Episode 8: Misunderstanding (3)
Sword Aura is the essence of internal energy that can only be wielded by those at the early stage of First-Rate, and in most cases, only by experts at the peak. Its power was so immense that it could not be compared to any other attack Hajin had faced thus far.
He lacked nearly enough mana to deploy a Shield. Even if he forced one out, it would undoubtedly be shredded like paper before that vicious Sword Aura.
‘...I can’t block that.’
Warning lights blared loudly in Hajin’s mind. He felt the hair on his entire body stand on end. Pride and everything else aside, survival was the top priority now. There was no time to delay.
The madwoman before his eyes was truly intent on killing him. It was clear that no excuses or clumsy resistance would work. There were few paths to choose from in this situation.
‘I have to get out of here somehow, but to run away...’
Under the sharp, lethal threat of the Sword Aura, Hajin’s brain began to spin frantically, driven by survival instinct. Instinctively, he turned his head and scanned the surroundings of the Training Hall.
The nearest escape route was the path leading below the Sparring Arena.
‘That way!’
If he squeezed out every drop of his remaining mana to cast Haste and ran like a madman, he might just be able to escape. Or perhaps, a Teleport...
‘No, in a situation like this, I don’t have the luxury to calculate spatial coordinates. If I fail, it’s over...’
In a brief moment, countless thoughts flashed through his mind. Of course, even pondering was a luxury. Cheon Ha-rin’s sword was already flying mercilessly toward his head.
In the end, he had to make a choice. His pride was slightly wounded, but there was no other way. Hajin shouted at the top of his lungs and raised both hands high. He was extremely urgent and desperate.
“S-surrender! I lost! I surrender! So, the match ends here. You win!”
“What...?”
At the same time, Hajin threw his body into a corner in an instant.
The moment Hajin’s desperate cry echoed over the Sparring Arena, Cheon Ha-rin, who had been swinging her sword ferociously, paused ever so slightly. Her eyebrows twitched.
‘Surrender...?’
She was momentarily taken aback. The person who had been blocking her attacks so nonchalantly was suddenly shouting surrender?
‘What on earth is his intention?’
Cheon Ha-rin’s thoughts deepened. However, it was difficult to grasp what kind of intention was hidden. Then, a possibility suddenly occurred to her.
‘Could it be a ploy to catch me off guard by making me flustered? To think he’d dare try to trick me with such a shallow tactic!’
A disciple of the Ghost Soul Hand would never truly surrender. They couldn’t have been taught that way. So, there was definitely some other scheme at play. She suspected as much.
Without letting her guard down, she aimed her sword at the spot where Hajin had thrown himself. However, all that met her eyes was empty space.
“...?”
Hajin had clearly rolled into the corner. He should have been there. Yet, Hajin’s figure had vanished as if by magic.
‘Where on earth did he disappear to? Did he ascend to the heavens?’
Only then did Cheon Ha-rin realize that the situation was taking a strange turn. Instinctively, she lifted her head and looked far across the Sparring Arena toward the entrance of the Training Hall.
And there, she spotted the back of Hajin, who was disappearing like the wind. He really had been running away at full speed the moment he shouted surrender!
At first, Cheon Ha-rin could not accept reality. But as she slowly began to process the situation, her face began to flush bright red with fury.
Until just a moment ago, Hajin had blocked her fierce sword strikes as if he were indulging a child’s play.
Without even crossing swords, he had deflected or diverted her sharp strikes with just a few strange hand gestures.
Cheon Ha-rin guessed that it must have been a type of profound Claw Technique passed down by the Ghost Soul Hand.
Yet, for someone with such high-level internal energy and exquisite technique to suddenly shout surrender and tuck tail to run away...
Wasn’t this as good as saying that dealing with her was no longer worth his time and was boring, so he was quitting? It was a truly blatant insult.
“You bastard! How dare you insult me to this extent?!”
