Management Records Bureau (2)
Baek Sam-byeol began the chapter with a very curiosity-stirring opening and remained silent for a long time.
“Senior Baek Sam-byeol, are you perhaps sharing a private message?”
“Eh? No. Explaining this properly is quite troublesome. Originally, everyone has some sense of anomalies.”
“Sense of anomalies?”
“When you reach the peak realm, you can feel the foreignness that has merged into this world. But you're not even second-class?”
“I’ve worked hard…!”
The rest of his words rose slightly in tone. It was impossible that he would cut me off here by saying ‘not dealing with those below peak’.
Baek Sam-byeol nodded.
“Yes, yes. Of course, the efforts of martial artists should be respected. However, explaining separately from your efforts makes me feel a bit awkward. There is something that can be felt at the moment of reaching the peak. However, it is difficult to express in words.”
“What Dao cultivation story are you talking about? ‘The Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao’?”
The Dao that can be named is not the true Dao. It was a common saying from wuxia novels.
I had not thought that this could be used to poke at someone’s heart, like ‘Ah, you don’t know. It is not the right time to hear it yet.’
Baek Sam-byeol clapped his hands.
“Oh, that is good! Let us start with the Dao story!”
It was a sentence thrown out in awkwardness, but Baek Sam-byeol seemed to have gotten some clue from it.
“There is the righteous path and the heretical path in the Murim world. You know that well, do you not?”
I nodded. It was the story we heard openly every time we started the black and white army alliance game.
The righteous path’s martial arts are divine, the heretical path’s are bizarre.
In the black and white army alliance game, the ‘black and white’ referred to these two factions. Which was black and which was white differed per player.
“However, there is a third path that is not known to the public.”
Baek Sam-byeol added a wry expression, ‘As for me, I do not want to acknowledge it as a path…’, attaching a comment.
I could guess the name of the third path from his next sentence.
The last sentence of the intro when choosing the path.
“Demonic path….”
“Ah. Did you see it in the rulebook already? Yeah. It is a term used in the Demonic path, but there is no other term that fits as well.”
Nodding, Baek Sam-byeol brought up the Murim Alliance and the Four Great Evil Sects. First, the two organizations are places where people live.
“Demonic path is different?”
“Not really. People who fall into the demonic path are called demons for convenience, but they have transcended humanity. We call those twisted beings influenced by the demonic path anomalies.”
The explanation of anomalies reminded me of the black and white army alliance game.
In the black and white army alliance game, the protagonists were ‘people’.
Although spirit beasts or treasures sometimes appeared, the final bosses or key supporting characters who determined the story’s direction were martial artists.
Precisely, it was the story up to the point before the path choice that brought me to this wuxia world. Since I had not actually played the path choice…
Seeing the term demonic path directly in the intro, it must have been quite different from the atmosphere of the previous story.
Those who fought to conquer the previous era had their own ambitions or ideals.
The Murim Alliance leader of the righteous path and the leaders of the Four Great Evil Sects all fought for what they wanted. Even if their power exceeded human limits, their hearts still had humanity.
Thinking about it, that is why there were no ‘demon arts’ in the black and white army alliance game.
There are cases where practicing martial arts leads to deviation and entering the devil path.
But from the start of training, there were no such evil demon arts like ‘gather 100 men from the southeast and northeast, extract their marrow and blood…’
As I delved into this game, I wondered why the developer made that choice. Nowadays, about a third of wuxia novel protagonists are not from the Heavenly Demon.
But why create a wuxia game by excluding demon arts?
At times, as the heretical path, I would seal the gates of the Murim Alliance, and at other times, as the Murim Alliance leader, I would exterminate the Four Great Evil Sects, and the mystery would naturally resolve.
It was the black and white ‘army alliance’ game.
The epic of heroes and heroes. A demon who has left the path of man can be neither.
Is the element intentionally excluded in the previous era, and it becomes prominent in the path choice?
While pondering the anomalies and demonic paths, I suddenly recalled something strange.
“Ah, but wait.”
“What is it?”
“I glanced at the draft of the rulebook being written in real-time, and it mentioned not just demons but also objects, right? Is an object, not a person, influenced by a demon art?”
Baek Sam-byeol smiled crookedly. It was a smile that felt a bit ominous.
The look professors give during university career counseling when students are being judged.
