The Martial Genius Who Remembers Everything Novel - Chapter 97

Chapter 97
Chapter 97. The Sharpest Blade in the Darkness (4)

“They are…… the ones who tried to kill us.”

The day had broken.

With the light shining over the plain, the Dark Soul-Severing Unit vanished with the darkness as though being chased away.

The scene that greeted them with the morning of creation was nothing short of horrific.

The surviving examinees realized just how terrifying a place they had been in the previous night, and fled in utter panic.

“I know.”

Naturally, most of those left at the scene were warriors abandoned by their employers.

I said that we should save the critical patients first, but the warriors did not move easily.

“You know that, and yet you are going to help them? Young Master Jin…… are you the Buddha?”

I shook my head.

“I also never forgive those who targeted me. But were these men not moving under someone else’s orders?”

The level of the warriors who could be mobilized might have been limited to the Peak realm, but not all the hired warriors could be at the Peak level.

Especially in families with weak influence or little money, they often hired First-Rate or Second-Rate Warriors, and in severe cases, even Third-Rate Warriors.

And among those who had died on the plain, there were more hired men than employers, more lower-level fighters than experts.

“Those abandoned by their employers will have no choice but to wait here to die.”

“…….”

“…….”

The examinees who had brought separate Guard Warriors for safety had all fled in the emergency. These men had been used like tools. Just like our Sojeong Squad in my previous life.

“Moreover, do we not have people we must take care of as well? If you take care of those people, I will look after these men.”

Seong Mo-ran and Namgung Seon-hwa, who had been silently listening, stepped forward.

“Yes. Let us do that.”

“Captain, please do so.”

Kang Seo-pyo and Cho Mu-bin, who had looked displeased, eventually nodded.

Twenty warriors from the Namgung Clan and the Iron Sword Sect had died.

Considering that the starting number had been sixty, it was an extremely small number, but that did not mean the deaths of those who had been as close as blood relatives could be accepted easily.

Finding even their corpses and burying them in a sunny place was the duty of those who remained.

I took the Gold, Silver, and Bronze brothers with me and began giving emergency treatment to the critically wounded.

Most of those receiving emergency treatment could not raise their heads out of shame.

It was not proper treatment, so it must have hurt quite a bit, yet those who did not let out a single scream only spoke a word when the treatment was roughly finished and they were leaving.

“……Th-Thank you.”

Instead of answering, I gave a nod in reply.

By the time noon drew near, Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran returned.

“We will help.”

“You don’t need to overexert yourselves.”

My actions toward these people were nothing more or less than regret for my previous life. I did not want to pass my burden even to Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran.

“If this takes this much time, I don’t think we will be able to pass the third trial. After finally surviving, what could be more unfair than failing to arrive on time?”

“You need not worry about that.”

“Do you have some method?”

At that moment, a group of carts roughly pushed into the plain.

“Young Master So-un!”

I had wondered if it would be him, and indeed it was.

“Shopkeeper Yang!”

Yang Gun-baek had arrived, leading Hao Gate members and physicians.

“……?”

“……?”

Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran looked at me with expressions asking what in the world was going on.

“I sent a carrier pigeon letter yesterday. I said it seemed a battle would occur around here, and asked him to handle the aftermath.”

“Hah…….”

Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran could not close their mouths.

“F-Five hundred?”

Jegal So-myeong stared blankly for a moment after seeing the Heavenly Eye Pavilion’s report, then picked up another report.

Deaths: four hundred eighty.

The number had decreased a little, but it was still large.

After regaining his senses, he picked up the third report, but the change in the number was negligible.

“What is this…….”

It was said to be common for nearly one hundred people to die in a large-scale battle, but this battle had not even been a large-scale battle.

It had been a one-sided battle that took place to seize the Trial Tokens held by the Namgung Clan, the Iron Sword Sect, and the Taeul Sect.

Once those Trial Tokens were secured, another fight would have broken out among them, but martial artists, who grasped power dynamics faster than anyone else, would not let things continue into this level of desperate battle.

Moreover, the problem was……

The group that had been the primary target of this battle—the Namgung Clan, the Iron Sword Sect, and the Taeul Sect—had mostly survived.

“Why is that a problem? It is an immense relief.”

“…….”

Jegal So-myeong looked once at Maeng Ju-won, who had cut in tactlessly, then looked at the other Mantongbu members around him.

Because his mood had been upset by the report just now, he had been in the middle of a rough scuffle with them. Naturally, the Mantongbu members were avoiding his eyes and unable to hide their tension, afraid they might be caught for even the slightest flaw, yet this bastard Maeng Ju-won had cut in without fear.

