Appearance of the Heavenly Demon - Chapter 71

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 71
“Is it even possible?”
Man-cho asked with a grave expression.
The students’ evening meal had long since ended.
Finding leftover food would be difficult enough, and even if they did, it would likely have already become filthy scraps.
Yet Gu-yeong nodded without hesitation.
“Understood. I’ll go and secure some—”
“Wait, wait, wait.”
Man-cho gestured for him to hold a moment and approached him, taking his pulse briefly.
Then, muttering something to himself, he went to the medicine cabinet and returned with two paper-wrapped pills.
“Chew and swallow one tomorrow morning, then circulate your Yun-gi. It’ll help with the internal damage. If you’re still in pain, you can take one before bed too.”
Gu-yeong received them blankly.
“How did you… know?”
He hadn’t mentioned the injury at all since arriving at the Uigak.
Man-cho let out a short laugh as if the question were obvious.
“Even if I look like this, I’m responsible for the Uigak. I can judge whether someone is a patient just by looking at their complexion.”
“I see. Thank you. Then I’ll go take care of the task you asked of me.”
Man-cho nodded.
Once Gu-yeong had left the Uigak to secure the students’ meal, Man-cho turned from watching the door toward Yeon-woo.
“Sigh. I hope it isn’t what I think.”
He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly and picked up a cloth.
“What shouldn’t it be?”
Man-cho, who had been about to treat Yeon-woo’s wound, stopped briefly and looked at him.
Should he say anything?
After a moment’s hesitation, he suddenly raised an eyebrow and asked.
“Now that I think about it, why did you go to the Chusa-gak?”
“My food was poisoned.”
“Ah.”
Ah.
Ah, so that’s how it is. Ah.
“So you, that is to say…”
You were the first to pass. Probably.
Man-cho let out a short sigh and spoke.
“What I’m worried about is the poison.”
“Poison?”
“Yes. You said it was mixed in the rice and the salt, right? Your food had poison in it, so you went to the Chusa-gak to verify it.”
Yeon-woo nodded.
“That’s right.”
“But you didn’t eat it, did you?”
“No.”
“Good. At least there’s that. Anyway, the problem is this—if poison was in your meal, it could very well be in the other students’ meals too. Based on what you’ve told me.”
“In the other students’ meals too?”
“Yes. If someone wanted to poison just one person’s food, they wouldn’t bother with the tedious business of mixing it into the salt.”
To poison a single person’s meal, one would simply add it to that person’s food—cleaner to manage.
Conversely, to poison every student’s meal, it would be easier to add it to something like salt that gets used in all the food.
Especially with a poison that’s colorless and odorless, or a sleep poison—something that wouldn’t be noticed easily.
“Is it like that?!”
“Why are you so surprised? Didn’t you go to the Chusa-gak knowing something was off?”
Yeon-woo flinched and paused.
He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“…You’re right.”
“That’s exactly it.”
“But why is that such a big problem?”
He said it wouldn’t hurt even if they ate it?
“Because poison is poison, no matter how mild a sleep poison might be. If the toxin activates before we know what we’re dealing with and what antidote compounds would work, it could be catastrophic.”
Man-cho shuddered as if the mere thought gave him chills.
“Even a small amount of poison can cause problems if it stays in the body too long. Especially for young, hot-blooded ones like you—it’s even more dangerous.”
The younger you are, the faster symptoms tend to appear.
“So if all the students have ingested poison, we need to begin detoxification as soon as possible, before any symptoms emerge.”
And since everyone reacts differently, there’s no way to know what reaction each person will have.
However it happened, there was no time to waste on treatment.
“Should I first investigate the poison mixed into the salt? Colorless and odorless. If it’s a colorless, odorless material with toxic properties….”
Man-cho had begun muttering to himself without quite realizing it.
Even as he spoke, his hands worked steadily, treating Yeon-woo’s wound.
He applied medicine, cut clean cloth to cover the injury, then pressed crushed medicinal herbs over the bandage.
“Unless I know the poison’s composition for certain…. Hmm… this is troublesome….”
While he murmured aloud about the poison’s likely ingredients, his hands continued their work—and Yeon-woo watched him intently the whole time.
It was just as Man-cho reached for his medicine pouch to retrieve the herbs he meant to crush.
“This one, and this one, and this. And that one too.”
Yeon-woo’s hand moved swiftly, pointing to several medicinal herbs in succession.
“Hmm?”
Not immediately grasping the meaning, Man-cho looked down at the herbs Yeon-woo had indicated with a puzzled expression.
……
Man-cho’s gaze fixed on them for a moment in silence.
Thud!
Man-cho shot to his feet.
