Chapter 18
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Treating the Prince
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Joseph, constantly hounded by his two brothers, must have realized he needed at least one thing he excelled at.
And that was the sword.
Conveniently, as the protagonist, his talent was exceptional... so he could drive himself to this extent.
Not just anyone could do that.
Even in a world where methods of handling internal energy are unknown, to ruin his body like this... it's an incredible talent. He instinctively figured out how to grow stronger quickly.
In this world, they called qi "Aura."
She hadn't known exactly what they meant by "Swordmaster" here. But seeing Joseph's body, she was starting to understand.
Qi circulates through the acupoints, but here, the air is so saturated with ambient qi that they could draw on nature's qi without even opening their body's channels.
If that happened smoothly and naturally, there'd be no issue. But to Charlotte, a martial artist from the jianghu, it just looked like poison building up in the body.
First, let's widen the paths.
As her hand slowly stroked down his back, she felt the unstable flow of qi.
Martial artists built their internal energy by absorbing qi through breathing exercises and circulating it through the body to accumulate true qi.
But Joseph had somehow learned to wield an excessive amount of Aura without proper breathing or circulation methods.
As a result, the energy inside him rampaged wildly like that of a demonic cultist, forming bizarre qi flows.
That was why Charlotte was attempting a jianghu emergency treatment called Emergency Meridian Therapy.
...Widening the acupoints right away should ease things somewhat.
Charlotte thought his single-minded dedication, even as his body fell apart, somehow reminded her of her past self.
It was like Dohwa, who had no one to trust, nothing but the sword to cling to, devoting herself to it without even knowing if she was doing it right.
Feeling her heart ache with pity, Charlotte gathered internal energy at her fingertips.
But unlike her desire to ease Joseph's pain, her dantian didn't have as much internal energy as she wanted.
She had used up her limited reserves today on trivial matters, shuttling it around.
...Oh no.
If it were the internal energy Dohwa once had, she might have not only stabilized someone else's true qi but even circulated it through their meridians for them. But as Charlotte now, it was different.
Charlotte softly circulated the thin strands of internal energy gathering at her fingertips and called to the prince.
"Joseph Prince."
"...What?"
"I'm going to give your body a quick patch-up for now, so bear with the pain a little."
"...What nonsense is that? Don't do anything pointless. Get lost."
"Stubborn as a mule. You can't even get up right now. And yet you're thinking of entering the tournament? Big dreams. No, who could you beat in this state? Just forfeit and avoid getting pummeled."
Joseph's deep black eyes glared at Charlotte.
"If you're going to spout crap like that..."
His voice was quite sinister, but to Charlotte, Joseph—who was a couple years younger than Dohwa—looked like nothing more than a boy.
"I won't. I said I won't. Your pride is really something."
Charlotte murmured with an involuntary smile.
His strong pride wasn't so bad.
Charlotte gently stroked Joseph's head and circulated her internal energy.
As her hand slowly stroked down his back, she felt the unstable flow of qi.
There are many kinds of meridians.
One might think only martial artists who train have them, but ordinary people have them too. They narrow from eating processed food after birth, getting sick, and so on.
In this case, the problem was narrowed meridians combined with an overwhelming flow of qi. Far more qi was being circulated than the meridians could handle.
Charlotte raised both hands, massaging and tapping his body softly to loosen it.
It was the Fist-Bell-Finger-Point method, one of the Emergency Meridian Therapy techniques.
Fist-Bell-Finger-Point.
Fist.
Gather the remaining qi in your fists and lightly tap the whole body hundreds of times with consistent force.
Bell.
Tap to create resonance, straightening the messed-up qi flow.
Finger.
Gather qi in your fingers and tap hundreds of times more.
Point.
Use acupoint strikes to open the qi passages.
With her internal energy so lacking, she couldn't even achieve half of half of what she wanted.
But knowing her internal energy was bottoming out, Charlotte didn't stop the treatment she'd started.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Truly, such a brute-force training method. To accumulate this much qi using only the standard meridians.
Martial artists, who wield superhuman power through internal energy, open additional meridians beyond those ordinary people use.
They draw far more qi, and the natural channels they have from birth—handling only innate true qi—aren't enough, so they create more bypass routes.
Yet Joseph was handling this much Aura with the same basic channels as a commoner.
No one in this world knows how to circulate Aura through meridians. He must have instinctively built internal energy during training but picked up the wrong method.
In a way, to use his body's channels without anyone teaching him...
He's a monster.
Finally, Charlotte closed her eyes, stroked Joseph's back once more, and confirmed the blocked parts of his meridians had widened significantly.
With the once-narrow meridians now open, the qi flow was much smoother. Joseph had to feel more comfortable now.
Twinkle.
When Charlotte opened her eyes, Joseph—his complexion noticeably improved—stared straight up at her.
Meeting his pitch-black eyes full of suspicion and doubt, Charlotte just smiled brightly, as if it were nothing.
"Buy me a meal if you're grateful."
After a long hesitation, the prince slowly opened his mouth, his tongue forming a question.
"...What are you?"
"Me? I'm Charlotte. Come on, we met last time too."
She tried to laugh it off lightly, but Joseph stared at her intently with a serious face.
Then he reached up, lightly grabbing Charlotte's hand.
Inspecting it as if he couldn't believe what it had done, he murmured threateningly in a far-from-friendly voice.
"What the hell are you."
"What?"
"How did you do it? No, before that—what do you know?"
"Ah... Well... How about we say this girl has all sorts of secrets?"
As she mumbled vaguely, Charlotte suddenly felt her vision tilting. Her eyes flickered black.
...Ah, damn. I used way more energy than I thought. And my body's not fully recovered yet... Idiot.
Joseph, not noticing Charlotte's eyes glazing over, pressed her.
"What does that mean?"
Charlotte squeezed out every last bit of her remaining strength, pouring out whatever came to mind.
"Come to my house later and I'll treat you properly. No needles, no moxibustion, no internal energy— this is the best I can do now. More importantly, I feel like I'm about to pass out, so I need to contact my family who came to the palace with me. Please... do it..."
"...Charlotte?"
She swayed.
No sooner had she rattled off her words like a machine gun than her body lurched toward the ground.
Good thing it's grass and I was sitting...
As she thought that futile thought and tried to close her eyes, someone's body swiftly caught her upper body.
From that body wafted the soft, cool scent of summer meadow grass.
Ricardo sat in the second seat from the throne, chewing his lips.
He was fairly large for his age, able to wield even a halberd with ease, and his fierce glare at the head table sweeping the banquet hall made him look quite intimidating.
But no matter how his aides tried to soothe him, Ricardo's mood had been ruined for a while.
The protagonist of this banquet was none other than Second Prince Ricardo, needless to say.
Celebrating his 14th birthday was the main theme of the imperial banquet, and the main event was the nobles and envoys desperate to build connections with him exchanging pleasantries.
That was true until Charlotte appeared.
When Isaac and Charlotte first arrived, causing a stir—even then, when they stole the attention of the nobles he'd been chatting with, he thought it was just an unexpected event.
...But what the hell is this? Why give that much attention to a beanpole combo?
Ricardo's gaze fixed on the distant scene where nobles clustered, craning their necks to get a closer look.
At the center were Charlotte Setia, who had irked him so badly earlier, and Third Prince Joseph.