There was a limit to how much he could tolerate.

“Department Head Maeng, did you finish drafting the proposal on transforming the Murim Alliance system?”

“Yes. I placed it on your desk, Strategist.”

“……I heard the Righteous Path Association submitted a proposal to be promoted to a pavilion. How did you reject that?”

“I organized the reasons it could not be done, the side effects that could occur if the Righteous Path Association were promoted as a pavilion, and additionally the fact that the Orthodox Path Association and Twelve Peak Citadels also desired promotion to pavilions, then sent it to the Head of the Righteous Path Association and its members. A sample is also on your desk, Strategist.”

“……This time, the Alliance Leader said he would audit the Execution Pavilion…….”

“Is the Execution Pavilion not an especially stiff-necked group? To deal with that level of people, Mantongbu or Sim Hyeon-gak must step forward. I have selected and organized the candidates who will go out for the audit after the Academy Regular Exam ends, and placed the list on your desk, Strategist.”

“……….”

Maeng Ju-won looked at Jegal So-myeong with a shameless smile.

“You have nothing else to nitpick, do you?”

“…………Why are you opening your eyes like that?”

“…….”

Thinking that he had gone too far, Jegal So-myeong subtly turned the subject back to the report.

“What do you think?”

“It is certainly strange. Our So-un’s group had only sixty people, yet they survived after facing one thousand.”

“Do you think this is something that will simply end as a strange incident?”

“That would not be the case.”

“Then what do you think the problem is?”

Maeng Ju-won stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment. It was a habit he had whenever he fell into thought.

“Too many died.”

“I know that too, because I saw the report.”

“No. That is not what I mean. I am saying it greatly exceeded the limit of the number of people who could die because of combat.”

“Explain.”

“When I imagine that I was moving with our So-un from Heze onward, there are not many choices I could make. And if I chose a frontal contest like So-un did…….”

Maeng Ju-won’s fingers wriggled as though touching something in the air. He was calculating something inside his head.

“Two hundred. That is my limit.”

Jegal So-myeong also nodded. He had come to a similar calculation in the same situation.

“But the problem is that I would not be confident I could survive in that situation.”

He could kill up to two hundred.

However, he could not guarantee that he would survive.

Maeng Ju-won, of all people, was saying that.

And yet, Jin So-un had accomplished that difficult thing.

On top of that, he had created five hundred deaths.

This was a number that went beyond common sense and far outside cause and effect.

“What if we simply did not know the Taeul Sect’s true potential?”

There were only a few possibilities he could predict.

Either the Taeul Sect had hidden its martial arts tightly until now.

Or Jin So-un was actually an expert who had undergone Rejuvenation.

Otherwise, it could not be explained.

Maeng Ju-won shook his head.

“There is a clear point at which the Taeul Sect’s circumstances changed. The period when our So-un’s martial arts developed is also clear. If we calculate that speed, Rejuvenation is absurd from the start.”

“Then?”

“There was something frivolous you and I spoke about before, Strategist.”

Was it only a day or two that Maeng Ju-won spoke of frivolous things? However, Jegal So-myeong quickly understood.

“The destruction of the Murim Alliance?”

“Yes.”

“…….”

“The reason you are not considering it is because there are no traces left by the hidden hand, correct?”

The greatest problem.

If there were beings standing behind the curtain, they should have left even the smallest trace, but they had left no trace at all.

“Did you not say that something is not nonexistent simply because it is not visible to our eyes?”

“……Another missing piece, then.”

But this time, there were no surrounding pieces to fit together. Without surrounding pieces, one could not know what should enter the empty space.

“In the end, the key is what kind of report comes up from the branch.”

His head throbbed.

No matter how well the Alliance processed information, if the information coming up from the branch was blocked, it would all be useless.

The position of Branch Chief in each region was not a position one could reach through ability alone.

Each sect used every trick and pulled every string possible to put its own disciples into the Branch Chief positions.

Naturally, those who sat in the Branch Chief seats with the help of their sects moved more swiftly at their sects’ influence than at the Murim Alliance’s orders.

For the sake of their sects, they sometimes filtered information before sending it up and disposed of incidents according to their own tastes.

Moreover, if one were to identify the victims of this incident, they were the second-line talents of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the children of prominent sects among the One Hundred Eight Peaks.

Beyond the possibility that the information might be contaminated, the solution to the problem itself might be twisted in a completely different direction.

“It will be too late by the time the Execution Pavilion steps forward.”

