Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 59
>Chapter Title: Asylum (4)
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Misinterpreting Il-mok's praise as mockery, Dokgo Pae yelled with a flushed face.
"Eeeeek! Just you wait!!"
While Il-mok let out a hollow laugh at the cliché line, Dokgo Pae turned on his heel and stormed back to his room.
Il-mok pondered for a moment what to do, then shrugged his shoulders and returned to his own room.
'Well, he'll stay quiet for a while out of embarrassment.'
Il-mok decided it was for the best.
'My stuff's mostly packed, and there's time until dinner, so maybe I should take a bath.'
He was already sweaty from lightness skill training, and the spar with Dokgo Pae had left him feeling sticky all over.
Il-mok grabbed a change of clothes and stepped out the door, only to spot a woman with a spear strapped to her back.
It was a familiar face.
'That's the girl from earlier? The one who was puking.'
She was the lowest-ranked student who had arrived last at the Demonic Path Academy and immediately started vomiting her guts out.
"Haa."
Sighing at the thought that even this lowest-ranked student wanted to spar with him, Il-mok let out a breath.
He had realized there was no risk of his cultivation advancing from sparring with the cadets, but it was still a hassle.
And above all, right now, bathing took priority.
'Pretend I didn't see her.'
He tried to ignore the woman right in front of him and walk past, but she beamed and called out to him.
"I watched your spar, Young Master! Your skills were truly impressive!"
"...The Demonic Path Academy says we're all equals here, so there's no need for honorifics."
"Hee hee hee. If we're equals, then using honorifics shouldn't matter, right? More than that, I never imagined you'd defeat the eldest son of the Dokgo family so easily."
"Is that so?"
To avoid the sparring talk, Il-mok gave half-hearted replies and quickened his pace.
But she persistently followed him, teasing nonstop.
How long had he been ignoring her words and walking?
Il-mok belatedly noticed something odd.
After her initial comment about Dokgo Pae, she hadn't mentioned the word "spar" once.
Instead.
"Come to think of it, I heard the maidservant of the Eighth Young Master is named Jin Ha-yeon."
"They say her beauty is incredible—is that true?"
"Do you happen to know what foods this Jin Ha-yeon likes?"
The longer she talked, the more frequently the name "Jin Ha-yeon" came up.
Feeling an inexplicable strangeness, Il-mok turned to face the woman he had been avoiding.
"Young Master! I'm planning to go to the Silver Guard after graduating from the Demonic Path Academy! So, won't you take me as your maidservant and Jin Ha-yeon's junior?"
The woman's eyes sparkled with an intensity unmatched anywhere in the world.
And Il-mok had seen that look before.
'...Was it back in university?'
One of his female classmates. She seemed average and demure usually, but there was that one shocking moment.
During idle chit-chat in the clubroom, the topic of an idol group came up by chance.
Her eyes had spun like a fanatic's, and she suddenly ranted like a devotee.
And the light in this woman's eyes as she talked about Jin Ha-yeon was exactly the same as that classmate's.
Il-mok instinctively realized.
'She's the same type as Goo Yang-mun.'
Did talkative, lively types all have a ideal woman like Jin Ha-yeon?
Amusingly, the fact that this admirer was a woman didn't factor in at all.
What could he say.
'Hmm... Still, she seems to have better odds.'
The chance that Jin Ha-yeon was interested in women seemed at least higher than her falling for Goo Yang-mun.
That was the extent of Il-mok's interest.
He had more pressing matters right now.
He half-listened to her as they walked a bit longer.
Il-mok turned to her with an awkward expression.
"Uh, could you leave now?"
He pointed to the bathhouse entrance right ahead.
"I was thinking of taking a bath?"
At his words, she replied with eyes that seemed tinged with madness.
"Don't mind me, Young Master! What does gender matter to a martial artist? Besides, after graduating from the Demonic Path Academy, I'll be your maidservant and have to attend to your baths anyway—why hide now?"
"...I'm uncomfortable."
"It's fine, Young Master! More importantly, I have zero interest in men, so no need to worry."
"......"
Il-mok's head spun as he thought.
'Damn, looks like another lunatic's latching on.'
Only now did he start feeling sorry for Jin Ha-yeon.
* * *
Several hours earlier.
Right after Il-mok left Wind Rock Hall, the people gathered there began dispersing one by one.
Jin Ha-yeon, left alone at the end, scanned the scenery before letting out a soft sigh.
'How utterly incompetent.'
Memories of her repeated failures in protection flooded back, making her acutely aware of her shortcomings.
At that moment, a woman entered the interior of Wind Rock Hall.
Jin Ha-yeon turned at the sudden presence and hurriedly bowed upon recognizing her face.
"Greetings to First Squad Leader."
Silver Guard's First Squad Leader, Tam Bin.
To Jin Ha-yeon, a second-year in the Silver Guard, she was like the sky itself—a superior.
"How was your year serving the Eighth Young Master?"
Tam Bin asked in a voice that wasn't intimidating but carried refined poise.
Jin Ha-yeon reported her experiences and insights in the manner of briefing a superior.
Though she called them "insights," they weren't emotional reports.
"I served with the intent to devote myself to the Divine Cult, but seeing the Young Master made me realize that mere physical toil isn't the best. I never once thought of the academy or Tranquil Heart Academy duties. Instead of dwelling on such worries, I focused solely on how to grow stronger."
