Chapter 60
Chapter 60
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 60
>Chapter Title: Laziness (1)
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The next day, early in the morning.
“Phew. Luckily, I didn’t catch a cold.”
After briefly checking my condition, a strange feeling washed over me.
“Is this what they mean by ‘you don’t know the value of a good seat until you’ve sat in it’?”
It was the moment I truly felt Jin Ha-yeon’s absence.
She had always brought water for washing my face and hands first thing in the morning, along with breakfast.
I’d lived my entire life without anyone waiting on me, yet after just one year of her service, it had become second nature.
Shaking off the needless regret, I got up from the bed and headed straight for the bath.
After washing my face there simply, I went to the dining hall and grabbed some breakfast.
Naturally, I had no intention of going anywhere with anyone else.
‘What’s the point of hanging around with those lunatics?’
I finished eating quickly and returned. Back in my room, I sat on the bed and rested.
Normally, at this hour, I’d be doing Qi Circulation and Breath Adjustment just to avoid Jin Ha-yeon’s watchful eye.
“Thinking about it like this, it’s actually more comfortable without her.”
In an instant, my view of Jin Ha-yeon shifted from helpful attendant to nagging busybody.
I rested like that for a suitable while.
Then, hearing the bell tolling from afar, I got up and headed to the training ground.
It was the bell announcing the first class at the Demonic Path Academy.
“Yawn.”
I arrived stretching out a long yawn, where nine other cadets were already in place, each wearing a tense expression.
The top ten from the entrance exam, including me—Class A cadets.
Zap.
Among them was Dokgo Pae, glaring at me like he wanted to kill me.
Ignoring Dokgo Pae, I casually scanned the other cadets and realized something very important.
‘Sure enough, that girl isn’t here.’
I’d suspected it since the lightness skill test on the first day, but she must have been placed in Class B.
‘At least I won’t have to deal with her during the daytime.’
As I let out a quiet sigh of relief inwardly, a now-familiar face appeared.
The instructor, always wearing that bright, mischievous grin.
He seemed to be smiling right at me again, which sent chills down my spine, so I slipped behind the other cadets.
In the meantime, Chu Il-hwan swept his gaze over the assembled cadets and spoke.
“Hmm. Good thing there are no idiots late on the first day or who got the location wrong. I introduced myself yesterday, so I’ll skip that. The subject I’ll be teaching is martial arts. Naturally, that brings up one question.”
He grinned playfully, as if posing a riddle, then paused to give them time to think before continuing.
“Everyone here has trained in different martial arts, so how exactly am I supposed to teach all ten of you?”
Some nodded, clearly having had the same thought, while others just stared at Chu Il-hwan with serious faces.
“That’d be true for complete beginners. But this is the Demonic Path Academy, where we select and cultivate the talents who will lead our Divine Cult. It’s not a place that spoon-feeds the basics. So, how do you think the training will proceed?”
This time, he shut his mouth for real, like he was actually quizzing them.
Silence fell over the training ground for a moment.
A guy in the front row, giving off a soldierly vibe, shot his hand up and shouted.
“Instead of teaching us forms or essentials one by one, you’ll watch the martial arts we demonstrate and point out our shortcomings!”
“Hahaha. Half correct! But you think a place like the Demonic Path Academy is just gonna sit around watching performances?”
At that, the guy whose name I knew—Dokgo Pae—raised his hand high.
“After observing spars between cadets, you’ll point out the problems!”
“Hahaha. Exactly right. Extra points for both of you.”
No sooner had the straightforward Chu Il-hwan finished speaking than a young warrior who’d been waiting behind him scribbled something on a small slip of paper he’d brought.
He was probably the assistant instructor.
In the meantime, Dokgo Pae raised his hand again and shouted.
“I have a question, Instructor!”
“Speak.”
“Can we choose our sparring partners?”
He was talking to Chu Il-hwan, but his eyes were already locked on me.
‘Sigh. Doesn’t he ever get tired of this?’
As I sighed inwardly, Instructor Chu Il-hwan answered the question.
“During class time, only spars with opponents I designate are permitted. Also, starting today, any spar caught without an instructor or assistant present will result in penalty points.”
Chu Il-hwan was someone I’d been avoiding until now, but at that moment, I couldn’t have been more grateful.
‘Awesome! Now I can dodge spars legally!’
As I let out an inward cheer of joy, Dokgo Pae couldn’t hide his shit-faced scowl and yelled.
“Why not, Instructor!”
“Because no matter how much you’re the future talents, you’re still greenhorns right now. Do you think we can let the kids who’ll shoulder the Divine Cult’s future drop dead or end up crippled in some reckless spar?”
“Then if we’re just a little careful—”
“Enough. Bring it up again, and you’ll get penalty points. If you want to spar outside of class, come find an instructor or assistant and request supervision.”
When the ever-smiling Chu Il-hwan turned dead serious, even Dokgo Pae had no choice but to shut his mouth.
‘...What a middling punk.’
If you’re gonna be a delinquent, you’ve gotta pull that crap on the teacher too to make it authentic. He had this weird habit of actually listening to the instructor.
In any case, thanks to Dokgo Pae clamming up, the class proceeded quickly.
Chu Il-hwan would call the names of two cadets, and they’d step forward for a spar.