A system that corrected their wrongdoing ultimately only operated after they had done wrong.

At a time as urgent as this, there was nothing he could do.

“I will go.”

“What?”

“I will go, assess the situation, and bring back proper information.”

“…….”

“And since I will be there anyway, I want to see whether our So-un is all right.”

After thinking for a moment, Jegal So-myeong shook his head and picked up a report. Then he threw it at Maeng Ju-won using the technique of Red Leaf Flying Flower.

The report flew in a straight line and tried to strike Maeng Ju-won between the brows, but Maeng Ju-won quickly lowered his head and barely avoided it.

“Hup! What were you going to do if that hit me?! Do you not know that Mantongbu will stop functioning right now if I am gone?”

“You know that, and yet you say you will go all the way to Henan Province?”

“What am I supposed to do when I am worried about our So-un?”

“That damned ‘our So-un,’ ‘our So-un!’ I told you that you have never even seen the bastard!”

“Is that not why it feels even more affectionate—aaaagh.”

The report Jegal So-myeong threw finally struck Maeng Ju-won directly in the face.

“When I heard you say to inform people of your location, Young Master So-un, I agonized over it a great deal.”

After hearing of the strategy I had unfolded to hide among the crowd, it seemed Yang Gun-baek had wondered whether the carrier pigeon letter was real or not.

“When I heard that you had raised the Taeul Sect’s flag, I was truly shocked.”

Even thinking about it now, it was not a strategy that could be carried out by someone sane, but if not for this strategy, all of us, including Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran, would have been killed by the Dark Soul-Severing Unit.

“What in the world happened?”

“We were attacked by unidentified beings.”

“Unidentified beings? Did our side not tell you it was the Wudang Sect and the Mount Hua Sect?”

“They did not arrive in the end.”

“……Then?”

I took out one arm of a Dark Soul-Severing Unit member.

“Hiiik.”

Yang Gun-baek was greatly startled when he saw the grotesque arm with black skin and a white bone sword drawn from it.

“Wh-What is this?”

“These are the ones who attacked us.”

“Th-This is a person’s arm?”

“Yes.”

“…….”

Yang Gun-baek examined the arm carefully with a calm expression. Then he pressed the skin and fiddled with the bone sword.

“This is indeed human bone.”

“Yes.”

“But the skin feels as though it is not human skin.”

That skin was exactly the trait of those who had undergone the Fluid-Body Bone Sword procedure.

“Look at this.”

I grabbed one side of the skin and pulled it out. Then the skin stretched like clothing, and the muscles and bones inside began to appear.

Yang Gun-baek looked as though he could not believe it even after seeing it with his own eyes.

“I cannot believe it even after seeing it.”

“There were nearly twenty people with bodies like this.”

“Then are there more corpses remaining?”

“Unfortunately, this is all. The others’ bones and skin decayed and vanished as soon as they died.”

Yang Gun-baek looked at the corpse with an expression full of regret.

“That is unfortunate. If there were more corpses…….”

Even without saying it, Yang Gun-baek seemed to know where this corpse had to go.

I took out the Black Dragon Sword, cut off the upper part of the arm, and handed it to Yang Gun-baek.

“Young Master So-un…….”

“The lower part remains anyway. I am not yet a Murim Alliance member, so I have no obligation to hand over the corpse.”

“Ah…….”

“This will create the gap between the Beggars’ Sect and Hao Gate.”

At my words, Yang Gun-baek, who had been staring blankly at the corpse, opened his eyes wide.

Then he looked back and forth between the corpse and me, realized something, and looked at me with bright eyes.

“You called me deliberately.”

“……Yes, well. It served multiple purposes.”

“How can I possibly thank you? Though you are our Guest Retainer, you help us more than anyone else.”

If Hao Gate learned of the Demonic Cult’s existence first, they might be able to predict the Demonic Cult’s appearances through traces of that existence.

If that happened, tension regarding war would form throughout the entire murim even sooner, and at the same time, Hao Gate, which had begun investigating the Demonic Cult’s existence first, could overtake the Beggars’ Sect at once.

If that happened, the most accurate and fastest intelligence organization in the Jianghu would become my firm backing.

“Is this not all for the sake of all of us?”

There were no particular ambushes from Puyang to Nanyue.

I did not know whether it was because rumors had spread or because everyone who would come had already come the previous day, but after entering Nanyue that way, everyone could fully relax.

That was because in the area around the Murim Alliance’s Nanyue Branch, where the third trial was held, seizing Trial Tokens from one another was forbidden.

