Chapter 156
Chapter 156
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 156
Chapter Title: What Has Changed?
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"Aaaaargh!"
The Divine Doctor of the Ages shot up, screaming.
"Gasp! Gasp!"
Breathing heavily, the Divine Doctor of the Ages blinked a few times and looked around.
He saw the One-Needle Eccentric sitting right next to him, watching him with a pitying expression.
"Brother?"
"Are you all right?"
"Uh... I don't know. I... I was sure I was dead."
"You're last."
"Huh? Last? What's that supposed to mean?"
"You were the last one to wake up."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages couldn't comprehend what he meant. He thought he had died, and now that he was alive again, he couldn't get his bearings.
His mind was a blank.
The Divine Doctor of the Ages slowly looked around.
First, he saw a night sky that looked as if it were spilling stars.
Then he noticed the campfire and the people scattered around it at a comfortable distance.
Only then did his mind start to work properly.
"Uh... now that I think about it, we were supposed to be camping out..."
As his memory returned, he recalled what Byeok Taesan had said earlier—that he would let him experience death.
And what happened after.
"Ah... so that's what that was."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages shuddered. It was a truly terrifying memory. He had honestly thought he was dead.
Byeok Taesan's promise to let him experience death had been neither a joke nor an exaggeration.
The Divine Doctor of the Ages glanced around, looking for Byeok Taesan.
Then he realized everyone around him was staring at him.
"Brother, why is everyone looking at me?"
"Because you woke up screaming."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages flushed as he remembered waking up with an unsightly scream.
"Damn it. It's not like I wanted to scream. Anyone would do the same after an experience like that."
"I thought so too, for a brief moment."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages chuckled.
"Did you let out a good scream too, Brother?"
"I did. A very satisfying one."
"Nothing to be ashamed of. I screamed too. And honestly, everyone else must have."
The One-Needle Eccentric averted his gaze slightly and said.
"It was just you and me."
"Come on, Brother. Don't joke around."
"I'm not joking. What a bunch of tough bastards."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages couldn't believe it. How could anyone go through that and hold back a scream?
The moment you realize you're dying, it just bursts out. They held it in? How in the world?
"So everyone else died once too?"
"Yes. I died after you, and I woke up somewhere in the middle. So I clearly saw the others lying dead, and even witnessed a few of them dying."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages narrowed his eyes and stared at the One-Needle Eccentric.
"Look at me properly. Unless you want to die for real this time, not fake."
"Put yourself in my shoes. If I had said that to you, would you have believed me, Brother?"
"Of course I wouldn't. But you should believe me, you bastard."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages stared at the One-Needle Eccentric in disbelief, his mouth agape.
"Brother, your selfishness could pierce the heavens. How can you be so consistently self-centered?"
"Shut up and get some sleep. Looks like everyone else is turning in. We need to build up all the physical and mental strength we can. To endure tomorrow."
"Huh? What do you mean by that? Don't tell me the Young Master said we're doing that hellish training again tomorrow?"
The One-Needle Eccentric looked at the Divine Doctor of the Ages as if he were the most pitiful man alive, shook his head, and let out a deep sigh.
Then he found a spot near the campfire and lay down.
The Divine Doctor of the Ages looked around anxiously. Everyone else was lying down, exuding a similar atmosphere to the One-Needle Eccentric.
"Surely I don't have to go through this again tomorrow?"
* * *
The next day, the Divine Doctor of the Ages spoke with the others one by one and learned in more detail what had happened while he was unconscious.
He also understood why the One-Needle Eccentric had looked at him with such pity yesterday.
As he listened to their stories, it was suddenly lunchtime.
The carriage stopped, and everyone got off to prepare lunch.
Byeok Taesan's maids once again prepared a spread of delicious dishes.
Their cooking skills were truly remarkable.
They had always pondered how best to serve Byeok Taesan, and in preparation for moments like this, they had carved out time to practice their cooking.
Their talents had already blossomed after Byeok Taesan cleansed their souls, so it was only natural for their skills to improve when they added diligent practice to their innate abilities.
Despite the delicious food in front of him, the Divine Doctor of the Ages just poked at it with his chopsticks.
He had no appetite.
