Chapter 218
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 218
Chapter Title: You're More Shameless Than I Thought
"Hoo."
Namgung Ji-hu let out a deep sigh as he lowered his sword.
After his spar with Dan Mok Un-roe, Namgung Ji-hu had stopped practicing the Sovereign Sword Form as his father had taught him.
Instead, he began training it in the way he had interpreted it himself.
There was a sense of uncertainty and fear about whether this was right, but at least the instinctive resistance he felt when swinging the sword was gone.
Namgung Ji-hu's gaze, lifted toward the night sky twinkling with stars, shifted to one side.
It was the direction of the main training ground.
"I should go see her again tomorrow."
He murmured softly to himself alone.
"No need for that."
Namgung Ji-hu jumped in surprise at the sudden voice.
This instructor always appeared like a ghost, without any presence.
"You've arrived?"
Namgung Ji-hu tried to act calm as he greeted Ha Mu-baek.
Ha Mu-baek pulled a handwritten manual from his bosom.
It was the first half of the Sovereign Sword Form, written by Namgung Ji-hu with utmost care.
"What the hell were you thinking, entrusting this to me?"
"I want to get stronger."
Namgung Ji-hu answered Ha Mu-baek's question without hesitation, as if it was obvious.
"And?"
"I want to become the clan head."
A frank response.
Namgung Ji-hu's eyes shone with ambition for the position of clan head.
"Why?"
"Because it's proof that I've been acknowledged."
"By whom?"
Ha Mu-baek, with his expressionless face, continued his questions.
"......"
For the first time, Namgung Ji-hu was at a loss for words.
Ha Mu-baek simply gazed at him steadily.
"...By my father."
A faint murmur escaped.
It was a quiet voice, but it carried Namgung Ji-hu's heartfelt sincerity.
Ha Mu-baek stared intently at Namgung Ji-hu's face.
Namgung Ji-hu did not avoid Ha Mu-baek's gaze.
"Do you really have to earn that acknowledgment? Even if it means handing your clan's secret technique to an outsider?"
Ha Mu-baek still hadn't opened the Sovereign Sword Form.
He knew what it meant to look at another sect's secret manual, so he had accepted it but left it untouched.
He planned to learn the story behind it before turning even the first page.
"Because I'm his son."
It was a response filled with firm resolve.
That resolve meant one thing.
It was declaring that he was undoubtedly his father's son.
Ha Mu-baek read that resolve.
'Well, he couldn't have not known.'
He must have overheard the whispers of the clan members, whether he wanted to or not.
He had been ignoring them as best he could, convincing himself that he was his father's son.
Every time he faced his father's cold demeanor, he told himself it was because he fell short.
"Do you think you'll be acknowledged even if you wield the Sovereign Sword Form in a way different from your father?"
"The strong are revered. The Sovereign Sword Form is an incomplete sword art. No, it's a sword art that must endlessly grow stronger. If I take it one step further into greater strength, he will acknowledge it."
"Incomplete?"
"Yes. I haven't seen the second half, but even just the first half makes it clear. The verse contains that very intent."
"Even if it means getting help from an outsider, as long as you grow stronger?"
Ha Mu-baek asked again.
"......"
Namgung Ji-hu fell silent for a moment.
"You're not an outsider."
Ha Mu-baek raised an eyebrow. His eyes said, what nonsense is this now?
"You're an instructor."
"You're in the Hidden Dragon Corps, and I'm in the Fierce Dragon Corps."
"I'm a cadet of the Dragon Training Pavilion, and you're an instructor of the Dragon Training Pavilion."
Namgung Ji-hu replied calmly to Ha Mu-baek's words.
"You've even given me guidance. I think of you as my master."
Ha Mu-baek looked at Namgung Ji-hu with a face that said he couldn't believe it.
"You... you're more shameless than I thought."
Even at Ha Mu-baek's blunt words, Namgung Ji-hu showed no change.
That's how desperate he was.
It wasn't just a desperate desire for his father's acknowledgment.
There was another emotion hidden within.
Ha Mu-baek could see it.
'Something desperate and fierce... hot... hot?'
Ha Mu-baek harbored that same burning emotion.
He still carried it in a corner of his heart even now.
It was...
'Revenge.'
Revenge against the Demonic Cult and Blood Cult bastards who ravaged his village and killed his parents.
Revenge against the Blood Cult and Demonic Cult scum who had thrown his young sibling's life into the gutter.
That was his thirst for vengeance.
He looked at Namgung Ji-hu again.
It was clear.
It wasn't a desire for acknowledgment.
Rather, it was resentment toward his father.
