Translator: Wan ED/PR: Solarin
52. Holidays and school anniversary (3)
“I’ll do it.”
“It can’t be done.”
The father and son’s answers were contradictory.
Because Jeok-ho heard the explanation about ‘Replay’ on the mansion’s 5th floor before, he noticed my intentions before I finished explaining.
I was resolved to hear out Jeok-ho, but Jeok-ho looked at Hwang Jiho with resentment instead of me.
Did he turn his anger elsewhere because he felt thankful to me for saving Kim Sinrok’s life and that guided the father and son to become closer?
Jeok-ho spoke sharply to Hwang Jiho.
“Hwang-ho, didn’t You say that Jo Uisin’s superpower was used on Son Mingi? Why are we suddenly talking about doing this to my son?”
“I think it will be easy to understand if you look at this and then talk.”
“… What is this?”
As if Hwang Jiho knew that Jeok-ho would blame him, he took out the prepared materials.
He sent a hologram to Jeok-ho and handed printed documents to Kim Sinrok, so it seemed that even in this situation he respected the descendant’s analogue taste.
The expression of Jeok-ho, who checked Son Mingi’s observation daily records, medical examination and superpower wave examination results, darkened.
“It’s obvious that he became unstable. The sleep time greatly decreased, eh? As his superpower wave’s balance is also gradually becoming unstable, You better consider sealing his Gwangrim and skills to block a runaway.”
“I plan to do so. Even if his superpowers go into runaway for real, there won’t be any particular damage, but I plan to nip it in the bud.”
Kim Sinrok, who quickly finished reading the printed materials, took out a page and showed a table on it.
On the paper, Son Mingi’s key changes values were marked.
“What is the meaning behind those dates printed in bold? Is it related to Son Mingi’s state, which was becoming better, drastically and suddenly changing for the worst?”
“It marks the dates Jo Uisin used that ability on Son Mingi.”
After Hwang Jiho attached medical staff to Son Mingi, he would hand me Son Mingi’s observation and examination results on a daily basis.
I could accurately figure out the changes to Son Mingi’s state before and after using the Replay.
I made a hypothesis as the result.
‘Isn’t Replay’s rest timing related to the mental stability of the target it was used on?’
Son Mingi, for whom the reset time got longer each time I used Replay again.
Yu Sang-hun, for whom the rest time got shorter when I used Replay the second time.
If compared the two, it was an easy hypothesis to make.
Yu Sang-hun was mentally healthy, with hobbies to be absorbed in and family and friends to support him.
In comparison to him, what about Son Mingi?
If one was to believe the saying ‘You live longer the more you’re cursed’, he may live a longer life than Yu Sang-hun, but that was it.
“… It seems his state got worse as the effect of ability Jo Uisin used.”
“Yeah. Jo Uisin said he is attempting to level up. For this he has to fill the quota. It’s desirable he uses this ability on many people if possible.”
Jeok-ho fell into thought, closing his eyes for long time and then open them.
With his eyes open, he glanced once at Kim Sinrok, once at me, and then open his mouth.
“Jo Uisin, my son won’t do. Please use this superpower on me.”
It probably wasn’t possible to use it on Jeok-ho at the current stage.
Before I could speak, Kim Sinrok replied first.
“Wasn’t it said before that it can’t be used on Hwangho-nim? There would be a restriction to this ability, correct? As it’s possible to use on the practical exam group 13 students, it would be the same for me.”
“Son-ah, are you really okay with it?”
Jeok-ho scrutinized Kim Sinrok’s face, who had his real appearance without face-changing technique, as he spoke stiffly.
I couldn’t know what kind of conversation they had when the two of them reconcile with the Youth Training Camp incident as a trigger, but after that day Jeok-ho spoke casually only to Kim Sinrok.
‘Kim Sinrok probably ask for it, right?’
Jeok-ho worked hard to persuade him, but it seemed that Kim Sinrok already made up his mind.
