Chapter 78
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: Well, I Knew That Would Happen
“What... what the hell?”
Dang Jin-san cried out in shock.
“W-what do we do now?”
Nak Woo-jin stammered, his voice trembling as he glanced around wildly.
Dan Mok Un-roe made the quickest judgment.
“Run!”
Ju Wu-myeong, who had just been raising his sword straight, changed his mind at her words and lowered it.
He spun around and kicked off the ground.
The rest of the cadets bolted toward the wall as well.
“Kruuuu.”
“Kyaa... kyaaaaa......”
The corpse puppets let out eerie cries as they charged forward.
They already knew from fighting them before that their speed was far from slow.
Still, since they'd spotted them early, they managed to put some distance between them while running.
Fortunately, none of the cadets were slower than the corpse puppets.
They reached the wall in an instant.
The moment they arrived, they expelled internal energy from the soles of their feet and launched themselves upward.
Vermilion Bird Soaring to Heaven.
The lightness skill they'd practiced all day yesterday.
The six figures shot straight up three zhang.
Those who grabbed the ropes scrambled up the wall in haste.
“Ah.”
But one person.
Not Yeon Ha-min.
The height she'd leaped was barely two zhang.
It wasn't a low height by any means, but in this situation, it fell short by a full zhang.
Had there been a mistake in channeling her internal energy?
In the sudden crisis, her mind grew tangled and chaotic.
Seeing that, Dan Mok Un-roe shouted.
“Hurry and climb up the wall using the rope!”
Her voice snapped Yeon Ha-min back to reality.
This was a real situation now.
In this desperate moment, pondering why she couldn't leap three zhang was idiotic.
Just as Dan Mok Un-roe said. She had to find a way to survive the current crisis.
She poured internal energy into her arms. Her legs too.
She kicked off the wall with all her might and began climbing.
One zhang.
She just needed to climb one zhang.
She hurried.
The six cadets' hands and feet climbed the ropes up the wall, but their eyes were fixed below.
Yeon Ha-min had no time to check below. She kept her gaze upward, climbing as fast as she could.
Tension filled the eyes of the six cadets.
Desperation too.
The moment Yeon Ha-min grabbed the knot marking the three-zhang point.
“Kaaaaack!!!”
The lead corpse puppet leaped up suddenly.
“Eek!”
Ha Seol-ran jumped in fright and screamed at the sight.
It was just as the instructor had said.
The corpse puppet soared three zhang in an instant.
A corpse puppet that could leap three zhang.
It was a monster utterly unlike anything in their common knowledge.
Regardless of the cadets' feelings, the corpse puppet's fingertips flew toward Yeon Ha-min's back.
The moment she sensed its presence.
Yeon Ha-min moved her limbs with every ounce of strength she had.
In a situation where tension and fear could have frozen her body stiff.
Perhaps thanks to her battle with the black leopard.
Yeon Ha-min fought to the very end.
But even her efforts had limits.
Just as the corpse puppet's claw was about to rake across her lower waist.
Slash.
A chilling slicing sound rang out, and the corpse puppet's arm flew off.
It was Han Seol-bing's sword.
“Keep climbing.”
A calm word.
Yeon Ha-min continued scaling the wall.
Then the remaining nine corpse puppets kicked off the ground and leaped, but none reached the cadets.
Their fingertips only touched the wall around the three-zhang knot marker.
Having escaped the crisis, sighs of relief escaped the seven cadets.
They climbed to the top and looked down to see the corpse puppets still leaping repeatedly.
“Haa... we survived......”
Dang Jin-san let out a long sigh.
“Ha-min, you okay?”
Ha Seol-ran asked Yeon Ha-min with a worried face. At her words, everyone's gazes turned to Yeon Ha-min.
Yeon Ha-min nodded, her face pale as a sheet.
The corners of her mouth trembled as she tried to smile.
“Those things keep jumping up.”
“They really leaped three zhang.”
Nak Woo-jin replied to Dang Jin-san's words.
“And they only jump exactly that high. They don't claw into the wall and climb or anything.”
Ju Wu-myeong observed closely and said.
“Oh? Is that so?”
A strange smile played on Dang Jin-san's lips.
“You'd better drop that idea.”
When had she climbed up? Han Seol-bing's voice came from beside them.
“Gah! W-when did you get here?”
The voice had come without warning, startling Dang Jin-san.
“Don't get cocky and think you can provoke them just because they only jump that high.”
Whether Dang Jin-san was startled or not, Han Seol-bing continued.
“Ah! Cooperation between them!”
Ha Seol-ran let out an exclamation as if she'd just realized.
“Right. When those things gather in numbers, they cooperate. Ten of them is an awkward number. But they do react to provocations. And that reaction could turn into cooperation between individuals.”
At Han Seol-bing's explanation, Dang Jin-san shuddered.
“So, how was it?”
Han Seol-bing's question.
They all glanced at each other, unable to answer properly.
It had truly been an eventful day.
Yesterday, they'd just been hopping around practicing Vermilion Bird Soaring to Heaven.
And the demonic beasts—no, monsters—they'd faced today were truly...
“We got arrogant.”
Yeon Ha-min answered in a self-reproachful voice.
She hadn't properly executed Vermilion Bird Soaring to Heaven at the end, leading to that close call.
“That's why real combat training is crucial. What if this had been the real thing?”
“We'd have died. And turned into those corpse puppets......”
Yeon Ha-min answered coldly, assessing herself accurately.
“That's why we train to avoid that. Just like today.”
“Pardon? Training?”
Dang Jin-san cut in.
Up until now, the cadets had believed this was real combat.
These things had burst in during their review of the day's events.
“B-brother?”