His eyes, which had been studying the herbs, snapped toward Yeon-woo.
“What… did you just do…?”
“You said it was troublesome?”
“…What?”
“Doesn’t the poison need to be eliminated quickly?”
Man-cho’s lips parted slightly.
His expression grave, he alternated his gaze between Yeon-woo and the herbs in his grasp several times over.
Man-cho was indeed skilled with herbs—a reputation earned by his epithet, that he knew every plant beneath heaven.
Though he had never personally compounded these particular herbs together, he could calculate what effect such a combination would produce.
‘This is….’
The antidote herbs for the colorless, odorless poison and the sleep poison whose toxic ingredients had just crossed his mind moments ago.
The herbs Yeon-woo had selected were far too perfectly suited for detoxification to be mere coincidence.
“Did you somehow know what poison it was?”
Yeon-woo shook his head.
“I didn’t.”
“Then how did you know these would work as an antidote?”
“Just… did.”
The truth was, he’d recognized it by smell.
But Gu-yeong had told him to keep the fact that Darkness had keen olfactory senses to himself.
“Just had a feeling they would work…?”
Yeon-woo averted his eyes awkwardly and busied himself with something else.
His whole manner screamed that he was hiding something, though he remained blissfully unaware of it.
Man-cho studied him for a moment.
“You’ve been studying medicine quite seriously.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Just go with it!”
Man-cho flicked a chestnut at the oblivious Yeon-woo’s head with a sharp rap.
“If you’re going to hide something, at least put in the effort to come up with a decent excuse! Do you even realize what you just did?”
Yeon-woo’s eyebrows rose.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You just did. Something quite extraordinary, in fact.”
Something extraordinary?
“Of course, I’ll need to verify it first.”
Man-cho exhaled a long sigh, then rummaged through his medicine pouch and drew out the herbs he’d originally meant to apply to Yeon-woo’s wound.
He retrieved a small mortar reserved for herbs and began grinding the medicine as he spoke.
“If those herbs you mentioned truly are an antidote, then you’ve just saved the lives of every single student in this academy.”
Yeon-woo blinked.
Man-cho spread the crushed herbs gently onto the cloth binding Yeon-woo’s wound.
“It feels strange!”
Patter, patter!
“Hold still. If it falls off, we’ll have to start over from the beginning.”
“All right.”
Yeon-woo went obediently quiet.
“For now, I’ll say I made the antidote. That will be better for you in the long run.”
“Yeah. I don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind? How could you not mind!”
Man-cho stared at Yeon-woo, eyes wide.
“Did you even hear what I just said? Were you listening to me?”
Yeon-woo raised an eyebrow as if to say, what do you want me to do about it?
Man-cho let out a groan and pressed his forehead with the back of his hand before continuing.
“This kind of lack of ambition won’t do. You saved those cadets’ lives—you need to be properly compensated for that. How else do you expect to survive in this harsh place?”
“I’m not particularly—”
“Particularly nothing! Make sure you get what you deserve!”
Man-cho laid a fresh cloth over the medicinal herbs he’d just applied and fixed it in place with a tap of his finger.
“Ow!”
Yeon-woo’s lip twisted.
“I won’t broadcast your merit, but I’ll make sure to tell the master properly. There—all done. Now you can head back to the Dormitory.”
That was when it happened.
“Benefactor?!”
Someone came rushing out from the inner chamber of the Uigak, footsteps clattering.
A crooked Small Crown, a trace of saliva at the corner of the mouth.
It was clearly Sa-ma Hyeon, who had been asleep just moments before.
“Benefactor! Are you all right?”
Sa-ma Hyeon hurried out, straightening his Small Crown as he came.
But then he stopped abruptly.
The treated wound, and the bloodstain darkening Yeon-woo’s clothes.
Sa-ma Hyeon stammered in alarm, floundering with his hands.
Yeon-woo’s gaze shifted to his left hand.
“Are you hurt?”
Sa-ma Hyeon’s left hand was wrapped in bandages.
Sa-ma Hyeon rubbed his nose sheepishly.
“Ah, yes. This is—”
“He stabbed his own hand.”
Yeon-woo glanced back at Man-cho.
Man-cho, who had been gathering up his treatment supplies to leave, let out a small laugh and gestured at Sa-ma Hyeon with his chin.
“With that Panguan Brush he carries around. Right in front of the Gyodu-gak, no less. Ridiculous, isn’t he?”
There are a lot of strange ones in this cohort.
Yeon-woo stared at Sa-ma Hyeon with wide, round eyes.
He stabbed his own hand? By himself?
Yeon-woo’s brow furrowed as she tilted her head, perplexed.
“…Why?”
It was something Yeon-woo simply could not understand.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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