Cheon Ha-rin screamed at the top of her lungs, unable to contain the rage surging toward the direction where Hajin had vanished. She wanted to chase after him immediately and bury her sword in that shameless face, but Hajin’s form had already vanished without a trace.
“Urgh...!”
Trembling with rage, Cheon Ha-rin suddenly felt dizzy and staggered. Perhaps it was a side effect of forcibly raising her energy to the First-Rate level to overwhelm Hajin, as her body faltered sharply.
Soon, feeling all the strength drain from her body, she could no longer hold on and slumped to the ground. It was exhaustion.
Panting heavily, Cheon Ha-rin glared resentfully at the empty air where Hajin had disappeared. Harsh curses erupted from her lips, unable to suppress her anger.
“...You dog-like bastard! I will never let you get away with this!”
* * *
Hajin ran for his life with everything he had. Only after sprinting for a long time along the winding paths of the Training Hall without looking back did he finally catch his breath and glance behind him.
‘That crazy woman wouldn’t chase me all the way here, would she?’
She was a madwoman who drew her Sword Aura upon their first meeting, so she could very well have chased him. Fortunately, not even a shadow was lurking behind him. Only then did Hajin heave a sigh of relief.
“Phew, looks like she’s not following. I survived. I survived...”
Perhaps because his tension had finally dissipated, Hajin felt his legs trembling and leaned his back against a nearby tree. Truly, today had been a series of spectacular experiences he had never encountered in his life.
“I wonder if I can live quietly now...”
It was just as he was muttering to himself, catching his breath. A man suddenly appeared before Hajin.
Dressed in black martial arts attire, the man had an expressionless face, like a well-honed blade.
The man stared intently at Hajin and asked in a low, cold voice.
“You, what conversation did you just have with Cheon Ha-rin?”
“Pardon?”
“Did you not speak with Cheon Ha-rin? I am asking what you discussed with the Cult Leader’s daughter.”
“What...?”
Hajin could not hide his momentary bewilderment.
He had just been talking to whose daughter...?
* * *
The moment the title “Cult Leader’s daughter” left the man’s lips, warning lights flashed in Hajin’s mind. He couldn’t say he knew the Heavenly Demonic Cult in detail, but he had a vague grasp of the basic power structure.
The Cult Leader was, naturally, the master of the massive organization known as the Heavenly Demonic Cult and the one standing at the pinnacle.
In that case, the Cult Leader’s daughter was obviously royalty! Which meant she was a member of the owner family of Heavenly Demonic Cult Inc., right?
‘Wait a minute. Then did I just...?’
Hajin’s face turned deathly pale. Just a moment ago, he had hurled insults at someone with such an immense background, calling her a madwoman, and then ran away.
‘What have I done...?’
He clutched his head in despair for a moment. This wasn’t just a minor friction. It was enough to seriously derail his life at the Demonic Path Academy. Wasn’t this the exact opposite of his goal to stay under the radar?
‘No. Maybe not. Let’s re-examine what I did. There might be a misunderstanding, right?’
Hajin quickly reviewed the situation in his head, seeking any way to overcome this crisis.
First of all, it was true that he had requested the sparring match. He had only needed a light practice partner. But Cheon Ha-rin had suddenly gotten angry and attacked with murderous intent, and he had only tried to block it with magic before running away.
‘Right, if I explain it well, there might be room for a resolution...?’
Just as he was trying to feel a sense of relief by rationalizing and building hope, the man before his eyes shattered his delusions with a chilling voice.
“You seem to have forgotten my presence. I will ask again. What conversation did you have with Cheon Ha-rin?”
“...Why should I tell you that?”
For Hajin, who had been trying to resolve things, this was an absurd situation. The man had just shown up and started barking orders, hadn’t he? Without even identifying himself. As expected of a member of the Demonic Cult, he was ill-mannered.
