Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
38. Youth training camp (11)
Mun Saeron’s summer break plans were full of news-gathering.
The start was the youth training camp.
‘I was bothered, because this place didn’t have good reviews.’
Before the youth training camp, Mun Saeron scrapped all comments about the youth training camp reviews published on the Eungwang School community general bulletin board.
After reading all of the comments, she had one doubt.
‘Why do we keep a contract with such a problematic place? Seniors put many complaints.’
Between the school and youth instructors, there was a gap (contractor) who gave money and employed services, and the eul (contracted), which took care of the students, and the school was naturally a gap.
But then it was strange that the school kept a contract with this training center.
‘This youth training center was contracted during the first semester, when Choe Pyeondeuk was around. It’s a debt left by that rare trash Choe Pyeondeuk, huh!’
Now, they didn’t have Choe Pyeondeuk’s support fired.
It was clear that this youth training center, with inferior facilities and instructors with deficient characters, wouldn’t be able to get a contract with Eungwang School next year.
Mun Saeron thought that if she was to dig out something, now was her last chance to do so.
So, before leaving, she got a permission from her homeroom teacher-nim, No Yeongmi, that it was okay for her to go outside the lodgings even after roll-call for the news-coverage.
‘I wanted to search the youth instructors office, but it would be difficult, right? Let’s do what I can instead of that!’
The news she could gather with her status as a student were limited, but there was one legal and simple way of news-gathering.
Honestly rummaging through trashcans.
It was dirty, hard and boring, but it was a news-gathering technique with a deep history of bringing numerous special news.
‘They were using an old-type paper shredder when I stealthily looked around. And it doesn’t seem like they have an incineration facility. If so, it’s worth a try!’
From the first night to the second one, she spent time going through the trash cans in secluded places.
As she wore latex gloves and looked through most of the content, a pile of small pieces of cut paper emerged.
‘Awesome, this is it!’
Mun Saeron possessed a restoration category superpower, but even without that skill, she had a talent worthy of a journalist to piece together destroyed documents.
‘Without gathering all of the pieces of the destroyed document, I can’t use that ability, let’s first piece it by hand while looking for remaining pieces!’
A shadow was cast over Mun Saeron, who pieced together the destroyed document with one hand with a happy face.
Because it suddenly darkened, and even the moon was shadowed, Mun Saeron looked behind.
“Mun Saeron.”
“Ack, teach Geunhyeong-nim!”
At night, Your face is even more frightening and uneasy than usual! [1]
Such words almost came out, but Mun Saeron’s mouth quickly hit the brakes, and she said all of the excuses she prepared for such a situation.
Naturally, she also added that she received a permission from No Yeongmi.
“Have you ever told other Newspaper Club’s students about your news-gathering plans?”
“No? I never spoke to anyone about this besides our Yeongmi-nim.”
“Is that so, eh….”
Mun Saeron tilted her head, but thought ‘Is He asking because there are two Newspaper Club’s members in His class?’, and brushed it off.
She had no idea at all about the fact that Jo Uisin, who anticipated her movements, considering the in-game development and Mun Saeron’s personality, made a request to Ham Geun-hyeong beforehand.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes? Go where? Um, I should be gathering news…”
Even though she knew that Ham Geun-hyeong was a good teacher, looking at his so frightful face, she couldn’t actively refuse.
Mun Saeron swallowed her words.
“You may end up gathering news on something else. Take out your weapon and follow me.”
She had questions about Ham Geun-heyong’s words and actions, but trusting his personality and nature, Mun Saeron grabbed a weapon card and followed Ham Geun-hyeong.
As such, the place they arrived at was the Player’s Lighthouse.
The facility itself was no different from an ordinary lighthouse, but the Player’s Association mark and radar antennae used for Enemy detection mounted on the building’s wall were eye-catching.
Mun Saeron spoke with an excited voice, while she entered inside, following Ham Geun-hyeong.
“Wow, it’s the first time I’m seeing the Player’s Lighthouse!… But it’s very old. Is it an influence of the government’s budget decreasing and the Otherworld Department cutting on a lot of support money?”
When Mun Saeron was excited about coming up with a new article topic, she faced three people.
One was a middle-aged man she didn’t know, but the two people, who broke the boxes a moment ago and emerged from them, Mun Saeron knew very well.
“Whoa, senior Kwon Jane-nim and Tak the Great! Hello! How did you come here?!”
The two honorary teachers, who nodded their heads as they received Mun Saeron’s greeting, stared at the turbulent sea with sharp eyes.
Following them, Mun Saeron glanced the pitch-black night sea, and then looked at the old-type equipment filling the lighthouse.
She soon saw the red objects marked on the old radar and was shocked.
“… Those aren’t all Enemies, are they? Is it a malfunction?”
Looking at the adults’ expressions, it didn’t look to be a malfunction.
