I Obtained Guan Yu's Martial Arts - Chapter 14

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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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Acquired the Martial Arts of Guan Yu — Episode 14
Rootless Training (4)
“So… so this massive frame… no, this bulk is the Family Head!?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“The one who just spewed a stream of curses at me!?”
“Yes.”
“And this man is the one who ordered me to pound away at that brutish Iron Post!?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s the one who shattered it with his bare fists!?”
“Yes.”
“…….”
Yim Il-do’s eyes swept across Guan Hui with a look of bewilderment.
When Guan Seok had first said it, it sounded absurd, but now it made a certain sense.
The Family Head of the Guan Family, with palms as broad as a cauldron lid, looked like the sort who could batter a bull senseless with his bare hands.
“Got some problem with that?”
Guan Hui tilted his chin up, looking down at Yim Il-do.
Watching him, Yim Il-do thought that his heavy, bold features suited that arrogant bearing quite well.
“Hear me, Family Head Guan.”
“What.”
“Since it seems we’ve both misunderstood each other, I’m willing to let our previous rudeness pass.”
Yim Il-do smoothly rephrased his capitulation and pointed a finger at the Iron Post.
“But that training method makes no sense. Such a crude approach—who in this world trains by such a method!?”
“General?”
“General what?”
“Never mind.”
Guan Hui wished the General would say something.
But Guan Yu had stepped away from the Training Ground for a time.
He’d gone to investigate why the descendants of Shu Han alone had lost their family prosperity.
“But what does any of this have to do with you?”
“Well, naturally, because I’m the martial instructor of this household…….”
“Not anymore.”
“……What did you just say?”
Guan Hui’s gaze sharpened like a blade cutting through flesh as he glared at Yim Il-do.
“You’re fired. Get out of my family right now.”
“……!”
Yim Il-do’s body trembled as if struck by a hammer.

* * *
Fired……? Just like that?
His clenched fists quivered.
To be cast out by this wretched, crumbling household—it was intolerable.
It made no sense.
He couldn’t accept this.
I should be the one leaving, not the other way around.
‘How dare he dismiss me!?’
A backwater family like this couldn’t possibly fire him.
A martial instructor being dismissed was a fatal blow to his reputation.
The moment word spread, he might never work as an instructor again in Shanxi Province.
‘This won’t do.’
Yim Il-do clenched his teeth and set his mind to work.
Even if he had to leave, he needed to make it so that the blame fell on the Guan Family, that his departure appeared to be a choice.
He’d twist things around any way he could.
“Did you piss yourself? Why are you shaking like that, you fool.”
“Hear me, Family Head Guan.”
“Get out now. Take those pathetic, begging brothers with you.”
“So you’re driving me out to force me to keep teaching that crude method, is that it!?”
“What?”
For a moment, confronted with this absurd claim, Guan Hui was left speechless.
What the hell is this madman going on about?
“It’s not, is it? Otherwise, you’d have no reason to dismiss me. You’re not sending me away because you want to force some unethical training method on me, are you!?”
“You’re quite committed to spouting nonsense, aren’t you?”
“Ha! Are you saying I’m wrong?! I’m certain of it. The Family Head is right now throwing his retainers’ lives into a pit all in the name of training—nothing but self-indulgence!”
“Now listen here, you—”
“Look at the retainers’ faces! Can’t the Family Head see the pain written all over them?!”
Sensing he’d seized the crowd’s mood, Yim Il-do pressed forward without hesitation.
Before working as a Martial Arts instructor, he’d made his living as a storyteller in the streets.
Beguiling people with words, swaying public sentiment—that was child’s play to him.
“I understand the desire to revive a fallen house. But forcing retainers into death and suffering is merely violence!”
……
When Guan Hui fell silent, Yim Il-do felt the thrill of victory surge through him.
His opponent’s silence was an excellent sign.
Perhaps he could leave not merely of his own volition, but with a considerable sum in his pocket.