As soon as we arrived at Nanyue, we put the wounded in the clinic and slept the sleep we had been delaying.

As soon as we woke early in the morning, we first sent messages to the warriors we had left behind in each region, informing them that we had safely arrived at Nanyue. After that, before going to the Murim Alliance’s Nanyue Branch, we scattered in every direction to find the things each of us had to do.

“Why are you still holding that flag?”

Eun-ho, who had gone somewhere early in the morning with Seong Mo-ran, was still standing the Taeul Sect’s flag upright.

“They said the Taeul Sect’s sect flag is not to be lowered carelessly.”

“Ha! Me again?”

“No. The Sect Leader did.”

“…….”

“In any case, did we not return alive from that hellish battlefield? This is a symbol of confidence. We don’t break, and if you want to challenge us, then try. Something like that.”

“If you want to say something like that, take the candied fruit out of your mouth first……. No, more importantly, where did you get the money to buy snacks like that?”

I managed our party’s money. I was not stingy with my junior brothers, but I had not given them enough spare money to buy a whole bundle of snacks in one hand like that.

“Ah, this? Sister Seong bought it for me.”

“Lady Seong did? Why?”

Eun-ho stopped eating the candied fruit and silently stared at me with a sullen look.

“Eldest Senior Brother, what is your ideal type? Do you like women who are strong in martial arts?”

“If she is strong enough to protect herself, that would be fine. But why do you ask?”

“Then that is good.”

“What is?”

He turned the conversation away like that, then muttered to himself, “Anyway, it is similar enough.” I shook my head, unable to understand at all.

“Let us stop by the blacksmith first.”

As Dong-ryong’s sword form changed day by day, his sword had become badly damaged. It was a good sword he had received while taking the Appraisal Envoy exam, but in the end, even that sword could not withstand all of Dong-ryong’s sword forms.

Not only were the blade’s teeth all chipped, but the sword was also too light compared to his changed sword form.

“We need to change Dong-ryong’s sword.”

“I don’t think we have to do that.”

Geum-pyo pointed behind him.

There stood Dong-ryong, who had been moving together with Namgung Seon-hwa, tightly hugging some long cloth to his chest.

“We don’t need to go, Eldest Senior Brother.”

“……And what is that?”

The answer came from Geum-pyo.

“Sister Namgung Seon-hwa gave him a Firmament Sword.”

“…….”

The Firmament Sword was a sword one could receive only after becoming an official warrior of the Namgung Clan. It was not a famous sword or a treasured sword, but since a small amount of Cold Iron was mixed into it, it was not a sword ordinary warriors could easily obtain.

“Seon-hwa and I decided to become sworn siblings. She said she had always wanted a younger brother. She gave me this as a gift, saying she looked forward to my support from now on.”

“…….”

Together with the question of whether Namgung Seon-hwa and Dong-ryong had been that close, my gaze turned toward Geum-pyo.

“Geum-pyo, why are you the only one empty-handed?”

Geum-pyo, who had been wearing a sullen expression by himself, looked at me.

“Senior Brother.”

“What?”

自由“Do you perhaps know any other women? Someone with a lot of money and a great family, and a little older.”

One person came to mind, but I deliberately did not answer.

At that moment, a huge procession of people appeared in the center of the main road.

“What is that?”

The procession was extremely unusual.

Most of the people at the front had no part of their bodies intact, and at the rear of the procession, enormous coffins were piled up.

I had seen something similar in the Gyeryong Merchant Guild’s procession, but the scale of this procession could not even be compared to the Gyeryong Merchant Guild’s.

Except for the Escorts leading the horses and donkeys, most of them were severely wounded.

Eun-ho spoke while chewing candied fruit.

“Sister Seong said that in Hubei, half the participants are in that state.”

“Did a great battle happen here too?”

“No. They said the Wudang Sect went around the entirety of Hubei Province and eliminated examinees.”

“…….”

“After the third trial, everyone will turn into competitors, so they cleaned them up in advance.”

“I don’t even see any riffraff among the examinees.”

Most of the wounded were people from sects ranked high among the One Hundred Eight Peaks.

“That is probably not it. It is likely that only sects of that level can take care of their own people.”

At Eun-ho’s words, I found myself nodding.

It had been the same on the Puyang Plain, but there was no such thing as an employer who took care of the aftermath for people hired temporarily with money.

“In any case, I don’t want to meet Wudang or Shaolin.”

Eun-ho murmured quietly as he looked at the wagons piled with coffins.

