guy like that in the top class?’
Even when a female senior wielding sloppy spearwork won her match and bellowed, “Young Master! I did it! Did you see!”
Even when a female senior who had been shooting arrows let out a bizarre scream, “Eek!”, the moment her match ended—that incompetent senior was still dozing standing.
“Gonna head out.”
His friend, looking somewhat disgruntled, went up to the arena and came back smashed.
“Oho hoho!!”
Even when a female senior with a fan burst into bizarre laughter and unleashed her martial arts with exaggerated motions, that senior was still dozing standing.
“Dokgo Pae cadet and Deung Ak cadet, come forward!”
Even when it was the turn of Deung Ak, a同期 who had entered alongside him—that senior was still dozing.
Clang!
Clang!
“Uahaha! Put a bit more strength into it!”
Even as the senior named Dokgo Pae bellowed nonstop throughout his match, repeating brute strength clashes in the arena’s center and producing one unpleasant explosion after another.
It was a match between Deung Ak, the next best in skill among his peers, and Dokgo Pae, a top senior.
Even the repeated head-on clashes held much to learn from Cheon Su-ryong’s perspective.
But Cheon Su-ryong’s gaze kept drifting elsewhere.
At this point, even Cheon Su-ryong had no choice but to acknowledge it.
‘That incompetent-looking senior really is the Eighth Young Master!!’
Thanks to the countless rumors he’d heard even before entering the academy, the Eighth Young Master in Cheon Su-ryong’s imagination was a figure embodying the word “perfect” made flesh.
Yet the one dozing standing for a full hour right there was supposedly that same person.
Clang!
“Keuk.”
Just then, with someone’s faint groan, the match on the arena came to an end.
“Hahaha! Excellent! You’ve got what it takes to join our Flesh Beauty Club!”
The victorious Dokgo senior bellowed something incomprehensible, and the instructor on the arena issued an order.
“Cheon Su-ryong cadet and Il-mok cadet, come forward!”
Cheon Su-ryong, lost in a daze, snapped to at the instructor’s command and started walking.
On the way to the arena.
Caught in sudden cognitive dissonance that threatened to plunge him into heart demon deviation, Cheon Su-ryong’s mind rapidly began rationalizing.
‘That smile I saw on the first day—maybe it came from leisure after all! Right. The fact that Wind Hall was spotless when he cleaned alone must be because his skills are so superior, no dust could cling to his clothes!’
The same actions could appear entirely different depending on the person.
That pitiful sight, reconsidered, now felt like the leisure of a true master.
‘A chance to spar with a master like that.’
Having completed his mental reframing, Cheon Su-ryong solemnly raised his head and looked straight ahead.
“Um… Il-mok Young Master? It’s your turn.”
A senior named Choi Woong was carefully rousing the still-dozing Il-mok cadet.
“Huh?”
Only then did the Eighth Young Master open his eyes. With bleary eyes, he looked around, then lifted his right hand to wipe the drool trickling from his mouth.
“Yawwwn.”
He yawned long and stretched lazily.
“…….”
‘Is… is that the leisure of a master?’
Cheon Su-ryong had to desperately hypnotize himself. Otherwise, he felt like he’d fall into heart demon deviation.
Whether he knew his opponent was on the brink of heart demon deviation or not.
The half-asleep Eighth Young Master wobbled his way up onto the arena.
While battling the demonic art that kept trying to spasm, Cheon Su-ryong repeated to himself.
‘Psychological warfare! Right, it’s psychological warfare! He’s definitely trying to make me drop my guard!’