Mun Saeron was left alone, as her face turned pale-white, and the story progressed.
“I’ll go to the top of the lighthouse to intercept them and provide cover. Can I ask the island guardian-nim to do something for my student?”
“Ah, understood, Blue Sky’s Archer-ssi![2]”
After the island guardian, Tak Geosan and Kwon Jane disappeared outside the lighthouse.
Mun Saeron came back to her senses, adjusted her grip on the weapon, and climbed the lighthouse after Ham Geun-hyeong.
“… Is it okay for me to come and fight?”
“There are two honorary teachers here, so it shouldn’t be necessary, huh? Instead, prepare to protect your body in case of an incident.”
When Ham Geun-hyeong told her that, she felt reassured, but Mun Saeron was scared out of her wits a few times.
The enormous number of Enemies.
The madness of the sea that overwhelmed the army of Enemies and tried to flood the island.
In such a situation, it was difficult to keep composure, even for a pretty good Player.
But looking at Ham Geunhyeong in front of her, silently putting an arrow on the bowstring to shoot, she wasn’t shaken and was able to endure it.
There was something which firmly supported Mun Saeron’s mind more than that.
‘That is a once in a lifetime opportunity to cover such a special topic!’
At the island, of which communication was cut off, the reporter who could convey this current situation most vividly was Mun Saeron.
She mobilized every tool she possessed, and made a video and sound recording of the entire field and situation, while keeping track of everything happening.
Even though she could die, she put her entire heart into the thought of telling about that unheard of before event through her actions.
And now, the crucial great performance was being recorded on her device.
She couldn’t suppress her exalted feelings and mumbled.
“I can record something like this…!”
Between the sound of the wild waves of tsunami, the violin performance rang out.
Kwon Jane and Kwon Lena, the world’s greatest violinist and Korea’s most prestigious highschool 1st year Player, they seemed to be far away from each other, but continued to cooperate.
At last, the ensemble of two superpower violins calmed the sea down.
As if nothing happened, the waves and torrents disappeared and the night sea was quiet, and the two people’s performance stopped.
***
Krrrr—!
The red lightning summoned by Jeok-ho exploded at the battlefield over and over.
But the silhouette, visible beyond the smoke and scorched black land, appeared the same as before.
“Can’t listen to such a story. What should I do? Currently, the communication with this side is cut off, and ‘eyes’ aren’t effective, so the other side wouldn’t know about the situation here. And I didn’t expect to face a legendary Ho and Dragon King God’s favorite.”
Bear of Anxiety held up a khakkhara[3] made out of stone as he mumbled.
Because Bear of Anxiety didn’t actively attack, the front lines were in a standstill.
Bear of Anxiety looked in turn at Jeok-ho and Kim Sinrok, while sighing.
“This time I was only tasked with assassinating Ungnyeo’s son, interrupting communication and deceiving the satellite. How did it come to this?”
How is killing my son on the same level as some communication and piece of junk?!
Jeok-ho, who heard those words, shut his mouth as it seemed that his harsh manner of speaking, which was sealed for thousands of years, was about to come out.
Instead, he grabbed the Ung, who noticed there was a gap between the pouring red lightning and rushed at him, by the nape, threw her on the ground and stepped on her.
“Keuack!”
The Ung, who was electrocuted by the lightning pouring from Jeok-ho’s toes, struggled ugly.
However, even though he looked at this scene, the Bear of Anxiety didn’t show a particular reaction.
‘Looking at that expression, Bear of Anxiety won’t budge, even if I take her as a hostage, eh?’
A hostage without use was a burden.
Jeok-ho, who judged it like this, took his feet off of the opponent’s throat and kicked her parietal bone to make her faint.
Looking at the Ung, who couldn’t even scream and fainted, the Bear of Anxiety mumbled.
“Aah, that bastard dumped his subordinates here and went roaming somewhere. And couldn’t bring even one sacrifice on time.”
Weren’t these Ung tribe members Bear of Anxiety’s subordinates?
While Jeok-ho made such a judgment, the confirmed subordinates of the Bear of Anxiety, the man and the woman, were facing Yong Jegeon.
The woman was holding a thin, double-edged sword, and the man was using magic[4].
They, who held students as hostages, were overwhelmed by Yong Jegeon’s Space Art and didn’t seem to have a gap to command their family members.
Still, they did their best to aim at Kim Sinrok, standing high at his side, to disrupt his mind.
“It’s precarious, eh? Considering that the family members, who lost their leader, will go mad and start a rampage, I can’t kill them straight away. Overwhelming them while keeping their lives isn’t as easy as I thought.”
Yong Jegeon spoke like this, but his expression, visible beyond the shattered pieces of the jade shinning space, was full of leisure.