Ha Seol-ran, who had been looking around, murmured upon spotting Ha Mu-baek appearing below the wall.
“Ah! Instructor Ha!”
Only then did Dan Mok Un-roe remember the one person missing from their group.
“No way......”
Dang Jin-san peered down the wall with suspicion bordering on certainty.
Thud! Boom boom! Thud thud!
It was ridiculously simple.
He swung his fist casually, and a corpse puppet's head exploded.
They had fled for their lives from ten of them, but this man casually punched and burst the monsters' heads like toys.
The real monster wasn't those things—it was their instructor.
After dispatching all ten, Ha Mu-baek leaped lightly onto the wall.
“Instructor, did you send those things after us?”
Dang Jin-san asked with a resentful look.
“Well, I knew that would happen.”
“What if one of us had gotten hurt...?”
“Instructor Han was with you.”
Ha Mu-baek replied nonchalantly to Dang Jin-san's complaint.
“Yeon Ha-min nearly got caught!”
“Instructor Han blocked it.”
“What if there'd been more than one?”
“Instructor Han would have blocked them.”
“......”
Dang Jin-san was at a loss for words.
Hadn't Ha Mu-baek just demonstrated it himself?
That he could dispatch them with casual punches.
If Ha Mu-baek could do it, surely Han Seol-bing could too. That's what he thought.
“So, how was the training? You only gain something from making it feel real, right?”
Ha Mu-baek asked with a grin.
At that smile, the seven cadets shuddered. Even Ha Seol-ran.
They really didn't want to remember what had just happened.
It had been that desperate and horrific an experience.
“If you'd known it was training, would you have given it your all like that? Think about it carefully before blaming me.”
“......”
No one had a retort to Ha Mu-baek's words.
“And, Yeon Ha-min.”
“Yes.”
“That effort of yours, never giving up until the end. Excellent. Do the same in real combat. Sometimes, struggling to the last creates an opening.”
“Yes.”
Yeon Ha-min smiled faintly at Ha Mu-baek's praise.
Thud thud thud thud.
Hoofbeats kicked up thick clouds of dust.
Moving over three hundred men on horseback wasn't easy.
Even on the main road, their pace was slower than expected.
Yeon Baek-ryang urged his subordinates on with the momentum to reach Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest tomorrow, but the journey didn't go as planned.
“How much farther?”
“We'll need at least seven more days.”
“Too slow.”
“This is already pushing it to get to the end of Zhejiang Province.”
Not even Dong Ju-san's response erased the dissatisfaction on Yeon Baek-ryang's face.
“Who knows what might happen to that child in the meantime...”
“Thanks to Haomen telling us their route, we're making this good time.”
Ha Mu-baek had also traveled noisily along the main road.
So confirming their path and destination via Haomen had been simple.
Considering Ha Mu-baek's senses, they'd normally have to track traces from a great distance, but this time the trail was glaringly obvious.
Haomen had already pinpointed their location near Mountain-Crossing Great Wall.
Yeon Baek-ryang's group just had to follow Haomen's directions.
Without needing to hunt for Ha Mu-baek's trail, they saved time and moved faster.
Even so, Yeon Baek-ryang kept venting his dissatisfaction.
Especially as the days dragged on.
Desire clouded his judgment.
'No way, but this is just like the symptoms of that cursed demonic art...'
Yeon Gong-hu thought that every time he saw his uncle like this.
The demonic art whose existence he'd learned of through his late father's letter.
On this journey, he'd heard from the clan warriors that Pavilion Lord Pang had mastered it.
Yet his uncle was absolutely convinced it couldn't be.
His father wouldn't have informed him without telling his uncle.
Besides, his grandfather surely wouldn't have left it unprepared.
His uncle was simply blinded by desire; in other ways, he was eminently fit to be the Yeon Clan's young lord.
'Was the power of that child's beauty this strong? Enough to drive my desire-blinded uncle to this state?'
Yeon Gong-hu gazed at Yeon Baek-ryang with pity.
Impatience blinded Yeon Baek-ryang's eyes.
It had been better when they didn't know Yeon Ha-min's whereabouts. At least then he'd been rational.
But upon learning she was in Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest, he'd become like this.
'The clan lord should see him like this...'
He'd have disciplined the young lord no matter what.
He wouldn't tolerate desire disrupting one's will.
Unaware of how dire the young lord's condition was, the clan lord saw sacrificing one girl's safety as inconsequential.
The clan's welfare came first.
Letting the young lord achieve his wish without interference.
Unaware it was rotting the clan from within.
“Where is he?”
Ye Cho-a asked the subordinate prostrated before her.
“He's set up at a gap in the southern section of Mountain-Crossing Great Wall.”
“A gap, huh... He doesn't want to tangle with Demon-Sealing Corps.”
Haomen called spots where corpse puppet swarms rarely rose—and thus Demon-Sealing Corps' patrols were lax—"gaps."
“Seems that way.”
“Then how about luring Demon-Sealing Corps there?”
The subordinate pondered Ye Cho-a's question before replying.
“That'd be a poor plan. Demon-Sealing Corps knows well what Ha Mu-baek is like in the forest. They won't stir up needless trouble.”
“I think so too.”
Ye Cho-a readily accepted her subordinate's opinion.
Ha Mu-baek of Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
In the last war, at least, Ha Mu-baek—not the corpse puppets—had been the real demon.
“No other options inside Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest?”
“No one in the current martial world knows it better than him.”
Even Haomen or Beggar Clan intelligence networks only mattered outside Mountain-Crossing Great Wall.
Inside was pure monster territory.
“So we just wait for Yeon Baek-ryang to arrive?”
“About seven days.”
At her subordinate's report, Ye Cho-a tapped the armrest regretfully.