Emperor Namgung Mu of the Thousand Years - Chapter 110

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#110

Right after the fight ended, Cheolwoong’s feet and wrists were bound with shackles.

The arena guard who had brought Cheolwoong exchanged brief eye contact with me and left.

“Sit.”

I said.

Cheolwoong looked at me.

A moment of silence.

He sat across from me at the table.

The chains clinked.

“Do you always wear shackles like that before and after matches, under the guards’ watch?”

“They see us as dangerous.”

I said to Guk.

“Remove them.”

Cheolwoong looked at Guk with a puzzled expression.

“There’s no way the key to these shackles would be here.”

Guk reached out, grabbed the end of the shackles, and twisted them apart.

I said to the bewildered Cheolwoong.

“How about it, do you believe me now? And I keep telling you I’m the new owner here.”

“Even so, to be in a position where you can command a master who can tear apart locks with bare hands…”

Guk looked at me.

“This man is at this level.”

“…Right.”

I said to Cheolwoong.

“I noticed earlier that your footwork, the way you move your body, your judgment – everything was quite unique. You didn’t hone all your skills here. You’re definitely not someone who started from nothing in martial arts. Which sect do you belong to?”

Cheolwoong’s eyes wavered.

It was brief.

Soon he became expressionless again.

“My sect? As I said, I’m from the bottom, so I have no idea.”

“Lie.”

“…”

“That footwork from earlier. It’s definitely been corrupted quite a bit, but the basic framework is absolutely not improvised.”

Cheolwoong closed his mouth.

“The way you wield daggers, the way you use both hands. Where did it derive from? Tell me honestly.”

I pulled up a chair.

I sat down heavily in front of Cheolwoong.

“You taught the rest of the Yellow Dragon Team too, didn’t you?”

“…”

“It was definitely rough, but I felt similarities in group combat. Should I make a deduction? The forty or so who have survived here for years now must be kids with good enough combat sense to absorb your teachings. They’re also enthusiastic and have willpower. Such kids naturally got filtered and gathered together. And you’re their focal point.”

“Right. So will you kill me for that?”

Cheolwoong said in an agitated voice.

“For disrupting the flow here. I know it all too. The Yellow Dragon Team’s survival rate has improved so dramatically that this arena itself is dying.”

“Then I would have killed you earlier.”

Cheolwoong flinched.

“Do you think it’s a coincidence that you don’t have a single broken bone right now?”

“…”

“You know it yourself. To do what you mentioned, it would have been most efficient to crush your entire body against the arena wall earlier, then use that as a warning to the rest of the Yellow Dragon Team. But I’m sitting here talking with you now.”

I leaned forward.

I looked at Cheolwoong intently.

“Opportunities always come without showing themselves. Don’t speak carelessly – speak wisely. Or else…”

My eyes flashed.

“Do I need to explain in even more detail for you to understand? Then you’re useless. I’ll listen to just one more thing. So speak.”

Cheolwoong looked directly into my eyes.

A process of countless thoughts passing through.

“Chungpung Sect. Anyway, it’s just one of the countless minor sects that were destroyed ten years ago. What do you plan to do with that knowledge? Do you even know it?”

Cheolwoong bit his lips.

“It wasn’t even third-rate… it was really a sect stuck in some rural corner. The kind where no one would care if someone pushed in from the side and killed everyone… that kind of sect. Why do you specifically want to know about it? To mock me? Because I’m from such a trash sect, I ended up in debt and flowed into a place like this? I hate my sect too.”

“I know you cherish it more than anyone.”

“Me? Bullshit…!”

I pointed to Cheolwoong’s ankle.

“The scar on your ankle – you made it by cutting with a blade, right?”

Cheolwoong’s eyes shook.

“It’s drawn so poorly I can’t be sure, but I can tell you were trying to express a bird with spread wings. You cut with a blade and deliberately fed it charcoal powder several times to make it blue.”

“…”

“Judging by the clumsy skill, it definitely doesn’t seem like it was done by someone who professionally tattoos. You did it yourself. And the fact that you crudely colored it with charcoal powder instead of specialized dye mixed with iron powder shows you did it in truly harsh conditions.”

Cheolwoong’s face hardened.

I continued.

“Due to charcoal powder’s nature, it decomposes and fades after three years, but this hasn’t even been three years since the tattoo was carved. So all this evidence means you tattooed yourself while trapped here. Finally.”

I said coldly.

“The Chungpung Sect has the blue crane as its symbol and is a sect that values faith and pride above all else, isn’t that right?”

“…!!”

Cheolwoong shot up.

“How… how do you know that?”

“A minor sect that used five or more types of weapons, changing them according to situation, and had exchanges with Jeoncheongpa. The Chungpung Sect I know may be small in size, but it’s absolutely not trash. So don’t hurt yourself by saying things you don’t mean.”

“…”

Cheolwoong staggered backward.

“No, I…! Coming from such a small sect ruined my life and everything…!”

“The tattoo on your ankle. You carved a blue crane there too, in this hellish place, cutting flesh with charcoal powder and bleeding. Why would you do that? It’s because you wanted to endure in this hopeless place without forgetting those memories. Even if you live like a beast here, you’re a person of the Chungpung Sect. You didn’t want to let go of that.”

“You’re… you’re someone high up. Commanding such a master as a subordinate… and being the new owner of this place, handling such large sums of money. You couldn’t possibly know how we ants live.”