"Are you performing a memorial service for your food?"
The Divine Doctor of the Ages scowled at the One-Needle Eccentric's words.
"Agh, of all the things to say. Do you really have to talk about memorial services to a man facing death?"
"Watching you gives me comfort."
Even as he said it, the One-Needle Eccentric's expression wasn't great either.
Aside from waking up from death early, he was one of the two who had screamed.
Nothing had been said yet, but there would surely be some kind of penalty.
The Byeok Taesan he had come to know would definitely do something.
No, if he simply let it slide, one would have to be suspicious.
It would mean either a bigger trap was being prepared, or this Byeok Taesan was an impostor.
"You'd better eat up. It'll be your loss if you wake up late due to a lack of stamina and suffer even more for it."
Hearing that, the Divine Doctor of the Ages snapped to his senses.
He knew better than anyone that Byeok Taesan wasn't the type to go easy on him just because he was moping.
The Divine Doctor of the Ages suddenly began to eat with gusto.
And just as he finished all the food, he suddenly felt the world go black.
*Damn it, at least give me a warning before you kill me.*
With that thought, he slumped forward.
As the Divine Doctor of the Ages collapsed, Byeok Taesan glanced over the group. Then he nodded.
"Has anyone felt a change?"
No one answered. But Byeok Taesan simply nodded again, as if this was to be expected.
Byeok Taesan looked at the Divine Doctor of the Ages and said.
"Put him in the carriage."
A few people rushed to carry the Divine Doctor of the Ages into the carriage.
Then Byeok Taesan also boarded the carriage.
They set off again.
And they only stopped after the sun had set.
Of course, they were camping out again tonight. It was as if they were traveling specifically to camp out.
* * *
"Young Master. Honestly, isn't this a bit much?"
The Divine Doctor of the Ages said to Byeok Taesan, his eyes wide with indignation, as if he could bear it no longer.
Byeok Taesan stared silently at the Divine Doctor of the Ages.
The Divine Doctor of the Ages met Byeok Taesan's gaze without flinching. He didn't waver in the slightest.
Instead, it was the people watching from the sidelines who grew restless.
They understood how the Divine Doctor of the Ages felt, but they never thought he would confront Byeok Taesan like that.
And now, it was too late to intervene between the two.
The One-Needle Eccentric wanted to smack the back of the Divine Doctor's head right then and there and scream, 'Are you crazy?' but he suppressed the urge.
Yeon Harin seriously considered whether she should step in and try to charm her way through the situation.
The rest of them felt much the same, swallowing dryly as they watched Byeok Taesan and the Divine Doctor of the Ages.
The reason for the Divine Doctor's outburst was the strange training Byeok Taesan had been putting them through during their travels.
No, it was questionable whether it could even be called training.
Honestly, it was fascinating.
Everyone here had to experience death once a day throughout the journey.
It was an incredibly difficult yet bizarre experience.
But not everyone was training in the same way.
For starters, the One-Needle Eccentric had to die three times every two days. He died more often than the others.
And Yeon Harin died once every two days.
Like this, the number of times each person experienced death varied.
The problem was the Divine Doctor of the Ages.
He still had to die twice a day, every day.
But if that were all, the Divine Doctor wouldn't have protested so strongly.
At first, he had accepted it, believing he was lacking.
After all, the time it took him to wake up after dying was longer than anyone else's.
But that was no longer the case.
Now, the Divine Doctor's time was the shortest. After death, he woke up faster than anyone.
Yet he was still being told to die twice, so of course he was protesting.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to die!"
At the Divine Doctor's words, Byeok Taesan let out a small laugh.
Did he know how hard it was to die? Of course. He probably knew better than anyone else here.
What they had experienced was, in the end, a false death. It was on a completely different level from the real thing.
"One who has yet to truly die speaks so easily."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages fell silent at Byeok Taesan's words.
Somehow, he spoke as if he himself had experienced such a death.
The problem was, it felt like he really had.
That was a thought that occurred to everyone who heard Byeok Taesan's words.
*'Could it be that he's actually died before?'*
Everyone knew Byeok Taesan's body had been extremely weak. Perhaps he had experienced a true death back then?
And that's why he had changed so much since.