They were inferior in numbers, but with Bear of Anxiety actively not attacking properly, and Jeok-ho and Yong Jegeon showing off an overwhelming performance, the number of standing Ung gradually decreased.
When Jeok-ho was about to shoot Red Lightning at Bear of Anxiety again.
“… It seems that something even more annoying is coming. Um, I tried to endure until that impostor comes and to shift it onto him, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen.”
The Bear of Anxiety made a big swing with the khakkhara towards the sky.
After that, all Ung tribe members’ movements, excluding Bear of Anxiety and his two subordinates, stopped all at once.
From the head, stick and horizontal blade of khakkhara, a superpower wave in the color of dirty water poured out as if crawling.
“Jeokho-ssi! Defend!”
In the heavy air, Yong Jegeon raised his voice.
Immediately after saying it, Yong Jegoen summoned hundreds of spaces around himself and Kim Sinrok.
When Jeok-ho put the Red Smoke output to a maximum and stood at Kim Sinrok’s side.
“You won’t be able to cope with the humiliation of being captured by a tiger[5] and that suffering, right? I’ll end that anxiety[6].”
While he spoke like this, Bear of Anxiety struck down with his khakkhara.
Clang!
The instant the head of the khakkhara hit the ground, the Ung tribe members collapsed and fell on the ground one after one.
The bodies of collapsed Ung tribe members swelled and rose up.
The Ung tribe members stared at Bear of Anxiety with faces as if they couldn’t believe it.
And the swollen and floating bodies of the Ung tribe members started to burst one after one.
Peeuk! Kwajink! Clang!
The Jin people’s true qi[7] and high density superpower wave that penetrated the bones and flesh composing their bodies, touched the air and stirred an enormous explosion that shook the earth.
***
I heard the sound of an explosion not far away and the superpower pressure pressing on the surrounding, and then it disappeared.
Hwang Jiho, who suddenly stopped and unfolded Barrier Art, frowned.
“… Smell of blood. Either Jin or human, eh?”
I had no idea if it smelled of blood or not, but that bastard seemed to have a good nose.
As if judging that the superpower pressure disappeared, Hwang Jiho lifted the Barrier Art and started running again.
When I was about to follow after him, I heard a system voice.
⟨The Ung tribe’s interference ended. Communication was restored.⟩
On the first day I came to this world.
When the tutorial ended as Baek Ho-gun appeared, this was the message I heard.
‘The Ung tribe’s influence power, which caused the communication failure, disappeared. They were either immobilized or ran away…!’
And if the communication was restored and receiving the warning of the satellite about the otherworlds became possible, then there wouldn’t be any problems in the future.
As the Player’s Association would interfere from the moment when communication was restored and the support would soon come.
“Communication was restored.”
“I’ll contact Jeok-ho.”
Soon Hwang Jiho spoke with more relieved voice as if he received a reply message.
“It seems there was a problem, but… he said that everyone is fine.”
At those words, my worries were relieved.
The variable I was the most uneasy about was safely solved.
As I operated the device, with an unusually light mind, suddenly the missed notifications started pouring in.
There shouldn’t be anyone contacting me at this time.
The only people who would contact me were people who knew about this entire operation or didn’t know, but they were together with me in the area with blocked communication, so they couldn’t send messages.
When in doubt, I checked the hologram.
‘… Min Geurin?’
The device call record was full of Min Geurin’s name.
*~*~*
[1] At night, His face is even more frightening and uneasy than usual! — this sentence uses a polite tone, and adds ‘ㅅ (s/t)’ ending, which I sadly don’t know how to present in English.
[2] Blue Sky’s Archer-ssi — he said his full title ‘Great Archer of Blue Sky’, but I’m shortening it for the flow.
[3] khakkhara — Buddhist monk’s staff. It’s also called ‘tiger pewter staff’ as its sound is supposed to inform wild animals about a passing monk to avoid killing them (animals). Also, please don’t ask about the stone. This translator is also very confused about it.
[4] magic — not the mana based, fantasy magic. Think more of witchcraft, shamanistic arts, curses.
[5] tiger — a pure korean word ‘범 (beom)’ is used here.
[6] anxiety — Hm… this is the moment when this translator is burning their brain if they made the right choice with translation. For this situation, the better word would be anguish or torment, but as it’s the same word as is used for the name of the bear… Generally ‘번민 (beon-min)’ means a suffocating feeling of being trapped in a situation without escape.
[7] true qi — or Jin qi. There is no hanja, so I cannot be sure, but considering that ‘Jin’ in Jin people stands for ‘true’, I’m guessing that’s what it means. True qi would be the most primordial qi residing in the body.
Translator’s note: Mun Saeron… I thought you were a bird, but are you a raccoon, perhaps?
And the Ung tribe is even more suspicious than usual in this chapter… But not in a reassuring way.
Did you see a mistake? 🐞
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