Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
40. Meaning of blessing (5)
Players were always at risk of injury.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Players were responsible for the main source of income for hospitals all over the world.
The recovery items were only to treat external injures, and if the injury was big, it was natural to consult with a doctor, who possessed Player specialization, before using recovery items.
It was common sense that if the otherworld conquest team had two digits of members, they had a team doctor, and that the infirmary at Player specialized highschool was always opened.
In fact, students got hurt during the training every day.
‘It isn’t some big incident if a Player gets hurt. Jang Namuk also would know that well. Enough that after beating Tao Sihu in Hongcheon Gari Mountains, he stopped teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim from using a recovery item.’
What’s more, Jang Namuk wasn’t a bastard who would gossip about his friend’s injury.
There was no way that it was a simple injury.
When I finished my thoughts up to this point, I recalled Ok Toyeon’s words.
— Did anyone around you get hurt in recent days? Were you at a funeral? Even if you didn’t go, did anyone close to you get seriously injured or die?
— But why do I see Death Mark?
She said that she saw a Death Mark, which is a sign of death, appearing on one’s face.
Unlike when she met him on the 5th of May Children’s Day, Ok Toyeon discovered a Death Mark on Tao Sihu’s face at the beginning of July.
And Tao Sihu in the game was assassinated.
At that thought, my chest turned cold as if I swallowed ice, but I was thinking calmly.
‘Even though Tao Sihu was injured, it wouldn’t be a serious injury.’
It wouldn’t be an ordinary injury, but it wouldn’t be a serious injury worthy of hospitalization.
There was no way that with Jang Namuk’s personality, he would leave a seriously injured Tao Sihu to make a call.
“Is Tao Sihu okay? Is he seriously hurt?”
[He fractured his shoulder blade. It was healed with a recovery item. And Sihu is sleeping right now.]
Silence fell again.
The talkative Jang Namuk couldn’t say a word by himself.
“Where are you right now?”
[It’s a self training period in the Military School, but the class kids are training together. I’m currently in the dormitory.]
Looking at the time, the clock was pointing it was a bit after 9 pm.
I didn’t know the Military School’s rules in detail, but if it was a self training period, it seemed it would be simple to apply for a night-stay-out.
“Shall we meet in person to talk?”
[… Can we meet straight away? I think I can come in about an hour.]
I thought it would be tomorrow the fastest, but I guess Jang Namuk felt extremely anxious.
[I dealt with the matter you talked before while Sihu was talking with the military doctor officer-nim in the infirmary. I’ll bring them.]
If it was a matter I talked about before, he would be surely talking about the personal items Tao Sihu brought after May.
I had a guess the reason why Jang Namuk was in such a hurry and wasn’t talking about the detailed situation on the call.
“Okay, can you come to Eungwang District?”
[I’m going. Where will we meet?]
“For now, go towards Eungwang School’s main entrance. I’ll contact you in about 10 minutes.”
[Okay, thanks. See you soon.]
I didn’t do anything yet, but Jang Namuk thanked me and ended the call.
There was something I had to prepare before bringing Jang Namuk.
I opened the device address book and called the contact information of a certain person.
‘It’s a personal matter, but in the end it’s related to Tao Sihu’s scenario, so it’s difficult to call it a personal matter at this point.’
The moment I judged like this and made a call, the screen changed to ‘connected’ straight away.
[Jo Uisin, you’re contacting me at this time? How unusual.]
The moment I called, Hwang Jiho responded straight way.
Even if he accepted it quickly, shouldn’t there be a waiting signal two or three times?
I was momentarily at a loss for words at that extremely quick response.
[Jo Uisin? What happened?]
“Uh, hello.”
[Yeah. Speak.]
As it seemed that this geezer was very idle, I decided to get down to business straight away.
“I have a request. Please grant a school entrance permission to one of the Military Academy’s cadets.”
[Player Military Academy’s cadet?]
“Only for today. I can vouch for him.”
[I think I know who it is. We’re talking about Jang Namuk from Eungwang School’s practical entrance exam’s group 13, right?]
I knew that he secretly investigated, but he figured it out straight away?
No, as Jang Namuk took Eungwang School’s exam, wasn’t it natural for him to know?
[I can’t think of anyone else, among Military School’s cadets, who is worthy of you vouching for them. But did something happen at this time?]
“It’s because I want to do something inside the barrier.”
[It’s not specifically related to school, but you want to take advantage of the school’s barrier?]
“Yeah. It’s okay even if the access to Eungwang School’s key security facilities aren’t possible. Because I was thinking about using an empty training ground.”
[Then there should be no need for you to trouble yourself with going all the way to school, eh?]
No need to go to school?
It was too late to rent a private training ground.
And it wouldn’t have the barrier up to Eungwang School’s standard.
When I was about to open my mouth to persuade him again.