"The day the first assassin appeared, I realized I had been thinking too lightly of it all."
She spoke objectively, without omission or embellishment: praising the astonishing feats Il-mok had accomplished, his occasional laziness, or her own past inadequacies.
Her calm recounting continued for quite some time.
"Far from serving the Lord of Ten Thousand Demons, I still fall far short of even serving the Young Master properly."
At Jin Ha-yeon's final self-reflection, Tam Bin nodded with a stoic face.
"Good. Feeling your own deficiencies is truly fortunate. By nature, humans can only fill what they know is lacking."
"I will strive harder and harder."
At Jin Ha-yeon's resolute yet impassive reply, Tam Bin nodded again and said.
"It's the Lord's command. From now on, I will personally train you, so devote yourself fully to cultivation."
A ripple briefly flickered in Jin Ha-yeon's eyes before vanishing.
'When the Young Master returns in two years, I absolutely won't disappoint him.'
Seeing it as her duty fulfilled through responsibility, she bowed in her characteristic emotionless tone.
"I will follow the command even unto death."
* * *
Meanwhile, at that time.
Screeeeech!
In one of the Hyeok-ryeon family's training grounds, a girl radiating red energy darted about, swinging her hands wildly.
Slash!
The red energy swirling at her fingertips sliced through wooden dummies, piercing them with a chilling sound.
Beyond the wall, a woman and an elderly man secretly watched the sweating, tirelessly training girl.
They were Cheong-hwa Madam, Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a's mother, and Hyeok-ryeon Cheon-gang, patriarch of the Hyeok-ryeon family.
With faces mixed with worry, relief, affection, and sorrow, they watched Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a train.
Unlike the cold, stern demeanor they always showed her without a shred of affection.
As Seon-a, in the midst of unleashing Blood Fox Crimson Claw Art, seemed to run out of internal energy and sat cross-legged, breathing heavily, they both sighed softly.
"No signs of Demonic Deviation."
"Fortunately, the worries we had don't seem to be happening right away, Patriarch."
In truth, they hadn't slept properly since last night due to anxiety.
For nearly a year, the family's precious pearl had been practically living with the Heavenly Demon's youngest disciple.
It was only about an hour a day, but from the Hyeok-ryeon family's perspective, it was a massive concession.
At an age when she should bond with dolls or objects, they had allowed her to bond with a person.
And the one the precious pearl had grown most attached to was now leaving for two years.
Considering the side effects of Blood Fox Crimson Claw Art, it was impossible not to worry.
Yet, the child who returned to the family showed no seizures.
No, far from seizures, the child who returned to the family had started training diligently from early morning.
"Hoo."
Watching his granddaughter finish Qi Circulation and Breath Adjustment, stand, and resume Blood Fox Crimson Claw Art, Hyeok-ryeon Cheon-gang thought.
'I don't know what sorcery he used, but I have to acknowledge it.'
That the youngest Young Master was truly someone helpful to his granddaughter.
* * *
Late evening, after two hours of intense training and study.
After a thorough bath, Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a headed to her room, her mind and body cleansed.
The entrance exuded an eerie aura.
Sealed with a padlock and wires, it looked like the barren entrance to something dangerous long imprisoned.
Click.
Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a used a key from her sleeve to unlock the padlock and entered the room.
She then closed the door and locked it from inside with spare padlocks and wires.
Inside, she cautiously approached a large wardrobe in one corner.
Moving aside the clothes and blankets inside revealed a hidden wooden box in the corner.
Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a carefully pulled another key from her sleeve and opened the wooden box.
It was the box where she secretly kept all the items Il-mok had given her.
The item now taking up the most space was, naturally, the stuffed doll resembling Il-mok.
She lifted the stuffed doll reverently, as if performing a sacred ritual, and hugged it tightly.
As if she would never let it go anywhere.
Hyeok-ryeon Cheon-gang, Cheong-hwa Madam, and even Il-mok—they were all mistaken.
She hadn't overcome his absence. She was simply wise beyond her years.
Instead of whining, she had sought a solution.
And the solution her young mind came up with was simple.
'Big Brother had to leave me and go to the Demonic Path Academy because I'm weak.'
It was a very Demonic Cult-like solution.
'I have to get stronger. Strong enough to protect Big Brother. In two years, no one will be able to take Big Brother away from me.'
Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a's eyes and hair, as she tenderly stroked the Il-mok-like stuffed doll, had grown noticeably redder.
* * *
Meanwhile, at that time.
"Ugh."
After bathing, dinner, and returning to his room, Il-mok suddenly felt a chill and rubbed his arms.
'Is it really a cold?'
This was the third chill just today. It didn't bode well.
'Hoo. I'll write this and then sleep soundly.'
Il-mok dipped his brush in ink and neatly wrote on a blank white booklet.
As if leaving the first footprint in untouched fresh snow.
- Preliminary Mental Patient Asylum, Day 1 of admission.
- As expected, this place is full of lunatics.
- Instructor who's into guys, a punk playing delinquent, and now an idol sasaeng fan.
- Just imagining how many more crazies I'll meet makes my head hurt.
Il-mok trampled the pristine snowfield with rage and malice.