'He might know the full story.'
Now it made sense.
For revenge, showing the clan's secret technique to an outsider in secret was nothing.
Since the opponent was the clan head, it was something he could dare to do.
"What are you burning for?"
After a moment of silence, Ha Mu-baek asked.
Namgung Ji-hu flinched at the question.
"The clan isn't what's important to you."
At those words spoken with certainty, Namgung Ji-hu stared piercingly at Ha Mu-baek.
His eyes blazed fiercely.
Meeting that gaze, Ha Mu-baek nodded.
Someday.
Somewhere.
It was a gaze he felt he had encountered before.
"I'll tell you."
Ha Mu-baek said with a smirk.
That desperation for revenge had moved Ha Mu-baek's heart.
Because it was an emotion he knew all too well.
Slowly, he turned the first page of the manual.
Rustle. Rustle.
Only the sound of turning pages echoed.
About fifteen minutes.
That was the time Ha Mu-baek spent skimming the first half of the Sovereign Sword Form manual.
He had simply turned the pages slowly.
Namgung Ji-hu tilted his head at the sight.
It seemed like he was just getting a general overview of the manual.
'He'll examine it in detail later.'
That's what he concluded.
"Just as you said. This is a seed."
Namgung Ji-hu's eyes widened.
"And the Sovereign Sword Form that the current Namgung Clan Head has mastered is a stem that has grown in the wrong direction."
The Sovereign Sword Form that Ha Mu-baek had seen during the recent war.
And the manual he was looking at now.
Combining the two, he could see why the Namgung Clan, once the world's greatest, had lost its prestige to the Hubei Yeon Clan.
Because it had grown its stem and roots in the wrong direction, the Namgung Clan was withering away bit by bit.
"Grand Harmony Sword Method."
"Pardon?"
Namgung Ji-hu asked back at Ha Mu-baek's quiet words.
"Complete the Grand Harmony Sword Method first."
For a seed to take root and grow a straight stem, it needs solid soil and nutrients.
Ha Mu-baek could see it.
It was the Namgung Clan's foundational sword art, the Grand Harmony Sword Method.
And the Sky-Piercing Carefree Sword as well.
"I've already..."
Ha Mu-baek's lips curved up at Namgung Ji-hu's dazed words.
"Watch closely."
Ha Mu-baek drew his sword.
And swung it slowly.
An utterly simple motion.
A form that even Namgung Ji-hu knew.
Of course.
It was the Three Talents Sword Method.
But Namgung Ji-hu couldn't move, his eyes bulging wide.
He felt the immense power contained in each swing.
Though a simple motion, it held inscrutable changes that he couldn't grasp at a glance.
"I haven't perfected this yet either."
Namgung Ji-hu felt a heavy shock at Ha Mu-baek's words.
This profound level of the Three Talents Sword Method, and he said he hadn't perfected it?
"Achieving the twelve zeniths doesn't mean it's complete."
Each word was a teaching laden with deep meaning.
"Before the Grand Harmony Sword Method, review the Three Talents Sword Method again. You've trained it a bit during the break, haven't you?"
"......"
"I know that desperation well enough. But don't be reckless."
With those words, Ha Mu-baek left the training ground.
Thud. Thud.
Ha Mu-baek's footsteps faded into the distance, but Namgung Ji-hu still seemed unable to recover from the shock.
When he first saw him, he thought the instructor was just an eccentric.
Now, it felt like he had glimpsed a fragment of a giant whose depths he couldn't even fathom.
Ha Seol-ran lay gazing up at the sky.
Dang Jin-san had returned to the dormitory.
Yeon Ha-min had gone back too.
She had offered to go with him, but Ha Seol-ran wanted to stay like this a bit longer.
On the dirt floor of the main training ground.
Her back and waist should have hurt, but Ha Seol-ran just felt good.
It was the first time.
The first time she had pushed her body this hard, to the point where it felt like it might fall apart.
"You're back?"
Ha Seol-ran glanced at Ha Mu-baek as he plopped down beside her.
"What happened?"
"Huh?"
"What happened with the Wa Dragon Corps guys?"
"Ah."
As expected, she couldn't escape her brother's senses.
"There was a story behind it. A story of despair. They had the same eyes as when I was lost in despair."
"......"
Ha Mu-baek said nothing in response.
Back then, instead of staying by his sister's side, he had gone mad with revenge, covered in blood, roaming the martial world.
"I'm sorry."
Ha Mu-baek said calmly.
"Thanks to you and Master, I overcame that despair."
A gentle smile formed on Ha Seol-ran's lips.