[I’ll lend you my mansion’s yard. Take that Military School’s cadet and come.]
At the unexpected suggestion, I was at a loss for words again.
***
During today’s self-training, Tao Sihu had a strange incident, which resulted in him getting injured.
And the only one, who detected that something was strange, was Jang Namuk, who devoted his attention to Tao Sihu and kept his best insight category skill active.
The cadets, who trained together, the instructors, who watched the training, and even the person involved in the incident, Tao Sihu, thought it was a ‘simple incident’.
If it was as usual, Jang Namuk would honestly tell everyone what he saw and felt, and seek a solution together.
But when he saw Sihu, who was going to be carried out to the infirmary, he recalled what Jo Uisin told him.
— Replace all items Tao Sihu brought after May. Buy similar ones to fill them up. And please bring the exchanged items to me. In secret from Tao Sihu.
— You have to do it alone. Don’t be caught by other kids and instructors.
There was no way that Jo Uisin, Jang Namuk’s friend and a person who saved his life, would talk nonsense.
Jang Namuk trusted Jo Uisin, and thought there had to be a reason to keep it away from Tao Sihu.
The moment Jang Namuk returned from the baseball stadium, he took every opportunity to look for the same products or items from the same category, and replace Tao Sihu’s items.
However, replacing the items while avoiding Tao Sihu’s eyes, took longer than he thought, and in the end he was too late.
‘There might have been a way to stop that incident, but because I was too late, Sihu was hurt. I have to hurry now!’
Luckily, he was able to organize all items before 10 pm when the going out of and into the school became restricted.
When Jang Namuk, who submitted the stay-out application, dragged out a carrier and was about to leave the public usage living area passing through his class dormitory.
“Flag bearer-nim, where are you going at this hour?”
Jang Namuk’s expression stiffened.
At the entrance to the public usage living area was his class colleague, beaming and holding an entrenching shovel made out of otherwordly metal, who the hell knew what she was planning to do with it at this hour.
The colleague roughly stuck the entrenching shovel she was holding, in the flower bed close to the entrance, while asking:
“How is Sihu? But he must be okay, because he didn’t go to the hospital.”
“He wasn’t hospitalized in the first place.”
“Okay? Because flag bearer-nim made an expression as if he was going to die, so I thought he was be going to be hospitalized~”
The colleague, who knew Tao Sihu since he was young, Namkung Gyu-yeon cackled and smiled.
Before entering the school, Namkung Gyu-yeon was in the research institute under the Ministry of Defense.
She was an oddball that, during Tao Sihu’s run away incident, drew a tiltrotor to the Gari Mountain.
At the current Military Academy, the gender ratio was 9:1, that is to say, Namkung Gyu-yeon was one of 10% of female cadets, and was a genius, who lightly, as if it was a joke, used heavy machinery, which even veterans were hesitating to use, saying that they were hard to operate.
‘Gyu-yeon is a good kid, but… I don’t know what she is thinking.’
When Jang Namuk was worried about ‘Why I had to be caught by the most eccentric person in the whole 1st year?’ and ‘What excuse would be good?’.
“Then go on~”
“Uh?”
“It seems that flag bearer-nim is in a hurry, so I’m telling you to go quickly.”
“Uh… okay. Contact me if something happens.”
“Understood, sir~”
He was worried what the hell Namkung Gyu-yeon was digging in the middle of the night, but Jang Namuk decided to prioritize rushing to Eungwang District.
She, who pulled out the entrenching shovel, watched Jang Namuk, who disappeared while dragging a carrier, for a while.
***
When looking from the outside perspective, there were two extremely eye-catching things about Hwang Myeong-ho’s great mansion.
The golden fence and maze garden.
Behind the golden fence surrounding that enormous territory, were sparse buildings of unknown usage, and inside the maze garden without walls was the main building that the Ho tribe members and descendants were currently residing in.
Right now, the place I and Jang Namuk were heading to was the yard between the golden fence and maze garden.
“Amazing…! The thing covering that fence is mana, right? What power do you need to transform a high-density superpower wave to do this!?”
When passing through the golden fence, even Jang Namuk, who kept a stiff expression the entire time, was amazed.
“Come here.”
At the entrance to the maze garden, the lilies[1], nicknamed tiger lilies, which bloomed in July and August, were in full bloom.
Hwang Jiho in the Eungwang School’s uniform, stood in front of the entrance, with his back to the tiger lilies.
I had no idea why he was wearing it in the middle of the vacation.
“This is our class member, Hwang Jiho. The kid that you said to bring, Military School’s cadet, Jang Namuk.”
After my half-heated introduction, Jang Namuk, who thought ‘If you’re in the same class, then we’re the same age, right?’, greeted him with a casual tone.
“… Hi?”
“Yeah, this one welcomes you.”