“I’m fine. And… If I can remember the events that day clearly, I want to do that.”
Is there no parent who can win against their child? In the end, Jeok-ho gave up.
Jeok-ho pleaded with him a few times to ‘Stop anytime if you change your mind’.
As if Kim Sinrok had no plans to listen to those words any time even though he was happy about Jeok-ho’s worry-filled words, he headed to the place Hwang Jiho guided him to.
In the drawing room, Kim Sinrok sat down on the recliner with a separate footstool.
“It activates after the target of Jo Uisin’s superpower falls asleep. I’m planning to use a sleeping incense I got from Hyangrok. Everyone, take one step behind me.”
Hwang Jiho took out a golden incense burner, while giving a warning.
If it was an incense that could put Kim Sinrok to sleep, the descendant of the legendary Ho and Ung, then I could guess how considerable its power was.
“Say when you’re ready.”
At Hwang Jiho’s words, I opened the Exclusive Menu and raised my hand to select the Replay option.
My gaze abruptly fell on the sleeve of black dopo.
Today, thetigers gave me new clothes and holiday food, but I was going to give their descendant a nightmare.
My hand couldn’t easily move at that thought.
Keung…
I heard a moan from Snare in my arms and snapped me back to my senses.
Snare was biting on the five-color[1] silk thread, and because it was pulling on the sejodae[2] I was wearing, I guess it tried to grab my attention, but failed.
“…”
Baek Ho-gun was quietly looking this way.
As I met the eyes of my last Playable Character, my mind suddenly cleared.
‘If I can’t play a proper move and hesitate, the nightmare will become a reality.’
I raised the heavy-feeling finger and selected Kim Sinrok from the Replay’s list.
⟨Selection complete.⟩
After I nodded towards Hwang Jiho, he raised his superpower wave.
Paaa…!
The flock of lights wrapped around the golden incense burner, its surface started to move.
At the same time as Hwang Jiho lit up the incense in the burner he evoked a barrier, and Kim Sinrok’s appearance became a bit blurry, because of the incense smoke and the barrier’s wall.
To prevent my vision from being blocked, I activated a skill.
⟨Skill ‘Brilliant Gaze’ activated.⟩
With the sensation of superpower wave gathering in my eyeballs, my vision instantly cleared.
The first thing that entered my eyes was the surface of the golden burner engraved with clouds and tigers.
At some point, the delicately engraved patterns started to move.
‘They didn’t move before it was lit up.’
Corresponding to how much the incense spread out, the tigers leaped higher between the clouds, heading to the burner’s top.
The sleeping incense mixed with the light particles flowing out of the burner’s top, looked like the tigers jumping in the clouds.
After the sleeping incense thickened, Kim Sinrok slowly closed his eyes.
When his eyes completely closed and fell asleep.
Swish….!
With the eyes with the ‘Brilliant Gaze’ skill activated, a sight as if Kim Sinrok was swallowed by black for second was illuminated, and then disappeared.
* * *
A being connected to him by blood and origin was targeting him.
It was a miserable matter for a descendant, but Kim Sinrok was able to react coldly, because he went through such a situation several times.
‘The Ung enemy is impossible, I have to flee.’
His current location was in front of the gym, where group 13’s practical exam planned to be held.
The Ung tribe infiltrating the Eungwang School’s campus wasn’t an ordinary situation, and Kim Sinrok didn’t have the ability to deal with it.
It was a disastrous crisis, but Kim Sinrok immediately came up with what he should do.
‘Immediately disengage to call for support.’
Hwang-ho wasn’t at school and Baek-ho was somewhere in the divine realm, but he couldn’t know his location for certain.
His father’s contact information also came to mind, but he changed his mind straight away.
‘… It would probably be better not to call Jeokho-nim.’
Kim Sinrok decided to first ask for support from Hwang-ho’s secretary, who was on standby in the Silver Light (Eunhwi) Building, and second, to the Aquamarine Poet Jegal Jaegeol, who was around here.