I felt the same. My ill fate with Wudang was already enough with Yong So-ah alone.

“It may be…… difficult.”

Seong Mo-ran’s voice sank low as she left the clinic.

The warriors who had seemed all right on the plain had fainted as though their tension had released once they entered Nanyue.

The number of remaining Iron Sword Sect warriors was now twenty.

Regardless of the result of the third trial, that number was far too small to endure the final exam.

“Even so, it is an immense relief that we returned alive from that battlefield.”

“……That is true.”

Hundreds of people had died the previous night.

No, in the first place, if Jin So-un had not been there, it was certain that they too would have been found with the others on that plain as miserable corpses.

“It is an immense relief.”

“I believe that as long as you continue together with Young Master Jin, nothing too serious will happen from now on either.”

At Cho Mu-bin’s words, Seong Mo-ran wore a surprised expression.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Captain Cho, did you not dislike Young Master Jin?”

Cho Mu-bin’s face reddened.

“My lady, that was so long ago. At the time, was he not a political enemy of our sect?”

“And now he is something different?”

“He is the future son-in-law who will one day…….”

“Pardon?”

“Ahem, n-no. More importantly, my lady, this…….”

Cho Mu-bin quickly changed the subject and took out a small palm-sized ornament from inside his clothes.

“Is that not a powder case?”

“Yes.”

“I washed already. Do I still look dirty?”

“That is not it. I saw earlier that Kang Seo-pyo, that fellow, was sneakily visiting a jewelry shop with Lady Namgung while you were washing, my lady.”

“……A jewelry shop?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Cho Mu-bin sighed at Seong Mo-ran’s reaction.

With such poor awareness, he wondered whether she would be able to have a proper romance at all.

Even so, he could not ruin the relationship between Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran over affection.

“In any case, would it not be better to do it than not?”

“No, I mean, since we are going to get completely covered in dust again during the third trial anyway, why should I bother putting on makeup?”

Cho Mu-bin cleared his throat and spoke.

“No, I was simply worried that in Young Master Jin’s eyes, you might look too much like a tomboy, my lady…….”

“What? Ah, ugh, what are you saying…….”

Seong Mo-ran seemed to think that it had not been obvious she liked Jin So-un.

Usually, her personality was so bold and open-hearted that even within the Iron Sword Sect, she associated freely with men without distance. Yet when he slightly probed about the man she liked, her face quickly turned red, and her girlish side immediately showed itself again.

“If you are truly set against it, my lady, then there is nothing to be done. I will just take this to my wife…….”

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

Seong Mo-ran brought the tips of her index fingers together and fidgeted.

“……Young Master Jin definitely said he liked strong women.”

Cho Mu-bin brightened and held out the powder.

“If there are two equally strong women, would he not choose the more beautiful one?”

“……Can I trust you?”

“My lady, you have seen my wife too, have you not?”

Cho Mu-bin’s wife was a beauty famous even within the Iron Sword Sect.

“How could I have obtained such a beautiful wife with this face? Trust me.”

“A-All right.”

Seong Mo-ran quickly turned around and lightly powdered her face.

“H-How is it? Do I look all right?”

“It is perfectly natural. Next is this.”

Once again, a small porcelain case came out from Cho Mu-bin.

“It is hair oil. Men’s eyes are drawn even more to this glossy hair.”

“…….”

“And here is rouge.”

“No, Captain Cho. Why do you know so much about women’s makeup?”

“Do you know how many errands I run for my wife? I want to be born a woman in my next life.”

After she had roughly finished adorning herself and Cho Mu-bin’s approval was given, they were finally able to head toward the Murim Alliance’s Nanyue Branch.

“There are more people than I thought.”

“In the third trial, there are originally more spectators than participants.”

“Even so, is the atmosphere not too ominous?”

After pushing through the crowd and entering, they saw Jin So-un and Namgung Seon-hwa.

Namgung Seon-hwa also looked so radiant that one could not believe she had experienced the previous day’s battle, just like Seong Mo-ran.

“See, I told…….”

Just as Cho Mu-bin was about to praise himself, he realized that the atmosphere was unusual and closed his mouth.

When Seong Mo-ran and Cho Mu-bin approached, Jin So-un turned around.

“You have arrived.”

“Yes. But who are these people……?”

In front of the party, middle-aged people wearing all kinds of martial arts uniforms stood in a row, swords at their waists.

And behind them, dozens of young people who seemed to be disciples of their sects had gathered.

“They are the senior figures of the sects of those who died on the Puyang Plain this time, including Wudang and Mount Hua.”