The Medicine Hall Master Hates His Patients

A short while later, the Medicine Hall Master stepped out, saying he had somewhere to be, and the Medicine Hall was left with only me and the Red Heaven Squad Leader.

Convicted of the crime of running my body ragged, I had been seized by the cheeks and put through an execution by nagging. Now, clutching my cheeks — stamped with handprints gone bright red — I glared daggers at Dang Yun.

"Is something the matter, Young Master?"

Trembling at the sight of him asking that so calmly, wearing a sly grin that sat absurdly on his massive frame, I sniped back.

"Red Heaven Squad Leader, that mouth of yours is so loose it's a waste of a body that big..."

"My body's heavy, so my mouth ought to be light to balance things out, doesn't it?"

"Well... with a mouth that loose, I'd say one of these days you'll get ambushed on a night road and sent straight to an early grave..."

"Aw, come on. You think one ambush could kill me? There's a certain someone out there who's come within a hair of being assassinated twice and is still alive and kicking."

The more he said, the more it felt like the conversation was slipping away from me; my head began to throb, and I changed the subject before I could snap.

"By the way, I've come a lot further than even I expected, haven't I?"

At my out-of-nowhere question about the earlier spar, Dang Yun nodded and answered.

"Yes. Honestly, you startled me back there. What kind of monstrous penetrating qi is that...?"

His face pinched into an expression of pure incredulity as he recalled my qi tearing through his body — barging in as though the gap between our realms were beneath its notice.

Seeing him like that, I preened with smug satisfaction.

"It's a penetrating qi honed ten thousand times over. That much it should manage."

"No matter how I think about it, it's strange... but well, if you can drive poison qi in alongside it, I'd certainly call that impressive."

"Right? If I'd thrown poison qi into the mix, the person carried into the Medicine Hall might well have been someone else."

"Ah, no, it wouldn't have been. I couldn't bring myself to strike the Young Master at full force, so I was fighting gently."

I clicked my tongue at Dang Yun's flat declaration, displeasure plain on my face.

"Tch."

Perhaps to console me, with my mood written all over my face, he cleared his throat and pressed on.

"Ahem... In any case — congratulations on entering the Peak Realm."

At the congratulation, delivered with a sheepish grimace, I sank quietly into thought.

'Peak Realm, huh...'

Knowing I had reached a realm that could hardly be called common even across the vast Central Plains, I felt a certain satisfaction — until the thought lurking in a corner of my mind surfaced again, tangling everything back up.

'This world is definitely Nightmare Difficulty... which means the power balance must have gone completely off the rails, so Peak Realm here is nothing but small fry.'

With men barely past their twentieth year already holding squad-leader rank and sitting at Peak Realm or beyond, it was all but certain: this world ran on the highest difficulty of the game I used to play.

'A world where Profound ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Realm experts overflow and Transcendent Realm ones trip you at every step — and only now, at long last, do I reach Peak Realm...'

In Hell Difficulty, merely touching the Profound Realm had been enough to be counted among the Ten Great Masters Under Heaven. Nightmare Difficulty, by contrast, had a power balance so catastrophically inflated that the orthodox and unorthodox factions each kept their own separate lists of Ten Great Masters. Just recalling it made the back of my neck go stiff.

'Who the hell decided Nightmare should be harder than Hell?... Not that it's wrong — it's just royally fucked...'

Just as I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was drifting off into hazy nostalgia, Dang Yun cut in at exactly the right moment.

"By the way, the new year is almost upon us. This time, I trust you'll come back having boxed those insolent little bastards' ears?"

"Huh? What on earth is that supposed to mean?"

At my baffled response, Dang Yun looked equally puzzled.

"I beg your pardon? Has no one told you, Young Master, that the Five Great Clans hold a gathering not long after the new year begins?"

At his words, I dug through the jumbled attic of my memories until something faint finally surfaced.

'Ah... right, there was something like that. But wasn't that a pointless event? Just getting the kids to fight each other... getting the kids to fight each other?'

A thought creeping in unbidden, I put it to Dang Yun.

"Squad Leader... don't tell me — at those old gatherings, did I come home beaten up? Insulted? Did something like that actually happen?"

He, who had been diligently excavating his ear this whole time, kept right on digging as he answered.

"Ah... well, yes, that did happen a time or two."

"Which is exactly why I'm calling them ill-mannered..."

"But I hear that after Lady Mulin raised holy hell right in the middle of the dinner table — poisoning people and howling about who she'd kill and who she'd spare — such things never happened again."

While I sat frozen, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mouth hanging open in a perfectly blank expression, he carried right on.

"Separate from all that, the brats of the other clans are simply insufferable. Nothing but haughty noses and flat-out defiance — it's a sight, really..."

Watching him blow the earwax off his pinky with a phoo—, I heaved a deep sigh and reached for the water someone had set out beside me.

"Haah..."

Gulp, gulp—

"By the way, Young Master, I take it you don't even remember your fiancée's face, then."

Pfft— Khk... khk... khhk...

The words had come from nowhere, mid-gulp. I choked, sprayed the mouthful of water straight into Dang Yun's face, and broke into a coughing fit.