“If you don’t believe me, shall we make a wager?! I’ll stake my entire fortune that not a single one of my retainers supports this training!”
Yim Il-do shouted more forcefully than ever before.
He was confident, even though his opponent was a Family Head.
The four Iron Posts scattered across the Training Ground were already stained crimson with blood, and the family’s martial practitioners were covered head to toe in wounds.
The bandages wrapped around their injuries were soaked through and beginning to fray.
No one in their right mind would willingly continue such brutal training.
Unless they were mad.
“You see? You can’t answer. I knew you couldn’t. That itself is proof that I’m right!”
……
Guan Hui still said nothing.
‘I have nothing to say.’
In truth, he couldn’t open his mouth.
Perhaps, just this once, that charlatan instructor might be correct.
The desire to restore the family, to forge strong retainers—weren’t these ultimately Guan Hui’s own desires?
Perhaps the retainers simply wanted to live ordinary lives.
Maybe they wished to live unremarkably, free of debt, and here Guan Hui was, forcibly dragging them forward by the scruff of their necks.
‘What am I to do?’
If the retainers truly sided with Yim Il-do as he claimed, what would he do?
Honestly, no answer came to mind.
He didn’t want to drag them forward by force, yet he couldn’t bear to let things remain as they were.
As the leader of the family, as the inheritor of his predecessors’ will, restoring the Guan Family to its former prosperity was a burden that would haunt him eternally.
‘What am I to do?’
He felt only helplessness.
As if sinking deep into a lake of powerlessness, he could neither ask nor answer.
‘Perhaps all of this is merely my own selfish desire.’
A Family Head ought to act for the sake of his retainers.
Then shouldn’t he truly set aside his ambitions and follow their will?
‘I don’t know. I truly don’t know.’
Just as Guan Hui’s troubled face began to lower, his head bowed—
“That’s complete nonsense!”
Guan Seok, who had been watching from the side, stepped forward.
The fifteen-year-old boy glared at Yim Il-do, who was nearly twice his age, his voice sharp with anger.
“Not a single person in our family thinks that way!”
“What—what?!”
“We all know how hard the Family Head works for our house, and how much we respect him. Don’t speak such nonsense!”
If Guan Hui were a tyrant who cavalierly demanded such absurd training, all the retainers would surely harbor resentment.
If Guan Hui were a Family Head of a nature that demanded others’ sacrifice, none of them would have remained with the Guan Family.
Like most people, they would have left and sought their own path.
“We stayed in this family not because of the Guan name. We stayed for Guan Hui, the Family Head of this generation!”
……!
Guan Hui’s pupils trembled faintly as he looked at Guan Seok.
“The Family Head has always shown us with his own actions, and he does so even now. There has never been a single moment when you merely talked behind the scenes.”
Before assigning them their training, Guan Hui had demonstrated it himself with his own hands.
Hammering the Iron Posts. Shattering the colossal pillars with his bare fists.
He had not merely taught them the method; he had shown them the path they must walk, the destination they must reach, and carved it into their hearts.
This is the way you must go, he had said.
Perhaps that was why.
The retainers followed Guan Hui not because it was a command.
Guan Hui had done so, and they followed him, wanting to become like someone they admired.
“Don’t speak nonsense when you know nothing! You understand nothing. You have no idea how much the Family Head has sacrificed.”
“Right! Instructor Yim. What gives you the right to insult our Family Head?”
“Get out of here. If you’re going to insult our Family Head, leave at once!”
Following Guan Seok’s lead, the martial artists of the Guan Family rose to their feet, each adding their voice.
Genuine fury radiated from their expressions.
Guan Hui, who had sacrificed his own body for the family’s sake and strived to save them all more than anyone else, was something sacred and untouchable to his retainers.
The anger directed at Yim Il-do, who had touched that sacred trust, became a tempest that could not be contained.
“You all…….”
Watching his retainers pour their fury at Yim Il-do on his behalf, Guan Hui’s eyes grew wet.