But that move was blocked straight away.
Because the device communication function was completely cut off, and so calls and message sending was impossible.
Grrrr….!
When he halted the device’s operation, the familiar summoned by the Ung pounced at Kim Sinrok.
Kim Sinrok grabbed the thumb tack he was rolling in his hand and flung his body to avoid an attack.
He tried to aim at the Enemy familiar summoned by the Ung, but before he could make an attack motion, his hand froze.
‘Even attacking the familiars is impossible, eh?’
Because of the descendants’ restrictions, he couldn’t attack at all.
But because the rarity of the familiar summoned by the Ung was pretty low, he didn’t feel a sense of crisis.
‘I can escape if it’s only this much.’
When he was drawing Jegal Jaegeol’s movement route in his head.
“Aah, you came now, huh!”
The Ung, who summoned familiar to attack, suddenly struck at him personally.
When Kim Sinrok urgently fell back to avoid it.
‘Someone is behind me…!’
Just after he sensed that realization was too late, he felt something like a fire burning in his left leg.
‘Uh?’
Peuk, squelch, creak, slurp.
The sound of torn flesh and bones breaking was heard in his ears.
Before the graphic sound ceased, the burning-like sensation turned into pain.
“…!”
Kim Sinrok’s leg below the knee lost its form and function.
The body of Kim Sinrok, which lost its support, fell to the floor.
Kim Sinrok reflexively turned around from where the attack came from and raised his hand.
‘… The skill is usable!’
He couldn’t make an attack motion even against a familiar of trivial rarity, which seemed to be an R rank at best, but now was different.
The opponent, who ambushed him, was overwhelmingly powerful, but he wasn’t an Ung.
But…
Bang!
“Haha! Doing useless thing, eh!”
The Ung kicked Kim Sinrok’s hand.
At the same time as the Ung entered his vision, the superpower wave that gathered at his fingertips’ dispersed.
Kim Sinrok’s mind darkened from pain and humiliation.
In his hazy mind, a sneer was heard.
“That thing is the so-called abandoned descendant? I’m glad there are no such mixed blood among our descendants.”
After that, Kim Sinrok’s memory wasn’t clear.
Kim Sinrok ended up crawling to avoid the low-rank Enemy released by the Ung and fleeing.
They likely didn’t have any intention to cut off his breath straight away and planned to play with him and then kill him.
‘This…’
As Kim Sinrok tried to gather his senses, he passed a corridor and reached the gym.
On the other side he saw middle school students, who came to take Eungwang School’s test.
‘Group 13, so it means… three people? No, wasn’t there four?…’
Kim Sinrok plucked the last of his strength and shouted to the students.
“Ru… Run…”
He used all of his strength, but nothing but a voice as quiet as the sound of wind came out.
Kim Sinrok realized he used up his entire energy.
The feeling of pain, emptiness and powerlessness beseech Kim Sinrok.
‘The students are dying in front of my eyes, but I can’t do anything…!?’
All signs of student’s presence disappeared because of the Ung’s familiar, and Kim Sinrok’s life was also fading.
As he reached the end, many faces flashed in his brain, like in a kaleidoscope.
His bad friend, who gave him the fake name for the identity he was using at this moment.
His master[3], who treated him as a Ho tribe’s descendant.
His mother, who covered her eyes with a fan and didn’t want to look at him.
His father, who looked at him when tied to the Red Rack.
That was Kim Sinrok’s last memory.
* * *
The blood quickly drained from Kim Sinrok’s face, which seemed comfortable just after falling asleep.
So much so, that even without Brilliant Gaze skill activated, I would know that Kim Sinrok’s state was strange.
“It can’t continue. We have to wake him up!”
Jeok-ho grabbed Kim Sinrok’s shoulder and shook him, but he didn’t wake up.