"And now I can feel this refreshment because of it. The feeling of pushing my body to exhaustion. It's my first time. Feels great."
While running all night, Ha Mu-baek had been monitoring Ha Seol-ran's condition.
He kept pushing her to the limit because she was handling it.
She had grown healthier.
His sister had.
"I wanted to lift that unfair despair from someone's eyes, like you and Master did for me."
And then the story of Wa Dragon Corps Squad Twenty flowed from Ha Seol-ran's lips.
'Orphans.'
That was the word that caught Ha Mu-baek's ear.
Despair probably stemmed largely from that.
"It won't be easy. Don't overdo it. If it's tough, come find me."
Ha Mu-baek said as he stood up.
"Go inside and rest. It's still cold. You'll catch a cold."
With that, Ha Mu-baek left the training ground.
Ha Seol-ran raised her upper body from the ground.
She gazed steadily at Ha Mu-baek's receding back.
"Thank you, Brother."
She didn't remember her parents' faces.
The first page of her memory was...
Before meeting her master.
The time when her brother carried her in his arms, wandering the martial world penniless.
Even when he had nothing to eat himself, her brother took care of only her.
In those hellish times when blood ties meant nothing.
Her brother had cared only for her.
She didn't know it then, but now she did.
Early morning.
Heart method training at the Fierce Dragon Corps Squad Seven training ground.
Dang Jin-san and Yeon Ha-min threw themselves even more fervently into the Heart Method Samadhi Scripture.
They had diligently practiced the heart method before bed last night too.
Thanks to that, their muscle soreness wasn't too bad.
Just a slight hindrance to movement?
Ha Seol-ran was the same.
They headed to the academy like that.
Today's lesson was 'The Beginning of Sword Arts.'
As soon as they entered the classroom, Dang Jin-san looked around.
As if searching for someone.
"Not here."
He muttered softly.
Neither Wa Dragon Corps Squad One nor Squad Twenty was in class today.
The lesson content was as expected: the Graceful Dragon Sword Method.
Just as he had felt while learning lightness skill yesterday, it was truly an excellent martial art.
Who in the Dragon Training Pavilion had created such a technique?
Dang Jin-san focused even more intently on the lesson.
Yeon Ha-min did the same.
The Graceful Dragon Sword Method was a crucial martial art in their plans, so they kept their concentration at its peak.
As the class ended...
Dang Jin-san was the first to hurry out.
The garden in front of the academy.
He had business there.
The other Fierce Dragon Corps cadets exchanged glances.
Dang Jin-san's behavior today was different from usual.
Yeon Ha-min tilted her head too.
Meeting the Wa Dragon Corps Squad Twenty cadets would only be possible after dinner tonight.
What had him in such a rush?
When they went out to the garden and found Dang Jin-san...
He stood with arms crossed before five cadets, smirking confidently.
"What the hell?"
Byeok I-gyeom recognized Dang Jin-san and spoke with displeasure.
Dang Jin-san turned to him and opened his mouth.
"Hey, I'm bored and my mouth's dry, so go to the Devouring Dragon Pavilion and bring back some fried chicken. With some cool water so it doesn't get stuck."
Byeok I-gyeom's face twisted hideously at his words.
"Fuck. What the hell are you saying? You Fierce Dragon Corps cadet punk. Ordering another cadet around like a servant?"
Harsh words poured out, as if to seize the momentum.
"A second-year ordering a first-year around a bit, and you're rebelling like it's a big deal?"
Dang Jin-san glared at Byeok I-gyeom.
His gaze was filled with killing intent.
"Urgh."
Byeok I-gyeom lost his momentum.
To be precise, he was overwhelmed by the skill Dang Jin-san had shown in his spar with Eon Mu-woong.
It was obvious it would only end up costing him if they clashed.
Byeok I-gyeom looked around.
Everyone was watching with keen interest.
"Fuck. In the Dragon Training Pavilion, cadets are equal! Regardless of affiliation or seniority!"
He shouted loud enough for the other cadets to hear.
His intent was to warn them that if he got done like this, they would too with this bastard.
Dang Jin-san smirked.
"Didn't you make other cadets run errands for you yesterday?"
"Ah, that's different from this!"
"How?"
"Those guys are our..."
As he said that, another Squad One cadet urgently grabbed Byeok I-gyeom's arm.
He couldn't say any more.
There might be people who knew, but if they blurted it out openly, it would cause problems.
Byeok I-gyeom realized this too and glared at Dang Jin-san with a resentful face.
"Hey. Wanna make a bet with me?"
Dang Jin-san said, looking at Byeok I-gyeom with an amused expression.