And based on that experience, he was conducting this training to help them grow?
It was a guess that was far from the truth, but everyone found it quite plausible.
And in their minds, that guess soon began to transform into fact.
To the speechless Divine Doctor of the Ages, Byeok Taesan said.
"What has changed?"
"Pardon?"
Byeok Taesan didn't ask again, only stared silently at the Divine Doctor, as if urging him to answer quickly.
"Uh... I don't know."
His earlier bravado vanished, and his body and mind began to shrink. He felt as if he had done something terribly wrong.
Byeok Taesan glanced around, his gaze stopping on Yeon Harin.
At Byeok Taesan's question, Yeon Harin tilted her head, lost in thought for a moment, then answered.
"I feel a strange power right around here."
Yeon Harin pointed a finger to where her heart was.
At her words, everyone turned to look at Yeon Harin in surprise.
Byeok Taesan looked at the others. His gaze ended on the Divine Doctor of the Ages.
"From today, anyone who doesn't want to can choose not to die."
With those words, Byeok Taesan left and entered his carriage.
Silence hung in the air for a while.
It was Yu Seoyeon who broke the silence.
She approached Yeon Harin and asked.
"My lady, I have a question about that strange power you mentioned."
Yeon Harin smiled shyly.
"I don't really know yet either. But... it feels like something incredible. Maybe even greater than innate energy... I'm not sure. Well, I guess the Young Master will tell us later, right?"
Though she said it casually, the impact it had was not small.
"What's certain is that the power grows stronger each time I experience death."
At those words, everyone's expression grew serious.
And it occurred to them that perhaps Byeok Taesan changed the frequency of their deaths based on the power that had taken root within them.
As they were all pondering and discussing Byeok Taesan's training, Soso stepped forward, raising her voice slightly.
"Um, excuse me."
Soso's voice was a bit loud, and since it was laced with internal energy, it was more than enough to capture everyone's attention.
As everyone looked at Soso, she lowered her gaze with a slightly timid expression and said.
"Our Young Master... he isn't sulking, is he?"
Everyone stared blankly at Soso.
They hadn't considered that at all.
Come to think of it, the words he said as he left now stuck in their minds.
Never before had Byeok Taesan said such a thing about training.
To Byeok Taesan, training was something that simply had to be done, no matter what.
But telling those who didn't want to to stop? That was completely unlike him.
This time, everyone's gaze turned to the Divine Doctor of the Ages.
Flustered, the Divine Doctor of the Ages took an involuntary step back.
The One-Needle Eccentric approached his side.
"I knew you'd cause some major trouble one day."
"What? What did I...?"
The Divine Doctor of the Ages trailed off and glanced around nervously.
He thought this might be the first time in his life he had ever stopped mid-sentence.
And the first time he had ever felt so small.
"H-honestly, do you think the Young Master would care about something like this? He'll probably just let it go. Yes, we all know what kind of person our Young Master is."
At the Divine Doctor's words, the One-Needle Eccentric nodded unconsciously. He thought there was some truth to it.
But the others couldn't hide their anxious expressions.
And they were able to confirm the result that very night.
"Uh, um, Young Master?"
The Divine Doctor of the Ages called out to Byeok Taesan, his expression anxious.
When Byeok Taesan turned to look, he asked with even more anxiety.
"But why aren't you killing me?"
After saying that, the Divine Doctor of the Ages looked around.
Everyone had already died once. Some had even woken up already.
But he was still the same.
"If you want to die, ask someone else. I don't want to get my hands dirty."
"No, that's not..."
He wasn't asking to be actually killed.
Byeok Taesan shot the Divine Doctor a glance, then turned and went back into his carriage.
As the Divine Doctor of the Ages stared blankly at his retreating back, the One-Needle Eccentric came up beside him and chuckled.
"Looks like he cares a whole lot, doesn't it?"
The Divine Doctor of the Ages whipped his head around and glared at the One-Needle Eccentric.
Normally, he would have snapped at him for glaring, but today, the One-Needle Eccentric was feeling exceptionally generous.
"Your eyes are going to pop out. Let's get to sleep. Phew, dying and coming back to life is exhausting."
The Divine Doctor of the Ages watched him, his fists trembling with rage.