Red energy started to wrap around Kim Sinrok’s body, as if Jeok-ho imbued his superpower wave to try to wake him up.
But Baek Ho-gun dissuaded Jeok-ho.
“Wait.”
“Baek-ho, please step aside!”
“He will open his eyes now.”
According to those words, Kim Sinrok opened his eyes straight away.
Jeok-ho, who struggle trying to escape Baek Ho-gun’s arm, halted his movements.
Kim Sinrok abruptly sat up and looked around.
It seemed he couldn’t properly feel that he woke up from the dream right now.
Then he met Jeok-ho’s eyes.
“Ah, fath…”
Kim Sinrok looked at Jeok-ho and was about to call him ‘father’, but his words stopped.
I guess he still couldn’t say the word father in front of him.
Suddenly it became so awkward that it was suffocating.
“There are no visible abnormalities, eh?”
Hwang Jiho, who examined the speechless Kim Sinrok, and handed him tea with a relieved face, perhaps because he didn’t find any abnormalities.
It seemed he prepared it beforehand for Kim Sinrok to drink the moment he wakes up.
“Drink all of it, while the sleeping incense’s traces are all erased.”
After Hwang Jiho offered him a schisandra tea[4] and Kim Sinrok accept it with slightly trembling hands.
After Kim Sinrok emptied a tea cup, he opened his mouth.
“… It seems that I met the Long Tail that day.”
*~*~*
[1] five-color — five cardinal colors: Yellow, White, Black, Blue, Red.
[2] sejodae — 세조대, a rope belt worn with hanbok.
[3] master — Korean has a tendency to drop plural particle, so I can’t be sure if it wasn’t meant as ‘masters’… But I also don’t feel like author-nim would be so sloppy in such an important moment.
[4] schisandra — 오마자 (omaja), five-flavor fruit. Believed to be a cure to…. Almost anything really, but mostly to helps with blood circulation, breathing and digestion problems. Also believed to be aphrodisiac. In the flower language, it apparently means ‘let’s meet again’. I found legends that claim it was a tree of ancient emperors, responsible for their health and longevity, or that they are the center of the forest power. Because of its five flavors it’s strongly associated with the five elements.
* Umm… I come up with another hypothesis why five-flavor fruit may be appearing here, but to explain it I would have to base this explanation on a spoiler, so people who don’t want to get spoiled, don’t read this note!
Below are SPOILERS.
In case the script is broken for you and this note isn’t wrapped or is open, close it or skip it!
I really don’t want to give spoilers!
Are you okay?
Safe?
Good.
Here comes the spoilers.
[Korean divides its vowels into ‘bright vowels’ and ‘dark vowels’. ㅗ (o) in Omaja is a bright vowel. Opposite of it is the ㅜ u/woo sound that is in the Woo (cow) tribe 우족 (u/woo-jok). ㅜ is a dark vowel.]
Translator’s note: … That recliner with a separate footstool dealt me mental damage after re-reading this chapter…. Author-nim, that should be illegal.
Patron thank you note:
Thank you patron, Nobody, please accept this Saltera sarcocolla’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Al, please accept this Penaea mucronata’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Dust, please accept this Rhynchocalyx lawsonioides’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Maru, please accept this Vochysia herbacea’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, kamisonk, please accept this Erisma bicolor’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Kasimir Ilmonen, please accept this Qualea dichotoma’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Tara Hess, please accept this Terminalia leiocarpa’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Ice, please accept this Syzygium aromaticum’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, anonymous Kofi-supporter, please accept this Actinodium cunninghamii’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Hematite, please accept this Agonis flexuosa’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Links to support this translation and access to 8 advanced chapter (Patreon & Kofi)
> Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LibraryKeyTranslations
> Kofi-Euro: https://ko-fi.com/wanthetranslator
> Kofi-USD: https://ko-fi.com/wanthetranslatorusd
Did you see a mistake? 🐞
Leave a Reply