"Y-young Master... even if I did snitch to the Medicine Hall Master earlier, spitting the water in your mouth right into my face is going too far, don't you think?"

Dang Yun, suddenly drenched by a waterfall, whined ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and grumbled.

Coughing, I demanded an answer from the man whose face had just received an unscheduled moisturizing.

"Squad Leader! What was that thing you said just now?"

"The part about your fiancée?"

"Yes! That. I have a fiancée?!"

At the sight of Muyeong looking him over as if his fiancée might be found somewhere on Dang Yun's person, Dang Yun scratched his head and asked back.

"No... has no one told you about this either?"

"I know, right? But seriously — this fiancée business is something I'm hearing about for the first time today."

Watching Muyeong look more flustered than he had back when a fist laced with at least a sliver of Dang Yun's sincerity had sent him flying through the air, flailing all the way, Dang Yun replied with a smirk.

"Young Master... forgive me for saying this, but might you be a loner in the Dang Clan?"

To Dang Yun, who had just outright served me a 'you don't have any friends, do you?', I answered with an expression of vague irritation.

"Yeah, I'm a loner. Now hurry up and answer the question."

Disappointed by the total lack of impact, Dang Yun scratched the bridge of his nose and slowly continued.

"Well... in any case, the young lady who is to be your fiancée..."

Just as I leaned in, hanging on his every word, Dang Yun looked at me, flashed a wide grin, and said:

"Why don't you go find out for yourself, Young Master?"

"What?"

I gaped for a moment, then let out a bellow.

"Hey!"

"Well then, best of luck with that."

Just as Dang Yun bolted for the doors of the Medicine Hall, leaving me fuming behind him, my face cycling red and blue—

"And just where do you think you're going!"

The Medicine Hall Master, who had returned at some point, dragged the fleeing Dang Yun by the scruff of his neck and hauled him back to his seat.

"I never even told you to leave, and you up and run?"

For the crime of attempted unauthorized escape, Dang Yun earned himself a lump on the skull.

"I'll be brewing some medicine, so wait a moment and take it with you when you go."

When the Medicine Hall Master vanished into the inner rooms to prepare it, an awkward silence settled between me and Dang Yun.

To him — sweating in thin beads and studiously avoiding my eyes — I offered a remark.

"Ugh, serves you right. A man ought to keep a kindly heart... Now, who the hell is my fiancée?"

Under my pitying stare, he answered, thoroughly flustered.

"She's a young lady of the Zhuge Clan. Her name... was it Zhuge Seolhwa? I believe that was it, but I'm afraid my memory ends around there..."

I stared at him with eyes gone cold and stale, then heaved a deep sigh.

"Haah... how hard is it to say one thing? I could've just asked my sister and gotten the whole story anyway."

"Hehe..."

Watching a man built like a bear — bear-shaped and bear-sized to boot — go 'hehe' made my eyes hurt just looking at him, and I asked:

"So... could I actually beat the stuffing out of the other clans' kids?"

At my question, Dang Yun pondered briefly before answering.

"Should be a cakewalk. The Young Clan Head types would stick to fighting the young ladies if they fought anyone at all — they'd hardly go out of their way to spar with some little young master."

"Oooooh..."

"As for the other clans' little ones, the only one worth mentioning is the Hwangbo Clan's little princess — First-Rate, if I recall? Something like that. Though honestly, if it were a life-or-death match, I'd wager you could manage mutual destruction with even the Young Clan Head types, more or less..."

I was nodding along, looking thoroughly pleased with myself, when something I'd wondered about long ago suddenly surfaced, and I seized on it.

"By the way — are poison arts forbidden in a spar?"

He answered instantly, as if the question required no thought whatsoever.

"You may use them."

"They're allowed?"

"Well... you will lose by disqualification, though."

While his punchline-first manner of speech left me dizzy, he carried on.

"The reason Lady Mulin earned the nickname Poison Butterfly in the first place was that during the Dragon-Phoenix Contest, she got so worked up over her opponent's antics that she straight-up poisoned him, took the loss by disqualification, and walked away with the nickname in the bargain."

I nodded along in genuine admiration at my one and only sister's take-no-prisoners conduct.

"Of course, by now Lady Mulin's name carries more weight than any dragon or phoenix, so it's hardly an issue anymore."

When Dang Yun's story wound down, I let out a long breath.

"Phew... I've got the gist of it all, so let's get moving."

"Yes... I suppose we should."

Having chattered away with no sense of the passing time, Dang Muyeong and Dang Yun stepped out of the Medicine Hall — to find the sun already sliding down the sky—

"Y-you damned rascals!"

There was the small matter of being seized by the ears by the enraged Medicine Hall Master, hauled back inside, and chewed out yet again — but in any case, I shuffled my way home to my quarters.

For the first time in ages, I flopped onto my bed before the sun had fully set, and murmured, savoring the comfort:

"As of today, training is more or less wrapped up..."

To tell the truth, the first milestone Dang Mulin and I had set together was the Peak Realm, and so that grueling stretch of training came to a close today — with my spar against the Red Heaven Squad Leader as its finale.

"Yaaawn... I can take it nice and easy starting tomorrow, right..."

And with my mind already equipped with a healthy layer of slack, I promptly sank into the clutches of the sleep demon.