If the spar went normally, he watched quietly, but if one cadet was about to get seriously hurt, the instructor moved in an instant to prevent the accident.
Clang!!
As one cadet’s thrust spear was about to pierce the other’s side, Chu Il-hwan leaped in to block it and said.
“This is exactly why spars are only allowed under instructor or assistant supervision. Understand?”
“Yes, Instructor!”
Once the cadets finished their spars, Chu Il-hwan would offer advice based on the martial arts they’d demonstrated.
“The art you practice focuses on the subtleties of overwhelming power, doesn’t it? In a situation like that, rather than forcing a change in trajectory and losing your strength, it’d be better to push through with even greater force.”
“The link between that form and the next one felt a bit unnatural. It’s not just a matter of enlightenment—it’s your body not holding up. Focus more on external training for a while.”
The cadets burst into exclamations of admiration at Chu Il-hwan’s pinpoint critiques, like some master tutor.
All except one. Me.
‘Using class time to indulge his own pervy whims. What a total psycho!’
Every time Chu Il-hwan groped the male cadets while pointing out their flaws, I couldn’t help but frown.
Should I report his sexual harassment or not? I pondered it alone.
Meanwhile, the cadets who’d finished sparring began training according to the instructor’s advice.
After everyone else had gone through their turns.
Only two of us remained, including me.
I figured I’d just spar this guy and be done, but that was wishful thinking.
“Il-mok, cadet—you spar the assistant.”
“!?”
As I pulled a dumbfounded face, the other guy tried to protest first.
“Why...”
But before Dokgo Pae could finish, Chu Il-hwan shot him a cold glare, and he instantly shut his trap.
‘Smart move keeping your mouth shut.’
I wasn’t thrilled about sparring the assistant, but Dokgo Pae stepping on the landmine first meant I was in the clear.
In any event, I stepped forward and faced off against the assistant.
He looked to be in his late twenties and wielded a saber.
“Begin.”
The moment Chu Il-hwan gave the order, the assistant closed in fast and unleashed a draw-cut.
Swoooosh.
From that single strike alone, I could roughly gauge the traits of the martial art he practiced.
‘An art that prioritizes speed.’
I retreated, barely dodging the first attack, then naturally drew my sword and counterattacked.
Clang!
The assistant easily blocked my first strike and began pouring on follow-ups.
Clang!
Clang!!
The more I blocked or dodged, the faster the assistant’s saber swings got, bit by bit.
As I gauged his emitted aura, the power of his art, his speed, and so on, I got a rough sense.
‘Around the same level as Jin Ha-yeon... right?’
Hard to say who was stronger, but purely in terms of realm, they seemed comparable.
To be precise, not the Jin Ha-yeon from when we first met, but the current one—whose realm had risen after falling into Demonic Deviation from Gu Yang-mun’s confession attack, turning misfortune into fortune.
In fact, right now, I was at almost the same realm as the Jin Ha-yeon from when we first met, according to her own words.
And given Jin Ha-yeon’s personality, she wouldn’t lie just to hype me up.
Adding in a few other facts I knew, I arrived at one very important truth.
On the day I first met Gu Yang-mun, that guy—acting all out-of-character tsundere—had told Jin Ha-yeon that her skills hadn’t improved much since right after graduating the academy.
The key point here was that Jin Ha-yeon had graduated the Demonic Path Academy in second place.
In other words.
‘That means I could graduate in second place right now if I wanted.’
Of course, there was one flaw in this logic: the skill levels of academy graduates aren’t the same every year.
But my spar with Dokgo Pae yesterday made that flaw irrelevant.
‘If a guy like that placed second, I don’t need to worry about the rankings catching up anytime soon.’
Thanks to that astonishing conclusion, I set my guidelines for the rest of my Demonic Path Academy days.
‘Spend the first year resting and managing side effects. Then in the second year, train just enough to barely scrape by as top graduate!’
What I really wanted was to slack off the whole two years, but that damn tradition was the problem.
The damn tradition that every single disciple of the Heavenly Demon had graduated top of the Demonic Path Academy.
On top of that, to slack off the first year without consequences, I needed one crucial prerequisite.
The prerequisite that no one discover I’d turned into a total slacker.
I was, after all, a disciple of the Heavenly Demon. It was a position where I had to set an example for others—and failing to do so could get my head lopped off by Jin Ha-yeon or my master.
So, how could I fake diligent training without actually doing any?
Swoooosh!
Even as the assistant’s speed-blade came hurtling viciously at my face to split it open.
I realized this was the most critical turning point for my academy life.
Dozens of times, I blocked or dodged the assistant’s relentless barrage of speed strikes.
Seeing his attacks land nowhere, the assistant gladly ramped up his speed even further.
The instant his speed-blade surpassed a certain threshold.
Thwack!!
“Urk.”
Staring at the saber now pointed at my throat, I put on a frustrated expression.
Secret technique: The young master’s strength-concealment ploy.
Hide your true power at first, then gradually reveal it to fake improvement without any actual training.
No matter how I thought about it, there was no more perfect plan.
‘It didn’t fool my senior brothers or master, but please, just this once!’
I desperately prayed to the heavens, forcibly holding down my twitching lips.