At Hwang Jiho’s sound that didn’t seem like a greeting, Jang Namuk made a subtle expression, and then nodded his head as if he understood something.
“Ah, Uisin was in the class 0, right?”
I had no idea what he understood.
Anyhow, as the two of them finished the greetings, I decided to cut to the point.
“Please tell us what happened.”
Leaving the carrier in a conspicuous place, Jang Namuk took off his glasses as he spoke.
“My skill is known as ‘Hundred Ri[2] Eyes’.”
“The lower rank counterpart of Thousand Ri Eyes[3]? On the lower levels, the precision of Hundred Ri Eyes is much better, but as the level rises, the demerits of Thousand Ri Eyes disappear, so it doesn’t matter, right? It’s better to meet conditions to acquire the Thousand Ri Eyes skill as soon as possible.”
I knew that he had an Insight category skill, but it was the Hundred Ri Eyes?
As Hwang Jiho said, compared to the Thousand Ri Eyes Cheon Dong-ha or Ju Su-hyeok had, the Hundred Ri Eyes skill’s operation range was much lower.
However, it seemed that Jang Namuk’s ‘is known’ was hiding some other meaning.
“Yeah. I also thought that like everyone else after my skill ‘Hundred Ri Eyes’ formed. I was thinking of obtaining ‘Thousand Ri Eyes’ before graduating from highschool. But the situation has changed.”
Jang Namuk, who grabbed his glasses and put them in his shirt pocket, activated his skill.
Paat!
A superpower wave flowed into Jang Namuk’s eyes.
Looking at the faint energy flow[4] covering the edges of Jang Namuk’s eyes, it looked a bit different from how the Hundred or Thousand Ri Eyes looked like.
“It’s not the Hundred or Thousand Ri Eyes. Praying Eyes[5]? Eyes of Future? No, this…”
“This is a derivative skill of the Hundred Ri Eyes, ‘Eyes of Star Maiden’.”
At Jang Namuk’s words, both I and Hwang Jiho were surprised.
There was no one but one person I could recall, who corresponded to Star Maiden.
There was a story that a goddess, who pleaded for justice, rather than standing by human degeneration, she left to heaven[6], and as Libra, she was holding a scale, she rose to become a constellation[7] Virgo.
All over the world, the justice goddess statue standing in front of the courts was Iustitia, the being signifying justice, and who was equivalent to the Star Maiden goddess, Astraía.
“You, you have eyes of Astraía?”
“Hoo, this is the first time I see the real thing, eh?”
Sometimes a powerful blessing would lead to a derivative skill as a bonus.
The addition of derivative skill of Jegal Jaegeol’s ‘kotodama’, who received a powerful blessing from Thoth, was an example of that.
“I guess Astraía-nim liked the Gwangrim I awakened. After receiving a blessing, that derivative skill formed.”
Jang Namuk’s eyes were still full of faint starlight.
Astraía was commonly known to have her eyes closed or blindfolded, but depending on the sculpturer who made the statue, her eyes could also be opened.
The eyes of the goddess of justice, Astraía, would be able to carry out justice and truth fairly and impartially.
“Though my skill level is still low, and I can only see things, I couldn’t just do nothing. The moment Sihu got injured, I saw it with those eyes.”
Jang Namuk canceled the usage of ‘Eyes of Star Maiden’, and put on his glasses again as he spoke.
“The crystallization of evil intentions wrapped around Sihu, twisted his superpower wave. It looked like a seed…. If I had to put it into words, I would have to call it ‘Seed of Curse’.”
Seed of Curse.
I saw that item in the game.
I wasn’t able to see the real thing in this world, but I saw the outcome of its usage.
Because that very Seed of Curse was planted on the students of School Magazine Editorial Club to hook Jegal Jaegeol.
*~*~*
[1] lilies — Lilium lancifolium, the name used in Korean here was ‘참나리 (chamnari)’.
[2] Ri — ‘ri’ length unit is about 393 meters. Also ‘Hundred’ is ‘Baek’ in Korean, so the name of the skill is ‘Baekrian (백리안)’.
[3] Thousand Ri Eyes — uh, I translated it as clairvoyance before, but it makes more sense to translate it as the Thousand Ri Eyes here… and I also just realized something about its name, which is ‘Cheonrian (천리안)’ hahah… I’ll from now on refer to it as the Thousand Ri Eyes.
[4] energy flow — or qi flow.
[5] Praying Eyes — ‘seeing through’ eyes.
[6] heaven — literally ‘sky’ in raws.
[7] constellation — raws just use the word ‘star’. It’s hard to tell if in this world Virgo is just a star or not, because ‘star’ in Korean could also refer to a constellation…
Translator’s note: A lot of yeon (flower/smoke) in this chapter.
Did you see a mistake? 🐞
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