“Indeed, you are quick on the uptake! Do you remember what I said I was going to eat you for?”
“Manghon Villa. Of course I remember.”
“After that, there was something more attached, right.”
“It is the ‘pay grade anomaly’?”
While answering, it was confusing. Since I had not seen the term in the rulebook, I could not know exactly what it meant, but I could guess it meant the rank of anomaly.
Probably ranks divided into heaven, earth, human, and sub-ranks into celestial stems like jia, yi, bing, ding.
“But is the jia rank higher, or the gui rank higher?”
“Jia. It is written that way in the contract too.”
Baek Sam-byeol pulled a drawer under the table and took out paper and a brush. It seemed like extra tools placed to replenish if tools ran out during the rulebook draft work.
He wrote the three characters for heaven, earth, human in large characters in the blank part of the book. As I expected.
“This is the rank of anomalies. The standard is one: influence.”
Influence. A very mysterious standard. For example, if a demon becomes a socialite, his influence would exceed personal levels…
“To put it more intuitively, we can say lethality. Even a first-class is enough to kill one person.”
“…Then, does that mean the pay grade can kill multiple people at once?”
“It means ruining a military or a county.”
“This is a bit too crude a standard…”
The sense of mystery I felt when first seeing the institutional system was being diluted more and more.
“Oh, then if I know the classification standard for sub-ranks, you will be even more surprised.”
“What is it?”
“It is classified according to the possibility of promotion to the next rank. Less than 10% is gui, 90% or more is jia.”
As soon as I heard that, doubts sprang up.
“Expressing it this way is a bit awkward… Is there a separate way to assess the talent of anomalies?”
The martial talent of a martial artist is also hard to see at a glance, and in the martial world, people who have lived as third-class for decades suddenly gain enlightenment.
It was not just reading wuxia novels; it was something I experienced directly.
I saw with my own eyes the scene of a guy I thought was a nameless wanderer suddenly becoming enlightened and dancing joyfully with a sword.
How hard it is to judge a person’s heart, how much harder to see into the heart of an anomaly.
“Ah, that? Just the Records Bureau chief assigns it. We do not know well either.”
“It is really too vague.”
Baek Sam-byeol shrugged.
“What can I do. The person in charge said to do it that way. As a low-level like me, I have to accept it.”
“You call a person like Senior Baek Sam-byeol low-level?!”
“Excluding the chief, all records officers are treated the same. In a way, it might be the most equal organization in the Murim Alliance!”
After venting once, Baek Sam-byeol naturally changed the topic.
“Well, since you are still an outsider, this is as far as I can tell you. Now, let us hear your story.”
I felt there was something missing, but I nodded. Since it is confidential, what can I do.
“If you have seen the rulebook, you will know? Manghon Villa is a kind of smelting furnace.”
An eerie formation modeled after the Eight Trigrams in Journey to the West. When I recalled that place, my impression was furrowed.
“The problem is what is refined in the smelting furnace to make something. The Eight Trigrams of the Supreme Lord of the North Star gave birth to the Great God of Heaven, did they not?”
“I think I saw what would be born.”
I recalled the red shadow. Something that was supposed to be born by gathering the essence of humans. Perhaps the Manghon Villa was not a place to ultimately create shadows?
“Oh, by the way, I did not hear why you pulled up the True Origin Qi. What kind of anomaly was there?”
“I discovered a door inside the villa. The moment I approached it…”
While listening to my experience of surviving from the shadow, Baek Sam-byeol muttered, ‘Indeed, if we had not left it, there would have been a rank reclassification.’
“Reclassification? To celestial rank?”
“No, how could that be? It would rise from the fourth to the third or something. Understanding martial arts is a significant risk factor, after all.”
The words thrown by Baek Sam-byeol made sentences flash in my mind instantly.
The single word ‘understanding martial arts’ prompted me to recall the beginning of this conversation.
Baek Sam-byeol’s statement: ‘When you reach the peak realm, you can feel the foreignness that has merged into this world.’
Plus, the classification standard of anomalies I heard just now.
‘Rank is determined by influence.’
First-class kills a person.
Pay grade shakes the regional society.
Celestial rank?
Baek Sam-byeol stared at me fixedly. He gave a deeper laugh than before.
“You are quick on the uptake.”