As the tightly sealed heart cracked open, something hot surged up through his chest like a long-parched waterfall finally finding its course.
‘Damn it.’
But as Family Head, he could not afford to show weakness before his retainers.
Guan Hui clenched his teeth, trying to hold back his tears.
And that struggle proved harder than anything he had endured until now.
‘I’m grateful to all of you.’
Guan Hui gazed at each of his retainers with burning eyes, committing their faces to memory.
Though they simply vented their anger, to him it was encouragement and support.
Was the path he walked the right one?
The Heart Demon that had been gnawing at him unknowingly, piece by piece, melted away entirely in this moment.
‘I must repay their faith somehow.’
With his retainers burning with such anger, the Family Head could hardly stand idle.
This was the moment to show them how to crush such rabble.
That was what it meant to be the Family Head of the Guan Family.
“N-now, friends. C-calm down! Haven’t we been close all this time? What in the world is this about?!”
“Hey. You there, fake instructor.”
Guan Hui flicked his finger toward Yim Il-do.
That arrogant gesture suited him so perfectly that everyone’s attention snapped instantly to Guan Hui.
“How about we make another wager? This time we’ll put up your younger siblings’ entire fortune too.”

* * *
“F-Family Head. C-can I actually do this?”
Guan Seok, the youngest martial artist of the Guan Family, trembled as if his jaw were broken.
Like one facing the depths of winter, his chin chattered ceaselessly.
“Don’t worry.”
“But…….”
Guan Seok gazed anxiously across the Martial Contest Arena.
There stood Dae Ryong, a man of considerable bulk, though not quite as imposing as the Family Head beside him, holding a wooden sword.
“H-how am I supposed to defeat that person!?”
The reason Guan Seok had stepped onto the Martial Contest Arena was Guan Hui.
Guan Hui had proposed a martial contest between Guan Seok and one of Instructor Yim’s brothers to demonstrate the effectiveness of his training method.
“A-and the entire Guan Family fortune is riding on this! I really can’t do it.”
A wager is always better when the stakes are higher.
Guan Hui had wagered the entire Guan Family fortune on Guan Seok, while Yim Il-do and his brothers had placed all their accumulated wealth on Dae Ryong.
No one could say how many other places Yim Il-do and his associates had plundered, but the sum they now possessed matched what remained in the Guan Family coffers.
“It’s fine. You can win this.”
“I c-can’t even believe in myself, Family Head.”
Guan Hui placed a hand on the tense Guan Seok’s shoulder.
“If you can’t believe in yourself, then believe in me.”
“……!”
Guan Seok’s trembling pupils gradually grew still.
Those words from Guan Hui offered more comfort and instilled greater confidence than any simple encouragement—you can do it, you’re capable, you have talent.
Was this not the same Guan Hui whose every choice for the family’s sake had never once proven wrong?
He had saved the Guan Family when no one else could, and had shown them a dazzlingly bright future.
The fact that this Guan Hui had chosen him was surely a sign of his certainty.
Then as a retainer, he had only to answer that faith with action.
‘Placing my trust not in myself, but in the Family Head.’
Gripping the wooden staff firmly in both hands, Guan Seok advanced step by step toward the center of the arena.
“Exhale.”
Having released the last of his tension with a deep breath, Guan Seok calmly fixed his gaze on his opponent before him.
‘He’s big, sure, but not as big as the Family Head, and his muscles are nowhere near as developed.’
With that thought, his opponent suddenly seemed insignificant.
Dae Ryong, who had looked like a massive black bear at first, now appeared merely ordinary.
‘I can do this.’
Guan Seok closed his eyes and summoned the image of the Family Head in his mind.
What would the Family Head have done?
How would he have seized momentum with his movements?
After a moment’s deliberation, Guan Seok opened his eyes.
“Listen here, you lumbering oaf.”
Guan Seok tilted his chin upward like Guan Hui, a casual smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Come at me. You bastard. I’m going to beat you until our ancestors can see it from above.”

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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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