On the other hand, the man remained silent for a moment, showing no change in expression despite Hajin’s rebellious attitude. His black eyes pierced through Hajin. Soon, the man opened his mouth.
“I see. That is certainly true. Let me introduce myself first. I am Cadet No. 19, Do-gyeong, one who thinks of supporting someone other than Cheon Ha-rin as the Young Cult Leader.”
“...Hmm?”
“Once you enter the Demonic Path Academy, you are either aiming for the position of Young Cult Leader or supporting another candidate. It must be one of the two. I am the latter. You can think of it as me working hard to make my desired candidate the Young Cult Leader.”
“And the reason you’re telling me this is...?”
“To see if you are an enemy or not. If you are the latter, why not join hands with me?”
Hajin was momentarily speechless at Do-gyeong’s shocking statement. His mind was once again filled with complex calculations.
‘So, in a nutshell, he’s planning to stab the royal family in the back, isn’t he? Even if the Heavenly Demonic Cult preaches the survival of the strongest, she’s still the Cult Leader’s daughter. Wouldn’t there be more factions supporting Cheon Ha-rin? Or not? Is it because of that that there are even more opposing factions?’
Not everyone who came to the Demonic Path Academy could aim for the position of Young Cult Leader. Whether due to skill or practical issues.
In any case, those who weren’t directly aiming for the position were clearly working to elevate their own candidates, just like Do-gyeong before him.
Then, another thought crossed Hajin’s mind.
‘If I tell Cheon Ha-rin exactly what this guy is saying, wouldn’t it help clear up the misunderstanding? Like, “Actually, this guy is trying to bring you down!”?’
He felt sorry for the guy in front of him, but he had to save his own skin first. Hajin asked Do-gyeong, trying to probe him.
“What if I’m on their side? Why would you say such things?”
“If that were the case, you wouldn’t have fought Cheon Ha-rin from the very first day. Isn’t that right?”
At Hajin’s question, Do-gyeong wore a smile that was close to a sneer.
His tone suggested he already understood Hajin’s actions; he must have been watching the situation unfold.
‘How long has he been watching?’
Should he even call them the Demonic Cult? It seemed there wasn’t a single normal human being among them. Hajin couldn’t help but let his discomfort show on his face.
Seeing this, Do-gyeong briefly changed the subject.
“Let’s move past this for now. I have no desire to maintain any unnecessary relations with you.”
Then, he brought up something Hajin had never expected.
“Rather than such uncomfortable topics… I would like to know a bit more about you.”
For a moment, Hajin’s expression became even more blatantly uncomfortable. His brow furrowed deeply, and all sorts of unpleasant imaginings bloomed in his mind. Could he possibly be into that sort of thing? As expected of the Demonic Cult, it seemed they had all kinds of strange people.
Hajin instinctively took a step back and asked Do-gyeong, his voice filled with as much wariness as possible.
“I have no idea what you mean. I don’t know why you’d want to know about me, and that is quite rude for a first meeting.”
His voice was laced with suspicion and even a hint of disgust. However, Do-gyeong remained unfazed by Hajin’s reaction and answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“You are the disciple of the Ghost Soul Hand, are you not? As a member of the Heavenly Demonic Cult, it is only natural to want to know about his only disciple.”
Only then did Hajin realize his misunderstanding with an ‘Ah!’ He let out a sheepish laugh.
“Ahaha, so that was it! My goodness, the way you phrased that! You almost had me misunderstanding! Tsk! I was nervous for nothing!”
He had slipped back into formal speech out of sheer embarrassment. As if to hide his awkwardness, Hajin chattered on and patted Do-gyeong on the shoulder.
“Speak comfortably. We look to be about the same age.”
“Is that so? I almost misunderstood you, thinking you were the type to be two-faced.”
“……Haha, as if.”
However, Do-gyeong’s expression was incredibly dark. It was as if he had been caught by someone who shouldn’t have seen what he was hiding.
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