Cheolwoong muttered in a hollow voice.

“But… but why do you pretend to know so well that I misunderstand?”

“Let me ask you. Do the things I’m saying now sound like something a sheltered young master with superficial knowledge would say? You already know the answer yourself.”

I looked at him with deep eyes.

“Whatever my current position in reality, I’m the same type as you, someone who started from the same starting line. I couldn’t not know.”

“…”

Finally, Cheolwoong hung his head low.

“…How can someone like you know so much?”

“The question itself is wrong. It’s not why I know, but because the Chungpung Sect was a sect worth knowing about.”

“…If you’re the new owner here, then you’re the Namgung Family’s fourth young master I heard rumors about?”

“That’s right.”

“Ha… haha.”

Cheolwoong laughed helplessly.

“Our sect leader… while he was alive, he wanted his sect to be recognized like this just once. To encounter this in such an unexpected place…”

It was a laugh filled with deep, deep regret.

“Ten years.”

At the end of his laughter, Cheolwoong said.

“Ten years since the Chungpung Sect fell. In those ten years, I haven’t met a single person who remembers the Chungpung Sect.”

He slowly sank down.

“When our sect was destroyed, it was the same. When bandits came flooding in, massacring innocent people, not a single sect we had relations with came to help us. It wasn’t that they couldn’t be reached. They all knew but pretended not to.”

“….”

“My father, who was the sect leader, died trying to stop them, and my martial brothers died too. Even the survivors were all severely wounded. I ran everywhere trying to save those people. Looking for physicians, obtaining medicinal herbs. Since I had no money… I went around trying to borrow some.”

Cheolwoong’s hands trembled.

“But no one would lend to me. Physicians refused to treat those without money, and when I tried to borrow money, who would lend to someone from a ruined sect? Even the common people we had fought so desperately to protect turned a blind eye once their immediate crisis was over.”

“So that’s how you eventually ended up going to Namgung Taejin, the Third Young Master of the Namgung Family.”

Cheolwoong raised his head.

“…You knew?”

“No. This is the first I’m hearing of it. But that pig’s methods are obvious. He maintains corrupt relationships with minor local tyrants and loan sharking would be one of his side businesses, so this much is easy to deduce. Continue.”

“….”

Cheolwoong lowered his head again.

“I did borrow money from Namgung Taejin. That bastard really pretended to worry about me while spouting sweet words. But at the same time, something was strange.”

“Strange how?”

“I clearly told him it was urgent. That people were dying. But that bastard… wasn’t in a hurry. He wrote the contract slowly. Even slower, very slowly… He kindly explained each clause one by one. Saying we needed to be careful, that this process was always like this, and even when I was going crazy with impatience, that bastard was drinking tea and smiling.”

Cheolwoong’s hands trembled.

“I didn’t know then. I only realized later. That he… did it on purpose.”

“….”

“If I had been just half a day faster, I could have saved them. But that half day… that bastard stole it from me.”

Silence fell.

“When I returned, they were all dying. Still, I had to do something. I brought physicians. I spent all the money. But no one survived and only debt remained. Then Namgung Taejin appeared. To me, now alone, he offered the position of a fighting dog in the arena as if he had been waiting.”

Cheolwoong laughed self-deprecatingly.

“Then that bastard said this. Why are you looking at me with resentful eyes? Did I force you to borrow money from me? Is there evidence that I intended this situation? Wasn’t it all your choice? All I did was help you. Don’t misunderstand my goodwill with baseless suspicion. I couldn’t refute a single word of what he said.”

“….”

“This is what it means to be robbed blind.”

Cheolwoong laughed self-deprecatingly.

“The money I borrowed to save my family scattered meaninglessly, and the exponentially growing karma strangled me and dragged me to this hell. In the end, it’s all because I’m pathetic.”

“….”

“Since I had lived foolishly practicing only martial arts, that was the first time in my life I had borrowed money. So I believed it was natural for it to take that much time, as Namgung Taejin explained. Wasn’t I ridiculously naive? I realized much later that the entire process should have taken less than a moment originally, but…”

He smiled bitterly.

“Since everything had already happened, what use was that realization.”

Cheolwoong lowered his head.

“In the end, Namgung Taejin needed a wandering expert with no connections, and I fell into that trap. Everything was because of my foolishness and stupidity. It’s karma.”

“What karma. That’s complete nonsense.”

I said.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Cheolwoong raised his head.

“…What did you say?”

“You did your best until the very end. You could have given up and run away alone, but you didn’t. So how is any of this your fault?”

“….”

“And now I understand. The Yellow Dragon Team members whose skills improved rapidly.”

I said calmly.

“So that’s why you were trying to protect them by even teaching them martial arts?”

“…Yes.”

Cheolwoong answered quietly.

“Even if it might be meaningless foolishness, the things I couldn’t protect at Chungpung Sect. This time I wanted to protect them. I wanted to avoid being helplessly victimized, even in the smallest way.”

“Should I be honest with you?”

I said.

“This way, you can’t protect anyone. The ending you’re trying to avoid will only be delayed, but it will eventually come.”

“….”

“No matter how much you struggle, there are limits. As long as you remain a gladiator slave in the arena, they’ll die one by one eventually. You know this, but you’re enduring because there’s no other way.”

Cheolwoong couldn’t answer.

“Should I speak directly?”

I straightened my posture.

“You, come under me.”

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